Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (17 page)

While she waited for the milk to heat in the microwave, she wrapped her arms around her upper body, clutching tight as she pictured Beau still out in the wind and rain. She thought of his strength and daring, and of the way he’d come for her through the flood. She stood with her eyes closed, leaning against the cabinet, remembering, hugging herself until the muscles of her arms ached.

Carrying the mug of hot chocolate upstairs, she sipped it while peeling off her clothes that seemed nearly welded to her body. She ran a tub full of hot water scented with lavender bath salts and sank into the soul-satisfying heat, feeling it unravel strained nerves as it thawed her from the outside inward. She’d thought her feet might never be warm again, but was relieved to discover she was wrong. To remove the smell of river water from her hair was a supreme pleasure. It was some time before she climbed out, rough-dried her hair, and made her way to bed.

She was tired to the bone, but sleep wouldn’t come. The events of the evening played over and over in her mind. She felt so stupid for driving into a flood, was grateful beyond words to Beau for getting her out of it. She’d blamed it on him by sheer reflex action, but knew it wasn’t his fault. She had done it all by herself.

The sheriff hadn’t cared for her questions. He seemed to think she was prying into areas that weren’t her concern. Maybe she was; it was hard to tell at this point. But even if she wrote a favorable profile about Beau, she still needed details that would make him come alive for readers.

Beau is a gentleman through and through, but he’s also human.

Was he? Really?

She’d expected him to put a move on her while they huddled together on top of the truck. Settling her between his hard thighs like that had seemed a prelude. She’d shivered at his touch, off balance from the fear at being carried off the road, gratitude for being pulled from the sinking car, for the shelter in his arms, and for something more that made the blood boil in her veins. He must have felt it; how could he not? In that moment, with the heat of his body scalding hers with life-giving power and promises of oblivion, she’d have been an easy mark. If he’d kissed her, held her, touched her under the big slicker that protected them, she would most likely have melted into his arms.

He hadn’t touched her, but had been the perfect gentleman. She didn’t know whether to be ecstatic that he’d lived up to everyone’s expectations, including her own, or sorry for it.

The rain finally stopped. She couldn’t quite believe it, but lay in bed listening for it to begin again. All she heard was the fitful March wind that whistled around the eaves.

Toward dawn, she heard what sounded like the slam of the door of Beau’s truck. The back door creaked. Moments later, his quiet footfalls sounded on the stairs. The shower came on in the bath he used, running for an endless time. Carla drifted into sleep before it went off.

The rich, life-giving aroma of coffee invaded her dreams. She inhaled it without opening her eyes, taking it in with the rain-washed freshness of a spring day. The aroma was real, she was almost sure, but she couldn’t summon the energy to prove it.

“I could drink this for you,” a voice rich with laughter said from somewhere nearby, “but I don’t think that would do the job.”

She opened one eye. Beau sat on the foot of her bed with a coffee mug in each hand. He appeared entirely too wide awake, too scrubbed and blindingly gorgeous for belief. It wasn’t fair. She let her eyelid fall again.

“Come on, now. It’s not that bad. You can’t let a little thing like last night get you down.”

“A little thing? Almost drowning?” The words were muffled by the pillow under her cheek.

“But you didn’t drown. You lived to write another day. But you have to get up to do it.”

“No, I don’t.”

She looked like the bride of Frankenstein, she knew she did. She’d dried her hair the night before, but hadn’t bothered to style it. She probably had dark circles under eyes and pillow wrinkles pressed into her face.

“Okay, I know you writer types can work in your pajamas. But it will be a shame if you miss the first sunshine in ages. Besides, your coffee is getting cold.”

“Go away, and I’ll get up.”

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

Hard on the words, the phone on the bedside table rang. Carla knew who it was with absolute certainty. She reached a hand from under the cover, but Beau was faster.

His voice was cheerful as he said hello, but it didn’t stay that way. “Yes, she’s here. One moment please.”

Carla fought her way from under the covers and sat up in bed. Beau snagged the extra pillow and then stuffed it behind her. She leaned back on it before speaking into the receiver.

“Carla, baby, you sound half asleep,” Trevor said in her ear. “I should be there with you.”

“I just woke up, as a matter of fact. What’s going on?” The question was more than a little disgruntled. She hated being called baby. More than that, his too familiar suggestion struck her as harassment.

“Nothing, nothing. I couldn’t get your cell last night, and the company said it was out of service. Nobody answered there at the house, either. I wondered what you were up to, where you’d found to go that you couldn’t be back there and in your bed at a decent hour.”

He’d been checking up on her. The knowledge did nothing to soothe her irritation. “It was nothing like that. I was in an accident—”

“Another one?”

“A bit more serious than the last, which is the reason we didn’t get in until late.”

“We?”

“Beau Benedict and I, of course.”

“You were out together?” His displeasure dripped from the question.

“Not the way you mean.” She glanced at Beau and then away again. “I’m supposed to go where he goes, follow where he leads, if you’ll remember?”

“Within reason, Carla, within reason. So what kind of accident this time?”

She told him in as few words as possible. “My car is probably totaled,” she ended. “I may be here longer than planned since I’ll need to wait for the insurance adjuster to look at it.”

“Unacceptable. Book a plane ticket and get back here.”

She didn’t answer right away as Beau was handing her coffee to her, carefully holding it by the top edge so she could grasp the handle. Seeing its perfect creamy color, exactly the way she liked it, she smiled up at him with a murmured thank you.

“Who are talking to? That was Benedict that answered the phone, wasn’t it? What’s he doing in your bedroom?”

“He just brought me a cup of coffee.”

“I’ll bet he did!”

As Trevor went off on her, Carla held the phone away from her ear, letting him rant while she took fortifying sips from her cup.

“That’s your boss?” Beau asked with a lifted brow.

She nodded. “Afraid so.”

Trevor must have heard the exchange for his voice got louder. “He’s still there? For the love of God, Carla. Who else is in the house? Anybody? The maid that answered the phone before?”

“You mean Eloise. She’s the housekeeper, and she goes home at night. No one is here, and no one needs to be here, Trevor,” she replied with considerable satisfaction. “I’m with the perfect gentleman, if you’ll recall. He isn’t like other men.”

Trevor’s reply was blistering. He didn’t believe a word she’d said, but was certain she and her precious gentleman were boffing each other’s brains out while she was working on the magazine’s dime.

Beau snorted in disgust as he tuned in to the tirade. “Lord, Carla, you need to find another job.”

“What?” Trevor shouted in her ear. “What did that corn-fed Casanova just say? He can butt out, or I’ll come down there and make sure of it.”

The nape of Carla’s neck prickled at that possibility. The last thing she wanted was to see the two men fight, though she wasn’t quite sure why the thought of Beau squaring off against Trevor disturbed her so much.

Or perhaps she did know. Beau would fight fair and square. Trevor would seek any advantage, no matter how underhanded. He’d never fought fair in his life.

She made soothing noises, something she’s perfected since hiring on at the magazine. It didn’t work. Trevor was so worked up she thought she could hear his spittle hitting his phone. His threats escalated, becoming ever more vicious.

Beau was right. It was time to leave the magazine. And she would as soon as she turned in the profile she’d been assigned.

“You might want to rethink any idea of coming down here, Trevor,” she said gently when the editor-in-chief paused to draw breath. “For one thing, I’ll be back in the office in a few short days. For another, I should tell you that the man we are talking about was an Army Ranger.”

When she finished speaking, she dropped the receiver into its cradle. She looked up then, but Beau was nowhere in sight. He’d left the room so quietly she hadn’t heard him go.

The perfect gentleman, huh? Not like other men?

Bullshit.

Beau stood with his crossed arms braced on top of a post for the north field fence, staring out at the endless rows of daylily plants. He didn’t see the green, fan-like leaves, the rich, black soil or the blue sky reflected in the puddles standing between the rows. He saw Carla, instead, sitting up in bed, deliciously tousled and with her satin sleep shirt falling off one pale shoulder while she tried to talk sense into an overbearing asshole of an editor who clearly had no respect for her.

So the man was her boss, so what? The jerk still needed a lesson in manners.

He ought to be able to arrange that, Beau thought, him being such a perfect gentleman and all.

He wiped a hand down his face, as those damning words flickered through his mind once more. He’d earned them the night before, he thought, bought them with aching self-control. Trouble was, the lady seemed to admire the sentiment, but without recognizing the sacrifice. And he was downright positive she had the wrong idea about what a southern gentleman was really like.

The good folks of Chamelot had set things so Carla got the wrong impression. It looked as if it might be up to him to straighten her out again.

But how? That was the question? He wanted no part of anything extreme; that would be stupid.

Where did that leave him? How could he challenge expectations based on too much exposure to
Gone with the Wind
or some such thing
?

Aunt Tillie had loved that movie, watched it over and over. She was able to quote any number of lines from it, and did whenever she got the chance. Beau remembered a few himself, since he’d been forced to watch Atlanta burn more times than he wanted to remember.

Rhett and Scarlett, what a pair.

The barest hint of an idea bloomed in his mind. He let it gell as he turned and looked back at the house.

Tomorrow was the first day of the pilgrimage. Windwood would be invaded, beginning in mid-morning. Ladies from the area would be stationed in the public rooms as guides. Most had short spiels they ran through for the visitors, bits about the family portraits and heirlooms such as tea caddies, knife boxes and petticoat mirrors. One had a larger role, which included the love-at-first-sight attraction between the Benedict who had built the house and the woman who became its most famous chatelaine.

That role was always given to an attractive female, one who looked the part of a Victorian lady. Beau knew who was handling it this year. All he needed was a little cooperation.

With a smile of grim anticipation, he fished his cell phone from his pocket. He flicked through his contact list, found the name and tapped the number. When it was answered on the other end, he conjured up his most persuasive voice.

“Beau here, Mandy,” he said. “I need to ask a big favor. About tomorrow—”

The day dawned bright and clear, a good omen. Breakfast was early so all sign of it could be cleared away before people started arriving. Velvet ropes were set in place and doors to the private rooms closed. Eloise made a final pass, dust cloth in hand, through the public areas. Beau set the parking signs out on the side lawn. By ten o’clock, everything was as ready as it was going to get.

Tours through the house were directed with military precision. Beginning on the front steps every half hour, each group of a dozen or so visitors wound their way through the parlor, dining room, library and smoking room while avoiding the modern kitchen and sections behind the ropes. After mounting the stairs, these visitors were shown a couple of the front bedrooms, or bedchambers as the guides stationed there were trained to call them. Emerging onto the upper veranda through tall, open windows that served as doors, they enjoyed the view down the famous alley of oaks then reentered the master bedchamber with its dressing room and nursery. From there, it was back to the stairs and down to the wide entrance hall before exiting out the back.

With great relish and dramatic flair, Lance’s wife, Mandy, led the group from the bedchamber down to the front door while telling of how the builder had planted the avenue of oaks and designed the house for his first wife, a frail lady who succumbed to a fever before the mansion was completed. Also of how he’d sworn never to marry again, but then met his second wife as he celebrated the anniversary of his first year at Windwood with a house party.