Hot in Hellcat Canyon by Julie Anne Long Page B

little girl. Smart. Annalise, I think her name was? A great speller.”
    Glenn glowed. “Oh, that’d be my second oldest, Edie—Eden, her name is—and her daughter. Smart doesn’t cover it with the little one. She can spell like a sonofagun. And stuuuuborn . Like her mama. My wife is a softie. So Edie must have got her hard head from me.” He said this with a sort of regretful, abstracted pride.
    J. T. smiled at that. “Stubborn women,” he repeated. Vaguely but approvingly.
    “McCORD!” A guy with a clipboard appeared, like a doctor. “Got a sec to talk about your truck?”
    “Well, I’m up. I’ll be back for another Glennburger soon. Best burger I’ve ever had.”
    Glenn beamed at him. “Tell me something I don’t know, son.”
    A bent rocker arm was no small thing, but they’d actually called around and were able to find the part and they could have it messengered over, courtesy of some internet magic. J. T. could have the truck back tomorrow.
    He sighed with the same relief he experienced every time he managed to patch his truck back together again and signed the estimate.
    Then he stopped in at the little service station mart attached to the garage to grab a couple of bottles of water and peruse the selection of snacks, most of which were packaged in lurid cellophane and comprised of preservatives.
    He paused suddenly before a collection of black plastic cone-shaped bins that usually held bunches of flowers. Only one bouquet was left, a haphazard cluster of daisies and carnations and marigolds and some kind of purple flower embellished with frayed greenery, all of it just hours away from going limp, if he had to guess from the looks of things. Yesterday, he wouldn’t even have noticed it.
    And he thought of Britt kneeling next to that poor dying ficus, and about people who went nuts flailing for ways to make their lives something safe and comfortable and bearable, him included, his mama, maybe even his pa with his bottle, and he thought about the oppressive clutter at the Angel’s Nest. It seemed to J. T. his life had comprised torrents of things he was either trying to dodge—like his dad’s fists, matrimony, or bad publicity—or things he ought to grab, like women, opportunities, and good publicity. He was good at shooting those kinds of rapids.
    It was the damnedest thing, but helping a beautiful, prickly woman carry a half-dead ficus felt like a grace note amid all of that. Maybe because, while his entire life had been pretty eventful and glamorous and enviable, none of it had been . . .
    It occurred to him that the word he might be looking for was gentle .
    He snorted at himself. But he added the bouquet to his things on the counter, anyway.
    H e walked back to the Angel’s Nest and paused a moment outside to watch the guys clambering over the billboard with big roller brushes.
    The words . . . wish they were you were now readable.
    “Damn straight,” he told the sign.
    Most days, being him was a pretty good thing to be. Even days when thorny little blondes blew him off.
    And then he held his breath like a deep-sea diver against the wave of potpourri and pushed open the door.
    Rosemary was still working on the ledger, fingers deftly tap tap tapping at the keys. She glanced up briefly and her fingers didn’t stop.
    “There are cookies in the lounge, hon, if you want some, fresh out of the oven.”
    He could almost smell them through the potpourri. Chocolate chip, if he had to guess.
    “Thanks. I could use a cookie.”
    She paused and looked up when she sensed he hadn’t moved on.
    He thrust the gas-station bouquet out at her. “These looked kind of lonely at the gas station. Thought they might look nice right up here on the counter.”
    Her eyes widened. She nervously pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose.
    And then she slowly flushed a pleased shade of red that complemented the one on her head and took it from him.
    “Oh, my goodness, aren’t you a sweetheart