Hold on Tight (5 page)

“The catalog called it nut brown,” he protested, chuckling. “It was on sale.”

“Spend a whole dollar next time.”

“Ouch. You mean, vicious,”—he grasped both her hands and pulled her toward him, his voice dropping to a throaty level—“gorgeous, sexy, funny …”

“No, no, no …”

“Yes, yes, yes …” He kissed her hard, deliciously hard, his tongue teasing at her lips until she gave in and allowed it to slip deep inside her mouth. It tickled and cajoled, then coaxed her tongue to play too. Dinah’s hands clutched at his with trembling fierceness. His fingers wound through hers and he pulled her arms around his waist. His warm, masculine scent was tantalizing.

“Hold on tight,” he whispered breathlessly. “We’re gonna do something strange, but you’re gonna love it. You need it. You need it bad.”

“Not here … Rucker …” Alarmed, she started to pull away. Then she felt his hand on the back of her head, guiding it down to his big shoulder.

“We’re gonna snuggle for a minute,” he explained. He stroked her hair and slid one arm around her back. “Mmmm. Isn’t this nice? This is the best way to get to know each other.”

“Snuggle? Hug?” His shoulder felt wonderful, a perfect cushion for her cheek. “I was afraid you intended—”

“Yeah, I know you were afraid. Ssssh. I’m nobody to be afraid of. I’m a good old boy, you know, and that’s almost the same as bein’ an old-fashioned gentleman.” He stroked her hair with long, languid motions, his fingers pressing intimately against her scalp.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not afraid of you or any other man. I’m not a simpering girl.”

“Cautious, then,” he corrected. “I know a woman like you is used to havin’ her pick of men, but I also figure you’ve been hit on by a lot of turkeys.” He paused. “I’m not a turkey, even if I am hittin’ on you.” His fingers curved around the nape of her neck, massaging. He turned his head just enough to let his warm breath brush her cheek and heat her skin.

“No, I don’t think you’re a turkey.” Dinah blinked slowly, amazed at the easy way he made her bones melt. She wanted to snuggle closer. She wanted to tilt her head up and press a sample kiss against the skin of his throat. “I know all about turkeys,” she whispered. “I had an ace turkey back when I was in college. After I walked out on the Miss America competition we broke up.”

“So, bein’ a brilliant journalistic type, I deduct that this bird was one of those vain men you mentioned earlier. He liked havin’ a beauty queen for an ornament, huh?”

“That was part of it. And he never forgave me for giving up a shot at Miss America. He never understood.”

“I don’t understand it either.”

Dinah inhaled sharply, and all her reserve rushed back. She tensed and sat back rigidly. “I’ll explain it sometime. Not right now. Right now I have to regain my good sense and get us both to the VFW hall. You’re a treacherous and seductive passenger.”

“Aw, phooey.” He loosened his grip reluctantly and let her return to her side of the car. “One last kiss.”

“Mr. McClure—”

“Ooooh, I like it when you talk prissy and formal to me.” He caught her chin in one hand, leaned forward, and planted a big, firm kiss on her mouth.

“Recalcitrant maniac!” she blustered, nearly smiling.

He kissed her again, twisting his mouth into hers. “Hmmm. Recalcitrant. Maniac. More. More.”

Laughing and giddy, she pushed him away. “S-stop! Ludicrous—”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh?” He inched toward her, waiting wickedly for more provocative language.

“You tease … Rucker … good grief …” Dinah simply sputtered to a stop. He looked disappointed. She was gasping for breath.

“Phooey,” he said again. He slumped back in his seat but stretched one arm along the top. His big, supple hand rested against her right shoulder, his fingertips very close to the bare skin of her neck. “You behave, bub,” he told his hand drolly, “unless she starts coaxin’ us with big words again.”

Slightly addled and feeling as if she were a gas stove and he had turned all her burners on high, Dinah faced forward and started the car. She wondered briefly what good it did to have a high IQ if she couldn’t even figure out how to keep from adoring a lunatic who was all wrong for her.

The local VFW contingent held its get-togethers at the huge, green community hall in the basement of Mount Pleasant’s Methodist Church. Since there were only about a dozen veterans, they and their wives tended to look pitifully lost in the giant, antiseptic room. A pair of long tables were set up at the room’s far end, Styrofoam cups neatly marking each person’s dinner spot. As she and Rucker entered, Dinah forced a smile as bright as the painfully bright overhead lights. Their footsteps tapped loudly on the old white floor covering.

“The first time they invited me to dinner I went home afterwards and cried for an hour,” she whispered to Rucker. “They seem so forgotten in this place.”

An absolutely ancient little woman in a print dress tottered out of the church kitchen carrying a pan of garlic bread, which she set on a small folding table neatly draped with a cheap-looking paper tablecloth. The veterans stood around holding their decorated VFW
caps. Dinah felt Rucker’s hand comfortingly stroke the back of her blue cowl-necked dress. It made intriguing sensations radiate down her spine.

“Don’t feel sorry for them,” he said. “They’re alive and kickin’ and they got lots of pride. They’re doin’ just fine.”

That insightful observation and the compassionate tone in his deep voice touched her deeply, and she turned her head to look at him as they approached the VFW group. “You’re secretly philanthropic,” she told him.

“I was raised Methodist.”

Dinah swallowed a chortle and glanced at him. The slight crinkling of the laugh lines around his eyes was the only indication that he was restraining his own laughter.

“Well, lookee who we got here!” a frail, lanky man in a blue suit exclaimed. He came toward them, a dark wooden cane supporting his right side, and tipped his head to Dinah. “Glad to have you, Mayor.” That formality over, he ignored her to turn a delighted gaze at Rucker. “And I know who you are!”

“A party crasher,” Rucker answered jovially. “I came to eat your spaghetti and chase your women.”

“Whoo whee! I saw you on Johnny Carson. You looked fatter.”

“I had a swelled head.”

Laughing inwardly, Dinah finally managed an introduction. “Mr. Jones, I’d like you to meet the infamous Rucker McClure, chief curmudgeon and bottle washer at
The Birmingham Herald/Examiner
. Rucker, this is Notley Jones, Mount Pleasant’s retired postmaster and commander of this VFW post.”

Rucker shook Notley’s blue-veined hand. Other people gathered around, tittering excitedly. “Mr. McClure, we’d sure be thrilled if you’d make the after-dinner speech,” Notley declared. “I know the Mayor won’t mind. She gets to talk all the time anyhow.”

“Just like a woman, isn’t it?” Rucker said coyly. Dinah rolled her eyes in good-natured disgust. Rucker nodded. “I’ll be glad to say a few words.”

Dinah couldn’t resist. “He only knows a few words, and most of them are very simple.”

“Then we’ll like him real fine,” Notley answered, having missed the joke. Dinah could tell that Rucker enjoyed her failed barb immensely.

As they got in line to the buffet table he gazed down at her with gleaming eyes. “I’m in my element here, lady,” he warned. “You’re just jealous ’cause I’m beloved.”

“Hah. I’m not jealous. And you’re bewitched, not beloved. I know that you make big bucks as a speaker.”

“Aw, I’m just the George Jessel of the peanut circuit.”

“Don’t be humble and play it down. I read that you get two thousand dollars a pop for what you’re giving away tonight, so if you want me to make some excuse to get you out of speaking …”

“I can’t be mean to these old sweeties. I’d rather be beaten with a stick or forced to listen to that silly Camphor flute player than hurt their feelings.”

Her heart melted with more unfettered affection. “Camphor flute player?” she demanded. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“That guy who advertises his records on Ted Turner’s TV station. He plays one of those funny little flutes, like somebody out of a Greek fairy story. His name’s Camphor.”

“Greek fairy story? Do you mean Greek mythology?”

“Same difference.”

“Camphor, Camphor …” she thought for a moment. “Zamfir?” she asked incredulously. “You mean Zamfir, the internationally known musician?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s him. Zamfir, Camphor, whatever. I think he’s a con artist passin’ himself off as a musician. Him and his goofy little handful of pipes.”

Dinah called all her self-discipline into play to prevent the Mount Pleasant VFW from seeing their elegant mayor guffaw and slap her knees like a farmhand. Tears of hilarity crowded her eyes and she pressed shaking fingers to her smile to hold the sputtering sounds that threatened to erupt from her throat. She’d always pictured her ideal man as a perfect blend of the
intellectual and artistic, a Renaissance man with exquisite taste and style. So why was she having the time of her life with Rucker McClure?

He spoke for twenty minutes after dinner, his hands shoved casually into his trouser pockets, that mellow southern voice of his flowing easily through the big room. Dinah propped her chin on one hand and looked up at him in awe, marveling at the quiet power he radiated and his natural ability to weave emotions into the simple stories he told. He talked about the responsibilities associated with freedom, the meaning of individualism, and the importance of taking pride in oneself and one’s work.

He wasn’t an intellectual and he didn’t care about subtleties; his vision of the good life was so uncomplicated that it would have made the great philosophers hoot with condescending laughter. But she knew that Rucker’s humorous, positive views were, in their own way, sophisticated and profound. They were exactly what the world needed, exactly what she needed. When he finished she saw tears in the eyes of the people listening to him and felt tears in her own eyes.

“You should have been a minister,” she told him as they walked across the dimly lit church parking lot. The night was fragrant and the temperature pleasantly cool. A breeze rustled the giant oak trees that surrounded the lot, and Dinah inhaled the wonderful scent of wood smoke from distant hearth fires. “Or a politician,” she added.

“I think I’d have made a good tractor salesman,” Rucker answered. “I can talk the ears off a snake.”

She smiled and inhaled again, feeling peaceful. It was odd that she was so comfortable around him now. She supposed that his speech had hypnotized her. Or that the man himself had. “Isn’t it beautiful out here tonight?” she murmured. Dinah tilted her head back and looked up at a star-filled sky.

“Hmmm. Beautiful place, beautiful company.” He took her hand.

“You’re a seductive rascal, you know that?”

“I have your best interests at heart. You might never find a suitable man up here in the hinterland. You gotta import a man from somewhere else.”

“You, I assume?”

He clicked his tongue and arched one brow wickedly. “I’m a good choice. I could rough up those smooth edges of yours. Make you a little more wild. That’d be good for you.”

“It sounds painful.”

A smile crooked one corner of his mouth, and he looked at her through half-closed eyes. “Not the method I had in mind. It’d be anything but painful.”

“Come along, you determined flirt. Let’s go sit on that bench over there and look at the stars. The view is wonderful.”

The bench was just beyond the edge of the parking lot, under a maple tree. The Methodist church sat on a high ridge along with the rest of Mount Pleasant, and they could see a panorama of dark forest and scattered house lights. A slivered moon hung over the horizon. “God took some extra time with this night,” Rucker commented softly.

Dinah gave him a pensive, charmed look. Then she sat down, faced forward, and studied the sky. He sat close beside her, still holding her hand. “Where do you live? In Birmingham?” she asked quietly. “I can’t picture you in a city.”

“You’re not gonna believe this, but I’ve got a swank house in a country club subdivision. The suburbs. Got a swimmin’ pool, got lawyers and doctors for neighbors, got a gardener, got a lady who comes in once a week to keep me neat.”

“She must bring a blow torch,” Dinah teased.

He chuckled. “I know you suspect I’m a pig, but I keep a very clean house. You should see my office at the newspaper, though. My secretary says it looks like a graveyard for old golf clubs. It’s a mess.”

“You play golf?” She turned to gaze at him quizzically.

He nodded. “Love it.”

“You’re a fascinating person, you know that? Just when I think I have you stereotyped, you confuse me. You ought to pitch horseshoes or bowl, not play golf. And you ought to live in a house trailer and drive a pickup truck. That’s what I expected.”

“Am I a disappointment?”

“Oh, not at all.” She said that a little too fervently and looked away, biting her lower lip. His hand closed tighter around her own.

“You’re not a stereotype either, Madam Mayor. I figured any woman who’d devoted so much time to bein’ a beauty queen would have the brains of a frog.”

“Hmmmph!” She echoed his earlier words. “Am I a disappointment?”

“No. I like smart women. I married one once.”

Dinah spoke carefully. “And she was interviewed for a magazine piece on you. One of my students brought me a copy today. I read part of it at lunch.”

Now he faced forward, and Dinah watched the moonlight follow the straight, tense lines that formed in his features. “What’d you think?” he asked after a long moment.

“She was awfully tough on you, although she did say you have talent. Funny, though. I couldn’t see anything particularly condemning. The part about your three-day poker game in the locker room with the New York Knicks was sort of endearing.” Dinah paused. “She said your views on marriage had all the sophistication of a country western song.”

“Yeah.” Rucker let go of her hand. He leaned forward, idly selected a twig from the ground between his feet, and rested his elbows on his knees. His head down, he slowly began snapping the twig into tiny pieces. When he spoke again, his voice was low and strained. “I thought we should try and make it work, but there was nothing left.”