Checking out his new shotgun, Jacques smiled absently at her approach, snapped the weapon closed and immediately transferred his vibrant awareness to her by offering his arm. “My lady, would you be so kind as to give me your favor in this competition?”
“You mean, like medieval ladies gave their knights?” Deciding she could play to his charm, Amy took his arm and chuckled at the conceit. “I would have worn hair ribbons if I’d known you would ask.”
“Take off the ring on your finger, and I would count that as a favor,” he murmured smoothly.
Take off her wedding ring? Even in jest, she hesitated. The ring had been a part of her for a third of her life, yet it meant nothing to her anymore, right? Still, the idea of removing the symbol of ten years of her life was an even bigger step than she’d anticipated.
Frowning at her thoughts as Jacques steered her through the crowd, Amy realized after a moment that he wasn’t carrying his cane. He had the shotgun on one arm and her on the other. He would cripple himself carrying manliness too far.
“Will you use your cane if I take off my ring?” she demanded, figuring she ought to have a good reason to remove it besides flattery.
“I need two hands to shoot, and I have you for support when I walk,” he reminded her. “I do not want to kiss a woman wearing a wedding ring. It is bad luck.”
“Who says you’re going to win?” She hooted at his audacity, and he slanted her a dry look that jump-started her long-dead heart. She sent his ring finger a meaningful glance to balance herself. “Do I need to ask where you keep your ring?”
He held up his evenly tanned hand for her to inspect. “No ring. No impediment to my prize. I am free for the taking.”
Amy had to laugh at that. “Free spirit, maybe, but there is nothing else free about you.”
“And you?” He raised his eyebrows and nodded at her hand again.
His teasing attention fired way too many previously dormant hormones. Images of kissing this man who hid his toughness behind a coat of charm stirred them into a frenzy.
Not that she believed Jacques would be kissing her anytime soon. Hoss was a regional champion, after all.
Amy twisted the ring until it popped off. He was right. She shouldn’t be offering kisses to anyone as a prize while wearing it.
Her finger felt strangely bereft. She looked for a place to put the plain gold band, but she’d left her purse back at the car.
With satisfaction, Jacques took the ring and slid it into the deep pockets of his tailored trousers. “I will return your boon after the contest. You have granted my fondest wish.”
“And you will be fortunate if you can lift that gun much less aim it,” she scoffed. “Hoss is a champion turkey shooter. You still have time to cry off.”
“What? And forfeit the prize?” he said with a glorified posh accent and a mock bow.
Amy observed the predatory set of his square jaw, and understood he was deliberately steering her toward a goal all his own. She had to wonder who the real man was behind the gallant exterior.
Once they reached the shooting line, his focus diverted entirely to the competition lining up at the targets. Some of the contestants were wearing camouflage and lying on the ground to sight their targets. Jacques had not come attired for rolling in the dirt. Some squatted or kneeled. Jacques could do neither with his bad knee. A few men, apparently handicapped by attire or arthritis or disposition, stood upright.
Two conflicting and equally strong emotions clawed at Amy’s insides as she realized the deadly earnestness of this contest.
One was pure feminine excitement at being the object of Jacques’s interest — enhanced by curiosity at how it might feel to be kissed by a man with muscles of steel.
The other was complete dismay at knowing a man of this determination could very likely rip the mill and her dreams to pieces.
Confused, she remained frozen where she was when Jacques released her arm to check in his gun with the judges. Flint winked at her as he examined the new shotgun. Hoss grinned and raised his gun in a gesture of confidence. Amy’s mind was racing too fast to respond.
From this angle, she could see the stubborn jut of Jacques’s jaw, the sharp ridge of his cheekbones, the shadowy hint of beard stubble. Despite torn ligaments and a knee brace, he stood solidly in a professional stance best suited to bearing the brunt of the gun’s recoil. He’d discarded his jacket, and the short-sleeved polo shirt revealed carved biceps that could only have been developed by serious weight training. Amy gulped and tried to ignore the flames of interest licking at her neglected sex.
The first three rounds were test rounds. She winced at the loudness of the barrage, then strained to see the results. The judges didn’t announce test-round winners, but it looked to her as if all Jacques’s slugs had missed the center — but they’d hit the target in a pattern, one concentric ring at a time.
That could have been coincidence — or his deliberate attempt to find the gun’s spray pattern by shifting precisely with each round fired. That was not the performance of an amateur.
She watched him joking with the other men, submitting to their friendly slaps and punches, but beneath Jacques’s gregarious façade, she thought she noticed something she’d failed to treat seriously before — single-minded resolve for anything he did.
That ought to really scare the heck out of her.
She glanced behind her to Luigi and Pascal standing with arms crossed. They looked smug despite the whispers and wagers prevailing around them.
A shiver of anticipation warned that this contest was a setup, not by Hoss, but by Jacques.
Now she was scared to the point her heart thumped against her ribcage and her palms were sweating.
A goldenrod brushed her leg when she backed toward the trees at the edge of the clearing. If she was smart, she’d turn and run right now.
Instead of running, she listened to the judge call the first round. Lump in throat, she followed Jacques’s movements as he raised the shotgun with a practiced swing, fired without flinching at the powerful recoil, and lowered his weapon to study his shot.
The slug pattern was dead center.
The audience roared. It was impossible to tell whom they were cheering, since there were twenty contestants all shooting at once. Amy watched only Jacques.
The judges walked down the row of targets and eliminated the lowest scores. The remaining contestants reloaded and joked quietly among themselves. Hoss and Jacques were at opposite ends of the line.
The second round was called. Amy tore off the goldenrod and began to shred it between her fingers. The ten remaining contestants positioned their guns, some with cocky arrogance, some with nervousness. Jacques showed only professional detachment. He fired both rounds — and wiped out the paper target’s bull’s-eye.
The audience erupted in good-natured catcalls and rebel yells at the announcement of the three finalists. It was hard to resist a newcomer doing so well. The two men Jacques was matched against were big and burly and accustomed to winning all physical contests. Jacques in his lean elegance rested his shotgun over his shoulder and whistled without concern as the judges consulted. Noticing Amy’s gaze, he raked a recalcitrant hank of hair off his forehead and winked.
While the targets were replaced, Flint stepped back to stand beside her. “He’s a pro,” he said quietly. “He’s got a steady arm and the eye of an eagle, and I’d bet my bottom dollar he knows sharpshooting. You comfortable with Hoss losing? We can announce the turkey as a prize. Just say the word.”
The town always offered a frozen turkey as an alternative prize, but Amy knew full well Hoss and Jacques weren’t going head-to-head over a frozen turkey.
She didn’t have a good answer. “Jacques is a gentleman,” she said to reassure herself as well as Flint. “But Hoss won’t take losing easy. You might suggest a runoff with different weapons.”
“I like the way you think,” Flint said with approval, before returning to the judge’s box while the re
maining three shooters returned to the line.
“Two rounds, four shots, and time is a factor,” the mayor announced after a whispered consultation with Flint.
By calling for two rounds, they’d not only upped the stakes, but handicapped Jacques, who obviously wasn’t familiar with reloading his brand-new weapon. Amy winced, but the judges made the rules. Capability was as important as accuracy.
Hoss looked confident firing his rounds, reloading, and firing again in rapid succession.
Slower at loading, Jacques fired his last shot a few seconds after Hoss. The third contestant came in last, in both time and accuracy.
Amy held her breath while the judges examined the cards.
“Zack Saint Ettyann in accuracy; Hoss Whitcomb in capability,” the mayor announced in his dreadful accent to a crowd screaming in excitement.
“Give me some money on that Zack,” one of the voices behind her whispered to whoever was taking bets. “I think I gotta cover my losses.”
Zack. Amy smiled and wished the betting proceeds were going to charity. From the noise and the odds, she’d say wagers were running high.
The judges consulted with the final two contestants. Hugging her elbows, stomach tensing, Amy didn’t stand close enough to hear. She was beginning to feel conspicuous as it became apparent to everyone that turkeys weren’t the goal of this shoot. A friendly buss on the cheek to a man she’d known all her life had seemed simple enough when she’d finally given in to popular demand. But a real contest with her as coveted prize was a way-out fantasy the practical part of her mind hadn’t anticipated. She was a thirty-something divorcée with two kids, not a teenage beauty queen.
Jacques emerged from the consultation with a smirk of triumph. Hoss looked equally cocky. Jacques glanced in Amy’s direction and tapped the pocket where he carried her ring. Hoss gave her a thumbs-up.
Amy wished for a sudden thunderstorm.
“The contestants have agreed to a shoot-off,” the mayor announced in a voice that barely carried over the noise of the crowd.
Amy couldn’t hear the specifics he was explaining, but she could see Hoss unloading his expensive new rifle from the cab of his pickup. She glanced around, and sure enough, Jo had been right. Luigi came running with a rifle for Jacques. He’d brought an arsenal. She was willing to bet that he could be challenged to pistols, swords, and AK-47s and stand ready. Jacques was evidently not a man to leave things to chance.
She shivered a little and blamed the breeze. She had always appreciated a man who knew what he wanted and went after it with competence, but she’d never had to go up against such a man before.
Jacques might be competent, but he wouldn’t help the town. Or her. She had to keep thinking of him as the enemy, not the kind of man who could provide security.
Hoss had national sharpshooting awards. But Jacques was going over his weapon with the same cool professionalism he had displayed using an unfamiliar shotgun. The crowd grew quiet when the contestants stepped up to the line.
The contest was no longer a joke. A puffy white cloud dimmed the bright Carolina sunshine, reducing the glare so Amy couldn’t miss a motion. Riveted, she dug her fingernails into her palms and watched Flint give the signal to shoot.
Both men unloaded their ammunition into the targets in a rapid succession of gunfire. Apparently reloading wasn’t part of the contest, because they lowered the barrels once they emptied their magazines, waiting for a judge to collect the cards and examine them.
As the round ended, Amy thought she saw a trace of weariness in Jacques’s eyes while he waited for the judges’ call. His crooked smile tugged at her tender heartstrings. She needed to stop that nonsense right now. She was such a softhearted sucker she let the kids drag home any wounded creature they found. Jacques was very definitely not a helpless creature in need of mothering.
“And it’s Zack Saint-Ettyann by three shots,” the mayor screamed, grabbing Jacques’s wrist and lifting his arm into the air.
Jacques almost staggered as his weight shifted to the wrong leg, but he caught himself and straightened using the rifle stock for a prop. Tugging his wrist free, he offered his hand to Hoss, who slapped it with goodwill and shook hard. Amy winced, but she noticed the bulkier man backed off from the hand-crushing contest first. And then the crowd was shoving her forward, and she quit thinking anything at all.
Caught up in the marksmanship, she had succeeded in briefly forgetting she was the prize.
The same manicured hand that had crushed Hoss’s now caught her elbow with gentleness, drawing her so close that she could look up and not only see the whites of Jacques’s eyes, but the blue sparkles in his dark irises and the hint of mustache bristles beneath the skin of his upper lip. A firm mouth turned upward in the corners while he studied her the same way he’d studied his competition. Long, strong fingers tapped the hoop in her ear, the gold warm and caressing as it brushed against her neck. Her knees almost buckled.
“Your favor brought me luck, Aimée,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers.
Aimée. Emmy. Beloved.
She was out of her ever-lovin’ mind and in way over her head. Jacques’s mouth coming down on hers blew whatever working brain cells she had left. Amy closed her eyes and sank into his arms and his kiss as if she’d known them all her life — cradled in comfort, wrapped in strength, and blessed with passion.
Ten
Jacques had wanted this kiss…worked for it as single-mindedly as he did everything that mattered.
If he had known the jolt of electricity from Amy’s plush lips would bring him to his knees, he would have used his cane.
Instead, he grabbed Amy’s shoulders for support and deepened the contact, digging his fingers into her hair and refusing to release her once she responded to his insistent pressure with a hunger as strong as his own. His weariness abruptly fled. Only the noise of the crowd reminded him that this was not the private moment he desperately craved.
Shocked by the extent of his desire for this woman who thought him little more than an idle playboy, Jacques regretfully stepped back. Amy’s wide-eyed look assuaged some of his own surprise. At least, he wasn’t the only one reeling.
“Come, Amy. Let’s give others the chance to win their turkeys.” Keeping his arm across her shoulders, he tugged her next to him.
He enjoyed the caress of her hair against his jaw as the wind tossed it back at him. He wanted to catch the shining strands, turn her head to him, and continue that mind-blowing kiss — somewhere a good deal more private than this.
“I’m thinking I’m the turkey here,” she muttered under her breath as he led her toward the picnic blanket. “I should have known better.”
“Turkeys do not have lovely lush lips for kissing. Is there a barn we can hide behind?”
She laughed at his teasing, but there was wariness in her eyes. She needed to defend her heart — just as he did — so he supposed he shouldn’t drive away her suspicion. But he saw no reason they could not enjoy one of the great pleasures in life for a while.
“Not on a bet, mister.” She halted at the blanket to introduce him to a tall, older woman with the lines of an education in life’s hard knocks etched into her face. “Mama, we’ve told you about Jacques, the man who’s bidding on the mill. Jacques, this is our mother, Marie Sanderson. She worked at the mill for decades.”
He could see the resemblance to Amy in Marie’s wary eyes as he bent over her hand in a gesture meant to impress. The tough woman looked more suspicious than impressed, and he bit back a grin. Like mother, like daughter.
“My pleasure, Mrs. Sanderson.” This time, Jacques allowed Amy to direct his chair to be placed next to Marie’s. He had too much work ahead of him to be crippled by a bad knee.
He didn’t let Amy go but squeezed her hand as he sat down. “Tell Luigi to carry our things here, please.” He didn’t want to let her go, but he had only a few days left to submit his bid, and his fine-honed instincts told him that Marie Sanderson was a r
esource he could not ignore.
Encouraging Marie with questions, Jacques followed Amy with his eyes, watching as she admirably dealt with their disparate guests. He pondered her willingness to leave the champagne with Catarina and her followers when they refused to join the family circle, and hid a smile when she carefully divided the food between the two parties so everyone could sample all the delicacies. He did not often encounter such unselfishness, or such natural hospitality.
After seeing that plates of fried chicken and side dishes were distributed from the two coolers, Amy finally — almost reluctantly — took the chair reserved for her beside Jacques.
“I don’t want to hear about the mill today,” she warned, cutting his intentions off at the pass while sipping her iced tea. “Tell us how you learned to shoot so well.”
Jacques shrugged. “When I was a boy, I would visit my father’s estate every summer. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I rode the horses in his stable, swam the ponds and river, took fencing lessons from a neighbor. My father had groundsmen who taught me how to shoot. Not so different from here.”
Amy rolled her eyes in that droll manner of hers, and Jacques had the urge to kiss her button nose. Since he was hungrily devouring her delicious chicken, he resisted.
“I’m sure you shot the possums ransacking the chicken coop, just like here, too.”
“Sarcasm does not become you, Amy,” he chided. “My father inherited his land, yes, but we are land rich and cash poor. We must all work to pay for the expense of upkeep. I have used my skills to shoot vermin.”
“He was on the Olympic pentathlon team,” Pascal asserted, reaching for another piece of chicken. “Do not let his modesty trick you into any more wagers.”
“Sore loser.” Jacques laughed. “It is your own fault for thinking an unfamiliar weapon would deter me.”
“Pentathlon?” Flint looked up with interest from his plate. “Fencing, riding, shooting….?”
“Swimming, running, yes, but I do not do all these things so much anymore. The running ruined my knee and put a finish on the fencing. And then life became too busy.”
Sweet Home Carolina Page 9