Page 44 of Heart of Dixie
“Not much to see out there but corn stalks, princess. Look over here at me.”
Her eyes slid shut and she huffed out a sigh, but she turned and drew a knee up into the seat.
“Did he try to call? Or write to you? Ever?”
Her eyes slid away before she gave me my answer, and she dug around in the glove box, but her single, silent nod confirmed my suspicion. “Maybe he was sorry for the way he treated you. Maybe he was looking for a way to get you back here so he could show you himself.”
She snorted. Or maybe it was a sniffle. With the light fading and the switchback up ahead, it was safer to keep my eyes on the road than check.
“Son of a bitch!” I thrust my arm up to use as a shield when a handful of Corn Nuts peppered the windshield and then bounced back at me.
“Jesus, Dixie—”
“Son of a bitch!” Her voice rose until she was shouting as she pelted the interior of my truck. “Son. Of. A.Bitch!” At last she ran out of ammunition, thank God, but her eyes still raged. Apparently, she was still making him her problem.
She slumped into the seat. “Why do I even care? That man did nothing except tear me down.” Facing forward, she brushed crumbs from her lap. “Maybe I needed to move on withmylife, too. Maybe I needed to leave to do that. He just made it easier.”
Pieces of the Dixie puzzle were falling into place. I reached across the console and patted her shoulder—a chickenshit move. “You’re not like him, you know.”
She turned her widened eyes on me. “Are you kidding? We’reexactlyalike. I’m alone. I don’t have anybody. If I were to die today who would care if I only had a plain pine box?”
“Are you kidding me? You have lots of people, Dixie. You have your aunt—” That time shedidsnort. “You have all your friends on the coast, your clients, the people you work with. You even have people here.” I sucked up my courage, reached across and took her hand. The jolt up my arm had me regretting my daring. I gave her fingers a squeeze and put my hand back on the wheel. “Cooter was lucky to have you this week. No matter what happened in the past.”
She stilled, and the desperate longing I witnessed in her expression had me yanking the truck to the shoulder in a shower of dust and gravel. The sudden move drew her attention and she reached for the grab handle. When the vehicle had stopped, she lifted her wrist to check her watch. “Deke, if you need to pee, you’ll have to wait. The service is scheduled to begin any minute.”
I took a moment and a slow breath before I responded. This was my Dixie huddled in the seat beside me staring out the windshield. My princess, and she owned my heart. But before I was free to offer it to her, she had to know her own heart. “Dixie, why did you come back to Kissing Creek?”
Her eyes narrowed into an impatient glare. “Dammit, Deke. Now is not the time—”
“Just answer the question!” Her head snapped my way.
“I already told you. Olivia—”
“Fuck Olivia. I know you. She may have insisted you come; you may have let her believe you were only letting her haveher way. For argument’s sake, let’s both agree I know better. Now . . . Why did you come back to Kissing Creek?”
The sadness I witnessed earlier was back. She slumped down in the seat, her eyes clouded. “My dad loved my mom so much. . . he was always laughing and teasing her. He used to tease me too, and play with me. He took me for treasure hunts in the woods.” She lifted her tear-filled eyes to me. “I have happy memories of him. I have happy memories of living in that little house, of living in this town.”
I forced nonchalance into my tone. “It’s been a long time since you were a little girl. You survived the years after your parents’ divorce, when Cooter . . . changed. You moved on. Made a life for yourself. You can’t hold on to that anger any longer, princess. Not if you want to be happy here.” I laid my hand on her chest. Kept it there, nestled between her breasts. “You have to let it go.”
Her hands found my palm and clutched it between them. Her chin trembled and tears spilled from her lower eyelids like floodwaters cresting a dam. She considered her words for several long moments. Would I get the truth, or some whitewashed version of an excuse?
“I came back because I missed Kissing Creek. I missed the people here.” She paused as if she wanted to add something more, then shook her head as if to herself. “I didn’t say good-bye.”
There was my answer. Her hands dropped when I slid my palm from between them and returned it to my lap. I shouldn’t have expected more from her, but if there was any question of what I meant to her, she just answered it. “The town’s been here the whole time, princess. All you had to do was hop on a plane.”
“But Cooter—”
“Every little girl wants to worship her daddy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. You spent far too manyyears alone with your dad; you knew what he was like. But yeah, Cooter was here waiting the whole time, too.”
Her chin trembled against the tears that were possibly pissed off rather than grief filled now that I had her back against a wall. She wrapped her arms around herself and leveled me with an even stare. I knew her, but right now her emotions were a mystery to me. She could become overly calm, rigid and collected, or she could have a total meltdown. I only had moments to wait before she collapsed sobbing in my arms. “Oh,Daddy!” Her wails filled the cab of my truck. She pummeled my chest and let her tears soak my shirt.
Okay, then. Meltdown it was.
25
Dixie
Mitch mostly had his information correct, in that bingo had been cancelled in the Eastlake Baptist Church basement, but there were still tables and chairs set up throughout the large area. The obligation of the graveside service behind them, attendees crushed throughout to take advantage of the midday fare generously provided by the grieving family, then streamed outside to kibbutz in the shaded afternoon sun. They’d put in the time, after all—a stuffy church service along with the actual burial—and now they expected to be fed. And Olivia Westerbrooke came through in spades.Because her ex-husband had a reputation to uphold.
