Hot in Hellcat Canyon (41 page)

Britt could have sworn everybody in the tent was frozen.

She
was frozen.

She held her breath, and rooted for him to say the next words.

She thought maybe he couldn’t finish.

He finally lifted his head again.

When he spoke again, his voice was a little gravelly. “I submit to you: You’re not really brave, gentlemen, until you say that word to the person you love, and are prepared for the consequences of her answer. It might be the hardest and best thing you ever do. Even if you crash and burn. But
don’t
,
don’t let that opportunity get away from you. It will end you.”

Britt was pretty sure all the rustling she heard in the background was caused by tissues plucked from pockets or shirt sleeves being dashed against eyes.

“I know it was a long road for Felix and Michelle. Some of us know their story a little better than others. And my brothers and sisters, Felix is ultimately a brave man, which is why he’s sitting up there right now, grinning like an idiot and is he . . . yep, he’s crying, too! Check it out, I made Felix Nicasio cry!” Laughter and whoops greeted this. “. . . next to a woman he probably feels he doesn’t deserve, and most of us agree. I jest, I jest. You got lucky, too, Michelle, y’ hear, and I know you’ll take care of each other.”

“I will, J. T.,” Michelle said, sounding quite sniffly. Felix handed her a handkerchief.

“So raise your glass to Felix and Michelle, who make each other, and us, and the world, better, because they love each other. May the movie of their life be an unforgettable triumph, like every movie we’ve all been in, according to our publicity.”

A great roar greeted this, laughter and cheers and thundering applause. And the cell phone recording it tumbled to the ground and stopped recording as whoever illicitly recorded it clearly got carried away and dropped it in the act of applauding.

T
ears poured unchecked down Britt’s face. Obscuring everything, which was kind of ironic, given that everything was suddenly clear.

Sometimes you were the stunt driver, aiming for that flaming hoop, and soaring triumphantly through the air.

And sometimes you were the ramp that launched the driver into triumph.

Britt intended to be J. T.’s ramp.

It was so much easier to be brave when she could be brave for someone she loved. All she had to do was make it possible for him to say what he wanted and needed to say to her.

Her only fear now was that she had forever blown it.

It was almost midnight when she finally decided to call Casey.

She held her breath as the phone rang and rang.

Casey answered, and actually sounded alert. “Britt!”

“I’m so sorry to call so late . . . Casey . . . what are you doing right now besides trying to sleep?”

“I was awake! Oh my God, Britt, did you see J. T.’s video?” She was sniffling, too. He’d made all the women in the world cry, it seemed.
That’s my man
, Britt thought proudly.

“I did see it. And this is about J. T. I need your help. Are you up for Round Two? I screwed up big-time, and I need to make it right before it’s too late. It might already be too late.”

Casey was more than game once she heard Britt’s plan. Thank God for friends who were delinquents. “I’ll be right over,” she said, absolutely thrilled.

Britt ended the call and stared at her phone. She was nervous as hell, and her palms were sweating, and she’d never felt more alive.

Sometimes love was in the quiet moments. But sometimes, like in the movies, a grand gesture was called for to really get your point across.

She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. “Alley-oop, Britt.”

J
. T. locked his house door and stood back to stare at it. He’d loved this house, but suddenly it felt like a movie set, unreal, without Britt in his life. Maybe he’d sell the place when they were done filming Hellcat Canyon location shots.

Something tumbled toward him and knocked into his boot. He picked up an old horse-chestnut husk, blown from one of the thousands of trees in the hills here.

That’s just how he felt. Empty and exhausted.

Rebecca was really quiet. And she’d been really quiet all night, too. Her mood was both taut and pensive and it was unfamiliar to J. T., but he patently didn’t care what she was thinking.

At the moment, he wanted to get away from the scene of where he’d been happiest, because it was like a taunt. Rebecca chucked her bag into the front seat, and he chucked his overnight bag in after it, and in the cool gray early light he maneuvered his truck onto the road. Past the river. Past the vista point that looked out over the canyon where he and Britt had found a new use for his truck. Back through town. Past the turnoff to Britt’s house. Past the redecorated bus benches and the Misty Cat. He could have sworn he saw a movement in the upstairs window there, even though it was too early for anyone to be in.

And finally out onto the highway.

All in utter silence.

They had the road completely to themselves at this time of day. That billboard was visible in the distance, and it was entirely white. But Rebecca had clearly vanished from it. Efficient of them to take the clown version down so quickly. J. T. thought it was kind of a shame.

But . . .

Wait.

He squinted. He’d thought the billboard was all white, but was there writing on it?

“Guess they took my ruined billboard down,” she finally said with some satisfaction. “They should have a new one up pretty soon. Same ad.”

They got a little closer. J. T. stepped on the brake and slowed to a crawl.

It looked as though a fresh layer of white butcher paper had been slapped up over the entire thing.

He slowed down even more.

“Hey . . . doesn’t that say ‘J. T.?’ ” Rebecca was confused.

He nearly drove off the road.

He got a grip on the steering wheel in time and carefully pulled over to the shoulder and cut the engine instantly.

He froze, staring at the billboard.

DEAR J. T.,

I LIED. I NEED YOU.

Below it was a drawing of a huge and exceptionally attractive chicken, with fluffy, elegant plumage and meticulously rendered feet. Next to it was an adorable donkey, its ass pointed toward the highway, its head peering coyly over its shoulder.

The word
Me
was written above them in big, bold blocky letters. And two arrows ran from that word: one pointed at the chicken, the other at the ass.

“John.” Rebecca was sure awake now. “What the hell? You just scared me to death.”

“Shush,” he said so abruptly she actually recoiled.

And then he sucked in a long, long breath.

Sighed out all that air.

And yanked the keys from the ignition and tossed them in her lap.

“Here.”

She stared at them as if he’d handed her a snake.

“What’s the matter with you? Can’t you drive? Are you having a stroke?”

“I’ll get a flight out of Sacramento or San Francisco into L.A. tonight or tomorrow. No matter what, I’ll get there somehow and I’ll meet you at the studio. I’d take you back to town and see if we could get you another ride, but if you don’t drive yourself to the airfield now you’re going to miss your flight.”

“You mean our flight.”

“I mean
your
flight.”

“John, for God’s sake, what’s going on?”

“I’m going back to Hellcat Canyon. Something I have to do. I have feet. I’ll walk there.”

“It’s that waitre—”

He stopped her with a look like a hard, cold wall.

“These seats have just been Armor-Alled, Rebecca. All I have to do is open the door and give you just a little nudge and you’ll shoot out like a watermelon seed. And so help me God, if you call her ‘that waitress’ again, that’s what I’ll do. And I’ll leave you on the side of the road. Britt. Her name is Britt.”

She drew in a breath and sighed it out. “I’m sorry.”

“Good.”

“You know why I do it.”

“Yep.”

“I shouldn’t do it.”

“Nope.”

She smiled an uncertain tight smile. “I always liked you best when you called me on my B.S.”

“That’s because you’re perverse, Rebecca.”

“It’s just that . . . you’re . . . special, J. T. There’s no one like you.” She said this almost pleadingly.

Rebecca was actually trying to be sincere.

“Yeah. I’m a prize.”

They were silent a moment.

He looked into her beautiful eyes and felt only impatience.

She swallowed. “That speech at the wedding . . . it was about her, wasn’t it?”

“Yep,” he said shortly.

Rebecca leaned back against the seat. She sighed. “Look,” she said softly. “I want to lay it on the line right now. I know I blew it, Johnny. I confess I had an ulterior motive when I came here—I thought maybe we could talk about starting again. I couldn’t
bear
seeing you with someone else, and that’s when I knew how wrong I’d been. What we had was unforgettable and . . . I should have tried harder. I shouldn’t have bailed. We just have to—”

“Here’s the deal, Becks. I don’t love you.”

He saw her take that like a blow.

He was in too much of a rush to feel too sorry.

“The best thing you ever did was dump me in Cannes, and for that I owe you a debt of gratitude. We are simply never going to happen that way ever again. That’s a fact. There will be no discussion. Are you hearing me?”

She stared at him in mute shock.

“I’m sorry to say it that way. I just needed to get it said and fast. Because God knows I don’t want you to miss your jet.”

She was staring at him, apparently frozen in shock. She’d gone white.

“Come on. You don’t actually love me either, do you?” he demanded softly.

She gave a short, incredulous laugh. And then all at once, her big round blue eye were brimming with tears.

She gave her head a sharp toss and she sniffed, her nose already going pink.

Which is how he knew the tears were real.

She probably did love him. Or thought she did. He sincerely doubted she really knew.

He sighed. No matter what, he couldn’t relish hurting her.

“I’m going to do you the favor of assuming you can be a rational, detached professional when it comes to me, and that’s based on no evidence whatsoever, and you’ll tell them I was held up and y’all will wait for me to get there. But if not, I’m okay with that, too. You can tell them that John Tennessee McCord hasn’t changed one bit, and he’s the unreliable ass of ten years ago. Your call. We can make a great movie and I think you know it. When it comes right down to it, caring about that kind of thing is what we have in common. And that’s about it. But right now, all I care about is Britt. And I never liked it when you called me Johnny.”

He had a sense he was bludgeoning her with the words, but primarily it was because she was unaccustomed to unvarnished honesty. No one except him had ever told her the truth about anything, particularly herself.

“Bastard.” The word lacked oomph. She’d said it to him too many times. He’d heard it too many times.

“They should probably invent a new word for me,” he sympathized.

She jerked her gaze from his. And she stared stonily out through the windshield. Her jaw was taut.

There were a dozen things he could have said in the following silence. But only one thing seemed important right now, and she was just waking up and feeding the cat, and putting the coffee on and maybe watering the plants . . . and damn, but he wanted to be there. For every little thing.

“Leave the truck in the airfield parking lot, Rebecca, and hand the keys off to the guy at the front desk, tell him I’ll be along for them later. Or you can just set the truck on fire when you get out of it, if that’s what you feel you need to do. I’m insured up the wahoo.”

He’d miss that truck, if she did that. But sometimes it was good to know when to let go.

He slid out and shut the door hard behind him and started walking. Quickly.

He didn’t look back.

Not even a few moments later, when he heard the motor start or felt the spit of gravel against his calves as she roared off toward the airport.

H
e hadn’t been walking for very long along the highway when a big silver truck slowed down next to him.

He glanced over.

Aw, hell’s teeth.

Truck Donegal’s big square handsome face was hanging out the window. “Where’s your truck, McCord?”

“Long story.”

He said nothing else. But his entire body was tense as a compressed spring. Prepared for anything Truck might want to throw down.

They regarded each other unblinkingly.

“Hop in,” Truck said finally, neutrally, and surprisingly mildly. “I’ll take you back to town.”

J. T. hesitated. He’d look like an ass, or worse, a chicken, if he refused.

He sighed.

Truck unlocked the door. And J. T. went around to the passenger side and got in.

The inside turned out to be spotless and polished. A little air purifier in the shape of a pine tree hung from the rearview mirror. The guy took good care of his truck.

This was a guy with pride, in general.

And a guy with pride would really suffer over not being able to find work for more than a year.

They drove in absolute silence for about two minutes.

And then J. T. smelled something . . . unusual. “What’s that smell? It smells
great
in here.”

Truck cleared his throat. “Got me a catering gig. A little wedding down in Lightning Forks. That’s why I had to set out early.”

J. T. turned around. On the little seat behind them several trays were indeed covered in Saran Wrap and heaped with things.

Many of them on sticks.

“Is that . . . chicken
satay
?”

Truck kept his eyes on the road as he took the little curving exit into town.

“I Googled it,” Truck admitted, not looking at J. T. “And it actually sounded pretty tasty. So I got me some chicken and I made some. And it turned out great. And I made some other stuff I read about when I read about the satay. And that turned out great, too. Turns out I have kind of a knack for this stuff.” He said this with a sort of mild, bemused pride. “And I’ve been cooking a lot of stuff since. To make a long story short . . . Kayla Benoit—you know, from the dress shop in town?—is hooking me up with weddings and baby showers.”