The Passionate G-Man. Dixie Browning

hadn’t noticed.

      “Valentine’s Day. Isn’t that just too, too perfect?”

      Jasmine had agreed that it was just too, too perfect. And then she’d come up with the too-too perfect excuse. “Oh, but my grandmother—it’s her seventy-ninth birthday. Actually, her birthday’s on the fifteenth, but I promised to help her celebrate. You wouldn’t want to wait until next year, would you?”

      They couldn’t possibly wait, and so Jasmine had been stuck with her excuse. She’d told herself it would be a lovely thing to do, to surprise her grandmother—her only living relative, unless her father had taken a few more secrets to the grave—and so she’d flown all the way across the country on a ticket she couldn’t afford, and gone still deeper in debt renting a car to drive to the nursing home, which was hours away from the airport.

      And now, here she was at loose ends for a whole week. She’d planned to stay near the nursing home, only there wasn’t really any place to stay—at least no place she could afford. She’d asked for a weekly rate on her car, and planned to drive her grandmother around, just the two of them, and talk about her father and her grandfather, and any aunts or uncles and cousins she might have.

      Family things. Things like, who else in the family had kinky maroon hair and legs that went all the way up to her armpits?

      Things like who else in the family loved animals, hated insects and was allergic to cantaloups?

      Things that would have taken her mind off the fact that Cyn and Eric were at this very moment honeymooning in Cancún.

      Instead, she’d spent a day at the nursing home, looking at pictures of grandchildren of people she didn’t even know, watching soaps and seeıng a few people she did know, but not Cyn, thank goodness—and being largely ignored by her own grandmother.

      She.’d played cards with three lovely old ladies, gradually coming to realize that they weren’t all playing with a full deck. She’d strolled around the grounds once the rain had let up, exclaiming over straggly little flowers and squishıng through the mud to pick a bunch of red berries for one of the residents who admired them.

      She’d had to battle great swags of Spanish moss and several thick, hairy vines to get to the things, but when her grandmother had asked for some, too, she had gladly waded into the jungle again to oblige her.

      What else were granddaughters for?

      Feeling lost, rootless, she’d woken up the next morning and considered her options. If she went back now—that’s if she could even exchange her tickets—she’d have to pay the daily rate for her car instead of the cheaper weekly rate.

      Of course, she would save on her motel bill, but money wasn’t her only problem, or even her biggest one. Eric and Cynthia would be back on Friday. Cynthia would insist on giving her a detailed description of the honeymoon. Cynthia insisted on giving anyone who would listen a detailed description of her entire life. It was one of her charms—her breezy openness.

      And Eric, blast his gorgeous hide, would gaze adoringly into his bride’s eyes the way Jasmine had dreamed of his gazing into her own eyes, only he never had, and she’d probably throw up or something equally embarrassing.

      Dammit, he knew she loved him! She hadn’t even tried to hide it. They’d met thirteen and a half months ago at a New Year’s Eve party and it had been one of those magical, magnetic moments that come once in a lifetime.

      They had everything in common. They’d both grown up in the Midwest in single-parent households, but they’d been happy, comfortable households. They both believed in love at first sight, in fate. They both liked vinegar on their french fries.

      The first time they’d gone away for a long weekend together, Jasmine had thought of it as a honeymoon. She’d been waiting ever since for a proposal, being just old-fashioned enough to believe it was the man’s prerogative. Which was a hoot considering she was an actress who had lived in L.A. for nearly five years.

      And then she’d made the fatal mistake of introducing Eric to Cynthia.

      After driving aimlessly for hours, she pulled into a service station, filled her tank, hoping her credit card wasn’t maxed out, and splurged on a candy bar and a diet cola. Savoring the unfamiliar aroma of nature in the raw mingled with diesel oil, she studied the map in search of anything of interest between where she was and the airport.

      She’d had to ask the attendant where she was. It seemed she was somewhere in the vicinity of Frying Pan Landing, not too far from Gum Neck, smack dab in the middle of that part of the map labeled Eastern Dismal Swamp.

      Dismal. If she’d been looking for something that suited her mood, she couldn’t have found a better place.

      “I don’t suppose there are any hotels around here?” she said hopefully. It was getting late. She’d been driving more or less aimlessly all day, trying to make her up mind what to do.

      

      The motel catered to fishermen and hunters. The bed was more like a hammock, but it was clean and cheap, and Clemmie, the woman in the office, told her that the café next door opened at five every morning for breakfast and closed about dark.

      Jasmine managed to stay awake long enough to eat a bowl of clam chowder before she fell into bed, too tired to think about tomorrow. A pale sun was shining in through the one small window when she opened her eyes the next morning. She stretched, scratched her left cheek and yawned. And then she scratched again.

      Shower. Breakfast. Then maybe spend another day looking around before she went home. As long as she’d come this far, it would be a shame to go back without seeing anything other than a nursing home, a gas station and a cheap motel. She might as well soak up a little atmosphere as long as she’d spent money she couldn’t afford to spend just to get here.

      Jasmine had never been farther east than Tulsa. There was a different feel to North Carolina. For one thing, it was quieter. Unnaturally quiet, in fact. But that could be because, according to the map, the nearest city was miles away. Or maybe because it was the dead of winter, and here where they had real seasons, things like that made a difference.

      By the time she had rinsed off under a trickle of lukewarm water, she felt marginally better. She might even write about it, she thought, idly scratching her face. She hadn’t written anything in years, even though she had a perfectly good degree in journalism.

      The Further Adventures of Jasmine Clancy. A Thousand Miles From Heartbreak? In Search of Family Ties?

      Her stomach growled. How about in search of breakfast?

      She was hungry, which was a good sign. Even heartbroken and suffering from acute disappointment, she wasn’t bothered by a lack of appetite. In fact, she felt surprisingly good.

      That is, she felt good until she looked in the mirror.

      “For Pete’s sake, what happened to you?” she whispered, touching her red, swollen face, which instantly began to itch like crazy.

      Clemmie was alone in the office, thank goodness. The wife of the owner of the four-unit motel, she did the rooms, helped out in the café, and after one look at Jasmine, she told her to go back to her room.

      Twenty minutes later she brought her a breakfast tray of scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns, with a side order of calamine lotion and a handful of tourist brochures.

      “We got these things—mostly nobody ever wants ’em, but since you’re not from around here, it might give you something to do. Sort of take your mind off your troubles. If you don’t think about it too much, you forget to scratch.”

      “I can’t believe it,” Jasmine wailed. “I haven’t had poison ivy since I was a child.”

      “I used to get it real bad, every summer. My mama used to threaten to make me wear boxing gloves to keep me from scratching.”

      “But it’s February!”

      “Poison ivy don’t die,