The Beauty, The Beast And The Baby. Dixie Browning

slicker, and she slid her arms into the sleeves, wincing as the stiff plastic scraped her injured hand.

      At that moment Mariah wanted nothing so much as to lean against the tough-looking stranger with the beard and the worn Western boots, close her eyes and forget everything. At least for a moment. For just a single minute, until she could think of what to do next.

      Instead, she tilted her chin and tried to look as if she had everything under control. Which, evidently, was no more convincing than her smile had been.

      He moved in closer until she could feel his heat, smell the mingled scent of leather and coffee and something essentially male. Which, oddly enough, was more reassuring than threatening.

      “Hey, hey, now,” he rasped. “It’s not so bad. We’ll get you sorted out in no time.”

       Two

      Mariah made a real effort to pull herself together, if only because her bearded good Samaritan seemed to expect it of her. She never liked to let anyone down, and besides—he was a lot kinder than he looked. Aside from that prison pallor of his and his shaggy beard, and the fact that he had a tendency to scowl a lot, he wasn’t unattractive. Not handsome, certainly, but there was a rugged strength about him that was mighty appealing at the moment.

      “I’ll be fine,” she murmured huskily. She fully intended to be, only it was going to take a bit of doing. “I’m just not used to being robbed,” she said with a smile that was part bravado, part an effort at self-deception.

      Turning away, she asked the clerk if she could use his telephone to call the police, not that she expected any results.

      “Pay phone’s outside next to the compressor,” the attendant told her. She glared at him, and he had the grace to look embarrassed. Grudgingly, he indicated the private phone between the cash register and the jar of pickled eggs.

      Dialing was a problem. Just one of several she was about to face, Mariah suspected, hanging up the phone a few minutes later.

      The other man had gone outside again. He came in just as she was hanging up the phone, looking concerned under his intimidating scowl.“ You got a name?” he asked.

      “Mariah Brady.”

      “Gus Wydowski,” he returned. “Look, Miss Brady, what about credit cards? If you had ‘em, you might want to put in a stop call.”

      “Oh, Lord, my cards.” She was beginning to tremble. Panic hove red just over the horizon.

      “Driver’s license, checkbook, keys…” He frowned, and Mariah wondered if he were capable of another expression.

      “At least they headed south. I live north of here.”

      He nodded absently, his mind obviously miles away. Probably eager to be shed of her problems and be on his way. She noticed for the first time that his eyes were an unusual shade of dark blue, and that he had two scars on his face, one leading into his hairline, another disappearing under his beard.

      “Were you carrying much cash?” he asked, and she was tempted to tell him it was none of his business, but she supposed she owed him a civil answer.

      Her hand was beginning to throb painfully.“ Don’t ask,” she said, which was about as civil as she could manage at the moment. She’d been carrying four hundred and seventy-three dollars and odd change. To some people, it might not be much. To Mariah, it was a fortune. Except for a minimum balance in her hometown bank, a five-thousand-dollar CD that wouldn’t mature for several months and a run-down house in a tiny community where property values were a standing joke, it represented her entire life’s savings.

      It had been Vic Chin who had told her once that her face—or to be more precise, her bone structure—was her fortune. The trouble was, bone structure wouldn’t pay the bills. Nor would it buy many groceries.

      “How far are you going?” Gus Wydowski had a gruff way of speaking, almost as if his throat hurt.

      “Muddy Landing,” she said morosely. “It’s in Georgia, near Darien.”

      “Near Darien. Right,” he said, and she could tell from his tone that he’d never heard of Darien.

      “Between Brunswick and Savannah, on the Little Charlie River,” she elaborated. Actually, the Little Charlie was more of a creek, barely navigable since it had silted up. It was used mostly by trappers and fishing guides. The whole town had been built on a wetland before the Environment Protection Agency had even discovered wetlands, which was why property there was virtually worthless.

      Gus was staring down at her swollen hand. Mariah stared, too. She could have cried—would have cried—if crying wouldhave done any good. Some models she knew actually insured certain body parts. She pictured herself moving down the catwalk to the music, concentrating on every cue—smile here, open jacket here, pause here, drop stole and turn.

      Great! Her jacket-opening hand was ruined. If she’d needed a sign, maybe this was it.

      “You’re going to have the devil of a time driving with that, you know.”

      She knew. She was going to have the devil of a time driving on an empty tank, too, but she didn’t think their friend behind the counter would advance her much credit. One cheekbone’s worth of high-test, please?

      “I’ll manage,” she said, but Gus had already turned away. During the few moments it took him to stride down one aisle and up another, snatching a roll of paper towels and a box of plastic bags from the shelves, two women came in to use the rest room. Both stared at her curiously, and Mariah had an idea it was not because they recognized her from her brief career as a fashion model.

      Gus ripped a plastic bag from the box, filled it at the ice machine, sealed it up and then tore open the roll of paper towels. A few long strides in the cluttered little store brought him back again, so close she could smell the leather of his coat and a hint of some smoky, spicy scent that reminded her of long-ago cookouts in the woods. If he wore a cologne, it wasn’t obvious.

      While she was still mentally comparing him to the overdressed, overscented men she had worked with for the past few months, he lifted her throbbing hand. She flinched, anticipating pain, but his touch was surprisingly gentle as he wrapped paper towels over the ba ck of her hand. It was when he was folding the half-filled bag of ice around her swollen fingers that she noticed the fresh scar on the thumb side of his left hand. Swallowing a nervous urge to giggle, she said, “It looks like, between us, we have one good pair of hands.”

      He didn’t even spare her a glance. “That hurt? Sorry. Ice’ll take down some of the swelling. You allergic to aspirin?”

      She shook her head.“ No. That is, yes, I know it will, and no, I’m not.”

      He pulled a tin of tablets from his shirt pocket, dumped two into her free hand and another two into his own. Then he got two drinks from the cooler, twisted off the tops and handed her one.

      It was lemon-lime. She didn’t like lemon-lime, but she drank it anyway, to wash down the painkiller.

      “Got a proposition for you,” he said, and she waited warily.“ The way I see it, you’re in no shape to drive, even if you had a driver’s license. You really ought to see a doctor about that hand, and—”

      “No. No, thank you.”

      “If it’s broken-”

      “It’s not.” She couldn’t afford for it to be broken, not with Basil bringing the baby down from Atlanta on Saturday. Couldn’t afford it, period.

      “Don’t get your back up so fast. Just hear me out, okay?”

      “Look, I’ll stop off and see a doctor on the way home, all right? And while I appreciate all you’ve done, Mr. Wydowski, I really don’t need your help.”

      He