Heart of Dixie - Tami Hoag (1) (17 page)

He gave a little bark of laughter. "I'll let you know the next time he decides to speak to me. We currently hold our conversations through my mother. `Tell your son he's pigheaded,'" he snapped in a gruff imitation of his father. "`Tell Dad I know who I got it from.'"

He sighed, his big shoulders rising and falling. "A career in the Corps was what I had planned. Sometimes plans just don't live up to your expectations. I woke up one day and found myself wanting something that wasn't there. I had to go find it. Even if it meant giving up a lot, I had to do it or spend my whole life feeling as if something was missing." He turned toward her, those calm blue eyes intent and watchful. "Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Dixie said quietly, dodging his gaze. She poked at the fire with a stick of driftwood, sending a shower of orange sparks into the air. "I know what you mean. You're lucky you found it." Jake watched as her mind drifted away to a distant place that cast a sad shadow over her eyes and tugged at the corners of her mouth. He could have probed now. His interviewing instincts told him he would get answers, that the window of opportunity was open, but he didn't ask the questions. He waited. He wanted the story to come from Dixie willingly. The minutes passed excruciatingly, but he waited anyway. The truth had to come from her, not be dragged from her.

She dropped her stick and hooked a finger through the fine gold chain she wore. She lifted out the sea star and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger in a gesture he'd seen her use many times.

"The friend that gave this to me." she began, still staring at the fire. "Her name was Jeanne Parmantel. We got to be friends when we were working together as waitresses out in L.A. She was from a little hill town in Georgia. She wanted to be an actress. She'd been the star of everything back home. Folks had thrown her a party to send her off to Hollywood. They were all sure she'd be a big star. But she never did make it.

"Every day she woke up wanting something acting could give her that nothing else could. Every night when she came home she was still just a waitress. It didn't matter what she did, what she tried, what lengths she was willing to go to. She was just never quite right for the part." She sniffed and gave him a tremulous smile. "See how lucky you are, finding what you wanted. I mean, I know you haven't sold that mystery yet, but you're a writer and that's what you wanted."

"What happened to your friend?" Jake asked quietly. gently. If she refused to tell him it would be like a hammer blow to his heart.

She looked at the fire again as if she could see the memories there in the flames. "She took it hard. She'd been the prettiest girl back in Georgia, but there are lots of pretty girls in Hollywood. She was just another face. But she was determined. She did everything she could think of. She took classes, she starved herself, she worked out, she dyed her hair, she had plastic surgery. She used to joke she had enough plastic in her to qualify her as a walking Tupperware party. She wanted it so bad and she was so proud...."

Tears spilled over the dam of her lashes and a knot of pain lodged in her throat as memories assailed her. Jeanne, so stubborn, determined to make it. but not willing to take favors from her friend who had made it.

She squeezed the sea star until the spines of the individual arms dug into her fingers. "She gave me this for Christmas our first year out there and she said, `See this, Dixie. This is what I'm gonna be--a star.' But all she ever was was a waitress."

She stopped and fought back another wave of misery. It beat against her relentlessly, battering the defense she had built against it. "She killed herself," she whispered. "December 22, 1989."

Hugging her knees, she put her head down then and cried for the friend she'd lost and for herself. A day didn't go by that she didn't blame herself. Hadn't Jeanne just followed her example? They had both driven themselves to terrible lengths to achieve what other people thought of as perfection. What Jeanne had lost sight of was that she'd been perfectly wonderful to start with. She'd thought she had to be another Devon Stafford. But the world didn't need another Devon Stafford, it needed one Jeanne Parmantel, and now she was lost forever.

If only...if only... The words played in Dixie's head like a record with the needle stuck in the groove. If only she had realized sooner what was really important. If only she had been able to convince Jeanne. If only she had been there when Jeanne had needed her in that darkest hour when death had seemed preferable to the pain of failure. If only...

She felt Jake's arm slide around her shoulders, but he didn't try to pull her up. He just held her, stroking her hair in a slow, soothing motion. He didn't try to tell her it was all right. He let her have her moment of privacy. He let her grieve and Dixie loved him for it. She had shared with him the most painful thing in her past, but he hadn't trespassed on it. No matter how much it hurt, it was her memory of Jeanne, something she needed to hold on to intact. She didn't want anyone trying to dismantle it with platitudes; she wanted understanding.

When the moment had passed, when she had endured the worst of the pain, she turned to him. She went into his arms and pressed her cheek against his chest. Now she needed his comfort and he gave it without reserve, wrapping her up in his warmth and solid strength.

"I miss her so much," she whispered, setting off another torrent of tears.

"I know, baby," Jake murmured into her hair.

He held her and rocked her, staring into the fire. It tore him up to hear her cry, to know that she blamed herself for her friend's death. All along he had suspected something was haunting her, but he had never guessed it would be anything so terrible, so wrenching as this guilt. He could feel it twist inside him as surely as if it had been his own. He would have done anything to take it away from her, but there was no way to do it. She clung to it and punished herself with it, at the same time trying to make amends by taking in misfits and outcasts and imperfect creatures. He had nothing to heal her with but time and love.

He tilted her face up and kissed her tears away. He gave her his handkerchief. She blew her nose, wadded up the previously immaculate white linen in her fist, and let her head fall against Jake's shoulder as her breathing calmed down. He brushed her hair and kissed her temple.

"We can't live other people's lives for them," he said, thinking not only of Dixie and her friend, but of himself and his father.

"No. But sometimes it would make life a whole lot easier."

"It seems to me we've got our hands full just trying to run our own lives." He ran his hands up her rib cage and filled them with her breasts. Gently kneading the plump globes, he gave her a playful little smile and waggled his brows. "I've certainly got my hands full."

Dixie smiled as his teasing coaxed a giggle from her. He really was a good man, a good friend. He had allowed her her grief and now he was tugging her gently away from it, wooing her back from the past and into the present. Jeanne was a memory never to be forgotten, but reality was Jake, with her here and now.

A low sound of pleasure hummed in her throat as his fingers massaged her breasts, his thumbs rubbing across the tips. She leaned toward him as he lowered his mouth to hers. It was the softest of kisses, warm and tender and sweet. It drew up her hunger for life and chased away the darkness of her memories. It offered her understanding and comfort and invited her to celebrate life rather than mourn death.

She wound her arms around Jake's neck and pulled herself up onto her knees. He turned onto his knees as well, never breaking the kiss or the caress. She met his tongue in a play that drifted back and forth from being lazy to eager. She ate up the taste of him, thinking she could never get enough if she lived to be a hundred.

His fingers left her breasts, moving to the buttons on her flannel shirt. He popped them free and tugged the tails from her jeans. His hands were cold and Dixie shivered as he touched her, stroking her sides and her tummy. Shivers raced through her, pooling in the pit of her stomach.

He struggled for a second with the front catch of her bra, then it gave way and she gasped into his mouth as her breasts spilled into the cool air and his cool hands. Despite the chill of his touch, the feel of his long fingers squeezing and petting stoked the fire in her blood until she was panting.

She tugged impatiently at his shirt, needing to touch him, to feel her skin against his, to press her body to his. But he held her at bay when she would have moved up against his bared chest. She ran her hands over him eagerly, loving the feel of taut flesh and rippling muscles. She traced her fingertips over his pectorals and drew her thumbs across his flat male nipples, delighting in the way the flesh pebbled beneath her touch. She tried once again to bring herself up against him, but he held her back, his hands still cupping her breasts.

Dixie pulled her mouth from his and trailed kisses down his chest. She drew her fingertips along his waistband, smiling at the way he sucked in a breath each time she dipped inside his jeans. His belly tightened as she traced circles around his navel and toyed with the metal button just below.

Bending down, she pressed her open mouth to his stomach and popped the button of his jeans. She worked the zipper down, easing over the straining bulge there. She followed suit with his briefs, slipping them down, teasing him, stroking him until his whole body was shuddering. Chuckling wickedly against his belly, she closed one small hand over him, caressing him with the gentlest of touches.

Jake drew in a sharp breath, his nostrils filling with the salty musky scent of the sea and arousal. He squeezed his eyes shut and tangled his fingers in Dixie's hair and massaged the back of her head, concentrating on the pleasure. Her breath was warm and moist against his groin, her lips like wet silk. He groaned and shuddered again, his whole body trembling as if the ground beneath him were moving in a violent quake. He struggled to hang on to his control as it shimmied through his grasp.

Unable to stand it any longer, he grasped Dixie by the shoulders and hauled her up against him, nearly crushing her in his embrace. She let out a grateful sigh as flesh pressed to flesh and he slanted his mouth across hers for a hot, hungry kiss. He wanted to consume her, to absorb her --each part of her, body and soul and secrets. The need to possess, to claim, to mate overwhelmed him. His hips rocked against Dixie's, but all he met with was the frustrating scrape of soft denim against his flesh.

Trailing kisses and nips down her throat, he reached down and wrestled with her jeans, dragging them down along with her silk and lace panties. He slid one hand between her thighs, threading his fingers through the soft nest of dark hair, seeking the moist warmth at the heart of her femininity. She lifted her hips, moving restlessly as he stroked and teased. His left hand swept down her back, over her jacket and the tails of her flannel shirt to the ripe curve of her bare buttock. He pulled her toward him as he slipped two fingers into her satiny heat.

Dixie cried out, her breath coming in pants and gasps. She clutched his shoulders, moving against him, needing, needing, needing. She whimpered and rubbed her head against his jaw.

"Oh, Jake, please, please, please," she panted. "I need you inside me. Please don't make me wait."

He growled in her ear, nuzzling through her thick hair to nip her earlobe. The velvety crown of his arousal nudged her belly and she brought a hand between them and tried to guide him. In the blink of an eye she was on her back on the blanket, with Jake looming over her, his blue eyes gleaming hot and dark.

"I want you, Dixie," he murmured, his voice a low husky rasp. "All of you."

She shivered as she looked up at him, knowing that he was asking her to lower the last of her barriers, that this would go beyond the joining of their bodies. He would become a part of her as she had allowed no one to become a part of her ever. She shivered again, not from the chill of the wind against her bare skin, but from the fear within her. She wanted him in her heart, in her soul, and it terrified her to need another person so badly. Old hurts had conditioned her against letting anyone that close and still she wanted Jake. That had to mean it was right, didn't it? That had to mean she was safe, that he was the one man who would take her heart and not break it, love her as she was and cherish her, didn't it? She closed her eyes and prayed that it did. When she opened them and stared up into Jake's intense, waiting gaze, she said, "Yes."

Jake took in her answer, everything inside him going as still as the eye of a hurricane. He had promised himself he wouldn't push her, wouldn't drag from her what she wasn't ready to give. Still he had asked her to give him everything, not because he needed to master her, but because he loved her. Love was a humbling thing; it stripped away pride and control. He loved Dixie and wanted nothing more than for her to love him in return.

He looked into her eyes now, wide and clear, and saw everything he had hoped to see--love and need and hope. There was uncertainty there as well, and vulnerability, and they tugged at his heart.

"Love me, Jake," she whispered, her lips moist and trembling slightly. "I love you."

Relief flooded through him in a cool tide. He brushed his mouth against the curve of her cheek, smoothed her hair back with his fingertips. "Oh, baby," he murmured. "You don't know how I needed to hear you say that."

He kissed her lips, her chin. He pushed aside her jacket and shirt and kissed the tip of each breast, kissed the soft flesh below her navel and kissed her hips. With quick and gentle hands he divested them both of jeans and shoes. He stroked his hands down Dixie's legs, enjoying the silkiness of her skin. He ran his fingers over her feet, marveling at how small and dainty they were, how delicate the bones. He raised one and kissed the arch, trailing his tongue up to the sensitive hollow just behind the ankle.

Dixie lay back, watching him, absorbed his care and attention. He kissed a tiny mole on the inside of her knee as reverently as he kissed her lips, with as much passion as he gave her breasts. His hands stroked over her as if she were a priceless sculpture and he was memorizing every detail with his fingertips.