Winning Dixie Read online

  “Good.” She nodded sharply. “And we’ll forget about sex.”

  Wade widened his eyes and opened his mouth in an exaggerated look of shock. “Not on your life. You and I are destined to be together, so start getting used to the idea.”

  Dixie smirked. “Does that line work on the women in New York?”

  He heaved a sigh. “Not so far.”

  She laughed.

  He heaved another sigh, then turned serious. “Since we’re obviously not going to be sleeping together tonight, do you want me to stay and help you tell the boys?”

  She blinked a couple of times. She wasn’t ready to be serious again. “Tell them that we’re not sleeping together?”

  “See, I knew you had sex on your mind,” he claimed. “Deny it all you want, but it’s there.” He shook his head and tsked a couple of times. “I meant, tell them about how their dad saved my life.”

  “No.” So, it was time to turn serious again, after all. “No, I want to think about that first. I’ll tell Pops and talk it over with him.”

  “Do you want me to be there when you talk to him?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “No, I think I should tell him on my own.”

  “You could send the boys back here to the house. I could stay with them while you talk to Pops at his place.”

  “I need to think about it all first. Let it all soak in.”

  “I guess I’ve hit you with a lot all at once.”

  “How about an avalanche?” she said wryly.

  She stood, and so did he. She started to turn toward the door, but Wade stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “Dixie,” he said softy. “I’m still me, you know.”

  “I’m still trying to figure out who that is.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For not telling you the truth sooner.”

  She searched his face for a long moment, then smiled softly. “Apology accepted.”

  Wade leaned toward her and brushed his lips across hers.

  She kept her eyes open, looking directly into his deep brown eyes, and felt as if she were drowning. After a brief second of heated contact, she forced herself to step back. She needed to think, and for that she needed a clear mind. That didn’t seem possible when she was around Wade.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go. But only if you promise that you don’t hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Wade,” she said truthfully. “I promise. I just have a lot to think about.”

  “I know. I’ll see you in the morning. Unless you want to talk later. If you do, just call me. Anytime, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She stood at her front door and watched one of the country’s richest, most eligible bachelors walk away with Jimmy Don McCormick’s heart. And maybe hers, too.

  If that wasn’t the damnedest thing.

  Chapter Nine

  When Dixie called the boys home, she asked Pops to come with them. When she got her sons into the tub, she took Pops to the kitchen, where the boys, who were not silent bathers by any means, would not overhear. There, once Pops was seated at the kitchen table with a dish of peach cobbler to work on, she told him first about Wade’s true background and identity.

  Unlike her, Pops didn’t feel the least deceived. He laughed. “Ha! I knew there was more to that boy than he was lettin’ on. Rich, you say?”

  “Filthy rich.”

  “And him washing our dishes.” He laughed again and shook his head. “Did he say why he was here?”

  “Yes, he did.” She told him the rest, about Wade’s heart transplant, and where his new heart came from.

  Pops cried. His tears were a mixture of renewed grief at the loss of his only grandson, and pride that a part of Jimmy Don lived on in another person. More than one person, most likely.

  “That’s something, isn’t it?” He wiped the moisture from his cheeks and eyes. “I’m so proud of Jimmy Don, I think I might burst.”

  “I know what you mean, Pops.” She stood next to him, leaned against him and wrapped her arms around him. “He did good, didn’t he.”

  Sniff. “He sure did.”

  “Wade wants the boys to know.”

  Pops peered up at her. “You don’t?”

  Dixie sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t want them upset. They were devastated when their daddy died. Talking about this might bring all that back. They might get it in their heads that it’s Wade’s fault Jimmy Don died. That it’s not fair for him to be dead and Wade to benefit from it.”

  “Is that what you think? That it’s not fair for Wade to be alive while Jimmy Don’s dead?”

  “Me? No. Of course not.”

  Pops twisted away from her and looked at her more closely. “Well, something’s got you all sideways.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pushed away and turned toward the sink to get a drink of water. And to keep him from seeing the sudden blush heating her cheeks.

  “And if you believe that,” he said, “I’ve got a six-legged dog I’ll sell you.”

  “Pops, really. Why would I be upset about anything Wade says?”

  “Maybe because him being so rich and all, he probably won’t be working at the diner much longer. It’s a cinch he doesn’t need the job. Might not even hang around town for long. Unless, of course, a certain person was to give him a reason to stick around.”

  “Well, then,” she said, jerking up his now empty cobbler dish and carrying it to the sink, “you better be thinking up a reason to give him if you want him to stay.”

  “Ha. Like you don’t want him to stay.”

  “Why should I care one way or the other?”

  “Dixie, you’re gonna make an old man out of me before my time.”

  “That’ll be the day. Besides, you lie about your age so much, nobody’s quite sure how old you are. And I’m sure you prefer it that way. But if you really want to talk about someone’s love life, you can tell me about your visit this afternoon from Ima Trotter.”

  “Hmph.”

  From where she stood, several feet away at the sink, Dixie noted that the tops of his ears turned red.

  Wade wasn’t sure what to expect the next morning when he met Dixie and the boys at the diner. The boys were their usual early-morning bickering selves. Dixie, however, would barely meet his eyes. He assumed that meant she was having trouble accepting and dealing with all he’d told her the night before. He couldn’t say he blamed her. It had taken him considerable time to get used to the idea of having someone else’s heart beating in his chest.

  Come to that, he still wasn’t used to the idea, but he sure liked the beating. He liked being alive. It was just that the means by which that was possible took getting used to. If Dixie needed more than one night to come to terms with it, he could give her time.

  He just wished she would look at him.

  Dixie wasn’t ready to look at him. She wanted, badly, to have him put his arms around her and tell her everything was going to work out. And that was just stupid. When had she ever needed a man to tell her things were going to work out? She was used to handling things on her own, and had, to date, done a fairly decent job of it. She would continue to do so. To rely on someone else for happiness or stability or comfort or any other darn thing was to court disappointment, in her book.

  To prove to herself that she didn’t really want to be held, she took a big step back from Wade emotionally and, when possible, physically. Time enough later to deal with one of the country’s richest, most eligible bachelors. All she wanted for today was for him to wait tables.

  The day raced by in a blur of customers and orders and dirty dishes for Wade. He was getting pretty good at dealing with the customers and taking the orders.

  Ima came in for lunch again.

  “Good afternoon,” Wade said, placing a menu and a glass of ice water before her.

  “Oh, my, doesn’t that look cool and refreshing. I declare, it
’s hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk out there.”

  “Is it? I haven’t been outside since I came in this morning.”

  Actually, he thought, every time he got near Dixie it seemed a little on the cool side. He would have to do something about that soon. When Pops came back to work, the only way Wade was going to see Dixie during the day was if he came in and placed an order. No way could he go back to washing dishes and take Miguel’s job away from him. The kid and his family appeared to have a serious need for money. Wade would not get in the way of the boy earning his pay, even if it was only minimum wage.

  Ima took a long swallow of her ice water and set it down with a satisfied sigh. “Not very mannerly of me, guzzling my water that way, but it surely hit the spot. I think I’ll stick with something on the cool side for lunch. Bring me a BLT and a small side salad with Italian dressing, if you please.”

  “Certainly.” He liked this lady, with her snowy white hair and face full of lines that said she’d lived. “Iced tea?”

  “Perfect,” she said with a smile. “You tell that Dixie she’d better watch out. You’re taking such good care of the customers, we may not want her back.” There was a definite twinkle in her eyes.

  Wade placed a hand on his hip and pulled out his best Southern accent. “Miz Ima, I’ve been telling her that very thing since yesterday.”

  Ima cackled and swatted his arm. “Go on with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Be back with your sandwich and salad as soon as they’re ready. Do you want to wait until then for your tea, or would you like it now?”

  “You’ve learned your job quite well, young man. I’ll take my tea with my meal, thank you.”

  Hers wasn’t an order he needed to turn in. The bacon was already cooked, so he could build the sandwich himself, and fresh bowls of salad sat covered in plastic wrap in the cooler. Dixie had four other orders going on the grill and didn’t need to be bothered. He built the sandwich, tore the cover off a salad and put both on a tray along with salad dressing and iced tea.

  As he was serving Ima the meal a few moments later, the bell over the front door dinged, announcing yet another customer. Lunch business was booming. If this pace kept up, they could have a full house before long.

  “Hey, Bill,” someone called out.

  Bill Gray, the newspaper editor, waved in response, then sat down at a table.

  “Heard a rumor about you,” the man at the next table said to Gray.

  “Here you go, Miz Ima,” Wade said, placing her lunch before her and listening with half an ear to the various conversations going on around the room. “Do you need anything else?”

  “If it’s about that last New Year’s Eve party,” Gray answered, “I did not dance on top of the table. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “This looks just fine, Wade,” Ima said. “Thank you.”

  “Naw, not that rumor. I know that one’s not true.”

  “You should,” Ima said, joining in the conversation as Wade turned away. “You started it, Jim.”

  “Miz Ima, you’re not supposed to tell him that.”

  “It’s all right, Miz Ima,” Gray said. “I already knew who started it.”

  “Forget that. Old news, pardon the pun. This is a new rumor,” Jim said. “I heard you were going to sell the paper and retire.”

  Wade paused on the other side of the counter and blatantly eavesdropped.

  “Sell the paper?” Ima said, shocked. “Is this true, William?”

  “Don’t you think it’s past time for a new voice in this town? It’s time I retired, if I can find the right buyer,” Gray said. “I promised my wife when we married that one day we’d live in paradise. As much as I love this town, paradise it’s not. She’s got her heart set on Hawaii.”

  Wade had to assume that Bill Gray had a good financial planner for him to be able to retire in Hawaii. There wasn’t a great deal of profit, if any, in small-town weekly newspapers these days.

  “What a fine man you are, William,” Ima said, “to keep such a promise to your wife. Just do this town a favor and try not to sell the paper to some big conglomerate who’ll manage it from New York, or someplace like that. We need a paper that’s purely local.”

  “I’ve been worried about that very thing,” Gray said.

  “Order up!” Dixie called as she slapped the bell signaling an order was ready.

  Wade filed the newspaper information away in his brain and pulled the burger from the order window.

  And so the day went. Miguel kept up and seemed to be doing a good job. In the middle of the afternoon, with only a few customers on hand and none of them ready to check out, Wade saw Miguel come out to bus the two tables in the back, and used that opportunity to step into the kitchen to see Dixie.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  Her smile looked tired, just as it had when she’d unlocked the door this morning.

  “Pretty good,” she answered. “How about you?”

  “The same. Miz Ima says I’m so good you might be out of a job.”

  “Oh, really?” She flipped a ground beef patty on the grill. “What do you say?”

  “I say you’ve got nothing to worry about. No way would I want to do this very often. I have enjoyed it, though.”

  “You have?”

  “It’s always educational to do someone else’s job for a couple of days. Gives you a new perspective. Plus I enjoy meeting the people.” He hesitated. “Were you able to decide about telling the boys?”

  “That was slick. Start off talking about jobs, then, wham, hit me with what’s really on your mind.”

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  She sighed and met his gaze squarely for the first time that day. “Yes. It’s your thing, so I want you to tell them. But I want to be there. And I want to talk to you before you tell them.”

  “That’s fair. It’s fine. Thank you, Dixie.”

  She shook her head. “I only hope it doesn’t upset them.”

  “I think they might surprise you.”

  “Come have supper with us tonight,” she said.

  The heart in question did a little flip-flop. He hadn’t expected an invitation to supper. “I’d love to. What time?”

  “About six. We eat early.”

  “I’ll be there. Oh, does Pops know?”

  “About you and your heart? Yes.”

  Wade nodded. “Did he take it okay?”

  She shrugged. “Better than I did. He agrees with you that Jimmy Don turned out to be a hero.” She started to say more, but Miguel returned just then with a tubful of dirty dishes.

  Wade got the message. She didn’t want to talk in front of Miguel. He nodded toward the grill. “Is that burger about done?”

  “Another minute or two. I’ll holler.”

  “I’ll get back out there, then.”

  She watched him walk out and wondered what other surprises he might throw at her before everything was said and done.

  After work Wade showered and put on clean clothes, then killed a little time checking his e-mail. His mother was having a fit because he wasn’t home yet. His sisters appeared to love the extra work piled on them since his illness. His father pretended to be irritated at having to go to the office nearly every day again, but Wade knew the man welcomed the chance to get away from the house, i.e. “Mother,” as often as possible.

  Wade knew his parents were not only deeply devoted to each other and in love, they were also crazy about each other. That did not mean, however, that Dad could hang around the house all day, as he’d done much of the time during the two years Wade had been running the corporation before his heart had decided to go on strike.

  No, Mom kept a running list of projects that needed doing, and if someone was home, she considered them fair game. “If you’re going to be underfoot, dear, why don’t you take that box of clothes to the Goodwill,” or, “There’s a bag of canned goods on the kitchen counter that needs to go to the Food Pantry to
help feel the homeless.” Or, “The dog needs to go to the groomer today. You wouldn’t mind taking him, would you? I thought not.”

  Telling Mother “No” took great fortitude and an ironclad reason. She could shoot holes in anything a hapless spouse or child could think of. After all, as she was fond of reminding them, nothing was more important than keeping Mother happy.

  And, oddly enough, that was the exact truth. All of them loved the little tyrant so much, they would do anything for her. If she knew that—and she did—she never used it against you. Much.

  With his e-mail taken care of for the time being, and the hour still a little early to show up at Dixie’s, he decided to take a stroll down Main. There was something about Main Street in Tribute that appealed to him, especially around the town square. He liked the variety of shops and businesses, the friendliness of nearly everyone he passed on the sidewalk.

  While he was out, maybe he would pick up some flowers for Dixie and a bottle of wine for dinner.

  The five-o’clock rush hour in Tribute was naturally a far cry from the same event in Manhattan. Here traffic definitely picked up, but if there had ever been more than three cars per lane backed up at the town’s only traffic light, it had probably been the homecoming parade for the high school.

  As for walking, people generally scratched their heads and offered him a ride. If you couldn’t park within twenty feet of the door to wherever you were going, the predominant course of action was to drive around the block a couple of times until a space opened up. And when you did park, it was usually an SUV or a pickup as opposed to an actual car.

  As he approached the town square he eyed the gray granite courthouse on the south side, with its small, manicured park stretching out to form the center of the square, with a street on each of its other three sides. A wide sidewalk ran straight from the courthouse steps, all the way through the middle of the park to Main Street, opposite the courthouse.

  A small sign at the curb proclaimed the green lawn as City Park. In the middle of the east side of the park stood a large monolith of dark granite. Wade had studied it up close. He’d stood back and watched as others approached it. Some walked away in tears, others with a sigh. On it were engraved the names of all the town’s war dead. The first listing was a man killed in 1889 in the Spanish-American War. The most recent, a woman in the Army National Guard killed in Iraq earlier this year.