AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'M BACK! SORRY FOR THE WAIT! I HAD TO FINISH UP MY FINALS. YA'LL ARE ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT YA'LL THINK OF THIS CHAPTER. ANYWAY WITHOUT FURTHER ADO…CHAPTER NINE! - KRISTINE.

RATING: PG-13 (THERE IS SOME SUGGESTIVE BANTER IN THIS CHAPTER)

DISCLAIMER: UH, NO.

CHAPTER NINE: THE BRITISH BULLDOG

- W - & - Z -

"How the heck do you know how to get around this place?" Wade asked as he allowed her to guide them through the bustling streets. It reminded him of Auburn on the weekend of the Iron Bowl except of course a hell of a lot less friendly and colder too.

Zoe looked up at him and smiled when she saw his eyes constantly searching the area as if trying to take everything in. She could hardly believe they were here together right now. If it weren't for the people bumping into her as they bustled by she might have thought it was a dream. "You learn. It's the same with you and the woods except at least everything doesn't look exactly alike."

He rolled his eyes. "I'll take your word for it. How much further is this place?"

"It's just up ahead." She said thinking again how strange of a situation this all was. She had never expected that she'd actually meet George's ex almost fiancée and it'd be at one of her favorite bars to go to on the rare night when she was done with her shift before last call.

"I finally understand how in the world you manage to walk all over Bluebell in those ridiculous heels of yours," he said only half-kidding. He could never imagine walking this much especially at the rate she was moving. Now that she was up here Zoe was hustling like the rest of them. If they hadn't been moving so quickly he would have been able to really appreciate the way the tight pair of jeans she was wearing were hugging her butt like a second skin. "You should wear these jeans more often when we get back home."

She rolled her eyes and tried to resist the urge to smile when she saw his smirk. She failed to resist the urge when he followed the smirk up with a wink. "We're here," she motioned to the building in front of them whose sign proudly proclaimed it, The British Bulldog.

Wade did his best to picture Zoe in a place like this. When that failed he simply opened the door and ushered her inside. Inside he was even more surprised when he saw just how different it looked from any bar he'd ever been in before. Hell the place actually had a décor. He glanced around and saw that they had beat MK. "She isn't here yet. I guess I should go ahead and grab us a booth and some drinks. Want a Cuba Libre?"

"Actually I want a Newcastle," she said as she slid into a booth.

"Zoe Hart you never cease to surprise," he told her before heading towards the bar.

She watched in delight as the bartender's eyebrows rose in surprise when he heard Wade's drawl. This wasn't the kind of place that fetched people that weren't from within a five block radius.

"You should have seen the look that man gave me," Wade joked as he slid in beside her. "You'd have thought I was speaking French or something."

She could remember feeling the same way when she first moved to Bluebell. Somehow without her realizing it she had actually stopped noticing the accents. "What'd you get?"

"I figured I'd take after you and get a Newcastle too. We don't have too many imports at the Rammer Jammer and I've spent the majority of my life drinking cheap domestics."

"It's all I used to drink."

He started to ask when in the world she switched to wine when the door to the pub opened and in walked MK. He grinned like a Cheshire cat before sliding out of the booth to greet her and wrap her up in a tight hug.

Zoe's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She had figured that MK would be a beautiful blonde like lemon. Instead she was a tall, leggy brunette with raven hair and skin the color of a cappuccino. Her surprise must have been written all over her face because as MK slid into the booth she said, "I'm just as surprised you're an actual surgeon from New York as you are that I'm biracial."

"I didn't mean," Zoe started. It was obvious she felt embarrassed about being caught.

MK laughed. "It's okay. Believe me I can't believe that George and I dated either." She smiled, displaying teeth so perfect and white she looked like she used to be in a Crest commercial. "Now please tell me how in the hell you got this sorry sack all the way up to New York at Christmas no less."

- W - & - Z -

Wade groaned softly as he parked his car. It had been one of those nights. Rickey Abbott had shown up drunk as a skunk and looking to break to Andy Parker's jaw. Andy had cheated on Kristy, Rickey's baby sister with a stripper from Mobile. After breaking it up and nearly taking a pool stick to the back, the night had somehow gotten worse. Apparently, the town of Bluebell had decided that tonight was as good a night as any to bust his damn balls. All he wanted to do now was climb into bed with Zoe and appreciate the way she instinctively fit herself into his arms even when she was too sleepy to do more than murmur a soft hello.

Much to Wade's surprise, Zoe was definitely not asleep when he walked into her carriage house. He'd been staying there every night since Thanksgiving because not only was her bed more comfortable, but even if it hadn't been she would have made it worth the backache.

"What are you still doing up?" He asked softly as he tossed his keys on her coffee table, shirking his t-shirt before softly plopping down beside her on the couch. It was only then that he noticed the nearly empty bottle of cheap Merlot that was sitting at her feet. "Or I guess I should ask how on Earth you are still up?" he joked quietly as he pulled her to him and placed a soft kiss into her hair.

"My Dad called," she told him quietly. "The heart surgeon one," she added as if Wade actually thought that Harley had somehow gotten in touch with her from beyond. Had that actually happened she probably would have thought about drinking something stronger than Merlot. Hell she probably would have pulled an Earl and stood on top of the hardware store to let the entire town of Bluebell know.

Wade tensed. He knew just how touchy of a subject this was for her. In all of the conversations they'd had, Wade couldn't say anything he actually knew about the man Zoe had until recently known as her father, well anything that is, other than his job. Wade definitely knew just how good he was at that.

"He wants me to come home for Chanukah." She explained laughing so bitterly she sounded almost like an evil queen. For so long she had waited for her father to call her and acknowledge that she was doing her damnedest to follow in his footsteps. She could count the number of times he managed to actually do that on one hand. And now that she had finally gotten over the fact that Michael Hart didn't see a point in being there for her, he finally decided to call. "He hasn't called me even one time since I moved down here. Not a single damn time and out of the blue he calls to make sure I'm going to be there for Chanukah."

"You're Jewish?" He asked the surprise was evident in both his tone and the look on his face.

It shouldn't have been the right response. It should have been the kind of question that made her want to punch him in the shoulder and tell him to focus on the actual problem at hand which was definitely not her religion of choice. Instead it made her smile softly. "My Hebrew name is Dalia."

"Dalia?" He asked. His brows furrowed as he tried to imagine calling her Dalia instead of Zoe. He briefly considered asking what in the world she meant by a Hebrew name, but figured that was the kind of question that would earn him an incredulous look.

"It's my favorite aunt's name. She's a pastry chef in Boston." She told him. She sniffled just a little and tried to resist the urge to cry as it occurred to her that Aunt Dalia was not her aunt anymore. Somehow she had been so distracted trying to save Harley's practice that she hadn't really taken the time to think about all of the members of her Dad's family who weren't actually a part of her family anymore. "At least I thought she was my Aunt."

"It seems to me that your Dad still wants you to be part of his family," he pointed out hesitantly before quickly adding, "I mean I know I don't know him or your relationship, but that's what it sounds like to me."

Normally Wade hated talking about family with people. He was a firm believer in the idea that nobody could understand your family unless they grew up in it too. After all, he'd had so many people who swore up and down to him that the reason Earl drank was to block out all the sorrow he felt about doing a poor job raising Wade. They said it was the pain that pushed him towards the bottle. Wade always smiled and nodded politely as he listened to people drone on like they knew about his family and then he would say Earl's first love was the bottle and my mama gave him plenty of chances to prove otherwise. Afterwards he would say but thanks for sharing your opinion with me before turning on his heel and leaving the person feeling awkward.

Still he knew that silently listening to Zoe was not what she needed from him right now. He knew that she needed someone to talk about all of this with. She needed a conversation that was more than him just nodding and asking her how she felt about the situation. And so he did what he always tried not to and he gave her his opinion on the situation. He just hoped that she would see he was trying to help and not talking like he'd spent his entire life learning and understanding the dynamics of her relationship with her parents.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she struggled to sit up, it seemed all of the Merlot was starting to catch up to her. She turned around and faced him. Her brown eyes searched his impossibly blue ones. "What makes you say that?"

"Well because I reckon if he was done being your Dad he wouldn't have called to ask about Chanukah," he told her as he gently tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear. With her sitting so close it nearly broke his heart to see just how emotional and vulnerable she seemed to be. Her eyes were rimmed with red as were her teeth, if she hadn't looked so damn pathetic, he would have teased her about that.

She stared at him for a second contemplating whether or not he was right.

Sensing her contemplation he sighed. "It's been my experience that parents who don't care about you don't call to ask about holiday plans and the ones who do, well they call."

"So you think I should go to New York for Chanukah?"

"No," Wade amended smirking a little knowing that what he was about to say would definitely catch her off-guard. Hell he was more than a little surprised by the solution himself. "I think we should go to New York for Chanukah."

Somehow Zoe's eyes managed to widen even more in surprise. They also began to brim with tears as she asked in a voice so impossibly small it was hard to imagine it coming from a surgeon who couldn't see the point in bedside manner if you knew how to do your job, "You'd be willing to do that for me?"

"Of course," he said grabbing her hand and squeezing it reassuringly. It had been a move he learned from his grandfather. Whenever his grandmother or mother got upset, his grandfather would always grab their hand and give it a quick squeeze. In his case it was shoulder squeeze. Somehow it always seemed to do the trick. When he asked his grandfather how it always seemed to work, he'd looked at him and shrugged before replying in his soft drawl, "As long you as mean it then it'll always be the best way to let them know that they still have you". At the time he hadn't understood what exactly that meant. Now he understood that what his grandfather and just how true it was. "I figure you spent Thanksgiving with me and my family so the least I can do is let you try to convince me that New York really is better than Bluebell."

"You do realize that my family is the opposite of yours is in every way and even calling it a family is a bit of a stretch," she reminded him. She silently mused that he had no idea what he was getting himself into. His family had been the kind of amazing group of people you feel lucky to even get to be around. Her family more closely resembled a couple that should have broken up within the first two months, but for some reason kept insisting that they could make it work.

He smirked and leaned forward to gently kiss her check. "We both know I don't scare too easily."

- W - & - Z -

"Leslie was right," MK declared briefly clapping her hands in delight. "You do have Wade wrapped around your finger."

"I resent that assessment," Wade half-heartedly protested.

"You once wouldn't even go to Mississippi for that Tri Delt you were dating at the times birthday. I seem to remember you saying that you would never skip a chance to go see deep sea fishing on account of a girl." She reminded as she motioned for the waiter behind the bar to bring them another round.

He chuckled softly. "She wanted me to meet her grandmother and we'd only been kind of dating for a month if that."

"And how long have you two been together?"

Zoe knew right then and there that MK was a lawyer. She had the kind of hawk-eye stare that had the potential to make you uncomfortable if you were on the receiving end of it for too long. "Right around 5 weeks," she said as she gladly accepted another Newcastle.

"More than a month," he pointed out. He started to needle MK about something that he knew would drive her crazy when his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He frowned for a split second before sighing and sliding out of the booth, "I need to take this." He walked towards the empty section of the bar figuring it'd be quieter than going outside.

"It's probably Bernie," MK told her before taking a long pull of her beer.

"Bernie?"

"His agent," she explained. "Someone must have tipped him off that Wade was up here."

Zoe frowned wondering how it was she didn't know he had agent. It made sense seeing as he was on what she had been told was a highly successful outdoor television show. Still how the fact that he had a manager who just happened to work in New York City and was trying to get in touch with him hadn't come up was a little harder for her to wrap her mind around.

"He doesn't like to talk about Bernie. I think it makes him think about Brock. I'm sure you've already heard this but he was in a bad way after Brock's death. Leslie said the credit for him turning things around belongs to you so I guess I owe you a big thank you for that."

MK had been shocked when she showed up for the funeral and found Wade looking distraught and unkempt. It had taken a joint effort from her, George, and Leslie to get him dressed and ready for the services. Even though she had gotten on the red eye back to New York that night she had made sure to keep tabs on Wade. It wasn't until Zoe moved to town that Wade's overall demeanor seemed to actually take an upturn.

"No thanks necessary. Wade's kept me from going insane since moving to Bluebell."

"Brick Breeland is a dick."

"You're telling me but other than Brick and Lemon things have actually been okay. I mean it isn't New York but it isn't purgatory either."

"I thought the same thing when I moved to Auburn. Then again it was more it isn't Boston, New Haven, or New York but it isn't purgatory in my case."

"You're from up here?" Zoe asked noticing for the first time that MK lacked a Southern drawl.

"Guilford, Connecticut," she answered taking a second to remove her blazer. "My twin brother Nate was a great running back and signed with Auburn. My parents wanted us to go to school together so instead of Brown, Columbia, or Dartmouth I went to Auburn with him."

"And you met George there?"

"Yes I did and we dated for almost three years."

"And then?"

MK paused and stared into her beer for a second before shrugging and flashing Zoe a sad smile. "We got into a huge fight and neither one of us were willing to apologize. Then ole Lemon wheedled her way in. The rest as they say is history."

Zoe knew she should have left it at that. She knew that the story should have stopped there. She should have taken a moment to find out an embarrassing story about Wade. She should have done anything other than ask MK another personal question. Of course there was a difference between knowing better and doing better so of course Zoe asked, "Are you the reason he moved to New York after law school?"

MK glanced up at her, shock so obvious it was practically tattooed on her forehead. "I like to think so. I'm also the reason Lemon refused to join him so he eventually went back home."

Zoe nodded and mulled over that for a second. "It must really bother her that his parents preferred him taking a half-black girl from Connecticut to a southern belle like herself."

In response MK threw her head back and cackled loudly thinking that Leslie sure was right about Zoe. Once she was able to stop laughing she calmed down and quietly noted, "You're going to have a tough time convincing him to come up here when you're times up in Bluebell."

Zoe locked eyes with MK and could tell that MK had had the same problem with George. She frowned for a second before quickly taking a sip of her beer to cover it up.

When Wade returned moments later the two women were laughing again about a story that MK had decided to share. It was about the time George, Leslie, Wade, Brock, and Wade had gotten stuck in the mud in a field in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service. It helped that Zoe was by then on her third Newcastle which made the story and the thought of Wade nearly covered from head to toe in mud that really had her cackling.

"I don't mean to ruin ya'll's good time but Zoe we're supposed to be meeting your Dad for dinner in an hour and I reckon I should get changed before we go."

"Look at you wanting to make a good impression," MK teased as she stood to give him a kiss on the cheek as well as another tight hug. "You promise you'll see me again before going back to Bluebell."

"Promise," he assured her. "And I like your new haircut. It suits you."

"Thanks Wade," she replied as she hugged him one more time. "And next time I see you two, you'll have to regal me with that whole story of how you two met."

- W - & - Z -

Zoe grinned when she checked her cell phone and saw that she had a text message from Leslie talking about how MK just loved her. She was glad that she had made a good impression on one of Wade's closest friends. She knew just how important that was to him.

"Does this look alright?" Wade asked as he emerged from the bathroom. He had a black suit that she could tell just by looking at it was a vintage Ralph Lauren. He'd paired it with a classic white button down.

"You look great," she assured him as she fixed the white cocktail dress that her mother had surprised her with at brunch that morning.

"Should I wear a tie?"

"No," she told him as she pulled him towards her by his lapels. She quickly pecked his cheek. Before moving away she whispered in his ear, "In fact you look so good you're making me want to cancel dinner with my Dad."

He smiled devilishly in response. It was obvious that he wanted to take her up on her offer. Instead he pulled away and said, "Wait here for a second."

She smiled but did as he instructed. Her smile turned to a puzzling stare when he returned holding a black velvet box. "What's that?"

"You're first Chanukah present," he told her as he handed it to her. He bit his lip and watched as she slowly opened it. He was surprised that she hadn't protested it.

Zoe glanced up at him in surprise once more before smiling and opening the box. When she saw that it was a pearl necklace she nearly fainted in surprise. "Wade," she said softly suddenly at a loss for words.

"Do you like it?"

"Of course I do," she said as she motioned for him to put them on her. "They're beautiful."

"My mama always said that a woman needs pearls. I looked in your jewelry box and saw that you didn't have any so…"

"Thank you," she said, blinking rapidly trying to keep her tears at bay. How Wade could handle her when it seemed like she was always on the verge of tears was beyond her. "I was going to give it to you after dinner but," she said as she quickly moved to her luggage and pulled out a small package.

Wade stared at it in surprise. He simply held it for a second before quickly shedding the wrapping paper. He laughed loudly when he saw that she had bought him an intricate silver flask with his fraternity's crest on it as well as his initials. "This is the best damn gift I've gotten in a while Zoe."

"You mean it?"

"If we didn't need to make dinner reservations I'd been inclined to show you just how much," he told her. He grinned as her cheeks blushed. "You ready?"

Zoe glanced at herself in the mirror before nodding and linking arms with him.

Zoe Hart was about to have dinner with a father she hadn't talked to since at least last Chanukah with a man who she'd only been dating for five weeks. She doubted she had an imagination vivid enough to even dream something like this up.

- W - & - Z -

AUTHOR'S NOTE: SO NEXT CHAPTER WE'LL MEET THE MICHAEL HART. ALSO I PREFER TO WRITE THE TUCKERS AS BEING A LITTLE NICER THAN THEY ARE PORTRAYED ON THE SHOW BECAUSE ALL OF THAT NASTINESS ISN'T WORTH A DAMN. HAHA. NEXT CHAPTER THERE WILL ALSO BE A VERY INTERESTING TURN. I HOPE YA'LL ARE READY FOR IT. I LOOK FORWARD TO YA'LLS REACTIONS. ALSO WHAT'D YOU THINK OF MK? YA'LL ARE THE BEST! I LOVE TO READ YOUR REVIEWS! THEY MAKE MY DAY! - KRISTINE.