Come and Get It (11 page)

As soon as the cleanup was done, Dixie
stepped out for a breath of fresh air, wandering among the other
food vendors to check out what they were serving. Lots of greasy,
fat-laden fair food. She did a mental eye roll. Anyone could cook
artery-clogging fare, but it took real talent to serve healthy food
that tasted good. She ordered a small lemonade and headed back to
her space.

Dixie and Rebecca Lynn worked quietly.
They’d been working together for so long, no communication was
necessary. Dixie pulled the large pots of chili and three-bean
chicken stew out of the refrigerator and set it on the burners to
begin reheating. Rebecca Lynn sliced homemade sandwich rolls and
cut chunks of corn bread to serve with the stew. Intent on lunch
preparations, Dixie paid little attention to the commotion
outside.

“
What in the world is going
on?” Rebecca Lynn muttered, leaning out the trailer window to see
what the ruckus was all about. She gasped and tugged on Dixie’s
apron. “You best come look at this.”

With a sigh, Dixie set down her knife
and turned around. Her eyes widened when she heard a familiar
voice.

“
You’d best get your hands
off me, Hugh,” Quin growled.

Dixie popped her head out the window,
gaping at the sight of Quin locked in a bear hug, Huge holding on
for dear life.

“
You ain’t gonna hurt that
little gal again, Mr. Bigshot City Man.”

“
Wasn’t planning on it,”
Quin grunted, then bashed Hugh in the nose with his
forehead.

“
Oh, he shouldn’t have done
that,” Rebecca Lynn said mildly. “Hugh’ll kick his ass for
sure.”

Dixie was still hanging out the
window, watching the spectacle unfold. She cringed as Hugh roared
and launched himself at Quin. The two men went down in a cloud of
dust, rolling on the ground. Hugh got up, dragging Quin with him,
then landed a punch that might have broken Quin’s nose. “Oooh,
that’s gonna leave a mark,” Dixie said to her sister.

But Quin was not about to be outdone
by an overweight drywaller. He gut punched the big man, and as he
went down, Quin grabbed his head and smashed it into his
knee.

“
Oh, now that’s just dirty
fightin’,” Rebecca Lynn protested. She grinned at her sister.
“Didn’t think the city boy had it in him.”

Dixie groaned, covering her face with
her hands. The locals were gathering around, cheering for Hugh.
Several put their heads together and pointed Dixie’s way. “I’ll
never live this down,” she moaned. “What on earth possessed him to
come back here?”

Rebecca Lynn hip-checked her sister.
“For a smart woman, you sure can be dumb sometimes. He came back
for you, you idjit.” She jerked the string on Dixie’s apron and
shoved her toward the door. “Go on.”

Dixie took a deep breath, opened the
door, and stepped outside. She rarely got pissed, but when she did
people tended to give her a wide berth. She stomped into the center
of the circle that had formed around the two men just in time to
have Quin skid to a stop at her feet. He looked up at her and gave
her a wicked wink.

“
Hey, Rose,” he said, then
looked back just in time to see Hugh come flying through the air.
Quin rolled onto his stomach and Hugh landed on the ground. A huge
gust of air rushed from his lungs.

The big man looked up at her. “Hey,
Dixie.”

Fists on her hips, Dixie glared at
both men. “What in tarnation do the two of you think you’re doin’?”
She pointed a finger at Quin. “You should have stayed in
California.” When Hugh opened his mouth to comment, she pointed her
finger at him. “And you! Do you think I’m so feeble-minded I can’t
fight my own battles?”

“
But, Dixie Rose, he was
gonna—” the big man protested.

“
I don’t care if he was
gonna climb to the top of the flagpole and yodel Yankee Doodle,
Hugh Clark! What’s Rita Mae gonna say when she sees you’ve gone and
torn your best Sunday shirt? You stop tryin’ to protect me, ya
hear?”

Dixie glared at all the people
standing around. “And that goes for the rest of ya, too!” She
stomped her foot to add emphasis, then turned and went back to the
trailer, slamming the door behind her.

“
Well,” Rebecca Lynn
drawled. “That was interestin’. Food’s ready. I’ll open the other
window.”

Dixie nodded and moved to the sink to
wash her hands, muttering disparagingly about the intelligence of
men, then tied on her apron. When she turned to take her first
order, she found herself face-to-face with Quin. She composed
herself and held up her pad as she turned to the next in line. “Can
I take your order?”

“
How about you take mine
instead?”

“
I’m sorry, we don’t serve
chicken livers here. How about I give you one instead? Take your
no-good, yellow-bellied round ass back to the city where you
belong.”

To her everlasting surprise, Quin just
grinned at her. “Well, I know what a no-good is, and a
yellow-belly, but what’s a round ass?”

Rebecca Lynn chimed in. “That’s cowboy
for someone who’s lost his nerve.”

Dixie glared at her. “That’ll be
enough, Becca.” She pointed at the line of people avidly observing
the goings-on. “You got customers.” She turned back to Quin. “I
think we’re done here.”

“
No, we’re not,
Rose.”

“
I told you not to call me
that!”

“
Why not?”

“
Because my husband used to
call me that. Only the man who loves me calls me that.”

“
I love you,
Rose.”

“
Right. And if a frog had
wings he wouldn’t bump his ass.”

Quin put his hands on his hips. “Come
out here and talk to me, Rose.”

“
I won’t do it.” She glared
at him.

“
You come out here or I’ll
come through this window after you.”

“
You wouldn’t
dare!”

To prove his point, Quin grasped the
window ledge and boosted himself up.

“
Oh!” Dixie gasped,
outraged. She gave him a good shove and he fell back into the dirt.
“I’ll meet you at the door but you can’t come in.”

Dixie stomped the short distance to
the door, her face burning at the laughter that followed her. Quin
was creating quite the scene. She’d never live this day down, no
matter how long she lived.

She yanked the door open. “Speak your
peace.” She watched him take a deep breath.

“
Rose, I’m sorry. I don’t
blame you for being mad. What I did, sneaking away in the middle of
the night, was a terrible thing. All I can say is I was scared.”
She opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off with a gesture.
“But when I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I
compared every woman I knew to you and not one of them measured
up.

“
I’m done with L.A., Rose.
I quit the firm, sold my loft, and came back here. I’ll do whatever
you want, honey. I want to marry you, Rose. I want to have babies
with you. I’ll eat as much humble pie as you see fit to serve me,
if you’ll just forgive me and say you’ll marry me.”

“
Humble pie, huh?” A bright
smile lit her face, and she opened the screened door. “Well, in
that case, come and get it.”

About
the Author

Keira Cole is Southern through and
through. She’s a “yes, sir/no, ma’am,” please and thank you kind of
girl who was raised to respect her elders and be polite to
everyone. Born in Florida, she moved to South Carolina at age ten.
It was there she learned about the wonders of sweet tea,
honeysuckle, and the taste of a warm, freshly picked tomato from a
roadside stand. (She also learned to carry a saltshaker in her
glove box.)

Keira has been a reader and
a writer of poetry since childhood, when her granddaddy held her on
his lap and read to her from
The Swiss
Family Robinson
and Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
. She has
read every Nancy Drew book ever written and started her own career
writing silly, teen heartthrob romances in middle school, which she
read to her equally excitable girlfriends. Her favorite books
are
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner and
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara
Kingsolver.

As Keira’s fond of pointing out, any
Southern woman worth her salt knows how to bake light, fluffy
biscuits, never appears in public without shaving her legs, and
knows exactly what “bless her heart” means. If you’re hungry,
she’ll feed you. If you need advice, she always has an opinion. If
you’re happy, she will laugh with you. If you’re sad, she’ll cry
with you. If you’re rude, she will kill you with
kindness.

Keira blogs at
keiracole.blogspot.com
.