The group of women rippled with muffled laughter before almost simultaneously clamping their lips tight after Nanette cast them the eyeball of fire and brimstone.
No one preached the Word to Nanette Pruitt. “Well, I can’t get to forgivin’ if they’re still sinnin’, now can I? They’re a disgrace, Caine Donovan. Delilahs, every last one of ’em! They make no apologies for speakin’ the devil’s words and collectin’ money for it to boot. Why, just last night while I was enjoying a lovely cup of tea at Madge’s Kitchen, that awful La-Someone—”
“LaDawn,” Blanche Carter provided in a meek whisper, tilting the white umbrella she held back down over her fretful eyes.
Nanette’s sigh expressed her impatience, but her cool smile never faltered. “Thank you, Blanche. LaDawn was swishin’ her way through that diner like she’s a local. Lookin’ like that, they’re bound to corrupt the fine young men of Plum Orchard. One of them has tattoos and piercings, and her makeup looks like somethin’ straight out of a Halloween parade. What are they doin’ here, Caine?”
“Now, Miss Nanette,” Dixie’s husky voice chided from behind the group of women.
She sauntered over the sidewalk in her cute cutoff shorts and red T-shirt, the heels of her wedge sandals striking against the pebbled driveway. “Do you really think anyone could corrupt the fine young men of Plum Orchard quite the way I did?”
Her eyes strayed to Caine for only a moment, a dark, sultry reminder, before she rounded on the group of women and smiled. That smile that was meant to take you off guard, make you forget whatever your beef was with her just before you were sucked into the charismatic vortex of her charm.
Dixie hooked an arm through Nanette’s and didn’t bother to wait for an answer. Instead, she smiled brighter, if that was possible, winking at the Senior Magnolias with a sweep of her long lashes. “Ladies, it’s so good to be back home,” she cooed, taking a deep, appreciative breath before tilting her coppery head in Essie’s direction and patting Nanette’s arm with affection. “Essie? It’s always good to see you. How’s Jackson? Still conquering the New York stock exchange?”
Caine took a step back and grudgingly reveled in the magic that was Dixie. Not twenty-four hours ago, these women had spent the better part of Landon’s memorial gossiping about her return.
Yet, when face-to-face with her, they’d rather bite their own tongues off than be considered impolite. His mother chalked it up to some Southern good breeding, cliquish thing he neither understood nor cared to understand. It was plain old hypocrisy. Period.
But Dixie knew this game, and she knew exactly how to play to Essie. There was nothing Essie loved more than her boy Jackson and her daughter Shelby, except maybe her bloodhound Bowie.
Essie’s round face flushed with instant pride, her return smile fond if a bit hesitant. She let a tentative hand stray to Dixie’s, giving it a light squeeze before yanking it back and tucking it into the pocket of her skirt with a look of guilt. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing for askin’? Jackson’s well, as handsome as ever. Shelby’s good, too.”
Dixie smiled and nodded her head in approval. Her blue eyes flitted to Blanche who’d remained quiet since revealing LaDawn’s name. “And, Miss Blanche? How’s Henry feelin’? Last I heard from Mama, he was nursing his shoulder and some bursitis? She suggested a liniment she’s used when I talked to her this week. Why not give me a call, and I’ll pass on the name of it? Mama swears it has miraculous properties.”
Magic. Caine had to give it up to Dixie. She’d managed to cast a spell over the hierarchy of Plum Orchard, diverting their attention and turning it into a gabfest.
No doubt Dixie was good at making you feel as if you were the only person in the world, he mused. Maybe it was how she paid such close attention to the small details of another’s life, or maybe her concern, completely fake, of course, was what made people believe she was genuine.
But Caine knew better, and as he watched her play her flute, leading all the women in a dance they didn’t even realize they were dancing, his eyes narrowed.
Leave it to Dixie to launch herself right back into the fold with nary a reminder of how she’d once talked Essie’s son Jackson into toilet papering Nanette’s entire house by promising to make out with him.
Or how she’d locked Kitty Palmer’s daughter Louella in a porta-potty to keep her from riding atop the Miss Cherokee Rose float after being disqualified from the town’s biggest pageant for getting caught drinking plum wine in the bed of Gordy Hansen’s truck.
Dixie took a quick glance at the watch on her slender wrist, her lips thinning before they curved into another pleasant smile. “Ladies, I hate to cut our catching up short, but I have an appointment with Mr. Cotton I absolutely can’t miss.” Her eyes strayed to Caine’s once more, flashing him a fiery glance. Clearly, she understood why he was here, and she didn’t like it.
He rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek and grinned at her over the heads of the women. Yep. That’s right. He was here, and he was here to win.
Boom.
“An appointment?” Nanette’s question was sharp, maybe even sharper than her keen knack for even a hint of gossip. Each of the Senior Magnolias’ ears virtually stood at attention. “Why ever would you have to see Hank, Dixie Davis? Didn’t you sort out that mess of a bankruptcy back in Chicago?”
The Senior Magnolias stiffened one by one, twittering to the tune of their shuffling feet. Blanche cleared her throat while Essie leaned so far forward, fiddling to adjust her hearing aid, Caine was sure she’d tip over.
Dixie widened her eyes, mocking surprise at Nanette and the women. “You mean you haven’t heard, Miss Nanette? I thought the entire population of Plum Orchard would know by now. Must be a slow day ’round here. Bless your hearts, but it has been an entire day since the reading of Landon’s will.” She paused for effect, the kind of effect that had each of the women waiting on the edge of their seats and left Caine fighting an exasperated sigh.
Aw, hell. She was going to do it. Right here. She really did have bigger balls than any man he knew. Which just went to show, Dixie was still the same old Dixie he’d known back in high school. Their short run as a couple, when he’d thought she’d changed but later found out it was all just a part of her endgame.
Everything was about the coup.
Kitty Palmer’s hazel eyes jutted upward at the rumbling sky just as a plump raindrop splattered on the brim of her floppy, orange hat. She stomped an impatient foot. “Well, tell us, Dixie, before I can’t stand it any longer. Besides,” she remarked with a squirm, casting her eyes downward, “rain always makes me have to use the facilities.”
Dixie leaned into the group real slow, gathering them together as though she were going to share a classified government secret. She turned her back to Caine, purposely, of course. Though when she did, he wished her supple back end wasn’t so well encased in those shorts or her long legs weren’t so shapely.
Caine fought the instantly sharp reminder Dixie was all woman, and waited for the land mine to explode, one he’d stepped right into.
Dixie shook her head in astonishment. “I just can’t believe you Magnolias, the backbone of Plum Orchard, don’t know.”
Nanette’s irritation exploded in the way only the most God-fearing of them all would—tight-lipped and narrow-eyed—yet still the picture of decorum. “Just spit it out, Dixie Davis, and stop beatin’ around the plum tree, young lady!”
“It isn’t just me who has to see Hank Cotton. It’s Caine, too. We’re in this together, right, Caine?” Dixie shot him a smirk, her pink lips curling upward as a light rain began to fall.
“In what together?” Blanche asked just above a whisper filled with drooling anticipation.
Dixie’s round eyes went demure as if she wasn’t enjoying every second of this game of cat and mouse. “You know all those ladies at
the guesthouse? The ones you haven’t even given a chance just by virtue of their clothing and makeup choices?”
Blanche and the rest of the ladies bristled.
“They’re working,” Dixie whispered from behind her hand.
“Workin’?” Nanette squawked.
Dixie nodded. “Uh-huh. The ladies in the guesthouse are just doing their jobs. As phone-sex operators.”
Nanette gasped, her hand at her throat. “That’s not true, Dixie! You’re playin’ one of your horrible pranks again. Same old Dixie!”
Dixie put her fingers to her heart, making an X. “No! Swear it on Mama’s Hermes bag collection. Landon owned a very successful phone-sex company. It’s worth millions and millions,” she emphasized.
Nanette backed away from Dixie as though she’d seen the devil himself possess her. Her eyes went wide with outrage while the Senior Magnolias rushed to rally behind her.
Dixie’s face went sympathetic. “But that’s not all. Guess what else? I have the chance to inherit Landon’s phone-sex company—all of those luscious millions, as long as I can talk dirty, that is.”
“You have to speak fornicatin’ words on the phone to strange men?” Out of nowhere, a fan appeared in Nanette’s hand. She liberally batted at the air near her pudgy face before she spoke again, but when she did, it was as though it physically pained her. “It’s unseemly, Dixie Davis! How could you?”
Dixie’s heart-shaped face softened, yet her tone held light reproach. “Now, Miss Nanette, how could I not? The good Lord and Landon, in what I’m sure was full heavenly cooperation, have opened a door for me. One that will help me dig my way out of my financial ruin. Would a good woman turn her back on what’s clearly the gift of opportunity from above?” Dixie frowned and shook her finger. “It’d be like turnin’ my back on all those morals y’all tried so hard to teach me.”
Caine shook his head. Oh, she was good. So very good.
Nanette harrumphed her displeasure while Kitty held her hand to the spot where her heart beat. Caine saw the wheels of her razor-sharp, fueled-by-the-morality-police mind try to combat their very own words. “I can almost understand you doin’ unsavory work. You were always a wild one, young lady. But what does that have to do with one of Plum Orchard’s finest?” She waved a hand in his direction.
And the final bomb...
“I can’t believe, while y’all were over here shootin’ the breeze, one of Plum Orchard’s finest didn’t tell you himself.” She gave Caine a “shame on you” eye roll. “So here’s the story. Now, you girls be sure and pass this on to everyone proper. We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings. Deal?”
Four heads nodded their consent while four mouths struggled to pick their jaws up off the ground.
“Caine and I have to compete against each other if we want to win Landon’s phone-sex company. That’s why he’s here at Mr. Cotton’s, I assume. To accept Landon’s crazy challenge. Whoever has the most calls at the end of two months wins all of it. That means our town hero will be speakin’ those unsavory words—to—” she leaned in conspiratorially—“are you ready for this?”
Every woman nodded her head, eyes round with horror. Great.
“To women!” Dixie whispered on a giggle.
Caine closed his eyes and sighed. His mother would know about this in fewer than twenty minutes.
“It’ll be just like old times, don’t you think?” Dixie asked. “Me and Caine tryin’ to best each other to the bitter end? So many good memories.” She sighed and clapped her hands together with over-the-top glee. “Anyway, I have to run now, ladies, but I sure hope you’ll remember to save me a seat at the next Magnolias tea, seein’ as I’ll be in town longer than I planned. I’ve missed those pretty sandwiches with the crusts cut off.” With a wave of her hand, Dixie gifted them with one last innocent wink of her eye and pushed her way past Caine to strut up Hank Cotton’s driveway.
Just as she escaped into the stark white door of Hank’s office, the sky opened up and let loose its fury, pummeling them with fat splotches of water.
While he held umbrellas and helped the Magnolias back across the street to the dry confines of Madge’s Kitchen, he did his best to avoid Nanette’s glare and dodge the shocked stares of her crew.
Son of a bitch.
* * *
Dixie ran her fingers over the face of her phone before sticking her tongue out at it. At six o’ clock on the dot, she’d received another text message from Landon that read, Are you ready to rumble, Dixie-Do?
She shoved the phone in her back pocket and strode past the pool toward the guesthouse with purpose, determined to hang on to the victory of her earlier coup and her conviction she would take no prisoners with this phone-sex thing and beat Caine.
She was convinced he’d shown up at Hank’s extra early just to rub her nose in his acceptance of this bizarre contest.
A smile flitted across her lips when she remembered Caine’s handsome face changing from smug to furious as she’d told the Senior Magnolias the costarring role everyone’s golden boy played in Landon’s game. Which was as good as grabbing her old cheerleading bullhorn and shouting it from the gazebo in the middle of the square. By this time tomorrow, Caine would be as tarnished as she was....
Then she straightened and kicked herself for slipping back into the ways of her ugly past. Not only had she wanted the Mags to know she wasn’t going away any time soon, she’d wanted to hurt Caine for making love to her. For hitting refresh on her closeted emotions.
But after signing a stack of papers at Hank’s office, agreeing to the strict rules of the phone-sex game while Caine simmered in a puddle of rainwater, she’d promised herself she would not gloat.
It was ugly and childish, and while no one brought out the ten-year-old in Dixie like Caine did, she was going to do everything in her power to ignore him and her inner elementary-school demon.
That last bit of one-upmanship in front of the Magnolias was the absolute end, and while it was a fine way to go, it was also a promise she was sticking to. For real this time. She had to stop clinging to a pain she herself had created.
Her focus lay solely with clobbering her opponent, and in doing so, it wouldn’t do to spend hours masterminding ways to best him. Caine was banking on two things—that she’d want payback for the end of their engagement, and on the fact that she’d lose her “eye of the tiger” while she plotted his doom.
That Dixie no longer existed.
It was going to take grit and determination and a lot of dirty, dirty words to win this without resorting to some sort of scheme.
The dirty words.
They made her flush hot from chest to forehead. Mercy. How was she ever going to say those words out loud?
She jammed her hand in the pocket of her shorts, remembering the second text she’d had from Landon today. The kinkiest girl gets the worm, Dixie-Cup!
Dixie let her chin fall to her chest, closing her eyes. She paused just outside the doors leading her into Landon’s den of iniquity and repeated the mantra she’d been saying over and over in her head since she woke this morning, determined not only to forget every luscious moment in that closet with Caine, but to win.
Because as hurt as she still was about losing Caine—maybe always would be—he still made her burn white-hot from the inside out. Caine’s scent, still fresh on the shirt she’d burrowed her nose in just before she’d drifted off into a fitful sleep, had left her aching and empty. Full of so many memories of their short-lived romance, she’d had to war with herself not to run straight back into poverty’s arms simply to avoid reliving that moment when she’d known, no matter how many corners she turned, she’d always be the old Dixie to him—the girl who’d chased after him until she’d finally caught him, then ruined everything by doing something awful.
That one moment in time at their engagemen
t party had shattered her soul, pulling the carefully woven fabric of the rug that had begun to make up the new Dixie, the Dixie who’d come to terms with what a deplorable human being she’d once been, right out from under her. It was, and always would be her own doing, but she didn’t need constant, agonizing reminders.
If Caine, and Louella, and everyone else who hated her knew karma had taken a chunk of her back in Chicago on their behalf, maybe that would satisfy them. If they knew it wasn’t just her restaurant that had blown up in her face, if they knew her life had blown up in her face, if they knew about Mason...
Tears bit the back of her eyelids. Not even Landon knew about Mason.
No time for tears. Rolling her head on her neck, she straightened her shoulders with resolve and ran directly into Caine’s wall of a chest.
His hands reached out to steady her, but she brushed their strength off, attempting to step around him.
“Evenin’, Dixie. You ready to get your sexy on?” Caine tumbled into the night, blocking her entry. At eye level, his thick chest covered in a soft, faded black T-shirt, made her mouth water. His abs rippled when he lifted his arms and spread them across the doorway, bracing himself by pressing those magical hands against the frame.
Her gaze moved past the hard-angled planes of his body with conviction, her weak legs stiffened in order to keep her stance menacing. You are a cucumber, Dixie. Cool as such. “Move. Please.”
Caine dipped his dark head low, bending at the waist so he was almost eye-to-eye with her. “Aw, Dixie. Are you disappointed to find I’m cleaning my chain mail and greasing my arrows in preparation for our phone-sex battle?”
Her chin lifted with righteous indignation—their eyes meeting squarely. She didn’t budge.
Instead, Dixie launched her words at him full throttle. Anger was the costume best suited to hide all other emotions. “Don’t be silly. When have I ever backed down from a battle? But were I you, I’d add a little something you seem to have overlooked on your medieval shopping list.”
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