Talk Dirty to Me

by Dakota Cassidy

  “Define a cause worthy enough to sully my housekeeping reputation?”

  Dixie gave him another quick hug. “Soon. All shall be revealed soon.”

  Sanjeev gave her a quick squeeze of her shoulder before putting his stern face back in place. “But not before you clean this up!”

  Dixie waved him off with a chuckle. “Like it never happened. Swear.”

  As Sanjeev took his leave, his face perplexed, Dixie smiled to herself, celebrating her victory on the inside.

  It was official. She’d won Call Girls fair and square, and that meant she could pay back her investors. But before she decided if she’d run it from Plum Orchard or Chicago, there was one more thing left to do, and it would depend on Em.

  Two things left to do if you counted Candy Caine.

  * * *

  “Why am I here again, Cat?” Dixie groused. She needed to set phase two of her plan in motion, and it didn’t involve her operating the phones tonight.

  “I told you, Dixie. Whatever Marybell had, LaDawn has, too, and now that Caine’s out of the picture because he’s a dirty, rotten, cheating scoundrel, we need your help. If Call Girls is gonna be yours, you gotta help in the bad times as well as the good.”

  “Okay,” she conceded. “Let me get my headset and get settled.” She moved toward the hall entryway leading to the offices.

  Cat spun around in her chair. “Hey! Did I tell ya how glad I am you’re stayin’, Dixie?”

  Dixie smiled at her, beaming when she remembered Cat’s response to that information at Hank’s office. They’d both gone and tattled on Caine together first thing this morning while Caine slept after a red-eye in from Miami, proving he’d been cheating.

  Caine had found a way to rack up fake phone calls to his operator line, and fake money to the Call Girls kitty, but there was absolutely no way he’d been taking real calls like she had.

  Oddly, he hadn’t inflated his numbers, though he’d still cheated because, according to Hank, his clients weren’t genuine Call Girls callers.

  Oh, technicalities, how I love thee, she’d yelped in triumph.

  All of Dixie’s clients were real, and when Hank had ruled as such, Cat had jumped up and down over the fact that Dixie was considering staying in Plum Orchard.

  Dixie sent Cat a warm smile. “I think you screamed your approval once or twice.”

  Cat rushed up behind her and gave her a hug. “Well, lemme say it again. I’m happy you’re the new boss.”

  “Happier than if Caine was your boss?” she teased, tugging at Cat’s hair.

  “Now, don’t go makin’ me pick. I like Caine, too. I know there’s an altruistic reason he did what he did. We just don’t know it yet.”

  “Oh, fine. Keep the truth to yourself if it makes you feel better. I’m off to answer those calls.” She gave Cat a quick hug and headed to her office.

  Her office.

  The words made her beam with pride. She’d done it, and she’d done it without taking advantage, twisting the rules—well, not a lot—and hard work.

  She hoped somewhere up there, Agnes and Landon were proud.

  When Dixie entered her workspace, there were pink and purple balloons attached to her chair and a banner on the wall behind her desk that read, You Are Worthy, Mistress Taboo!

  Dixie grinned, but only briefly before her headset was buzzing. She grabbed it off her desk and placed it over her head, pushing balloons out of her way to sit down. “This is Mistress Taboo, are you worthy?”

  “I hope I am.”

  “Walker!” she squealed in delight. “I’m so glad you called again.”

  “I’m assuming, because I was able to reach you, you’re staying at Call Girls?”

  She raised a fist upward. “You assume correctly. Boy, what a difference a day makes,” she said, giddy and excited about the future for the first time in a long time. “You were so right.”

  “So you talked to your ex-fiancé, then?”

  “Not quite, but I did revert back to my mean-girl ways—only momentarily. Promise.” She was still patting herself on the back, rejuvenated by the sight of Caine, soaking wet in all his hard ab-ed, delicious half nakedness, dripping wet and in shock.

  She almost heard Walker’s smile turn to disappointment. “But I thought those days were over?”

  “Well, so did I, until I caught him cheating.”

  “Cheating?” Walker rasped as though he were defending Caine. “He sure doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d cheat. Not after the way you described him. Where’d Mr. Honorable go?”

  “Well, I didn’t think so either, but here we are.”

  “So he had another woman?”

  “No! It’s one of those long stories I’m infamous for, but here’s the gist of it.” Dixie briefly explained Landon, and the challenge to win Call Girls, and how they’d come to find out Caine hadn’t ever taken any calls at all.

  Walker whistled into the phone. “Wow. He’s a crafty guy. Whaddaya suppose his motive for that was?”

  Dixie paused for the thousandth time, wondering the same thing. “I don’t know. It’s really strange. He didn’t inflate his call numbers—which is what I would have done back in the day if I’d had access to something like that. So it wasn’t like he was trying to beat me that way. It makes no sense. He knew if he cheated he’d have to forfeit the company.”

  “Do you want to find out why he did it? I might be able to help.”

  Dixie stopped all motion. How could Walker help her find out what Caine had been up to? A rush of alarmed goose bumps skittered along her spine, but it didn’t stop her from saying, “More than I want to keep a kidney.”

  “Can you meet me by the pool outside the guesthouse?”

  The pool? Outside? Now there weren’t just alarms going off in her head, she was hearing DEFCON bells and whistles. “My pool? In my town?”

  “Right here in Plum Orchard,” he said low and sweet.

  Dixie looked around at her office with suspicion, her breaths coming in choppy puffs. How did Walker know about Plum Orchard? Oh, God, what had she done by confiding in him? He’d tracked where her calls were coming from, and now he was stalking her. Damn technology. She forced herself to slow down. “Okay, what’s going on? This isn’t funny.”

  “Just come to the pool,” he reassured in that lazy Southern accent. “And keep the phone to your ear while you walk over.”

  Dixie froze, her hands like ice. She shook her head. “No. If this is some kind of joke—not funny.”

  “Don’t be afraid, Dixie.”

  Panic screamed in her veins. He knew her name. Oh, Dixie Davis, of all the foolhardy, stupid, ill-informed things you’ve done, talking to a man who calls for sex on a phone has to be right up there with a too-stupid-to-live horror-movie heroine!

  “It’s okay, Dixie. I promise,” he coaxed, silky and smooth.

  Dixie hesitated only a moment before she began making a break for the reception area where she’d left Cat, like, at any moment, Walker was going to pop out of the bedroom closet door, gleaming knife in hand.

  She pushed out of her door and found all three women, Marybell, Cat, and LaDawn, waiting on her with expectant faces. Her mouth fell open then snapped shut as her mind raced forward. “I—I thought you had the flu, LaDawn? Hold on. What’s going on here?”

  “Don’t you have a phone call right now, Mistress Taboo?” LaDawn reminded, smiling wide. “Remember what my mama said, closed mouth don’t get no food. You need to eat. Keep talkin’, honey.”

  Cat shooed her forward toward the door leading out to the pool as Marybell grabbed her hand with an excited giggle and virtually dragged her through the entryway door.

  Dixie gripped the phone to her ear, even as her feet struggled to keep up with Marybell’s. Her fear was repla
ced with bouts of panic. “Walker! I want you to tell me what’s going on right now. This isn’t funny, you hear? Not laughing!”

  But Walker was laughing. Right in her ear. “Keep walking, Dixie. Trust, would you? There has to be trust in a relationship, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

  As they entered the pool area, Dixie stopped dead, refusing to move another inch.

  She pulled her hand from Marybell’s grip and turned on the women. “You three better tell me what’s going on right now! I’m your boss now, you know, and if you thought for one fine second—”

  “Dixie?” Walker interrupted her rant.

  “What?” she hissed into her earpiece.

  “Look up, honey,” he insisted.

  Oh, no she would not. In fact, she was going to close her eyes tighter. “I will not.”

  LaDawn gripped her chin and forced it upward. “Look up, boss, or I’m gonna pry your eyes open with my fingers like I’m pryin’ open a can of sardines.”

  Her eyes propped open just as she was mentally putting on her boxing gloves to take on LaDawn.

  And then her jaw dropped open to the sounds of the girls cheering, and Caine wiggling his fingers at her.

  Always Caine.

  Standing on the far side of the pool amidst the twinkling lights, as handsome as ever, a phone to his ear, he held out his hand to her. His eyes were tender, and his smile was wide. Dixie’s heart responded with a clench.

  LaDawn, Cat and Marybell squealed in delight, each giving her a quick hug before nudging her toward Caine who took her hand and pulled her close to his side.

  Just to his left stood Em, holding Gareth in one arm and Clifton Junior’s hand. Her face wreathed in a warm smile directed at Dixie.

  Her confused expression was greeted with laughter and a cheerful vibe from everyone she didn’t understand.

  And there was cake just off to Caine’s left, a beautiful confection of tier after tier of sparkling white iced cake with the words, You Are Worthy.

  But forget the cake.

  Caine was Walker?

  She’d kill him.

  Twenty-Two

  Gareth leaned forward and placed both of his hands on either side of Dixie’s cheeks. “My daddy’s a lady just like you, Dixie,” he informed her with a chubby smile. “But you’re prettier,” he exclaimed, making everyone laugh.

  Despite her shock, Dixie couldn’t resist reaching up and squeezing his wrists before he was swept away, and Em was reaching for her, her words tear-filled, her face full of anguish and worry. “I’m so sorry. As long as I live, Dixie Davis, I will never, ever doubt you again. Say you’ll forgive me or I’ll have to throw myself off the bridge all dramatic-like. That’s always messy cleanup for Coon Ryder. You don’t want poor old Coon overworked, do you? I need a person, Dixie,” she pleaded. “Obviously, I really need a person to stuff a dirty sock in my big trap after my awful behavior the other night. Say you’ll be my person again?”

  Dixie didn’t know what to say. No sooner had she grasped the idea that whatever was going on was about her, but Em was taking back what she’d said last night. “But I don’t understand....”

  “You will,” Em whispered in her ear, grinning at her. “Right now, all you have to say is you’ll be my person again.”

  Dixie squeezed her hand, trying not to choke on her words or her disbelief. “I’ll always be your person, Em. For as long as you want me.”

  Caine pulled her back to him, fitting her to his lean side, holding up a microphone to his mouth. Seeing him with the phone in his hand made every fuzzy moment up till now clear.

  Like a bolt of thunder, Dixie was struck and everything came together. “Wait! Warm milk boiled with an onion and pepper,” she whispered up to him.

  Caine laughed. “Mama always said it was the best cure for a cold. Can’t believe I slipped up like that.”

  “You’re Walker....” she murmured as all the confessing and cleansing came back to her in humiliating droves. “You?”

  “I’m Walker, honey. Don’t you remember? It’s my grandfather’s middle name, and the one my mother flat-out refused to give me?”

  Even though she nodded her head with a chuckle, she tweaked his arm, wrapped tightly around her hard, her senses returning in full force. “You do realize you have to die for toying with me this way, right? You’ll pay, Donovan. Maybe not right now because I can’t process this totally, but pay you will.”

  He turned Dixie toward him, pulling her close so their lower bodies fastened together. He dropped a kiss on her nose, brushing her hair from her eyes with tender fingers.

  “Aw, c’mon now, Mistress Taboo. Don’t be mad. I had to find a way to talk to you again without all the noise between us. There was just too much of it. We were always at each other’s throats. Calling you as Walker was the perfect solution. In a sense, it gave both of us a clean slate. I wanted to get to know this new Dixie. The one who protected Em at Madge’s and went a round with Louella. Once I started calling you, I couldn’t stop. And even though I knew you’d kill me if you knew, it helped me to understand you in a way I never did before. I get it now, Dixie,” he said, husky and low, his blue eyes honing in on her. “I get you.”

  Dixie’s lust for the lopping off of Caine’s head ebbed, replaced with shock. Her words stuck to the roof of her mouth like thick peanut butter, refusing to cooperate.

  “Forgive me, honey?” Caine asked, sweet as pie.

  So many emotions assaulted her. This was Caine asking her for forgiveness. A Caine who now knew all her dirty secrets. A Caine who knew all her secrets and was still standing beside her. But wait...

  On tiptoe, Dixie rose and pressed a kiss to his lips, savoring the firm silkiness before she let him have it. “Not just yet, Candy Caine. We have to talk privately. But first, explain the rigged phone calls. You were cheating! Can I tell you the flak I’ve taken for that sort of behavior?”

  His smile was amused and smug—and perfect—so perfect. “I had a software developer I know hack the system and create calls that never really existed. It looked like calls were coming through, and my numbers reflected that. Then I had him hack Call Girls’ bank accounts and dump some money into it so I wouldn’t get caught.”

  Her eyes narrowed even if she had to admit it was genius. “Clever you.”

  “Right?” he teased.

  She poked him in the ribs with a hard jab. “And exactly where were you while you were jeweling everyone’s Nile?”

  He barked a laugh. “You’re gonna kill me.”

  “I can only do that once. So make sure you cover everything in your confession.”

  His granite face went sheepish, but his arms tightened around her. “Sleeping. Not at first. At first I did answer a call or two, but that was damn weird. After that, I recorded what you heard through the wall last night, hit play, locked the door, climbed out the window, and went back and watched TV, hot-tubbed, had some pie with Sanjeev. I just forgot to take the damn thing with me when I went to Miami.”

  Dixie gasped her outrage, but it wasn’t real—her heart was too full for true outrage. “Sanjeev knew? My kill list grows.”

  “He knew. But it was all for the greater good, honey. Scout’s honor.”

  “Explain your definition of the greater good.”

  “I did it so you’d win.”

  Her head fell back on her shoulders when she laughed out loud. “I knew it! I knew you couldn’t be dishonest or cheat. I just didn’t know what your motives were for rigging the calls.” Dixie softened then, cupping Caine’s hard jaw with trembling fingers. “But why would you do it? You could have just gone home, Caine and I would’ve won anyway.”

  He nodded his dark head, bringing her hand to his lips and brushing his mouth over it. “Yep. But then I couldn’t have stayed to torture you—or win
your favor.”

  Dixie’s heart pumped hard against her ribs, her stomach a bundle of knots, but she managed to give him a coy batting of her eyelashes. She didn’t bother to harp on the fact that Caine had handed her Call Girls. She didn’t balk at the fact that it was a win by default—something she no longer took any pleasure in.

  Instead, she smiled at the fact that Caine was in it to win her. “Why, Candy Caine, you want to win my favor? Little ol’ me? I do declare. Mistress Taboo is listening. The real question is, are you worthy?” she asked in her best Scarlett O’Hara impression.

  “You’ll see, Miss Davis,” he teased, dropping a gentle kiss to her lips, leaving her wanting more. So much more. “But first, I need to know something.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “You wanna give this thing another go? A real one? No secrets. No agendas, just you, me and a phone-sex business?”

  All the years of missing him, all the angry words that had passed between them, her guilt over that horrible night, every last doubt she’d had about whether Caine would ever be able to trust her the way she needed him to, exploded and disappeared in one word. “Yes,” she whispered, throwing her arms around his neck and lifting her lips for the kiss she’d waited for since the night they’d parted ways.

  The girls cheered as they surrounded them, but Dixie only heard about that later, when everyone retold the story about the night Caine Donovan threw a multimillion-dollar contest in Dixie Davis’s favor just to win her heart.

  She was too busy kissing the life out of him.

  * * *

  Dixie caught Caine’s gaze from across the pool where he was parked beneath a palm tree, holding a longneck and listening to LaDawn and Marybell tell him how they’d met Landon.

  She tilted her head toward the road leading away from Landon’s and to his mother’s house just off the square with a come-hither smile, waggling a finger at him in invitation.

  Recognizing what she meant, Caine wiggled his eyebrows with a delicious grin and held up two fingers to signify he needed a couple of minutes.

  The evening was cool, and she only had a T-shirt on. She rubbed her arms and smiled at the pool, abuzz with food and music and faces that actually smiled back at her.