The Suit Read Free Page A

as I pick up the tasty looking croissant. The more time I spend with him, the less I like him and he already started with a disadvantage, so as unfriendly as I might be, and believe me I’m committing a Southern faux pas here, I ask, “Might you share what it is we haven’t much time for, suit?”
    His gaze meets mine and he arches a questioning brow. “Suit?”
    “Yeah.” I shrug casually. Calling him suit is rude, by any fine Southerner’s standards, but I’m not in the mood to be particularly polite today. “You look like one of those guys who never takes it off. Like it’s a second skin.” I chuckle at my witty observation.
    He leans back in his seat, his gaze never leaving mine. “Well, I’d say that’s a first impression and maybe one shouldn’t be so quick to judge based on a first impression. After all, your boyfriend spent most of the evening flirting with your friend at your table last night, but somehow ended up coming home with you. Wonder what kind of cute nickname I could conjure from that observation?” My mouth, full of croissant, drops open and heat washes over my face.
    That, my friends…was a low blow.
    Okay, so I happened to open the door practically naked when the suit showed up. And Dierk happened to interrupt us in the dining room practically naked, but that kind of stuff happens all the time. Right? How could anyone assume we hooked up? I’m not that kind of girl. I’d like to tell him who I am, I’m Edie James. Sweet as apple pie and granddaughter to Bud James. Where are my fellow townsmen praising my untarnished reputation when I need them? But something tells me that wouldn’t matter to him.
    Instead, I say lacking eloquence, “That…we didn’t…it’s not…” What can I say? I’m a regular wordsmith over here.
    “What was it you said to me before your boyfriend interrupted? Something about…people who assume?”
    Okay, he’s good.
    He’s got to be a lawyer or something. He totally just threw my words back in my face. My cheeks flame as I flounder for something clever to say. I’ve got nothing. So I roll out the best defense, “He’s not my boyfriend.” Until the words leave my mouth, it doesn’t occur to me that makes it sound like I just hooked up with some random guy.
    “Even better.” The suit snorts and starts rifling through his papers again.
    “I mean, we didn’t hook up. He’s a friend. He drove me home last night.” My worthless attempts at protecting the reputation of my virtue seem to fall on deaf ears.
    “It’s none of my business, Ms. James,” he states simply as he closes his black leather briefcase. I want to defend myself more, but he’s right. It’s not any of his business. Who cares what he thinks? I sure don’t.
    “All right, suit,” I reply snidely. If he wants to assume the worst about me, I’ll assume it about him as well. “Do tell me why you are gracing me with your presence.”
    “I’m a Juris Doctor in Raleigh.”
    “A what?”
    “That means I’m a graduate of law school.”
    Yep, I nailed that one.
    “Your grandfather met with me a few months ago to help him set up a will. He completed the will there in Raleigh with an attorney I worked as a summer associate for. I’m here to discuss his wishes for you and the property.”
    I sit up abruptly and narrow my eyes at him. “He has an attorney here in town. Mr. Wayward. We’ve already been through his will. He left me everyt hing.” Suspicion curls in my stomach. Who is this man? Is he some kind of hustler, scam artist?
    He slides a small pile of papers toward me and I pick them up. “This will, as it is his most recent, would trump the one he made with Mr. Wayward. Your grandfather had some stipulations regarding what you must do to inherit the farm on a permanent basis.”
    My heart drops with his words. What could Daddy Bud have been worried about? That I’d squander his money and land away? I was always frugal, I never indulged in expensive things, even though