Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  He was the last to climb out onto the roof. He unfastened the rope ladder from the knots he’d tied around a roof truss while Luigi caught the hook the helicopter lowered. The rushing wind of the rotors dropped the already chilly temperatures several degrees, but no one complained. They waited silently, their clothes flapping in the air stream, while the ladder was drawn back into the helicopter and fastened securely.

  Zack held the ropes steady. He didn’t dare reach for Amy again, or he might not let go. He nodded at her. Hoss pushed her from behind. She looked reluctant.

  “For the children,” Zack told her. “Go.”

  That did the trick, as he’d known it would. Hair blowing across her face, she scampered up the rungs. Unable to let a wisp of female outdo them, the rest of the selected group hurried to follow.

  With a lump in his throat that he suspected was his heart, Zack waved them off. At least he knew she would be safe in the world somewhere.

  As the helicopter swept away, he shoved his hands into his pockets and looked out over the swirling water far below. “How well can you swim, gentlemen? The dam upstream is in danger of breaking.”

  * * *

  “He hired a helicopter,” Amy said in incredulity, wrapping her hands around a mug of tea in the hotel room where Flint had taken her. She had no idea how Flint had learned where Zack had taken everyone, but the whole family was together now. “How does one hire a helicopter? Hand over a credit card?”

  Picking at a guitar and trying to pretend she wasn’t watching the TV, Jo shrugged. “The rich know these things.”

  Amy couldn’t tear her gaze from the TV news. So far, the dam had held steady. If she’d known the damned dam was about to break….

  She shook her head. She would have gone anyway. She couldn’t have left her children motherless. But she might have insisted that Zack leave, too.

  “Then he should have hired two helicopters,” she replied, trying to keep the sob from her voice.

  “I’m sure he would have if he could have,” Flint said pragmatically from the bar of the suite they occupied. Pots of coffee and tea and bottles of soft drinks littered the counter. In the far room, the children shouted and tumbled on the beds, oblivious of the drama playing around them.

  The national television news had finally picked up on the thrill of six men stranded on the roof of a mill as the floodwaters threatened to wipe the town off the face of the map.

  “The town ain’t in any danger,” Marie said with disgust at the newscast’s hyperbole. “It’s just the mill down in the valley. If they’d send their TV helicopters out there, they could pull them off the roof.”

  Amy wished her mother were right, but she knew better. “Those small ’copters only have two seats. The pilot can’t let down a ladder.”

  “Well, if Zack hired them, why doesn’t the crew go back out for him?” Jo demanded. “It just doesn’t seem right to leave him there.”

  “He didn’t know there were a dozen idiots out there.” Sipping his coffee, Flint watched the news from behind Amy and Jo on the couch. “He only hired them for one trip. They had other jobs. And the National Guard can’t be everywhere at once. They’re safe for now. Others aren’t.”

  “Then we ought to hire a helicopter, too.” Amy pulled a pillow against her and hugged it, trying not to become hysterical. But talking about hiring a helicopter brought her pretty close to hysteria. Her credit was maxed out, and Flint and Jo were still living on the edge, paying off bills.

  “I’m thinking you need to keep boats on that roof,” Flint said. “Might come in handy occasionally.”

  “The water’s not high enough. And they don’t have a ladder to get down. Stairs should have been installed on the roof long ago.” Amy prayed the day would come when they could add stairs. If the dam broke, there would be no building left to worry about.

  She had rejected Zack’s offer to meet his parents because of a crumbling old building that could soon be rubble? Was she that terrified of leaving her narrow world?

  Evan had certainly done a number on her, if that was so. He’d made her afraid to move forward, to live and love again.

  She clenched her jaw and corrected that thought. Evan hadn’t made her do anything. She’d done it to herself by attempting to be the ideal wife, bending to his will instead of asserting herself and looking for compromises they could both live with.

  If she’d understood that sooner and said yes, Zack wouldn’t be out on that roof.

  Facing Zack’s world, leaving the safety of her own, couldn’t be any scarier than what he was suffering. He deserved a woman who was as brave and strong as he was.

  Be safe, please, she prayed. I want to be like you.

  The realization of how deeply she’d fallen in love with Zack tore at her heart, and she hugged the pillow harder to hold back tears.

  She’d have to trust Zack. She didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her she was afraid to trust again. But if she wanted love, she would have to learn. Zack was worth facing her fear of abandonment. He was the only man in her life who had come back for her.

  Thirty-three

  Chilled to the bone and weary beyond belief, Zack could scarcely persuade his trick knee up the rope ladder when the National Guard finally sent aid just before nightfall. He didn’t curse the knee or the cold. He held all his emotions tightly wrapped in a neat little ball, and would continue so until he saw Amy again. She held his life in her hands. Until he had her answer, he didn’t know what to do next.

  If she turned him down, he supposed he could return to Europe and let her run the mill here, seeing her once a year or so. He didn’t know if he could tolerate such a situation for long.

  He could go back to his old life, but he knew now that wasn’t living.

  Or he could put down roots and become so much a part of her life and her town that she could deny him nothing. It was how these people thought and lived. Family wasn’t just blood relations. Every individual was a thread that held together the fabric of the community. He wanted to be a part of that.

  Shivering, with an army blanket wrapped around him, he sat on the floor of the helicopter, stared down at the water, and waited.

  At least the dam had held. They hadn’t had to swim for safety. The mill was still in one piece. They would need new floors, but the machinery might be salvageable. Those were all good things. If he wanted to plan a future, he could think about the orders they needed to fill. With sales like that, he could borrow money and hire more people. That should bring some relief to an area devastated by flooding.

  The happiness of a town was not something he would have considered before Amy. He had much to learn from her. Maybe one step at a time was the way to go.

  His knee was so stiff, Luigi had to help him climb from the helicopter when it landed. Zack let the gears of his brain concentrate on how he would get from this strange airport to wherever Amy was staying. At least it wasn’t raining here.

  Hoss opened the door to the low-lying building where they’d been herded. The other men stepped back respectfully to allow Zack to limp in first. He’d learned all their names and life stories over this past day. He wanted to make the mill a success so he could make all of them managers. He knew he was being irrational, but he was grateful for their support and for their courage. Medals weren’t enough.

  It took a moment for his frozen brain to process the screams of joy and blaring horns and colored confetti falling on his head. Not until familiar warm curves collided with him, nearly knocking him backward, did he wake up and smell the coffee. And Amy.

  And Amy. Wrapping his arms tight around her, Zack whooped with joy and surprise and nearly wept in relief. Letting his spirits soar free again, he swung her in delighted circles, forgetting his knee, his weariness, and his shivering. She clung to his shoulders, buried his face in kisses, and even the roar of the band and Jo’s soprano disappeared into the background.

  Throwing out all his calculated plans for champagne and diamonds, he did his b
est to bend his trick knee so he could do one small part of this right, and ended up pulling Amy down with his attempt. “Marry me,” he demanded fervently, holding tightly to her hands. “Marry me and we will work out all the rest.”

  She laughed and hugged him, kissing him with equal delirium, until his knee gave out and he staggered and fell on his rear. He sat down then to spread his legs out, nestling her in his lap and refusing to release her until he had kissed her into agreement.

  But he had to come up for air sometime, and the moment he did, he insisted, “You must marry me. I will never find someone as perfect to love again. You are my night and day. My sun and moon. And I know I sound insane, but my brain is frozen, and all I know is that the perfect moment may never arrive and I cannot risk letting you go until you say yes.”

  Amy laughed softly and cuddled against his chest, where she belonged. He would never let her get away again, he vowed. Vaguely aware that the building was full of people milling around them while they wallowed on the floor, he didn’t care. Not until he had his answer.

  He tipped her chin. “I love you,” he said. “That should count for something, shouldn’t it?”

  “Not always,” she said softly, not tearing her gaze from his face. “But this time, it will, I swear it. I’m trusting you with my life and my children. I love you so much it hurts to think of never seeing you again.” She sniffed and smiled through her tears. “Surely, if we can make a mill work together, we should be able to make marriage work.”

  With joy, Zack saw that her eyes blazed with all the love and passion she applied to everything she did, and his heart filled to overflowing.

  “Did I ever tell you that I would give half my teeth to see Europe with someone who knows it?” she asked. “I’m ready to go wherever you go.”

  Knowing Amy could do anything she put her mind to, Zack cheered and wrapped himself in her warmth. Only then did he recognize that the circus around them were her family and friends and half the town. The men who had been with him were surrounded in a sea of relatives hugging and pounding them on the back, so all the attention wasn’t on him and Amy. He didn’t see the children, but Jo and Flint were lining up a high school band for another chorus of some unrecognizable but celebratory tune. Balloons danced on the ceiling in the warm air. Even the national guardsmen received hugs.

  Taking a deep breath, Zack returned his attention to his cautious Amy. “I love you. You love me. Say yes, and we will try together.”

  The smile he received in return was so breathtaking that he wished he could frame it.

  Before she could say anything, a door opened, letting in a cold wind and a dramatic female cry of “Jacques! Where is my Jackie?”

  Zack groaned and buried his face in Amy’s sweet-smelling hair. “I do not believe this. Tell me a tall red-haired woman is not now bulldozing through this happy family gathering.”

  “No, she has gray hair with blue stripes, actually, and that’s the most dramatic caftan I think I’ve seen on a white woman. Oops, was that politically incorrect?”

  Zack laughed softly. “That is my mother.” He scrambled to his feet so he could pull Amy up beside him, but he refused to look toward the door. He preferred burying his face in Amy’s sweet-smelling hair while she watched the drama over his shoulder. “Tell me you’ll marry me, and I will help you escape.”

  “Oh, I think it’s far too late for that,” she mused, following the scene with much too much interest. “Jo has just blockaded her. Jo likes being the only attention-grabbing diva in the house. Does your father happen to wear a hairpiece?”

  Zack groaned louder. “Both of them? In the same country? In the same room? Is there a back way out of here?”

  “He’s bowing over Mama’s hand. He doesn’t seem a bad sort. But I think your mother and Jo may enter into a hair-pulling contest if you don’t intervene.”

  “She is my mother. I love her. But no one can deal with her.” Zack kissed Amy’s hair and straightened with a sigh of resignation. “You see why I cherish you? You can kill Porsches and make me laugh. You can save my mill and scare me to death. But you do not suck all the air out of the room just by existing. You have made me whole.”

  Amy looked astonished, then laughed so hard she almost fell over. “I fixed you?” she asked, gasping for breath between outbursts.

  He nodded firmly. “I am repaired.”

  “Amazing!” she cried, before falling into another bout of laughter that she could fry toasters and fix Zack.

  While she was so amused, Zack kept his arm firmly around her waist so she did not flee in the face of Hurricane Virginia.

  Zack’s father saw him first. Smiling, he abandoned his wife to Jo and strode in their direction. Amy could see where Zack got his good looks and charm. Mr. Saint-Etienne bowed deeply over her hand.

  “You are the heroine of the hour, am I correct?” he asked in a deep French accent.

  “Amy Warren, my father, Aristide Saint-Etienne. And yes, she is the heroine of the hour,” Zack proclaimed. “But we must return her to her children shortly. Not that I wish to hurry you away, but have you found a hotel room yet?”

  Before his father could reply to his son’s sardonic question, Zack’s mother escaped Jo to fly across the room. With her arms outspread in the caftan, flying was precisely what she appeared to do. Amy stepped aside and watched in amazement as Zack submitted to his mother’s smothering embrace, then expertly disentangled himself to return to Amy’s side.

  Understanding a man’s family has a lot to do with understanding the man, Amy reflected. Zack had the patience of a saint for good reason.

  “You are safe!” Virginia Adams Saint-Etienne cried. “You must come home with us immediately. Come along, let us leave before the mountains fall on us!”

  Amy observed Zack and his father exchange wry glances. She waited to see how the drama played out. She wasn’t certain of her place in Zack’s world yet, didn’t even dare think about it. But his parents were real people, not the exalted icons of her imagination. He had a real family, with quarrels and problems and intolerance, just like hers.

  It might take time to braid the concepts of wealth and reality together, but Zack’s down-to-earth common sense helped.

  “The mountains will not fall, Mother, and I go nowhere until I have seen my investment safe. It is good to see you, though. May I introduce the woman I hope to make my wife?”

  Amy tried to stand tall against the bulldozer personality of the famous Virginia Adams, but she thought she might sizzle beneath the laser beam of her blue eyes while Zack performed the introductions.

  “Hope to make your wife?” his mother said icily. “It’s not certain?”

  “We have been a trifle busy,” Zack said drily. “She has not yet had time to turn me down. I am hoping your arrival has not changed her mind.”

  He actually thought she’d run away from his mother? Amy laughed inwardly. She’d lived with Joella, the Walking Embarrassment, all her life. No, it was hating to disrupt the world of her children again and again that would influence her decision, not world-class drama queens.

  She clung to Zack’s arm, not yet ready to let the dream of him go. He could fly back to London and disappear forever if she didn’t do this right. “Josh and Louisa are the only ones who might change my mind,” she said quietly.

  As if on cue, Josh’s excited voice carried over the clatter of the high school band and media arrivals. “Zack, Zack! I saw you on TV!”

  Spying Josh in the crowd, Zack crouched and held out his arms for the boy to run into. Amy’s heartstrings tugged as her sleepy son ran straight to him. She glanced up to see Jo — mischievous gleam in her eye — set Louisa on the floor and turn her loose.

  “I wanta play, too,” Louisa said jealously, rubbing her eyes and watching Zack and Josh.

  “You have children?” Aristide Saint-Etienne exclaimed in delight, crouching down much as Zack had to hold out his hand to Louisa. “Will you say hello to me, young lady?”

&n
bsp; “You have children!” Virginia said in approval. “And such beautiful ones! What a splendid family portrait they would make.”

  Amy experienced no regret at imagining two dark-haired parents standing over her fair-haired children — and maybe an infant in her arms with Zack’s smile. She knew with complete confidence that Zack would become the father Evan never cared to be, and her insides performed a dizzy spin of happiness.

  She smiled up at Zack’s mother as Louisa happily fell into Aristide Saint-Etienne’s arms. “Yes, I think Zack will look good standing in as their father,” she agreed. “But persuading him to stand still is more difficult than persuading the children.”

  Ever observant, Zack jerked his head up at this agreement.

  Virginia nodded knowingly. “He has been running away for ten years. But I do not want him settling here. This is not his home.”

  “Home is where the heart is,” Amy reminded her. “Zack has a big heart and many homes. We’ll work it out.”

  And for the first time, she trusted Zack to let her do whatever it took to safeguard their happiness. She’d thought the security Evan had offered would provide contentment, but it hadn’t worked that way. This time, it was up to her to know what she needed to be happy, and to stand up for herself if Zack started taking her acceptance for granted as Evan had.

  And she wouldn’t have to fear losing Zack even if she fought with him. They had argued, and he had still come for her.

  Standing up, with Josh in his arms, Zack circled Amy’s waist and boldly planted a kiss on her mouth. Amy tingled at the promising flick of his tongue, but he withdrew quickly so as not to embarrass her.

  “The children need to be in bed,” he told his parents. “I am staying here, for now. We will see you in London in December, as promised. I have a project in Paris next month, so perhaps we will meet before then. But right now, we all need rest. Shall I have Luigi take you to a hotel?”

  Aristide handed Louisa to Amy. “If you would, please. We will see both of you in the morning?”

  “Very definitely,” Amy answered for both of them, as if they truly were a couple. “And if you’re up to it, we can introduce you to the rest of my family. I believe you may have already met Joella.”