He was speaking of the hateful, aggressive, bad-tempered old peacock that wandered about the place. Kit’s glorious body was inches from hers, and he held his hand down to her. She took it, and stood up before him. It was the closest she’d ever been to him, and she could feel the warmth of his body. When he reached out as though to touch her face, Olivia instinctively stepped back.
“You have thread in your hair.”
She stood still while he pulled out several strands and took some off her shoulders. He stepped around her, removing pieces of thread from her clothes. Bending, he pulled two long green strands off her ankles.
“There!” He stepped back to look at her. “You are now back to being perfect.”
For a moment they stood in silence, looking into each other’s eyes. “I guess I better get back to work,” he said.
“Me too.”
Turning away, Kit took a couple of steps, then he halted and looked back at her. “Or you and I could call a truce and take the afternoon off. I need to go into town to—”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “Anywhere. Go is my new favorite word.”
Kit grinned. “Come on then, let’s move around the side. If any of them see us, they’ll give us something to do.”
“Or cook,” Olivia said. “What about...?” She nodded at his bare body.
“I keep clothes hidden in the well house.”
“Ah, right,” she said. “Protected by the thorns, which are guarded by Old Thomas.”
“Exactly!”
Olivia followed Kit across the acres, and when he stopped behind big shrubs and tree trunks and looked in all directions, she did too. They were like a pair of comedy spies, racing from one hiding place to another. “The yarn monsters,” he called them as he pulled another piece
off his arm. “How did I sleep through that?”
“Three weeks of sleep deprivation and nonstop work will do that,” Olivia said as she ducked behind a sycamore tree.
He halted beside her. “We ought to stop.”
She knew what he meant. They should stop trying to outdo each other.
When she nodded in agreement, they ran to the huge mass of blackberry vines. Most of the branches had long since stopped producing fruit and should be cut away, but they’d been neglected for years.
“You better wait for me here,” Kit said as he got down on his stomach and started to go through what seemed to be a tunnel.
“Because I’m a girl?” Her hostility was back.
“I was thinking more of your pretty dress.” He rolled over onto his back and motioned to the entrance. “But please, be my guest.”
Olivia didn’t want to go slithering on the ground, but she’d talked herself into a corner. She got down beside him, ignored the smile of delight he gave her, then worked her way through the tunnel.
At the end was a small building with a door that barely opened against the vines. Inside, it was small, with a window at one end. On a hanger on the wall was a freshly ironed, short-sleeved blue shirt and light colored trousers. Slip-on Weejuns were on the floor.
In the corner were half a dozen pillows that she knew used to be on the furniture in the Big House. A few books were on an old shelf. Here and there were artifacts that had probably been found around the plantation: arrowheads, shells, a teacup with a missing handle, a rusty sword that looked to be from the Civil War.
Kit entered in silence and gave her time to look around. “Now you see my secret hiding place. Where I escape.”
She well understood the need for such a retreat. Privacy wasn’t readily available on Tattwell. Between the kids and the two old men, Olivia rarely had a moment alone.
“This is great.” She sat down on a pile of pillows. “I think I could go back to sleep.”
Kit was smiling, pleased that she liked his hideout. “Do you mind if I...?” He motioned to the clothes.
Olivia gave her best I’m-a-woman-of-the-world shrug and picked up a book. It was a history of war from Russia’s point of view. She pretended to read while surreptitiously watching him remove his skimpy shorts. He had boxers on underneath—but she knew that since the fabric often peeped out. Not that she’d looked!