Hold on Tight (24 page)

“No,” she said hoarsely. “I’m not ashamed. Please. I wish I’d never said that.”

“I’ll always do things that embarrass you, Dee. I’ll always act first and think later.”

“I can live with that.”

He almost smiled, but the anguish inside him weighed the effort down. “Can you? I want to believe that, I really do. Stay here, think on it, make sure. I don’t want to hurt you anymore—”

“And I don’t want to hurt you!”

He bent forward and brushed his mouth across hers in a quick, restrained kiss. She sank both hands in his sweater and tried to keep him from pulling back. “No, Dee, no.” He grabbed her hands and gently pulled them away. “I want you to think on it.”

“I don’t want to think!”

A hint of his old humor crooked one corner of his mouth up in a wry smile. “You always want to think. People with high IQ’s are like that.”

“But Rucker—”

“Good night,” he whispered, and kissed her forehead. She reached for him again, but he stepped back, his chest rising with a harsh breath. “Don’t … I want you to be sure.”

After a second she regained her dignity. Her chin came up. “All right. I’ll stay here and think.”

He smiled at her authoritative tone. “You do that, possum queen.”

She watched him walk to the car. I’ll show you, Mr. McClure, she thought. I’ll find some way to prove that I love you just the way you are.

“Somebody call a paramedic. McClure is sick.”

Rucker lowered his poker hand and stared balefully at the men who circled the table. “What are you gripin’ at now?” he asked.

Bill Harte, a Methodist minister affectionately known to Rucker’s readers as the Reverend Snooker Hornswaggle, propped his chin on one hand and glared back. “The card you just gave up was the ace of diamonds, friend.”

“Oh.” Rucker shrugged. “Well, pardon me.”

Richard McClansky, who always appeared in Rucker’s column as Ed Howe of the accounting firm Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe, snorted in disbelief. “Rucker McClure, poker addict, has no interest in the game. How many years have we been meeting here to play poker, boys?”

“Since the dawn of time,” noted Silas Spencer, an Atlanta police detective who had successfully avoided a print persona so far.

“And have you ever seen His Royal Highness not pay attention to the game?”

“Hell, no,” Richard answered. “Excuse me, Reverend Bill.”

“Heck, no,” Bill corrected coyly.

Rucker threw his cards down and slumped back in his chair. Jethro was asleep in his lap, and he stroked the possum’s head distractedly. “Go on without me. I’m worthless tonight.”

“Let’s not confine that description to tonight,” Silas added.

The doorbell chimed upstairs. Rucker got up wearily, set Jethro in the chair, and headed toward the door of the game room. “Take my cards,” he told the group sardonically. “Take my money. Kiss my grits.”

I don’t give a damn about poker or anything else, he thought as he climbed the stairs. This is just another lousy night without Dee.

The bell chimed again before he got to the front door. “Hold your horses,” he called. Probably some kid sellin’ Christmas cookies, Rucker decided.
Bah, humbug
. He jerked the door open and froze, staring at the apparition that stood there. “Dee?” he said in shock.

She ran a hand over her tall, beehive hairdo. “Not Dee. Deedee.” She winked at him and stepped inside, lugging a huge, wicker picnic basket. “Ooooh,” she crooned in a cutesy voice, “I’m so happy to see you.” She kissed him on the cheek and wrinkled her nose at him playfully. “I’m from Acme Rent-a-Cheerleader. See?”

She turned around, exhibiting a tight gold sweater with a large M sewn on the bosom and a pleated, gold-and-black cheerleader’s skirt. A very short cheerleader’s skirt that allowed ruffled gold panties to peak out when she moved. She was two inches taller than usual because of the black, stiletto-heeled shoes she wore. They had little black ankle straps. She touched the M on her chest. “M for McClure,” she said sweetly. Then she giggled. “I’m on your team. I’m all yours.”

He was dumbfounded. She kissed his cheek again. “Follow me,” she ordered in the same flirty voice as before. “Are your poker buddies here? Oh, I just
love
taking care of your friends! Let’s go downstairs and see them!”

“Uh, uh …” he tried.

“Now you just hush, you big sweet boy. I have all sorts of wonderful food in this basket.” She handed it to him and fluttered her eyelashes. “You’re so big and strong. You carry it for me, pleeeease.”

She pranced down the hallway, putting every possible
wiggle into the walk. “Come along, now, honey bunchkins. My chicken is getting cold.”

“Dee! What the hell!”

“Ooooh, I
love
it when you talk masterfully!”

She disappeared down the stairs to the game room, and he hurried after her, his mouth permanently open in shock. By the time he reached the bottom step, she was cooing over Bill, tweeking Richard’s cheek, and smiling at Silas. They’d met her a time or two before and they were in shock over the transformation. Rucker set the picnic basket on a bar in one corner of the room. She sidled over to it.

“Now you sweet boys just come over here and eat all you want,” she ordered cheerfully as she began removing huge containers of food. “I made fried chicken with extra lard, gooey potato salad, buttery biscuits, and—ooooh!—chocolate cupcakes with raisins and sprinkles on top! My honey bunny’s favorite meal.”

By now, everyone but Rucker was convulsing in laughter. “Hot damn!” Silas chortled. “Excuse me, Reverend Bill.”

“Hot durn!” Bill agreed.

“Dee?” Rucker said plaintively, looking bewildered. “Dee?”

“Deedee
,” she coaxed, her hand on one hip. “Now you just sit down and I’ll bring you a plate, sweetie pie. Can I get you a beer?”

“I’ll get my own,” he mumbled, and hurriedly did so. He sat down in his chair and watched her with incredulous eyes as she arranged food on a paper plate and wiggled over to him with it balanced on one hand, waitress style. She put it down on the table in front of him, pulled a plastic fork and a napkin out of the waistband of her skirt, and handed them to him with a flourish.

“And after you eat, I’ll do all the cleaning up,” she cooed. “I just want you to sit there and enjoy your game. You work so hard. You deserve to play.”

He looked down at the food, then back up at her. “Enough! Just hold on! Hold everything!” He stood up and snatched her hand in his. “We’ve got to talk!”

“Ooooh, I
love
it when you take charge!” She trailed after him, back upstairs. He tugged her into the living room and pointed to the couch.

“Sit!”

She didn’t sit, she lounged, her long, gorgeous legs stretched out invitingly on the cushions. She gave him a coy, come-hither look and crooked one finger at him. “You sit, too, big guy.”

“I’ll stand.” He put his hands on his hips and angled one leg out to the side. “What is this all about?”

“This is about compatibility. I’m showing you that I can be exactly what you want.”

“I want you just the way you are—were!”

“You want me?” She twirled a finger in the edge of her beehive. “I want you, too, you
darling
good old boy. You lovely, brawling, redneck.”

He held up his hands. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not just saying that!” She got up, her facade gone and her blue eyes very serious. “I want you just the way you are too. The way you always have been. Generous, caring, sensitive, unpredictable, wild—”

“Uh, we’ll be going now,” Silas said from the door. Bill and Richard stood behind him, grinning foolishly and holding plates of food. “We can see that we’re not—uh—needed.”

They turned and exited quickly, and a few seconds later the front door shut behind them. Rucker sat down on the hearth, his eyes still on Dinah. “Dee,” he said, “I’ll always be rowdy. Always.”

She nodded and knelt in front of him. “And I’ll always love you for it. I may not always approve, but I’ll always love you. I’m inordinately proud of you, you know.”

“You are?”

She nodded again and grasped his face between her hands. “How can I not be proud of a man who tries to whack people on my behalf? How can I not love a man who puts love ahead of common sense?”

After a silent moment in which he looked desperately into her eyes, he grabbed her in a bear hug. They tumbled to the floor together, their legs tangled, and
he ended up lying half on top of her. “My hair, my hair!” she protested in mock dismay. “You’re scaring the bees!”

“Run, bees, run.” He sank both hands in the brunette bubble and kissed her roughly. Dinah sighed in delight and opened her mouth to encourage the intimate sweep of his tongue.

“Hmmmm.” She kissed him back with matching excitement, her hands moving wantonly over his back and hips. “I need you,” she whispered between more kisses. “I had to find some outrageous way to make you want me again.”

“I’ve never stopped wanting you.” His eyes full of devotion, he looked down at her. “But I wanted you to want me without bein’ embarrassed.”

“Oh, Rucker,” she said gently, “I’d rather be embarrassed with you than be dignified with any other man in the world.”

He laughed then, his eyes glistening and his expression so full of delight that she felt like crying with relief. “I’ve missed your laughter,” she told him. “And your voice.” Her tone became throaty. “And your touch.”

His laughter faded, replaced by a quiet, intense gaze that held a lifetime’s worth of promises. “I’ll give you a new supply.”

“Right now?” she asked in a soft, breathless voice.

He got up, pulling her to her feet alongside him. Then he swooped her up in his arms. His eyes burned into her and his voice was gruff. “Right now, Deedee.”

There was something delightfully ridiculous about being in bed naked with Rucker, a picnic basket, and a possum. Dinah held a chicken leg up to Rucker’s mouth and he groaned. “No more,” he begged. “I can’t budge.”

“You were budging quite well an hour ago,” she teased softly. “Quite well.”

He smiled at her and slid his arm closer around her shoulders. “Inspiration. That’s the key.”

Dinah tossed the chicken leg. It landed neatly on a paper plate at the foot of the bed. “Two points,” she
noted jauntily. Jethro was stretched out on his side, nearby, snoring. “I didn’t know that possums snored.”

“Our baby is special.” Rucker let go of her long enough to push himself down to the edge of the bed and gather the limp little animal in one hand. He slid back up and settled comfortably on the pillows, with Jethro on his stomach. “Look at him. He didn’t even wake up.” He held out one arm so that Dinah could snuggle close to his side again.

She put her head on his shoulder and stroked Jethro’s side. “How can you tell? He looks like this all the time.”

Rucker put his hand over hers, and she lifted her face to look at him quizzically. They were silent for a moment, smiling at each other. “Dee,” he said slowly, “this possum needs a last name. He needs to be legitimate. He needs his mother around all the time.” Tears came to her eyes because she suspected what he was going to say next. “Will you make him respectable, hon? Will you marry me?”

She nodded, her throat tight. “I can’t let Jethro go any longer without respectability.

“Oh, you’re a noble mother,” he whispered. They kissed tenderly, and afterwards he nestled his face into her lopsided hair. “I’m suffocatin’,” he teased after a moment.

“I’ll go brush my hair out right now.”

“Nah. I’ll do it for you. In a little while.” His arm tightened around her. “Let’s just stay still.”

“Good idea,” she murmured. She thought for a minute. “How are we going to live together, Rucker? With me in Mount Pleasant and you …”

“I’m movin’ to Mount Pleasant.”

She raised her head and looked at him in shock. “You want to come back to small-town life?”

“Uh-huh. It suits me, don’t you think? I can write my column and my books from any place. I ain’t a big-city boy. I’m a good old boy. I belong in the hills where I can hunt and fish.”

“You don’t hunt
or
fish.”

“Well … I’ll find something to keep me busy in my spare time.” He smiled rakishly at her. “I’ll make babies.”

“You will, will you? I believe I have some small part in that process.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to take care of them a lot after they’re born ’cause you’ll be governor.”

“Governor!” She smiled wryly. “Governor Deedee McClure. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

He looked pleased. “And I’ll be First Lady.”

Dinah looked at him askance for a moment. Then she nodded and kissed him again, her eyes shining with adoration. “I suspect,” she whispered, “that the state is in for a wonderful adventure.”