Dakota Cassidy - Talk Dirty to Me

Still, Dixie gave her a sheepish glance, and bumped her shoulder playfully to ease the lines of Em’s frown. “This is about the cheerleading squad, isn’t it?”

Em’s arm stiffened. She lifted her chin. “You told me my legs looked like sausages in that stupid cheerleading skirt, so I couldn’t be on the squad. But my split jumps were better ’n Annabelle Pruitt’s, and you knew it.”

True. Every last word of it. She’d been cruel, twenty or so years ago. Yet, comments like that, among the many she’d hurled at Em, obviously crept into a person’s soul and hung around. From the moment she’d seen Em after being gone so long, Dixie had known she’d be met with extreme caution. Maybe some angry outbursts and plenty of tests to see if she really had changed.

So Dixie’s next admission was without hesitation. “I did.”

Dixie let her hand slide down along Emmaline’s arm to thread her fingers through hers, giving them a light squeeze. “I’m not that person anymore, Emmaline. I’m really not. You were right then and now. Your split jumps were at least a hundred feet higher than Annabelle’s. I lied back then out of jealousy. Your legs are long and gorgeous.” They were. Em was undeniably beautiful.

Em ran a self-conscious hand over her bare leg and said, “Don’t you try and flatter me after all this time. Not after I spent four months’ worth of babysitting money on the ThighMaster because of you.”

Dixie winced. “Then, if nothing else, you know, for every mean thing I did to you back then, I hope you’ll remember, the Lord says to forgive is divine.”

“The Lord didn’t go to high school with you.”

“Fair.” Dixie let her chin drop to her chest, noting under the lights of the funeral home, the long curls of her red dye job were fading dismally.

Em’s nostrils flared at the pin Dixie’d effectively poked in her bubble of anger before her rigid posture deflated, and she let out a half chuckle. “Don’t you be nice to me, Dixie Davis. I’m not one hundred percent buyin’ this ‘I’ve changed’ act. You’ve done that bit once before, and we all fell for it ten years ago, remember? Not so fast this time. So just keep your compliments to yourself.” It was obvious Em was trying to keep her resentments in check out of respect for Landon, for which today, Dixie was grateful.

If not for Em, she wouldn’t have been able to speak to Landon the one last time he was still coherent—nor would she have known about a single funeral arrangement. So Dixie nodded in understanding. “No rights allowed.”

The tension around Em’s crimson-colored lips eased some, her expression growing playful. She fingered one of the lilies in a fluted vase on the table near the couch. “And as a by the by, Lesta-Sue and the Mags said they’ll never allow you access to the Plum Orchard Founders Day parade committee, if you were hopin’ to worm back into everyone’s good graces, that is.”

It was a “take that” comment meant to hurt her—to remind Dixie, when she’d been head Magnolia, the town’s decades-old society of women, and a rite of rich Southern girl passage, she’d once used her popularity and status to shun others via the town’s elitist club. Especially Em.

If Lesta-Sue was here already, that meant the rest of the Mags would be here, too. Terrific. Surely, Louella Palmer, Dixie’s head Magnolia predecessor, wasn’t far behind.

Louella hated her, too. In fact, there was a special kind of hate reserved by Louella just for Dixie. Because she’d broken the girlfriend code ten years ago.

Really broken it.

But Dixie nodded again, and this time, if there was such an act, she did it with even less hesitation than the time before. “Lesta-Sue shouldn’t allow me access to a public gas station bathroom after what I did to her. Stealing her high school beau of three long years by offering to let him get to second base with me was a horrible thing to do. So it’s a good thing I’ll be long gone by the time they break out the hot glue gun and crepe paper. I’m not here to stay, Em. I’m just here to say goodbye to Landon.”

The statement tugged at Dixie’s heart. She’d missed home—even if it hadn’t missed her.

Em’s dark brows knitted together while her gloved fingertips fluttered to the pointed collar of her black-belted dress with the flared skirt. “You’re upsetting me, Dixie.”

“How so, Emmaline?”

“You’re still bein’ sweet.”

Dixie flashed her a warm smile. “Aw, thank you.”

“Stop that this instant!” Em insisted. “It’s unsettling. I should hate you just like every woman still left in this town who attended Plum Orchard High does.” She stiffened again, as if her years of piled-up high school hurts caused by Dixie were warring with her naturally forgiving nature.

Em had just wanted to fit in back then, and Dixie’d used it to her advantage at every outlet. She wouldn’t forgive someone for treating her the way she’d treated Em, but if regret counted, she had plenty of that to give.

Dixie shot her another smile full of more gratitude. “Yes, you should hate me. You still can, if you’d like. But I appreciate you, and everythin’ you’ve done. So see? We balance each other out.”

“The only thing that keeps me from shunning you just like the others is I can’t help but feel badly for you, Dixie. I, unlike you, have a conscience. You’ve had a horrible patch. I mean, first we all hear you lost your fancy restaurant—”

“That was almost two years ago, Em.” Two long years, scraping together a pathetic living with the degree she never quite got, and working odd jobs with her limited—really limited work skills.

Em clucked her tongue. “Two years, two days. Does the amount of time since the descent into financial devastation truly matter?”

Dixie had to nod her agreement. It only mattered to her. Her and the investors she’d let down.

“Okay, but then, your best friend, Landon, asks me to keep you—of all people—up to date on his journey to the end, knowing darn well I’d never say no because one, I grew to love him, too, and two, for gracious sake, he was dying. Then that best friend in the whole world of yours, I’m guessin’ your only friend left, dies.”

“You’re a fine human being, Em. I mean that.” Dixie refused to take the bait and let Em get a rise out of her.

Em pushed some more. “Adding to all that misery, there’s Caine Donovan. Your heart must be in an emotional tizzy about seeing him after, what is it now? Ten years...”

Dixie remained stoically silent. About all things failed restaurant and especially all things Caine Donovan.

“You remember him, right? One-time Plum Orchard High heartthrob and all-county track star, now one of Miami’s biggest real-estate moguls... Oh, and the man you claimed to love but bet on like a Derby horse?” Em was dropping a line into Dixie’s ocean with a juicy worm on the end of it to see if she’d rear up and bite.

The bet. God, that damn bet.

But the truth was the truth. Her restaurant had failed because she’d been too busy partying and running up her credit cards to bother with silly things like managing the restaurant she’d convinced herself, with absolutely no experience at all, was as good a place as any to escape her hometown and run away from the horrible thing she’d done to Caine.

Her engagement had failed because at the time, Dixie Davis didn’t know how not to turn everything into a three-ring circus.

And yes, Caine was successful, and she wasn’t.

All ugly truths.

Topping everything off, there’d been Mason—the beginning of her end.

Dixie lifted her sunglasses once more and forced a smile, letting her eyes purposely meet Em’s. “Sorry to disappoint, but there’s no emotional tizzy here. Seeing Caine is part of the process of saying goodbye to our mutual best friend. That’s all. He has as much right as I do. He was Landon’s best friend, too.”