Small Town Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  “Sure we can.” She poured the coffee as fast as it brewed into the pot. “No air conditioning, maybe.” She shrugged. “But we’re tough. We’ll provide fly swatters until you get the windows in. How good are you at construction?”

  “Not very, even when my hand was reliable. I’m real good at supervising,” he added dryly, putting a CD into the player. She came over to hand him a mug of whiskey-scented brew.

  Women didn’t normally make him nervous. Jo had him so spun around that he couldn’t carry on an intelligent conversation. He was actually listening to her foolish optimism when he ought to be planning another means of supporting his kids.

  Sipping her coffee, she lingered close enough for him to notice that she smelled of cologne and makeup and woman. Male instinct demanded that he take what he wanted, and the mature adult thing he was trying to learn abruptly took a leave of absence.

  The music roared to life, but nothing could deflect his awareness of the woman temptingly within reach, studying her CD titles. It was a lot simpler thinking of Jo than the disaster that was his life.

  “I know it’s the end of the month and bills will be coming in,” she continued the conversation that he wasn’t following, “but if you hand out free food and coffee, everyone will pitch in to fix things up. Slim’s an electrician. He can look at the wiring. You can pay the bills when the insurance check comes.”

  He didn’t want to think about bills and insurance. His fingers itched to play with the wild disarray of curls brushing the silk of her collar. He wanted to murmur sweet nothings in her ear and feel her arms circling his neck. He watched her slender throat and grew hard just watching her swallow. He’d promise her anything about now. “We can try,” he agreed, not totally certain what he was committing himself to.

  “Trying is what we do best down here.” She set her coffee on the CD stand and flipped through the selection with a smile playing on her lips.

  Flint couldn’t tear his gaze from the curves of Jo’s waist and backside in that form-fitting leather as she bent over the shelf. She could wear a sack, and he would see through it. “This better be decaf if we’re getting any sleep,” he warned.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She slid in a different CD.

  She turned around, and a thrill shot straight to Flint’s groin as her wise green cat eyes challenged his. One of his songs pounded from the speaker. To his amazement, he understood—she was showing him how she wanted to be romanced. His heart kicked a fast lick.

  “No one’s going to believe we just sat here all night and talked,” he predicted, thankful Jo didn’t need a lot of chatting.

  “I agree with you on that point, too,” she said with a grin. “Does this mean we’re in agreement on more than we thought?”

  “Doubt it.” Flint set his cup next to hers. His appreciation for Jo’s understanding ways went bone deep, but they still had mountainous issues between them. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into the music with him. “I think it’s just this one topic that we can count on, and that probably only lasts until the luster wears off.”

  Running his hand from her waist downward, he pulled her close, until their hips circled together. He could dance with an erection—for a while.

  “If wearing off the luster will make it easier to work with you without wanting to jump your bones, let’s polish the tar out of it,” she agreed, following his lead without hesitation.

  She wanted to jump his bones? Damn, but he’d known he liked the way she thought. Flint grinned down at her and whirled her across the floor.

  He’d spent a lifetime confusing music and sex, but what Jo did to him was deeper, more intense, and far scarier—and he’d never wanted anyone or anything more in all his life.

  He suspected polishing their luster would only deepen the beauty of their attraction, but he’d always been a risk taker.

  Twenty-one

  “You live in an eagle’s nest,” Flint said with what Jo interpreted as wonder layered over male satisfaction.

  The pounding beat of the band had died some time ago, but the lingering chatter of voices still drifted through the open windows from the street below.

  They lay in her bed, with all her familiar possessions around her, and she still felt as if the world were new again. The heat of raw male warmed her. She touched her toes to his, and Flint scraped his muscled leg over hers to trap her ankle. She shivered in anticipation with merely that minor touch. Even in the aftermath of sex, her hormones skittered and collided and sang just lying there with their naked hips touching.

  Or maybe it was her soft heart leaping with foolish joy.

  “I like listening to the trees rustle at night,” she murmured. “The owls hoot over the river. I always thought of the loft as a tree house, but an eagle’s nest works.”

  “They logged the trees out by my cabin. It’s sitting there on bare hillside. I’ll have to tell my landlord to plant more trees. I like it up here.”

  Flint’s voice rumbled over her as sensuously as his hand stroked up and down her arm. It would take one hell of a lot of polishing to wear off this luster if she could be aroused just by the sound of his voice—after they’d already had sex once. She turned on her side and ran her fingers down his hard chest, tickling his nipples the way she wanted him to touch hers.

  “You won’t stay there long enough to see the trees grow,” she said, reminding herself as much as him that there wasn’t any future in what they were doing.

  “One day at a time,” he agreed. Neither of them were talking about trees.

  A shaft of moonlight spilled over the sharp angles of Flint’s face, and Jo stroked his bristly jaw. She was experienced enough to read masculine desire in his eyes, understood when his gaze dropped to her breasts, and recognized the response between her legs. And still she couldn’t resist believing she answered a yearning in him that was more than sex.

  She threw her leg over his groin and settled where he wanted her—where she needed him.

  Flint grabbed her hips and surged strong and deep inside of her, and for this one night, neither of them worried about tomorrow.

  ***

  “I don’t remember the pig’s hat having turkey feathers in it,” Amy said, balancing boxes of muffins and studying Myrtle’s chapeau on Saturday morning. “Chicken feathers, I could understand. But wild turkey? There must have been some partying here last night.”

  Helping carry boxes from Amy’s car, Jo stopped to admire the selection of hard-to-find striped feathers. Three. She hadn’t put them there. Flint must have had a busy morning. A warm spot settled in her midsection at knowing he’d guessed who had placed the first feather and that he’d appreciated the symbolism enough to copy it. In her experience, men didn’t usually grasp her weird notions. “Guess someone couldn’t find crow feathers,” she answered enigmatically, heading for the café door.

  Flint had pulled the plywood off the doors and windows before breakfast when Dave and George Bob arrived with an old wooden door and a truck full of window sashes. Neither man had commented when Flint ran down the back stairs, tucking in his shirt, with Jo following behind him to start the coffee.

  Putting Amy’s muffins into the doughnut case, working behind the counter, Jo wanted to crow her joy. She settled for watching Flint as often as she dared without giving her foolishness away. She was a grown woman, not an infatuated schoolgirl. She didn’t need to sigh over the studly way he lifted that heavy door without help, swinging it into place so the other men could mark the hinges. And she fought the urge to giggle when he glanced her way for approval as he did it. His knowing look burned all the way to her middle.

  Silly, silly, silly, she scolded herself. But nature sure had its hooks in her. She didn’t even question the wisdom of rebuilding the café if it wouldn’t have any business soon. Flint exuded a confidence that rubbed off on everyone.

  The arrival of his family distracted her. The boys begged to be given something important to do and kept sneaking pee
ks at Main Street, probably hoping for more news trucks. Jo grinned at the predictability of teenagers. She enjoyed teasing them, and they responded with grins so much like Flint’s that she could easily fall in love all over again.

  While Flint assigned tasks, Jo handed out coffee and muffins to anyone who showed up to help. She sent the boys upstairs to choose music to keep everyone entertained. They came back down making fun of her oldies, but she noticed Hank Williams and Patsy Cline erupted from the back room not much later.

  The phone in Flint’s office started ringing around nine. It could have been ringing all night for all she knew. With the band playing, no one would have noticed. And Flint wouldn’t have been home to take his personal calls. With Flint’s name attached, the news clip of the Mercedes, molasses, and chickens had rated national TV coverage.

  By the third call, Jo sent Johnnie upstairs to retrieve her cordless phone and plug it into Flint’s wiring so they could carry the receiver outside.

  “Yeah, Travis, thanks. It looks worse than it is. Did you see those chickens?” Flint roared with laughter as he talked to still another of his Nashville friends.

  Everyone continued working around him, but like Jo, they all knew Travis was the lead singer for the Barn Boys. Johnnie and Adam were the only ones who ignored the conversation. They’d grown up with famous people in their living room.

  Martha Clinton frowned in disapproval and returned to scrubbing at the muddy floor. Jo pretended to stay busy washing down their new paneling. If Nashville had already come knocking, how soon would it be before Flint felt the call to return there? He was an extraordinarily talented musician who didn’t belong behind a coffee shop counter.

  Maybe the disaster was a good thing, saving her from heartbreak and providing Flint with an excuse to go back where he belonged. Maybe the band would give him enough money to have his hand fixed so he could play with them again. He could give her the café as his share of the lawsuit, and they’d both be happy.

  She didn’t feel real happy thinking about it.

  “Sure, come on down. I can still tell you when your song sucks.” Flint carried the receiver through the dining room and back to his office, oblivious of all the gazes following him. “I’ll mark my calendar and hang around that day. Sure, sure. No problem.”

  The CD player blasted out a Barn Boys song and drowned the rest of the conversation.

  “’Hey, hey, hey,’” Jo sang along, swinging with the rhythm as she climbed a ladder to clean the top walls. Rather than accentuate the negative, she let new ideas spin madly in her mind. She had to take out her energy somewhere. “’Don’t go breaking my heart…’”

  “Because like a worm, it will make two and multiply?” Flint’s warm voice asked from the foot of the ladder.

  She dropped her sponge on him. He wiped dirty water out of his eyes and still didn’t quit laughing at her.

  “Come down here and try that,” he dared her.

  Her libido did a happy jig in the sunshine of his eyes, but she remained where she was. “Give me the phone. I want to call Dot. I bet she knows half a dozen artists who wouldn’t mind hanging their work on these walls. That will be even better than plates. You’re not the only one who knows famous people around here.”

  He quirked his eyebrows and handed her the receiver. “Eavesdropper.”

  “Name dropper,” she retaliated. “Are you sure I won’t tie up the line in case Dolly or Shania want to call?”

  His grin grew wider. “Jealous?”

  “Hey, Dad!” Adam called from the counter. “Reckon Travis would bring the band down to play for the festival?”

  If silence could drop like a wet blanket, Jo reckoned that’s what it did now. Every ear in the place strained to hear Flint’s reply. Even the hammering on the windows halted.

  Stepping back from the ladder to gaze around at his audience, Flint threw up his hands in surrender. “Y’all know I can’t promise nothin’,” he warned them. “But I’ve already asked, all right? They’re checking their calendars.”

  Jo started the cheer, and the little café soon rang with applause and rebel yells. Disaster couldn’t keep them down if they had something to hope for. The Barn Boys playing in their dinky festival would give the town something to talk about for years.

  And Flint was the hero willing to set aside his pride and bring them here.

  ***

  “Son, we have to be going. That’s a long drive around the mountain,” Floyd Clinton said Sunday afternoon, drying his hands on a towel in the café.

  “Come along, boys,” Martha called. “You need to wash up before we leave.”

  “Ah, Nana, we want to stay,” Johnnie called. “Hoss said he’d take us rafting, and Jo said she could show us a good place for fishing out back of here.”

  Stunned by his sons’ willingness to stay, Flint waited for his mother’s reaction. She shot a dirty look in Joella’s direction. The two of them had been rubbing each other wrong all weekend. Or rather, his mother got wrapped around an axle every time Jo opened her mouth, and Jo blithely ignored her. He wasn’t certain ignoring his mother was the proper way to win her favor, but he sure as hell couldn’t blame Jo for steering clear.

  Since he wasn’t helping any by sleeping with Jo, he figured he’d keep his mouth shut on that subject as well. The two of them showing up at church together this morning hadn’t eased the tension. Sally had treated him like a leper.

  Given that he’d recklessly invited his dangerous old life into his new sedate one, maybe maturity was beyond him, but he still wanted his boys to stay.

  “They’re welcome to stay with me,” Amy said cheerfully from in front of the oven Slim had wired to the rear circuit. “The boys are great with Josh and Louisa.”

  “We’ve signed them up for swimming and tennis at the Y,” Martha replied stiffly.

  Not budging from the floor where he was showing five-year-old Josh how to play his Gameboy, Johnnie whined, “I don’t wanna play tennis.”

  “You need the exercise, and you don’t eat right unless I watch you. You ate nothing but muffins and junk all day yesterday.”

  Amy slammed a pan on top of the stove. “I made raisin bran muffins with Splenda just for him. Do they make something more nutritional down in the city?”

  Everyone in the dining room turned to stare. Quiet Amy never spoke out. She blushed at their stares, and turned her back on the room.

  Evan hadn’t been home all weekend.

  “Your baking is a lifesaver, Amy.” Flint intervened. He wanted to say he’d pay her when he could, but he wasn’t letting his parents know his financial situation. “And I appreciate you taking in my family. I don’t want to ask you to do more.”

  “I like having them,” she muttered, turning on the water in the sink to clean out her bowls. “They’re perfectly welcome to stay.”

  “We don’t want to sound ungrateful,” Martha said firmly, “but it’s too dangerous up here. If anything should happen to either of them, with that road blocked, the nearest hospital is all the way up in Knoxville.”

  Flint watched Jo arranging pictures on the wall with the help of her artist friend. He figured she was listening to every word but wisely staying out of the argument. He wanted to stay here again tonight with her, but her apartment was no place for his boys.

  He had reverted to his badass ways all weekend, ticking off his parents, falling in lust with a glamour girl working her way up the music ladder, pushing away the maternal woman who would make a good mother to his kids. He needed to set his head straight again.

  He had to get back to putting his sons first. If they actually wanted to stay with him in this tiny town, he’d set up a tent on the highway to live in if he had to. For the first time in a long time, he let hope peer out of the box he’d locked it in.

  “The county says the road down the mountain will open on Tuesday,” he argued. “If Amy doesn’t mind putting up with us another couple of nights, I see no reason why the boys can’t stay. I can use t
heir help around here.” He appreciated his parents’ willingness to help, but he couldn’t let that be compensation for their guilt at stealing his kids.

  Johnnie and Adam cheered. Josh and Louisa joined them, even though they had no idea why. Amy sent him a shy smile. Behind his mother’s back, Jo gave him a thumb’s up.

  Nearly falling over in relief and pride that he’d finally brought his boys around to forgiving him, Flint listened to his mother’s arguments with half an ear as he finished screwing together a chair that had lost a leg. He had the courage of conviction on his side.

  “Mom, I appreciate what you and Dad have done for us,” he said as she wound down. Setting the chair on the floor, he rocked it to see if it would wobble. It stood firm. “But school is out, and now is the time for me to take them off your hands. Let’s just see how it works, okay?”

  Flint hugged his mother as he said it. She stiffened, but shut up. He glanced at his dad, who looked thoughtful but didn’t disagree. “The two of you deserve awards for bringing up the three of us. You don’t need to be raising my two as well. Why don’t we just play it by ear for a while?”

  His mother glanced over his shoulder at Jo. “They need your undivided attention,” she said for his ears only. “You can’t be staying here and sending them home with Amy. I won’t have it, Flynn. I’ll go to court to get them if I have to.”

  That’s all he needed—his parents suing him as well as Joella. Why not? Maybe he should go back to school and get a law degree so he could defend himself. Rather than argue, he patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll be just fine, Mom. You and Dad have a safe trip home and give us a call when you get there.”

  He shut all his fear and doubt inside as he and the boys said their farewells and ushered his parents out the newly rebuilt front door. When his parents were gone and out of sight, Flint grabbed both boys and hugged them. “Now, let’s party!”

  The kids whooped, and the women looked at him as if he’d gone insane. Maybe he had. His life was in shambles, but he had his kids back, and he couldn’t wipe off his silly grin. Reality could hit later.