Talk Dirty to Me

There’d been rain, and thunder, and shouting, and accusations, and even a small fire and finally, the death of their preordained relationship, left splattered all over the whitewashed wood-stained floor of the gazebo in the town square.

Dixie shivered. She would not revisit that horrific night today.

“I bet your mother’s still crying over all that money wasted on your fancy engagement party. Caine’s mama, too.”

Poke, poke, poke. Dixie knew for a fact her mother, Pearl, was still crying. She’d told her so from her sickbed in Palm Springs when she’d made Dixie promise to pass on her condolences to Landon’s mother. Though, her tears always had crocodile properties to them.

Pearl Davis didn’t cry genuine tears over human beings. She cried over investments lost, bank accounts in the red, and the merging of two prominent Plum Orchard families lost to her all because of Dixie.

And Caine’s mother, Jo-Lynne? She still didn’t speak to Pearl. Regret, sharp and just as vivid as if their breakup had happened only yesterday, left Dixie fighting an outward cringe.

Dixie, Landon and Caine’s mothers were all best friends once—the belles of Plum Orchard’s hierarchy aka the Senior Mags. So it was only natural their three children were virtually weaned from the same bottle. Just over two years older than Dixie, Landon and Caine had been her protectors since birth.

While their mothers had played canasta every Thursday, planned church events at Plum Orchard Baptist, and been a part of every social organization a small town finds imperative to good breeding and proper social connectivity, they’d also planned Dixie would one day marry one of the two boys.

Either one would do as far as Pearl, Jo-Lynne, or Landon’s mother, Charlotte, were concerned. They were all as good as family, the women used to say. That hadn’t quite worked out as planned after Landon confessed to their families he’d only marry Dixie if she had male parts. And Caine’s male parts didn’t interest him in the least.

Caine and Dixie had always known their mothers’ plans were fruitless where Landon was concerned, but as it turned out, the plan wasn’t so far-fetched when Dixie and Caine’s relationship took a turn toward romantic upon their simultaneous returns to Plum Orchard.

“So has Miss Jo-Lynne spoken to Miss Pearl since the ‘incident’ or is there still bad blood after all this time?” Em prodded with a smile.

Dixie shot her eyes upward. “Look, Landon, who knew you weren’t the only busybody in Plum Orchard? Emmaline’s going to carry the torch in your stead,” she teased, warmth in her voice.

Em swatted her with her plastic fan. “Oh, hush, and don’t you worry. There’s still plenty of busy to be had from Landon, Dixie Davis. Plenty.” She shot Dixie a secretive look with her sparkling blue eyes.

The same look she’d given her when Dixie had mentioned the phone call she’d gotten from Landon’s lawyer, insisting she be at the reading of his will.

That phone call still made no sense, and it would definitely hold her up. Her plan all along was to get herself in and out of Landon’s funeral lickety-split because she desperately wanted to avoid running into Caine, and Louella and the Mags, junior or senior.

Avoid running into them like she’d avoid a venereal disease—or hitting a brick wall at full speed, driving a Maserati. A foolish hope, no doubt. She should’ve known Caine wouldn’t miss Landon’s funeral, even if he was living in Miami now. Of course, Caine deserved to pay his last respects to Landon as much as Dixie did. He’d remained one of the best friends Landon had long after she and Caine had fallen out of one another’s good graces.

I will not pretend like neither one of you exist, Dixie-Cup. You’re both my friends. Y’all will always be my friends, and that’s just how it’s gonna be, whether you like it or not. Landon had said those words with a sweet-and-sour delivery after dropping a fond kiss on her forehead.

She’d loosely maintained her friendship with Landon around Caine, as well. After Landon’s refusal to walk on eggshells, he relayed information on Caine’s life and exploits. While Dixie would never admit it, she ate the scraps Landon fed her like a hungry stray dog.

Dixie turned, folding her arms across her chest to find Em with expectant hope in her eyes. “Okay, this is me biting. Care to explain exactly what that ‘plenty of busy to be had’ means? You are Landon’s attorney’s secretary, so you must know something. You’ve been giving me the side eye since I got here yesterday.”

Em’s eyes snapped back toward the doors, connecting the mourning room to Landon’s viewing room. “I’m just a lowly secretary. I know nothing you don’t know.”

Suspicion pricked Dixie’s internal antennae, making her narrow her grainy eyes. “You do know something, Em. My spidey senses are dull from the long drive from Chicago and fraught with grief, so just spit out whatever it is that’s made you so full you’re gonna burst.”

“I assure you, there’s nothing.” Em crossed her heart with two properly gloved fingers, gazing stoically at Dixie. And she didn’t even blink. “Now, I think we should get a move on before we’re thrown outta here for loitering.”

Outside the door buzzed with activity from impatient mourners still waiting to say goodbye.

On a deep breath, Dixie took one last glance at one of her favorite pictures of Landon. One with his sandy brown hair, wide gray eyes and a smile he’d handed out as if he was handing out Halloween candy, Landon epitomized handsome.

Goodbye. How would she ever say goodbye to him?

“If you want to keep avoiding the man who shall remain nameless and absolutely doesn’t put you in an emotional tizzy, you know, Caine—you’d better step up your game. He’s four mourners, one a stripper from Glasgow, away from us in the line just outside that door,” Em whispered low in her ear, holding up her phone to show her the warning text message from Augusta White.

Dixie’s stomach dived toward the floor, twisting and swirling as it went. The temptation to take just one quick glance at Caine when they walked through those doors made her twitch.

Don’t you dare look, Dixie. Do not. Her curious eyes would not betray her by peeking to locate his face in the crowd. His delicious, handsome, chiseled face.

No. She wouldn’t allow it. She soothed herself with the idea that it had been close to ten years since she’d last seen him. He was almost thirty-eight now. Maybe he had a paunch and a bald spot.

It could happen. Early senior onset or something.

“Dixie, c’mon now. Let’s go,” Em urged with a squeeze of her hand.

With one last glance of Landon’s smiling face, she picked up the photo and whispered, “Please, please remember this—wherever you are.” Dixie closed her eyes and recited the words they’d used before they hung up after every single phone call, before every goodbye they’d ever shared. “I love you like I love my own spleen.”

That’s a whole lotta love, Dixie Davis, he’d say on a hearty chuckle. Landon’s all-too-familiar response to her decades-old declaration of love echoed in her head, leaving her fighting back another raw sob.

Landon Wells—protector of all things defenseless, smart, rich and the best friend any girl could ever have was dead after a short, but incredibly painful bout with pancreatic cancer.

Everything was bad right now. The world was dull and pointless. The future was cloudy with a chance of lonely. Tears fell from her eyes, making her shoulders shudder uncontrollably.

“Oh, Dixie,” Em whispered into her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist in a show of undeserved sympathy. “He’d hate you crying like this almost as much as he hates bein’ dead, and you know it.”

Dixie’s throat closed and her shoulders shuddered, making Em grip her waist harder. “Stop this right now, Dixie Davis. We have an afterlife party to attend. Landon planned it all out. Rumor has it, Bobby Flay’s gonna be there. You don’t want to miss bacon-wrapped sliders made personally by Bobby Flay, do you?”

Em’s words made Dixie set the photo down and take a deep breath, preparing herself to face the crowd outside. She was right. Landon would hate her grief as much as he’d hated the pity showered upon him when he’d first been diagnosed. He’d told her to live, and while she did all that living, he wanted her to love again.

Someone, he’d said into the phone during their last phone call, his husky voice deep and demanding in her ear even in the last throes of his illness. Love someone until it hurts, Dixie-Cup. And for everyone’s sake, don’t cry over my lifeless body. You’re an ugly crier, girlie.

A deep, shuddering breath later and she turned her swollen eyes to Em’s compassionate gaze. “You’re right. He’d hate to see me cry.”

When Em propped open the door to the viewing room, Dixie stumbled, forcing Em to tighten her grip around her shoulders. “You and your love of astronomically high heels. You’ll break an ankle someday, Dixie.”

But it wasn’t her heels that made Dixie stumble. It wasn’t the endless rows of heads that shot up as they stepped into the chapel to join the mourners, skeptically eyeing their first glimpse of the Horrible Dixie Davis after so many years gone by.

It was Caine Donovan and the momentary eye contact they made as Em pulled her away and down the seemingly endless candlelit aisle of the funeral home. The electric connection his deep blue eyes made with hers snapped and sizzled, sending blistering rushes of heat through her veins.

It was everything and nothing in one short glance, hot and sweet, dismissive and breathtaking. Her heartfelt prayer he’d developed a paunch and had lost all that luscious chocolate-brown hair had gone unnoticed by whoever was in charge of aging.

He stood beside a smug yet pretty, Louella Palmer, wearing a conservative black sundress and matching sun hat, her blond hair sweeping from beneath it. As Dixie and Em moved toward them, Louella’s fingers slipped possessively into the crook of Caine’s arm just as she turned her pert little nose up at them.

A reminder to Dixie she’d once broken the mean girl’s girlfriend code.

Job well done.

“Ladies,” Caine said with an arrogant nod and an impeccably unmistakable impression of Sean Connery. Em whisked Dixie past him so fast she had to run to keep up.

But she hadn’t missed the subtext of his Sean Connery impersonation. Caine had once used that accent, and his uncanny ability to mimic almost anyone’s voice, on more than one intimate occasion. His knowledge of just what a Scottish accent did to her naked flesh was extensive—and he was lobbing it in her face.

Perfect.