Hold on Tight (21 page)

Dinah smiled thinly, her heart sinking. She nodded. “No, I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. I was just a kid when Watergate was going on, so I’m innocent on that count. And you’ll never pin the Iran-Contra scheme on me.”

Walter sat down in a chair next to Millie’s. He tried to look relaxed and casual, but Dinah saw the concern underneath. He did his best
Dragnet
voice. “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”

Dinah took a sip of coffee and straightened her shoulders. Rucker, I need you, she thought desperately. Then she shoved the wistful thought away and looked at Walter with calm eyes. “Now the fun begins,” she told him.

The sky was a deep blue broken by high, scudding white clouds. The breeze was exceptionally cold for December. Standing on the steps in front of the city hall building, Dinah pulled her white wool coat around her for both physical warmth and emotional security. A crowd of townsfolk was gathering behind the reporters. Millie stood off to one side, her hands shoved in her coat pockets, her shrewd eyes sweeping the crowd as if she were daring anyone to make trouble.

So far, the reporters’ questions had been no worse than she’d expected. They mainly wanted to confirm what was quickly becoming common knowledge. After dropping out of the Miss America pageant, she’d served a year in prison. Her father had been up for indictment on a number of felony offenses involving twenty-five million dollars, five million of which were still missing. As Dinah answered the inquiries she wondered bitterly which
person or persons in town had called the press. She felt betrayed.

A man from
The Birmingham Sentinel
called out, “What are your plans for the future, Mayor Sheridan? Any books or movie deals under discussion? Are you going to pose for
Playboy
?”

Suddenly she’d had all she could stand of the television lights, the indelicate questions, the scrutiny. “I’m still considering my options,” she answered. Actually, she was ninety-nine percent certain of her plans, but she wasn’t ready to say so. “That’s all I’m prepared to discuss right now. Thank you, and good day.”

She started down the steps, aching with the cold and determined not to show how depressed she felt. A sharp voice cracked out, halting her. “Heah, now! I got somethin’ to say to Madam Mayor and you press folks! I used to be mayor of this heah town!” Dinah felt repulsion settle in her stomach as portly, red-faced Mervin Flortney pushed his way through the growing crowd of spectators.

He wore a quilted khaki jacket over an excessively packed blue suit. His graying red hair waved wildly in the breeze. All Dinah could think of was a description she’d heard Rucker use for an arrogant maitre d’ in a chic restaurant. Pompous, pig-lipped duck wart. It didn’t make much sense, but it had just the right flavor to it.

“Heah!” Mervin said again. He waved a sheaf of papers as he came up the steps toward her. Millie started over, but Dinah shook her head. Mervin, owner of the Flourtney Plaza shopping center, drew himself up in an outraged-good-citizen stance beside her. “These here are recall petitions! I’m puttin’ them in every bizness in town. We’re not gonna have a thief for a mayor!”

Incredulous, Dinah took a step back, one hand rising to her throat in an involuntary gesture of distress. “You’re entitled to start a recall drive,” she told Mervin. “But don’t you dare slander me!” This is revenge for my water main investigation, Dinah noted silently.

“And let me tell you another thing!” he blustered on,
“we’re not gonna put up with a mayor who parades an immoral attitude in front of our children!”

“What?”
Dinah gasped.

“Besides bein’ a convicted criminal, this woman used to model lingerie and skimpy swimsuits!”

Dinah groaned. “Mervin, check your Sears catalog from eight years ago. It’s not exactly a racy publication.”

“And Madam Mayor voted herself the biggest pay raise in the history of Mount Pleasant!”

“Why, yes, Mervin. And now that I make fifty-five dollars a month instead of forty-nine, I’m buying the yacht I’ve always wanted.”

“This woman cohabitates regularly with a divorced man!”

That was too much. “Mervin, don’t be a total fool.”

“Can’t deny it, can you?” he taunted. “Oh, yes. Everyone knows that your fancy-dandy writer boyfriend comes up here all the time and stays overnight at your house!
Stays overnight
there!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Dinah blankly noted the arrival of a black Cadillac at the curb. Rucker? If the underlying issue of her public image weren’t so at stake already, and if Mervin weren’t taking himself so seriously, Dinah would have dismissed his ridiculous tirade without a flutter. But the combination of strained emotions and exhaustion was too much. She stared at the Cadillac, desperately searching for a response to Mervin’s ludicrous insinuations, but her mind went blank. She was intensely aware of cameras clicking and whirring.

“See!” Mervin said gleefully. “You’re ashamed of yourself, and it shows!”

Rucker bolted out of his car, his worried eyes already turning toward her. He ran up to the crowd, his trench coat falling open to reveal charcoal-gray trousers and a pullover sweater in shades of dusky blue. He got his colors right, Dinah thought numbly. He didn’t always. I’m so proud of him.

“And what’s more,” Mervin yelled, “this woman is a liberal! A
liberal
!”

Dinah watched Rucker’s eyes shift from her to Mervin.
Under the mustache his mouth flattened into a grim line. “Mervin,” she warned under her breath, “you’re asking for trouble.”

“Our mayor is a convicted criminal! A sex model! And a … a loose woman!”

Dinah winced. Rucker started pushing through the crowd, and now the look in his eyes was lethal. He shoved past a cameraman and charged up the steps, his fists clenched. When Mervin saw him, his red face lost most of its color. Dinah grabbed the front of Mervin’s coat and shook him desperately.

“Mervin,” she said as calmly as she could, “you’d better run like hell.”

Mervin started backing up the steps. Dinah got in front of him just as Rucker grabbed for Mervin’s lapels. “No, Rucker, no!” she begged in a tense whisper. “We’re on camera!” She braced her hands against Rucker’s chest and held him back. Rucker had eyes and hands only for Mervin, and he reached over her shoulders and got hold of Mervin anyway.

“Nobody talks about her the way you did,” Rucker informed him in a rough voice. “You pompous, pig-lipped, son of a—”

“Rucker!”

Dinah was sandwiched between them, and all she could think was, ten to one odds, this was going to make the national news. “Rucker, please!” Mervin was flailing at Rucker’s hands and hitting Dinah in the head in the process.

“I’m not gonna punch him, Dee, but I’m sure as hell gonna rattle his marbles!”

“This isn’t a wrestling match, Rucker!”

“Boss, boss, cool out, man, cool out.” Millie was involved now, clutching Rucker’s right arm and tugging furiously. And then Dewey was beside them all, one huge dark hand anchored on Rucker’s shoulder, the other wound in Mervin’s coat.

“Break it up, boys,” he instructed smoothly, “or you’ll be sharing a cell.” Rucker shoved Mervin and let him go. Dewey guided Mervin further up the steps and held
him there like a fat puppy caught by the scruff of the neck.

“You’ll pay for that, McClure!” Mervin yelled. “I’ll press charges!”

“I’ll press your head between a wall and my fist!” Rucker threatened back. “You keep your foul mouth shut about Dee!”

Dinah nearly groaned out loud. She clutched Rucker’s arm with an unyielding grip. “Millie, help me push Godzilla inside the building!”

“I’ll go peacefully,” Rucker retorted.

“Good! It’ll be the first peaceful thing you’ve ever done!”

He glared at Mervin and pointed a warning finger at him on the way into the lobby but didn’t say anything else. Once inside, Dinah let go of his arm and turned toward Lula Belle, who was standing transfixed by the reception window where people came to pay their utility bills.

“I’m going to my office,” Dinah told her in a fierce, formal voice. “I’m not taking any calls from anyone except the council. I’m not seeing any visitors.”

All two hundred fifty pounds of Lula Belle quivered with determination under the green corduroy jumper she wore. “I’ll see to it,” she promised sternly. “Nobody’s gonna get past Lula Belle Mitchum.”

“Dee?” Rucker implored. “What about me?”

She twisted around and looked up at him with tearful eyes. “Are you
trying
to make me front-page news?” she asked in a desperate, angry voice. “You couldn’t do a better job if you’d planned it!”

“I was protectin’ you. Tryin’ to protect you.”

“I know that. I love you for doing it. You—” Her control dissolved and she pressed both hands to her face. “You brawling redneck!” He reached for her, but she shrugged his hands away.

“Dee, I—dammit, I didn’t think about the press bein’ out there. I overreacted.”

“You always overreact!” She hurried down the hallway toward her office. “Just let me handle this mess on my own!”

“I’ll be waitin’ at your house for you, hon!” she heard him call as she slammed the office door.

The evening sky was fading into rose and amethyst over the pine grove that backed her neat little house. Dinah shut the station wagon’s door and moved slowly across the yard, her shoulders aching with the day’s strain. Rucker ran out of the house to meet her, wearing his best, most cheerful smile under worried eyes. He’d reverted to type by donning ancient jeans, a faded college sweatshirt, and jogging shoes.

“Hi,” he said tentatively.

“Hi.”

They walked the rest of the way inside without speaking. Pine logs crackled in the fireplace and the aroma of beef stew wafted deliciously through the air. Nureyev screeched from the kitchen and Jethro stared at her unemotionally, as was standard for him, from his bed of old towels in one corner of a wing-backed chair.

“No talk until I say so,” Rucker commanded. “I want to know everything that happened after you went in your office, but not until I’ve got you fixed up.”

When Rucker finished with his interpretation of
fixed up
, she was propped on the couch, wearing a shimmering blue kimono he’d bought her and sipping a glass of wine. He sat down and took her bare feet in his lap. He began to massage them, and the feel of his supple, caring fingers made Dinah sigh in appreciation.

“I wish I could bottle the effect your hands have on me. I’d carry it with me everywhere.”

“Hmmm. Rub a woman’s tootsies, she gets all fluttery. Pretty simple.” His voice was cautious and low. “All right. Talk, Iadybug. What happened?”

Her hand trembling, she set her wine glass down on the coffee table beside the couch. “Have a lot of people called here today?”

“Yep. I let your answering machine handle them. I was tryin’ to write. Not very successfully, but tryin’. I kept worryin’about you.”

“The board of education has called a special meeting scheduled for the day after the
USA Personal
story
airs. They’ll review the details.” She laughed without humor. “And decide if they want a notorious woman for a history teacher.”

“Dee, don’t say—”

“I’m meeting with the city council the day after that. A closed session.” She paused, her eyes hooded with fatigue, but amused. “Neada Gwynn at the tattoo parlor is on my side, at least. She told Lula Belle that I could have a free tattoo any time I want it.”

They shared a bittersweet look. “There’s a lot to be said for a free tattoo,” he joked, his tone grim. He was quiet for a moment, his eyes troubled. “Still mad at me?”

When she stared down at her hands and didn’t answer, he knew that she was. Rucker sighed. “Don’t be so melodramatic. Your life is doin’ fine. You’ve got me, right? And now you can stop running.”

“I wasn’t running. I was rebuilding.”

“You were running.” He waved one hand to emphasize his words. “Afraid to tell me about your past, afraid to tell anyone about your past, hiding in this hayseed town …”

“I love this town.” Her voice faltered. “I—I thought you’d come to love it too.”

“I do. But I don’t think it ought to be the focus of your life. You’ve been hidin’ here, no doubt about it.”

She began to get charged up again, and her voice rose. “I was very happy, hiding here.”

“And you’ll be even happier now that you don’t
have
to hide. You,” he said sternly, “can do anything you want, if you’re not afraid to try.”

“I’m not afraid. But I have pride, and I’m not going to parade myself for public ridicule.”

“You have too much pride.”

“And you have a rose-colored view of the world, Rucker.”

He got up, his eyes fierce. “I know how ugly the world can be. You have to remember how I grew up. But I also have faith in people.”

Dinah stared up at him, her face flushed. “You think I’m a coward. Admit it.” He hesitated, searching for a
tactful retreat, and she read the truth before he could hide it. Dinah got up gracefully, her back rigid. “I see,” she said icily.

He frowned deeply. “I just don’t think you want to turn tail and hide anymore.”

“Stop saying
hide
! Just because I don’t subscribe to your folksy, naive, damn-the-torpedoes-and-full-speed-ahead philosophy—”

“My redneck philosophy, is what you mean,” he said grimly, insulted. Dinah didn’t answer, and now it was his turn to read the truth in silence. His expression became a mask of controlled anger. “I believe I’ll take a drive.” He went to the stand by the door and got his old aviator’s jacket, then jabbed his arms into the sleeves. He was mad, and every brusque movement of his body illustrated that. “I’ll cruise around town and do a little informal survey on the goodness of humanity.”

“You’ll be disappointed.”

He slammed the door on his way out.

The night
USA Personal
aired was torment. Dinah sat on the edge of the couch, her back ruler-straight and her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she watched Todd Norins parade her story in front of a national audience. Rucker lounged beside her, brooding and quiet.