He pulled over.
He gave a short, incredulous laugh. “You havegotto bekiddingme.”
The left side was almost entirely white, which made the rest of the visual quite striking. A twenty-foot high profile of a woman. Her gigantic, sparkly, neon raspberry-colored lips were aimed in a coy exaggerated pucker toward the highway as she blew a dandelion, her hair streaming out behind her like a flag.
They’ll all wish they were you, said the words across the top.
Below that it said,Goddess Cosmetics.
“You havegotto be fucking kidding me,” he said blackly.
The woman, naturally, was Rebecca Corday.
He banged his head twice theatrically on his steering wheel. And then he sat back and sighed, which tapered into an ironic laugh. “Well, good foryou, Becks.”
His ex-girlfriend might be taking over the world one billboard at a time. That had always been her goal, anyway.
He’d just taken a beautiful blonde on an oak table, and frankly, he considered himself the winner.
“Well, hello there, McCord.”
J. T. turned abruptly to see Glenn Harwood of the Misty Cat.
“Hey, Harwood. Doing a little Home Depot shopping, eh? Yeah, that one, thanks,” he said to a sales associate rolling a green wool carpet onto a huge cart loaded with other things he’d just requested.
Glenn was holding a big mag light and a lantern. “Had a few repairs to do at the Misty Cat, but these were on sale this week. Can never be too prepared for winter blackouts. Storms up here can get nasty.”
“Always smart to plan ahead.” J. T. made a mental note to add a mag light and a lantern to his list.
“Ran into one of my sons over in the bathroom fixtures and he said some guy said someone was buying everything in the store by just pointing at it,” Glenn added. “Figured it was you.”
J. T. laughed. “Yeah, I need a lot of stuff. I just bought the old Greenleaf place. I’ll have some place to stay while I’m filming here.”
Glenn whistled. “Congratulations. Good bones, that place. Smart little house.”
J. T. was charmed by the use of the wordsmart. “I thought so. I need a few basics. Refrigerator. A couple of lamps. A sofa. And chairs. A rug. A bed. A new deck. Possibly a new roof.”
“Yeah, I’d say that about covers the basics,” Glenn said dryly. “You have some work cut out for you, though.”
“I like work,” J. T. said easily. “And I still have a little downtime.”
J. T. needed to get his basics picked out quickly, before a crowd gathered or anyone looked set to rebel against the blast of charm he’d used to cajole them into keeping their phones sheathed. When it was choice between photos and selling a lot of stuff to a rich guy, the staff had shown their practical side.
“I can probably knock off most of what the porch needs in an afternoon. I’ll have some time to do the work in a few days. I’m pretty determined to sleep there tonight whether or not I get a bed in there. A guy can only stay so long in Angel’s Nest.”
Glenn nodded sympathetic agreement with this. “You got any carpentry skills, McCord?”
“Oh, yeah. Some. Did some carpentry work as a kid. Worked a little construction in L.A. when I got out of the army. Before I got my first TV gig. Pretty sure I can handle what needs to be done on that house. Yeah, that’s the one,” said J. T., when a couple of guys gestured with wide questioning eyes at a big stainless-steel refrigerator.
The guys in Home Depot were all wearing dazed grins.
“Remember,hugetip for all of you if you get this delivered up to Hellcat Canyon tonight,” J. T. added.
A little silence went by as Glenn watched all of this with every evidence of absorption.
Some men dreamed of dating any woman in Hollywood they chose. Some guys dreamed of walking into a Home Depot and just pointing at anything they wanted and being able to take it home.
“Our Britt show the Greenleaf place to you?” Glenn asked.