Something to Talk About (18 page)

Jax chuckled again at the sight of her cute ass sashaying down the hall to her own office.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her the zipper on the back of her skirt was still unzipped.

* * *

Em sipped her coffee, pushing her grilled chicken around on her plate with disinterest.

“So, what’s new?” Dixie asked.

“Not much.”

Dixie grabbed the fork in Em’s hand and stilled her motion. “Are we having dinner, or are you, me and Jax’s lingering memory having dinner?”

Em’s eyes met Dixie’s. Almost. It was sort of eye contact but not a total immersion gaze. She was getting so good at it. “I don’t know what you mean.” She studied her plate.

“You do know what I mean. I mean, accordin’ to those who gossip, Jax was taking you and the kids out for macaroni and cheese right after you spit in Louella Palmer’s eye in the school yard.”

“I didn’t spit in her eye.” She’d wanted to when she’d seen him talking to her through the window of his car at the school. She’d wanted to pull her hair out, knock her on the ground, steal her shoes. But she hadn’t because it was none of her beeswax who he talked to.

“You might as well have, according to all Plum Orchard reports.”

Em dropped her fork and threw her napkin on the plate. “You know, for someone who was a victim of all the cruel gossip this town dishes up, you certainly hear a lot of it, don’t you?”

Dixie gave her a wide-eyed innocent look. “I don’t do it on purpose. I do it so I can keep track of you, seein’ as you don’t want anyone to know what you’re doing. I have to look out for you somehow. Even if it’s through the gossip mill. Besides, who can ignore Louella Palmer and her Southern henchwomen? The woman has a voice like a bullfrog.”

Em laughed, loosening up a little. Her guilt for not sharing her “Em and Jax Exploits” with Dixie was making her tense and nervous. Dixie was her best friend. She’d probably know how to deal with all these feelings Jax was making her feel. Feelings she neither wanted nor had asked for.

But she knew what Dixie’s answer would be. Em wasn’t the fling type. She was the keeper type. She’d end up hurt.

With all of these new feelings cropping up for Jax, she was beginning to wonder if the speech she’d get from Dixie and the girls was accurate.

“So, did you spit in Louella’s eye?”

“I didn’t spit in Louella’s eye. Not literally. But you’d be so proud to know, I did kick up a heel when he escorted me off that curb.”

Dixie’s hands went to her chest. “Look at my little girl all grown-up. Now answer the question.”

“I just played along with Jax. He obviously doesn’t like Louella, though I don’t know why. He was trying to get away from her. I was his getaway car. Nothing more.”

“Because she did something horrible to you, and he saw it unfold before his very eyes. That’s why he doesn’t like her.”

“That’s silly. He hardly knows me. Why would he take up for me?” Mostly true. He knew her body. He knew how to make her come longer and louder than she ever had before. But he didn’t know her.

Dixie let her head fall to the Formica table in a dramatic drop. “How long do you suppose you’re going to keep skirtin’ the truth with half-truths, Em? Because I’m exhausted from the subterfuge,” she said, resting a cheek on the table.

Em stroked Dixie’s hair and totally ignored her question. “I have to go.”

Dixie’s head snapped up. “Where?”

“Home.”

“So soon?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry I’m ditching you so I can have amazing sex, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I can’t miss this boat
.

“But it’s date night.”

“Dora’s sick. I have to go check on her, and Clifton Junior forgot his science project on the counter. I have to drop it off to him at Idalee’s.”
And I have to hurry if I hope to shower and find something sexy to wear.

Dixie hauled her purse from the corner of the booth. “Then I’ll go with.”

“No!”

Dixie’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Look away from the light of Dixie, Em! Do it now or you’re sunk. She’ll wring your slutty right outta you.
“Because...”

“Because
why,
Emmaline?”

“Because she’s sneakin’ off to see her boyfriend she doesn’t want anyone to know about, just like her mama did,” Louella Palmer said, loud enough to be heard by the entire diner.

Em stiffened. Like her mother did? “My mother?”

Louella winked. “So, what do the boys have to say about their replacement daddy?”

Em’s head whirled—as she tried to figure out how much Louella knew about Jax. Surely she couldn’t know the truth? It was all just speculation on Louella’s part after the school incident. Wasn’t it? Louella was just baiting her—testing to see if she’d crack and spill the torrid details. She was no good at the kinds of games Louella played. You never knew if she had something on you she was going to share in the most humiliating manner possible, or if she was just bluffing.

Em slid out of the booth, towering over petite Louella. “I guess sneakin’ off to see any kind of boyfriend is better than having none at all, isn’t it?” Then she smiled—pretty—innocent, just like Dixie had taught her.

Dixie shoved her way out of the booth and stepped in front of Em. “Go home to your spinster apartment and do spinster things, Louella. Don’t you have a shawl to knit? You’ll need it for all those pendin’ nights, rocking on a porch while all your cats snuggle at your feet.”

“I see I’ve hit a nerve.” Louella responded in kind with a smile.

“Hah! Silly Louella. You mistake me for one of your amateur prey. Lest you forget,” Dixie warned, “I’m the queen of this cat-and-mouse chase, and if you don’t take your insinuations and stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, that plastic surgeon you saw for your rhinoplasty won’t be the last surgeon on your dance card.”

Louella budged first. It was a small twitch, but noticeable enough to concede she’d lost this round. “Are you suggesting violence?”

Dixie cracked her knuckles. “You bet I am. And another thing, if you don’t hush your mouth and stop fuelin’ the talk about Clifton Senior, if I hear one more time one of Em’s boys has gotten into a fistfight because you really don’t care who you hurt in your pathetic attempt to pay me back for stealin’ your man—even small children—I’m comin’ for you.”

As always, when Louella and Dixie were in the same room, and there were witnesses, a buzz began. An uncomfortable one. One Em didn’t want. It put an ugly spotlight on her and her recent situation she’d rather not have.

But Louella was apparently feeling sassy tonight. “Will you teach me the ways of the reformed, Dixie? Learn me how to be a good person, maybe? Make me see Jesus?”

Dixie gasped—loud and long for dramatic effect. “Did you just use the Lord’s name and yours in the same sentence? Louella Palmer, you should know better than to use
His
name in vain—especially when associated with you.”

Em grabbed Dixie’s arm. “Let’s go. Right this minute. Everyone is staring.” And remembering the picture of Clifton as Trixie. And the shock on her face when she saw it. And it was like reliving that night over and over.

Dixie shrugged her off and faced the scattered tables, her face angry and red. Dixie was hard to ruffle, and much harder to anger these days, but Louella had gone for the throat. Dixie never stood by and watched that. “No, Em! If you haven’t had enough, I surely have. This stops now.
Right now
.”

Dixie moved around her, spry in her pumpkin-colored heels, and grabbed a glass from a nearby table, clanging a spoon against it.

“Listen up, people of Plum Orchard! That means you, too, Nanette Pruitt.” She pointed an accusatory finger toward the older woman. “Y’all better hear me loud and clear when I say, mind your business, you bunch of gossiping know-it-alls! You’ve involved the well-being of children. Children I love, with your hushed whispers and gutter minds. Your cruel chatter has trickled down to your children who’re passin’ it on. Shame on all of you for perpetuatin’ that kind of behavior, for teaching your children to be mean little monsters just like the lot of you! If you wanna talk, talk about me. Talk about how I’ll take my dirty little business right on out of this town and you’ll rue the day you didn’t heed my words. Because you know what goes with me when I go? Landon’s money! Who’s going to pay for your fancy exit off the highway then? Will it be you, Louella Palmer? Do you get paid for all the shootin’ off your mouth you do? Because it’s the only way you’d come close to making the kind of money I pour into this godforsaken town!”

“Dixie!” Em whisper-yelled. She hated confrontation. She hated that there had to be a confrontation at all. She hated that she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole.

She hated even more that in the middle of Dixie’s rant, while everyone was staring at her, Jax had slipped inside Madge’s.

Fifteen

E
m’s cheeks were hot, her blood was boiling and if she put her hand to her brow, she’d probably find beads of sweat on it. “Dixie Davis, if you don’t stop now, I’ll never speak to you again.” Pivoting on her heel, she lifted her chin, avoided Jax’s eyes and walked out of Madge’s to the tune of the harsh clack of her shoes, echoing in the astonished silence.

The cold air rushed at her, cooling her cheeks or the tears that stung the corners of her eyes. They were hot and seeping out with a will of their own.

Why couldn’t Dixie just let her sweep this under the carpet? The more attention she gave it, the more it grew out of control. Clifton Senior had been gone plenty long by now, but because nothing more exciting than finding out he was a cross-dresser had happened in Plum Orchard since then, she was the latest target.

Worse, why hadn’t she been the one to have the angry outburst? Why was she always quieting the part of her that was outraged by the horrible things they were saying about her? Because she hated to make a scene. She’d been taught not to make a scene. At all costs, stay out of the fray.

She’d been in the middle of plenty of humiliating situations since high school, and she hated that she’d never found a voice big enough to tell everyone what Dixie had just told them for her. Hated that she was even too yellow to stand up for, at the very least, her children.

A hand came to rest at her back. A large one. Warm and wide, it spanned part of her waist and made her want things she didn’t want to want right now.

Jax.

Exactly what she didn’t need. “Please don’t.”
Please, please, please don’t pity me.

“Can I help?”

“You coming after me in front of everyone doesn’t help.” She glared up at the twinkling lights in the tree of the square and prayed no one was looking.

“I was just grabbing some burgers.” He held up a bag.

“Then take your burgers and go home.”

“I didn’t know things were that bad for the boys—or even for you.”

She looked down at her feet. No way would she let him see her cry. “I’m fine. The boys are fine. Go before your burgers get cold.”

“You know, just because we have this...thing going on, it doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Friends talk.” He said the words in her ear, which meant he was too close.

She took a step away. She didn’t want to. There was nothing she wanted to do more right now than lean back into him. Pull his arms around her and just close her eyes—lose herself in the security of having someone else around to help shoulder the burden.

Instead, she kept her body language unapproachable. “I don’t need any more friends. As you just saw, Dixie has that covered.”

He tucked the burgers under his arm, watching her. Always observing. Always seeing something she didn’t want him to see. “She loves your boys, Em. So do Caine and Sanjeev. Caine said as much. I think it hurts her that all of this was brought about because Louella used your situation to hurt her. She feels responsible. She wants to make it right.”

Em stuffed her hands inside her jacket pockets. “Look how right she’s made it. If she would just let it lie, it will eventually go away.” Of course, it would only happen if another big scandal came along. But she could wait.

Jax allowed her the space between them, but it didn’t stop him from pursuing the subject. “Do you think it’s going to just go away if you don’t address it?”

“Do you think it’s going to get better when Dixie is screaming and threatening everyone in the PO with her bags o’ money in the middle of the diner?”

“I hate to say it, but I’m sort of on Dixie’s side here. She’s defending you because she cares about you. It hurts her to see you hurt. That’s not a bad thing in a best friend, Em. If I was your best friend, and I had to listen to the people in this town always talking about your ex-husband or what led him to stray from your marriage, I’d get fed up with all the crap, too.”

The speculation, the intimate details people thought they knew about why Clifton hadn’t come out to her, were still rampant. After three months, they still talked like it had happened yesterday. Sometimes, she wanted to scream the truth at them. But what would that accomplish? “Then it’s a good thing you’re not my best friend,” she said, thin lips and all.

He grinned. “Nope. Just your boy toy.”

“Go home, Jax.”
Before I beg you to hold me and make this all go away. Before I lean on you when I need to learn to stand on my own two feet.

“Because that’s where all good boy toys go when they’re dismissed?”

“Because that’s where I’m going.”

“To lick your wounds?”

“What are you tryin’ to accomplish with this pep talk, coach?”

“I’m trying to get you to stand up for yourself. I saw the way you reacted when Louella showed up at the school. That woman’s a piranha. I can smell her desperation from a mile away. Add in the fact that she’s pretty horrible, and not a chance in hell I’m going to stand by and let her behave as though you’re not standing right in front of her. Why don’t you do the same?”

“Chivalry really isn’t dead. And I do stick up for myself.” She did. Maybe not in a screaming fit filled with blackmail and rage, but she took jabs at Louella. Small ones. But they were jabs. They counted.

Jax called her on that. “You poke at her. But I’d bet you’ve never let her really have it. Sometimes, you have to teach people how to treat you.”

“Then here’s your first lesson. Leave me alone before everyone’s stickin’ their noses to the window in Madge’s to see what we’re doing out here.”

“Why would it be such a bad thing if people saw us together, Em? Am I ugly? Do I have a hunchback?”

Did he ask that because of his ego, or because he really wanted to be seen with her? “Because people will talk about you and Maizy just by association. I won’t have it. I won’t have you and Maizy dragged through the mud because I’m everyone’s target right now. You don’t know the people in this town. They can make a life miserable.”

“Only if you let ’em. And if you’re going to live your life the way you think other people decide you should, it’s better I’m only your boy toy.”

Because a man like Jax would only want a strong woman who took no guff. Ouch. “Thanks, life coach. Now that I’m all pumped up and ready to go huntin’ bear, you can go.”

“I’ll do that. And glad I caught you. I sent you a text. Maizy has a fever. Can’t make tonight. But call me if you want to talk. ’Night, Em.” He reached behind him and brushed her fingers with his before strolling off into the shadows of the square, his long legs eating up the pavement until she heard a car door open and shut, an engine start, and he was gone.

Just like that.

Then she was alone, standing outside of Madge’s, the cold air biting at her cheeks, Jax’s words pounding in her ears.

* * *

“So as if it’s not bad enough my daughter runs a company where fornicatin’ with your words outside of marriage is accepted, today, while I’m mindin’ my own business at Brugsby’s, Blanche Carter tells me she saw you drivin’ around late at night with that new man in town. Jack, is it?” Her mother’s continual state of disapproval glared at her over the island in her kitchen.

Dressed in a gray sweater buttoned to her neck, sensible shoes on her feet, Clora worked with purpose, wiping down the messy counter after breakfast.

Em sucked in a breath of air and reached for Gareth’s lunch box. “
Jax,
Mama. His name is Jax Hawthorne. He’s Miss Jessalyn’s nephew.”

Clora sucked in her cheeks and grunted. “I don’t give a hoot if he’s Pontius Pilate’s nephew. You shouldn’t be driving around with him late at night alone in a car.”

“Jeep. It was my Jeep.”

“That matters how, Emmaline? Is the make of the car necessary when the deed’s been done?”

The pressure of her recent uncharacteristic behavior, coupled with the idea that she’d have to face Jax this morning at work, that she’d see every shade of disgust on his face when she apologized to him for shunning his advice like it was no more valuable than day-old bread, forced her to clamp her lips shut.

“Are you hearin’ me, Emmaline?” her mother prodded, handing her a juice box to load into Gareth’s lunch pail.

Heard. But it was vague. She’d tuned out after her mother said she’d been minding her own business. That was ludicrous. Clora minded everyone’s business like she was in charge of the righteous stick. “I heard you, Mama.”

Clora’s lips formed a flat line. Scolding complete. Reminder number one million, Em would never do anything right accomplished. “Good. So no more runnin’ around town like you don’t have a reputation to protect. I can’t have people talking about you and the boys any more than they already do these days.”

Em jammed Clifton’s cheese sandwich into a Ziploc bag to prevent hurling it against the wall. Lately, her mother’s disapproval didn’t just make her sad it infuriated her—suffocated her. Drove her almost to the point of violence.

Used to be, she took her licks from her mother rather than suffer the tight knot of fear a confrontation with her brought. She’d spent most of her childhood either looking for ways to please her, or hiding from Clora’s stifling anger. She didn’t know why her mother was always so angry. She didn’t know why she took pleasure from almost nothing.

Maybe it had something to do with whatever Louella was insinuating last night. She’d been very specific. She’d said Em was sneakin’ off to see her boyfriend just like her mother.

That made no sense. Her mother never had a boyfriend. She’d had a husband who’d left when Em was an infant. Boyfriends implied fun and dates at Madge’s, ice-cream sundaes and secretive giggling. None of which applied to her mother.

Growing up, there were far more chores and lectures than there were kisses and hugs or cookies and milk. There was also little laughter. Em had vowed, when she had children, things would be different. She’d give them all the things she’d craved and lacked in her childhood.

But lately, she noticed the boys had begun to adopt some of her old habits around their grandmother, and it wasn’t sitting well with her. In fact, at one Sunday dinner, she’d come close to telling her mother what a horrible downer she was—how oppressive and depressing her very presence was. But the words wouldn’t come.

The knot of Clora fear tied itself tight in Em’s belly, and instead of defending her sons and their silly dinnertime banter, she’d hushed them with a stern frown. These days, she wondered if the help her mother offered her with the boys was worth exposing them to her negativity.

“Did you hear what I said, Emmaline? I can’t have people talkin’ about you and the boys.”

Crack. A little crack in her emotional dam fractured. “Of course not. People talkin’ about me and the boys is the worst thing that could ever happen to
you,
Mama.”

Clora didn’t even look up at her. She didn’t have to. Her dissatisfaction dripped off her in invisible drops. “Is that sarcasm I hear comin’ from your lips?”

“From our Em’s lips?” Dixie chimed from her front doorway, breezing in with two foam cups of coffee. She handed one to Em and teased, “Never, Clora.”

Em breathed a sigh of grateful relief, wrapping her hands around the base of the cup, letting the warmth seep into her frozen fingers. Dixie—ever her savior. Dixie understood better than anyone what it was like to live under the constant scrutiny and censure of your mother.

Dixie smiled over the rim of her cup at Em. “Still your person?” she mouthed.

Em nodded and smiled back at Dixie. “Always,” she returned. After a sleepless night of contemplation, she’d decided Jax was right. Dixie loved her and the boys, and she felt responsible for the pain they were suffering. She’d done what she did best. Put people in their place.

It wasn’t Dixie’s fault Em was too much of a coward to do it for herself.

Em turned her back on the flare of Clora’s nostrils and her sour eyes. Clora didn’t like Dixie, but Em was never sure if it was that she didn’t like Dixie, or if it had more to do with Dixie’s mother, who’d once ruled Plum Orchard like a queen and had dubbed Clora unworthy as one of the Magnolias’ subjects.

Like mother like daughter.

Dixie flung an arm around Em’s shoulders and aimed her mischievous smile at Clora. “So what are we talking about, ladies?”

Clora’s lips thinned again. “Emmaline’s disreputable behavior and how it affects her and the boys.”

Dixie widened her eyes to the point of exaggeration. “You? Are you sure we’re talkin’ Emmaline Amos here? The Em I know, my best friend Em, would never behave badly. Surely you’re mistaken, Clora? My Em is amazing and smart and has impeccable manners. So many good things about her, I’ve lost count.”

Em bit back a snort, zipping up Clifton’s lunch box and wincing while she waited for Clora to react.

“Your best friend was in a car with a man.”

Dixie gasped, propping a hand on her hip. “Oh, that’s dreadful. Deplorable. I mean, with all the murderers running loose these days, how could she?”

Clora bristled, narrowing her gaze in Dixie’s direction, her finger raised. “You’d do well to watch your tone, Dixie Davis. You’re just not happy unless your smart tongue is waggin’ and causin’ nothin’ but trouble. I heard all about your screamin’ fit in the diner last night. Haven’t you tainted Emmaline’s name enough by association?”

Confrontation. That’s where this was heading. Divert, avoid, redirect.

Em plunked the boys’ backpacks on the counter in front of her mother, giving Dixie the warning sign with her desperate eyes. “Mama, Dixie didn’t taint me. I tainted me. Me. Nobody else. By choosin’ to run a place that promotes fornicatin’ with your words and marryin’ a man who likes to wear lipstick. Now, I have to get to work. Are you sure you’ll be all right droppin’ the boys at school?”

Clora yanked the kitchen towel from her shoulder and slapped it on the counter with a snap. “We’ll be fine.”

Disaster averted. “Thank you, Mama. Boys!” she bellowed. “Time for school. Grandma Clora’s waitin’.”

Dixie turned her back on Clora, opening her arms to Clifton and Gareth, who ran into them willingly, like anyone who wasn’t female did. She plopped kisses on their dark heads, and the picture of the three of them together in a huddle struck Em as ironic that her best friend showed more affection to them than their own grandmother.