Chapter Four
Phoebe eased her butt onto the ripped upholstery of the passenger seat in John’s elderly pick-up truck. She was trying to keep her knees glued together beneath the restrictive denim skirt so John wouldn’t get an unnecessary view of her underwear. Of course, he’d insisted on opening her door for her. That’s what 1950s etiquette dictated.
He shut her door soundly before she could remind him that she was perfectly capable of opening and closing her own doors. It was probably for the best. She needed to keep her lectures to herself until she was sure he was going to let her stay. He may have shown her a bedroom, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to show her the door in the morning.
She should have changed into jeans first, but she’d felt that might have been too presumptuous of her. She wasn’t opposed to presumption when it played in her favor, but she couldn’t get a read on the man. And any action she took could result in him sending her packing, putting her thesis in danger.
So, she’d settled for sending a subtler message, staking her claim by setting up her typewriter on John’s kitchen table.
He slid behind the wheel, and in the enclosed space, she caught a pleasing whiff of his soap. The ends of his hair were still damp from his shower, curling at the back of his neck. Physically, he ranked right up there with Hollywood’s finest hunks. Broad shoulders, tight jeans, a sexy face with chiseled lines, and a glorious crop of stubble. His eyes were serious, searching.
John Pierce was enough to make any woman pause to take in the view—as she had when he’d strolled into the kitchen—but Phoebe wasn’t quite ready to rule him the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on. Her level of attraction to a man depended heavily on character and intelligence, both of which had yet to be determined.
“Are we going into the town that time forgot?” Phoebe asked, securing her seatbelt.
The corner of John’s mouth turned up as he turned the key and shifted into reverse. “I take it you drove through Blue Moon on your way here.”
“What’s the story there?”
“Story?” he asked, as they bumped along down the lane.
She rolled her eyes skyward. “A place like that doesn’t not have a story behind it.”
“You ever hear of Woodstock?” John asked.
She shot him a cool look. “It sounds vaguely familiar.” There was that quirk in his lips again. Jerk.
“Well, after Woodstock wrapped, everyone headed home. But not everyone made it. A dozen or more partakers got lost on their way back and ended up setting up camp in the town square. They liked the place so much they decided to stay.”
“Just like that? They never went home?”
John shrugged his big shoulders. “Probably baked out of their gourds. I was twelve when they showed up, pitching tents, camping in VWs. The whole town smelled like grass.” His laugh was warm with the memory.
“You’re pulling my leg.” She could see the edge of town up ahead and was anxious for it to reveal itself.
John shook his head and grinned at her. And Phoebe felt her stomach turn itself into knots. Wow. The man had a smile that could melt her Maidenforms right off her. She’d have to watch out for that. She was here for professional reasons, not to dip a toe into the local dating pool.
“I kid you not. They were so good-natured and ‘make love not war’ and ‘free lovey’ that no one in town minded them. We had a town meeting and decided to help them all resettle here. Most of them and their families still live here today. Blue Moon assumed the hippies would adapt to us, but as you can see,” he said, pointing to a sprawling Victorian decked out in purple and pink. There were dozens of wind chimes hanging from both porches and a paint splattered school bus parked in the front lawn. “We were wrong.”
“Is that decoration?”
“The Fitzsimmons think so,” John said, with the lift of a shoulder. There was no judgment behind his tone. Just a casual acceptance of oddity.
It was too bad that he couldn’t extend that acceptance to her, Phoebe thought.
“And everyone just went along with it?” she asked.
“We were just a tiny farming community before 1969. Now, we’re practically a commune. You won’t ever find a tighter knit town,” he predicted.
She frowned as John slowed the truck and abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Phoebe Allen was no one’s fool, and they were not out of gas. But she kept her comments to herself when John slid out from behind the wheel and ambled around the front of the truck. She saw it then. Something slim and black on the road. A hose?
“Oh gross!” The hose moved as John approached.
She stuck her head out her window as John crouched down within what looked like striking distance. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Moving him off the road.” John’s voice was beyond calm. It bordered on bored.
“You’re not going to touch it, are you?”
“Can you please stop shrieking? He doesn’t like it.” John stood up and Phoebe’s eyes bugged out at the five feet of snake he held in his hands as casually as a garden hose.
“Don’t let it bite you!”
“Harmless black snake,” he called over his shoulder as he walked it across the street to the wooded gully. Phoebe wriggled out of her seat and sat on the window ledge to watch John over the top of the truck’s cab.
She saw the hideous thing swing what was most likely its head in John’s direction. He side-stepped it and deposited the snake in the tall grass.
“Harmless?” Phoebe asked.
“Won’t kill you if it bites you,” he clarified.
“But it would still bite.”
He shrugged. John’s equivalent of a retort.
He climbed behind the wheel again, and Phoebe slid back into her seat, her pulse still racing. “You just picked up a snake.” She shook her head at the image. Her farmer was an idiot.
“He just needed a little help. They sun themselves on the road, and if someone came around too fast he’d have gotten hit.” John shifted back into gear and the truck rumbled down the road.
A ha! The misguided hero type, Phoebe decided, studying his profile. He certainly looked the part. That was something she could work with.
Satisfied, she looked out her window at the town. And then her skin began to crawl. She checked both of her feet and under the seat, knowing full well it was just psychological. She didn’t miss the smirk on John’s lips when she was finally satisfied there was no snake ready to take a bite out of her.
At least he was smart enough not to comment, she noted. Instead, he pointed out a sweet little cottage tucked into a wooded lot on her right with the word PEACE painted across its front in a rainbow.
“That’s insane.”
John leveled a look at her. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
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Named in recognition of the endearing wandering hippies, One Love Park took up a whole block in the very center of town. There were signs staked into the ground at varying intervals.
Have you hugged a tree today?
Don’t worry. Be hippie.
Clothing no longer optional.
Phoebe kept her nose glued to the window, afraid she would miss something, as John cruised down the block. He pulled into a slot on the end of the park between a movie theater and a pizzeria.
Peace of Pizza was impossible to miss with its bright purple awning. The windows were decorated with colorful bubble-lettered posters describing specials. She could see lava lamps burbling away inside.
“No. Way.”
“No way to pizza?” John asked.
“Huh? No. I mean yes. I definitely want pizza. I just can’t believe a place like this exists.”
“Good, because our choices are limited. There’s a custard place across the street, a diner on the other side of town, and a Wag’s about ten miles south of here.”
Phoebe’s stomach growled. “Nope. Pizza is perfect.”
She climbed out of her seat before John could make it around to open her door, but she wasn’t fast enough to beat him to the front door of the pizza shop. She stepped inside and into sensory overload.
The usual pizza place scents of marinara and oregano enveloped her. But that’s where typical stopped. The shop’s walls, carpeted in orange shag, held black and white prints of the Woodstock greats. Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie. There were a dozen tables, half of them occupied. Each table had its own lava lamp in blues and oranges, and the salt and pepper shakers, when sat side-by-side, formed green and white peace signs. Phoebe sniffed the air as a server carrying a pie with a tomato sauce peace sign squeezed past.
“What brings you off the farm tonight, John?” A woman with ebony, waist-length dreadlocks and the flawless skin of a Cover Girl model leaned against the hostess stand. She wore a dashiki in faded burnt oranges and reds.
“Got an unexpected extra mouth to feed,” he said, jerking his thumb in Phoebe’s direction. “Lebanon bologna wasn’t going to cut it.”
The way the hostess grinned up at him, Phoebe guessed that might have been a slice of John Pierce humor.
“Phoebe, this is Bobby. She owns this establishment and makes the best sauce in five counties. Bobby, this is Phoebe the farm hand/grad student I was misled to believe was a man.”
Phoebe thrust her hand out to Bobby. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your shop is incredible, and I promise to enjoy it, even though I’m not a man.” She sent John a glowering look over her shoulder.
Bobby shook her hand with a firm grip and a white-toothed grin. “Man or woman, you’re welcome here.”
“That’s very open-minded of you, Bobby.” Phoebe sent another pointed look in John’s direction. “I appreciate that.”
It was John’s turn to roll his eyes.
Bobby guided them to a purple upholstered booth along the wall under a framed picture of Janis Joplin in all her round glasses and headband glory. Phoebe took the side with her back to the wall so she could enjoy the comings and goings of Peace of Pizza’s patrons.
It was an eclectic crowd. Customers in business suits shared tables with others dressed in decades-old denim and faded 60s rock band t-shirts. There were more headbands than perms, and Phoebe realized that, for once, she fit right in with her long, straight hair. If John let her stay, maybe she could find one of those wide, tie-dye headbands. A souvenir, a memento of her summer here.
He had to let her stay, she thought, fingernails digging into her palms. Everything she’d been working for was riding on him.
John pushed his unopened menu to the edge of the table. “Pizza?” he asked, interlacing his long fingers on the table.
“Loaded?”
“Pepperoni,” he countered.
“Pepperoni, sausage, and green pepper.”
“Deal.” He offered her his hand over the table. “Large?”
Phoebe accepted his hand and shook, trying not to enjoy the callused texture of his palm against hers. Her stomach gave an unladylike gurgle. “Definitely large.” She set her menu aside and mirrored his posture. “You strike me as a man who values when someone gets to the point.”
John didn’t say anything to acknowledge that he’d heard her, but his eyes, reflecting the light of the turquoise bubbles in the lava lamp, held her gaze.
“Let me tell you exactly what you’d be getting by letting me stay for the summer,” Phoebe insisted.
He unfolded his hands palms up. “By all means.”
“I’m strong and have a ridiculous energy level. I only need six hours of sleep a night and work my ass off every damn day. I’ve worked on my grandfather’s farm every summer since I was seven years old. I’m not afraid of hard work or heavy lifting, and I’m so close to finishing my master’s degree that I can taste it. I just need a sliver of your time and some hands-on experience to make this happen. I need your help, John. I can’t do it without you.”
She put it all on the table and gave him her best pleading look. Please, John.
“My future is in your hands.”