Sweet Home Carolina (9 page)

Male laughter erupted throughout the café. A lifetime of competition
had enhanced Jacques’ ability to size up the opposition. He observed the byplay
with interest.

“Girls can’t shoot!” Jimbo protested from the counter. “It
takes a man to handle a shotgun.”

“Maybe we could set up some targets for the kids and women
and their little popguns,” some other wit in a John Deere cap suggested.

Target shooting was for women and children? Jacques heard
Pascal snort derisively, but he held his tongue. This wasn’t their world. He
was just an observer. For now.

He smiled in pleasure as Amy returned to the table with an overflowing
tray of deliciously arranged food.

“It’s not much,” she apologized, distributing the plates.
“The minestrone is made with vegetable stock, but if you’re not vegetarian, you
might try the chicken salad on the rolls. I think you’ll like it.”

She looked more delectable than the food with her cheeks
pink and her eyes shining, and the shimmery thickness of her hair brushing the
delicate curve of her nape. He knew she was as aware of him as he was of her.

“This is extremely generous of you,” he said with genuine
delight, hoping to distract her from her nervousness. He couldn’t remember the
last time anyone had prepared food with their own hands just for him. “We
certainly didn’t mean to make you work on your day off.”

He shot a severe look to Brigitte, who immediately removed
her Gallic nose from the air and murmured her gratitude. Pascal expressed his
thanks in French, to which Amy responded in a halting high-school accent,
before she retreated to the counter.

“Hey, Amy, I betcha if both you and Jo would offer kisses as
prizes, we could get more entries!” Hoss called, still in pursuit of his own
agenda.

“You want Flint to aim for your head?” Amy shooed the young
waitress toward the door and began loading the dishwasher. “It’s three o’clock,
you clowns. You don’t have to entertain the company any longer.” Although Amy
had to admit that she appreciated having them here to shield her from Jacques’s
searing gaze. She really didn’t want to know what was going on behind those
long lashes and knowing eyes as he observed everything around him.

“We’re just looking after you, Ames,” George Bob replied,
rising and pulling out his wallet.

She was almost two years older than George. As much as she
might welcome his presence, Amy disregarded his paternal attitude. She handed
him his change.

“Reckon Amy’s reputation is safe here with the girls,” Jimbo
drawled for everyone to hear.

Amy threw his coins in the register and attempted a glare.
“Watch your mouth, Jim, or I’ll have to wash it out with soap.”

“He didn’t say a dirty word, did he, Mommy?” Josh asked,
following the adult conversation with interest.

“I took French class with your mom,” Jimbo explained,
sliding his billfold into his back pocket. “She knows how to say dirty words in
three languages.” Tugging on his cap, Jimbo waved at Jacques’s table. “See
y’all later, Jackie.”

Amy sent Jacques an anxious glance, but he was watching with
amusement. No matter what his intentions, she hated having a customer insulted.
Just because Jacques dressed fancy didn’t make him a wimp, but the men around
here didn’t understand anyone different from them. Any female with operating
hormones could tell the newcomer was hot enough to scorch.

“Well, if Flint won’t let Jo be the prize, how about you,
Ames? It’s for a good cause.” Hoss leaned against the counter, not ready to
leave until she threw him out.

The annual turkey shoot was a haphazard event designed to
raise money for Fourth of July fireworks and Christmas decorations. Winning a
kiss from Jo had been a popular contest these last few years, but Jo was a
married woman now. And Amy wasn’t any longer.

“What about Sally?” she argued. “Have you asked her?”

“Aw, c’mon, Amy, give us real men a chance for a change. You
don’t need to go lookin’ for furriners. We’ll raise enough to buy a new star
for the tree if you’ll say yes.”

She hadn’t thought Hoss looked at any woman except Jo. A
blush crept up her neck even though she knew he was all bluster and few brains.
She hadn’t kissed any man except Evan in ten years.

“When is this event?” Jacques asked in a quiet manner that
still made him heard above the ringing register.

Hoss turned. “This weekend, if Amy will agree. Why, you
interested in rifle shooting?”

Turkey shoots were all about heavy shotguns and manly men.
Hoss had asked about the ladies’ rifle competition with a smirk that Amy knew
meant he’d set this up intentionally.

Before she could intervene in a contest of twisted machismo,
Jacques tugged his ear and smiled that boyish smile that made her knees melt
and sent warning signals singing through her blood. Why the devil did he have
that effect on her?

“I’ll even sponsor an event, if you like,” Jacques
suggested. “Do you know skeet shooting?”

“Skeet? Ain’t no critters called skeet around here.” Hoss
crossed his arms, leaned his hip against the counter, and regarded the table of
strangers as if this were a spaghetti western, and he were Clint Eastwood.

Amy smacked him against the back of his head with a
plasticized menu. “They shoot skeet all the time. Don’t let the local yokel
fool you.”

Hoss belatedly dodged her blow and shot her a mournful look.
“Aw, Ames, you’re gonna take all the fun out of it. Jackie here’s gonna think
we’re easy marks.”

“Can I shoot skeet, too?” Josh asked eagerly.

“If your mother agrees, Master Josh. I will sponsor an event
for children, as well. Ms. Amy, would you be so good as to tell me the
appropriate prize for children?”

“What event you gonna enter?” Hoss demanded, pushing his
luck.

“Any event in which Ms. Amy is the prize, of course.”
Jacques held out his hand to Pascal, and a money clip stuffed with green
appeared in his palm. “What is the entry fee?”

Amy thought she might just sink through the floor. She had
no desire at all to be the
prize
in
this masculine tug-of-war. She had no idea why a man like Jacques would allow
himself to be drawn into Hoss’s little joke, but she had to end this
now
.

“Jacques, you don’t have to do this. Hoss got his name
because he’s always horsing around.” And because he could be a horse’s ass, she
should have added. He just wanted to best the rich stranger in a sport he
excelled at — and suck as much money from him as he could.

Jacques winked at her admonition, making it clear that she
was the reason he was doing this. “I assure you, Amy, this will be my
pleasure.”

Amy contemplated what might be under the café floor if she
sank through it. Spiders, mice, cobwebs, all would be more acceptable than this
insane contest. Were they really betting on a kiss from her? Her, Amy Warren,
Miss Invisible USA? What the hell did they hope to gain from this?

But as Jacques laid his money on the table and Hoss scooped
it up, Amy couldn’t prevent her neglected hormones from boiling over at the
thought of Macho Man claiming his
prize
.
Just watching Jacques’s confident laughter had her way past over stimulated
without imagining kissing him. She was so not going there.

The café phone rang, distracting her from that embarrassing
leap of imagination. Relieved to be removed from the action, she grabbed the
receiver as the rest of her customers, except for Playboy and Company, filed
out.

“Stardust, Amy here,” she said curtly.

“Amy, they accepted the counter offer!” her real estate
agent crowed. “You’ve sold your house.”

Shocked, Amy grabbed the stove to keep her knees from
crumbling out from under her.
She’d sold her
house?

It was real, then. Instead of cheering, panic grabbed her.
They had nowhere to go.

She scarcely heard the agent’s litany of explanations of
what would happen next. Her mind leaped like a frog from one terror to the
next. She couldn’t find a new home without knowing if she had a job.

If the town lost the mill bid…. Her gaze widened in horror
as the agent rattled on, and Amy watched the man who threatened her future
complacently plot with his partners across the room.

By the time she hung up the phone, Jacques was looking at
her with lifted eyebrow, and his staff had hurriedly finished their meal and
departed. She didn’t even feel guilty for deserting her hostess duties and
driving them away.

She needed to write up his bill and get him out of here so
she could think, even if what she really wanted to do was reach across the
counter and shake him until he spilled his plans for the town’s future. Her
hand trembled as she scribbled on the café’s green order form and tried not to
look at him again.

“Is everything all right?” Jacques asked, setting down his
cup and reaching for his wallet.

No, everything wasn’t all right, especially when the
sympathy in his voice made her want to fall into his arms and weep. Better for
all concerned that she saw him as the fly in her ointment, the bad guy she was
supposed to chase out of town as quickly as she could say “vintage patterns.”
She summoned her courage and slapped the meal ticket on the table. “Just
exactly what are your intentions?” she demanded, unable to phrase her
desperation more precisely.

Jacques’ look of mischief warned that not only had she
garbled the question, but he hadn’t taken it seriously.

“Purely dishonorable, I assure you,” he replied, rising from
the booth — putting him entirely too close, to her flushed embarrassment. If he
touched her, she’d probably faint.

The villain practically exuded sexy. And the heated look he
bestowed on her left no possibility of mistaking his meaning, which flustered
her even more. She was a mother. She didn’t do dishonorable.

Shaken in too many ways to comprehend, Amy let her anxiety
run away from her common sense. “I mean about the mill.” She backed up a step,
but didn’t retreat entirely, determined to have facts to base her decision on.
“The town is bidding on the mill to put families back to work. If you win the
bid, will you find the patterns and abandon us?”

How pitiful was that? Amy bit her tongue to keep from
spilling her guts and her tears. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t. She
needed the answer too much.

Jacques’s grin disappeared. He removed a large bill from his
wallet and laid it on the counter. “I never make promises. We shall just see
what happens next, shall we?”

If there was concern or regret in his reply, she refused to
acknowledge it. Nor did she acknowledge his hesitation as he continued to watch
her, waiting for…what? Acceptance? Anger? She shook her head, saying nothing.

He walked out without waiting for change, leaving her hot
and bothered and wondering if she was her own worst enemy.

With her stomach sinking to her aching feet, Amy almost
wished he’d lied, so she could despise him for being the same calculating fraud
as Evan.

But he hadn’t lied. He wasn’t Evan, and she couldn’t despise
him for stating the cold, hard facts, just as she’d asked him to do. This was
purely business to him.

If only she could let her heart freeze over in anger.

But she’d never learned to hate, and she couldn’t start now.
Not with the first man who’d caught her interest in a dozen years — even if he
had the power to destroy her and her home in the name of all-mighty business.

“I’ve sold our house,” Amy repeated in shock, staring at the
walls of her bedroom at seven that evening.

The electric clock next to her bed began to buzz…. alarmingly.
With an absentminded smack, she turned it off. Her gaze drifted to the family
photos centered on the wall over the antique walnut dresser. From there, it
fell on her grandmother’s hand-stitched quilt draped over a century-old stand
Amy had lovingly restored. She’d had a designer create the draperies on the big
bay window to match the beautiful old roses in the quilt. The draperies were
attached to the house, the Realtor had said. She couldn’t take them with her.

She started to shake as the reality sank in. She might have
despised this bland house when Evan bought it, but she’d made it into a
home
designed with love especially for
her family. And now strangers would inhabit it.

Her agent had said the buyers had cash and wanted to close
early. She’d made homelessness sound like a
good
thing.

Fighting tears, Amy focused on the big painting of Josh as a
toddler that centered her photo display. How did she go about packing
paintings?

How on earth would she rip out her roots and transplant her
entire life?

Better yet, where would she transplant them?

Feeling as if her entire world were rocking precariously,
Amy drew a deep breath and put her foot down. She refused to sit here and weep
over what was done. She’d sold her home. She could start moving things to Jo’s
old apartment over the café. But she’d be damned if she’d live in that cramped
space for long.

She needed a positive goal to work toward. She needed a
home.

Wiping her eyes and biting her trembling lip, she marched
down the hall to the kids’ bedrooms — rooms she’d decorated specifically to
their interests. She could do it again — eventually — if she had a home. The
judge hadn’t accepted her offer on the cottage yet, but now that she was coming
into some money, she would fight tooth and nail for it.

“Want to go look at a house?” she asked, lifting Louisa
rather than putting on her shoes, shooing Josh toward the stairs.

“What house, Mommy?” he sensibly inquired.

“Our house,” she informed him. “Our new house, right down in
town where you can walk home from school when you’re a big kid.”

He looked at her as if she were crazed. “We already have a
house, Mommy.”