Winning Dixie Page 5

  That left Pops, who had always insisted he wanted to be in their lives on a daily basis.

  “The boys have you,” she told him. “They’re blessed to have you, and they love you dearly. And what makes you think I want anything to do with a man? When would I have time, for crying out loud?”

  “If you’re not gonna cut that pie, just bring it on over here and I’ll slice my own piece.”

  “Have at it.” She flopped the entire pie down in front of him. “A man in my life, indeed.”

  “And why not?” He sliced through the pie until it was all sectioned off, then lifted a piece onto his plate. “Any ice cream?”

  Dixie pursed her lips and rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll get it.” Pops pushed himself from his chair and ambled over to the fridge. He pulled a half gallon of vanilla ice cream from the freezer and set it on the counter. Before dishing out a scoop, he nuked his slice of pie. The sweet scent of apples and cinnamon filled the air. By the time Pops returned to the table, the pie was steaming and the ice cream was melting around the edges.

  “Now that,” he said with satisfaction, “is one good dessert. And you, Dixie-doodle, are one heck of a woman who deserves a good man.”

  “Why?” she asked. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Ha! Smart mouth.” He forked pie and ice cream into his mouth. “I’m just sayin’, if you and New York Boy wanna make cow eyes at each other, it’s fine by me, that’s all.”

  Dixie helped herself to a slice of pie. “Well, now that I have your approval, I’ll just go jump his bones.”

  “Might be good for you,” he muttered.

  “Pops!”

  While Dixie and Pops shared pie à la mode, Wade moved the meager belongings he’d brought with him to Texas into a tiny, two-room apartment. The smell of fresh paint permeated the air inside. The apartment was furnished with secondhand furniture, but it was well kept and clean.

  Moving in meant parking his rental car in the single slot out front and carrying in his suitcase.

  But he had a kitchen now, such as it was. After he put away the items in his suitcase, he drove to the grocery on Main and stocked up on a few basics, along with a bag of his biggest weakness—butter-scotch candy.

  That evening he stretched out on his sofa with his laptop and caught up on nonbusiness e-mail. He’d traded daily maid service for more space and considered it a good deal.

  After logging off his computer, he looked up at the water-stained ceiling above him and smiled. His mother would have a coronary, his father would disapprove and his sisters would be amused.

  During the following week, Dixie came to understand how a bug under a microscope must feel. Every time she and Wade were in the same room, she could feel his gaze on her like a touch. Sometimes soft, sometimes hot. Sometimes his eyes were laughing. She couldn’t help but look back. He had a way of keeping her off balance that at first irritated her, then puzzled her, then intrigued her. As recently as last month she’d still been referred to as Jimmy Don’s girl. It felt strange for another man to pay attention to her.

  But the two of them were not in a cocoon. The diner was full of people. The first of them being Pops. Her late-ex-husband’s grandfather watched the byplay between her and Wade as though it was a show put on for his amusement. He seemed to particularly enjoy her confusion. The rat.

  Naturally Ben and Tate eventually clued in that something was going on between and among the grown-ups in their lives, but grown-ups were weird, everybody knew that, so they didn’t let it worry them.

  “Dixie? Are you okay?”

  “What?” Dixie gave a start and nearly dumped a BLT and fries into Carrie Miller’s lap. “Oh. Sorry. No. Yes. Fine.”

  Carrie laughed. “Come again?”

  Dixie joined her and laughed at herself. She placed the order down carefully in front of Carrie. “I’m sorry,” she offered. “My mind was wandering.”

  “Maybe to that new dishwasher you hired last week?”

  If anyone so much as breathed on her, Dixie would have fallen over.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Dixie had known Carrie since first grade, yet suddenly she didn’t know what to say to her.

  “Yoo-hoo.” Carrie waved her hand in front of Dixie’s eyes. “Earth to Dixie.”

  “I guess she’s out to lunch,” Dixie said with a laugh. “I’m sorry. What did you ask?”

  “I’m not sure I remember.”

  Just then Wade came out of the kitchen. With an empty tub on his hip, he bussed the booth that was two down from Carrie’s.

  “Ah,” Carrie said. “Now I remember.”

  “Well, you can forget it,” Dixie said darkly.

  She left Carrie to her BLT and went back to deliver two more orders. Wade was back in the kitchen by the time she returned to top off Carrie’s iced tea.

  “Besides,” Dixie told her with a hiss, “I barely know the man.”

  “He was checking you out like a man who wanted to get to know you a whole lot better.”

  “Oh, he was not.”

  “He was,” Carrie insisted.

  “Was he? Really?” She hadn’t been imagining it?

  “Yes, really. Are you going to go for it?” Carrie wanted to know.

  “Go for— Of course not.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

  “I was going to offer you a piece of pie, on the house.”

  “What kind?”

  “Forget it,” Dixie said. “I don’t give freebies to people who call me a liar.”

  “So, you’re not hot for the dishwasher?”

  “Of course not,” Dixie protested. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Carrie grinned. Evilly. “Methinks thou doth protest too much.”

  “Methinks your imagination is running away in that little pea brain of yours, girlfriend.”

  Carrie sighed heavily. “I give up. For now. But, girlfriend, you’ve been alone way too long. If you don’t do something about it soon, you’re liable to dry up and blow away.”

  Dixie rolled her eyes. “Lovely thought. I’ll leave you to your lunch.”

  She marched back into the kitchen, and there stood Wade, scraping the dishes he’d brought in from the dining room, just as he should be doing.

  Dammit, didn’t the man goof off or screw up or take too long on his break? Anything? Something she could yell at him about?

  “What?” he asked.

  “What, what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You looked like you wanted to say something.”

  “If I want to say something, I’ll say it. Carrie thought you were watching me.”

  “Carrie? Is she the BLT?”

  “Never mind,” Dixie said, appalled that she’d said anything.

  “She was right. I was watching you.”

  Great, Dixie thought. I had to open my big mouth. Now what? “Why?”

  He grinned. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Over in front of the grill, Pops let out a snort of laughter.

  In for a penny, she thought. “I hired you, but I still don’t think you needed a job. You look like money, like you come from a background of money. And you’re good-looking, to boot. A man like you can have any woman he wants. Why look at me?”

  Wade watched her for so long she wanted to fidget. Finally he said, “Thanks, I think, for the compliment. If that’s what it was. But in answer to your question, I repeat, you’re kidding, right? A smart, pretty woman with a sense of humor, a body to die for, and an accent that sounds like warm honey? A man would have to be dead to not look.”

  Dixie felt as if her feet were nailed to the floor. There was fire in her cheeks, her heart was pounding and deep inside, in places she’d thought long dead, a tingling danced along nerve endings. And her brain was frozen, along with her mouth. She couldn’t seem to get any words past her lips.

  What did a woman say to something like that, anyway? “Uh, thank you. But I’m not available.” There. That should do it.


  “That’s a shame, but that doesn’t mean a man can’t look and dream.”

  Dixie shook her head. Her brain started working again. “Pretty words,” she told him with a smile. “As long as you do your job, I don’t care what you dream about.”

  “Heh.” Pops flipped over two burgers on his grill. “Guess you lost that round, son.”

  “Pops,” Dixie protested.

  “I’d call it a draw,” Wade decided.

  “Hey, Wade.” Tate bounded into the kitchen with Ben on his heels.

  “Hey, Tater. Hey, Ben.”

  “Hey,” Ben said.

  “It’s Tuesday. You gonna come watch me play ball tonight?” Tate swung an invisible bat at an imaginary pitch.

  Wade swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. Tate wanted him to come to his game. He felt humbled to be asked. The kid could not know how much it meant to him. “You play tonight?”

  “You bet. Six o’clock. You comin’?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Pops set a platter in the order window and rang the bell so Dixie would know the food was ready. “Why don’t we swing by that fancy new apartment of yours and pick you up?” he suggested.

  Wade chuckled. He didn’t know why Pops wanted to nudge him toward Dixie, but it certainly seemed that he did. He didn’t think Dixie would appreciate it, however. Plus, Wade had to get in at least a couple of miles walking to keep up the bare minimum of exercise he needed to ward off the effects of his medications.

  “Thanks,” he told Pops. “But I’ll meet you there.”

  “Suit yourself,” Pops said. “As long as you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  The crowd at the ball field looked like the same one from Ben’s game the week before. Which made sense, since Tate’s team of eight-year-olds was undoubtedly made up of the younger brothers of the ten-year-olds on Ben’s team.

  Wade liked it that so many people—nearly thirty, by his count—came to a Little League game on a weeknight. For a town as small as Tribute, thirty was a sizable crowd. It said something about the community, something good and solid, he thought, that not only the parents of the players came, but siblings and friends, aunts and uncles.

  The sun dipped low in the west, the breeze was light and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The temperature rested pleasantly somewhere around skin temperature. Perfect weather for outdoor sports.

  “Up here.”

  Wade would recognize that raspy voice anywhere. “Hey, Pops.”

  “Saved a seat for you.”

  If a man wasn’t careful, Wade thought, he could get used to being treated as part of the family. He climbed up into the bleachers and took a seat next to Pops. Dixie sat on Pops’s other side.

  Young boys ran all over the field like ants with no purpose. The game hadn’t started yet. Tate’s team wore green T-shirts; the other, orange.

  On his walk across town to the ballpark Wade had searched inside himself for answers. Was he genuinely fond of the McCormick family, or was what he felt for them some remnant of feeling that came to him via Jimmy McCormick’s donated heart?

  He knew if he posed such an idea aloud, people, even doctors, would be sending him in for a psych evaluation. But there truly was such a thing as cellular memory. He had experienced it firsthand when he woke from his surgery with a healthy new heart beating in his chest and worry for his “boys” filling his mind.

  But how far did cellular memory go? Was he falling head over heels for Ben and Tate, or was he just feeling Jimmy’s love for them? What about his affection for Pops? Was it his, or Jimmy’s?

  Then he acknowledged Dixie, sitting beside Pops. He liked her. She was pretty and smart and funny. He respected her. Admired her. Those feelings were surely his own. And the attraction. There was no reason he wouldn’t be attracted to her if he had someone else’s heart other than her ex-husband’s. So it was real. It was his. Wasn’t it?

  “If you don’t wave back,” Pops said, motioning toward the field, “his arm’s gonna fall off.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Immediately he waved to Tate down on the field. The youngster was, indeed, about to wave his arm off. “Hey, Tate!”

  “Wade!” Tate bounced over toward the stands. “You came!”

  “Said I would. Are you any good?”

  “Sure! Mom taught me.”

  “Ah, well, that would do it, all right.”

  “Darn right it would,” Dixie claimed.

  Since Ben was on the top row of the bleachers with friends, this time it was Wade who made the drink run to the concession stand. By the time he returned with beer for the three of them, the game was just starting.

  He was surprised and confused to see an adult on the pitcher’s mound, throwing the first pitch.

  “Who’s that?” he asked Pops. “What’s he doing?”

  “Benny Lopez,” Pops said. “He’s our team coach. He does the pitching.”

  “Why?”

  “Under Little League rules, seven-and eight-year-olds don’t pitch. They don’t have the strength and coordination to get the ball from the pitcher’s mound to home plate.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. But why doesn’t the pitcher just move closer to the batter?”

  “’Cuz then he’s too likely to get hit by the ball coming back at him if the batter connects.”

  “So the coach does the pitching.”

  “Right. Some towns have a pitching machine for these younger players. Say they’re the best transition between T-ball and live pitch. But they’re costly, and we’d need two of them, and a place to store them off-season.”

  “Costly, huh?” Wade sipped his beer. The town didn’t have the money?

  Ideas stirred in his mind.

  Down on the field, Tate’s team won the coin toss and lined up on the bench, presumably in batting order, while the opposing coach threw a couple of practice pitches.

  Wade had money. More than he could spend in a lifetime even if he was trying to empty his coffers. Why should seven-and eight-year-olds do without?

  Of course, nobody was saying that a machine was better than a coach. That angle merited investigation. There had to be some benefit for the batter to see an intense pair of eyes staring back at him from the pitcher’s mound. Had to get used to that.

  On the other hand, a nice, consistent pitch might help develop a batter’s skill.

  Or not. What the hell did he know about it? He would wait and learn. And ask.

  The first kid up to bat swung hard and connected, but the ball fouled out.

  “Do the teams want a pitching machine?”

  “I’d have to say yeah. Ever since they played in that tournament at Waco. They had a machine. Our kids have been pea green ever since. Come on, Davy, take a bite out of it!”

  Young Davy took his bite and popped a fly straight down the third base line. The orange shirt on third base, however, shied away from getting underneath it. Instead, he let it bounce, allowing Davy to make it to first.

  Davy probably could have made it to second—the third baseman had skinny arms and didn’t look like he could throw a ball all the way to second—but Davy stuck on first despite the advice being yelled at him from the stands.

  The next batter hit a single, then Tate stepped up to the plate.

  “Here we go, Tate!” Dixie clapped her hands, then cupped them around her mouth to yell again. “Hit a good one!”

  “Come on, Tater!” Pops hollered.

  “Show ’em how!” Wade added.

  At home plate, Tate hefted the bat, then turned and waved at the stands, then, with a Cheshire cat grin, took a little bow.

  “What a ham.” Pops chuckled. “You gotta love a kid who’s that big a ham.”

  Yeah, Wade thought. You gotta love him.

  Tate’s team won their game by one point.

  When the game ended, Pops offered Wade a ride to the Dairy Queen, as was the custom. But this time Wade begged off. He didn’t want to push himself into th
eir family to the point that he made a nuisance of himself.

  “I’ll walk,” he insisted to Pops.

  Dixie, Wade noticed, did not take part in the invitation. She was turned around calling to Ben up in the top row.

  “You sure?” Pops asked him.

  “Yeah. I like to walk, Pops. Especially when the weather’s this nice.”

  He made sure he found Tate before leaving the ballpark. The boy had specifically invited him to the game. Wade didn’t want the boy to think he’d walked out on him.

  “Wade, Wade, did you see me slide home?” Tate was sweaty, mussed and covered with red dust from head to toe. And grinning for all he was worth.

  “Sure did, kiddo. You were awesome.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Tate stretched sideways to peer behind Wade. “Where’s Mom and Pops?”

  “They’re coming.” Wade pointed a thumb over his shoulder to show Tate that Dixie and Pops were just then exiting the bleachers, with Ben right behind them.

  “Cool. You’re coming with us to the DQ, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll see you there,” Wade said.

  “Okay. Cool. Wade?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Um, I’m glad you came.”

  Here came that lump in Wade’s throat again. He did his best to swallow around it. “Yeah,” he managed. “Me, too. If you get to the DQ before me, don’t eat all the ice cream.”

  Tate snorted and giggled. “How much do they have?”

  “I don’t know, but you leave me some, you hear?”

  “Hey, Ben!” He hopped and skipped over to meet his brother. “Wade says I have to leave some DQ ice cream for him. Did you see me get that last run? Did ya? It was the winning run!”

  “Yeah, well.” Ben gave him a brotherly punch in the shoulder. “I guess you did okay, for a little spud.”

  The idea that formed in Wade’s head during the game burrowed in deeper as he enjoyed an ice cream cone at the DQ. There he met Tater’s coach, Benny Lopez, who was also a volunteer firefighter. Wade found that interesting. He’d walked past the firehouse a few times during his walks and had wondered how such a small town could afford such a large facility.