Down Home Dixie. Pamela Browning

straggle-haired stranger staring back at him from the teeny-tiny mirror—hollow of cheek, dull of eye and seriously due for a shave. Aside from a bit of swelling along his jawline, he looked fine except for needing that shave.

      Taking heart from his appearance, he hit the shower. Though water pressure was low, the hot water was the right temperature and the soap made satisfying suds. After the makeshift shower arrangements at the battle site, it felt great. He dried himself on fluffy white towels and pulled on the blue uniform pants. He didn’t have a razor or any toiletries with him. He’d left them in his truck.

      When he emerged from the bathroom, Dixie was standing at the door. “I set your plate on the picnic table,” she said. “Would you like me to find you a T-shirt?”

      “That would be great,” he said. Always the quick comeback. Clever repartee was somehow out of his reach this morning, maybe on most mornings. He wished he had a line of patter guaranteed to get results with women, but he was a little rusty at present.

      Dixie hurried away and came back with not only a shirt but a personal-care kit like the ones they provided on long airline flights. She noticed him studying the airline’s logo and gave a little laugh.

      “I had that left over from an overnight flight to Rome to visit my sister a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t need the shaving kit,” she said.

      “Thanks,” he said, meaning it. He hesitated for a moment, then plunged ahead. “You’re not going to make me eat breakfast alone, are you?”

      She seemed disconcerted. “I’m teaching Sunday school today. I can’t be late,” she said after a few seconds’ delay.

      “Sorry, I just thought—”

      She didn’t let him finish what he was going to say. “I could sit for a few minutes, I guess.”

      “I’d like that,” he said. He smiled at her.

      While he stayed behind in the playhouse to shave, Dixie perched primly on the end of one of the picnic benches. At his approach, she smiled tentatively. He sat down across from her and lifted the domed cover on his plate. “Just like from room service,” he said with a grin.

      “Some restaurant-supply items were in the house along with a whole lot of junk I haven’t managed to throw away yet.”

      He mixed the grits with the bacon and a good-size lump of butter as he’d learned to do last week at the Reb reenactors’ camp. Breakfast really tasted good in the fresh morning air. From here he could see more of the house, a large clapboard-and-shingle structure with big windows overlooking a wide lawn. Brick-bordered flower beds, sadly unkempt, were scattered here and there, and an artesian well bubbled into a rock-lined pool nearby. The land, which was dotted with pine and oak trees, sloped gently to the fringe of reeds bordering the wide lake.

      “Can you tell me something about this area? I’m not familiar with it,” he said.

      “This is Pine Hollow Lake,” Dixie told him. “You’re in the sand hills of South Carolina. Many centuries ago, the Atlantic Ocean, which is now ninety miles to the east of us, rose right up to the ridge over there in the distance. When the nuclear plant was built here, Blue Creek was dammed to flood the hollow and that created the lake.”

      “There’s a nuclear plant?”

      She nodded and pointed out a distant white plume of smoke. “Way over there.”

      “What was in the hollow before they flooded it?”

      “There’re whole farms and houses down there under the water. It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?”

      He nodded and took another bite of grits. “What happened to the people?” he asked.

      “The electric company paid them well for their land and relocated them. I can’t say some of them were too happy about it, from what I’ve heard. Well, that’s progress.”

      He considered what it must have been like for those folks to see their homes covered with water. He shook his head.

      “Maybe progress isn’t always good,” he said.

      She shrugged. “Without it, where would I be? Developers are building on the other side of the lake now, and I’m selling expensive homes to retirees who have recently discovered the area.”

      “That’s what you do? Real estate?”

      “I’m in sales, and I’ve discovered that I’m good at it. I’ll take the exam for my broker’s license as soon as possible, and then, who knows? I could own a business someday.” She stood up and brushed a dried leaf off her dress. “Sorry, I’ve got to run. One thing about our pastor, he starts services on time.”

      “I understand,” Kyle said, smiling up at her.

      “See you later,” she said, and he watched as she walked toward the garage. She had a bounce to her step and a sway to her hips that was most fetching.

      Stop it, he told himself.

      You could get to know more about her, said a wee small voice inside him, though he wasn’t sure it would be wise to heed its counsel. On the other hand, what if it was time for a new life, new friends, a new perspective?

      He finished his breakfast as he thoughtfully gazed out over the lake where cattails swayed gently in the breeze and a lone sailboat was tacking toward the far shore. In Ohio, spring had yet to be sprung, flowers had yet to bloom, and in some places, snow had yet to melt. Back home he had an apartment, a dracaena that needed watering and a landlady who insisted on mothering him. At the moment, the most important thing seemed to be the dracaena, which ought to tell him something about himself, his life and what he planned to do with it.

      Back home was a situation that he was loath to face, but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet even to himself. And so he daydreamed of buying a sailboat of his own and sailing it across Pine Hollow Lake without a care in the world and with a charming woman by his side.

      She looked a lot like Dixie Lee Smith, but she could have been anybody. Anybody he didn’t know.

      WHEN DIXIE ARRIVED home from church, Kyle was weeding the flower beds.

      She didn’t notice him as she parked her Mustang in the detached garage, but as she walked toward the house, she stopped short at the sight of him wearing old khaki shorts that he’d found in a box labeled Church Charity Closet. The box had held other garments, none of which appeared as if they’d fit Dixie—a pair of boys’ overalls, baby things, children’s winter coats.

      She stood there, hands on her hips and head cocked to one side. “Why, Kyle Sherman!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing?”

      “Work that needs to be done.” He straightened and smiled at her, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

      “I certainly didn’t expect you to hire on as my yard man,” she said, but it was clear that she was pleased. She walked around the flower bed, studying it. “I plan to plant marigolds here, all colors,” she said.

      “That would be pretty,” he said. “I figured that in this climate, you might be ready for planting.”

      “It’ll be soon, but I’m not much of a gardener. My sister, Carrie, used to have the most beautiful plantings all around the home place. That’s where she lived before she got married. She and her husband claim they’re going to take up residence there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.”

      “That’s the sister who lives in Rome?”

      “She’s only visiting there while her husband is on location. She’s married to Luke Mason, the movie star. She met him when he was filming a movie here.”

      “I never knew anyone who married a movie star.”

      “It took everyone in our family by surprise.”

      Kyle knelt again, determined to finish this job before she made him leave. “I figure