“Thanks for picking these up for me,” she said, gesturing to the fleur-de-lis. She’d commissioned Gauthier’s own metalworks artist and restoration specialist, Phylicia Phillips, to start making them as soon as the sale of the bar went through.
“It was no problem,” Harlon said. “Phil’s new shop ain’t too far from the house.”
“Still, you saved me a trip,” Paxton said, plopping another peck on his cheek.
“Hey, where’s my kiss?” His grandson Donovan asked, leaning toward her.
“Boy, get out of here with that mess.” Harlon swatted him with the dusty Vietnam War vet baseball cap he’d been wearing for the better part of the three decades Paxton had known him.
Donovan frowned at his grandfather, then winked at Paxton.
“You can put those over there,” Paxton pointed toward the bar, which had been freshly waxed earlier that day. “I have an X marked with electrical tape on the wall. You’ll find a nail right above it that you can hang them on.”
“Fine, but it’ll cost you a kiss,” Donovan said with another wink.
Paxton rolled her eyes and released a heavy sigh. This one would be a problem.
When she’d driven over to Harlon’s house on the lake yesterday, she’d been informed by the twenty-two-year-old—whom she used to babysit for extra money back when she was in high school—that his grandfather was on a hunting trip. Donovan invited her to join him inside for a beer, an invitation Paxton had instantly turned down. It only made him more eager.
The little scrub had the nerve to tell her that he was going to make her his cougar. Paxton was so stunned by his boldness that she’d laughed in his face. She’d hoped her remarks about eating little tiger cubs like him for breakfast would have put an end to his pursuit, but apparently not.
While his grandson hung the artwork, Paxton threaded her arm through Harlon’s and took him on a tour. A ribbon of pride curled around her as he remarked on all the changes that had been done in the past couple of days.
“Girl, you are amazing. You turned this old dump into a palace.”
“This bar has never been a dump. You always took good care of it. We just spruced it up a bit.”
“Spruced it up, my foot. This place looks a hundred times better than it did before. A thousand. You did good by your mama, girl. I’m proud of you. She deserves this.”
Paxton barely managed to swallow the lump of emotion wedged in her throat. She coughed, ready to lay claim to the cold her mother had accused her of catching. Sentimental public displays had never been her style, and the sincerity in Harlon’s voice brought her close to the brink.
“Owning her own place has been a dream of hers for a long time,” Paxton said. “Thank you for selling it to us at such a reasonable price.”
He waved that off. “I’m sorry I had to sell it to you at all. If I’d been better at tucking money away, I would have given it to her.”
“She never would have taken it from you,” Paxton said.
She and Belinda had a lot of things in common, but that stubborn streak of pride was, by far, the strongest thread tying them together. The Joneses did not accept charity. Ever. They worked hard for what they wanted, and if they couldn’t get it on their own, then they weren’t meant to have it.
Paxton had lived by that simple philosophy all her life. It compelled her to never settle for second-best, because there was nothing like basking in the satisfaction of seeing your hard work pay off.
Like right now. The pure joy emanating from her mother as she swept a floor she’d swept thousands of times over the past two decades warmed every part of Paxton’s heart, and it made all the hard work and sacrifice it would take to pay for this bar worth it.
“Look at that smile on her face,” Paxton whispered in Harlon’s ear as they both stared at her mother.
“Not sure when I last saw her like this. Maybe when you walked across the stage to pick up that fancy college degree.” He nudged Paxton’s shoulder. “You just make sure she lets me come in and work every now and then.”
“She wouldn’t let you work when you owned the place,” Paxton said with a laugh. “I don’t know why you think things would change now.”
She guided Harlon to the new kitchen that had been added onto the bar. It had been under construction for the past month. With the installation of the three-part sink this morning, it was officially operational.
Donovan walked in and braced both hands high against the doorjamb. His shirt hem lifted slightly, exposing a set of tawny, well-defined abs. For a half second Paxton was intrigued, but then she remembered she used to change this kid’s diapers.
The momentary flourish of awareness was an understandable physical reaction considering the drought she’d been in over the past six months. The handheld device she brought to bed at night wasn’t doing the job it used to do.
“You need some help in here?” Donovan asked, winking again.
Then again, maybe she just needed to refresh the batteries.
“You’d better get that eye checked out,” Paxton told him. “All that twitching can’t be healthy.”
He entered the kitchen, stepping up to her. “Why are you giving me such a hard time? I’m not a little boy anymore. I can rock your world.”
Harlon knocked him upside the head with his baseball cap again.
“Dude.” Donovan rubbed his ear. He scowled at his grandfather. “Stop blocking my game, Grandpa. I’m trying to get something going here.”
“It will never happen,” Paxton told him.
“We’ll see,” Donovan said, a cocky smile tilting up the corner of his mouth.
Harlon shook his head. “Hormones got that one acting a damn fool. If he gets too vexing once he starts working here, just strangle him.”
“Hopefully he’ll be too busy helping customers to bother me with his tired pickup lines,” she said.
Her mother had hired Donovan to help out at the bar while he took yet another semester off from college to “explore his options.” Paxton was about 96 percent sure that she would, in fact, have to strangle the little Casanova before she returned to Little Rock.
If she returned to Little Rock.
She stifled a sigh. She had only been back in town for two days and already the should I stay, should I go back dance was getting the best of her. It happened every single time she came home to visit. But Paxton knew it was better to have some distance between herself and Gauthier, especially now that a certain someone was back in town. Permanently.
The rumble of a diesel engine and tires crunching over gravel came through the open doorway, tearing her attention away from those thoughts she had no desire to explore at the moment.
“Finally,”
