Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  “That will never do!” He halted instead of opening the door of her truck, and stared at her in incredulity. “You are not meant to work in a filthy mill. You belong with your children.”

  With a look of annoyance, she opened the passenger door for him. “That’s a sexist thing to say. I’ll be fine at the mill. I have a degree in design. I’ll finally put it to use.”

  Instead of climbing in, Jacques limped around to the driver’s side to open the door for her, scowling as he did so.

  “You’re limping. You need to rest that leg,” she scolded, taking her seat so he’d go back and sit down.

  “I’ll have the damned thing operated on,” he said in a clipped tone unlike his usual cheerful one, then slammed the door after her.

  There wasn’t a lot she could say to that. This was an idiotic argument. They were both trying to take care of the other. How stupid was that? It wasn’t any of her business what he did with his leg, or his arms, or any other body part. They were headed for a showdown, and in another day or so, after the explosion, they’d be off in opposite directions.

  If she felt strangely bereft at the thought, it was only because Jacques and his friends had been such a welcome distraction in this unsettling time of her life. It had absolutely nothing to do with smoldering kisses and laughing charm and a man who actually understood about lovely old homes and Stickley antiques.

  Her nose would grow three feet if she lied to herself any more.

  * * *

  Sitting in Amy’s silent family room on Sunday night, Jacques slammed down a copy of the bid proposal Pascal had delivered to the judge. He’d just checked the lot number of the land in the bid against the realty company’s Web site and matched it to the old house on Canary Street. The mill owned the house Amy wanted. “I hate this.”

  “Tell it to Pascal,” Luigi growled from the recliner in front of the television. He had a beer and pretzels and was happy for the first time since their arrival. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I hate it that Amy isn’t here. This is her home. Look at those rugs. Someone hand-loomed them. And the embroidered cushions on that rocker. These are not pieces of plastic bought at the local McWalmart.”

  He glared at the picture of a plastic family over the fireplace. That was not his stubborn, creative Amy sitting in a chair beneath the hand of a blond man wearing a satisfied smirk. The Amy he knew and appreciated was all natural, without the lipsticked, smiling sophistication of the woman in the painting.

  The woman in the painting looked like every other woman in his universe, primped, painted, and perfect. Could he be wrong about her? Impossible. That painting was the human equivalent of vinyl siding over Craftsman wood shakes.

  “She’ll be keeping her furniture. It isn’t as if she sold those, too.” Luigi turned up the sound on the car chase, clearly not getting it.

  Jacques tightened his mouth in frustration. He couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. Even if someone crossed the judge’s palm with silver and Saint-Etienne Fabrications lost the bid, the mill could not last a year under the town’s plan. He’d seen their plan. It was brave and bold and full of heart. It just wasn’t feasible.

  Which meant Amy would lose her house and move away from her family. It would break her heart.

  If he won the bid, he would own the house that ought to be hers. He wasn’t a fool. He’d seen the panic in her eyes. She desperately wanted that house.

  And like a monumental idiot, he wanted her to have it. He ought to examine his motivation, but he preferred simple one-two-three logic. She wanted the house. She deserved the house. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted her, period. He had the ability to give her what she wanted. A house was far more practical than the bouquets and diamonds he usually showered on his women. Amy would prefer practical. Appealingly simple and logical.

  He picked up the proposal again, finally comprehending the extent of power that this document wielded to shut down lives — lives that had touched his this past week.

  Heaven only knew, he didn’t have adequate judgment to play God. He’d certainly displayed that flaw in glorious Technicolor. He knew business, computers, and historical design. He was appallingly deficient at personal relationships. Once upon a time he’d suffered from the idiocy of believing he could overcome his family propensity for emotional devastation, but he’d learned differently the hard way.

  But if he could rent Amy’s house for a few weeks, he could linger here a little, take a much needed vacation, and let his knee heal before he spent hours cramped on an airplane with no exercise to keep it limber.

  A small side trip off his road to success wouldn’t hurt anyone, would it?

  * * *

  “He wants to rent the house until closing!” Amy paced up and down the Stardust’s wooden floor, clutching her elbows. It was Tuesday afternoon, the date for the court’s decision on the mill.

  Outside, heavy clouds had turned the day black, and a thunderstorm was dumping torrential rain on the mountain highway, creating waterfalls instead of puddles, forcing the sensible to stay home. The café’s only customers were the mayor, Dave from the hardware store, and two town councilmen, all sipping coffee and talking desultorily while waiting for the judge’s decision.

  “Sounds like good money to me,” Jo said sensibly. She scribbled in her rhyme notebook, then returned to spinning her stool and watching the rain come down. “What has your panties in a twist?”

  “It means he knows he’ll get the bid!” One ear aimed toward the baby monitor to listen for Louisa waking from her nap in Flint’s office, the other waiting for the phone to ring, Amy tried not to split in two. “He’s planning on staying to dispose of the mill assets.”

  “That’s a pessimistic way to look at it. It could mean he was planning on helping with hiring and starting up the mill.” Spinning to face the counter, Jo removed the last chocolate doughnut from the case.

  Amy snatched the coffeepot from the burner and refilled the cups at the mayor’s table. “I heard Mary Jean and Eddie took jobs over in Charlotte and are moving out,” she called over her shoulder at Jo. “That will break up your band.”

  Jo shrugged. “Music seldom pays. It’s all about sales these days.”

  “Eddie will be selling cars,” Dave attested. “Young people like that need a future, and the town just plain can’t offer it. I heard Mary Jean found a place at the mall. My wife’s going to miss her babysitting.”

  “We all are.” Too keyed up to be polite, Amy returned the pot to the burner and continued pacing. “There won’t be anyone left around here. We can board up the town and post a For Sale sign. Maybe some rich tourist will buy it.”

  Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

  “Any ducks swimming down the street yet?” Jo called, shutting out the discussion.

  “Nope, but Myrtle might shortly.” Amy checked the purple concrete pig at the corner of the café, but sturdy Myrtle didn’t seem in any danger of floating off.

  The phone rang, and everyone jumped. Despite the desultory conversation, nerves had stretched to their last raw edge waiting to hear the fate of the town.

  “That’ll be Flint. Hand it over.” Jo stretched out her hand so Amy could place the cordless in it.

  Except for the roll of thunder and the pounding of rain, the café fell silent, its occupants hanging on every word. Flint had volunteered to wait at the courthouse in Asheville for the judge’s decision and call as soon as he heard.

  “Yeah, he said that?” Jo nibbled her pen tip. “Well, creditors rule, I guess. Yeah, yeah. You want to talk to Amy?”

  Amy tensed. Jo’s tone was not jubilant. She hovered close, just in case.

  “Yeah, you’re right about that. Love you, too. Check to see if I’m alive when you get here. Right.” She hung up.

  Every eye in the café was on Jo.

  “It’s all over but the death knell.” Clicking off the phone, Jo heaved her mug at the stainless ste
el stove. The sturdy pottery crashed and bounced — the only sound in the room. Everyone knew what it meant when Jo flung dishes. “The judge sold the mill to the most cash, and that wasn’t us.”

  In the gloomy silence following her announcement, the lights flickered, then went out, flooding the café in darkness.

  “I didn’t do that,” Amy said automatically. But she might as well have, for all anyone listened. A burglar alarm screamed somewhere up the street, and every window on Main Street went dark.

  Sixteen

  “Why must you return to such a tedious place?” Cat protested as they rode in the Hummer from the courthouse to the resort. “Send someone to pack up the patterns and let us go home. You have what you want.”

  No, he didn’t, but Jacques didn’t bother responding to Cat’s whine. Leaning his head against the front headrest, he tried to luxuriate in the usual adrenaline rush of winning.

  The old ego boost wasn’t there.

  Amy and the town had fought so bravely. All he’d done was flash cash and impressive credentials. It had never been a contest at all.

  “Champagne buffet at the spa?” Brigitte suggested from the seat behind him.

  Jacques knew she had her BlackBerry out and was already hunting up the appropriate contacts to set up a celebratory dinner. She’d done it for him on numerous occasions. Bright lights, music, champagne — that’s how he’d lived his life these last years — surrounding himself with illusions of happiness.

  He had a wonderful life. He had accomplished everything he had ever set out to do. He was sitting on top of the world.

  So why didn’t he feel like celebrating? He’d just bought a lost piece of history, a challenging project that would create a dream collection of design patterns he could sell to every museum and historic home in America, opening entirely new doors for his company.

  Perhaps he was ill. He would have Amy take his temperature and fix him chicken soup. Just the thought of Amy leaning over to caress his brow made him feel better. Maybe she would wear a loose shirt and he could admire.…

  Amy was more likely to beat him with a raw chicken carcass than take his temperature. He’d stolen her future.

  Not entirely, his inner voice reminded him. He’d told the judge he didn’t want the cottage. Actually, he wanted it very much. It would make a wonderful mountain escape once he’d sent a crew in to bring it up to date. He’d love making design decisions for his own home. He could return here every summer, terrorize the turkey shoot, hang out at the café with Amy and friends, drop out of the fast lane for a few weeks a year.

  He had a terrace apartment in London, a penthouse in Paris, and a villa in Nice. Who was he fooling? He’d never return here. He had no reason to.

  “Arrange the buffet,” he agreed, but it wasn’t champagne that he wanted.

  Perhaps he would feel better if he told Amy in person that the judge had accepted her bid on the cottage.

  “I’ll join you after a while,” he said once the Hummer pulled up to the resort and everyone else had climbed out. Before Cat could complain, Jacques shut his door and signaled Luigi to drive on.

  Without being told, his driver took the road to Northfork.

  * * *

  “What in bloody hell?” Sitting straight up, Jacques peered out the Hummer windshield as they drove around the bend and descended the hill into a lightless town of wet shadows. If he looked closely, he could see a flicker through a window here and there, but for all intents and purposes, the usually well-lit town blended into the darkness of the tree-studded hillside.

  The thunderstorm had retreated to flashes on the far side of the mountain. The rain had stopped, but clouds still hid the stars.

  Above the town, in the upper parking lot, flames leaped and blazed against the black sky, flickering pink and orange beneath the cloudbanks.

  “Bonfire?” Luigi suggested, slowing down to traverse an empty Main Street. Even the fake Victorian streetlights were out.

  “There are no lights! Are we in the right place? I know they roll up the sidewalks after dark.…”

  Luigi slowed so the Hummer’s headlights cut across dark storefronts and illuminated the street that wound up the mountain to the residential area. “Electricity must be out.”

  “Amy.” Jacques slammed his head back against the headrest and winced. She had even him believing their silly superstition. He could imagine her furious enough at losing the mill to blow the electric grid across half the state.

  Luigi chuckled as the headlights struck a line of trucks and cars pulled off the side of the road. Across the parking lot where the vehicles should have been was a banner stretched from one telephone pole to the next, framing the bonfire behind it. “This place sure knows how to throw a party,” Luigi said in admiration.

  Jacques read the banner in horror and disbelief. WELCOME, ZACK, HONORARY CITIZEN. “‘Zack’? Me? For what?”

  But already the athlete’s hum of adrenaline lifted his spirits at the sight of the crowd rallying around the bonfire. Competition was pointless without the recognition of accomplishment at the end. For the first time this day, triumph surged. They didn’t hate him!

  Or — did the town believe it was their victory, too? Did they think he meant to reopen the mill and put them to work?

  Damn.

  The tantalizing aromas of barbecuing food seeped through the Hummer’s open window, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He was suddenly starving.

  Luigi maneuvered the massive vehicle off the road to the accompaniment of a sunburst of red and orange sparks igniting overhead. The traditional oooohs and ahhhhs followed, and then someone distinctly yelled, “Zack! He’s here!” and a chorus of cheers rang over the noise of the exploding fireworks.

  “If this is Northfork losing the mill bid,” he muttered to his driver, “what would they have done if they won?”

  “Rode you around town on their shoulders, given you a ticker-tape parade, and the key to the city. Jeez Louise, they’re setting those things off in the parking lot. They’ll blow us all up.”

  Luigi’s Brooklyn origins occasionally penetrated his European sophistication when startled. Jacques flung open the car door before his driver could decide fireworks were too dangerous for his health.

  He craned his neck to watch red and blue rockets shoot across the clouds, leaving streamers of gold and orange that whistled and swirled in sparkles and smoke, and a thrill coursed through him. He’d always watched fireworks from penthouses from a distance. He’d never stood in the camaraderie of the mob directly beneath such a joyous display.

  “Zack, Zack, Zack!” The crowd began chanting as he stupidly stood there, hands in pockets, watching the sky, feeling as if he were ten years old.

  Startled by the shouts, he returned his attention to the throng filling the parking lot. Lawn chairs and blankets inhabited by young and old took the place of the vehicles that usually occupied the blacktop lot. A gazebo housing a few benches for tourists had been turned into a makeshift stage. A local band plucked on acoustic guitars while teenagers gathered in the shadows behind an enormous bonfire. Younger children dashed through the crowd, their elders occasionally hauling them from their feet when they became too rambunctious.

  It looked like what he’d always imagined a Fourth of July picnic would be. All they needed was ice cream and hot dog stands. He’d never been a participant in community activities. He’d never belonged to any one community. How had he lived all his life without realizing that?

  The mayor and some of his cronies shoved their way through to pound Jacques on the back.

  “Welcome, son!” the avuncular mayor cried.

  Jacques didn’t think the mayor was any older than he was, but the politician was of no interest to him. His gaze had finally locked on Amy, who was basting delicious-smelling delicacies on an enormous black grill shaped like a barrel. She didn’t look his way, but he had no intention of letting her ignore him.

  She knew what he meant to do with th
e mill. Why had she not informed the rest of the town of his plans? If these people had so much as an inkling of his intentions, they’d take him apart with pickaxes.

  What the hell was he doing here anyway? He could scarcely enjoy being the town hero when he was really the villain.

  He shook hands, smiled politely over handshakes, endured slaps on the back. He never diverted his attention from the woman in a beige halter top dousing chicken and hot dogs with barbecue sauce. She was wearing a red apron to protect her from the leaping flames, but her bare back was turned toward him. Brown, smooth, with a little mole on her right side, he noticed as he approached.

  He wanted nothing more than to kiss that little mole. He would wrap his hands around her bare waist, lift her off the ground, and nuzzle until she squealed. And then they would see what happened next. He still had the keys to her house.

  That she had every right to murder him there gave some pause for thought.

  Someone shoved a plastic-coated paper cup into his hand. More fireworks exploded, accompanied by the shrieks of children burning marshmallows over the bonfire. He checked for but didn’t see Josh and Louisa playing by the fire, thank goodness. They were much too young.

  He located Amy’s children playing near their grandmother near a line of smaller grills, where their Uncle Flint was flipping hamburgers and his sons were shoveling the meat onto buns.

  An amplifier sputtered into life, and a screech split the air.

  “Got it hooked up to Dave’s generator,” the mayor said proudly. “Amy thought of everything.”

  Jacques recognized Jo’s clear soprano breaking into a chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” He thought maybe he ought to just crawl under a rock and stay there.

  Amy turned and caught his eye then, and from the look of angelic innocence in her expression, Jacques knew he’d been set up. She damned well knew he meant to let the mill rot, and she was deliberately twisting a knife in his gullet.