Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,67
opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Can we talk?” Jake asked.
“I’m in the middle of something,” Sugar said, “but you can come in.”
He walked inside his family home, smelling something sweet cooking, which was new and different. “You working?”
“Yeah. Come in and taste.”
He followed Sugar into the kitchen, happy to watch her hips sway as she walked in the tiny, ripped-hem skirt. Her long legs caught the eye, smooth and shapely. His throat went dry. She stirred some nuts in a creamy brown sugary sauce.
“Smells good.” She smelled good too. Jake let her feed him a lightly toasted sugary pecan, and as the flavors melted over his tongue, he knew Sugar had a winner.
“Delicious,” he said. “Maggie remembered.”
Sugar beamed. “Yes. Hotterthanhellnuts.com is open for business.”
“Congratulations.” Jake smiled, but he didn’t really feel it. He’d pushed this part of Sugar out of his mind. He hadn’t wanted the certain tizzy that was going to erupt when Vivian found out what was going to occur in the family home, and in Pecan Creek.
He was pretty much a weasel.
“We could lease that abandoned billboard on the highway now,” Sugar said. “There’s so much traffic on the highway that it would be great advertising for my business to start with.” She beamed.
Jake felt a bit sick. “Pecan Creek leases the billboard every year for two months at Christmas, to advertise the parade and the Christmas festivities.”
“That would give us plenty of time to get our business up and running,” Sugar said. “We could pick up the billboard in January.” She put her arms around him, making his every muscle hum with need for her. “Hey,” Sugar said, “want to do a victory dance to celebrate in my room?”
He sure as hell did. He got hard just thinking about it.
Kel hadn’t mentioned the billboard for January lately, but the shirts ’n ’skins party had never gone off. Kel’s divorce was consuming his life. The billboard would definitely be bare and available by January.
“I better go,” he said. “Bobby took a chunk out of the Bait and Burgers, so I’ve got Lassiter coming to take a look at it. Thanks, though.” He brushed her lips with a fast kiss and headed to the front door.
“Jake?”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“Why did you come by?” Sugar looked confused, and frankly, Jake was too. Guilt gnawed at him.
“Just to say hi,” Jake said. “Congratulations, again.”
“Thanks,” Sugar said. “Hope you get your restaurant fixed.”
He left, wishing like hell he could have accepted Sugar’s invitation. Nothing would have made him happier than to fall into bed with Sugar in the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas room, draw those funky drapes around the circular bed and make crazy love to her until he couldn’t make love anymore.
With Sugar, he could see pulling all-nighters.
Some things were going to have to change. He just didn’t know if the changes were going to be for the better—or the worse.
Sugar’s breath left her with Jake. She’d thrown herself at him, and he’d jetted off like she was the devil. Was it because this was his house? Had she made some kind of faux pas?
He’d make the observation that she hadn’t let him into her life, when he’d shown her all his favorite private haunts. But when she’d tried to level the playing field, he’d passed in a hurry.
“He’s a guy,” she told Paris. “You never can really figure them out.” She bit into a nut, sighing. “I’ve got the packaging ordered, the designs, and now we’ve finally got the product. It’s a winner, Paris. We’ll be able to keep you in dog bones morning, noon and night.”
No doubt Pecan Creek would be proud that there were nuts being grown, packaged and sold out of their glad-handing, self-promoting town. Sugar smiled. Christmas was coming, and if there was ever a time when nuts went over like candy in stockings, it was the Christmas season.
Finally, she’d found their home.
Chapter Seventeen
“Here’s the thing,” Jake said to the four females seated in the meeting room at the courthouse. Dodie, Vivian, Minda and Charlotte looked at him expectantly. “I didn’t come here to talk about running for mayor of Pecan Creek.”
“As we noted before, we’re happy to let Maggie Cassavechia be the honorary mayor for the Christmas parade,” Vivian said, in her position as president of PC’s town council. “But we’ve discussed it, and we definitely know that Pecan Creek has grown to the point where we need a dedicated full-time mayor. You’re our choice.”