He tipped the brim of his ball cap. “Much obliged, Petey, but I can find it myself.”
Then he ambled to the counter—which was the only word to describe the slow shift of his hips as he moved—and stuck his hand out for Alfalfa, er, Petey, to shake. Remedy might have hummed, just a little, in the back of her throat, at the fine view Micah gave her by leaning over the counter.
When he turned in Remedy’s direction, she sank behind her menu. Despite her efforts, she felt his eyes on her as he walked to a table across the room from where she sat. He took a chair facing her, and when she dared raise her head to look at him straight on she watched a smile touch his lips as he used his tongue to shift a toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. Stupid toothpick, always drawing her attention to his mouth like that.
She raised her menu to block him out again.
“You’re still holding your menu. Barbara hasn’t taken your order yet?” That deep drawl, on top of everything else about his look tonight, was too much. How was this guy even real?
Remedy summoned her courage and lowered her menu to the table. “I was starting to believe Barbara is a figment of Petey’s imagination.”
Micah absentmindedly picked up his butter knife, then tapped the edge against the table. “Good guess. But I’m thinking that she probably took one look at your ID badge and headed in the opposite direction. A lot of folks around here aren’t big fans of Briscoe Ranch.”
Remedy’s hand went to her chest, her fingers closing around the ID badge clipped to her shirt collar and that she’d been unaware of until he’d mentioned it. She tore it off and stuffed it in her purse.
So Barbara was real and she wasn’t a fan of Briscoe Ranch, which didn’t make any sense but matched the muted hostility Remedy had felt from other Dulcet citizens—and from Micah—since the moment she’d arrived in town.
Before she could think better of the idea, she pushed out of her chair, grabbed her purse, and stomped to Micah’s table. He didn’t bother sitting up straighter and his bemused expression never wavered.
She dropped her purse on the table, then sat in the chair across from his. “I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why the people of Dulcet wouldn’t be fans of Briscoe Ranch. The resort brings in tons of revenue and tourists all year long. Not to mention how many townspeople it employs. You’d think they’d be grateful for the extra business the resort brings in.”
With a flicker of his eyebrows, he took his toothpick out and tossed it on the table, then tipped his chair back onto two legs. “Here’s a tip. Don’t ever launch into corporate justification that begins with ‘you’d think they’d be grateful.’”
“But—”
He slammed the chair legs back to the floor. “You want to survive in this town or not?”
She locked eyes with him. “I do. Badly.”
His hard glare softened, but he didn’t look away, so she didn’t, either. Such long lashes he had. She’d noticed that at the wedding reception the previous weekend. Long lashes framing dark, soulful eyes set in a perfect, rugged face. If only he wasn’t such a righteous alpha jerk—the thorn in her side, the perfect descriptor that Alex used.
“All right,” Micah said. “I’ll answer your question. The shops in town that cater to the tourists are doing well, for the most part, but all those tourists you mentioned have transformed our main street into a series of trinket shops and tourist diners, which has divided the town into those who are drinking the resort’s Kool-Aid and those who aren’t so impressed with having their home invaded by a steady stream of entitled snobs.” He busied himself lining it up perfectly with the fork and spoon. “And then there’s the faction of people who will never forget that Briscoe Ranch was indirectly responsible for the worst fire this part of Texas has ever seen.”
Something about the twitch of his facial muscles and the way his eyes turned distant gave her the sinking suspicion that Micah fell into that third faction. “When was that?”
“Twenty-four years ago.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Not so long, not to the people who were affected.”
A jingle of keys distracted them both. They turned toward the sound.
The key jingling was coming from the key ring hooked to the belt loop of a thin brunette of about fifty, give or take, wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt with Petey the dog silk-screened on the front and with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She stopped at their table. “What can I get you, Chief? We’ve got your favorite tonight. Cherry pie.”
“Good evening, Barbara. I’ll take a slice of that and a glass of milk, thanks.”
A grown man ordering milk like he was wholesome incarnate. Unbelievable.
Remedy opened her mouth to order, but Barbara had already turned away.
“Hey, Barbara. Just a sec,” Micah said. “My pie can wait until you take Ms. Lane’s order. She’s liable to blow a gasket if she doesn’t get taken care of like the special snowflake she is. California princesses don’t like to be kept waiting, or so the rumor goes.”
Remedy raised her hands and wrung an invisible neck.
In response, he had the audacity to wink at her, his cheek muscle tugging as though he was fighting a grin.
This man was driving her crazy. She should get up and walk away. She should go to the grocery store and buy some ready-to-eat food and be done with Barbara’s lousy service and Micah’s teasing and this town that didn’t want her.
“I’ll get to her after I serve your pie,” Barbara said, turning toward the kitchen again.
“Barbara, please. Will you get the lady a chicken salad first? If she expires out of hunger, then I’d have to be the one to revive her, and I’m not keen on getting so close to such a prickly creature.”
Did he really order for her? Exhibit A of why she didn’t mess with alpha men. “You haven’t seen prickly yet.”
Heat and amusement warred in his eyes. “Something to look forward to,” he crooned in that drawl, low enough that Barbara couldn’t hear.
“Why did you order for me?”
“I was trying to save you.”
Oh, please. She shot her hand into the air, wiggling her fingers. “I’ve got to get Barbara back here. If you’re going to criticize my diet, then I’m going to make it a double cheeseburger, because my new favorite hobby is ticking you off.”
“How’s that, in any way, logical? You need me, and I’m not just talking about tonight.”
He was right. She did need him—in a professional capacity. And she was going to keep on needing him on her side if she hoped to keep her job. A fire marshal with a vendetta could make a wedding planner’s life a living hell—Remedy had seen it happen a time or two—but having him flaunt his power over her like that made her see red. Mister Big Shot was about to learn that he might be king of Ravel County, but not every citizen there was his royal subject.
“You think there’s no way for me to do my job without your support? Challenge accepted,” she muttered from behind gritted teeth.
Then Barbara was back, her pad of paper and a pen in hand. “You need something else, ma’am?”
Ma’am? Ouch. “Barbara, would you please cancel that chicken salad. I’ll have a Double Spanky Burger, extra bacon.”
Micah made a choking sound in his throat. And was that a discreet shake of his head?
Barbara gave Remedy a long, quizzical look, then grinned. “If you say so.”
What was with these people, judging her for ordering a burger instead of a salad? “It’s like I’m back home in Hollywood, where salad eating is practically a religion.”
“I didn’t think people actually lived in Hollywood.”
They didn’t. “I meant the real Hollywood. Burbank. Where most of the actual moviemaking takes place.”
“No kidding, huh? I had no idea.”
A lot of people didn’t. “Ergo why I simply say I grew up in Hollywood.”
And that was all s
he was willing to say about her youth and Hollywood. One of the things she liked best about Dulcet was that she felt normal for the first time. She was simply Remedy, not Virginia Hartley and Preston Lane’s daughter or the wedding planner who wrecked Zannity’s impending nuptials. A lot of good Remedy’s newfound anonymity would do her if she started blabbing about her Hollywood roots.
He frowned. “Back to your earlier statement. I wasn’t trying to goad you into accepting a challenge. I was stating a fact. You need me, even if you’re too foolhardy to admit it. It’s not going to be long before you come to grips with what every other event planner at Briscoe Ranch Resort has learned either the hard way or the easy way, Alex Rowe included. Carina Briscoe, too. Not a single special event in a public venue takes place in this town that doesn’t get my seal of approval first.”
Remedy’s throat tightened. She’d thought their feud was personal, fun even, but he really did hold her future at Briscoe Ranch Resort in his hands. “Are you threatening me?”
He opened and closed his mouth, then straightened. His lips quirked into a grimace. With a scrape of his chair legs over the linoleum floor, he stood. “Barbara? Hold on a sec.” He waited until the waitress had turned back to face them. “My apologies to the cooks and to you, but Ms. Lane and I need to cancel both our orders.” He held a twenty-dollar bill out to Barbara. “Bless her heart, but Ms. Lane forgot she’s got somewhere else she needs to be.”
“No, I don’t. Not until I’ve eaten a delicious, greasy Double Spanky Burger with extra bacon.”
Barbara looked from Micah to Remedy, then back to Micah. She tucked the twenty in her apron and nodded. “If you say so, Chief. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for y’all before you go.”
After Barbara left, Remedy kicked Micah’s boot with her pump. “What the frack? Did you feel a sudden need to demonstrate your power in this town? Proof that I need you or else I don’t eat? You’ve got about three seconds to explain before I go postal.”
He pushed his chair in and handed her purse to her. “I wasn’t criticizing your diet.”
“Whatever you say, Alpha Bubba.”
“Alpha Bubba?” He shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Let’s get out of here.”
“Excuse me?”
He rolled his head on his neck, oozing exasperation. Then he braced his knuckles on the table and loomed over her, his voice lowering to a harsh whisper. “I’m going to get you some food before you go postal, but the only food fit to eat on Petey’s menu is the pie and the chicken salad. All I was trying to do was save you from experiencing the worst cheeseburger in Texas.”
“The worst?”
“It’s legendary. Or, rather, infamous.”
She followed a vein from his wrist over his muscled forearm to his elbow, then skipped up the rest of his body to look him in the eye. “What game are you playing at?”
“I know where to find the best cheeseburger you’ll ever eat, guaranteed, and since I cut your dinner short here, it’s the least I can do to steer you toward burger nirvana. No game, promise.”
“From threats to promises? My little ol’ head’s spinning.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of her seat. “We’re leaving now. My sense of charity can only weather so much snippiness.”
Did everyone in this backward town do everything Micah commanded? They must, because he sure was unaccustomed to being told no. Even she was having trouble with the word, seeing as how she let him drag her from the diner, through the parking lot. When they passed her car, she planted her feet firmly on the blacktop. Wherever he planned to take her, she had enough street smarts to know she should drive herself.
“Now what’s wrong with you?” he said.
“You were taking me to your truck.”
“How did you expect me to take you for burgers?”
She pulled her arm from his grip. “I’ll follow you in my car.”
His features softened. “I’m not going to kidnap you.”
She dug through her purse until her fingers touched on her car keys. “Good to know.”
The harsh edge of irritation disappeared from his voice. “Remedy, I’d never harm you.”
Was that the first time he’d called her by her first name? It must have been, because the word on his lips sent a shiver over her skin.
No, she didn’t believe he would harm her, and she could tell how much the idea that she might think he would genuinely bothered him, but a precedent needed to be set about her not jumping to comply with his every command. “Says the wolf.”
He sighed. “Okay, I get it. I’ve got two sisters, so I get it. Wait for me in your car while I go across the street and get my truck.”
“Why are you taking me to dinner? We can’t breathe in each other’s airspace without ticking the other one off.”
She braced herself for a snarky comeback, but his earnest expression held fast. “I’ve got a new plan for dealing with you. I’m going to show you why this county and the people matter. Why I’m such a hard-ass about the fire codes at the resort and why I’m willing to keep being a hard-ass indefinitely to make sure that this land and the people who call it home are safe.”
Micah Garrity, the great protector of Ravel County. “That’s a relief to know.”
“What is?”
“For a crazy moment there, I thought you were calling for a truce between us.”
He swaggered a step closer and looked down at her from beneath those impossibly perfect lashes. “Why would I do that? We’re only getting warmed up as enemies.”
Indeed they were. “Let me get this straight. You’re taking me on this harebrained burger quest to prove that you’re right and honorable and just and I should bow down prostrate at your boots just like the rest of this town?”
“Pretty much,” he said.
“At the risk of repeating myself, challenge accepted.”
There it was. Her favorite look of his. That straining attempt to keep the smile that touched his eyes from showing on his lips. And, God, those lips …
“Why is your car all banged up? Did you get in an accident?” he said.
“It’s a long story that involves pigeons and a golf cart.”
His earnestness broke, replaced by a cocky half smile that might curl a lesser woman’s toes. “Sounds embarrassing.”
“For the pigeons? Very.” And maybe a little for her. Just a smidge. “I changed my mind. I’ll drive with you.” What the hay. She wanted to spar with him more, and riding in his truck would present all kinds of opportunities. Not that she’d ever succumb to the charms of a gun-carrying, toothpick-chewing good ol’ boy no matter how long his eyelashes were or how fast that cocky smile got her heart beating.
“God, help me,” he muttered, then took her hand again and led her across the street in the direction of his truck.
Chapter Six
He was certifiably crazy for doing this. True, Remedy had been about to eat a disgusting excuse for a cheeseburger, but so what? It wasn’t like the soy filler that Petey’s used in their ground beef or the mysterious origin of those plastic orange squares that Petey claimed were cheese would kill her. At least, Micah hadn’t heard of any “deaths by soy” in the county.
What did he care if Remedy were to choke down a Petey’s burger and learn her lesson the hard way? The better question was why he was going out of his way on a work night to play county tour guide for a stuck-up Briscoe Ranch short-timing executive. But he knew why. It was like he’d told her outside Petey’s. Once she understood exactly how precious a place this county—hell, this state—was to the people who called it home, then maybe tempting disaster with Polynesian fire dancers during one of the state’s driest summers on record wouldn’t seem so appealing. Nobody wanted to be the cause of a catastrophic fire. The trick was getting rich snobs—or, rather, the people doing the rich snobs’ bidding—to believe that the world beyond their stuck-in-the-air noses mattered. That’s what tonight
was really about. Opening Remedy’s eyes to reality.
He glanced over at her, sitting in his passenger seat like it was her throne, the breeze ruffling the hem of her skirt and blowing her hair all over. She looked good in the Texas wind. She looked good in his truck, too, with her fingers strumming her bare knee in time with the country rock blaring on the speakers. The only way she could look prettier was if she had that spark of indignation in her eyes that she got when he provoked her.
And, boy howdy, he did love to provoke her. How had she put it? Ticking him off was her new favorite hobby? Yeah, that train ran both ways. His gaze settled on her legs again. He was seized by the wild urge to swing by his house, grab a pile of blankets, and take her out into the backcountry to strip her down beneath the stars and find out what those long, tanned legs looked like in the moonlight. There were certain parts of his anatomy that wanted to see her come undone in a real bad way.
He wrenched his attention back to the road beyond his headlights.
Nope. You are not taking her to out tonight because she’s pretty. That cannot be the reason. There were plenty of attractive women all over the county who would appreciate being doted on and taken out to dinner by him, which circled him back around to the question about why he was spending his evening with the one he couldn’t have.
Part of his job as fire marshal. Opening her eyes to reality.
Right.
It was a perfectly logical reason and he should feel quite satisfied with his maturity and logic.
“Why do the guys singing these country songs go on and on about girls gyrating and shimmying all the time? And what kind of sexist pig coined the term moneymaker? Like we’re all strippers in training or something? Before I moved here, I had this image in my head that the men in Texas would be walking around with wallets loaded with cash, waiting for a girl with ass-shaking skills to shimmy by so they could throw money at her. I figured that’s why the women of Texas carry such big purses. To hold all that cash. Imagine my disappointment that I haven’t had a single dollar thrown my way since I moved here. I’m not sure what that says about the quality of my moneymaker. Maybe I’m not shaking it hard enough.”
One Hot Summer Page 8
