Heart of Dixie - Tami Hoag (1) (9 page)

HE HADN'T CAUGHT sight of the woman in town on Saturday. He'd kept an eye peeled as he strolled the three aisles of Harper's Grocery and as he'd followed Dixie around in the hardware store while she shopped for toggle bolts and ten- penny nails. There had been no sign of his quarry on the street or anywhere around the Cottages during the rest of the day. But that night there had been another aerobics exhibition on the other side of the shade at the attic window.

Sunday had brought similar lack of luck. Jake had turned down Dixie's rather cool offer of a ride to church, hoping the woman in the attic would emerge while she thought everyone else was gone. But such had not been the case. He ended up spending most of the day in a deck chair on the porch of his cottage, rereading his manuscript and being stared at by Dixie's array of motley cats. Fabiano had strolled over for a beer in the afternoon and met Jake's query about someone else living in Dixie's house with a blank look. All in all, it had been a pleasurable way to spend the day. He'd enjoyed the sight and sound of the sea and stretching out in a chair with his book. But it had not been very profitable as far as attaining his objective.

Dixie had avoided him all day like the plague and he had allowed her the distance. He didn't quite understand what was going on between them, either. The attraction was pulling his mind off his work, distorting his focus, and that made him uncomfortable. He had always gone after a goal with single-minded determination. Now he felt as if he were drifting in two directions at the same time.

If Dixie was hiding Devon Stafford here, then she'd had amazing success for a year. There had never been a clue in any of the tabloids. Not one person had uttered a word of suspicion about the actress hiding out along the Carolina coast. Greece had been scoured by reporters, and Mazatl�n, and Monte Carlo. No one had ever mentioned Mare's Nest. Of course, Dixie had admitted Mare's Nest didn't attract many strangers. Hiding a runaway star may not have been such a difficult undertaking. Or perhaps Ms. Stafford had only just come here. For all anyone knew, the actress could have been constantly on the move, staying nowhere long enough to be found out.

Devon Stafford. He'd found her. He could feel it in his gut. The connection to the La Fontaine name, the aerobics demonstrations, the glimpse of that famous hair and figure...it had to be her. Why would an ordinary person go to such lengths to hide herself?

Jake had tried to further substantiate his guess by digging through his files for the names of the relatives Dixie had mentioned and for a mention of Dixie herself. But little was known about the star's early life. Her manager had decided from the outset that mystery would further her allure, so Stafford had revealed little about her background. He knew her real name--Dee Ann Montrose--and her mother's maiden name: La Fontaine. But that was about it and for that he had searched long and hard. He had found no mention of Great-Aunt Suki and her gall-bladder problems. No mention of Great-Uncle Nub and his penchant for bleach bottle hats. No mention of a curvy spitfire of a cousin named Dixie.

Dixie, who was taking her own sweet time emerging from the house. Giving her cousin a good head start, no doubt. He'd heard a car roar out of the yard half an hour before and had just caught a glimpse of silver hair whipping out the open window of a classic pink Thunderbird as it sailed down the road. He'd cursed his immobility and called Dixie for a ride. They'd agreed to meet at the Bronco by eleven. She had yet to make an appearance, and it was already a quarter past. Punctuality was apparently another trait they didn't share. Sitting in the truck, Jake thought he should be annoyed, but he couldn't find it in him. In fact, he admired Dixie's loyalty. She was determined to deny the existence of another person in her house, no matter what. If the mystery woman had fallen out of a window and landed on Jake's head, he imagined Dixie would try to cover up with a screwball explanation.

It wasn't like him at all. Since arriving in Mare's Nest he had spent more time wondering about what made Dixie tick than wondering about Devon Stafford. Wondering about the shadows that sometimes passed through Dixie's eyes, about the tears that had welled there briefly before he'd kissed her on Saturday morning. She had secrets and Jake wanted to know what they were. As always when presented with a mystery, the wheels of his mind whirred like crazy, turning over facts and clues, hunting for scraps of information and impressions he'd stored away.

All the gears were working...on the wrong mystery.

"This place is affecting my mind," he mumbled, shaking his head in sad amazement.

He glanced around the wasteland of the front seat to distract himself. There was a little pile of seashells on the floor, the remnants of a bag of junk food, three soda cans, and an earring. Frowning, he turned his attention to the colorful bead necklaces hanging from the rearview mirror like exotic fruit. He hefted them in his palm the way he might test a bunch of grapes for weight, rolling the smooth beads between his fingers.

Tiny printing on red beads caught his eye. There was one letter in dark ink on each bead. "2 D 4 luck J." A little heart had been drawn on the bead following the J.

Luck for what? Who the hell was this J character?

Jake would never have labeled the twist of emotion in his chest jealousy. He wasn't the type. He was practical and controlled, not given to bursts of jealousy. And jealous of what? That a woman he had just met, a woman who was his opposite in most respects, had a life outside their brief acquaintance? Absurd.

What he was feeling was impatience. He checked his watch, heaved a sigh, tapped his toe on a soda can.

At long last the door to the beach house opened and Dixie sauntered down the steps and across the yard, pausing to pat several of her dogs. Jake watched her, his heart warming at the sight of her, cute and curvy in her old jeans and a hunter green turtleneck that molded her breasts, her expression soft.

He shook his head, a wry smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "I'm falling like a ton of bricks," he muttered, amazed: He never fell for women. He experienced attraction that gradually strengthened into something more. He established reasonable relationships with rules and bounds. He never fell. He never lost control that way. The idea that Dixie was stripping that famous control away, without even trying, irked him a little. It also excited him.

"Sorry you had to wait," she said without a hint of repentance in her voice as she settled herself behind the wheel of the Bronco. "But I had to wash my hair and I ran out of cream rinse and then Mavis Randall called and she just goes on and on, talking about her bunions and bursitis and all. There's just no end to human suffering where Mavis is concerned. I swear."

Jake let out a measured breath, schooling himself to be patient and trying not to notice the way Dixie's dark green sweater hugged her breasts. "No problem. I didn't mind the wait."

Dixie bit down on a smug smile. The heck he didn't mind. If he clenched his teeth any harder that gorgeous jaw of his was going to crack. She had dragged her feet out of pure orneriness and she probably should have been genuinely apologetic, but she wasn't. It would do him good to get off schedule every once in a while.

"You might as well get used to it anyhow," she said. "Used to what?"

"Waiting. We have our own pace down here. The word `hurry' never made it into the Southern vocabulary. It's not much like California."

"So far, I'd say it's not much like any place I've been on this planet," Jake said.

Dixie reserved comment and put the Bronco in gear. She kept waffling between thinking a dose of Mare's Nest would do Jake good and simply wishing him gone, reformed or not. The issue would probably be academic once he got a load of Eldon. He'd bolt for the nearest phone and call a tow truck up from Charleston to rescue his precious Porsche and then he'd be out of her hair for good.

Why did that idea bring more anxiety than relief?

Criminy, she thought, nibbling her lip. After all she'd been through, she was finally going to lose her mind--over a man.

"So, when do you think you'll have it finished?" Jake asked.

Eldon stood back from the Porsche, wiping his hands on a rag only marginally cleaner than his greasy fingers. He chewed some on the stub of his cigar, then pulled it from his mouth and spat on the floor of the garage, all the while making a series of faces that could have won him a spot on a laxative commercial. Behind him stood Junior, a misnomer if ever there was one. Junior looked like an oak tree with a face. He had a vacant look that suggested he bent tire irons over his head for recreation.

"Well," Eldon drawled, "could take a week. Mebbe two. All depends on how long it takes for that hose to get here."

Jake looked longingly at his Porsche, nestled beside a battered pickup that reeked of an active farm career. He cast a sideways glance at Eldon and thought that for the first time since he'd broken his arm at the age of eight he might actually cry in public.

Eldon was built like a fireplug, fiftyish with a friar's ring of thin red hair and eyes that were mere slits in his fleshy face. He was Pigpen grown up and gone bad. His coverall looked like something that should have been taken out and burned. He chewed some more on his cigar stub, sniffed, and spat.

Jake's first urge was to have the car hauled elsewhere, some place where the help didn't look like extras from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. But he squelched that urge. He needed to stay in Mare's Nest and it was suddenly important that he leave the car in Eldon's grimy hands.

This was a test. He could feel Dixie's eyes on him, knew that she expected him to cut and run. Blasted hormones. He was going to leave his eighty-thousand-dollar automobile in the hands of a hillbilly version of Mutt and Jeff just to impress a woman with his toughness. He could take it. Maybe Andre would swoon at the sight of this place, but he was Jake Gannon, he was an ex-Marine, he was only going to break out in a cold sweat and go weak at the knees.

"That--" Jake broke off and cleared the tightness from his throat, then continued in his usual decisive tone. "That'll be fine. No hurry. I can write here as well as anywhere."

Eldon's face took on a scowl. He pulled an enormous wrench from his pocket and slapped it against his palm. "You're a writer?"

"Yes," Jake said evenly, eyeing the wrench with amusement.

Eldon took a step closer and Junior loomed right up behind him, thick brows drawing low over unblinking eyes. Jake stood his ground with deceptive calm; a lazy, dangerous smile turned the corners of his mouth.

"It's okay, Eldon," Dixie said, pulling herself away from the Porsche. "Jake's a mystery writer, not a reporter." Unimpressed, the mechanic grunted, his gaze riveted on Jake. "You're stayin' out to the Cottages?"

"That's right," Jake said, his voice as soft as velvet, smile never wavering.

"You give our Dixie a bad time and you're gonna be one big mystery. You got that, boy?" Eldon leaned toward Jake and tapped the wrench on Jake's breast-bone for emphasis, his beady little eyes squinting into nothingness. "Junior here'll put you in so many places those prissy snots from California won't never find enough of you to take back in a lunch bucket."

Junior snarled an agreement.

Jake eyed them both indolently and chuckled, a low menacing sound that rumbled deep in his chest. One golden brow arched and he settled his hands at the waist of his jeans. "Oh, really?"

"Eldon!" Dixie wailed. Rushing forward she snatched the tool away from him and smacked him on the arm with it. "For Pete's sake! Jake is a guest. He didn't come here to make trouble. Here he is trusting his brand-new Porsche with you and you have to go and act like something out of Deliverance. You ought to be ashamed." She shot a glare up at Junior. "The both of you." Junior stepped back, his stern face melting into a look of contrition. "Shoot, Dixie, we're just looking out for you."

Dixie tilted her head and gave him a sweet smile that brought a hint of a blush to the big man's cheeks. "I'm okay," she said, affectionately rubbing his cheek with the wrench.

Jake watched her reach up and playfully tug down the bill of Junior's red Whippets cap. He could almost see her turn up the knob on that incredible charm of hers. Junior grinned shyly and shuffled his feet, and Jake felt another swell of that emotion that absolutely wasn't jealousy. " 2 D 4 luck J." J for Junior? Did he care? Did it matter to him? Of course not.

"So," he said tightly as they walked out of the garage, just about choking on that emotion he refused to name. "You and Junior have something going on?"

"Me and Junior?" Dixie laughed and made a face at him. "No. Junior's not sweet on me. Whatever gave you that idea?"

He flashed a grin that was little more than a baring of his teeth. "Oh, just that he was practically drooling all over you."

She laughed again. "Go on. He was not. Junior's like a big brother to me." "Big, drooling brother," Jake muttered, temper seething, control slipping. He went around to the passenger side of the Bronco and yanked the door open.

Dixie watched him with amazement. He was acting almost as if he were jealous. But of course he wasn't, she tried to tell herself. Men like Jake Gannon didn't get jealous over not-so-slender, irksome women they'd just met. It didn't happen. Not ever. It was just plain foolishness to think this one might. But her fingertips pressed against her lips, bringing back the taste of him as he'd kissed her.

"They really are top-notch mechanics, you know," she said, partly to distract herself and partly to reward Jake for leaving the Porsche. "Eldon has hands like a surgeon, only his are greasy."

"What about Junior?" Jake said irritably, flattening and stacking junk food wrappers on the dash. "What has he got besides a brain the size of a pea?"

"A degree in engineering from Georgia Tech," Dixie said smoothly. "He does free-lance design work. Has accounts all over the South. Tinkering on cars is his hobby."

Jake rubbed a hand across his mouth and sighed. He let his head roll against the back of the seat, slanting Dixie a sheepish look that was so endearing it made her heart jump. "I deserved that, didn't I?" Dixie chuckled, the light in her eyes softening. "Yep. You just about steal the prize when it comes to judging books by their cover."