The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love

by Beth Pattillo

  “Just something for the Knit Lit Society.” She stood, not wanting him to see Gone with the Wind, not sure what he’d make of that particular title. “Let me lock the front door.”

  While she turned to fish her key out of her purse, he reached for the book, picked it up, and flipped it over.

  “I didn’t know anyone actually read this anymore.” He raised one eyebrow. “It’s kind of—” He stopped, frowning. “Let’s just say life on the plantation looks different from my point of view.”

  Camille blushed, aware that the racial stereotypes in the book were appalling. “I think Eugenie wants us to read it in terms of the love triangle. I’m sure she’s not condoning any of the…” She, too, stopped, trying to find the right words. “I don’t think Eugenie’s advocating the social conditions of the time.” She slid the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. “Besides, nobody thinks like that anymore. At least not the people I know.” Dante looked at her intently. Camille shifted in her high-heeled boots. “What?”

  He shrugged. “I just always thought that was the reason.”

  “What was the reason?”

  “I always thought you wouldn’t go out with me because I’m black.”

  Camille bristled. “Did you really think I was that shallow?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first girl who turned me down because of that.”

  She didn’t know what to say next. Because no way was she going to tell him the real reason she’d kept rejecting him all through high school.

  “Don’t you think we’d better get going? We’re going to miss our movie.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something but then closed it. Instead, he nodded agreement to her suggestion and waved her down the porch steps. When he opened the car door for her, she slid in, her stomach in knots, but her anxiety didn’t have anything to do with their conversation.

  Being in Dante’s car made every hair on the back of her neck stand on end, a distress signal that warned her to beware. The rich leather seats, the faint scent of his aftershave, and then, as he slid into the driver’s seat, his very presence all put her mind—and her senses—on high alert.

  “What movie did you pick?” he asked as they drove through Sweetgum en route to the state highway that would carry them to Interstate 65. Camille had been a little worried about keeping the conversation going for the ninety-minute drive to Nashville, but at least they could talk about their plans for the rest of the day.

  “The new Reese Witherspoon movie. It’s on at the theater in Cool Springs.” The large shopping area in the southern suburbs of Nashville would be both anonymous and neutral, two reasons she’d chosen it.

  Dante groaned. “You really did pick a chick flick.”

  Camille laughed. “You said it was ladies’ choice.”

  He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and shook his head. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”

  “Well, what would you have picked? Something with three explosions per minute?”

  He chuckled. “Sounds good to me.”

  The familiar scenery rolled past under the gray winter sky. Rolling hills covered with bare-branched trees sloped away on either side of the interstate. Wintry but still green in places, even in November.

  “Do you miss Texas?” she found herself asking.

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t there long enough to miss it.”

  “Where were you before that?”

  “Atlanta. Chicago. I bounced around the league.”

  She cringed. She hadn’t meant to bring up an unpleasant subject. “What was your favorite place?” She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be able to explore all those cities. To go to museums and the theater. Not to mention the shopping.

  He thought for a minute, fiddling with the buttons on the car stereo until a song with a smooth, silky beat issued from the speakers. “Boston was cool. Lots of history.”

  “Your degree’s in that, isn’t it?” In addition to his coaching duties, he was teaching American history. She’d learned that from Natalie a few weeks back when she came into the dress shop once again to gossip, not to buy.

  “I have an education degree. History’s my specialty.”

  “Along with coaching.” She cast him a sidelong smile.

  “Yeah. Along with coaching.”

  She could see him in the classroom, easygoing but no pushover. “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Coaching?”

  “No. Teaching.” Or was it just a job, she wondered. Something to pay the bills. Like the dress shop was for her.

  “I do. Wasn’t sure I would. I majored in education because I thought it would be easy and I’d meet a lot of girls.” He chuckled. “The professors let me know pretty quick that I hadn’t signed up for an easy ride.”

  “But you stayed with it?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “You said awhile back that coaching jobs were hard to find. Would you have settled for just being a teacher?”

  He shook his head. “No. I belong out on the field, one way or another.”

  Given the football team’s success, she couldn’t argue. For the first time in three years, they’d won district. And even though they’d lost in the first round of the play-offs, most of the starters were underclassmen, like Josh Hargrove. The team—and Dante—was looking at several successful years in the near future.

  “What about you?” he asked. “You never went away to college?”

  “You haven’t heard my sad story through the grapevine?” After the night they’d had dinner at Tallulah’s, she would’ve thought there’d be no shortage of people willing to give him all the details of her life over the last five or six years.

  “I’ve heard a lot of gossip. I’m more interested in what’s fact.”

  “Spoken like a true historian.”

  “So? What’s your story?”

  Now it was her turn to shrug. “Not much to tell. I stayed home to take care of my mom. She lived a lot longer than her doctor ever thought she would.” The mention of her mother brought tightness to her throat and tears to her eyes.

  “And now?” He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes on the straight line of the highway in front of them.

  “Now it’s too late.”

  She waited for him to tell her that it wasn’t, that she was young and had her whole life ahead of her. That’s what most people said. She’d had this same conversation over and over again at her mother’s funeral visitation and afterward, at the house, where everyone had been invited back for cake and coffee.

  “Sweetgum’s all right,” he said. “Peaceful. You know everyone. Know where you stand.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t have much to compare it to.” And then, in case that sounded too self-pitying, she waved toward the sign on the side of the road that indicated Nashville was getting closer. “We should be coming up on our exit pretty soon.”

  Thankfully, she succeeded in changing the subject, something she was apparently going to have to do a lot with Dante. She didn’t want anyone getting too close to her private thoughts, and she especially didn’t want him to know how much she hated the idea of spending the rest of her life in Sweetgum.

  The chick flick was every bit as satisfying as Camille had hoped and every bit as torturous for Dante as she’d expected. They emerged from the movie theater, laughing over their different reactions to the film.

  “C’mon,” Camille teased him. “Everybody loves a happy ending.”

  “I think you mean a sappy ending.” He pushed open the glass door for her, and they stepped out into the wintry day. The clouds had thickened while they were inside the theater, and the temperature had dropped. Camille shivered, and Dante put an arm around her shoulders. He did it with all the casual smoothness she would have expected, and despite herself, she liked it, liked the way it made her feel protected.

  “I have to say, you took it like a man.” She could joke with him, keep it light and easy. They stepped off the curb into t
he parking lot and walked briskly to the car.

  “Hey!” A masculine voice shouted at them from behind. “Hey you.”

  Dante dropped his arm and turned around. Camille pivoted in her high-heeled boots. A tall, pale man in his forties strode toward them. He wore khakis and, like Dante, a button-down oxford shirt under a trendy anorak. Camille thought maybe she’d left something behind in the theater. She checked her purse, made sure the pashmina was still tied to one of the handles.

  “Is something wrong?” she whispered to Dante. “Do you know him?”

  “Let me handle this.” He stepped forward so that he stood between her and the other man.

  “Dante—”

  “Let me handle it, Camille.”

  The tall man stopped a few feet in front of Dante. “You need to take that elsewhere,” he said, his manner icy.

  “Take what elsewhere?” Dante’s tone was even, calm.

  “You know what I mean.” The man leaned forward on the balls of his feet, his hands loose at his side but his fingers clenching and unclenching.

  “Maybe you’d better make it clear for me,” Dante said. “In case I’m too stupid to understand.”

  The man frowned and began to look flustered. “I’m just saying… Some people don’t like to see, well, you know. That sort of thing.” He waved a hand at Camille and Dante and then took a step backward.

  “You mean a guy with his arm around his girlfriend?” Dante’s stance remained relaxed, his voice normal.

  The man held up both hands in front of him. “Not me, dude. I’m cool. But some folks around here…”

  Camille had heard enough. She stepped around Dante. “I think you should mind your own business,” she said. If worse came to worst, her purse was heavy enough, thanks to all her makeup, that she could clock him with it if she needed to. Although she doubted he’d get that close to her with Dante at her side. “Why don’t you go inside and enjoy your movie?”

  The man’s cheeks reddened. “You ought to choose your boyfriends more carefully.” He leered at Camille, and the look made her feel like she needed a shower. “You can do better.”

  Camille thought steam might actually come out of her ears. Without thinking about it, she stepped forward and poked the man in the chest. “I can assure you, whoever you are, that not only could I not do any better, I’m lucky to be here with him in the first place.” She gave him a last poke for good measure. “Like I said, I suggest you mind your own business.”

  She whirled and grabbed Dante by the hand. “Come on. The bigotry index in this parking lot is unbelievable.”

  Dante resisted her first tug, but then he acquiesced. She practically towed him toward the car, half afraid the stranger might decide to pursue the matter and come after them and half afraid that Dante would decide the man needed to be taught a lesson.

  “You’re about to pull my arm off,” he said, but there was amusement in his tone. She glanced back at him, and he was actually laughing.

  “I’m glad you find this funny.” Her heart pounded in her chest, both from fear and exhilaration. She had bottled up her emotions for so long that it was cathartic to have an outlet for them. Even if it was an encounter with racism in the form of a man whose mother ought to have taught him better.

  “I’ve never seen you light into somebody like that,” Dante said, unlocking the car door and gesturing for her to get inside. “That was better than the movie.”

  Camille sank down onto the leather seat in a puddle of relief. Dante walked around the car and slid in beside her.

  “I’m glad you found it entertaining,” she said, waving a hand in front of her flushed face to fan herself. Energy coursed through her, leaving her agitated and breathless.

  “Want to know my favorite part?”

  “What?”

  He leaned closer, too close, but Camille couldn’t move. His face was only inches from hers, his mouth—

  “My favorite part was when you told him I was your boyfriend.”

  “I never said that.” Was that her voice, all breathy and soft?

  “You implied it.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Close enough for me.”

  And then he closed the gap between them and kissed her. She’d always, always wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Dante Brown. And now she knew. And it was as wonderful, as sensual, and as frightening as she’d always thought it would be. Rhett Butler had nothing on Dante Brown.

  She indulged herself for one long, pleasurable moment before she pulled away. “Dante—”

  “Don’t say it.” He put a finger to her lips and leaned back into his own seat. “Just let me have this one moment, okay?”

  He removed his finger from her lips, and she swallowed. His gaze was pure velvet and filled with emotion. Tears pricked at her eyes. Why did it have to be Dante that made her feel this way? Why couldn’t it be someone who wanted to get out of Sweetgum as badly as she did, not someone who wanted to stay put?

  “You know this is never going to work,” she said, as much to convince herself as to convince him.

  “There’s no reason it can’t.” He reached up to cup her cheek with his hand. “There never was.”

  “We want different things.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re happy where you are, and I’m not. I never have been.” She paused, trying to find the right words, the ones that would convince him that there was no point pursuing a relationship. “As soon as I can figure out a way to get out of Sweetgum, I’m going.”

  “Maybe I can give you a reason to change your mind. A reason to stay.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “Do you know what you’re giving up?” His gaze held hers, wouldn’t let her turn away.

  “I’ve always known what I was giving up.”

  “I don’t mean me. I mean your life in Sweetgum. Your home. Your roots.”

  “I’m trying to escape my roots. Why aren’t you?” She leaned back and waved a hand toward the theater. “Don’t you want to get away from that kind of thinking? That kind of prejudice?”

  Dante shook his head. “That kind of stupidity is why I came back to Sweetgum. People can be ignorant there, spiteful even, but they know me. They see me as Dante, not an anonymous black man they can hate on. I’ve never experienced that kind of racism in Sweetgum. People being jerks? Yeah. That kind of pure, evil hate? No.”

  Camille didn’t have an answer to this.

  Dante put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a brief caress. “We better get going or we’ll miss our reservation.”

  The thought of food, even a meal as upscale as the one they were sure to eat at the Watermark, made her feel queasy.

  “Maybe we’d better—”

  “No.” He was abrupt but not rude. “I refuse to let someone like that ruin our date.”

  Camille knew he was right. The minute you let a hater affect your decisions, you were under his power, had let him influence you.

  “Then we’d better get going,” she said. “I looked at the menu online last night, and I already know what I want.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, surprised to find tears. She hadn’t even known she was crying.

  Dante smiled at her with approval. “That’s my girl.”

  And for once, Camille didn’t argue with his assumption.

  Esther hadn’t intended to be home when the prospective buyer showed up to look at her house the day after Thanksgiving. She’d been coached by her real estate agent on all the dos and don’ts, and the seller’s presence in the home was a definite faux pas.

  But the dog—Well, the dog was no more under control now than he’d been the day she dragged him into the veterinary clinic.

  The doorbell rang a second time. Esther stood in the middle of the foyer, torn between going after the dog and answering the summons. “Ranger!” she bit out one last time, hoping he would respond, but no such luck. With a shake of her hair and a quick strai
ghtening of the hem of her sweater, she moved to answer the door.

  The man standing on her front porch was the last person in the world she expected to see.

  “Dr. McCullough!” She said his name in the same tone of voice she’d used to try to summon Ranger. Then she collected herself, forced a smile, and responded in a far gentler tone. “Hello.”

  “Esther.” From the way his eyes widened, she guessed he was every bit as surprised to see her as she was to see him. “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong—”

  “Are you meeting a real estate agent?” He nodded, and her chest tightened. Of all the luck. “Then you’re at the right place.”

  For some reason, her pulse was racing. She couldn’t think why, except that Brody McCullough had seen too much in their last two encounters, and what he’d seen made her feel nervous. And vulnerable. And more than anything in the world, Esther disliked feeling vulnerable.

  “Please come in. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I was having a little trouble—”

  As if on cue, Ranger came racing through the foyer, his paws skidding on the slick surface before he crashed to a stop at Brody’s feet.

  “Hey, boy.” The vet reached down to rub the dog’s head. He looked up at Esther with an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.”

  “You’re in the market for a house?”

  Of course he was, she scolded herself. The man was new in town.

  But Brody shook his head. “No. I’m renting a condo at the lake.” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, and Esther had no idea what to make of that. “I have a friend, a college buddy, who’s moving to the area. He’s the one looking for a house.”

  Esther glanced at her watch. “I’d better be going. Leave you all to look things over in peace.” She reached down and grabbed Ranger’s collar. “Just let me get him on the leash.”

  But Ranger didn’t want to be dragged so ignominiously from Brody’s presence. He hunched down, his backside practically sinking through the floor. The tile was slick, but Esther still struggled to tow the animal’s dead weight across the floor.

  “Wait. You’re going to hurt your back.” Brody reached out and curled his fingers around Esther’s wrist.