Hold on Tight (4 page)

As she’d done all day, she thought about Rucker McClure. He’d finally driven out of Mount Pleasant at two-thirty in the morning, possum in tow. His parting words to her had destroyed her sleep for the rest of the night: “Keep your heart open and your lips puckered. I’ll be back.” She’d answered dryly, “Bring proof of insurance.”

The ear blasting version of
Thriller
ended, and Dinah walked wearily back to the car. “Let’s call it a day,” she told the drill team. “Good job.” They began gathering
their purses and tote bags. Dinah put the tape player in the station wagon’s back seat then stacked its cassettes in a shoe box with her usual precise attention to neatness. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a car pulling into the lot. A mom, no doubt. Then she looked up.

She inhaled sharply. Not a mom. A McClure. Rucker parked the sleek black Cadillac next to her dumpy wagon and climbed out gracefully. Dinah caught her breath and took a step backwards. In the bright light of day the man affected her even more than he had last night. He was tall, well built, confident, and totally devastating, which was saying a lot, she thought, considering the state of his clothes. He wore another pair of old jeans—or the same pair, who could tell—with an Auburn University football jersey and the same gray houndstooth sport jacket from before. Today he’d traded his fancy black boots for jogging shoes. That fashion decision must have taken him hours, she thought dryly.

Rucker ambled toward her, his best nonchalant expression in place, a jaunty smile fixed on his face, his heart racing. She doesn’t look mad to see me again. At least that’s a relief, he noted. She did look defensive, though, sort of like a lady squirrel anxious to run for the nearest tree. A beautiful lady squirrel, he added in silent admiration.

Man, she had style. No other woman could look so neat and yet so sexy in tan trousers, a yellow blouse, and an argyle sweater vest. Her dark hair curled below her shoulders in long, loose waves. He felt her cold blue eyes trying to whittle his control away and knew they were succeeding. Why does this woman mess up my mind so bad? Rucker asked himself in annoyance. I’m suave. I’m hot. I’m a celebrity. I’m—

“Well, Kemo Sabe, where’s your possum?” Dinah asked bluntly. He stopped right in front of her, closer than she wanted him to be, too close for her to breathe normally. He looked exasperated.

“Back at the motel.”

“Which motel?”

“The Schwartz Mountain Motel,” he told her. “ ’Scuse
me, I mean the Schwartz Mountain Motel and Taxidermy Shop. Little lady, I hope my possum’s gonna be safe alone.”

She sighed. That chauvinistic
little lady
business again. “The Schwartz’s will treat him and you better than you deserve.”

He smiled crookedly. “Guests check in, but they never check out.”

Dinah gave him a somber look. “You came back sooner than I expected.”

“There are a million stories in the naked city. I’m settin’ up my word processor here for a few days.”

“Mount Pleasant isn’t naked or a city. Please go back to the city.” Her worry and sadness deepened. “I know you’re going to take literary revenge on me. That’s all right, but don’t hurt anyone else, please.”

He frowned, his green eyes clouding with anger. “Do you think I’m that kind of man? You think I’ve come up here to look for some sort of petty trash I can print?”

“You’re a reporter. I know all about reporters.”

“You don’t know squat about me, Dinah,” he said tersely.

She frowned, too, bewildered and even more defensive. “Then what do you want?”

His mouth thinned into a line of challenge. “Well, for starters, a kiss hello.”

He bent forward quickly and stole one from her parted lips. Dinah gasped and he kissed her again. It took nearly five seconds for her to gather her mental faculties enough to step back. Five seconds of new shock and rebellious tingles. Dinah whirled around and discovered, as she’d expected, that they had an audience of thirty open-mouthed teenage girls.

“You didn’t see that,” she said firmly. “None of you saw that.”

She turned back around and faced Rucker, her jaw set. “That was indefensible.”

He arched one brow in his jaunty way, the way that told her he had already gotten over being mad and was
now enjoying himself. “You didn’t even try to defend yourself,” he joked.

“I mean, you pig, that you can’t justify what you did. I have a good reputation in this town—”

“Everybody knows you got a good reputation. Now they want you to have a good man. Lula Belle Mitchum told me so when I stopped by city hall on my way in. She told me you’re the best coach the drill team ever had and she told me which way to the school to find you.” He looked around at the sprawling, tree-shaded brick building that was Twittle County’s only high school. “Looks like the one I went to,” he noted. “Old and friendly.”

Dinah huffed loudly. “Rucker, I don’t care if you get every man, woman, and possum in this town on your side, my mission in life is not centered around satisfying your chauvinistic fantasies.” His eyes settled on her with calm scrutiny. Dinah pointed an accusing finger at him. “If you’re one of those vain men who’s looking for a beauty queen to put on his arm, then you could do a lot better than me. I’m six years older and ten pounds heavier than when I paraded around as Miss Georgia, so—”

“What hurt you so bad that you curdled up and turned cynical?”

His harsh words put a clamp on her diatribe. She gazed up at him feeling guilty, all too aware that she had been unnecessarily cruel to him. “Life,” she snapped. Dinah added silently, And death. Her father’s death, a puzzling tragedy surrounded by shame and scandal. What would this aw-shucks journalist do if he discovered that she had played a prominent role in that juicy scandal?

Right now he gazed down at her with concern. “Ssssh,” he crooned suddenly. Rucker reached out and smoothed a strand of her hair away from the autumn breeze. “Whatever it was, don’t let it make you skittish around me.” He touched her cheek in a brief, light caress then let his hand drop to his side. His unexpected gentleness in the aftermath of her sarcasm had
a horrible effect on her control, and she looked away, brushing at her eyes with quick, embarrassed motions.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m really sorry for being such a creep. When I was competing in pageants I had a lot of bad experiences with people who wanted to take advantage of me. Especially reporters. I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Please don’t take this out on my town.”

He exhaled in dismay. “I’m not Rucker the Hun. I like small towns. I like the human interest stories I find in small towns. I want to write about this place. About Dewey and Lula Belle … and you. About the good things you do.”

Dinah felt queasiness fighting for control of her stomach, and she took a moment to subdue it. She had to convince Rucker not to write about her. If his national column drew attention, if other reporters took an interest in an ex-beauty queen turned mayor, it would be disastrous.

“I’m not special,” she murmured to Rucker. “I’m just trying to do what I think is right. I don’t always succeed.”

“You’re very special. People look up to you. Lula Belle said so. You’ve earned a lot of affection and respect here.”

She studied him in speechless consideration, her breath short. “It’s nice that you think so,” she told him.

“Will you put up with me for a few days? I just want to put your town on the map and make you a celebrity. Is that so bad?” He grinned.

Dinah swallowed hard. He sincerely wanted her company, and she sincerely needed his. She had to learn more about him if she was going to sidetrack his determination to publicize her life. She had to learn more about him, period.

She cleared her throat. “All right. How would you like to come to the VFW’s monthly get-together? It’s tonight, and I have to make a speech. The people are terrific, but the food’s really horrible—canned spaghetti and hard garlic bread.”

“When I was in college I lived on canned spaghetti,” he said happily. “I love canned food. No fuss, no mess, no dishes. My china pattern is called ‘Corrugated.’ ”

Despite her fears she chuckled. “The veterans will insist that you use a plate.”

“I’ll manage. Sounds like fun.”

“Well, they’ll be thrilled to have you there.” She paused, gazing up at him with intrigue that she tried desperately to hide. It was wrong to feel so excited about this turn of events. It was wrong to feel so excited about this dangerous visitor. “You went to college?”

He grinned. “Auburn University, the South’s finest. Took me seven years to get a degree in journalism, but then, when you’re as good-lookin’ as I am, you don’t need brains.”

“No, just humility. Seven years to get a bachelor’s degree?” She’d gotten hers in three, and her master’s degree in one.

“Well, for two and a-half years of that, I was in the Army.”

“You were drafted?”

“Nope. I joined.”

“No brains at all, I’d say.”

“I believe in duty.”

She started to laugh then saw that he was serious. Surprise and pride swelled inside her chest. “You have strong beliefs,” Dinah said. “I admire that.”

He couldn’t bear to let the conversation turn solemn for long. Rucker gave her a rakish salute. “I believe in motherhood, patriotism, and fried chicken, but not necessarily in that order.” He paused. “I also believe in puttin’ women on a pedestal.”

“Hmmmm. So you can look up their skirts.”

Startled, he stared at her for a moment. Then a smile of absolute thrill lit his handsome face. “What a sense of humor,” he sighed in sincere appreciation. “I’ve never met a woman who could retaliate so well.”

Dinah quelled an urge to blush like an excited game-show matron who’d just been kissed by Bob Barker. This was the strangest compliment any man had ever
given her, and yet she felt inordinately pleased by it. Everything was getting confused. He was nothing but trouble, and she was afraid of him. But she realized suddenly that she was glad he’d come back to Mount Pleasant.

“She’s blushing, she’s blushing,” he chanted in a ridiculous adolescent tone. “I love it.”

Dinah began to laugh hopelessly. Rucker wrapped a hand around her arm and tilted his head towards hers, laughing along with her. “You’re easy to please,” she said finally.

“You’re easy to be pleased around,” he whispered.

After a mild battle over who would pick up whom for the VFW spaghetti dinner, Dinah won. She wasn’t going to let this persuasive, dangerous man come near her home, a small clapboard farmhouse hidden in a stand of pine trees a few miles from town. She had a feeling that if he ever got over the threshold, he’d never leave. She might never let him leave. And that would be foolish.

She was rarely late for anything—old beauty queen training, she thought wryly—so at precisely seven o’clock, the autumn darkness drawing slowly around her, Dinah parked her station wagon outside room number 4 of the Schwartz Mountain Motel and Taxidermy Shop, waved at David Schwartz, who was burning one last pile of leaves on the lawn that fronted the main office, and blew the horn for Rucker. After thirty seconds she blew again. The door banged open and he filled the frame, silhouetted by the cozy light of his bedside lamp.

Dinah acknowledged a decidedly feminine response to the outline of his body. His long legs tied in nicely to trim, muscular hips and a sturdy torso that widened into magnificent shoulders. His was the kind of body that just naturally drew women’s eyes, no matter how haphazardly he clothed it. Rucker is living proof that grits ought to be the breakfast of champions, she thought. Her eyes widened as she saw the possum in
his hands. He held it up proudly, as if it were his baby, then lifted one of its long, pink paws so that the slack-faced little animal appeared to be waving at her. Dinah nearly choked on laughter as she waved back.

He set the possum on the bed, shut the room’s door, and walked gingerly toward her car, his boots in one hand. He settled into the passenger seat, and Dinah felt her pulse accelerate at the effect of his overwhelming presence in the small space.

“How do I look?” he asked cheerfully. “I was watchin’
Wheel of Fortune
when you drove up, and I hadn’t put my boots on yet. Sorry.” He waved large, angular hands at his outfit. “I don’t know how to coordinate clothes. But this outfit usually does pretty well when I go someplace nice.”

“What’s
Wheel of Fortune
?”

He stared at her for a moment. “Great balls of fire, just the country’s favorite game show. Dinah, what do you do up here at night in the mountains?”

“Read a good book or play the piano if I’m not busy doing something related to being mayor, which takes up a lot of my spare time.”

“We’re gonna have relationship problems if you don’t like important stuff like
Wheel of Fortune
,” he told her drolly.

“We can’t have relationship problems if we don’t have a relationship. You enjoy doing this outrageous Redneck Everyman routine, don’t you?”

He looked grandly perturbed. “Routine? Are you suggestin’ that this is not my true personality?”

“I’ve done a lot of reading about you lately, dear boy. Gloria Steinern said you’re—let’s see, how did she put it—you’re ‘an irresistible red-clay phenomenon who loves to play devil’s advocate.’ She also said that she thinks you’re Phil Donahue at heart.”

“That woman’s crazy,” he groaned. “I’m Johnny Cash, or Willie Nelson, or Duke Wayne, God rest his fine soul—”

“Okay, okay, thou doth protest too much, me thinks,” she soothed, chuckling.

She scanned his appearance from the feet up, her lips compressed in controlled amazement. “Be honest, Miss Dinah,” he warned. “You got this polite, tactful little expression on your face, sort of like you’re still Miss Georgia and some rude yokel just asked you what color undies you wear. Tell the truth. What do you think? Am I handsome, or what?”

“You’re an egomaniac, that’s what.” She sighed. “Well, you have on one brown sock and one black sock.”

“Whoops. No one can see ’em under my boots.”

“And frankly, brown corduroy trousers do not make a fashion statement when combined with a gray houndstooth jacket, a white shirt, and—good grief, has that tie been washed in mud?”