Down Home Dixie. Pamela Browning

      They hung up, and Dixie slid out of the car.

      At her approach, the Yankee lifted his head as though he’d been run over by a tractor. The only thing he lacked was tread marks.

      “Come on,” Dixie said brusquely. “I’m taking you home with me.”

      “Don’t wanna be any trouble,” he said. “I’m a little wobbly at the moment, that’s all.”

      “You can sleep in my cottage,” she said, not adding that it had once been a child’s playhouse. She’d stored plant containers there with the intention of using the building for a potting shed, but right now it could provide shelter.

      “Is it all right to leave my truck here?”

      “Doc Johnson probably won’t mind.”

      “My name’s Kyle Sherman,” the soldier said after he folded himself into the passenger side of the Mustang. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

      “No problem,” she assured him, though she had her misgivings. It was ingrained in her to be hospitable to strangers. She couldn’t imagine walking away and leaving him sitting outside the dentist’s office when he had no place to stay.

      “You haven’t told me your name,” he reminded her.

      “Dixie Lee Smith,” she said without elaborating. She could have told him that she’d lived in Yewville all her life, that her house was only ten minutes outside of town, that she’d bought it as a fixer-upper and moved in less than a week ago. She aimed a covert glance at the Yankee. His jaw was solid, and if Memaw’s theories held true, this bespoke a strong character. He had square teeth that put her in mind of an advertisement for Chiclets, and his ears, though partly hidden beneath the cap, were rather large. He was cleanly shaven, which was all to the good, since she’d never been partial to facial hair. She believed that sometimes men who grew a mustache or a beard had something to hide, like a short upper lip or a weak chin. That was not the case with Kyle Sherman.

      An odd thought occurred to her, but she brushed it away. Sherman was not a respected name around here, considering that General William Tecumseh Sherman’s men had swept through South Carolina in 1864, burning the state capital only seventy miles away and pillaging Yewville and other small towns after their famous march to the sea.

      She hoped this reenactor was not related to that Sherman. Lordy, if he was, and if the ladies of the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy ever found out she was assisting him, she could forget about joining the chapter, even though her grandmother was one of its most respected members.

      “Uh-oh, I’m going to be sick,” Kyle said. His face had gone a peculiar shade of green.

      She pulled over, lurching onto the shoulder of the road just in time for him to wrench open the door and upchuck into a tangle of briars.

      He leaned back into the car. “Sorry,” he said.

      Wordlessly she handed him a bottle of water from the cache she kept on the back seat. He drank, wiped his face with a handkerchief and inhaled a deep breath.

      “I swear, I’ve never felt so awful,” he said. “Is it far to your place?”

      Embarrassed for him, she shook her head. “Just a few more minutes.”

      As he slumped back into his corner, Dixie eased the Mustang back onto the road and mashed hard on the accelerator, not caring in the least if she exceeded the speed limit.

      “Do you always drive this fast?” he asked.

      “When someone in my car is sick, yes.”

      He didn’t comment, and she reached home in record time. She braked to a stop beside the old playhouse.

      Kyle got out of the car before she asked if she could help him. “The fresh air clears my head,” he explained, inhaling deeply several times.

      “How’s your stomach?” she asked.

      “Better now.” He’d regained some color, and he sounded stronger.

      “Follow me.”

      The playhouse had been there for years, the children who had once enjoyed it long gone. The path was overgrown with encroaching azalea bushes, the rough-hewn arched door almost obscured by drooping vines. Her guest had to duck his head and shoulders to enter.

      The structure was a one-room affair with a cramped bathroom. A real kitchen ranged along one wall, though everything in it was only three-quarter size, and a narrow cot was squeezed into the space under a round window.

      “A Hobbit house?” Kyle mused as she shoved aside several flowerpots and a bag of potting soil.

      “Not quite,” she said, though the description was apt. “At least it’s a place to sleep. I’ll run over to the house and bring back sheets and pillows.”

      While she was speaking, he inspected the cot and lifted the quilt. “It already has sheets,” he declared. He sat down heavily, making the springs squeak and releasing a slightly musty odor. “I’m still pretty weak,” he offered in explanation.

      She’d figured that out for herself. “Be right back,” she told him.

      Since she’d just moved in, she wasn’t nearly settled. Still, her new house never failed to lift her spirits when she approached it. The house had been built haphazardly, one section at a time, which resulted in odd doors, unplanned niches and dormers inserted in unlikely places, but the result was pleasant. The back door opened into the kitchen. Beyond it was a hall leading to a sewing room and the front-door foyer. The adjacent living room was still piled high with boxes. Upstairs were three bedrooms. The house was too big for her. However, the previous owners had been eager to sell for much lower than their asking price and she’d never been one to pass up a bargain.

      When she returned with the towels, an ice bag for his swelling jaw and a few other things he might need, Kyle Sherman had tucked himself neatly into bed. The stained Yankee uniform was draped over one of the small chairs, and she had the suspicion that he was naked under the quilt. Certainly his chest, with boldly defined pectorals and a light dusting of dark hair, was impressive, and as far as she could tell, so was the rest of him. He took up most of the width of the cot, which kept her from thinking what it would be like to occupy it beside him.

      Where had that idea come from, anyway? She shouldn’t be musing about sharing a stranger’s bed, but perhaps such startling fantasies were to be expected now that all the eligible men were in the military or deployed with the National Guard or out of work. Ever since Yewville Mills, the town’s main industry, had up and moved to Mexico, good men were hard to find.

      And hard men were good to find, as Mae West had once said. Dixie pulled herself away from that line of reflection.

      “I brought you a few bottles of water,” she said briskly as she set them on the table. “And a Thermos of iced tea. It’s sweetened, not like you drink it up north. You can share whatever my dinner turns out to be.” Her sore gums felt like a pincushion at present and would determine what she could eat. Likely that was his problem, as well.

      “Thank you,” he said, studying her as if seeing her for the first time. “Like I said, I really appreciate this. I’ve heard about Southern hospitality, but this is way over the top.”

      “You’ll feel okay by tomorrow,” she said. “Your color is better already.”

      “I’m a lot more comfortable now that I’m lying down.”

      “That’s good,” she replied. He didn’t have a pointy head, a development that pleased her greatly.

      “It was a simple root canal,” he said in bewilderment. “I figured I was lucky to find the only dentist in the whole state who keeps office hours on Saturday and who could work me in on short notice. I called him from the battlefield and he said to come on over. So—”

      “What battlefield?”