A/N1: Hey, folks. I'm back. Did anybody miss me at all? Either way, I have a new Zade fic for y'all, and it's something a little bit different...

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Hart of Dixie belong to Leila Gerstein and other folks who aren't me.

Chapter 1

It wasn't at all how he imagined it would be. Getting postcards from a man down South, telling him they were related and he would love for him to come visit. At first, those cards just went straight in the trash. After all, it sounded a little too much like a scam, and even if it were true, was bound to only be a poor relation hoping to get their hands on some of his hard-earned cash. There was no way Wade Kinsella, big time city businessman, was falling for that.

When he finally got around to mentioning it to his mother, that was when the truth came out. You could've knocked Wade down with a feather when she confessed that those cards were not from a con artist, not even some random cousin, but from his natural father, way down in Alabama. She gave her blessing to Wade to meet Earl if he wanted to, explaining that at his age he was certainly old enough to make that choice.

"It was my decision to leave him, and he gave me good reasons for that," she had explained. "But that was nigh on thirty years ago. You are your own man now, Wade. It's definitely your choice if you go seeking out your daddy."

That was how he ended up on a smelly bus, heading for a small town called Bluebell. Not that he even got that far before he was turfed off the vehicle and told it was the end of the line. At that point, his destination was still five miles away, and so, Wade had started walking, dragging his luggage behind him, at least until a truck pulled up alongside him and a seemingly friendly voice spoke up.

"I'm guessing you're not from around here," said the gorgeous creature at the wheel, pulling her aviators up to sit on top of her dark brown hair.

"You're not wrong," Wade told her easily. "I just flew down from New York, then took a bus ride I'd sooner forget, and apparently, I still have four miles ahead of me to Bluebell."

"Yes, you do," she agreed, nodding her head. "So, you want a ride or what? It's not really a brainteaser, just a real simple question," she added when he didn't answer right away.

Wade shook his head. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just... Well, where I come from, women don't just offer strange men rides in their car. Not unless..." he stopped and cleared his throat. "Never mind," he said then, hefting his case up into his hand. "I would love a ride to town, thank you."

"Well, now, since you just implied I might be a hooker, maybe I don't want to help you out," she told him, engaging the locks just as he reached for the passenger side door handle. "Yeah, just because we talk slower in the South, doesn't mean we're stupid," she assured him.

"I really never meant to imply... I mean, not the hooker thing, or that you're not intelligent. I'm sure you're very smart," he told her fast. "After all, despite what they try to tell you in fiction, I'm sure it is possible to be both beautiful and intelligent."

Putting on his most charming smile, Wade was glad to see the woman's face crack into a grin at his attempts to win her over. Clearly, it worked, because the next thing she did was disengage the locks.

"You're good," she told him, gesturing for him to move already. "Put your bags in the back and hop in, I have places to be, stranger."

Wade did as he was told, sat at her side within a minute and buckling his safety belt. No sooner had he done that, than his saviour put her foot down on the gas pedal and they sped off towards Bluebell at an ungodly rate.

"So, you came all the way down here from New York to visit quaint little Bluebell," she said after a while. "Mind if I ask why?"

"I have family down here, apparently," Wade told her, though wasn't keen to say more in the circumstances, not when he was so uncertain of who or what exactly he was going to find when he got where he was going. "You lived in Bluebell long yourself?"

"As long as I can remember," she said, the smile slipping from her face just a little as she did so. "Uh, we're coming up on the town now. Anywhere specific you want me to drop you off?" she checked, as they passed the 'Welcome to Bluebell' sign.

"I guess wherever there's a hotel or motel or something?" Wade suggested, suddenly wishing he had thought all this through a little better before he came here.

"I'll take you to the Whipporwill Blossom," said Zoe, pulling on the wheel to take the next left turn. "Best bed and breakfast for miles around, just watch out for the owner. Dash is a nice guy, but he likes to put his nose into other people's buisness."

"Thanks for the tip," said Wade, just as the truck came to a halt outside the B&B, "and also for the ride. It was kind of you to stop and help me out like that."

"That's just the way we do things around here, Mr...?"

"Uh, Kinsella," Wade told her, holding out his hand for her to shake. "Wade Kinsella."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of her wide-eyed expression and didn't get a chance to ask. It was gone too quickly, and then her small hand was grasping his, shaking it with a force he hadn't quite expected from a woman of her size.

"Zoe Wilkes. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Wade Kinsella."

"The pleasure is all mine, Ms. Wilkes," he assured her, meaning every word.

That seemed to amuse her, though he couldn't really imagine why it would. He always assumed that these kinds of small towns, especially in the south, would be all about old-fashioned manners like his mother raised him to have. Maybe it was something else that Zoe Wilkes found so funny. For now, he wasn't going to worry about it.

Getting out of the truck, he removed his bags from the back and turned to face the bed and breakfast that she had dropped him off at. It was like a picture postcard, something they would put on a jigsaw puzzle for little old ladies to do. Wade had never seen anywhere like it in real life, that was for sure, but he supposed he was going to have to get used to it, at least for as long as he was staying in Bluebell.

"Zoe Wilkes, when are you gonna learn?" Her best friend rolled his eyes. "Picking up strange men off the side o' the road is a dangerous habit."

"It's not a habit," she told Lavon with a look, eyes widening at his gall when he slapped her hand as she tried to sneak a piece of carrot off the board where he was preparing dinner. "This was the first and probably only time, and I couldn't help myself. He looked so... lost and lonely," she said thougthfully. "Also, I'm pretty sure that beyond that expensive chassis, something interesting is hiding under the hood."

She grinned a mile wide, laughter escaping her throat when Lavon began intoning 'no' and turned away from. Zoe knew he wasn't really so much of a prude, he just got freaked out by the idea of her having any kind of good time with men. She supposed that was normal, given the brother-sister vibe they had going on. Still, she was a woman with feelings and urges. Wade Kinsella certainly caught her attention, though the moment she thought again about that last name, she sobered up considerably.

"Wait until you hear the best part... or the worst part, I guess. Depends on your point of view," she told Lavon, pulling herself up to sit on the counter opposite where he was working so hard on dinner. "This beautiful stranger's last name was awful familiar. He said it was Kinsella."

Lavon turned to her with wide eyes then.

"Kinsella? As in Crazy Earl?"

"I guess so." Zoe shrugged. "I didn't ask. None of my busness, right? He said he had family in the area that he was coming to see, so I guess we'll find out soon enough. Shame if he came all this way for a family reunion and a drunken old man is all he's gonna find," she considered.

"Come on now," Lavon said, shaking his head. "I know Earl has his problems, but he wasn't always that way. 'Sides, crazy he may be, but he's not a bad guy."

"I know," said Zoe, nodding her head. "I'm just trying to figure out where the new guy ties in. Earl doesn't really have any family that I ever heard of. Daddy always said..."

She found she had to stop and swallow hard before she stood any chance of finishing that sentence. It had been almost two years, and still she struggled to talk about her father without a lump forming in her throat and tears building behind her eyes. She wondered if that would ever change.

"Uh, he said that Earl was only the way he was since he lost everything. First his job, which brought on money troubles, and then when he started to drinking so much because of that, that's when the family upped and left."

"That's the way the story goes." Lavon nodded, looking thoughtful himself by now. "This guy you met, what was his first name?"

"Uh, Wade," Zoe recalled. "You think he might be...?"

"Earl's son?" Lavon nodded some more. "That's what I'm thinkin'. Damn that boy in for a nasty surprise if he come looking for dear old dad and Earl is what he finds. Makes me feel bad for the both of 'em. I can't imagine Earl would want his boy seein' him that way either."

Zoe knew that was probably true. Old Crazy Earl had some degree of pride left, even if he was the town drunk. Most wouldn't laugh at him for his antics. They pitied him because of what he lost and how he suffered. Loss did awful things to people, Zoe knew. Her own life had changed a lot these past couple of years since her daddy passed away.

Staring at her as her eyes looked to the floor then, Lavon knew exactly what she was thinking about. Dr Harley Wilkes was one of the best men in town, certainly the best doctor for miles. When little Zoe showed up out of the blue as just a tiny little slip of a girl, he had been elated to discover he was a father, so they said, and wanted nothing more than to raise his baby girl up in his home town. The mother had agreed to it, hung around herself for a few months before splitting back to New York where she belonged.

Zoe never seemed to mind. Lavon remembered her, even when they were young, being just happy as a clam, running around at her daddy's heels, wanting nothing more than to grow up to be a doctor, just like Harley. She did it too, pretty much anyway. Came out of high school, top of her class, headed off to college and med school, got all her qualifications, and started interning at the practice alongside Harley and his doctoring partner, Brick Breeland. Could have been a great three-way partnership by now, except two years ago, poor old Harley had upped and died. It sure had changed Zoe, in ways Lavon didn't really want to think about, but since she started living at his place, he hadn't really had much of a choice.

"I should get over to the Rammer Jammer," said Zoe then, hopping down from the counter and heading for the back door.

"You're not gonna have dinner first?"

"Don't fuss, Lavon," she told him. "I swear, sometimes, you mother me more than my own mother ever did," she said as if it bugged her, and yet she was smiling when she looked back at him. "Save me some to heat up later?"

"You betcha," he promised, grinning back at her, until she finally left for work, the door clanging shut behind her. "That girl," he said to himself, shaking his head.

He loved Zoe to pieces, but sometimes, he just didn't know what he was going to do with her.

To Be Continued...

A/N2: This story idea first floated into my head quite a while ago, but I wasn't sure I knew exactly how to write it. I realised later that I had been somewhat influenced by rainonmonday's Southern Girl, Yankee Boy, but there are major differences in both what I have written so far and what I have planned going forward, so I'm going with it regardless. Hope maybe some of you like the idea and want to read more :)