Flint tried to shut out the bass beat of the band as he entered another number into the minus side of his calculations. He’d saved his laptop from the auction, but the keyboard was too cramped for his hand, and he couldn’t enter numbers easily. He’d have to buy a bigger keyboard. For now, he could calculate the old-fashioned way—by pencil and Charlie’s adding machine.
He stopped at the sound of Jo’s clear soprano ringing over the rumble of the crowd in the next room. His toe tapped to the rhythm of her song. It must be somebody’s birthday. He’d learned Jo never appeared on stage as she had for him. She usually sat at the table of the friend she was targeting with her song.
He’d give hard money to wander in there and listen, but he didn’t think he could settle at just watching her this time. He could see her wiggling her fanny in that fringed leather with his eyes shut. He’d woken up this morning dreaming of her in bed beside him with her golden curls draped across his pillows.
The heat-seeking missile in his pants had found its target and needed only the right excuse to take aim and fire, without considering the consequences.
And in this case, the consequences could be very ugly. Jo wanted what he’d given up. He knew too much to be seduced back into that life again, no matter how hot her kisses. He didn’t want to lead her into thinking differently, but Jo was used to manipulating men, and she’d think she could change him.
He tried to concentrate on numbers as Jo’s song ended, but every column showed him coming up so far in the red that he didn’t want to think about it. Between the mortgage and the credit line at the supply store, he owed more than he was worth. If business slowed down for any reason, he’d have to give up the house and sleep in the back room.
Or in Jo’s apartment, but that was back to mixing business with pleasure and would be disastrous for his relationship with the boys.
He had safely turned his thoughts to entertaining John and Adam tomorrow, when his office door crashed open, slamming into the cracked chair behind it.
With backlighting from a lamp in the hall, Joella appeared to hover inside a golden halo, but no angel ever looked like Jo. She had hot sex stamped from the supple curves of long legs and arms, to the outline of her full breasts behind the blue knit.
“Mama’s took sick, and I need to get her down to the hospital in Asheville. Can you look after the kids so Amy can go with me? We need her SUV.”
Flint responded to her panic and not the song his body was singing. “I’m better at driving than taking care of kids. If Amy will let us have the SUV, I’ll drive, and she can use my truck to take the kids home. Where is your mom?”
Flint was at the door, catching her elbow and turning her around, before Jo could protest his orders.
She swiftly fell into stride with him. “In the restroom. Everything she ate came up, and now she’s shivering and hardly conscious. She has hepatitis and cirrhosis and takes a lot of medicine. I think it’s a reaction to a new one.”
Flint had only just met Marie, but he hated to think of that feisty woman hurting.
They found Sally reassuring Josh and Louisa outside the restroom. “If you could drive us to my parents’ house, I’d be happy to look after them,” Sally offered. “I can’t drive.”
“And Evan is out of town—again,” Jo said. Her sarcastic tone morphed into cheerfulness as she shoved open the restroom door. “How are you doing in here?”
The question sounded so upbeat that Flint would have mistaken the seriousness of the situation if he hadn’t learned Jo’s body language well. She was stiff as a board and would have started throwing things if anyone set her off.
“Just take me home,” he heard Marie say. “The hospital costs too much. I’ll be fine.”
“You are not fine,” Joella argued. “You have insurance. That’s what it’s for.”
Relieved that Jo’s mother wouldn’t have to come up with emergency room costs, Flint turned back to Sally. “I’ll take Jo and her mom down,” he commanded the situation, acting in the only way he knew how. “The kids would be better off in their own beds.”
His instinct was apparently correct. Sally looked relieved, and just inside the door, Amy stepped out to gather up her worried children and give him a grateful smile. “You’re a saint, Flint. Jo would have driven us off the mountain in this rain, she’s that frantic.”
He nodded and prayed that he didn’t do the same. Jo had the ability to spin his head off his shoulders on a good day. This wasn’t turning out to be a real good day.
***
“She’s resting, Miss Sanderson. You can’t do anything more. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” The nurse nudged Jo to the door.
Jo glanced past the nurse, hoping for one more glimpse of her mother, but the aide had pulled the curtains around the bed and turned off the lights. Frightened, she didn’t want to leave. “I could just sleep in that chair over there,” she suggested.
“The room’s much too small, Miss Sanderson. I’m sorry. We have to think of our other patients. Visiting hours start at nine.”
Ushered down the hall to the waiting room, blinking back tears, Jo had Flint’s arms around her before she remembered walking into them.
“How is she?” he murmured, cuddling her as if she were a small child.
He did that so well. His arms were big and strong, and his wide shoulders shielded her from a world of woe. She wanted to curl up against him and weep, but she’d done that before and didn’t want to wear out her welcome. He was being amazingly kind for someone who had every right to distrust her.
He’d taken over and returned order to her chaos. For that alone, she was grateful.
“She’s sleeping. They’re giving her fluids and antibiotics. They think it’s just a bug.” She prayed it was just a bug. Watching her mother pass out like that had scared her straight through. “She’s going to kill me though. The mill’s HMO won’t cover the emergency room because we didn’t call her doctor first.”
She rested against Flint, absorbing his strength and life force. He simmered with passion and energy, and she marveled that he didn’t explode from holding it all in. His arms tightened around her, and she didn’t fight his embrace, even knowing she should. He’d already showed her plainly that the heat between them had no future. Not in his head, anyway. Hers was ready to accept anything in exchange for more of his kisses. Guess that made him smarter than she was.
“Do you have some way of paying the bill for her?” he asked.
“Amy, except Evan is getting nasty about money. We always figure it out.” She dismissed the problem with a shrug, although the constant worry about money was as debilitating as her mother’s disease.
“Do you want to get a room here so you can be back first thing in the morning?”
This was a tourist town in summer. Rooms on a Friday night didn’t come cheap if they could be found at all. She could stay with Rita, but she wasn’t up to her friend’s questions. “Amy can drive down. Tomorrow’s your time with the boys. Peggy can’t handle the café alone.”
“We’ll worry about that in the morning. Let’s get you home.”
Jo didn’t want to leave Flint’s arms. She was a strong woman. Life had taught her to stand on her own. But every once in a while, it was nice to have someone to lean on.
She’d relied on men before and look where that had got her. Jo straightened and stepped back from the security of Flint’s iron-clad hold. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She’d fall apart if she saw the least bit of sympathy there.
“I appreciate this, Boss Man,” she said, putting a distance between them to cool off the sparks they were striking. “You went above and beyond the call of duty.”
If he was ticked at her cool response, she couldn’t tell. They took the elevator and walked out of the hospital in silence, not touching. The rain hadn’t let up while they were inside. Hoping the downpour would cool off any simmering embers, Jo dashed across the blacktop rather than have Flint pull around for her.
She wasn’t used to handling SUVs so Flint drove while she turned on a blast of heat in hopes of drying off. They exchanged cursory directions but avoided the personal. The atmosphere was so thick with awareness, she figured they could ignite any moment.
As the big vehicle rolled silently up the mountain, the dark and the rain apparently loosened his tongue—or the silence was too fraught with tension, and he sought to break it. “I talked to Elise DuBois today.”
“I wondered when she would call.” She appreciated the distraction. “Slim says she’s been all over him, tracking down the evidence I didn’t think existed.”
Jo didn’t take her scraps of paper very seriously. She was still grappling with the notion that her words were worth selling. She wanted to believe she could earn enough money to help her mother, but after years of disappointment, she’d learned it wasn’t that easy. Flint must have done some fancy rewriting of her rhymes, and he was telling her now that she didn’t have a case. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.
Their conversation sounded normal and harmless, like that of an old married couple and not the minefield that it was.
“The evidence exists,” he assured her. “She’s in possession of the original lyrics in your handwriting, which constitutes copyright under the law.”
“Which is worth the price of a hill of a beans if I didn’t register them with that publisher Elise talked about.” Jo shrugged. She knew nothing about copyrights. She’d just had fun writing rhymes while the guys played. Her payment had been the band’s gratitude, audience appreciation, and three years of Randy’s promises to take her out of here. She really was old enough to know better. She might crave fame and fortune like a child begs for candy. That didn’t mean she deserved it.
“You wrote a couple of the songs on the back of Charlie’s invoices.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t always have notepads laying around and Charlie never filed anything.” She’d noticed that Flint had flung out all the yellowing files and trash that had accumulated over the decades in Charlie’s office. He’d even bought some fresh file folders in different colors, and she’d actually seen him put things in them. She was impressed.
“The invoices were dated. Elise says that doesn’t mean a judge will believe the date on the invoice corresponds to the date of the lyrics, but it’s a better indication than anything RJ is likely to produce. She’s also obtained a copy of the CD from the Charlotte studio you told me about. The studio has good records and can date when it was done, although both you and RJ sang on it, so it’s also of dubious evidence.”
“Well, I never expected manna from heaven anyway.” She had hoped though. There for a little while—after she got past her fury—Flint had got her excited about maybe making enough money to help a little. What good was insurance that didn’t cover the emergency room anyway? She’d have to think about getting a second job.
She turned on the radio, but all she found was static. The mountains blocked clear signals. From experience, she knew Amy’s choice of CDs included things like The Froggie Went A’Courtin’.
“I didn’t mean that wasn’t enough,” Flint said over the static. “I mean that gives Elise physical evidence to back up the statements the band made saying you wrote all the lyrics, and they composed the tunes. Since we didn’t use the Buzzards’ music, they don’t have a case, but yours still holds.”
Jo switched off the radio and stared at Flint’s profile in the glow of the dashboard. He handled the clumsy SUV on the mountain curves with the expertise of a race car driver and the ease of a man not aware of his own strength. He wasn’t speeding, just maneuvering the big vehicle on the unlit two-lane as if it were broad daylight, even though the downpour nearly obliterated the view of the road despite the frantic efforts of the wipers.
She hated driving this road with the cliff straight up the right side and straight down on the left. She’d driven it since she was sixteen and had learned to respect the mountain’s dangers. But right now, she was stuck on Flint’s comments and not his driving.
“We have a case?” she asked in simple terms that she understood.
“You do,” he corrected. “I don’t understand the legal maneuvering, but she’s definitely filing the suit if you give her the go-ahead.”
“Shouldn’t she have told that to me?” she asked, looking for the flaw that would shatter her hopes.
“She still needed to verify a few things with me, but yeah, she probably should have. It’s that good-ol’-boy thing. I’m the one with the name and the contacts, and she wanted to make certain I understood what happens next. You’ll probably get a phone call Monday when she has it all together.”
She must be more tired than she realized. She didn’t go into a rant over good-ol’-boys, or shout in jubilation over the possibility of little ol’ Joella bringing Randy to his knees, although just the prospect gave her a true jolt of glee. She sat there and pondered all the implications, but her brain wasn’t too used to that and didn’t get far.
Instead, the enormous memory bank of music that apparently took the place of her brain spun old tunes until her toe tapped to a tune no one but she could hear.
With the windshield wipers clapping time, she hummed a gospel song about the walls came tumbling down. Her sense of humor kicked in, and the gospel turned to Dixieland. “When the clowns come tumbling down, you’d better be there, in a hurry, when the clowns come tumbling down,” emerged from her mouth.
Switching from Dixieland to country, Flint picked up the refrain, adding in a gravelly voice, “’cause the sight isn’t pretty, when the clowns come tumbling down.”
She chuckled and sought a rhyme for pretty, but a thundering boom rattled the car, interrupting the process. A frightening clatter on the roof and hood drove all thought out the window. Flint eased up on the gas and strained to see out the rain-soaked windshield. “I didn’t see any lightning, did you?”
Now that she was watching, Jo could see a hail of rocks bouncing off the hood. She screamed as they maneuvered a hairpin curve and the headlight beams caught a flurry of gravel cascading from the cliff face—illuminating a boulder the size of the SUV in the highway ahead.
Flint slammed the brakes into a terrifying squeal. The SUV’s rear end fishtailed in time to his rabid curses.
Jo held her breath as tightly as he held the steering wheel, waiting for the thunderous crash that would either kill them instantly or send them flying off the cliff to an agonizing death. Tires and brakes screamed. Trees growing out of the rock cliff whipped against the side window. Her seatbelt jerked tight, smacking her against the back of the seat as the airbags exploded, and the truck finally rocked to a quivering halt.
Shaken, bruised, Jo stared out the rainswept windshield as the bags deflated. A boulder taller than the SUV loomed over them, not inches from the front bumper. They were still on the road, although tilted at a bad angle with the back end in the gully between the road and the mountain. Jo shuddered.
“For the blessings we have received this day, my Lord, we thank you,” she murmured. She didn’t know how else to express appreciation for the horror that Flint had just avoided. Her heart pounded hard enough to push through her chest.
“Repeat that again for me,” he said grimly, clenching the steering wheel and staring at the mountain’s revenge on man. Abruptly, he began rocking the SUV, seeking traction on the road while attempting to avoid the mudslide. “Does your sister keep flares or anything in here? Let me back down the road away from this rock, then we’d better set up warnings. Use my cell and call the police.” He unclipped his phone and threw it in her lap.
She was still murmuring prayers, but she understood his urgency. Anyone could fly around the curve in this pouring rain. If they were speeding just a little too fast, the SUV would be crushed between the rock and someone’s bumper. Logic replaced panic.
“Under the floor in back is the emergency kit.” Heart beating ninety miles an hour, Jo hit 911 and waited for the dispatcher while Flint maneuvered the SUV to solid ground, then rolled backward to a wide place off the right side of the road, out of range of the boulder. He climbed into the downpour to rummage in the back.
Cell phones didn’t often work out here, but for once in her life, something went right, and the call went through. After giving the location as best as she could since she hadn’t been watching, Jo hit Amy’s number to tell her what had happened and that she wouldn’t be back this evening. She had no idea how long it would take to move a boulder. She’d seen the road closed for months after a bad rock fall, but that had been when the mountain had taken the road out. The road appeared intact.
They’d have to drive around to the Knoxville side of the mountain and come down from the west to get home. It would add hours to the drive. The mill was on the other side. It would be cut off from their east coast suppliers.
A blocked road could destroy tourist traffic for the entire summer.
Trying not to think like that, she put in a call to Peggy. Maybe if Amy went in and helped Peggy out, the café could stay open in the morning.
By the time Jo had told Peggy how to find the keys to the café, Flint climbed back in, soaked and dripping all over the leather. “Don’t know if anyone will pay attention to those markers in this mess, but it’s the best I could manage.”
The silhouette of his broad shoulders against the gray window was immensely reassuring, and the low rumble of his voice aroused a desperate need to be held. Jo valiantly resisted. “The sheriff is sending a car down from Northfork and state police are heading up from this side. It’s all we can do.” She looked at the narrow road on either side of them and tried not to descend into hysterics. “Can we turn this monster around or do we have to back all the way down?”
“If we have to back down, it won’t be far. We passed my drive about a mile back.”
As if hearing her thoughts, Flint reached across the seats, cupped her head, and dragged her toward him. Jo surrendered eagerly, letting the heat of his kiss remind her that they were alive. Before the windows could steam up, they both pulled apart. This was neither the time nor the place, though Jo’s heart pounded in protest at the distance.
Without a word of comment, Flint switched on the ignition and angled backward until the taillights illuminated the cable fence on the sheer cliff side, then steered hard toward the mountain on Jo’s side of the road. “Let’s see how this baby turns.”
She dug her fingers into the edge of the seat while he shifted back and forth, repeating the maneuver until he had the long SUV turned down the mountain.
“You can breathe now,” he told her.
She expelled a lungful of air she hadn’t realized she was holding, then giggled with relief at the silliness of her response. Her lips stung from the intensity of their kiss, but she could brush it off for now if he could. “All right, Mr. Big Shot, you win this one. I give you a ten in mountain driving.”
Flint flexed his wet shoulders against the seat back to ease a knot, rubbed the back of his neck, shifted the gear, and started down the road.
“My place or Asheville?” was all he asked.
“Let’s not go all the way back to town in this,” she protested. The wipers barely kept the windshield clear, and the dark mountain road looked more ominous than ever. “I don’t know about you, but my nerves are shot for the night.”
After that kiss, she knew what she was saying, but she was a big girl. Flint wasn’t likely to jump her bones unless she let him. She was the question mark in this car.
“Did you call your sister?” he asked, not giving any evidence that he was surprised or relieved at her decision.
“Yeah, and Peggy. They’ll cover for us in the morning. I told Amy to stay away from the new stove until we’re there though.”
He shot her a questioning glance.
She managed a wobbly grin, although he probably couldn’t see it. “Amy has a magnetic personality. Machines go berserk around her.”
“Right.” He returned his attention to the road. “Good thing I bought the service plan.”
“At least your kids can get up here if you live on this side of the slide,” she said, trying to console him.
Instead, it shut them both up as her words sank in. His parents would be arriving with his sons in the morning. Jo had a feeling his parents wouldn’t approve of her presence.
“Would you rather take me back to Asheville?” she asked quietly.
“Hell, no,” he said so emphatically that she didn’t ask again.