We have a lease until Christmas. We shouldn’t have signed it, mind you, but Jake rooked us into it—”
“That is my family home,” Vivian said. “And I don’t need a trio of trollops skanking the place up.”
“We paid cash for four months up front.”
“This is September. There’ll be no renewal. Christmas isn’t that far off.”
She was backed into a corner for sure. Sugar’s business couldn’t just be picked up and plunked down anywhere. Where else would they find free pecans? Jake didn’t charge them for gathering them. He said he didn’t care what they did because he wasn’t going to pay to have them picked up. And Maggie was happy for the first time in years, maybe, in the House of Sex.
She had no choice. “Is this because of me or Charlotte? Who are you trying to hurt here?”
“Neither. Charlotte’s ding-dong covers will sell without you; don’t be a twit. And you will blow out of town as fast as you blew in, and no one will remember you were even here. Don’t get all self-important.”
“Where do you expect me to work?” Lucy demanded.
“I don’t care. As long as it’s not for Charlotte.”
Lucy shook her head. “And you call yourself a friend. Some friendly competition.”
“Good-bye, Miss Cassavechia.”
Lucy went out the door, letting it slam behind her. She left the bike—wouldn’t have touched the hunk of junk now—and went to give her notice to Charlotte Dawson.
It felt like she was being dragged to a teacher whom she liked very much and had let down by cheating.
“She got to you, didn’t she?” Charlotte demanded when Lucy went inside the house to give notice. She handed Lucy a tissue. “Stop crying. This is not my first rodeo with Vivian Bentley. How did she know you were working for me?”
“I think,” Lucy said, trying hard not to sniffle and not sure why this old woman had penetrated her armor of worldliness, “because she has an evil eye and probably a spy camera in your basement.”
Charlotte led her to a sofa and forced her to sit. “It’s because she can’t stand that I have a successful business and she doesn’t. She started something up once. Potholders. Nobody wants old lady potholders. She refuses to sell anything that is a bit risqué. But people like risqué sometimes. It’s fun, as long as it’s not dirty. Folks just want to be happy and amused.”
“She’ll kick us out of her silly old sex mansion if I don’t quit. I can’t do that to Maggie and Sugar. They love that place.”
Charlotte nodded. “It’s okay. This is not your battle. I was hoping Vivian wouldn’t find out for a while longer, but I underestimated her spying.”
“Never do that again,” Lucy said. “She’s intense.”
“I know.” Charlotte looked around, came to a conclusion. “Tell you what. Since this is your last day, how about if I take a day off, and we fire up the Viking? I could teach you a couple of secret recipes, which Vivian Bentley would give her last real eyetooth to have.”
Lucy wiped her eyes with the tissue. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes, I do. I am more than happy to share a few secrets with you, because you’ve been a good employee, Lucy Cassavechia. All I ask is that occasionally, you make one of my recipes and bring it to a town gathering, just to smite my neighbor.”
Lucy smiled. “Anything for you, Mrs. Dawson.”
“Call me Charlotte. I think we know each other well enough to be friends, don’t you?”
“Yes, Charlotte,” Lucy said, following her new friend into the kitchen.
It was nice to have a new friend—she really dug Charlotte—but she also had an enemy now. And one thing Vivian Bentley didn’t know was that nobody messed with Lucy Cassavechia.
Not even the wicked old witch of Pecan Creek.
Chapter Ten
The start of a new week meant a new plan of action for Jake, and that plan of action was working himself out of the doghouse he knew he had to be in with Sugar. There was no way a woman appreciated being left on a first date—even if it hadn’t been a date in anyone’s mind but his.
Since he didn’t want to become a footnote to Kel’s unhappiness, Jake planned to take his own advice and fix what needed to be fixed.
He rang the doorbell, holding a bouquet of flowers hopefully appropriate to melt a woman’s heart. Lucy opened the door, eyeing his offering with a jaundiced eye guaranteed to wilt the blooms.
“What do you want?” Lucy demanded.
“To sleep with