by Em Petrova
“You like it?” he asked.
“It’s just what I asked for.” The crisp white sign with sharp red lettering stood out in a way the old black and white sign never had. Plus, she’d added an illustration of a pig wearing a red kerchief around its neck to meld the old menu and her new one.
“If it’s to your likin’, then I’ll go ahead and mount it in the old spot.”
“Yes, that would be great.” She stood back, staring at it and beaming.
The man returned to his van for a ladder and a toolbox. She bounced on her toes with excitement at the new look that she realized was overdue. Dom might be annoying, but he wasn’t wrong about the old sign not representing her anymore. She might even thank the man next time she saw him.
She watched the guy install the sign and took out her phone to snap some pictures of the progress for her social media.
“You and your competition are good for my business this week,” he said after he climbed off the ladder and stowed away his tools.
She looked up at him. “My competition?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you notice he got his new sign too?”
Her eyes flew wide, and she whipped around. She forced herself not to look across the road at Savage’s Barbecue, because she didn’t want to find the owner so tempting that she ended up tangled in bed with him again.
But now that she looked, a scream left her throat. “Oh my God! Are you freakin’ serious?” She whirled back to the sign man. “You made him the same damn sign!”
“Well, no, his is blue.”
One look at the crisp white with sharp blue lettering of Savage’s Barbecue had her seething. But the crowning jewel was the illustration of a pig wearing a blue kerchief.
She glared at the sign man and then spun on her boot heels to pay a visit to her adversary. He wasn’t yet open for the day, but his truck was parked out front. She walked up to the door and pounded it with her fist. When he didn’t immediately open to her, she used both fists to beat the window glass.
“Comin’, comin’. Hold on.” His grumbled words reached her first, and then their gazes locked through the glass.
His brows pinched as he opened the door. “Jada, is everything okay?”
Her stomach dropped at the thought he was concerned for her. Then she remembered she wanted to light his new sign on fire.
She jabbed a finger at his chest and then the sign. “You did this on purpose!”
“Did what?” He followed her finger to the sign and then looked those two hundred steps to hers. He rubbed at his jaw and the new scar she spotted there.
Fury whirled through her in the shape of a pig wearing a kerchief. “You saw my design at the sign place and got the same thing!” she shot at him.
He shook his head. “That’s impossible, Jada. I didn’t see any designs.”
“Then the man suggested the pig because he had just designed a pig on my sign!” As if two barbecue joints could really survive across the street from each other, but having the same sign would only offer more confusion to patrons. They might start to believe they’d merged, which was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard in her life.
Dom shook his head, still gazing at her sign. “Jada, I put a pig on my sign because it’s a universal look for a barbecue place. How was I to know that you’d do the same thing?”
She stepped up to him and plucked at his shirt collar. “Oh yeah? Then why did you put a kerchief on his neck?”
“I admit that was a touch the designer added in.” He sliced a sheepish look her way.
“We both got screwed over then. Ugh!” She threw her hands in the air and took off walking back to her place. The sound of boots thudding on pavement behind her told her that Dom had followed her.
She stopped in the middle of the road and spun to face him. “Stay off my property.”
“I’m coming to speak to the sign guy. You might own the property but you don’t own him.”
She poked at his chest with a finger. “I’ll handle this. You’ve done enough damage.”
“Damage? Woman, all I did was buy a sign from the same guy you did.”
“And it’s the same exact sign! The pig, the kerchief.”
“Mine is blue, I’ll remind you.”
“You’re insane if you think that makes it different.”
A car honked, and she realized they were stopping traffic, standing on the yellow line having an argument. Her fingertip burned from stabbing his chest, and damn if she wasn’t recalling each and every orgasm he’d given her the other night too.
Damn him. She didn’t know whether to burn his place down or straddle him.
The driver of the car honked again, and she continued to her parking lot, refusing to so much as glance at her new sign that should have been such an exciting moment for her.
After most of the afternoon, she began to calm down. Her sign had drawn in quite a bit of attention, and paying customers formed a long line at her window. At least she was saying the increased business was due to her sign—it might also be the nice Crossroads weather.
“Two number threes,” the regular said when she asked to take his order.
She smiled. “I knew that. I was just waiting to see if you ever changed your mind about the pulled pork.”
“Nope. Although I was over at Savage’s last week, and he told me to try his brisket. Man, oh man, was that good.”
Irritation wove through her. “I don’t think you can make a valid comparison if you haven’t tried mine.”
“He told me you’d never make brisket the way he made it. I’ll stick with the pulled pork today.”
She’d never made brisket the way he made it? She clenched her teeth together and ground them back and forth to keep a nasty response from erupting.
When she handed the customer his number threes, she said, “Did he really say I can’t make brisket?”
The customer shot her a wink. “You know I’m loyal to your pulled pork.”
She wanted to scream but instead offered her customer a smile and a wave goodbye.
Dom had some nerve, telling her customers that she couldn’t make brisket! The man had overstepped one too many times today, first with her regular and also by copying her sign.
She looked toward Savage’s. What a horse’s ass.
* * * * *
Dom chuckled to himself every time he thought of that pig wearing a red kerchief. Clearly, the sign designer ran short on ideas, and they’d both been his victim. If there was a third barbecue joint in Crossroads, he wouldn’t be surprised to see a pig wearing a green kerchief on that sign.
He pushed away the takeout box of ribs. He had to admit that he could go for something besides his own leftovers, but owning a restaurant meant he had food going to waste unless he ate it.
Sales had been down today, despite the new sign, and he’d prepared far too many ribs. But if he ate another rib, he was going to turn into one.
He chucked the box in the trash and went to his kitchen window to stare out. The thing about owning a business was forgetting how to spend his free time. If he wasn’t cooking, he was working on the books or marketing. The only times he’d found a spot of calm since the day he opened his doors were spent working his butt off on the Bellamy and with Jada.
What he wouldn’t give to see her little purple delivery-mobile pulling up in front of his house right now.
When she told him off for the sign, all he could think about was yanking her against him and kissing her into silence. How did they get along so well in bed but went at it like cats and dogs outside it? Lately, getting the sharp edge of Jada’s tongue had morphed into foreplay.
He wanted to see her.
Why was he hanging out here alone at home when he could be teasing her into another orgasm?
He grabbed his phone and keys and locked his house. When he climbed into his truck, he shifted some takeout cups of sweet tea from Savage’s to the back to throw away later. A look at the passenger’s floor showed him he’d ea
ten in his truck one time too many times. He clearly needed to tidy up and get his life in order.
As he drove through Crossroads, his mind flitted from his business to Jada and then his grandfather and back to Jada. When he stopped in front of her house, he didn’t see her truck or the ugly purple car either. Well, he’d wait for her. Eventually, she’d come home.
He parked and cut the engine. He should be placing ads for his business or working up some fliers with coupons to hand out. He thought about stamping the little pig face with the kerchief into the corner of his coupons and had to chuckle again at how silly the problem with the sign had become.
Of course, she’d still be fuming. He chuckled to himself. He liked her hot temper, and the flash of her eyes always stirred him up. But he knew the other side of Jada, the super sweet woman who took time for every person she came in contact with.
Maybe he could persuade her to join him in visiting his grandpa. The man would love to see them together, especially since he continually asked Dom what he was doing to fix things with her.
What was he doing, besides driving her nuts? He pulled his hat off and rested it on his lap. Darkness had long ago fallen, and she should be home by this time, unless she stopped in at Joss and Cort’s to see the baby, but it was too late for visiting babies.
He had a nagging feeling that she was still at the restaurant.
He started the truck and threw it into gear. The drive from her house to Mortimer’s only took a few minutes. When he pulled into the parking lot, he expected to see her truck. But a glance at his own restaurant revealed it parked there, the headlights on full force, aimed directly at his sign.
And Miss Jada Ellis was balanced on a ladder with a bucket of paint in hand.
“What the hell?”
He zipped into his parking lot, causing her to stare into the brightness of his headlights. Then she started to scramble off the ladder, but not before he got a good look at what she’d been doing.
Repainting his sign. Vandalizing it, more like.
He parked crooked and jumped out. “Jada!”
She leaped off the bottom rung of the ladder and turned her back to him. Her voice reached him as she started singing a song he remembered from grade school.
“There’s no point in trying to hide what you’ve done,” he called to her. “Or hiding that you sing when you’re angry or worried.”
She threw the paint can into the back of her truck, and he heard the wet splatter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He tipped his head to look at the pig on his sign, which she’d cleverly altered into a horse’s backside with a tail flowing out. The blue kerchief of the pig was now a blue ribbon tied around the tail.
He stalked toward her. She ran to her driver’s door. He blocked her move and glared her down.
“I can’t believe how low you’ve stooped, Jada.” His tone came out quiet and deadly.
“How low I’ve stooped? What about you telling my regular customers that my brisket’s not worth trying?”
His gaze skittered away. Damn, he had done that. But it was innocent rival talk.
She stared at him, waiting for an answer.
“Guess we’re even,” he said quietly. “But did you have to make it a horse’s ass, Jada?”
She ticked her chin up a notch. “Seemed fitting.”
He threw a look at the painting and sighed. “I’ll give you points for creativity. You couldn’t have placed that ribbon around the tail better.”
She clamped her teeth onto her lower lip and bit down. “Thank you. I thought my art skills from high school would never be put to use.”
“Well, Mrs. Ronetti will be happy to hear it.”
A giggle burst from her, so damn musical and so damn cute that he took a step toward her, closing her in against the side of her truck. A shiver ran through her as she tilted her face up to his.
“I’m sorry about your sign.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not. Guess you’ll have to go back to the old one.”
“Too bad I already threw it on the fire when I was burning boxes.”
She giggled again. “That’s…unfortunate.”
“We can call it even, except there’s one thing I want from you.”
“What’s that?”
His insides burned as he stared into her eyes. “A night in my bed.”
Sucking in a breath, she pressed her hand to his chest, and then she looked down at his shirt front. “Umm…I had some paint on my hand.”
He growled. “You got paint on my favorite shirt now too?”
“Seems that way.”
He stared into her eyes for an extended heartbeat and then picked her up. She squealed as he carried her the few feet to the back of her truck. He tossed her in, and she screamed again as she hit the wet paint she’d splattered there.
Before she could scramble out again, he flattened her to the bed, trapping her with his body and spreading her legs to fit his hips as he claimed her mouth.
She moaned and threw her arms around him. He felt the wet paint on his neck and ignored it as he plundered her lips with long passes of his tongue. The scent of latex paint rose up around them, but he didn’t care, because he was going to take her right here in the back of her paint-splattered truck.
He slid a hand up her shirt to cup her breast. She writhed against his palm, arching her hardened nipple into his touch. He reared back and shoved her top up, seeing his fingerprints splayed across her baby blue bra.
She tore at his clothes too, removing his shirt and creating what he knew were her own handprints on his back. When she grazed her teeth over his pec, he growled in response.
“You want the same, little girl?” He ducked his head and lightly bit into her nipple. She cried out.
Floating his hand down her torso, he held her stare. Then he plunged his fingers past her waistband and into her panties. Slick heat met his fingertips, and he groaned at the feel of her want.
“Dom!”
“Say it, sweetheart. Say you need me.” Grinning down at her, he whipped his belt buckle to the side and went for his fly.
“All I need is you to stop telling my customers I can’t make brisket.”
“That’s fair, and I’m sorry.”
She smeared blue paint on his shoulder when she latched onto the muscle. “I admit I do owe you. But you owe me too.”
“All I owe you is a spankin’ for your bad behavior.”
“Well, don’t make promises if you can’t keep them.” Her eyes glowed.
He slipped his hand around her body to clap his hand around her round globe. “You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe I would,” she challenged.
He huffed a laugh and pulled his cock free of his jeans. She wrapped her hand around his shaft and delivered one long stroke, rolling the head through her fist as she did.
His balls gripped tight to his body at the sensation of her silky hot touch. Seconds later, he had a condom in place and his cock poised at the heat of her. Looking into her eyes, his heart exploded with love for this crazy woman who tested him on a daily basis.
Then in one hard thrust, he filled her.
Chapter Seven
Jada cradled baby Cort against her chest, admiring his faint eyebrows and the long lashes all the Bellamy men had.
“Do you think his eyes will stay blue?” she asked Joss.
“I hope so. He’s a Bellamy man, after all.” Joss smiled and folded a burp cloth into the stack.
“Why don’t you hold him and I’ll do the baby’s laundry?” Jada held out the baby.
“No, no. It’s your turn. Besides, I’m developing that stiff new mommy elbow from holding him so much.”
“I wouldn’t be able to put him down either.”
Joss gave her a questioning look and then picked up another burp cloth. “You trying out a new look, Jada?”
She blinked at her
. “What?”
“Blue hair.”
Oh no. She thought she got all the paint off her. Clearly, she’d missed a bit in her hair. And it had been everywhere. After her romp in the truck with Dom, both of them had been covered.
“Or maybe you were painting over at Dom’s, since that’s his color of blue.”
“Uh. Why would I help him by painting?”
Her sister shrugged and hid her smile. “Because you used to be really into the guy?”
“Yes, that’s all over with.” She waved her hand, which startled Cort awake, and he started to fuss.
“I think he’s hungry,” Jada said.
Joss watched him for a moment and then reached out to take him, lifting the top she’d made for easy breastfeeding while Jada took over the laundry.
“Anyway, I came by for some advice, Joss.”
She looked up with surprise in her eyes. “Oh?”
Jada focused on lining up the corners of the cloth, making them meet precisely. “Business hasn’t been very good this month. I’m down a few hundred bucks from where I wanted to be.”
“Oh Jada…”
“It’s okay. I put more money into the business too, like that new sign.” She drifted off in thought of paint and signs and war. “I just wondered if you have some ideas from your business I can use on my restaurant.”
She went silent a moment as she thought it over. “I got a lot of business from that fashion show in the next county.”
She sat up straighter. “That’s true. Maybe there’s a fashion show for barbecue.”
“That’s what I mean.”
She looked at Joss and laughed. “What?”
“Aren’t there big barbecue competitions all over the state in summertime? You could enter the state fair to get recognition.”
She stared into the void for a moment, ingesting her sister’s suggestion. “Joss, you’re brilliant!”
She grinned and looked at her son. “Remember that. Mommy’s brilliant.”
Jada hopped off the chair to hug her sister and kiss her on the cheek. “I’m going to research that.”
“You might want to wash that blue paint out of your hair. And that red on your neck.”
