Winning Dixie Read online

  “Those are all fair questions,” he began.

  “Then answer them.” There was no please this time as she sat on the easy chair facing him.

  “I will, but I have to start a little farther back than that. I’m going to tell you a story.”

  “I don’t want a damn story.” She started to get up.

  “Just stay put and give me a minute. The story’s important. It will answer your questions.”

  “Then get to it.”

  Wade took a deep breath. “My family owns Harrison Corporation. Newspapers, magazines, movie theaters, video and DVD rental companies and a few other odds and ends in the news and entertainment field.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Where?”

  “On TV, not thirty seconds before you got here. You are, in essence, missing in action from high society. Lucky me. I found you.”

  “Well, neither of my two older sisters was interested in running the corporation. They preferred their own individual arms of the company. And my father wanted to retire. So by the time I was twenty-seven, I was Harrison’s CEO. Dad still sat as chairman of the board, but I handled the day-to-day business of running the company. I was responsible for our bottom line, I was the one who had to face the shareholders at the annual meeting if revenues fell below projections.”

  “A little young, weren’t you?”

  “By some standards, yes. But I ate, drank and slept the company while I was still in the womb. I was ready for the job and the responsibilities, and I did a damn good job of it, if I do say so myself.”

  “But?”

  “But. Oh, yes, there’s a but. It came one day in the spring of my twenty-ninth year. I collapsed on the racquetball court. To make a long story short, it turned out that sometime in my oh-so-proper youth, I had contracted an infection that got into my heart and did permanent damage that went undetected until the day I collapsed. Every day after that I went further and further downhill. I was dying.”

  Dixie paled. “My God, Wade. I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Why should you? The only thing that would save my life was a heart transplant. They put me on the list, but there are a lot more people waiting than there are donors.”

  “I assume you finally got a donor.”

  “At the very last possible minute. I wasn’t going to make it through the night, and I knew it. Mom and Dad and the girls were there with me. It was just about the most grim atmosphere you can imagine. Then, a miracle happened. Somebody…had an accident. It’s terrible to call that a miracle. It wasn’t a miracle for him. But he was dead whether I got his heart or not, so I call it a miracle that I got his heart.”

  Dixie’s own heart was thundering in her chest. “That’s the scar I’ve seen just below your throat.”

  “Yes, but you’ve only seen the tip. It goes all the way down to my navel.”

  “Oh, my God, Wade. A heart transplant. That’s just…like you said. It’s a miracle you’re even alive. But how did you end up here?”

  Wade stared at the floor a moment, then briefly closed his eyes before facing her. “When I woke up after my transplant surgery, the first words I said were, ‘Hug my two best boys for me.’”

  Dixie quivered. “What?”

  “You recognize those words?” he asked quietly.

  Dixie felt suddenly light-headed. “No. No.”

  But she did, and they both knew it.

  “They call it cellular memory,” Wade told her quietly. “But the only people who believe in it are transplant patients. Medical science doesn’t put much stock in it. But I met a woman who woke up from her transplant surgery and asked for a beer. She had always hated beer, but suddenly she wanted one. Turns out her donor was a big-time beer drinker. A man who received cornea transplants claimed he recognized his donor’s wife on the street, when he had no idea who his donor or the man’s wife were.”

  Dixie listened to what he was saying carefully. She drew in a breath carefully, exhaled carefully. Blinked her eyes carefully. She could understand the concept of cellular memory without deciding whether or not she believed any of it.

  She realized what Wade was going to tell her, but there was a loud buzzing in her ears. She stared at him, saw his lips move, but heard nothing except the buzzing. First it buzzed low, then it buzzed high. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Buzzzzzzzz.

  “Dixie? Dixie!” He reached across the coffee table separating them and squeezed her knee, giving it a little shake. “Dixie?”

  Dixie shook herself out of the ridiculous trance or whatever she’d been in. “I’m sorry,” she said, her mind clear now, clear and vehemently denying the silly idea that kept leaping at her. An idea that was preposterous.

  “Dixie?”

  She pushed herself to her feet. “That’s an incredible story,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to go through such a traumatic experience. I assume that everything went well. You look perfectly healthy to me.”

  “I am healthy, especially if I keep up with my meds and exercise.”

  “Oh, well, that’s wonderful.” She started toward the front door, her movements sharp and jerky. “I’m really glad for you.”

  “Dixie, come sit down.”

  “You’ve said what you came to say. Oh.” She stopped and turned around. “I forgot your check. Wait here.”

  “Dixie, sit down.”

  Her eyes were overbright. Her hands fluttered in the air. “I’m glad you came by to tell me this, but I don’t have time right now to—”

  “Dixie.” He stood and grabbed her wrist. “Stop it. You need to let me finish.”

  “No.” She shook her head hard and tried to back away. “No, you’re finished.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You have to be,” she said frantically.

  He saw the refusal in her eyes. Refusal to believe, to hear. “Dixie, I have to tell you.”

  “Why?” she cried, her voice and expression desperate.

  “Because it’s why I’m here. You already know the truth, don’t you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Of course not.” She shook her head again. “How could I?”

  “Come,” he said gently, pulling on her arm. “Sit with me.”

  She was breathing as if she’d just run a mile or more.

  “Right here.” He finally got her to sit next to him on the sofa. He turned until his knees pressed against hers, and they faced each other. He took her hands in his. Hers were trembling. His wanted to.

  “Dixie, I got Jimmy Don’s heart.”

  “Oh, God.” She pulled her hands free and jumped up. “Oh, God. Oh, God.” She stood there before the sofa and stared at him. “Oh, my God.”

  Wade hadn’t known what to expect from her, but he’d known there would be a reaction. And here it was. He just didn’t know what it meant. “Is it that bad a thing?” he asked. “That I got his heart?”

  “Bad?” Dixie frowned, pressing her fingertips to her forehead. The buzzing was trying to drown out Wade’s voice and even her own thoughts. “No,” she said slowly. “It’s just…I never expected…Wow.” Her legs went out from under her and she sat abruptly on the coffee table. All efforts at denying what she’d known to be true from the instant he’d said “hug my two best boys” faded and left her limp.

  Oh, good God, she thought. She was falling in love with Jimmy Don’s heart? Been there, done that.

  No, no, no. That wasn’t right. It was Wade she was falling for.

  A wash of fresh energy flooded her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “Why did you let me have these feelings for you before you told me?”

  He leaned toward her. “You have feelings for me?”

  Dixie realized she’d said too much. “Never mind that. What are we going to tell the boys? And Pops? No. We can’t tell them. They’ll freak out.”

  “Like you did?”

  She frowned. “They won’t understand.”

  “They don’t talk about their dad.”

  “T
hey barely remember him. It’s been two years.”

  “When anyone mentions their dad, what do they say?”

  “Who, the boys, or…?”

  “Either. Both.”

  Dixie shrugged. “I don’t know. That he was good with horses, usually. Or somebody tells a story about his antics in high school.”

  “Does anybody tell them how special he was?”

  She blinked. “Special? No.”

  “I want to, Dixie. I want his sons to know that he was a very special man.” Wade took a deep, shuddering breath. “A hero, to me and several other people whose lives he saved or made bearable. I owe him that, and more.”

  Inside her chest, Dixie felt a tightening ease. “Oh, Wade, no. If Jimmy Don could tell you himself he’d say you don’t owe him anything. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t do things because he expected something in return. He just did what he wanted to do. Sometimes it was a good deed, sometimes it was a good job. Sometimes, most of the time, he was just plain irresponsible. In a funny, lovable way, of course.”

  “Let me ask you this. When you get your driver’s license renewed, do you check the organ donor box on it?”

  She smiled slightly. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m always afraid I’ll get injured and the ambulance driver’s mother will have been waiting for years for a new liver or something, and they’ll see I’m a donor and take mine. Poof. I’m a goner, when I didn’t have to be. I know it’s silly, but—”

  “It’s very common. Let’s face it. It takes courage to check that box on the license. Jimmy Don had that courage, Dixie. In my book he’s a hero, and I want his sons to know that.”

  Dixie rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “This is going to upset them, and I hate to do that. They’ll get sad. It will be like they’ve lost him all over again.”

  They reached for each other and grasped hands, holding tightly to each other, their gazes locked, his pleading for understanding, hers clouded with shock and confusion.

  “Will you think about it?” Wade asked. “If you didn’t want to tell them yourself, I could do it. And there’s Pops to consider. Don’t you think he’d want to know?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Yes, Pops should know. But I have to think about the boys.”

  They sat there a moment, in the quiet of the house. Outside, a car engine revved in the next-door neighbor’s driveway, and another car drove down the street way too fast for an area where children played. Someone nearby yelled at them to slow down.

  “So, what do you think?” Wade asked. “Not about the boys, just…the whole thing.”

  She gave a half laugh. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s a miracle. Jimmy Don did something good by being an organ donor, then he did something stupid by getting himself killed, and because of those two things, you’re alive and here and…it’s all so…incredible.”

  “Do you think…we can still be friends? You and I?”

  Dixie gave him a small smile. “No more big surprises?”

  “Cross my heart.” He did just that, crossed his heart with a forefinger.

  A soft look came over Dixie’s face. Slowly she reached out and placed one hand flat over his heart and stared, not at his face but at that hand covering his heart.

  The warmth of her touch seeped clear through to his bones. “That’s a miracle you’re feeling.”

  She swallowed and looked up at him. “It feels strong.”

  “It is. And I thank God for it with every breath I take.”

  When she took her hand away, she took her warmth with her. Neither spoke for a long time while she sat and simply stared at his chest.

  Finally he felt the need to speak. “Am I still fired?”

  Dixie smiled tiredly. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to come back to work, now that your secret is out.”

  “You’re shorthanded, remember? And as for my identity, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not broadcast it.”

  “Somebody already has.” She gestured toward the television.

  Wade shrugged. “If people know, they know. We just don’t have to inform them. I won’t be able to stay too much longer, because someone is going to spot me and call the tabloids. If they show up I’ll have to leave. They’d think nothing of tearing this town apart to get whatever photos they wanted.”

  “You’re saying they’re as bad in person as they seem on TV?”

  “When it’s you they’re after, they’re worse.”

  “But you’re coming to work tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be there,” he said. “If you like Miguel, you should keep him. Obviously, I don’t need the money.”

  She gave him a half smile. “You mean after Pops comes back, I really can fire you?”

  “Are you trying to ruin my résumé? When Pops comes back, I’ll resign. I’m giving you notice, and my replacement has already been hired. I trained him myself.”

  “Well, then.” She didn’t know what else to say. Didn’t know what to do, how to act. Jimmy Don’s heart beat in Wade’s chest. It was too much to take in.

  “Dixie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I might have his heart, and I might have come here because of his sons, but I’m not him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I never thought you were him,” she claimed.

  “Just so you don’t start looking for any more of his traits in me. I came here for the boys. Just to make sure they were all right since losing their father. I stayed because, yes, they were all right, because their mother made sure of it. I’ve stayed because of you, Dixie.”

  Dixie’s vision blurred. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that the only thing I have now of Jimmy Don’s is a physical organ. The feelings I have for you, for the boys, are mine, not his. They have nothing to do with cellular memory or transplanted organs.”

  She swallowed again. “How do you know? How can you be sure?”

  “It’s easy,” he said with a shrug. “I just ask myself, if I’d met you before I got sick, would I feel the same way. The answer is…absolutely.”

  Dixie let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “Maybe you’d better tell me what you mean when you say you have feelings for me.”

  “I mean, I care about you, Dixie,” he said earnestly. “I care very much. It may go deeper than that, I don’t know.”

  She snorted. “So what you’re saying is you want to sleep with me.”

  His smile was fast and a tad wolfish. “Of course I do. I’m not dead, am I? But that’s not what this is all about.”

  “It’s not, huh? A man who could have any woman he wants just by crooking his finger in her direction, and he hangs around washing dishes in Tribute, Texas. I have to figure he expects to get something out of it.”

  “Look, I know I took you by surprise with all of this.”

  “That’s the understatement of the century.”

  “All I planned to throw at you tonight was my background and my transplant. You’re the one who brought up feelings and sex.”

  “Well, pardon the hell out of me.”

  “No pardon needed,” he told her. There was a devil getting loose inside of him, one who wanted to see how far he could push her. On the other hand, a good, healthy argument about sex was bound to take her mind off her other concerns. Or not. But he didn’t seem to have any option but to go for it. “It’s fine with me if you want to talk about having sex. Personally, the way I feel, and guessing at the way you feel, I’d say we’ll probably be making love rather than simply scratching an itch.”

  Her bright blue eyes widened. “We’ll— You talk like it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to end up in bed together.”

  Wade shook off that devil and regained his sanity. Sort of. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be presumptuous. Call it wishful thinking on my part.”

  She took a slow, deep breath. “I do not believe we’re talking about this. Arguing about it.”

>   “About sex?”

  The sound that came from her throat sounded suspiciously like a growl. “All of it,” she claimed, waving her arms in the air. “You’re stinking rich and washing my dishes with Jimmy Don’s heart beating away in your chest, for crying out loud. I’ve known Jimmy Don since first grade, and loved him all my life, but even I know he was an irresponsible kid who never wanted to grow up. Lovable, yes, but irresponsible.

  “You think he wanted you to check on his sons? Oh, he loved them, all right. In fact, he called me the night he died, and the last thing he said was for me to hug his two best boys for him. You got the words right, you know. He always said it just that way, his two best boys.

  “But I’ll lay you dollars to doughnuts that when he shut off his phone and stepped out in front of that taxicab and got himself killed, he was much more likely to be thinking about where to get his next beer. And now you come here and tell me he’s a hero because he saved your life. Well, good for him. He finally did something right. And…oh, God, I didn’t mean that.”

  She covered her mouth with both hands and squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t believe I said that.” She was both appalled and ashamed of herself for even thinking such a thing. It was accurate; Jimmy Don thought a great deal more about beer than most other things, but he’d loved his sons, he’d loved Pops and he’d loved her. He was merely a little boy who never grew up.

  She was as much to blame for that as he was, she knew. She had always taken charge and made the decisions. When he let something slide, she jumped in and took care of it. Even in school, she’d done her best to keep him from getting in trouble. He’d just been so damned adorable, she hadn’t been able to help herself. And it was hard to ever be angry with a guy who looked at you as if you’d hung the moon.

  “Forget about it,” Wade told her.

  “No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want you thinking of him that way. It’s not fair. Jimmy Don was a good man, honestly he was. He just wasn’t a good husband after a while. But even after the divorce we were still best friends. We were better friends than we were spouses, actually.”

  Wade scratched his head. “Since that doesn’t make sense to me, I’ll take your word for it.”