Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  “Girls can’t shoot!” Jimbo protested from the counter. “It takes a man to handle a shotgun.”

  “Maybe we could set up some targets for the kids and women and their little popguns,” some other wit in a John Deere cap suggested.

  Target shooting was for women and children? Jacques heard Pascal snort derisively, but he held his tongue. This wasn’t their world. He was just an observer. For now.

  He smiled in pleasure as Amy returned to the table with an overflowing tray of deliciously arranged food.

  “It’s not much,” she apologized, distributing the plates. “The minestrone is made with vegetable stock, but if you’re not vegetarian, you might try the chicken salad on the rolls. I think you’ll like it.”

  She looked more delectable than the food with her cheeks pink and her eyes shining, and the shimmery thickness of her hair brushing the delicate curve of her nape. He knew she was as aware of him as he was of her.

  “This is extremely generous of you,” he said with genuine delight, hoping to distract her from her nervousness. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had prepared food with their own hands just for him. “We certainly didn’t mean to make you work on your day off.”

  He shot a severe look to Brigitte, who immediately removed her Gallic nose from the air and murmured her gratitude. Pascal expressed his thanks in French, to which Amy responded in a halting high-school accent, before she retreated to the counter.

  “Hey, Amy, I betcha if both you and Jo would offer kisses as prizes, we could get more entries!” Hoss called, still in pursuit of his own agenda.

  “You want Flint to aim for your head?” Amy shooed the young waitress toward the door and began loading the dishwasher. “It’s three o’clock, you clowns. You don’t have to entertain the company any longer.” Although Amy had to admit that she appreciated having them here to shield her from Jacques’s searing gaze. She really didn’t want to know what was going on behind those long lashes and knowing eyes as he observed everything around him.

  “We’re just looking after you, Ames,” George Bob replied, rising and pulling out his wallet.

  She was almost two years older than George. As much as she might welcome his presence, Amy disregarded his paternal attitude. She handed him his change.

  “Reckon Amy’s reputation is safe here with the girls,” Jimbo drawled for everyone to hear.

  Amy threw his coins in the register and attempted a glare. “Watch your mouth, Jim, or I’ll have to wash it out with soap.”

  “He didn’t say a dirty word, did he, Mommy?” Josh asked, following the adult conversation with interest.

  “I took French class with your mom,” Jimbo explained, sliding his billfold into his back pocket. “She knows how to say dirty words in three languages.” Tugging on his cap, Jimbo waved at Jacques’s table. “See y’all later, Jackie.”

  Amy sent Jacques an anxious glance, but he was watching with amusement. No matter what his intentions, she hated having a customer insulted. Just because Jacques dressed fancy didn’t make him a wimp, but the men around here didn’t understand anyone different from them. Any female with operating hormones could tell the newcomer was hot enough to scorch.

  “Well, if Flint won’t let Jo be the prize, how about you, Ames? It’s for a good cause.” Hoss leaned against the counter, not ready to leave until she threw him out.

  The annual turkey shoot was a haphazard event designed to raise money for Fourth of July fireworks and Christmas decorations. Winning a kiss from Jo had been a popular contest these last few years, but Jo was a married woman now. And Amy wasn’t any longer.

  “What about Sally?” she argued. “Have you asked her?”

  “Aw, c’mon, Amy, give us real men a chance for a change. You don’t need to go lookin’ for furriners. We’ll raise enough to buy a new star for the tree if you’ll say yes.”

  She hadn’t thought Hoss looked at any woman except Jo. A blush crept up her neck even though she knew he was all bluster and few brains. She hadn’t kissed any man except Evan in ten years.

  “When is this event?” Jacques asked in a quiet manner that still made him heard above the ringing register.

  Hoss turned. “This weekend, if Amy will agree. Why, you interested in rifle shooting?”

  Turkey shoots were all about heavy shotguns and manly men. Hoss had asked about the ladies’ rifle competition with a smirk that Amy knew meant he’d set this up intentionally.

  Before she could intervene in a contest of twisted machismo, Jacques tugged his ear and smiled that boyish smile that made her knees melt and sent warning signals singing through her blood. Why the devil did he have that effect on her?

  “I’ll even sponsor an event, if you like,” Jacques suggested. “Do you know skeet shooting?”

  “Skeet? Ain’t no critters called skeet around here.” Hoss crossed his arms, leaned his hip against the counter, and regarded the table of strangers as if this were a spaghetti western, and he were Clint Eastwood.

  Amy smacked him against the back of his head with a plasticized menu. “They shoot skeet all the time. Don’t let the local yokel fool you.”

  Hoss belatedly dodged her blow and shot her a mournful look. “Aw, Ames, you’re gonna take all the fun out of it. Jackie here’s gonna think we’re easy marks.”

  “Can I shoot skeet, too?” Josh asked eagerly.

  “If your mother agrees, Master Josh. I will sponsor an event for children, as well. Ms. Amy, would you be so good as to tell me the appropriate prize for children?”

  “What event you gonna enter?” Hoss demanded, pushing his luck.

  “Any event in which Ms. Amy is the prize, of course.” Jacques held out his hand to Pascal, and a money clip stuffed with green appeared in his palm. “What is the entry fee?”

  Amy thought she might just sink through the floor. She had no desire at all to be the prize in this masculine tug-of-war. She had no idea why a man like Jacques would allow himself to be drawn into Hoss’s little joke, but she had to end this now.

  “Jacques, you don’t have to do this. Hoss got his name because he’s always horsing around.” And because he could be a horse’s ass, she should have added. He just wanted to best the rich stranger in a sport he excelled at — and suck as much money from him as he could.

  Jacques winked at her admonition, making it clear that she was the reason he was doing this. “I assure you, Amy, this will be my pleasure.”

  Amy contemplated what might be under the café floor if she sank through it. Spiders, mice, cobwebs, all would be more acceptable than this insane contest. Were they really betting on a kiss from her? Her, Amy Warren, Miss Invisible USA? What the hell did they hope to gain from this?

  But as Jacques laid his money on the table and Hoss scooped it up, Amy couldn’t prevent her neglected hormones from boiling over at the thought of Macho Man claiming his prize. Just watching Jacques’s confident laughter had her way past over stimulated without imagining kissing him. She was so not going there.

  The café phone rang, distracting her from that embarrassing leap of imagination. Relieved to be removed from the action, she grabbed the receiver as the rest of her customers, except for Playboy and Company, filed out.

  “Stardust, Amy here,” she said curtly.

  “Amy, they accepted the counter offer!” her real estate agent crowed. “You’ve sold your house.”

  Shocked, Amy grabbed the stove to keep her knees from crumbling out from under her. She’d sold her house?

  It was real, then. Instead of cheering, panic grabbed her. They had nowhere to go.

  She scarcely heard the agent’s litany of explanations of what would happen next. Her mind leaped like a frog from one terror to the next. She couldn’t find a new home without knowing if she had a job.

  If the town lost the mill bid…. Her gaze widened in horror as the agent rattled on, and Amy watched the man who threatened her future complacently plot with his partners across the room.

  By the t
ime she hung up the phone, Jacques was looking at her with lifted eyebrow, and his staff had hurriedly finished their meal and departed. She didn’t even feel guilty for deserting her hostess duties and driving them away.

  She needed to write up his bill and get him out of here so she could think, even if what she really wanted to do was reach across the counter and shake him until he spilled his plans for the town’s future. Her hand trembled as she scribbled on the café’s green order form and tried not to look at him again.

  “Is everything all right?” Jacques asked, setting down his cup and reaching for his wallet.

  No, everything wasn’t all right, especially when the sympathy in his voice made her want to fall into his arms and weep. Better for all concerned that she saw him as the fly in her ointment, the bad guy she was supposed to chase out of town as quickly as she could say “vintage patterns.” She summoned her courage and slapped the meal ticket on the table. “Just exactly what are your intentions?” she demanded, unable to phrase her desperation more precisely.

  Jacques’ look of mischief warned that not only had she garbled the question, but he hadn’t taken it seriously.

  “Purely dishonorable, I assure you,” he replied, rising from the booth — putting him entirely too close, to her flushed embarrassment. If he touched her, she’d probably faint.

  The villain practically exuded sexy. And the heated look he bestowed on her left no possibility of mistaking his meaning, which flustered her even more. She was a mother. She didn’t do dishonorable.

  Shaken in too many ways to comprehend, Amy let her anxiety run away from her common sense. “I mean about the mill.” She backed up a step, but didn’t retreat entirely, determined to have facts to base her decision on. “The town is bidding on the mill to put families back to work. If you win the bid, will you find the patterns and abandon us?”

  How pitiful was that? Amy bit her tongue to keep from spilling her guts and her tears. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t. She needed the answer too much.

  Jacques’s grin disappeared. He removed a large bill from his wallet and laid it on the counter. “I never make promises. We shall just see what happens next, shall we?”

  If there was concern or regret in his reply, she refused to acknowledge it. Nor did she acknowledge his hesitation as he continued to watch her, waiting for…what? Acceptance? Anger? She shook her head, saying nothing.

  He walked out without waiting for change, leaving her hot and bothered and wondering if she was her own worst enemy.

  With her stomach sinking to her aching feet, Amy almost wished he’d lied, so she could despise him for being the same calculating fraud as Evan.

  But he hadn’t lied. He wasn’t Evan, and she couldn’t despise him for stating the cold, hard facts, just as she’d asked him to do. This was purely business to him.

  If only she could let her heart freeze over in anger.

  But she’d never learned to hate, and she couldn’t start now. Not with the first man who’d caught her interest in a dozen years — even if he had the power to destroy her and her home in the name of all-mighty business.

  Eight

  “I’ve sold our house,” Amy repeated in shock, staring at the walls of her bedroom at seven that evening.

  The electric clock next to her bed began to buzz…. alarmingly. With an absentminded smack, she turned it off. Her gaze drifted to the family photos centered on the wall over the antique walnut dresser. From there, it fell on her grandmother’s hand-stitched quilt draped over a century-old stand Amy had lovingly restored. She’d had a designer create the draperies on the big bay window to match the beautiful old roses in the quilt. The draperies were attached to the house, the Realtor had said. She couldn’t take them with her.

  She started to shake as the reality sank in. She might have despised this bland house when Evan bought it, but she’d made it into a home designed with love especially for her family. And now strangers would inhabit it.

  Her agent had said the buyers had cash and wanted to close early. She’d made homelessness sound like a good thing.

  Fighting tears, Amy focused on the big painting of Josh as a toddler that centered her photo display. How did she go about packing paintings?

  How on earth would she rip out her roots and transplant her entire life?

  Better yet, where would she transplant them?

  Feeling as if her entire world were rocking precariously, Amy drew a deep breath and put her foot down. She refused to sit here and weep over what was done. She’d sold her home. She could start moving things to Jo’s old apartment over the café. But she’d be damned if she’d live in that cramped space for long.

  She needed a positive goal to work toward. She needed a home.

  Wiping her eyes and biting her trembling lip, she marched down the hall to the kids’ bedrooms — rooms she’d decorated specifically to their interests. She could do it again — eventually — if she had a home. The judge hadn’t accepted her offer on the cottage yet, but now that she was coming into some money, she would fight tooth and nail for it.

  “Want to go look at a house?” she asked, lifting Louisa rather than putting on her shoes, shooing Josh toward the stairs.

  “What house, Mommy?” he sensibly inquired.

  “Our house,” she informed him. “Our new house, right down in town where you can walk home from school when you’re a big kid.”

  He looked at her as if she were crazed. “We already have a house, Mommy.”

  No, they didn’t. It would belong to someone else in another month. Don’t look back. “Remember how I told you that this house is way too big and we’re moving somewhere nearer to your aunt Jo?”

  “Oh, yeah. And Johnnie and Adam can come play with me!”

  Burying her face in Louisa’s golden hair, Amy swallowed a sob at her child’s easy acceptance of such an earthshaking move, and determinedly marched down to the car. She would never let her children see her heartbreak. They were going to love their new home. The cottage had a million times more character and more kid-friendly space than this boring old monument to Evan’s ego. It would be perfect for them when she got it fixed up, much closer to their aunt and grandmother.

  If she could buy it. If she could get a job. If the mill opened again.

  An entire nightmare of childhood insecurities stalked her.

  * * *

  “Man, that is the best lookin’ thing that ever happened to this town,” Jo said admiringly, watching the entertainment around the Hummer the Saturday afternoon of the turkey shoot.

  Settling Josh and Louisa on the blanket with their popcorn, Amy tried not to watch. Jacques had come into the café for breakfast and lunch every day this past week, bringing with him whoever had tagged along to search for the pattern cards or write up his bid. Despite his best efforts to sweet-talk her, she’d avoided being sucked into his world as much as possible.

  Her mangled ego longed to lap up his flattery, bask in his smoldering looks, and succumb to his seductive voice. When was the last time Evan had ever said anything complimentary? How about half past never? When had any man actually looked at her, seen her as she was, and smiled in delight? Jacques did all that and more, and it was getting harder not to notice on a visceral level.

  Staying up to midnight every night packing all her belongings made her too weary — physically and emotionally — to manage more than a thin layer of detachment in his presence.

  “I mean, Flint is a hunk, but that there is pure eye candy.”

  Amy didn’t have to look to know whom Jo was talking about. And from the wolf whistles of the testosterone-pumped crowd, she could tell Jacques had brought Catarina and friends.

  “If you’ve brought your camera, you can take pictures. Pictures will be all that’s left of the eye candy by next week,” Amy said dismissively, plumping up a cushion for her mother’s lawn chair. “He’s had Emily and everyone else digging through the mill vaults all week looking for those design patterns. At least he�
��s paying them well. He only has until Tuesday to submit a bid, and I assume if he doesn’t find what he wants, we’ll never see him again.”

  That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Rush the boy out of town and let her life return to normal. Or what passed for normal these days. Yet the idea of Jacques leaving was shockingly distressing.

  “Shame, that,” Jo concurred with Amy’s reflection. “This town could use a little elegant decoration. Don’t suppose that lioness draped over his shoulder can shoot, do you? I’d like to take her on in a contest.”

  “If she’s wearing Pradas and a thigh-high skirt, it would be amusing to watch her try.” Amy couldn’t resist. Now that the kids were occupied and her mother was gossiping with her cronies, she had no choice but to watch the entertainment. She had to look at it that way, and not with the pang in her insides at the sight of Catarina draped over Jacques like a Roman toga.

  The instant she looked in his direction, Jacques waved for her to join him. He was sitting in a director’s chair, of all things. Luigi was setting up a half-circle of them around a picnic basket the size of a small kitchen. At Jacques’s right hand was an open stainless-steel cooler filled with what appeared to be champagne bottles. He must think they were at a steeplechase.

  Every other family here had arrived in beat-up pickups and minivans packed with ratty blankets and plastic coolers filled with beer. Amy had spent a lifetime blending in. Jacques merrily flaunted his differences, and pulled it off with sex appeal to spare. She envied his confidence.

  “Go join them, Ames. Persuade them to spend a couple of million bucks here. I’m happy to watch the kids. Grab your place in the sun while you can.” Jo put a hand to Amy’s back and gave her a shove. “Besides, it will juice up the competition and bring more entries if the homeboys get to feelin’ competitive.”

  “Oh, right, I so crave a mangy dogfight.” But judging from the overflowing parking lot, Jacques had stirred up real interest in this shoot that had languished with the local economy. She’d grant him that.

  She didn’t know whether to be flattered or ticked when the lioness snarled unpleasantly at Amy’s approach, then repositioned to the far side of the circle. Jacques’s gaze didn’t waver.