In a preemptive strike, she said to Carla and Beau, “Granny Chauvin told you Trey finagled a part in this movie, I expect. But did she tell you he’ll be wearing a dress for it?”
“A toga,” Trey put in at once, a pained look on his face. “You promised that wasn’t the same thing.”
Ignoring that, she went on, “Or maybe it will be Bedouin robes like Lawrence of Arabia. Who knows?”
Carla turned to stare at him. “What do you want to bet he turns up looking like the Sheikh of Araby.”
Zeni laughed at her droll, half-lascivious tone of voice. “With a turban and big old diamond right in the middle of his forehead?”
“And a scimitar at his side,” Beau suggested, getting into the spirit of the thing by singing that bit from an old, fairly non-PC, country and western song about Ahab, the Arab.
Trey lifted a brow in his cousin’s direction. “Traitor. But that’s actually good. I’ve always wanted to wield a scimitar.”
Zeni turned to Carla again as a thought struck her. “I didn’t see you and Mandy this morning. Weren’t you two chosen for parts at the cattle call?”
“Extras only,” she answered with a shake of her head. “No special roles like you and Granny Chauvin. We were rushed through our registration and instructions the same day.”
“Yes, well, that’s all I wanted when this thing started.”
Even as she made that point, she caught the question that Beau, across from her, put to Trey.
“Speaking of scimitars, swords and so on, how’s the medieval fair coming along? You think too many of the town’s resources are being diverted to the movie company?”
“Things aren’t coming together quite as well as in other years,” Trey answered. “Last I heard, the committee was thinking of canceling the ring tournament.”
Beau gave a nod. “I heard that, too. Something about not being able to gather up enough horses trained to gallop down the arena with lances waving around their heads?”
“Hard to believe. The country just south of here is full of cattle herds and Cajun cowboys. Of course, they could be staying away from all the movie folderol.”
“No problem,” Beau said, grinning even as he glanced toward the front door when its bell jangled a warning of new arrivals. “They could always substitute motorcycles for the horses.”
“Yeah, right. That would be totally medieval.”
“But just picture it, cuz, you and your biker buds in shiny armor, thundering down the arena. There you are picking up speed, kicking up sand, guiding your bike with your left while leveling a lance under your right arm. You spear the ring and the crowd goes wild—I can see it now!”
Zeni barely heard Trey’s rather profane comment as she looked toward the door. Her nerves, which had almost relaxed, tightened into knots again.
“I can see that, as well,” Derek said as he strolled toward the counter. “I like it. I like it a lot. What will it take to make it happen?”
Trey’s first impulse was to throw the actor out and ban him from the premises. He could do it; he was irritated enough and the Watering Hole belonged to him, after all.
Peabody might be speaking to him and Beau, but it was obvious he’d come to see Zeni. A distinctly sour look had crossed the actor/director’s face as he saw her standing shoulder to shoulder with him, her supposed husband-to-be. Peabody’s cool blue stare flicked back and forth between the two of them like the tongue of a snake testing the atmosphere.
“Well, now,” Trey said, “I expect you’ll have to take that up with the mayor and her fair committee.”
“I’ll do that, though I foresee no particular difficulty. I assume I’ll have your cooperation if the proper permission is granted?”
“Mine?” Trey could play dumb with the best of them when it suited his purpose.
Peabody’s smile was thin. “I believe you’re the president of the local motorcycle gang—or club, I should say. I’d think you would be the go-to person for arranging a run-through of this competition and its eventual filming?”
The actor, or more likely his minions, had been checking up on him. What did that mean, exactly? “You make up your mind fast, don’t you?”
“It’s a habit that’s stood me in good stead in a cut-throat business.”
No doubt it had, but he didn’t have to preen himself about it. “That’s fine, but I don’t know about this deal. The club is made up of a bunch of guys who like Harleys and enjoy riding on weekends, with maybe a cross-country trip now and then. We’re not stuntmen.”
“But you would be paid stuntmen rates, as well as being seen in the final film. Your group might like these perks. What do you say?”
“I say you’d be better off with professionals. Your insurance company might not be too thrilled if some of us amateurs got hurt.” Putting obstacles in the man’s way was second nature; Trey didn’t even have to think about it.
“That’s my worry, isn’t it?” Peabody returned. “All you have to do is get out there and show your—ah, horsepower.”
The man was the backend of a horse himself, in Trey’s opinion. “We’ll see.”
“So we shall.” The actor’s smile was the epitome of confidence. “Next time you’re at the fairgrounds, I’ll see you’re measured for the armor.”
Armor on a bike, heavy, rigid, movement constricting armor? Trey shuddered to think of it, given that balance and agility often made the difference between control and loss of it.
Peabody turned from him to Zeni, giving her his order for coffee and a slice of her coconut pie with the mile-high meringue. Weird, but Trey wanted to deck him for that, too. He’d watched her take orders from men a thousand times, but this was different.
He didn’t want her serving the actor/director in any capacity whatsoever. That was the long and short of it.
“Gloria?” he said, and gave the waitress a straight look while tipping his head toward the movie man.
“Yes, sir,” she said at once.
The girl was quick and smart as a whip. Taking the coffee pot from Zeni that she’d just picked up, she bumped her aside with one hip and took over the order.
Peabody left a short time later, when it became obvious he had no chance of carving out time alone with his Zenobia. At least, Trey assumed that was it, as he looked frustrated as hell. Beau and Carla followed soon after, with a backward glance or two that said they thought he and Zeni might like a little privacy. Quitting time for Gloria arrived, and she left to go study before joining an online conference for one of her classes.
It was the slack period for the coffee shop, after lunch and before happy hour. He and Zeni actually had the place to themselves, at least temporarily. Trey waited with some anticipation for the explosion sure to come.
Zeni glance at him, and then away again. “We missed lunch,” she said. “Do you want a hamburger or something?”
Was that all she had to say? He was disappointed for some strange reason.
“Not right now. But you go ahead.”
“I’m not hungry either.”
“All this is enough to kill your appetite, all right.”
She gave him a dark look, then picked up a damp dish cloth and began wiping the counter top. He watched her get rid of crumbs and water rings, and then drop the cloth into the sink to wash the glass coffee pot she’d emptied and dunked into the sudsy water.
The way she handled the slippery glassware, with gentle yet firm control, the way the warm white lather slid over her hands, was almost unbearably sensuous. Trey felt a tightening in his lower abdomen and closed his eyes in exasperation. Everything she did turned him on these days.
It was all he could do to keep his face bland and unconcerned when she let the dish water out of the sink, wrung out her cloth and hung it to dry, and then turned to look at him.
“What was the big idea just now, proposing like that?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning one hip against the counter. “Wasn’t it enough to tell them we were eng
aged? Did you have to give them a lip-lock demonstration?”
“Lip-lock,” he repeated, bemused by the term. It was so descriptive, yet lacking when it came to the kiss they’d shared.
“You know what I mean, so don’t try to distract me. I hate being in this position.”
“As my bride-to-be.” He wanted to be absolutely clear before he started explaining.
“Pretend bride,” she said with every sign of loathing. “Fooling Gloria, your friends, and everybody else in town about what’s between us. Or what’s not.”
“Fooling Peabody.”
“I’m not sure he’s fooled at all, or else he doesn’t give a damn.”
Trey gave her a tight look. “If he bothers you too much, let me know.”
“And you’ll do what? Bloody his nose?”
“Maybe, since he’s extra protective of that surgical wonder.”
She scowled at him. “If a woman had said that, she’d be labeled catty.”
“Just call me Midnight’s pal.”
She refused to be deflected by humor. “Lay a finger on Derek, and he’ll have you arrested for assault before you can turn around.”
“Or not, since I have close connections with the sheriff’s office,” Trey returned at once.
“Which won’t matter if he calls in a big city law firm.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It could be worth a few months in jail.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Why Zeni, it’s almost as if you cared.” He watched her with a certain amount of sympathy since he knew he was being obtuse.
“I’d rather not have to visit you there.”
“You’d come see me?”
“I’d have to or leave town,” she said with scathing precision. “People here would never understand if I abandoned you, not after you going to jail for defending my honor.”
The drama of that almost made him smile. “Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. Peabody has a movie to make and a career to protect. He’ll film what he wants and then he’ll leave. And that will be that.”
“Maybe.” She gave him a dark look. “But then we’ll have to fix this mess you’ve made.”
“Hey, you almost sound as if you’d rather see me in prison.”
“It’s a thought,” she said before drowning out any reply he might have made by punching the start button on the industrial-sized dishwasher he’d installed to save her the time and effort of washing up three times a day.
She didn’t mean it; Trey knew that very well. She was just worried, chafing against the situation he’d created. He liked that about her, that she felt the pretense was wrong. It didn’t much bother him, however, not if it kept Peabody at bay.
He wasn’t worried in any case. She’d be all right no matter how things turned out; he would see to that personally.
Meanwhile, he’d had his kiss, the one he’d fantasized about for months. He’d had it, been swept away by it to the point of forgetting their audience, and she hadn’t slugged him afterward. He considered that a win.
He should be satisfied. Not likely.
All he could think of was holding her again. Yes, and maybe brushing his lips across the tattoo on her back and then over her shoulder to her breasts, kissing every inch of her before sinking so deep inside her that he could feel her heartbeat.
He wanted her. He’d wanted her for ages, wanted her to stop frowning at him and be happy to see him, to stop snipping at him and say—what? That she loved him deeply, devotedly and desperately?
He was the one who’d said that. And if need be, he might say it again.
Chapter 8
The mayor and the medieval fair committee were pushovers. Either that or geniuses. They agreed to allow the modern element of motorcycles in the ring tournament but, in return, insisted on the parade that led off the festivities being filmed for use as background while the movie’s credits rolled. If the footage made it into theaters, it should be invaluable promotion for Chamelot’s future fairs.
Trey went around tight-lipped and out of sorts after hearing about the agreement, but soon fell into line with doing his civic duty. Over the next week, he and eight of his biker buddies, including Jake Benedict, another cousin from over toward Turn-Coupe, spent hours in a field outside town. There they practiced guiding their bikes with one hand and holding onto lances borrowed from the medieval fair committee with the other.
Riding back and forth at top speed, they vied with each other, attempting to skewer one of the metal rings dangling from lines attached to a makeshift support—though it looked more like a goalpost than the traditional archway for the tournament. It was hot and dusty work in the extended Indian summer they were having, and the whole crew was in and out of the Watering Hole often. Over water, coffee and cold draft, they held loud and longwinded discussions about the best lance lengths to carry, the maximum speed for effect and efficiency, and how to judge wind direction and velocity for the best chance of collecting rings.
The whole thing sounded dangerous to Zeni, especially after one or two of the riders limped into the place following spills. She wished she had never gone near the cattle call that had started the whole mess, never met Derek Peabody. She dreaded to see the actor walk through the door for fear he’d say something that might set Trey off, making matters worse than they were already. It was a great relief that Derek usually showed up while Trey was away.
She came close to backing out of her part at least a dozen times. What stopped her was recognizing that it would change little. The thing had gone too far.
It did help that she had the protection of the engagement; at least Derek paid lip service to it most of the time. If she sometimes suspected he saw it as a challenge, one he couldn’t resist trying to overcome, she had no reason to call him on it.
How relieved she’d be when the movie and medieval fair were both done and things got back to normal. This, in spite of knowing the special moments with Trey would then be over, moments when he casually dropped an arm around her shoulders, swung her into an impromptu dance to some tune on the jukebox or wiped powdered sugar from a doughnut off her lips and then licked it from his fingers. The teasing, the touches and fleeting kisses to please the customers, gaining their good wishes and congratulations, would be through, finished. Yes, and so would the strain.
Oh, but what then?
Zeni tried not to think about that, though she sometimes caught Midnight up and held the kitten’s small, soft body against her face while asking him what she was going to do. He was a good companion, always glad to see her, keeping her company while she read herself to sleep and curling against her back during the night. But he never answered her question.
As the week wound down she had a call asking her to come out to the movie location for a costume fitting. The notice made the scene she was to play more concrete. And if it made her feel sick with nerves as well, she almost thought she deserved it for getting involved in the confounded business.
It was with some trepidation that she showed up at the cheap trailer brought in to serve as the wardrobe room. The inside of the thing was basically one large, open space. An enclosed office with a single plate glass window took up one corner, with a seating area directly outside it and a door marked as a restroom just beyond. The remaining space held racks of clothing and costumes of all shapes and sizes.
The wardrobe mistress, a matronly figure wearing a smock stuck with pins over her street clothes, introduced herself as Millie. She stood back a second, looked Zeni up and down, and then turned to pull a costume from the nearest rack.
“Try this on for size, honey.”
Zeni felt the stir of anger and chagrin. The outfit was far too skimpy, like some male designer’s idea of what might be worn in a harem, or else the costume worn by the female genie in the old sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
“I don’t think that will work,” Zeni said as firmly as she could manage without shouting.
“This?”
“No,” sh
e said, and repeated that single negative again, and yet again, as the wardrobe mistress presented three similar versions, one after the other.
Zeni had researched the warrior queen of the desert, so had a fair idea of what she might have worn. Nothing she’d been offered came close. She began to explain, but Millie barely listened. Replacing the rejected costumes on the rack, she took a cell from her pocket and tapped in a text message
“I think this is a problem for Derek,” she said, her face set in grim lines. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Surely he had more important matters to oversee? But that was all right. Zeni had a few things to say to him if he’d ordered the costumes she’d been shown so far.
“Is there a problem here?” the actor/director asked, mild annoyance in his voice as he came through the door.
The wardrobe mistress got in her accusation first. “According to Miss Medford, the costumes selected for her are unsatisfactory. Amazing, for a bit player.”
“Zenobia was a queen, ruler of Palmyra and lands as far away as Turkey, not some female shut up in a harem,” Zeni said, her gaze direct and voice level. “She considered herself on a par with the Caesars of Rome, and actually was a Roman citizen through her father’s family. In most paintings, she's shown wearing clothing similar to the Romans.”
“That may be, Zeni, darling,” Derek said, coming forward to take her hand. “But you’ll be acting in some modern guy’s wet dream, not a historical epic.”
“Your wet dream, you mean.”
He tried to look humble, but failed. “I suppose you could say so, as I’ll be playing the lead. But what does this football hero know about history or how the queen of Palmyra might have dressed? He’s seeing her not as she was, but as he’d like her to be.”
“There you go,” Millie said, backing up her boss.
“You might as well forget Zenobia, then, and use any harem girl,” Zeni replied.
“The point is that this noble warrior queen develops a yen for our modern guy, and sets out to seduce him.”
Tristan on a Harley (Louisiana Knights Book 3) Page 9
