Read Hold on Tight for Free Online Page B

after-dinner speech,” Notley declared. “I know the Mayor won’t mind. She gets to talk all the time anyhow.”
    “Just like a woman, isn’t it?” Rucker said coyly. Dinah rolled her eyes in good-natured disgust. Rucker nodded. “I’ll be glad to say a few words.”
    Dinah couldn’t resist. “He only knows a few words, and most of them are very simple.”
    “Then we’ll like him real fine,” Notley answered, having missed the joke. Dinah could tell that Rucker enjoyed her failed barb immensely.
    As they got in line to the buffet table he gazed down at her with gleaming eyes. “I’m in my element here, lady,” he warned. “You’re just jealous ’cause I’m beloved.”
    “Hah. I’m not jealous. And you’re bewitched, not beloved. I know that you make big bucks as a speaker.”
    “Aw, I’m just the George Jessel of the peanut circuit.”
    “Don’t be humble and play it down. I read that you get two thousand dollars a pop for what you’re giving away tonight, so if you want me to make some excuse to get you out of speaking …”
    “I can’t be mean to these old sweeties. I’d rather be beaten with a stick or forced to listen to that silly Camphor flute player than hurt their feelings.”
    Her heart melted with more unfettered affection. “Camphor flute player?” she demanded. “What in the world are you talking about?”
    “That guy who advertises his records on Ted Turner’s TV station. He plays one of those funny little flutes, like somebody out of a Greek fairy story. His name’s Camphor.”
    “Greek fairy story? Do you mean Greek mythology?”
    “Same difference.”
    “Camphor, Camphor …” she thought for a moment. “Zamfir?” she asked incredulously. “You mean Zamfir, the internationally known musician?”
    “Yeah, I guess that’s him. Zamfir, Camphor, whatever. I think he’s a con artist passin’ himself off as a musician. Him and his goofy little handful of pipes.”
    Dinah called all her self-discipline into play to prevent the Mount Pleasant VFW from seeing their elegant mayor guffaw and slap her knees like a farmhand. Tears of hilarity crowded her eyes and she pressed shaking fingers to her smile to hold the sputtering sounds that threatened to erupt from her throat. She’d always pictured her ideal man as a perfect blend of theintellectual and artistic, a Renaissance man with exquisite taste and style. So why was she having the time of her life with Rucker McClure?
    He spoke for twenty minutes after dinner, his hands shoved casually into his trouser pockets, that mellow southern voice of his flowing easily through the big room. Dinah propped her chin on one hand and looked up at him in awe, marveling at the quiet power he radiated and his natural ability to weave emotions into the simple stories he told. He talked about the responsibilities associated with freedom, the meaning of individualism, and the importance of taking pride in oneself and one’s work.
    He wasn’t an intellectual and he didn’t care about subtleties; his vision of the good life was so uncomplicated that it would have made the great philosophers hoot with condescending laughter. But she knew that Rucker’s humorous, positive views were, in their own way, sophisticated and profound. They were exactly what the world needed, exactly what she needed. When he finished she saw tears in the eyes of the people listening to him and felt tears in her own eyes.
    “You should have been a minister,” she told him as they walked across the dimly lit church parking lot. The night was fragrant and the temperature pleasantly cool. A breeze rustled the giant oak trees that surrounded the lot, and Dinah inhaled the wonderful scent of wood smoke from distant hearth fires. “Or a politician,” she added.
    “I think I’d have made a good tractor salesman,” Rucker answered. “I can talk the ears off a snake.”
    She smiled and inhaled again, feeling peaceful. It was odd that she was so comfortable around