Hot in Hellcat Canyon (3 page)

“The . . . incense?”

“Yeah! It’s nice!”

He laughed. Peace and Love the cat rolled over shamelessly so he could scratch the white bib on his chest.

He looked up at the girl and then past her. He’d parked his truck down the street, across from what appeared to be a palm reader, judging from the huge painted hand swinging from two chains over the sidewalk. He was worried about that god-awful sound the truck was making. He had a hunch about what it was, because he’d fixed it before. He could have bought fifteen trucks just like it, if he wanted. Instead, he’d fixed nearly everything on that truck twice.

Suddenly the little girl’s eyes went huge, her jaw dropped, and he watched her face go brilliant with astonished elation.

J. T. knew exactly what was going to happen next.

“WOOOoow,” she exhaled.

Damn.

And then she threw her head back.

“MOOOOOOM!” she screamed.

Foof!
The cat shot straight up in the air, every hair erect, and it disappeared in a blur of scrambling legs, like a cartoon. J. T. staggered backward, blinking, his eardrums shriveling.

The little girl began pogoing excitedly all around him, her pigtails flapping. “MOM MOM MOM MOM OH MY GOSH MOM YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO’S PETTING PEACE AND LOVE MOM HURRY COME SEE!”

Hurry? Now that was funny. As if he’d bolt, or evaporate in this heat if her mother didn’t get there fast enough.

A woman hurtled out of the shop, the bells on the door jangling frantically.

“For the love of God, Annalise, what on—”

She stopped short.

He straightened slowly to his entire height, as unthreateningly as possible, as if he’d been caught in the act of something.

Which he had, in a way. He’d been caught in the act of being himself.

The woman’s dark red hair was bundled up on her head in a big ponytail, and he could see where her daughter got her eyes. Same color, same shape, and they got big and round and awestruck in just the same way when she saw him.

She spoke wonderingly. “Good heavens. Is it really you? Mr. John Tennessee
McCord
? What brings you to our little town?”

He liked the “Mr.” Women who were about to get hysterical didn’t often add a “Mr.”

“About to start filming a new series about the California Gold Rush on location nearby. Called
The Rush
. Thought I’d get a sense of the place. Pretty town, Hellcat Canyon. Just ate the best burger of my life at the Misty Cat.”

He knew that would be all over town in a heartbeat.

She glowed. “My parents own that place. Glenn and Sherrie Harwood. I’m Eden Harwood.”

Ah, small towns. “You should be proud.”

She tore her eyes from him briefly.

“Hush, you. I know you’re excited, Annalise, but you’re being very rude. Apologize to Mr. McCord for screaming. He has ears, just like you do, and you’re going to deafen him. And stop pointing. I can see him.”

“Enthusiasm is good for my career, ma’am.” His ears were still ringing. He resisted an impulse to twist a finger in one to see whether the eardrum was intact.

“I’m sorry for screaming, Mr. McCord,” said young Annalise.

“
What?
” he teased, cupping his ear.

Mother and daughter laughed. Albeit a little giddily.

“We often watch repeats in the afternoon of your show, Mr. McCord. That’s how Annalise knows you.”

It was how nearly everybody knew him, if they did. Repeats of a show that lasted seven outrageously popular years and had ended a decade ago but lived on in quite a few markets at various times of day. He thought he looked quite a bit different now; but then again, when millions of people had stared at you week after week for quite a few years, anonymity was kind of out of the question. His eyes, anyone would tell him, were unmistakable. An indie band out of Minneapolis had even scored a minor hit with “Eyes Like Tennessee.”

“Say the thing you always said on TV, Mr. McCord. Will you please please
pleeeeease
?” Annalise folded her hands and implored him.

“Sorry, sweetie, I’ll get in trouble from my bosses for saying
that word
outside the television.” He winked.

He invented new reasons not to say “that thing” every time he was asked.

He would die happy if he never had to say that word again. For so many reasons.

Annalise was apparently satisfied with this explanation. Kids always related to getting in trouble for saying the wrong thing.

“Would it be rude to trouble you for an autograph?” her mother asked. “It’s just that we enjoy your show so much. We’ll hang it on the wall in the shop.”

“No trouble at all. That is, if I can trouble you for the name of a mechanic, and maybe the name of a local hotel. My truck made some ominous noises on the way and I don’t think it’ll be smart to drive it.”

“Ominous. O-M-I-N-O-U-S,” Annalise said triumphantly.

“Wow!” He held out his fist and Annalise bumped it enthusiastically with her own little fist. “Impressive!”

“Impressive. I-M-P-R—”

“That’s enough spelling for now, Annalise.” But her mother was glowing. “Um, Ernie Di Giulio is probably your best bet for a mechanic. He’s way out on Kilburn Road, but the bus goes right by his garage and service station.” The woman squinted and pointed down the street; near the swinging palm of the palm reader was a pretty little bench and a post with a sign on it, which was clearly the bus stop. “And the Angel’s Nest is the only bed and breakfast in town. It’s actually just a block away from Ernie’s, straight up the hill from it.”

The hill she meant was apparent; the street wound up and up into the mountains—if he squinted, he could make out the rectangle of a white highway billboard. A guy was clambering over it in preparation of changing its message. Heaven forbid a moment should pass without advertising.

“I don’t suppose this town has a taxi service?”

He was pretty sure he knew the answer. He was just curious about what she’d say.

“Of course we do!” she said. “But I think he’s taking Mrs. Gordimer to the grocery store right now. There’s a sale on chicken thighs. She doesn’t have a car and she just got her Social Security check.”

This was pretty much the answer he’d expected. He smiled. “Guess I timed it wrong.”

“I don’t know if they’re full up at the Angel’s Nest, but I’m afraid that’s your only option right in town. If you intend to stay awhile.”

He followed the direction of her pointing finger, still aimed toward the hills, but his eye was drawn up and beyond it, up past the canyon woolly and dark with pines and redwoods and oaks and manzanita and other California trees he intended to learn the names of, and several rugged peaks. He knew, he could almost
smell
, the way country boys could, that all of that was threaded through with the Hellcat River and creeks and streams.

He could imagine hidden swimming holes and magical clearings and vistas that were nearly impossible to hike to but were worth it, because when you stood there to watch the sunset it was better than church.

A broken truck, a pair of green eyes and a waitress who used the word “enigmatic”—J. T. had never needed much of a rationalization to check out a gut feeling about a beautiful woman, but it was all starting to feel a little portentous to him.

A man, even a man like him, could probably still get lost up there in the hills of Hellcat Canyon.

“I might just stay awhile, at that,” he told Eden Harwood.

W
hen J. T. reached the bus stop, a pair of women sporting the sleek, glossy tresses of the freshly blow-dried were waiting there and chattering in Spanish. Across the street a sign featuring a single, huge flirty eye fringed in luxurious sparkly gold eyelashes swung on chains. The Truth and Beauty must be a beauty salon.

They went abruptly silent when he appeared and turned big, admiring, wary eyes on him.

He knew that expression well. It translated roughly to, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

He offered them an unthreatening “I’m not a vagrant” smile and stood at a polite distance.

“
Cuánto es la tarifa de autobús?
” he asked.

Thanks to movie tours and the army and all the various foreign versions of
Blood Brothers
, he’d picked up a hodgepodge of languages, and he’d wrestled a few of those into fluency during his downtime.

They beamed at him like indulgent aunts. They looked like sisters in town for a day of beauty, maybe. “One dollar fifty,” one of them told him.

“
Gracias.
”

They picked up their conversation again. “Oh! Louisa!” One of them grabbed her friend’s arm and turned her. “Look, Look!
Mi actriz favorita! Ella es muy hermosa!
” She pointed at the advertisement on the bus bench.

The day someone said, “Look at that beautiful woman,” in any language and he didn’t look was the day J. T. was in his coffin.

So he looked.

A famous actress was ecstatically clutching a new handbag with both hands and her knees were bent in what looked like the beginning of a jump for joy. “Spring into savings with Macy’s!”

Oh. Hell.

He could have told them he’d heard that woman fart in her sleep and he’d held her while she sobbed over losing a part she wanted, and that he’d ducked when she’d hurled a shoe at him during their first big fight but she’d still managed to wing his cheekbone. And millions of other little things, because J. T. was a guy who paid attention. Including the very last words she’d said to him. Which were, “Don’t wait up.”

Which had been a warning, but he hadn’t known it at the time.

“
Mi película favorita es
Better Luck Next Time!”

He knew that she’d hated the script for
Better Luck Next Time
, but it was the movie that turned her from star into mega star.

Or to put it another way, from someone who had struggled to get a mention in any sort of press, let alone
People
, who’d suffered torments that he soothed her out of when some other actress got a mention, into someone so ubiquitous she was practically like the weather. Someone he couldn’t avoid, even here in Hellcat Canyon. A town she would definitely consider beneath her notice.

He turned his back coldly on the advertisement and stared straight down the street as if the sheer force of will could urge the bus to arrive faster.

The bus didn’t come.

And he imagined he could feel Rebecca Corday’s eyes on his back.

Look at you, J. T., with your broken truck and your broken career. You should just get a Bentley, for God’s sake. Now you’re going to have to walk. Nobody who’s anybody walks in Los Angeles.

Oh, Rebecca
, he thought silently. You never did really get me.

He decided he was going to walk the rest of the way to Angel’s Nest, and like it.

B
ritt finally allowed herself to stare fully and unabashedly at the stranger when he got up to walk out the door.

She watched him go, panic and relief duking it out in her gut.

Because from the moment he’d walked in, it was as if someone had dialed the universe up a notch: all of the colors were just a little brighter, and everything seemed more distinct and more beautiful, and her very blood seemed to buzz.

She’d once gone out with a guy who drove an ancient VW van with insulated walls. She could put her hand on the side of it and
feel
how loud the music was inside, from how it thumped and vibrated. And when she’d opened the door to get in, the music had burst out, echoing all over the street, setting off car alarms and prompting her dad to poke his head out the door and shout, “Turn that crap down!”

That’s a bit how she felt right now. Like a VW van secretly bursting with music.

She knew that as she moved from diner to diner, giving and exchanging smiles, delivering plates, scooping up her tips—the machinery of the Misty Cat was well-oiled and nearly balletic—

He’d watched her the entire time.

She might be a little rusty at whatever this was, but she just somehow knew she hadn’t seen the last of that man.

She was just pocketing the tip—
twenty bucks
!—and plucking up his bill when Casey Carson swept into the Misty Cat like a Valkyrie—which was basically how she swept in anywhere—for a to-go order. She was blonde and golden, a big-framed girl who was loud and funny and had gorgeous skin and preternatural confidence, which is how she’d successfully run the Truth and Beauty salon—where you could get anything on your body trimmed, dyed or waxed—since the age of twenty. She was almost thirty now.

She slowed down a bit when she saw Truck Donegal eating a burger.

Then she gave her hair a haughty flip to show she could care less.

Kayla Benoit rushed in right behind her. She was small and slinky and brunette, a piquant blend of the best genes her American dad and Japanese mom had to offer, and she’d named her boutique after herself, which, some people in Hellcat Canyon said, was pretty much all you needed to know about Kayla Benoit. She had a lock on the local wedding and maternity business, two events that didn’t necessarily follow sequentially in Hellcat Canyon. But her heart was in the designer dresses. She didn’t move a lot of them, given their price tags. Sometimes Britt thought Kayla stocked a few just to torment her.

When Kayla saw Truck she came to a full stop and her face went utterly expressionless.

Then she gave her own hair a dramatic toss and pivoted away from him.

Kayla and Casey ignored each other pointedly and entirely.

Truck hunched his shoulders and ducked his head and applied himself to his hamburger like a wood chipper, eager to get out of there.

And then Eden Harwood and her daughter Annalise burst through the door.

“Grandma! Grandpa! You’ll never guess what happened!”

Sherrie rushed toward them, wiping her hands on her apron. “What are all you girls carrying on about? You win the lottery? Did Peace and Love turn out to be a girl and have kittens?”

“You’re so funny, Grandma!”