by Annie Jones
“Oh, of course, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” She gave him a smile that came too easily to be real then she stepped around him to place her delicate hand on the pharmacy door. She gave one hard backward glance over her shoulder. “When pigs fly!”
He angled his shoulder to put his mouth close to her ear, blocked her exit as he murmured, “You have a thing about pigs, don’t you, Miss...since we’re going to be working together so closely, may I call you Dixie?”
“You may stand here and whistle Dixie for all I care, Mr...” She dropped her gaze to the wide eyed child standing just behind Riley. “Mr. Wendy’s father.”
He opened his mouth to introduce himself.
She never gave him the chance. “Because we are not going to be working together and I am not going to my office to talk to you about anything.” She pushed the door open, or as much as she could then gave Riley a glare that would have sent most men ducking for cover.
Riley held his ground.
She managed to tug the door open a fraction more despite that. “I am heading straight over to Howard Greenhow’s office and put an end to this absurdity right now.”
“Go right ahead.” The afternoon sunlight bathed her in heavenly brilliance, but Riley had no pretensions. This woman would happily give him the devil if she got the chance. So he just had to make sure he didn’t give her that chance. “March yourself over to Greenhow’s office, but he’s not in his office the rest of the day.”
“Then I’ll just go and find him.” She gave the door a shove.
Riley stretched his arm out, his hand up, and caught the door by its metal frame, physically cutting her off and undermining any hope for her flamboyant exit. “I hate to be rude—”
“And yet you seem so practiced at it.”
The kindness he had seen displayed toward her elderly companion was obviously not indicative of this woman’s general nature. If Wendy hadn’t been standing by he’d have thrown a laugh right in the woman’s beautiful face then showed her an all-new meaning of rude by taking this boondocks belle down a notch or two.
But Wendy was there, watching wide-eyed, so he drew a deep breath. “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot the other day but we will be working together so the least we can do is try to be civil to each other.”
“No, the least you can do is to get out of my way. That’s advice you’d be wise to remember where I and my family’s business are concerned, Mr...”
“Walker. Riley Walker.” He offered his hand, even though he had to grit his teeth to make himself do it.
The door fell shut, ushering in a cool gust of March wind.
Dixie shivered.
Riley stuck his hand out just a tiny bit further and waited.
She hesitated. She seemed to want to say something, and then again she seemed to want to say nothing at all. Finally, her gaze darted to the side and down.
Riley followed the line of vision and found Wendy staring up at them both, her mouth hanging open, in awe at their exchange, no doubt. Gently, he reached over, put one fingertip under his sweet baby girl’s chin and urged her to shut her mouth. He gave her a wink to let her know everything was all right then extended his hand toward Dixie again. This time, when he looked at the troublesome woman, there was something different about her.
Her perfect white teeth sank into the full center of her lower lip. Her head angled down just enough to show her shame at acting so badly toward him in front of his little girl, but not bowed so much that he might think she was giving in to him on any of this. She slipped her hand in his.
Her skin felt so soft against his roughened palm that he marveled when she didn’t pull away in disgust. Instead, she clamped her hand solidly in his and gave a firm shake that he suspected did both her genteel upbringing and her daddy’s uncompromising standards proud.
“I apologize for my abruptness, Mr. Walker. I’ve been under a strain lately and...”
“Of course, I should have mentioned right off how sorry I was to hear about your father.” He placed his other hand over their clasped ones. To lend comfort and show his support, he told himself, despite the fact that he could have done both those things without prolonging their contact at all, much less intensifying it. “I didn’t hear of his passing until yesterday, otherwise I’d have at least gone to the visitation to pay my respects. He was a good man.”
“You knew my father?” Her big eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Suddenly Riley felt like a world-class jerk for the assumptions he’d made about the woman. She’d just lost her own father, for crying out loud, a man whom she obviously loved and depended on. To top it off, she’d inherited a business along with a family not suited to or interested in helping her manage things. If she was short tempered at having his little surprise thrust upon her, who could blame her?
She had no way of knowing yet that many of her problems handling the business were about to be solved—by none other than him. “I met your father once. We had a nice, long talk about... well, just about everything. I left with the feeling that he and I were a lot alike in many ways.”
“Oh?”
“Your father sure thought you hung the moon, you know.”
Looking into those guileless eyes, Riley could begin to understand why.
Of course, any father might be fiercely protective and utterly adoring of his only little girl. But to have that little girl grow up to be a woman like Dixie, a fighter who defended her own against suspected interlopers, yet was sweet enough to have made a connection with a child she had just met? That kind of daughter, that kind of woman, was something special.
Riley had realized that the very first time he’d clashed with her. He smiled. “The day I met with your father was the day you and I, um, crossed paths, as a matter of fact.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “And I spoke with him over the phone a time or two after that. He was the one who laid the groundwork for this new business relationship of yours and mine.”
“We don’t have a business relationship, Mr. Walker.” She pulled her hand free of his.
“We will, Miss Fulton-Leigh.” He leaned close to her, not to intimidate her but more to insinuate his very real presence in her world. “By the end of the day I’ll have the stock papers that confirm it.”
“By the end of the day I’ll have all this straightened out and the only papers you’ll have, I’m sorry to have to tell you, will be your walking papers.” No animosity colored her words.
In fact, if forced, Riley might have called the simple statement conciliatory, even sincere, as if she really were sorry it had come to this.
“Oh, no.” He stepped back from her. “You’re not going to get me again with that soft spoken charm of yours. You’re not one bit sorry to tell me that or anything else you think might help your cause. Sorry, lady, you’ve found one man you can’t trick or manipulate. Like it or not, you and I will be working together.”
“Trick? Manipulate?” Fire flashed in those eyes but her cool expression remained unchanged. She fixed her gaze on his. “Those are awfully ugly words, not to mention surprising considering they come from a sneak thief who has crept into the business my family has owned since before I was born and tried to grab a piece of it before my daddy is even cold in his grave!”
“Your daddy is the reason I am here, Miss Dixie Fulton- Leigh.” His matched her intensity breath for breath, tightened muscle for tightened muscle but where anger fueled her response, responsibility and something he couldn’t quite name lit the fire in his words. “He wanted to bring me on board because he feared something might happen to him and that you—”
“That I wouldn’t be able to handle it?” The quiet in her tone was like the stillness before the storm. But no storm came. Her chin trembled. Her arms untwined. “I don’t believe you. My father had faith in me, Mr. Walker.”
“Yes, he did, but he also was a realist and a man who wanted to do everything he could to make sure his daug
hter’s future was secure.” Riley put his hand on Wendy’s thin shoulder. He swallowed to wash away any telltale traces of raw emotion. “That’s something I can certainly understand.”
“I’d like to believe you.” She smiled down at Wendy then gave him a skeptical look. “But the mere fact that you’ve gone through Howard Greenhow to accomplish whatever it is you think you’ve pulled off—”
“He’s the one who contacted me, not the other way around, if that makes any difference.” Her posture relaxed just enough to let Riley know it did matter. “Either way, it’s a gigantic waste of time for us to stand in the doorway of a drugstore and try to go over the particulars of this.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“Of course.” The concession warmed him way more than it should have.
“I’ve wasted too much time here already. I have to track down a certain weaselly lawyer of our mutual acquaintance.” She gave Wendy an endearing little wave then brushed past him to open the door again.
“Talk about a waste of time.” Riley jerked his thumb in Dixie’s direction as he spoke to Wendy loud enough to ensure the woman stepping over the threshold heard him. “It’s a done deal. She’ll find out for herself soon enough, I guess.”
He took Wendy’s hand and twirled her around, smooth as any practiced swing dancer, to set her facing the door. Pressing his palm to the glass, he held the thing open wide even after Dixie had let go of it.
“Don’t think you’re going with me, now.” Dixie did something of a sashay herself, pivoting just enough to give him a scalding look. “The sheriff is an old high school pal of mine, and I’d hate to have to call him to run you in on a stalking charge.”
“That shows how much she knows, doesn’t it, Wendy-girl?” He let the door fall shut. “I don’t even wear stockings.”
Wendy giggled.
“Very funny. Ha. Ha.” Her sarcasm could not conceal the twinkle in her eye or the way her lovely lips lifted in a faint smile. Her heels clipped briskly as she headed down the sidewalk. “Instead of trying to steal my company away from me, why don’t you go and open yourself up one of those comedy clubs?”
With Wendy swinging her hand in his, they kept a few steps behind her even if he knew he was already a step ahead of whatever she had in mind. “Maybe I’ll ask the realtor we’re meeting with later today to see if there’s anything like that available. As a possible sideline to my other interests here.”
She slowed but did not stop or look back. “You have a meeting with a realtor?”
He kept moving until only a few inches separated them. “She had some houses lined up for me to see today and more when I come back over in the morning.”
She straightened her shoulders, her head turned just enough that the a stray curl fell against his chest. “Well, do yourself a favor, won’t you?”
“What’s that?” he practically whispered.
“Don’t put down a deposit.” She looked back at him at last, smiling like a cat full of cream. She touched Wendy on the nose, mouthed a good-bye, turned on her heel and headed off across the middle of the street without so much as a glance to see if any cars were coming.
“She’s mighty pretty, isn’t she, Daddy?” Wendy gave his hand a squeeze, her entire face alight with innocence and excitement.
“She’s mighty something, Wendy-girl.” Mighty annoying, mighty confusing, mighty sure of herself, all sprang to mind. And mighty likely to get past his defenses and under his skin if he didn’t watch out. “Yes, ma’am, she’s mighty something. I just haven’t quite figured out what, yet.”
* * *
“What am I going to do?” Every last bit of Dixie’s cultivated poise crumbled as she collapsed into the overstuffed chair next to Miss Lettie’s rocker.
“Do? I thought we were going to write some more on this story book you’re making for my birthday.” Lettie rocked slowly She patted her spindly leg with one hand, in a beat at odds with her rhythmic swaying back and forth with her chair.
The sight of that action, combined with the constant, heavy throbbing in Dixie’s temples, created a deep, whirling tide in her stomach that did not help her regain her focus. She shut her eyes to blot out anything but her thoughts. Those alone provided enough turmoil for her at present.
Her attempts to locate Greenhow had only added to the frustration set off in her by Riley Walker. And put her even further behind in her regular work schedule. She’d still be at the office now if she hadn’t felt the pull of her responsibilities at home. Dinner had to be fixed, Grandpa and Aunt Sis checked up on, and Dixie had promised Miss Lettie they’d get back to writing her life’s story starting tonight.
“Miss Lettie, do you mind if we put off working on the book for one more night?”
“Heaven’s no!” She waved her hand as if to shoo the very notion of the thing away. “It’s your creation, Dixie Belle, not mine.”
“But it’s supposed to be yours. Your story. “ The antique mantel clock ticked off a few seconds before Dixie pressed on. “So far most of what you’ve told me has been about my family and their lives and very little about your own.”
“Lands, I did tell you, now didn’t I, how I come to live here in Fulton’s Dominion, in the household of Mr. Samuel Prescott Fulton, all the way from my home in New Orleans when I was barely twenty-one years old?”
“You told me about how my great- grandparents came to bring you here, yes. About how they had lost their two boys before the age of five, so that when their daughter was born, they decided to bring someone in to care for her because Eugenia Fulton no longer had the strength or heart to do it.”
“And that someone was me.” Lettie touched her fingers to the top button of her favorite blue and white housecoat. “Hand chosen by Founder Fulton himself.”
Very few people alive still referred to her great-grandfather as Founder Fulton, and the old nickname made Dixie smile just a bit.
“His putting his faith in me, trusting me with the raising of his child, bringing me into the house to live among the family and not off in a servant’s quarters...well, a young person like you can’t know what a meaningful gesture that was for the time. You come from good people, Dixie Belle, and you should know that.”
“I do know. What I had hoped is that in helping me put together this account, I’d discover more about you.” Dixie almost added and your family, but Lettie seldom discussed her own kin unless she brought it up herself. “I thought you’d tell me how it felt to leave New Orleans, and what kinds of things you enjoyed doing as a young woman in Fulton’s Dominion. Or even what it was that Founder Fulton saw in you that made him hand choose you?”
An enigmatic smile crept across those old, thin lips, a distant sense of wistfulness shone in those still-expressive eyes. Lettie stopped her rocking and sat up just a little straighter. “Perhaps in time, Dixie Belle, in time. When we’re both of us ready.”
“I’d ask you what you meant by that but I think I’d have better luck asking Peachie Too to perform an opera for me.”
Lettie cackled. “Lah, can’t you just see that disagreeable fur-ball running hither and yon all over some stage a yappin’ and a snappin’ at the plump ol’ behinds of them bellowing opera folks?”
“Laugh and change the subject all you want tonight, but I’m warning you, Miss Lettie, it’s less than four months ‘til your birthday. Sometime between now and then, I’d like to capture in this journal at least some of your thoughts and memories, the lessons you’ve learned in a hundred years of living.”
“Then let’s just leave the book as it is, lamb. Blank. That pretty much sums up what old Lettie has learned in her time on earth.” Another raspy laugh crackled up from her narrow chest.
“That’s not true, Lettie.”
“The older I gets the more I know it is true. The longer I live, the more I learn how little I do know.”
“You know about people, Miss Lettie.” Dixie rose and bent to give Lettie a hug, ever mindful of how fragile the tiny po
werhouse had grown. “You know about love and joy, and how to laugh and make other people laugh too, and you know how to sing and praise the Lord. That’s not nothing.”
“But it’s not the kind of thing you can set down in a book, either. Seems most the lessons I’ve learned have to get passed along from one heart to another. And far as that goes, I think I’ve already done my job with you, pretty much.”
“Don’t you believe it; I still have plenty to learn from you.” She gave the old dear a kiss on the cheek then strolled over to the window. She stared out at the small world of South Dominion Street through the intricate lace of imported sheers beneath the half-century-old portieres. “But days like this it does seem the only way life wants to teach me anything at all is for me to learn it the hard way.”
Lettie snorted out her opinion of that assessment then set to rocking again at a snail’s pace. “Things can’t hardly be that bad for a smart young thing like you.”
“Bad? Maybe not.” Dixie folded her hands together. “I mean, I have so much, it is a bit ridiculous for me to moan and groan about how bad things are.”
“See, you are learning.”
That picked Dixie’s spirits up, a little.”The thing is, everything is so crazy and now there’s this... this...this...man!”
“Ahhhh.”
“No! No ahhhh. This man...it’s not like that, it will never be like that. This is a business problem kind of man. A man who has seized the opportunity of Daddy’s death to move in on our companies like some vulture.” Dixie gulped down some air, trying to rid herself of that shallow, breathless quality her hurried denial had taken on. “Oh, sure, he has a smile that makes your knees go weak as water and a way about him that makes you want to believe every dream you see shining in his eyes.”
Lettie’s soft humming jerked her back from her reverie.
“But I won’t be taken in by that.” She pounded her fist into her open palm to illustrate her resolve. “Riley Walker may be wonderful to look at, he may have shoulders like a bear, but I suspect he’d be just as dangerous to tangle with.”
