Hot in Hellcat Canyon

by Julie Anne Long

  Which had been a warning, but he hadn’t known it at the time.

  “Mi película favorita es Better Luck Next Time!”

  He knew that she’d hated the script for Better Luck Next Time, but it was the movie that turned her from star into mega star.

  Or to put it another way, from someone who had struggled to get a mention in any sort of press, let alone People, who’d suffered torments that he soothed her out of when some other actress got a mention, into someone so ubiquitous she was practically like the weather. Someone he couldn’t avoid, even here in Hellcat Can­yon. A town she would definitely consider beneath her notice.

  He turned his back coldly on the advertisement and stared straight down the street as if the sheer force of will could urge the bus to arrive faster.

  The bus didn’t come.

  And he imagined he could feel Rebecca Corday’s eyes on his back.

  Look at you, J. T., with your broken truck and your broken career. You should just get a Bentley, for God’s sake. Now you’re going to have to walk. Nobody who’s anybody walks in Los Angeles.

  Oh, Rebecca, he thought silently. You never did really get me.

  He decided he was going to walk the rest of the way to Angel’s Nest, and like it.

  Britt finally allowed herself to stare fully and unabashedly at the stranger when he got up to walk out the door.

  She watched him go, panic and relief duking it out in her gut.

  Because from the moment he’d walked in, it was as if someone had dialed the universe up a notch: all of the colors were just a little brighter, and everything seemed more distinct and more beautiful, and her very blood seemed to buzz.

  She’d once gone out with a guy who drove an ancient VW van with insulated walls. She could put her hand on the side of it and feel how loud the music was inside, from how it thumped and vibrated. And when she’d opened the door to get in, the music had burst out, echoing all over the street, setting off car alarms and prompting her dad to poke his head out the door and shout, “Turn that crap down!”

  That’s a bit how she felt right now. Like a VW van secretly bursting with music.

  She knew that as she moved from diner to diner, giving and exchanging smiles, delivering plates, scooping up her tips—­the machinery of the Misty Cat was well-­oiled and nearly balletic—­

  He’d watched her the entire time.

  She might be a little rusty at whatever this was, but she just somehow knew she hadn’t seen the last of that man.

  She was just pocketing the tip—­twenty bucks!—­and plucking up his bill when Casey Carson swept into the Misty Cat like a Valkyrie—­which was basically how she swept in anywhere—­for a to-­go order. She was blonde and golden, a big-­framed girl who was loud and funny and had gorgeous skin and preternatural confidence, which is how she’d successfully run the Truth and Beauty salon—­where you could get anything on your body trimmed, dyed or waxed—­since the age of twenty. She was almost thirty now.

  She slowed down a bit when she saw Truck Donegal eating a burger.

  Then she gave her hair a haughty flip to show she could care less.

  Kayla Benoit rushed in right behind her. She was small and slinky and brunette, a piquant blend of the best genes her American dad and Japanese mom had to offer, and she’d named her boutique after herself, which, some people in Hellcat Canyon said, was pretty much all you needed to know about Kayla Benoit. She had a lock on the local wedding and maternity business, two events that didn’t necessarily follow sequentially in Hellcat Canyon. But her heart was in the designer dresses. She didn’t move a lot of them, given their price tags. Sometimes Britt thought Kayla stocked a few just to torment her.

  When Kayla saw Truck she came to a full stop and her face went utterly expressionless.

  Then she gave her own hair a dramatic toss and pivoted away from him.

  Kayla and Casey ignored each other pointedly and entirely.

  Truck hunched his shoulders and ducked his head and applied himself to his hamburger like a wood chipper, eager to get out of there.

  And then Eden Harwood and her daughter Annalise burst through the door.

  “Grandma! Grandpa! You’ll never guess what happened!”

  Sherrie rushed toward them, wiping her hands on her apron. “What are all you girls carrying on about? You win the lottery? Did Peace and Love turn out to be a girl and have kittens?”

  “You’re so funny, Grandma!”

  Britt knew that what Sherrie was really dying to say was, You finally met your daddy? Because no one but Eden knew who Annalise’s daddy was, and Eden Harwood, who was a petite woman but stubborn as a rock and almost regal, had been closemouthed on the subject since before Annalise was born. People mostly shrugged when girls in Hellcat Canyon had babies before they got married.

  But Eden had been bound for bigger things, and bigger cities, like her brothers. Annalise had kept her in Hellcat Canyon.

  And Britt knew, even though they tried never to show it, that her silence on the subject hurt Glenn’s and Sherrie’s feelings.

  “I swear I saw—­” Kayla blurted.

  While at the same time Casey said, “Let me tell you who—­”

  “No, no, let me tell, let me tell!” Annalise begged all of them, with limpid eyes.

  Casey and Kayla could compete with each other but they could hardly compete with a limpid-­eyed ten-­year-­old.

  They clapped their mouths shut, albeit reluctantly.

  Eden put her hand on Annalise’s shoulder and said, “Go on, baby. Tell everyone.”

  “Grandma, John Tennessee McCord ate a hamburger in here and he said it was the best ever and stopped to pet Peace and Love and he gave Mama his autograph and I spelled for him!”

  “I thought I saw him walk by my store!” Kayla crowed.

  “I thought I saw him walk by my store!” Casey said, as if Kayla hadn’t said a word.

  “I thought I recognized him from somewhere!” Sherrie was all radiant satisfaction. “He’s that actor from Blood Brothers! That boy is beautiful. Didn’t you think so, Glenn?”

  “Ah, Sherrie, I wish you wouldn’t ask me questions like that,” Glenn was pained. “He’s a good-­lookin’ kid, sure.”

  John Tennessee McCord . . . John Tennessee McCord . . . John Tennessee McCord.

  Britt was sure she’d heard that name before. It seemed significant. It was a very actory name, that was for sure.

  She just couldn’t remember ever seeing his show.

  She knew what she’d be doing tonight after work, though.

  “He’s probably stopping by on his way to Felix Nicasio’s wedding in Napa, at the end of August,” Casey said knowledgeably. “He was the director of Blood Brothers. All the A-­listers are going. They’re meeting at a secret location and going there on a bus. And his ex is supposed to be there, too.” Casey got all the gossip mags in her salon, and she supplemented these with TMZ.

  That wedding was more than a month away.

  “Baby girl, let me see that autograph,” Sherrie commanded Annalise. “Britt, did you know he wrote something on your tag?”

  Britt hadn’t noticed yet.

  All the women clustered around to read it.

  That’s for saying “enigmatic.”

  Britt felt a slow flush paint her all the way to her hairline.

  “Oooohhhh . . .” the women collectively sighed.

  “And see? The handwriting is the same. That’s him, all right.” Sherrie was satisfied with her sleuthing.

  “Did you really say ‘enigmatic’ to him?” Casey was astonished. “Gosh. I would never have thought to do that, Britt.”

  She was full of admiration. She and Britt were always just a little diffident around each other. Like two shy kids who think they might want to be friends but didn’t quite know how to go about it. />
  “Wow. I didn’t know you had any game, Britt,” Kayla said admiringly.

  “Game?” Britt was astounded. She laughed. “I didn’t know saying ‘enigmatic’ was game.”

  She hadn’t known that Kayla gave much thought to her at all. But she’d clearly been walking around thinking Britt couldn’t possibly have game.

  “He’s not going to forget you. And the best game is the kind you don’t even know you have,” Kayla said sagely.

  Which actually sounded sort of wise, once Britt figured out what she was trying to say.

  But Casey rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn’t fall out and bounce across the floor.

  “I’m gonna let you keep that tag, hon,” Sherrie said. She gave Britt a pat on the arm and an enigmatic smile of her own.

  Annalise got in the last word. “He’s gonna stay here, he said, cuz he’s filming here and his truck is broken!”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s a miracle,” Glenn groused. “Those hamburgers aren’t going to deliver themselves to the diners, more’s the pity. If only I’d thought to hire someone who carried plates to tables . . .”

  Britt folded the tag and stuffed it in her jeans, and whirled gracefully to accept hot plates from a glowering Giorgio, who could really hold a grudge if she let something he’d cooked get lukewarm.

  CHAPTER 3

  There were only three bus benches on J. T.’s long, long, sweaty walk, but it felt a bit like a gauntlet straight of out of some of his more whisky-­fueled nightmares: Rebecca Corday frisked with purses; threw her head blissfully back and beamed her signature dazzling smile to show off the gemstone earrings glinting in her ears; or flung her arms out à la Julie Andrews about to perform a twirl on a Swiss mountainside, a long pastel scarf rippling out from her hand. In every image she was absolutely ecstatic to be sporting something from Macy’s.

  In between the little electric shock of each of those benches, he rather enjoyed what he saw of the town. Main Street was charming and tidy. The genuine Gold Rush-­era Victorian storefronts were scrupulously maintained, and doorways were flanked by bright flowers in baskets hung from hooks or spilling out of terra-­cotta pots. A feed store sat side by side with the beauty salon and the palm reader, near a bakery, a fishing supply shop, a tobacconist, and a karate dojo, of all things, which he really ought to look into. Little streets fanned off the main drag, too, and when he craned his head he saw more handsome buildings clearly dating back to the first time miners had set foot in this area, and what appeared to be a fountain in front of a grand old domed building, modest in scale but regal in bearing. City or town hall, if he had to guess.

  So Hellcat Canyon is a little town in the middle of nowhere, maybe, but an alive town, as neat and pretty as any little toy village plopped down under a Christmas tree, sans snow.

  Eventually the sidewalks disappeared, and the town proper gave way to a paved road thickly canopied and lined with pines and oaks. The road gradually sloped up and up and up, and apparently that’s where he was headed.

  At the very crest of the hill an enormous Victorian house painted a pale lavender sat like a frilly crown.

  He approached gingerly. A flight of wooden steps led up to an enormous wicker furniture-­bestrewn wraparound porch. Every chair on it sported a fat and flowery cushion.

  It looked so thoroughly girly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was required to check his testicles at the door. The way you took off your shoes before you entered a Buddhist temple.

  He made for the steps like a pole vaulter and took them two at a time.

  Which was how he nearly crashed into a great, dangling wind chime. He gave it a startled swat. It retaliated by swinging at him like nunchucks.

  He dodged and feinted nimbly just in time, before it took out an eye.

  His black belt in karate came in useful at the damnedest times.

  The chimes were still clanging together, as were his nerves, as he turned the knob on the door.

  The first breath he took inside told him instantly how Dorothy felt in that field of poppies in The Wizard of Oz. Only instead of poppies it was potpourri. And he would lie right down here on the purple carpet and die if he was forced to breathe it longer than necessary.

  He looked around grimly. The glossy mauve walls terminated in a pale blue ceiling painted in big, creamy clouds. Everywhere his eyes fell, cherubs of one kind or another gazed lovingly back at him from framed prints on the wall, their chubby cheeks perched on their clasped hands, or their little wings outspread as they cavorted through rosy skies, or from the tops of little gewgaw boxes.

  And every imaginable depiction of an angel—­ceramic, glass, wood, animal, stone, abstract, medieval, Art Nouveau—­lined rows of shelves along the walls. It was the UN of angels.

  If this was heaven, he really hoped hell had a better decorator.

  As if the budget had all been spent on the interior, there wasn’t a single superfluous thing about the woman behind the counter, from her haircut (no-­nonsense) to her sweatshirt (gray) to her figure (solid) to the reading glasses perched on her nose. One hand was flipping through a ledger, another hand was tapping away at an old adding machine, and her eyes were darting between it and her cell phone lying on the counter next to a big brass bell that said “Ring for Help.”

  If only there was a big brass bell just like that for every occasion in life that warranted it, he thought.

  She was about the same age as the motherly woman at the Misty Cat, and her hair color, the only flamboyant thing about her, was the same flame red. Either they were related or that particular color was on sale at Costco last week.

  She glanced up.

  She froze in place, one hand on the adding machine, the other on her ledger.

  Then she whipped off her reading glasses as if they might be causing her to hallucinate.

  She stared a moment longer, then a bemused smile spread all over her face.

  “Well, what lucky wind blew you off course, hon? Need a room? A wife?” She gave her lashes an exaggerated flap.

  He perked up. He did enjoy a big personality. And he could field that line like Babe Ruth.

  “Well, that all depends”—­he paused for effect—­“on whether you’re single.”

  “Let me just pack a bag and write a farewell note to my husband.”

  “Okay, but hurry it on up. Just think of all the time we’ve wasted up until now.”

  She clapped a hand over her heart as if Cupid had pierced it then and there.

  He grinned. One magazine article had described him as an “Olympic-­caliber flirt” and he’d considered it an honor. There was nothing to it, really. You had to like women. A lot. And they had to like you. A lot.

  Her cell phone chirped an incoming text and she reflexively flicked her eyes down.

  She went absolutely motionless again.

  Her eyebrows dove into a puzzled frown.

  She jammed her reading glasses back onto her face.

  She remained absolutely still.

  Then she levered her head up very, very slowly. And stared at him again.

  Word certainly does travel fast in small towns, he thought dryly.

  “You would probably be Mr. McCord,” she said, sounding somewhat subdued.

  “I am indeed Mr. McCord,” he agreed pleasantly. Sorry that she was subdued.

  Her aplomb stuttered for a millisecond as she stared at him and decided how one addresses a movie star, or whatever he was now. Moments like this had never stopped being odd for him. He was exactly the same person now as he was two minutes ago.

  “Well, it’s an honor, Mr. McCord.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine,” he said smoothly.

  Another funny little silence went by. He suspected this woman was thrown for the first time in her practical, efficient life.

  “I can’t say I watched y
our show,” she blurted finally, as if confessing a crime. It was a blend of apology and defensiveness. “Blood Brothers, was it?”

  “Not everybody did. Not even my own mother.” Then again, his mother had died when he was ten.

  But she relaxed visibly, as if she’d been excused from a breach in etiquette.

  She got brisk again. “As luck would have it, we’ve got one room left. Real pretty and has a view of the peak.”

  “Sounds perfect.” He didn’t ask what peak.

  “Has its own bathroom.”

  “Always a plus.” He could predict right now what the soap smelled like here. He had a manly sandalwood-­scented or something or other in his overnight bag. Which he might have to use to scrub the potpourri scent out of his hair.

  “Right next to the honeymoon suite.”

  “That’ll do just fine.” As long as he wasn’t in the honeymoon suite. He’d enjoyed an unbroken streak of remaining out of honeymoon suites for most of his adult life and that was the way he liked it.

  “We do get a lot of young couples in love here,” she added proudly.

  “It does make the world go round.” The “L” word. Probably the only four-­letter word J. T. had never willingly uttered in his life, at least to a woman.

  She smiled at him. “No smoking, no hijinks, and breakfast buffet is served in the lounge from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. If you need anything you can just call the front desk. My name is Rosemary.”

  “Just out of curiosity, if a person had hijinks in mind, where in Hellcat Canyon would he go?”

  She licked a finger and swiped a bright pink flyer from a little stack on the counter and handed it to him.

  It was a calendar.

  “If you’re up for a spot of gambling, there’s bingo at St. Anne’s Church tonight. Open Mic at the Misty Cat Cavern later this week. And if there’s a sale on produce at Rumpole’s Grocery, sometimes things get pretty competitive—­you might see someone thrown down over the last zucchini. If you want to drive twenty or thirty miles in either direction, you’ll find some casinos and wineries. But here in town, at least this week, you might have to use your imagination.”