Hot in Hellcat Canyon (19 page)

Then she turned the radio up, because the universe knew the perfect Led Zeppelin song for this moment and here it was, all about levees breaking, replete with thundering drums and squealing harmonicas.

It was safe to say the levee had broken. And how.

She supposed there was a chance her incredible glow of self-satisfaction and well-being that might fade into shame and self-recrimination when she pictured herself spread-eagled on a big wooden table with J. T.’s face over her, intent, shining with sweat . . .

Nope. Nope. Nope. That wasn’t shame she felt.

Shame might kick in later.

But for now it was a fresh, new, great unfettered wave of undammed lust and she needed to get a grip or she’d drive her car off the road.

She had just turned onto the road that led to town when her phone rang. Mozart.

She fumbled with her Bluetooth and shouted over her noisy air conditioner.

“Hi Gary!”

“Mr. McCord just called. He’s not going to rent that place.”

Huh.

But Gary’s voice was vibrating with glee, so she waited for the rest.

“No. He’s going to buy it. He’s going to have his accountant wire the money to us this afternoon. His accountant! Wire it! Has anyone with an accountant ever wired anything to me? No. No, they have not. He wants to take possession of that place today! You’re a genius, Britt. I always said that house had great bones.”

She was stunned silent.

“I’ll shoot you over a little bonus, Britt. Maybe I’ll even wire it. Enough so that you can buy a shiny new rope to hold your car door shut.”

“Ha ha.”

“Whatever you did to sell him on it, keep doing it.”

She smiled hugely and privately at that suggestion.

“Oh, I plan to,” she said.

J
. T. put his phone away. Smiling.

Early in his career, he’d been bewildered by the sheer endless volume of money he’d been showered with. How in God’s name did people spend it? It seemed to him that you either bought more things or bigger things, which was how he’d learned there really wasn’t much he wanted or needed beyond a few basics. For a confusing time, he’d bought things in multiples simply because he could.

And now he could outright buy a shabby little house that was somehow perfection by just pressing a few buttons on his phone.

Not for the first time did he realize that it was good to be a movie star with a fat bank account.

Dust kicked up by the departure of Britt’s car was still dancing in motes. It would settle soon enough. He watched it the way he always waited out that last endless note in the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Something that magnificent deserved every bit of his attention.

He touched his face, realizing he’d pretty much been grinning since she’d left.
Bolted
, was more accurately what she’d done. He thought he might understand why. They’d have to come up with a new name for what they’d just done on that table. Because it had been so much better than all the sex he’d ever had, it hardly seemed to be the same activity. Maybe he’d forever call it the Britt Langley Memorial Superlative Explosion Experience.

He washed up a little in the dusty bathroom. And he took his smile out on that porch. And wandered around back again to look at those blue flowers.

His smile faded.

Damn. That girl had just given him two things he’d wanted.

And he hadn’t even known he’d wanted the second one.

That, frankly, was a little unnerving.

And while he felt replete, which was always excellent, he also felt a little uncertain, as though his internal equilibrium was off. Uncertain and a little raw, though not in the physically abraded way. More like some brand-new part of him was suddenly exposed to the light of day. Like any new thing, it might get burned or snatched by a metaphorical coyote.

He didn’t have to think about it. Because they would be doing
that
again, and
that
only required feeling.

He smiled to himself. He rotated slowly again, like a divining rod, and through the surround of enormous ancient pines and redwoods he spotted what he thought was likely a narrow dirt track heading steeply down toward the river.

And on impulse he headed out that way,

He followed the sound of the creek for about ten minutes, picking his way through instinct down the faint, slightly overgrown path, knowing it had been created because it led some place in particular, and he had a hunch about what it might be.

A hundred or so yards later, the trail opened up and there it was. Just as he’d guessed on the day he drove into Hellcat Canyon.

His own, beautiful, private swimming hole.

Well, more or less secret. He knew the mountains were full of places like this, And because he was a country boy, there was no way the natives, the people who had grown up here, and whose parents had grown up here, didn’t know about this hole. But if Jonah Greenleaf had indeed been “hauled away,” as Britt put it, odds were pretty good it didn’t get as much use these days. There were no other homes nearby. And it didn’t sound as though Jonah would have been thrilled about trespassers, given his line of work.

He stood and just listened and thought about what it might be like to bring Britt here. He was reminded of her—something beautiful and naturally wild, but a little guarded.

He’d noticed something a little troubling about her tattoo. Something that might hold the secret to why she was so squirrelly. Everyone had secrets, he knew. The trouble with sharing them with someone else was that they tended to bind people together. And any woman who had ever known him could have spoken to his own utter slipperiness when it came to being bound to someone.

Trouble was, he already felt kind of responsible for her. And had ever since he’d laid eyes on her.

He hiked back up, hopped into his truck, did a search for the nearest Home Depot on his phone (fifteen miles away), and started the engine.

He rolled the window all the way down, and essentially coasted down the road so his senses could bask a bit. Even over his engine he could hear birds and the chattering of squirrels and the low rush of a river. And the trees somewhat broke the brutal aim of the sun, but it was near blistering on his forearm hanging out the truck window where it pushed its way through.

These sounds and sights were like an essential soul nutrient he’d been missing probably since he’d left Tennessee. Something in him that he hadn’t even known was knotted loosened.

A mile or so down the road he slowed. There was indeed a sort of dimple off the shoulder, a clearing that promised an extraordinary view of the canyon and sunsets. He suspected this was the view Britt mentioned. That girl knew how to sell him on something. He smiled again.

And then he finally gunned it and drove through town. Happier, lighter, than he could remember being in a long time. But then, sex endorphins did do that to a guy. He opened it up out on the highway . . .

And unconsciously slowed down as he approached that billboard. They had finished slapping it up.

He pulled over.

He gave a short, incredulous laugh. “You have
got
to be
kidding
me.”

The left side was almost entirely white, which made the rest of the visual quite striking. A twenty-foot high profile of a woman. Her gigantic, sparkly, neon raspberry-colored lips were aimed in a coy exaggerated pucker toward the highway as she blew a dandelion, her hair streaming out behind her like a flag.

They’ll all wish they were you
, said the words across the top.

Below that it said,
Goddess Cosmetics
.

“You have
got
to be fucking kidding me,” he said blackly.

The woman, naturally, was Rebecca Corday.

He banged his head twice theatrically on his steering wheel. And then he sat back and sighed, which tapered into an ironic laugh. “Well, good for
you
, Becks.”

His ex-girlfriend might be taking over the world one billboard at a time. That had always been her goal, anyway.

He’d just taken a beautiful blonde on an oak table, and frankly, he considered himself the winner.

“
W
ell, hello there, McCord.”

J. T. turned abruptly to see Glenn Harwood of the Misty Cat.

“Hey, Harwood. Doing a little Home Depot shopping, eh? Yeah, that one, thanks,” he said to a sales associate rolling a green wool carpet onto a huge cart loaded with other things he’d just requested.

Glenn was holding a big mag light and a lantern. “Had a few repairs to do at the Misty Cat, but these were on sale this week. Can never be too prepared for winter blackouts. Storms up here can get nasty.”

“Always smart to plan ahead.” J. T. made a mental note to add a mag light and a lantern to his list.

“Ran into one of my sons over in the bathroom fixtures and he said some guy said someone was buying everything in the store by just pointing at it,” Glenn added. “Figured it was you.”

J. T. laughed. “Yeah, I need a lot of stuff. I just bought the old Greenleaf place. I’ll have some place to stay while I’m filming here.”

Glenn whistled. “Congratulations. Good bones, that place. Smart little house.”

J. T. was charmed by the use of the word
smart
. “I thought so. I need a few basics. Refrigerator. A couple of lamps. A sofa. And chairs. A rug. A bed. A new deck. Possibly a new roof.”

“Yeah, I’d say that about covers the basics,” Glenn said dryly. “You have some work cut out for you, though.”

“I like work,” J. T. said easily. “And I still have a little downtime.”

J. T. needed to get his basics picked out quickly, before a crowd gathered or anyone looked set to rebel against the blast of charm he’d used to cajole them into keeping their phones sheathed. When it was choice between photos and selling a lot of stuff to a rich guy, the staff had shown their practical side.

“I can probably knock off most of what the porch needs in an afternoon. I’ll have some time to do the work in a few days. I’m pretty determined to sleep there tonight whether or not I get a bed in there. A guy can only stay so long in Angel’s Nest.”

Glenn nodded sympathetic agreement with this. “You got any carpentry skills, McCord?”

“Oh, yeah. Some. Did some carpentry work as a kid. Worked a little construction in L.A. when I got out of the army. Before I got my first TV gig. Pretty sure I can handle what needs to be done on that house. Yeah, that’s the one,” said J. T., when a couple of guys gestured with wide questioning eyes at a big stainless-steel refrigerator.

The guys in Home Depot were all wearing dazed grins.

“Remember,
huge
tip for all of you if you get this delivered up to Hellcat Canyon tonight,” J. T. added.

A little silence went by as Glenn watched all of this with every evidence of absorption.

Some men dreamed of dating any woman in Hollywood they chose. Some guys dreamed of walking into a Home Depot and just pointing at anything they wanted and being able to take it home.

“Our Britt show the Greenleaf place to you?” Glenn asked.

“Yep.”

Here we go
, thought J. T. Though he thought he understood it better now, and he was mostly fine with it.

Another little silence ensued. Just a trifle tenser than the silence before.

“Her porch could use a little work, too,” J. T. said offhandedly, just as a couple of guys rolled a huge cart covered in two-by-fours, a saw, hammer and nails up to him for his inspection. Which, as the two of them knew, were exactly what he’d need to fix Britt’s porch.

The Home Depot manager came over with a receipt for J. T. to sign.

Glenn shot a wondering look at J. T.

J. T. missed it. His head was bent as he applied his signature with a flourish.

“Say, Glenn?” J. T. said, when he’d finished spending thousands of dollars with the stroke of a pen.

“Yeah?”

J. T. almost said, “Never mind.” It was the damnedest thing. He was a little nervous about asking.

“I think the Misty Cat food is great. But I’m looking for a recommendation for a different kind of place. You know, the kind with white tablecloths. Candles. Wine. Romantic.”

Glenn mulled. “Can’t go wrong with Maison Vert up in Black Oak. About fifteen miles up the highway. French, has a maître d’ and everything. Great food. Atmosphere just like you want. Place has been there fifty years. Took Sherrie there on our first date.”

Glenn didn’t look at him as he said this. But his inflection on those last three words had been on the word
our
.

Kind of like the way he’d said “our Britt” that day in the garage.

“Thanks,” said J. T. abstractedly. Without looking at Glenn.

But Glenn could see J. T.’s reflection in the broad, shiny stainless-steel surface of that refrigerator. And he took special note of his expression, which was just a little different than it had been earlier.

“Well, I got to get back to the Misty Cat, McCord. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

J. T. flashed a grin. “See you around, Glenn.”

“
I
was a little worried when I first saw him standing there,” Glenn told Sherrie later that night, as they sat on their porch swing. “Because he was pointing at stuff and he had that look, Sherrie—know the one I’m talking about? Grin ear to ear, like he was king of the world, kind of dreamy?”

“Oh, the ‘I just had great sex smile,’ ” Sherrie said knowingly.

Glenn was glad he had his wife to finish his sentences, because that kind of sentence was never not going to embarrass him.

“Britt was walking around like that all day, too,” she added. “Bumping into the things at the Misty Cat. Smiling so wide it was like she had a coat hanger in her mouth. Worried me a little, too.”

“But
then
,” Glenn added triumphantly, “he asked about a restaurant with white tablecloths. And when I left he was smiling a completely different smile. Know what I mean?”

Sherrie thought about this. “I think I know the one,” Sherrie said. “See it on you every day.”