Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) Read online

  Dedication

  Many thanks go to the wonderful people who encouraged me during the writing of this book over the many years it took me to write it.

  Roberta Brown, for believing in the story

  Linda Ingmanson, for contracting it and loving it

  Nancy Berland, for championing the book as if it were her own

  Georgia Haynes, who always encouraged my “Florida” ladies

  Lisa Michelle Leonard, for proofreading it (but no, you truly were not the inspiration for Lucy)

  Dean Michael Leonard, who thought it was a “big deal” when I made the USA Today Bestseller list and always listened to my story ideas

  And the judges of the North Texas Romance Writers of America Great Expectations contest, who gave me the courage to submit my fledgling proposal.

  Gratitude and blessings to you all. This book happened because of you.

  Chapter One

  Sugar Cassavechia stared at the rental house that had been advertised in Pecan Creek, Texas, as a four-bedroom, four-bath, creek-side tranquil setting with three acres of prolific pecan trees.

  The house was, in a word, desolate. Ramshackle might be a better description. Thanks to the hot August sun, the creek near the enclosed backyard seemed lazy, spilling from point to point without energy.

  Sugar whipped out the picture that had been on the Internet. “Doesn’t look anything like it, does it?” her sister, Lucy, observed as she looked over Sugar’s shoulder, but since her sister had also said, “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life here,” when they’d pulled into Pecan Creek, Sugar was feeling fairly annoyed.

  “Paris is thirsty, and the faucet’s running brown water,” their mother, Maggie, called from the side of the house.

  They’d picked Paris up in Opelousas, Louisiana, as they’d driven through on their way to Texas from Florida. Paris had been nosing around a roadside picnic table, clearly down on her luck. Sugar had instantly fallen in love with the golden retriever, though it was hungry and probably laden with critters. But she couldn’t bear to leave it behind, and what good family home didn’t want a great dog?

  “Go deal with that,” Sugar told Lucy to keep her occupied. Lucy complied, and Sugar went back to considering what was turning out not to be her dream house.

  It might have once been a picturesque two-story antebellum amongst the stubby-branched native live oak trees. Now the red tile patio showed its age with cracks and bare spots where the tiles had worn loose and never been replaced. An elaborate screen protected the front door, but the screen itself wore a foot-long gash that no longer kept out insects. Once-white shutters bore the patina of neglect, and the ebony composition roof reminded Sugar of an old woman’s gap-toothed smile, its missing shingles scattered randomly over the roofline.

  I dragged my recently-in-remission mother, my wounded-soul sister and a stray here for this?

  The sound of a truck rumbling up the gravel drive refocused her irritation. The roughly handsome man who parked the truck and ambled over to meet her had attitude written all over him with a capital A—and life in the military had taught her to meet attitude with more attitude. “You’re the owner, I presume? The J.T. Bentley who leased me this property?”

  He stuck out his hand. Sugar ignored it, and he took the hint. He might be tall, rugged and have bedroom eyes, but he was also a swindler.

  “Call me Jake,” he said. “I hope I didn’t fail to mention that this house has a reputation for being haunted. It’s not, of course, but I wanted you to be apprised of its reputation in the name of fairness.”

  “You failed to mention that, and also the fact that it’s uninhabitable.” Sugar’s glare had no discernible effect on him. “I’m not afraid of ghosts, but rain pouring in on us in the middle of the night is a problem. I’m not signing off on these lease papers.”

  He gave her a “c’mon, let’s be friends” smile. “I’m willing to hear your concerns. Hopefully we can work something out.”

  His demeanor was confident, touched with you-know-you-want-it, all-the-ladies-do, and Sugar instinctively knew Jake Bentley was a man with whom women usually “worked something out” because of the charm and the bedroom eyes. She stiffened her resistance to the overture and shook her head. “First of all, you can call me Ms. Cassavechia.”

  He was checking out her legs, and she was pretty certain he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She knew his type, met too many of them not to know exactly what he was thinking.

  It was all about sex.

  Unfortunately, she had to admit that under different circumstances—like if she weren’t boiling mad at him for being a grifter—she’d probably give him a chance to soothe her newly divorced ire toward men. But Ramon had been dark and hot-eyed like this hunk—and she knew exactly what good-in-bed temptation had gotten her.

  Nothing but pain.

  “Maybe the house is better inside,” Lucy said.

  “It definitely is,” Jake said. “Want a tour?”

  “The water from that faucet is brown,” Sugar snapped. “There are shingles missing all over the roof. And when’s the last time you mowed the lawn?” She handed him the papers. “We’ll find a house in town and just pay you for the pecans we need for our business.” She’d seen a few smaller houses near the tiny square, which served as the hub of Pecan Creek. Surely someone would be willing to rent out rooms.

  Jake shook his head. “It’s a package deal.”

  She stared at him. The pecan trees were beautiful, the branches heavy with fat, oval pecans getting ready to burst from their dark hulls. It felt safe here, like a refuge, which her family desperately needed right now. This was why they’d left their lives in Florida behind, for a dreamy whim she’d named hotterthanhellnuts.com.

  Her gaze went to the man she’d made the mistake of trusting sight unseen.

  “I can fix the roof,” Jake said. “The water just needs to be run out of the septic system. And the barn is my pride and joy, just right for the business you’re planning to open. You’ll have lots of room to work, if your business takes off.” He gave her a slow, winning smile. “I’m an easy man to work with.”

  “I bet.” Sugar glanced at Maggie. Her mother was petting Paris and smoking a cigarette, seemingly not too worried about the outcome of their dilemma. Lucy was studying the grove of pecan trees. Only I’m upset, Sugar realized, but that was nothing new. She was the decision-maker in their family, always had been. She let her gaze sweep the worn house one more time before returning to Jake Bentley’s arrogant, chiseled face, fighting the potent allure of a man who made her think of long nights shaded by a canopy of fecund pecan trees.

  She was here for business. “If the inside is as bad as the outside, we won’t be interested.”

  “Come on,” Jake said, clearly unbothered by her threat, “you’re going to love the kitchen. Mom had it remodeled a couple of years ago, and it’s a cook’s dream. She lives in town now, but she loved living out here.”

  Maybe he wasn’t bragging. Maybe the inside matched the image in her mind she’d been carrying for years of the place they could call home. She felt like she was succumbing to illogical wistfulness as she said, “Stay outside, Paris,” and followed Jake. He had a great body, tall and lean, with a butt made for squeezing, naked and strong—

  Whoa. That was random.

  It was the August heat. She forced her gaze away from Jake’s stellar backside and walked inside the kitchen, Lucy and Maggie following. Copper pots and pans hung from a ceiling rack, gleaming with polish. The kitchen itself was huge, with new silver appliances and a six-burner Viking stove. Sunny and well-spaced, the kitchen was perfect for their new business venture. “You’re right,” Sugar s
aid. “This is great.”

  “Yeah. You could heat nuts to your heart’s content in here, Sugar.” Lucy ran a hand over the long chopping block in the center of the kitchen. “Your mom must have loved to cook,” she said to Jake.

  “Nope. This is all for looks. Mom remodeled to sell the house. She gave up on that when the bottom fell out of the real estate market.” He looked around the room almost regretfully, Sugar thought. “It was a great place to grow up.”

  Sugar pulled her gaze away from Jake. She inspected the oversized concealed refrigerator and then turned on the sink faucet. Clear water ran out freely. If he’d fix the roof and the screen door, they were home. Home. “It might work for us,” she said.

  Jake laughed. “You haven’t seen the bedrooms. And I don’t want you complaining that I deceived you in any way, Ms. Cassavechia.”

  “I’m interested in the bedrooms,” Lucy said. “Where I sleep is important. Let’s make sure there are no cracks or rats, Sugar.” She gave Jake a benign gaze.

  Jake’s gaze lit on Lucy for just a second; then he nodded. They followed him out into a small dining room, then up a bi-level staircase that overlooked the front-door entryway. The house had been cared for well on the inside, which relieved Sugar a little.

  “Wow,” Lucy said as they followed Jake into the first bedroom. “Look at the bed.”

  Maggie giggled. “That’s some setup.”

  Crouched in the middle of the room, the bed looked like something out of Victorian England. It was so large that if the burgundy velvet curtains hanging around it were pulled shut, it would seem like another world, a private getaway for lovers.

  Sugar wondered if Jake had ever slept in this bed, and felt herself growing warm where she didn’t want to. I’ve got the hots for him. Which is really dumb, because I don’t need trouble, and he’s got Trouble written all over him in big letters.

  Jake looked out one of the room’s windows. “You can see the grove from here,” he said, “and when the autumn leaves fall, you can see the creek from the kitchen windows.”

  “Look at this, Sugar!” Lucy called. “This bathroom is awesome!”

  Sugar followed Lucy into the bathroom. A huge claw-foot tub took up most of the free space near the window, and a long marble vanity held gold-topped glass jars for everything a woman wanted to keep handy. She could picture Jake shaving at the pedestal sink—not that he appeared to shave frequently. He had a few days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks, carving his face into strong lines.

  “All the bedrooms and lavatories are themed,” Jake said when they walked back into the bedroom. “Mom kept this part of the house for boarding.”

  Themed for King Henry VIII? Sugar thought the room, though expansive, was somehow over-decadent and old-fashioned, and not necessarily in a good way.

  “It reminds me of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” Lucy said.

  Sugar jumped, embarrassed for her sister’s typically unfiltered comment.

  Jake laughed. “You guessed it. All the bedrooms are decorated like movies or television-show sets. Next door is the Southfork room. Think J.R., not Miss Ellie. And the Gone with the Wind Belle Watling room is on the other side, opposite the American Gigolo room. Mom and I argued about that one for a week.”

  Certainly not kid-friendly thematics throughout the house. Sugar looked at Jake. “So were you for or against the American Gigolo idea?”

  His grin was for Sugar alone. “I’ll tell you when I know you better.”

  Lucy and Maggie laughed, but Sugar frowned, not charmed at all by his easygoing flirtation. Well, maybe a little. But not charmed to the point that all the good ol’ boy stuff would work on her.

  “Everybody’s got an angle,” Jake said, and Sugar raised a brow. “Keeping the customers entertained is Mom’s.”

  Since the Cassavechia women had enough angles of their own, Sugar followed silently as he continued the tour, wondering why J.T. Bentley wasn’t wearing a wedding ring or living in his house with bedrooms apparently custom-designed for mind-blowing sex.

  She would never fantasize about mind-blowing sex with him.

  Jake Bentley paid a call on his mother as she finished presiding over the town council, which consisted of four people, all women, and all determined to make him the next president. Pecan Creek was short on men, and the ladies running the town had decided it would take a man to lure businesses, and therefore more men, to their spot on the map.

  It was dumb, and he wasn’t interested. Mainly because he knew what they really wanted, which was to step up their own “secret” businesses, which had been booming in the past year. The four women, the Entrepreneurs of Pecan Creek, sat looking at him innocently right now, as if he weren’t on to them.

  He was.

  “Jake,” his mother, Vivian, said, and Jake automatically said, “No.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he told her, and the three other ladies staring at him with apprehensive smiles beamed.

  Charlotte Dawson, vice president of Pecan Creek’s town council, said, “How are your new renters?” She gazed at him with interest through her spectacles. Dodie Myers, the treasurer, and Minda Hernandez, the secretary, stared at him too, eager for gossip.

  He didn’t want to go into details. Sugar Cassavechia’s effect on his libido had him a bit confused. He shouldn’t have been lusting after those long, slender legs, that bouncy rack and sweetly curved ass when she’d been ragging him about the house. The legs especially had been delightful, and the rack, well, what red-blooded male didn’t love a great set of breasts? Jake was sideswiped by a wave of heat and had to force himself to focus on the four pairs of bright eyes watching him as if he were a renowned magician.

  Sugar would be a perfect foil for his plan. He had every intention of putting her name in the hat for president of Pecan Creek’s town council, once she’d been here a bit longer.

  Say, maybe in about three weeks.

  That would give him time to launch her on the Four E’s, pitting her squarely against his mother, of course, but he could back Sugar up. He was pretty certain Sugar could hold her own. She was determined, forthright, opinionated—everything Vivian would hate in a younger woman, and just what Pecan Creek really needed.

  If they wanted to bring in men, they needed man magnets—babes who didn’t mind living two hours from the nearest city—hot babes like Lucy Cassavechia. Where Sugar was passion under wraps—at least that was what he was hoping—it was clear that Lucy had a more opportunistic eye for the male sex. Sugar had barely given him the time of day, raking him businesslike over the coals, but Lucy, like their mother, Maggie, had given him a very feminine once-over.

  Naturally, he had to go for the hard-to-get, you’ll-really-work-your-ass-off-for-this types, and Sugar was his age, besides. He’d glanced at her driver’s license as she’d filled out the paperwork on the lease and saw that she was an organ donor, fibbed slightly about her hair color (it was chestnut, not blonde, not even in the strawberry family), and maybe her height. He placed her about five-five and no more, though she had pegged herself at five-seven. He’d run her credit, and she was clean as a whistle. As far as he could tell, she had a lot of the qualifications Pecan Creek could use, and if he could shove this job off on Sugar, he planned to spend his days fishing, drinking beer and playing pool on the secret pool table in the Pecan Creek Bait and Burgers basement.

  It was all he and his buddies had that the pillars of the community didn’t have dominion over, and he intended to keep it that way.

  “Tell us about them,” his mother urged. “Are there men in the family? Men would be good.” She sighed. “Someone to pick up your duties once you become more involved with the council.”

  He ignored the hint. Sitting on this council would never happen to him. “No men,” he said, “but the new people paid us four months’ cash up front.”

  That would soothe Vivian. Four months for the Cassavechias to find out living in the old family home wasn’t going to be a picnic
. Wait until they met this crowd too.

  Fur was going to fly. The Cassavechias were red meat to these pros. He was going to have to help them learn the Pecan Creek ropes and creed, which was don’t talk about anything, which concisely meant religion, politics or sex. Especially not sex.

  The Cassavechias had struck him as a bit free-spirited for such intolerance. He figured Lucy would be gone in less than a month. Spotty Internet, and no guys her age. Yeah, she was a short-timer, unless something drastic happened to keep her. Very little drastic came up in Pecan Creek. If it did, the Pillars put it down in a hurry.

  Maggie could go either way. The Salesladies of Sex would either accept her or toss her out on her super-tanned, flower-printed, Virginia Slims-smoking butt. It was a coin flip.

  “I’ve got to go,” Jake told the Pillars, and his mother said, “But are they nice? I know you’d never rent our family home out to people who aren’t quality.”

  Vivian was worried about quality renters when she’d decorated the family home like a madam’s orgasm. There was irony for you. A lady didn’t talk about sex, but she certainly profited from it—quietly.

  Tall, athlete-thin, no-nonsense Charlotte Dawson made willy warmers of all shapes and sizes, custom-ordered in some cases, and sold them over the Internet. Dawson’s Willy Warmers was her Internet business name, which he’d discovered only after a particularly large shipment had gone out last year (record cold temperatures in the frozen North and everywhere else). He’d done some digging around to find out what was in the boxes. He’d once heard his mother refer to Charlotte’s offerings as Charlotte’s damn peter heaters under her breath, which had shocked him, because he hadn’t known she knew anything about the Internet at the time. The willy warmers were very popular at Christmas, and the small, one-room mail office was filled with boxes labeled with Charlotte’s silvery return labels.

  Still, the ding-dong covers were never mentioned by the ladies in their circle. The post office added an extra truck run, but no one mentioned that they knew exactly what was being shipped out of Pecan Creek, the Most Honest Town in Texas.