Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) (3 page)

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.

“I’m thinking about growing some bud,” Big Bobby said. “We don’t have any Mary Jane around here.”

“You don’t smoke pot,” Jake told the star wide receiver, “and if you grow any plants around here, I’ll kick your ass to the next county.” He glared at Bobby, who shrugged and ran a hand through black locks that rarely saw grooming tools. “You dumbass.”

“I don’t want to smoke it. It would be for medicinal purposes, like in California. I heard it’s profitable, and I could use some profitability.” Bobby got up to eye the table Jake had abandoned. “We don’t make any money at Bait and Burgers.”

“We don’t really try.” Jake frowned. “Making money takes a little bit of effort. You need money, Bobby?”

“No,” Bobby said. “But we can’t sit down here playing pool forever.”

“I can.” Jake dreamed of peace in his life. Some people needed expensive vacations to relax. He just needed a dark, quiet basement with a flashing Dos XXs sign. “We make our own brew. I farm a few acres and rent out a house. That’s plenty for me.”

“And you trade stocks like a Wall Street pro, Buffett’s kid brother,” Kel said. “You have income.
We’ve
got to do something with our lives. We can’t just sit here and circle jerk for the rest of our lives.”

Jake realized something of an uprising had been plotted among his lifelong comrades. He jacked himself onto a cracked vinyl barstool and waited. “Go on.”

“It’s all fine for you to hang out here, batching it,” Evert said. “You’re only responsible to you, Jake.”

And to the Pillars, who want me to save the town, but I’ve done all the saving I intend to do in life.

It was bad karma to think about saving things that could not be saved. “Do what you have to do. I understand you have families. Girlfriends. Whatever.” He shrugged. “You want me to buy you out of Bait and Burgers?”

Bobby German shook his dark lunkhead. Evert sighed and moved his big pumpkin in the negative, staring at his good foot. Kel tucked his chin before shrugging. “We need jobs. And there aren’t any here for us.”

Not unless you made peter heaters. Jake closed his eyes for a moment. A vision of Sugar, chestnut-haired, well-breasted and ballbreaking, rose to mind.
She whines less than this crew, and I saddled her with a house I’d sell in a heartbeat if I could.

Still, these were his best friends. “Things should pick up around here eventually. August is a slow month.” Every month was a slow month in Pecan Creek.

He could barely stand to meet the desultory expressions on his friends’ faces. His cell phone rang, giving him something to do besides stare at gloom. “It’s Vivian,” he said. “Hang on and we’ll get back to this. I swear we’ll figure it out. Hello?”

“Jake? I’ve been thinking—”

“No,” Jake said, so on automatic that he practically bit his tongue. “What’s on your mind?”

“We need a mayor. A real live mayor of Pecan Creek.”

Jake blinked, his heart sinking as he recognized a big hook in Vivian’s pronouncement. Vivian’s plans usually had a stink bomb reserved just for him. “Why?”

“We don’t have one. All small towns have a mayor. Tourists love mayors. They love to shake a mayor’s hand, get that authentic small-town flavor only a ribbon-wearing, tall-hatted, good-ol’-boy mayor can provide. Someone to throw candy at the Christmas parade.”