Heart of Dixie - Tami Hoag (1) (16 page)

"What are you waiting for, the apocalypse?"

She rubbed the countertop with her towel, trying to concentrate on the motion instead of the rising tide of fear inside her. "It's hard, Sylvie. I like having him love me, Dixie, just the way I am. I'm afraid if I tell him about Devon Stafford, then he'll want me to be her and I can't do that again. I won't. Not for anything."

"What makes you think he'd want Devon instead of Dixie?"

Dixie gave a humorless laugh. "Devon Stafford is Jake's idea of the ideal woman. I know he says he likes me fine, but if he had the chance to have Devon Stafford don't you think he'd grab it?"

"He loves you, sweetheart," Sylvie said softly, coming to stand behind her. She put her hands on Dixie's shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "You can't keep secrets from him. My Sid, God rest his soul, always said more harm is done in this world by secrets than anything else. Tell him. Today."

"Maybe, I will," she said, only to placate Sylvie. She checked her watch and gave a little gasp. "Oh, my, look at the time. Jake'll be here any minute."

She scooped up the picnic basket and her bomber jacket and strode purposefully out of the kitchen, weaving her way through the array of collections in the dining room and living room. Cyclops ran after her, making broken oboe noises. Sylvie followed, still nibbling on her fudge. Dixie swung the porch door open, letting out the cat, then yanked it back shut as a black pickup roared into her yard.

"Oh, my Lord! It's Tyler Holt!"

"Is Delia here?" Sylvie asked.

"No. She's gone down to Charleston to see about getting hair implants."

Sylvie muttered something under her breath in Yiddish. "These people. See what a mess they make with all these secrets?"

Dixie scowled at her and forced herself to take a step outside. She couldn't decide which was worse: facing Tyler Holt or accepting the reality of Sylvie's words. She chose the former. At least she could buffalo Tyler with her acting abilities.

As she started down the steps Jake drove in, parked beside the pickup and got out of the Bronco, eyeing Holt with his jealous-male look. Tyler ignored him and stalked toward Dixie, his eyes narrowed, mouth curving down. Tall with dark wavy hair and dark eyes, he was a handsome man when he wasn't looking petulant.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

Dixie struck a belligerent pose, dangling the picnic basket from her fingertips and tilting her head back. "Who?"

"Who?" He snorted. "You know damn well who! Delia."

"She's not here." She gave him a cool look. "I told you that before, Tyler."

"Yeah, well..."

He trailed off, his eyes darting as if he might see the words he needed for his argument scrawled somewhere. Dixie sighed. Tyler Holt was not exactly a brilliant conversationalist on his best day. From what she knew of him, he didn't have the brain God gave a goat. Aside from his looks, she couldn't imagine what Dee wanted with him, but there was no accounting for taste. Dixie put more stock in the inner person, but she'd learned her lessons about that the hard way.

"Has she called you?" she asked.

"Yeah, but she won't tell me where she is and it's driving me crazy."

Dixie gave a lazy shrug and combed her hair back with one hand. "If she won't tell you, then I've got to figure she don't want you to know."

He glared at her and wagged a threatening finger in her face. "If she's calling from here, I can find out, you know. I got me a buddy works for the phone company and he can trace any call he wants to just like that."

Dixie sniffed. "Oh, you're so full of hot air. Tyler Holt, I don't know why you don't just float away."

He sighed and made a face as he looked down at Cyclops, seemingly considering his options. Intimidation had failed. Anger had failed. His shoulders drooped as the aggression drained out of him in another long sigh. When he turned back to Dixie the look in his eyes just about broke her heart.

"Come on, Dixie, tell me, please. I miss her something awful. She won't tell me why she ran off. I can't sleep nights for thinking it was something I did."

Dixie nibbled at her lip. She could see Jake casually leaning against the hood of the Bronco, watching her intently. She swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry, Tyler," she said, softly, letting the act slide. "I can't tell you. It's between you and Dee. You'll just have to work it out with her."

Tyler stared glumly at his boots, hands on his hips. He worked his jaw and sighed again, then turned and went back to his truck, sparing Jake a belligerent glance.

Dixie watched him go, all the secrets she was forced to keep weighing down in her stomach like a brick. Bob Dog pushed a wet nose into her hand, looking up at her with sympathetic eyes. She stroked his dark head, then bent to shoo Cyclops out of the picnic basket.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Jake asked, taking the basket from her and stowing it in the back seat with the cooler.

"I couldn't. I promised Dee."

Jake turned with his hand on the open door of the truck. "The man is in pain, Dixie. He loves her. Don't you think he deserves to know the truth?"

"It's not my place to tell him."

"What about all your talk about trust? You're the one who said she should trust him to love her no matter what."

"I can't make that decision for her."

"Only for yourself," he muttered.

"What does that mean?"

He looked away and shook his head. "Nothing. I just think you could have taken a little pity on the poor guy."

Dixie scowled at him. "Oh, you men. Y'all stick together like flies in a glue pot, don't you? It was Tyler started this mess in the first place."

She stomped around the hood of the Bronco and hauled herself up into the driver's seat, adjusting it with a yank. Jake climbed in on the other side and slammed the door.

"It's his fault Delia's hair fell off?" he said sarcastically.

"It's his fault she tried to look like something she wasn't," Dixie snapped. And mine, she added silently, miserably. She let her head fall back against the seat and sighed, all the fight draining out of her. Keeping her own secret from Jake was bad enough: she didn't want to argue with him about other people's problems as well.

"Can we not fight about this?" she asked. "I wanted today to be fun. I just wanted us to have a nice afternoon."

Jake sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to start a fight. It's none of my business anyway. I just don't like people keeping secrets from each other," he said softly.

Dixie stared out the windshield. She could see Sylvie standing on the porch watching them. She could see a wedge of beach, sea, and sky, Abby and Hobbit nosing around the stilts the house sat on, Bob Dog lying on his back with his paws curled against him. She thought about her life here with her menagerie of misfits. She could have told Jake now, could have just blurted it out. You think Delia and Tyler have secrets, how about this--I used to be Devon Stafford. But she was too uncertain about what would happen after she'd dropped the bomb. She was too afraid of what the fallout would be and she wanted too much to have this afternoon with him. She wanted Dixie La Fontaine to have him to herself for just a little while longer. So she kept her silence and turned the ignition key. TEN

"WHY IS IT called Horse Island?"

Dixie looked around, snagging her wind-tossed hair back with one hand. It was a small island that didn't boast much of anything besides sand, scrub grass, and a thick growth of trees, but it had its own small natural bay and a dock--and it was all hers.

"Back in the days when the Spanish were cruising around here with galleons, one used to sink every once in a while," she said as they reached the dock. "These waters are full of old wrecks. One went down off this island in 1567. All hands were lost, but some of the horses they'd been transporting managed to swim ashore. They lived here for years on their own, wild as cobs, so folks just got to calling it Horse Island. Then a man named John Bascomb got it into his head he could round them up, break them and sell them. 'Course the only thing he broke was his own fool neck. They say his ghost still wanders around here, but I've never seen him. He probably knows I think he was an idiot."

"No doubt," Jake agreed with an indulgent smile.

Dixie watched him heft the cooler up onto the dock, biceps bulging against the sleeves of his purple cotton shirt. The ride over had been pleasant enough, the tension between them dissipating as the bow of the boat had lifted and cut through the slate blue water.

She felt as if she'd been given a reprieve from death row. She didn't like arguing with Jake and she didn't like keeping secrets from him. She didn't like the idea of revealing those secrets either, so she was caught in a trap of her own making. But she had her own agenda concerning getting herself out of that snare. It was part of the reason she had brought him to the island--to start easing herself out of her predicament a little bit at a time in a place where she had always felt a certain peace.

Jake hauled himself up on the dock, then gave Dixie a hand up. She tied off the boat, then they gathered their gear and started toward the beach. Dixie kept her eyes on the boards, picking out the ones she had replaced with her own two hands and smiling at them as if they were her children. She had spent a good deal of her time on the island thinking, hurting, healing. Working on the dock had been the first step she'd taken toward rebuilding her life. She had wanted to do something that was literally constructive, to work with her hands and see the result.

"This is a special place for you, isn't it?" Jake said as he sat the cooler down on the sand near the charred remains of an old campfire.

Dixie's step faltered a bit. She put the picnic basket and woolen blanket down, wondering just how much he really saw with that intense gaze of his.

"Yes," was all she said. She snapped the red plaid blanket open and kneeled with it as it fluttered to the ground.

"I can see why. It's very peaceful."

It was that, Dixie thought as she rummaged through the picnic basket, digging out the goodies. She selected a praline and nibbled on the sugary treat as she looked around. The wind was coming strong out of the southeast, blowing up a storm. The ride over had been choppy, and her old boat had bucked against the small whitecaps. But this spot was sheltered by a tangle of forest. It was a haven that had always given her a sense of calm. She clung to that as if it were a security blanket.

Jake knelt beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, urging her to lay her head on his shoulder. "Thanks for bringing me to your special place." She smiled up at him and raised the last bite of her treat to his lips. "Have a praline."

He let her feed it to him, licking the tips of her fingers, his gaze holding hers. "Mmmm...sweet," he murmured. "But not as sweet as you."

He bent his head and kissed her, both of them tasting of brown sugar and pecans. Dixie licked her lips when he raised his head.

"You're pretty sweet yourself, sugar," she said, cuddling against him.

They gathered wood for a fire, walking side by side in companionable silence. Dixie could feel him watching her, waiting, searching. Perhaps he sensed she had brought him here for a reason, but he didn't ask, he just waited.

What a far cry he was from the men she had known back in her Devon Stafford days. His penetrating gaze was at once reassuring and unnerving. It pleased her that he cared enough to look, but she was frightened of what he might see.

With other men she had always been able to hide, if not behind her looks, then certainly behind her talent as an actress. She wasn't sure she would be able to hide from Jake for long. If they were to build anything lasting, she knew she couldn't. But she kept getting the feeling she was going to take that first step and fall into an abyss, so she kept pulling herself back from the edge. The words kept rising up in her throat, clogging there like a logjam, only to be swallowed back. She delayed the inevitable on the excuse of enjoying her afternoon with Jake, but she enjoyed the time only half as much because of the nervous anticipation churning inside her.

Jake had the fire going in no time. It crackled and popped pleasantly as the ocean hissed against the shore, and warmed them as they settled side by side on the blanket.

"My compliments, Mr. Gannon. You start a wonderful fire," Dixie said, cuddling against him.

"Gee, and I haven't even taken off your clothes yet," Jake quipped, bending down to nip her neck.

Giggling, Dixie socked him on the arm. "That's not what I meant."

"Ouch!" he complained. "You're getting as bad as Sylvie."

"Well, you deserved it. I compliment you on your talent with a few sticks of wood and some matches and you turn it into innuendo."

"It's a skill I picked up in the Marine Corps." "Innuendo? Oh, that'll come in handy during a time of war," she said. "You can cut the enemy to ribbons with your rapier wit."

Jake grabbed her and tickled her ribs, his fingers sneaking inside her jacket. "This is what you get for being insubordinate."

Dixie gasped and squirmed. "They taught you this too? My, they're letting some funny boys in the Corps these days. What ever became of those `few good men'? Couldn't they find any?"

"Hey." Nose to nose with her, he gave her his most ferocious mock scowl. "No defaming the Corps or I won't feed you."

"No need to get nasty," Dixie said, sitting back and straightening her jacket with a tug at the waistband.

Jake picked up a pebble and flung it toward the surf. "My old man would put you on bread and water for a week."

"He was a Marine too?"

"Was, is, always will be from now until the end of time, amen. Brigadier General Thaddeus J. Gannon."

"What made you leave?" She pushed a strand of hair back from his eyes and studied him. "With your love for order and fitness and all, you certainly seem like a career man."

He sighed and stared out at the ocean. The look in his eyes seemed wistful, rueful. "Yeah, that's what Dad always thought, too."

"How did he take it when you left?"