"Are you all right, Ms. Nelson? Perhaps you should sit down for a moment, out of the sun."
"I'm fine." He was watching her with some concern so she pulled up a smile. "Thank you, Mr. Biehn."
"Well, maybe we'd best see about getting you back where you belong. If I could offer you a lift somewhere... "
"And if you can't, I most certainly will."
Vicki turned. The man standing in the doorway was in his early thirties, of average height, average looks, and above average self-opinion. He leered genially down at her, his pose no doubt intended to show off his manly physique - which, she admitted, wasn't bad. If you like the squash and health club types... Which she didn't.
Slipping on a pair of expensive sunglasses, he stepped out into the sunlight, hair gleaming like burnished gold.
I bet he highlights it. A quick glance showed he wore blue leather deck shoes. Without socks. Vicki hated the look of shoes without socks. Although odds were good he owned a pair of running shoes, she somehow doubted he'd be willing to ruin his manicure by climbing a tree. Which was a pity as he seemed to be exactly the type of person she'd love to feed to the wer.
Beside her, she heard Carl suppress a sigh.
"Ms. Nelson, may I introduce you to my nephew, Mark Williams."
The younger man grinned broadly at his uncle. "And here I thought your only hobbies were gardening and bird-watching and saving souls." Then he turned the force of his smile on Vicki.
Some expensive dental work there, she thought, picking at a bit of dried pine gum on her T-shirt and trying not to scowl.
"Ms. Nelson got lost in the conservation area," Carl explained tersely. "I was just about to drive her home."
"Oh please, allow me." Mark's voice stopped just short of caressing and more than a little past what Vicki considered insulting. "If I know my uncle, once he gets a lovely woman alone in a car all he'll do is preach."
"Please, don't put yourself out." Her tone made it more a command than a polite reply and Mark looked momentarily nonplussed. "If you wouldn't mind ..." she continued, turning to Carl. Being preached at would be infinitely preferable to being with Mark. He reminded her of a pimp she'd once busted.
"Not at all." Carl was doing an admirable job of keeping a straight face, but Vicki caught sight of the twinkle in his eye and a suspicious trembling at the ends of his mustache. He waved a hand toward the driveway and indicated Vicki should precede him.
It wasn't hard to connect the car with the man. The late model, black jeep with the gold trim, the plush interior, the sunroof, and the rust along the bottom of the doors was practically a simulacrum of Mark. The ten-year-old, beige sedan with the recent wax job just as obviously - although not as loudly - said Carl.
Vicki had her hand on the door handle when Mark called, "Hey! I don't even know your first name."
She turned and the air temperature plummeted around her smile. "I know," she told him, and got into the car.
The very expensive stereo system surprised her a little.
"I like to listen to gospel music while I drive," Carl explained, when he saw her looking at enough lights and buttons and switches to fill an airplane cockpit. He stopped the car at the end of the driveway. "Where to?"
Where to, indeed; she had no idea of the address or even the name of the road. "The, uh, Heerkens sheep farm. Are you familiar with it?"
"Yes."
The suppressed emotion in that single word pulled Vicki's brows down. "Is there a problem?"
His knuckles were white around the steering wheel. "Are you family?"
"No. Just the friend of a friend. He thought I needed some time out of the city and brought me here for the weekend." Mike Celluci wouldn't have believed the lie for a moment - he'd often said Vicki was the worst liar he'd ever met - but some of the tension went out of Carl's shoulders and he turned the car out onto the dirt road and headed north.
"I just met them this weekend," she continued matter-of-factly. Experience had taught her that the direct approach worked best with no nonsense people like her host. "Do you know them well?"
Carl's mouth thinned to a tight white line but after a moment he said, "When I first moved here, ten, eleven years ago now, I tried to