Heart of Dixie (Moreover #1)

by Ruthie Henrick

  “And if you mutter fine, you’ll make me regret saving your ass.” Then I disconnected our call before he could.

  By the time I arrived at The Barn, the parking lot was packed and the only free spots were in the dirt overflow lot, far beyond the lighted gravel. Probably a good thing I came in the truck; Lucy was well known around town, and Trent Anderson tanked last week’s quiz. Dark night, all that chrome—a mighty temptation for the up and coming juvenile delinquent I had on my radar for the town’s recent episodes of vandalism.

  Blake kicked up dust and rocks as he cruised through the lot in his Tahoe, found a spot near mine and fell in beside me on the trek to the door. “Dude, I’m a shit, but I didn’t even ask if you had plans tonight. I mean, Dixie’s in town. Not that I agree with it, but maybe you’d rather spend Saturday night knocking boots with her than babysitting me.”

  I had memories of Dixie in boots and not a scrap of anything else. It’d be one hell of a way to spend a Saturday night—if I wanted to lose my balls forever. If I was as brilliant as the certificates on my studio wall proclaimed, I’d steer clear of Dixie Barnes until after her father’s service and she was winging her way west.

  “‘Enhanced Electronic Engine Monitoring with a Main Objective of Increased Driver Performance’. The title is fairly simple, but it’s the address I’ll be delivering in less than a month.” Blake halted, and I only hoped my audience at the convention didn’t seem so dumbfounded when I started speaking. I gave him a shove to get him moving again. “I finally got my head out of my ass and got it on track, so my extensive variety of options for tonight’s entertainment included stretching out the presentation to the allotted fifty minutes, or . . .”

  He reached around me, opened the door.

  I walked in ahead of him. “Babysitting your ass.”

  The floor inside was littered with chaff from the hay bales lining the stage. A couple of band members were getting ready for the first set. Over the din of the crowd, someone tuned a slide guitar.

  Blake followed as I cut right around the dance floor and threaded my way through a mass of high-top tables, nodding and waving as we went. Half the town had to be here tonight.

  I found a break at the bar and leaned against it to wait our turn.

  “But what’s Dixie doing? Maybe you can hook up later.”

  His obsession with Dixie was beginning to wear on me, but he was a man in love—even if he was in exile for the night—so I kept my usual sarcasm on lockdown. “My head’s been on ass-backward since she rolled into town. I saw her earlier today—”

  Blake threw up his hand to cut me off. “Dude. You mean like you saw her earlier today? Because maybe you should have led with that.”

  I shook my head. “You’d think you never got any of your own.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yes, I saw her. And then she blew me off. Something about catching up on girl talk with Beth.” I caught Earl’s eye and ordered a couple of drafts, slid him my card to start a tab. With our frosty mugs in hand, we headed back across the straw-strewn hardwood, around the dance floor and toward the pool tables on the far side of the spacious building. “I have no plans to sit around thinking about her, or talking about her, or worrying about hooking up. We’re good.” My attention turned from Blake to the selection of available tables and—“Jesus!”

  We passed the dance floor. We passed the fucking wooden patch crowded with its double row of line dancers, Beth there on the edge of it, laughing and shuffling her boots and seeming to have a great time, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that if Beth was here tonight, then Dixie might be, too. But there she was, nowhere near the dance floor, where all I had to worry about was Tommy Roy Heaton forgetting he was still married and wrapping his wandering arms around her as he scooted her around a shadowy corner of parquet.

  Nope. That would be too easy.

  My Dixie was draped across a pool table, ass in the air, sparkling jeans painted on, fuck me heels dangling from her endless legs, stroking the cue stick in such a way I’d lay odds the men circling the table were all sporting their own wood. I took a long gulp of beer to douse the flames that had suddenly ignited.

  Dixie gave her shot a sharp jab; the cue ball ricocheted off the far bumper and cracked as it knocked the black eight into the near corner pocket. With a victorious grin, she wiggled down from the table.

  Molly appeared from the far side and gave her a high five. “Way to go, Dixie!” She selected her cue from those lined against the wall and began to disassemble it, sliding the pieces into her pink case. “I want you on my team in the ladies’ league. We have shirts and everything. Hey, Blake. Deke.”

  Dixie spun at the sound of my name. Her face went crimson, which was more than a little odd. Blake said hello, then wandered away to chat with a few of the guys who moved to the next open table. “Hey, Molly. Leaving already?”

  Molly lifted a shoulder and zipped up her case. “I keep toddler hours when I have breakfast shift. I’m already an hour past my bedtime. Oh, good, here comes Beth. You and Blake can play against her and Dixie and I won’t feel guilty about cutting the match short.”

  Beth marched up to our little group as the band started in on another song, something with a quick-tempo and a tight bass. She held her purse in one hand and had her phone gripped in her other fist as if she wanted to throw it across the room. The storm in her eyes had me thinking it might be a real possibility.

  “Harley Abbott shot at someone skulking near his wife’s garden so I need to check it out, make a report. She’s been guarding those damn tomatoes for the Founder’s Day judging and swears she’s got a record breaker in the making.” She shoved her phone in her bag and the furrows between her eyebrows deepened. “Doesn’t anyone have anything more important to do than mess with an old lady’s tomatoes?”

  Molly lifted her case to her shoulder. “I was hoping you were coming over here to take my place on the team, but I’ll walk you out instead.”

  “I’m sorry, Dixie. There’s no need for you to leave because some idiot butts into my dancing time. Stay. Absolutely. We’ll get you a ride home and I’ll catch up with you later.” She turned her calculating gaze on me and something heavy and unexpected landed in my chest. I glanced around, but my wingman was shooting the shit a few tables over. No help there.

  “So, Deke.” Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it! Who was I kidding? After the show Dixie just put on, there would be no steering clear. Every nerve in my body was on high alert. There was no way I’d survive being left alone with her. “You think you can help a girl out, maybe play a game with Dixie, take her home when you’re done?”

  Dixie had been quiet the whole time, not voicing an opinion one way or the other, but the flush in her face had spread to her neck and inside her collar. Just how much further did it go? I nodded to Beth, but my eyes were locked on Dixie, whose eyes were lowered, whose lip was caught in her teeth. The vision of whose ass waving in the air had me going hard. “Sure, Beth. No sweat. We’ll play a game or two and I’ll get her home for you.” But I’d already quit playing around.

  And if this was a game, my johnson was rooting for Dixie’s team.

  “Don’t look so scared, princess. I think we’ve already established that nothing will happen unless you want it to.”

  True enough. But Deke pressed forward even as I backed against the pool table, the edge of it sharp against my hips. There was nothing dangerous in his words, and the gleam in his eyes was more amused than intense. Perhaps I was only worried what would happen if I showed any sort of encouragement.

  Come on Dixie. Were you really worrying?

  Or wishing?

  The quivering in my belly felt more like anticipation than the nervous butterflies I was oh, so familiar with, and gave me my answer.

  Deke’s eyes traveled my body. His gaze glowed as it dragged from mine to brush downward and left a heated path clear to the toes of my favorite Ferragamos. I lifted a hand to his chest, to the powerful beating of it against my palm, and
backed him up with only a little pressure. “Tell me about your afternoon.” The topic seemed safe, and boring. And if we didn’t introduce the mundane soon, my clothes would start falling off. On purpose.

  He took my hand, led me to a table near the dance floor. “You mean after I woke you?”

  I should have known he couldn’t resist the reminder that I’d woken sprawled atop him, still naked, probably drooling—ass fried by the late day sun.

  He leaned into my ear as I took my seat. “Or after I fucked you in the shower?”

  Oh, God, his hands. The soapsuds. My breath caught in my chest. “You’re no gentleman.”

  He grinned and stepped between my widened knees. “You’re right. But your mama liked me.”

  “You were eight.”

  A shiver slid up my spine, even as a warning buzzed in my brain and red lights flashed behind my eyes. Danger ahead!

  I unwound my arms from around his neck—no idea when that happened—and pulled away. The heat in his deep, dark eyes nearly had me yanking him back. And then he laughed. Yeah, he was no gentleman at all.

  He drew one long finger down my cheek, ended the movement by pointing it toward my glass. “Do you need a fresh drink?”

  I’d brought mine with me, the tonic and lime I switched to following the sweetness of that first tutti-frutti cocktail. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “So, you want to know how I spent my afternoon after you left.” I nodded and took a sip. Absolutely. It was so much safer than remembering how he spent it before.

  Using the back of a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, he attempted to explain the system he was developing, and the gist of the address he was delivering in a few weeks . . . somewhere. “Don’t you think you should find out where it is, and when? Do you know how much plane fare costs when you have to book at the last minute?” He laughed when my face heated yet again.

  “I don’t usually bother with those details. Someone from the company will make my travel arrangements and send an email a few days before I leave.

  So, it was something he didn’t concern himself with, the petty nuisance of planning ahead. I was plenty used to that. Along with the snap of commands and a cavalier disregard for money. I lowered the glass I’d just picked up to drink from, gave him a long stare. “You sounded shockingly like so many of my clients just then. Except I would be the one responsible for making those arrangements, sending the email.” I lifted my glass to take a drink after all. “And then I adjust everything at the very last minute when the custom-made pumps you just picked up in Rome didn’t have their own seat on the plane home to New York, or—”

  “Or the overpriced Peter Pan who can’t keep it in his shorts has to be whisked off in the middle of the night to some obscure location till the heat dies down.”

  I canted my head and slowly, oh, so slowly, lowered my glass to the table. “You saw the article about Drew.”

  He nodded and bumped fists with Billy Timmons as he passed.

  “So. You saw one article and that makes you the . . . the fucking expert on my job—my life—and my clients?”

  “You used to have a life you loved. You didn’t worry what other people . . . what Cooter said, what he did. You were full of fun and adventure. It was kid stuff, sure. But you were wild and crazy. You made me feel wild and crazy. What happened to that girl who ran off in the middle of the night? When did your life become about pleasing other people?”

  My throat had gone to dust. “You don’t know me well enough anymore to judge me that way.”

  “Sure I do. Let me take a stab at this.” He picked up my drink and put it back in my hand. I gulped until the glass was empty. “You didn’t want to come back to Moreover because you were railroaded into it. I understand Olivia can be very persuasive these days.” He grinned. “Now, that’s only simple reasoning, but how’m I doing so far?” He held up two fingers together and lifted my chin. “Close your mouth, princess. You’ll end up swallowing a fly.” I glared at him.

  As easily as if we were only discussing the weather, he helped me down from my seat and led me outside. “Now, the other reason is a little trickier, and knowing you, a little harder to swallow, but I can be pretty convincing myself.” He shared a smile that would put a used car salesman to shame. “As a matter of fact, I don’t mind giving you a tour to prove it to you.”

  The parking lot was packed, yet those tiny hairs on the back of my neck were prickling. I had no idea where his truck was located. I would trust Deke with my life and that of everyone I held dear, but his motives at this particular moment gave me pause.

  He turned me to face the blinking lights of his small town—barely visible in the distance through scattered woodland and family farms, and spread his arm wide. “Moreover itself. You always did love it.” He pulled me into him, my back to his torso until the warm and reassuring beat of his heart scattered my thoughts. I took a step forward and kept on walking. Out of his arms, back to clarity. “I think you missed it.”

  My stomach dropped to my feet. I stopped in my tracks so I wouldn’t trip over it. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s okay to admit you wanted to come home. You had to know you’re welcome here.”

  My belly slithered back up and settled in place. His smile lured me closer. “It was God’s truth that the memory of Friday night movies in the park and dropping a line in Hunt’s Creek with you and Beth got me through those first lonely months in Chicago. But no, I never felt comfortable returning.”

  Was it right I let him lead me over the gravel and through the darkened parking lot? Who knew, but with his hand on the small of my back, I was comfortable enough to follow him to purgatory itself. His pickup towered between an older minivan and an SUV, common enough in these parts, and I climbed in while he held the door for me. Within minutes he was cruising along the back roads, mere tracks some of them, as we reminisced and he made me remember what it was I loved about this place.

  A blanket of stars was crystal bright overhead without the forest of trees to block them from view. With the windows rolled down, we drove through a field of corn as tall as a man. The heavy stalks whispered in the breeze. “Do you remember the summer before senior year when we all got jobs? It was when Ruby first let me wait tables; you detasseled corn. Even then, Beth knew she wanted to work for the sheriff’s office. She hounded them until they let her hang around.”

  Deke slowed as he came upon a narrow intersection, then took a left. We had the barefoot run of our town, the three of us, like ragtag Musketeers. A world apart from the life of debutantes and sorority cotillions Olivia submerged me into.

  “After all those years of cards and notes from her, promising she was waiting and wanting me, it was a blow to discover she was not the mama I remembered.” Deke cast me a quick glance as he took another left and got us back on the road to the highway. I shook my head. “She’d been married to the doctor for years by then and was a society woman, and apparently, that was the way she liked it. Never did convince her I didn’t like it, too. In the meantime, I sucked it up, got my degree from Northwestern and realized my stepsister was as unhappy as I was.” That claimed Deke’s interest.

  “Oh yeah? I thought she was all about sorority life.” He navigated the next curve in the road “Ha! Little did the good doctor know!” I shook my head again. “Madyline was all about his money. Which actually worked out in my best interest, too, as the trust fund she received when she graduated was what she used to open the agency in LA.”

  “Wait, I thought you worked with your college roommate?”

  I waited. Even with only the glow from the dash to illuminate his features, I could tell exactly when it all come together for him. His eyebrows raised and his mouth opened to speak. I didn’t give him the chance. “Right! Madyline was my roommate.”

  “I bet that chapped daddy dearest’s ass.”

  I smirked. “Actually, once he found out the clientele we were targeting, he didn’t have a problem at all. The biggest pro
blem we have is keeping my mother from getting involved. It’s one thing to score tickets to a black-tie event for her and the doc, totally another to keep her from draping herself all over the clients. She has a way of forgetting she’s not twenty years younger than she really is. Last summer at the ESPY’s, he had to practically drag her away. It was damn embarrassing.”

  He reached across the console and captured my hand. “There are so many mysteries in life. Some we will never solve.”

  I nodded and turned to look out the window. “I imagine my mama will always be one of them.”

  Deke made a stop at the entrance to the highway, then headed back toward town. The route we were on was familiar; I’d been exploring this way earlier in the week. Deke slowed his speed and guided the truck through another winding curve.

  A deep woods thicketed the side of the road, leading down to the creek. Then again, everything on this side of town seemed to lead to the rambling Hunt Creek. I pointed out the window and into the darkness. “Our old treehouse is just ahead.”

  I got a startled glance in return for my comment. “Did you check it out?” There was caution in his voice, but I imagined the place was pretty rickety.

  Our old fort was the place we spent so much of our free time. We’d idled away hours making so many dreams, so many plans . . . so much foolishness. I hadn’t stopped when I drove past the other day. What was the use of dredging up silly childhood memories? Why would I want— “Stop!”

  The tires squealed and I pitched forward; Deke’s heavy arm flew across my chest. “What the hell, Deke? You don’t have to mom-arm me! I’m a big girl now.” The truck skidded to a stop on the blacktop.

  “You said stop. I stopped.” He eased the vehicle onto the shoulder and killed the engine. I was already running into the trees when he caught my arm and halted my progress.

  I shook him off. “Let me go, Deke. I just want to see it.” I pulled my cell phone from my back pocket and flicked on the flashlight app. “I bet it’s nowhere as big as it seemed when we were kids.”