The Bitter Heir and the Beauty (On the Hunt for Love #2)

3. Two Cowpeas in a Pod

Chapter 3

Two Cowpeas in a Pod

W ith a huff, I stride into the kitchen. Antoine has the day off today, meaning I’m a full-time cobbler—not a shoemaker or baker of the popular dessert. But if I were ever to change the menu here, I’d add some kind of fruit cobbler served warm a la mode. My mouth practically waters. Most days, I don’t get a break for lunch. But I mean that I’m cobbling together my entire life, including playing cook today.

The experts are wrong. There’s no such thing as work-life balance.

This reminds me, I owe Molly cream brool, as she insists on calling it.

While the pancakes sizzle on the grill—they’re not flapjacks—I scowl at the newcomer through the food delivery window.

Him, Hotcakes? Non, non, non . My buns-n-biscuits.

That reminds me, I need to make a new batch for tomorrow. But right now, I crack some eggs for the crème br?lée. I’m not a professional chef, novice home cook, or trained to make fancy desserts. However, I have a knack—some might say a taste—for preparing foods that are a degree better than edible.

But that’s the only degree I have.

Barely escaping high school, the one thing I’m truly good at was a dream I had to let go of because of other people’s poor decisions. Mr. Monster Truck out there with his firm muscles pressing against the hem of his T-shirt, and his arrogant smolder only drives home that point.

I wanted the parking spot closest to the Laughing Gator because I was late after racing back to Lexi and JQ’s new house after forgetting to leave them with Leonie’s diaper bag.

From the dining room, a cell phone rings, and then a deep voice says, “Maddo.”

Not able to ignore the conversation and using context clues, it shouldn’t surprise me that this guy answers his phone by saying his name. Who does that except for the cockiest of guys in movies? Maddo, the monster truck driver, that’s who.

Technically, the Ford isn’t a monster truck, but he was driving like he was at a rally. Must’ve been really hankering for caffeine and breakfast.

I want to let these pancakes cook until they turn into hubcaps and then toss them at Maddo’s head like a series of frisbees, but I take a deep breath, roll my shoulders back, and lift my chin. I’ve dealt with worse, especially back in my racing days and more recently during the annual Hogwash Hunt.

Once a year, people descend on our town, thinking they have front-row rights, and then leave it in ruins. But I remind myself that their presence provides a little financial boost so I can scrape through the other eleven months.

I peer through the food delivery window. Molly and Roxanne speak in a hush, likely gossiping about our newcomer.

Maddo has a full head of brown hair, a fashionable amount of stubble, and blue eyes that are dark in the center with a lighter blue ring around the iris, reminding me of the circle on a peacock’s feather. He smirks as if he caught me staring.

As if I’d waste my time.

Sizing him up is more like. If he wants to go head-to-head, all I need to do is give the Porsche an oil change and I’ll leave him in the dust.

I’ve tried to get rid of the Spyder. No one will buy it from me—not that there’s much of a market for sports cars in Hogwash. But even going farther afield, I’ve been refused at dealerships and private sales across the state. I’m marked with an X because a lot of big money was bet on me to go to nationals. I ended up having to use my regional winnings and entry fees to bail my mother out, which resulted in me being swamped with the Laughing Gator Grille, meaning they lost big. As if that weren’t bad enough of a punishment, I’m forced to drive the thing. If you have a lead foot like mine, it’s all too tempting to kick it past forty miles per hour, but I can’t afford a speeding ticket.

Molly’s head of red hair fills the food delivery window, interfering with my view. “That was some meet cute.”

“More like meet rude,” I mutter.

“But he’s cute.”

“Rude,” I repeat as if we’re arguing over crème br?lée pronunciation again.

The Laughing Gator Grille isn’t a large establishment and by the way that the corners of Maddo’s lips twitch from behind his coffee mug, he hears every word of our exchange.

After a beat, he calls, “I didn’t see a sign that said Porsche Parking Only .”

“Hmm. Could be that you need glasses.”

He waggles his eyebrows at me. “Or it could be that I like what I see.”

I roll my eyes. I’ve been in this business long enough not to trust a flirt.

“There was no rush for you to get back. I was holding down the fort,” Molly says proudly, suggestively, as if Maddo and I were merely playing Monopoly with the parking spaces on Main.

I know his type. He thinks he’s a gift to women across the world—cities and small towns, rich and poor alike. A real charmer with that arrogant smolder that gives him a license to flirt.

The smell of scorching cream reaches my nose. I dash back to the pot on the stove where I’d started the crème br?lée and scrap it, then begin again.

Thankfully, the little bubbles in the pancakes were slow to form because the grill wasn’t yet at full temperature, buying me time. Take two: they’re cooked to perfection as usual.

Pride keeps me from serving my sole customer—aside from Mr. Soto—cold pancakes. I all but bring them out with bells—that would include a dusting of powdered sugar, a perfect pat of butter, and a side of fresh mulberries. “Here are your pancakes . Can I get you anything else?”

He nods at the syrup and butter. “That’ll be all. Thanks for the flapjacks .”

I narrow my eyes, convinced he only said that to irritate me. I don’t make it a habit of sassing customers, but he dug his way under my skin, making me itchy all over. However, instead of coming back with a zinger, I won’t waste my time and return to the kitchen to finish the crème br?lée.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a blow torch, though one would come in handy today for more than caramelizing the sugar. I carefully brown the top of the custard under the broiler.

With a smile, I return to the dining room where Molly not-so-subtly watches the out-of-towner eat the pancakes as if she’ll glean his life story by the way he cuts little triangles into the stack and lets the syrup drip off before he stuffs the bite into his mouth.

Actually, perhaps you can tell a lot about a person by how they eat. Namely, that he’s full of himself.

I set the crème br?lée on the counter in front of Molly who sits only one spot away from Maddo.

She bounces to her feet and gasps. “You made me cream brool!”

“Crème br?lée,” he and I say at the same time.

Our gazes meet and we exchange a glance akin to the one when we were both vying for the parking spot. But his blue eyes on mine send a flutter through me that makes me rethink the one thing I know about myself.

Honey Hamilton Fact Number One: I’m unflappable.

Right now, with that gaze on me, I feel very flapped. So flapped. Super flapped.

A female voice with a Louisiana accent that’s the same as mine but older, says, “Honey, where’s the fire?”

Maddo jumps to his feet, alert. “Is there a fire?”

Betsy, one of the hair stylists from across the street, and the sweetest of the busy bodies in town, looks Maddo up and down. “Ten alarm.”

“That’s not a thing,” he says, wiping his mouth with a thin napkin.

Betsy’s eyes get all swirly. “You’re a ten out of ten.”

He tilts his head. “I don’t get your meaning.”

I’d like to know what criteria Betsy uses to grade guys because I give him two stars at most. Maybe three because he has nice teeth. Looks like he flosses.

Maddo peers around as if not accustomed to how things work in the small town “Arrivals Terminal.”

“I’m Maddock Witt, ma’am—friends call me Maddo. Nice to meet you?” The greeting is a barely veiled question, as if he’s not entirely sure what he’s dealing with.

They shake hands, then Molly extends hers as if for a kiss on the top like in old black and white movies. I half expect her to fall into reverie and say, Enchanté .

To her credit, Betsy acts normal, well, normal for a woman in her late fifties with strikingly brassy hair, an intense enthusiasm for garden gnomes and gonks, and who knows more about everyone in town than they do themselves—I think she’s been preparing to pass her crown to Molly.

Turning to me, Betsy says, “ Cher , Jesse is on his way back from Marais Way. I suggest you address the way you parked your car.”

I glance out the window. At least the door is closed. I’ll admit I was in a snit when I left it cockeyed in the parking spot with the driver’s side door ajar.

Molly, having practically licked clean the ceramic ramekin that held her crème br?lée, bounces to her feet and joins me behind the counter. “I got this.”

Betsy is right. I’d better move my car before I lose points with Jesse. It’s bad enough that I’ve been driving as much as I have lately. Unless it’s raining, I walk everywhere because sliding behind the wheel makes me long for what I can’t have. For the dream I gave up. It also puts me at risk for fines I can’t pay.

I reluctantly go outside. The sixty seconds it takes me to properly park resets my bearings. My cheeks return to their natural shade, my breath comes easier, and my irritation notches down. Could be the itty bitty sock on the passenger seat. Somehow, Leonie always manages to lose one.

When I return, Molly and Betsy all but have Maddock cornered for an interrogation. Good.

“So you’re a firefighter?” Molly twirls a curl of her red hair.

He bobs his eyebrows. “You’ve got that right.”

Never mind fires, this guy is so full of himself, he’s going to flood the town.

“Hotshot firefighter,” I say under my breath while wiping the counter.

He turns to me, capturing my eyes. “Let’s talk about how I’m hot.”

My stomach tightens. “Let’s not.”

“You don’t think I’m hot?”

“A cocky, arrogant city slicker is more like,” I mutter, not wanting them to join Team Maddo.

“East side of the Sierra Nevadas—Carson Spur specifically—mountain country.”

Betsy smiles. “I hear everything is bigger out west, fires included.”

He winks. “It’s not the size of the blaze, it’s the power behind the one putting it out.”

Both women’s cheeks flush. I flip on the overhead fan, then take a sip of ice water. Must’ve turned up the grill too high.

Molly says, “I figured you were here for the hunt.”

He nods. “I do hunt. Ducks and waterfowl mainly.”

“I mean the scavenger hunt.”

“It’s a bit early for that,” I say, since it’s barely fall and the scavengers descend in January.

He tilts his head to the side in question, but his gaze travels to me, blanketing me with the kind of hazy heat that radiates from a bonfire even at a distance.

I busy myself with refilling the napkin dispenser even though only three have been used today.

Betsy shakes her head. “According to my sources, who we have here is Mayor Maddo.”

Concerned that she may be experiencing confusion from prolonged exposure to hair-styling product fumes, I ask, “Betsy, can I get you anything to drink? Maybe some sweet tea, coffee, or?—?”

Lexi strides toward us. Where did she come from? I didn’t even hear the door open. I scold myself for being distracted.

My stomach plunges with worry about Leonie as I finish my sentence. “Root beer.”

Lexi waves her hands as if telling me that there’s a venomous snake by my feet. “Honey, I know that look. Not to worry. The lion cub is peacefully slumbering in Uncle JQ’s arms while he rocks her gently. It’s a sight to behold.” She sighs in a way that only a woman in love can at the thought of her man cradling an infant.

Relief washes through me that Leonie is okay, but why is she here?

Lexi says, “Everyone knows the Penny Gamble has the best root beer. No offense.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask Lexi, interjecting and giving her a tight-lipped look for trying to poach my customer.

She shrugs. “I had a pancake craving.”

Turning to Maddock, I say, “See? Pancakes.”

Lexi peers through the food delivery window. “Where’s Antoine?”

“I gave him a day off. It was Laramie and Maybelle’s birthday this past weekend and he needed to recover.”

Lexi rubs her stomach. “I cannot imagine having twins.”

Maddock says, “I can attest, the flapjacks were good.”

As I clear his plate, my hand brushes his, sending a flush of agitation across my skin and straight up to my cheeks. I grab his fork away, resentful that he liked my pancakes. His lips puff with a smolder as if he noticed the effect he had on me.

My eyes dart everywhere but there. Well, except for now. And now. And—you get the idea.

“Flapjacks. Is that what we’re calling them now?” Lexi asks.

“No. The menu is the same as it’s always been,” I say forcefully.

Molly chirps, “The cream brool is amazing.”

Lexi squints as if trying to decipher the town gossip’s words.

Eager to get Maddock out of here because of all the flapping happening inside, I take his nearly empty coffee mug, too.

“I thought you offered free refills.” He points to the sign on the wall.

This time, I can’t hold back. “Not to a cocky monster truck driver who thinks he can come in here and do whatever he wants, including calling my pancakes flapjacks.”

“Who made you the language police?”

My hand flies to my hip. “My restaurant. My rules.”

He lengthens his spine and juts his chin. “Whatever happened to the customer always being right?”

I point to another sign on the wall that the Coffee Klatch guys got me last Christmas. It says The customer is always right except when they’re wrong .

Everyone stares at us as if watching a tennis match. This could be the winning stroke for Hogwash or the losing one for customers, depending on which side they’re rooting for.

Eyes fixed on me, practically giving me a sunburn, Maddock says, “Wait. Don’t answer that. My town. My rules.”

A low, “Oooh,” choruses in the dining room. Then, everyone falls silent.

All I can hear is my heartbeat in my ears and see the blaze in his eyes.

Where’s my carefully cultivated cool? I’m flapping and flustered right now, which makes me feel like that tennis ball is bouncing around inside me.

“I was here first.” I flip my hair and walk the short distance to the coffee maker, then dump it down the drain while staring him down. “No. Service. For. You.”

“She does make the best pancakes. You’ll be missing out,” Betsy says.

Lexi squints. “He’s the new mayor, huh? Not by my vote. I elected Chick Jagger.”

I want to thank them both for siding with me.

“My rogue rooster?” Molly asks. “If I find out who put him on the ballot?—”

Roxanne coughs into her hand.

We all stare at her for a long moment in disbelief.

I say, “If animals are allowed to be mayor, my cat Minou would make a great candidate.”

Maddock looks up at the ceiling. “Where am I?”

“Hogwash Holler,” we all say at the same time.

He nods slowly. “The name really says it all.”

“And you recently came into some property within the township,” Lexi says slowly as if peeling back layers of the truth.

He nods equally slowly. “That’s right.”

“And that includes the chateau?” Molly asks.

He rubs the back of his neck. “It would seem so. The lawyer reviewed it all with me, but I haven’t quite taken everything into account.”

“If you’re Tickle’s heir, of course, it would include his former residence.”

No wonder he’s pompous. People in Hogwash loved Hogan, but it was in retrospect—according to accounts, the man was cantankerous, a sore loser, and prone to wandering around town at night, scaring the ghosts after imbibing enough Fifolet to drown a gator.

“Congratulations,” I say dryly because although the name chateau implies a posh location, he’ll be mighty disappointed when he sees the state of the once grand property.

Lexi says, “Honey, why don’t you show our newcomer over there?”

I choke on ... nothing. Air goes down the wrong pipe. When I catch my breath, I ask, “Me? Is this revenge for insisting JQ show you around town?”

Her grin is impish. “How would that even work?”

I’d pledge to get her back for getting me back if she didn’t help look after Leonie.

If this is true, Maddock has the key to a door that ought to remain closed. There’s no treasure. But there are treasure hunters. And secrets, lies, loss. Tears even. But no treasure. At least not anymore. I would know.

People come and go, either dismissing us locals or using us with the hopes of getting treasure insight, but I’ve got nothing other than this secondhand life, so he won’t be getting anything from me.

Maddock tosses two twenties on the counter, which is more than double his tab. We all stare at it, more accustomed to smaller bills, coins, and pocket lint.

“Yeah. Let’s go check it out.” His gaze lands on me expectantly.

Maddock is annoyingly handsome and he knows it, which grinds my gears. I’m a warm cucumber. Nothing cool about me right now.

“Betsy, didn’t you need help with something?” I hedge.

She waves her hand dismissively. “That was just Hogwash. I wanted to see this hotcake that rolled into town.” She bats her eyelashes. “You have very thick hair. Come by the salon when you need a trim. Thelma would love to meet you.”

I highly doubt that. Thelma is about as friendly as the crocogator.

“Go on. I’ll mind the Grille if you make me another cream brool,” Molly says.

Why isn’t anyone helping me out here?

“Come on. Show me around,” he says with the smug kind of smile of a guy who’s used to a female feeding frenzy.

“You’re going to regret this,” I say, but the flutters inside make me wonder if I’m talking to myself or him.

“Y’all are like two cowpeas in a pod. Now off you go,” Betsy says.

For being such a small woman, she has a surprising amount of strength when she shoves us together.

I stumble in my wedge heels.

Maddock grips my arm to steady me, making the flapping inside extend to my fingers and toes. Not at all liking the way that feels or what it could mean, I yank my arm away.

Molly and Lexi all but thrust me out the door.

“No using the grill until I get back,” I holler.

But the three women already have their heads together, gossiping.

I can practically hear them now, speculating about which one of us will swing—or knowing their romantic notions of firefighter hotcakes—fall first. It won’t be me. I’ve dated a few guys, they come and then they always go. This one will be no different.