chapter Five
The Bait and Burgers restaurant was no different than any other small-town greasy spoon, except that it was packed. Sugar guided her mother and sister inside and found some black-topped stools to perch on underneath a blaring television showing a baseball game in full swing.
“Wow, check out all the blue-hairs,” Lucy said. “One thing about Pecan Creek, it prides itself on being cutting edge.”
“I like it.” Maggie gazed up at the chalkboard menu on which chalk letters pronounced the available items. “Hey, there’s J.T.!” She waved enthusiastically at him, and he strolled over wearing his typical sexy smile.
Sugar’s body heat rose exponentially—and uncomfortably in the obscene Texas heat.
“Ladies. What a pleasure to see you.”
He was so smooth Sugar had an image of cool, dark satin sheets. She blinked the thought away, and moved her gaze from his broad chest and well-worn jeans. He hugged Maggie, who gave him a delighted smile.
“Hi, Jake.” Sugar glanced around. “Is this Pecan Creek’s hot spot?”
He nodded. “One of them.”
“Really.” Lucy looked around. “Are there any people in Pecan Creek who haven’t left their fiftieth birthday in the rearview mirror long ago?”
Jake laughed. “I’ll have to introduce you to my friends.”
Lucy sniffed. “You must mean Kel, Evert and Big Bobby. I met Curly, Larry and Moe, thanks. They came by to ask me if I wanted to watch them play shirts and skins. I told them I’d rather be dead, and we left it at that.”
Sugar looked at Jake. “My sister values the direct approach.”
Jake laughed. “So do the Three Stooges.” He winked at the ladies as a cute college-age waitress came over to take their orders. The tiny-waisted girl bounced with good cheer, in impossibly tight cut-off shorts and a tank top that read PC’s Best Burgers—Really!
Maggie glanced up at the menu. “I can’t decide. It all looks so good!”
“Well,” Lucy said, “you can have a hamburger, or a hamburger, or a hamburger.”
Sugar looked at her sister. “Lucy, don’t exaggerate. There are french fries too, and onion rings.”
“That’s right,” Jake said easily. “Truthfully, the burgers are what make this place.”
They all put in their orders for burgers and sodas, and then Lucy knocked her water glass over on Jake. He jumped, Lucy said, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” in a tone that Sugar knew was less than contrite, and Maggie handed him her napkin.
“Lucy,” Sugar said, taking the napkin and wiping water off Jake’s arm and the front of his denim shirt. Holy Christmas, he had a hard body. Hard as a rock. She rubbed a little harder than necessary on the soaked fabric, feeling tight muscles and a surge of desire that stunned her.
“It’s all right,” Jake said, taking the napkin from her. “In this heat, I’ll dry in less than five minutes.”
Lucy blew a big pink gum bubble, then collapsed it with a sucking sound. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”
“Lucy, it’s okay. It’s so okay that I’m going to tell Kel to comp your meals tonight.”
“Do you manage the restaurant?” Sugar asked.
“Not exactly,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t be caught managing much of anything.”
“That’s why you’re trying to stick our mother with the mayor gig, because you don’t want it,” Lucy said benignly.
“True,” Jake said easily. “Excuse me, ladies.” He gave Maggie a last fond hug, Lucy a level look and Sugar a devil-may-care grin. “Do you have a minute? I’d like to discuss something with you in private. Nothing I couldn’t say in front of you ladies, but I don’t want anybody overhearing.” He gestured to the people packed around them, laughing and chatting as they ate burgers and drank tall, frosty sodas.
“Sure.” Sugar slid off the stool.
“We’ll be right back,” Jake said, tipping his hat to Maggie and Lucy.
Lucy rolled her eyes, and Maggie waved them off. Jake took Sugar over to an open window area. Light country western music played, though not loud enough to drown out the conversational babble.
“So what’s up?” Sugar asked.
“First, about the other night.” Jake looked apologetic. “I didn’t think my mother and her friends would be so—”
“Stuck-up? Witchy?” Sugar leveled a stare at him that could have wilted lettuce before it ever hit a hamburger. “I think my sister is right. I think you did set Maggie up just because you don’t want to be the mayor. What is it you do exactly, besides rent houses that are nothing like their advertised descriptions to unsuspecting out-of-towners?”
He shook his head. “I’ll show you my deep, dark secret. Come on.”
Sugar followed him around to the back, and then down some wooden stairs that went deep underneath the rocking burger joint. “Wow, a dungeon.”
“Now you sound like Lucy.” Jake laughed. “Your sister does not like me at all.”
“Lucy warms up slowly.” Sugar felt compelled to defend her sister. “She’s protective of Mom.”
“And you. Obviously you.” He turned to face her in front of a pool table covered with red felt. “She practically snaps like an electrical fence hit by water whenever I get near you.”
“Cassavechias look out for each other. Anyway, your mom isn’t exactly a study in Southern hospitality.” She looked at the pool table. “Isn’t Brunswick a bit fancy to hide away in a dungeon?”
“Keep my secret. Even my mother doesn’t know this baby’s here.” He handed her a cue. “Do you play?”
“A little.” Sugar studied the room. “Why are we down here?”
“I told you,” Jake said, “I’m sharing my deepest, darkest secret with you.” He sighted down the length of the cue, nodding with satisfaction. “I own Bait and Burgers. This is my private office. None of this info is known by anyone except my partners who cover for me, so if you share, I’ll have to enact landlord penance on you.”
“Terrifying, I’m sure, considering you’d probably never find another sucker to rent the lusty family domicile.” Sugar looked at him. “So this is your Bat Cave. Interesting.”
“You mean man cave.”
She shook her head and walked over to break. “My guess is you hide down here from the bats that inhabit Pecan Creek.”
He laughed. “Just keep my secret.”
“So you wanted me to know this so I won’t be mad at you for trying to dump your mayor’s job on Mom?”
“Yeah.” He leaned against the black vinyl bar and grinned, too sexy for words. “I’m a very busy man. This is your chance to have leverage with me.”
“Got it.” She broke the rack, and balls flew in every direction.
“Not bad.” He got up to study the table.
“Not so fast. Let me see if I can figure the subtext out.” She looked at him before leaning over the table to line up her shot. “The little red ball is going to go first, by the way.”
She made that shot, and went on. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that you’re not an absolute ass for shifting your responsibilities. You own a restaurant, and you rent the family home, and you don’t want your mother breathing down your neck all the time.”
He grinned. “Not bad.”
“Purple-striped ball is history.” She made that shot and moved to the opposite side of the table, near Jake. “Excuse me.”
He raised a dark brow. “Sugar, I think Maggie can handle my mother any day of the week. What are you protecting her from?”
Sugar leaned over. “Rats.”
He turned her toward him. “I honestly am not a rat. I’m not using Maggie.”
“Do not try to mess up my rhythm.” She pulled herself away from Jake with an effort. “Green.”
He waited until she made the shot, then he took her cue from her, setting it down on the table. “I get it. You’re nobody’s fool. You don’t want to be taken advantage of.” He kissed her, his lips warm on hers, but not demanding. Something hot and welcoming surged into Sugar, something she hadn’t felt in a long time, didn’t know if she wanted to feel now. She pulled away, resisting the urge to press her fingertips to her lips to feel the echo of his kiss.
“I’ll keep your secret, Jake.” Sugar looked in his dark eyes, thinking that he was handsome and hot—and oh, so not what she needed in her life. “You don’t have to seduce me to get what you want.”
“I wasn’t seducing you.”
She let his statement hang in the air.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d seduce you in a minute if I thought I could.” He looked at her for a long moment. “The truth is, I’m pretty sure you’re so far out of my league, Sugar, that all I’m hoping for is a good relationship.”
She slowly shook her head. “Let’s just stick with the tenant/landlord thing. It works for me.”
She went back up the stairs, not allowing herself to glance back at Jake, even though she was dying to. She went to the table where her mother and sister sat chatting and fanning themselves.
Lucy looked at her closely. “What did Jake want that was so earth-shattering he had to drag you away from us?”
Sugar sipped her soda, glad for the coolness. She needed to cool down in the worst way. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jake head over to the grill to talk to one of the cooks. He disappeared a moment later, jaunty and self-assured, a confident man who’d probably never had a woman resist him.
She barely had.
“Nothing,” Sugar said. “Nothing at all.”
“He said it was important.” Lucy eyed her. “He didn’t want anyone to overhear.”
She looked over the patio rail, seeing him walking through the gravel parking lot to his truck. “He just wanted to make certain we weren’t still upset with him about the other night.”
“I’m not,” Maggie said. “I never was. This is not my first rodeo around catty women. Women, I get. Men perplex me a bit more, but I like them. Some of them.” She drank her soda with blissful joy.
Lucy eyed her sister. “I don’t think his intentions are entirely pure where you’re concerned.”
Maggie looked up at the moon blooming round and white over the outdoor patio. “Are any man’s intentions pure?”
Sugar thought about Jake’s kiss. There’d been heat and restrained passion in his kiss. Her divorce wasn’t far enough in the past for her to want hot kisses right now.
But if his intentions hadn’t been exactly pure, she had to admit she’d liked them that way.
Boredom, thy name is Pecan Creek. Lucy’d had enough of the Three Stooges ogling her. She excused herself from the table, leaving Maggie and Sugar discussing the fine points of the pecan recipes they’d tried today. The two of them could chat about spice this and ingredient that until Lucy wanted to keel over in a stupor.
She wasn’t going to survive here if she didn’t get some action going. Being the unlucky cheerleader for Larry, Curly and Moe’s football fantasy was not it.
Azalea Avenue wasn’t far from The Grease Pit, as she’d dubbed the burger joint. She strolled to Azalea, pulled the broomstick woman’s address from her phone’s address book, then stopped in front of 12 Azalea Avenue.
Small white house, freshly painted, roof in good shape. Front yard tidy, with pink crepe myrtles blooming despite the heat. Heavy draping of a live oak canopy protected the house from the blazing sun of the Texas afternoons. Calm and traditional, this was obviously not the action hot spot she was seeking. “Best head back to the Pit,” Lucy said with a sigh.
“Young lady!”
Lucy turned. The white-haired battle-ax stood on her porch, calling to her through cupped hands, as if that helped sound carry. “Yes?”
“Why are you standing in front of my house?”
“Why, indeed,” Lucy muttered. “I was thinking about slitting my wrists and was looking for a nice white porch to do it on,” she called.
“Goodness! What a silly notion.” She waved her over to the porch. Lucy went reluctantly, cursing the idleness that had sent her over here to assuage her curiosity.
“Come in and have some tea.”
“I don’t think so.” Lucy looked at the thin, athletic woman wrapped in a lemon-yellow dress accentuated with white tennis shoes, suitable for walking quickly, as she’d noticed Charlotte did. “You have an ulterior motive. I stay away from people with ulterior motives.”
“You have ulterior motives too. Don’t judge.” Charlotte opened her screen door, ushering Lucy inside.
“Old lady, I can take you easily, so don’t even think about trying anything.”
Ignoring her comment, she indicated that Lucy should seat herself on a prim white divan in her parlor. “In case you don’t remember, my name is Charlotte Dawson. And you are Lucy Cassavechia. From Florida.”
“Wow. You can remember stuff. That’s cool.” Lucy looked around. “This house looks like something out of an old black-and-white film. Very quaint.”
Charlotte gazed at her warily as she positioned herself two sofa cushions away. “Sarcasm is not a trait a Southern lady wants on her resume.”
“Excuse me if I don’t have my calling cards printed up.” Lucy leaned back on the white sofa and blew a huge pink bubble, snapping it back in with a sucking sound. “My social graces may be lacking, but as I recall, you came to me. So, lack of cotillion class and all that, what’s an old biddy like you want with someone like me?”
Charlotte stood. “Come into my kitchen. We’ll talk over a cup of tea.”
“That’s all right. I don’t need the full tour of Miss Manners’s retirement home. Just tell me what you want, I’ll see if it’s anything I want to help with—which I doubt—and then we’ll both forget this conversation ever took place.”
Charlotte smiled, her bright gaze unblinking behind her glasses. “As I mentioned before, I require absolute discretion.”
“I doubt anyone would believe I paid you a social call, Mrs. Dawson. Don’t you think it rather stretches credulity?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. “I think you and I have more in common than you might believe.”
“That would make us very strange bedfellows. I don’t make a habit of doing strange bedfellows, so let’s not stretch the common connection.”
Charlotte smiled. “My, someone has youngest-child syndrome, don’t they? Never mind, come into the kitchen. Listen to my proposition, and then we’ll see if we have a common bond worth acknowledging.”
“Whatever,” Lucy said, following her into a large kitchen. It was spacious, sunny and well laid out, with gleaming white counters and a badass Viking stove and cooktop. “I know something about kitchens,” Lucy said. “You scrimped on updating the counters and went for max burn on the cooking efficiency. This baby’s big enough to reenact Hansel and Gretel.”
Charlotte looked at her. “Tell you what. You don’t push me, I won’t push you, and neither one of us will end up a Grimm’s fairy tale footnote. Deal?”
“I guess,” Lucy said, “although I reserve the right to change my mind if you try anything funny.”
“As I mentioned,” Charlotte said, undeterred, “I am in need of an assistant.”
Lucy looked at the Viking, admiring it. “Does it involve that sucker? My sister would kill for that thing, although Vivian’s kitchen is not bad.”
Charlotte sniffed. “As I told you the other day, my pie has Vivian’s beat, as does my kitchen.”
“Competitive,” Lucy said. “I like that.”
“It’s a friendly competition.” She seated herself on a toile-covered kitchen stool, and Lucy did likewise. They stared at each other like combatants over the clean white countertop. “I run my own business out of my house. I have more orders than I can process, so I need a capable, discreet person to help with the preparation and shipping.”
“I can do prep and ship,” Lucy said. She didn’t mention Sugar’s online business—Sugar had said she thought it was best if no one knew exactly what they were cooking up yet, at least not until they’d perfected it. For now, they were operating under the guise of ladies looking for a place to roost for a while, and that was what Sugar and Maggie told everyone—except Jake. Jake knew about hotterthanhellnuts.com, but he’d advised Sugar to lie low about spreading the word until her business was ready.
Maybe she could learn something from old Charlotte after all, something that could help her sister and mother run their business, and crack into the tight-ass social register in Pecan Creek. It didn’t matter to her, but it did matter to her family, even if they pretended it didn’t. “I suppose you bake pies and send them to unlucky recipients?”
Charlotte sniffed. “You didn’t like my pie?”
“Actually,” Lucy said, “it beat Vivian’s pie all over the place.”
“Told you. No need to hurry with your thank-you note.”
Lucy grimaced. “Less preachy-preachy, and more planny-planny, please. My family’s waiting for me at The Grease Pit.”
“I make coverings to keep a man warm,” Charlotte said, “and I have more orders than I can handle. When I added designs that incorporated holiday motifs, not to mention the very popular collegiate colors and logos, my business exploded. Record cold temperatures last year helped greatly as well, but now I think the young date crowd has caught on.” She gazed at Lucy benignly. “The job involves packing and shipping, and transport to the post office. Discretion is key. You’re the only one who knows my business now, besides my three friends.”
Lucy blinked. “You don’t want a kitchen witch?”
“No. More of a basement gopher. Although if you and I can come to terms, I’m planning to branch into another area of my business. The job pays well, but you would have to sign documents that you would never steal any of my ideas.”
“You want me to sign proprietary documents attesting that I will never copy your business.” Lucy stared at Charlotte. “You make sweaters for men’s dingies, and you think I’d steal that idea?”
Charlotte’s mouth tightened to prim times nine. “Young lady, I will not have you making light of my livelihood.”
Lucy burst out laughing. “You gave me the Miss Manners lecture, but you’re an old woman knitting knob toppers in your basement. Excuse me, but I’m going to laugh my way out of your house. You don’t need to walk me to the door. And don’t worry,” Lucy said, “I won’t tell a soul. This falls under the heading of life being stranger than fiction. Way stranger.”
“The job pays twenty dollars an hour,” Charlotte said, “under the table.”
Lucy hesitated. She stared at Charlotte, sank back on the stool. “Under the table? If you’re so successful, why would you evade taxes?”
“You’re going to bring your own supplies,” Charlotte said. “Therefore, I don’t have to report your wages, for the incidental hours I’ll be using your services at first. We’ll try each other out slowly.”
Lucy gave her possible employer a narrow gaze. “What supplies?”
“Cleaning supplies. Broom, dust pan, fabric scissors, maybe pinking shears.”
“I’m not helping you make anything like what you make,” Lucy said.
Charlotte drummed an impatient fingertip on the countertop. “Employees do not boss their employers.”
“Right, right.” Lucy shrugged. “Whatever. How many hours a week do you need me?”
“I need you,” Charlotte said, “from seven in the morning until nine, three days a week to start. Two hours, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. In that time, you’ll run my shipments to the post office on your way home. When you arrive at my house in the morning, you will pack my product securely and affix the shipping labels, which are a delicate silver I’m very proud of.”
“Wow,” Lucy said, “I get to use silver labels. Whoop-de-doo.”
“On second thought, you may have to use my car for transportation. You’ll have to walk here,” Charlotte warned. “I’ve noticed you don’t have your own wheels in spite of your smart mouth.”
“True,” Lucy said. “I’ve not been able to give up my Dorothy-in-Oz bicycle with Toto in the basket.”
“Young lady,” Charlotte said, her gaze direct, “I don’t really care what’s made you harder than the bark on a tree, but I do care that you treat my business with respect. This is my livelihood.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said, rising. “I can be polite for twenty bucks an hour.”
“Excellent.”
“I don’t understand why you think your business would be some kind of common bond between us, but I respect it. I respect any woman who can make a living with her smarts.”
“Good,” Charlotte said, “we’ll bond in due time. Maybe.”
Lucy’s gaze slid to the Viking. “Sure thought you wanted to hire me to help you sell those pies you make.”
“Really,” Charlotte said flatly. “You’d be surprised at the profit potential of pies versus man warmers.”
“Nice percentage, huh?”
“Ridiculously.” Charlotte walked her to the door. “Do not be late. I cannot abide tardiness.”
Lucy walked onto the porch. “Duly noted. Good night, Charlotte.”
“Mrs. Dawson to you, Miss Cassavechia.”
She closed the door, leaving Lucy on the porch. “Well, la-di-da,” Lucy said, “but you need me more than I need you, Mrs. Dawson.” She headed back to The Grease Pit, thinking that if Sugar’s FOB didn’t work out, at least they’d have man warmers to pad the bottom line.