Down Home Dixie (12 page)

His back was only inches away, but it might have been a wall of impenetrable steel rather than mere flesh and blood. She shifted onto her side facing him and listened to his breathing, which was steady and shallow, not deep or regular enough for sleep. So he was as awake as she was, and he probably didn't know what to do to put an end to this impasse any more than she did.

Scenes flitted through her mind as she tried to figure out what to do. Milo's laughable expression of surprise when Kyle drove up in her driveway. Bubba and Katie holding hands when they sat side by side on the couch. Her sister's confidences about how happy she was with her new husband when Dixie had gone to visit them in Europe. And further back in time, Voncille's determination to make a go of her marriage. Voncille had been only seventeen years old when she and Skeeter eloped and were married in a ninety-nine-dollar wedding at South of the Border, the local favorite for quickie weddings, but something her cousin had said back then stuck in Dixie's mind.

“Skeeter and I make it a point never to go to bed angry. We always reconcile before we go to sleep. Memaw's the one who gave us that good advice. She said that if you make up right away, you don't give an argument a chance to grow into a major snit.”

Thinking about this, Dixie decided it would serve no good purpose to remain angry with Kyle. She believed he could have been more considerate about informing her where he was and what he was doing. Now, at least, she understood why it was important to him to go to Camden. In his way, he was taking steps to make it possible for them to stay together.

She extended a tentative hand toward Kyle, drew it back. Then she reached out again. This time she touched warm skin, and his muscles tensed almost imperceptibly beneath her fingertips. She was overcome by a rush of tenderness.

“Kyle,” she whispered into the dark between them. “Don't do this.”

A long moment passed during which Dixie wasn't sure if Kyle would accept her attempt at making peace. Then he sighed and rolled toward her, depressing the mattress so that she tilted in his direction. Her feet slipped between his, as they had on so many happier nights, and his eyes were luminous in the light from the window.

“I hate it when we fight,” he said. His hand stole up to trace the outline of her chin, to cup her cheek.

“Me, too,” she said, tears filling her eyes and blurring his face. One tear trickled down her cheek and onto Kyle's hand.

“Oh, Dixie,” he said. “Come here.”

He wrapped her in his arms, and she pressed her damp cheek against his chest. The long naked length of him eased against her, but Dixie had no desire to get sexual. What she needed desperately was reassurance that their relationship was too important to allow silly misunderstandings to drive them apart.

“I'm sorry,” Dixie said. “I should have stopped Milo before he kissed me. I could have, I guess.” The admission was difficult to make, but she was being truthful. Subconsciously she may have wanted proof that Milo cared about her when she wasn't so sure that Kyle did.

“Who could pass up a chance to kiss you?” Kyle said with unexpected humor. “I'm thinking of doing it myself.”

She raised her lips to his and they kissed, her arms finding their way up around his neck. If only he would say he loved her! She longed to tell him how much she loved him, but instead of talking after ending the kiss, they lay quietly, heartbeats and breaths settling into the same rhythm.

“I don't suppose you'd like to go steady, would you?” Kyle said after a while.

“Ask me.”

“Would you like to go steady, Dixie?”

“Maybe. Yes, I would.”

“Great. It's settled. No more smooching other guys.” He kissed her slowly and lingeringly, sighing as she settled closer to him. A few seconds later, Kyle was asleep. Dixie lay awake for a long time, listening to him breathe and staring into the darkness.

The day after their big blowup over Milo, and as relieved as he was that it hadn't escalated out of control, Kyle realized that his rapprochement with Dixie was fragile. Even though they made love first thing in the morning, slowly and tenderly refilling each other from a bottomless well of sexual pleasure, their talk afterward was strained. At breakfast he was sure he'd go bonkers if she mentioned the Maine coon cat man one more time.

Dixie seemed totally unaware of his annoyance. “Leland Porter—that's the cat man—he's going back to Maryland soon, and he's lost patience with whether I'm going to accept that cat or not. Then Mayzelle mentioned last thing yesterday that Leland is going to drop off some papers at the office and I should be there when he does, which will be early this morning, she says.”

Kyle wondered how she could talk of something so trivial. Uppermost in his mind was the new commitment of exclusivity that he and Dixie had made to each other last night. This was the first step toward something more meaningful. For him it was a major milestone, and he took it seriously. And the commitment wasn't all of it. He was falling in love with Dixie. However, expressing his emotions had never been easy for him, and he wasn't sure he wanted to open up to her. At least not yet.

But there was something he could do to let her know he cared about her. That he cared
for
her.

“Dixie,” he said into the silence. “I'm going to pay my share around this house. I shouldn't be living here and letting you shoulder all the expenses.”

Her expression softened as her gaze met his. “Kyle, that's sweet of you.” She sounded surprised.

“I mean it.”

She frowned slightly. “You wouldn't have to. I mean, buying food once in a while is nice, and contributing a bottle of wine now and then, and—”

“We should make out a budget. How about if we talk about it later?”
I wouldn't offer if I didn't love you,
he thought.
Want to love you? Almost love you?

Coming from the emotional wasteland of his childhood, which featured an absent mother and an unemotional father, he didn't know how to frame the words. Didn't feel right saying them.

She stood up and walked over to him, sliding her hands up around his neck. “Thanks. Your offer means a lot to me.”

He kissed her before she pulled away. While she went to check her answering machine for messages, Kyle poured himself a second cup of coffee. “You might tell me where I should plant the dogwoods,” he said when she returned to the kitchen. “I dug them up special from the woods day before yesterday.” He intended to plant the trees before returning to Camden today.

“Oh, anywhere,” Dixie said with a dismissive flap of her hand.

“Do you know if what I heard from a guy at the Eat Right yesterday was true—that when you transplant dogwood trees dug up in the woods, you have to position them as they were?”

“I've never heard of that,” Dixie said, clearly distracted.

“It would require that the side of the trunk that faced the north in the woods again face the north when placed in the new hole.”

“I could ask Memaw and give you a call.”

“The guy that suggested it said it's not a good idea to confuse the plant.” He didn't add that, since he was considering transplanting himself, the dogwood could be a test case.

“I'll try to find out. Right now I've got to run.” Dixie leaned across the table for a quick goodbye kiss and grabbed her briefcase. “See you later. What are your plans today?”

“I have things to do in Camden.” He'd promised to trim the hooves of a Tennessee walker, then he'd check on Mac McGehee's prognosis.

She looked surprised, though not enough to ask questions. Or maybe she was just in a rush. “Okay. You can tell me all about it over dinner. How about one of those roasted chickens that the deli does so well? I'll make yellow rice to go with it.”

“It's a plan.”

Kyle rinsed his cup off in the sink as he watched Dixie rushing along the path to the garage. His mind was full of new resolutions. He no longer wanted to be poised on the cusp between past and present. He was charging headlong into the future. Today he would phone Andrea and tell her to stop calling him. He'd inform her that it was over, finally over, and she'd better move on with her life. Then he and Dixie would be free to—well, whatever. And he would learn to say—well, whatever—if only he could work around to it.

After he'd planted the dogwoods—north to north, south to south—Kyle headed for the office in the house, where he dialed Andrea's phone number at work. She'd be harried at this time of year due to its being tax season, which could work to his advantage because she probably wouldn't be able to talk long. He was surprised when she answered the phone herself.

“Ludovici Tax Service.”

“Andrea,” he said.

“Kyle?” she replied cautiously.

“Right.”

She breathed out an impatient sigh, a sure sign of stress. “At least you're not that nasty client who keeps calling and whining about the intricacies of IRS Form 4797. Wait a minute.” She shuffled papers, scraped chair legs across the floor. Kyle pictured Andrea moving swiftly into her private office and settling down on the big wing chair usually reserved for clients. He almost wished he had called to complain about IRS Form 4797, whatever that was. It might be a whole lot easier than what he had in mind.

“All right, I can talk,” Andrea said. “Where are you, anyway?”

“I'm still in South Carolina.”

“When will you be home?”

He cleared his throat. “The truth is, I might stay here.”

“Why?” Her tone was strident, and he held the phone away from his ear.

“Reasons. Look, Andrea, it's over between us.”

A long silence, then an incredulous laugh. “I hoped—Well, as you're aware, I have community-theater tickets, and the last play of the season is in a few weeks.”

He wasted no time setting her straight. “Andrea, you broke up with me, remember?”

“I shouldn't have done it, I realize that now. I miss you, Kyle.”

“Andrea—”

“You've met someone, haven't you?” she interrupted. “It's a woman, right?”

“What, you think it could be a guy?”

“Of course not,” Andrea said, her voice spiking with impatience.

“Yes, I've met someone, but there are good business opportunities here, as well.”

“Like what?”

She was no doubt hoping that he'd found another way to make a living besides shoeing horses, and he might as well disabuse her of that notion immediately. “I shoe horses for a living, Andrea. That's what I do.”

“So in South Carolina they have more horses than we do in Ohio? Or more horseshoes? Or what?” Definite sarcasm here.

He sighed. “Take my word for it, there's plenty of work. The cost of living is lower, winters are milder and you know how I hate shoveling snow.”

Right now he could imagine her knotting her brows together as she often did when crossed, but he didn't anticipate the explosive nature of her next comments. “Kyle, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life. What could possibly inspire you to live among a bunch of rednecks? When you have a nice apartment here, besides. And your fellow reenactors, don't forget them. Elliott asked me again if you're going to come to the reenactment in Virginia. You need to call him, Kyle, and let him know. Hush, Twinkle, no more treats for you till after you poo-poo. Stop, Twinks.
Stop.
”

Kyle suppressed a smile at this byplay with the dog. He'd all but forgotten how Andrea would inject comments to Twinkle in the middle of the most meaningful discussions.

“Kyle? Are you there, Kyle?”

“I'm here,” he said with considerable forbearance.

“Good. I intend to talk some sense into you.”

“Andrea, don't call me anymore. If you do, I won't answer my phone, and—”

“Like you've been answering it anyway,” she scoffed. “Honestly, Kyle, you make everything so difficult.”

He
made things difficult? When Andrea never passed up an opportunity to inform him of her contempt for his work and refused to consider that this time he meant what he said?

“Goodbye, Andrea,” he said, hoping it was for the last time in his life. Getting away from her for a period of time had allowed him the space and time to reassess his life's purpose, and shoring up other people wasn't it.

“Kyle!” she yelped as he clicked off the phone. Despite his relief at putting an unpleasant conversation behind him, Kyle didn't feel good about hurting someone's feelings, though he reminded himself that Andrea never minded hurting his.

The ordeal of the past few minutes put him in need of time for reflection, so he decided that today he'd take the back road to Camden as Kathy Lou had suggested the last time he stopped in the Eat Right.

He checked his supplies and started out. He'd anticipated mulling over his words with Andrea; instead he kept recalling that rush of anger, the churning of his stomach yesterday evening when he realized that another man's lips were affixed to Dixie's. He'd fantasized about jumping back in his truck and driving away, as if in fleeing he could obliterate the scene from his consciousness. He'd stayed and played the scene out to its desired end, which was being in Dixie's bed with her, holding her close, making sure that the other man in her life didn't wedge himself between them, either literally or figuratively.

After a while, he became absorbed in exploring side roads, one of which led to an old gristmill, another that took him past a creek blocked by a large beaver dam. He stopped at a roadside grocery store and bought lunch, which he ate near the edge of a small lake. This was beautiful country. He could do a lot worse than to live here.

And the bonus to the move was that he'd be near Dixie Lee Smith.

 

D
IXIE TOOK
W
EDNESDAY
afternoon off from work to help Memaw Frances with her spring cleaning. Memaw's arthritis prevented her from such chores as scrubbing the woodwork in her house, and Dixie and Carrie had always pitched in with the heavy work. Now that Carrie was gone, Voncille took her place. At first Dixie's cousin wasn't much help, considering that she brought along Petey, her youngest. He was a cherubic three-year-old, but he required an awful lot of attention. Finally Voncille put him down for a nap on Memaw's big brass bed.

Voncille switched the radio to WYEW Yew-and-Me Country, grabbed a sponge mop and adjourned to the kitchen, where she vigorously started to swab the floor, her thick red braid swinging across her back. Dixie stood on a ladder cleaning the crystal chandelier in the dining room, and Memaw was comfortably ensconced at the hall table polishing the good sterling to the beat of a Garth Brooks song. Silver to the right of her, silver to the left of her; all of it dark with tarnish. Memaw had been putting off this chore for over a year.

“Dixie, how're you and Kyle doing?” Voncille wanted to know, swinging the mop in time to the music. She wore her usual baggy denim overalls and a white T-shirt, apparel that seldom varied from day to day.

“Fine.” Dixie concentrated on wiping vinegar water on the crystal pendants. According to the household-hints column she read every week in the
Yewville Messenger,
it would sparkle them up considerably.

“He has a solid, square jaw, too. That bespeaks determination,” Memaw opined. She gave a tray an extra flourish and set it aside, all shiny and ready for Sunday's family dinner.

“Cro-Magnon man had a square jaw. What good did it do? He's extinct.” This from Voncille.

“Kyle is very handsome,” Dixie said. “I like the looks of him.”

Voncille didn't glance up from her mopping as she spoke. “I liked the looks of Skeeter, too. I spotted him at the tractor pull and fell instantly in love. I mean, it was a whole new thing—colors were brighter, music was prettier, and when he winked at me, life was so completely perfect that I realized I had to be with him forever.” As she leaned on the mop for a moment, an expression of fond remembrance passed across her features.

Dixie stopped what she was doing. “Was it really like that, Vonnie? Right away?”

“Uh-huh. Like lightning hit us and knocked us for a loop.”

“Amazing,” Dixie replied, trying to recall if that's the way it was when she first met Kyle. No, mostly she'd been worried about him wobbling around the parking lot on legs that could hardly hold him up. He'd been awfully disoriented. She wouldn't compare the experience to being struck by lightning. It was more like stumbling upon a piece of jewelry in the dirt and not knowing if it was real gold until you'd washed it off.

“Has Kyle been wearing his blue uniform lately?” Memaw asked. “Doc Johnson's assistant said he had it on when he came in to get his tooth fixed.”