Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek)

by Tina Leonard

  “You did what I should have done,” Maggie said. “When I saw you go in after him, I should have had your back. I’d like to think I would have if he’d turned violent, but I just don’t know. I was so astonished.” Tears poured down Maggie’s cheeks again. “It’s really hard to know that your daughter has to fight your battles, that you let her down when she needed you the most.”

  Sugar shook her head. “You’re a wonderful mother.”

  “But I know you must have been watching him,” Maggie said, “keeping an eye on him. And if you were suspicious of him, then I know in my heart he must have made a move on you. And I think it’s the reason you married Ramon,” Maggie continued, wiping at her eyes, “when you knew he wasn’t the kind of man who’d ever be faithful to you. I think my fear and my weakness affected you for a long time.”

  Sugar wrinkled her nose. “Mom, Shithead did make a move on me. I kicked him in the balls so hard it was a wonder he could ever stand in anything other than a caveman stoop after that.” She gently touched her mother’s face. “I figured that since he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me, he might try more vulnerable ground.”

  “Vulnerable?” Lucy looked at them. “I always thought I was taking care of this family. I always thought I was the adult.” She hugged Sugar and Maggie to her. “Sugar, you’ve always been the big sister every girl should have. You have to tell me, what did you do to Shithead?”

  Sugar shook her head, relief engulfing her now that she knew her mother hadn’t pined for her husband. The relief was so intense it was almost painful. “I believe a baseball bat might have been involved. I was as tall as he was, and he knew I had a helluva swing. It was a fast conversation.”

  “God, you’re a tough broad,” Lucy said admiringly. “And so I slept on in my ivory tower, completely unaware you were fighting my battles.”

  “And mine,” Maggie added.

  Sugar sighed. “I didn’t fight any battles. I just wasn’t ever going to let anything happen to us.”

  Lucy looked at her. “No wonder you were so pissed when that officer made a move on me and then got me in trouble.”

  Sugar nodded. “I knew damn well you hadn’t been messing around with a married officer. I was glad you slapped him. I just wanted you to take the discharge and let us get the hell out of there. I’d had it with the military at that point. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. Being a woman in the military can be a challenge, and I was ready for some peace in my life.” She held her family tighter. “Whatever happened, I was proud that we always stuck together, through thick and thin, as a family.”

  “I know,” Lucy said, “I always thought we had the coolest family of all.”

  Maggie pulled out of the embrace to wipe her eyes with the collar of her white blouse. “I have the best daughters in the world. The very best.” She sighed. “I wanted so much for you over the years. There was so little I could provide for you. And then, somehow, you grew up independent and strong, and I knew everything was going to be all right. Even though I’d never really been able to give you anything except my love.”

  “Which turned out to be all we needed,” Sugar said. “It’s going to be all right, Mom. From here on out, everything is going to be just fine.”

  Maggie nodded. “We’ll crank this float down Pecan Creek’s town streets and turn the town on its ear, and they’ll probably run us out of here, but we’ll be together.”

  Lucy laughed. “I’m going nowhere. I’m staying right here and making Vivian Bentley my best friend. And I’m going to talk Bobby German into being my pool boy when we get rich off of Sugar’s nuts and buy ourselves a real pool.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Sugar closed her eyes, imagining the pool, the blue water, the cleansing baptism of sinking into refreshing coolness. “Next stop, three pool men, one for each of us.”

  They hugged each other, marking a silent vow.

  It was going to be all right. In fact, everything was going to get better than anything they’d ever imagined when they’d first loaded up the blue Oldsmobile for Texas. Sugar knew in her heart the future held nothing but blue water, pecans and maybe, J.T. Jake Bentley’s hard muscles and teasing smile.

  J.T. Jake Bentley would make a hot pool boy.

  If she could close the door on the past.

  Jake looked at the repair job Lassiter had done on the Bait and Burgers. It looked better than new. He wondered if Lassiter wanted more work renovating Pecan Fanny’s.

  Jake had big plans for Pecan Fanny’s.

  But first, he had to talk to Kel.

  He hadn’t seen Kel in days, and that was a bad sign. Kel usually hung around, the Bait and Burgers being both job and hangout for him. But since he’d moved out of Jake’s house, Kel had been lying low.

  He hadn’t been a very good friend. And the truth was, Kel had always been there for him.

  “Jake.”

  He turned around. “Hello, Mother.” He kissed Vivian on the cheek. “What brings you to the Bait and Burgers?”

  “What brings you?” Vivian shot back.

  “Well, I happen to own this greasy spoon,” Jake said, and Vivian gave him a gimlet gaze.

  “I wondered when you were finally going to come clean about that.”

  Jake looked at his mother. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  She shrugged, her blue wool dress formal as ever, her walking shoes prim and proper. “It’s not my place to be in your business. But you should know as well as anyone that there are few secrets in Pecan Creek.”

  Jake looked at his mother. “Touché. So the purpose of this visit then is what? Something must be on your mind.”

  “We need to talk about the ladies who are living in our house.” Vivian’s face was set in determined lines.

  He couldn’t say he hadn’t known his mother wouldn’t want to talk to him about the Hot Nuts. “Okay. Come inside. I’ll spring for a burger for you.”

  “I will take you up on that.” Vivian slid into a booth. “With curly fries, please.”

  Jake put the order in with Evert, then returned to join his mother with a couple of sodas. She sipped hers delicately.

  “I know that you have a fondness for Sugar Cassavechia.” Vivian sniffed, the hanging balloon unspoken being, ‘Though you could do so much better.’ “I know she stayed at your house for about a week after the unfortunate incident in our family home.”

  Here it goes, the guilt trip. “The dead body wasn’t their fault, no more than it would be your fault if someone broke into your house.”

  “I know.” Vivian nodded. “Although the Cassavechias do seem to attract a certain amount of excitement and drama.”

  That was not necessarily a false statement. “A little excitement is good for Pecan Creek.”

  “I was thinking more of an arts district, but whatever.” Vivian shrugged. “Are they renewing the lease?”

  “I doubt it. I think the dead guy was a bit much for them.”

  “Of course if Lucy Cassavechia hadn’t been blogging about her sister’s business, complete with pictures of the bedrooms, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Did we give them permission to use any images of our house on the Internet?”

  Jake looked at his mother. “No.”

  Vivian looked at him. “And I suppose you’ve discussed with Sugar the need for permits and health inspections?”

  “Again, I don’t think they’re going to renew the lease.”

  “But the business is operational now. And they have no permits. The reason this is a problem,” Vivian said, “is that we’ll never be able to sell that house now that it’s had a dead stranger in it. Everyone in town knows it was a mentally ill individual.” She frowned at Jake. “Why would anyone buy their product with such a thing hanging over them?”

  “A dead guy isn’t going to affect their product negatively,” Jake said, though he wasn’t certain. If someone kicked off at the Bait and Burgers, it would definitely slow business down.

  “It’s all ove
r the Internet. The story was picked up by a local reporter who gave the story to one of the big newspapers. It then got picked up by Hello, America. Apparently, Sheriff Goody has been fielding calls from reporters who want to come here and interview everyone involved. That would be your friends.”

  Jake’s gut cramped. That would be bad. He didn’t need Vivian to draw him a picture. The national media would eat the Hot Nuts alive. Pecan Creek would come off looking unprofessional and unsafe, especially once it was dug up that Sugar hadn’t bothered to get any permits or health inspections. It was a rookie mistake in the food business. He knew how the mistake had happened, because he was in the food business. You got a big idea, you had a thousand things to decide for the business, and little things like codes and permits and health inspections never came up in your own house where you were cooking in your own kitchen.

  There had been a dead body of questionable origin in their place of business.

  “Have any suggestions?”

  Vivian kept silent as their burgers were placed in front of them.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bentley,” Evert said with an enthusiastic grin.

  “Hello, Evert,” Vivian said. “Please say hello to your mother and father for me. I heard that your mother recently made up a new batch of her delightful divinity. I’m hoping her shop gets lots of business during our parade.”

  “She does, too.” Still grinning, Evert shambled back to the grill.

  “So?” Jake said.

  “There’s only one way to save this. They’re going to have to shut down their business.” Vivian took a bite of her hamburger, nodding. “Delicious.”

  Jake stared at his mother. “Shut it down?”

  “How else do you propose that this train wreck gets stopped?”

  He lost his appetite, looked out over the parking lot. For once he could tell his mother wasn’t operating from a position of spite. She wasn’t even bitching about the fact that there was a business in their home, or about the Hot Nuts. She seemed totally concerned with Pecan Creek’s reputation as the Most Honest Town in Texas not being tarnished by talk of dead bodies, sexy pecans and a business that hadn’t been vetted by the local health authorities. “They’re hoping to launch in two weeks.”

  “During the parade?” Vivian shook her head. “Terrible timing. Sheriff Goody says the reporters will be here then, specifically because of the parade. But they’re sending some reporters ahead to do some local interest scouting.”

  Jake leaned back. “I can’t tell the Cassavechias to shut down.”

  “I know. But I’ve stretched my mind to think of another way to solve this, and I can’t. Either they take their business elsewhere, or they close it down. It’s never going to be a working business model. There’s too many negatives involved. Imagine what would happen if one of the old-timers keeled over in your restaurant.”

  “I know.” Jake blinked. “The body was upstairs in Lucy’s bed, not in the kitchen.”

  “Which destroys the house value and any chance we ever have of leasing it or opening it up as a B&B,” Vivian said, without any rancor in her voice, “and it will still affect their business. It’s just bad, Jake.”

  Even he could see that time was short. They could maybe jam through the necessary permits; they could make the arrangements with the health department and hope they moved fast, although this close to Thanksgiving, it might be questionable. Jake frowned. There was still the fact that a breaking-and-entry pervert had died in the same house. “That business is their dream.”

  “I know.” Vivian shook her head. “I know what it feels like to lose a dream. Believe me, I don’t approve of them, but I don’t want them to lose their business. I better than anyone understand what it means to be a woman with a livelihood when you have no one else in the world to depend on.” She sipped her soda, wiped her lips delicately. “And I don’t want our home affected any more negatively, I’m not going to lie. I also don’t want bad publicity for Pecan Creek. But the thing is, there’s going to be a lot of bad publicity once the story gets out, and their business is sunk.” She sighed. “I don’t envy you having to tell them.”

  He’d promised Sugar January and February for advertising on the billboard. “I’ll think of something,” he said, and Vivian said, “I hope you do.”

  He frowned. “Since when have you become so worried about the Cassavechias?”

  Vivian put her burger down again. “As I said, I feel for anyone who loses a job. I fought hard over the years to make ends meet, and believe me, it wasn’t always easy. My friends were in the same boat as me, and that made it tolerable, or I might have just stayed…depressed.”

  He was shocked. He’d never heard his mother talk like that. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  “Don’t be. You were a child. I wanted you to have a good childhood.” Her mouth twisted. “I understand exactly what the Cassavechias are going through. I also know that Maggie just got a clean report on her breast cancer. No woman wishes ill on a woman who’s suffered through anything like that. I’m concerned about Pecan Creek and I always wanted the best for you, but I never wanted anything bad to happen to those women.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He reached over to pat her hand.

  “And as the grapevine mentioned that you and Sugar seem to be getting very close to each other, a mother’s mind naturally turns to grandchildren.”

  Jake blinked. “Grandchildren?”

  “Well, I would like one eventually. You’re my only child, so one realizes you’re my only hope for grandchildren.” Vivian sniffed. “Sugar Cassavechia looks like she is quite capable of birthing grandchildren. The rest of the family appears sturdy. It looks like a good bet to me for healthy genes, if not perhaps the world’s most untarnished. Beggars cannot, however, be choosers.”

  She took another bite of her hamburger, at peace with her thought process, however unconventional. Jake couldn’t have been more astonished if his mother had suggested he fly around the earth with wings he built himself. “Mom, Sugar and I don’t have any kind of serious relationship. Some days, I really step in it with her.”

  Vivian patted her mouth delicately and got up, kissed him on the head. “I can’t solve everything for you but I do wish you well. Especially when you tell Sugar her business model is seriously flawed at this point. Good luck, son. I really would like a grandchild one day,” she said, stepping carefully off the patio porch Lassiter had built. Jake helped her to the bottom of the steps.

  “I’m no spring chicken, you know. Thank you very much for lunch. Congratulations on your restaurant.” She walked off across the parking lot at a good clip in her walking shoes, looking fit and hearty, more than he felt at the moment.

  Sugar’s business meant everything to her. It was her touchstone, her reason for bringing her family to PC. It was her Tara.

  This ought to kill any chance we ever had of having anything more serious than a hello when we pass on the street.

  Damn.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jake was in a dilemma. One week until the parade, and he hadn’t talked to Sugar. He’d taken care of everything else. The mayor’s suit had been delivered to Maggie. The town was strung with lights; the businesses along the route were spruced up, putting out beautifully decorated wreaths and silver jingle bells on freshly painted or stained doors.

  Pecan Creek looked like a Hallmark card.

  But not all of it was.

  He had to tell Sugar the truth. There was no time to waste. He’d thought he might run into her in the last week, so he could broach the subject on a casual basis. His plan had backfired, and now he had to tell her. To wait any longer would be cruel.

  He rang the doorbell of Sugar’s house. Lucy opened the door, a huge grin on her face.

  “Did you come to see the finished product?” she demanded.

  “I—ah, yes. Yes, I did.” He followed Lucy inside, glad to have a reasonable excuse to see Sugar.

  “Well, you can’t. Not yet. I’m waiting on the pi
èce de résistance.”

  He grinned at Lucy. She had a blue kerchief wrapped around her short, lustrous red hair. Makeup had not touched Lucy’s face today. She looked like a kid, an enthusiastic kid with a delicious secret.

  This could be my sister-in-law one day.

  Crap. Vivian’s got me thinking really weird stuff with all that talk about grandkids.

  “So when’s the big reveal? I saw a few items hit my account at the furniture store.” He couldn’t help smiling. “Expensive and probably tasteful, going by the bill description. That’s all I know.”

  Lucy’s face held giddy mischief. “When my pièce de résistance arrives, you bring Vivian over. I want you both here for the grand unveiling.”

  He wondered if that was wise. “Are you trying to kill my mother?”

  Lucy laughed. “No. I’ve studied Vivian’s psyche, and I’m pretty sure she’ll be pleased. I can’t say so for sure, so I’ll leave the price tags on the furnishings.”

  “Vivian hasn’t even asked about the room.”

  Lucy’s face fell. “She hasn’t?”

  “Not one word.”

  She looked so disappointed. “I thought she’d be eagerly waiting for me to do something wild and crazy. Like turning the room into a Looking for Mr. Goodbar room.” Lucy looked disgusted. “Your mother thinks I’m the devil in a short skirt.”

  “She might,” Jake said, grinning, “but she hasn’t even wondered about the new décor. That brings me to another problem, though. Is Sugar around?” he asked, turning somber as he remembered the original intent of his visit.

  “Sugar!” Lucy hollered up the stairwell. “You’ve got a gentleman caller!”

  He smiled. “The Glass Menagerie, I presume?” There were blue roses in The Glass Menagerie, but Lucy had ordered robin’s egg blue paint. He’d always assumed the blue roses were dark royal blue, but what the hell did he know about that play, anyway? He’d cheated and read the SparkNotes version in high school, having little patience for Tennessee Williams’s play about frail, mentally inept women. Anyway, the Cassavechias were not breakable women. They were more steel than glass.