Sweet Home Carolina (24 page)

The castle, the magnificent Irish castle. He loved Ireland,
the lyrical voices, the outrageous tales, the music. Ireland was close to home
and all his friends. He could fly to London in a heartbeat, party all night,
and be back at work in the morning. He and Gabrielle had celebrated their first
anniversary in Dublin….

He’d lost himself in partying to eradicate those memories.

He didn’t need to lose himself in partying here, and Zack
recognized his immense relief at that knowledge. Since arriving, he’d lived a
real
life of sorts. None of the people
in Northfork reminded him of Gabrielle. He did not see Danielle playing in the
corners of the dirty mill, or hear his wife’s voice calling from the woods she
would never have entered. He could be himself here, his current and future self,
and not the old self that had died with his small family. He felt as if he was moving
forward, at last.

He could not expect his staff to feel the same.

“Brigitte, you can research the Galway tapestries as well as
I. You do not need me to research rushes for the floor. We have done castles
before. Go. I will not keep you. But I am needed here, for now.”

Needed
, literally.
It had been a long, long time since anyone had actually relied on him for more
than his opinion on wallpaper and the latest software.

It had been a long time since he’d felt strong enough to be
relied on.

Brigitte solemnly handed Zack her PDA of notes and
addresses. Cat wept hysterically and tried to throw herself at him, but Pascal
held her back. Cat didn’t try very hard, Zack noted cynically.

“Let us know when you return,” Pascal said, letting Cat cry
on his shoulder. “How long do you think it will be before we can start
referring offers to you again? A week?”

He felt Amy tense beside him, but he did not dare look her
in the eye. He had no idea where he’d be a week from now. A week
alone
in these mountains, without most
of his friends and staff — it seemed an eternity just now.

“We’ll keep in touch,” he answered noncommittally.

Watching his traveling companions — the only life he had
these days — file out, leaving him behind, Zack wanted a stiff drink. No one in
Northfork sold alcohol.

What in hell had he got himself into? These weren’t the
civilized environs he knew. He couldn’t even have a
martini
unless he made it himself, after driving an hour to obtain
the ingredients. He was seriously tempted to run after his friends.

“We can do it ourselves,” Amy said stiffly, apparently
reading his body language as well as he’d read Brigitte’s. “We have the skills
and knowledge. Take your design cards and go.”

He glanced down at her shiny brown mane. “You would like
that, would you not? You’d have everything you wanted, at my expense.”

Propping her hands on her oh-so-businesslike skirt, Amy
glared back at him. “You’re the computer expert, not me. What do you think?”

“That you can’t do it without me,” he retorted without
hesitation, only recognizing the truth of his response after he’d said it.

“You’ve got that right,” she said, to his surprise. “So, Mr.
Know-it-all, where do we find the computers and who applies for the government
grant if Brigitte is gone?”

“You?” he suggested, arching an eyebrow with interest.

She swiped the PDA from him. “Damned right, just as soon as
someone transcribes the contents of this gadget to paper.”

Zack winced as the expensive
gadget
emitted the machine equivalent of a squeal of terror. To his
relief, Luigi rescued the whimpering BlackBerry and stashed it in one of his
capacious pockets.

“Consider it transcribed.” Shedding his doubts in favor of
his confident façade, Zack took Amy’s elbow and steered her toward the exit.
“Gentlemen,” he called to the mechanics, “You will start Monday. I expect to
have the plant fully operational by month’s end.”

Mainly, because his company’s cash flow couldn’t pay
salaries much longer than that without some influx of revenue. Pascal’s
fascination with Zack’s European contacts had made him one of his main
investors. Zack had a feeling that source of cash had just dried up.

* * *

“Technically, you can’t do anything to this place until you
sign the closing papers.” Stepping gingerly down a mossy brick path, Elise
followed Amy around the cottage.

It had been over a week since Zack’s friends had departed.
The mill machinery was operational. Computers were arriving daily.

Now all they needed were the designs, and Zack and the new
computer person had been working night and day, feeding the cards into the
machines, performing their magic.

She knew the mill was bleeding cash with no immediate hope
of return.

“You have another week before you can close on your place
and complete the purchase on this one,” Elise reminded her.

“Look, there’s a rhododendron under the honeysuckle!” Amy
exclaimed, pulling the tenacious vine off a hedge of shrubbery in the cottage’s
backyard. She couldn’t stand waiting any longer. She had to do something,
despite Elise’s logic. “Can you imagine how gorgeous this could be in spring? I
could put a little brick patio over by the back door.…” She swung around to fix
the yard’s dimensions in her mind. An ornamental cherry in that back corner
perhaps….

“Amaranth Jane, are you paying any attention to me at all?”
Elise asked in exasperation.

“Nope,” she replied. “I’ve worked myself half to death all
week and I want some reward. It’s not as if I’m breaking and entering. The yard
needs work right away. I can’t do it in snow. And the labor will be cheap,” she
finished wryly, referring to herself.

“Didn’t you get paid yet?” Elise demanded. “Is he working
you to death for nothing?”

Amy thought she’d best not tell her lawyer she’d work for
Zack for free just to hear his outrageous compliments and enjoy those few brief
interludes when he’d take her hand and send her thoughts spinning off their
tracks. Knowing Elise, she’d be filing charges for sexual harassment.

Insanely, she wanted to be harassed. She hadn’t felt so
alive in years. Maybe in her whole life. And even though she knew she was mad
to feel this way, it seemed safe enough when surrounded by friends and family.
It wasn’t as if she were going out alone on a date. She had to be wary with her
heart, but that didn’t stop her from admiring her new boss more with each
passing day. He knew everything involved with creating fabric from the inside
out. He tackled his projects with refreshing enthusiasm, and actually
listened
when she spoke. She was in
desperate danger of losing her wary heart to a man who could be gone next week.

“I’ve been writing for government grants. I don’t have the
payroll system set up yet.” Amy ripped out vines by the roots, uncovering the
skeleton of an enormous rhododendron and a few small azaleas. “Evan’s old
secretary, Emily, is giving notice at her job in Asheville. Emily said she’d
help me set up the bookkeeping next week. We’re a very small operation at the
moment.”

“And you’re confident he has the cash to make this work?”
Elise asked suspiciously.

“He had the means to convince the court. That’s enough for
me. I’ve given up fretting over what I can’t control. Now, this yard,
this
I can control.” Happily, she dug
through layers of old leaves and pine needles to discover autumn cyclamen
peering up from the rich soil. Slug-eaten hostas promised a gorgeous ground
cover under the trees in summer, once she set out some beer bait.

“I need to look into his background,” Elise decided, poking
at the leaf debris with the sharp toe of her shoe. “Rich men don’t let their
staff desert them like that. It’s highly suspicious.”

“You’re highly suspicious.” Amy laughed. “Investigate away
and let me know what you find. All I know is that he’s hired the personnel I
recommended, and he’s feeding info into computers around the clock. I’d be more
suspicious if he was flashing cash and doing nothing, but he’s practically
living at the mill. If I didn’t take him meals, he’d starve.”

Changing the subject, Elise examined the back of the
run-down cottage. “Have you had an exterminator check for rats and roaches in
this place?”

“Oh, I’ve already set out traps. The Realtor is a friend of
mine and he gave me the keys. He said I ought to bill the court for
extermination.”

“There are times I almost envy you.” Elise studied the
cottage’s mildewed siding. “This isn’t one of them.”

Amy grinned. “Well, I have the imagination you lack.”
Normally, she admired Elise’s practicality and can-do assertiveness, but right
now, she felt sorry for a friend who couldn’t see beyond the obvious. “This
place will be grand in a few years. It’s the home I’ve always dreamed of. I’ll
have roses growing up a screened porch by next year. A fountain and a patio in
year or two. Benches tucked in among the shrubbery so guests can slip away for
privacy when they want. Louisa and Josh will have an attic playroom for winter
and an outdoor one in summer. I could even walk to the mill if I like. It’s
just over the hill.”

Amy straightened her shoulders uncomfortably under Elise’s
gimlet gaze. “What?”

“You know that man of yours will be returning to Europe and
his fancy cars and houses one of these days, don’t you?”

She did, but she didn’t want to hear it. “He’s not any man
of mine,” she protested.

Elise snorted. “Who’s been feeding him all week? It’s a good
thing he has that driver to run his laundry to the dry cleaner, or I’d bet
you’d be doing that, too.”

“He’s paying me a fortune to stay in my house!” Amy argued.
“Fixing his meals is the very least I can do. Besides, the kids adore him. When
he’s not at the mill, he sits down on the floor and plays with them while I
cook.” She fought a shiver of fear when she realized just how much her children
adored a man who paid attention to them. She might be able to live through
another heartbreak, but she didn’t want her kids thinking all men packed up and
left like their father had.

“And who does he play with after they go to bed?” Elise
asked, arching her eyebrows.

“I take them back to the loft,” Amy said indignantly. “He’s
my boss. We’re just good friends.” Except for those stolen kisses. And the way
Zack looked at her that made her go up in flames and had her tossing in her bed
at night. And the way he found time in his busy day for her. She wasn’t so
blind that she didn’t notice she was the only one who could force him look up
from his fascination with his computers. Yesterday, she’d done it because she
was tired and discouraged and needed the thrill his heated gaze gave her. Evan
had never given her a second glance when he was working. She was giddy with
feminine power these days, and she was letting the fantasy go to her head.

But Zack was her boss, and he wouldn’t be staying, and they
were both grown-ups who knew the rules. Sometimes, she wished she could be just
a little less grown-up.

Car tires crunched in the gravel drive, and an old-fashioned
car horn ah-oogahed. Zack had let Luigi take the Hummer back to the rental
dealer in Charlotte after he’d discovered an antique Bentley for sale in the
newspaper.

Amy felt a blush creep into her cheeks even before Zack’s
cheerful voice called out.

“I’ve done it, I’ve done it! Amy, come see!”

“He won’t be staying,” Elise reminded her, keeping her voice
low as Zack circled the house and approached them. “Have fun, if you like but
remember fun is all you are to him.”

Amy knew she was right. Zack had never made any pretense
otherwise. He simply waited for her to accept him on his terms, and so far, she
couldn’t.

Watching the excitement dancing in her employer’s square-cut
features, she didn’t know how much longer she could resist.

“A bit touchy, isn’t she?” Jacques asked, watching Elise
swing down the drive, blessedly leaving them alone.

“Elise? Elise is a mystery. She has this fabulous city life
on the other side of the mountain, yet she spends half her time out here in the
country these days. I think something is tearing her in two.”

“And what do your wise eyes see in me?” he asked.

He almost held his breath when she turned her wicked green
gaze in his direction, but he managed a jaunty smile and a wink at her solemn
expression.

She snatched the papers from his hand. “I see a wealthy
businessman with a brilliant mind and too little to occupy it.”

She was too damned close to the truth for comfort. As Amy
examined the computer-generated designs, Zack bounced impatiently on his heels,
waiting for her reaction. He had expected shouts of jubilation and praise, not
this narrow-eyed study of every detail.

“These colors will never sell,” she said, plunging his heart
to the dirt and walking all over it. “But the designs.…” She flashed him a look
of awe and delight that let him breathe again. “They’re more than I imagined,”
she said in excitement. “I can’t believe.… They’re even better than the French
toile
. Is it possible…. I know it’s not
historic, but….”

Zack frowned. “It must be historic. That is the
point
.”

“Maybe. Yes.” She shuffled the design pages until she
uncovered one depicting a scrolled tapestry of feathers and leaves. “Who is to
say this had to be done in mustards or olives just because they were
fashionable in 1780?”

“But look.…” He pulled another page from the stack. “The
toile
and the brocade were made to go
together.” He glanced around. “Is there a place to lay these out?”

“Inside.” She produced a key from her jeans pocket and
climbed up the rickety back porch steps.

Watching the enchanting globes of her denim-clad posterior
swing up the steps immediately distracted him from the job at hand. He’d been
the perfect gentleman for a week while she drowned him in the soft scents of
vanilla and jasmine bath powder. He’d resisted kissing her every time she
turned her big eyes questioningly to him, or her pouty lips parted to chew on a
pencil eraser. He felt as if he’d spent forty days and nights in the desert
without food and water, and Amy was an oasis forever out of his reach.