Sweet Home Carolina (4 page)

“What about Catarina? We have no control over her. I don’t
know why you brought her, other than the obvious.” Pascal jingled the change in
his pocket and scanned the lobby as if searching for industrial spies.

“I did not invite her.” In truth, he would have preferred
she’d stayed where she belonged. He was aware she was using him as a ticket to
enhance her fading fame and boost her design business. Mixing sex with work was
too messy for his preferences, so he was avoiding her. “I cannot keep her from
buying a ticket. She has a good eye for color and design, so maybe we can use
her and her friends. Maybe they’ll get bored and go home shortly.”

Jacques doubted she would, but eventually she might get the
message that he wasn’t interested in a relationship. He wasn’t on the lookout
for permanence anymore. He’d once thought a stable home and family was everything
he desired, but his parents had the right idea — you can’t lose what you don’t
have.

“We have less than two weeks to find the cards and determine
if they’re worth bidding on,” Pascal said. “Perhaps we could give a party and
let Catarina talk to former management, see if they are aware of the historic
patterns, and where the cards might be stored.”

“They’ll want to talk about how many employees we’ll hire.”
Jacques shoved his hand through his hair and grimaced. “It is not a good thing
that we befriend these people.”

“It’s no big deal,” Pascal assured him. “We buy the mill,
get what we want from it, and we can give the town the old buildings when we’re
done. They can turn them into antique stores and tourist craft shops.”

Jacques had a decided notion that was not what the
sharp-clawed kitten had in mind.

The thought made him shift uncomfortably inside his skin,
but they’d be gone in two weeks. And he’d have a fascinating new project to
keep his mind occupied.

“I could start an antique store in Asheville,” Amy mused,
cleaning the stove at the café after the Sunday lunch crowd departed.

The prospective buyers who had looked at her house last
night had made an offer first thing this morning. If she accepted it, she had
to start house hunting immediately. And job hunting.

Her one prayer of staying here rode on the town acquiring
the mill property. Not only could the mill provide her with a decent job, but
its assets included the vacant, run-down Craftsman cottage that she coveted.
She had high hopes of persuading the mill committee to sell her the cottage for
a price she could afford.

But she couldn’t restore a single floor tile without money.

“Just what the world needs, another antique store.” Jo held
open the door so her friend Dot, the artist, could carry in a three-foot
plaster goose. “And who would take care of the kids if you moved down there?”

“Back in a minute.” Dot set the goose on the nearest table
and rushed back out.

Amy eyed the sculpture skeptically. “We’re selling statues
now?”

“Dot has a customer coming in tomorrow to pick it up, but
she has to go out of town. I told her we’d handle it.”

“Better have her sit it on the floor. That thing looks like
it will topple any minute.” Amy started unloading the dishwasher, her mind covering
so wide a field of must-dos and should-dos and what-ifs that she might as well
have been spinning inside a tornado.

No matter how much she disliked the bland McMansion, the
thought of selling her children’s home terrified her. Where would they live? If
the foreigners really made a legitimate bid on the mill, what would happen to
the cottage?

In her head, she’d already remodeled every inch of the old
bungalow. Losing her home, her dream, and a chance at a real job all at the
same time — her imagination simply couldn’t leap that many hurdles. She had
enough difficulty trying to think of a mill anywhere in the state that was
still open and might accept her ten-year-old degree as experience.

Aroused to her surroundings by the bustle of activity,
Louisa piped, “I’m hungry, Mommy,” from her place on the floor, where she’d
been engrossed in energetic coloring.

Jo lifted her three-year-old niece to the counter and fed
her a slice of apple.

“Besides, if you move, you’d have to sell all those gorgeous
pieces of furniture you refinished. You don’t want to do that, do you?” Jo
asked, continuing their interrupted conversation.

“What else will I do with them? I’ll be lucky if any house I
can afford has room for a few beds and a table.” She was trying to be practical
about this, but her heart protested hysterically. The old cottage would have been
an ideal fit for her antiques.

Dot walked in carrying a plaster Humpty Dumpty and set it
beside the goose. “Thanks, Jo, Amy! I really appreciate this.”

“Put them on the — ” Amy started to call, but Dot had
already rushed out, her long green braid flying. With a sigh, Amy shoved the
still-hot-from-the-dishwasher plates on the shelf.

“Flint and the boys can store your furniture upstairs, if
you like,” Jo suggested, ignoring her friend’s weird artwork. “We’ve not found
any renters for the apartment. Are you certain you have to sell the house? If
the mill bid goes through, surely you’ll be hired at a decent salary. You’re
the only one around here with a textile degree.”

A ten-year-old degree with no evidence that she had ever
used it since Evan had taken all the credit and never put her on the payroll.
She knew she was good. She simply had no proof.

“I’ve drained my bank account making the house payments,
praying for a rainbow to save it. I’ve got to be realistic about this and find
a place within my income.”

Amy could mouth the words pragmatically, but the sentimental
mother inside her wept at the idea of leaving behind all the childhood markers
the house represented. On their birthdays, Josh and Louisa had drawn pencil
lines on the bathroom doorframe marking how much they’d grown. Josh would have
to leave behind his playground designed for his fascination with trains. She’d
stenciled pink ribbons around Louisa’s nursery before her daughter was born and
embroidered pillows to match for the rocking chair. She knew she could do it
all again — eventually — but she needed the security of a home to go to before
she could consider this move with anything other than a sinking feeling in her
stomach.

“Well, with real estate soaring like it is, you ought to
make a tidy profit. It’s a good thing your lawyer wrung the house out of Evan.”
Done wiping tables, Jo unfastened her apron from her church dress and sent her
sister a sympathetic look.

“I borrowed against that profit and have been living off it
this past year,” Amy reminded her. “Selling the house will pay off the
mortgages and leave me a few thousand for starting elsewhere.”

“Well, you know Flint and I will back you, whatever you
choose to do,” Jo said. “All these years you’ve put up with me, it’s my turn to
be the sensible one. Without you paying for Mama’s medicines, we’d be up a
creek by now.”

“There you go — I’ll buy a trailer up the creek.” Amy
managed a smile, although the idea of eccentric Joella being the responsible
sister threatened to give her hives. She was used to doing the caretaking, not
the other way around.

“I’m going to bake some cupcakes.” For distraction, Amy
kissed her docile youngest’s curls. She always baked when she was worried,
which explained her extra pounds lately. “Are you going to decorate them,
sweetheart?”

“Pig cakes,” Louisa agreed serenely. “With snoses.”

“Are you sure I shouldn’t take her with me? It’s no problem,
really,” Jo offered.

“Josh needs some male bonding time with your guys. He
doesn’t need his kid sister crowding him. The lunch rush is over. I’ll just do
the baking and take her home.”

“All right then, give Aunt Jo sugar.” Jo hugged her niece
and accepted a ripe kiss. “You be good now. I’ll pick you up with Josh and the
boys after school tomorrow, and we’ll all go to my house and parta-aay.”

“Dora the Explorer,” Louisa demanded.

“Cartoons instead of partying,” Jo agreed blithely. “Are you
sure you can handle the café next week without me?” She directed this last at
Amy.

“It’s a kitchen, Jo. I can handle it,” Amy assured her.

She was less sure of herself after Jo departed, and Saint
Stevie sauntered in without his retinue. The tiny piece of her that still
believed in dreams had been hoping he was an illusion that would disappear with
the sunrise.

Instead, he looked more solid and gorgeous in daylight.
Sporting a movie actor’s groomed stubble, a small gold stud in one ear, a
fabulous black-and-tan silk shirt rippling over a chest-hugging black knit, and
a pair of tan slacks that had to have been tailored for him, he defied any category
of man with which she was familiar.

His lanky, tailored elegance gave the appearance of height,
but he didn’t loom like a formidable gorilla over her five-foot-two frame as so
many men did.

“Ah, my fair lady!” he exclaimed, limping to the counter with
a brilliant smile and a wolfish gleam in his eye as he unexpectedly swept
Louisa into his arms, tickling her until the room chimed with childish delight.

It had been a long time since Louisa had opened up and
laughed like that — since Evan had left, to be precise. It was hard saying
anything nasty to a man willing to take time to make a child laugh.

Unable to resist any man who liked children, Amy added
Keemun leaves to the teapot and filled it with boiling water while Saint Stevie
admired her daughter’s coloring efforts and asked questions about the pictures
portrayed in the book.

“Your daughter?” he asked, taking a seat at the counter and
bouncing the beaming little girl on his knee.

“Louisa,” Amy agreed. “Do you have children?”

A shadow crossed his face, but he tugged his ear and smiled
again. “I don’t really lead a life that suits family.”

Well, at least the man was honest. She poured the tea — into
a persimmon Fiestaware cup this time — and pushed it toward him. “What would
you like?”

He looked momentarily perplexed at the question, and then
apparently realized he was sitting at a counter where food was served. “The tea
is perfect, thank you.” He glanced around. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s two on Sunday afternoon and we only serve brunch on
Sundays. The rest of the world is eating dinner, napping, or watching football.
Where’s your entourage?”

“My entourage?” Sculpted lips turned up temptingly at the
corner, and Amy resisted drooling at the image they invoked of sultry kisses.

“My
staff
,” he
corrected. “Bertollio is what you call a gofer, Pascal is my adviser, Brigitte
is my assistant….”

Amy held up her hand. “More than I need to know if you will
only be here a few days.”

She definitely did not need to drool over a man who had just
admitted he was commitment-phobic. Just because he gave her a glimpse of a
fascinating world outside her own did not make him drool material.

He lowered his long lashes and watched her from beneath them
until her lost hormones ignited all over again. He probably knew exactly how that
look affected her, damn his sexy eyes.

“Ah, that is a pity,” he lamented, sipping his tea,
pretending he wasn’t turning her into a puddle of melted butter. “I had such
hopes of taking a little dove for ice cream on this beautiful day.” He murmured
French endearments and tickled Louisa again.

Amy’s heart cracked when Louisa lit up with delight at the
attention and attempted to repeat his phrases. Had she been neglecting her
children that much?

Of course she had. Until Evan had left, she’d never worked away
from home. Since then, she had done everything possible to juggle the café and
her commitments and make up for their father’s absence, but the day simply
wasn’t long enough.

“Can I have ice cream, Mommy?” Louisa piped, just as the
rotten scoundrel had to have known she would. Amy refused to fall for shallow
charm and good looks ever again.

“If you are very good while I clean up here, you can have a
chocolate-raspberry-vanilla with sprinkles on top,” Amy assured her.

“Can he have some, too?” she asked politely, not knowing Saint
Stevie’s name.

“You must call me Jacques, mademoiselle,” he assured the
child, carefully enunciating the French
Zhock
for her. “And I would be very pleased to have chocolate-raspberry-vanilla with
sprinkles on top.”

“Zock,” she replied with satisfaction. “I wanna go play Dora
now.”

Louisa squirmed from his knee and dashed off to Flint’s
office and the DVD Jo had given her last Christmas.

Christmas
. There
was that dirty word again.

“More tea?” Amy lifted the teapot questioningly, as any good
waitress might.

The timer on the oven started shrieking. It hadn’t worked
since the clock stopped.

He lifted his smooth eyebrows questioningly at the racket
while nodding for the refill. “You are cooking something?”

“Just myself,” Amy muttered. She filled his cup, then
slammed her hand against the clock. The buzzer stopped. She had just been
admiring a man who would destroy the future of her children. Jo was right. She
needed to have her head examined.

“I have come here for a reason,” he said when she didn’t
explain the shrieking timer or her comment. Sipping his tea, he turned the
stool to study the plaster goose and Humpty Dumpty.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Resisting giving him the
scone she’d saved for her break, Amy took down the mixing utensils.

“I am sorry if we got off on the wrong foot,” he said in a
tone of regret, turning his full attention back to Amy. “My staff was rude and
demanding last evening, and they did not express proper gratitude for your
outstanding efforts.”

Amy couldn’t resist his contrite expression — it looked good
on his Hugh Grant face. “Your tip said all that needed to be said,” she
admitted, reaching for the scone in the warming oven. “But if they plan on
eating here again, you’d best warn me in advance. I can still get fresh greens,
but not at an instant’s notice.”