Dixie Rebel (The Carolina Magnolia Series, Book 1)

by Patricia Rice

  Axell clutched her tighter as she wept. She had so much love inside her, and now he saw where it came from. Her mother had died to save the pennies for food on their table. He could see it because that was what Maya would do. "And your father?"

  She hiccuped. "When he lost his job here and we started drifting, he started drinking. My mother had a thing about alcohol, so she started nagging. That made him drink more. They broke up when I was pretty little, but I remember the arguments. I never saw him again. We never knew what happened to him until the social workers went looking for him after Mom died. They found out he died in a drunk-driving accident in Texas. Some days, I could never forgive him, but I can't forget him either."

  She was weeping quietly now, a torrent of tears and heartaches Axell couldn't bear as his own memories flooded through him. He knew love. Maybe it wasn't a loud and joyous love filled with laughter and tears like Maya's, but it was strong and solid and he could offer it to her, if she would accept it.

  "Come home with me, please," he pleaded. "I'll do whatever it takes to make you love me, Maya. I'm sorry, so sorry I'm such an ass. I'll never tell you what to do again. You can have cowboy hats and swings and the school and anything you like. You were right and I was wrong and I'll get down on my damned knees and beg if I have to..."

  Her sobs began to shake suspiciously like laughter. Warily, Axell lifted his head from hers and tried to see her face. She buried it in his shoulder and clutched his shirt tighter. He'd ruined more shirts this way... He'd have to start buying wash-and-wear.

  "Don't b-beg," she stuttered into his shirt between sobs and laughter. "Please don't beg, then I'd have to grovel and I'm really no good at it. God, Axell, just hold me. Tell me you love me some more. I love you so much it scares hell out of me and I don't know what to do about it, and running just seemed simplest, but it's not, really."

  She practically disappeared into his arms when he held her this close. He'd hold her closer if he could, pull her inside of him where she could never be hurt again. Pain and joy ripped at what remained of his insides. Or his heart, or whatever it was Maya had gotten into and claimed for her own. She could have it. He didn't need it anymore. He just needed her—and the dreams she made possible.

  "I love you, Maya, I need you. We all need you. Don't ever do this to me again."

  She nodded against his chest. Her sobs had lessened somewhat. "I was coming home, honest. I decided if I meant to learn to fight, it ought to be for something more important than a building. It's all right about the school. It's just boards and walls. I shouldn't have hurt you, though, or Constance. I won't do it again, I promise."

  Something tight and hard unfurled inside Axell's chest, and he relaxed and loosened his grip enough to rub her back. "It's all right if you need a time-out every once in a while. You can swim to some safe place and come back again when you're ready. We'll understand, just as long as we know you're coming back."

  She lifted her head, and red-rimmed eyes shimmered with tears as she gazed at him worshipfully. "Loving you is the scariest thing I've ever done, Axell Holm. If you understand me any better, I'll feel like a walking, talking crystal ball."

  He grinned. "Don't worry. You're more like a kaleidoscope. I can see through you, but boy, is it confusing. Not to mention, colorful." He glanced over her shoulder. "And speaking of colorful..." He sighed in expectation of the walking, talking disaster climbing out of the police car at the end of the drive. "Here comes your sister."

  Staying solidly within the circle of Axell's arms, Maya turned to watch as Cleo gathered up Matty and cat and purposefully strode in their direction. She couldn't bear watching the school go up in flames, so she focused on what was important. Cleo trailing a policeman was important.

  She wiped her tears on the back of her hand and waited. Axell's arms made everything all right. He'd said he loved her. Axell loved her for herself, just as she was, without any compromises. The words smiled in her heart. She could handle anything right now.

  "I used up all your honey," Cleo declared as she came within speaking distance.

  Puzzled, Maya blinked. "That's okay, I'll buy more. Your teapot's safe. I've got it in the car."

  Hugging Matty against her, Cleo nodded and looked past Maya to Axell. "Cueball is puking his guts all over the police station."

  Axell's arms tightened around Maya. She had the feeling she wasn't catching something here. "Who's Cueball? Does he have food poisoning?"

  Axell stroked her as if she were a darned cat, and Maya glared over her shoulder at him. He was looking worried but that curious light gleamed in his eyes.

  He watched her as he answered. "The fires weren't accidental."

  "Tell me something I don't know," Maya practically spat with indignation. "And if I ever get my hands on the slimeball..." She widened her eyes as she read their expressions in a different light. "You know who did it!" And then the honey statement kicked in.

  Maya stared at her sister with disbelief. "You didn't? Tell me you didn't, Cleo?"

  Cleo shrugged. "The shop had a little ant problem out back. I'll call the exterminator when I get back."

  Maya could sense Axell struggling to follow, but she couldn't explain. She still didn't believe. "They have fire ants down here, Cleo," she said in horror. "Tell me they weren't fire ants."

  Cleo scratched her son's head and didn't offer any expression at all. "He sells dope to kids, Maya. He offs old men for refusing to help him hide the stuff. He sets fire to buildings, little sis. I made sure they were fire ants, just like the last time."

  The policeman was almost grinning, even if Cleo didn't crack a muscle. "We had to take a hose to him. Any time he doesn't answer a question, we turn the water off. Mr. Holm, we need to ask you some questions when you have a chance."

  Maya heard Axell choking behind her. She wasn't certain if it was laughter or not, and she refused to turn and find out. She didn't have a violent bone in her body. She remembered the time Cleo had dumped honey over a bully and left him for the ants to find. It hadn't been funny then. It wasn't funny now.

  Smelling the smoke as her dream and a century of history burned to ashes, Maya thought maybe it wasn't funny, but it sure the hell was justified.

  She watched as Headley limped through the crowd of onlookers. Parents had started arriving to take their children home. Several of the matrons from the Garden Club were shaking their heads and checking the roses on the boundaries to see if they'd survived the intense heat, and flood from the fire hoses.

  The plants near the house would be a total loss. Maya couldn't turn and look. She could still hear the hiss of hoses and steam. Even if they saved part of the structure, it couldn't be rebuilt. She leaned into Axell's embrace. She could stand on her own if she wanted. She just didn't want to right now.

  "I'm sorry, Maya," Headley said with complete sincerity as he reached them. "I'm getting old and not as quick as I used to be. If I'd put two and two together a little faster..."

  "The pusher killed Pfeiffer," Axell interrupted coldly. "But someone paid him to burn the school. Who?"

  "It's not what you're thinking, Axell," the reporter said warningly. "There isn't any way you could..."

  Maya watched with interest as a silver Mercedes halted in the driveway and the mayor leapt out, searching the crowd frantically. As soon as he saw them, he hurried in their direction. Amazingly enough, Selene slipped elegantly from the passenger side and sauntered in his wake.

  Headley caught the object of Maya's interest and stopped what he was about to say until the newcomers arrived.

  "Hello, Cousin," Maya said dryly as Mayor Arnold approached. Behind her, Axell groaned and squeezed her shoulder warningly, but she wasn't afraid of Ralph Arnold.

  The mayor shot Maya a dubious look but turned his full attention on the elderly reporter. "Headley, damn you, if you report this, I'll rip your head off and stuff it down the toilet."

  Headley shrugged his sloping shoulders and tut-tutted.

  "Admit it,
Ralph," Selene said in a bored voice, "You picked the wrong investment this time. I warned you, but you wouldn't listen. There are plenty of entrepreneurs right here who could make money hand over fist, but no, you had to go hunting down Yankee strangers."

  "Selene, so help me," Arnold glared at his companion, "I'll paddle your rear end if you don't shut up and let me handle this myself."

  Selene beamed and tousled his moussed hair. "Promise?"

  Maya stared at her partner in astonishment but didn't manage a word. The byplay looked entirely sexual to her, but what did she know? Selene was perfectly capable of consorting with the enemy for her own purposes. But what about Katherine?

  The mayor gripped Selene's wrist and pulled her out of his hair as he faced Maya and Axell. "I know what everyone is saying, but I didn't have anything to do with this," he declared. "I have the connections to get that road through here without taking such drastic measures. But I won't," he added hastily. "I'm recalling the petition for a through road. The shopping center operation is defunct until new investment money is found."

  It was a little late for that, Maya thought, but she merely snuggled into Axell's arms and pretended this was all a movie. She kind of liked being a hooked fish. She would face the disaster of the school when she was stronger.

  "Tell it all, Mayor," Headley prompted. "The whole town will know it sooner or later."

  Ralph gritted his teeth and glanced helplessly at the small crowd of people around them. "Let me just talk to Axell."

  At any other time, Maya would have objected, but she read something in the mayor's face that spoke of desperation, and she thought she was beginning to understand. Squeezing Axell's hand as he started to protest, she stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Cleo and I will see to the kids. I can't bear watching the place burn to ashes. Come home and tell me about it later."

  Axell caught her head, and kissed her fiercely, then let her walk off beside Cleo, with Matty between them. Both red heads held proudly, they swam through the crowd as easily as fish.

  He happened to think that Maya wore a rainbow-hued halo as she gathered Alexa into her arms and turned to offer reassurances to anxious parents and teachers. But then, he was crazy in love and capable of seeing sunshine and roses in a rainstorm—she gave him hope, so much hope and joy the future glowed with the brilliance of it.

  He returned his glare to Ralph. "Spill."

  Ralph glared at Selene and Headley and the policeman. The policeman hurried after Cleo. Headley crossed his arms stubbornly. Selene patted the mayor's cheek and strolled off to check the fire damage. Axell lifted an eyebrow in her direction but didn't question. Selene was as unpredictable as a summer storm.

  "Well?" he asked.

  "She only meant to help," Ralph insisted, before Headley could speak. "She didn't know the moron thought it was just an insurance scam for a derelict building. I just said I wished the flood had washed it away, and she took it a little too far."

  Axell lifted his eyebrows in Headley's direction, but he already knew the answer. A part of him should have known it from the beginning. She'd always been too eager to please, too eager for acceptance, too eager to be someone. And Maya and the school had stood in her way.

  "It's Katherine," Headley confirmed. "Katherine hired the arsonist."

  Chapter 38

  If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished.

  November, 1999

  I've seen them, Helen, our granddaughters. We're great-grandparents. Can you believe we're that old? Not you. You'll be forever young in that place in my mind where I see you, but I'm a senile old man now, weak and rotting at the core, as you discovered for yourself.

  It's so damned difficult watching them make the same mistakes we made, but I'm no example for them to follow, so I stay out of their way. Maybe they're forged of sterner stuff than you and me. Our dreams died for lack of trying, but our grandkids don't give up as easily as we did.

  For their sake, I'm mending my ways, Helen. I can see now as you saw then that love and not money fulfills dreams and hopes. I've been hoping to impress them with my wealth, hoping to make a difference in their lives, but they're carving their own paths without need of my help. I can cut out the rottenness without fear now. If that means I'll be joining you soon, I won't complain. I'd rather hope that, if I do this right, some day, our daughter's children will be proud to call me granddad.

  * * *

  Maya propped her elbows on the step behind her and admired the newly restored wood and glass of the foyer below. The building was the first of her grandfather's properties to be renovated—an old Victorian on the residential outskirts of town.

  Axell slid his arm behind her and idly stroked the small of her back. She loved the way he was always touching her. She'd missed that desperately growing up. Perhaps Cleo had forgiven the people they knew now as their grandparents, but she couldn't, not entirely. How could anyone, with any huge stretch of the imagination, believe cold hard cash or nasty alcohol could replace the warmth and love of someone's arms?

  She felt sorry for those broken people in the journals Cleo had saved, but she regretted more all the years wasted because no one cared to give her grandparents a hug, and they, in turn, had never passed their hugs to their daughter.

  Perhaps their grandparents had passed on their lesson anyway. Those papers were an eternal reminder of the love she shared, the love she felt compelled to pass along to all around her.

  "I've never known anyone could actually make dreams come true," Axell murmured with an undertone of amazement as he gazed at the new school created in just three months. "You must be a fairy godmother."

  "Don't be silly. I didn't do all this. I just nagged a lot."

  His hand rose higher to stroke the underside of her breast, but she could tell by his voice that his thoughts were elsewhere, following their own curious paths.

  "No, you dreamed the impossible, and you persevered through everything this town and fate and whatever threw at you. You never gave up, Maya. And this school isn't the only dream you've made come true."

  Glancing at the big man sprawling across the stairs with her, Maya felt the love welling up within her. Once, she would have sworn he didn't know how to relax enough to sprawl. Shrugging off his philosophical fantasies, she followed the path of Axell's long legs to the crumpled cuff of his expensive trousers, and grinned. The chaos of their life had diminished the importance of his immaculate attire, along with some of his uptight habits. She caught him in shirt sleeves more often now, although she noticed he'd carefully hung his coat over the newel post today.

  "I still don't know what you're going to do with this place here in town once the school is rebuilt out in the county," he continued.

  She knew he wasn't criticizing her. All summer, he hadn't told her what to do unless asked, and he had accepted her eccentric, impractical ideas without question, because he actually believed she knew what she was doing. Maya beamed at him for that.

  "The church across the street will need a new Sunday school building if it continues growing as it has. In two years, when my school is finished, Selene will persuade the church that this is the perfect property. If they don't think so"—she shrugged—"maybe we'll be big enough to need two schools by then."

  Axell shot her a skeptical look but didn't comment on the likelihood of that. He couldn't, she knew. Their enrollment had tripled for the fall semester.

  "Well, it's better than letting this old building sit here and rot, I suppose. Still, Selene and Cleo are taking a lot of chances by renovating all these old buildings instead of ripping them down. The land alone is worth a fortune."

  They'd had this argument before and both knew the routine. Axell didn't like taking risks, but it wasn't his inheritance. Working with Selene had given Cleo a new lease on life, a reason to get up in the mornings, a life without the ceaseless worry of finding the next meal. Maya would exchange her entire inheritance just to see her sister drug-free, with hammer in hand, ma
king things better. She didn't mind the risk.

  "Our grandfather took from the community and never gave anything back," she replied, watching the sun sparkle over the prisms hanging from the old chandelier they'd rescued from the fire remains. "He took drug money to buy some of these buildings. Maybe he tried to make up for his wrongs by renting the school and shop to us cheaply and telling the dealer to take a hike, but that doesn't right the wrongs he committed. But we can see downtown restored, see that the tenants have decent places to live, offer their children an education they wouldn't get elsewhere. It's a start."

  Axell was watching her, and Maya wanted to bask in the warmth of his approval and the awareness between them, but she continued studying the prisms. The opening ceremonies for the fall session of the Impossible Dream in its new location would start in half an hour. They didn't have time for what he was thinking, what they both were thinking. On some subjects, they were perfectly attuned.

  "That's a nice thick carpet you had installed in the office," he murmured.

  Maya darted him a hasty look. "We can't," she whispered. "There isn't time. Cleo and Selene..."

  "Will be running late, as usual. Do you realize this is the first time in months we haven't had the kids underfoot?"

  Oh, dear Lord, he was such a beautiful man. Maya gazed up into dreamy gray eyes and got lost in them. When Axell lowered his head and scorched her lips with his, she melted bonelessly and would have flowed down the stairs like hot molasses if he hadn't caught her waist and dragged her up.

  "I hope you have ocean tides in the CD player." He hit the stereo button as he hauled her into the office and the crashing waves exploded from the speakers overhead.

  "Axell, this is insane," Maya protested as he laid her down on the thick carpet and pinned her with his weight. He had his necktie on, for pity's sake, and his best white shirt.