Small Town Girl (2 page)

"He's not my kind," she said decisively. "I want an accountant this time around. A steady man with a steady job."

Both Dot and Rita laughed until they nearly fell off their chairs. Jo figured it was high time to cut off their alcohol intake if one lousy daiquiri had them this giddy.

"Not her kind," Dot spluttered, drawing letters in the air. "He's
got Jo's Kind
spelled out right across his forehead."

"Arial, all caps, and bold," Rita agreed with secretarial humor. Rita had moved down the mountain to find office work and wore her newfound sophistication in blond highlights and bright blue contacts.

Jo kind of liked the image of branding the cowboy, but she bit back a grin rather than let her friends know it. "I mean it," she asserted. "He's too good-looking to be anything but married." That was as good an excuse as any for his turning his back on her. "I'm not messing with any more lying, cheating lowlifes. I'm buying my own ticket out of town this time around. Men are off my radar."

"They're not all Randy," Dot objected. "You've had a long dry spell since he left. It's time to jump back in the ring."

"Jump back in bed, you mean," Joella corrected. "Didn't your mama warn you about sex with men you don't know?"

But warnings and common sense didn't apply when her hormones were humming, and just looking at broad shoulders in a sexy cowboy shirt and a tight ass in designer jeans had her squirming in her seat. Her friends were right. Upright businessmen were not her style.

But she'd sworn off lying, cheating men who promised fame and fortune. As her mama always said, she had ambition far beyond her means. That didn't mean she was giving up making something of herself. She was just wise enough now not to expect a man to get her where she wanted to go.

"Anyway, I have to get up early tomorrow. The Stardust's new owner is coming, and I want to impress him with my promptness."

"He'll probably have a family to run the place, and you'll be out on your rear," Rita said with a pessimistic wave of her hand. "Go for the joy now."

Joella set her mouth in a firm line. "I can't get fired. Mama's unemployment runs out next month. I want to try that singing-server idea out on him." Her gnawing ambition again, but she had so many
ideas
. "Charlie wouldn't let me change anything, but a new owner might listen. The place is a dump. A few ferns, some pretty paint, and an espresso machine could turn the cafe right around."

"We live in Hicksville, Joella," Dot reminded her. The purple stripe in her long, black braid showed her opinion of their rural home's values. "No one drinks espresso, and they've all heard you sing at church. Forget it. Go after the gold." She sighed and admired the same sight Jo had been studying.

"I'm not doing sex without commitment these days," Jo said airily.

Rita hooted. "You're scared, admit it. He's out of your league."

"Is not. I may not have your brains or Dot's artistic talent, but I know men. I just don't want one," Jo added hastily when Rita opened her mouth to argue.

Dot gave a disparaging
pffttt
. "Chicken, squawk, squawk. You gonna let wimpy Randy burn you?"

Hell, no. In the immortal expression of Granny Clampett: Thems was fightin' words. With a glare, Jo scraped her chair back and stood up.

Rita and Dot cheered. "You go, girl! Strike a blow for jilted women everywhere."

Jo tugged her spandex shirt into place and plastered on her whitened-teeth smile. So, maybe she needed to test her skills again. One itty-bitty dance couldn't hurt.

Dirk laughed and slid Flint another cold one. "Melinda soured you, did she? A man can't go forever without getting some. You'll fester up and bust."

"That might be preferable to living in hell," Flint growled, taking a swig of beer and resisting checking the table of young things again.

A powdery scent that raised images of bubble baths and candlelight enveloped him, and a soft drawl purred near his ear. "I hear tell hell is a tropical paradise compared to one of our winters."

Leaning over the bar, Flint nearly choked on his drink. He could fee! her all over his skin without a touch. The stacked height of her hair brushed his cheek, and he had an insane urge to turn and bury his nose in all that glorious softness. He bet it would drift to her shoulders in a single tug.

"Way-ellll," he drawled right back, not looking at her, "you can fry on a beach in paradise as well as anywhere, I suppose."

She chuckled and reached past him for the daiquiri Dirk had prepared for her without asking. "Who's your surly friend, Deadeye? You don't need air-conditioning if you stock the place with icebergs."

"Joella, meet Flint. Maybe the two of you could compare notes on absent partners."

"You're
so
funny, Dirk," she said without rancor.

Flint was concentrating hard on ignoring all those flirty curves and nearly jumped at the brush of slender fingers wrapping around his biceps.

"Come along, Mr. Flint. They're playing my song."

Actually, the band was playing one of
his
songs, but he wasn't the type to show off. Mostly. The
Mr
. hurt though. He didn't want to be old enough to be a mister.

Deciding it wouldn't hurt to let off a little steam with a bar babe who knew the score, Flint obligingly applied his hand to the small of her back and urged her toward the dance floor. It wasn't as if she would report him to his kids in the morning, or to the good citizens of Northfork. Knowing RJ's taste in women, she might be the one who could provide the answers he was seeking. "Happy to oblige, Miss Joella," he said, bending close to her ear so she could hear over the music.

She shot him a laughing glance that buoyed his spirits to record highs. He liked being reminded that he wasn't entirely over the hill yet.

He let her weave the way through the tables so he could admire the sway of her nicely rounded rear in her skin-tight jeans. It had been too damned long since he'd allowed himself the pleasure of looking at another woman. Life owed him this dance.

Slipping into the mass of bodies, she raised her arms above her head and started swaying her hips before he'd caught up with her. Her gold earrings and necklace sparkled against the tanned column of her throat. She wore some kind of shimmery red top that clung to high, full curves and revealed a line of trim brown waist above her low riders.

It was a damned wonder he could move at all after that.

Chapter Two

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Joella grinned as the stranger's gaze dropped to the glittery new shirt she'd picked up at a bargain price at Belks earlier today. She'd been kicking herself for pretending she'd ever need sequins again, but the hours the shirt cost were worth every penny if it held the admiration of the sexy cowboy.

She gyrated her hips so he could get a good look, then dropped her hands on his shoulders. The two of them were a perfect fit, just like her and Randy, but she wasn't going there tonight. Flint's closed expression and character-lined face made Randy look like a young punk in comparison.

And when Flint finally moved into the music, he didn't look so much older after all—just experienced.

Joella whistled and grinned as he stepped into the dance, swinging his narrow hips as smoothly as a professional dancer. Once he had her attention, he shot her a wicked look that smoldered with suppressed laughter and sex. He knew he was good.

She knew she was in over her head.

He caught her hips in his big hands and drew her into him without losing the beat, timing his swaying moves to hers. It was like having sex upright and in public, except he didn't use any of those crass pumping rotations that Randy had. Flint just moved that way naturally, as if they were really bed partners.

Or maybe she was just in lust.

"I
love
this song," she shouted in his ear, hoping to remind herself as well as him that this was a public place. "It's wry and sexy and tells a story. That's my kind of music."

In reply, Flint slid his hands to her bare waist and all bad thoughts vanished into smoke. Just one dance, she promised herself. Enjoying his expertise, she fell into his rhythm as he twisted her back and forth while stepping sideways with the coordination of an athlete. She nearly melted at his firm lead. Her lower parts tingled when his gaze dropped admiringly to her flat midriff. It was times like this that made her glad she had chosen the single life.

"It's a damned stupid song," she thought he said, but the chorus was reaching a crescendo, and she couldn't be certain she heard right.

Randy had preferred screeching guitar to words, but she'd taught him better. Surely a smart-looking man like Flint…

Uh-uh. She wasn't going down that road again. She was just having a little fun, not training another puppy. Although Flint was more like a full-grown hound dog than a puppy, only prettier.

He spun her around on the last refrain and dipped her nearly off her feet with the final note. She came up breathing so hard she couldn't speak. Or maybe that had something to do with the smoldering depths of gray eyes studying her from behind thick, dark lashes.

"Are you a professional dancer, Miss Joella?" he inquired politely as the lights flashed and the band announced an intermission.

Now was the time to make or break it, she knew. Her mama hadn't raised a coward, but she wasn't about to tell him she was only a waitress in a two-bit coffee shop. She was doing her best to accept that she didn't have what it took to be anything more, but tonight she wanted to shine as if she'd finally bought that ticket to fame and fortune she craved.

She laughed to put off his question and headed for a table in a dark corner. Her friends would get the signal and leave them alone. "Hardly," she replied, thinking fast. "Dancing wouldn't be fun if I had to do it for a living." Amen to that, she added fervently and silently. Been there, done that, wrote the song.

He had a gentlemanly way of escorting her with a touch at her waist, blocking the drunks stumbling into their path. He even pulled out a chair for her. Maybe she should have looked at older men a lot sooner—although he lost a lot of years when he danced. Or smiled. He didn't smile enough. From the creases beside his eyes, she gathered he must have laughed a lot once.

"That's a wise observation." He gestured at the waitress and ordered two beers. "I suppose we lose the fun in anything we have to do for a living."

"It's that 'have to do' part that sucks the fun out of it." She propped her chin on her hand and tried to act casual as he took a seat and all that formfitting cotton rippled right before her eyes. She admired a man who could wear a checked shirt and still look as if he belonged in a Marlboro ad instead of on a pig farm. She checked out his ring finger—not even a pale circle where a ring might have been. "When I reach the point in a job when I figure I
have
to do it instead of wanting to do it, I quit."

"That's a rather irresponsible policy, Miss Jo," he said, but his eyes twinkled as he said it. "I take it that means you aren't married because if you had to do your husband, you'd quit?"

She laughed. "You're right! I never thought of it that way. When sex becomes a requirement, it isn't fun anymore."

"A woman who thinks like a man! I wouldn't have thought it of you."

His gaze slid over her like molten silver, saying he liked her looks, and Jo shivered at the sexiness of it. They were both practically humming with impatience while they danced around the polite chatter required of first encounters. At least Dirk knew him. He'd warn her if Flint was a stinker.

"Men don't usually want women to think like them." She wriggled slightly to hold his attention while she reached for the glass the waitress set in front of her. "They want us to coo and pretend they know everything so they can feel superior."

He grinned. "I
am
superior. You don't have to coo to prove it."

"Ooo, a masterful man, I like that," she cooed sweetly.

He chuckled and lifted his bottle in salute. "To a masterful woman."

Damn, he was good. Randy had always looked at her as if she'd lost her mind when she tried to apply irony to an argument. And she was going to quit thinking about that unfaithful pissant right now.

"So what brings you to the foothills of North Carolina, Mr. Flint? The little lady need a spa? Or the kids into white-water rafting?"

The way he quit grinning, she may as well have kicked his shins. Maybe she would if he planned to pull some sorry-ass tale of the bitch who got away. She'd hung around enough bars to have heard them all.

"My kids are with my parents. They're not speaking to me these days. Guess it serves me right. I didn't speak to my old man much when I was their age."

Wow. Her eyes widened. "That's probably the most honest thing a man's ever said to me. Did you take responsibility class along with the honesty ones?"

A deliberately slow and sexy grin riveted her gaze, and she watched in awe as the smile rose to light his eyes and crinkled the laugh lines above his sharp cheekbones. He probably wasn't movie-star handsome, but he exuded sexy masculinity as if he had a corner on the market. Oh, man, she'd really done it now. She couldn't resist sexy
and
responsible.

"I learned in the school of hard knocks, as my pappy used to say," he drawled mockingly. "How about you? Did you go to sexy school?"

"I'm from the mountains. We come by
sexy
naturally." She was used to men looking at her as if she were a ripe peach ready for tasting, but admiration from a man with his kind of raw power injected hormones straight to her bloodstream. "I like dancing," she warned . him before he started getting any ideas about where they I were going with this. !

"So do I," he agreed. "But there's dancing, and then there's dancing. I'm good at it all."

Like the dance of flirtation he was doing right now. Damn straight he was good at it. If she'd ever been the sensible sort, she'd run. But her sister, Amy, was the sensible one, thank goodness.