Page 21 of Heart of Dixie
I got out and slammed my door too. “Lucy?”
“Sure. Lucy. That’s her name.” He gave the doorframe a loving pat, then proceeded to unload the back seat. Out came a blanket, which he flung over his forearm. Next he hefted out a loaded up five-gallon bucket. That piqued my interest.
I hustled to keep up when he took off toward the edge of the water. Now that we were slogging around in the soft earth,I understood the eye roll I received when Deke got his first glimpse of my wedged high-tops. But he said picnic, and they were the only sneakers I had with me. I gave my step a burst of speed and was only slightly out of breath when I caught up with him.
“Lucy. I should have guessed. You always said she’d be red and you always said you’d name her Lucy.”
There finally came a clearing in the brush. He led me down to the bank and set the bucket in the grass. “See. Some dreams actually do come true.” He muttered the words nonchalantly as he shook out the blanket and let it settle to the ground.
The covering hovered atop the dense fescue. I bent to tamp it down against the thick cushion, and pretended I hadn’t heard the sarcastic dig. “Don’t tell me that’s all you ever wanted, Deke.”
He nudged the bucket to weigh down the edge of the fringed picnic cloth against the warm breeze and pulled out a brown paper sack with the top rolled down. I caught a whiff as Break an Egg’s signature yellow logo landed beside me. That’s where all the tempting aromas were coming from, but I was quickly losing my appetite. He reached in again and I doled out the disposable plates and forks he wordlessly tossed at me. Where this sudden surly attitude came from I had no idea. An hour ago he had his hand down my pants, and now—now he acted as though he’d rather I popped out of the car and landed in one of those ruts.
He spent several silent minutes positioning a pair of long metal stakes, then using a heavy-looking mallet to batter them into the ground. Horseshoes emerged from the Mary Poppins bucket, and my imagination ran wild as the pause in our conversation became more and more strained. At long last he flung a shoe, and hooked it on the short pole.
“What the hell’s wrong with my car, Dixie?” His eyes swept the body of it, hood to trunk. “It’s not as fancy as the limos you’re used to riding in? You and your celebs.”
He was mad aboutthat? I jumped to my feet. “I don’t mean your car! I’m talking about yourlife! It was always about your life!”
He curled his lip in a snarl. “There’s nothing wrong with my life!”
I stood my ground. “Of course there’s not.Now. But take a good look at it, and then imagine if you had stayed here. Do you think you’d still have that high-powered degree? Would you have spent all that time developing high-tech automobile systems? Working side by side with the movers and shakers?” I ignored his glare, took a step forward until we were nose to nose, and let my voice go quiet. “I don’t suppose those snooty patents you’ve made so much money from mean anything at all, do they?”
Deke’s eyes lost their Arctic edge. One corner of his mouth tilted up in a grin. “So. You been checking on me, Dixie?” I rolled my eyes.
“That’s what happened when you ran late this afternoon. I had time for a five-minute Google search.”
His smile flattened out. “You wanted to know if your little social experiment worked, didn’t you?”Ouch. Harsh. But his scowl hadn’t returned.
“My leaving—my leavingyou—was never meant as an experiment of any kind. You were meant for great things. Greater than you would have ended up at the local community college.” Deke took a step back and proceeded to pace the area between the blanket and the sandy bank.
“Come on, Deke. You can’t argue with that. One of us had to be strong enough to let go. Someone had to make that decision.” It wasn’t important who made the decision, only that it was made.
His strides became less aggressive, more contemplative. He stopped altogether when he came near. “So, what if I agree youwere right? What if we both needed to cool it when we were kids and go our separate ways? Why didn’t you ever come back?”
Shame. “I was busy.”
“Bullshit.”
“Beth was always happy to meet me for vacations. I had no desire to visit Cooter.”You weren’t here. “There was no other reason to make the trip.”
The silence stretched between us again, easier this time, until Deke’s eyes lowered, raked down my body slowly enough to make me squirm. He eventually met my gaze again, and his whole face showed amusement. “So, you think you’re the strong one?” He took one stalking step forward.
“What?”
Another step closer, stalking me, motioning his finger to demonstrate his meaning. “Between the two of us. You think what you did was right?”
What was he up to?I took a step back. “Of course it was right. Look at you. You’re the definition of success.” Not to mention he’d morphed into a god, but I wouldn’t claim that, too.
“And what about you? Was it the right decision for you?” He took a step and backed me against the fender of the car.
One more step and he’d be on top of me. “The food!” I ducked around him to point out the paper bag still waiting to be emptied. “We should eat before everything gets cold.”
He grinned. “Nice try, Dixie, but it’s already cold food—fried chicken and coleslaw.”
“Ruby’s coleslaw?”
“You saw the bag.”
