chapter Two
Hello, Journal.
My daughters think I can’t do this journaling thing. They gave me a calendar, as if that would inspire me. A calendar! Do I look like I need to be reminded of the passing of days?
So I bought you, a nice, intelligent-looking college-ruled spiral—red, to match their red-diary fantasy—let me just start by saying you’re definitely not what I thought I’d be pouring my thoughts into at my age. Not what—who. You’re really more of a who because you’re going to be my best friend while I walk through this valley of bingo-less hell called a move with my daughters, with a drooling stray because we’re not The Family Strange enough, so we had to add a furry needbag to our drama.
It’s not that I mind moving so much. I just thought I’d be at a different point on the line called my life. You know what I want? I want to learn how to age whiskey in barrels. God, I love the smell of whiskey, so smooth and sensuous. I want to grow citrus in pots, and you may be sure that where Sugar’s moved us, there’ll be no citrus in pots, unless I’m badly mistaken. Last time I looked at the weather map on TV, it said that Pecan Creek is around one hundred six degrees farenhell. That’ll make even the hardiest lemon wither into a tight ball of yellow regret.
It’s true I could have stayed in Florida. But I love my daughters. It was clear to me that they needed a change, a kick-start in their lives. So I’m hanging in here, along for the ride. A matronly support system, doing what mothers do best, maybe the only thing I ever had to give them—support. I’m pulling for Sugar and her Hot Nuts idea. God knows I’m all out of good ideas. When Sugar found out I had breast cancer, she went into total survival mode for us all. Hence my ass here in a so-called J.R. Ewing room and the underfed stray on the floor at my feet—now we have all the components we need to be the Waltons, in Sugar’s mind, I suppose.
Oh, one more thing under the heading of what I want out of life: I want sex. Good, old-fashioned, sweaty sex. I wasn’t always fifty-three, you know. My daughters would be petrified at the thought of their mother wanting the warmth of a man lying up against her back, but I miss the fire and the passion. You’re too young in your teens and twenties to do it right, and you lose your momentum or your partner in your forties. The thirties are sort of a blur for me because I was busy with young children. I figure your fifties is about the time you’ve got your lady bits and your life figured out, so I’d like to get the juices flowing again and feel the heat. Without guilt. My God, even the wrapper on the eighty-five-percent-cocoa chocolate bar I eat for my heart warns the consumer to remember to enjoy chocolate responsibly. When chocolate bars carry prissy-ass warnings guaranteed to take the edge off your pleasure, it’s a crying sin. I reserve the right to live my life without guilt, with not one ounce of sex-and-cocoa-starved guilt.
As I say, my sex life is not in my daughters’ plans. But, dear journal, you can keep my secret. And one day, I intend to tell you a story of an unfulfilled life: a story of love and passion and forgiveness, and learning the hard way that no matter how bad you hurt the ones you love, it’s never too late to tell them you’re sorry.
And that you’re proud of them.
It’d probably be easier to grow citrus in hell.
But Pecan Creek, Texas is where we’re beginning our family Normal Rockwell card, so that’s where I’ll be hanging my lacy black bras on the clothesline from now on.
Participating on the sly,
Maggie
It had been only a week since the Hot Nuts had come to town, and Jake knew that the foundations of Pecan Creek were already quivering. He intended to ignore the preliminary fits and starts of the getting-to-know-you phase as long as he could. Vivian had been by with an apple pie to introduce herself to the newcomers, but no one had been home. She’d been disappointed and left it on the porch with a note.
Jake was relieved. There was plenty of time for everyone to get to know each other. He couldn’t say for certain that the ladies wouldn’t all get along, but Vivian was a force to be reckoned with, and Maggie seemed pretty well versed in don’t-give-a-shit. Those two attitudes usually lay at odds with one another.
He set the balls in a triangular-shaped rack on the pool table, squaring them with his thumbs so that no space remained. Nice and tight, a great rack, which made him think about Sugar’s rack, which was also a great rack, one more thing in Pecan Creek he intended to ignore.
“When Lucy Cassavechia flounced into church on Sunday morning with that short skirt and those high purple heels and that heart-shaped tattoo on her ankle,” Kel Underwood said, “my pecker went so stiff I was afraid it was gonna fly out of my pants like a NASA rocket.”
Jake looked at the perfect rack and sighed with regret. He owned the Bait and Burgers, unbeknownst to Vivian, along with his three best friends from high school, who were also his military brothers, and sometimes the dead weight he wore on his back. Like right now. “Shit, Kel. You made me mess up the perfect rack.” He sighed, glancing over at the two-hundred-thirty-pound, six-foot-five ex-linebacker. “You know you love Debbie, Kel, and those ugly kids of yours. There’s no reason to get all excited over a short skirt.”
Kel shrugged, his long brown ponytail shaggy and a bit dispirited. “Every guy wants to take a new car out for a drive occasionally. And Debbie doesn’t scream for me anymore. She used to come so loud the chickens would fly out of the roosts.”
“Damn it, Kel, you don’t have chickens,” Jake said.
“I think Lucy would scream. I’d put money on Lucy being a screamer.” Kel finished the bottle of homegrown. “I like ’em loud.”
“Not me.” Jake shook his head. “I’m on a mission for peace and quiet in my life. No excitement.” He kissed his pool cue and broke, watching the colored and striped balls fly with satisfaction. “There’s your hard-on. An easy run of the table. Watch and learn.”
“Lucy’s hot, but Ma ain’t bad, either,” Bobby German said, and Jake miscued on what should have been an easy put-away of the six ball. “Has anybody taken a good look at Lucy’s mother?” Brown-skinned, tankheaded “Big” Bobby took a swig of his beer. “I’d do her in a heartbeat if I was twenty years older.”
Jake leaned his pool cue against the bar and looked at the fourth member of their group. “Go ahead. Screw up my whole day. Tell us which one of the new ladies in town you want to do so I can get on with my game.”
Evert Carmichael shrugged. “All of ’em would work for me, but my girlfriend over at the coffee shop’s taking care of my plumbing just fine. I’m not messing up a good thing.”
Jake felt better, because for a second he’d been afraid someone was going to say Sugar, and then he was going to be pissed, although he didn’t know why. These were his friends. They’d played football together in high school, gone through A&M as corps turds, then went straight into the military. After basic, they’d gone right to Afghanistan, then Iraq, all of which had been shitholes of unimaginable proportions, even for officers.
Despite his pride in his military service, it had left scars. Evert, the Pecan Creek kicker the year they’d won the football championship, had gotten his little toe shot off, which he claimed “f*cked up my goddamn kick” every chance he got to tell someone—which was about once a week. Evert was proud of his kicking foot, and now he claimed his balance was off. He was a big man, good looking with blond sunny hair and a mustache that drooped like Droopy Dog’s face, and the ladies went nuts for him. Ever since he’d had the good fortune to make his way into Cat Jenkins’s bed a few weeks ago, he never mentioned his f*cked-up kick, which suited Jake fine.
“I’m thinking about growing some bud,” Big Bobby said. “We don’t have any Mary Jane around here.”
“You don’t smoke pot,” Jake told the star wide receiver, “and if you grow any plants around here, I’ll kick your ass to the next county.” He glared at Bobby, who shrugged and ran a hand through black locks that rarely saw grooming tools. “You dumbass.”
“I don’t want to smoke it. It would be for medicinal purposes, like in California. I heard it’s profitable, and I could use some profitability.” Bobby got up to eye the table Jake had abandoned. “We don’t make any money at Bait and Burgers.”
“We don’t really try.” Jake frowned. “Making money takes a little bit of effort. You need money, Bobby?”
“No,” Bobby said. “But we can’t sit down here playing pool forever.”
“I can.” Jake dreamed of peace in his life. Some people needed expensive vacations to relax. He just needed a dark, quiet basement with a flashing Dos XXs sign. “We make our own brew. I farm a few acres and rent out a house. That’s plenty for me.”
“And you trade stocks like a Wall Street pro, Buffett’s kid brother,” Kel said. “You have income. We’ve got to do something with our lives. We can’t just sit here and circle jerk for the rest of our lives.”
Jake realized something of an uprising had been plotted among his lifelong comrades. He jacked himself onto a cracked vinyl barstool and waited. “Go on.”
“It’s all fine for you to hang out here, batching it,” Evert said. “You’re only responsible to you, Jake.”
And to the Pillars, who want me to save the town, but I’ve done all the saving I intend to do in life.
It was bad karma to think about saving things that could not be saved. “Do what you have to do. I understand you have families. Girlfriends. Whatever.” He shrugged. “You want me to buy you out of Bait and Burgers?”
Bobby German shook his dark lunkhead. Evert sighed and moved his big pumpkin in the negative, staring at his good foot. Kel tucked his chin before shrugging. “We need jobs. And there aren’t any here for us.”
Not unless you made peter heaters. Jake closed his eyes for a moment. A vision of Sugar, chestnut-haired, well-breasted and ballbreaking, rose to mind. She whines less than this crew, and I saddled her with a house I’d sell in a heartbeat if I could.
Still, these were his best friends. “Things should pick up around here eventually. August is a slow month.” Every month was a slow month in Pecan Creek.
He could barely stand to meet the desultory expressions on his friends’ faces. His cell phone rang, giving him something to do besides stare at gloom. “It’s Vivian,” he said. “Hang on and we’ll get back to this. I swear we’ll figure it out. Hello?”
“Jake? I’ve been thinking—”
“No,” Jake said, so on automatic that he practically bit his tongue. “What’s on your mind?”
“We need a mayor. A real live mayor of Pecan Creek.”
Jake blinked, his heart sinking as he recognized a big hook in Vivian’s pronouncement. Vivian’s plans usually had a stink bomb reserved just for him. “Why?”
“We don’t have one. All small towns have a mayor. Tourists love mayors. They love to shake a mayor’s hand, get that authentic small-town flavor only a ribbon-wearing, tall-hatted, good-ol’-boy mayor can provide. Someone to throw candy at the Christmas parade.”
They were back to the infernal parade, which Jake personally thought was a waste of effort. It was true that plenty of tourists swamped Pecan Creek to buy ornaments and trinkets and other crap that supposedly only PC could provide. But the yearly parade was also a way to purvey the other essentials PC sold. Jake was damned if he was going to be a mayor who pushed homemade lube juice. “I’m not doing it.”
A long moment of very dead silence met his statement. “But you look mayoral,” Vivian said.
And you think I’m the stuffed shirt who will toss some Tootsie Rolls, do a little glad-handing, chuck some baby chins, and then shuffle off to wherever mayors go when their magic mayor ribbon expires. Christ.
And then it hit him in Technicolor. Maggie. “I know someone who would make a great mayor.”
“Perfect,” Vivian said. “I still think you should do it, but send him to tonight’s meeting, and we’ll consider him.”
“Excellent.” Jake snapped off his phone. “This conversation will have to be continued, boys. I’ve got to go make an important assignment.”
“We’re going to clean out the fryers,” Kel said, “and then we may head over to Sheriff Goody’s office to talk about getting up a shirts ’n ’skins football game in his field.”
“Or use mine,” Jake said as he ran up the wooden stairs.
“We need a quarterback!” Kel called after him.
“I’ll be back soon,” Jake yelled, heading out the back and jumping in his truck. The family home wasn’t five minutes away, and this was as good a time as any to see how the Hot Nuts were making out.
Maggie stared at Jake, her mop of bright red hair tamed in spots with gray. “But I don’t know the first thing about being a mayor. I was a teller at a bank in Florida. Counting money and balancing books is really all I know.”
“It sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Lucy said, “and our business is taking up a lot of our time. Mom’s time.” Lucy looked at Maggie. “She’s got the secret recipe.”
“And I have to wash the dog,” Maggie said.
“I can bathe Paris, Mom, if you want to be mayor.” Sugar smiled at Jake, the first time he thought she’d smiled at him. “Mom loves to try new things.”
“You just have to throw candy from the Christmas parade float,” Jake said. “And maybe shake some hands, tell people ‘welcome to Pecan Creek’.”
“I could do that,” Lucy said, and Jake glanced at her bare legs before looking back at Maggie’s slightly lined, comfortable face.
“You’d be the face of Pecan Creek,” he told Maggie. “A responsible, honest face.”
“Can we have an advertisement in the parade?” Sugar asked.
Jake flinched. “We don’t advertise in the parade, actually.” He could see the stir a Hotter than Hell Nuts sign plastered to the side of a float would cause in a function meant to lure families to the Most Honest Town in Texas. “Makes it too commercial. Here in Pecan Creek, we are all about the experience.”
“Damn,” Lucy said, “how does anybody ever make any dough?”
Jake took a deep breath and smiled at Satan’s best weapon for temptation. “The shops along the parade route in town are open for business. And that’s why the people come, for the exceptional Christmas experience that is quintessentially Pecan Creek.”
Lucy shrugged. “We’re an online business, though.”
“We’ll have the sign on the main road into town,” Sugar said, and Jake cleared his throat.
“That hasn’t actually passed the committee.” He wondered how he could explain to Sugar that Hot Nuts were never going to be on the main billboard. Without that sign proclaiming their wares, he figured they were pretty much without advertising, and therefore, pretty much dead in the water as a business.
It was a problem he’d deal with later.
He fastened a winning smile on Maggie. “Having you as our mayor would mean a lot to us.” Most particularly me, because you’ll be someone with little interest in a long-term role as mayor, which will suit Vivian fine—and everybody’s happy. And I go back to what I do best, which is relaxing.
He shot a fast glance at Sugar’s curved lips as she looked at Maggie. Pink and sweet, like just about everything else on her. All that don’t-mess-with-me attitude probably put his buddies off, which was fine, because he’d really be disappointed if she dated guys like Kel or Evert or Big Bobby. For the briefest of seconds, he wondered if her nipples were pink too, then realized Lucy was watching him stare at her sister’s tight white top. Jake grinned—who, me? Lust? Nah—and went back to working Maggie.
“Think about it,” he said, coaxing.
“Do I have to dress up or anything?”
He pondered that. “A top hat would be perfect. We can probably find one somewhere.”
After a moment, she smiled. “Will you at least ask the committee if we can pass out business cards?”
“Sure.” No. Jake watched Sugar stir something on the stove, sending steaming puffs of sweet fragrance into the air. The whole time he’d been badgering Maggie, Sugar had been moving a whisk speedily around a skillet, making her whole body bounce. He just about had a stiff one watching her tush bob in her tight shorts and her breasts swaying in the fitted shirt. Even her shoulders danced with the stirring. Maybe it was watching a good-looking woman cook, but he was mesmerized like a wolf watching a baby chick.
“Well, then, sure.” Maggie beamed. “I guess since Pecan Creek is our new home, it’s the least I can do.”
“Great.” Jake put his hat on. “I’ll tell the council the good news. In fact, why don’t you come by tonight and let me introduce you?”
Maggie nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“I’ll pick you up just before seven.” Bobby was right. Maggie really was a beautiful woman, once a man got past the stunner Lucy put on a guy and the lure of home Sugar cast over fools who might be looking to get chained to a hearth. Sugar was sexy too, but it had a haunt to it, like she was too vulnerable, whereas Maggie seemed like she’d been run hard and put away wet. Lucy just plain scared the shit out of him. He was pretty certain Lucy had seen a lot in her young life.
He gave Sugar one last glance—peeping in her pan quickly to see what she was whipping up—and saw gently toasted pecans in a mouthwatering sweet sauce. He scented caramel and sugar and maybe a hint of spice. Cinnamon. “Is that the secret recipe?”
“If I told, would it be a secret?” Sugar asked. For a split second, her hazel eyes met his, and he felt something zap him in his chest. Jake tipped his hat, heading out to the door to his truck, before he did something stupid, like find himself attracted to Sugar.
He got in the well-worn black truck, noticing he did, in fact, have a woody of epic proportions. “Damn,” he muttered.
“About those business cards,” Lucy said in his window, and Jake bit back a vivid curse word. “Try not to let my sister down, okay?”
He stared at the full-on sexual appeal that was Lucy Cassavechia as she rapped him on the arm and then turned to sashay back inside the kitchen. Right, left, right, left—it was no wonder Kel had just about lost his mind when he looked at those smooth legs and tight butt cheeks.
Jake felt sweat under his hat band and told himself how fortunate he was that he didn’t dig hot screaming sex with radioactive babes like Lucy.
Their older sisters, maybe.
Hell, yeah.
“I don’t like him,” Lucy said, after Jake had left.
Sugar glanced at her sister as she moved the caramelized pecans to a white dish. “Why?”
Lucy eyed the hot pecans. Maggie stared at the nuts too. “He’s working an angle,” Lucy said.
“Aren’t we all?” Sugar didn’t care about angles. She had enough to worry about without Jake’s angles. Although, truth be told, his bulges would interest her more than his angles. The man was strong and muscular and big everywhere. She had a feeling he knew all the moves a woman liked.
“He stares at you every time he thinks you’re not looking.” Lucy picked at a nail, then bit it off. “If he wasn’t scared of you, he’d try to get you into bed.”
“Scared of me?” Sugar shook her head. “I don’t think Jake Bentley is afraid of me, or much of anything, probably.” He wore his hair long and unbrushed, like he didn’t care. His jeans had been nicely tight and a bit worn the couple of times she’d seen him. He had clean nails, clear skin, a do-me smile—Sugar ignored the shivers shooting over her and stirred the sauce faster.
Maggie picked up a pecan, considering it closely. “We may be getting very close to the proper texture. I just wish I could remember the recipe better.”
“This is what I find so fascinating and exhilarating.” Lucy picked up a pecan, chomping it irreverently. “We decided to move here and start a business without any idea of what we’re doing. No recipe, no backup plan. But most importantly, no recipe.”
“We have a recipe.” Sugar’s tone was reproving. “When Maggie remembers it, we will have a recipe.”
Maggie lit a cigarette, then opened up the back door. “I will remember it,” she said, going outside, “when things calm down around here a little. I don’t remember stuff well when I’m stressed. They say moving is almost as stressful as divorce, and I believe the genius who figured that out.”
Paris followed Maggie outside. Lucy sighed. “Do you really believe she’ll remember her grandmother’s recipes?”
“Does it matter?” Sugar sank onto a barstool. “Or does making her happy, getting her mind off the breast cancer, matter more than anything?” Maggie had been anxious in Pensacola. It was the cancer; it was staring down the number of days of one’s life. Sugar wanted her mom to think about anything but her cancer, which was in remission and, God willing, would stay in remission.
If there’s a God, and I know there is.
“So how long do we have, financially, if Maggie doesn’t remember?” Lucy’s blue eyes were opaque pools in her face.
Sugar sighed. “I’ve got enough money saved for a year. By Christmas, we’ll know if we can make a go of this, I think.”
“What if,” Lucy said, “we’d played our cards a little differently? What if you’d stayed married to Ramon, and I’d found a husband, and we’d been able to take care of Maggie? Instead of relying on her to dream up a recipe of her grandmother’s that she used to love?”
Impatience smote Sugar. “There’d been too many women for me to forgive Ramon, as much as I might have once believed that the two of us were soul mates. I learned over five years that a man may have a soul mate, but he also wants lots of bed mates, and it’s different. As for you finding a husband”—Sugar shrugged—“I wouldn’t want you to marry someone you didn’t love. Trust me, as bad as marriage was to Ramon once I caught him cheating, marriage would be worse if you weren’t in love.”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I’d do it for Mom.”
“Maggie wouldn’t want you to. She’s been married twice. It’s not a path she plans to go down again.” Sugar looked at Lucy. “Besides, you haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life yet. Do that first.”
“And when do you figure it out?”
Sugar looked out the window, watching Maggie walk through the pecan grove with Paris at her side, happily content to keep Maggie company while she smoked her cigarette. “I like it here. If I can make a go of Hotter than Hell Nuts, I’ll stay here forever.”
“We’ll see.” Lucy’s tone was dark. She flipped her chin-length, wavy hair and got up. “These are good. Not perfect, but good. I’m going to go bum a cig off Maggie.”
“Don’t start smoking,” Sugar said automatically, but Lucy had already departed. She crunched on a pecan, cataloguing the flavors. Vanilla, a hint of cinnamon, a layer of caramel—
They were getting closer. The journey was the point, wasn’t it? The closeness they were supposed to gain as a family? Lucy didn’t really understand the journey. She was young; she wanted fast answers.
There was no such thing, at least not always. Not for the scars in the Cassavechia family. She went to the sink to wash out the skillet, watching her sister and mother walking under the canopy of full, leafy pecan trees, and thought that here in Pecan Creek, they were at least safe.
Idly, she wondered if Jake had been staring at her as Lucy claimed. Maybe—but probably not. He reminded her of Ramon, who had loved her in his own way but not the way she’d needed to be loved.
J.T. Bentley seemed remarkably similar. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-humored, somewhat secretive. Lucy was right—he was working an angle—and Sugar had an idea that he was a man who liked his wall of reserve.
It was fine with her. The last thing she wanted was a man hitting on her. She planned to enjoy this time with her sister and her mother, for as long as it could possibly last.
Nothing for the Cassavechias ever seemed to last long.
At six forty-five, just like a date, Jake showed up for Maggie. Sugar appreciated him treating her mother so courteously. “She’s getting her purse,” Sugar said without inviting Jake in—when he visited, she felt like this wasn’t their house—but Maggie elbowed her out of the way.
“I’m ready. Ready to go be the new mayor of Pecan Creek!”
Jake smiled. “I’ll have her back in a few hours.”
Sugar nodded, keeping her gaze slightly averted from Jake’s dark brown eyes. The man was gorgeous, heartstoppingly so, and nothing good could come of having one’s heart stopped by gorgeous. She waved good-bye as they left, and went upstairs to the Best Little Whorehouse room.
The bedroom was an oasis of sorts. She couldn’t imagine changing a thing. At first, she’d been put off by the heavy draperies. Perhaps she’d even felt claustrophobic. The circular bed practically begged for its heavy curtains to be closed at night, but it was August, and the encircling velvet made her feel like something out of Scrooge’s bedchamber. When the hangings were open, the room felt more open and welcoming.
“Sugar!” Lucy called. “Have you seen this sweet cabinet?”
Sugar went into the hall to join Lucy, who was squatting down in front of an old walnut-stained Revere-style cabinet. “What’s so sweet about it?”
“It has family memorabilia.” Lucy held up an album. “Let’s investigate, shall we?”
Sugar blinked. “Is there a good reason to investigate?”
“There always is.” Lucy flipped the book open. “Oh, look at Jake in his little swimsuit.”
She stared at a picture of Jake on the beach with a shovel and bucket, next to a tall, dark-haired woman wearing Ava Gardner sunglasses and a Betty Grable swimsuit. “Women really did seem more glamorous back then,” she murmured.
Lucy flipped the page. “Our photos of Maggie don’t quite look like this. I think Vivian may have been raised a bit more gently, as they say.”
Sugar seated herself cross-legged on the hardwood floor next to her sister. “Where’s Jake’s father?”
“Not in this book, at least not yet.” Lucy pointed at the carefully written captions beneath each photo. “Here we have Jake in the first-grade Pecan Creek Christmas play. He was one of Santa’s elves.”
Jake’s slightly mischievous brown eyes shone with delight, even in the old color photo. “Pecan Creek loves its Christmas season.”
“Yeah, what else is there to do in a small town? You gotta love the fat man and the dead man, or you don’t have a holiday.”
Sugar drew back from her sister. “Lucy!”
“What? I’m just saying. Holidays are about fairy tales, aren’t they?”
Sugar sighed. “I’m going to bed.”
Lucy snapped the book shut. “I’m going into town to check on Maggie.”
“Why?” Sugar looked at her sister as she jumped to her feet and shoved the photo album back into the cabinet.
“Because I’m afraid, that’s why. I don’t trust Jake. I don’t know why he’s sticking Maggie with being mayor, but I’ve never heard of a small town electing a woman they’ve only known for a few days with the job unless there’s a problem.”
Sugar got to her feet, slightly alarmed. “Maggie can take care of herself.”
“Can she?” Lucy began clopping down the wooden stairs. “Do we want to find out?”
Sugar hesitated. Lucy didn’t trust anyone. Jake seemed nice enough to her. Maggie liked him; she’d said so.
Then again, Lucy had a point. It wouldn’t hurt to tag along so Maggie wouldn’t feel like Lucy was being overprotective. They could say that they’d simply come to meet some of the folks in the town, and thank Jake’s mom for the delicious apple pie.
It really hadn’t been that good. Sugar thought Mrs. Bentley had bought the pie at a bakery and put it on her own disposable plate with a doily before abandoning it on their doorstep with a cursory welcome note.
“I’ll go with you,” Sugar said, fast on Lucy’s heels.