Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,9
flavor only a ribbon-wearing, tall-hatted, good-ol’-boy mayor can provide. Someone to throw candy at the Christmas parade.”
They were back to the infernal parade, which Jake personally thought was a waste of effort. It was true that plenty of tourists swamped Pecan Creek to buy ornaments and trinkets and other crap that supposedly only PC could provide. But the yearly parade was also a way to purvey the other essentials PC sold. Jake was damned if he was going to be a mayor who pushed homemade lube juice. “I’m not doing it.”
A long moment of very dead silence met his statement. “But you look mayoral,” Vivian said.
And you think I’m the stuffed shirt who will toss some Tootsie Rolls, do a little glad-handing, chuck some baby chins, and then shuffle off to wherever mayors go when their magic mayor ribbon expires. Christ.
And then it hit him in Technicolor. Maggie. “I know someone who would make a great mayor.”
“Perfect,” Vivian said. “I still think you should do it, but send him to tonight’s meeting, and we’ll consider him.”
“Excellent.” Jake snapped off his phone. “This conversation will have to be continued, boys. I’ve got to go make an important assignment.”
“We’re going to clean out the fryers,” Kel said, “and then we may head over to Sheriff Goody’s office to talk about getting up a shirts ’n ’skins football game in his field.”
“Or use mine,” Jake said as he ran up the wooden stairs.
“We need a quarterback!” Kel called after him.
“I’ll be back soon,” Jake yelled, heading out the back and jumping in his truck. The family home wasn’t five minutes away, and this was as good a time as any to see how the Hot Nuts were making out.
Maggie stared at Jake, her mop of bright red hair tamed in spots with gray. “But I don’t know the first thing about being a mayor. I was a teller at a bank in Florida. Counting money and balancing books is really all I know.”
“It sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Lucy said, “and our business is taking up a lot of our time. Mom’s time.” Lucy looked at Maggie. “She’s got the secret recipe.”
“And I have to wash the dog,” Maggie said.
“I can bathe Paris, Mom, if you want to be mayor.” Sugar smiled at Jake, the first time he thought she’d smiled at him. “Mom loves to try new things.”
“You just have to throw candy from the Christmas parade float,” Jake said. “And maybe shake some hands, tell people ‘welcome to Pecan Creek’.”
“I could do that,” Lucy said, and Jake glanced at her bare legs before looking back at Maggie’s slightly lined, comfortable face.
“You’d be the face of Pecan Creek,” he told Maggie. “A responsible, honest face.”
“Can we have an advertisement in the parade?” Sugar asked.
Jake flinched. “We don’t advertise in the parade, actually.” He could see the stir a Hotter than Hell Nuts sign plastered to the side of a float would cause in a function meant to lure families to the Most Honest Town in Texas. “Makes it too commercial. Here in Pecan Creek, we are all about the experience.”
“Damn,” Lucy said, “how does anybody ever make any dough?”
Jake took a deep breath and smiled at Satan’s best weapon for temptation. “The shops along the parade route in town are open for business. And that’s why the people come, for the exceptional Christmas experience that is quintessentially Pecan Creek.”
Lucy shrugged. “We’re an online business, though.”
“We’ll have the sign on the main road into town,” Sugar said, and Jake cleared his throat.
“That hasn’t actually passed the committee.” He wondered how he could explain to Sugar that Hot Nuts were never going to be on the main billboard. Without that sign proclaiming their wares, he figured they were pretty much without advertising, and therefore, pretty much dead in the water as a business.
It was a problem he’d deal with later.
He fastened a winning smile on Maggie. “Having you as our mayor would mean a lot to us.” Most particularly me, because you’ll be someone with little interest in a long-term role as mayor, which will suit Vivian fine—and everybody’s happy. And I go back to what I do best, which is relaxing.
He shot a fast glance at Sugar’s curved lips as she looked at Maggie. Pink and sweet, like just about everything else on her. All that don’t-mess-with-me attitude probably put his buddies off, which was fine, because he’d really be disappointed if she dated guys like Kel or Evert or Big Bobby.