Strong fingers, she noted. And a predilection for touching. Well, that was all right. She wouldn't squeak, as the other woman had—as she herself might have a few months before, when faced with a pure, unadulterated male.
"The one who runs the farm."
"That's right. You don't look much like a Ph.D.— on first glance."
"Don't I?" She sent him a cool sidelong look. She'd done a lot of mirror-practicing on that look. "And the woman who is probably even now hyperventilating in the nearest ladies' room did?"
"It was the shoes," Shane explained, and grinned down at Rebecca's neat black canvas flats.
"I see." As they rode down the escalator toward Baggage Claim, she turned to face him. Flannel shirt open at the collar, she noted. Worn jeans, scarred boots, big, callused hands. Thick black hair spilling out of a battered cap, on top of a lean, tanned face that could have been on a poster selling anything.
"You look like a farmer," she decided. "So how long a drive is it to Antietam?"
He debated whether or not he'd been insulted or complimented and answered, "Just over an hour. We'll get your bags."
"They're being sent." Pleased with her practicality, she patted the bag over her arm. "This is all I have at the moment."
Shane couldn't get over the sensation—the uncomfortable sensation—that he was being observed, sized up and dissected like a laboratory frog. ' 'Great." It relieved him when she took shaded glasses from her jacket pocket and slipped them on.
He was used to women looking at him, but not as though he were something smeared on a slide.
When they reached his truck, she gave it a brief look, then gave him another as he opened the door for her. She granted him one of those cool smiles, then tipped down her glasses to peer at him over them.
"Oh, one thing, Shane..."
Because she'd paused, he frowned a little. "Yeah?"
"Nobody calls me Becky."
With that she slid neatly onto the seat and set her bag on the floor.
She enjoyed the ride. He drove well, and the truck ran smoothly. And she couldn't help but get a little glow of satisfaction at having annoyed him, just a bit. Men who not only looked as good as Shane Mac-Kade but had the extra bonus of exuding all that sex and confidence weren't easy to take down a peg.
She'd spent a lot of her life being intimidated on any kind of social level. Only in the past few months had she begun to make progress toward holding her own. She'd become her own project, and Rebecca thought she was coming along very well.
She gave him credit for making easy conversation on the trip, annoyed or not. Before long they were off the highway and driving on winding back roads. It was a pretty picture, hills and houses, pastures and trees that held their lush summer green into the late, hazy August, an occasional horse or grazing cow.
He'd turned the radio music politely low, and all she could really hear from the speakers was the throb of the beat.
The cab of the truck was neat, with the occasional strand of golden dog hair drifting upward, and the scent of dog with it. There were a couple of scribbled notes attached by magnet to the metal dash, a handful of coins tossed into the ashtray. But it was ordered.
Perhaps that was why she spotted the little gold twist of a woman's earring peeking out from under the floor mat. She reached down and plucked it up.
"Yours?"
He flicked a glance, caught the glint of gold and remembered that Frannie Spader had been wearing earrings like that the last time they...took a drive together.
"A friend's." Shane held out his hand. When the earring was in it, he dropped it carelessly amid the coins.
"She'll want it back," Rebecca noted idly. "It's fourteen-karat. So... there are four of you, right?"
"Yep. Do you have any brothers, sisters?"
"No. But you run the family farm?"
"That's the way it worked out. Jared has his law practice, Rafe's into building, Devin's the sheriff."
"And you're the farm boy," she finished. "What do you farm?"
"We have dairy cattle, pigs. Grow corn—feed mostly, but some nice Silver Queen—hay, alfalfa." He could see she was taking it all in with those big intense eyes, and he added, very soberly, "We've had ourselves a nice crop of potatoes."
"Really?" In unconscious sympathy with the beat whispering through the speakers, she drummed her fingers on her knee. "Isn't that a lot of work for one man?"
"My brothers are there when they're needed. And I take on some 4-H students seasonally." He moved his shoulders. "I've got a couple of nephews coming up. They're eleven now. I can usually con them into believing they're having fun when they're feeding the stock."
"And is it fun?"
"I like it." This time he looked at her. "Ever been on a farm?"
"No, not really. I'm an urbanite."
"Then you're in for a surprise with Antietam," he murmured. "Urban it's not."
"So Regan tells me. And, of course, I know the area through my studies. It must have been interesting growing up on one of the major battlefields of the Civil War."
"Rafe was always more into that than me. The land doesn't care if it's historical, as long as it's tended."
"So you're not interested in the history?"
"Not particularly." The truck rumbled over the bridge that spanned the piece of the Potomac River between "Virginia and Maryland. "I know it," he added. "You can't live there all your life and not know it. But I don't give it a lot of attention."
"And the ghosts?"
"I don't give them a lot of attention, either."
A smile shadowed her mouth. "But you know of them."
Again he moved his shoulders. "Part of the package. You want to talk to the rest of the family about that. They're more into it."
"Yet you live and work on a farm that's supposedly haunted."
"Supposedly." He didn't care to talk about it, or think about it. "Look, Regan mentioned something about you coming out to do whatever it is you do—"
"To study and record any paranormal activity." Her smile spread. "It's just a hobby."
"Yeah, well, you'd be better off at the old Barlow place, the house Rafe and Regan put back together. It's a bed-and-breakfast now—one of my other sisters-in-law runs it. It's lousy with ghosts, if you believe in that sort of thing."
"Mmm... It's on my list. In fact, I'm hoping they can squeeze me in for a while. I'd like to stay there. And from what Regan told me, you have a large house. I'd like to stay there, too."
He wouldn't mind the company, but the purpose didn't sit well with him. "Regan didn't mention how long you were planning on being around."
"That depends." She looked out the window as he took a route through a cut in the mountains. "It depends on how long it takes me to find what I want to find, and how long it takes to document it."
"Don't you have, like, a job?"
"I'm taking a sabbatical." The word had such marvelous possibilities, she closed her eyes to savor them. "I have all the time in the world, and I intend to enjoy it." Opening her eyes again, she saw the glint from the little gold earring in the ashtray. "Don't worry, farm boy. I won't cramp your style. When the time comes, you can tuck me into some little room in the attic. I'll do my thing, you can do yours."
He started to comment, but she made some soft, strangled sound and sat bolt upright in the seat. "What?"
She could only shake her head, absorbed in the jarring sense of deja vu. The hills rose up, grass green against outcroppings of silver rocks. In the distance, the higher mountains were purple shadows against hazy skies. Fields, high with green stalks of corn, thick with summer grains, rolled back from the road. On a sloping embankment, black-and-white cows stood as still as if they were on a postcard.
Woods, dark and thick, ranged along a field, while a winding creek bubbled along the verge.
"It looks just as it should," she murmured softly. "Exactly. Perfect."
"Thanks. It's MacKade land." He slowed the truck a little, out of pride. "You can't see the house this time of year. Trees are too thick. It's back down that lane."