Hold on Tight

  His voice was incredibly deep and smooth, like warm cognac, Dinah thought. It was very persuasive and it overflowed with a melodic southern accent. “I suppose I owe you a rebuttal, Mr. McClure,” she allowed stiffly. “You have five minutes.”

  He bowed, a southern gentleman in a badly coordinated shirt and jacket, Rhett Butler with no fashion sense—yet totally intriguing. “I’ve come to admit my fault and say I never meant any harm by pickin’ on y’all a little,” he soothed. He turned to face the audience better. The man’s a natural orator, Dinah recalled someone saying. She could believe it. His charm had captured the council, the audience, and her imagination.

  “I’m reminded of a story,” he began happily. People perched on the edges of their chairs, wiping laughter from their eyes and listening. “When I was a little ol’ boy growin’ up in Multree, Texas, where the women aren’t nearly as pretty as they are here”—he glanced coyly back at Dinah—“why, in high school, Veda Jane Veegle, my first true love, was voted Most Likely to Become a Marine. But back to my story …”

  Seated on the yellow vinyl of a booth at the Lucky Duck Diner sipping coffee, Dinah kept a pleasant expression on her face and listened with forced politeness as the other council members bombarded Rucker McClure with questions about his writing and the celebrities he’d met. She’d decided to be nice to him and hustle him out of town in a congenial mood.

  Rucker answered distractedly, his scrambled emotions hidden under the usual good-old-boy routine. The cool beauty across the table was the living picture of his best daydreams. She was regal, tall, and sturdy—no frail flower of southern womanhood, that was for sure—and he wanted to keep looking at her forever. Some of her features were classic—a wide, perfect smile between slender lips, a small, tilted nose, a clear, silk-smooth complexion—but others were decidedly unusual by beauty queen standards.

  Her jaw was strong and her eyes, whew, her eyes were stunning. A light china blue, surrounded by dark brunette lashes that matched her hair, they stood out like twin beacons. Intelligence and confidence radiated from those serious eyes, and the combination was extremely sexy, whether she intended it to be or not. Every time he looked away from her he knew that she studied him with unwavering intensity. The air between them seemed warm, and not from the steam off their coffee.

  “Well, I gotta go,” Glory Akens said, yawning. “It’s ten-thirty. Thanks for the coffee and pie, Mr. McClure—I mean, Rucker. That’s apology enough for me.”

  “Me too,” echoed Jasper Mac, running a hand over his hairless head. “It was good meetin’ you.”

  He and Glory got up from the booth. Walter and Fred, seated in chairs at the end, stood also and said their good nights. Dinah started to get up, too, but Rucker casually put a hand across the table and touched her arm. “Let’s you and me talk awhile, Mayor. I’ll give you a ride back to city hall.”

  Dinah looked into his eyes and saw serious invitation. Her heart rate would never be normal again after tonight, she was certain. This man didn’t even attempt to act subtle. Worse yet, before she’d learned who he was, she hadn’t concealed her interest. She was trapped.

  “I rode with Jasper Mac,” she said. “It’s not polite—”

  “Oh, shoot, Dinah, you know I don’t mind,” Jasper Mac interjected.

  Dinah sighed. Trapped. Well, she’d spent years on the beauty pageant circuit, and she was an expert at derailing onrushing men. She could certainly sidetrack this celebrity Romeo. “All right,” she answered.

  She trailed a wistful gaze after her friends and allies as they went out into the cool night. Now it was just her, Rucker, and Alfred “Duck” Mason, the Lucky Duck’s owner and chief cook. He sat behind the soda fountain, his feet propped up, Monday Night Football flickering on a small television set he held on his aproned lap. Alfred would be no help.

  “Now, let’s get down to business, little lady,” Rucker said abruptly. “You gonna threaten me anymore?”

  With elegant ease, Dinah swiveled a cold look to him. Little lady, eh? “Doubtlessly not. I’d rather keep my council chamber possum free. I’d rather keep my peace of mind. I accept your apology. Just please don’t pick on us anymore. I care about this town.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “I like Mount Pleasant. I like you. So let’s talk about you.” He looked comically smug. “I’m sure you know all about me.”

  “Oh, yes. I’d say you’re exceedingly simple to understand.”

  He chuckled, the sound warm and rumbling. “I’m not simpleminded, if that’s what you mean. And I’m really sorry for disruptin’ everything tonight. And I’m really glad to meet you.” He held out a hand. “Pals?”

  Dinah squinted at his hand, trying to figure out his motives. Was he looking for the story that had never been revealed six years ago? By the way, Mayor, why did you run out on the Miss America shindig? Why does somebody like you give up glamour and fame for life in Quietville, USA? She took his hand slowly, exhaling as the calloused, hard grip closed around her fingers and sank gently into her palm.

  “Don’t let go,” he whispered. Dinah’s gaze shot to his face. He leaned forward, his grip tightening, his expression serious. “Don’t pull away. It’s hot, but it won’t burn.”

  She swallowed with great difficulty and glanced over to make certain Alfred wasn’t watching this bizarre scene. “I know something was going on between us in the meeting,” she told Rucker frankly. “It gets lonely here, but I want you to understand that I’m not easily—”

  “Tell me about yourself,” he ordered in a low, cajoling voice. “I’m just gonna sit here and hold your hand, and you tell me whatever you think I ought to know.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because I want to see what kind of woman lurks behind those smart blue eyes. A woman with a man friend somewhere in town?”

  “No.” His fingertips were drawing blunt lines of fire inside her palm. She tested his determination by gently trying to pull back. His forefinger pressed sensuously into the soft center of her hand, urging her to be still, to relax. Dinah swallowed hard and shifted uncomfortably on the old vinyl seat, her whole body warm. All right, I’ll just … just humor him, she decided.

  “Someone special anywhere?” he asked.

  “No. You?”

  “No man friends,” he said drolly. “I ain’t that kind of boy.”

  “You know what I—”

  “Ex-wife. Found her in New York, left her in New York. Divorced four years ago. Back then I wrote the obits. I got work in Birmingham, took up writin’ a column, and I got famous for reasons I can’t begin to understand. Along with the fame I got a lot more than a normal share of female attention.”

  “Still getting it?” she asked, then realized how the question sounded. Pure amusement lit his eyes as she shook her head wearily. “Mr. McClure, I retract that—”

  “I don’t like singles bars, I’m not a cradle robber, and I turn up my nose at aggressive, independent women, so that leaves me sittin’ at home alone a lot. Call me Rucker.”

  “Call you a saint, if one is to believe that sweet little story about your love life. By the way, ‘aggressive’ and ‘independent’ describe me … Rucker.”

  “Nah, you’ve got potential,” he informed her. “Now look, I’m not gonna play games here. You and me, we were communicatin’ like live wires for a while there tonight. I’m lookin’ into your eyes and thinkin’ about old-fashioned romance—”

  “And a docile, dependent woman. How would you describe your ideal victim?”

  He grinned slyly. His fingers curled and uncurled inside her hand, their intent even more intimate. “Oh, she always has dinner ready for me, she loves all the sports I love, she just lives to give me massages, she fetches and totes whenever my friends come over to play poker, she likes to mow the lawn …”

  Dinah laughed helplessly, enjoying his blarney. “When I tell you about myself, you’ll see that I don’t fit that mold at all.” Her traitorous fingers wanted to caress th
e top of his broad, lightly haired hand. She forced them to remain obedient.

  “You’ve got potential,” he insisted again, his eyes deadly serious under their teasing veneer. Dinah rested her chin in her free hand and studied him. “So talk,” he ordered. “You teach high school, right?”

  It was hopeless to evade his interrogation, and as long as it remained harmless she’d enjoy it. Dinah told him about getting her master’s degree in political science at Mitchataw College, a small but respected school in central Alabama. She explained how she came to Mount Pleasant to take a job teaching history, fell in love with the town, and got involved in local politics.

  “And the town fell in love with you, it looks like,” he said when she finished. “I watched how people acted toward you in the meeting.” His fingers reached out to brush their heat across the sensitive skin of her wrist.

  “I suppose. I was elected mayor over the incumbent, Mervin Flortney. He wasn’t much of a mayor. Now let go of my hand.” Breathing a little fast, she tugged it away. He took it back.

  “Good girl. How’d you do it?”

  She sighed in exasperation. “I’m not a girl. I’m twenty-seven years old.”

  “I’m thirty-six, but I’m still a boy,” he teased. “Don’t get caught up in quibblin’ over semantics.”

  “Big word, semantics. Congratulations.”

  He laughed heartily and gave her hand a joyful squeeze. “Talk, Madam Mayor. Did you bowl these folks over with big-city shenanigans? You were raised in Atlanta, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was raised in Atlanta. No, I didn’t bowl anyone over with … shenanigans. Are you assuming that I just thrust my chest forward and made insipid speeches? We beauty queens have a few more resources than that, thank you. I work hard to understand this town’s problems and I work hard to make them better.”

  “Calm down there,” he said. “It’s just curious to somebody like me, who grew up in … uhmmm … modest circumstances, as my public relations man puts it, that anybody would give up money and glory to teach high-school history in a real-life Mayberry.” He looked over her head as if watching someone come in the diner’s door. “Aunt Bee!” he called. “Opie! Come set a spell!”

  Dinah fought to keep from smiling but lost. His fingers wound between hers, and she marveled at her unwillingness to rebuke him. If she were an impulsive woman, she’d ask Rucker McClure to stop tempting and start satisfying. But she wasn’t. At the age of sixteen she’d won Miss Teen Atlanta on the basis of an oration titled “Pride, Prudence, and Perseverance—Our Faithful Friends.” Though the speech seemed pitifully naive to her today, she could still recite it by heart.

  “You don’t understand why I love Mount Pleasant,” she told him. “Let me tell you what life is like here.”

  He nodded. “Talk to me, Madam Mayor. I’m a good listener.” Dinah felt an odd sense of camaraderie as she studied the sudden gentleness in his eyes. She hadn’t talked to a man like this in a long, long time. Wait a minute. She’d never talked to a man like Rucker McClure before. A lovable maniac. Lovable?

  “Well,” she began, “let me tell you about our grand and exalted Possum Days Festival …”

  With his throaty laughter as a backdrop, Dinah told him abut the festival, about Mount Pleasant High and the Mount Pleasant High Wildcats, state AA football champions in 1959 but never since then, about the Warp ’n’ Weave clothing factory that employed three hundred residents, about the fall tourist trade that would begin in a week or so when the leaves started to turn. She told him the history of Mount Pleasant’s World War I cannon, sitting bronzed and proud on the town square. She told him the history of the rose bushes planted around the cannon by the Mount Pleasant Women for a Progressive Future.

  And somewhere along the way Rucker stopped being a stranger and became a friend. At about eleven o’clock Alfred set a pot of coffee and a plate of chocolate donuts on the table, then went back to his TV to watch the late news and Johnny Carson. A few truckers ambled in, but other than that the place was quiet. At midnight Rucker was deeply involved in telling Dinah a story about his father, a trucker who’d died in a dramatic highway accident when Rucker was fifteen. Dinah was deeply involved in watching Rucker, her coffee untas ted, her donut half-eaten. At one A.M. Alfred shooed them and the truckers out, then locked up for the night.

  Rucker kept talking as they walked down Main Street’s oak-shaded sidewalk to where his car was parked. He also kept holding Dinah’s hand. He swung it merrily, as if teasing her to believe that hand-holding was innocent.

  “… and so, when I made it big,” he said, “I told Mama, ‘You’ve been a waitress all your life, sweetheart, and you’ve worked damn hard. Now I’m gonna buy you the fanciest condo in Florida and you’re gonna set down there by Mattie and her family—Mattie’s my married sister—and you’re gonna have more fun than a chicken at a worm farm.”

  “And what did your mother say?”

  “Prrrr-ruck, cluck cluck cluck, prrrr-ruck.”

  They were still laughing as he held the Cadillac door for her. Dinah slid inside and looked around curiously at the plush interior. “A black Cadillac Seville,” she murmured as he settled into the driver’s seat. “I expected a custom pickup truck.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m still a hayseed at heart.” He handed her a sleek tape case from under the seat. “Pick something. I love music of all kinds.”

  “Ah, the soundtrack from Deliverance, ‘Honky Tonk Favorites from Nashville,’ ‘Highlights from Hee Haw.’ This is music of all kinds?”

  “I have wide-ranging musical tastes,” he said solemnly.

  “Indeed. I’d say these tapes cover the range from country-western to country-western. With a little country-western thrown in. How will I ever choose? Ah. ‘Banjo Favorites.’ That sounds safe.”

  She started to put the tape in. Rucker leaned close to her as she did. “Who wants ‘safe’?” he asked. Dinah twisted to face him, her breath catching as she inhaled his clean, masculine scent. No seductive, fancy colognes for this man. He didn’t need help seducing women.

  “I want ‘safe,’ ” she whispered.

  “Nah, you don’t. I’m gonna kiss you.” The tone was light, but his voice was husky. “But I’ll keep it safe. For right now, anyway.”

  “You want me to kiss you right here on the street?”

  “Nah. I’d rather you kiss me right here on the lips. Just aim for a spot about a smidgen below my mustache.”

  A flabbergasted laugh started in her throat and never surfaced. His kiss trapped it between them and turned it into a plaintive groan of pleasure and exasperation, mostly pleasure. Rucker slid both arms around her and brought her closer. Dinah raised shocked hands to grip his shoulders. She gripped, then relaxed, then gripped again harder, as his mouth made slow, erotic movements on hers. Suddenly her world was only taste and touch and smell, all of the sensations magnified by a haze of physical desire and shock.

  The Fourth of July. A first kiss. Puppy love. All these notions got tangled up in her thoughts as her tongue touched his and sensation exploded across the skin of her abdomen and thighs. His hands rubbed her shoulder blades in circular patterns then slid down her spine, his fingers tracing the indention of bone and muscle even through her clothes.

  Lost to his skilled seduction, Dinah wrapped both arms around his neck and leaned into the kiss, her back arching. His soft moan was vulnerable and gentle. Is there really a sensitive, sweet man under all the flirtatious macho humor? she wondered. Would it be wrong to be impulsive? Wasn’t she entitled to ignore common sense with such an amazing man?

  Dinah felt him tugging on her left jacket-sleeve. She inhaled raggedly as it started sliding down. The man is seducing me, she thought without much alarm. Right here on Main Street. He’s seducing me, and I’m not lifting a finger to stop him. His hands kept up their wonderful assault on her lower back, slipping lower, lower … Wait a minute, her logical mind protested. Unless he had a third arm, a very unusual talent for magic,
or a friend in the back seat, he couldn’t possibly rub her rump with both hands and pull her jacket off one shoulder at the same time.

  Dinah jerked her mouth away from his. “It’s happenin’ fast, I know,” Rucker said soothingly, his lips brushing her cheek. “It’s not wrong, though. Nothing’s ever been so right—”

  “I’m being attacked by something!”

  “Me, too, hon. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “No, no! Really attacked!” She twisted frantically and came face to face with the possum, which was clinging fervently to her shoulder. Dinah yelped and the possum squeaked. Then its eyes glazed over and it tumbled limply down her back onto the seat.

  “You scared it!” Rucker said reproachfully. He reached around her and scooped the small animal into his hand. Dinah cringed away from it and slid into the far corner of the car, her pulse pounding desperately. Insanity had started with a torrid kiss and ended with a fainting marsupial. She gathered her senses for a moment, wondering what in the world had happened to her. Prudence had deserted pride and perseverance.

  “It’s playing possum, I assume?” she said coldly. She straightened her jacket with an authoritative tug.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Poor critter.”

  He stroked the limp little animal with obvious concern. Dinah’s heart softened and she reached over to pet the possum too. After a moment it came to and wobbled upright.

  “Mr. McClure, I’d like to go back to my car at city hall now, thank you. Your possum and I are in the same discombobulated state.”

  He reached out and stroked her cheek as languidly as he’d been stroking the possum’s back. “Feel better?” he asked several seconds later. Her skin was fiery under his touch.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “When can you and I—”

  “Never. Please go back to Birmingham and don’t make fun of me or my town anymore.”

  “Look here, Dinah, after that kiss—”