Small Town Girl (29 page)

He quirked his eyebrows and handed her the receiver. "Eavesdropper."

"Name-dropper," she retaliated. "Are you sure I won't tie up the line in case Dolly or Shania wants to call?"

His grin grew wider. "Jealous?"

"Hey, Dad!" Adam called from the counter. "Reckon Travis would bring the band down to play for the festival?"

If silence could drop like a wet blanket, Jo reckoned that's what it did now. Every ear in the place strained to hear Flint's reply. Even the hammering on the windows halted.

Stepping back from the ladder to gaze around at his audience, Flint threw up his hands in surrender. "Y'all know I can't promise nothin'," he warned them. "But I've already asked, all right? They're checking their calendars."

Jo started the cheer, and the little cafe soon rang with applause and rebel yells. Disaster couldn't keep them down if they had something to hope for. The Barn Boys playing in their dinky festival would give the town something to talk about for years.

And Flint was the hero willing to set aside his pride and bring them here.

"Son, we have to be going. That's a long drive around the mountain," Floyd Clinton said, drying his hands on a towel in the cafe on Sunday afternoon.

"Come along, boys," Martha called. "You need to wash up before we leave."

"Ah, Nana, we want to stay," Johnnie called. "Hoss said he'd take us rafting, and Jo said she could show us a good place for fishing out back of here."

Stunned by his sons' willingness to stay, Flint waited for his mother's reaction. She shot a dirty look in Joella's direction. The two of them had been rubbing each other wrong all weekend. Or rather, his mother got wrapped around an axle every time Jo opened her mouth, and Jo blithely ignored her. He wasn't certain ignoring his mother was the proper way to win her favor, but he sure as hell couldn't blame Jo for steering clear.

Since he wasn't helping any by sleeping with Jo, he figured he'd keep his mouth shut on that subject as well. The two of them showing up at church together this morning hadn't eased the tension. Sally had treated him like a leper.

Given that he'd recklessly invited his dangerous old life into his new sedate one, maybe maturity was beyond him, but he still wanted his boys to stay.

"They're welcome to stay with me," Amy said cheerfully from in front of the oven Slim had wired to the rear circuit. "The boys are great with Josh and Louisa."

"We've signed them up for swimming and tennis at the Y," Martha replied stiffly.

Not budging from the floor where he was showing five-year-old Josh how to play his Game Boy, Johnnie whined, "I don't wanna play tennis."

"You need the exercise, and you don't eat right unless I watch you. You ate nothing but muffins and junk all day yesterday."

Amy slammed a pan on top of the stove. "I made raisin bran muffins with Splenda just for him. Do they make something more nutritional down in the city?"

Everyone in the dining room turned to stare. Quiet Amy never spoke out. She blushed at their stares and turned her back on the room.

Evan hadn't been home all weekend.

"Your baking is a lifesaver, Amy," Flint intervened. He wanted to say he'd pay her when he could, but he wasn't letting his parents know his financial situation. "And I appreciate you taking in my family. I don't want to ask you to do more."

"I like having them," she muttered, turning on the water in the sink to clean out her bowls. "They're perfectly welcome to stay."

"We don't want to sound ungrateful," Martha said firmly, "but it's too dangerous up here. If anything should happen to either of them, with that road blocked, the nearest hospital is all the way up in Knoxville."

Flint watched Jo arranging pictures on the wall with the help of her artist friend. He figured she was listening to every word but wisely staying out of the argument. He wanted to stay here again tonight with her, but her apartment was no place for his boys.

He had reverted to his badass ways all weekend, ticking off his parents, falling in lust with a glamour girl working her way up the music ladder, pushing away the maternal woman who would make a good mother to his kids. He needed to get his head straight again.

He had to get back to putting his sons first. If they actually wanted to stay with him in this tiny town, he'd set up a tent on the highway to live in if he had to. For the first time in a long time, he let hope peer out of the box he'd locked it in.

"The county says the road down the mountain will open on Tuesday," he argued. "If Amy doesn't mind putting up with us another couple of nights, I see no reason why the boys can't stay. I can use the extra hands around here." He appreciated his parents' willingness to help, but he couldn't let that be compensation for their guilt at stealing his kids.

Johnnie and Adam cheered. Josh and Louisa joined them, even though they had no idea why. Amy sent him a shy smile. Behind his mother's back, Jo gave him a thumbs-up.

Nearly falling over in relief and pride that he'd finally brought his boys around to forgiving him, Flint listened to his mother's arguments with half an ear as he finished screwing together a chair that had lost a leg. He had the courage of conviction on his side.

"Mom, I appreciate what you and Dad have done for us," he said as she wound down. Setting the chair on the floor, he rocked it to see if it would wobble. It stood firm. "But school is out, and now is the time for me to take them off your hands. Let's just see how it works, okay?"

Flint hugged his mother as he said it. She stiffened, but shut up. He glanced at his dad, who looked thoughtful but didn't disagree. "The two of you deserve awards for bringing up the three of us. You don't need to be raising my two as well. Why don't we just play ü by ear for a while?"

His mother glanced over his shoulder at Jo. "They need your undivided attention," she said for his tars only. "You can't be staying here and sending them home with Amy. I won't have it, Flynn. I'll go to court to get them if I have to."

That's all he needed—his parents suing him as well as Joella. Why not? Maybe he should go back to school and get a law degree so he could defend himself. Rather than argue, he patted her on the shoulder. "We'll be just fine, Mom. You and Dad have a safe trip home and give us a call when you get there."

He shut all his fear and doubt inside as he and the boys said their farewells and ushered his parents out the newly rebuilt front door. When his parents were gone and out of sight, Flint grabbed both boys and hugged them. "Now, let's party!"

The kids whooped, and the women looked at him as if he'd gone insane. Maybe he had. His life was in shambles, but he had his kids back, and he couldn't wipe off his silly grin. Reality could hit later.

"Put that big old smiley-face sun in the middle," he ordered Jo and Dot. "That's the best one of them all."

"It's an imitation Mexican decoration," Dot protested. Short and skinny, with a purple braid hanging down her embroidered smock, she stood back to check the arrangement of artwork. "The metalwork is nice, but it's hardly worth the center position."

Jo took the smiling sculpture in question, found a nail, and pounded it right smack in the middle of the turquoise wall where Flint wanted it. The cheerful copper sun caught the light from the newly installed window-panes and sparkled merrily.

"O sole mio," she warbled, "it's now or never…" Grinning, Flint grabbed a paint can to start on the window sashes. Her Italian might need a little work if she thought
sole
referred to the sun, but Jo's heart was in the right place.

He was afraid his heart had been kick-started and returned to action, and he couldn't do a blamed thing about it but let it pound in his chest and suffer. The gap between where he was and what he wanted had never looked so large as now, but he was confident he'd set his foot down the path in the right direction.

Chapter Twenty-two

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Jo patted the dirt around the red geranium she'd planted in one of the flowerpots Dot had created out of Fiesta ware shards. She studied Myrtle and decided to tuck the flower beneath the little evergreen like a bright red Christmas present. Satisfied, she dusted off her hands, straightened, and gazed up and down Main Street in the June dawn.

Over the weekend, pink and red geraniums had sprouted in whiskey barrels and galvanized tubs in front of stores and along the sidewalks. Bright pink, purple, and red impatiens glowed in the shade of overhangs. The dirt from the dump-truck disaster had been turned to good use, a fine example of positive thinking.

She proudly inspected the gleaming window panes in the cafe storefront. Flint had painted the entire front of the cafe in a silvery blue that sort of went with the pewter and blue-green on the inside. It wasn't as bright as she'd like it, but it was a nice, welcoming color with the geranium set against it. And he'd painted the new door a bright red.

She was head over heels over that man, and she knew full well the pain of that kind of tumble. She just didn't seem able to stop her stupid heart from opening up to any man who treated her nice. And Flint had been nicer than any other man she'd known.

Not that he let on that a big heart beat beneath the macho attitude. She smiled as she watched him walking down the road from the parking lot with his kids in tow. He was practically strutting like a rooster, and still his gaze fastened on her as if he were starving and she were the biggest piece of apple pie he'd ever seen.

Her head would grow to twice its size under his regard, except the boys arguing over a handful of CDs reminded her of all that she was not, and her sister trailing behind them with her two kids reminded her of all that she must be.

The sight of Marie bringing up the rear of the parade jolted Joella to a momentary standstill, until her head kicked into gear, and she hurried to take her mother's arm.

Marie waved her away. "I can walk. I don't need a nurse."

Flint handed his keys to Adam and strolled back to join them. "Your mom wanted to see how we fixed up the place. I offered to drive her to the door, but she said—"

"She didn't need babying," Jo finished for him, relieving him of any responsibility for her mother's orders. "Mama, you're
supposed
to let us help. It makes us feel better."

"Oh, stuff it, Joella." Marie gazed around at the newly tidied street. She'd quit dying her fading hair, but the crew cut said she hadn't lost her rebelliousness. "They did good. Did someone catch all the chickens?"

"I had one roosting on my porch rail this morning," Jo admitted, "but she flew off when I came out."

"Well, it's too warm for chicken soup anyway." Taking Flint's arm, Marie ambled painfully toward the cafe.

Jo could only watch in astonishment as the big music man treated her obstreperous mother as if she were a piece of crystal, opening the door for her, helping her into a seat in the most comfortable booth in the house. What the devil was going on here? Her mother could peel shellac off a pulpit with her acidity. What was with the sugar and spice?

Amy already had the mixing bowls out and was beating batter behind the counter while all four of the kids disappeared into the back room. Jo had left her CD player down here last night, and she could hear a Barn Boys song blasting out.

"Is this what happens when I let y'all get together behind my back?" Jo asked, reaching for the big ketchup bottle so she could fill containers while Flint made the coffee. "Did you have a big old family fest last night while I sat here by my lonesome?"

Flint had spent the night with his boys at Amy's. If she hadn't known how faithful Amy was to Evan, Jo would have been jealous—except, Amy had every right to cheat if Evan was doing the same.

As if she'd heard Jo's thoughts, Marie spoke up. "I asked how come Flint was staying, but Evan wasn't. Where'd you stick them dry goods the TV showed you hoarding?"

Amy wouldn't look in Jo's direction, but Flint raised his eyebrows and tried to send her a telepathic warning. It didn't work real well, but Jo proceeded cautiously while gathering ketchup containers off the tables. "We needed the back room for Friday night, so Dave stored some of the bolts, and George Bob took a pickup load to his barn. They're here and about."

"The mill makes damn fine material. If Evan can't do anything with it, I know people who can," Marie declared. "It's a waste to throw out all that hard work."

Jo couldn't disagree with that, but her talent wasn't in homemaking. "Evan doesn't want any of it back?"

"He'll just call the insurance company and write it off as a loss," Amy said with what for her passed as disgruntlement.

Marie beckoned Jo closer. "I think they've had a spat," she whispered.

Oh, she'd definitely tread cautiously with that one. Their mother thought Evan walked on water. No one dared tell her that Amy had hired a lawyer. Jo nodded knowingly and joined her in the booth to start filling containers. "So if Evan doesn't want all those scrumptious materials, what will we do with them?" she asked.

"Make pillows," Marie announced with satisfaction.

"Upholster chairs," Flint said gravely, carrying mugs of coffee over.

His gravelly voice raised goose bumps up and down Jo's arms. She needed to touch him, to reassure herself that this weekend hadn't been a figment of her imagination, but his kids could run in here any minute, and her mother was sitting across from her, obstinacy etched in every line of her sun-wrinkled face.

"Upholster chairs?" Jo repeated in disbelief. "What chairs? How?"

"You could start with these ugly things in here," Marie pointed out. "I remembered they was bad, but I hadn't realized how bad."

Jo gazed around at the pink and gray vinyl on the booth benches and chrome chairs. Charlie had replaced the old covers back when she was still in high school, but he'd kept the original fifties colors. Friday's debacle had cracked the vinyl and ground dirt into every crevice. "You want to put that expensive upholstery on dinette chairs?"