Chapter 6
Six
Preacher arrives. Girl says, “I had it handled” (she did not).
Jack
Huck’s gotta-go-hurry-it-up howl stabs through my head, straight into my brain. My body’s sluggish, slow to respond, and I haven’t slept enough. I was out late last night and then I brought Dixie home and then—
And then.
I don’t regret what happened. Not her hands in my hair or the way she said my name. Not a damn second of it. But waking up to cold sheets? That sits wrong with me.
I drag myself up anyway, scrub my face with my hands. I should’ve known better. She’d made it clear what this was—and wasn’t. But knowing something and feeling it are two different things.
Huck stares up at me from the floor. His mournful look is a decoy. He’s chewing on something suspiciously feminine—a velvet pouch covered in tiny red cherries. My dog is a thief, which usually I accept, but right now I’m painfully aware that I’m alone in the bed.
“Huck.”
Huck chews industriously on a soggy cherry.
“We’ve discussed this.”
He flicks his ears but keeps right on chewing. He has a thing for stealing ladies’ things and purses in particular. This means he’s banned from church on Sunday. It doesn’t bother him one bit.
I reach down, running a hand over his silky head. “That’s not yours, buddy. You gotta return it.”
Huck wags his tail and devours another cherry.
“Drop it.” I tug gently on the purse, but Huck just huffs a sigh around the red string hanging from his mouth. “You know what that does to your digestive system. This is why we don’t get invited to nice places.”
Huck lets go just enough to bay, then lopes out the bedroom door with his loot.
“Huck! You little outlaw! Bring that back!” When I jump up to chase him, I step on wet rug. How can so much drool come out of one dog?
Huck careens joyfully down the hallway as I give chase. I’m about to admit defeat and make him breakfast when my phone vibrates with a call from Deacon.
“You gotta get over here.” His voice is a low rumble, like he’s trying not to wake someone—or trying to keep this conversation a secret.
The only reasons for Deacon to call me this early on a Saturday morning involve death. Doom. Car accidents.
“Who’s hurt?” I shove my legs into my jeans, juggling the phone as I search for a clean shirt.
“No one—yet,” Deacon drawls. “You, maybe, if you don’t get your ass over here in the next sixty seconds.”
“On my way.” I get the shirt on and debate whether I have time for more than mouthwash.
“Dixie’s here. Think she slept in her van last night. Way to go, man.”
Mouthwash it is. I hate to think she slipped out because she didn’t want to stay with me, but she’s there and not here. Last night we’d had the whole town watching us, and maybe that was too much. But for a few hours, I’d thought things could be different.
Yeah. No rethinking my life choices before coffee.
I’m not in love with Dixie Pearl, cute and beautiful as she is. There hasn’t been enough time, so my feelings are more of the pheromone kind. And it can’t possibly matter anyhow because she’s made her choice clear.
I’m a limited-time opportunity!
“Had some bad news for her,” Deacon is saying as I step outside, Huck on his leash at my side.
That protective streak of his is showing.
“That van of hers needs a ton of parts, none of which I’ve got and two of which have to be drop-shipped from Mexico.
It’ll take weeks to get her running again, and she’s bitching about the cost. Which—fair.
It’ll be astronomical, even comping her the labor. ”
Dixie strikes me as someone who suspects everyone. Maybe it’s the angry crinkle in her forehead. The twist to her lit-up smile that I wish wasn’t so cynical. She’s been a hundred places I’ll never go, and I’ll bet she’s seen a lot on the roads she’s traveled.
“Would you believe an unknown mechanic when he claims your ride is on life support and needs foreign imports to survive?”
“I wouldn’t trust me for shit,” he says with a dry chuckle. “Hell, I look like I could part out her van and sell the pieces.”
I cut him off. “I’ll cover it. I’ll be there in two.”
I turn the corner and there Sweetgum Auto is, in all its greasy, gritty glory. The scent of motor oil, old rubber, and Slate’s terrible coffee hits me first.
Slate himself rolls out from beneath a car like some kind of automotive cave troll—buzzed head, grease on his face and his coveralls, and a scowl that could strip paint.
Where Deacon’s got that full, thick beard and wicked grin that makes him look approachable, Slate’s face is all sharp angles. He fixes me with a look and grunts.
Deacon has Dixie’s battered van up on the lift. He’s examining it with the sort of look brain surgeons reserve for baseball-sized tumors. From what I can see, the undercarriage is a mess—grease-streaked, rusted out, and dripping something that sure shouldn’t be dripping.
Dixie stands just outside the work bay, shifting her weight impatiently from foot to foot.
She looks like she just rolled out of bed.
Sweatpants, fuzzy boots, and an oversize T-shirt with colorful flowers.
Wisps of hair escape from her bun. She’s laser-focused, though, on what Deacon and Slate are saying.
“She’s seen better days.” Deacon points his flashlight at a leak.
“She’s doing fine!” Dixie waves both hands—which makes me remember where she put them last night.
Deacon shakes his head firmly. “Darlin’, she’s seen the grave and come back out of it.”
“She is not a zombie,” Dixie protests. “She’s got character. And why is she a girl van? Is it because you boys are all up in her innards?”
Deacon valiantly ignores that question. “She’s held together with prayers and zip ties.”
“Slander! Lies!” Dixie mock-gasps. “I use duct tape, too.”
“Christ.” Slate slaps the rag in a bucket and strides off to the storeroom.
Deacon smirks after his brother. “We’ll patch her up. But it’s gonna take time. A month minimum. Honestly, you’ll be lucky if you see the inside of the van again in two months. She needs a ton of parts that I don’t keep here.”
“Weeks? Seriously?” Dixie groans dramatically as Deacon lowers the van back down. “Y’all are mechanics, surely you can patch her together.”
“Your van’s a corpse,” Slate growls from the storeroom. “And there’s only one person in Wickham Hollow in the business of miraculous resurrections.”
I discreetly give him the bird. That’s my cue, though, so I rap my knuckles on the side of the bay door. Dixie whirls around and sings a bar of something that sounds suspiciously like DUM-DUM-DUMMMMM.
“Hey, Preacher Man.” She waves a hand. A little too casually to fool me, though. I have to work to not smile. “I’m so sorry I rushed out, but car stuff. Thanks for a great night.”
Her eyes flick over me, fast and assessing, then dart away. Like she’d rather be looking anywhere else—at the van on the lift, at Deacon, at the busted socket wrench on the workbench—anywhere but me.
“I believe this is yours.” I hand over the remnants of her purse.
Nice, she mouths at Huck. She shoves it under her arm, ignoring both its soggy state and me.
“Morning, Jack.” Deacon puts a whole lot of emphasis on morning.
The devilment dancing in his eyes says he’ll give me shit for days for how last night ended.
I don’t answer, mostly because I’m too busy looking at Dixie. Her hair is messed up, her arms crossed tight over her chest. She’s scrappy. A little too adorable to pull off the scary-business look she’s wearing.
“Tell me the truth. Is she really on life support?” Dixie flashes an enormous grin at Deacon.
“She’s a mess.”
“The van?” She scratches the side of her head with her middle finger.
“Both of you.” He smirks back at her.
From what I can see through the open van door, I understand her issue with Deacon’s timeline.
The van is crammed with more than just the music gear I saw last night.
Pillows and blankets are heaped up on a futon thing.
There are piles of dog-eared sheet music and notebooks.
Cute plaid curtains cover the windows. She’s strung twinkle lights where the walls meet the ceiling. It’s clearly the home where she lives.
“Houston, we have a problem.” She throws her arms out, indicating the van, Sweetgum Auto, and me.
“So,” Deacon says. “Do you want to leave the van here and come back for it?”
“I’m the broke type of musician.” She twirls theatrically.
“Also, I’m itinerant. That’s my house.” She rummages around in the van.
I avert my gaze when she starts shoving lingerie into a tote bag.
“My palace. My tiny, four-wheeled kingdom. To sum up—I live here. There. Everywhere. Van life is really popular on Instagram.”
Last I checked, Instagram doesn’t need running water or heat. “All year round?”
She plops down in the open doorway. “Don’t be so shocked, Preacher Man.”
“Nope.”
“It’s fun.” She waves a bra. “Unconventional, sure, but you have no idea how gross motels are when you’re on a budget. My van is clean and it’s safe.” She thinks that over for longer than I like. “Mostly.”
The idea of her sleeping in that van anywhere, like a random parking lot or God knows where, makes my chest feel tight.
“Stay with me,” I blurt out. “Sleeping in the van isn’t safe.”
“Oh, and staying with you would be safer?” She stuffs more clothes into the tote. “Is Wickham Hollow a hotbed of desperate criminals now and I need protection from their felonious acts?”
“Yes, to the staying with me, no on the criminal population.”
“You realize you’re being illogical?”
“And you realize that you’re out of choices?”
Deacon takes this as his cue to disappear into the back, but not before shooting me a look that says both you’re welcome and don’t screw this up.
“I have plenty of choices.” She makes a face. “And I don’t need saving.”
“Didn’t say you did.”
A glare.
“Then why are you acting like a white knight, riding in with a grand offer to take in the poor, helpless musician who’s stuck in your town?”
I rub a hand along my jaw. One night, I can explain away as basic hospitality. Any longer and the gossip mill will start grinding. But I can’t let her freeze in that van. “I’ve got a guest room, Dixie. It’s not an offer—it’s common sense. Take the room.”
“No.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
We’re not getting anywhere.
“Fine. You want to be stubborn? Here’s the deal—I’ll move out.
I’ll crash on Deacon’s couch.” I know he won’t mind because he sticks his head out of his office door and flashes me a thumbs-up.
His grin is pure mischief—he’s enjoying this matchmaking opportunity way too much.
“You won’t be ‘taking anything’ from me, if that’s what’s bothering you.
The rectory is yours for as long as you need it. ”
Something flickers across her face—something I can’t name. “Why would you do that?”
I hold her gaze. “Because it’s the right thing to do, Dixie.”
She doesn’t like my plan. I can see that in the way she shifts, how she bites the inside of her cheek like she’s trying to stop herself from snapping.
“You’d actually move out of your own place?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep you from sleeping in a broken van, yeah.”
Dixie mutters something under her breath—it’s blasphemous—then exhales. Frustrated. “I don’t want your house.”
I wait.
After another pause, she groans, rubbing her hands over her face. “I can’t just move in with you. That’s insane.”
“Is it?”
Her eyes narrow. “Yes! We don’t know each other. And there’s the whole preacher thing, which—” She waves a hand. “The internet and my sketchy recollection of organized religion informs me that preachers aren’t supposed to hook up.”
She’s connecting the dots—a preacher caught in a scandal could lose his job, his income, his ability to raise the money the church desperately needs.
She’s right. This is insane. I should walk away or drive her to that sketchy motel an hour away.
Drive her to Timbuktu if she needs it. That’s what a sensible man would do.
But standing here looking at her, sensible feels overrated.
“It does tend to raise eyebrows when they do.”
“And you’ve got your church roof to fix.”
“I do.”
“Right.” Dixie stares at me for a long moment. “I need to think about this.”
I nod. “That’s fair.”
“If—and I mean if—I were to consider this ridiculous offer, there would be conditions. And caveats. Lots and lots of legal fine print.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
She’s wavering. I can see it in the way she’s looking anywhere but at me, the way her fingers are fidgeting with her rings.
“I’ll… I’ll let you know,” she says finally.
“Take your time.” I pull out the keys I never use, take off the one to the rectory, and hold it out. “In case you decide yes.”
She stares at the key like it might bite, then snatches it and shoves it in her bag. “This doesn’t mean anything. I’m just keeping my options open.”