Down Home Dixie Read online

  She pulled over, lurching onto the shoulder of the road just in time for him to wrench open the door and upchuck into a tangle of briars.

  He leaned back into the car. “Sorry,” he said.

  Wordlessly she handed him a bottle of water from the cache she kept on the back seat. He drank, wiped his face with a handkerchief and inhaled a deep breath.

  “I swear, I’ve never felt so awful,” he said. “Is it far to your place?”

  Embarrassed for him, she shook her head. “Just a few more minutes.”

  As he slumped back into his corner, Dixie eased the Mustang back onto the road and mashed hard on the accelerator, not caring in the least if she exceeded the speed limit.

  “Do you always drive this fast?” he asked.

  “When someone in my car is sick, yes.”

  He didn’t comment, and she reached home in record time. She braked to a stop beside the old playhouse.

  Kyle got out of the car before she asked if she could help him. “The fresh air clears my head,” he explained, inhaling deeply several times.

  “How’s your stomach?” she asked.

  “Better now.” He’d regained some color, and he sounded stronger.

  “Follow me.”

  The playhouse had been there for years, the children who had once enjoyed it long gone. The path was overgrown with encroaching azalea bushes, the rough-hewn arched door almost obscured by drooping vines. Her guest had to duck his head and shoulders to enter.

  The structure was a one-room affair with a cramped bathroom. A real kitchen ranged along one wall, though everything in it was only three-quarter size, and a narrow cot was squeezed into the space under a round window.

  “A Hobbit house?” Kyle mused as she shoved aside several flowerpots and a bag of potting soil.

  “Not quite,” she said, though the description was apt. “At least it’s a place to sleep. I’ll run over to the house and bring back sheets and pillows.”

  While she was speaking, he inspected the cot and lifted the quilt. “It already has sheets,” he declared. He sat down heavily, making the springs squeak and releasing a slightly musty odor. “I’m still pretty weak,” he offered in explanation.

  She’d figured that out for herself. “Be right back,” she told him.

  Since she’d just moved in, she wasn’t nearly settled. Still, her new house never failed to lift her spirits when she approached it. The house had been built haphazardly, one section at a time, which resulted in odd doors, unplanned niches and dormers inserted in unlikely places, but the result was pleasant. The back door opened into the kitchen. Beyond it was a hall leading to a sewing room and the front-door foyer. The adjacent living room was still piled high with boxes. Upstairs were three bedrooms. The house was too big for her. However, the previous owners had been eager to sell for much lower than their asking price and she’d never been one to pass up a bargain.

  When she returned with the towels, an ice bag for his swelling jaw and a few other things he might need, Kyle Sherman had tucked himself neatly into bed. The stained Yankee uniform was draped over one of the small chairs, and she had the suspicion that he was naked under the quilt. Certainly his chest, with boldly defined pectorals and a light dusting of dark hair, was impressive, and as far as she could tell, so was the rest of him. He took up most of the width of the cot, which kept her from thinking what it would be like to occupy it beside him.

  Where had that idea come from, anyway? She shouldn’t be musing about sharing a stranger’s bed, but perhaps such startling fantasies were to be expected now that all the eligible men were in the military or deployed with the National Guard or out of work. Ever since Yewville Mills, the town’s main industry, had up and moved to Mexico, good men were hard to find.

  And hard men were good to find, as Mae West had once said. Dixie pulled herself away from that line of reflection.

  “I brought you a few bottles of water,” she said briskly as she set them on the table. “And a Thermos of iced tea. It’s sweetened, not like you drink it up north. You can share whatever my dinner turns out to be.” Her sore gums felt like a pincushion at present and would determine what she could eat. Likely that was his problem, as well.

  “Thank you,” he said, studying her as if seeing her for the first time. “Like I said, I really appreciate this. I’ve heard about Southern hospitality, but this is way over the top.”

  “You’ll feel okay by tomorrow,” she said. “Your color is better already.”

  “I’m a lot more comfortable now that I’m lying down.”

  “That’s good,” she replied. He didn’t have a pointy head, a development that pleased her greatly.

  “It was a simple root canal,” he said in bewilderment. “I figured I was lucky to find the only dentist in the whole state who keeps office hours on Saturday and who could work me in on short notice. I called him from the battlefield and he said to come on over. So—”

  “What battlefield?”

  He didn’t seem to mind the interruption. “Rivervale Bridge. My unit had a reenactment there this weekend. That’s where I got shot. Fake blood to make it more authentic for the audience.”

  “That’s disgusting, making a game out of war.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “I suppose the Union always wins,” she said before she could help herself. Immediately, she regretted her snarkiness. But it was too late though to take it back now.

  His eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Not at all,” he said. “I recently took part in a reenactment at Manassas, Virginia, where Johnny Reb trounced us big-time.”

  “What happens after these battles? Everybody picks up their guns and goes home?”

  “More or less.”

  “As opposed to the real thing, where a lot of good men died.” She couldn’t help it. She’d been a participant in too many Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies. Twice, she’d been chosen to lay the wreath on the monument in Memorial Park where the names of several of her forebears were inscribed. And moreover, she’d lost two friends to snipers in Afghanistan, great guys that she would mourn forever. She couldn’t comprehend why reenactors liked to play at war.

  It took Kyle a few seconds to answer. When he did, his voice was respectful. “Good men were lost on both sides. And that’s why we reenactors do what we do—to educate people about the hardships of war, one of which is dying. And to commemorate the men who gave up their lives in the conflict.”

  His gaze was steady, and she found herself mesmerized by his deep voice. “You see, Dixie, when we reenactors return to where the battle took place, we live the same way as the soldiers who fought. We sleep in tents, shiver in the rain and cook our food over sputtering campfires. We wear the same kind of clothes as they did, constructed out of the same type of fabric. We endure insects and lack of refrigeration. At night, when we miss home and family, we sing their songs. We try to be them, for a few days or even a week.

  “Even so, we can’t imagine what it was really like. We’re not going to die out there of dysentery or be captured and sent to a prison and we’re not going to take a musket ball in the gut when the charge is rushing over the hill. At the end of the battle, we’ll go home to a warm bed and decent food and people who love us, as many of those who really fought that battle never could. Why do we do what we do? To remember. To keep them alive in our hearts.”

  Dixie had always regarded reenactors as little boys indulging in pointless games. But what Kyle Sherman had described to her bore solemn witness to the lives and deaths of men caught up in the horrible war that had torn the nation asunder, a wrenching conflict that still had a direct bearing on the way many Southerners lived their lives today.

  Kyle had captured her imagination, which was altogether too taxing at the moment. She was ready to rush out the door and back to the house. Her hand rested on the doorknob, then she turned back toward him. There was one thing she had to know.

  “Your name,” she blurted. “Kyle Sherman. It was Gener
al Sherman who earned the hatred of Southerners for all time. His foragers destroyed and pillaged, leaving people in their path, mostly wives and children, with no place to live and nothing to eat.” She paused, trying to figure out if his blank stare meant that he was merely surprised or if it presaged something more severe—anger.

  Kyle raised himself on one elbow as Dixie drew a deep breath. “Are you related to General Sherman in any way?” she asked all in a rush.

  “Yes,” he said gently. “He was my great-great-great-grandfather.”

  She nodded. He was more attractive than she had first discerned, and other than the sharp nose and large ears, he bore little resemblance to those pictures of General William Tecumseh Sherman in the history books. The tiny lamp by the bed illuminated his high cheekbones, dusted his lashes with gold.

  She didn’t say any more. Nothing else seemed relevant. She was deeply attracted to this man, to the sheer physicality of him and the soft reasoning way in which he spoke.

  As she walked through the night back to the house, she pondered not only what Kyle had revealed about his heritage, which was startling enough to a girl who was Southern-born and –bred, but how he honored the soldiers who had fought and fallen in that long-ago war, and what it meant to him to do so.

  Maybe the local United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter would have a hard time understanding how she could shelter a descendant of General William T. Sherman, yet for herself, it was time to let bygones be bygones. She had captured a Yankee, and she was determined to encourage him to stay around as long as he liked.

  That decided, the only thing she had to figure out was whether to fix meat loaf or hamburgers for dinner.

  Chapter Two

  When Kyle Sherman woke up the next morning, he had the impression that he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. He recognized nothing about his charmingly rustic surroundings—not the teeny-tiny green-painted table decoupaged with pictures of kittens, not the tray sitting on the midget kitchen counter and certainly not the woman who was swinging down the path toward the little house.

  She was gorgeous. Despite her well-rounded body parts, she was all glide and no jiggle. Her hair bounced around her shoulders, pale blond and gleaming as if spun from sunshine. Her face was a perfect oval, makeup tastefully applied, and she wore a pink dress, the hem of which was caught up at intervals with white ribbons, the better to show off shapely calves. Kyle used to be a boob man; nowadays he was strictly into legs, and this woman’s were spectacular. He’d noticed them right off in the parking lot yesterday.

  The memory reminded him how he happened to be here. The battle reenactment at Rivervale Bridge, his toothache, the subsequent root canal and the anesthetic knocking him for a loop. Then, and by far the most pleasant thing about that miserable day, the sweet angel of mercy who had gallantly came to his rescue and who right now was knocking on the quaint door to this Hobbity cottage where he lay naked beneath a quilt pieced of pastel calico.

  “Come in,” he said, wishing he’d had time to get dressed. His uniform was neatly spread over two of the teeny-tiny chairs, and he didn’t recall putting it there. Maybe the woman had. He suddenly recalled that her name was Dixie, a perfect appellation for a perfect Southern belle.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, giving the impression that she really cared.

  “Better.”

  “I’m going to church. When I get back, I’ll take you to get your truck.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe what happened yesterday. I felt as if I was spinning off the end of the world when I was standing there in the parking lot. Thanks for helping me out.”

  “Like I said, I was glad to do it. I fixed scrambled eggs, grits and bacon for breakfast. I, um, suppose you’re hungry?”

  Because of his overwhelming urge to sleep, he’d barely sampled the meat loaf last night. “I could eat something,” he allowed.

  “I’ll bring it out,” she said, though her gaze fell doubtfully on the little table. He glanced out the window where a picnic table stood near the dock extending into the lake.

  “How about if I eat outside? It’s such a nice spring morning.” He was in awe of the gorgeous reds of the azaleas, the dogwoods with their ethereal pink and white blossoms, the pale flowers of the ornamental Bradford pear trees trembling gently in the breeze.

  As Dixie turned to go, he made a point of glancing at her left hand, though he didn’t usually check. The third finger was ringless, which made him unexpectedly glad. He’d been in an off-and-on relationship with a woman named Andrea for a long time, but it was definitely off at present. Well, make that probably off, considering that she’d been leaving voice messages on his cell phone for the past three days. Not that he could have returned them even if he had the urge. His cell-phone service had been spotty ever since he’d crossed the state line into South Carolina.

  He wasn’t on the prowl for a new interest. On the other hand, he’d never met anyone as appealing as Dixie Lee Smith. When she disappeared up the path toward the house, he sprang out of bed. Last night he’d figured that when he woke up he’d feel as he did when he had a bad hangover. He expected to find a straggle-haired stranger staring back at him from the teeny-tiny mirror—hollow of cheek, dull of eye and seriously due for a shave. Aside from a bit of swelling along his jawline, he looked fine except for needing that shave.

  Taking heart from his appearance, he hit the shower. Though water pressure was low, the hot water was the right temperature and the soap made satisfying suds. After the makeshift shower arrangements at the battle site, it felt great. He dried himself on fluffy white towels and pulled on the blue uniform pants. He didn’t have a razor or any toiletries with him. He’d left them in his truck.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, Dixie was standing at the door. “I set your plate on the picnic table,” she said. “Would you like me to find you a T-shirt?”

  “That would be great,” he said. Always the quick comeback. Clever repartee was somehow out of his reach this morning, maybe on most mornings. He wished he had a line of patter guaranteed to get results with women, but he was a little rusty at present.

  Dixie hurried away and came back with not only a shirt but a personal-care kit like the ones they provided on long airline flights. She noticed him studying the airline’s logo and gave a little laugh.

  “I had that left over from an overnight flight to Rome to visit my sister a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t need the shaving kit,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said, meaning it. He hesitated for a moment, then plunged ahead. “You’re not going to make me eat breakfast alone, are you?”

  She seemed disconcerted. “I’m teaching Sunday school today. I can’t be late,” she said after a few seconds’ delay.

  “Sorry, I just thought—”

  She didn’t let him finish what he was going to say. “I could sit for a few minutes, I guess.”

  “I’d like that,” he said. He smiled at her.

  While he stayed behind in the playhouse to shave, Dixie perched primly on the end of one of the picnic benches. At his approach, she smiled tentatively. He sat down across from her and lifted the domed cover on his plate. “Just like from room service,” he said with a grin.

  “Some restaurant-supply items were in the house along with a whole lot of junk I haven’t managed to throw away yet.”

  He mixed the grits with the bacon and a good-size lump of butter as he’d learned to do last week at the Reb reenactors’ camp. Breakfast really tasted good in the fresh morning air. From here he could see more of the house, a large clapboard-and-shingle structure with big windows overlooking a wide lawn. Brick-bordered flower beds, sadly unkempt, were scattered here and there, and an artesian well bubbled into a rock-lined pool nearby. The land, which was dotted with pine and oak trees, sloped gently to the fringe of reeds bordering the wide lake.

  “Can you tell me something about this area? I’m not familiar with it,” he said.

  “This is Pi
ne Hollow Lake,” Dixie told him. “You’re in the sand hills of South Carolina. Many centuries ago, the Atlantic Ocean, which is now ninety miles to the east of us, rose right up to the ridge over there in the distance. When the nuclear plant was built here, Blue Creek was dammed to flood the hollow and that created the lake.”

  “There’s a nuclear plant?”

  She nodded and pointed out a distant white plume of smoke. “Way over there.”

  “What was in the hollow before they flooded it?”

  “There’re whole farms and houses down there under the water. It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?”

  He nodded and took another bite of grits. “What happened to the people?” he asked.

  “The electric company paid them well for their land and relocated them. I can’t say some of them were too happy about it, from what I’ve heard. Well, that’s progress.”

  He considered what it must have been like for those folks to see their homes covered with water. He shook his head.

  “Maybe progress isn’t always good,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Without it, where would I be? Developers are building on the other side of the lake now, and I’m selling expensive homes to retirees who have recently discovered the area.”

  “That’s what you do? Real estate?”

  “I’m in sales, and I’ve discovered that I’m good at it. I’ll take the exam for my broker’s license as soon as possible, and then, who knows? I could own a business someday.” She stood up and brushed a dried leaf off her dress. “Sorry, I’ve got to run. One thing about our pastor, he starts services on time.”

  “I understand,” Kyle said, smiling up at her.

  “See you later,” she said, and he watched as she walked toward the garage. She had a bounce to her step and a sway to her hips that was most fetching.

  Stop it, he told himself.

  You could get to know more about her, said a wee small voice inside him, though he wasn’t sure it would be wise to heed its counsel. On the other hand, what if it was time for a new life, new friends, a new perspective?