Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1)

by Jennifer Blake

  Turning up the lemonade, Deputy Benedict downed it with his head thrown back and throat moving in smooth, even swallows. The sunlight struck with a blinding sheen along the supple curve of his neck and across his wide shoulders. It highlighted the plane of his chest and kite-shape of dark-brown curls that lay there, played among the damp waves that lay against his scalp, touched the bridge of his nose, the curves of his ears. His stance was natural and unstudied, breathtaking in its masculine grace, like some ancient sculpture of a workman pausing in his task.

  Mandy’s fingertips stung with the need to feel the steady throb of his pulse and the power he held in such easy containment. For the space of a heartbeat, she felt almost safe in the old house with all its odd noises, protected from whatever might come by the mere proximity of Deputy Benedict.

  It was a moment before she realized she was holding her breath. She closed her eyes with a fervent sigh of disgust. Idiot, she was such an idiot.

  The man out there was everything she distrusted and despised. Policemen like him had taken her mother away. They’d turned her and her sister over to Family Services where they’d been given small quilts, as if that was supposed to make up for the shock of losing everything dear and familiar. The state agency separated her from Clare then, sending her sister to some crummy institution while she was assigned to foster parents. Years later, when Mandy found Clare again, she’d been physically ill when she’d seen what had happened to her. Somehow, a young girl who had trouble communicating or associating with people had been turned into a trembling, overmedicated zombie terrified of everything that moved, especially every person who came near her.

  Mandy dropped the blind and whipped away from the window. Shoulders set, she stalked from the bedroom. Her frown was ferocious, her thoughts chaotic.

  What a conceited ape Lance Benedict was, showing off his manly physique in front of anyone who cared to look. Yes, and flirting with a woman old enough to be his grandmother, basking in her adoring attention. So he thought he could spy on her from the house next door, did he? Fine. Let him work over there until his tongue hung out for all the good it would do. He wouldn't see a thing.

  Or wait. Maybe he would. He deserved it, didn’t he?

  If he wanted to keep such a close watch on her, she might give him something to look at.

  Men liked to look. She knew that too well.

  A tremor moved over her, slithering down her back. Her husband had spied on her before they were married, when she’d first moved into his house. He'd encouraged her to go skinny dipping in his enclosed backyard pool after dark, saying how secluded it was, how refreshing on a warm summer evening. He wouldn’t join her as he didn’t swim too well, so he said. He’d catch up on the news on his tablet while she enjoyed her moments alone.

  Instead, he’d used night-vision binoculars to follow her every move. It excited him, watching her like some ancient satyr spying on a nymph in her bath. At least, that was what he said when she figured out what he was doing.

  How embarrassed he'd been when she confronted him, and how contrite. Or so it seemed. In reality, it was all pretense. He’d simply moved on to other ways of keeping her constantly in his sights.

  Would Lance Benedict be embarrassed at being caught out? It was difficult to tell when he gave so little away. But it might be interesting to see.

  She was killing him.

  It wasn’t just the peach-colored bikini designed to stoke the imagination of any man with warm blood in his veins, the graceful length of her legs as she stretched out on a lounge chair, or the shining white-blonde hair caught back by a fancy clasp. The way she pursed her lips to sip from the straw in her cold drink played a part, as did the glide of her fingers up and down in the moisture that beaded the glass.

  Lance thought the top of his head would explode when she leaned forward and eased the thin straps of her top off her shoulders, as if about to slip out of it. She stopped short of showing him the color of her nipples, and the need to know whether they matched the color of her bikini was a physical ache. His fingers tingled as she spread suntan cream over the gently rounded curves she exposed, while visions of leaning to catch the thin fabric of that top with his teeth and tug it lower came close to giving him a stroke.

  She’d taken up a position on the small brick patio laid out at the foot of the house’s high steps. Nonchalant as all get-out, he worked his way closer to the chain link fence between the two properties. He wondered if she had noticed him, also if she recognized him from the day before.

  Should he keep his distance, act so engrossed in yard work he was oblivious to the fact that she’d left the safety of the house? It might be best, at least until she grew used to seeing him come and go. He was fairly well placed, since Granny Chauvin was letting him use her spare bedroom; he was a light sleeper, coming awake at the slightest unusual sound. He could be next door in seconds if need be.

  The whole thing would be easier if he could get closer. Yeah, even into Amanda Caret’s spare bedroom, for instance. He needed to be able to talk to her, to gain her confidence. He couldn’t do that while turning compost into Granny Chauvin’s fall tulip bed. She might be one of his favorite people in the world, but drinking her lemonade and making her smile wasn’t going to get the job done.

  Maybe he could nod and speak to Mrs. Caret, pass the time of day over the fence? That shouldn’t freak her out too much. With any luck, he could proceed from there.

  Right. Proceed where? Not to hot sheets smelling like the coconut and spice of suntan cream that kept fogging his brain. He was on testosterone overload, and he knew it. It was why he was having such trouble deciding his next move. That was incredible when he had nothing but contempt for the kind of woman who latched onto a man for his money.

  No, it was the typical male response to a good-looking female body, that was all. Lust, pure lust. And he had no business whatever hankering after the female he was supposed to be investigating, who could be either criminal or victim, and who was married, if not a widow.

  He needed to get his head on straight, and fast. He had to get on with this job while he had the chance.

  Picking up Granny Chauvin’s old-fashioned, razor-sharp secateurs from where they lay handy, he clipped a few branches of the Chinese fringe tree that was hanging over the fence. As he worked, he kept watch on his target from the corner of one eye. She was shifting on her lounger, turning over on her stomach. She wiggled a bit lower, as if trying to find the most comfortable spot. Then slowly, deliberately, she opened her legs until the pale V-shape was turned toward him.

  Suspicion cleared the lingering fog from his brain. He whistled under his breath as it took better shape.

  He was being baited, plain and simple.

  He recognized it because it was exactly the sort of thing his ex-wife would have done. For her, sex had been a weapon.

  He’d thought Brittney was an angel when he met her, someone who mirrored his every belief, ambition and attitude. He was her world, she whispered while rubbing against him. All she wanted was to make a gracious, welcoming home for him in his old family mansion—and make hot love to him in every high-ceilinged room.

  That lasted all of a month after the wedding, until she found out living in a historical Southern plantation home didn't equal unlimited wealth.

  Now here was Amanda Caret giving him a peek in a classic tease while pretending to tan the insides of her legs. It had been done with a certain style, but was obvious now that he had his brain in gear.

  It was also effective. He’d been practically stepping on the tongue dragging out of his mouth. Added to the midday heat, the sting of sweat in his eyes, and muscle twinges from the labor necessary for his surveillance, it annoyed the hell out of him.

  Lance dropped the cuttings he’d made onto the trash pile. Tossing the secateurs down next to the shovel he’d been using, he stepped closer to the chest-high fence. He propped his arms along the top, resting his chin on his wrists as he took slow inventory of the goods
laid out for him.

  “Hey, honey,” he called out after a second, “you know your backside and legs have the imprint of that chair’s straps on them? Say the word, and I’ll come massage them away for you.”

  She came up off that lounger with a jackknife maneuver that did amazing things to his heart, not to mention his body below the waist. Flipping over, she gave him a cold stare. “No, thank you.”

  “Why not? It’s the neighborly thing to do.”

  “You’re no neighbor. What you are is a Peeping Tom!”

  “Oh, now, I think you know better. Just as I think you know exactly what you’re doing, laid out over there in your itty-bitty bikini.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, though the flush across her cheeks wasn’t all from the sun’s heat. “I have no more on display than you do, with your shorts that are about to fall off.”

  “Oh, now,” he drawled. “I’m glad you noticed.”

  “I’ll bet you are!”

  Lance ignored that provocation. “It’s good to see you out of the house, too. The way I understand it, you’ve barely stuck your nose outside since you got here, done nothing except order take-out. Looks like I did you a favor, getting you out in the sun.”

  “You had nothing to do with it,” she informed him with chilly hauteur. “I needed the Vitamin D.”

  “Sure you did.” He wasn’t doing himself any favors with this confrontation, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to tone it down.

  “And I’ll go back to getting it, Deputy, if you’ll go back to whatever you were doing!”

  “Lance, Lance Benedict. You trying to say I’m interfering?”

  She paid no attention whatever to the reminder of his name. “Exactly.”

  “I bother you, maybe make you nervous? Didn’t mean to, you know.”

  “You don’t! You know I meant nothing of the kind!” She sat up straighter on the lounger, then immediately swatted at something that flew past her head.

  Lance pushed away from the fence. “What was that?”

  “A wasp,” she said with a scowl.

  “Seemed faster to me.” He also thought he’d heard a sound above her voice, one that set his teeth on edge.

  “Don’t try to change the subject! You’re spying on me, and I want it to stop.”

  “I’m not a spy,” he countered, though without much conviction. His attention was on the far side of the yard, maybe three hundred feet from where she lay. A shadow among the tall shrubs there looked odd, as if it didn’t quite belong.

  “Call it whatever you want,” she said, her voice tart. “You and I both know what you have in mind.”

  A startled laugh left him. “God, I hope not.”

  “You’re impossible.” She sprang to her feet. Leaning, she snatched up a wrap from where she’d been lying, but then shied away from another wasp, or whatever it was that zipped over her head.

  Lance swore as he caught the quiet thud and its hissing echo this time around. Backing a long step, he plunged forward and braced a hand on a fence post to vault over the barrier.

  He cleared it by a foot, thanks to the sudden pump of adrenaline. Two long strides and he snagged Amanda Caret around the waist. He took her down, turning in midair so his back hit the brick patio before he whipped over to cover her with his body.

  Immediately, he wrapped his arms around her, tangled her legs with his, and rolled for the high concrete steps of the old house. She clung to him, stiff as a rail, face buried in his neck and nails biting into his shoulders. She was on top, he was up, and then she was topside again. By the time they reached the shelter of the high porch, his weight pressed her into the soft dirt of a flower bed and their lungs heaved in perfect, matched rhythm.

  Chapter 3

  “Get off me!” Mandy demanded in breathless rage.

  “Bullets, that’s what was buzzing you. Not wasps.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t answer, barely met her wide-eyed stare. Heaving away from her as if from a hot stove, he flipped her over without ceremony and urged her into a crawling position. “Go, go,” he whispered, giving her a shove toward the corner of the house.

  Mandy didn’t have to be told twice. She scrambled for that protection, while super-aware that the deputy was covering her from behind.

  The instant the bulk of the house was between them and whoever was out there, Lance sprang up and grabbed her arm, dragging her beside him as he sprinted down the narrow lane between the safe house and Granny Chauvin’s carport that began where the fence left off. Ten pounding seconds later, they were rounding the front of it.

  Mandy stumbled as the gravel of the driveway stung her feet. Lance grabbed her around the waist and kept going with her plastered against his side. She wanted to protest, to say she could make it on her own, but was too out of breath. All she could do was match his long steps as best she could.

  The carport was an ancient, one-car affair attached to the house on one side, but open otherwise. An older model Mercury sedan sat squarely in the middle. Lance lunged for it, dragged open the driver’s side door and pushed Mandy inside. She scrambled across the console and flung herself into the passenger seat. By the time she pushed upright and turned toward the deputy, he was jerking up floor mats, searching underneath them while swearing in a viciously soft monotone.

  Mandy sent a fast, comprehensive glance around the vehicle, and then yanked open the pristine ashtray in front of her. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Lance grabbed the key and shoved it into the ignition. Before she could do more than clutch at the dash, he slammed the car into reverse, spitting gravel as they careened backward into the empty street. He threw the gear lever into drive, and roared away toward town.

  Mandy twisted in her seat to look back. There was nothing behind them, no movement, no sign of a sniper, no strange car. All she could see was an elderly man creeping out onto his porch, rubbing the gray wisps of his hair that stood on end as if he’d just crawled out of bed.

  She turned back with a frown. “Are you sure—”

  “I’m sure.”

  He should know. And she wasn’t about to second guess him. “What about Mrs. Chauvin? Will she be okay?”

  “Not home. A friend picked her up half an hour ago for some women’s meeting at the church.”

  “Good. That’s—good.”

  A shiver caught Mandy by surprise, and she wrapped her arms around her upper body, hugging tight. She was shaking, chilled to the marrow of her bones in spite of the heat of the old car.

  They had found her. She should have known they would.

  “It’s okay, I think,” the deputy said, turning his head to look at her, grim reassurance in the dark brown depths of his eyes. “My guess is the shooter didn’t want to cause too much of a ruckus. If he could do the deed nice and quiet, fine. If not—”

  She didn’t want to think about it. “Or he could have been uncertain whether you were armed.”

  “That, too. I don’t suppose you got a look at him?”

  “I didn’t—I never knew he was there.”

  “Would you have recognized him if you had?”

  She gave him a quick glance before turning back to stare through the windshield. His nice moment of concern was apparently over, and he was back to the business of being a cop. “If you think I know who’s after me, the answer is I don’t.”

  “But it’s happened before.”

  “As you say.”

  “What went down?”

  “You don’t know?”

  His glance was stringent. “I know what’s in the file, which isn’t a lot. I’d like to hear it from you.”

  “There isn’t much to tell,” she said, rubbing her arms with her palms.

  “Blanket in the back if you want it.” He took a turn on two squealing tires then glanced up at the rearview mirror before turning his gaze forward again.

  It was actually a crocheted throw, probably made by Granny Chauvin herself. Mandy grabbed it
and dropped back down in the seat, wrapping the softness around her with trembling gratitude in spite of its smells of lavender, mothballs and cat. It wasn’t the warmth alone that she needed. She felt entirely too naked, crouched there in her bikini. She was also too aware of the man beside her, of the way he kept his gaze above the neck when he looked her way. That studied avoidance was a dead giveaway. He’d not only got an eyeful, but had been plastered against her every curve and hollow and put his hands on places that made her face burn to remember.

  “You were kidnapped a few days ago,” he said as a quiet reminder.

  She gave a jerky nod. “I was at the mall. It was late, but I’d locked the car and parked under a streetlight. It made no difference. When I opened the door, a man came up behind me. He put a gun to—” She stopped, caught in the stunned horror of that moment once more.

  “You were told to get in and drive, I imagine. Where to?”

  She was almost grateful for the hard, official tone of his voice. It steadied her, somehow. “No particular destination. He—he got in the back seat and gave me directions for when and where to turn.”

  “And then?”

  “I’d heard—I guess we all have—of women being forced to drive to some dark, deserted spot before being raped and killed. I wasn’t going there. I’d also read that a car can become a weapon. I saw a hospital emergency room ahead and just—just floored the accelerator and pretended to be hysterical, so strung out I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Good for you.”

  The approval in his voice was like balm on an open wound. She paused for a moment of amazement before continuing. “I had fastened my seat belt. He didn’t have one, I knew, since he was leaning against the back of my seat. I crashed into a stone pillar at the ER entrance.”

  The deputy inclined his head without looking at her. “You walked away, but he didn’t.”

  “Hobbled, is more like it. The bruises from the seat belt and where I hit the side door are beginning to fade, but—”