Wild at Whiskey Creek

by Julie Anne Long

  Franco sauntered into Cafe Cinnabar ten minutes after she’d arrived and slid into the chair across from her.

  She’d been nursing an excellent cup of coffee and enjoying being entirely alone in a newish place.

  “I don’t see any luggage, Glory,” he said by way of greeting. “Unless all you’ve got in that purse is a bikini and some lip balm. In which case, congratulations. You’ve nailed precisely the dress code.”

  Glory smiled tautly. And said nothing. Yet.

  Her heartbeat had started to ratchet up.

  “Heated pool. Heated hot tub. Heated everything,” he expounded. “You can fashion a sarong out of a satin sheet when we go down to dinner.”

  She still didn’t speak.

  “I bet you rock a bikini.”

  “I do,” she said sadly, finally. “I really do.”

  Once she said the words she couldn’t unsay them. And part of her was floating over her body, observing the surreality of the moment. Because a lot of people, 90 percent of them women, would think she was out of her mind.

  “I can’t go.”

  He leaned back in his chair slowly.

  A little silence fell.

  “Do . . . you have to work?” He was clearly pretty puzzled. “You can’t get off work?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  There was a little silence as he studied her. She saw it plain as day when she saw the realization strike.

  “It’s the deputy. That fucking deputy,” he said with a sort of grim, ironic astonishment.

  “Funny. That’s kind of how I think of him, too.”

  He leaned back in his chair hard again. And stared at her incredulously.

  And then the amazement evolved into something like patience. As if he was about to school her.

  “Glory . . . maybe you haven’t figured this out yet, because you’ve been here in this small town, there’s always going to be some guy. For a woman like you? Always. But there’s not always going to be a chance to meet Wyatt Congdon. You can labor in a charming backwater for the rest of your life never really getting anywhere or anything apart from a few cheers from a few drunks, or you can meet Congdon and rise into the stratosphere like . . .” He snapped his fingers.

  “‘Wyatt Congdon,’” she repeated slowly. “See, you’re just saying words again now, Franco.”

  His face flared with astonishment. “Two words that can change your life forever.”

  Glory was about to school him.

  “Here’s the thing about the guy in question. He would never hold something I want more than anything in the world over me to get something he wanted. Because that would make a whore of both of us. He wants me for me. He wants me to want him for him. And ironically enough, it’s not sexy to feel like a whore.”

  Franco’s head went back sharply, as surely as if she’d shoved an epee at him. En garde.

  He was quiet for some time. Outside, there was Hellcat Canyon as she always knew it. It seemed somehow surreal that she should be having this kind of conversation with this man while nothing outside changed.

  “You really think anyone in the entertainment business doesn’t whore themselves at some point?” he tried, a little subdued.

  “I’m not speaking in general and you know it. What I’m saying is that you want to have sex with me, and you think waving Wyatt Congdon at me will increase the odds of it. You’re just too fucking lazy to win me over with your own charms.”

  “Whoa.” His eyes actually widened.

  “Am I wrong?” she pressed. It was probably rash, but now she had the momentum of a point to make. And she was pissed, quite frankly.

  “No one has ever spoken to me like that before.” He sounded more impressed than angry. He was definitely both, though.

  Though when the shock wore off, it was hard to know which of those emotions would settle in for keeps.

  “Well, maybe J.T.,” he added, dryly. Almost to himself.

  J.T. must be John Tennessee McCord.

  Another tense little silence ensued.

  “Listen, Glory . . .” Franco was frustrated. It was pretty clear this was a new corner for him, and he didn’t know how to argue his way out of it. He also wasn’t used to not getting what he wanted. “You can believe me or not believe me . . . but there’s really no implied obligation here. I want a chance to know you. I want to spend time with you.”

  “Sure. But you probably think it would be the least I could do. The polite thing.” She was sardonic now.

  “Sleep with me on an overnight trip to Napa? Well, yeah. If you’re a stickler for etiquette.” He was joking. Mostly.

  She gave a short laugh. “You are hot, Franco, and you know it. You’re sexy and you know it. You’re smart, and you know it. You’re good at your job. But I’m not sure you know anything else about yourself. Because if you do, you don’t seem to want to show it.”

  He visibly tensed. He wasn’t crazy about being summed up that way by her, that was for sure. “What the hell could you possibly know about me or the world?”

  She could handle pissed-off men, though. Piece of cake. “Probably nothing. In the scheme of things. But thanks for suggesting I might be just that ignorant.”

  He made an exasperated sound and dragged both of his hands back through his gorgeous curly hair.

  “Glory . . . I know you’ll probably think this a line, and I probably only have myself to blame for that. But . . . I honestly can’t stop thinking about you. Not entirely sure why. It’s the music, the attitude, the way you laugh. I do want to know you, and not just in the biblical sense.”

  She believed him. It happened that way sometimes. Even to movie stars, she supposed.

  And while it was hard to truly feel sympathy for a guy who’d had it so easy—or seemed to, she amended in her head, because appearances could in fact be deceiving—she did understand having it easy might get in the way of learning what really fed your soul, when it was so easy to feed your senses instead.

  She felt for him, despite herself. “Franco . . . I have a hunch you’re fishing for something you didn’t even know you wanted. And you may not want to hear this, but you’re using the wrong bait.”

  He went still. Then he frowned and angled his head abruptly away from her, looked out the window.

  Wow. That profile. She had to be nuts. It belonged stamped on commemorative medals. What woman wouldn’t kill to be her right now, sitting across from the Franco Francone?

  A woman who knew how lucky she was, that’s who.

  “Just be who you are, Franco,” she hazarded gently, albeit somewhat impatiently. “When you take away the words and the people and the car and all the money and all that. Whatever’s left, that’s who you are. Whoever that guy is . . . well, some woman might think he’s worth passing up a so-called lifetime opportunity for him.”

  He turned toward her, his mouth quirked bitterly. “What’s that? A little backwoods wisdom?”

  His feelings—or his ego—or both, were wounded.

  “Yeah,” she said evenly. “A little backwoods wisdom.”

  For better or worse, she knew who she was.

  And every decision she made from now on would pivot on that knowledge. Which, as far as she was concerned, made her much luckier than Franco Francone.

  “I want you to know . . .” She took in a deep breath. “That making this decision was easy for me. It’s pretty hard not to like you. The only thing I’m sure of is that if I go with you to Napa, I’ll lose him forever. And when it came down to losing him forever or meeting Wyatt Congdon . . . well, I guess I should thank you for clarifying my whole life for me.”

  Franco’s expression had gone dark and mostly unreadable. But there was a hint of sulky incredulity in the knit of his brows.

  She sighed. And slid her chair back.

  “But thank you for the invitation,” she said politely. “I hope you have a nice time in Napa.” She left a couple of dollars next to her coffee cup and paused. “And if the spirit so moves you
, give my regards to Wyatt Congdon. Because one way or another, he’s going to know who I am one day.”

  And she didn’t so much walk out the cafe as strut, with a little swing in her hips.

  Just to give Franco a little something to remember her by.

  Chapter 18

  Not ten minutes after Glory got home from improbably blowing off Franco Francone, her sister called desperate for a babysitter, and her mom was out doing some work for Gary Shaw.

  So Glory headed over to Michelle’s to look after her two oldest, who were five and seven years old and perpetual mess-and-motion machines, while her sister took the youngest to a doctor’s appointment and then did some shopping. Glory didn’t make it back to her own home again until well after dinnertime. Which didn’t leave her any time for self-reflection or recrimination or noodling on her guitar as she mulled over what to do next that she’d originally scheduled for today.

  Eli was an all or nothing guy.

  What she did next would determine what her forever looked like.

  She thought she’d have a quick lie-down when she got home.

  But next thing she knew she was opening her eyes with a start; pale morning light had squeezed under her blinds and touched her eyelids. She moved experimentally, surprised to find herself completely clothed underneath an old quilt her grandmother had made from scraps of worn-out clothes she’d saved, so it was like being covered in generations of Greenleafs. She wiggled her toes, bemused; her boots were off but her socks were still on.

  She must have just crashed when she got home yesterday; clearly all her emotional reserves had been spent and she’d been running on auxiliary without knowing it. Her mom must have tiptoed in with the comforter at some point, covered her up, and managed to get her boots off with the inimitable delicacy and finesse of moms everywhere.

  Glory smiled sleepily, feeling loved, and peered at her alarm clock. It was seven-thirty.

  Holy crap!

  She had to be at work at eight.

  She sat bolt upright and hurtled out of bed, shedding the comforter and bolting down the hall so fast she went into a skid in her socks and nearly wiped out as she rounded the corner to the kitchen. She yanked open the freezer on a hunch.

  Her mom must be feeling pretty optimistic about Gary Shaw, because she’d sprung for slightly better coffee. And it was all ground up, too.

  With lightning speed she put the water on to boil, shoveled a liberal helping of coffee into the French press, whipped off her shirt, darted into the living room wearing only her bra, and threw on a t-shirt she found folded in the laundry pile on the sofa. It unfurled almost down to her knees. Damn! It was John-Mark’s. Shit shit shit. She pivoted to press the plunger on the French press like she was detonating a building and, like a barbarian, took a hit of coffee straight from the carafe. It tasted marvelous, like ink.

  Thank God she could drive the truck to work today. Otherwise she’d be insanely late.

  She paused for a millisecond and listened.

  She could hear her mom snoring softly in her bedroom.

  She listened harder.

  Only one warm body in there breathing, though. She stood on her toes and peered out the window. No blue Lexus parked out front.

  She had a hunch it was only a matter of time, however, before Gary became a fixture.

  Or her next stepdad.

  She smiled ruefully. She could live with that. Because he’d probably be her last stepdad. And John-Mark would probably like him.

  That’s when she saw the note in the middle of the kitchen table. Speak of the devil. She had another hunch, and it wasn’t a good one.

  She snatched it up.

  Glo—my car broke down last night on the way to work and I had to hitchhike back to town. I had to walk all the way over here to borrow the truck or I’d miss work.

  P.S. Then the truck broke down and I missed work anyway. It’s out on the highway by the sign that says “TITS.”

  P.P.S. Truck Donegal picked me up when I was hitchhiking. He says to tell you hi.

  P.P.P.S. I can’t miss any more days of work or . . .

  And here he’d drawn a little stick figure of a guy getting his throat cut. Complete with “X”s over its eyes and arterial spray.

  ARRRRGH. She squeezed her eyes closed and swore blackly under her breath.

  God only knew punctuality was about the best she had to offer Sherrie and Glenn, at least as a waitress, and they deserved at least that much.

  She was going to have to run—literally run—to work.

  Still, she drew a smiling stick figure of a guy dangling from a noose, and wrote:

  Hang in there, John-Mark.

  Xoxo Glory

  And even though he hadn’t drawn a rectangle, she left him twenty bucks and twelve cents. It was what she had left after she’d given Monroe twenty-five bucks and Giorgio ten bucks, and she’d given her sister forty bucks to help pay for the glasses the baby was going to need. Still, there was no question that having any money at all she could give away made her feel richer.

  And then she crammed her feet into the old Skechers slides she kept by the front door, grabbed her keys, and bolted.

  She ran the way she used to run as a kid, long breakneck strides, thundering down the dirt road, crashing through the long grass, dragging a hand for good luck on that elm tree, which by rights ought to have been scorched from the heat she and Eli had thrown off Tuesday, and then she practically hurdled the old white fence. She paused here to rope her hair into a sloppy knot of sorts on the nape of her neck and take a few gulping breaths. And then she ran all the way down Main Street the way Boomer Clark had that time he was drunk and had run screaming down the street claiming Bigfoot was chasing him, only it turned out just to be Lloyd Sunnergren’s big black Lab-Newfoundland mix, Hamburger, who was harmless and ecstatic to have someone to run with. When you met Hamburger, however, it was easy to see how Boomer might have gotten confused.

  She paused on Main Street to breathe for about three seconds, then pushed open the door of the Misty Cat so hard the bells leaped like a cat o’ nine tails and almost lashed her in the tush. She looked about wildly, saw the broom, seized it, and began sweeping like a dervish to make up for being ten minutes late.

  Sherrie had already pulled all the chairs down and she was wiping a table. She paused and watched Glory for a bemused moment. Then her mouth twitched.

  “What does the nine stand for?”

  “The wha . . .” She looked down. There was indeed a big number nine on the t-shirt she’d snagged off the sofa. Damned if she knew what that meant off the top of her head. Boys and their clothes.

  “I thought a ten might be a little too conceited,” she improvised. Rather than confess she’d gotten dressed in six seconds in the middle of her living room about ten minutes ago.

  Over from behind the grill, Giorgio shook his head to and fro, as if this was the saddest thing he’d ever heard.

  Glory shot him a black look and lashed the floor with the broom.

  Suddenly Glenn burst in from the back room and beckoned Sherrie over to him near the stage with urgent scoops of his hand.

  She joined him. Whereupon they engaged in what sounded like an impassioned murmured conversation, interspersed with darted looks right at Glory.

  Uh-oh.

  Finally their little scrum broke apart and Sherrie called brightly, “Glory, can we have a quick word?”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Um . . . Of course.” She propped the broom against the wall and approached with slow, steady dignity. Like a penitent, or someone headed to the gallows.

  In keeping with the thrills and chills and spills of the last couple of weeks, she wouldn’t be surprised to be fired. Or promoted. Or to be told the restaurant was closing for a month in order to bolt the stools and chairs to the floor so they could neither be projectiles nor drums.

  Glenn got right into it. “Listen, Glory, I just got off the phone with your friend Franco Francone. Wyatt Con
gdon is going to be passing through Hellcat Canyon tomorrow and he’d like to hear you sing while he’s here.”

  Whoosh! Her heart launched right into her throat. And lodged there.

  For a moment she felt a delicious weightlessness, as though she’d literally been fired into space—she couldn’t feel her limbs.

  It felt like a full minute before she could speak. And all the while the two of them were beaming at her so broadly she almost needed a visor for the glare.

  “Wyatt Congdon is just going to be ‘passing through’ Hellcat Canyon?” Her voice was two octaves higher than usual and sounded like she swallowed a moth.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Who knows what the hell these music people do?” Glenn asked. “Maybe he had a few minutes in between gilding his toilet and polishing his Grammys, and he feels like taking a drive in the country. He can give you fifteen minutes around seven in the morning tomorrow. According to your friend Mr. Francone.” Glenn was practically twinkling.

  Sherrie chimed in. “I’ll unlock the front door and let him in and then Glenn and I will skedaddle until eight. We’ll be down at Eden’s flower shop if you need us for anything.”

  This is what they’d been planning in murmurs. They were so much nicer to her than she probably deserved.

  Glory gave a short, stunned laugh.

  But . . . wait. There was something she needed to know.

  “Where will . . . um . . . Mr. Francone be while this is happening? Did he say?”

  “He’s in Napa for a few weeks, then I think he said L.A., and then he’ll be back in Hellcat Canyon to film a few scenes with J.T. McCord. Oh! He was pretty adamant that I write something down to tell you.” Glenn scrabbled his reading glasses from his shirt pocket and pushed them onto his face but still held the order pad at arm’s length. “‘Tell Glory it’s a thank-you for backwoods wisdom. And tell her we’re square. And good luck with that macho jerk.’”

  Glory smiled slowly. She was pretty sure the “we’re square” was Franco Francone’s way of telling her she didn’t owe him a thing. She had indeed schooled him.

  “I take it you know what that means? Is Wyatt Congdon a macho jerk?” Glenn wanted to know. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”