Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) (5 page)

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.

Chapter Three

Vivian Bentley was the soul of poker face, Southern charm and impeccable good manners.

She was also, Sugar thought, like a mannequin who’d been left unattended too long. Stiff. Cold. Unbending.

Sugar and Lucy watched from the back of the old courthouse, which appeared to house a few jail cells, this gathering room and probably the catacombs of Pecan Creek. Lucy had simply looked on the town square for Jake’s black truck, and from there it was easy to follow the lights and the sound of voices. Maggie sat upright like she was at an interrogation. Jake’s mother—it had to be Vivian; none of the other three ladies had the ramrod formal, elegant bearing Sugar recognized from the photo album—stared at Maggie with little warmth.

“Maggie has generously offered to be our mayor,” Jake said, and Sugar strained to listen. “Since we’re looking for a figurehead mayor, so to speak, I present Ms. Maggie Cassavechia to the town council for consideration.”

“Really, Jake,” Vivian said, “you don’t want to burden our newcomer with town duties right away.” Vivian’s smile stretched at Maggie, who looked back at her, transfixed like she was in front of a cobra. Even from fifty paces back, Sugar could tell the smile masked annoyance.

“We don’t really need a mayor, do we?” another gray-haired woman asked.

“Although I’m sure you’d do a lovely job, Maggie,” a lady said. Her sweet face was bright in the unforgiving lights of the courthouse room.

“I think Maggie would make a fabulous mayor for us.” An older lady with a tall hairdo and starched clothes pinned Vivian with a meaningful gaze. “Peachy idea, Vivian. We owe you a debt of gratitude, Maggie, for agreeing to this. Welcome to Pecan Creek.”

Vivian seemed to sit straighter in her blue shirtwaist dress. Sugar was fairly certain Jake’s mother was faking her charm school diploma right now. She smiled syrupy-sweet at her son. “We’ll certainly give it some thought. Maggie, can we offer you some coffee?”

“Maybe with a little strychnine in it?” Lucy hissed in Sugar’s ear.

“You should come to our Bible meetings on Sunday mornings,” the tall woman said, “and we have a book chat on Wednesday night. We’d love to have you join us.”

There was definitely a power struggle being waged, but Sugar couldn’t tell who was on what team.

“Yes,” Vivian said, her gaze on her son. “We would so love to have you join us, Maggie. I’m sure you could contribute a fresh point of view to our meetings.”

Maggie seemed flustered. “Thank you.”

“They don’t like her,” Lucy whispered to Sugar. “Those bitches.”

“How can you tell?” Vivian was probably always a little frosty. Maggie had been known to wear down the frostiest of people. Eventually, everyone loved Maggie.

“They’re waiting on Vivian to give the nod to really warm up to Mom.” Lucy grimaced. “Only that tall battle-ax has stood up for Mom.”

“And Jake.”

Lucy gave her a sharp glance. “Jake is using Mom. He’s not standing up for her. The fink. Wait till I get my hands on him.”

Sugar blinked. She watched Maggie dig around in her purse.

“I’m sorry, there’s no smoking allowed in the courthouse, of course,” Vivian said.

“I was getting a piece of gum.” Maggie pulled a stick from her purse. “Want one?”

The four women opposite Maggie shook their heads. Jake took a stick, popping it into his mouth with gusto.

“I’m going down there.”

Sugar grabbed her sister’s arm. “No! Let Maggie win them over.”

“Why?” Lucy bristled. “They aren’t interested in her being the may—”

“Anyway,” Jake’s booming voice came to them all the way up the aisle, “if Maggie doesn’t mind being mayor, that leaves the rest of you free to be ambassadors of good will.”

“Really, Jake.” Vivian’s voice was sharp. “We don’t need ambassadors. Pecan Creek
is
good will.”

“You could have fooled me,” Lucy said on a hiss. Sugar patted her sister’s arm once more.

“Perhaps a man is what you’re really looking for,” Maggie said.

Vivian drew back.

“In a mayor, I mean,” Maggie said, floundering.

Jake stood and helped Maggie to her feet. “Possibly a male mayor is exactly what the council had in mind. Vivian, Charlotte, Dodie, Minda, I’ll see you at the next meeting.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Maggie said, and Vivian inclined her head. The other ladies each offered her a hand but with little enthusiasm.

“That’s it,” Lucy snapped. “I’m taking Mom home.”

She strode down the aisle toward Maggie. Sugar followed.

“Oh, here are my daughters, Jake,” Maggie said, sounding more braced. “Ladies, I’d like to introduce you to my daughters, Lucy and Sugar.”

Sugar put out a hand. She got the same limp-wristed treatment her mother had gotten. Lucy didn’t bother. Vivian’s gaze locked on Sugar first, then Lucy.

“Well,” Vivian said, “these are the people to whom you rented our house, Jake?” Her gaze traveled from Lucy’s short brown Uggs to her rhinestone navel ring just above her cut-off sweat pants with glittered Victoria’s Secret lettered up the side. Lucy’s chin-length red hair had frizzed in the August heat and the warm kitchen, making her look like a wiry doll. Vivian’s gaze moved to Sugar, checking out her short-shorts, her pigtails, thumb ring and, Sugar was certain, her chipped toe nails.

Screw her, Sugar thought. Lucy’s right. She’s from the school of cold-and-clammy. I’ve seen corpses with more body heat. Jake must get his warmth from the other side of the family.

Then again, he did set my mother up for this charade.

“Come on, Maggie,” she said, taking her mother’s arm. “Good night, ladies.”

Jake took her mother’s other arm. Lucy followed after them, and Sugar could almost feel her sister throwing more
vavoom
into her hips as she stalked off.

“We’ll take Maggie home,” Sugar told Jake.

Jake reluctantly released Maggie’s arm. “Are you sure? I brought her, I—”

“I’m quite sure,” Sugar said. Lucy and Maggie got into Sugar’s old Oldsmobile. “Do you mind telling me what that was all about?”

Jake shook his head. “I miscalculated. I’m sorry.”

“You miscalculated? You let a pack of cats go on my mother and all you can say is you miscalculated?” Sugar glared at him. “You asshole.”

She got into the car, gunning the engine so Jake would know she was good and ticked and backed up fast, making him jump back a foot.

Lucy giggled. “What a bunch of wooden dummies.”

“I liked them,” Maggie said. “Why’d you drag me off?”

“Because they were being rude, Mom.” Sugar glanced over at her mother. “They don’t want you to be the mayor.”

“So? I don’t want to be a mayor. I don’t want to be anything. I just want to be.” She lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. “They’re just a little set in their ways.”

“They’re a lot set in their ways.” If she saw Jake too soon, she was going to slap him silly for subjecting Maggie to that. “The casting for Norman Bates’s mother could be any one of those women.”

“I don’t care how frozen they are,” Maggie said. “I’m not trying to sleep with them, for heaven’s sake.”

“Who would?” Lucy asked.

“They looked at us like we were termites.” Sugar shuddered, remembering Vivian’s piercing glare on her sister’s clothes. “Cockroaches.”

“You girls are too sensitive,” Maggie said, and her voice was so cheerful that Sugar just shut her mouth and drove home in silence.

“Jake, a word, if you can spare a moment.”

Jake watched Sugar’s long blue ragtop Oldsmobile fade into the distance. “Sure.”

“What exactly do you think you are doing by renting our house to those people?” Vivian asked.

He couldn’t say he hadn’t known this was coming—just perhaps not this soon. “Where do you expect me to find the kind of people you want? Blue-blooded, wealthy, well-heeled aristocrats don’t just drop out of the sky into Pecan Creek looking to rent a rundown house decorated like Rancho Sex-o.”

Vivian drew in a sharp breath. “Those rooms are
art
.”

Jake sighed. “They are not art, unless it’s art you’d find— Never mind, Mom. The Cassavechias are nice people.”

“A little class would be nice, Jake. That’s what would have been nice. Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?”

“Embarrassing to whom? I’m not embarrassed. I was over there today, and they’re taking great care of the house. Between the repairs I’ve done and the flowers they’ve planted, the place looks alive again.”

Vivian’s brown eyes pierced him. “The young one is trash, a slut. The mother is a trollop. I don’t even know what to say about the oldest daughter except that she seems tough.” Vivian’s voice rose. “They all look low class, Jake. Like fifty miles of bad road.”

He’d thought Maggie was a pretty soft cookie, actually, and Sugar wore her heart in her eyes. She tried to be a general, but she was trying to keep everything together. Lucy, he’d grant, was nobody’s fool. “You’ve got a bit of toughness in you too, Mom. And you know,” he said, his voice softening, “we haven’t rented the place in over two years. It was time.”

“The family
home
,” Vivian said bitterly.

“Yeah, and Dad’s not coming back.” Jake took no joy in the pain that flared in his mother’s eyes. “He’s not. He found another woman years ago, and he’s made a life with her, and he’s gone. That’s it. Over. One day, you’ll have to accept it.”

Vivian’s shoulders slumped. “They’re trouble, Jake. You don’t think I recognize trouble when I see it?” She gazed at her son’s unmoving face for a few moments, then seemed to realize Jake had no intention of bending. She turned and walked away. Jake watched her go, hating himself for saying anything, for shattering his mother’s illusions that she wrapped herself in, but Sugar had a right to be upset. Vivian had been rude as hell to Maggie, and as far as he could tell, there was no reason to turn away good money just for the sake of illusion.