The Dixie Belle's Guide to Love (4 page)

Cozette’s squawk of a laugh again reminded him that they were not alone.

“Very funny,” Jillie muttered from her seat on the couch across the room.

“Yes, you are a very funny man.” Rita turned away from him and in a single step stood facing the sink. “Why don’t you take your act on the road?”

The less she wanted him around, the less likely she became to ask him now—or ever—for help, the more determined he became to change her mind. “Why don’t I stay here and help you get the meal on the table?”

“Why don’t you”—she turned in time to press the bowl she’d taken from the counter right into his midsection—“bite me?”

“Maybe I will.” He set the bowl aside, then leaned in close so that no one but Rita could hear him whisper, “After breakfast.”

Miracle of miracles, he’d left her without a single smart-ass comeback. If she were any other women, he would have taken advantage of that one instant of vulnerability to kiss her senseless.

She stepped away and put her back to her friends. “I won’t abide your pity, Will.”

“My pity?” She had his respect. His gratitude. His sudden, astounding desire to take her in his arms and kiss her until neither of them could stand. But pity? He lowered his head and his voice to further exclude the others. “You haven’t got it.”

“I’m not ready,” she whispered.

He brushed his thumb along the neckline of the hospital gown. “Then get ready.”

“I don’t mean my clothes. I am not ready inside of me. I have to give this some thought.”

“What’s to think about? You want to renovate the restaurant, don’t you?”

“I have to. It’s all I have after Pernel’s latest escapade. I can’t keep on paying Lacey Marie’s tuition if I don’t have income. I can’t sell the business in the shape it’s in now.”

“You want to sell the Palace?”

“I don’t know what I want. I do know that I have to get the Palace up and running and turning a profit again before I can even consider what to do next.”

“You don’t have a lot of money to spare.”

“I have my share of our savings and money from the sale of the house. I think I could get a business loan if I wanted to sink myself in debt up to my earlobes for this place.”

“Or you can accept my help for nothing. I can find friends in the business to give you a discount so deep you’ll hear an echo when you open the bill.”

“Either way, I’ll be beholden to someone, won’t I?”

“The devil you know or the devil you don’t know.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Which are you?”

He laughed. “Of all the people in this mudhole
town, you are one of the very few I can say does know me, Rita.”

“Me?” She put her hand just below her throat.

“You saw right through me from the git-go.”

“Well, maybe not from the git-go.” The corners of her lips lifted, just slightly.

He had no idea such a subtle gesture could wrap itself around a man’s heart with the warmth of a long-overdue welcome home. He smiled back at her. “At least you know what you’re getting when you deal with me.”

“I can’t just throw caution to the wind and let myself get swept up in this.” She reached past him and touched a photo on the fridge.

He craned his neck to check out the picture of Rita standing next to a lovely young girl wearing a Hellon High maroon cap and gown. Her daughter, he decided. He thought of the child in the graveyard he’d come to remember today and the familiar hurt flooded his chest again.

“I am not sure of what I want to do, yet.” She ran her fingertip over the young girl’s cheek.

“That’s too bad because I need a decision today.” He knew he had to push her for her own good—and for his.

She looked from the photo to his face. She pressed her lips tightly shut and started to shake her head.

At last after all this time standing in her home, he slowly slid his sunglasses off, trusting that she would understand and accept what she saw in his eyes. “Tell me what you want to do, Rita.”

Her hand went to her mouth. She blinked. She looked down, then met his gaze again. “Nothing really seems about what I want anymore. It’s come down to a case of ready or not I have to do something, hasn’t it?”

He supposed he nodded, though he was so lost in her eyes he couldn’t have sworn he’d done that.

“I
have
to do this.
We
have to do it, don’t we?”

“Do what?” His voice hardly made a sound. Clearing his throat, he went on. “Breakfast or letting me come in for a few days as a consultant on the renovation?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Can I get a rain check on that breakfast?”

“Um, yes, I…uh, I don’t see why not.”

“I’m in kind of a rush to get back to Memphis.” Across the room Jillie stood up. He sucked in a quick breath and slid his glasses back on. “Well, not so much of a rush as I don’t really want to hang around, not today.”

She nodded.

“But let me clear my schedule and I’ll be back in a few days and we’ll get down to it. Deal?” He held his hand out to her.

She stared at it for only a moment before she raised her gaze to his face and surrendered the most sincere but skeptical smile he’d ever seen. “Deal.”

“The key word I want you to keep in mind is simplicity.” Rita stood in the center of the Palace’s serving floor. She’d had roughly forty-eight hours to adjust to the fact that Wild Billy would be in her life—or at least in her place of business—to help her sort things out.

She’d spent two days since she’d agreed to his help steeling herself to tell him
thanks but no thanks
. But as soon as he showed up to begin work, those words failed her. “I want this handled with a minimum of fuss and bother.”

“The floor has to be ripped up.” Will paced off a few steps, his head bent. “No getting around that.”

“Nothing complicated.”

“The place needs light, too. Maybe a second picture window in that wall left of the door.”

“Only the very essential improvements, nothing drastic. A couple coats of paint here, a half dozen new fixtures there.”

“One well-placed sledgehammer.”

“Sledgehammer?”

He pantomimed breaking through the front wall.

She could not help but notice the play of his muscles, the ease with which he moved his body.

He spread his arms to gauge the size of the could-be window.

Rita fought off a sigh of pure satisfaction at the sight of him practicing his craft.

He scratched under his chin, then ran his thumb over his lower lip, his gaze trained on the wall in front of him.

How comfortable he appeared with himself and his work. Strong. That described him. And capable, she decided without needing proof of it. But not rigid or overbearing. The man looked…

He stood on the bench of one of the booths and spread both his hands over the rough, red bricks.

He looked…like a grown-up! A big, sexy—without even being aware of his sexiness—all-American male.

“I think somebody took a sledgehammer to my head.” She pressed her cool fingertips to her temples but kept her veiled watch on the man making plans for her livelihood.

Folks around town often said Will belonged in the movies. If Rita were to cast Billy West in a
role, it would be as the darkly sexy outcast who lived by his own set of rules and no visible sense of honor.

She eyed the man who filled the empty room with just his presence and felt the knots in her stomach. Obviously he had some sense of honor, or he wouldn’t be here. Will wasn’t some central casting version of a rebel bad boy anymore. He was something far more dangerous. He was a real, flesh-and-blood, doing-the-right-thing-for-God-only-knew-what-reason, fully grown adult man. The way they are supposed to be, not like a cutout from a magazine or a dreamed-up character, but a real man.

Thinking that way about him only intimidated her even more. From her father’s immaturity to Pernel’s eccentricities, life had not prepared her to handle a real man—well, not to
handle
him, but to—

“That’s it, baby.” Will interrupted her thoughts. He stepped away from the booth and aimed another imagined swing at the dingy brick wall. “It’d be over before you knew what hit it.”

Rita liked the way his black hair curled against his tanned neck in stark contrast to his soft white shirt. He no longer had the long, lean lines of a young athlete, but that only heightened his appeal to her. If, she quickly corrected herself, a man like that could ever even remotely appeal to a smart, principled, down-to-earth woman like her.

“We can do this, Rita.” He faced her. “I know we can do it.”

“You think?” The driest whisper she’d ever heard came from her lips.

“I know we can, if you want to pursue it.”

“Pursue…it?”

“…don’t kid yourself, ladies, this is about sex. It’s about passion and tension and longing for something more. It’s about tearing everything down that doesn’t work any longer, about getting tired and sweaty and when it’s done about producing something worthwhile. It’s about rebirth and bursting through to the next level.”
Cozette’s words came back to haunt her.

“Yeah, pursue it, follow through, go after it. What do you say?”

“Let’s do it!” She said it, all right. But danged if she had planned to say it, at least not with that much energy. “But let’s not get too carried away. Can’t we take it nice and easy? Do a few things and see how that goes then decide if it needs more work after that?”

“We’ll have to yank those out.” Will scratched something down on his already crowded legal pad, then pointed his pencil at the row of shabby booths in the back. “Yank ’em out and have ourselves a great big ole Tennessee bonfire.”

“Baby steps, that’s what’s in order here.” She pinched her thumb and finger together, but he did not even look her way.

“And while we’re at it let’s toss this lunch counter onto the flames as well.” He slammed his palm onto the worn surface.

Their half-empty glasses of iced tea shuddered at the impact.

He took a drink from his, then clunked it back down as he swept his gaze over the room. The air around them practically shimmered with his enthusiasm. “I bet I can come up with a working list of recommendations by nightfall. Tomorrow we can go over specifics and talk budget, and then I can get moving.”

“Don’t feel you need to hurry on my account.”

If he picked up on her sarcasm, it didn’t show as he settled down on a vinyl-covered stool at the counter. He fanned the pages of his notes a few times, his shoulders hunched forward and his back to her. “No need to drag my part in all this out. At this rate I can be back in Memphis in time for a late dinner at the Rendezvous.”

“Good. Hate for something as trivial as my uprooting and reordering my entire life to put a cramp in your plans for the weekend.”

He spun halfway around to look her way. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, I thought it was nothing.” He grinned, more with his eyes than with his lips.

He had heard her. He just wanted the satisfaction of making her say something so ungrateful and rude to his smarmy, smug, drop-her-dead-where-she-stood handsome face.

“I think you actually like it when I say something meant to put you in your place, Mr. West.”

“Call me Will.” He took another slug of tea, which was mostly sugary dregs and melting ice. He cracked one of the round pieces of ice in his mouth and gave her a wink like they’d shared some naughty secret. “
Especially
when you’re saying something intended to put me in my place.”

What a truly twisted individual. Unless, of course, that was his way of showing her he knew the truth about himself. Could Wild Billy, at one time every inch the self-loving donkey-headed bastard she’d pegged him for, have changed?

“Anyway, you’ll probably be glad for me to get gone from here quick as I can, right?”

She shrugged, sort of. More like lifted her shoulders slightly and tipped her head and hummed a nonanswer answer.

“I know I’ll be glad to hit the road that much sooner.”

“Why?” She did not ask as a way of accusation. Though some part of her wanted to do just that—come right out and accuse the man of providing his family the emotional stability of a dust devil. “Why are you always so het-up to get out of Hellon?”

“Because it’s Hellon.”

“It’s also where your only family lives. Your mother isn’t getting any younger, you know.”

“As long as the grandest beauty salons and finest plastic surgeons in the region remain open for business, she ain’t getting any
older
either.”

“And what about Jillie?”

“She actually prefers to go up north for her beauty treatments.”

Glib. She should have known that’s how a man this shallow and self-involved would respond. He hadn’t changed. But he was right about one thing, she’d definitely be glad to get shed of him as quick as possible. “Never mind. Sorry I even brought it up.”

“Jillie is an adult, Rita. I don’t see how my hanging around Hellon until I’m stifled within an inch of my life with phony hero worship is going to have any effect on her.”

“Maybe if you showed her there was something genuinely heroic to look for in others, to strive for in herself. Maybe if you were more of a presence in her life, you’d counteract some of the other…influences.”

He laughed, but not brightly. “In other words, Mother.”

“Miss Peggy isn’t a bad sort, really, she’s just…”

He held up his hand to stop her. “I don’t need another lecture from you on my responsibilities to my loved ones, thank you.”

“Your family is a mess. You know that much, don’t you?”

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.

“You know a lot of your mother’s stirring up trouble all the time stems from pure loneliness.”

He conceded as much with a nod so curt it hardly qualified as a head movement.

“And did you know that Jillie has decided that since there are no good men left on the face of the earth, she’d rather take up with outright rotten ones? Just to save herself a lot of heartache?”

He clucked his tongue. “That’s her choice.”

“Well, it’s a bad one.” She didn’t have to tell him that, did she? Surely he had enough moral grounding to know this was a bad, bad thing and enough concern for his sister to want to know the truth. “She’s dating a married man. Did you know that?”

“Paul?” His features clouded.

“You
do
know?”

“I teased her about him but, no, I never thought she’d…” He rubbed the spot between his eyebrows with one crooked knuckle. “Damn it, Rita. What is wrong with her?”

For an instant she actually felt bad for unloading the specifics on him.

But he shook it off before she could so much as backpedal an inch. He let his shoulders drop and scored his thumbnail over the gouged lunch counter’s surface. “You’re her friend, why don’t you talk to her?”

“You think for one minute I’ve stayed silent on the subject?”

He laughed.

“But it all boils down to the fact that a friend is not family. She needs her family. She needs
you
to talk to her.”

“I wouldn’t know what to say. I’m not exactly…” He let the thought trail off.

“And you think
I’m
a prime example?” She leaned one elbow on the lunch counter. “You think I’m the person to stand up and lecture anyone on how many good men are out there looking for decent women to become their lovers and lifelong helpmates?”

His expression gentled. “I see your point.”

She straightened her back. “Don’t take that as a slap at Pernel, now.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“That’s about me and my faults.”

“I know that’s how you see it. You take on the blame and worry for far too much of your loved one’s problems.”

“And you won’t take any of either.” The man brought out the fire in her, for sure. Fire and foolhardiness. Still, once she’d blurted her true opinion out she couldn’t take it back, so she rushed on. “You accept none of the blame. None of the worry.”

“Why should I?” He rubbed the heel of his hand down his jeans, his gaze distant. “In the end what Jillie does is her call, too. Not much I can do about it.”

“Should that stop you from trying? If my family was in the kind of disarray yours is in, and I could do anything,
anything
to help them, nothing short of an act of God could keep me from it.” Now it had gone personal. She blinked and cursed the tears welling in her eyes. “Of course, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do—”

“Uh-oh.” He laughed.

“What?”

“When a Southern woman tells you she is not going to tell you what to do that is precisely what she has in mind. Stridently, ardently, no holds barred, she’s going to tell you
just
what she thinks, what you should do and probably offer to kick your butt into gear to get it done, as well.”

“Maybe we should stick to talking about the Palace renovations.”

“Good idea.”

“Like I said, I want to keep things uncomplicated.”

“If that’s really what you want—gut the place and walk away. Can’t get much simpler than that.”

“That’s your ultimate solution, isn’t it?” She wasn’t just talking about the Palace. “Trash it all. Move on. Don’t look back. Leave trying to make things better to somebody else.”

“That’s all I committed to do here, Rita. Consult on the remodel and put you in touch with the professionals who can do it.”

How could she argue with that? She looked around her. He made it sound so easy when to her it was the most difficult task she’d ever faced—getting herself on the right track for the rest of her life.

“You want this?” Will had snatched the last chicken leg off the platter she had brought down for their lunch and held it up.

“No.” She folded her arms not caring that it made the bib of her baggy overalls gap down to
show her cleavage in her scooped-neck T-shirt. “As a matter of fact I don’t want any of this. If you recall this was all your sister’s doing. Hers, Cozie’s, and yours. Not mine.”

“Uh-huh.” He made no pretense of looking away from her breasts. He didn’t even have the decency to act the teeniest bit contrite at wangling her into accepting his assistance. “What about the chicken?”

“What about it?”

“Best damn fried chicken I ever had. Best meal I’ve had since I don’t know when. Mind if I polish it off?”

“No.” Good gravy, how could you stay mad at a man who liked your cooking that much?

“Guess if you can’t make a pig of yourself at a place with a princess of pork as its symbol, where can you do it?” His fork scraped the plate as he got up every last bit of potato salad for one man-sized bite.

Rita sighed and plunked down on the stool next to his. “I do like to see a man who enjoys eating.”

“Way you cook, darling, it’d be a sin not to enjoy it.”

“Still, seems like nobody enjoys eating anymore, they’ve gotten so all-fired worried about fat and cholesterol and carbohydrates.”

“I could stand to think about those things myself.” He hooked one thumb under the waistband of his jeans but kept a firm grip of the chicken leg in his other hand.

“You?” She snorted. She set out to laugh deep and sexy in the back of her throat but snorted instead. Still, she tossed her hair back the way she had intended to if she’d actually pulled off the husky flirtation. “What would you worry about? You’re fine just as you are.”