Carolina Heat Read Free Page B

Mark. Giving in to impulse, Annabelle adjusted her plans to include the first man to catch her eye in a very long time.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    “Are you sure you won’t get in trouble for taking me on this excursion?” Annabelle asked. The official carriage tour had ended upon their return to Market Street, where several other horse-drawn carriages were rapidly filling with tourists. Although flattering, it seemed a tad strange that Mark would give up what promised to be a lucrative afternoon simply to escort her through the city.
    “It all depends.” He led her down the street with one big hand nestled at the curve of her back. “I imagine if you aren’t sufficiently cooled and refreshed, I’ll be in trouble, all right. But I’m confident that won’t be the case.”
    “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she said, her tone dry as dust. “But I meant with the tour company. Won’t they mind you taking the afternoon off?”
    Deftly, he steered her through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds watching the basket weavers at the Old Market. “I don’t work for a company. The rig is privately owned. What you might call a one-man show. I’m just filling in today.”
    “Sounds like an even worse scenario. If you want to stop and call in, I really don’t mind waiting.” Annabelle was starting to have second thoughts about this burst of spontaneity. If he were fired, she’d feel terrible.
    “Why, that’s downright kind of you, ma’am.” Mark’s accent thickened a bit. “I appreciate the offer mightily, but it’s not necessary.”
    “Chalk it up to generations of a Puritan work ethic. I worry about tiny details like unemployment.”
    “The only thing you need to worry your pretty head about right now is if you can last for two more blocks.”
    She set her teeth as she noticed he was more than a little amused at her discomfiture. “What are you; a throwback to Rhett Butler?”
    “Pardon me?”
    Annabelle dug her heels in and glared at him. This man was a living, breathing Southern stereotype. He needed a healthy dose of twenty-first-century reality. “My pretty little head will worry about whatever it wants. The Civil War ended a long time ago, and along with it the misconception that women can’t think for themselves.”
    “The War Between the States,” Mark corrected in a gentle tone. His accent was now thick enough to cut with a knife. “We here in the South consider it a much more genteel way to refer to the whole unpleasantness.” With a flick of his wrist, he indicated she should resume walking. Annabelle grudgingly fell into step beside him.
    “Oh yes, bloodshed, fires, raids, slavery….terribly unpleasant business. As a matter of fact, the mere thought of it has so upset me I believe I might swoon.” She fanned herself dramatically.
    He rolled his eyes. “Don’t kid yourself. I don’t believe for a second you could faint even if you tried. It takes our debutantes years of careful practice to master the art of a good swoon.”
    The man was insufferable. And even worse, her body betrayed her with a noticeable flutter in her pulse one hundred percent attributable to his sexy accent. Hard to concentrate on what he was saying when every word out of his mouth dripped with dark honey. Annabelle drew a deep breath in preparation for a verbal assault on behalf of all womankind when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
    Try as he might to disguise it, the corners of Mark’s mouth twitched upward in what was obviously an earnest attempt not to smile. The rotten man was laughing at her. Perhaps he’d been laughing all along at her expense. Amusing himself by toying with a gullible tourist. Preying on her plainly biased opinion of Southerners.
    Or maybe…he drew on the fact she so easily bought into the Southern stereotype. With an almost audible click, everything fell into place. Maybe Annabelle was on the well-deserved