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Em twittered in girlish delight, bright stains of red slashing her cheeks. “Oh, that man,” she gushed, holding firm to Dixie so she wouldn’t divert off their course to bacon-wrapped sliders. “He’s so delicious. I can’t believe he didn’t take that gift and use it to make big money in Hollywood or somethin’.”
Dixie flapped a hand at her to interrupt. “I know. He’s so dreamy when he does his Sean Connery impression.” And Frank Sinatra, and Jack Nicholson, and Brando, and even Mae West. Caine’s ability to impersonate not only movie stars but almost any stranger’s voice was something they’d once laughed over.
Dizziness swept over Dixie like a soggy blanket, clinging to her skin. But Em kept her moving to the end of the aisle and out the door. “Yes. That. All that dreamy handsome, well, it’s dang hard to hate.” Em’s face was sheepish when they finally stepped outside into the hot August day.
The darkening sky hung as heavy as her heart. Spanish moss dripped from the oak tree above them, drifting to the ground.
Em crumpled some with her conservative black pumps. “Sorry. He’s just such an honorable man. He makes despisin’ him akin to killing cute puppies. Forgive me?”
Dixie gave her a small smile of encouragement, moving toward the parking lot on still-shaky knees. “I’ll forgive you, but only if you call him a mean name in feminine-solidarity. It’s the only way to atone.”
Em pressed her key fob, popping open the locks on her Jeep. She looked over the top of the shiny red car at Dixie who stood on the passenger side and put her hands on either side of her mouth to whisper, “He’s the shittiest-shit that ever lived. Shittier than Attila the Hun and Charlie Manson on a team cannibalistic virgin-killin’ spree.” She curtsied, spreading her black dress out behind her. “Forgiven?”
Dixie smiled and let loose a snort, adjusting the belt of her jacket to let it fall open in order to cool off, if that was possible in the last days of a Georgia August. “Done deal.”
Em winked at her. “Good, right?”
With a deep breath, Dixie let go of the restrictive tension in her chest. “You’re a good human being, Em. Right down to the cannibals and virgins.” Dixie paused, letting their light banter feed her soul.
It was okay to laugh. Landon would have wanted her to laugh. She tapped the roof of the car with a determined flat palm. “All right, c’mon. Let’s get to this shindig before I have to go to the reading of Landon’s will. I really hope you weren’t kidding earlier about the bacon.”
Dixie slipped into the car, taking one last glance of the funeral home in the side-view mirror where her last true friend in the world was housed. Her mentor, her shoulder to cry on, her life raft when everything had gone so sideways.
And then Caine stepped off the curb and into view—his tall, hard frame in the forefront of gloomy clouds pushing their way across the blazing hot sun.
Whether she’d admit it or not, Dixie watched Caine get smaller and smaller in the distance against the purple-blue sky until he was gone completely from her grainy-eyed vision.
Déjà vu.
Two
“Phone sex. You mean like—” Dixie dropped her voice an octave “—‘Hello, this is Mistress Leather’ phone-sex?”
“Correct, Ms. Davis. Phone sex. The act of engaging in verbal fornication.”
Dixie took a moment to process the entirety of the phrases “phone sex” and “verbal fornication” and what that entailed, but it was proving difficult. After so many sliders, she thought maybe not just her arteries were clogged, but her brain cells, too.
Yet, she tried to let the words of Landon’s attorney sink in as casually as if he’d told her she was now the proud owner of one of Landon’s classic cars.
So Landon Wells, the man Dixie was sure she knew everything about, right down to his preferred brand of underwear, owned, among various other assorted businesses, a phone-sex company he’d won on a bet in a high-stakes poker game in Uzbekistan back in 2002.
Dixie tore her eyes from Landon’s lawyer, Hank Cotton, Sr., and cocked her head in Em’s direction, her eyes full of accusation while purposely avoiding the invasive gaze of Caine Donovan.
He’d remained brooding and silent while Hank read the will, but Dixie knew Caine like she knew herself. He was just waiting for the right moment to pounce on her with his cutting words.
Dixie chose to ignore Caine, turning to Em who’d known the whole time what Landon was up to. This was what her code-speak had been about back at the funeral home, and she’d held her tongue.
Em, from her seat beside Landon’s lawyer where she flipped papers for him to read, folded her hands primly in her lap and made a face at Dixie. “Oh, stop lookin’ at me like I’m Freddy Krueger. Might I mention, I am a legal secretary for heaven’s sake, Dixie. I couldn’t tell you. So I’m callin’ the cloak of—”
“Client confidentiality,” Dixie finished for her, lacing her words with bold strokes of sarcasm. “I know you’re the last person I deserve common decency from, but at the very least, I expected more originality, Emmaline Amos. Something like, all memory of Landon’s recently revised will was snatched from you by aliens, and no way in the world would you have kept this kind of shocking news from me as yet another form of payback had those despicable aliens not sucked your brains out through your nose with a pixie stick.”
Em shook her head, her silky dark hair semiflattened by the sun hat she’d discarded. Her ruby-red lips curved into a wince of an apologetic smile. “Mmm-hmm. You know, I almost went with that story, but then there were all the complications that come with the pixie sticks, and I just couldn’t get it to...gel.” She threaded her slim fingers together to articulate her effort to gel, then let them fall back to her lap.
Caine sat in the corner, still silently sexy, his gaze burning a hole in the side of Dixie’s head. As if this was all her fault. If the world came to a screeching halt, just before it did, the last words she’d hear before it all ended would be Caine declaring it was all Dixie Davis’s fault.
Gritting her teeth, Dixie clenched her hands together in her lap to cover the bloat from the Alaskan king crab and sliders they’d consumed and lifted her chin. “I call traitor. You were traitorous in your intent. It isn’t like I don’t deserve as much, but this?” Phone sex wasn’t something you kept from someone—not even Satan.
Em pouted, her heart-shaped face scrunching comically. “That’s mean, Dixie, especially coming from you. And just when I thought you’d taken a turn, too. See why I was so hesitant to believe? I was just doin’ my job. I do have children to feed. And a very large dog.”
“Did you just say Dixie’s taken a turn, Em? A turn for what?” Caine finally inquired with that delicious drawl, his growly voice warranting an unbidden stab of heat in places along her body Dixie had to mentally beg to pipe down. His square jaw shifted, going hard as his lips turned upward into a smug smile. “Satanic worship?”
If there was one person who could make her reconsider sidekicking it with Satan, it was Caine Donovan, making her heart race like a Kentucky Derby horse all while she hated him for still being capable of wreaking havoc on her emotions after ten years apart.
Instead of reacting to him, Dixie turned the other cheek, narrowing her eyes at Em. While it was true Em should have no loyalty to her, she couldn’t help being upset. “Is it your job to taunt me, too? Because that’s exactly what you did back there at the funeral home. You hinted. You bandied, and you took pleasure in it to boot.”
Em slapped her hands on her lap, sending up a cloud of black material from her dress. “Bandied? That’s a fancy Chicago word there, Miss Dixie, and I did not taunt. I was just tryin’ to prepare you in a very roundabout, non-confidentiality-breaking way for—for this...And of course I was dying to tell not just you, but everyone in Plum Orchard. It’s the most scandalous news ever. I can’t wait to see what the senior Mags have to say about this. But in the end, I couldn’t betray our client.”
Hank’s nod from behind his glossy desk was of staunch approval. “That’s true, Ms. Davis. We take our clients’ confidentiality very seriously.”
Em’s head bounced again. “We definitely do. That also means I couldn’t tell you lots of things until the reading of the will. As a for-instance, a small village in some east African town I can’t pronounce will now reap the benefits of books, teachers, and medical care because of Landon.”
“Africa isn’t phone sex, Em,” Dixie reminded.
“Then guess what? Landon owned one of the most successful phone-sex companies in the world, and he left it all to you and Mr. Smexy. You know, with conditions. Surprise!” She smiled and winked at Caine aka Mr. Smexy, who was back to sitting stoically in his corner chair.
He’d surprised Dixie when he’d shown up—surprised her and made her blood pressure pulse in her ears. Em had explained Landon’s request Caine be present for the reading of the will, too. Something she’d also failed to mention while she was bandying and taunting.
Dixie shifted in her chair, still absorbing what she’d just heard. Forcing her lips to form a question, her eyes sought Hank Cotton’s again. “So just to be clear, when you say Landon had a phone-sex company, you don’t really mean, ‘Oh, Daddy, do it to me one more time’ kind of phone sex, do you, Mr. Cotton?” Did he?
No. That couldn’t be what he meant. Yet what other kind of phone sex was there but the kind with ball-gags and chains and furry costumes? The palms of her hands grew clammy.
“Say that again, Dixie—just like that.” Caine antagonized, drawing out his words. “All that honey pouring from your throat, husky and full of rasp is hot. It’s a voice made for sinning. The only thing missing is your accent. Where did that go, Miss Chicago?”
The words he spoke were designed to hurt. Dixie knew he was taking pleasure in seeing the red stain of embarrassment flush her cheeks.
Deeper and deeper Caine shoved the knife of their memories into her chest.
Landon’s lawyer, someone who hadn’t been a resident in Plum Orchard when she’d left, sharply dressed in a dark suit and red tie, winced then straightened in his chair as though he realized control was needed.
He cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence in his overly warm office. “I’d like to get back to the business at hand. So yes, in fact, I do mean that, Miss Davis. And it’s very successful, lucrative phone sex, I might add. After Landon won the company, he turned a sagging Call Girls into a multimillion-dollar corporation.”
A thought dawned on her just then, making Dixie relax into her hard seat. She nodded her head in sudden understanding. A nervous snort slipped from her throat. “This was Landon’s idea of a joke, right? He told me before he died—” she puffed out her chest in Landon fashion “‘—Dixie-Cup, don’t you weep and wail long now, ya hear?’ If you knew Landon, you’d know he’d go to any extreme to cheer me up.”
Even from the afterlife. Where she totally planned to, when time and hiring a psychic to locate him allowed, hunt him down and kill him all over again for mocking her this way.
Hank shook his head with a firm sideways motion, his perfectly groomed, salt-and-pepper hair never moving.
His vehement nod meant a resounding no. Not a joke.
Hank leaned back in his plush leather chair and folded his slender fingers. “This is no joke, Ms. Davis. Landon Wells was very specific and quite detailed in his last wishes. He was the sole owner of Call Girls, and he hoped to pass that on to either you or Mr. Donovan in order to keep it in the family, so to speak. Clearly, his mother, Charlotte, wasn’t an option. That left the two of you, his closest friends. And I warn you there’s more to this. The will states that if you and Mr. Donovan wish to benefit from the entirety of the proceeds of his very unusual venture, both of you will have to earn it.”
Dixie looked away from Hank for a moment, focusing on an abstract painting on the far wall, full of slashes of color and streaked with gold edges. The tumble of emotions displayed in oil reflected her muddled thoughts. “Earn it? We have to earn a phone-sex company? Meaning?”
“Meaning you’ll both have to work the phones at Call Girls as operators. In essence, you’ll be Call Girls employees for a two-month period with a general manager to train you, and watch your progress. As another stipulation, if you should decide to take on this challenge, you must both reside in Landon’s house while you do—together or the offer becomes null. Landon had phone lines set up for you both at the guesthouse next to the other women he’s employed. They’re to help both you and Mr. Donovan learn the ropes of the industry, so to speak.”
Em’s finger shot upward. Clearly, there was something in this madness Em hadn’t been privy to. “Do you mean to tell me Landon’s plan is to keep the business and those women in his guesthouse here in Plum Orchard for good?” She grabbed a stray file folder and began to furiously fan herself with it. “What will Reverend Watson say? Oh, the ladies of the Magnolias of the Orchard Society will not like this. Not one bit.”
Dixie actually had to fight a giggle at the thought of the Mags, especially Nanette Pruitt’s face, the busiest busybody of them all, when she heard the news that Landon Wells planned to harbor harlots in what everyone in town, as far back as she could remember, lovingly called the “Big House.”
“I’m the only person who knew the complexities of Landon’s will, and the people asked to help him execute it. No one in Plum Orchard knows the extent of it yet. Leastways, I haven’t heard anything through the grapevine,” Hank soothed. “But yes, that was his intent. After finding out he was terminally ill, Landon had his general manager, Catherine Butler, begin the move—they only left their old offices a couple of days ago. Landon wanted the ladies of Call Girls moved from a lush apartment in Atlanta into his guesthouse, where he had Catherine set up operations in order to keep what he called ‘his girls’ closer to home. As Emmaline may have told you, Catherine’s now happily engaged to Emmaline’s cousin, Flynn McGrady.”
Em’s eyes widened, her hand immediately drifting to her cheek. “Cat knew Landon planned to keep Call Girls here?” She turned her gaze to Dixie. “Why, the two of them were just over for Sunday dinner at Mama’s and not a peep about it!”
“Catherine was bound by legalities to remain silent until the will was read,” Hank reminded Em. “I hope you won’t hold it against her.”
Dixie nodded her understanding and gave a tired sigh. “I don’t know about Em, but I don’t blame her. How do you say, ‘I manage a phone-sex company, pass the fried chicken, please?’ Especially with your mama in the mix, Em.”
Em’s mother, Clora Mitchell, was a lot like her own mother. Controlling, and angry about something that had no label. Dixie handled her situation by running away from it, and Em handled it by taking exhaustive good-girl measures. In her later years, Clora had loosened her stranglehold on Em a bit, but she was still as proper as they came. Clora’d faint dead with the knowledge she was related, even loosely, to someone working for a phone-sex company.
Hank cleared his throat. “We were talking about the guesthouse. That’s where Dixie and Caine, if they choose to accept this challenge, will work during the course of their training. All of the appropriate permits are in place, and there’s a formal letter to Reverend Watson and Mayor Hale available should there be any doubt this is all done within the confines of not just county regulations but state, too.”
Caine, who’d gone back to quietly brooding, cleared his throat and steepled his tanned hands under his chin. Dixie knew that look. It was the one where all the processing of pertinent information was done, and he was ready to play.
In three, two, one...
* * *
Caine fought to keep his voice even while trying to ignore Dixie and her gravitational pull. He was still damn angry with her. As angry as he had been the day they’d broken up, and that made him angrier. After all this time, Dixie still had the power to make him feel something he didn’t want to feel.
“So let me get this straight. Landon left everything to Ms. Davis and I, but only if we actually work at Call Girls and live in his mansion together?”
Em coughed to disguise her laugh before pressing her fist to her lips to suppress another outburst.
Hank locked eyes with Caine, steady and sharp. “Yes. That’s correct, Mr. Donovan. You each have two months to create your personas as phone-sex operators, and your, um...specialty, so to speak. Whoever garners the most calls at the end of the two-month time period wins the company. Full ownership. I have a list of what exactly specialty means in the phone-sex industry, and some other details to be hashed out, but that’s the laymen’s gist of it. You’ll have full access to the house and staff, but I warn you, Landon left strict instructions that a court-appointed mediator will monitor your actions, so in his words, there’ll be no funny business. Your reputations for one-upmanship precede you both.”
Son of a bitch. Landon had covered every base, hadn’t he? Especially the base that kept him and Dixie from finding a way that led to the other’s demise.
If there was a way to manipulate herself as the frontrunner in anything, from a sack race to a hot-dog-eating contest, Dixie would do it, and like the ass he was, he’d take the bait.
You knew us well, friend.
But why had he done this? In this particular way? Putting them together in the big house? The house where there were a million memories of them as a couple. Why had he put them together for an extended period of time anywhere? Landon had known how dark those days after he and Dixie broke up had been for him. This contest was like rubbing salt in a bloody gash. Putting the two of them together after their shitty history was diabolical and possibly even homicidal.
No way he’d survive being around Dixie for an extended period of time. He wasn’t proud of admitting that, but it was the damn truth.
But wait. Caine finally smiled. The bastard was messing with them even from the grave. Damn, he loved Landon and his balls-to-the-wall sense of humor—even in death, he was busting their chops.
Dixie might have fallen for this act Em and Hank were putting on, but he wasn’t. He barked an openmouthed laugh at the thought. “Hah! You son of a bitch, Landon,” he said into the room. “Best prank ever, pal. This one even gives Dixie a run for her money. And great job, Hank. Really. You should consider Hollywood. So let’s get to why we’re really here. Did he just want someone to witness his last prank? Wait, did he have you videotape this?” Caine craned his neck to scan the room for a camera. “This will end up on YouTube, won’t it?” He laughed again.
And then he pulled up short.
Hank gazed intently at Caine.
Shit. He wasn’t blinking. They were screwed.
“Mr. Wells said you might say something like this. I’m not sure you really understand me, Mr. Donovan. I repeat, this is no prank. If you wish to review Landon’s will with the attorney of your choosing, I’m happy to oblige.”
In his mind, he’d been busy sending Dixie back to Chicago where she belonged. Shipping Dixie and all the memories that came with her far away. Taking with her the dark circles under her eyes and the worry in her voice. Leaving. So he could do what he’d intended to do when he came back for the funeral. Stay a while. Catch his breath. Reevaluate where his life in Miami was going, or rather, wasn’t going.
There was something missing from it these days. Something big. Something important. He wanted to know what that something was.
But now, he was back in the room with them all, hearing words like Landon figured he’d think this was all some joke. Which meant it was no joke.
Damn, Landon.
Dixie leaned forward, her beautiful face masked in more apprehension, and it made his chest tight, despite his wish that he could ignore it. She was thinner, almost fragile, maybe. Something she’d never been, but it wasn’t just physically. It was in her posture, once straight and confidently arrogant, now a little slumped.
Shit.
Don’t get sucked in, buddy. Don’t you damn well do it. You know what it’s like when she wants something. She could out-act Meryl Streep on an Academy Award–winning day if it meant she’d get what she wanted. Or have you forgotten all those tears she cried when you broke off your engagement? They looked damn real, pal. She’s good. Too good.
Caine shifted in his chair and forced himself to ignore any and all signs Dixie was suffering any more than he was over Landon’s death—or suffering over anything at all.
But there it was again, her voice a little small, a little hoarse when she asked, “What if I don’t have an attorney because they cost money, ridiculous money, no disrespect to you—” She gave Hank an apologetic wave of her hand “—and there’s no possible way I can afford to have someone review this? What if, as utterly shocking as I’m sure this will be for some, I don’t want to work at Call Girls?”
Dixie didn’t have any money? Bullshit. He’d heard about her closing her restaurant, but she came from one of the richest families in the South. She’d just ask her mother for more. Wasn’t that what all women like Dixie did? There was a game here. Caine just didn’t know what it was.
Hank’s expression didn’t budge when he gazed at Dixie. “If you don’t want to participate, then you forfeit your ownership to Mr. Donovan, and he owns Call Girls and the profits from such in its entirety.”
Aha.
Those words, so calm, so beautifully articulated tripped all the triggers Caine suspected Landon had counted on. He and Dixie in a hand-to-hand combat situation where, if it killed one of them, they’d do almost anything to win.
As it once was, it always would be.
Now he got it.
Dixie slipped to the edge of her chair, drawing Caine’s eyes to her legs. He snapped them shut and instead listened to her ask, “So he gets everything if I decide to bail because I’m not game to pretend I’m Mistress Leather?”
“Mercy,” Em muttered, letting her head drop to her chest, kicking up the momentum of her makeshift fan a notch.
Hank rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “That’s correct. And Landon suggested you use the title Lady. I believe—” he shuffled through more papers on his desk, tapping one before putting his glasses on “—yes. There it is in my notes. Landon thought Lady Lana would suit you, Ms. Davis. My notes here say he thought it was the perfect name for someone with ‘a voice meant for sinning’.” Hank slid his thin index finger into the collar of his Brooks Brothers shirt, loosening it to clear his throat.
Caine smirked, looking directly at Dixie. Lady Lana. Nice, Landon.
Yet, his victory was short-lived. First, when he remembered, even after their ugly breakup, Landon had kept their friendships on equal footing for the near decade they’d refused to speak to one another. Second, when he saw Dixie’s pretty eyes finally spark, he knew he was in for it, too.
In the name of fair, Landon wouldn’t play favorites.
