LANCELOT OF THE PINES
A Louisiana Knights Novel, Book 1
Jennifer Blake
Mandy wants only to be left alone; she knows nothing about the disappearance of her much older husband, and less about the thug who tried to abduct her. Forced to hide out in a backwater town, the last thing she needs is an overbearing deputy’s protection.
Lance, saddled with the protective instinct that goes with the name of Arthur’s most trusted knight, is stunned by his reaction to Mandy’s courage and beauty. But is he putting his life on the line for an innocent in danger—or for a Black Widow?
LANCELOT OF THE PINES
Copyright © 2016 Patricia Maxwell
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means—electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise—without prior permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information contact: [email protected]
Published 2016 by Steel Magnolia Press, LLC
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
More Titles by Jennifer Blake
Chapter 1
The last thing Mandy Caret wanted to do was answer the door. She put her hand on its brass knob, but then jerked it away again. Her heartbeat shook her chest as she tried to decide if it was safe.
No one was supposed to know she was here in this backwater town. Certainly, no one expected her to be holed up in a tree-shaded neighborhood of bungalows from the ’30s and ’40s where silver-haired ladies swept their sidewalks with straw brooms, cleaned windows with crumpled newspaper, washed on Monday, shopped on Wednesday, and drove aging sedans to church every Sunday.
Today was Thursday, which meant she’d been in the house five days. Everything had been fine until now.
Maybe religious advocates or a magazine salesman had found the quiet street. Or it could be the curiosity of the nice, granny-type next door had gotten the best of her; Mandy had noticed her peeping over the back fence between the two properties. It was also possible that old-fashioned southern hospitality had brought the pixyish white-haired lady to her door with a fresh-baked cake.
Or maybe it was a hit man out there, his handgun fixed with a convenient, well-oiled silencer.
Yes, and she might also be punch drunk from stress and lack of sleep, so wavering between hopeful fantasy and paranoia. What she needed to do was check out the visitor.
Whoever had installed the door’s peephole must have been a giant. Mandy considered herself of average height, but had to stand on tiptoe to look through it.
Her breath lodged in her throat.
The man on the front steps had mile-wide shoulders, a square jaw and a look of rigidly controlled patience about his firm mouth. A tan Stetson was set squarely on his head, and his eyes were concealed behind mirrored sunglasses. His brown-and-tan uniform fit as if tailored to his tall form, and included a badge on his shirt pocket, radio on his shoulder and holstered handgun at the wide belt that cut across his flat waistline. Behind him on the drive sat a white SUV with Tunica Parish Sheriff’s Department emblazoned on the side.
Mandy dropped back down to her heels and rested her forehead on the wooden door. The arrival of the law was never a good thing where she’d grown up; it meant someone was in trouble.
This time, she was elected.
When had everything gone so wrong? She hated this running and hiding. All she wanted was to be left alone. Well, or to have her life back the way it had been before.
A shiver moved over her. No, not that.
Never quite that.
The doorbell pealed again, setting up a discordant echo as if the deputy outside had stabbed the button too hard. The sound jangled along her nerves with near physical pain.
It was too much after everything she'd been through—the endless harassment, unanswerable questions and fear like poison in her veins. Reaching out before she could change her mind, she snatched open the door so fast that hot summer air hit her in the face.
“What?”
“Deputy Benedict, ma’am, from the sheriff’s office.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Mrs. Caret?”
“What do you want?” Mandy hated the tremor in her voice, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“Sorry to disturb you, but I've been assigned to watch out for you while you're in Chamelot.”
Alarm stirred the hair on the back of Mandy’s neck. No one, official or otherwise, was supposed to be keeping tabs on her. “Assigned by whom?”
“That would be Sheriff Tate, though you needn’t worry he’s broadcasting that you’re here. Only he and I know it.”
“You’re certain of that, are you?” The more people in on the secret of her whereabouts, the greater the risk of a leak.
“You can rely on it.”
His voice was tight with irritation and the planes of his face had a stern cast. She didn't care. She'd heard this kind of meaningless assurance before.
Staying here in Chamelot wasn't going to work. She should have known the river-port town was too small, too quaint with its ancient buildings, virtually closed society and mossy traditions. The name even sounded old with its French pronunciation, like a combination of champagne and Merlot, similar to Chalmette further south, where the Battle of New Orleans had been fought way back when.
She’d still be in New Orleans if the detective she’d talked to a couple of times hadn’t convinced her to leave. Sheriff Tate was a good friend of his, he’d said. He ran a tight ship, was straight as an arrow and tight-lipped when need be. He'd make sure no one found her.
Sure he would.
Mandy could see herself reflected in the deputy’s sunglasses—a tousled-haired bottle-blonde, face too pale and with raccoon circles under her eyes from over-stretched nerves and sleeplessness. Not that it mattered. She’d given up worrying over how she appeared to men ages ago. No hunky deputy was going to make a difference.
“How is it you wound up assigned to me?” she asked in abrupt wariness.
He reached up to remove his sunglasses as if he realized they might be an annoyance. A corner of his firmly molded mouth tugged in a half smile. “You mean, how come the sheriff trusted me with the job? The answer is easy. I'm his chief deputy—and his cousin.”
Brown. His eyes were bourbon brown, and held a steadfast expression that made her want to trust him against all odds. It was a moment before she could attend to what he’d said.
“The sheriff’s cousin.” The words were flat.
“Five or six times removed and on my mother’s side.”
“Is that supposed to be important?”
“It is in Chamelot.” His eyes narrowed to dark golden gleams behind his thicket of eyelashes as he tucked his sunglasses away in his shirt pocket. “It means he’s not a Benedict like most of my other cousins between here and Turn-Coupe, next town down the road.”
He apparently didn't appreciate being questioned. Too bad. She didn’t have to accept his oversight just becaus
e he had connections.
“I appreciate the sheriff’s concern,” she said, “but you can tell him I don't need anyone to look after me.”
“You can take care of yourself, right?”
His voice carried enough hint of famous-last-words warning to be really irritating. “I’ll be in no danger as long as no one knows where I am.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And as long as I attract no extra attention, such as having a sheriff’s department vehicle show up in my driveway."
He made no move to go. “Sorry, ma'am, but I don't buy it. Your husband’s missing under suspicious circumstances and may be dead. You’ve been threatened, and you say somebody tried to kidnap you a couple of days ago. It looks as if you’ve got on the bad side of the wrong people.”
“That's not true!” Bruce couldn’t be dead, no matter how many times the cops suggested it; he was too big, too important. And she’d had no opportunity to get on the bad side of anyone.
“It may as well be, if you’re at risk because they think so. The fact is, you’ve become a target. If you don't have the sense to recognize that, it's going to be hard to keep from getting hit.”
Rage boiled up inside Mandy. She matched his immovable stance, putting her hands on her hips. “My intelligence or lack of it doesn't come into this. I know exactly how much danger I'm in, and have the bruises to prove it. The fact is, I didn't ask for your help and have no use for it. That means you can go away, and take your patronizing attitude with you!”
“I'd like nothing better,” he answered with hard precision. “But my orders are to stick to you like Superglue until this thing works itself out. We can do it nice and easy or it can be the hard way. It's up to you.”
She stared at him while the hard throb of her heart threatened to choke her. She felt intimidated, and that wouldn’t do. Not anymore.
Reaching blindly behind her, she caught the doorknob. "Not happening either way, Deputy Benedict.”
With a quick step backward, she slammed the door in his face.
Lance Benedict cursed under his breath. Whipping off his hat, he shoved his fingers through his hair and then slammed it onto his head again.
He could have handled it better, and probably would have if he’d been less on edge, less haunted by events of the night before. Added to that was how gob-smacked he’d been at first sight of the woman he was supposed to protect. For a second there, he’d lost sight of the reason he was standing in front of her.
He'd expected a high-maintenance female, all fake boobs, fake nails, fake smile, and every inch polished to a hard gloss. Instead, the mysterious Amanda Caret had been rumpled and natural, with soft-looking, lusciously shaped lips, clear sea blue eyes shadowed with fear and defiance, and not the first sign of makeup on her creamy skin.
If he didn't know better, he'd swear she was for real.
He should have Born Sucker tattooed on his forehead.
The woman’s file indicated she was a gold digger who had married a rich man more than twice her age and enjoyed the good life until things went downhill. Speculation was that she’d arranged a hit on him, and then reneged on the deal. Now whoever did the deed was after her. She claimed to be innocent, but the New Orleans police wanted her kept under wraps until they could prove it one way or the other.
Lance was intimately familiar with the type. His ex-wife had been a master at wide-eyed protests while taking whatever she could get with both greedy little hands.
Okay, so he'd made a mess of the assignment. He could fix it. He had to, as it was his best chance of redemption after last night.
Against his will, the scene played out in his mind once more: the low-slung Corvette convertible streaking through the red light, the high-speed chase out past the town limits, the stop, and high school football hero, Jackson Stout, unfolding himself from behind the wheel.
Then came the moment the flashing red and blue light bar on top of his SUV picked up the weapon in Jackson’s hand. The disbelief as the hulking football player ignored repeated shouts to halt, drop the weapon, get down on the ground. The way he just kept on coming as if he didn’t hear a word.
Or maybe didn’t want to hear.
Lance didn't remember firing, not then, not now. The pained disbelief on Jackson’s face was clear, however, as was the spray of blood as the round hit. Also the way the big kid fell, like a downed tree.
At least he’d had the presence of mind to lower his aim for a non-fatal shot, Lance thought. It was some consolation.
Yet was there something else, anything else, he could have done to change the outcome?
Lance had asked himself that question over and over in the hours since, along with two others: Had he been in what the sheriff’s office handbook identified as imminent danger? Or had he almost obliged Jackson Stout with a police-assisted suicide as a way out of his old man’s too-high expectations?
Lance didn’t know, and might never find out the truth.
With a quick shake of his head to dislodge the doubts, Lance turned away from Amanda Caret’s safe house. What was done was done; nothing could change it now. What he could do something about was the job handed him as make-work until official word came down on the shooting incident.
He climbed into his SUV and sat with his hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield at nothing as he considered his next move. Finally, he backed out of the narrow gravel driveway and headed downtown.
Sheriff Tate was in his office when Lance arrived. The clerk at the front desk jerked a thumb in that direction, an indicator the boss man wanted to see him. Lance used his knuckles for a staccato knock on the door, then swept off his hat and stepped inside.
The sheriff looked up. A heavy-set man with ponderous habits, he laid aside the papers he held and indicated the seat across from his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he meshed sausage-like fingers over his belt buckle. “Glad you came back in, Lance. I was about to send out a call for you.”
“What’s up?”
“I hate to have to tell you, but you’re now on administrative leave.”
It wasn’t exactly unexpected, but still felt wrong. “Why?”
“You know the answer to that as well as I do.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let a kid spaced out on crystal meth and Captain Morgan take me down?”
“You ruined his chance at the NFL with your knee shot. Or so his old man claims.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
“I know that, you know it and the review committee knows it.” Sheriff Tate pursed his lips. “If Jackson’s daddy doesn’t know it, he will before it’s over.”
“Then how the hell—”
“Calm down, son. The review may be a formality, but it’s a necessary one. Think of the next week or two as a vacation.”
The sheriff wasn’t his father, far from it. Calling him son was a way to emphasize the difference in age and authority. “I don't want a vacation, not like this.”
“Too bad. You’ve got the time coming and you’ll take it. It’s not like I can’t run the office without you.”
“I know that.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” the sheriff muttered.
Lance let that pass. Turning to check the closed office door, he spoke in low inquiry. “What about Amanda Caret?”
“What about her?”
“She still a priority?”
“You mean to ask who’ll take over the surveillance.”
“It has to be a seasoned hand, one who won’t be distracted.” Lance wasn’t too pleased at the thought of someone else watching the woman. Funny, since he’d resented the job when he was handed the paperwork earlier.
The sheriff lifted bushy brows. “Distracted?”
“By boredom on one hand, and the complications of the case on the other.” He wasn’t about to let the sheriff know he considered the subject’s looks to be the main problem.
“Like you, you mean?”
“Along the same lines, anyway
.”
“Thought your visit this morning didn’t go over so well.” The sheriff’s office chair creaked as he rocked back and forth a couple of times.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the lady calling to complain?”
Lance gave a short laugh. “She doesn’t much care for cops. At least, that was my impression.”
“You didn’t improve her opinion any.”
“No chance. She never let me inside the door.”
“Guess you’ll have to try harder next time,” the sheriff said with a wolfish smile.
“Meaning?”
“You’re still on that job.”
His cousin Tate had been sheriff since Lance was a teenager. He was a little gray at the temples as well as thick in the waist, but far from senile. “But you just said I was on leave.”
“That you are. You'll turn in your badge, gear and weapon, then make yourself scarce around here until you're okayed to return to work.”
“But I don't—”
“Surveillance of Amanda Caret was always off the record. It’ll just be a tad further off now.”
“Watching her will be my full-time assignment?” Lance did his best to sound reluctant. If his pulse took on a faster beat, that was his business.
“Your only assignment. While you’re at it, I want you to find out what she knows about why and how her husband disappeared, and what Caret was up to before it happened. If you can figure out what she’s hiding, we’ll be points ahead.”
The file on Amanda Caret hadn’t mentioned any investigation of her husband. “I thought Bruce Caret was supposed to be a hot shot lawyer who married the wrong woman.”
“That’s the story, yeah. But lawyers don’t drop out of sight for nothing, especially not leaving their car with the engine running, the driver’s side door open, and blood on the seat. I’ve had my ear to the ground since this woman showed up here. Word is Caret got himself in a bind.”
“What kind? Courthouse politics? Gambling debts? Drugs?” Amanda Caret’s white face and hollow eyes flashed across the screen of Lance’s memory with uncomfortable precision. Could be she had reason to be wary.
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