Hot in Hellcat Canyon by Julie Anne Long Read Free Book Online Page A

only worry.
    Mostly Britt was pretty content with the way things were these days. She could probably coast along the way she was forever.
    Laine wasn’t about to abandon the topic. “I’m just worried that if you only ever socialize with a nine-year-old, a ninety-two-year-old, and me, you’re going to forget how to communicate with regular adults, not to mention men. Not every guy wants to talk about butts.”
    “Are you saying you’re not an adult, Laine?”
    “What I mean is an adult who hasn’t known you since you couldn’t pronounce your ‘f’s. How’s that puzzy cat of yours?”
    When Britt was about three, she’d resourcefully substituted in “p”s for “f”s in all words until she got a handle on the “f”s.
    “He’s fine. And fat.” She had perfect control of them now.
    “Give him a scratch for me.”
    “I will. Lainie, I talk to people at the diner every day. Speaking of which, I have to get some sleep now, or I might drop plates tomorrow.”
    “Can’t have that! Okay sweets, love you. Alley-oop!”
    “Love you, too. Alley-oop!”
    The thing she used to say to Britt just before she was tossed up to the top of the cheerleading pyramid. Britt had always wanted to be on top, risk be damned. The view from there, she claimed, was better.
    And the screen went blank.
    Britt stood up abruptly. She realized her lungs were moving shallowly. “Jeff.” Just the sound of that name could get residual panic circulating in her bloodstream.
    She deliberately took deep, long, greedy gulps of warm night air, and tipped her head back to luxuriate in the scenery—yep, trees, stars, mountains, dirt, Hellcat Canyon. Home. Far, far away from Southern California, where she had once been happy and where everything had gone shockingly to pieces.
    “Oop!” She gave a start. She’d just remembered it was garbage collection tomorrow.
    She opened the latch on Mrs. Morrison’s gate and dragged her trash can and recyling bins out to the side of the road, and then she dragged her own bins out, and the physical exertion made her feel a little better.
    Then she returned to the deck and with one final bracing breath for courage, typed the rest of what she’d sat down to type almost a half hour ago.
    “. . . Cord.”
    She hit return.
    Good God .
    Such a torrent of information appeared, he was actually categorized by topic .
    She tentatively clicked his Wikipedia entry and scanned the headings:
Early Life.
Blood Brothers .
After Blood Brothers .
Personal Life.
Controversy.
    Imagine an entire life summed up in a series of categories. Imagine the internet deciding for you what the peak of it was, and arranging everything else as “Before” and “After.”
    Then again she supposed her life had “Before” and “After” portions, too. Not to mention a “Controversy” part.
    She swiftly scrolled through. Born in the Tennessee Mountains. He’d just turned forty. His mom died when he was ten. He married at eighteen, divorced a year later, joined the army at twenty, then settled in Los Angeles.
    According to Wikipedia, that was the sum total of his life up until the television program Blood Brothers. He was twenty-three when it started.
    It was a top-rated drama/comedy for seven years. Wildly popular. Umpteen Emmy nominations and awards for the show, including four nominations and two wins for Tennessee McCord as Best Actor, playing Blue Summerville, a cop. The character’s signature phrase (“Daaaaamn!”) briefly took over the nation, but was primarily beloved of frat boys. The series had turned both Tennessee McCord and Franco Francone, who played his partner, into big stars. The series finale broke television viewing records. It had ended in 2005.
    After one sentence about his first and only wife to date (one Denise Ray), “Personal Life” was devoted to Rebecca Corday.
    The whole world knew who she was.
    They were together for about five years. A pretty long time in Hollywood terms. It had ended for good a