Down Home Dixie (6 page)

When he arrived back at Dixie's house, she looked as if she'd run a brush through her hair, maybe even refreshed her lipstick. She'd set out two bowls, and he opened the carton of cherry-vanilla ice cream. As he scooped it into the bowls. headlights swung across the trees outside. “Are you expecting anyone?” he asked, figuring the visitor was one of Dixie's numerous relatives.

“No,” Dixie said blankly. She moved to the door for a better view. “Oh, drat. I don't believe it. Of all the bad timing.”

Playing it casually, Kyle licked a runnel of ice cream from his finger and went to peer at the figure approaching the back steps. “Who is it, anyway?”

She darted him a wary look. “My former boyfriend,” she said. “Milo.”

 

T
HEIR VISITOR REMINDED
Kyle of something, though at first he didn't know what it was. Then it occurred to him that Milo resembled his childhood teddy bear after the stuffing had started to get lumpy and fall out. The man had round cheeks, chubby hands and an abundance of curly brown hair, not to mention the beginning of a paunch under his neatly pressed plaid shirt.

Kyle tried to recall what Dixie had told him about the relationship. He didn't recall if she'd said why a marriage between them would have been a mistake, yet she'd seemed firm enough in her belief. So what was the guy doing here?

As Kyle busied himself dishing up a third portion of ice cream for their unexpected guest, Milo apologized for showing up unannounced saying he'd learned where Dixie lived through their mutual friend Bubba who'd suggested Milo drop in to see her. He hoped Dixie didn't mind.

Dixie said no, she didn't mind, not at all, and why didn't he have a seat at the kitchen table because her living room was piled high with boxes, seeing as she'd moved in only a little over a week ago.

Through his annoyance and from the gist of the small talk between Dixie and Milo, Kyle gathered that unannounced visits were the norm in the rural South, and if you were considered a really good friend, you never entered through the front door, you went to the back. Where Kyle came from, only family was supposed to use the back door. Everyone knew that, or at least they did up north.

“And so,” Milo said after finishing his ice cream, “what is it that you do, Kyle?”

Kyle explained the whole farrier thing. Milo had noticed his truck parked outside and was curious about the customizing. “I've got a Dodge Ram 2500 with extended cab myself,” Milo volunteered. “It has a heavy-duty Cummins turbo-diesel engine and oversize tars.”

At Kyle's puzzled look, Milo explained. “Those things that go on the wheels.”

Tires.
Kyle still hadn't caught onto the twangy Yewville accent, but it was clear that Milo was making the point that he was a manly man who drove a manly truck. Kyle was willing to give the guy some leeway on the subject, since he himself wasn't remotely interested in the macho aspects of vehicles.

“What do you do?” Kyle asked Milo.

“I've decided to go into business,” Milo said. “With new homes going up all around the lake and the retirement village being built between here and Florence, I figure there's a chance to own the biggest plant nursery anywhere around. I learned a lot about the business from my uncle, and he's downsizing now. I figured, hey, why not?”

After that, the conversation thankfully stalled, and Dixie did nothing to jump-start it. Still, Milo tried to drag out the visit by asking questions about virtually every person in their mutual graduating class at Yewville High. Kyle was stifling his third yawn before Milo finally asked Dixie for her phone number and said he had to be going.

“If you need to reach me, you can call me at the office,” Dixie said crisply as she whipped a business card out of her pocket. She didn't volunteer her home or cell-phone numbers, and Kyle gave her points for that.

“Yewville Real Estate,” Milo said, studying the card. “I was surprised when Priss told me you're selling houses. I thought that you'd be working at the department store in Florence like you did in high school.”

“Yes, well, it's a living.”

“You sell people the houses, I'll landscape 'em.”

Dixie managed a polite smile, yet as Milo was walking toward the door she rolled her eyes for Kyle's benefit, which let Kyle know that she could be—
could be—
as eager for Milo to leave as he was.

With a cheery grin at Dixie and a subdued nod for Kyle, whose presence surely must be the subject of curiosity, Milo edged out the door and loped down the steps toward his truck.

“Whew,” Dixie said, closing the door behind him. “I didn't need any of that.”

Kyle smiled at her, not stating the obvious: that he didn't, either. The two of them were finally alone, and perhaps they could finally get down to business. First he had to ask the obvious question.

“I gather Milo's recently arrived back in town and that you haven't seen him before this,” he said carefully.

“Correct.” Outside, Milo's truck started and he threw the engine into Reverse. Through the kitchen window, Kyle caught a glimpse of a bright red finish and fearsome front grille.

Kyle moved closer to Dixie. She seemed like the last person to be impressed by the size of a man's truck. “Dixie, is there anything between you and Milo? Even a little bit of feeling?”

“You've got to be kidding,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. For a long moment, they gazed at each other, her mouth opening gradually as if she intended to say something. The manly roar of Milo's pickup receded into the distance, leaving a blessed silence.

The air between them seemed to thicken, grow heavy. Dixie's luminous eyes stared up him with an expression of utter helplessness, which at the moment, was exactly the way Kyle felt, too. He wanted this woman, and he wasn't of a mood to wait. Luckily, as if guided by the same need, she reached for him blindly at the same time as he reached for her, and his arms closed gratefully around her as her lips found his. Soft lips, knowing lips, lips that erased all thought of conventional behavior.

After that, he couldn't have said what hit him. One minute they were merely kissing, then it was as if the Pine Hollow Lake Dam burst, unleashing a flood of passion.

“Dixie,” he said unsteadily as she feverishly began to unbutton his shirt, “are you sure you're ready for this?”

Her eyes were solemn but held a glint of merriment. She was enjoying these proceedings, he realized with surprise. Not just accepting and following his lead but playing an active part in his seduction, and all the while, he'd intended to seduce her. The idea amused him so that he chuckled at about the time that she unbuttoned his pants and unzipped the zipper.

Her gaze met his, but her fingers stayed busy. “What's funny about this, Yankee?” she asked lightly.

“I've been planning how to get you in the sack since last night,” he said in all honesty.

She laughed. “Would it surprise you if I told you I'd been trying to figure out the same thing? Like how to lure you upstairs to the bedroom without seeming overly forward?”

He nuzzled her throat just below her jawline. “And then what happened? To make you go at me like Pickett's Charge?”

“It was the cherry-vanilla ice cream. Does it every time.” She feathered a line of kisses across his chest, her breath hot against his skin.

“Remind me of that later, in case we want to repeat this.” He couldn't wait to see her lying back against white sheets, her hair arrayed on the pillow in a shimmer of gold. There would be candles lit in anticipation of a romantic mood, and the scent of lavender rising from the sheets, and all the time in the world to learn about each other's bodies.

But again she surprised him. As they strewed various items of intimate clothing behind them, she led him into a small room off the hall between kitchen and living room.

“Have you ever made love in a sewing room?” she asked without the least bit of coyness.

“No, but I can manage,” he replied unsteadily.

“Good, because it takes too long to get upstairs.”

The room was furnished with a stack of boxes, miscellaneous items recently unpacked, sewing paraphernalia and a pile of plump quilts in the corner. While he fumbled in his wallet for the necessary packet, she reached down and flicked the quilts into an inviting pile. There was no candlelight and no scent of lavender, but Kyle didn't mind one bit.

When she'd arranged the quilts to her satisfaction, his arms clasped her to him, his hands moving on to explore every fascinating bit of body topography. Breasts, check. Nipples, double-check. Curve of waist, slope of hips, check.

“Kyle.” Her voice was low, throaty.

“Mmm,” he said, inhaling her scent. It reminded him of wildflowers, of a grassy field after a spring rain. It made him delirious with desire.

“Just. One. Thing.”

“What?”
Indeed, what.
What could be so important that Dixie had to talk right now?

“Protection.”

“Way ahead of you. I'm on it.”

“It's on you is what you mean.”

Without wasting a second, holding his gaze with her own, she eagerly pulled him down on top of her and buried her face in his chest as their naked limbs settled into accommodating patterns. His arms tightened around her as he took care to keep his weight balanced on his elbows. With skin pressed against skin, she seemed so delicate, her bones so exquisitely formed, and they fit perfectly together, her curves molding incredibly to his angles.

“I wanted you the first moment I saw you, but I didn't admit it even to myself,” she said, her voice muffled softly against his chest.

“I had other things on my mind that day,” he said before nibbling gently at the lobe of her ear, pleased at her ensuing sigh of contentment as his lips moved south. Her nipples were dark and rosy in the dim light, and he gently took one in his mouth. It tasted sweet, so sweet, and she moaned with pleasure. His lips explored the slope between her hip bones before making their leisurely way back to her mouth and drawing her into a long, deep kiss. They kissed until he connected with her very soul, felt her total surrender in the way she melted against him.

She was beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the world as he poised above her, hesitating only briefly before entering in one leisurely easeful glide. It was magical, that first moment of warmth and wetness, that experience of becoming one. He settled himself so that their bellies and chests and faces aligned.

“I didn't understand the meaning of Southern hospitality until right now,” he whispered close to her ear.

“If Southern women had discovered Yankees could be this much fun, your great-great-great-grandfather's men would have never made it to Savannah on their march to the sea,” Dixie said.

“It's a good thing for the Union that they didn't,” he said.

“This is the only kind of union I care about,” she said with a hint of laughter, and then he found the spot that made her stop talking altogether.

Sunlight streamed through the curtains that they hadn't closed the night before. Birds outside began to stir up a ruckus. Dixie stretched luxuriously and opened her eyes to find Kyle propped on an elbow, smiling at her.

“Good morning,” Kyle said.

“Morning.” She closed her eyes, opened them again to make sure she wasn't dreaming. “Did we really do what I think we did last night?”

“More than once.”

“Whoa. Whose idea was it?”

“Mine. And yours. Ours.” She recalled how they'd adjourned upstairs after their uninhibited spate of lovemaking, neither prepared to call it quits after the first wild rush at each other.

She rolled onto her side so that she was facing him. His hair was endearingly mussed, and his beard was stubbly. He looked great. “Now what?”

“Anything you want,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her. He didn't even have morning breath.

“Anything?”

“After last night, I'd hand you the world on a silver platter if it were in my power.”

“This is a workday for me,” she said regretfully, inscribing a lazy circle on Kyle's chest with one glossily manicured fingernail. “First off I need to call Leland, the man with the Maine coon cats. He plans to make an offer on that house I showed him.”

“That's cool,” Kyle said.

She swung her legs out of bed. “I wouldn't be getting up right now otherwise.” She padded across her bedroom to the bathroom and turned on the shower, looking back over her shoulder. “What's your plan for the day?”

“I'm going to dig up those old bushes cluttering the view of the lake and plant them in a hedge the way you suggested,” Kyle called over the noise of the water. She stepped into the shower, then heard the creak of floorboards as he got out of bed. In a moment, his face appeared at the edge of the shower curtain.

“You deserve the day off.” Dixie reached for the shampoo, opening her eyes while sudsing her scalp to find Kyle still standing there.

“If you're going to work today, I can, too,” he said cheerfully.

“My cousin Jackson owns the garden shop in town. If you need any supplies, that's where to get them. You could go downstairs and start the coffee if you're so inclined. Would you mind?”

“I'm there already. How about breakfast?”

“I'll have time for yogurt,” she said. “Blueberry's my favorite.”

“I'll top it with granola sprinkles,” he said as he headed out the door.

Granola sprinkles? She'd had no idea a man could conceive of such refinements.

Dixie hummed in the shower, pleased that her seduction had worked so well. Or had
he
seduced
her?
Whatever. The occasion had been a spectacular success.

When she arrived downstairs, Kyle handed her a cup of coffee. “I wasn't sure how much sugar or cream, if any,” he said. “There are a lot of things I haven't learned about you.”

“Yet,” she said.

“Maybe we need to talk about that.”

“Right now?” She eyed the yogurt, which he'd dumped into one of her favorite bowls, blue with daisies dancing around the rim. Sure enough, he'd sprinkled granola on top.

“Well, later,” he conceded.

“Heavy discussion?” She sat down and swirled the yogurt and granola with her spoon.

Kyle rested his fists on the tabletop and smiled at her. “The point is, I hope there will be a later. I'm not eager to go back to Ohio, and last night has something to do with that.”

She beamed at him. “That's good. I'd just as soon you'd stick around for a while. At least until you get this yard in shape.”

“Agreed.” If she looked as besotted as he did right now, he'd get the idea. Which he apparently did, because when she got up to rinse her bowl, Kyle pressed against her from behind.

“I can't wait until you get home,” he murmured close to her ear.

“I've got the meeting with the cat man, and I told Mayzelle I'd answer the phones from two o'clock until four,” she said, her heartbeat ratcheting up a notch as Kyle rained a series of breathy kisses down the side of her neck. “Then I'll come home and we'll pick up where we left off.”

“If we ever left off,” he said, kissing her so thoroughly that when they broke apart she had to dash upstairs and repair her lipstick before she could leave.

When she came downstairs again, the fax machine was beeping. She rushed into the small study that she intended to set up as her home office and grabbed an emerging fax. Leland asked to meet her earlier than scheduled; he hadn't been able to reach her on her cell phone last night. Hmm, she wasn't even sure where her cell phone was at the moment. A few minutes spent rooting around under the pile of quilts in the sewing room revealed it, and she stuffed it into her purse. She'd be late if she didn't hurry.

Kyle was outside, digging up a dead rosebush.

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked him.

“Trash heap,” he said.

“I don't have a trash heap.”

“I started one.” He gestured over his shoulder toward the road where he'd piled a bunch of dead tree limbs. He leaned on his shovel and grinned at her, giving her a mental picture of him to hold close throughout the day.

She took care not to show too much thigh as she slid into her Mustang, but could she help it if the breeze caught the edge of her skirt and flounced it nearly to her panty line? Kyle noticed, and his grin widened. She rewarded him with a flirty wave out the open car window.

This unexpected romance was moving fast, Dixie told herself as she gunned the engine down the road toward town at her usual devil-may-care speed. It was unbelievable how involved with Kyle she was already. That could be bad, really bad. Common sense told a person that she should take her time about such things. Find out what kind of man he really was. Decide if he was good for her or not. Figure out whether he was capable of having a healthy relationship.

Somehow that all seemed irrelevant right now. If this should have caused her concern, it didn't. The only thing on her mind was anticipating the next time she and Kyle would be entwined in each other's arms, panting breathlessly and rolling around amid tangled sheets.

 

K
YLE TOOK A BREAK
late in the morning and made himself a sandwich. Although Dixie had given him free run of her house, he didn't like to impose. He'd bought a few basic supplies at the supermarket the night before when he'd picked up the ice cream. A loaf of bread, deli items, cans of tuna. He couldn't expect Dixie to take over his care and feeding; he'd always been self-reliant and contributed to the welfare of the women he dated. Women? Make that singular. For a long time, there'd just been Andrea.

Andrea.
He should miss her. Only a couple of weeks ago, she'd given him the boot. Since leaving Ohio, his former girlfriend had scarcely crossed his mind. So maybe he didn't love Andrea after all. He wondered, had he ever?

Kyle had met Andrea Ludovici at a neighborhood bar when he'd stopped in for a beer with the guys. He'd found himself sitting next to this tall, thin, emotionally fragile woman who didn't respond to his overtures. She'd stared straight ahead, ordered one drink after another, and by the time they were the only ones still sitting there, she wasn't in any shape to drive herself home.

Naturally, he'd volunteered, and when she started crying after he half carried her to her tiny apartment, it seemed insensitive to leave. So he'd stayed, despite the fact that her barky little Yorkshire terrier bit him on the calf and gloated about it.

They didn't sleep together that night, but Andrea unloaded her misery on him for a good twenty-four hours. She was mourning her previous dog that died, depressed that her mom wouldn't speak to her because of some family snit, and she didn't like working for her boss.

That's how they started up; Kyle had been overcome with pity, Andrea needed a shoulder to cry on. He'd encouraged her to make an appointment with a counselor. He helped her get financing for the accounting firm she wanted to start. He overlooked her abrasive qualities. Though several years older than he, she clung to Kyle so needily that he didn't have the heart to break up with her even when he realized they were totally wrong for each other. He was accustomed to propping people up and making them happy. He'd been doing it all his life, trained to the habit by his father, who, by all accounts, had fallen apart when his wife deserted him and his small son.

Well, why not be nurturing and caring? Helping others gave Kyle great satisfaction. Every once in a while, he'd contemplate what it would be like to date a woman who stood on her own two feet and was proud of it. Where were these women, anyway? He hadn't found any lately.

Since Harry, the colleague covering for him back in Ohio, didn't mind the extra work, Kyle was free to stay on at Dixie's house. He liked getting his hands dirty. There was something elemental about working the earth, and Dixie could use the assistance. The grounds of her house had been neglected for a long time. Kyle thought maybe he'd be happier if he confined his helpfulness to needy plants instead of people. Plants didn't complain that you weren't around to take them to the movies or too busy to go shopping for shoes.

Halfway through moving the bushes, Kyle ran out of the bone meal he poured in the planting holes as nourishment and couldn't finish the job. He considered driving to the garden shop in town to buy more, though with the sky clouding and threatening rain, he probably wouldn't be able to do any more transplanting until the weather cleared. So what to do with himself? Plan future plantings? Figure out what to do about the crumbling rock rim around the pool of the artesian well?

His gaze happened to fall upon the scraps of wood stored near the built-in workbench. He checked them out with the idea of replacing the faulty boards in the dock. A few of the scraps were suitable, and he set them aside.

Kyle had done a bit of tinkering in his time, creating fancy birdhouses alongside his father in his youth. Those birdhouses had been unique, no two alike. Rummaging in the scrap bin, he found everything he needed to build a birdhouse to hang from the branches of the old oak down by the picnic table.

He started to work, eager to surprise Dixie. This house wasn't the fanciest he'd ever made, but birds didn't care. As he was threading a cord through the screw eye he'd attached for hanging, Dixie drove up. She noticed the light over the workbench as soon as she got out of the car. “What have you been up to?” she asked, craning over his shoulder while he kissed her cheek.

“Just frittering time,” he said, inhaling her scent. She was the most sensationally feminine woman he'd ever met in his life.

She studied his handiwork with all its embellishments—a strip of elaborate carved molding on the edge of the roof, a tiny porch to shelter the perch. “Why, Kyle,” she said slowly and with amazement, “what a lovely thing you've made.”

“It's nothing,” he said.

She eyed him and frowned. “Misplaced humility doesn't become you,” she said with mock sternness.

“I haven't finished it yet. It needs painting.”

“We have lots of paint. The previous owners meant to fix the place up before they put it on the market but never got around to it.” She reached for a can of enamel. “Here's a nice yellow. We have royal blue, fern green, bubble-gum pink and white, of course. Take your pick.”

“How about basic white?” Kyle suggested, beyond his depth when any decorating was involved.

“Too unimaginative. How about pink with white trim and a green roof?”

“That's okay with me.”

Dixie beamed. “Where will we be hanging this, Kyle?”

“Over the picnic table, so the birds will have a nice lake view,” he said.

She laughed. “By the way, Leland Porter, the Maine coon man, is buying the house I showed him, and he wants to give me a cat.”

“A cat would make it lively around here. The birds would have to mind their p's and q's.”

“I've always been more into dogs than cats. Taking them for walks in freezing-cold temperatures, throwing a slobbery ball for them to catch, coming home to find a shredded couch pillow strewn all over the living room—it all sounds like such fun.”

“You're weird, Dixie. Listen, cats are great. They purr.”

She smiled. “Good point. Now, about dinner—veal parmesan?”

“Fantastic,” Kyle said.

He helped her carry grocery bags into the house and watched while she stowed the contents in the pantry. “Anything I can do to help?”

She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Paint the birdhouse. I can't wait to see how pretty it will be.”

Whistling, Kyle headed back to the garage. Outside, dusk was settling in, and in the watery sunlight filtering through the cloud cover, a fine mist sparkled on the newly transplanted bushes. As he pried open paint cans, a mantle of contentment settled over him, a new and unexpected state of being. He stopped what he was doing and savored it for a long moment, wondering if this was what other people experienced in their lives. He'd like to preserve it, make it last.