Small Town Girl (25 page)

A white hen slipped down the mound with her, squawking all the way.

"Hey, y'all," she cried, scanning the room with the efficiency of a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. Relief rose in her eyes as even George Bob sat up to show all was well. When her gaze met Flint's, his world shifted back in place. Everything would be fine if Jo was smiling. The realization ought to shock him, but he was too busy fighting his urge to hug her.

"It's high time we planted our summer annuals anyway," she announced, to Flint's bafflement. But his customers laughed, obviously understanding her joke.

"What is this, Joella and Chickenwoman come to the rescue?" Dave asked, catching the cackling, frightened hen.

"Oh, y'all are missing the show!" she cried happily, gesturing at the street. "Go on out the back and down the alley. Anybody got a video camera? We could sell this to the news."

She made the disaster sound like a circus produced for their entertainment. Flint was torn between yelling at her for her absurdity and kissing her for it. People were already heading for the rear exit instead of sitting dazed and weeping.

"It's just a scratch, Georgie," she crooned, kneeling beside her childhood nemesis and examining the bloody towel George held to his head.

Flint figured it was more than a scratch to make that much blood, but the skinny insurance agent bravely climbed to his feet under her assurances.

"If you get out there in time, you can have all the doughnuts you can eat," she chattered happily to her remaining audience. "And a chicken in every pot, too. I hope you're not McIlvey's insurance agent, Georgie. It's his pickup that sideswiped the Krispy Kreme. I think he had every hen he owns in there."

From George's curses and the way he hurried for the exit, Flint assumed the unfortunate McIlvey was indeed insured. Shifting booths into place as the last of his customers departed, Flint pretended he wasn't working his way across the room to Jo.

He knew better the instant he reached her. She looked up at him, and her smiling mask crumpled—just before she flung herself into his arms.

He needed all those supple curves pressed against him to remind him that life was good and not the disaster it seemed at this minute. He wanted to shake in his boots and swear from fear, but insane as it sounded—with Jo in his arms, all was well in the world.

He held her tightly, murmuring, "It's okay," over and over, while stroking her slender back. The jersey knit nightgown was no better protection than air against her nakedness. He could feel her warmth, feel the bones of her spine, feel her heaving sobs as she cried into his shirt. He could easily distract himself with thoughts of sex.

But that's what had got him here in the first place—running away from reality. Concentrating on reassuring Jo to keep from joining her sobs, he cradled her against him, kissing her hair, making wild promises to shore up their mutual morale.

"Is everyone outside all right?" he asked as her sobs slowed to hiccups.

She nodded against his shoulder. "Not sure about the chickens, but there wasn't anyone on the sidewalk. I left the drivers screaming at each other."

"Then everything is all right." He rubbed her spine some more, hoping to reinforce his platitudes. "People are more important than things."

She nodded, but it was a halfhearted effort. "It will be weeks before you can open again. All your pretty dishes—"

She threatened to descend into sobs again. Taking her shoulders, Flint propped her at arm's length and waited until she raised teary eyes. Even covered in dirt, with her golden hair disheveled, she was gorgeous beyond words. Even his muse couldn't create a poem as beautiful as Jo. He was a goner, for sure, thinking like that, but she wasn't looking for flattery and he wasn't looking for sex while knee-deep in catastrophe.

"I'm insured, I promise," he told her. "The policy covers loss of income, not that we can show much of that. I needed a new front door anyway. I'm sorry about the dishes you liked, though. They're kind of busted."

Jeez, he sounded just like her being Little Miss Optimistic. But he was relieved when she wiped away her tears.

She glanced at the shelves now bereft of their colorful array of pottery. "They were ugly anyway." She hiccuped. "I just thought they livened the place up a little."

"Liar. Where are your Nikes? You can't walk in this rubble in those things."

Jo glanced down at her pink mules and managed a smile. "I think these are a stylish way to face disaster. But I'd better find real clothes before I go out again. Let me run upstairs while you take a look at the fun. You might as well enjoy the circus."

Flint accompanied Jo outside and watched her safely traverse the stairs, then strolled out to face the disaster that would probably wipe his livelihood off the face of the map, despite all his brave words.

"I left the kids with Mama and came as soon as I could," Amy said breathlessly after running down the street from the upper parking lot.

Standing on the covered front porch of the hardware store, watching Flint and a half dozen other men shoveling rock and debris out of the cafe and away from the sidewalk so a bulldozer could scoop them up, Jo shrugged her acknowledgment. Her insides were too twisted to do more.

The cafe was ruined.

"Oh, no," Amy groaned, registering the scope of the disaster. "That's the mill's load of new designs! Evan was counting on increasing orders with those tapestries."

Jo surveyed the bolts of upholstery fabric scattered across sidewalks and buried under a few tons of rubble. Chickens scratched at brocade tapestries and silk jacquards. Myrtle—feathered sun hat still in place—now sported a purple plaid cloak. The mill had switched the looms to expensive decorator fabrics only recently. A fortune in material adorned Main Street more colorfully than Christmas decorations.

Remembering Flint's assurances, Jo tried to make the best of it. "I imagine they're all insured."

"They're insured at cost, but their profit is wiped out," Amy said gloomily. "And the designer expo is next month. They'll lose next year's sales if the samples aren't in it."

Uneasiness gnawed at Jo's gut, but she had her own problems to solve. Evan would have to solve his. She couldn't just stand here and do nothing any longer.

The boxes of doughnuts had disappeared in a twinkling. Farmer McIlvey was still chasing chickens. The bulldozer could handle dirt. Jo took a deep breath. "Let's rescue fabric then." She marched into the street to grab a bronze jacquard bolt from beneath the dented Krispy Kreme van that had started all this.

A plate-sized oil spot saturated the center of the bolt.

She set it neatly in the alley, anyway, out of the path of tow trucks and bulldozers.

Following Jo's example, Amy grabbed bolts of contrasting gold and yellow from beneath a flock of chickens and set them next to the jacquard.

Stepping from the sidelines where she'd been watching with half the town, Sally joined them, rescuing a bolt from beneath the overturned semi's tire and grabbing the pretty purple plaid from Myrtle on her way to add it to the stack.

Jo knew the cloth was ruined. Oil and dirt and chicken droppings mixed with tire tracks and glass. She couldn't simply stand there and do nothing, and the fabric was too lovely to throw out. Maybe their mama could sew new curtains or covers for her old couch from the salvage.

Reluctant to wash down the street until the bulldozer had removed as much of the dirt as possible and tow trucks had righted the dump truck, the town's volunteer fire department set down their hoses and joined the women in hauling fabric. A line of people formed from the back of the mangled trailer and up the street, passing the bolts to every available doorway once the cloth filled the alley.

Jo's muttered "Yo ho, heave ho" soon took an upbeat turn to Disney's "Whistle While You Work."

When enough dirt on the sidewalk in front of the cafe was cleared for her to traverse, she carried a spectacular bolt of plum and turquoise through the smashed doorframe and draped the cloth across the counter. On her way out, she passed Flint, who had stripped off his sweaty T-shirt in the increasingly warm June sun.

"I like a man who can use his hands," she murmured, brushing a kiss against his bronzed biceps, thrilling at the sexy smell of musky sweat and heated skin. She had to back off to keep from wrapping her arms around his naked waist.

Flint had his hands full of shovel and dirt and couldn't grab her as she sashayed past. But knowing she left him grinning instead of growling made her lighthearted.

Chickens scattered across the two-lane as a silver Mercedes sedan rolled down the street, not stopping at the parking lot but driving up next to the water truck.

As a tall, well-dressed pair emerged to survey the damage, Amy stood beside Jo.

"Lurid Linda," Amy said, naming the female driver while brushing chicken feathers off her filthy jeans.

With her shining auburn hair captured in a chignon, wearing an immaculate gray designer suit and white silk blouse, the board treasurer stepped out.

"And Evan, come to survey the disaster," Jo surmised, recognizing her elegant brother-in-law climbing from the passenger seat. His dark blond hair was so neat, she had to assume he used hair spray. In contrast to the jeans everyone else was wearing, Evan looked untouched and professional in his blue pin-striped suit, despite the rising June heat.

Jo had to admit, Evan and Linda made a spectacular couple.

Chapter Nineteen

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Sensing work halting all around him, Flint flung another shovelful of dirt off his front step into the street, then turned to see what disaster loomed next on his horizon.

His upper arm still burned where Jo had seared it with her kiss. She was an unabashed mix of optimism, passion, and talent, and he felt the tug of her presence no matter where her busyness carried her. He'd heard her singing the "Volga Boatmen's Song," smiled when it changed to a country version of the Disney dwarfs' "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho," and eagerly awaited her next choice of music.

With a jolt of fear, he realized that it was her silence that had warned him.

He had to climb up the mound of dirt and stone to see the Mercedes parked in the middle of chaos. A handsome couple stood beside the car, consulting with heads bent, ignoring the frozen townspeople watching them with varying expressions of hope, wariness, and cynicism. Flint ground his molars, wondering if the sharks had smelled blood and arrived already.

To his amazement, quiet little Amy was the one who stepped forward, carrying a bolt of the fabric Jo had been squirreling away to safety. Neither of the pair in suits offered to take the heavy bolt from her, although both were taller and probably stronger. They examined the damage, glanced around at the remaining fabric buried under dirt, and shook their heads.

Flint suffered the horrible notion that they'd just condemned the town to death.

He started down the dirt pile to join Jo and find out what was really happening when he noticed a tanker truck heading a little too fast around the bend toward them. Due to the rock slide, truck traffic on the highway had practically halted except for local deliveries. The town had no gas stations. He couldn't imagine why the tanker was out here—or how it would get out now that it had reached a dead end. The road wasn't wide enough for turning around.

Apparently not noticing the obstruction until he drove past the post office on the curve, the driver slammed his brakes into a grinding squeal. A flock of escaped chickens flew up from the roadway, hitting his windshield and bouncing off.

Distracted by the chickens, the truck driver veered to his right—in the opposite direction of the cafe for a change. The semi cab's forward motion slowed, but on the hill, the tank behind it had a momentum of its own.

Flint had seen trucks jackknife before, and his heart lodged in his throat. He dived down the mound, caught Jo's arm, and all but threw her toward the cafe on his way out to the street. Oblivious to anything but her confrontation with the Mercedes couple, Amy remained where she was, arguing heatedly. Flint dashed into the street as the semi's brakes ground to a halt. He grabbed Amy, hauling her backward to the sidewalk. With Flint's actions as warning, everyone in the street scattered.

The steel tank continued its slow slide at an angle to the stopped cab. Flint flattened Amy and Jo against the building as the trailer's wheels hit an obstacle—not inches from the fire truck and the Mercedes.

The heavy load of liquid sloshing inside the tank didn't stop as neatly.

The trailer tilted. Screams of warning split the air. The driver jumped from the cab just as the tank tore loose and toppled—straight onto the Mercedes and the fire truck.

Unlike in the movies, flames didn't soar dramatically into the air. Instead, in an anticlimactic hiss, brown liquid dribbled from the busted seams of the tank where it had dented upon impact. The drips increased to a steady flow as the tank settled into the fire truck ladder. Within moments, the brown goo reached the roof of the Mercedes, trickled down its windshield, and created a river over its hood to the street.

A white hen squawked, flew up to the Mercedes hood, and was quickly coated in sticky brown. Her cackles drew more of her feathery friends.

Shaken, Flint wiped his brow. Jo stood beside him, and he wrapped his arm around her without thinking. She'd donned a halter top that didn't cover her much better than the nightgown, but he was grateful for the warm flesh he grasped. His imagination had envisioned explosions and rolling balls of flame, and terror had struck down deep in his soul.

"Adrenaline rush," she murmured, recalling the night of the boulder when she'd said the same, and they'd ended up in bed. Flint wished he'd gone up in her loft last night and shared that bed. He was starting to think that life in this damned town was too short to deny themselves pleasure. He'd carry her upstairs right now except he feared the building would collapse before they reached the top.