by Webb, Peggy
“Let’s start with a map of the area....”
o0o
Her name was Cindy, and she was sweet, cute, and willing. When she’d delivered his check, she slipped her address and phone number to Crash along with a note that said, “My shift ends in half an hour.”
So what in the world was he doing in front of the Smoky Mountains Farm and Feed Supply when he could be snuggled up with Cindy?
Buying dog food, that’s what. And all because of a certain familiar car in the parking lot, all because of a pair of lips that could sting like a viper one minute and taste like berries and cream the next.
“Great Caesar in a bucket,” he muttered. “Looking for excuses to see Philadelphia.”
Not that he needed one. There was the dog. Baxter had taken an immediate liking to him. He’d always had a way with dogs. Dogs and women.
Correct that. Every woman except Philadelphia.
“Maddening wench,” he muttered as he passed by the checkout counter inside the feed store. The cashier looked at him as if he’d gone crazy. Maybe he had. Maybe that’s what happened when you turned thirty and discovered you’d spent every spring for the last ten years in the same place.
He was getting stale. What he ought to do was pack up his gear and head west, maybe as far as Colorado, or maybe southwest, somewhere down in Arizona. He’d never seen the giant saguaro cactus, though he had his doubts that they’d be half as prickly as Philadelphia.
“Shoot,” he said. She was in his mind so deep, he couldn’t even get a thought around her. What he ought to do was turn around and leave the store.
Instead he walked down aisles with merchandise piled higher than his head—spray paint, insecticide, shovels and rakes and garden hoes. They even had horse collars. He didn’t know they made those things anymore.
Crash picked one up and studied it. It was all leather, with polished brass knobs, not the real thing but a clever reproduction. Next he inspected the cast-iron skillets. His grandmother used to make corn bread in one similar. Where the one in his hand was divided into triangular shapes, hers had been divided into sections that looked like little ears of corn.
Those were the good old days, romping on the farm with his brother, climbing the big oak tree in the pasture, and dreaming about faraway places. Maybe that’s why he was such a vagabond. Those faraway places still beckoned him.
The skillet was heavy, and he could almost smell his grandmother’s corn bread. A bout of nostalgia attacked Crash, and he bought the skillet.
His grandmother was dead, and his mother, who prided herself on being a city woman, claimed she didn’t even have her mother’s recipe, but shoot, Crash could learn to make corn bread. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before.
“Do you have any cornmeal to go with this skillet?” he asked the boy at the checkout counter.
“You wanting yellow or white?”
“Does the color matter?”
“Some folks like white, but me, I’ll take yellow anytime. It makes the prettiest little corn bread pones.”
“Where can I find it?”
“Last aisle, just past the dog food.”
“Does it come with instructions?”
“Right inside the bag. The man that grinds it has his mill right here in the mountains. It’s his great-grandmother’s recipe.”
“This is my lucky day. Thanks, pal.”
Whistling, Crash tucked his skillet under his arm and headed toward the cornmeal.
Chapter Six
She’d know that whistle anywhere. Clutching Baxter in one hand and a shopping cart filled with puppy paraphernalia in the other, B. J. ducked behind a stack of dog food.
“Wouldn’t you know he’d find me here?”
For once Baxter didn’t have a comment. She peered around the stack of sacks as Crash went whistling down the aisle. There he was as big as brass, looking as if he owned the whole store and half the mountain.
B. J. wanted to hit something. What to do? Stay in hiding and hope he’d leave, or show herself and pretend he didn’t exist?
He solved her dilemma by marching down the aisle straight toward her and stopping right in front of the dog food. There was no way she could avoid detection, and pretending he didn’t exist was out of the question.
When in doubt, attack. B. J. came out fighting.
“What are you doing here?” she said, stepping out from her hiding place.
“Buying food for Baxter.... How are you little fellow?”
He loomed over her like a mountain, and under the guise of scratching the puppy’s ears, he put his hands all over her chest. It was deliberate; she knew it.
He was taking up too much air; that’s why she couldn’t breathe. He gave her one of his wicked grins that told her trouble was coming.
“What are you doing here? Playing hide-and-seek?”
His hands were still all over Baxter... and the front of her blouse. If she stepped back, she’d give herself away. She held her ground and endured, though it was definitely a trial by fire. What he was doing made her so hot, she was ready to burst into flames.
Ordinarily she’d have taken issue with his remark, but it was all she could do to maintain her poise, considering what he was doing with his hands.
Besides that, she’d learned long ago never to let an opponent put her on the defensive. Define the debate. Be the attacker. Those were the rules. Rules she’d kept forgetting since she met Crash.
It must be the mountain air.
“Obviously I’m buying supplies for Baxter.” She held up the bag of doggie treats. It was then that she noticed the package in his hand, a cast-iron skillet wrapped in brown paper with the handle taped up.
Find the opponent’s weak point. Throw him off guard. Rules worth remembering, as well.
“Planning to do some country home cooking... or is that a weapon?”
“I’ll say this for you, Philadelphia, you’re consistent.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not sure I meant that as a compliment.”
“I’ll take it as one, anyhow. Lawyers learn to take all the praise we can get.”
“That’s true.” He laughed.
Something about the way he said it tipped her off. He was not referring to her.
“You sound as if you speak from personal experience,” she said.
She was fishing, and he knew it. His old daredevil grin fell into place.
“Great Caesar in a rose garden, Philadelphia. The only thing I know about lawyers is that they’re best avoided.” His grin widened. “Present company excepted, of course.”
“If I weren’t such a lady, I’d kick you on the shins.”
His laugh boomed around the feed store. Baxter thought it was the grandest thing he’d ever heard. He got into the act by thumping his tail furiously against her chest and barking.
“A lady who loves natural food, big cities, and blues music, and hates hot dogs, bears, and the great outdoors.”
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure all that out, but she was somewhat surprised that he was so good at observation. She might as well admit it; she was flattered, too, though why she should be flattered that a man such as Crash took note of her likes and dislikes was a complete mystery to her.
Maybe something happened to a woman when she got jilted; maybe all her thought processes went amok and her hormones went on the rampage. How else to describe B.J.’s reaction to what had happened the night before. She’d been only a hairbreadth away from engaging in unbridled, mindless sex with a complete stranger.
He wasn’t a stranger, exactly, but she knew nothing about his background, his profession, his political preferences. Of course, she’d known all those things about Stephen, and look where that had led her.
There was no way in heaven or on earth she was going to get involved with a man like Crash. Furthermore, she didn’t give a flip about his background.
“What do you do for a living?” she said, then gave herself a
swift mental kick.
He quirked one eyebrow upward. “As little as possible,” he said, then held up the skillet. “I’m planning on making corn bread the way my grandmother used to make it.” He raked her from head to toe with a look that sent her temperature up ten degrees. “Baxter’s invited over for a bite. You, too, of course, if you’re willing to eat my goodies.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what, Philadelphia?”
“You know good and well what I’m talking about.” She pushed past him and started browsing among the different brands of dog food. The one you mixed with water sounded perfect.
“Not that one,” Crash said.
“It’ll be easier for him to chew.”
“It’ll get too mushy before he finishes. He won’t like it.”
“How do you know what he’ll prefer?”
“How many dogs have you ever had, Philadelphia?”
“None.”
“See. There’s your answer.”
“Just because you’ve owned a dog doesn’t make you an expert. For all I know your dog is a skinny, timid beast who wouldn’t say boo to his shadow.”
“Rex is dead now of old age, but in his day he was the king of his neighborhood.”
“Which neighborhood?”
“Wherever I happened to be at the time. Interested in me, are you?”
“Not in the least.”
She put the puppy chow that needed mixing with water into her cart. Crash added a box of the dry mix.
“For the times he’s with me,” he said.
“Baxter’s not going to spend any time with you. He’s my dog.”
“Let’s ask Baxter about that.”
Before she could stop him, Crash had his hands on the puppy again. Under the guise of petting Baxter, he caressed B. J. in a way that melted her bones.
“Does that feel good?” he said.
“No.”
“I’m talking to Baxter.”
“So was I... talking about Baxter.”
Crash continued his outrageous shenanigans, and darned if she didn’t stand there and let him. Not wanting to make a scene, she told herself.
She began to feel languid and dreamy, and still she didn’t back away. Crash was a man without a last name, a man without a home, a man without a profession. Somebody she’d never see again. No one would ever have to know how she’d stood in the feed store in the Smoky Mountains stealing secret pleasures.
When she got back to Tupelo she’d be herself again. No one would ever suspect that underneath her gray business suit was a woman who for a short while had let herself dream about steamy sex on a Harley.
Not even Crash.
He wouldn’t have, either, if her body hadn’t betrayed her. A knowing gleam came into his eyes.
“Time to go,” she said. “Baxter has to have his walk.”
Before he could comment, she stepped behind the shopping cart and wheeled it to the checkout stand. It would be just like him to follow her.
There was a long line at the checkout, carpenters with sacks of nails, farmers with bags of feed, gardeners with seedlings and packets of seed for their spring gardens. The young cashier knew them all and took the time to chat about each purchase.
“I see you’re planting Big Boys this year, Mrs. Clemmons. Good choice.... Nice weather for building that hog pen, Mr. Gibens.... Missed you at church last Sunday, Mr. Hawkins. How’s the missus?”
B.J. glanced over her right shoulder. “Where could he be?” she asked Baxter.
“Looking for somebody?” Crash came up on her left side, grinning. She jumped.
“Quit sneaking around like that.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I always come in like gangbusters.” He held up a bag of cornmeal. “Yellow,” he said, “home ground. Miss me while I was gone?”
He slipped his conversational bomb in just like that, while she was still thinking about the paradox of a man who loved the freedom of a Harley but who clung to the past by making his grandmother’s corn bread.
“I’m not even going to dignify that remark with a reply,” she said.
He chuckled, and she turned her back on him to stare studiously ahead. The checkout line moved like molasses in January. One of Maxie’s favorite sayings.
Good grief. She’d been back in the South only a few weeks, and already she was thinking like Maxie. The next thing you knew she’d be talking like her sister. Which reminded her: Maxie had made her promise to call home.
She finally got her turn at the cashier, and mercifully Crash had been silent, though there was no way she could forget about him. He was like a mountain behind her, a hot, volcanic mountain about to erupt; she felt the heat and sensed the vibrations.
She hurried through the door and had made it all the way to her car without interruption. If she hadn’t been juggling Baxter and loading puppy supplies, she’d have made it out of the parking lot.
Suddenly he was beside her, astride his big Harley, revving his engine like a gangster.
“See you back at camp, Philadelphia.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Don’t forget, you’re invited over for some of my goodies.”
The Harley bucked like a stallion, and he was off before she could think of a suitably scathing reply. It took her two minutes to collect herself before she could drive. She stopped at the first pay phone she saw and called Maxie at her interior design shop.
“Magic Maxie’s,” her sister said.
“I’m going to kill you when I get home.”
Maxie’s laughter was deep and rich. Hearing it without seeing her, you’d never suspect she looked like a tiny China doll.
“That means the mountain retreat is everything I wanted it to be. Tell me about the hunk.”
“What hunk?”
“The hunk that’s got you so riled.”
“It’s raining again, the woods are full of mosquitoes, and I can’t get my Coleman stove to work. If I starve to death, it’s all your fault.”
“What does he look like, B. J.? Tell me you’ve met a good-looking man who can’t wait to get his hot hands on you.”
“I don’t know why I bothered to call. You’ve already made up your own version of my vacation.”
“Well, all right. If you’re going to keep all the good stuff to yourself, at least tell me if the mountains are beautiful this time of year.”
“They’re beautiful, Maxie. The rhododendron is in bloom, and the dogwood. If it ever stops raining, I’m going to hike into the woods and take a closer look. The downside of spring is always the weather.”
“Take pictures of everything, including the good-looking man. You know that only the good ones go to places like that, don’t you?”
“What do you mean, the good ones?”
“The real he-man type, the kind who can climb a mountain without getting winded and do the same thing to a woman.”
Images of Crash came to B. J.’s mind. Maxie had pegged him perfectly. The only problem was, B. J. was not the kind of mountain he preferred to climb. Not that any of that mattered, of course. He was not her type, either. No indeedy.
“Good grief,” she said. “I’m going to hang up now, Maxie.”
“Wait... Do you like angels dancing on stars or fairies swinging from grapevines?”
“Not in my office! Maxie, tell me you’re not talking about my office?”
“No, silly. I’m doing a nursery for Lane and Craig Sutcliff.”
“The angels, Maxie. Definitely the angels.”
“That’s what I thought too. Is the food good at the lodge? The ads said they served real home cooking.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t sampled it yet.” And probably wouldn’t.
“Glow in the dark or not?” Maxie said.
Sometimes her sister was more obscure than an enemy code.
“If you’re talking about condoms, Maxie, the ones that glow in the dark are just for show.”
“Condoms!” Maxie hooted
with laughter. “I was talking about the stars.... There is a man in those mountains. I knew it.”
“I’ve got to go now. Bye, Maxie.”
“Wait... B.J.... have fun... okay?”
“I’ll try, Maxie... I really will.”
After she’d hung up she patted Baxter’s head. “We’ll have fun, won’t we, boy? Just the two of us.”
He made a lively show of agreeing with her, licking her hand, and wagging his tail so hard, his whole body shook.
In spite of her smile, B. J. drove off feeling unaccountably sad.
Chapter Seven
“Hey, Joe... what’s up, buddy? It had better be good.”
Crash was at the lodge using the pay phone. When he’d got back from the feed store he’d found a note from the camp manager pinned to his tent flap telling him to call his brother.
“You know I wouldn’t interrupt your vacation if this weren’t important....” His brother could talk about a stumped toe and make it sound important. That was one of the things that accounted for his success.
“What is it? One of your clients has a hangnail?”
“Always joking. Don’t you ever worry about anything?”
“Worrying never changed a thing,” Crash said.
It was a good philosophy to believe in, but living by it had been hard the previous year when his dad had had a heart attack. At only sixty he should have been thinking about which mountain to climb next instead of which heart specialist to consult.
“What’s this all about, Joe? It’s not Dad, is it?”
“No, he’s fine. So is Mom. Yesterday they rented a Jeep Cherokee and drove through Denali. Snow’s still waist high there. Not much wildlife out, but Dad spotted a moose.”
Crash chuckled. “He’s in hog heaven, then.”
Though their father had spent all his life in a law office or behind a judicial bench and only saw wildlife when National Geographic had specials on TV or on occasional outings to places like Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska, he considered himself quite an expert in wildlife photography.
“I’ll bet Mom never even saw it.”
It was Joseph’s turn to laugh. “You know Mom. She had her head in Women’s Wear Daily. She was making her shopping list for Paris.”
