Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Jake had left.
    Sugar glanced at her sister as she moved the caramelized pecans to a white dish. “Why?”
    Lucy eyed the hot pecans. Maggie stared at the nuts too. “He’s working an angle,” Lucy said.
    “Aren’t we all?” Sugar didn’t care about angles. She had enough to worry about without Jake’s angles. Although, truth be told, his bulges would interest her more than his angles. The man was strong and muscular and big everywhere. She had a feeling he knew all the moves a woman liked.
    “He stares at you every time he thinks you’re not looking.” Lucy picked at a nail, then bit it off. “If he wasn’t scared of you, he’d try to get you into bed.”
    “Scared of me?” Sugar shook her head. “I don’t think Jake Bentley is afraid of me, or much of anything, probably.” He wore his hair long and unbrushed, like he didn’t care. His jeans had been nicely tight and a bit worn the couple of times she’d seen him. He had clean nails, clear skin, a do-me smile—Sugar ignored the shivers shooting over her and stirred the sauce faster.
    Maggie picked up a pecan, considering it closely. “We may be getting very close to the proper texture. I just wish I could remember the recipe better.”
    “This is what I find so fascinating and exhilarating.” Lucy picked up a pecan, chomping it irreverently. “We decided to move here and start a business without any idea of what we’re doing. No recipe, no backup plan. But most importantly, no recipe.”
    “We have a recipe.” Sugar’s tone was reproving. “When Maggie remembers it, we will have a recipe.”
    Maggie lit a cigarette, then opened up the back door. “I will remember it,” she said, going outside, “when things calm down around here a little. I don’t remember stuff well when I’m stressed. They say moving is almost as stressful as divorce, and I believe the genius who figured that out.”
    Paris followed Maggie outside. Lucy sighed. “Do you really believe she’ll remember her grandmother’s recipes?”
    “Does it matter?” Sugar sank onto a barstool. “Or does making her happy, getting her mind off the breast cancer, matter more than anything?” Maggie had been anxious in Pensacola. It was the cancer; it was staring down the number of days of one’s life. Sugar wanted her mom to think about anything but her cancer, which was in remission and, God willing, would stay in remission.
    If there’s a God, and I know there is.
    “So how long do we have, financially, if Maggie doesn’t remember?” Lucy’s blue eyes were opaque pools in her face.
    Sugar sighed. “I’ve got enough money saved for a year. By Christmas, we’ll know if we can make a go of this, I think.”
    “What if,” Lucy said, “we’d played our cards a little differently? What if you’d stayed married to Ramon, and I’d found a husband, and we’d been able to take care of Maggie? Instead of relying on her to dream up a recipe of her grandmother’s that she used to love?”
    Impatience smote Sugar. “There’d been too many women for me to forgive Ramon, as much as I might have once believed that the two of us were soul mates. I learned over five years that a man may have a soul mate, but he also wants lots of bed mates, and it’s different. As for you finding a husband”—Sugar shrugged—“I wouldn’t want you to marry someone you didn’t love. Trust me, as bad as marriage was to Ramon once I caught him cheating, marriage would be worse if you weren’t in love.”
    “I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I’d do it for Mom.”
    “Maggie wouldn’t want you to. She’s been married twice. It’s not a path she plans to go down again.” Sugar looked at Lucy. “Besides, you haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life yet. Do that first.”
    “And when do you figure it out?”
    Sugar looked out the window, watching Maggie walk through the pecan grove with Paris at her side, happily content to keep Maggie company while she smoked her