Sweet Home Carolina

by Rice, Patricia

  “We’re dangling over a riverbed in a hunk of broken metal. We could have been killed.”

  “We’re alive,” he crowed. “We’re alive, and I very much want to kiss you. So let me help you climb out of here, and we will forget to call for assistance for a while.”

  He eased open his door until it lodged against a tree trunk. Using his cane, he wiggled free and studied their situation. He breathed deeply of the mountain air and admired the scenery, letting the adrenaline rush settle down. The river was no more than a babbling brook over a bed of boulders. They were in no danger of drowning.

  The angle of the hillside and the uneven terrain made his ability to clamber about doubtful, but perseverance was his middle name. Deciding the front of the Porsche was firmly wedged between a massive boulder and a pine tree, he limped uphill around a shiny fender lying on the ground to help Amy from the driver’s side.

  She was shaking so badly when she stepped out, that his laughter dissipated.

  “I am so sorry,” he murmured, wrapping her soft curves in his arms. “I should not have laughed, but it is better than crying, is it not?”

  She bunched his shirt front in her fists and wept into his shoulder. This was not how he had wanted to persuade this woman into his arms.

  But he had spent the past week watching from the distance she held him at, and he could not ignore her plump breasts now that they were crushed against his chest. Her jasmine scent filled his head, the tears wetting his shirt unmanned him, and the brush of her hair against his jaw electrified every nerve ending in his body. She spun him faster than the Porsche, so that he didn’t know whether to lust or cherish.

  A part of him that he’d long buried pressed reassuring kisses into her hair, letting her weep, blessing the stars that she trusted him enough to cry on his shoulder. It had been a long, long time since he had held a woman just to comfort her. He knew the sexual urges aroused by her closeness were inappropriate, but he could not command his body to disregard her welcoming softness. So he stroked her back, trailed his kisses from her hair to her ear, doing his utmost to remind her how thrilling it was that they were alive.

  She was hiccupping by the time his mouth found her lips. Jacques thought she meant to protest, but he firmly shut out her words with his kiss. The shock of attraction was instantaneous, and after the first gasp of surprise, she accepted his invitation with the delightful passion he’d experienced earlier. With her mouth melded to his, she shuddered and pressed into him with a desire for life and living that equaled the one welling in him.

  “Amy,” he murmured when they came up for air. To stop kissing her would be akin to tossing away a delicious ice cream. He couldn’t do it. He tasted the corners of her mouth, swept his tongue along her bottom lip, and claimed her mouth when she parted hers in welcome.

  He’d meant to go slow, not frighten her, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He’d enjoyed many women, but none had opened this rapidly filling well of desire for life and love that he had denied himself these past years.

  The powerful surge of need frightened him far more than the crashing car. He could not need again.

  Gasping, Jacques caught her upper arms and set her back from him just enough to save his senses, but not enough to let her go. Amy looked wonderfully tousled, aroused, and fascinated as she studied him the same way he studied her. Here was the sex kitten he’d sensed. Her lips were moist and swollen from his kisses, and he’d scraped her fair cheek with his beard. But her eyes — her eyes would be the end of him. They held such trust and wonder — and fear.

  “I did not mean to take advantage,” he said, totally uncertain for the first time. He wanted her, yes. But need? He was not prepared for that. “But there is this current, this electricity….” He gestured helplessly. “You’re a magnet.”

  The sun returned to her eyes, and she giggled infectiously. At his puzzled look, she laughed louder.

  “Jo says my magnetic personality destroys electronics,” she explained between giggles. “You must be a robot.”

  He had to smile at that, if only because her smile was so catching. “Hmmm…robotic. It’s true, I have been accused of that. And now you have messed with my wiring, and I am at a loss for what to do next.”

  “Climb out of here and call for help would be my suggestion.” Eminently sensible now that he’d indicated a need for help, she lost her vulnerable look and studied the path of destruction created by the crashing sports car. “I recommend sliding up on your rear. You’ll destroy your knee trying to climb.”

  He adored the way she metamorphosed from vulnerable sex kitten to sensible lioness when called upon. She had learned strength for her children, and she used it for everyone, even a grasshopper like him. And the entire town, he realized with regret.

  “I am not sliding about like a cripple,” he protested, releasing her to reach for the cell phone in his inside jacket pocket. “You must have bumped your head hard to think I would do such a thing.” Hitting Luigi’s programmed number with his thumb, he brushed her hair from her forehead with his free hand, checking for bruises.

  By all rights, she ought to be forcing a wan smile and sitting down to wait for rescue. Instead, she shook off his caress, grabbed a tree trunk, and began hauling herself up the hillside, no doubt running from the vibrations still electrifying them.

  Jacques’s knee ached just watching her. It was obvious she was no stranger to mountain climbing. She found foot grips with grace and agility, braced herself on rocks and trees so as not to slide backward, and had reached the roadbed by the time he had finished talking to Luigi.

  He liked watching the sway of her rounded buttocks and the way her firm calves curved enticingly with her climb. He wanted to slide his hand up the legs of her loose shorts and discover what dainty feminine garment she wore beneath the practical outerwear.

  He was distracting himself with lust rather than think about the woman he was learning to know. He couldn’t do that much longer. Amy was not a shallow beauty looking for fame and fortune, but a real woman with a life of her own that he must take into consideration.

  She sat down on a rock at the side of the road and gazed down on him like a princess at a toad. “I dare you to slide up before Luigi arrives.”

  “I will make you pay for that when I get up there.” After watching the effort it had taken for her to climb out of the small ravine, Jacques knew he’d be risking surgery to try it upright. But he’d never turned down a dare, and she knew it.

  He didn’t have time for surgery. Cursing the ignominy of crawling while the woman he wanted watched, he clenched his teeth and lowered himself to the ground torn up by the crashing car. He’d have to ease up backward, using his cane as brace to reduce the strain on his bad knee.

  “You realize I can never look you in the eyes again,” he declared, inching upward, feeling his way with his hands. “I am an Olympic champion, and you have reduced me to a crawl.”

  “I won’t look,” she promised cheerfully. “Although I must say, I don’t think many men have the biceps to do what you’re doing now.”

  He couldn’t help grinning. “You warm my heart. I am again master of all I survey.”

  “If that means you’re again an arrogant cockroach,” she said blithely, “I daresay that’s innate and nothing I can take away. Watch the blackberry cane on your right.”

  “You are not supposed to be looking!” he chided, finding the thorny branch and working around it.

  “I’m not. I’ve gone cross-eyed with pain, and I’ll probably black out at any moment. You will have to hurry to rescue me before I fall.”

  She was poking fun at his need to take care of her, but he had to laugh at her accuracy. “You are wicked and much too perceptive. I like this side of you. You must say what you think more often.”

  “No one listens when I do. You’re a captive audience. Besides, you have enough dignity for both of us. It doesn’t hurt to dust it off occasionally.”

  “Dignity? Is that another way
of saying arrogance?” Without warning, he reached behind him and grabbed her ankle. His hand easily wrapped around her slender bones so he could pull himself up the remainder of the way and pull her down to him at the same time.

  She slid off her rock and into his arms as if she belonged there. And she did. This amazingly strong woman belonged in his arms, in his bed, and in his dreams. Another crashing car could have shattered him. Instead, this accident had opened another dimension of possibilities.

  Covering Amy with his greater size, pressing her into the soft grass along the roadside, Jacques straddled her hips and claimed the prize of her mouth again. He could feel her curves along the length of him, arching against his chest and groin as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Desire, thick and warm, flooded through him. She drew on his tongue to show she felt the same, and he almost lost his senses enough to take her there, with the mosquitoes and poison ivy. All the blood rushed from his brain downward, and he ground desperately against her until she groaned with equal desire.

  Perhaps he could not have all he wanted, but he wouldn’t let this opportunity pass unrewarded. He slid his hands beneath her shirt, popping her buttons as he did so. He filled his palms to overflowing with the bounteous breasts she hid behind her tailored clothes. He unhooked her brassiere and teased her aroused nipples until she moaned for him and the zipper of his trousers cut into his swelling need to take her.

  At the noise of a heavy vehicle roaring around the bend and throwing up gravel on the road, Jacques leaned over and gently suckled at sweet buds to ease both their needs, just a little. Then, with regret, he rehooked her garments and rolled onto his back.

  He needed to slide back into the river to douse his throbbing erection. He hadn’t been this uncontrolled since….

  Since Gabrielle.

  That dashed an icy bucket of water over his raging libido.

  Twelve

  Amy retired to the Music Barn’s restroom, ostensibly to clean up after the accident. In reality, she needed private time to fall apart.

  Staring at her reflection in the fluorescent light of the renovated Music Barn, she gripped the porcelain sink and tried not to shatter into a thousand bits. Her breasts were on fire. Her panties were wet. Parts of her that even Evan had left unstirred ached with hunger. Men shouldn’t have hard muscles like Jacques’s. They made a woman weak.

  That was half the problem. She was a woman now, not the child she’d been when she’d met Evan. She had a grown woman’s desires for a mature adult male. A raging river of yearning scoured her insides — including her brain, obviously — leaving her hollow of everything but need.

  Outside the restroom, she could hear Jacques ordering Luigi about as if nothing had ever happened. He could wield his charm like a sword to challenge people, or he could use it to purr and persuade. That he used honesty and logic — despite his obvious reluctance to admit the truth — was far more devastating.

  With a character as strong as his, he could lead men into enemy fire. He’d said everything she hadn’t wanted to hear, and still, she’d kissed him. The man was terrifying.

  She was terrified. She wasn’t the kind of woman who rolled in the grass half naked. But the grass stains on her Liz Claibornes said otherwise.

  She’d forgotten how it felt to be held and loved. Her breasts had forgotten the wonderful arousal of a man’s caress. She refused to heed the physical craving gripping her lower parts. She could not get involved with a man who would be here today and gone tomorrow, probably killing all her dreams while he was at it. Her mother had done that, and look how horribly that had turned out.

  She ignored the niggling voice that said a hasty hot affair would burn out these desires quickly enough. She knew herself better than that. She would do emotional back flips and turn herself into a pretzel for any man she chose to go to bed with. So not going there again.

  Then what had just happened out there?

  Jacques had happened. He was the salt that made the water boil over. She had no business driving exotic race cars or kissing a fancy stranger who could charm a cardinal from a cherry tree. She was the kind of girl who went to church on Sundays and baked cupcakes for school parties. She was way over her head trying to deal with this charismatic James Bond.

  He charmed with words she wanted to hear, and she believed them — because he was honest with words she didn’t want to hear.

  Amy rolled her eyes at her reflection, pulled a wet wipe from her purse, and tried to wash the evidence of her stupidity from her face. Maybe the Sanderson women had some kind of malfunctioning gene when it came to smooth-talking men. Her mother had fallen for a good-looking musician who’d walked away one day and never returned. Jo had fallen for two slick bastards before getting smart and landing salt-of-the-earth Flint. Amy had been sensible in choosing stable, sturdy Evan, but even that hadn’t worked.

  Except Evan had consistently lied to her. And Jacques had been brutally honest.

  Excited shouts in the plant warned that she was missing the action. She’d have to quit hiding.

  Flint had brought Luigi in his pickup with a hitch for pulling out the Porsche, but once Luigi had seen the car, he’d decided to call a tow truck rather than risk more damage. She shuddered at the image of that beautiful ruined car in the ravine.

  From the exclamations in the other room, she gathered Jacques had now found what he wanted. She wouldn’t be seeing him again. That was fine. That was more than fine. That was safe.

  She scraped the dirt off her shirt and shorts where she could, tucked her shirttails into her waistband, ran a comb through her hair, and threw back her shoulders like a soldier marching off to war. After what they’d done, she just didn’t think she could look Jacques in the eye once she went back out there.

  The instant she walked into the cavernous building, Jacques waved enthusiastically, and she was hooked all over again. In one hand he held an ancient wooden pattern card, and in the other, the cardboard versions mechanically punched out in the sixties.

  “It is a treasure trove!” he shouted, referring to the once-upholstered window seat the men had torn apart in their search.

  He’d thrown off his muddied sports coat in the unair-conditioned heat. His trousers were filthier than hers. He had a bruise forming on his forehead, and twigs in the mink-brown hair brushing his nape. And he looked happier than a child with a brand new bike.

  “Museum pieces!” he called in ecstasy. “Some of these designs have not seen the light of day in decades, maybe centuries.”

  How was she supposed to resist a man who could be as thrilled with an old-fashioned fabric design as she could?

  “At least the seventies,” she said, tongue in cheek, taking the mechanized cards from his hand. Reading the design in the cards was as impossible as reading the data on a punch card. The wooden cards from before the turn of the twentieth century were even more fascinating and impractical. No wonder her mother had called them junk.

  Luigi and Flint merely poked with disinterest through the window seat. Jacques sprawled out his injured leg to lay the flat wooden plates out on the floor in some futile attempt to determine their relationship with one another.

  The town couldn’t afford to keep museum pieces like that. With a lump in her throat, Amy kneeled on the other side of the cards. She didn’t want to get caught up in his excitement. The town’s future demanded that she remain businesslike.

  It was damned hard to do while sitting near a man whose shoulders strained the seams of his expensive shirt. Just the dark hair on his forearms had her remembering how those muscled limbs had felt around her.

  She wanted to return to their earlier argument, but she doubted if he’d even hear her, so intense was his concentration.

  It was contagious. Fascinated in spite of herself, she skimmed the wooden plates with her fingers, wondering how many hands had touched them, what kind of mind had created this bit of brilliance so long ago. “Can you really determine the patterns without building a loom and run
ning the design?” She used to do her own weaving, had created her own design cards, but even she couldn’t see the whole without threads.

  “Computers,” he muttered, looking for markings on the plates. “We match the holes using my software program. Designs are done on CAD/CAM these days, but we can translate these once the computer matches the order.”

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler to just copy the design from the material you already have?”

  “I have a few pieces, a few patterns. I do not have them all. And it is better to have the actual weft pattern. My business depends on historical accuracy.”

  “How much do you think they’re worth?” she asked, then kicked herself when Jacques’s dark eyes sent her a laughing look. As if he would tell her. So much for businesslike.

  “To me, they are priceless. To anyone else, they are junk.”

  Damn if her hormones didn’t have her head spinning when he looked at her like that — with respect for her knowledge. Maybe she ought to go to bed with him — or somebody — so she could think straight again.

  “Then let us have the mill, like I said earlier, and we’ll sell the patterns to you at a price that won’t make your board of directors flinch.” She waved her hand grandly. “Everyone wins.” Apparently some part of her head still worked. That was a realistic suggestion.

  Jacques glanced up as if she’d startled him out of deep thought, then shook his head. “Amy, you are an amazingly stubborn woman.” His voice trailed off as he returned his concentration to the cards.

  She had no idea what he meant by that. She’d always done what Evan had told her. That didn’t sound like stubborn. Hiding hopes that they could still make a deal, she stuck with the tangible. “Is it safe to leave them here? Should we take them to the bankruptcy judge and ask that he lock them up?”

  Jacques sent her an admiring look that almost had her melting between the wide cracks of the worn floor.