La Fleur de Love: The Series: Books 1 - 4

by Leger, Lori

  “Yeah! Wait. What?” A veil of confusion slowly settled over Sam’s previous look of confidence.

  J.C. continued. “I mean, we all know what a grouchy ole son of a gun he can be.”

  Sam’s brow furrowed with deep frown lines. “All right, that’s enough.”

  “He didn’t get the name Oscar de Grouch for no good reason.”

  “Julian.” Sam’s warning sounded more like a growl.

  “He sure can be a crusty son of a bit—”

  “Julian Alcide Carter!”

  A moment of stunned silence permeated the kitchen, until Carrie finally spoke.

  “Julian Alcide?” Carrie suddenly understood J.C.’s preference for initials.

  J.C.’s eyes snapped with mischief as he glared up at the big man. “You stump jumpin’ old son of a bitch. I could kick your ass for dat, yeah!”

  Sam gave his vertically challenged buddy a friendly shove. “You’d have to be able to reach it first, short shit.”

  Carrie chuckled at the good-natured teasing between the two men. She stepped between them and gave J.C. a gentle nudge. “Go to your corner, Killer.” She turned to Sam and stuck a finger in his face. “And you! Go pick on somebody your own size.” She walked out of the room mumbling, “Julian Alcide—I never would have guessed that.”

  From the doorway, Sam watched Carrie return to her desk. Gradually, he realized J.C. had spoken to him and pivoted to face his friend. “Sorry, did you say something?”

  J.C. grinned. “I said she’s closer to your size. Maybe you oughta go pick on her.”

  “Bouche ta gueule, J.C.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up. I know what I’m talking about here, dammit. You two would be good together.”

  “It ain’t happening.”

  “Why not? You’re divorced, and now she is too. You know you want her, man.”

  “Arret ca, Julian. Just stop it.”

  The shorter man poked Sam’s chest with his stubby finger. “Look, Jackass. You need to quit calling me dat.” He turned and walked toward the door.

  “It’s a good name—”

  J.C. turned and pointed to him. “Den you take it.”

  “Come on, J.C.,” Sam pleaded, as the other man left the room without looking back. “It’s a good name.”

  Sam crossed his arms and looked out the window, surprised at how empty the room felt without Carrie’s presence. He pictured her the way he’d seen her at various times. With her head back and laughing at his impersonation of an old co-worker, or in profile as she bent over her desk to study a set of plans. The smell of her perfume lingered in the air. He breathed deeply, remembering the effect it had on him the day before as he’d leaned over her shoulder to explain a field book drawing.

  Sam hit the building’s back exit with an inward groan, as chilled air from the recent cold front surrounded him. He walked around the survey truck and collapsed against the rear bumper. His breath rushed out in a low grunt, as the cold metal penetrated through his jeans to shrink his boys into oblivion.

  He leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees and shook his head in an effort to deal with the sudden awareness of his feelings. He stood and leaned far enough to get a glimpse through the window by her desk. There she was, a perfectly framed scene from a movie projecting out into the dreariness of the overcast morning. He sucked in his breath, as Carrie laughed at something else J.C. told her, then groaned out loud at the ache brought on by a woman he used to think was a huge pain in the ass.

  Sam stood suddenly and jerked open the work van’s rear doors, determined to find something to keep his mind occupied. He thumbed through the stack of survey books, collected the trash, and rearranged the equipment.

  He replayed their conversation in his mind, revisiting her fear of ending up alone.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Why would she want you?

  “I’m better than what she had.”

  Hell, that doesn’t take much.

  He rearranged the stack of survey books filled with his own neat, hand-written field notes and precisely drawn details. Once more, he tossed them back into the box he kept them in and slammed the truck door harder than he’d meant to.

  Sam tried not to stare up at the window, but the sight of her profile lured him. He was a big fat robin and she was a live cricket. She threw her head back and laughed at something JC said. He smiled, imagining the sparkle in those two different colored eyes of hers, the ones she claimed were “really just a birth defect.” Birth defect or not, they sure added to the package. Those luminous eyes that sparkled green one moment, blue the next, accompanied by hair that shimmered with golden-red highlights in the afternoon sun. All of those luscious curves that accompanied the full-bodied woman, damned-well-proportioned on her five-foot-seven inch frame, just right for a man of his height. The sudden tightening in his groin area made him grimace with need again.

  You want that.

  “Not too surprising for a guy who’s as horny as a three-balled tomcat.”

  You want her.

  “It’d be too freaking complicated,” he continued, trying to convince his inner voice. Sam gazed up at her profile and watched her lean back in her chair and stretch in an alluring arch.

  He forced himself to turn away from her, wanting to avoid the tried and true method of ass on an ice-cold bumper to diffuse his single man’s affliction. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the image of her out of his mind. A minute later, he returned to the dreaded bumper and plopped down on the frigid metal. He searched the area, praying nobody had seen his solo performance, stellar enough to earn him a one-way trip to the psyche ward.

  He wiped his face and groaned. “Women are just good to make you crazy.” Crazy or not, he couldn’t talk himself out of wanting to explore every inch of her body at his leisure. He stood, approached the window, watching a moment longer before spinning away, determined to put her out of his mind. He didn’t have anything to offer someone like her. More importantly, if he went out on that limb and she rejected him …

  Holy crap, how much was one man supposed to take?

  November, four days before Thanksgiving

  Carrie pulled the pillow over her head, trying to block out the noise. Toto’s frantic alto yipping joined with the deep bass barks and low growls from Lucas in a dreadful harmony to further deprive her of sleep. Two a.m. on the final Monday before Thanksgiving, and she had barely gotten any rest. Determined to get at least a couple of hours, she left her bed in an attempt to shush her dogs.

  She unbolted the door and stepped out onto the back porch, crossing her arms against the damp chill in the air. The waxing gibbous Moon would normally have given her a full view of the backyard and fenced pasture. Dense cloud coverage blocked visibility by half. “Lucas! Toto! Come!” She whistled, and Toto ran immediately to heel at her side. Lucas ran halfway, then stopped for a fresh round of ominous growling.

  Carrie took a few steps into the backyard and squinted to a spot just beyond the huge dog in the center of the pasture. She stood, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark until a form—a bit darker than the surrounding blackness—began to take shape. She stared hard at it, watched and waited, for what, she didn’t know. She suspected it was a stray dog or a coyote roaming unaccustomedly close. Lucas continued with his low snarls, growls, and the occasional bark. She called to him again, and he finally came to her. She returned to the porch accompanied by both dogs. Something, some pinprick of fear, had her turning back just in time to see the dark form moving off toward the stand of trees near the road. Her dogs watched too, their low growls never abating.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood up as a frisson of terror crept over her. “Stay.” Thankfully, the dogs obeyed, both setting up guard duty at the back door. “Good boys.” She locked herself in the house, tried to close her eyes and put the incident out of her mind. Not so easy when one thought repeated in her mind like a radar loop of a weather report.

  From her observation,
if that was a dog in the back pasture, the son of a gun walked off on its hind legs—and it was as tall as a grown man.

  Sam locked his truck and zipped up the all-weather work jacket while waiting patiently at the carpool’s pick-up spot. His heart pumped furiously at the approach of Carrie’s gray sedan. Sam wiped his hands on his jeans, hands as clammy as a twelve-year-old boy playing touchy-feely with the preacher’s daughter. “Get a grip, you big dumbass.”

  His heart dropped to his toes when he saw Cory, the youngest member of his survey crew, sleeping comfortably in the front bucket seat next to the driver. Sam’s only option was to crawl into the Escort’s cramped back seat.

  “Pull up that seat, Cory,” Sam groaned, trying to stretch his long legs to a less cramped position. “My knees are touching my chin back here. You know,” he added, thinking he had nothing to lose. “If you really wanted to score points with your boss, you’d switch seats with me.”

  Cory gave a sleepy groan and moved to open the car door, until Carrie placed a restraining hand on his forearm.

  “Don’t you dare.” She shot a glare in Sam’s direction. “It won’t kill you to sit back there for a change.”

  “But my legs are a lot longer than hi—”

  “You need your diaper changed too, you big baby?” Her car threw gravel as she peeled out of the parking lot to get back onto the highway.

  “You offering?” Expecting a comeback, he glanced in her direction. One look told him she wasn’t in a mood for jokes. Instead of a grin and dimples, he encountered a worried brow and a frown. She steered with her right hand in a white knuckled grip while the left supported her forehead. Only a fool would ignore those crystal-clear signs of a woman on the verge of a major “open-your-mouth-and-I’ll-tear-you-a-new-one” melt down. He settled into the back seat without another word.

  Ten minutes later, Sam staked out his crew’s darkened office. “Where the hell are Craig and Dan today?”

  “They both called in sick,” Dale added from across the room. “They got the flu, out the rest of the week.”

  Sam slapped his cap against his thigh. “That’s just great. How am I supposed to work with half a crew when you need that survey finished by the end of this week?”

  “It’s kinda slow. We can spare somebody from the office,” Dale suggested.

  J.C. jumped out of his seat. “I’ll go!” He sent a hopeful look at Carrie. “Why don’t you come too? We need two people to work da chain.”

  Carrie sent J.C. a look that would have scared the crap out of a lesser man. “I swear to God, if that’s man-code for something disgusting, I may have to kill you.”

  J.C. shook his head and clucked his tongue in disapproval. “Listen to you, wit your mind in da gutter. It takes two people to work the hundred foot chain for stationing the roadway.”

  Sam joined in with J.C.’s laughter. “We’ll show you how. Come on, you’ll have a chance to go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine. It’s gonna be a nice day.” He turned to their supervisor. “How about it Dale, can we borrow these two today?”

  Dale lifted his gaze from one of several letter-size sets of plans cluttering his desk. “Get her a vest and a hard hat.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll pick ‘em up on the way out.”

  Carrie looked uncertain. “I don’t know what to do out there.”

  Roxie gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “It’s easy. I started out with the crew, you know. Once I got to be seven months pregnant with my last daughter, Sam wouldn’t take me out anymore. He said none of them could stomach delivering my baby in the back of that old van we used to drive.”

  Sam walked out of his office with a clipboard in one hand and his pencil and calculator in the other. “Damn straight. I didn’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett, and I sure as hell didn’t want to learn on Roxie.”

  Carrie smiled. “You’re not very convincing as Butterfly McQueen.”

  Sam’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “Now wouldn’t it be sad if I had been?”

  Dale stopped at Carrie’s desk. “How about it? You wanta go see how it’s done?”

  She shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”

  Dale gave a grunt of approval and waved a hand at Sam. “She’s all yours.”

  Sam walked away, wearing an ear-to-ear grin on his face. If only it were that easy.

  Wednesday morning, the work day started with a light fog and damp chill in the air. Every morning, Sam rode with James, Cory, and Carrie to a section of roadway just north of Kenton to survey the area that would eventually be widened for a turn lane. The fresh air seemed to improve Carrie’s mood. She’d laughed as J.C. had bounced out of the truck that first day, insisting he’d acted like her family’s dogs when anyone released them from their kennels. On this, her third day with the crew, Carrie’s enthusiasm matched J.C.’s. By the time the four of them piled into a burger joint for lunch, the sun’s appearance had transformed the unpleasant morning into a beautiful day.

  Sam’s suggestion to get their meals to go and eat in the city park was met with a round of agreement.

  Carrie balled up the bag from her lunch and sunk it into the trashcan about eight feet away from their picnic table. “How long are we going to be here?”

  Sam glanced down at his watch. “Another fifteen minutes, then it’s back to work.”

  She stretched and jutted her chin toward the park. “I think I’ll make a round on that walking track.” She left the group with a Terminator worthy “I’ll be back.”

  Sam jumped slightly when J.C. appeared at his right elbow.

  “Maybe you ought to join her, Sam.”

  Sam tore his gaze from her retreating form. “I think she wants to be left alone.”

  “I don’t think she does, man. I think she needs to talk to someone about what’s going on in her life. And I think it ought to be you.”

  Sam turned his gaze on J.C. “What do you think is going on?”

  “I don’t know. But something’s bugging the hell out of her. I think you’d earn some points by acting concerned.”

  “It wouldn’t be an act. I am concerned.”

  J.C. grunted. “You’re probably more than concerned, but you’re too dense to tell her.”

  Sam bit back the kiss my ass comment he had ready once he realized his buddy was sincere.

  “Don’t try to deny it, Sam. And I still think you ought to go for it.”

  “That so?”

  “Yep, and don’t act like you hadn’t thought about dat already, no. ‘Cause I’ve seen you watching her. You look like a man who’s starvin’ to death in a face off wit’ a big bowl of seafood gumbo.”

  She looked good every day, but working with the crew seemed to agree with her. She seemed happier being outside and away from her troubles. He could think of a couple of more places she’d look damn good. In his arms. In his bed. In his life?

  He gave a slow nod as he watched her progress down the track. Thoughts of her had steadily infiltrated his mind, betraying him, breaking down his resistance until he could barely think of anything else, whether she was near or not. He knew he was in serious trouble as the thoughts gradually turned from plain old man-in-need, to wanting nothing more than to care for her, protect her, be in her presence.

  In three months he’d transformed from ‘Oscar the Grouch’ to his former ‘Office Clown’ glory. If his crew was grateful to have him back, he was downright ecstatic to be back. It felt good to want to get out of bed in the morning. It felt extraordinary to be able to see her at the office five days a week. His world had turned ass-backwards, as he’d grown to hate Fridays and long for Monday mornings.

  There wasn’t a doubt that Carrie was responsible for the new/old him. It was time to pull the pork off the pit, because he was done. He couldn’t deny his feelings for her any longer. He was head over heels crazy about the lady.

  Without another word, he took the shortcut path. He paced his long strides and intersected with Carrie at the first t
urn.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  She graced him with a smile, her cheeks pink from the exertion of her brisk pace. “Not at all.”

  They slowed to an easy gait, making small talk, until they made it halfway around the track. Carrie stopped to investigate a decked gazebo with rails and built-in seating around the perimeter.

  “What a great place to bring kids.” She climbed up the wooden steps to walk through the gated doorway, turning in a slow circle to view the park from a different perspective. “This is perfect for small children and frazzled moms. It’s like a giant outdoor playpen.”

  Sam followed her up the steps and chose a seat across from where she’d parked herself. “Yeah, it’s my favorite design yet.” He couldn’t hold back the pride in his voice.

  Carrie jerked her gaze around to peer up at him. “You designed this?”

  “Designed and built it on commission. I live a few blocks to the east of this place.”

  “I didn’t know you lived in Kenton.”

  “I call it God’s country.”

  Her low chuckle sounded over the rustling of leaves. “And I sure didn’t know you were a carpenter.”

  “I like working with wood—lumber too,” he added, cracking a grin.

  Carrie’s eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “Don’t ever stop trying to be funny, Sam. One day you’ll get it right.”

  “I’m forty years old.” He continued in an exaggerated twang. “If it ain’t happened yet, chances are it ain’t gonna.”

  “You big Redneck.”

  “Watch who you call a Redneck, Coon-Ass.”

  Carrie twisted her features in distaste. “Call me Cajun all day long, but never Coon-ass. Do you know the origin of that word?”

  He nodded. “It’s from the word conasse, a derogatory word the French used to describe people of a lower culture.”

  Carrie’s mouth opened in surprise. “I’m doubly impressed, Mr. Langley. With this,” she said, indicating the gazebo, “and the fact that you’re the first person since my dad to have answered correctly.”

  “Do I get an A?”

  She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “Let’s see. I may have to grade on a curve.”