Hot in Hellcat Canyon

by Julie Anne Long

  He forgave his mind for still being a little one-­track. Nature was all about sex and death, anyway.

  The roar was growing louder when he stopped at a respectful distance by a tree that could only be the Eternity Oak. The thing was immense.

  A little bronze plaque at its base verified his supposition.

  He moved closer to it and discovered the Forest Service hadn’t splurged on any engraving to describe the legend.

  But someone had affixed a little note to the plaque. Folded like a note card, attached with tape.

  He lifted it to read.

  Think twice, man, it said.

  He laughed. His laugh echoed eerily.

  The tree’s arms—­branches, he corrected himself, but their graceful, twisting reach really did seem more like arms—­spread way up and out, and the whole thing was as vast and intricate as an apartment complex or a little city, which it likely was for various forest fauna. Sun could hardly get through the branches, and when it did, it dappled the ground like a scattering of gold coins.

  The place was arrestingly beautiful and as calm as a temple. And yet it made him a little nervous, as if there were something he needed to do in order to earn the right to even stand there. Like this was the Temple of True Love, or something, and he hadn’t paid the price of admission yet.

  “Paid the price.” Now, there was a phrase calculated to chill a man’s blood.

  He stepped closer to the tree.

  On first inspection he saw only one set of initials.

  ELB + GHG

  But then he squinted, and an errant ray of late-­afternoon sunlight picked out a few other sets of initials, scattered over it. He couldn’t read all of them clearly.

  But one set was spotlit, set on a high branch, old and scarred now:

  GEH + SLO

  Who were they? He wondered what it felt like to be that certain. Or did their hands shake when they dug those initials into the tree?

  He was pretty sure Felix Nicasio and Michelle Solomon would have no compunctions about carving their initials in that tree.

  J. T. recalled an infamous article in the wake of his breakup: “Top Ten Reasons Rebecca Corday is better off without John Tennessee McCord.” The list read like some unholy brainchild of Rebecca’s publicist and her mother. Number Eight was, “He’s allergic to the ‘L’ word.”

  Now, that was low. It wasn’t an allergy. He was more like . . . a self-­proclaimed agnostic who refused to use the Lord’s name in vain, just in case he might be wrong. An awful lot of misery was perpetrated and endured in the name of love. Just look at what it had done to his mama, for instance. As far as he was concerned, the word deserved the type of fear and awe reserved for the Old Testament God.

  He would have said it if he’d felt it.

  Maybe he couldn’t feel it.

  J. T. restlessly turned his back on those initials and the poor fools who’d carved them. He wanted to see the falls and get back before it got dark.

  The roaring grew louder, and a few dozen yards later there they were: a lacy, foaming spill that cascaded over a terraced series of jagged stones and terminated in a pool, that turned into a stream, that likely ran off and joined the river. He looked up: the trees, as if in deference to the falls, stood way back from it, and he could imagine that a full moon would pour down through and light them up.

  He did enjoy a good spotlight.

  He stood and breathed in silence. He was beginning to recall one of the problems he always had with big swaths of unstructured time: a restless feeling set in, a niggling sensation that might be missing out on something. It could explain why he’d just kept moving in recent years.

  So he turned around and headed back.

  But he stopped at the Eternity Oak and listened.

  One long, low branch reached down the road toward the falls.

  Not that I would, but if I ever carve initials here, he thought, that’s where I’d put them. Closest to the falls. So it’s like you’re hearing the breath of a lover in your ear while you’re sleeping.

  “Britt, honey, are you all right in there? I heard screaming.”

  Britt popped her head out of her screen door and looked across at Mrs. Morrison, who, leaning over her porch rail, was limned in the last bit of the day’s sun. Her hair looked like a silver crown.

  “Sorry to worry you, Mrs. Morrison. I’m just watching a movie. Someone just got murdered.”

  “How exciting! Well, all right then. We won’t be needing this.” Mrs. Morrison lowered the Remington shotgun she was holding and leaned it next to her front door. She retrieved her Dr Pepper and rum on the rocks from the railing she’d placed it on and toasted Britt with it.

  “Thank you for picking up my prescriptions,” she called.

  “Oh, you’re welcome. It’s never a problem, Mrs. Morrison.”

  “Well, good night, dear. Enjoy your film.”

  “Sweet dreams, Mrs. Morrison.”

  “They always are. Tonight I think I’ll dream of the day my Elwyn and I carved our names in the Eternity Oak.”

  “Well, you tell Elwyn I said hi when you see him tonight.”

  Mrs. Morrison chuckled. “I will, dear.”

  Britt ducked back into the house and collapsed back onto her sofa, snatched up one of the pillows she’d re-­covered with thrift store silk and clutched it to her, then held her breath as if going back under water and took the movie off pause.

  She’d spent the last five minutes in a shabby, 1970s-­era kitchen in Boston, immersed in the life of a cop, a simple guy who was kind of awkward, but good and solid and ferociously loyal. He’d been in love with the same woman his entire life . . . but she’d married his best friend. And just when he’d won a declaration of love from her—­in bed no less—­his best friend stabbed him.

  And his friend hadn’t meant to stab him, they’d been fighting and it was all in the heat of the moment and quite an accident, and dear God in heaven it was quite a mess and very upsetting.

  John Tennessee McCord was really, really good at dying.

  He was also really, really convincing in the love scenes.

  There were two of those.

  They were real and raw and mostly naked and of the many powerful impulses that assailed her as she watched them, all were surprising, but two of them seemed strongest: she’d wanted to crawl in there and pull that woman off him. The word that had throbbed in her head throughout that scene was MINE.

  The other impulse was to nibble on one of his smooth, hard brown shoulders.

  But it was particularly fascinating to witness his transformation into that character: His posture, his diction, his mannerisms, his accent—­he was seamlessly, one hundred percent a different person in his role in Agapé. It was a bravura performance.

  Except his eyes. His eyes were the same. His eyes were so eloquent they were an entire movie unto themselves.

  How did he know how to do that? Embody heartbreak and passion and fury and mute longing?

  You either channeled that from some divine source, she figured. Or . . . you had to know how those things felt.

  Good grief, that was hot.

  God. She dabbed at her eyes as the credits rolled. Phillip laid a sympathetic paw on her knee.

  She really had a problem.

  Or maybe it was a solution.

  A little Googling would help her decide which it was.

  The problem was that she’d gone about the business of Gold Nugget Property Management all day, marking up big “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs with a big Sharpie, talking to tenants about trimming trees and fixing sprinklers and the like, and all the while she’d fully expected the John Tennessee McCord effect to fade from her body and mind, the way you eventually got your hearing back after a loud and fabulous rock concert.

  But instead the rest of her
day had been like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy opens the door and suddenly everything changes from black-­and-­white into blazing color.

  Only in reverse.

  Everything was now dimmer. She was a little afraid he’d permanently altered her body chemistry by his mere proximity.

  Just two days ago she’d been content with the rhythm of her days. Now she knew “content” was a synonym for “safe little box.”

  She took a deep breath and typed some search terms in the browser window.

  She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to Google him again. But this wasn’t frivolous, voyeuristic Googling, she told herself. It was a fact-­finding mission inspired by a sentence he’d uttered today. Which was:

  “Can’t remember the last time I did that.”

  Slammed a headboard, that was. With a noisy and willing partner.

  What she discovered was that while Rebecca Corday was linked with Anthony Underhill and was seen in photos grinning her eight-­mile-­wide grin alongside him in various venues, from restaurants to red carpets, as far as she could tell, J. T. hadn’t been photographed with a woman anywhere.

  She couldn’t find a single photo of him with a woman on the internet for at least the last six months.

  Though there were photos of him out with what looked like his buddies at lunch, and one of him leaving a karate dojo in Los Angeles. But if any women had been in the picture, J. T. had definitely kept it on the down low.

  He was only going to be in Hellcat Canyon for a little while. He’d be out of here in time for Felix Nicasio’s wedding for sure, which was in about a month.

  Some women might put that in the “con” column.

  For her purposes, she decided it belonged in the “pro” column.

  In the sidebar of one of the pages with the photos was a link to an article intriguingly entitled, “Top Ten Reasons Rebecca Corday is better off without John Tennessee McCord.”

  Yikes.

  It was quite a list. Snarky and juvenile and absolute clickbait for lovers of Hollywood gossip. But it was Number Eight that caught her eye.

  8. Because he’s allergic to the “L” word.

  Britt exhaled.

  Ironically, she’d put that in the “pro” column, too.

  Her plan was taking shape.

  She liked that her solution was still technically a box, in that it had parameters and a finite volume. So there was comfort in that. The parameters were defined by a guy who in all likelihood wouldn’t want anything more from her than a good time, who had known commitment issues (he’d never moved in with Rebecca Corday, after all), and would be gone in a couple of months.

  Inside that box could be lot of hot sex.

  Provided, that was, she saw him again. He didn’t seem like a guy who gave up, however.

  She sat in thoughtful silence for quite some time. She pulled her sketch pad into her lap, and stared down at that empty white page.

  And then her pencil began to fly.

  She reveled in creating in the arch of a neck, expressive angled ears, the curve of a haunch, the length of the spine, the flow of a mane and a tail.

  And because it was standing on its hind legs, she dressed the horse in jeans.

  And cowboy boots.

  And then, as a coup de grâce, she drew a black T-­shirt on him. It was snug at the top and a little loose at the waist.

  She laughed at herself.

  But with that one final touch, John Tennessee McCord was officially a horse.

  The one she intended to get back up on.

  CHAPTER 7

  J. T. had his truck back at around three o’clock the next day. He immediately took it for an almost giddy drive around town, as if he’d just been sprung from the pokey. He stopped in at the grocery store for some real food, including sandwiches and a few packaged salads, startling all the clerks into wide-­eyed speechlessness. He drove past the fountain in the town square, past the town hall, past a few Victorians that straight-­up qualified as mansions, and through, on a whim, a pretty little trailer park called Heavenly Shores even though no body of water was in sight. It was apparently a retirement community. He waved at two senior ladies hanging out on their porches, chatting and knitting. They waved gaily back.

  All roads, alas, eventually of course led right back to the Angel’s Nest.

  J. T. took a long hot shower and rubbed his own sandalwood soap in his armpits lest he besmirch the angel soap. He ate his grocery store sandwich and salad and tried to write his damn wedding toast for Felix, but he couldn’t hear his own thoughts over Kevin and Cherisse. The headboard bamming next door had yielded to loud arguing.

  “You never listen to anything I say!” poor Cherisse was sobbing.

  “You never stop talking! How am I supposed to listen to all of it?”

  Kevin, the poor schmuck, sounded genuinely tormented.

  J. T. sighed, made a fist and gave the wall a couple of good hard thumps.

  They clammed up.

  “Don’t go carving your initials in the Eternity Oak, now, ya hear?” he muttered dryly.

  He was just reaching for his Kindle again when another text chimed in. He glanced at his phone.

  It was Missy Van Cleve.

  Tensnesseee I’m drunk and homey.

  He frowned. “Homey” was the last thing Missy Van Cleve was. He’d heard the word “flawless” used to describe her, but an allegedly perfect waist-­to-­hip-­to-­bust ratio (which she’d once pointed out in an interview) did not, in his book, add up to flawless. She was famous for being famous, and she was most guys’ definition of hot, but she was also so vapid it entered the realm of surreal and was almost funny. He’d gone out with her once, and decided life was too short, which is how he knew he was getting older.

  But apparently he’d made quite an impression on her. Because she kept in touch. Usually when she was drunk.

  A few seconds later:

  I mean drunk homey.

  A few seconds later.

  Homey! I’m drunk and homey!

  Where are you Tesnnsesse I’m drunk and homey! I’m coming right over

  He could ignore her and hope she got tired of sending drunk texts and eventually passed out.

  Or . . . he could have a little fun.

  He texted:

  Do you mean by any chance drunk and horny, Missy?

  She texted back:

  That’s what I said!

  He texted:

  Get a cab from wherever you are to 11493 Excelsior. Tell the driver the guy who answers the door will pay your fare.

  In about a half hour, Franco Francone would have his hands full of a drunk, homey, unruly, incensed Missy Van Cleve.

  J. T. grinned.

  His smile vanished when “Taking Care of Business” erupted from his phone. His agent was calling instead of texting. Which could pretty much only mean one thing.

  J. T.’s heart went from about zero to ninety just like that.

  He took a couple of deep breaths before he answered.

  “Hey Al.”

  “It’s a no on Last Call in Purgatory, J. T. It’s a no they delivered with convincing anguish, but it’s a no.”

  Al was a big believer in ripping the Band-­Aid off quickly.

  J. T.’s breath whooshed out of him.

  “They thought you were amazing,” Al went on. “They never dreamed anyone could be so perfect for a part. They made it sound like it was a reenactment of Twelve Angry Men in there, deliberating every point of your performance for days. They really wanted you. They pleaded for you. The director says you’re everything he ever envisioned. But the producers are worried you can’t open the film big enough, and your sketchy track record . . .”

  “. . . is ten years old,” J. T. said tersely. “If that’s what they’re worried ab
out. I mostly haven’t been an asshat in public or on a movie set for ten years, anyway. Look at my work on Agapé . . .”

  Even as he said it, J. T. knew that the producers knew all of this, and knew all about Agapé, too.

  “Yeah. Well. I think they know that and the producers just wanted to whip out an excuse. You know how jumpy they get when money’s at stake. I guess they want the pope or someone infallible for the part. But it’s really about the money and the numbers, J. T. It’s what it always boils down to.”

  J. T. was numb. The word no hadn’t quite sunk all the way through him yet.

  “Do they want me cheaper?”

  “They won’t get you cheaper. We both know what you’re worth.”

  J. T. was in agreement with that.

  He was silent.

  Al let him be silent.

  “They have anybody else yet?” J. T. finally said.

  “Nope. They’re still looking for the female lead, though. Threw out a few names you might know.”

  Al did irony very well. J. T. could just imagine what one of those names was.

  He closed his eyes, mouthed an expletive.

  “Would you rather I’d waited until morning to tell you?” Al was sympathetic but there was a hint of laughter in his voice, as if he’d once again heard loud and clear the word “Fuck.”

  “No, because I needed an incentive to go out and get drunk tonight and you provided it.”

  “That’s my boy,” his agent said complacently. “Just don’t do it in front of any cameras, if you can help it.”

  J. T. gave a short, humorless laugh.

  “I am sorry, J. T.”

  “Yeah, don’t be. We both know how it is.”

  “And you never know,” his agent said.

  “You never know,” J. T. said.

  The Hollywood motto. You never know.

  They signed off.

  He sat motionless on the edge of the bed for a moment. He took a long breath. His lungs burned strangely. No matter how hard you tried, hope took up residence almost like a pumping organ and when it was gone you sure noticed.

  When it was gone was when you truly knew the measure of how badly you wanted something.