“Who are they?”
“Some business partners.” Aka, the men she’d tried so desperately to convince she was serious about her failing business long after it was already too late.
“What did you do in Chicago?”
“I owned a restaurant.”
“Shut the front door,” he said on a whistle. “A real, live restaurant?”
“It was very real.”
“So were you some kind of fancy chef?”
Dixie fought a derisive snort. “Hardly. It was nothing like that. In fact, I hate to cook. I just invested in it, talked a bunch of other people into investing it, and put my name on it with the promise I’d take good care of it.” Then I skipped off to shop like the spoiled brat I was while everyone else did the work. And while I was off partying and running up my credit cards, I lost everything because it was too late to save it. Yep. That summed it up rather nicely.
“So there was a Mistress Taboo’s Fine Dining somewhere? That musta been somethin’ to see.”
Dixie barked a harsh laugh. “No. No Mistress Taboo’s anything.”
“So, the million-dollar question. What made you leave the glamorous life of restaurant owning to become a phone-sex operator?”
“Yet another of my long, sad stories.” Bad-ump-bump.
“You seem to have a lot of those,” he remarked, though she didn’t detect that it was offhand or cruel.
Dixie slumped in her chair, reaching a hand into the drawer of her desk to look for some aspirin, wishing she had an ice pack for her eye. “If you only knew.” Ugh. No more conversation about her. “Hey, I know. Let’s try something new. Why don’t we talk about you for a change? What does Walker of the sexy accent do for a living?”
“Hey, I have another question.”
“Your quota for questions about me is up. This is all about you,” she reminded him playfully, popping two aspirin into her mouth and sipping at her bottled water.
His low chuckle relieved her. “Walker of the sexy accent does a lot of things for a living. But more recently, he’s not so much making a living as he is behaving badly.”
Dixie cocked her head. That seemed to be viral in the male species as of late. “We’ve established that I’m the queen of behaving badly. Nothing you could do short of murder would allow you to take my title, mister. But so funny you should mention that, I just had someone say almost those exact words to me.”
“What a coincidence. Who would behave badly with someone like Mistress Taboo?”
She smiled into the phone at his teasing tone. “You show me yours, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll show you mine.”
“Okay, me first. I behaved badly with a woman.”
She rolled her eyes at how little information he gave her. “Aw, c’mon now. I need details, Walker! I can’t offer advice if I don’t have the details. Unless they’re gory details. I don’t want to have to testify against you in court. You know how that goes. I end up all over Inside Edition as the woman who caught the Phone-Sex Strangler serial killer. I can’t leave my house without the paparazzi hounding me. People tweet about me. We can’t have that, can we?” she teased.
He laughed into the phone, which in turn made her insides a little like Jell-O. It caught her off guard. She’d never had a reaction like this to anyone except Caine. “Uh-uh. No details until you show me yours.”
Would it hurt to share just a little so they had a common bond that might allow him to open up? Would it hurt to recognize that you enjoy talking to this voice on the other end of the line? You’re probably not the first phone-sex operator guilty of it.... “Someone apologized to me for behaving badly recently, too, but he wasn’t doing anything I didn’t deserve.”
“How did you deserve to have someone treat you badly?”
His seemingly genuine interest in her softened her resolve to keep their phone call about him. Maybe just a little evasive confession wouldn’t hurt. “I did an awful thing to this person a long time ago. Something I regret to this day. He was sort of taking out his anger about that incident on me. You know, poking me, reminding me of just how ugly I’d been over and over at every possible turn. So he apologized the other night.” Then he made mad, incredible love to me, making me love him even more.
“So whadja do to him that was so bad he had to keep rubbing it in?”
She rose from her desk and headed for the chaise, hoping it would be kinder to her sore body than her office chair. Clicking off the light as she went, Dixie skirted the desk and tried to piece together an answer.
How did you explain the bet she’d made for a man’s heart? Dixie blew out a breath of air before she began. “I guess the easiest way to explain it is this—I bet someone I could win his heart, and when he found out, he thought I didn’t really love him, and that all I really wanted to do was win the bet.”
The pause Walker made was deafening. Dixie held her breath until he asked, “Was there a reason he thought that? Seems kinda silly to marry a man just because of a bet.”
Relief washed over her when she didn’t hear judgment in his voice. “At least a million. We had a combative...Wait, maybe competitive is the better word. We had a competitive relationship throughout our childhoods. Ca...” She bit her tongue. “He always played fair, though. No matter what we were competing for, because he’s honest and decent. I, on the other hand, cheated more often than not. Like I said, I wasn’t a very nice person for a very long time, and my reputation for getting what I wanted at all costs came back to haunt me because of it.”
“So who’d you make the bet with and why’d you do it?”
“I made a bet with a frenemy, I guess. I used her. She used me. We were always trying to best one another.”
“Sounds like you did that a lot. Reputations, huh?”
“I’m the champ. Anyway, at first it was just a joke—a way to poke at this frenemy. I didn’t mean it mean it. Though, I did know she was nuts about this guy. I just wanted to get her goat. She said there was no way someone as honorable and decent as him would ever fall in love with me. Because I was the person I was, I bet her I could not only make him fall in love with me, but get him to ask me to marry him before she batted her falsies.”
“Falsies?”
“An eyelash.”
“And then?”
Dixie sighed. “Well, then because I can’t resist bragging about a coup, I called her up and left her a victory voice mail, announcing that I was engaged. To the man she claimed to love. She played that voice mail at our engagement party—in front of an entire town.”
Walker whistled into the phone. “Ouch.”
She closed her eyes. “Pass the morphine and sutures ouch.”
“So, did you really love him, Mistress Taboo, or was he just a bet won?” Walker’s question made her chest burn and her skull throb. “You can tell me. Swear on my Willie Nelson albums, I’ll never tell a soul.”
But she nodded her head in response, grateful for the dark cocoon of night hiding her undying shame. “When we first started dating, he was a way out from under my mother’s thumb, but it turned much deeper the more I got to know him. The more time we spent together, the crazier I was about him. So yes...” She stumbled on the hitch in her voice.
“I didn’t meant to upset you—”
“Yes!” she blurted out, cutting him off before realizing she’d lost her composure. “Yes,” she offered more calmly. “I loved him. I just didn’t have enough self-respect to tell him about the bet before he was humiliated in front of his family and friends. Every single day, I wish I could take it back. I’d do anything to take it all back.”
When she’d finally realized just how much she’d wanted to be Caine’s wife, she’d thought about telling him. She’d even tried once or twice, but back then, she’d been selfish enough to never want him to look at her with the bra
nd of disgust everyone else had when she pulled a stunt. The longer she waited, the worse the unspoken threat Louella would snitch had become until it turned into her nightmare come true.
Louella had waited until their engagement party for a reason.
Impact. It was the final coup—the big win against Dixie, and it was exactly how Dixie would have played it had the roles been reversed.
Total public annihilation. She’d have let Louella think she’d won only to rip the rug right out from under her at the last possible second, too. That was when the grasshopper had become the sensei.
Dixie yanked herself back to the present when she realized no sound came from her earpiece. Damn it all. She’d let herself get too carried away, and way too intense. “Walker? Are you still there?” she asked, hoping he hadn’t hung up because she didn’t know when to shut up. The thought that she’d driven him away sent her into panic mode.
“I am, Mistress Taboo. I am.”
His tone concerned her, making her heart stick to her ribs. “TMI?” she squeaked, with a wince.
Walker cleared his throat, his next words gruff, as if she’d hit a sore spot for him. “On the contrary. It helped a great deal.”
“With your situation?”
She heard what sounded like Walker swallowing and then, “Could be. I have to go now, Mistress Taboo. It was a real pleasure.”
Before she had the chance to protest or apologize, Walker was gone. Just like that. The dial tone in her ear signaled his obvious disgust.
Clicking her earpiece off, she rolled her head on her neck and stretched her sore arms. She’d blown it with a client.
A client whose voice she’d grown attached to hearing nestled against her ear in her dark, cozy office. One who asked inquisitive, if not personal, questions which were smart and well-articulated.
And made you say things you were better off not saying, Dixie. It only reopens the wounds and exposes what should remain private to a virtual stranger.
Despite all that, she still hoped Walker would call back.
* * *
“Emmaline?” On her 1:00 a.m. break, Dixie plunked down beside Em whose legs were dangling in the pool outside of Call Girls. The warm water felt particularly good on the soles of her feet, shredded from her barefoot run across the square last night.
“Mmm-hmm?” Em asked on a wobbly sway, leaning into Dixie.
“What are you doing out here so late? Everything okay? The boys all right? Where are they anyway?” she asked, spying droplets of spattered pink wine on the deck of the pool.
“Mama and Idalee have been lookin’ out for them while I mediate you and Mr. Smexy. Gareth said to say hello.”
Dixie smiled. She’d spent a little time with Em’s boys recently, and she was falling madly in love with them. Even sullen Clifton Junior. “So, are you okay?”
“Everything’s good, good, good,” she chirped, too high and too forced.
“You sure? How would the good Reverend feel about you out here by the pool, drunk on wine, young lady?”
“Jesus drank wine.” She leaned back and hiccupped, her chest rising and falling with a heave.
Dixie swallowed a snort. “Why, yes, he did, lightweight. But did He drink two and a half bottles of strawberry Boone’s Farm? Nay. I think not. I think he drank the yucky kind made from his blood. The kind they have in church that makes you gag and gives you a heinous headache?”
Em giggled then took a hearty swig of the culprit, dribbling some on her pretty blue top. Her hair was mussed, her cheeks were flushed, and she looked more adorable and relaxed than she had since Dixie had been back. “It’s not really Jesus’s blood, Dixie. It’s just cheap wine at church.”
“Glad we cleared that up. So why are you out here drinking like you’re still in college?”
Em snorted, spitting at a strand of hair caught in her mouth. “I took my college classes online, silly Dixie. There was no partying. Just me and a computer.”
“In that case,” she held up one empty bottle, “this means you’re well on your way to righting an egregious wrong.”
Em ran the tip of her finger over the bridge of Dixie’s nose. “You’re silly, Dixie. Silly and so pretty and too prideful to tell the man you love more than anyone ever how sorry you are. That’s just plain dumb. Maybe you should be the one drinking?”
Maybe Em was right, but... “I’m not ready.”
“To drink? Since when? As I recall, you were never afraid of a six-pack.”
Dixie rolled her eyes at her. “No. To have—” she threw her fingers up to air quote “—the talk.”
Em drove a finger into Dixie’s arm and wrinkled her nose. “You know what you’re not ready to do, Dixie-Doodle? You’re not ready to get this sleeping with Louella thing all out in the open. That’s what you’re not ready to do. Know why? Because it hurts. Louella claims to have cuckolded you. Take charge of that. Face your demons is what you told me, right? So why not just ask Caine why or even if he did somethin’ so vile and get it over with? The Dixie I knew would never let this fester.”
“The Dixie you knew would have done something awful to Louella by now as a way to ease her pain. Trouble is, I don’t fully know the Dixie sittin’ here before you yet, my friend. A Dixie who’d rather hide than break out the heavy artillery? Who is that? I’m either knocking people down like some sort of deranged linebacker or looking for my turtle shell to burrow into. I just can’t seem to find my middle ground.”
Or any ground. Everything felt soft beneath her feet. As if this tenuous grasp she had on her bad behavior would cave in if she didn’t tread carefully.
Em’s finger waggled under her nose. “Communication is the key. Just ask me about how wrong everything can go when you don’t communicate.”
“Speaking of communication, have I ever thanked you properly for helping me talk to Landon that one last time?” Em had called her the second the hospice nurse informed her it wouldn’t be long until he was gone. She’d been driving all night, praying her crappy car would make it the last bit of the trip, praying the little money she had would be enough for gas.
Em shrugged. “There’s nothin’ to thank me for. It was one of his last wishes. We only spent a month together, but to be invited into his beam of sunshine is like bein’ invited into a warm hug wrapped in a Snuggie. He had the best heart I’ve ever known.”
Dixie forced back tears. Landon hadn’t been able to say much, but she’d filled that void with a promise to make him proud. “That he did. Anyway, thank you, Em. I wanted to be there more than I wanted to take another breath.”
“He knew that, Dixie. I need you to know, he knew. Now, no more thank-yous. Let’s focus on you before I get to cryin’.”
Her sadness made Dixie wrap an arm around her and give her a squeeze. “Let’s not talk about me anymore, please. I’ll just say this, I’m not ready. Okay?”
Em nodded with a sigh.
“So what brought the drink on? ’Cause this sure isn’t like my girl Em.”
Em sat up straight with a jerk. “Am I your girl, Dixie?” she asked, pouring wine into her discarded glass and handing it to Dixie.
Dixie held up her glass to clink the bottle. “How about we’re each other’s girls?”
“You mean each other’s person—like on Grey’s Anatomy? Like Mer and Cristina?”
Dixie cocked a half smile, swishing her feet in tiny circles to ease the cramps in her calves. “Minus the surgeon part. Though, if we stuck in a McDreamy, I wouldn’t be broken up.”
Her glassy eyes focused on Dixie with fire in them. “You’re the devil, Dixie. Is anyone the devil’s person?”
“I dunno. Wanna find out?”
Em touched her bottle to Dixie’s glass, her aim slightly off. “I’ll drink to that.”
Dixie winked. “Then to
each other’s person. Hear-hear!”
Em’s head tipped before the wine bottle was actually on her lips, sending the pink liquid gushing straight down her chin and onto her chest. “Hey, person?”
Dixie grinned as best she could with her eye half hanging out of its socket. “Yes, other person?”
“Cleanup in aisle ten,” Em slurred, with a lopsided smirk.
Dixie giggled, digging around in her purse for a tissue. She dabbed at the splotch of wine in a hopeless attempt to wipe it away. “So, person, I have a question for you.”
“I don’t know if the ‘person handbook’ requires that I answer said question, but I’m all ears. And wine.”
“What’s the real reason you’re out here drinking, Em? You wanna talk about it or do you want me to hush and leave it alone?”
“I met a man today.”
She dropped the statement between them as if she was dropping a hand grenade. It was a very un-Em-like admission. One Dixie was almost positive she didn’t mean to make and certainly held unnecessary guilt. “So soon?”
Em’s lips thinned. “Are you judging me again, S.S?”
“Me judge? Nope. I was just making an observation. Wasn’t it you just the other day who told Marybell men were akin to locust and the black plague?”
Em scrunched her nose and waved an unsteady hand at her. “I was just spoutin’ off because I was angry with Clifton, is all.”
“So, person, you feel inclined to tell S.S. all about this man?”
Em sighed and smiled. “I didn’t really meet him-meet him, I guess. He met Louella, actually. I was sort of eavesdropping on their conversation. Despicable, I know, but there was just somethin’ about him....”
“Has Louella gone and had his name tattooed on her arm yet? Just so he’s properly branded?” Dixie teased.
Em rolled her eyes, reaching out to clutch Dixie’s arm to steady herself. “Well, you know Louella. Any new man in this podunk town is fresh meat. So can’t say as I blame her for makin’ a move as fast as she can.”
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