***
Joella debated the relative merits of sinking through Charlie’s filthy wood floor, ripping off her apron and fleeing, or brazening it out in the face of Flint’s temper and her own shock. Since she possessed no magic traits for liquefying, and she needed a job to eat, brazening it out was her only option.
“A guitar player?” she asked, ignoring his insolence and forcing a chuckle as she swayed her hips and crossed the floor. Damn, but he was even hotter looking than she remembered, although slightly green around the gills once she got close enough to see. “Do you also play the coffee pot?”
She rounded the corner and removed the bag of coffee beans from his hand. Without asking permission, she measured a full load into the grinder, ignoring the intimidating height and breadth of pure furious male hovering over her shoulder.
“Just the guitar,” he growled with a note of threat in his throat. “I’m Flynn Clinton, lately of the Barn Boys, fresh out of Nashville.”
“No wonder you can’t make coffee.” She tried to sound perky, but he’d pretty much ruined her day. She was going to have to quit this job now. She couldn’t work here and suffer the daily electric zing of attraction to another lying, cowardly guitar-picker who would be gone as soon as he found the next gig.
“Since when do guitar pickers play cafés?” was all she asked.
“I can make coffee,” Mr. Clinton growled, completely unlike the sweet-talking hunk of last night. “And it’s a coffee shop, not a café. We won’t do music.”
“Well, so much for my singing waitress routine,” she answered saucily, tapping his blue work shirt with a cup to get him out of her personal space.
He backed off, but Jo noticed he watched her intently as she set the grinder.
“Got any other ideas how you’ll rebuild business? Maybe a little soft-shoe, hmm?” She danced a step or two to her own music.
“Why, you got something to sell?” he taunted.
She accidentally on purpose stomped his boot toe while reaching for the chicory. “Unless you’re planning on charging ten bucks a cup, you’d better sell something besides coffee, and your good looks don’t count.”
She ought to block what she was doing so he had to rely on her if he wanted to keep his customers, but she’d never been the spiteful sort. Besides, she didn’t want to be responsible for the repercussions if people didn’t get their caffeine fix.
“Good looks?” He snorted. “Is that the best you can do to keep from getting fired?”
Since she figured he was getting a good look at her ass, Jo ignored the frisson of fear at the possibility of losing her job. She reached for the filters in the cabinet and poured in the ground beans as she’d done every morning for the last year.
With the heady aroma of brewed coffee sweetening the stale air, she took a deep breath and turned to face her surly boss, hands on hips. “I’m Joella Sanderson, café manager, hostess, short-order cook, and waitress. I have a resume as long as your arm. You can keep me on, or I can go down the street and become your competition.”
She had brazen down real well. Her honesty lacked a little polish.
Flint scowled at her from his greater height. His muscled physique in a formfitting shirt and jeans was silhouetted against the gray dawn of the picture window. He ought to have red neon across his forehead flashing Danger! instead of that intriguing lock of too-long hair that any woman in her right faculties would love to push out of his eyes.
She didn’t shy away while he studied her from the flyaway wisps of yellow grazing her forehead, to the long ponytail that kept her mass of hair out of the food, down to the tips of her practical Nikes. She had been in a hurry to arrive early and hadn’t bothered with any more makeup than mascara and lipstick this morning. The air-conditioning in the Stardust left something to be desired so she wore her sensible Frog Prince T-shirt and red shorts under the apron.
He didn’t offer a single smile or look of approval. Admittedly, she didn’t look as good as she had last night, but she didn’t think she was Godzilla either.
“These are the mountains,” he said, seemingly irrelevantly. “I thought women only got a tan like yours at the beach.”
Well, if that’s the way he wanted it, she could give as good as she got. “Never heard of tanning beds?” she mocked, crossing her brown arms over the apron.
“Never heard of skin cancer?” With a grim look on his lined face, he walked off, grabbing a bottle of ammonia from the counter as he headed for the back.
Ammonia? Jo lifted her eyebrows and looked around. He’d cleaned the machine!
Flynn Clinton, lately of the Barn Boys—and despite her blasé reaction she knew damned well who the hottest country band in a decade was—sweet-talking, sexy dancer and kisser par none, had cleaned the ancient filthy Bunn burners that should have been tossed in the trash during the last world war.
He was human after all. Maybe she could tolerate the intolerable hunk until she found the road out of here.
Hearing him slam the door of Charlie’s office, Joella examined the greasy assortment of antique equipment and pondered where to start. Heaving it all in the trash was her preference, but the place wasn’t hers. The griddle then. After that, the refrigerator. The oven had died many moons ago and deserved a decent burial.
She had been just a little less than honest earlier. Charlie had never let her back here except to fix the coffee. He liked her out in front of the counter, entertaining the customers. She’d had no problem with that since talking to people was her preference, and Charlie wouldn’t have let her clean up anyway. He thought grease added flavor.
But Flynn Clinton obviously thought otherwise. Hopes soaring despite their first minor setback, she grinned and set to work. Surely working for a musician wouldn’t be as hazardous as dating one. And his occupation could be good news for the band. Her spirits took a decided rise at that thought.
Despite her lifelong desire for fame and fortune, Jo enjoyed the café. It was like an empty canvas waiting for an artist’s stroke. It had so much potential.
And with the accomplishment of that potential, she could hope for more tips and maybe more tourists feeling expansive and buying things, which would ultimately lead to more tips because people around here might have a little extra spending money then. She knew how economics worked without the professor at the college telling her. She’d bought her Fiesta with tips. Well, tips and a hefty loan.
The bank wouldn’t give her a loan to save her stubborn defeatist mother.
It was almost seven before Dave from the hardware store noticed the Open sign and wandered in. “Hey, Joella! Back in business I see.”
She slid a cup of leaded across the counter at him and a Krispy Kreme from the boxes she’d had her sister Amy pick up at the grocery when she’d found the cabinets bare. Mr. Guitar Player had come out of his office long enough to ask where they bought their muffins and to put some cash in the register. She’d showed him the donut receipt, and he’d reimbursed her without arguing, so he was still on her good books, although just barely.
“Yup.” She placed a cheap metal spoon on a paper napkin and slid it down the counter to him. “Mr. Clinton is in the office if you want to introduce yourself.”
That was evil, but it had to be done. Dave sat on the Chamber of Commerce board and was president of the Rotary. Her new boss would have to learn to deal with the community, not lurk in his office, if he wanted to build a business. And what was good for his business, was good for hers.
“I’ll do that, thanks, Jo.” Dave slipped a five on the counter and moseyed over to the side door into the storage room where Charlie kept his desk and files.
Business picked up after that, and she didn’t notice when Flint finally emerged from his cave.
“The pig is almost done,” Sally was saying excitedly as Jo poured coffee into a Styrofoam take-out cup for her. “Do you think Mr. Clinton will take her? The kids had so much fun putting red ribbons on her tail!”
Jo knew
the instant Flint came up behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and her insides did an excited shimmy. Coffee sloshed over the side of the cup before she caught herself. Sally’s look of shock said it all.
“You put ribbons on a pig’s tail?” he growled in disbelief. “Doesn’t the Humane Society have something to say about that?”
Well, he wouldn’t attract a lot of customers with that attitude. Jo flashed him a ruby smile over her shoulder and decided to yank his chains about Sally’s art project to see if he had a sense of humor at all. “Why, sho ’nuff, Mr. Big Stuff. We’re proud of our pigs around here. Sally, meet Mr. Flynn Clinton, our new proprietor. Flint, Sally Benton, the art teacher at the elementary.”
To her total astonishment, the lummox turned on his charm and practically kissed Sally’s hand, giving her that sexy half-smile guaranteed to have a girl swooning. Sally blushed bright red and giggled like a teenager. Sally was height-challenged—from childhood, she’d always been a half foot shorter than the weight chart suggested. Men didn’t often melt her with their best smiles.
“My sons should love your class if it involves putting ribbons on pigs,” Flint declared in that same sweet-talking voice he’d used with Jo last night.
“You have children?” Sally asked brightly, although her face fell a good country mile in disappointment.
“They’re with their grandparents,” Jo said helpfully. Sally was a wonderful person. She deserved better than a two-timing, high-living guitar picker. But Sally was an intelligent adult who could make her own bad decisions. Who was Jo to stand in the way?
“I’m planning on bringing the boys up here once I get settled in.”
Jo noticed a stubborn set to his mouth when he said that. She had customers waiting for her and didn’t have time to wrestle it out. “So you’ll take Sally’s pig?”
“I don’t think so,” he said with all the appearance of regret and none of the sincerity. “It’s good meeting you, Miss Benton. Maybe we can talk later.” He walked off to speak with one of the lawyers who liked his cup kept filled.
Sally looked crestfallen. “I know she isn’t the prettiest of the pigs, but you’d think someone would take her.”
Jo patted her shoulder. “He will. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Hey, Jo, what’s your sister saying about the mill closing?”
Silence descended as everyone waited to hear her answer to George Bob’s accusatory question.
One good thing about being off work these past weeks had been avoiding spiked questions like that. Negative rumors got the town nowhere. “Same as she’s telling you, I reckon,” she called, filling all the cups on the counter. “Been to church lately to ask her?”
With that explosive topic closed, she laughed and joked her way through the morning rush hour. Her new boss seemed to favor his left hand and was a bit slow on the uptake, but Charlie had been slower, so Jo wasn’t complaining.
She had a hard time putting the sexy swinger from last night into the shoes of crummy café owner today, but by the time Flint had wiped a few spills and dished a few doughnuts, she was mentally adjusting. Physically, she was a hive of buzzing hormones every time she had to brush by all that virility in the tight space behind the counter. He even smelled better than a Krispy Kreme. She detected a distinct note of vanilla in his aftershave that made her want to rub her nose against his chest.
Business slacked off after the doughnuts ran out. People hardly ever came to the Stardust for Charlie’s cooking. The lawyers were still in the corner, reading their newspapers and mooching pots of coffee for the price of a cup, but they weren’t occupying valuable real estate at this hour.
“I’ll call the bakery and order the deliveries resumed tomorrow,” Flint said, coming up behind her.
His customary growl sounded almost apologetic, so Jo forgave him. “Didya think the food was delivered by magic fairies overnight?” she teased.
“It’s not? And here I thought I’d discovered the magic genie who’s going to make my life all better if she wants to keep her job.” He gave her non-sexy Stardust apron bib a wicked once-over, but she heard the sarcasm just fine.
“Oh, right, I forgot genie duty.” She untied the apron and flung it aside, leaning her elbows back on the counter so he could get a good look. It seemed they needed to clear the air after last night’s little fiasco. “Any other magic acts you want me to perform?”
He inspected the goods she blatantly revealed. “Do you make magic by jiggling those?” He held up his palm to halt her scathing reply. “Don’t answer that. I was over the line. Pax.”
She ought to slap him silly, but she’d stuck her breasts in his face first to get the obvious out of the way. “Guess that makes us even, then.” She tapped his hard chest in retaliation, and electricity crackled and zapped. She hid her grin as he tensed all over. At least she wasn’t the only one suffering. “Down boy.”
He growled and spun around to clean the coffeepot. “Charlie told me this was an open operation,” he said, as if she hadn’t just scorched them both with that tap, “and all I had to do was show up and pay the bills. How long have you been closed?”
“Two weeks.” Well, so much for making nice. “Charlie had a heart attack. He meant to keep things up until you arrived, but he couldn’t.” She grabbed a dishcloth and started wiping down the faded Formica.
“And I’m guessing I have to do a little more than pay the bills?” he asked wryly, dodging the dishwasher door when it dropped to the floor, just missing his boot toe.
“You could hire another waitress.” She shrugged as he knelt to examine the heavy panel. “But you only need help in the rush hours and weekends. Cheaper to do it yourself.” Be still her heart, what was she saying? Work here every day with the hunk?
“Guess I can get the hang of it. I didn’t catch that about the mill.” He tinkered with the door hinges. “My daddy used to work out there. Is it closing?”
Sighing, Jo poured a cup of coffee and took her morning break to watch the guitar player fix a dishwasher door that had been broken for a decade. Flint added a certain savoir faire that Charlie never possessed, she acknowledged, and she wasn’t just talking about the muscular back beneath that tailored Ralph Lauren work shirt. Even after he gave up on the door and started emptying the load of clean dishes, Flint added his own touch by drying off the wet bottoms of the mugs before stacking them. And when he bent to empty the bottom rack, his jeans fit a sight better than Charlie’s.
“I prefer to play Pollyanna and believe the mill will survive.”
Flint polished a glass and actually glanced her way with approval, as if maybe she had a few brains instead of cooties. She let the look slide rather than resume their flirtation. She was writing off men, and especially male bosses. Naked cowboys, on the other hand… Wow! So not going there.
“But people around here think it will close,” he continued for her, his gaze igniting from the clash with hers before he returned to putting dishes away.
Jo fanned herself with a towel. Maybe she’d be better off fired. “It’s that kind of negative thinking that will close the town,” she groused. “A lot of people got laid off when the economy went south of the border. Tobacco doesn’t make money anymore. Tourism dropped. A few stores closed. And everyone sees disaster where it isn’t. If we’d just work harder to turn things around, we’d be fine.”
“Uh huh.” He looked at her as if she’d just sprouted wings. “You running for office?”
“Put Sally’s pig in the doorway,” she said angrily. She hated being dismissed as if she were a dumb blonde. Maybe she wasn’t highly educated, but she wasn’t dumb. “Take down those moldering curtains. Buy an espresso machine to bring in tourists. Things will turn around if you give them a reason to do so.”
“Will that stop the mill from closing?” he asked. “And if it doesn’t, how will I pay for that espresso machine if my customers are broke?”
The question was obviously rhetorical. He put the l
ast mug on the shelf and returned to his office.
Not for the first time, Joella wondered if she could afford an apartment down in Asheville. Maybe Rita would share. She heard Hooters paid well. If she wasn’t going to get any respect, she ought to at least get paid.
Four
Trying to drive the encounter with Joella and his own personal demons out of his mind, Flint called his sons the instant he returned to the house he’d rented.
The call thus far hadn’t been very successful.
“Mom, I have a great place out in the woods,” Flint tried to say convincingly to the protective gargoyle keeping him from his kids. “The boys will love it.”
He didn’t tell his mother that the log house he described with such enthusiasm had been built in the fifties and not updated since—no dishwasher, one-and-a-half baths, and pink tile. At least he had a microwave. The boys could survive without swimming pools for a weekend.
He worked the spongy ball with his left hand, feeling the pain from the mending bones and unused tendons shooting straight up his arm.
“If you’re working, what will they do with themselves all day?” his mother asked with arctic frost. “Have you given that any thought?”
“They can work with me. It’s not as if I’m hauling coal. It will be good for them to get out from in front of the idiot box.” He sank deeper into the leather recliner he’d saved from the auction that had divided all his worldly goods between Melinda and the IRS. “I’ll take off work for the weekend if that’s your concern.”
Working the ball in his left hand, he crossed the fingers of his right. He’d have to hire another waitress to perform that magic act. Magic. Right. Joella the Jiggling Genie had scarfed up his brain. He couldn’t help grinning, recalling her brash act. If he could afford to fire her, he would, just for the sake of his own mental health. But he needed experienced help, and she sure had a way of brightening the day.
He’d hire the devil if it would get his boys back here with him. Maybe he hadn’t been the greatest father in the world, but now that he was home and could be there for them, he needed to start learning what a father was supposed to do.
Small Town Girl Page 3
