The Mason Dixon Line (A Horizons Novel) Read Free

teacher. ” It wasn’t a question. He said it the same way someone
else might say, “You must be the ex-con,” or “You must be the registered sex
offender.” With disgust rather than doubt.
    No matter. She could give as good as she
got. She looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. “And you must be the artist .”

Chapter 3
The Man with the Red Hat Makes an Appearance
    Mason should never have agreed to this. He
and the educational system had never gotten along.
    The girl—what was her name? Carol? Caroline—shifted
her cup to her left hand and stuck out her right. He took it, more out of reflex
than anything else. It was soft, and still warm from where the heat of her cup
had penetrated her skin.
    He let go, not wanting to get too
comfortable touching her.
    “I’m actually a teacher’s aide, not a
teacher.”
    Whatever. Teacher, aide, same difference to
him. She was the enemy, even if she had soft, warm hands and the kind of
perfect bone structure you expected to see on a comic-book illustration. The
kind of bone structure his pencil would love to sketch, even though it would be
a challenge to capture the combination of sensuality and attitude she carried.
    Mason loved a challenge.
    They took their seats in silence.
    As he always did when he spotted an
interesting face, he pulled a sketch pad and a drawing pencil out of his bag
and went to work.
    She watched in silence for a few moments
until the first lines on the page began to take shape.
    “You’re drawing me ?” She sounded surprised.
    “Yeah. You mind?”
    “No, I
guess not. I’m Carolyn Hart, by the way.”
    Carolyn Hart. He let the name roll around
in his brain for a minute and wondered how it might sound on his tongue. The
name sounded like a spunky heroine from one of those old comic strips with a
single woman as the lead character, back when that was a novelty. Mary Worth . Juliet Jones . Lu Ann Powers in Apartment
3-G .
    He could picture her as a superhero in her
own comic. She had the strong facial features for it. And the petite, curvy body.
    “Mason Dixon.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “That’s my name.”
    “Seriously?”
    “As a heart attack.”
    Her brow furrowed. “Like the line between
north and south?”
    “You got it.”
    “Is that some kind of pseudonym you use for
your work?” Her nose wrinkled. Too bad. It was a cute nose, when she wasn’t
looking down it at him.
    “Nope. That's the real deal. My parents had
a great sense of humor.” And an abysmal sense of responsibility, but hey,
nobody was perfect.
    “Huh. Some sense of humor.” Her dark brows
dipped in a frown. They didn’t match her streaky white-blonde hair.
    “You color your hair, huh?”
    Now her brows positively slammed together
in a scowl. “What do you care?”
    “Nothing. It’s just an observation. Artists
get paid to observe things.” His tendency to blurt out exactly what he thought had
caused a few eyebrows to rise over the years.
    “Try keeping your observation to yourself
next time.”
    “Touchy, touchy.”
    “Will it mess up your drawing if I keep
drinking my coffee?”
    “Nope. If you don’t mind me saying, you
look like you could use it.” Her concealer couldn’t quite hide the purple
smudges under her eyes.
    “Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.” A long
silence hung in the air with the aroma of freshly roasted coffee.
    “So I guess we’re supposed to be working on
a book,” she finally ventured.
    “Guess so.” He wasn’t in the mood to make
things easy for teacher lady. Come to think of it, had he ever made things easy
for a teacher? Doubtful.
    “Have you illustrated a children’s book
before?”
    “Nope. I’m a graphic artist and cartoonist.
I work for the big comics as a freelancer, but I have my own strip on the web
too. What about you?”
    “Me? I’m not an artist.” She made it sound
like the very idea of drawing pictures as a career was absurd. It probably was,
to her. How many teachers had told him he’d never make a