Chapter 1.3

“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”

Pops made a strangling sound and tried to look as innocent as an angel.

It wasn’t working.

Dixie glared first at Pops, then at the boys. “And that means…?” She propped her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes at Ben.

“Oh, uh…” Ben hung his head, shuffled his feet and peeked up at his mother with a small grin. “Uh, gee, nothing, Mom.”

“You’re darn right, nothing.” She nodded sharply. “Unless you’re worried that you, as a mere boy, might not be able to do as good a job as a girl could.”

“Aw, Mom.”

“Aw, Mom,” she mimicked back at him with a smile.

Wade watched the byplay, and, as trite as it sounded even to him, he felt his heart melt. And why not, he thought. It was their father’s heart.

“What kind of homework do you have?” their mother asked them.

The youngest one, Tate, made a face, complete with gagging noises for sound effects. “Ugh. Yucky math.”

“Poor baby.” She smoothed a hand over his head and smiled.

“Huh. You think that’s bad,” Ben said, “I’ve gotta write a paragraph. A whole, stinkin’ paragraph.”

Dixie chuckled. “About what?”

“A subject of my choosing.” He said it as though pronouncing his own death sentence.

It was all Wade could do to keep from laughing out loud. He really needed to spend more time with his nieces and nephews. He’d forgotten how much fun kids could be.

Easy for him to say, he silently admitted, since the kids in question weren’t his responsibility. Whenever he needed a break he could simply send them off to their parents.

“Come on, boys,” Dixie told her sons. “Take the back booth and get started on this dreaded homework. I’ll bring you a snack to tide you over till dinner.”

The boys started out of the kitchen, dragging their backpacks behind them.

“Pick ’em up, boys,” she warned.

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison. And they shouldered their bags. Wade chuckled. “You have great kids.”

Dixie smiled with pleasure. “Thank you. I agree.”

Pop laughed. “Yeah, and they think they’re pretty great, too, if you ask them.”

Dixie rolled her eyes. “We have a little work to do in the humility department. They sometimes take too much after their father.”

“Is that bad?” Wade asked, glad that his voice sounded only slightly curious. As though he was simply making conversation. Not as though his breath hung on her response.

She chuckled. “Sometimes it is.”

Wade bit his tongue to keep from asking her to explain.

Dixie took a couple of apples and glasses of milk to her sons and checked on the progress of their homework. “Here you go. How’s it coming?”

Both boys groaned and rolled their eyes. “I don’t get nines,” Tate complained.

“What’s not to get?” Ben said. “It’s one less than ten.” “Oh. Huh?”

“What I don’t get is what I’m supposed to write about,” Ben griped. He’d written his name at the top of his notebook page, but nothing else.

Dixie set down their apples and milk. “Stop and eat. Maybe something will come to you. What about Little League?” she suggested.

“What about it? The game’s not till Thursday.” “You could write about why you like to play.”

“Hey, cool! Thanks, Mom. Why I Like Baseball, by Benjamin McCormick. I like it.”

“Me, too,” she agreed.

“Mom.” Tate pushed his math away and picked up his apple. “Yes?”

He rubbed his apple against his shirt and inspected the shine. “I like Wade.”

“You do, huh?”

He took a giant, juicy bite of apple and nodded yes. “Think I should hire him?”

“I thought you already did,” Ben said.

“Just trying him out for now,” she told them. “See how he does.”

“Gol’, Mom, it’s only dishwashing,” Ben told her. “What’s the big deal?

Who can’t wash dishes?”

“Me,” Tate piped up. “I’m allergic.”

Ben’s “You wish,” was accompanied by a snort, and the swing of his foot under the table, directly into Tate’s leg.

Tate’s response was to grin and kick back. Dixie didn’t need to look beneath the table to know the latter. She knew her boys. That was enough. That and their body language, the slight lean to one side, the little bounce when the foot connected with the opponent’s shin. So predictable, her boys were. Usually, anyway.

“When you’re finished eating, take your dishes to the kitchen,” she told them. They knew the routine, but it never hurt to remind them.

“Yes, ma’am,” they said together, both with their mouths full.

Dixie rolled her eyes and turned away. Behind the counter she picked up a full pitcher of iced tea and made another round of the room offering refills.

She would offer Wade the job. There was no reason to dilly-dally around about it.

Dixie was used to making decisions of all shapes and sizes. There was no sense in fretting over things. She weighed the pros and cons of a matter, then made her choice and lived with the consequences. Those consequences weren’t always what she might wish, but they were hers, and she would make do.

At four, Earline, her evening manager, came in. Within five minutes the rest of the night crew—MaryLou, Frank and Lyle—showed up.

Dixie went to the kitchen and introduced Wade to everyone as Lyle was taking over Wade’s spot at the sink for the day.

“You’re the new guy, huh?” Lyle asked. Wade looked to Dixie with a raised brow.

“Yes,” she said. “Not that I think you need it, but if you want the job, it’s yours.”

Wade’s smile came slow and full. “Thanks. Yes. I want the job.”

The relief she felt was because the job was now filled. Not, surely not, because this particular man filled it.

And that was the last thought she was going to give the man and the subject until tomorrow. So there.

“Fine,” she said to her new dishwasher. She stepped out of the kitchen and retrieved a form from the shelf beneath the cash register. “Fill this out and bring it back tomorrow. Be here at six in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His polite smile had just enough of a touch of the shark in it that, if she let it, might make her nervous.

But men, as a rule, did not make Dixie McCormick nervous. She’d been in love, been married, then divorced. In the bargain, she’d been blessed with the two true loves of her life—Ben and Tater. And heaven help her, two males were enough for any sane woman. Certainly her ex had never made her nervous. How could he, when she’d known him all her life? Best friends didn’t make each other nervous.

At 4:30 p.m. she turned the café over to Earline, then gathered those loves of her life up and headed out, they on their bicycles, she in her car, for the five-block trip home. She put her new dishwasher and the funny feelings he generated inside her completely out of her mind. Several times.