“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”
Pops made a strangling sound and tried to look as innocent as an angel.It wasn’t working.Dixie glared first at Pops, then at the boys. “And that means…?” She propped her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes at Ben.“Oh, uh…” Ben hung his head, shuffled his feet and peeked up at his mother with a small grin. “Uh, gee, nothing, Mom.”“You’re darn right, nothing.” She nodded sharply. “Unless you’re worried that you, as a mere boy, might not be able to do as good a job as a girl could.”“Aw, Mom.”“Aw, Mom,” she mimicked back at him with a smile.Wade watched the byplay, and, as trite as it sounded even to him, he felt his heart melt. And why not, he thought. It was their father’s heart.“What kind of homework do you have?” their mother asked them.The youngest one, Tate, made a face, complete with gagging noises for sound effects. “Ugh. Yucky math.”“Poor baby.” She smoothed a hand over his head and smiled.“Huh. You think that’s bad,” Ben said, “I’ve gotta write a paragraph. A whole, stinkin’ paragraph.”Dixie chuckled. “About what?”“A subject of my choosing.” He said it as though pronouncing his own death sentence.It was all Wade could do to keep from laughing out loud. He really needed to spend more time with his nieces and nephews. He’d forgotten how much fun kids could be.Easy for him to say, he silently admitted, since the kids in question weren’t his responsibility. Whenever he needed a break he could simply send them off to their parents.“Come on, boys,” Dixie told her sons. “Take the back booth and get started on this dreaded homework. I’ll bring you a snack to tide you over till dinner.”The boys started out of the kitchen, dragging their backpacks behind them.“Pick ’em up, boys,” she warned.“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison. And they shouldered their bags. Wade chuckled. “You have great kids.”Dixie smiled with pleasure. “Thank you. I agree.”Pop laughed. “Yeah, and they think they’re pretty great, too, if you ask them.”Dixie rolled her eyes. “We have a little work to do in the humility department. They sometimes take too much after their father.”“Is that bad?” Wade asked, glad that his voice sounded only slightly curious. As though he was simply making conversation. Not as though his breath hung on her response.She chuckled. “Sometimes it is.”Wade bit his tongue to keep from asking her to explain.Dixie took a couple of apples and glasses of milk to her sons and checked on the progress of their homework. “Here you go. How’s it coming?”Both boys groaned and rolled their eyes. “I don’t get nines,” Tate complained.“What’s not to get?” Ben said. “It’s one less than ten.” “Oh. Huh?”“What I don’t get is what I’m supposed to write about,” Ben griped. He’d written his name at the top of his notebook page, but nothing else.Dixie set down their apples and milk. “Stop and eat. Maybe something will come to you. What about Little League?” she suggested.“What about it? The game’s not till Thursday.” “You could write about why you like to play.”“Hey, cool! Thanks, Mom. Why I Like Baseball, by Benjamin McCormick. I like it.”“Me, too,” she agreed.“Mom.” Tate pushed his math away and picked up his apple. “Yes?”He rubbed his apple against his shirt and inspected the shine. “I like Wade.”“You do, huh?”He took a giant, juicy bite of apple and nodded yes. “Think I should hire him?”“I thought you already did,” Ben said.“Just trying him out for now,” she told them. “See how he does.”“Gol’, Mom, it’s only dishwashing,” Ben told her. “What’s the big deal?Who can’t wash dishes?”“Me,” Tate piped up. “I’m allergic.”Ben’s “You wish,” was accompanied by a snort, and the swing of his foot under the table, directly into Tate’s leg.Tate’s response was to grin and kick back. Dixie didn’t need to look beneath the table to know the latter. She knew her boys. That was enough. That and their body language, the slight lean to one side, the little bounce when the foot connected with the opponent’s shin. So predictable, her boys were. Usually, anyway.“When you’re finished eating, take your dishes to the kitchen,” she told them. They knew the routine, but it never hurt to remind them.“Yes, ma’am,” they said together, both with their mouths full.Dixie rolled her eyes and turned away. Behind the counter she picked up a full pitcher of iced tea and made another round of the room offering refills.She would offer Wade the job. There was no reason to dilly-dally around about it.Dixie was used to making decisions of all shapes and sizes. There was no sense in fretting over things. She weighed the pros and cons of a matter, then made her choice and lived with the consequences. Those consequences weren’t always what she might wish, but they were hers, and she would make do.At four, Earline, her evening manager, came in. Within five minutes the rest of the night crew—MaryLou, Frank and Lyle—showed up.Dixie went to the kitchen and introduced Wade to everyone as Lyle was taking over Wade’s spot at the sink for the day.“You’re the new guy, huh?” Lyle asked. Wade looked to Dixie with a raised brow.“Yes,” she said. “Not that I think you need it, but if you want the job, it’s yours.”Wade’s smile came slow and full. “Thanks. Yes. I want the job.”The relief she felt was because the job was now filled. Not, surely not, because this particular man filled it.And that was the last thought she was going to give the man and the subject until tomorrow. So there.“Fine,” she said to her new dishwasher. She stepped out of the kitchen and retrieved a form from the shelf beneath the cash register. “Fill this out and bring it back tomorrow. Be here at six in the morning.”“Yes, ma’am.” His polite smile had just enough of a touch of the shark in it that, if she let it, might make her nervous.But men, as a rule, did not make Dixie McCormick nervous. She’d been in love, been married, then divorced. In the bargain, she’d been blessed with the two true loves of her life—Ben and Tater. And heaven help her, two males were enough for any sane woman. Certainly her ex had never made her nervous. How could he, when she’d known him all her life? Best friends didn’t make each other nervous.At 4:30 p.m. she turned the café over to Earline, then gathered those loves of her life up and headed out, they on their bicycles, she in her car, for the five-block trip home. She put her new dishwasher and the funny feelings he generated inside her completely out of her mind. Several times.“How…? When…?”“Brenda had the photo with her. She knew she wanted to do something, but all she could think of was to blow it up. I ran across a guy on the Internet who does oil paintings from photos. I thought she would like that.”“What is it, Daddy?” Jasmine asked. He couldn’t move.“It’s us,” Pammy cried. “Mama and us girls in the backyard.”It had always been one of Riley’s favorite pictures of Brenda and the girls. In fact he had a copy of it right now in his wallet. Brenda, sitting in the grass, with Pammy and Jasmine on either side and Cindy in her lap. He had taken the picture himself just before Brenda shipped out, nearly two years ago.The artist had enlarged it and copied it in oil. It was perhaps the most beautiful portrait he’d ever seen. His vision blurred.“Lemme see, Daddy, lemme see,” Cindy cried.When he finally looked up at Amy, he didn’t know what to say.She leaned toward him and kissed each of his eyelids, then his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Riley.”Amy was gratif
The rest of the week until Christmas passed in a blur. Amy spent much of it with Riley and his girls.There were errands to run. There was more shopping to do, both in town and beyond. There were videos to rent and watch and a movie to see in Waco. There were friends and neighbors to meet.Amy wondered what those friends and neighbors thought of Rileyshowing up with her, but they were all friendly. They were especially nice when Riley told them that she had served with Brenda. That served as a good, acceptable reason for them to be together without too much overt speculation.They were seldom alone, she and Riley. There was little time for it with the girls always around. But Amy didn’t mind. There was always time for a few heated kisses when they weren’t looking, or after their bedtime if Amy drove herself home.She had her own last-minute Christmas things to take care of, too.Things she could not do around Riley or his girls. But with a few phone calls, a quick trip here and there
“Okay, bring them to the den. We’ll let him sit in his recliner while we doctor him,” Amy suggested. She craned her neck to peer down the hall.Seeing no sign of Riley, she led the girls a few feet away into the kitchen and gave them a conspiratorial wink.“Here’s the deal, girls. Your daddy’s barely hurt at all. No more than one of you falling off your bicycle and getting a few scrapes.”Pammy poked out her lower lip. “Are you sure?”“I’m sure. I was there in the hospital when the doctor checked him over.He does have stitches on the side of his head, but not much else. But the thing is, guys are different than girls. Guys are bigger and stronger than we are. At the same time, when they get the least little scrape, or catch a cold, they turn into helpless babies. They need help with every little thing.”That got a round of smiles out of the girls.“I’m telling you this so you won’t worry about your daddy just because he moans and groans now and then over his aches and pains. It’s jus
All the way to the hospital on the hill at the south edge of town Amy kept her mind blank. She couldn’t allow herself to think. She scarcely allowed herself to breathe. An accident. Riley. Deer. Truck. Ditch. The words hurled themselves at her one after the other, like heat-seeking missiles.At the last stop sign before the hill, she hit her brakes too hard and her tires slid across the intersection. She was lucky no other cars were coming. She held her breath until the car straightened out, then eased up the hill and skated into the parking lot of the hospital.With a prayer on her lips, she rushed into the hospital and demanded to see Riley.They told her she should sit down. They told her it shouldn’t be long.They told her she had to wait.She told them, “Point me toward Riley Sinclair right this minute and you might live to see the end of your shift.”“Security!”“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Amy said as she started down the hall. “If you’ve got a security guard here in the middle of
“Good morning.”She barely bit back the shriek that threatened at the scare his voice gave her when she hadn’t realized he’d come in. “Good morning,” she managed. She stared at her computer screen and typed in her password to log on.His footsteps crossed from the door to her desk. He stopped there. “I called you last night,” he said quietly.Amy’s stomach clenched. “Did you?” “Several times.”She could see his hand resting on the edge of her desk. “I must have been out.” Heaven help her, she’d turned into a liar, she thought with dismay.“Amy, will you look at me?”She had to. She knew she had to. She even wanted to. Maybe. Sort of. She swallowed, wishing she knew what to do, what she wanted, what was best for them. If there was a them.Slowly she raised her gaze. “Riley, I…”“Don’t, Amy. If it’s this hard for you even to look at me, I guess we have a bigger problem than moving too fast.”“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I’m driving myself crazy here.”H
“I’m going to be tied up most of the day,” Riley said. “So I don’t know if I’ll be able to call you until late.”She smiled sadly. “You don’t need to call me. We’ll see each other at the office Monday. I’m not that insecure that I have to hear your voice and know where you are every day.” Ha. Liar.“Are you telling me you don’t want me to call?”With a groan and a laugh, Amy shook her head. “I guess I deserved that, but no, that’s not what I’m saying. If you want to call me and have time, I’d love to hear from you. If you don’t have the time, or merely don’t want to call, I promise not to take your lack of calling as a personal rejection. How’s that?”He chuckled. “I think you’re right. I think we don’t know each other as well as we thought we did. I’m going to leave now, before I make an even bigger ass of myself.”Amy sighed and watched him through her window until he drove out of her parking lot. Then she slid to the floor, exhausted. She had gone from letting Marva’s beauty consul