Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  “The Olympics,” Amy breathed with awe.

  Jacques brushed aside his self-deprecation to bask in her admiration a little. He was no longer an athlete and people seldom cared if he had been, but he was prouder of the innocent accomplishments of his youth than of the mercenary prizes he’d accumulated since. “Only once,” he reminded her. “Training for events kept me from terrorizing my parents.” Or vice versa, but his dysfunctional home life was not a subject worth dwelling on.

  “That’s what I need — coaches to keep John and Adam busy every minute of the day. Put that on our wish list, Jo,” Flint said through a mouthful of golden biscuit.

  The others laughed and jested, but Jacques watched Amy’s wistful expression as she gazed upon her own children. He remembered that feeling of pride in Danielle’s accomplishments, wondering if he should hire coaches or teachers so she might be all that she promised to be. He’d thrilled at her first steps and words, her determination to ride a pony, her willingness to fall asleep in his arms rather than let him go anywhere without her.

  The familiar knife of pain ripped through his heart as he once again remembered that life cut too short. He clenched his back teeth to prevent the pang of anguish and looked around brightly for a different subject.

  “So, Mrs. Sanderson,” he addressed Amy’s mother. “You have worked many years in the mill, but you are too young to remember their Early American designs from the sixties. Are there others here I might ask?”

  Sipping a soft drink, Marie studied him as if trying to decide if his flattery was worth answering. Her cropped graying blond hair framed a weathered face more angular than Amy’s. But her eyes were sharp and watchful.

  “I was a kid then,” she answered slowly, “but I remember my mother covering all the living room furniture in that ugly brown and orange. The mills had bolts of that fabric left even after I started there. What do you want with it?”

  “Mama, I asked you about those designs earlier,” Amy protested.

  “So, I forgot.” Marie looked unrepentant.

  Jacques took that to mean she purposefully forgot to mention the fabric. For what reason? Him? He could understand that. How could he persuade her to trust him?

  “What goes around, comes around, madam,” he said carelessly, hoping to hide his interest. “The toile de Jouy print has been back for some years. I prefer to work with original design rather than imitation.”

  “Oh, these were original, all right. Tiny colonial figures and clapboard farmhouses and sailing ships we never saw in these mountains. I always thought they ought to do dogwoods and rhododendrons and outhouses. Maybe some figures in overalls.”

  “Dogwoods aren’t historical, Mama,” Amy said in amusement.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” Marie answered gruffly, but apparently accepting Amy’s comment as approval of Jacques’s search, she continued. “Last I saw, all those old pattern cards and platens were in the wooden chest they used for a window seat over in Building Two, but don’t be surprised if someone decided they’d make good kindling and scrap metal. That old barn was cold, and we were always poor.”

  Startled that she actually claimed to have seen and recognized the cards, Jacques almost didn’t respond. “Building Two?” he finally regained the sense to ask.

  “The Music Barn,” Amy said with excitement. “The mill sold the equipment in there a decade ago. Flint, do you remember an old wooden chest in the barn?”

  Dragged away from his conversation with Pascal, Flint had to stop and think before responding. “There’s a window seat filled with junk. Does that count? Jo covered it in cushions.”

  “That must be it!” Jacques jumped up from the chair, winced, then gestured excitedly at Luigi. “We must see if they’re still there. Come along, Amy; show us where to look.”

  Instead of leaping up in excitement, she lifted one lovely arched eyebrow, glanced around at all the people talking and eating, and remained where she was. “What’s your hurry? The cards aren’t going anywhere.”

  A smirking Luigi settled deeper in his chair while Pascal returned to his discussion of country music.

  Jacques clenched fists of frustration. “We could finish the bid tonight if I knew for fact that the cards are there. It is what we’ve been looking for all week. Don’t you want to see if they exist?”

  Watching this interaction, Amy had to admit, if she was honest about it, she didn’t. She was enjoying this escape from reality. The flirting and attention reminded her that she was still female and apparently attractive. That kiss had stirred her sleeping hormones into a restless hive of bees. She didn’t want to go back to attempting to outbid a man who had access to more money than Midas.

  She didn’t want the most excitement she’d seen in years to depart the moment they had what they were looking for. And if she really had to be truthful, that meant she didn’t want to see Jacques leave — at least not until she got to know the woman Jacques saw in her.

  Which meant she’d slipped into fantasy again, and she’d better kick his ass out of here as fast as she could, find the cards, and hope he went away. Soon. Reluctantly, she rose from her chair.

  “Everyone is entitled to a day off,” she reminded him, nodding at his entourage. If she was going to be reduced to begging to save the mill, she didn’t want an audience. “Let your friends relax. If Jo will look after the kids, I’ll drive you over. It won’t take long to verify the cards are what you want, will it?”

  “We came in your SUV, remember?” Jo shot down that suggestion. “If you linger too long, we’ll be out here when the drunks take over.”

  “We will take my car,” Jacques said with his usual arrogance. “Amy will drive, and I will rest my knee as promised. Luigi can drive the others when they are ready to return to Asheville. I have my room here. It will all work out, you see?”

  Amy saw, all right. She saw Luigi grimace and Pascal look amused. Jacques’s type A personality was no doubt running roughshod over all their plans.

  But she wanted this over. She wanted Jacques out of her life before she did something stupid. She wanted to know if life as she knew it was about to end. The mill wasn’t that far away. They could be back within the hour.

  “Where’s your car?” she asked in resignation. She thought he’d arrived in the Hummer. That’s what Luigi had been driving him around in all week, but he surely couldn’t mean she should drive that. Catarina and friends would be stranded.

  “Over there, on the far side of the Hummer.” Jacques caught her arm in one hand and the walking stick in the other. Displaying more strength than Hoss on a good day, he proceeded to haul her toward his goal and away from the safety of family.

  Amy dug in her heels, refusing to let the locomotive on his one-track mind run over her. She kissed the kids and reassured them that Aunt Jo would be right there until she got back. Since they worshipped their cousins Johnnie and Adam, Josh and Louisa accepted her reassurances without protest.

  Amy was the one who protested when she saw where Jacques was leading her.

  On the far side of the Hummer, a group of men surrounded a low-slung dark vehicle that looked as if it could reach outer space. She hadn’t seen the Porsche since Jacques had hurt his knee. Apparently he’d had Luigi drive the sports car here rather than ride with the others today.

  “I am not driving that car.” She came to an abrupt halt, almost tripping Jacques in his hurry to cross the lot.

  “Don’t you know a stick shift?”

  “My Ranger spits at me if I look at it cross-eyed. I’m not about to touch anything that runs on computers and costs more than a house.”

  “Don’t be foolish. It is an engine with wheels. I will drive, if you wish. I suppose it’s not so hard if I do not use the clutch too often.”

  Amy imagined careening down the mountain road to the mill without a clutch pedal and closed her eyes in denial. “You are going to regret this,” she warned.

  “Oh, I seriously doubt that,” he murmured huskily ag
ainst her ear, his breath dancing her earring against her neck as he opened the door and helped her in to the tune of admiring whispers. She stifled a shiver of pleasure. Who knew earrings could be so erotic?

  She respected his tenacity in maintaining his playboy act until he had what he really wanted. All she had to do was pretend she was accustomed to it. Jacques seriously misunderstood the situation if he thought they were sallying off for an intimate rendezvous. She didn’t do intimate or rendezvouz. They were heading for a showdown.

  Sinking into the driver’s luxurious seat, she stared at the cockpit of gleaming dials set in the sumptuous leather of the dash and almost cried. Already, she was at a disadvantage.

  “I garden with a hand hoe,” she told Jacques when he lowered himself into the passenger seat with the judicious use of his cane. “I sew quilts by hand and weave on handlooms. I do not touch computers or DVDs or anything that goes buzz or bing.”

  He laughed, wrapped his arm over the back of her seat, and leaned over to indicate the ignition. Just his proximity caused alarms in Amy’s head to buzz and bing.

  “It practically drives itself,” he assured her. “You will see. We will be there and back before anyone notices we are gone.”

  “You have no idea how very wrong you are.” With a sigh, Amy pushed the ignition, and the powerful engine roared to life.

  Men backed out of the way as she eased down on the clutch and the gas. The race car tires scratched gravel and flew forward without a hitch, except for an insistent bing, bing, bing from one of the instruments.

  Eleven

  Jacques hunted for the source of the binging sound to hide his frustration. Amy cautiously eased the car’s brutal engine down the road at the speed of a child’s pony. He wanted his knee back so he could show her what the car could do. “There’s no one out here. You can go faster,” he remonstrated. “Enjoy a beautiful machine.”

  “You may as well tell me to enjoy a rocket launcher,” she replied, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Next time, I’ll let you ruin your knee on the damned clutch. What possessed you to drive this monster up here?”

  “It takes curves like a dream. We’ll drive it up the mountain someday, and you will see. It is like a magic carpet ride.” They could put the top down and let the wind blow her hair and color her cheeks and make her laugh like a girl. And then he would kiss her again until both their heads spun.

  His head was still spinning from that last kiss. He wanted to see if they could do that again — if he could persuade her to throw caution to the winds and just let life happen.

  “Give me real carpets any day,” she argued. “They’re at least useful.”

  “Magic is about beauty and dreams. These things are useful in their own way. One needs to step back from grim reality occasionally to appreciate the wonders of the world.”

  “It’s a trifle difficult for the rest of us to live on dreams. Right now, I don’t want to imagine paying for this car for the rest of my life if anything should happen to it.”

  “It’s insured,” he said with a careless gesture. “But nothing will happen. Maybe a few dings from the gravel. You fret too much.”

  “You fret too little. As Aesop points out, there’s a reason grasshoppers who fiddle away the summer don’t last to see spring, while ants who work to store food survive.”

  He kept his arm over her seat back, enjoying the familiarity of brushing her shoulder while leaning over to read the dials. The sun through the windshield formed a warm cocoon around their little nest of leather and chrome. “Aesop was a pessimist. People bring food to my door in return for my fiddling. A woman like you shouldn’t have to worry over such things.”

  She tensed so tightly when he stroked her bare arm that he feared she would bite his ear off. He blew teasingly on a strand of warm brown hair curling on her forehead and watched the sunlight dance on her gold hoops. She hit the brake, and he laughed.

  “What will you do if you find the pattern cards?” she demanded.

  “Do you think to drive the thought of kisses out of my mind?” he teased, caressing her shoulder with his fingertips.

  “There will be no more kisses,” she said firmly, keeping her eyes on the road and her hands in a death grip on the wheel. “If I’m helping you to find those cards, I have a right to know what you mean to do with them.”

  She meant to force the issue she’d brought up the other day, one he did not want to discuss with a lady he wished to seduce.

  “I will produce beautiful fabrics, of course. Or the company will, after I write the program.” He knew this wasn’t what she wanted to know, but he wasn’t prepared for candor. “I am not a thief. I am willing to pay well for what I want, so do not worry so.”

  “If all you want is the cards, why don’t you work with the mill committee? With your wealth, we could buy back the whole property and put it into production by Christmas. You could have your cards and designs, and we could have our jobs back.”

  Jacques sighed and sat back where he belonged. He truly didn’t want to have this discussion now, but she left him little choice. “The wealth is not my own. I have a company and stockholders who expect a good return on their investment. I have seen your plan. It is a bad investment.”

  He waited for her angry argument. Instead, the binging noise became a more insistent clang. Frowning, Jacques checked the instrument panel again, then opened the dash for the manual while she summoned her forces. He had no expectation that even a woman smelling of jasmine would leave the subject alone.

  “Investing in people, in your community, is never a bad investment,” she argued. “The returns just aren’t necessarily monetary, not at first. The money comes later, when the economy stabilizes. You have to plan for the future.”

  At least she had chosen an intriguing argument, if not one that would sway him. “But this is not my future,” he said regretfully. “We have different purposes.”

  “Then why not leave us the mill and simply purchase the cards from us?” she asked, her tone so carefully steady he knew she fought desperation.

  Following emotion was not a rational approach to business. A pleasant interlude with a charming woman, yes, but more than that could only end badly. Very badly.

  He didn’t want any part of knowing Amy to end badly.

  He might possibly be in trouble here.

  He unclenched his jaw and forced it to relax. “I can buy the mill and the patterns for the cost of the machinery, then sell the machinery and walk away with the patterns for nothing,” he said, brutally bringing out in the open what had gone unsaid.

  “Then I will simply have to win the bid,” she retaliated with such firmness that he had to glance at her to be certain she hadn’t transformed into a woman he did not know.

  He admired the stubborn tilt of her round chin, and he chucked it lightly to get her to smile again. “May the best man win,” he agreed. Competition, he understood.

  The clang became a whining alarm, and she clenched the wheel tighter, slowing to a crawl to make the turn onto the gravel mill drive. A narrow metal bridge traversed the rocky river ahead. “I won’t let you win,” she yelled over the noise of the alarm.

  As she turned the steering wheel, smoke seeped from the electronic panel, a wheel locked, and before Jacques could form any reply or take any action, the Porsche slid into a spin on the gravel, hit a soft spot on the side of the road, and flipped down the embankment.

  * * *

  “Amy, Amy! Are you all right?”

  Black panic wiped out everything except for the sight of the fragile, lovely woman slumped over the steering wheel. For years, Jacques had had full-blown nightmares of another woman, a child, and a car smashed against trees down a mountain hillside. His wife. His child. His world…all taken from him in the space of a breath. That time, the image had been only in his head, since he’d arrived much too late to see the actual scene.

  The reality was far worse than a nightmare.

  Mind screaming wi
th sheer terror, he fought the air bag, beating it back so he could reach the woman not answering his cries.

  Thanks to Amy’s cautious driving, the car had flipped only once, landing on its no-doubt flattened tires, but every battered bone in Jacques’s body ached from the crushing seat belt. He could see only Amy’s cinnamon brown hair falling over her face as her bag deflated. He could not tell if she breathed. Panic crushed the breath from his own lungs.

  Frantically, he wrestled the air bag aside and unfastened her seat belt without a glance out the windshield at the destruction of the gorgeous machine. He simply prayed he had not failed to save another woman from harm. “Amy!” he repeated.

  Her hand raised shakily to push the hair back from her face, and he almost choked on relief that she lived and moved. Still leaning against the air bag as if it were a pillow, she opened her green eyes and glared at him. “I told you so” were the first words out of her mouth.

  After a sharp intake of air, relief simply exploded from his chest, and Jacques laughed. He couldn’t help it. He grabbed his sore ribs and roared until tears streaked down his cheeks.

  “It’s not funny!” She sat up straight, or as straight as she could since the car was at a forty-five degree angle with the rocky riverbed. The knuckles of her fingers gripping the wheel were white.

  “No, I think I am hysterical,” he blurted out between chuckles. “My heart stopped when you did not speak, and then your first words are not of relief or fear but recrimination.” His ribs really did hurt when he laughed, but he couldn’t hold it in. He hadn’t laughed so hard in years. Eons of pain and fear ripped loose and exploded — he’d faced his worst nightmare and survived.

  “It’s not funny.” She propped her arms straight against the wheel as if that would hold the car in place. She didn’t sound anxious or in pain, just dazed. “I’ve killed a monster machine. Jo always told me I could.”

  In his relief, that seemed even funnier. Jacques tried to muffle his mirth, but chuckles kept bubbling up. “One cannot kill machines, and you haven’t killed us, so all is well,” he tried to say reassuringly, but another snigger escaped, earning him a glare.