The ringing finally stopped. Had the answering machine picked up? It was possible, she thought with a glance at the windows where the mellow light of late afternoon filtered around the drapes. Eloise must be gone for the day, and Beau was probably out working around the place somewhere.
Abruptly, she sat up in the bed. The tour of the house! Had she slept through it, lying here in bed while people trooped through the rooms beyond the velvet ropes?
No. No, the house was only open for visitors on alternate days. It was all right. She hadn’t let anyone down by not showing up for her part.
She flopped back onto the bed like a rag doll. After a few minutes, her breathing returned to normal. Still she lay there, staring at the tester lining above her.
She’d wasted a large part of the day sleeping when she should be making plans to leave. A number of things still needed her attention. Yet it was so late now she might as well wait until tomorrow.
Yes, she’d think about that tomorrow…
Once she was gone, would Beau show up again at the foot of the stairs as someone else took the part of Emmeline for the house tour? She hated to think of it, refused to think of it.
She should pack, she thought; she could do that, if nothing else. And she would, too, as soon as she found the energy.
It was hunger that finally drove her from the bed. Dragging on jeans and a white T-shirt, slipping her feet into clog-like sneakers, she made her way down to the kitchen.
Eloise had left a note on the refrigerator for her, one pointing the way to chicken salad for a sandwich or homemade vegetable soup, whichever she preferred. Carla spooned the chicken salad into a lettuce leaf and then wandered to the phone on the wall. Caller ID showed a local number for the missed call. Definitely not Trevor then, which was a great relief.
Moving to the sink for a glass of water to go with her snack, she glanced out the window above it. Beau was heading toward a distant field, apparently, driving a tractor with a trailer behind it that was piled high with something in bags. She wished she knew what it was, and what he was going to do with it. That was ridiculous, wasn’t it, when she’d be back in Baltimore in a day or two, and never see the green fields of Windwood again?
A knock came at the back door that was down a short hall past the laundry. Hard on it, the door opened and shut. She swung in that direction, her heart fluttering in her chest.
“Yoo-hoo! Eloise? Beau?”
It was the sheriff’s wife who came into view, casually glamorous with her hair in a ponytail and a man’s shirt over jeans, its long sleeves folded back to her elbows. She had two garment bags draped over her arm, one regular and one long with the flared bottom usually reserved for wedding gowns.
“Oh, hi! Did I startle you? Sorry!” Mandy’s smile was bright but rueful. “I called on the way over, but didn’t get an answer. I decided no one was here, so meant to just pop in and leave these things.”
“If I’d known it was you, I’d have picked up.”
“Awkward, isn’t it, when you’re a guest?” Mandy held out the garment bags. “These are for you and Beau. The dry cleaner did a rush job on the uniform, but there’s a different ball gown for you. Beau didn’t want to disturb you this morning to retrieve the one you wore last night, you know? There’s a new hooped petticoat, too, since yours was apparently sacrificed for a worthy cause.”
“This is really good of you, but I’m not sure I’ll be here for the rest of the pageant.” Carla kept her gaze on the bags as she accepted them and turned to place their hooks on the knob of an upper cabinet door.
“Why ever not? You have the rest of the week, right? I mean, you reserved a room at the motel for that long when you first came.”
“Well, but I finished the magazine profile, so there’s no reason to stay.”
“You can’t go! You and Beau are so perfect together in the different skits that you make the pageant. It won’t be the same at all without you. Besides, old man Turner down at the garage said so many cars were damaged by flood water that it may be a while before the insurance adjuster can look at yours.”
Carla laughed; she couldn’t help it, regardless of this strong evidence of interest in her business. “You got all this from Lance, I suppose.”
“Lord, no. He’s a Benedict, which means he doesn’t bring official business home or pass along any of the interesting stuff that goes on around town.”
“But then how—”
“Gossip, pure and simple.” Mandy spread her hands. “The only advantage I’ve found in being the sheriff’s wife—well, other than the obvious—is that I know everyone in town and so hear most of what goes on. Speaking of which, I heard about the roadside miracle you and Beau pulled off last night. People from all over will want to see the hero and heroine of the hour. You can’t disappoint them. Besides, it’s too late to rope anyone else into your role. I mean, I sure don’t want it!”
“As to that,” Carla said, “I believe congratulations are in order?”
Mandy patted her belly that was still ridiculously flat. “Thanks much. I couldn’t be happier. But see? You’re totally in the loop already. You’ve got to stay!”
How could she argue with such logic? Still, there were other considerations.
“I was supposed to fill in for you for one night. I don’t know how Beau will feel about taking me on as a permanent partner.” She flushed as she heard how that sounded in her own ears. “Dancing partner, I mean.”
“No worry. The last thing he needs right now is to try to teach the steps and places in your skits to someone who hasn’t been going to rehearsal. And you’ve got the job of playing Emmeline, too.” Mandy tilted her head, speculation plain in her face. “People were raving about the act you and he came up with for the end of the house tour here.”
“It was Beau’s idea, really.”
“Of course it was. He’s a Benedict!”
Carla touched a hand to her cheek as she felt heat gather in her face. “Anyway, talking about the master bedchamber and then leading the groups back outside is your job.”
“Honey, you can have it with my blessing. As I told Lance, I’m done with corsets. Besides, my darling husband might have something to say if Beau rounded off the tour with me the way he did with you!”
Carla took the teasing in good part, since she could tell it was meant that way.
Well, okay, she’d stay another day or two. Beyond that, she couldn’t be sure. She really needed to leave soon. She had to go before things went too far, before someone wound up getting hurt.
The afternoon advanced, becoming evening far too quickly. Beau stayed away from the house until it was almost too dark to see outside. Carla was dressing for the pageant when she heard him in the kitchen, no doubt heating soup for his dinner. A short time later, the shower came on.
She half expected him to be waiting for her at the foot of the stairs when she came down, but he wasn’t there. He did come through the front door as she approached it, however, bringing with him the fresh scent of the outdoors.
He stopped for an instant, his brows rising and mouth open. It was fitting homage for her costume, a confection of palest pink silk layered with ruffles that were edged with gold lace and looped up here and there with knots of ribbon, and held out with a hooped petticoat a good foot wider all the way around than the one she’d worn the night before. That a part of it was for the way she looked in it gave her such a warm feeling inside that a slow smile curved her mouth.
“Wow,” Beau said in quiet appreciation. “Mandy said she’d brought you something else to wear, but that’s—”
“Uber fancy?” she asked as he paused.
“Almost bridal,” he answered, his eyes growing darker, “and nicely fancy. I feel like a hick by comparison.”
She made a leisurely appraisal of the colorless, bell-sleeved shirt and black wool trousers tucked into high-top boots that he needed for the first skit. “You make a fine pioneer. All that’s missing is a beard.”
; “Is it?” His gaze turned quizzical as he opened the door wider to accommodate her ball gown, and then offered his arm for navigation of the front steps and walkway toward where the big Lincoln town car waited.
“Well, no, but I suspect your ancestor had one.” Carla accepted his support without a qualm, having discovered the value of a man’s arm when it was impossible to see where she was putting her feet. And if she felt an inner thrill at the firmness of the muscles beneath her fingers, that was her secret.
“Nah. I have it on good authority he was an ornery cuss who thought beards were only good for crumb-catchers.”
“What?”
“Nests to catch and hold every crumb that fell off his cornbread, and worse things dropped from forks and spoons.”
“You’re joking.”
“Would I do that?”
He would, of course, and she was glad of it. It eased the stiffness between them left over from the night before, while setting a light tone for the evening.
Chapter 15
Carla danced down the stairs on the following morning with the dreamy music of the last waltz from the night before playing in her head. She didn’t mind it being there; she was still half under its spell, as well as the memory of the tracking spotlight as she’d swirled around the floor in Beau’s arms.
He was there in the kitchen, eating a biscuit stuffed with some of the bacon and scrambled eggs that waited on a warmer. His smile was warm as it rested on her, setting off a quick burst of something like fireworks inside her. Her hands shook a little as she turned to take down a cup and then moved toward the coffeemaker that steamed nearby.
“You’re using your right hand more,” he said. “I noticed that last night. It must be getting better.”
“It’s still sore, but doesn’t ache as much.”
“Using it should be good for it, as long as you wear your brace most of the time.”
She sent him a teasing look over her shoulder. “Yes, doctor.”
His smile mirrored hers, though it faded after a second. “You have a minute this morning? There’s something I’d like to show you.”
She had all the time in the world, since she only had to exchange the jeans and light blouse she wore now for the corset and hooped skirts of her costume for the house tour that would start in a couple of hours. “It wouldn’t be a replacement for my car, would it?”
“Not today. Tomorrow, maybe, when there’s no tour, so we have more time. Though I got you this.” He pulled a new cell phone from his back pocket and held it out to her.
“How did you do that?” It was a newer and better model than the one she had before, though the same brand. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Folks at the local office found you in their system. You have the same number, same plan.”
“That was nice of them.” Not that she was surprised. She’d grown used to the idea of people going out of their way for Beau, just as he went out of his way for them.
She thumbed the phone open, noting that she still had no missed calls, no text messages from Trevor. Odd, in light of the article she’d sent. She should probably call him, but was in too good a mood this morning to be brought down.
“So where are we going?” she asked as she clicked off the phone and slipped it into her back pocket.
“Eat up, and I’ll show you.”
Their destination was the greenhouse where his special cultivars were housed. It was cool and bright inside, though the exhaust fans hummed in the ceiling. Carla breathed in the smells of rich earth and green growing things while looking over the neat raised benches with their lush green foliage marked here and there by long, bullet-like buds and the occasional flower.
“Why are some blooming and some not?” she asked as Beau closed the door behind them and came to stand beside her.
“Different parentage, different bloom times, which means different pollination times. Then some were planted out on different days.”
“Planted out?”
“Moved from the germination trays when small, not much bigger than a blade of grass, and planted in pots.”
“You mean by hand, every one of these?”
Amusement shone in his eyes. “Every single one. Some are transferred to the field when they’re big enough, but those from special crosses wind up in this house. But what I wanted to show you is over here.”
The plant was in a bench halfway down the house, one with a bloom large enough to be seen well before they stopped beside it. It was the palest of pinks, with diamond-dusted semi-double petals that spread wide in a froth of ruffles edged with what appeared to be yellow-gold lace. Nestled deep inside was a pure green heart that held a delicate but unmistakable perfume.
“It’s perfectly lovely, Beau,” she said in hushed tones. “It almost reminds me of—”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Reaching into his pocket, Beau took out a small, folding knife and opened the blade. With a quick move, he sliced the flower from the plant and put the knife away again before handing the stem to Carla.
Dangling from it was a white plastic tag. Curious, she flipped the side with writing toward her.
Carla’s Ball Gown.
He thought, as she did, that the daylily looked like a miniature version of the hooped ball gown she’d worn the night before. For some reason, the idea brought the rise of tears. She could feel them pressing against the back of her nose, threatening to fill her eyes.
“Oh, Beau. I’m honored, truly.” She touched a fingertip to one petal edge, a move that revealed several small green cylinders hidden under the huge bloom. “But the stem had more buds. It was going to bloom again.”
“Doesn’t matter, the plant will put up other bloom stems.”
She met his gaze for a long, searching moment, accepting that sacrifice, before lifting the flower to inhale its ethereal scent. “Will it be expensive?”
He looked away toward the fields beyond the glass walls, as if a little embarrassed. “I don’t think I’ll sell it, not this one.”
“You’ll keep it for hybridizing then?” she suggested, remembering a little of what he’d told her before. It was a disappointment, though she could hardly blame him. She only had a sudden desperate longing to own this daylily that reminded him, in some small way, of her.
He dipped his head in courteous assent. “The crosses from it should be stunning.”
The mood between them had turned a little strained. In an effort to clear it, she asked, “How do you do that, cross two daylilies? Is it hard?”
“Nothing could be easier.” His voice turned lighter, as if he was glad to have something else to talk about. He looked around a second then reached for a nearby flower that was pale yellow with dark red, arrow-shaped markings in the middle zone of each petal so its eye appeared almost braided. With a quick twist of his wrist, he broke off a few long pieces in the middle and turned back to her. “Say we wanted to make a red eye for your daylily.”
“Mine?”
“Well, the one you have there that’s named for you,” he said, before glancing past her shoulder. “What I have here are stamens with pollen on them. See the yellow-gold powder? In the garden, bees and other insects crawl over the pollen. It’s a bit sticky, so clings to their bodies. When they fly to the next daylily, they rub over the pistil that stands up right here, in the heart of your flower. The pollen enters, descends, and pollinates the flower. In a day or two, it starts to form a seed pod. Eventually the seeds ripen and are then ready for planting. Make sense?”
“I think so,” she said. “But each flower only lives for a single day, right? That means they only have a short time for this to happen before they die.”
“One day, that’s all.” He brushed the back of his hand over his forehead as if it was growing warmer under the greenhouse glass. Maybe it was, at that.
“Anyway, in the greenhouse, or in the field if I notice a plant I like, pollination is more deliberate. I take stamens, like these, from another plant t
hat’s a good match. I then hold the pistil of the first plant in a gentle grasp while I rub the stamen back and forth over the right spot until I think pollination has taken place. If all goes well, the result is—magic.”
Something in the timbre of his voice made her brain go a little haywire, so it almost seemed he was speaking of something other than propagation among daylilies. She had to swallow before she could speak. “And the result will be a pale pink flower with—what? A red eye?”
“On some plants, yes. But others may be pink with a green eye like the mother plant or red like the—the daddy. Then some might be red with a green eye and gold edge.”
“That sounds pretty.”
He looked at her, the warmth deep in his eyes far more affecting than the temperature in the greenhouse. “Yeah, they’ll all be gorgeous, no matter what.”
Carla was unable to look away from him as the mental image of gentle rubbing and careful pollination made heat and moisture pool below her waist. If she and Beau had children, would some have hazel-green eyes and some blue? Would they be blond or would their hair have more reddish highlights in the sun? Would they grow strong and tall, and be prolific?
How long they might have stood there, communicating on a silent, molecular level that had more to do with human biology than plant pollination, was hard to say. They were interrupted by the protesting squeak of the greenhouse door, as if someone jerked it too hard.
“Huh. So here you are. The woman up at the house told me you two were out here somewhere, but you’ve been hard to find.”
That grating, high-pitched voice was unmistakable. No wonder Trevor hadn’t called her; he’d been on his way.
He approached at a fast walk, arms swinging, black wing-tips grating sharply in the gravel of the walkway. With his custom gray and black suit, Windsor tie and supercilious curl to his upper lip, he was as out of place as a penguin at a luau.
Anger and chagrin at his showing up uninvited and unwanted, also disappointment at the interruption of something that seemed important, made her voice stiff when she spoke.
Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) Page 16