Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  “Don’t, please, we can’t,” she murmured when he moved his kisses to the corner of her mouth to give them both a chance to breathe. But her arms crept around his neck even as she protested.

  He adored the feel of her sticky fingers in his hair and on his nape. She smelled of vanilla and fireworks, and if he were the Neanderthal type, he’d take her right here and now, assert his claim, and bellow in victory.

  Unfortunately, he was too civilized to maul a woman in such a crude manner. He wanted her to remember their first lovemaking with sensual pleasure and not with bruises.

  “We can,” he murmured, snuggling her belly next to his crotch so she had no doubt of what she did to him. “Tell me we can. I will take you anywhere. Would you like to see Paris?”

  She gave another of those sexy little gasps and before she could argue or refuse, he licked sugary icing from the corner of her mouth and claimed her lips all over again. Her shudder of surrender was everything he’d hoped it would be. In a heated rush of desire and relief, he rocked her back and forth, stroking her smooth skin, murmuring practiced phrases between kisses.

  She was putty in his arms, moaning and kissing as if he were a banquet and she was starving. He loved being her banquet. She could gobble him up any day.

  Except that the more she took, the more he wanted to give, and he was in serious danger of drowning in this whirlpool of passion.

  A door slammed open and sulfur-scented air rushed in. “Ames, we’re outta…. Oops, sorry, party on,” a feminine voice sang.

  Amy hastily released Zack’s — Jacques’s — neck and pushed against his chest with both hands. “Jo, wait. I have to go.” She said this while wiggling free of his sinful grip, then gulped for air and tried to steady her trembling knees by grasping the counter.

  “We’ve got the kids. You don’t have to go anywhere,” Jo called through the semidarkness. “The guys can buy soft drinks instead of my lemonade.” She started to close the door, then hesitated. “You be good to my big sister or you’ll have a town after you with butcher knives, y’hear?”

  Amy considered melting through the floor in humiliation, but Jo charged out, slamming the door after her. More fireworks exploded. For all she knew, they’d never stopped. Her head was one explosion after another from Zack’s kisses and solid male presence crowding her against her familiar counter.

  Zack. The name sounded as if he belonged here. And he didn’t. Fireworks wouldn’t change that.

  Her palms still pressed against the thin cloth of his shirt. She could feel the tension in his hard muscles and the erratic pounding of his heart matching her own. She wanted to draw away, but she was afraid her knees would buckle. She didn’t want to let him go for fear he was just a mirage.

  “What just happened here?” she whispered, mostly to herself. She felt as if she were spinning in circles like a giant whirligig, and she couldn’t believe any of this was happening, not to her. Handsome, sophisticated, European businessmen didn’t romance lonely divorced mothers of two.

  “We were carried away on the wings of desire?” he suggested with a grin in his voice. He placed strong hands around her waist again. “Shall we do it again and analyze it this time?”

  She shoved at his chest, but she might as well have tried to move a refrigerator. Now that her feet were back on the ground, she could appreciate the strength of the man pinning her to the stove. She had a thing for strong men, ones who could lift her as if she were a bit of straw and make her feel safe. Ones who could blow her mind just by holding her. She did her very best to pretend she hadn’t noticed the size of the erection rubbing against her belly. It had been so long….

  She shook her head free of images of a naked Zack and felt her messy hair hit her cheek. “When does your flight leave?” she asked, forcing reality into the equation.

  “I’m starting a new business in Northfork, remember?” he asked with just a hint of irony. “I can’t leave.”

  Taking a deep breath, she found the willpower to slip sideways between him and the stove. Her breast brushed against his arm and sent an entire new surge of need pounding through her. “I can’t believe you agreed to that,” she said hastily, trying to bring her head back where it belonged. “You have no comprehension of how much it means to the town to keep the mill running.”

  “I’m beginning to understand,” he said drily, letting her escape. “That was quite a performance you orchestrated out there.”

  She suspected anger simmered not too far below his surface pleasantry. He wouldn’t be the type who would appreciate having his hand forced.

  Conflict terrified her. Her normal response was to placate or run away. She couldn’t do either this time. Too much rode upon his staying and helping to reestablish the mill.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, not for the compliment, but for staying. She didn’t persuade her tongue to explain the difference.

  “Thank you for believing in the impossible,” he said softly, seeming to understand. He brushed his hand against her cheek, and her knees threatened to buckle again. “It is a challenge, right?” He lifted her chin so she had to meet his eyes.

  In the lantern light, she could see the fear behind his unusually flinty gaze, and she nodded agreement. “A challenge, yes,” she whispered, grasping that there were many layers of meaning left unspoken.

  The overhead lights flickered and flashed on.

  Outside, a cheer rang into the overcast night, and bottle rockets exploded, rendering further conversation unfeasible. For now.

  Eighteen

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Amy muttered, sipping her coffee and adjusting a pan of muffins in the Stardust’s oven.

  “You’re applying for the position of executive manager,” Jo told her firmly, nudging her away from the oven with her hip while tying on an apron. “The town’s counting on you. Get out there and fight.”

  “Fight?” Amy gave her sister an incredulous look. “Did it look like I was capable of fighting last night?”

  Jo chortled. “Oh, yeah. You had the man flattened. Go exercise those Sanderson wiles, Sis. Nail him before he knows what hit him.”

  “I’m the one likely to get nailed.” Amy tried not to shiver too obviously at the image rising in her head of Zack naked and on top of her, nailing her in the only manner her present fantasy could conjure.

  “Try it, you’ll like it.” Jo poked her with a sharp elbow.

  That was the problem. She might come to like it too well. And she wasn’t allowing men in anymore. Certainly not suave Europeans who would love her and leave her for a larger world. She was standing on her own these days, in the secure world she’d chosen.

  She had her kids to think about. A shattered mother was very bad for their emotional upbringing.

  “I think I’d rather move to Asheville and work at Belk’s.” Amy set down her mug and watched the shadows on Main Street dissipate with the first rays of dawn. “I don’t need a nabob who will be here today and gone tomorrow, or an entire town depending on my rusty skills.”

  “A ‘nabob’?” Jo hooted and removed the muffins from the oven as their first customer walked in and took a booth. “Is that like a French film star? Zack’s hot, babe. Cut your teeth on him, and you can have any man you like after that.” To the customer, she called, “Be with you in a minute. The muffins just came out of the oven.”

  Their customer waved agreement and shook out his paper.

  “Get real. Zack will wring me out and leave me dry. I just can’t do that again, Jo. I can’t. I’m the settling-down kind, and he travels Europe. I don’t even know what he sees in me except availability.”

  “He has the lioness for availability. Did he go back to her last night?”

  “No, he went back to the house. He called to ask me how to make the microwave quit blinking.” Amy popped muffins out of the pan and onto a platter.

  Jo chuckled. “He’s all yours then. He’s a type A competitor who needs a challenge, and you’re it. Enjoy the attent
ion while it lasts.” Picking up the coffeepot, she wandered to the booth to take an order while more of their regulars entered

  A challenge. Amy stared gloomily out the café’s mullioned window. She didn’t need any more challenges in her life. She had more than she could handle already.

  But she’d had security, and look how well that had worked out.

  She picked up a second coffeepot to begin filling cups when the Hummer roared to a halt in front of the café and Jacques climbed out. He was wearing stiff dark-wash jeans and a Lauren work shirt, probably straight off the rack at Belk’s. Over the casual attire he wore a tailored brown tweed jacket that likely cost twenty times the jeans.

  Amy let her lips curve upward at the sight. Jacques — Zack — was doing his darndest to fit in, and he still looked as if he’d stepped fresh from prep school. It wasn’t just the clothes or his stylishly tousled hair, but the self-assured way he carried his lean length and glanced around as if the day was his and the world acknowledged his wishes. She must have imagined the fear she’d seen in his eyes last night. Men who owned the world knew no fear.

  Her heart did somersaults just from watching him. She’d trusted that he would do the right thing last night. Now she had to figure out what the right thing was for her. And act on it.

  The Hummer drove off, and Zack shoved open the Stardust’s door. “Ready for work?” he called jovially.

  Amy poured boiling water over tea leaves, then pushed a cup and saucer toward him on the counter. “I left fresh bagels and muffins at the house. Didn’t you like them?”

  “The muffins are not so sweet without you to serve them. And we need to get down to business immediately.”

  Amy couldn’t decide whether to laugh at his perversity or hit him over the head with the cinnamon Fiestaware cup. The laughter in his eyes and the dent forming in his square jaw prevented either. He knew darned well what he was doing to her. He wasn’t a stupid man. He had said this would be a challenge, and he was proving his point. They might kill each other before this was over.

  The mill would work. She knew it would. Amy straightened her shoulders, slapped the teapot onto the counter in front of him, and flung off her apron. She’d think of him as Zack, the mill’s new owner. “Where do we begin?” Behind her, Jo snorted to cover a laugh.

  Zack pointed at the stool beside him. When Jo provided another cup, he poured tea for Amy and himself. “I’ve called Brigitte to join us. She’ll take notes. For now, we will eat and be charming to each other.”

  Had he been an American aggressive type-A telling her to sit down, shut up, and wait for his secretary, she would have balked. Instead, Zack had learned to smile and be charming to get what he wanted. It worked, too.

  Falling easily into her old role of waitress, not country music diva, Jo poured tea, scrambled eggs, and set out plates of carrot muffins decorated with Louisa’s infamous pig snoses while Amy settled on the stool indicated and tried to think like mill management.

  “Where are the little ones?” he asked, shattering her image of detached executive.

  “Josh is riding to school with Flint and the boys. Louisa is watching cartoons in the office. Can’t you hear the monitor?”

  He tilted his head and listened. “Ah, yes, the Siamese cat, what is her name? The little one is singing — to her dolls, maybe?”

  “How did you know?” Amy sipped her Keemun, doing her best to pretend this was just a business meeting and that she wasn’t bowled over and cross-eyed over a man who knew about Sagwa and a three-year-old’s dolls.

  He waved his hand. “No matter. How will you care for Louisa while we work? We cannot set up a day care in the mill until we are up and running. I am risking enough of my investors’ money as it is.”

  “Are you saying I’m hired? Just like that? You have all those people down in Asheville who probably know more about mills than I ever will. I don’t want you wasting money just because.…” She’d been about to say just because you want to nail me. She’d dug her hole a little too deep, and she hastily attempted to backtrack.

  Zack laughed, and the corners of his eyes turned up mischievously. “Just because I want in your bed?” he inquired, as if the whole café weren’t straining to hear his every word. “It is because of what you asked — you are more concerned with the mill’s existence than with yourself. You’re the kind of employee I must have. It is people who make a profit, not the machinery or the management techniques or the fancy accounting.”

  “Wow,” Jo whispered. “If I weren’t already taken, I’d be all over a man who gets it. Ames, grab him.”

  Not in the least embarrassed by Jo’s crass comments, Zack gave Amy a slow, seductive smile. “Yes, please snatch me.”

  She would have slid under the counter in embarrassment except he returned to the topic in a blink of the eye. “My company is small and very dependent on the expertise of my employees. I have had to learn how to make the most of the best. There is no room for slackers in small business.” He pointed his muffin at Amy. “Day care?”

  “Salary?” she spurted out before she could get cold feet. Her entire life balanced on money right now.

  Zack smacked his forehead. “I forgot! How could I forget? You make my head go ’round.” He pulled a packet of papers from the inside pocket of his tailored sports coat. “Here, these are for you. The judge says you must sign and provide a deposit, and you have thirty days to complete the transaction.”

  Gingerly, Amy lifted the official-looking documents. Her gaze instantly located the address on Canary Street, and her stomach clenched. She scanned the rest of the paper, then started at the beginning and read more slowly, not believing she’d done it.

  She’d bought the cottage. All by herself. With the help of her friendly mortgage lender, of course.

  “It’s mine?” she asked in disbelief. Then as she realized to whom she was talking, her head jerked up, and she glared at him. “You didn’t do this? It’s just me, right? He’s accepting my offer?”

  “Yes, of course.” He gestured airily with his half-eaten muffin. “I have no use for a run-down cottage, so the judge took the only other offer — yours. I cannot imagine how you will have time to fix it up, either, but that’s your problem.”

  Amy suspected he’d had something to do with it. The judge would have gladly sold the entire lot to the highest bidder without any consideration to her little offer. But she wouldn’t argue with the results. If she hadn’t had the nerve to make the offer in the first place, the judge couldn’t have accepted it. Clutching the precious document to her chest, she asked again, “Salary?”

  He sighed. “It cannot be great. The expense of purchasing the mill has drained our cash. I had hoped to sell the equipment to cover the costs until the designs are ready. Brigitte will look up government grants. You will be on my company’s health plan, of course, as soon as we establish one here. As will everyone else.”

  Then he named a figure that would easily cover payments on the cottage’s small mortgage. Amy closed her eyes and sent a prayer of gratitude winging heavenward.

  “Amy?” Zack asked cautiously. “Will that suffice?”

  Her eyes flew open, and she felt as light as a helium balloon floating heavenward. “Yes, that will suffice nicely, thank you. Some of my friends are talking of setting up a day care for the people you hire. They’re experienced and won’t have any difficulty getting a license. See, you’ve already generated another business!”

  He looked astounded. “I did that?”

  “You will, if you hire enough workers. It won’t take many to fill a day care with kids. Once we have enough employees, you can let Manny bring his hot dog cart to the plant at lunchtime, and he’ll have an income to supplement his social security again. His wife’s medicine costs so much they’ve been talking of selling their house.”

  Fielding customers as they dropped in, Jo stopped a moment to add, “If you’re really going to buy that shack, Ames, you can put Harry to work. He’s not much good
at climbing ladders since he broke his knee, but he still knows his way around a saw.”

  “And if we do not make money?” Zack asked worriedly, keeping his voice low as the stools on either side of them filled with the morning regulars.

  Amy patted his hand. “We’ll be no worse off than we were before.”

  Which was a lie, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him. She’d be saddled with a mortgage and no job. Without the mill, the housing market would collapse and poor Manny wouldn’t be able to sell his home to pay his bills. Her friends would borrow money to start the day care and go broke. Zack would work all that out by himself should he ever take time to think about it.

  Her duty wasn’t to worry what would happen if they failed. Her duty was to see that the mill didn’t fail.

  And to remember that Zack was now her boss and there was a conflict of interest in carrying on a useless flirtation.

  Nineteen

  On Friday, Jacques — who had to start thinking of himself as Zack if he meant to stay here for long — walked around the immense looms he’d fully intended to sell, listening to the mechanics he’d hired mutter among themselves. Amy had been right. The looms were new and in excellent condition. He’d bought a bargain.

  “We’ll need to order computers.” Thinking aloud, he waited for Brigitte to make notes in her BlackBerry. “Do we have anyone available locally with computer skills?” he asked Amy.

  She was taking notes in some incomprehensible shorthand in a steno notebook. He had to bite back a smile every time he watched her studiously bent over the pad, nibbling on her pencil eraser. His new executive had tremendous people skills and creativity, but she lacked organization and business knowledge. He had Brigitte for that, but Amy looked so studious keeping her lists that he did not point out there was no need for her to do so.

  At his question, she looked up with a hint of panic in her eyes. “Computer skills? You’re installing computers before we’re even up and running?”

  “That’s my business, luv,” he reminded her. He was trying to woo her slowly, but she surrounded herself with family as defensively as he surrounded himself with friends. He fully believed anything worth having was worth working for, but they might as well be Montagues and Capulets for all the progress he’d been making. “We need computers to translate those design cards.”