Hold on Tight (12 page)

“Hmmm?” He glanced up, took her appearance in with an appreciative once-over, and whistled. “Vanilla ice cream. Nice. I’ll be through with this in a minute.” Then he returned to his work.

“Rucker? I know you won’t understand why a politician wouldn’t want publicity, and I know you’re trying to compliment me, but … I really don’t want to be a subject in your book. Or your column.”

His head came up slowly, his green eyes surprised. He studied her so intensely that she looked away and fumbled with a loose thread on the side of her jogging pants. “Why not?” he asked.

“Well … I’m a very private person.”

“Who used to parade around in tight bathing suits in order to win prizes,” he noted drolly, smiling. “Come on, Dee, don’t joke with me.”

“I’m not joking.” She paused, thinking over everything he’d just said. “And I know beauty pageants are partially just an excuse for showing off women’s bodies, but there’s a lot more to them than that. Don’t make fun.”

His smile faded. He sat up slowly and turned his pad facedown. Dinah’s eyes widened in alarm as she noted that secretive action. “Something you don’t want me to see?” she asked coolly.

“What’s makin’ you snap at dumb little things, Dee? You act like you think I’m plannin’ to hurt you.”

“Can I see what you’ve written there?” She nodded toward the pad.

His mouth, that wide, sensual mouth that could smile so easily, now tightened in determination. “No. It’s a rough draft. There aren’t many things I’m stubborn about, Dee, but my writing is one of them. It has to be
perfect before I let anybody see it. Besides, I’m not gonna cater to your suspicions.”

“So writing’s a part of your life that you won’t share with me?”

“I don’t share rough drafts with anybody.” He grasped her hand, and his expression softened. “Dee, you can trust me. Relax.”

She held his hand desperately and looked deep into his eyes. “I want to, I really do.” She took a steadying breath. “Rucker, I won’t ask you for many favors, but I’m going to have to ask for this one. Don’t write about me. Give me those notes or throw them away. Please.”

“That’s like askin’ me to cut out part of my heart, Dee.” He sat up and pulled her into his arms. Dinah looked at him with a silent, bittersweet plea, but he offered no mercy. “What is it, Dee?” he asked in a low, unyielding voice. He didn’t sound angry, but he did sound exasperated and set on getting answers. “I think it’s time you tell me what you’re hidin’ from.”

“I simply don’t like publicity.”

“Lula Belle said you want to run for state senate some day. How are you gonna avoid the spotlight then?”

“Oh, that’s just a—something I joke about.”

“The hell it is. People told me you’ve already been approached by folks who’d help run your campaign.”

Dinah exhaled hotly. “Running for state senate in Alabama wouldn’t garner me national attention the way your books and columns would! And what have you been doing? Investigating me? Cajoling my friends for information?”

The subtle stiffening of his body told her that she’d hit a very big nerve. His eyes narrowed and he looked at her in grim disbelief. “You think that’s why I asked them about you?”

She hesitated, telling herself that the man who’d made love to her so beautifully last night and this morning couldn’t possibly be anyone to fear. Tell him, a firm inner voice goaded. Tell him about the scandal that ruined your father’s life, the scandal that was indirectly responsible for his death. The scandal that nearly ruined your life, and still might.

Dinah fought the band of steel that enveloped her throat, but she’d lived with secrecy so long, she’d protected herself so carefully for so many years, that the words couldn’t escape. “I want to trust you,” she whispered in an anguished voice.

“But you don’t.” His deep voice was full of pain, anger, and bewilderment. “I can’t believe it! After what we shared last night. After the things we did together, there’s still a part of you that thinks I’m nothing but a fast talkin’ con artist lookin’ for a story.”

“No! Oh, Rucker …” Her eyes filled with tears. She pushed herself away and moved to the end of the bed, turning her back to him. “I just—it’s just a matter of dignity. What you write is funny and insightful. It’s terrific entertainment. But I don’t want to be anyone’s entertainment. I don’t want to be talked about or laughed about by strangers.”

His voice was deadly. “Dee, tell me the damned truth. I smell lies like a dog smells a trail and I won’t put up with them. You tell me what’s wrong, and you tell me right now, little lady.”

Little lady
. She whipped around, her chin thrust forward. “You won’t put up with them?” she echoed curtly. “You’ll tell me what to do, and I’d better do it, is that it?”

“That’s right! There can only be one top dog in this argument, and you’re lookin’ straight at him.”

“Indeed! I think you mean that you expect me to be a docile little bed bunny who’ll let you boss her around!”

“I expect you not to keep secrets from me and accuse me of stupid things!”

“I expect you not to turn my town and my private life into a circus of corny jokes for a national audience to snicker over!”

That was the final blow. He stood and methodically ripped his work out of the big note pad. He folded the sheets with fierce, sharp movements of his fingers then stuck the parcel in his back pocket. Dinah stood also, her heart catching. What now? “Please tear those notes up,” she begged. “That’s all I ask. Is it so much, if you really care about me?”

His hands clenched by his sides. “If you really care about me, you’ll say why you don’t trust me.”

“I do … want to trust you.” She held out her hands in supplication. “Rucker, I’ve been through a lot, things that I
will
tell you about, if you’ll be patient.”

“Seems to me, if you ask a man into your bed, and you say that he’s special, and you do things with him that you say you’ve never done with anyone else, that you ought to trust him already.”

Dinah knew then that the situation was hopeless. “You don’t see shades of gray, do you,” she said wearily. “That’s one reason people enjoy your writing so much. You see things the way they ought to be, and you never yield an inch.” She laughed bitterly. “That’s very commendable.”

“You don’t yield much, either, Dee. You’ve got all sorts of things hidden inside you, and you’ve got a wall of pride ten feet thick around you.”

They shared a long, tortured look. She refused to let herself cry, but the effort from not crying made it difficult to talk. He seemed to be having difficulty with his own emotions. “Everything’s happened so fast,” she finally managed. “You showed up here … just five days ago …”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. “You know that’s not the problem. Five days. People fall in love in five days. Five hours, sometimes. Five minutes.”

“Some people do,” she answered hoarsely. Now was not the time to acknowledge that they were in love with each other. It would only add misery to misery. “Some people only get caught up in physical temptation.”

She felt sick when she saw how harshly her insinuation affected him. For a moment he seemed incapable of speaking. Then he ground words out through clenched teeth. “Some people know how to stab right to the heart.”

“Rucker,” she cried, unable to bear the pain she’d caused him. “Rucker—”

But he had already turned and was walking out the bedroom door. Dinah followed him silently, knowing that this was the end of the beginning, their beginning.
They hadn’t even had a chance to make things work. He went down the hall to the living room, removed his jacket from a sleek brass coat stand by the front door, then walked over to a chaise lounge covered in white damask. The possum was curled there, asleep. He scooped it up gently and placed it in the crook of one arm. Then he went to the front door and pulled it open.

He turned, assessed her with cold eyes, and said simply, “I reckon you know how to find me in Birmingham, if it matters.”

She nodded. “It matters,” she answered brokenly.

His jaw worked for a second, but he either couldn’t or didn’t want to say anything else. He went through the door, slammed it behind him, and walked across the porch without looking back.

Dinah felt as if she were strangling on sorrow. Turning, she fled to the sunny sanctuary of her kitchen, sat down at the table, and put her face in her hands, where she kept it as she listened to the Cadillac leave. Then the morning was silent, achingly silent except for the small sounds Nureyev made as he ruffled his feathers. He cackled something incoherently. He tried again, with better results. Dinah raised her head and stared at him.

“Dee!” he squawked. “Hot … damn!”

For a second, she was so startled that she wanted to laugh. Rucker had left his outrageous imprint on her life in every way that he could, even to coaching her intellectual crow in good-old-boy lingo. Now he’s gone, Dinah told herself. And it’s for the best. Tears slipped quietly down her face.

“Boss, if you want pictures of beautiful, leggy women, why don’t you go back to your office and look through your collection of
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issues?” Millie’s annoyed voice echoed through the newspaper’s research room as she plunked down a new box of microfilm from the file drawers.

Rucker huffed a vague sound of dismissal at her and kept studying the murky screen before him. “I’m lookin’ for articles, not pictures, articles about one leggy woman in particular. Get me the … hmmm … yeah, check our Sunday magazines from about seven years ago. Must have had some sort of fluffy profile on the current Miss Georgia.” Her short, athletic body full of purpose, Millie glided away.

“Here’s one!” she exclaimed a few minutes later. “Beethoven, Beauty, and Brains; Georgia’s Triple-Threat Beauty Queen Has What It Takes To Be Top Contender For Miss America.” Rucker leaped up and took the microfilm card she held out, then quickly placed it in the viewer. Millie bent over his shoulder as he scanned through the pages of the old magazine section. “Shoo!” she commented sardonically. “Broiler hens, twenty-nine cents a pound. And to think I was in the Navy then, and missed that buy.”

“Hush up, you tart-tongued little amazon,” Rucker ordered. She laughed. He found the page he wanted and studied it fervently. It contained a photograph of a
younger, slightly thinner Dinah, with short, carefully styled hair. She was in full Miss Georgia regalia: tiara, roses, sash, antebellum gown, bright smile, and gleaming eyes. He forgot that Millie was beside him and gently placed the tip of one forefinger to the photograph as if he were touching Dinah’s face. I love you, he admitted silently. I’m going crazy to see you again.

From the corner of his eye, he caught Millie shifting in embarrassment and he realized that his expression revealed everything. Rucker jerked his hand away from the photograph. “Ever seen a woman with that many pearly teeth before in your life?” he drawled nonchalantly. “Not too bad lookin’ for one of those debutante types, is she? She looks even better now. Got a little more meat on her.”

His ruse didn’t work. Millie patted his shoulder sympathetically. “She’s beautiful, Rucker,” she said gently. “You have good taste.” She paused. “I hope that some day a man looks at me the way you just looked at her.”

“Somebody will, gorgeous.” He paused. “Thanks, Millie, for carin’.” Rucker sighed. When tough little Millie started treating him with kindness, he knew that his misery had become embarrassingly obvious. He grumbled abruptly, “Why don’t you go find a mailroom boy to kung fu, Miss Hunstomper?”

She patted his shoulder again and left the research room. Rucker read the article hurriedly, frowning. Damn! Basics, that’s all this was. “I believe in the American political system,” Dinah told the reporter. “I’d like to use my abilities in a leadership role to solve the crises of poverty, war, and hatred in the world.” His brows arched at that quote.

There was no poverty in Mount Pleasant, very little hatred, and the only war had been a nasty skirmish one year between the Baptist Women’s League and the Methodist Women’s League over which group was going to host the Shriners’ Appreciation Luncheon. He looked at Dinah’s old photograph in sad bewilderment. What had become of the idealistic young woman who appeared so ready to tackle the world’s problems?

He read on. She said that her father, Bill Sheridan,
was her guiding force and biggest supporter. President of First Georgia Trust, one of the state’s largest banks. She’d said he was the most honorable man she knew. Rucker hurt for her, knowing that her father had died in the plane crash only a few months after this article was published. He glanced at the credits. Story by Todd Norins. Special to the
Herald Examiner
. Todd Norins. That was a familiar name.

He called Millie on a phone in the research room. “Know who Todd Norins is?” he asked.

“Rucker! Who doesn’t?”

“I doesn’t,” he protested.

“He’s the top investigative reporter on
USA Personal
. It’s like
60 Minutes
, only without class. A big hit. Sleazy, muckraking, network TV show. Ugh.” She paused, then added in a guilty voice, “I watch it every week.”

“I’m comin’ back to my office. Get me a phone number for Mr. Muck.”

A few minutes later, seated amid his comfortable clutter, his boots propped on top of a scarred, much-abused computer terminal, Rucker listened to the telephone ring at a New York connection. He cajoled a receptionist until he convinced her that yes, he was the same Rucker McClure who’d written her favorite book,
Down Home Swamp Stories
. She put him through to one secretary, who put him through to the
USA Personal
secretary, who hemmed and hawed but finally said she’d see if Mr. Norins was available.

“Norins here,” a booming voice said eventually. “What can I do for the redneck king of corny schmaltz?”

Rucker absorbed the greeting thoughtfully. It was one thing for one southerner to call another a redneck, but something else for an outside to use the term. “Howdy, Norins. Heard that you’re the terror of boob tube journalism. Sort of top boob.”

Rucker listened to a snorting laugh on the New York side of the line. Hell, the guy sounds like Ted Baxter on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
, he thought.