Dixie Rebel (The Carolina Magnolia Series, Book 1)

by Patricia Rice

  "Perfect," she murmured happily as she glimpsed the upstairs. "Look at those windows! I could turn the front room into a gallery if we didn't have to live here." Wrinkling her nose at the thought of Cleo's ugly plaid couch desecrating the marvelous airy space, Maya crossed the wide front room to look out on the street below.

  "Streetcars used to go up and down that road on the half hour."

  She hadn't heard Axell come up behind her, and she caught her breath at his sudden proximity. His square build seemed so solid and reassuring, she had to resist leaning into him. What would it be like having a man like him to lean on?

  Boring, she reminded herself. Just because she was scratching the bottom of the barrel financially and longed for the security he represented didn't mean she'd be happy with riches. She needed a man who understood her dreams, not a stiff Norse god who'd never had a dream in his life.

  "Wouldn't it be lovely to have one of those cute little trolley cars going up and down someday? Tourists love trolley cars, and this town would be ideal for an artists' colony. With these huge old windows in most of the stores, we could have art galleries for paintings and pottery and textiles. There's room for antique dealers specializing in the arts. Then in some of those larger places, someone could have flea market and craft items for the less wealthy. An ice cream parlor! Wouldn't that be fabulous?"

  "Would I have to serve artichoke hearts and radicchio?"

  She heard the sarcasm and shrugged it off. "Men would love your place with the dark paneling and steaks and hearty fare. Someone else would have to open a tea room for the women. And a bakery! With traditional Southern desserts—mud pies!" She drooled of dream heaven. "There's room for all kinds."

  "I'm glad to know there's still room for me. In the meantime, don't you think you ought to be putting together some kind of business plan? You can't continue operating on a song and a prayer if you expect to make a profit."

  Maya wrinkled up her nose. "You and Selene sound just alike. Where's the room for creativity in a business plan?" She turned and nearly bumped her nose—well, her belly—into his chest.

  Axell stepped back, putting more distance between them. "I'm amazed Selene knows the definition of 'business plan.' Are you going to look at the rest of the place?"

  "Selene has vision, which is more than I can say for most people," Maya said pointedly, traipsing across the front room and aiming for the back.

  "I don't know a damned thing about art galleries," he called after her, "except they can't possibly be profitable. People have to eat and wear clothes. That's where the money is. You'll have a hell of a time finding a market for the inventory your sister left."

  "Admittedly, there are better places to sell enlightened art than this two-bit backwater, but the city is out there. We just have to reach it." Maya peered out the back bedroom windows overlooking an alley. She'd prefer trees and grass, but beggars couldn't be choosers. It was better than Cleo had before.

  "The people here are more practical than the dilettantes in the city with more money than sense," Axell argued from behind her.

  "And beauty isn't practical." She carried her bulk to the narrow galley and shrugged off the comparison with Axell's enormous state-of-the-art kitchen. Well, at least the place came furnished with a stove so she wouldn't have to move that abomination from Cleo's home.

  "I didn't say that," he answered grumpily. "I just said you'll have a hard time selling it out here."

  She was avoiding looking at him. She wasn't much on self-analysis, but generally she didn't avoid looking at people. She didn't usually argue with them either. Maybe some of his distancing technique was rubbing off on her.

  She forced herself to meet his gaze. "Well, I can't sell groceries, and I'm not much of a cook, so I guess I'm stuck with Cleo's inventory for now. I'll just have to make it work."

  With this admission of her weaknesses, Axell crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the kitchen counter, master of all he surveyed. "I think in your own best interests, we need to form a partnership," he announced.

  Chapter 9

  Auntie Em: Hate you, hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy.

  "She's staying with you?" Katherine asked incredulously as she escaped the demands of hostess to take a break at the table where Axell surveyed the Saturday night crowd.

  He eyed Headley at the far end of the room regaling some young ingenue with his war stories. Headley had never been in a war. Axell dipped his gaze back to Katherine who bristled with hostility, for what reason, he couldn't imagine.

  "If you mean Maya Alyssum, yes," he stated calmly. "Unless we can rescue her things, she has nowhere else to go. If you're concerned about the proprieties, you might mention that to the mayor. Once we retrieve her furniture, she can move next door."

  "You don't get it, do you?" she asked bitterly. "You're so damned blind, you can't see beyond that bar over there. That woman is out to get her hooks in you, and you're helping her shove them in."

  Axell raised his eyebrows. "She's a pregnant schoolteacher, Katherine, not a temptress. If anything, I'm making Constance deliriously happy by entertaining her. I believe they're finger painting right now."

  He tried not to remember the happy chaos he'd left after supper—a pizza he'd provided because there was nothing in the refrigerator. Maya had spread thick layers of newspapers over the antique oak kitchen table, but he rather suspected the newspaper might be as bad as the water-logged finger-painting sheets. His housekeeper would have hysterics. His kitchen would soon look like a war zone, given Matty's penchant for red. But he'd left Constance laughing ecstatically, and the almost-forgotten sound decimated all objections. He knew his priorities. Constance was on the top of the list.

  "You bought her clothes," Katherine said accusingly, jerking him back to the present.

  Axell caught the eye of a waitress and nodded toward a table where a patron had just spilled his drink. He returned his attention to Katherine's nagging. He'd never thought her the type to nag. Just more evidence that he didn't understand women.

  "All their clothes are in the building the mayor had condemned," he reminded her. "It's not as if I supplied them with designer outfits. It was all I could do to persuade her to buy at Wal-Mart instead of the Goodwill store."

  Actually, he hadn't persuaded her. Taking advantage of her habit of nonconfrontation, he'd simply driven to Wal-Mart instead of Goodwill. She'd speared him with her eyes, but looks couldn't kill, and she hadn't been able to say anything in front of the kids. Axell smiled remembering Matty happily accepting everything he chose for him. The teacher, on the other hand, had insisted she needed only clean underwear and a shirt. Once he'd figured out her size, he'd bought her two new maternity dresses and a big sweater to keep her warm on these cool spring nights.

  She'd insisting on writing him an IOU. He'd considered trashing it, but for whatever reason, he'd carefully folded it up and tucked it away in his wallet as a reminder of how far he'd come. The grand sum total of their purchases equaled what he paid to have his cars detailed once a month.

  "She's playing innocent," Katherine fumed. "Just you wait. She'll have you caught, hook, line, and sinker—if you don't wake up soon."

  She flounced off to her duty of greeting customers, leaving Axell to consider her warning.

  True, he'd always had a habit of helping those who couldn't help themselves. Marrying Angela had probably been a result of that, but he'd been much, much younger then. Her parents had just divorced and moved away. She'd bombed out of college as a result and taken a job as waitress at the bar. His father had just died. One thing had led to another and she'd ended up pregnant. Marriage had seemed the best thing at the time. Now that he understood the complexities of the wedded state, he'd never make that mistake again.

  He didn't think Maya Alyssum much interested in marriage either, or in him. He occasionally caught her looking at him as if he were some fascinating but particularly repellent bug. He figured he was safe.

  From t
he schoolteacher, anyway. As he watched Mayor Ralph Arnold enter with the mayor's mother and Sandra on his arms, Axell wasn't at all certain he was safe in anything else that mattered. His mother-in-law and Ralph's mother were old buddies, or biddies, he revised spitefully.

  Feeling like the French Resistance struggling with the German occupiers, Axell ordered his bartender to send over a bottle of wine. He'd yet to lose a battle. He wouldn't start now. Constance was his, if he had to pay the schoolteacher's salary to keep her.

  Noting a drunk and disorderly situation building to his left, Axell released some of his frustration by collaring the jerk and hauling him out to the local taxi. The drunk began yelling "Police brutality!" as Axell heaved him into the taxi's back seat. Another night, it might have amused him. With the mayor inside and his license on the line, the comment only seared more acid through his stomach.

  Under the guise of retrieving a drink from the bar, the mayor was waiting for him when Axell returned.

  "Your bartenders are pushing too many drinks," Ralph said coldly, rattling the ice in his glass. "This is a family town. Drunken disturbances won't be tolerated."

  Axell was more than familiar with the Southern propensity to hide liquor behind closed doors. The vote to ban all alcohol sales had narrowly lost in the last election. Taking a swig of the mineral water his bartender handed him, Axell bit down on his temper. "You'll not have my license on that flimsy excuse, Ralph, and if you really want that school gone, you'd better find new tactics."

  "That shopping center is more important to this community than any artsy liberal kindergarten," the mayor warned. "I'll do what it takes to take care of the people who elected me."

  Axell snorted. "You'll do what it takes to take care of yourself, Ralph. I've got the schoolteacher. If you want my cooperation, you'll leave my bar alone."

  "Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." Nodding approval, the mayor returned to his table.

  Axell squeezed the plastic bottle in his hand until water squirted from the opening. How could he trade a school teacher for a liquor license?

  * * *

  "You could have moved in with me, you moron," Selene exclaimed over the phone line, "but I can't complain if you're sleeping with the enemy. That goes well beyond the line of duty."

  Maya wrinkled her nose at Selene's commentary and watched as Matty proudly taped his creation to the vast barren space of the refrigerator door. He might not be good at letters yet, but he was definitely expressive in paint. "I wouldn't want to cramp your style, girl," she returned her attention to the conversation, "and I'll have you remember 'sleeping' is the only thing a woman in my delicate condition can do."

  Selene clucked disapprovingly. "Shows how much you know. Does this mean we have a serious advocate on the city council?"

  "For as long as it suits his purposes." Maya eased her weight onto a kitchen stool. If this baby wasn't born soon, her feet would be flatter than Matty's painting. "Axell's not half-bad, once you get to know him. Just kind of stiff and proper and accustomed to having his way." Remembering the clothes shopping incident, she figured that was the polite way of putting it. Domineering, was the better word.

  "Well, you just keep pouring on the butter, and I'll work my end of it. I've got a party with a DOT board member tonight. Wish me well."

  Maya grinned. She'd never seen Selene work one of her "parties," but she could imagine it. "Sweet talk him good, sugar. We'll have that nasty old shopping center installing underground parking yet."

  "I'll not go that far. That's a flood zone out there. But we'll find something."

  Selene hung up, leaving Maya to admire the artwork of her two talented charges. Matty was into dragons at the moment. Constance, apparently high on earlier praise, was painting more and more elaborate nurseries.

  "Grandmother gave me a baby doll," she replied matter-of-factly when Maya asked about the infant in the picture. "But dolls aren't like real babies, are they?" Big, serious eyes watched Maya expectantly, with a trace of wariness behind them.

  Maya felt as if she were on a witness stand, sworn to tell the truth. She didn't like being pinned down, but she couldn't lie to a child. "Dolls are pretend babies." She dodged the question agilely, sending a mental apology to Constance's grandmother. Sandra hadn't bought the crystal ball, after all. Apparently, she'd found a suitable doll elsewhere.

  "You've got a real baby in your stomach." Constance pointed at the figure in the painting. "This is a real baby, like my mommy had in her stomach."

  Oh dear. Deeper and deeper waters. She wished she'd taken more child psychology courses, but there'd never been enough time, or money. She leaned over and taped the picture to the refrigerator. "I'm sorry you lost your mommy and her baby."

  "I didn't want the baby," Constance whispered. "I hated the baby."

  She slid away, back to the kitchen table and Matty.

  Shocked, Maya pretended normalcy by taping the picture in place. Scary little spikes of panic raced through her veins, piercing her heart. Axell needed to be here—now. This was his daughter. He knew the score better than she.

  Without thinking, she grabbed the kitchen phone and hit the starred code number for the restaurant. She was only an outsider in this precarious little family drama.

  * * *

  Grimly, Axell slammed into the house. He didn't know what was so all-fired important that he had to leave his bar to the mayor and his vipers, but it didn't appear the house was on fire.

  He stalked through the mud room into a brightly lit kitchen no different from the one he'd left a few hours ago. Maybe there was more paint splattered across the newspapers and floor, and his refrigerator looked like a cock-eyed pop art gallery, but he didn't see any dead or dying. He watched his daughter decorate Matty's forehead with a sunburst, then turned his glare on the teacher sitting on a stool by the counter, stroking her cat.

  "What?" he roared as she met his gaze with a worried frown. She'd scared him half to death over nothing.

  "Daddy!" Constance raced to throw her arms around his legs.

  Amazed by her reaction, Axell didn't even blink at the smear of yellow paint across his new Perry Ellis trousers. He crouched to stroke her hair and gratefully accepted the paper towel the teacher handed him.

  "Can you stay? Me and Matty been painting."

  Constance—when she bothered speaking—usually spoke grammatically. Axell threw the teacher another glare.

  "Show your daddy your paintings, honey," Maya intervened calmly from her seat.

  Axell wondered if she was feeling all right. She usually bounced around as much as the children. That made him wonder if she'd been seeing a doctor, which returned his terror of her having the kid on the kitchen floor.

  Constance seemed oddly reluctant to display her art. Holding her hand, Axell crossed to the refrigerator. Matty's swirls of red with polka dot nose holes and pointed ears were easily discerned from Constance's carefully detailed scenes. He wasn't entirely certain he understood the subject matter, however.

  Crouching beside her, he examined a painting of what appeared to be a room full of furniture. The cat leapt from Maya's lap to curl around his ankles, meowing. He scratched its head with one hand while holding out the picture with the other. "Want to tell me about this one?"

  Pink little lips closed firmly, and her fine hair flew around her face as she shook her head.

  "That's the nursery," Maya explained from her seat.

  The nursery. Axell's heart plummeted to his stomach. He couldn't look at his daughter. His fingers clenched around the wrinkled painting. The nursery, of course. There was the crib his daughter had outgrown, the cradle he'd built himself, and the playpen full of toys they had shopped for every weekend.

  Agony shot like fire through his chest. His stomach cramped, nearly bending him in half. Maybe a heart attack would prevent his ever thinking about that time again. Apparently aware of his crippling pain, the cat fled behind the refrigerator.

  Carefully, Axell unfolded fro
m the floor, still gripping the painting. "That's a very pretty picture, Constance," he said with what he thought was admirable calm. "I need to talk with your teacher for a moment. Miss Alyssum?" He lifted his eyebrows in expectation and nodded toward the family room.

  "You need to talk with your daughter." Refusing his commanding gesture, she remained seated.

  He'd fire an employee who ignored his orders. He couldn't fire a guest. Gritting his teeth in frustration, Axell fought the dangerous firecrackers popping behind his eyes. Constance had already returned to the table, but he wasn't ignorant enough to believe she didn't listen to their every word. For two years he'd been pretending she'd forgotten. He couldn't pretend anymore.

  Holding the picture, he stormed into the family room. If Maya wanted him to talk to Constance, she'd damned well have to talk to him first. He didn't have any idea how to handle this.

  Staring at the childish picture, Axell absently kicked a dirty tennis shoe in his path. Constance had drawn his son's nursery. The acid in his stomach spilled through his gut like wildfire, and he kicked another loose shoe in the direction of the first.

  The schoolteacher appeared before him without his knowing she'd entered the room. She wore the swinging floral dress he'd bought for her, along with the heavy sweater. The dress was more like summer wear, and the evening had turned cool. He should turn up the furnace. He never noticed the cold, but she was so thin-skinned, she was probably shivering.

  Dammit, there he went again. She was a grown woman. She could damned well turn up the heat herself. Avidly seeking lost shoes now, Axell used his toe to pry a slipper from beneath the leather sofa. It took two slams to land it in the pile with the first two.

  "Your daughter seems fascinated by nurseries. She made a few revealing comments I can't fully understand. I thought you might prefer to deal with them rather than me."

  "What comments?" Axell asked roughly, glaring at the picture before dropping it on the table as he uncovered a sandal lurking in a corner.

  She hesitated, as if afraid to alight anywhere. He pointed at the couch as he swatted the sandal out of its hiding place. "Sit down."