Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) Read online

  That’s what the welcome sign said, anyway.

  “I only talked to them for about twenty minutes,” Jake said, “but I’m pretty sure they aren’t serial killers.”

  “Jake,” Vivian said, “this is serious business.”

  Charlotte, Dodie and Minda nodded. “Very serious. We want good people in Pecan Creek,” Dodie said. “We count on you to bring people of untarnished credentials to our town.”

  It wasn’t just Charlotte who was contributing to Pecan Creek’s “honest” reputation. Sweet, silver-haired Dodie Myers made chocolate in her kitchen and sold that over the Internet, luscious, nude body parts she billed as Dodie’s Doodahs. He’d found this out by accident when he’d seen the DBA paperwork in the courthouse. The next time he visited Dodie’s home, he slipped into her kitchen and snagged himself a boob. He’d had to admit it was pert, smooth and tasty, though not as good as the real thing, despite the well-placed cherry on top.

  Jake sighed. “Give them a week to unpack and adjust. Don’t scare them.”

  “Jake!” Vivian said. “Why ever would we?”

  “You wouldn’t mean to,” he said in his best Jimmy Stewart tone, soothing and rational. “It’s just they’ve had a long drive, and they have a lot to do.” Like spread the word all over town that they intended to sell Hot Nuts. At first he’d thought it was heavily ironic that the new people intended to open an online business. They’d fit right in—right?

  But then he realized they didn’t understand the Rule of Southern Silence. Vivian would proclaim them brassy. The others would follow her lead.

  “Look,” he said, “we’re just set in our ways here. You know what I mean. And they’re from Florida. People are more free and easy there.”

  “Really?” Minda’s brows rose. “Just how free and easy?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vivian said. “Jake wouldn’t allow any free-and-easies to rent the home where I raised him. Just the two of us, I might remind you, and there was no free-and-easy going on in our home.”

  Maybe there should have been something a little less rigid than your cockeyed rules, Jake thought and then shrugged. “I didn’t vet them to see if they fit some type of Stepford mold. And if you want new ideas and creativity to liven this place up, you’re going to have to understand that there’ll be changes. Not everyone is like us.”

  Like you, he thought. Personally, I like the idea of someone who doesn’t try to be a holy-roller.

  “But no men,” Minda lamented. “It’s men we need to scatter the seed and whatnot.”

  Vivian stiffened, her entire body in its shirt-dress casing a quivering lightning rod of affront. “Minda!”

  “It’s true,” Minda said. “Seeds must scatter for saplings to grow.”

  “Honestly,” Vivian said. “Less literal before my morning coffee, if you please.”

  Perhaps the best-kept secret was his old fourth-grade teacher Minda Hernandez’s online business, The Secret Pearl. Love elixirs guaranteed to make a man wild for a woman: potions and enhancers and tasty, slippery stuff, veritable nectar of the goddesses. He wouldn’t mind having a bottle of Secret Pearl #5 and a night alone with Sugar in the Madam’s House of Orgasm, but he was pretty certain Sugar was upright and not interested in kinky sex. But in the overall picture, though Sugar’s vision of home might not exactly square with his old family place, she was perfect for Jake’s needs. Sugar for president of Pecan Creek’s town council.

  Damned perfect.

  “I’ve got to go,” Jake said.

  “Why? Are the fish biting?” his mother asked, and he thought he detected a certain level of acidity in her tone.

  Which was nothing new.

  “Absolutely,” he said, kissing his mother’s cheek. “Your morning coffee and the fish biting are two things I count on to let me know the sun has risen on a new day.”

  She wasn’t mollified. Dodie, Minda and Charlotte shook their heads.

  “There are things still to discuss,” Charlotte said. “Like the budget for the town Christmas decorations.”

  “And the parade,” Dodie said. “Tourists love the parade.”

  “And tourists bring money to our honest town,” Minda said. “We need all the tourists we can get. They buy baked goods.”

  And willy warmers, and body candy, and sexual slip-n-slide potions.

  Jake wondered for the hundredth time why he’d taken on the role of responsibility bearer for the Bentley name when it would be so much easier to move to Dallas. Atlanta. New York City. You didn’t drink in the open in Pecan Creek, although he knew very well that the ladies loved to share a tipple in the privacy of their little meetings. One also didn’t curse around the grand dames of Pecan Creek, though he was guilty of that sin and didn’t care. It was a bit stiff-collared in Pecan Creek, yet he loved it here, which was why he stayed in a place he knew would probably never number more than a hundred people on a good day, where women ran the show with iron fists in their lacy little gloves.

  “The Cassavechias are just what we need for Pecan Creek,” he said to the ladies as he went out the door, grinning as he heard the excited babbling burst behind him. He wasn’t about to spill the beans on the Hotter than Hell Nuts nutjobs. The Entrepreneurial Pillars would launch into a frenzy of self-righteousness that such a loud and obvious thing would exist in their community, and he wanted them to meet the Cassavechias before judging. It wasn’t the fact that they were running an online business that would be unacceptable. It was that they intended to do it in the open, and with a cuss word in their business name. Not only that, Sugar had asked him about the empty billboard on the main road into town. If his mother found out that the main road to Pecan Creek might soon be marked by a Hotter than Hell Nuts advertisement, she’d probably faint. She would do it in an orderly, ladylike fashion, but she’d still hit the ground or at least sink into a soft chair.

  The only thing worse than what Sugar was planning would be if Dodie advertised some candy body parts, maybe a sweet pair of white-chocolate breasts and a peppermint-chocolate penis—

  “Jake! Are you listening to me?” his mother called after him.

  He waved a hand to indicate that he was, though he wasn’t. When the DBA application for the Cassavechias’ business crossed the desk in the county courthouse, the tongues would start wagging. “There’ll be some hot nuts all right, and they’ll be mine,” he said, not too regretfully, and got into his truck. He planned to plead innocent. Innocent but interested. Excited, even.

  The Cassavechias had no idea what they were in for, but if he was a good listening ear for Sugar when her business met the certain opposition, maybe he’d wind up with more than just a candy breast.

  Since she was given first choice as the youngest, Lucy Cassavechia chose the Belle Watling room because she had a thing about red velvet drapes and gold-tasseled bedding, and the décor of a madam’s bedroom tickled her wild side. “One thing Mrs. Bentley obviously is is a lady of wicked good humor,” Lucy said, sitting cross-legged on the opulent bed. She considered the red diary she’d bought to match Sugar’s accounting journal. Somewhat excited and petrified by their new venture, she and Sugar had each gotten some sort of red book in which to chronicle their move. Knowing Maggie wouldn’t write much, they’d bought a red purse calendar for her notations of the first truly “together” moments they’d had in years. When they’d presented it to Maggie on their way out of Pensacola as a bon voyage gift, Maggie had told them to wake her when they got to Texas, and to screw the journaling.

  Lucy opened her diary, the new spine making a cracking sound. My name is Lucy, she wrote, and I’m the voice of reason in the Cassavechia family. Stuck between Kate Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, my role is to be the red-haired dose of reality. Every family has a tie that binds, and if it wasn’t for me, we’d only get together at Christmas for deli turkey slices.

  It’s not that our family didn’t want to be close. Sugar and I are far apart in age—five years—and Mom was always too busy working at th
e diner and taking in sewing to be a mom. Our father died when I was young; Sugar barely remembers him. Mom remarried, but husband #2 left for destinations unknown in the middle of the night when I was eight. I thought Mom would be upset, but she said “Tough shit”, and that was the extent of her mourning process for husband #2. I can’t even remember his name because she never speaks of him. Military brats know things can change on a dime, and we learn to accept a lot, either with therapy or without.

  Sugar went into the military out of high school so she could get a college education. She wanted to be a pilot because that’s what Dad was. When I graduated from high school, I followed Sugar into the military because I had nowhere else to go. I never planned on getting past rank and file, but I wasn’t one of those women who were searching for a hot flyboy, either.

  Lucy glanced around her new room, chewed her pen for a moment and continued writing. You know what I want out of life? I want to fit in somewhere. I’m not like Sugar, who can make something beautiful out of curtains a la Scarlett O’Hara, curtains being figurative. I’m not like Maggie, who’d be your garden-variety Belle in Gone with the Wind—I swear Mom’s still got the looks to grab her a Rhett if she was of a mind to do so. But we can’t even talk her into rinsing the gray out of her hair; it’s like she grew some kind of follicular armor against the world and she’s damn proud of it. Protective, even.

  I wouldn’t be in the Gone with the Wind cast as someone you’d recognize, but if my character chanced to stumble into the story, I’d be slapping the hell out of Melanie Wilkes. I don’t think there was a more passive-aggressive female in all literature—even Cleopatra had the balls to just put the asp to her bosom and die already. I bet ol’ Cleo didn’t push her man into another woman’s arms with her dying breath, and I admire a woman who can choose her course in life and not drag everybody else down with her ship.

  I hope we’re not going down on Sugar’s ship—a more unlikely trio of pecan bakers never existed. That’s what our business plan is: we’re going to sell seasoned pecans online. How the hell is that going to work, you ask? You’d be surprised that I don’t know myself. But Sugar always has a plan. She calls our new venture a FOB, short for female-owned-business. I call it Operation SOL, because we’re shit out of luck and probably grasping at lifelines with Sugar’s FOB.

  Sugar’s recently divorced (though Ramon, her jet-pilot ex back in Pensacola, didn’t want the divorce—keep that on the QT). He called her up until the moment she left town, even as she was buying the domain name hotterthanhellnuts.com.

  With a name like that, there’s a very good chance we’re SOL.

  Good night, Journal.

  Wait a minute—that sounds so Sugar! My closing will be…whatever.

  So…whatever!

  Chapter Two

  Hello, Journal.

  My daughters think I can’t do this journaling thing. They gave me a calendar, as if that would inspire me. A calendar! Do I look like I need to be reminded of the passing of days?

  So I bought you, a nice, intelligent-looking college-ruled spiral—red, to match their red-diary fantasy—let me just start by saying you’re definitely not what I thought I’d be pouring my thoughts into at my age. Not what—who. You’re really more of a who because you’re going to be my best friend while I walk through this valley of bingo-less hell called a move with my daughters, with a drooling stray because we’re not The Family Strange enough, so we had to add a furry needbag to our drama.

  It’s not that I mind moving so much. I just thought I’d be at a different point on the line called my life. You know what I want? I want to learn how to age whiskey in barrels. God, I love the smell of whiskey, so smooth and sensuous. I want to grow citrus in pots, and you may be sure that where Sugar’s moved us, there’ll be no citrus in pots, unless I’m badly mistaken. Last time I looked at the weather map on TV, it said that Pecan Creek is around one hundred six degrees farenhell. That’ll make even the hardiest lemon wither into a tight ball of yellow regret.

  It’s true I could have stayed in Florida. But I love my daughters. It was clear to me that they needed a change, a kick-start in their lives. So I’m hanging in here, along for the ride. A matronly support system, doing what mothers do best, maybe the only thing I ever had to give them—support. I’m pulling for Sugar and her Hot Nuts idea. God knows I’m all out of good ideas. When Sugar found out I had breast cancer, she went into total survival mode for us all. Hence my ass here in a so-called J.R. Ewing room and the underfed stray on the floor at my feet—now we have all the components we need to be the Waltons, in Sugar’s mind, I suppose.

  Oh, one more thing under the heading of what I want out of life: I want sex. Good, old-fashioned, sweaty sex. I wasn’t always fifty-three, you know. My daughters would be petrified at the thought of their mother wanting the warmth of a man lying up against her back, but I miss the fire and the passion. You’re too young in your teens and twenties to do it right, and you lose your momentum or your partner in your forties. The thirties are sort of a blur for me because I was busy with young children. I figure your fifties is about the time you’ve got your lady bits and your life figured out, so I’d like to get the juices flowing again and feel the heat. Without guilt. My God, even the wrapper on the eighty-five-percent-cocoa chocolate bar I eat for my heart warns the consumer to remember to enjoy chocolate responsibly. When chocolate bars carry prissy-ass warnings guaranteed to take the edge off your pleasure, it’s a crying sin. I reserve the right to live my life without guilt, with not one ounce of sex-and-cocoa-starved guilt.

  As I say, my sex life is not in my daughters’ plans. But, dear journal, you can keep my secret. And one day, I intend to tell you a story of an unfulfilled life: a story of love and passion and forgiveness, and learning the hard way that no matter how bad you hurt the ones you love, it’s never too late to tell them you’re sorry.

  And that you’re proud of them.

  It’d probably be easier to grow citrus in hell.

  But Pecan Creek, Texas is where we’re beginning our family Normal Rockwell card, so that’s where I’ll be hanging my lacy black bras on the clothesline from now on.

  Participating on the sly,

  Maggie

  It had been only a week since the Hot Nuts had come to town, and Jake knew that the foundations of Pecan Creek were already quivering. He intended to ignore the preliminary fits and starts of the getting-to-know-you phase as long as he could. Vivian had been by with an apple pie to introduce herself to the newcomers, but no one had been home. She’d been disappointed and left it on the porch with a note.

  Jake was relieved. There was plenty of time for everyone to get to know each other. He couldn’t say for certain that the ladies wouldn’t all get along, but Vivian was a force to be reckoned with, and Maggie seemed pretty well versed in don’t-give-a-shit. Those two attitudes usually lay at odds with one another.

  He set the balls in a triangular-shaped rack on the pool table, squaring them with his thumbs so that no space remained. Nice and tight, a great rack, which made him think about Sugar’s rack, which was also a great rack, one more thing in Pecan Creek he intended to ignore.

  “When Lucy Cassavechia flounced into church on Sunday morning with that short skirt and those high purple heels and that heart-shaped tattoo on her ankle,” Kel Underwood said, “my pecker went so stiff I was afraid it was gonna fly out of my pants like a NASA rocket.”

  Jake looked at the perfect rack and sighed with regret. He owned the Bait and Burgers, unbeknownst to Vivian, along with his three best friends from high school, who were also his military brothers, and sometimes the dead weight he wore on his back. Like right now. “Shit, Kel. You made me mess up the perfect rack.” He sighed, glancing over at the two-hundred-thirty-pound, six-foot-five ex-linebacker. “You know you love Debbie, Kel, and those ugly kids of yours. There’s no reason to get all excited over a short skirt.”

  Kel shrugged, his long brown ponytail shaggy and a bit dispirited. “Every guy
wants to take a new car out for a drive occasionally. And Debbie doesn’t scream for me anymore. She used to come so loud the chickens would fly out of the roosts.”

  “Damn it, Kel, you don’t have chickens,” Jake said.

  “I think Lucy would scream. I’d put money on Lucy being a screamer.” Kel finished the bottle of homegrown. “I like ’em loud.”

  “Not me.” Jake shook his head. “I’m on a mission for peace and quiet in my life. No excitement.” He kissed his pool cue and broke, watching the colored and striped balls fly with satisfaction. “There’s your hard-on. An easy run of the table. Watch and learn.”

  “Lucy’s hot, but Ma ain’t bad, either,” Bobby German said, and Jake miscued on what should have been an easy put-away of the six ball. “Has anybody taken a good look at Lucy’s mother?” Brown-skinned, tankheaded “Big” Bobby took a swig of his beer. “I’d do her in a heartbeat if I was twenty years older.”

  Jake leaned his pool cue against the bar and looked at the fourth member of their group. “Go ahead. Screw up my whole day. Tell us which one of the new ladies in town you want to do so I can get on with my game.”

  Evert Carmichael shrugged. “All of ’em would work for me, but my girlfriend over at the coffee shop’s taking care of my plumbing just fine. I’m not messing up a good thing.”

  Jake felt better, because for a second he’d been afraid someone was going to say Sugar, and then he was going to be pissed, although he didn’t know why. These were his friends. They’d played football together in high school, gone through A&M as corps turds, then went straight into the military. After basic, they’d gone right to Afghanistan, then Iraq, all of which had been shitholes of unimaginable proportions, even for officers.

  Despite his pride in his military service, it had left scars. Evert, the Pecan Creek kicker the year they’d won the football championship, had gotten his little toe shot off, which he claimed “fucked up my goddamn kick” every chance he got to tell someone—which was about once a week. Evert was proud of his kicking foot, and now he claimed his balance was off. He was a big man, good looking with blond sunny hair and a mustache that drooped like Droopy Dog’s face, and the ladies went nuts for him. Ever since he’d had the good fortune to make his way into Cat Jenkins’s bed a few weeks ago, he never mentioned his fucked-up kick, which suited Jake fine.