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midnight Rucker was deeply involved in telling Dinah a story about his father, a trucker who’d died in a dramatic highway accident when Rucker was fifteen. Dinah was deeply involved in watching Rucker, her coffee untas ted, her donut half-eaten. At one A.M . Alfred shooed them and the truckers out, then locked up for the night.
    Rucker kept talking as they walked down Main Street’s oak-shaded sidewalk to where his car was parked. He also kept holding Dinah’s hand. He swung it merrily, as if teasing her to believe that hand-holding was innocent.
    “… and so, when I made it big,” he said, “I told Mama, ‘You’ve been a waitress all your life, sweetheart, and you’ve worked damn hard. Now I’m gonna buy you the fanciest condo in Florida and you’re gonna set down there by Mattie and her family—Mattie’s my married sister—and you’re gonna have more fun than a chicken at a worm farm.”
    “And what did your mother say?”
    “Prrrr-ruck, cluck cluck cluck, prrrr-ruck.”
    They were still laughing as he held the Cadillac door for her. Dinah slid inside and looked around curiously at the plush interior. “A black Cadillac Seville,” she murmured as he settled into the driver’s seat. “I expected a custom pickup truck.”
    “Don’t worry, I’m still a hayseed at heart.” He handed her a sleek tape case from under the seat. “Pick something. I love music of all kinds.”
    “Ah, the soundtrack from
Deliverance
, ‘Honky Tonk Favorites from Nashville,’ ‘Highlights from
Hee Haw.
’ This is music of all kinds?”
    “I have wide-ranging musical tastes,” he said solemnly.
    “Indeed. I’d say these tapes cover the range from country-western to country-western. With a little country-western thrown in. How will I ever choose? Ah. ‘Banjo Favorites.’ That sounds safe.”
    She started to put the tape in. Rucker leaned close to her as she did. “Who wants ‘safe’?” he asked. Dinah twisted to face him, her breath catching as she inhaled his clean, masculine scent. No seductive, fancy colognes for this man. He didn’t need help seducing women.
    “I want ‘safe,’ ” she whispered.
    “Nah, you don’t. I’m gonna kiss you.” The tone was light, but his voice was husky. “But I’ll keep it safe. For right now, anyway.”
    “You want me to kiss you right here on the street?”
    “Nah. I’d rather you kiss me right here on the lips. Just aim for a spot about a smidgen below my mustache.”
    A flabbergasted laugh started in her throat and never surfaced. His kiss trapped it between them and turned it into a plaintive groan of pleasure and exasperation, mostly pleasure. Rucker slid both arms around her and brought her closer. Dinah raised shocked hands to grip his shoulders. She gripped, then relaxed, then gripped again harder, as his mouth made slow, erotic movements on hers. Suddenly her world was only taste and touch and smell, all of the sensations magnified by a haze of physical desire and shock.
    The Fourth of July. A first kiss. Puppy love. All these notions got tangled up in her thoughts as her tongue touched his and sensation exploded across the skin of her abdomen and thighs. His hands rubbed her shoulder blades in circular patterns then slid down her spine, his fingers tracing the indention of bone and muscle even through her clothes.
    Lost to his skilled seduction, Dinah wrapped both arms around his neck and leaned into the kiss, her back arching. His soft moan was vulnerable and gentle. Is there really a sensitive, sweet man under all the flirtatious macho humor? she wondered. Would it be wrong to be impulsive? Wasn’t she entitled to ignore common sense with such an amazing man?
    Dinah felt him tugging on her left jacket-sleeve. She inhaled raggedly as it started sliding down. The man is seducing me, she thought without much alarm. Right here on Main Street. He’s seducing me, and I’m not lifting a finger to stop him. His hands kept up their wonderful assault on her