Sugar's Twice as Sweet: Sugar, Georgia: Book 1 (12 page)

“Hunting?”

“For a man.”

“I’m not sure.” Josephina was all for embracing this new and improved her, but she kind of wanted to do it in private. That way if she screwed up no one would know. Plus, sex with a stranger seemed so irresponsible. “I couldn’t even get there. I don’t have a car, well, a reliable car,” she corrected thinking of Ulysses S Grant and his ongoing disappearing act.

“I could pick you up.” The good doctor handed Josephina a scribbled note and helped her off the table.

“Am I done? I didn’t even feel the stitches.”

“I’m that good. Plus the drugs helped. Keep it elevated for a couple days and call me if the swelling doesn’t go down. See you Monday.” She hung her jacket on a hanger. “Don’t think about it, Josephina, just come. It will be fun, for both of us.”

Josephina hobbled out into the waiting room wondering if Charlotte was right. Maybe she did need a girls’ night out.

Brett stood, slowly making his way across the room. He looked so strong and safe, like the sweet boy who wiped away her tears and stole her heart, that Josephina almost walked right into his arms. Then she noticed the exquisite brunette just to his right.

“Should you be walking?”

She nodded, looking past Brett to the Budweiser model whose oversized red jersey and baseball cap did nothing to diminish her hourglass curves or hide those big green eyes that were looking up at Brett as if he hung the moon. She stood next to him, her hand in his, as Brett leaned down to look at her fingers.

“It was good to see you, Brett,” the groupie said, extracting her hand. She shifted that smile to Josephina and waited, finally elbowing Brett in the ribs when he kept staring at Josephina instead of giving the proper introductions.

“Hey,” Josephina said, tightening the belt of her robe.

“Hey, yourself. You must be Letty’s niece. I’m Glory.” Again with the elbow. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Sorry,” Brett said, and Josephina could swear that he was tongue-tied and blushing. “This here is Glory Mann, best beer slinger in Sugar County. Glory, this is Joie—”

“Josephina,” she corrected, offering Glory her hand.

“Letty would be so happy that you’re back. She talked about you all the time.”

Even though she’d heard this over and over, it was still hard to believe.

Glory looked back and forth between her and Brett and smiled. What that smile meant Josephina didn’t care to know. It was followed by a long, uncomfortable silence during which Glory was grinning at Brett, Brett was staring at Josephina, and Josephina was trying to figure out what was so funny.

“I was just getting my knuckles checked out.” Glory fluttered her hand in the air, the same one Brett had been holding. It was wrapped in a bandage and gauze. “Falcons lost to the Saints tonight.”

Josephina waited for further explanation, but Brett was back to holding Glory’s hand again, tenderly flipping it over and inspecting it thoroughly. “You should’ve called JD.”

“Would rather deal with a couple of drunken patrons. Besides, it’s only bruised—and I didn’t come here to talk about a bunch of lightweight rednecks.” She took her hand back and faced Josephina. “Well, I better get going. It was nice meeting you.”

“You, too,” Josephina said, smiling.

“See you later, Brett.”

Just what
later
meant Josephina didn’t want to know. But it irritated her that she was thinking about its meaning. It irritated her even more that Glory was genuinely nice. The moment Brett’s gaze returned to Josephina’s she stopped caring, she stopped thinking at all, because his intense stare was once more making her melt. Then he opened his mouth.

“Now that I’ve seen you in that silky number, how about dinner?”

“Not going to happen.”

“Why?” He didn’t even seem fazed.

Because I just might start liking you.
“I’m focusing on me, not men.”

“Who said anything about men? I just want you to focus on one man.” He grinned, motioning those rough hands over his chest. That sculpted, lickable chest, which she told herself did not inspire dirty fantasies. But it so did.

“No. No man. Men. Males of any kind.”

“Okay, what about sex then?”

“Nope.” Her toes curled, crinkling the bandage. Maybe the doctor was right. Maybe she needed a night of balls-to-the-wall sex. And maybe she needed to remind herself of the last time she tried to spice up her sex life. “None of that either.”

“Too bad. I imagine you and I would, well, it would be pretty damn sweet.” He shrugged, scooping her up in his arms, ignoring her protests that she could walk just fine on her own. “I’ll just keep asking.”

Josephina accepted defeat and wrapped her arms around his neck, breathing him in without making it obvious.

“I’ll just keep saying no.”

“Until you say yes.”

J
osephina knew the mature thing would be to excuse herself and answer the phone. Instead she sent the call to voicemail, again, and promised herself that she would call her mother back. Tomorrow.

It had been nearly two weeks since she had talked to either of her parents. And Josephina’s head—and her pride—still hurt. Forcing a smile, she looked up the ladder to a pair of worn work boots sticking out of her vent duct.

“Any luck?”

“No, ma’am,” Rooster, her contractor turned exterminator, said, his voice echoing off the metal walls of the duct. “Those are some sneaky opossums.”

They weren’t just squatting and storing enough food for the next fifty years, now they’d taken to gnawing through the wires. The little jerks had strategically hit the back power supply, knocking out the air-conditioning and the entire kitchen.

“I reckon the best way to catch ’em is peanut butter,” Rooster said after making his way down every vertigo-inspired rung of the ladder.

“Peanut butter?”

“Yes, ma’am. On Wonder Bread with honey and a good dose of sodium fluoroacetate.” Rooster rocked back on his heels, exposing his impressive spare tire. “That should fix ’em right up. Then I can get rid of their bodies for you.”

“Bodies?”

“Sure enough. There should be eight or nine of them by the looks of it.”

Josephina swallowed, thinking about those little black, beady eyes that had glared at her last night through her bedroom vent, and wondered how old the babies were. She had only seen the one adult, and wanted to know if she was a single mom and if so, where the father was.

“Can’t we just catch them and move them to a nice place down by the river? Maybe in a tree?” Boo looked up at her with those big, black eyes and she added, “With a view?”

“Well, we could, but they’d most likely find their way back to your vents. The mama opossums like attics, because they’re safe. Humans scare off any predators that would try to eat her babies.”

Eat her babies? Good God!
“So this is a safe house?”

“Ma’am?”

Josephina didn’t get a chance to repeat her concern or ask about the percentage of single mothers in the opossum world, because her phone rang. This time it was her father’s number on the screen.

Not until the phone chimed in the final stage of powering down did she feel herself relax.

Is that what the mama opossum felt when she got her babies in that vent? Relaxed? Safe from the cruel world?

Josephina looked up. The mama, eyes peeled wide, ears back, sharp little teeth bared, looked down at her. She tried to look away, catching the last few words on the commemorative Fairchild plaque
—a boarding house for the adventurous.

“The opossum and her babies stay.”

“But they’re eating up all the wires I laid—”

“Forget the wires. We can put them in some kind of metal casing, right?”

Rooster took off his
R
OOSTER’S
R
OOFING AND
R
EMODELS:
R
EDNECK WITH A
T
OUCH OF
(C
L)ASS
hat, curling the bill of it in his palm. It was the same thing he’d done when she said she wanted three professional ranges in the kitchen. And the same thing he’d done when she said she wanted to turn the salon into a day spa. Only that time his eye started twitching and his arm broke out into a rash.

“Well, yes, ma’am. But seeing as opossums don’t use an outhouse….” He eyed her. “If you know what I mean.”

“But kicking them out when they have nowhere else to go isn’t very neighborly, now is it?” Josephina said, knowing that being neighborly in the South was as important as going to church.

“They’re not neighbors. They’re hunting bait.”

“Yes, well, here at the Fairchild House, they are a family looking for a safe place to start over. So thanks, but I’ll figure something out.” She wasn’t going to let them stay permanently, but she refused to kill them. “Since I don’t want to start on the kitchen until I hear back from the bank, why don’t you get the power working and tomorrow we can start on the—”

Rooster’s phone twanged some godawful country song.

“Sorry.” He hit the Talk button. “Y-ello, this is Rooster of Rooster’s Roofing and Remodels.” He studied his boots while the other person spoke, then his gaze rose to land squarely on Josephina’s and he grimaced. “Yes’em. Good afternoon to you, too.”

Josephina felt her cheeks heat and the tips of her ears burn, which was crazy. She and Rooster had no common connections, but he was obviously talking about her with whoever was on the line—and judging from the pity in his eyes, the words were not kind.

Her heart stopped. Rooster knew Brett. Before she could stop herself she found her hand smoothing her hair down and her breath picking up. It had been that way since the night he took her home from getting stitches.

All week, it seemed wherever she went, Brett turned up. Wednesday she went to the hardware store and found him buying some kind of security system for Bitsy over at the Bless Her Hair, Beauty and Gifts, and proceeded to ask Josephina—in front of the whole store—if she needed any help picking out wood.

On Thursday, while walking Boo in the park, he was signing autographs for the Boys and Girls Club fundraiser. Just yesterday, she was at Mable’s Corner Market, buying some molasses for Letty’s ginger-molasses cookies and some lady items, when she walked directly into a hard, yummy wall: Brett. He was helping Jelly-Lou find dented tomato cans, which, the older lady confided, were a nickel cheaper.

Instead of calling him a stalker—or kissing him silly when she caught him denting cans behind Jelly-Lou’s back—she had apologized and then proceeded to ignore him as any respectable business woman would do.

Too bad her body couldn’t ignore him. Every encounter left her feeling restless and achy—and wondering just who Brett McGraw really was. She was afraid if he showed up here, now, she might just ignore him right into her bed.

“Sure enough. Here she is,” Rooster said in his best church voice, thrusting the phone at Josephina. She stared at the cell, and every nerve in her body screamed
run
!

“It’s your mama.”

“You know my mom?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Tell her I’m not here.”

Rooster was already shaking his head in silent protest.

“Then tell her I’ll call her back.”

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Rooster said, not sorry at all. “She sounds worried. Says you haven’t answered her calls.” He lowered his voice. “And after that earful, can’t say I blame you, but getting between two feuding women is about as stupid as me taking on this job when my daddy’s hoping to set up house with Etta Jayne soon.”

Great, he was practically related to the Granny Mafia. The last thing Josephina needed was for her contractor to walk. Straightening, she took the phone and said, “What do you want, Mom?”

Rooster’s disapproving wag of the head matched her mother’s tone.

“That’s no way to greet your mother.” Josephina bit her tongue as her mother went on. “First you ignore my calls, then turn off your phone completely, and now you speak to me with such disrespect. For all you know there was a family emergency and I needed help planning your father’s funeral.”

“Dad’s not dead, Mom. He just called.”

“That’s not the point.”

Yes, it was. But Josephina turned her phone back on anyway.

Rooster silently motioned that she take her time and headed into the house with Boo. A light hammering and the rustling of cabinets sounded from inside, and she was suddenly thankful for the privacy. This was embarrassing enough without adding witnesses to the mix.

“How did you find me?”

“You aren’t the only one who spent summers at Fairchild House. Your grandmother sent me to Aunt Letty’s every summer until I was sixteen.”

That still didn’t answer the question of how many people she’d talked to before finding out Rooster was Josephina’s contractor
and
currently at her house.

“What do you want? I’m kind of busy.” She picked up a hammer and hit the porch rail a few times.

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. I was speaking with your father, and even though we don’t approve of your behavior or see the potential in your project, we want to support you.” That was so like her mom, to give support in the same breath as criticism. “Darling, if you agree to come home, your father will send over a crew to renovate and run the house. That way the inn is in business and it frees you from fulfilling that silly promise to your aunt.”

“It wasn’t a silly promise, Mom. And you’re missing the point. I want to do this. I am good at this.”
Damn good.

“Of course you are, dear. No one is saying that you’re not.” Although her tone said exactly that. “It’s just you tend to bore easily and it would be smarter to have a professional crew in from the beginning rather than trying to pick up the pieces in a few months.”

There went the pearls. “I worry about you, Josephina. You’ve had a rough few months. Come home and let me help you get refocused and things will settle, I promise.”

Refocus—meaning she’d have to change to make her parents proud.

A ball of disappointment settled in her chest. She’d worked hard over the past few years to curb the impulsive side of her that drove her parents crazy, and their lingering lack of belief in her made it difficult to breathe. It hurt that they couldn’t see that all of her past training had prepared her for this exact project. She might take a different path than the traditional one, but she was good at what she did.

A loud zap of electricity sounded from the back of the house and the lights in the front room flickered out, followed by a howl. Whether it was from Boo or Rooster she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. It was as good an excuse as she was going to get.

“Gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you later.” Feeling deflated, she hung up. The phone immediately vibrated again.

“If everything’s all right, I’m going to call it a day,” Rooster said. The hair on his forearms was slightly singed, but the lights were back on. “Powers up and running. Let’s just hope it stays that way till morning. I can bring over some traps if you’d like.”

“I don’t know where I’d move them to.” Josephina tried to force a smile to her face.

“Leaving them up in your vent duct isn’t healthy. Plus that mama’s ornery as a rattler with its tail in a knot. If you’re not careful she might just rip your face off.”

“Really?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

 Just like the bears, she thought bitterly. “Well, I can’t throw them out. I mean, she’s only trying to protect her babies.”

“It’s what mamas do.” Rooster placed a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “Even if they go about it the wrong way.”

Not knowing how to respond, Josephina quickly thanked him for the power and the use of his phone, returning it to him, and waved until his truck disappeared in a cloud of dust, thankful that she hadn’t embarrassed herself by bursting into tears.

Walking into her bedroom, she flopped down on her bed. She should be grateful that she had parents who cared and loved her. And she was, most of the time. It was just that she hated everyone thinking she was nothing but a screw-up. She could make this inn a success and she didn’t need their money or connections to do it. She just wanted their love and support.

There was no one to blame but herself. Her parents were only doing what they’d done for her entire life—fix her messes. It wasn’t that they didn’t love her, they were just trying to protect her. Which was why when her phone rang, she found herself actually smiling when she answered.

“Hey, Mom. I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Actually, it’s Wilson.” Josephina shot up. Her smile faded and any warm fuzzies she had sent out into the universe for her mom instantly evaporated. “Don’t hang up.”

Josephina closed her eyes and, with a big sigh, lay back. They had spent four years together, she should at least give Wilson a chance to apologize. “Fine, you have one minute.”

“Look, I want to be friends.”

“Friends don’t lie to each other.”

“Don’t be like that.” His sweet tone was really starting to piss her off. Wilson didn’t do sweet—unless he wanted something. “We had some good times and I don’t want to see years of friendship and memories just go away. I care for you, love.”

Josephina looked up at Jimmy Dean and waited for the butterflies in her stomach to start, for her heart to turn over at the familiar endearment. She closed her eyes, focused harder. Nothing.

The only stomach action she got was red-hot anger at the reminder that Wilson had been cheating on her for over a year. With a woman named Babette.

“What memories are we talking about? The ones where you were fucking your employee? Or the one where you left me stranded on a tarmac in my teddy?”

“Like you gave me an option,” he bit out, not so sweet anymore.

“This is your grand gesture? Your big apology?”

She could almost see him setting his glasses on the desk and rubbing his face. “You know what, it’s not. The only thing I am sorry for is trying to make it work for so long. My life, my career demands order and you’re—so damn unpredictable.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Josephina said, her chest hollowing out a little at the truth behind his words.

“Are you kidding? Living with you was like living with an F-5.” Apparently, Wilson had been watching the Discovery Channel again. He liked to watch “learning shows” so he could slide random facts into social settings and sound smart.

 “And I’m sure living with me was suffocating,” he said, his voice softening, reminding her of the man who had charmed his way into her heart. “Think of how that would have been in a few years, how constrained you’d have felt as a society wife. I didn’t want that—for either of us. Not to mention my career couldn’t have weathered it.”

She looked up at Jimmy Dean again, needing his support. He seemed to stare back, smiling, as if laughing at her. She’d been a society girl her entire life and sometimes that pressure felt like a shot straight to the chest, knocking the happiness right out of her life.