A Dixie Christmas

  And she couldn’t stop looking at him.

  He smiled at her.

  She smiled back.

  He was using one crutch to keep his full weight off his sprained ankle, which was almost better today. With his free hand, Clay twined Annie’s fingers with his.

  She swung their clasped hands.

  Clay couldn’t understand how he got so much pleasure from just holding hands with a woman and hobbling slowly down the street. Annie had been giving him a running commentary on the history of Memphis.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to eat yet?” she inquired. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  He shook his head. They’d already passed up hot tamales and greasy burgers at the Blues City Cafe, where Tom Cruise had filmed a scene for the movie, “The Firm,” as well as ribs, catfish and world famous fried dill pickles, the specialties at B.B. King’s Club.

  “How about this?” Annie had stopped in front of Lansky Brothers/Center for Southern Folklore. “This museum is dedicated to preserving the legends and folklore of the entire south, but especially Memphis. They have an excellent photography collection here.”

  “My mother was a photographer,” Clay revealed. Now, why did I mention that? I never talk about my mother.

  “Really? Did she use her maiden name or her married name?” Annie was already tugging him by the hand to enter the small museum where a plaque informed him it was the site of the former Lansky Brothers Clothing Store where Elvis, B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and others had purchased their clothes.

  Well, that impresses the hell out of me. I’d want to buy my boxers in the same store as Elvis, for sure.

  But Clay knew he was dwelling on irrelevant garbage to avoid thinking about Annie’s question. Finally, he answered, “Her maiden name. Clare Gannett.”

  “Clare Gannett? Clare Gannett? Why, she’s famous, Clay.”

  “She is . . . was . . . not!” he said with consternation.

  “Well, not Annie Liebowitz famous, but she has a fame of sorts here in Memphis”

  It doesn’t take much to be famous in Memphis. Just be a store that sold Elvis a pair of boxers. Or the barber who gave him a haircut. Or the playground where he scraped his shin.

  “Annie, my mother was not a famous photographer. For one thing, she died when she was only twenty-eight . . . whoa . . . wait a minute . . . what are you doing?” Annie paid for two tickets, and was pulling him determinedly past the exhibits into another room.

  “See,” she said, pointing to one wall where there were a series of photos of Elvis Presley…an older Elvis. In fact, going by the dates under the frames, they must have been taken a few years before his mother had died in 1979; after all, Elvis had left the world in 1977. They were casual shots . . . leaning against a car, strumming a guitar, standing in front of The Blue Suede Suites. A framed document explained that Clare Gannett, despite her youth, had been one of Memphis’s premier photographers, documenting on film many of the city’s early music performers during the mid to late seventies . . . not just Elvis, but many rock and blues personalities who later went on to fame.

  Oh, great! My mother knew Elvis. First, I find out my father owned a hokey hotel named after one of Elvis’s songs. Now, I find out my mother must have known the king. What next?

  “Legend says that Elvis loved Clare Gannett—”

  Clay put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to hear this.

  “—but she fell in love with some Yankee who came to Memphis on a business trip one day. They say the Yankee bought the hotel and next-door property where her studio was located as a wedding present for her. The studio later burned down, and Clare Gannett died in the fire. The hotel owner, your father, refused to erect anything else on that site. Isn’t that romantic?”

  “Annie, that is nothing but bullshit propaganda, a silly yarn spun for gullible tourists.”

  “Maybe. But legend says Elvis was heartbroken over losing Clare Gannett. He died the same year she got married. I know, I know, there are a lot of legends and rumors in there, but still…”

  Clay turned angrily and stomped as fast as he could on one crutch out of the building. He was breathing heavily, in and out, trying to control his rage.

  “Clay, what’s wrong?” Annie asked softly. She came up close to him and put a hand on his suit sleeve.

  He waited several seconds before speaking, not wanting to take out his ill-feelings on Annie. “Annie, my mother abandoned me and my father when I was only one year old. So, your telling me she had a relationship with that hip-swiveling jerk doesn’t sit too well with me, even if it was before her marriage to my father.”

  “I’m sorry, Clay. But maybe you’re wrong about her. The legend never said that she loved Elvis. In fact, she supposedly broke Elvis’s heart when she married your father. Maybe—”

  He leaned down to kiss her softly, the best way he could think of to halt her words. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  She gazed at him with tears in her eyes. Tears, for God’s sake! Not for a moment did she buy his unconcern.

  “Hey, let’s go in this place,” Clay suggested cheerily, coming to a standstill in front of Forever Blue, a small jazz club. He desperately sought a change of mood. “It doesn’t seem as crowded as some of the other joints.”

  He guided her in front of him into the club and an empty table where they ordered drinks and a mushroom and sundried tomato pizza. A short time later, with the backdrop of a piano player filling the room with classic jazz tunes, Clay moved his chair close to Annie and fiddled with the edges of her hair . . . nervous as a teenager on his first date.

  “Annie-love,” he whispered, kissing the curve of her neck. She smelled of some light floral fragrance . . . lilies of the valley, maybe. As always, there was this delicious heat ricocheting between them.

  “Hmmm?” she purred, arching her neck to give him greater access.

  “I don’t want to go back to the farm . . . yet.”

  “Me neither,” she breathed, turning to stare directly into his eyes.

  “Will you come back to my hotel room with me?”

  Annie continued to stare into his eyes, unwavering. She had to know what he was asking. Finally, she nodded, leaning closer to place her lips against his, softly. “I have to go back to the farm tonight, though. There’s the four a.m. milking before we return to Memphis for the Nativity Scene.”

  He stiffened at the thought of the woman he loved demeaning herself in that ridiculous sideshow. “Annie, stay home at the farm tomorrow. Give up the Nativity Scene venture. Let me help you . . . and your family . . . financially.”

  She immediately bristled. “No! The Fallon Family doesn’t accept charity.”

  He should have known she’d balk. But, dammit, how was she going to reconcile accepting his money after they were married? “Whatever you say, sweetheart. It was only a suggestion,” he conceded, for now.

  She softened at his half-hearted apology. “I want to be with you, Clay,” she whispered.

  “Not half as much as I want to be with you.”

  Clay barely noticed the piano player, the singing crowd, or the loud surroundings of the club. All he could think about was Annie and the fact they were going to be together tonight. It appeared as if it would turn out all right, after all. No more celestial big toes.

  He hoped.

  He rousted her about, all right, and she rousted him, too…

  Annie was nervous, but exhilarated, as they entered the foyer of The Blue Suede Suites.

  It was only ten o’clock and the hotel lobby still buzzed with activity, its guests coming in for the evening, or just going out, in some cases. As myriad as Memphis itself, the guests ranged from sedately dressed businessmen to a group of Amazing Soaring Elvi. But mostly there were tourists come to view the spectacle that was Memphis, the adopted home of Elvis . . . like those two middle-aged women over there in neon pink “Elvis Lives” sweatshirts who were eyeing Clay as if they thought h
e might be someone famous.

  “They think I’m George,” Clay informed her dryly, noticing her line of vision.

  “George who?”

  Clay shrugged. “Damned if I know. Straight, or Strayed, or something like that.”

  Annie burst out in laughter. “George Strait?”

  “Yes. That’s the one.”

  Annie hugged the big dolt. “How could anyone in the modern world not know George Strait? Clay, you are too, too precious.”

  He grinned at her calling him precious, then took her hand and led her around the massive Christmas tree in the center of the lobby. It was decorated with sparkling lights and priceless rock star memorabilia left by the various musicians who’d stayed in this hotel over the years. A gold-plated guitar pick from Chet Atkins. Guitar strings tied into a bow, from Hank Williams. A silver star that had once adorned the dressing room of Eddie Arnold. Pearl earrings from Tammy Wynette.

  “Have you ever seen such a gaudy tree in all your life?”

  “Clay, you need a major attitude adjustment.”

  “And you’re the one to give it to me, aren’t you, Annie-love,” he said, flicking her chin playfully. “Come on. I need to pick up something at the desk.”

  David and Marion Bloom, the long-time managers, nodded at Clay as he approached, and then at Annie, too. The refined couple, who resembled David Niven and Ingrid Bergman, right down to the thin mustache and the neatly coiled French twist hairdo, respectively, were probably surprised to see Annie with their boss, but they didn’t betray their reactions by so much as a lifted eyebrow.

  “Did an express mail package come for me today?” Clay asked.

  “Yes, sir,” David Bloom said, drawing a cardboard mailer out of a drawer behind the desk.

  “And I have all those tax statements you asked me to gather together when you called this afternoon,” Marion Bloom added.

  Clay took the mailer, but waved aside the stack of papers. “I’ll examine those tomorrow.”

  Annie could see that the Blooms looked rather pale, their faces pinched with worry. Heck, everyone at the hotel was alarmed, from what Annie had heard when in Memphis earlier today. The possibility of imminent unemployment once the hotel closed had them all walking on tenterhooks, especially with the holidays looming. Annie would have liked to tell them that Clay would never close the hotel now that he knew what a landmark it was to Memphis, not to mention the connection with his mother. But it wasn’t her place to speak on his behalf.

  “We’ll meet tomorrow at one with the accountant, right?” Clay asked the couple. When they nodded solemnly, he concluded, “Good Night, then,” and led Annie toward the elevators.

  Once the doors swished shut, Annie leaned her head on Clay’s shoulder and sighed. But he set her away from him and stepped to the other side of the elevator, staring at her with a rueful grimace. “If I touch you now, sweetheart, we’ll be having sex on the elevator floor.”

  She smiled.

  “You little witch. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Clay observed with a chuckle.

  Soon he was inserting the key into the lock of his hotel room. Once they entered, Clay flicked on the light switch, and Annie was assaulted with a dozen different sounds, sights and smells. A carousel—A carousel, for heaven’s sake!—was turning in one corner of the massive suite, churning out calliope music. A television in another corner clicked on automatically, playing a video of that old Elvis movie “Roustabout.” A popcorn machine began popping and a candy cotton machine began spinning its weblike confection. Hot dogs sizzled on a counter grill, where candy apples were laid out for a late-night snack. And the bed . . . Holy Cow! . . . the bed was in the form of a Tunnel of Love cart with high sides, and what looked like a vibrating mechanism on the side to simulate a water rocking motion.

  “Cla-ay!” she laughed.

  “Did you ever see anything so absurd in all your life?” A delightful pink stained his cheeks.

  “Actually, it’s kind of . . . uh, charming.”

  “Please,” he begged to differ. Then, tossing his crutch aside, he leaned back against the door and pulled her into his embrace. “At last,” he whispered against her mouth.

  When he kissed her, open-mouthed and clinging, Annie could taste his need for her. What a heart-filling ego booster to know she could affect this man so!

  With clumsy haste, they pulled at each other’s clothes.

  “Slow down, honey,” Clay urged raggedly, then immediately reversed himself. “No, hurry up, sweetheart.”

  “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait . . . ,” she cried.

  Soon they were naked. He with nothing but a bandage wrapped around his one ankle, she with nothing but two gold barrettes which she quickly tossed aside.

  She saw his arousal and felt her own arousal throb in counterpoint. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips to his chest, breathing in the clean, musky scent of his skin.

  Clay gasped.

  “You are so hot,” she blurted out.

  He grinned. “I know.”

  “Oh, you! I meant you throw off heat like . . . like an erotic bonfire.”

  Clay laughed. “So do you, Annie. So do you,” he whispered, holding her face with the fingertips of both hands. He gazed at her with sheer adulation, which both humbled and exalted her. Tears filled her eyes at the admiration she saw in his wonderful blue eyes.

  “I love you, Clayton Jessup. I don’t know how it’s possible to fall in love with someone so fast and so hard, but it’s the truth. I love you.”

  “I feel as if I’ve been walking through life with a huge hole in my heart and now, suddenly, it’s been filled. You make me complete, Annie. I know, that sounds so corny—”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting a forefinger against his lips. “It doesn’t sound corny at all.”

  He led her to the bed then and they climbed over the ridiculously high side frames, laughing. It was an awkward exercise, with Clay’s injury.

  “At least there’s no danger of us falling out of bed if you get too rambunctious,” she teased.

  In response, he swatted her on the behind, which was raised ignominiously in the air before she plopped down next to him.

  Turning serious, Clay turned onto his back and adjusted her so she lay half over him. Then he took her hands, encouraging her to explore him.

  And she did.

  Oh, Lord, she did.

  She told him things she’d never imagined were in the far reaches of her fantasies. She used words . . . wicked words, which drew a heated blush to her cheeks, and a chuckle of satisfaction from Clay.

  Clay told her things, too, in a voice silky with sex. He spoke of erotic activities that made her tremble with trepidation. Or was it anticipation?

  “I never expected that a man’s hands could be so gentle and aggressive, at the same time,” she confessed.

  “Who knew you’d be so passionate!” Clay said as he performed magic feats on the many surfaces of her body. “I love the soft sounds you make when I touch you here. And here. And here.”

  Clay nudged her knees apart and lay over her, weight braced on his elbows. He teased her nipples with his fingers and lips and teeth and tongue—plucking, sucking, fluttering and nipping—till Annie ached for more. It was hard to believe that the staid businessman could be such an inventive lover.

  Finally, finally, finally, he penetrated her, and there was no pain, just a stretching fullness. Clay went still, his body taut with tension as he watched her from extended arms

  “I love you, Annie,” he whispered.

  Her inner folds shifted around him in response, allowing him to grow even more, filling her even more.

  “I love you, too, Clay. With all my heart.”

  Only then did he begin to move. Long strokes that seemed to draw her very soul from her body. Then he surged back in again. Over and over, he took her breath away, then gave her new life.

  She drew her knees up to give him greater access.

  His heart
thundered against her breast.

  “Come for me, Annie,” he gritted out painfully. “Let it happen, love.”

  But Annie fought her climax till she saw Clay rear his head back, veins taut in his neck, and let loose with a raw animal sound of pure male release as he plunged deep into her depths. Only then did Annie allow herself to spasm around him in progressively stronger reflexes till she, too, cried out with the pure pleasure-pain.

  Annie wept then. Not from physical soreness, or emotional distress. It was the beauty and rightness of what they shared that drew her tears. There was a dampness in Clay’s eyes, too.