“Aw, never mind about Frankie and Annette,” she told him. “You didn’t miss anything important. I shouldn’t have teased you.”
“You can tease me all you want.” He exhaled, as if relieved, and draped his arm along the back of the seat. Then he twirled a finger into a strand of her ponytail. “But I’ll tease back.”
“So let me tell you more about Ida Roberts,” she said quickly. “She had a feud with my grandpa, and I inherited it.”
“A feud about what?”
“Ducks. Really ugly ducks.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Domestic ducks. Mixed breeds. Big ones. With no manners and nonstop appetites. Whenever Grandpa’s horses got out and visited Ida’s place, they became hostages in the duck war. Ida locked mares in her pasture and refused to give them back.”
“What did he have to do?”
“Let her call him names.” She turned onto a private drive lined with graceful mimosa trees. Their feathery green fronds reached toward the truck. John held his hand out the window and let them brush his fingertips. But he kept his other hand lightly twined in her hair. She could barely feel it, but every inch of her body knew it was there.
“Is that all she does? Call people names?” John asked.
“Usually. Don’t be surprised if she calls you ‘a snake from a scum pond,’ or something even more disgusting.”
The truck’s wheels made crackling noises on the drive’s crushed-shell surface. John’s deep chuckle added a smooth baritone note, relaxed and confident. “A snake from a scum pond. How rude,” he said lightly. “Tell me what else to expect.”
“You’ll see. Don’t get mad. She loves a fight. She used to provoke Grandpa until he’d have to come home and take an extra blood-pressure tablet.”
“You’re certain she has your horses?”
Aggie nodded. “They cut across the edge of the marshes to her backyard. Ida only has two acres, with half of it fenced in. They head straight for her pasture to see Pogo.”
“Pogo?”
“A midget four-footed Romeo. The Napoleon of the pony set. Small, sexy, and overconfident. The gals think he’s fabulous. And he, of course, thinks they’re right.”
“Is he a threat? Any chance of an illicit love affair between Pogo and one of your princesses?”
“Not unless somebody gives him a box to stand on.”
John’s hearty, astonished laugh made her grin, while at the same time she kicked herself for being so blunt. “Excuse me,” she added. “I used to be more delicate. Now I spend too much time in the barn.”
“It’s a pleasant place, your barn.”
“It’s better with company. I mean … oh, hell. Open mouth, insert foot. You know what I’m trying to say.”
“I wish you meant it the way it sounded.”
She stomped on the accelerator. He was helping her dig herself in too deep, but she was doing most of the shoveling. “So let me finish telling you about Ida and the ducks. People bring the ducks to Ida’s pond. Ida loves the ducks. I don’t know why, because they are, without a doubt, the nastiest, ugliest ducks in the known world. These are escapees from Easter baskets or something. No one’s sure. They hatch little ducks like crazy and take over every lake, pond, and puddle of fresh water. There’s a battle between people who want the ducks left alone and people who want the ducks roasted over an open spit. Grandpa was a roaster.”
John was laughing silently. “So he and Ida clashed?”
“Yeah. Locals would sneak into the campground with ducks they’d captured. They dumped them in our lake. Grandpa would round up the ducks and sell them to an alligator zoo over in Ocala.”
“Where they enjoyed long, happy lives as companions for the alligators, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And Mrs. Roberts objected?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s not selling roast duck on the sly, is she?”
“Oh, no. She’s a vegetarian.”
“Good thing she’s not an alligator.”
Aggie began grinning. Suddenly, because John was with her, she wasn’t dreading Ida’s tirade anymore. “I’d rather deal with a gator. A kinder bite than Ida’s.”
John laughed again. She was beginning to love the sound. A giddy wildness was growing inside her. “And you?” he asked. “Where did you stand in the duck war between Mrs. Roberts and you late grandfather?”
“I think Ida’s an impractical fool for thinking she can give every duck in the country a permanent home, but I sort of hated for the ducks to become alligator munchies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no softie where ducks are concerned. I can’t afford to be. I’ve got my own tail feathers to worry about.”
“It’s all right to be a softie at heart, Agnes. You love animals, even ducks. I think that’s marvelous.”
His admiration made her tingle, even though she suspected it was only flattery. Well, she could use some flattery, she told herself—as long as she enjoyed it but didn’t believe it.
“My mother’s parents were Quakers,” she told John. “I used to visit them up in Pennsylvania when I was little. That is, whenever I wasn’t working out in California. I really loved their farm. They weren’t sentimental about their animals, but they respected them. They had a live-and-let-live attitude toward things.”
“Your mother was a Quaker too?”
Aggie chewed the inside of her mouth for a moment. “Not when it interfered with what she wanted. No. Mom didn’t get along with her folks.” She made her voice breezy and changed the subject. “So maybe those kindhearted Quaker instincts jumped a generation, and I got them.”
She made a disgusted sound at her whimsical explanation and realized that being with John made her think about who and what she was—and how different her background was from his.
“Tell me about your parents,” he prompted. “Are they both living?”
“Oh, let’s stop talking about my family,” she said lightly. “Take my word for it. You and I don’t have much in common. When it comes to family histories, you got the Broadway production and I got the road company.”
“And we speak different languages, too, because I’m bewildered again.”
“My parents weren’t a class act. I’m ashamed of them. Enough said.”
“Agnes.” His voice was almost angry. “What do their problems have to do with you? You’re very special and have nothing to be ashamed of.” He reached over and took one of her hands from the steering wheel, brought it to his mouth, kissed it forcefully, then placed it back on the wheel. “Enough said,” he mimicked, but with a strained tone.
Aggie shivered with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and poignant affection. Searching for something nonchalant to say, she could only toss back, “Well, I’m proud of being part Quaker.” She exhaled shakily. The mood in the truck’s cab reminded her of the energized air before last night’s storm. “So anyhow, now you understand about the duck war.”
“You’re not exactly a Quaker.” John cleared his throat. “Under these circumstances, I’d call you a Quacker.”
She sputtered, cast a sidelong look at his suppressed smile, and burst into giggles. “A Quacker. Yeah.”
“You secretly love ducks,” he continued, his voice fiendish. “I’m sure of it. I’ll tell Mrs. Roberts that we’ve come to take a few dozen back with us.”
“Do it and I’ll twist your beak so hard you can’t peck worms for a month.”
He chuckled. “How dare you threaten my pecker. I take great pride in it. I won’t let you stroke it, if you keep talking that way.”
For a second she was stunned. Then, fighting a smile, she asked, “John, in England, what’s the definition of ‘pecker’?
He arched one brow and studied her as if she were asking a trick question. “It’s something a bird pecks with,” he answered cautiously.
“No other meaning, huh?”
“What is it in your—oh, Agnes, I can see by the look on your face! Is it what I think it is?
”
She nodded fervently. Her giggles became soft, breathless gulps of merriment.
John groaned. “I apologize.”
“Your beak is safe from me.”
“Agnes, I would never make a crude joke like that on purpose.”
As she guided the truck through the magnolia trees in front of Ida’s white cottage, she was clutching her mouth with one hand and trying to stop snickering. It didn’t help that there were ducks everywhere—sitting on the cottage’s roof, perched in the trees, pecking around in the flower beds, and sunning themselves on Ida’s new compact car.
“See, John? It’s a Duck-o-Rama!” She couldn’t resist adding, in a choked voice, “The little peckers are everywhere.”
He leaned back, laughing and shaking his head. “I’m glad you aren’t upset by my slip of the tongue.”
“Upset? John, you’ve gotta be one of the last gentlemen on the face of the planet. I could put you on display and sell tickets to millions of adoring women.”
He tucked his chin and looked at her with a breathtaking combination of invitation and good humor. “My beak is available only for private audiences.”
Aggie giggled harder as he dissolved into his wonderful baritone chuckles again. At that moment a dozen mottled, black and white ducks chose to scurry out from behind a toolshed and dodge the truck’s front bumper. Aggie slammed on the brakes. They hissed and ran, their wings spread. Flapping and waddling, they hurried to a pond surrounded by oaks several hundred feet behind the house. The pond was already overcrowded with feathered swimmers.
Aggie screeched then slumped in the seat, chortling. “I won’t get out of here without causing a feathered frenzy. I just know it.”
John prodded her shoulder with one finger and smiled wickedly. “It’s a good thing they ducked.”
His prim attitude compounded the absurdity and brought her giggles to an uncontrollable level. They now had a mind of their own. She saw Ida on the porch, frowning at her, and swallowed hard, fighting for calm. John tapped her shoulder again. “Really, Agnes, do be serious.” He made his voice very solemn and aristocratic. “Agnes, that very stern-looking lady on the porch thinks we’re daffy.”
“I’ll be Daffy, and you be Donald.”
“Aren’t they cartoon ducks?”
“Yeah.”
“But aren’t they male cartoon ducks?”
“Yeah. So?”
“But then I couldn’t kiss you again. I’m not that kind of duck.”
She threw the floor shift into park, stamped weakly on the emergency brake, cut the engine, then hugged the wheel and nearly yelped with laughter. It was the nuttiness of the whole morning, her nervousness over John and the medieval books, and a long-lost need to be silly. Obviously he intended to reduce her to a pile of hiccups.
He leaned close and asked sternly. “Are you about to lay an egg?” Aggie rolled against him, holding her stomach with both hands and gasping. From the corner of one squinted eye she saw Ida march down the porch’s wooden steps. Her gray hair, twisted into an upthrust knot at the crown of her head, bobbed with an anger of its own as she strode across the sandy yard, and her bright-pink tennis shoes made forceful impressions. Her print work dress sucked in and out between her knees.
John whispered in Aggie’s ear, “You didn’t tell me that Mrs. Roberts is nearly two meters tall and probably outweighs me. If she becomes violent, I’ll be injured protecting myself.”
“You? W-what about me? What do you charge for bodyguard services?”
“For duck cases? I don’t know. I’ll have to bill you later.”
“Bill me. Agggh.” Crying with laughter, Aggie rested her head in the crook of his neck and pounded her knees. “Ida w-will never f-forgive me,” she said between gasps.
Ida stormed up to the truck and stuck her face in the open window. “What the hell is your problem?”
Aggie swallowed gulps of air and sat up. She felt like a roller coaster balanced at the top of a hill. One look at Ida’s quivering topknot, and her lungs contracted again with spasms of laughter. The roller coaster plunged downward and all she could do was hang on for the ride.
She made a sputtering sound and shook her head. There had only been a few times, as a child working with professional adult actors, when she’d been this broken up by someone’s sly humor. John had undone her with more than silly teasing. He made her feel comfortable, natural, and safe. She was ripe for relief from stress. He seemed to sense it.
“Miss Hamilton was hit in the head last night,” he told Ida solemnly. He extended a hand across Aggie’s lap and out the truck’s window to her. “How do you do, madame? I’m John Bartholomew. A friend of Miss Hamilton’s.”
“I’m not interested in shaking your hairy-ape hand.” Ida stared at Aggie, who looked back helplessly, choking on giggles and contorting her face to keep them in. “You better not be laughing at me, you redheaded cow.”
Aggies eyes widened. “M-moo. M-moo.” She covered her face and turned to bury her head in John’s big shoulder again. Her heels drummed on the floorboard.
He stroked her hair. “Madame, she’s not herself.”
“I couldn’t care less if she was a Mutant Ninja Toad! Her stud-crazy horses are locked up in my pasture with my Pogo, and I intend to keep ’em until I get good and ready to let ’em go!”
“T-turtle,” Aggie corrected. “Mutant Ninja T-turtle.” John curved one arm around her head and clamped a hand over her mouth. She began laughing against his palm. It was a wide, hard, sexy palm, she decided. She made tiny quacking sounds into it. She felt his chest quivering against her bowed head.
He cleared his throat. “On behalf of Miss Hamilton, I apologize for any inconvenience.”
“Forget about your slime-licking apologies! I don’t want them! I thought I was done with the Hamiltons! But it looks like I’ve traded the old goat for a young nanny!”
Aggie convulsed. “Baaah.” John’s hand muffled the sound.
“What did you call me?” Ida asked.
John intervened quickly. “Miss Hamilton wants you to know that she’s not going to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps. Any ducks which are deposited at her lake in the future will be turned over to you. Agnes wants the ducks to be happy.”
“I don’t trust her! She’s exactly like her fish-gutted grandfather!”
“I hope so,” Aggie managed to say, twisting her mouth away from John’s hand. For a moment she could only make small moaning noises of amusement and shiver with restraint. “He didn’t like selling the ducks for alligator snacks, but he knew that you were already overrun with them. And you wouldn’t let him donate any money or feed for their upkeep. He felt sorry for you. So do I.”
“You pig-livered cat! I didn’t need sympathy from Sam Hamilton, and I don’t need sympathy from you—a has-been actress who was married to a drug dealer!”
Aggie gave another soft snuffle of laughter, but the humor died inside her. She sat up, avoiding John’s gaze, and looked wryly at the irate Ida. “Even has-been actresses feel sorry for somebody like you.”
“Get your mares out of my pasture and keep ’em away from here!”
Growing somber now, Aggie said firmly, “Can do. I’m sorry they bothered you, Ida. And I’m sorry you have such a mean mouth.”
“I’ll ‘mean-mouth’ you, you Technicolor tramp. Why don’t you sell your ranch to somebody who knows how to be a good neighbor? Go back to Holly-weird and walk around half-nekkid in another trashy TV movie! Uncover some more of your talent, ’cause you sure can’t do anything else right!”
“Madame,” John interjected abruptly, in a voice that had become cold and devilish, “if you don’t stop making insulting speeches, I’ll get out of this truck, come ’round to your side, and kiss you until you turn purple.”
The bizarre threat silenced Ida as nothing else ever had. Her mouth hung open. She took several stiff steps back from the truck, staring at John the whole time. “Don’t you dare, you shark-faced hellion
!”
“I will, madame. I promise. And if you don’t go into your house immediately, I’ll demand you apologize to Miss Hamilton. In fact, I think I’ll demand it right now. An apology, madame. This second.”
Ida shook her fists at him, “Why, you—” John started to open the truck door. Ida shrieked, then turned and bustled into her house, slamming the screen door and then the wooden one. Aggie watched the door quiver and all the way across the yard could hear the lock click.
She frowned pensively and swiveled her gaze back to John. “I’ve never heard a more creative or more gallant threat. It was incredible.” She searched his eyes and tried to determine his thoughts. Her stomach had ice in it. “Thank you.”
“He took one of her hands and lifted it to his mouth. His lips touched the back of it as if her skin were silk. “At your service, fair lady.”
“Look, you can drop that ‘lady’ stuff.”
“No.” He raised his head and studied her firmly. “What’s next, Lady Agnes?”
He wasn’t going to ask about the things Ida had said. Aggie’s throat burned with emotion. He wasn’t even going to look curious. She could have kissed him again.
“I’ll ride Valentine. She’s the one you rode last night. She’s the boss. The others will follow her. Will you drive the truck back to my place?”
“Certainly.”
Aggie got out and reached into the truck’s bed for the bridle she’d tossed there. “Insurance. I don’t want to go home at a gallop.”
John came to her side and took the truck keys she offered. He looked down at her with so much reassurance in his expression that she felt like crying. One second laughing like a hyena, the next on the verge of tears. She was coming unglued.
If he noticed, he didn’t say so. “You could use help mending that fence this afternoon.”
Her shoulders sagged. “No. There’s not a damned thing I can give you in return for that much work. Not money, not a good time, not even a good meal, because I’m a worse cook than I was an actress.”
“You better stop before you insult me, Agnes.”
She studied the hard glint in his eyes then nodded. “I want you to understand that I’m too busy to go on vacation with you. I hate for you to waste even one day of your trip on me.”