Dixie Rebel - By Patricia Rice Page 0,1

creating the illusion of mother-of-pearl luminescence in the dusky interior, drawing his attention to moist, pink, bow-shaped lips. For a brief—very brief—moment, Axell imagined kissing those lips. Appalled by the kind of lusty image he hadn't experienced since adolescence, he immediately drew back and focused on the details of his surroundings. "The Impossible Dream" changed to a Gaelic pipe, and the angle of the sun shifted to shoot a beam of rainbows through the crystal prisms hanging above the proprietor's head.

"Would you like some tea, Mr. Holm? Whatever my sister's failings, she knows her teas. I have a particularly lovely Chinese green that might soothe your muddy aura sufficiently for us to communicate."

"No, thank you, Miss Alyssum. I have come to discuss the school. The mayor has every intention of closing it."

Panic pierced her, but Maya smiled unblinkingly at the attractive lion of a man in front of the counter. She'd guess him to be in his mid-thirties, a decade older than she and definitely of a dangerous social status, judging by his excellently tailored dark blue suit and expensive silk tie. She seldom responded physically to men with his cool Nordic looks, especially ones with the arrogant authority of Axell Holm.

She preferred her men dark, passionate, and artistic. Good thing, too, because she didn't need those dreamy Aquarian gray eyes messing with her already crazed mind. The way they narrowed as they followed her incited definite palpitations.

"The Impossible Dream is not a public school," she reminded him, removing the carafe of near-boiling water from the hot plate and pouring it over the crinkled green leaves in her sister's prized Yixing teapot. "It's a private school and not within the mayor's realm of power." A brand new private school with a temporary permit, the germ of all her dreams. She pried her nervous fingers loose from the carafe handle.

"Obviously, you have little experience with government, Miss Alyssum."

"Maya, call me Maya," she replied absently, setting out her own precious porcelain cups and saucers with their intricately painted landscapes of a different world. They didn't match Cleo's brown teapot with its single lotus blossom, but they had the same significance to both of them, so in Maya's mind, they matched perfectly. "And I've had entirely too much experience with government authority, I assure you."

The phone rang, and she ignored it as she carried the delicate porcelain to an old-fashioned ice cream table in the back corner. The Gaelic music changed to a monk's chant, the phone shrieked, and in the back, the steady drip-drip of the bathroom faucet intruded. She really needed to get that fixed, or wait until the utility company turned off the water for non-payment. That would solve the problem. She'd write it down right after "fix broken lock on back door."

"Your phone is ringing, Miss... Maya."

"True Virgo," she muttered as she set down the saucers. "Let the machine get it," she responded airily as he glared at the offending instrument. He vibrated with an acute Virgo intensity that he hid behind lion-like wariness, but she detected a wince as she emerged from behind the counter.

She smoothed the crinkly crepe of her long skirt over her protuberant belly and smiled fetchingly at him. Whoever was on the phone slammed down the receiver as the answering machine kicked on. Bill collector, she concluded.

She watched her visitor struggle with his curiosity. Mr. Axell Holm looked like an absentminded professor lost in a particularly disturbing problem instead of the wealthy proprietor of the town's most popular—and only—watering hole. She'd finally placed his face, if not his name. She'd seen it in the local paper several times since she'd returned to Wadeville to take care of her nephew.

Holm was on the city council, she remembered with apprehension.

"I didn't realize you were married, Mrs. Alyssum. I apologize. The way Constance speaks of you, I assumed..." He backtracked and asked pointedly, "Is your husband available? Perhaps together we could discuss some arrangement..."

Constance! Of course. The name finally clicked. Holm—Constance's father. Maybe this wasn't entirely about the city council. Maya patted his arm and indicated one of the delicate wrought-iron chairs. "Have a seat, Mr. Holm, and let me pour you some tea. Do you take honey?" She retrieved the pot from the counter, a little too aware of his fascination with her bulging belly. That was the problem with Aquarians, they were too darned nosy. Thank goodness his Virgo sun sign dominated or she might have to dump the tea over his head.

He waited expectantly—not