Small Town Girl (26 page)

"What is that slime?" he asked, seeking a more suitable direction for his straying thoughts and lighting on the Perfect Couple. They hovered on the sidelines, staring in dismay at their shiny car disappearing under a river of brown syrup and a flock of feathers.

"Molasses," Amy gasped from Jo's other side, holding her hand over her mouth.

Flint couldn't decide whether she was holding back laughter or tears.

"For the cookie plant down by the mill," Jo explained.

Molasses
? Tacky brown hens strutted up and down the street, tracking goo and feathers from the Mercedes to the flying pig before the full impact of this made-for-TV drama bypassed his terror and hit his funny bone.

Molasses
! Holy shit. Flint had to chew back a shout of laughter. Molasses and doughnuts and chickens and rocks. If the Man Upstairs was trying to tell him something, he was doing it with a wicked sense of humor.

A chicken squawked and leaped from the Mercedes to Evan's head as he inspected the damage.

Jo giggled. Amy chuckled. And before Flint could warn them about inappropriate behavior, they fell into each other's arms and roared until tears ran down their cheeks.

Flint bit his cheek and kept a straight face as the tall blond guy wiped the hen off his hair, then came toward them looking as if he'd chewed sour grapes for breakfast. Sour grapes with molasses dressing. A rumble of laughter started inside Flint's belly, even though he had to agree with the guy stalking toward them.

"This isn't funny, Amaranth," Evan said furiously, wiping at his face and hair with his handkerchief, while the sisters broke up and laughed louder. "Without the profit from that shipment, we won't be able to make next month's payroll."

Amaranth? Flint tried to concentrate on the ludicrous, but Amy's laughter suddenly dried up and Jo's grip transferred to his bare arm, warning of worse to come.

"Work some overtime and put out a new shipment," Amy suggested. "Call in some of the people you laid off. They're all good workers. They can do it. One truckload shouldn't shut down the mill."

Shut down the mill.

Trying to ignore the growing pain in his gut, Flint glanced around. He wasn't the only one who had heard Evan. Others had eased closer. Lips tightened. Women wept. Work-worn hands balled into fists.

"Those were our samples." Evan flung his arms wide to encompass the stacks of bravely rescued fabric. "Next year's orders are based on them."

The rich colors suddenly looked soiled and sad beneath his disparaging gesture.

"We can't sell what we can't show." Without a word of comfort to his distraught wife, Evan stalked up the sidewalk, past his stunned audience, in the direction of the parking lot. The woman he'd arrived with fell into step with him.

"He's taking your car," Jo muttered. "I hope you got that title signed."

"Josh spilled juice in the front seat this morning." Wiping her eyes, Amy hiccuped and put on a brave face to match Jo's. "Lurid Linda will have to sit on the wet spot."

Flint decided then and there that he didn't want to get on the wrong side of the Sanderson sisters and their subversive attitude. Using Jo's method of rationalization, Flint figured that not only came under the heading of Life's Too Short, but started a whole new column of Dare at Your Own Risk.

Joella slipped into Flint's office, out of the cacophony in the dining room. The cafe had always been the town gathering place. Despite the lack of window and door, things hadn't changed.

"You have company," she said softly to the man slumped in Charlie's battered chair.

Flint had washed up in her apartment and donned clothes from his duffel bag after the bulldozer and tow trucks had finished their work. He looked reasonably clean, although tired and dejected as he jotted a note on the pad he kept by the telephone. She wanted to rub his neck and whisper sweet nothings in his ear and make the world go away, but the world was pounding on their door.

It looked as if he'd been making telephone calls rather than just sulking as she'd feared. Every time she wanted to nail him as a typical male, the kind to whom she was immune, he caught her by surprise and impressed her.

He barely glanced up while he flipped the cards in his Rolodex. "It sounds like the whole town is out there already. Which part is company?"

"The family part?" She hugged her elbows, uncertain of his reaction. It was late in the day, but it would have taken his family hours to drive all the way up from Charlotte to Knoxville and down again.

Flint laid down his pen and rubbed his wrinkled brow, not looking at her. "Do you think it's too late to go back to being a badass guitar picker?"

That had been her question from the first, and she didn't think either of them had the answer. "Your decision, boss, but your kids are looking pretty worried."

That got him out of his chair. "They brought the boys? Why the hell did they do that?"

"Because they were anxious about you?" She didn't think Flint heard as he pasted on a facsimile of a happy face and raced past her.

"Did you see the pictures in the news?" he was asking jovially as Jo trailed out behind him. "I think we even made CNN."

He grabbed Johnnie by the shoulder for a hug and tousled Adam's wavy chestnut hair. His customers were trying to keep a polite distance, but Jo knew they could hear everything that was said. Unlike Evan with his cowardly retreat, Flint stood tall and strong in the face of disaster, and his hearty response relieved worried frowns around the room, including Jo's—even though she knew his casual assurance was a fraud. She recognized brazen when she saw it. Tears of deep down understanding welled in her eyes.

"The boys insisted that we come," Martha Clinton was saying. Her tone held its usual disapproval, but this time, Jo could tell it also hid a well of concern. "I told them we'd just be in the way."

"No, of course not. I'm glad you're here." Flint ushered them toward a vacant booth. "The electric company turned off the utilities until we could get the building inspected, but Dave loaned us a generator so we can make coffee and keep the refrigerator running. I'm afraid the doughnuts are gone."

"We saw them all over the road on TV," Johnnie said with more excitement than Jo had ever seen him display. "And you were digging up a mountain of dirt." A note of pride crept into his pre-adolescent voice.

"Hoss had his video camera in his trunk." Jo set fresh coffee on the table for his parents and milk for the boys. They made faces, but she noticed they drank it. "And then the local newspeople sent up a helicopter. It's been a real circus." None of the news stations had mentioned the town's predicament, though. The official announcement of the mill's closing hadn't been made yet.

"It looks like the structure is still sound," Floyd Clinton said, studying the gaping holes in the front wall.

"It's not safe," Martha said firmly. "Flint needs to come home with us. That road out there is a death trap. It's just a matter of time before one of those monster trucks plows—"

"The town has been here over a hundred years, Martha," Floyd interrupted. "The building has withstood flood and blizzards. It can tolerate a little molasses and rock."

The boys snickered. "Did you see that Mercedes?" Adam asked of no one in particular. "With the chicken stuck on top of it?"

Jo patted Flint's arm and left him to reassure his family. She'd hoped he would be spending the night with her, but it looked as if he'd be leaving. It was a good thing they hadn't got involved. He deserved better than a town on the verge of bankruptcy and a business that couldn't survive.

That relieved her guilt over suing him. Flint didn't have anything left to lose. Randy would have to cough up his cash instead. With wicked triumph, she decided to sign the papers and take the envelope to the post office first chance she got.

"Hey, Jo." A table of customers waved her over. "Is Flint keeping the place open?"

Jo glanced at the bare wall the pretty plates had once adorned, and an aching sadness crept over her. They'd worked so hard to build up the cafe. She hated to see it go. At least the pewter paneling had stayed up. "I don't know. Guess it depends."

On the insurance. The mill. His kids. She wouldn't be a factor in the decision. It was time she started looking for a better-paying job anyway. It wasn't as if she expected the lawsuit to produce results anytime soon, if at all.

Dave from the hardware joined them. "I can get more plate glass up here tomorrow. The supply store has some real fancy doors that would look good."

"Flint would have to borrow the money," she reminded him gently.

Everyone knew what that meant. If the mill closed, Flint would have no customers and no way to pay his debts.

"I've got an old door out in my barn," George Bob offered. "He can have it for nothing. When the insurance check comes in, he can use the money on something else."

"If we build a frame, I've got some old sashes that might fit," someone else offered. "It would look purty with them windowpanes up there instead of all that bare glass."

Jo's naturally ebullient spirits began to lift as she pictured a cottage look for the front. "We could paint the outside a pretty salmon and put in a window box with geraniums!"

She felt Flint's muscular build behind her before he dropped a big hand on her shoulder. She caught her breath as desire rocketed through her. How could she think about sex when the world had just turned upside down?

Flint's confident voice calmed her flutters into a different kind of longing.

"No salmon. No geraniums. No ferns," he said firmly. "I'm sending my family up to Knoxville for the night. I'm gonna have to board up the place, folks. Hate to break up a party—"

She didn't want him to go. Anxiously, Jo cut him off.

"Amy has tons of room. Let me give her a call. Company will keep her from killing Evan."

Heart pounding with foolish hope, she retreated to his office, leaving Flint to discuss plywood with the men. By the time she'd confirmed the invitation and returned to the dining room, Flint had his family on their feet, prepared to leave. He wore a mask of resolve that Jo feared was death to her pitiful hopes.

"We want to stay, Dad," Adam was protesting. "There's nothing to do at home."

Jo lifted her eyebrows in surprise and kept her mouth shut at this turnabout.

"It's going to be hard work, guys," Flint warned. "I'll be roughing it up here."

He was staying? He was staying! Jo almost did a jig of delight. "Amy said you're all welcome to stay with her," she intruded quickly before his parents could argue. "Evan had to go down to Charlotte, and she'd love the company." She crossed her fingers and prayed. If Flint's family would help instead of carping…

Floyd overrode his wife's objections. "If you don't mind, Joella, we'd like to accept that invitation. It was a long drive up here. Flint, if you'll show us the way—"

"I'll let Jo do that." With a smoldering glance that nearly incinerated Jo and left her in ashes, Flint took his mother's arm and started the procession out the door. "I'll be staying here tonight."

He was staying here tonight? Did that mean he wanted to pound her into the ground for her interference or… Jo didn't dare let her hopes ride too high. A man who could turn her to ashes in a single look was explosive property.

"We can stay, too," Johnnie said eagerly. "There are still news trucks out there. We can show them—"

Flint chuckled and gently clipped him on the ear.

"They'll all be going home to supper shortly, and you'll be complaining the rest of night about sleeping on hard floors. Get all the sleep you can. I'm putting you to work first thing in the morning."

Jo sucked down a lump in her throat at the sight of Flint's affection for his sons. She'd never known a father, but she was certain he was an example of a good one, if he could hold a job that kept him home. All this time, she'd been looking at Flint as a piece of sugar pie, yummy to look at but not good for the health. Watching him with his kids produced unsettling perspectives that she wasn't prepared to entertain. Sex, she understood. Anything more… Maybe she ought to push him at Sally. Sally would love to have kids.

"Will you come up after us later?" Adam asked.

Jo was already out the door, car keys in hand, when she stopped with his family and waited for his reply.

Catching Jo's eye, Flint shook his head regretfully at his son's question. "Sorry. Maybe I'll run up for a bit to see you settled in when I'm done here, but with all that molasses on the street, I have to stay here tonight and keep the bears out."

"Bears? You have bears up here?" Adam asked in a tone that showed more excitement than fear.

The boys' excited clamor drowned out Martha's protests, and a warm heat stole around Jo's foolish heart. Bears were a Bunyan-sized excuse.

He was staying here. For her.

Chapter Twenty

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Jo had her hair scrubbed, blow-dried, upswept, and dangling in perfect little curls on her neck while waiting for Flint to return from supper at Amy's. When she'd come back from showing his family to her sister's earlier, he'd already had the front of the cafe boarded up and had washed and dressed.

His crisp appearance and eagerness to see his sons had made her feel like dirt. Now that she saw him as a family man and not just her boss or a famous guitar player who could leave here anytime, she felt guilty as hell about what she'd done.

She'd stopped at the post office and mailed the papers to Elise. She'd had to do it. The cafe was gone. Her job was gone. The mill would soon be gone. If Randy was making money off her words, then her family deserved a share. She hated that she had to take Flint down with him, but he couldn't keep a business going without the mill anyway. Maybe she was doing him a favor by pushing him out.

Guilt didn't keep her from spiffing up. Foolish optimism would be her downfall. Maybe she and Flint didn't have a future, but they had tonight. At least she was being practical about this affair, unlike the last two.