Small Town Girl (24 page)

"You're fine. The couch is more comfortable than a sleeping bag."

Well, so much for hoping they'd share a bed. He knew she had the right of it. That didn't mean logic applied to lust.

Quelling a clamor of testosterone, Flint rose and threw the cookbook on the counter beside her. "I have to pay for that fancy stove somehow. I think we better open for dinner once the road is cleared."

She glanced at the book's title. "You bought a stove to sell fancy hamburgers?"

"It's what I can cook," he said defensively. "I make a mean meat loaf."

"Because it's easier than pressing out hamburgers. Got it."

Flint knew she was being sarcastic, but he wasn't listening. His brain had switched off the instant he'd stepped in reach of all those supple curves he'd only begun to explore. He studied the way naturally rose lips parted to reveal that cute overlapping tooth. If he thought about what she had done with that mouth, he'd spontaneously combust.

"Dave hired Randy as the headliner for the MusicFest," those plush lips were saying.

Flint jerked back from his little head trip. "RJ? Here? Is he crazy?"

Jo stepped out of his reach and leaned against her miniature stove. Apparently gathering the path of his straying thoughts, she crossed her arms to hide her splendid assets. "Randy is an arrogant ass, always has been. He thinks everyone will forgive him because he's so charming and good-looking."

"He knows better than to think I'll do anything but smash his pretty nose," Flint growled.

"I doubt he knows about the lawsuit yet. Does he know you're living here?"

That stopped him in his tracks. "He knows I'm from here, but I haven't spoken to him since he and Melinda…" He winced. He hadn't meant to say that. Telling a woman that her boyfriend slept around was asking for dish hurling.

Jo shrugged. "Randy was never celibate. I assume you were divorced at the time?"

Flint nodded, oddly relieved that she harbored no jealous feelings for the bastard. "I didn't buy the cafe until after she died, so he probably has no idea where I'm at."

"You and Elise would make a good pair."

He heard her sarcasm but didn't grasp its origin. Instantly on the defensive after all the years of fighting with Melinda, he asked, "You think I'm cold?"

"You were married to Melinda for what—ten years? And all you can say about her is that she fell in bed with Randy?" She reached for a tumbler in the cabinet and slammed it onto the tiny counter. "Marriage sure is a piece of shit, isn't it?"

"Where in hell did this come from?" he demanded angrily, caught off guard by her unexpected attack. "You think because I asked to sleep on your couch that I'm a fair target? Or do women just figure they get to cut a man's balls off and use them as keepsakes once they've slept together?"

To his astonishment, a big smile crossed Jo's expressive features, turning her cat eyes up in the corners. "That's a good one. You could put it to music and make another fortune." She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, then warbled to no tune at all—"I'm ruined for all time, because she kept what was mine, and all we did was roll in the hay."

Flint cracked up. Leaning against the counter, he hooted with laughter, then held his sides and laughed harder when she joined in and the dam of tension broke. Maybe it was relief that he didn't have to fight with Jo that let him breathe easy enough to laugh. It had been a damned long time since he'd been able to let go and be himself.

"You're not doing this to me again, Joella," he gasped between waning chuckles. "Your singing is inspirational in more ways than one, and I'm under the impression you're not willing to go there anymore."

She heaved a sigh that lifted her gold-draped breasts and inspired him even more than her voice. Flint trained his gaze on the glittering reflection balls dangling over his head rather than admire the more enticing view down here.

"I don't need my heart broke anymore, don't want to end up like Amy, and there isn't much future with a man who has more troubles than I have. So, yeah, I guess we'd better not make beautiful music together." Jo poked him in the chest so he had to look at her. "Besides, I have to go to Mama's tonight. Friends, okay?"

He sucked in a deep breath of her powdery scent and realized right then and there that it wasn't okay. Jo wasn't Melinda. She might be an emotional roller coaster, but she didn't rocket senseless arguments into knock-down-drag-outs. She laughed at herself and calmed stormy waters.

It was all wrong that he had to give up this perfect woman because the world was ass-backward. So, maybe he had to figure out how to set his small corner of the world spinning in the right direction again.

He had to be Atlas instead of Job. Yeah, he could see that happening in the next millennium or two.

Chapter Eighteen

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Like the chicken she was, Jo waited for Flint to leave the apartment the next morning before she stirred from her pillows. He'd been sound asleep on the couch when she'd come home last night.

It had been a long, long time since she'd had a man in her house. He'd looked scrumptious stretched out there with only one of her old sheets pulled over his hips. She'd just stood there for a bit admiring his muscular, brown chest decorated with dark curls, and the nut-brown hair falling over a wide forehead hiding way too many brains. In sleep, his mouth softened to almost approachable, and she'd debated shucking her clothes and doing what came naturally. She didn't think he'd fight her off.

She'd resisted and hadn't slept a wink as a result. Still, she figured she'd done him a favor. If he was running the cafe on his own today, he'd needed his rest.

And she needed to think about those papers Elise had brought. She had to sign them if it meant money for her mother and a shot at a career. She couldn't sign them if it meant Flint would lose his cafe.

If she were a hard-hearted sort like Elise, she'd worry that Flint had seduced her so she wouldn't sue. But she'd been the one doing the seducing. He was being a perfect gentleman. Well, as much as a guy like Flint could be gentlemanly.

She lay there admiring the red and yellow log-cabin quilt hanging over the rafter above the foot of the bed. The sounds of the town waking up were nearly drowned under the hum of the window air conditioner she'd turned on for Flint's benefit.

She'd had a hard time at Mama's last night keeping quiet about Amy and Evan, or the lawsuit papers. She desperately needed to talk to her mother the way daughters did on TV, but she'd known from an early age that her mama didn't handle disaster well, and now that she was sick, it was unfair to burden her with their problems.

Mama would be hysterical if she knew what Amy was up to. Marie had never even divorced their runaway father, although during her occasional binges, she would flay his name with acid scorn and tears of regret.

Nope, Mama would tell Jo she had no business suing a man who was only trying to make a living. And she'd pitch a fit if Jo told her that Flint was staying in her apartment. Well, most mothers would do that. If Jo heard one more time that old saw about why should a man buy a cow if he can have the milk for free, she'd kick the next cow she saw.

Still, for the sake of her own soft heart, she would have to figure out how to keep her relationship with her boss professional. She'd brought back a bunch of her mother's recipe cards. Once upon a time her mother had been a good cook. Jo couldn't remember those days, but Amy sort of did. Their parents' separation had shattered their world early.

As it would for Amy's kids. Louisa and Josh loved their daddy, even if Evan was an arrogant prick.

Not wanting to consider that ugly thought this early on a sunny morning, Jo flung back her sheet and got up. In the cool breeze off the mountain, she didn't think the air conditioner was necessary. She switched it off and opened the loft window. She hadn't been comfortable wearing nothing to bed with Flint sleeping below, so she'd dragged out the long jersey knit nightgown her mother had given her for Christmas. A large T-shirt would have covered more, but she had wanted to look as if she owned a nightgown.

She was balancing on one foot, scratching it with the other, and contemplating the wardrobe she used as a closet when she heard the first frightening squeal of brakes, and her heart gripped.

The flashing memory of last weekend's boulder incident sent her dashing to the dormer window overlooking the street below.

She was just climbing on the window seat when she heard the crash. Wincing, she pried open the screen to lean out. The noise had sounded as if it was directly below.

She located the Krispy Kreme delivery truck that had foolishly been backing out of the alley onto the narrow road. The semi from the mill had apparently clipped its rear bumper. Both trucks partially blocked the curve in the mountain highway.

Satisfied the noise was no more than a fender bender, she was about to retreat from the window when she heard the rumble of a dump truck from the rock slide coming down the hill into the hollow that formed the town. And coming around the curve from the opposite direction was a pickup stacked with poultry crates. Neither vehicle was slowing down.

"Move them!" she screamed to the truck drivers climbing out of their cabs.

But she was two and a half stories up, and they were already pulling out their cell phones and couldn't hear her over their angry shouts at each other.

At the squeal of brakes outside the cafe, half of Flint's customers rose from their seats to check out the action. Since the doughnut truck had a new driver and had been late this morning, Flint didn't have to look. The driver had pulled into the alley instead of backing in.

Arms full of doughnut boxes, Flint couldn't drop everything at the crash. He cursed himself for not having gone out and directed the truck onto the narrow highway, but without Jo here, he'd had a hectic morning and a shop full of customers and his mind hadn't been focused on the driver's ineptitude. He hadn't been thinking about his customers either. He'd been imagining Jo walking in the door and singing her song about survival. She'd royally screwed his head around.

Flint lowered the boxes to the counter and started toward the door.

"Damn, that's the semi from the mill," George Bob shouted, already at the entrance. "I've told Evan they drive too fast through town—"

Massive brakes rumbled with a more protracted roar than the semi's quick squeal. Something with a heavy load was trying to miss the accident in the middle of the highway.

The resulting collision shook the entire building with the force of a bomb.

Flint dived to keep the dish cabinet from falling onto Sally and Dave at the counter.

An ominous creak followed the crash, and in seconds the big picture window with its shelf of rainbow plates imploded in splintering shards and a cloud of dirt.

With the cabinet steadied, Flint vaulted over the counter at the explosion of glass, throwing himself between the window and a couple of Sally's church ladies. Flying debris hit his back as he shoved his coughing customers beneath a table.

While he waited for the roof to fall and kill them all, the air—and his shop—filled with dust and rubble spilling from the overturned dump truck. From somewhere above, like a choir of angels over the steady patter of debris, Jo's soprano screamed curses and worried questions.

Propped up on an elbow to keep from crushing the old lady half under him, Flint rubbed his brow and tried to reorient himself. Jo. Upstairs. He cast a glance to the stamped-tin ceiling. A corner had peeled away at the front where the wall sagged, but Jo's apartment hadn't fallen on their heads. Yet.

"Flint! Are you in there? Is everyone all right?" The cackle of frightened chickens followed Jo's frantic cries.

Okay. He could do this. He was still alive. He was about to be sued for the rest of his life, but he had to make certain everyone was okay first so they could make it to their lawyers.

Apologizing to the old lady who looked more dazed than crushed, he crawled out from under the table to survey the damage.

"George Bob needs help," Sally told him, dusting off her skirt and reaching down to help the women he'd knocked down.

Dave was leaning over the insurance agent, pressing a handful of paper napkins to George's forehead. Flint reached over the counter for some clean towels, handed them to another of the church ladies to press against the wound, then made the rounds of the room, righting chairs and tables and customers, mouthing reassuring phrases while he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

The frame of his front window was filled with a mountain of rock and dirt. The lively Fiestaware was crushed into dust. His door was lying on the floor. More gravel and dirt blocked the entrance.

Several of his customers were shouting back at Jo on the outside. Even he couldn't imagine how Jo might have instigated this disaster.

He was in too much shock to do more than operate on automatic. Jo was okay. His sons were safely back in Charlotte with his parents. That's all he needed to keep going. He righted another chair and helped a frail old man he thought might be the county judge into it. Great. A judge as witness that his shop was unsafe and had caused grave injury and shock to the town's leading citizens.

Flint wanted to get down on his knees and give thanks that no one had been seriously injured, but he wasn't as comfortable as Jo in talking with the Man Upstairs. He let Sally and the church ladies take care of that for him. He wished Jo were in here to sing a hymn. That's what he needed right now. Jo's voice.

As if she'd read his mind, she called, "Coming through!" over the rising murmur of frightened customers. Every shell-shocked and dirty inhabitant of the cafe turned to gape as pink, high-heeled mules and long, brown legs dangled from the top of the dirt mound in the doorway. The doorframe cut off the top half of her, until she slid down the pile in what appeared to be a long, rose-pink T-shirt that revealed every enticing curve.