He grabbed my arm again when I started to pick my way through the underbrush and led me along what used to be a jagged trail. “No, not as big, Dix.” I turned to him, to see why his voice sounded so rough. “Whoa! Take it slow.” He caught me when I stumbled and shone his flashlight from the truck down at my feet. “You should have worn your boots instead of those heels if you were thinking about a hike.”
“I don’t have boots. Besides, I was planning to dance, not trailblaze when I left for the evening.” We came to the clearing where our tree stood, larger than ever and in full leaf. “What happened to it?” The branch hung only slightly over our heads—a perfect V where we’d spent an entire summer erecting our fort. It was still attached to the trunk of the tree, but only a few boards of the treehouse’s floor remained. It would have made so much more sense to attempt this excursion during the daylight hours, but we were here and now I was curious. I shined the light in an arc to better view the area. A scattering of pop bottles and food wrappers were piled along with a ragged flannel shirt a short distance away. Deke wandered back from the pile of trash, the shirt in his hands. His forehead creased. “This looks like one I used to tease Blake about all the time. Told him he looked like a lumberjack in it.” His gaze lifted to where the treehouse used to be. “He mentioned his mama’s been complaining about someone stealing laundry off her line.”
I let my gaze follow his. “Damn kids, can’t they leave anything alone?” I kicked off my shoes and tucked my phone in my bra strap as I proceeded to scale the makeshift ladder we nailed into the bark of the trunk. Once I was high enough I scrambled across the limb and let my bare feet dangle. “Come on up, Deke. Remember how much fun we used to have here? All three of us.”
“I remember the three of us spending time up here.” He shoved the flashlight in his back pocket and ascended the few planks it took to reach our branch. It shook as he took a seat facing me; I held on. His voice lowered. His expression grew serious in the glow from the light he propped on the board beside him. “I also remember plenty of hours you and I were here alone.”
My body warmed. I had a recent reminder of some of that alone time to draw from, and it was a hardship to keep my body on lockdown. I studied him from beneath my lashes. We were in close quarters, his widened knees caging mine in, not touching me. If I moved even an inch or so . . .
I scooted to the left.
The limb bobbed and I let out a surprised laugh, even as the edge of my knee aligned with his. I entwined my ankle around his calf like a vine. The next move was his. Or maybe it was mine. I didn’t have a plan, only a cocktail of liquor, memories and emotions guiding my actions. I looked up and waited for him to stop surveying the area as though he’d never seen it before.
I grazed my knee against the inside of his leg to get his attention. “It’s a good thing our parents never discovered what we did up here the night before graduation. Your father would have given you that long, sad, disappointed face, but I think my daddy would have beat the shit out of me. You know how he was.” Even with his body on a cold slab and waiting to be buried, the memory sent a shiver racing down my spine. I let out a shaky laugh to chase it away. “Old Cooter would have come chasing after both of us with a deadly weapon.”
Deke was still focused on a point somewhere in the darkness. I laid my hands on his thighs over the thick fabric of his jeans. Dear God, his muscles were warm and hard. The more time I spent with the man before me—talking, laughing, dancing—the more I recalled what I loved about the boy he used to be. And how dangerous our relationship was becoming.
I let my hands follow the length of his thighs, back and forth. My thumbs cruised intimately along the inner seams of his pants as my eyes followed his gaze and stared into the night, but there were only trees past the edge of the clearing. The night was still and quiet except for the symphony of night insects. Deke hadn’t moved since he climbed onto the platform. My hands stilled on his knees. “What do you see, Deke? What are you thinking?”
His hands captured mine and wove our fingers. I stared down at where our knuckles lay against each other, his so much larger than mine. “I did it. It was me.” He finally—finally—turned to face me and the anguish on his face made me gasp.
“What was you, Deke?” I’d only been around for a few days, but surely I would have heard if a serial killer or rapist was on the loose, right? Not that I would ever believe Deke could pull that off, but—Deke reached up and proceeded to pull his shirt off over his head. My heartbeat picked up speed. “Deke, what the hell are you talking about?”
Before I could react, he reached for my hand and pressed it to his abdomen, to a long, jagged scar I’d noticed earlier. “Goddamn it, Dixie, I asked you to fucking marry me and twenty-four hours later you skipped town like I meant shit to you. When I realized you were gone, I lifted my dad’s bottle of Jack and brought it out here. In my mind, this was our place. This was where you were. In the rustling of the trees, in the fresh scent of the cedar and pine, in the brilliant blue of the sky and the magical shapes of the clouds above. In the beat of my heart.”
I swiped at the tears coursing down my cheek. That had been the absolute worst day of my life. “What did you do, Deke?”
“By the time Blake found me, all that was left of the treehouse was pretty much what we’re sitting on right now. The rest was in a pile of lumber over there.” He nodded his chin off to the right.
“Is that where this came from?” I gave his scar a gentle rub to indicate it.
He nodded. “Between the whiskey and the adrenaline, I didn’t even feel it happen. I felt the stitches, though. Those hurt like a fucker.”
I let out a light chuckle and closed my eyes. It would be so easy to stretch forward and rest my lips against his marred flesh. To soothe any ache and promise that the hurt was all past—that the leaving was behind us. But I would still be saying good-bye. And no matter how much I was beginning to dread my return to LA and its fast pace and glamour, Deke had a life here. Family and friends, and an election to win. Chances were, he would hardly miss me.
“I haven’t been here since that night. I didn’t realize it still hurt so much.”
Well, hell.
My ears had barely stopped ringing from the noise a half dozen adolescent males could create in the back of an SUV. We’d just dropped off the last of our crew and the blessed silence nearly had me weeping in gratitude.
“So. You and Dixie hightailed it out of The Barn pretty quick last night. Am I gonna get the lowdown?”
“You know, Blake, I was just contemplating how nice the silence was after all the commotion this morning. You know . . . silence.” I gave him a pointed stare. “That space of time when nobody’s talking.”
He chuckled. “Silence. Sure. You sound like an old man. I’ll just keep on driving like I’m the fucking chauffeur.”
“Wait! Slow down.”
“What?” Blake quick checked the rearview mirror. “Cop? I’m driving the fucking speed limit.”
I chuffed out a laugh. “No, idiot. Over there. Back up.” I pointed at the trailer we just passed on the left. “That’s Cooter’s house. Why’s the yard flooded?”
He pulled to the edge of the blacktop beside where the gravel driveway bisected two sections of yard, one full enough to wade in. I climbed out. Was Dixie here? I had mixed emotions about seeing her today. My heart was still a little tender from the night before. In hindsight, I should have faced the beast years ago rather than let that wound fester. I had no idea it was still so raw until I climbed the tree and suddenly felt gutted.
On the other hand, the clock was ticking down.
Blake stuck his head out the car window. “That’s one hell of a mud pond, Deke. S’pose we could line up a couple of girls, make a party of it?”
“You’re a teacher, Blake. How well would that go over with the school board? Besides, what would Donna say?”
“Hell, I’d invite her too.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“Remind me again why we’re friends?”
Blake mimed pulling a knife from his chest. “Deke. Dude. You wound me thusly. Beneath the Shakespeare and the e.e. cummings, I’m the life of the party, man!”
“You mean you want to be the life of the party, but Donna wants you home by ten.”
His teeth gleamed as he grinned. “Semantics.”
“Words are words, Blake.”
“Just wait till we’re working with the football players again. You’ll love me then.” Words may be Blake’s forte, but I had the mental bandwidth for visualizing plays. It was all about geometry and physics. I dropped my metaphorical sword.
A quick perusal of the yard only proved that Dixie’s car wasn’t here. I checked out back, but the detached garage that Cooter converted to his studio with an upstairs apartment years ago seemed abandoned. Blake had just brought a proposition to me, needed some space for a project he was working on. Maybe this would work, depending on what Dixie decided to do with the house.
It was a mystery why the water was on, but it seemed clear it would flood the street soon. A search along the skirting of the mobile home revealed the water spigot—on the far side of the house. Of course. I supposed I should be thankful I wore flip flops I could kick off easily enough, although God knew what mysteries lurked in that mud.
Several barefooted steps into the yard, I still had no idea what hid beneath it, but I had an excellent idea how it felt between my toes. And I was conjuring a pretty good image of how it would look splattered on Blake’s face and across the side of his Tahoe. Guy would not quit cackling. “Would you shut your mouth over there? This is nowhere as amusing as you think.”
He continued to hoot. “Sorry, dude. Well, no, not really. You should see how stupid you look prancing through that goo.”
I took another step through the ankle-deep glop. “Today is the final day of our friendship.” I ground the words out as Dixie’s rental hopped the curb and raced up the driveway. She screeched to a stop in a shower of rock and swirling dust.
Her door flew open and she teetered in her wedged heels and prissy suit to the edge of the drive, where she threw her hands up to her face. “Deke, look at you! Oh, dear God! Look at this mess! I was in church with Beth and . . . and suddenly I remembered. I can’t believe I forgot about the water!”
I reached the spigot and turned off the water to the hose that must be hidden somewhere under Cooter Lake, then I held her back with my free hand raised like a traffic cop. “Hold up, Dixie! Don’t come too close or you’ll end up face planting in the muck.” Thankfully, she took my words to heart and halted her wobbly advance.
She fixed her gaze everywhere but on me. “Thanks for taking care of this, Deke. I can’t imagine what you were doing out this way, but thank you.” She took a step to her right, up the drive toward the house. “I have so much to do today; I’m sure you don’t want to stick around.”
A quick glance at Blake confirmed he was kicked back, intent with a game on his cell phone. He might not miss me for hours.
After the emotions of last night, I intended to say a quick, neighborly hello and hit the road, but now that she was blowing me off, I slogged a step toward her as I craned my neck to take in the mess around us. “We had to get boys home after a car wash this morning. Even they didn’t make this much mess. What happened here, Dixie?”
Her gaze scanned the entire yard, again avoiding me. She flapped her hands in the air and rocked a bit on the uneven ground. “I had things to take care of for Cooter. I came by early to feed the cat and get some of his clothes to take to the funeral home. They said I could take them over later this morning.” I finished my trek out of the mud and stood beside her. Her hands were warm when I locked our fingers. Her eyes studied our entwined hands as if she wasn’t sure how they got that way. “I found some wildflower seeds when I was looking for the steam iron. Remember how my mama used to toss wildflower seeds back then?” I let her memories take me back as well.
“Your mama always did like her flowers.”
“Well, they aren’t nearly good enough for her now. No, siree. She has a handful of gardeners at her beck and call.”
I grinned. “Some things just aren’t right.”
She shot me a sidelong glance. “Are you mocking me?”
I shrugged. “Might be.”
Blake honked. Seemed he finally realized we were ignoring him. “Hey, we ’bout done gabbing here?”
“Hold tight.” I held up a waiting finger—it being Sunday, he was saved my middle finger—and turned to face Dixie in her city shoes and fancy clothes.
The For Sale sign had been pounded into the dirt near the curb. I imagined her to-do list trailed from here to Christmas. “What do you need to do here? Do you need my help?” Today, she wore less makeup than she normally did and her hair was down around her shoulders. It was more casual, more approachable. I took a handful in my fingers and swept it over her shoulder. She brushed her cheek against my wrist. When her eyes lifted and met mine, she’d lost her Commander-in-Chief persona and seemed a little more like a rookie private being ordered into battle.
I waved Blake off behind my back and he drove off with a beep of his horn. “Come on, princess. I’ve got big muscles and a strong back. Let me do something manly for you.” I flexed the guns and gave her a little show that Shane would never, ever let me live down if he happened to drive by. But she chuckled and the worry on her face cleared.
“All I’ve done so far is collect boxes.”
I raised my brow, then lowered my chin to catch her eye and she laughed. “No, not that kind of boxes. These really are empty cartons from the grocery store. I have to pack up all of Cooter’s belongings if I want to sell the place. I haven’t even started.”
“Well, maybe we should get busy. It won’t get done by itself.” I put my hand to the small of her back and led her to the house. At the base of the metal steps I paused at the sight of two rather large balls of fur guarding the doorway. “Who’s this?”
Dixie squatted and reached out to scratch the orange tabby behind the ears. “This is Miss Kitty. I’m pretty sure she was Cooter’s cat. She’s been hanging around since I first arrived.” The cat hopped off the step, and Dixie glided her hand in one long stretch along the back of the black and white cat. “I call this guy Marshal Dillon. He’s never far behind Miss Kitty. Pretty sure he’s the one that knocked her up.” Sure enough, before the tabby had gotten far, the black and white cat chased after her as she lumbered across the yard.
We climbed the few steps to the landing and I had to give her a tug to keep her from pulling me into the house. I pointed down at my feet. “This stuff is already drying between my toes. Do you think you could get me a pan of water and an old rag?”
She laughed and darted into the house, then returned within minutes. “You’re lucky you had on shorts or you’d be traipsing around in your boxers.” She paused and gave me a considering gaze, starting at my now-clean toes and working its way up to my waist. She reached a finger out and snagged it in the elastic waist of my gym shorts, gave it a tug. “Or maybe I would have been the lucky one if you’d been wearing jeans.”
Lucky. I wasn’t feeling so lucky right now. I frantically searched for a distraction from the pounding of blood heading south on vacation and found it when I stepped inside.
Nests of various sized boxes covered all the available floor space. “So, we packing it all up? Do you have a U-Haul truck coming, or what’s the plan here?”
She kicked off her shoes near the door and removed her suit jacket, leaving only a pale pink camisole tucked into her brighter pink skirt. She gave the room a slow perusal. “I’m not sure how long it will take to sell the place so we’ll leave the furniture inside. We only need to get rid of the personal items, then store the boxes out in the studio.” Cardboard grocery cartons covered every horizontal surface.
“How about if we split up? Divide and conquer—that sort of thing? I’ll take the living room and the bathroom; y
ou take the bedrooms. We’ll tackle the kitchen together.”
She lifted a stack of boxes and moved toward the hallway. “There’s tissue paper over there somewhere.” She loosened a couple of fingers and waved them toward the kitchen table, seen through the open doorway. “And there’s a radio on the counter if you want music.”
A minute later we had background noise, and I had arranged a stack of boxes around the living room. I shooed her away. “Scoot! I got this.”
She finally quit hesitating and within minutes the banging of drawers and closet doors punctuated by unfeminine grunts echoed from Cooter’s room as she presumably shoved his belongings into packing cartons. From time to time the bed springs squeaked, followed by a loud sigh and what might have been a sob. It also may have been a box shuffling across the thin carpet. Either way, Dixie deserved a few minutes’ privacy with what was left of her father.
In the meantime, I sorted and stored trophies and photographs. They were all of Dixie, and some included her parents over the course of time, but what shocked me most was that they all seemed happy. I’d known Dixie forever, and her family of course, but my memory of our childhood was slippery, and I barely recalled Miss Olivia when she lived in Moreover. The only memories I had of Cooter were better left forgotten. He’d always intimidated me as big as he was, with that deep, booming voice, but I vividly recalled he was a man changed once his wife left. Changed to mean.
With the knickknacks and whatnots wrapped and packed, I stacked my cartons along a wall and moved on to the bathroom down the hall. There wasn’t much here; I started by emptying the few hygiene items from the shower and pulled a face at the scum left behind. No way was I cleaning that crap. Dixie better have a cleaning crew lined up.
Since the box was still near empty, I balanced it on the Formica counter top and opened the mirrored cabinet over the sink. I swept the contents of the upper glass shelf with a single swipe—Band-Aids, antiseptic, cold medicine, and a few similar over-the-counter drugs. In truth, it all should go in the trash, but that was between Dixie and her old man. The middle shelf was nearly empty so I scooped out those few items and bypassed the wastebasket for the carton on the counter.
Heart of Dixie (Moreover #1) Page 14