“It needed fixing, was the reason,” Britt said shortly.
Casey studied her with a tipped head, and her knowing, wicked little expression told Britt that she knew exactly what the reason was.
Britt couldn’t help but grin that same grin right back at her.
“Okay.” Casey took charge. “You have to pick a night where you don’t have to work the next day. Because, you know.”
Britt did know. Warmth swept through her whole body at the merest suggestion of what she and John Tennessee McCord could do with a whole night together.
“I’ll do your hair and makeup. For free,” Casey said briskly.
Britt was astounded. “Casey, that’s just . . . what a sweet offer! Are you sure? I’ve practically forgotten how to do makeup.”
“I can tell, sweetie.”
Britt laughed.
“And do you have anything to wear?” Casey was on the case.
“Not really, no. Maybe I’ll stop in at . . .”
She thought yearningly of that white halter dress in the window of Kayla Benoit’s boutique. Maybe she could bring in her coupon and make puppy dog eyes at Kayla. Things were going her way lately. Why shouldn’t she get the dress, too?
“Not really, but I’ll figure it out,” she told Casey.
She didn’t work tomorrow morning. She did work the rest of the week in the morning.
And, really she had no shame. She wanted what she wanted.
She texted J. T. back:
Is tonight too soon?
His reply chimed in:
Ten minutes from now wouldn’t be too soon.
The man really was an Olympic-caliber flirt. And he knew what he wanted. She had to hand it to him. He was confident enough, or mature enough, to be completely direct. There was a surprising amount of comfort in that.
She texted back:
I’m off at two.
Her phone chimed in:
I’ll pick you up six thirty.
And then she moved her butt off the stool in case Giorgio’s glower burned a hole in the back of her head before her date.
At ten minutes after two Britt hovered on the sidewalk outside of Kayla Benoit’s boutique, still shiny with lunch-hour sweat and redolent of the diner smells that made her cat sniff her so happily when she came in the door for the day. The halter-necked sheath was still in the window worn by a nearly flat chested, featureless mannequin. Lucky mannequin. White eyelet over silk acetate. Simple, gorgeous, expensive, taunting. It had been there for so long it ought to be sporting cobwebs. Kayla was pretty meticulous about that sort of thing, though. The dress was spotless.
Britt took a deep breath and pushed open the door and stepped inside Kayla’s fragrant, elegant boutique. There wasn’t another soul in there currently.
Kayla was rearranging one of the racks by color. She whirled about and her face lit up.
“Britt! What brings you by?” Kayla Benoit sounded pleased but faintly concerned. As if Britt might have taken a blow to the head and staggered into her boutique by mistake. She was fully aware that Britt’s budget didn’t extend to most of her merchandise.
“Hi Kayla. How’s it going? I find that I . . . need a dress.”
Kayla paused, her pretty brow furrowed faintly. “Are you getting married?” she wondered.
“No.”
“You pregnant?” was her second guess.
Britt looked down at herself, then back up at Kayla.
“Well, no, you don’t look it, but you strike me as the sort who likes to plan ahead,” Kayla said, answering that unspoken question.
“I am that type,” Britt admitted. Surprised and a little flattered that Kayla had been deciding what she might be like. She was realizing lately that people all over town were probably drawing all kinds of conclusions about her. Funny, she’d thought she was so inscrutable. And funnier still, she didn’t really mind. It made her feel more as though she belonged.
“Okay, I give up, Britt,” Kayla said brightly. “What kind of fabulous dress can we find for you?”
“Truthfully . . . well, I’m going on a date.”
Kayla’s brow furrowed a little. As if she were rifling through all the men in town that Britt might actually consent to date. Men who would warrant a special dress, no less.
And then her face went all but neon with realization.
“With John Tennessee McCord?” Her voice was a hush.
“He asked me out to dinner.” Britt whispered this, too. As if they spoke at the volumes the news warranted they’d violate the neighborhood noise ordinances.
“Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” Kayla was practically bouncing on the toes of her peep-toed pumps. She was touchingly thrilled, just like Sherrie and Casey, and it warmed Britt’s heart clean through.
“At Maison Vert.” Britt pronounced this with the gravity it deserved.
Kayla froze.
“Britt . . .” she said portentously. “That place has white tablecloths. And candles. Holy crap.”
“I know. It’s a real date.”
“I mean, we all thought you and he were probably doing it, but if he’s taking you there . . .”
We all? Was there some kind of Hellcat Canyon phone tree Britt didn’t know about during which her sex life was discussed?
She decided to neither confirm nor deny this. People weren’t stupid, and Britt wasn’t coy, and she supposed she and J. T. had been shooting off sparks.
“I’ve got a black dress. But it’s old and the fabric is starting to pill. And it would take me some time just to blow the dust and cat hair off it.”
“So yeah, you can’t wear that,” Kayla agreed. “That would just be sad. And you can’t wear one of your umpteen camisole-and-shorts ensembles.”
Britt gave a startled laugh.
“Sorry, it’s my curse.” Kayla sighed. “I can’t help it. You don’t know how I suffer, Britt. I notice what everyone is wearing and my mind is constantly giving them all makeovers, and in this town it’s exhausting. Practically everyone needs one. You do have a good sense of color.”
“Thanks.” She’d take a compliment where she could get it. “You know . . . I think I’d look good in white,” she tried, tentatively. And she shot a sidelong speaking glance at that dress in the window.
Kayla became a lot more cagey and a little sad.
“I know where you’re going with this, sweetie, and oh, I wish I could, I really do, but that dress costs a lot. And I have margins to meet.”
“I do have a coupon . . . that one you sent out in the mail . . .”
“That will take it down to the high two figures,” Kayla said succinctly.
Aargh. Still too high. At least for her budget.
So this was how Kayla managed to stay in business. She wasn’t a patsy. Britt both admired it and rued it greatly in the moment.
She was pretty sure Kayla would be immune to her puppy-dog eyes.
“Let’s take a look at the sale rack,” Kayla said briskly, “and see if we can’t make something work. We’ll make you look gorgeous, I promise.”
The sale rack usually comprised rejected bridesmaid gowns.
They both pivoted sharply when the bell on the door jingled. A gust of air fluttered up the white dress on its stand portentously.
Casey Carson was standing there.
She closed the door behind her, and stood motionless in the doorway.
All was shocked silence.
“Casey,” Kayla said coolly.
“Kayla,” Casey said primly.
And that was the last word anyone said for about half a minute.
Britt half expected the soundtrack from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to play over the sound system, but no.
It was Lady Gaga. “Bad Romance,” which she thought was rather ill time
d.
“You said if I wanted to use my discount, Kayla, I needed to come into the store.” Casey sounded ever-so-slightly defiant.
“I did say that.” Kayla was trying to look hard and cool but a very poignant bit of hope was creeping into her expression.
These two missed each other a lot, Britt realized.
And then Kayla’s face paled when something ghastly apparently occurred to her.
“Are you . . . are you getting married?” Her voice was faint.
“No. And I’m not pregnant, either,” Casey said hurriedly.
Apparently Casey knew the drill.
Some of the color rushed back into Kayla’s cheeks.
It occurred to Britt then that the whole kerfuffle regarding Truck Donegal might not be completely resolved. Which meant things could get potentially a little sticky. If not today, then at some point.
“No, I was wondering . . . can I use my twenty-percent-off discount for Britt?”
Britt’s jaw dropped. That twenty-percent discount was part of Kayla’s peace offering after their fight in the street.
She swiveled toward Casey. “Casey . . . that’s so . . . I just . . .”
“We can’t send you off on a date with John Tennessee McCord in any of the stuff you usually wear, Britt,” Casey explained practically. “You’re like an ambassador to Hollywood for Hellcat Canyon.”
“That’s what I just told her!” Kayla was delighted. “The first part.”
“I don’t know if Maison Vert is in my near future. I make pretty good money at the Truth and Beauty,” she said, rather defiantly. “And besides . . .” Casey faltered. “I just wanted to see . . .”
And then she smiled a watery sort of smile and shrugged with one shoulder.
Kayla very, very carefully removed a tear from the corner of her own eye with her pinky nail, lest it mess up her mascara.
“I missed you, too, Casey,” she said.
And then they practically leaped into each other’s well-dressed, flawlessly made up arms. And now the atmosphere was zinging with delighted relief and rejoicing.
“Casey, Britt wants that white halter dress in the window. With your discount, that brings it down to about thirty-five dollars.”
“I bet she can totally do that!”
Britt totally could.
“That dress is perfect for her!”
“I’m going to do an updo for her. And I’ll do her makeup, too. She will look amazing.”
For a moment, it was like Britt wasn’t even there. Britt didn’t mind, not really. It was hard to begrudge being forgotten for a moment, because she’d reunited a pair of friends, she’d gained a pair of friends, and she’d be getting the man and the dress. Not bad for a day’s work.
Her heart felt like a big sun shining in the middle of her chest.
Kayla leaped back from Casey when her phone chimed as a text came in.
She scanned it swiftly. “It’s Edie from the flower shop. She says John Tennessee McCord just came in!”
The whole town was apparently tracking her date like NORAD tracked Santa.
“Flowers are hard core, Britt,” Kayla said with a sort of grave awe.
This was unassailably true. A date was one thing. A date who brought flowers to her was something else. Maybe he brought flowers to all of his dates. He was Southern, after all. He was a sex machine but his manners were lovely.
She didn’t have to think about that right now. Right now, all she had to do was try on that dress and then count the minutes until six thirty.
“Well,” J. T. said on an exhale. “Lucky me.”
He’d arrived on the dot, and he’d spent nearly half a minute speechless, admiring her in the lowering evening sun when she stepped out on her porch. And stood, like a diva on a stage, on her brand-new step.
“I’ll say,” she teased, gently. But her voice was a little threadbare.
Because her heart was pounding. And his expression was genuinely awestruck.
“You look very handsome,” she said almost timidly.
Dear God, that was an understatement.
“Yeah?” he said distractedly.
He was wearing a jacket that fit him like a freaking poem over a crisp button-down shirt and, naturally, a pair of jeans and his favorite boots, which seemed to have been polished for the occasion.
She noticed then that he was holding something behind his back.
He followed her curious gaze. Those must be the flowers.
“Well, I was going to bring roses,” he explained, as if she’d asked that question aloud. “Who doesn’t like roses? All women do, right? But then I thought, maybe roses are a cliché. And I’ve brought them to so many women over the years . . .”
And he stopped.
“Sure,” she prompted carefully. “Roses are nice.” She wasn’t necessarily enjoying the reference to “so many women,” but it wasn’t as though she didn’t know this part about him, and he clearly was heading someplace with this little story.
“But then I saw something and it made me think of you, and I thought it might be better.”
He brought it slowly out from behind his back.
It was a wilted, sad, anemic-looking azalea in a little pink-foil-covered pot.
She was speechless.
She could have sworn he was holding his breath.
“Oh!” And she scooped it into her arms as if it were an orphan being abandoned at the fire station.
“The poor little thing. I . . . it’s . . . thank you! Way better than roses.”
He laughed. “You are a funny woman, Britt Langley.”
“Yeah,” she agreed happily. “I know. I love it. It’s perfect! Thank you for rescuing it. I will make it grow! I’ll name it after you.”
He laughed, clearly delighted.
She settled it next to her other convalescents on the shelf on her porch. And took a moment to admire it and bask in the luxury of being known.
Though he didn’t know everything.
“Allow me.” He strode over to his truck parked at the side of the road, and pulled open the passenger-side door for her. He held out his hand, and she gave hers to him, and he helped her up into it as if she were Cinderella boarding a gilded coach.
“I like your hair up that way,” he said. “It’s pretty.”
She touched it. “Thank you. Casey did it. It’s apparently a bit complicated. Seemed to take quite a bit of finesse.”
She turned her head this way and that so he could admire it.
“How about that. She is an artist.”
She smiled at him.
“By the way?” he said, hovering in the truck doorway a moment.
“Yeah?”
“. . . I’m going to enjoy messing it up later.”
And with that incendiary little statement, he shut her door.
She was lucky she was already in the truck, because the look he shot her would have buckled her knees.
CHAPTER 13
They drove there with the windows rolled down, and she kicked off her shoes and put her feet up on the dash and let the breeze free a few tendrils of her fancy updo.
“Love this song! Sing with me, Britt,” he commanded, and cranked up the radio.
It was Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man,” one of her favorites. She’d always loved Neil Diamond’s huge, revival-meeting-style choruses. The two of them belted out the song, more concerned with volume and conviction than the key, and any dogs within earshot could not have been blamed for howling. And if this had been the sum total of their date, she would have been perfectly happy.
She went as silent as a canary in a coal mine when they drove past the billboard of Rebecca Corday.
“Boy, they really captured her likeness. Her head is really that big in real life,
” he said.
She gave a short laugh.
But it was oddly as sobering as a splash of water in the face.
Passing that billboard was like entering a portal into J. T.’s world.
He’d dated, and slept with, and was photographed with, a woman who was on a freaking billboard.
She’d forgotten how much more populated Black Oak was, in general, than Hellcat Canyon. Tourists with lots of money cruised the antiques stores and stopped in at the restaurants as they headed up to their Tahoe condos.
The street was aswarm with Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades.
And people. Lots and lots of people. Many of them leaving work for the day, but others pouring into restaurants for dinner.
Britt had grown up amid crowds in Southern California, and this hardly compared.
Still, it was a veritable stampede next to Hellcat Canyon.
And J. T. got even quieter.
She sensed he was even a little nonplussed.
She knew why.
One of these people, if not all of them, was bound to recognize him.
They’d spent a few days in the insular, wooded little bubble that was Hellcat Canyon. And she’d known all along he was famous.
She just hadn’t had to really experience firsthand what that actually meant in real life. And she had a hunch he’d almost forgotten this, too.
That was what good sex could do to a person: make them lose their mind.
“I made the reservation under a fake name,” he said absently. Almost to himself.
“Maybe we can whip up some kind of disguise.”
He shot her a wry glance. “I used to keep a fake mustache in my glove box.”
“Seriously?”
“No.” He sounded a little tense and distracted.
She wondered, then, if he was concerned about being seen with her, in particular.
Which made her go quiet, too.
“Let’s just have a good time,” she said, because she gauged from his tension that he was worried.
“I can’t imagine having any other kind of time with you, Britt.”
There it was. The charm was back. And that was better.
They found parking practically outside the restaurant, and they were both smiling when he came around to help her out. His hand went possessively to the small of her back.
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