by Tina Leonard
He sat down next to her, letting his legs dangle over the pier as she was. Paris made it to the bank, got out, shook herself off, then dove off the pier again. “Look, I dig Maggie. It’s that simple. There is no other motive. Although doing it to atone for any guilt I might be feeling about kissing you was a colorful guess. I never feel guilty about kissing a woman.”
Sugar looked at him. “Where is Mrs. Jake Bentley?”
“Out there looking for me, probably.” He smiled at the prospect. “She’ll find me one day.”
“No girlfriend?”
“I had one. You’ll meet her soon enough. Averie Pipkin. With an ie instead of a y. A very nice girl.” He leaned back on the dock, staring up at the cloudless sky.
“Go on. You started the story, don’t leave off the ending.”
“There’s nothing to tell. She wanted to get married.” He sighed. “She’s such a nice girl.”
Sugar lay back on the dock beside him, a foot apart, looking up at the sky he saw. “So? Nice girls finish last?”
“Probably.” He yawned. “I think I’m too lazy to get married. It’s too much commitment.”
“You own a restaurant. That’s a huge commitment.”
“Not really. I have three buddies who really keep things going. I show up infrequently to count the money, check the stock, tell everyone I’m just helping out. I don’t do much.”
“But you lie to your mother, and that’s a commitment.”
“Not true. I avoid telling Vivian about my business, because Vivian is a fixer. Vivian would snoop into my records, she’d change everything from the menu to the soap in the soap dispensers in the bathrooms, and she’d force everyone to eat every meal at Bait and Burgers.”
“There’s no bait in your restaurant. Why do you call it Bait and Burgers?”
“Kel thought of the name. I didn’t care. The other guys voted it in. We run a hamburger democracy.”
“So,” Sugar said, “getting back to Averie, ie instead of y.”
“Yeah. You’ll know her when you see her. She’s gorgeous.”
“Really.”
“Absolutely.” He smiled, wondering if he’d heard a slight edge in Sugar’s voice. “She’s about five-two, with long blonde hair to her waist. It’s straight and golden like a waterfall. Her face is enough to make a goddess weep with envy, and she’s smart.”
“You have a goddess-worthy woman at your feet and you callously turn away her offer of marriage?” She turned to look at him. “Is this wise?”
“If I hadn’t rejected her marriage proposal, I couldn’t have kissed you,” Jake pointed out.
“It was barely a kiss,” Sugar said. “More of a peck.”
“Still, no pecking allowed when a man’s wearing a wedding band.”
“True,” Sugar said, “that’s exactly why I’m divorced. My husband pecked around a lot.”
“Ouch.” Jake looked at her. “Just so you know, Vivian’s never going to allow you to advertise in the Christmas parade.”
“I figured. We’re not her vision of Pecan Creek, are we?”
“Hotterthanhellnuts.com is a bit too exotic for the quiet Pecan Creek parade.”
“And the billboard?”
“Probably not happening,” Jake said honestly. “I just don’t want to do anything that gets you ladies on the cut list in Pecan Creek. It doesn’t seem fair to your mother and sister. Maggie’s a social being; inclusion matters to her. Lucy could give a rat about people liking her, but I’m hoping in time she’ll come around.” He looked at her. “And I’m kind of hoping you like it in Pecan Creek. I think you’ll like it better here if people don’t judge you before they know you. So, scratch the billboard.”
“In your unofficial position as not-mayor. All this because the word hell is in our name? Is everybody here that cloistered?”
He smiled. “Let’s just say ladies run this town, and I don’t get in their way.”
“You hide from your mother,” Sugar said. “Is there a reason you don’t just tell her to butt out of your life?”
“Yeah. I like her in my life,” Jake said simply. “Vivian is all I’ve ever had. It was just the two of us since I was little, though she never gave up hoping Dad would come back. He never did. Mom was a single mother when it wasn’t fashionable. I keep the restaurant to myself because it’s my baby. Vivian thinks I’m either fishing or shirking life, and I’m okay with that. I take care of her because she was an amazing mother, one of the hardest working women I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t understand,” Sugar said. “If you love her so much, why don’t you just be honest with her?”
He reached over and ran a finger down her straight nose, then traced her lips, entranced by the softness. “I told you. Vivian is a fixer. I don’t want her fixing my life.”
“You really think she’ll never find out?”
He turned away from the siren’s call that was Sugar. “Too many questions for one day.”
Sugar looked back at the sky. Paris settled behind them on the dock, laying herself out to enjoy the sun. “You never told Averie about your restaurant?”
“No way. I discovered two years into the relationship that Averie was a fixer too. Now, no more questions, or I’ll make you pay.”
“I have no money, so you’d be hard-pressed to get anything out of me.”
“I’d settle for a game of pool. For every shot you make, you get to ask a question.”
She rolled her head to look at him again, which he appreciated. He loved looking at her, could do it for hours. “And for every shot you make?”
He grinned. “You remove an item of clothing.”
“Pretty stiff odds.” She thought for a moment. “Nothing about you interests me, so I have no more questions.”
“You sure were nosy a minute ago.”
“Just making idle conversation. Nothing to get your inner pervert on about.”
He rose on an elbow to look down at her. “Don’t chicken out just because you don’t like the odds. It’s a fair exchange. You didn’t state up front that you were something of a pool shark, anyway.”
“What if I run the table and you don’t get a shot? Not saying it’s likely, but it’s important to know the house rules up front.”
He grinned. “Then you’ll know the story of my life pretty fast, won’t you?”
“You really don’t want to talk about her, do you?” Sugar said.
“Who?”
“Averie with an ie not a y.”
He moved her red hair away from her cheek, revealing a huge, thin golden hoop hanging from her ear. He wanted to kiss her neck so badly it hurt, and suddenly, he sympathized with Kel’s unrequited attraction to Lucy.
“I don’t really care what you ask me,” he said. “I just want to get your clothes off, Sugar Cassavechia.”
She gazed at him, her eyes huge in her face, stunned by his words.
Before he realized what she was doing—her breasts moving in the ribbed cotton as she quickly rose had him poleaxed as he belatedly realized she wasn’t wearing a bra and Kel and Co. hadn’t been exaggerating her charms—Sugar shoved against him with a surge of strength that caught him off balance. He tumbled into the water with a splash.
Paris joined him, barking joyously, dogpaddling around him with delight.
He wiped the water from his eyes, looked up to see if Sugar was staring over the dock at him. But her tight butt in those wrinkled khaki shorts was already headed back through the grove with her basket, leaving him with the cold bath he probably richly deserved.
“She seriously digs me,” he told Paris.
Paris barked.
“You say not so much since she threw me back into the water? Literal dog,” he said, hauling himself out of the creek. He sat on the pier to drip, thought about those sweet lips and curved breasts. Paris got out, shaking and spraying him with water droplets.
“That woman is hotter than a Texas day,” he told Paris. “I think she’s after me.”
Jake went to find reality.
Lucy and Maggie were in the kitchen when Sugar found them. She wanted a cold drink to cool her steaming temper, and she wanted to tell her family that their landlord was something of a rat.
Which she’d known from the beginning, darn him.
They turned around from the pan they were staring at on the stove.
“Hi, Sugar,” Lucy said, and her cautious tone stopped Sugar in her tracks.
“What’s happened?” Sugar asked.
Maggie glanced at Lucy. “Ramon called.”
“What?” Sugar sat down at the kitchen island, thinking that she had rat karma today.
“He couldn’t reach you on your cell,” Lucy said, “so he called mine.”
“My phone is in my bedroom. I don’t need it much. You’re the only people I talk to, and you’re here, so…” Sugar’s voice drifted off. “What did he want?”
“He says he wants to come see you,” Lucy said, her face a bit pale.
“No,” Sugar said. “That’s not happening. I’m sure you told him that.”
“I told him I didn’t think you ever wanted to see him again.”
Sugar sighed. “You didn’t tell him where we are, did you?”
“No,” Lucy said, “but Sugar, it won’t be that hard for some of his buddies to have the cell located. Signal trace is easy, not to mention call location data not that hard to acquire or hack, not for the guys in that division.”
Sugar shrugged, annoyed but not completely whacked out about it. “If he shows up, it’ll be a very short conversation.”
Maggie sat across from her. Lucy peered out the window. “Why is Jake walking to his truck sopping wet and holding his boots?”
“I don’t know,” Sugar said, her attention caught by Maggie’s scribbles on a piece of paper lying on the island. “Perhaps he got hot and needed to cool off.”
Lucy joined them at the island. “He doesn’t look too happy. Maybe he fell in.”
“I doubt it. They don’t take uncoordinated guys in the military. My impression is that Jake’s pretty fit.” Sugar studied Maggie’s list more closely. “This looks like hieroglyphics, but actually, you’ve been trying to remember the recipe.” She looked at her mother. “Any luck?”
“That’s the other thing we want to tell you,” Maggie said with a strained glance at Lucy, who eyed her back with sympathy. “I figured out what’s wrong with the recipe. I’ve confused the part of the recipe I do remember with a completely different recipe.”
Sugar blinked. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means,” Lucy said, her voice dry, “that we’re completely SOL with the FOB, sister dear.”
Chapter Seven
Sugar stared at Lucy and Maggie. “But you said you were close to remembering Grandma’s recipe, Mom.”
“I know.” Maggie’s face was miserable. “It is close, it just isn’t the right recipe. I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t remember!” Maggie wailed. “It’s like my memory refuses to cooperate.”
Lucy patted Maggie’s hand. “Mom, it’s all right. You remember things fine. Ingredients in a recipe are harder. It was an old-time recipe; it probably had a thousand spices and things in it.”
“It did.” Maggie wiped her nose with a tissue Sugar handed her. “That’s what made it so wonderful.”
“Don’t worry,” Sugar said automatically. “We’ll just keep working on it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Maggie said, her voice quiet. “I’ve been working on this ever since we got here. It’s been weeks! I’m forgetting instead of remembering. Back in the old days, I kept recipes in my head. It used to amaze my mother. When we were in the grocery store, if she couldn’t remember something in a recipe, she’d ask me. I always knew.” Maggie looked at her daughters. “I had perfect recipe recall from at least the age of eight. My one specialty is recall.”
“It’s okay,” Sugar soothed. “Mom, you don’t just lose your specialty. It’s the move; it’s the stress. Let’s just keep playing with the ingredients and make our own knock-your-socks-off pecan recipes.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said. “Take a few days off from it, Mom. You’ve been worrying at that recipe for weeks now.”
Maggie sniffled. “It’s your dream, Sugar. I want to support you and your new business, not be the reason it never gets off the ground.”
Sugar thought about the bills she owed and the money she had left, and felt a bit closer to panic.
“Maybe you ought to be nicer to Jake, instead of pushing him into the creek just because he makes a pass at you in broad daylight,” Lucy suggested.
Sugar got up, went to clean the pan and utensils in the sink. “Every time I start thinking Jake’s a pretty nice guy, he reminds me that he’s a fink.”
“The fink with the roof over our heads,” Lucy said.
“That same fink over-advertised this place and took advantage of three women.” Sugar scrubbed at the pan with some passion. “Don’t worry. Jake can take it. He’s got backup.”
Lucy came to dry the pot and utensils Sugar placed on the clean cup towel to drip dry. “I wouldn’t expect a man like him to lack for female backup.”
Sugar shrugged. “I don’t trust him. Not entirely. Which reminds me, Maggie, Jake the Snake says you’re on for Christmas mayor.”
“He’s not a snake,” Maggie said. “He just has a strong-willed mother. It’s made him a bit ham-handed with females.”
Sugar thought about Jake daring her to play strip pool with him. “I’ll say.”
Lucy sidled up to her sister. “How does he kiss?”
“I don’t intend to find out.” The peck she didn’t confess—it would only encourage Lucy with the whole Jake-might-be-our-lifesaver routine. They didn’t need a lifesaver; they needed a working business model. “So, are you going to put yourself in Vivian’s line of fire, Maggie?”
“Oh, she doesn’t bother me.” Maggie let Paris in, toweling her at the door’s edge. “Vivian is just trying to hold on to the past, for whatever reason she needs to.”
Because her husband was back there, her marriage was back there. “I refuse to feel an ounce of sympathy for Vivian.”
“I have to go with Sugar on that one,” Lucy said. “Old Viv’s my idea of Mommy Dearest.”
Sugar laughed. “That may be a bit mean.”
Lucy bumped her with a hip. Sugar righted herself and looked at her sister.
“I bet if you made a habit of kissing Jake,” Lucy said, “you’d bring out Vivian’s Mommy Dearest, big-time.”
“That makes my blood run cold, Lucy,” Maggie said. “Vivian can’t be that bad.”
“Wanna bet?” Lucy went off with Paris, the two of them bounding up the stairs.
“Don’t pay attention to her,” Maggie said. “If you like Jake, go for it. He’s a grown man. Vivian can’t do a thing about it.”
Sugar didn’t care about Vivian. She didn’t like Jake.
At least, she didn’t want to. She was ankle-deep in issues at the moment, and the last thing she needed was Jake Bentley seducing her.
She had a feeling it would be fabulous, and irresistible, and something that wouldn’t be easy to turn away from once that particular bridge was crossed.
This was his reality.
Perhaps the basement of Bait and Burgers wasn’t the reality every man would want, but it was his, and it was what he’d dreamed of in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Have you made out with her yet?” Kel asked as Jake rummaged through the stock closet.
“I assume you’re inquiring about Sugar. If so, the answer is no. Emphatically no, edged with a this-conversation-is-closed.” Jake slammed the door, not feeling like dissecting his situation with Sugar with his buddies.
“I’m pretty sure she’s the kind of girl who’ll expect you to make out with her a few times before you do her,” Evert offered. “Probably even take her to the city for a few dat
es. Pay for play, is what I call it.”
Bobby German kept rolling napkins around utensils without looking up. “I like the Cassavechias. I think they add something to the town, so I hope they stay.”
It was only the beginning of September, the start of a new school year in PC, and already they were worrying whether the new people would want to stay. Jake privately admitted to some anxiety himself—and it wasn’t about the rent they were paying him for the family home. “I’ve asked Maggie to be the Christmas parade mayor. I think they’re committed to at least then.”
“Were you even going to make a cursory denial that you have the hots for Sugar?” Kel asked. “I didn’t hear one. Did anybody else?”
His buddies stared at him. “Look. Just because you guys have weather vanes in your pants that point in any direction when a pretty girl walks by, does not mean I suffer the same issue.”
“Wow,” Bobby said, “she turned you down.”
Jake sighed. “Keep rolling, Bobby. It may occupy your mind.”
Kel sat next to Bobby and took some of the utensils to roll, though he wasn’t as proficient at it. “We noticed you brought Sugar down here.”
Jake tried to remember how many boxes of ketchup and mustard he’d counted in the storage cabinet. Once upon a time, he could do inventory without writing anything down. It was like the pool table; every food item had its proper pocket. Now he thought about Sugar so many times a day he was beginning to need a notebook.
Not good. “Yeah, I gave her a tour.”
“Thing is,” Bobby said, “we feel this is our place. We keep it secret, private, for obvious reasons. Having a dame down here who we really don’t know can or will keep our secret is a bit of a problem. This is the only place any of us have where our wives and girlfriends leave us alone, mainly because they don’t know about it. We’d like to keep it that way.”
“Oh,” Jake said, ignoring the fact that he owned Bait and Burgers, lock, stock and barrel, in the realization he’d broken a man law with which his friends weren’t comfortable. “Point well taken. Won’t happen again.”