Sweet Home Carolina (7 page)

Waiting in front of the entrance, she stepped forward to
greet him, trying to pretend he hadn’t tingled her in all the right places.
Even with crutches, he was a head taller than she. “I had no idea your injury
was so serious,” she said with concern. “Should you be out here? These old
floors are worn and uneven.”

His gaze immediately lost its predatory gleam, and he
scowled at her insinuation that he was incapacitated in any way. “It is
nothing, an old injury from my foolish youth. How is your daughter? Unharmed by
the incident?”

Just the low rumble of his voice was sufficient to shoot
adrenaline straight to her racing heart. And his scowl only made him more human,
damn him.

“She’s learning how to walk in the house instead of
running.” Trying to act as if she didn’t have the world’s most eligible
bachelor at her back, Amy unlocked the steel doors to the office and pushed
them open. A cold gust of musty air greeted them. “Humpty Dumpty will never be
the same, though.”

The driver chuckled and again offered his hand to help
Jacques. “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall?”

Jacques glowered and ignored the offered hand. “The king’s
soldiers are notoriously lousy surgeons.” He swung into the tiled reception
area to survey his surroundings.

Did employees normally poke fun at employers? Amy wondered
if she’d mistaken the driver’s relationship as she followed them in. The
cameraman stayed outside to take pictures of the buildings.

“Dot has plaster molds. Humpty will rise again,” she said,
just to smooth over any riled waters. “It’s a pity surgeons can’t make new
knees. Aren’t you supposed to keep knee injuries elevated?”

“Always the little mother.” He sent her what might have been
a look of approval, except it drifted past her to regard the unfurnished room
with dismay. “Has the court already sold off the contents?” Without waiting for
an answer, he swung through the empty reception area toward the office
corridor.

Just like Evan, business first. Amy shook off the instant’s
warmth of his appreciation. She did not need anyone’s approval for being who
she was — a mother, first and foremost. “The court sold off most of the
inventory and office furniture to appease creditors.” Shivering in the unheated
emptiness of tall ceilings and empty rooms, she hastened after him.

“The original pattern cards?” he inquired, poking a crutch
to open a door, checking an empty office, and moving on to the next.

“Pattern cards? You mean the modules for the looms?”

“No, no, the early American pattern cards Ezekial Jekel
brought with him from New England.”

“You’re talking a hundred and fifty years ago! The originals
were probably hauled to the dump with the old buildings.” Amy frantically
sought her memory of textile history class. She couldn’t imagine why anyone
would want what were essentially the punch cards of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.

“I have fabrics produced by these mills during the 1960s’
craze for Early American design,” he told her. “They compare extraordinarily
well with the original eighteenth-century fabrics in museums. So the patterns
must still have been around fifty years ago.”

“If they haven’t been used in fifty years, I doubt anyone
has seen them since.”

Amy didn’t know if the muscles of his jaw tightened because
he was in pain as he started up the stairs, or because of her reply. She wanted
to yell at him for risking his neck climbing narrow stairs with crutches, but
Jacques was an adult and not a child. His driver stoically followed behind him,
hanging on to both banisters and bracing himself for a fall — although given
Jacques’ solid muscle, she didn’t think anyone could stop him if he tumbled
backward. “Why would you want those old cards anyway?”

“Because the designs are historic and unavailable in any of
today’s software.” He spoke each word with a swing of his crutches.

She was exhausted just watching him, but he wasn’t even
breathing heavily by the time they reached the second floor. “There’s a reason
for that,” she pointed out.

Jacques frowned at her from beneath a tumble of dark hair.
So much for his charming façade. Here was the real man behind the rakish image.
And he was still gorgeous.

“The designs are complex and expensive,” he insisted
stiffly. “That does not mean they should be forgotten.”

“But Early American designs are
ugly
,” she retorted.

“No, they aren’t. They are part of a revered tradition
dating back to France and England in the 1600s. The varieties are as infinite
as the tapestries that were being made in this plant just last year.” He spoke
with pleasure on a subject of interest to him.

Fabric design was an art form, and his knowledge and
appreciation of that made him even more appealing. She liked a man who knew
what he was doing. Not that she was interested, or anything.

“You intend to produce historical reproductions?” Amy asked
warily, working her mind around the possibility. That could work. She simply
couldn’t figure out a market for the fabric.

“Yes,” he said without explaining, before diving into a file
cabinet, to root through it ruthlessly and efficiently.

A germ of inspiration wiggled into Amy’s brain.

If she found the patterns he wanted, patterns that were of
no interest to her or the town, would he buy them and go away?

Trying not to hope out loud, she spoke to the muscular
expanse of his back. “We could spend weeks looking through all these buildings
for those cards. I think we need to call some of the former employees and ask
for their help.”

Jacques stopped his search and looked at her with interest.
“We can do that?”

“If you pay them,” she replied with suppressed glee at the
thought of the competition paying her unemployed friends to find some means of
getting rid of him.

“Give Pascal your keys. He can drive your car back to town.
We must make lists of people who might help,” Jacques ordered, wishing he had a
free hand to steer Amy into the Hummer before she fled. “Do you know which
employees will be available to search?”

Instead of looking satisfied, his tour guide had a
deer-in-the-headlights look at his instant agreement to her suggestion, as if
she were afraid he was about to run over her.

Which he was, admittedly. But something about Amy made him
want to reassure her. Stupid of him, he knew. She was a smart woman who could
obviously take care of herself and everyone around her. Just because she was
soft and curvy with big green heartbreaking eyes and a mouth so tender it
demanded kissing didn’t mean she needed his help. He just had a need to smooth
her path a little, sprinkle a few rose petals….

See what she was like in bed. It had been a long time since
the thrill of the chase had caught up with him. He had given up foxhunting as
unfair to the poor animals, but a woman as intelligent as he was…that was quite
another story.

Switching a crutch to his other arm, he took Amy’s elbow and
used her for a brace before she could escape. “We will just go back to the
café. I will promise not to eat you.” Yet. That pouty under lip of hers was a
tempting morsel he had to quit watching.

“Where is the rest of your…staff?” she asked, giving her SUV
a wistful look before reluctantly following him toward the Hummer.

She was humoring him so he didn’t lose his balance, Jacques
realized in amusement. He’d had so much experience with crutches, he could run
a marathon on them, but if her nurturing soul needed to be useful, he could
humor her in return. Only a macho jerk would reject an opportunity to wrap an
arm around soft shoulders and draw them closer so he could inhale her arousing
scent. Jasmine?

“This is my staff.” He gestured to Brigitte, Pascal, and
Luigi. “The rest are Catarina’s
entourage
,
as you call them. They have decided to spend the day at the spa.”

She looked nervous as he pried her car keys from her and
passed them to Pascal. Luigi closed the door on the back seat of the Hummer
once she was inside, and she clung to the armrest, apparently prepared to leap
out if Jacques looked at her wrong. He didn’t want her to be nervous with him.

Once the car started, she released the door handle and knit
her fingers together. The day was warm, and she was wearing a sleeveless woven
silk shell of an almost olive hue to enhance her lovely eyes. He knew a little
something about women’s clothing, and recognized the fabric of her ivory slacks
as good quality, draping her admirable curves in a way that had him watching
from the corner of his eye and imagining what she wore under them.

He loved her scrap of shoe that barely caressed the top of
her foot, exposing perfect toes with clear polish. She crossed her legs and
bounced the sandal up and down, swinging the dangling heel and exposing shapely
ankles. He wondered if she knew he was watching.

“Brigitte, take notes,” he told his assistant in the front
seat. “Now, Ms. Amy, who is most likely to know the location of the old pattern
cards?”

“Evan,” she muttered in response to his question.

“Evan?” he asked, encouraging her.

“My ex. It used to be his job to know the plant inside and
out.” Her sandal bobbed faster. “He never mentioned any historic patterns.”

“Add his name to the list,” he ordered Brigitte. “It won’t
hurt to call him and ask.” He had second thoughts about that and consulted Amy.
“Will it?”

She shook her head. “It will make him feel important to be
consulted, and he’ll brush you off if he doesn’t know the answer. We might have
better luck getting an answer from his last secretary. Emily’s parents and
grandparents all worked the mill at different times.”

“Excellent. Secretaries know everything. Designers? Did you
have a design department?”

He watched in delight as she bobbed her sandal and tugged
her sweater, unknowingly giving him a better view of the curve of her breasts
swelling above the draped shawl neckline.

Then his gaze drifted back to her vulnerable eyes. He was
supposed to be immune to eyes that revealed much more than she would like. Lust
was easier. He dragged his observations back to the safer territory of luscious
curves.

“No,” she answered curtly. “I suggested colors and yarns.
Evan located the patterns from his contacts in the industry. They had jacquard
equipment, but mostly, our designs came down to colors and materials.”

“And you chose those?” he said in delight. “Like the ones in
the café? You have an excellent eye.”

“For expensive yarns and fibers,” she said wryly. “I’m the
reason they overextended.”

“Nonsense.” He brushed aside the suggestion. “With the labor
costs here, a wealthy market was your only option. Management did not manage
cash flow correctly.”

She looked at him with curiosity. “You know mill
management?”

Jacques shrugged. “I know money. I know textile markets. And
I know history.”

“Saint-Etienne Fabrications is the finest historical
reconstruction firm in Europe,” Brigitte said without inflection. “They
reproduce historical fabrics and wall coverings for museums and palaces.”

“I am just the whiz kid,” Jacques said deprecatingly. “I
find the appropriate historical designs and create the programs to replicate
them. A little knowledge goes a long way.”

“Virginia Adams is his mother,” Brigitte added, as if that
explained all.

Apparently, it did. Jacques almost squirmed under Amy’s
astonished regard. He didn’t want to be known for his damned
mother
. She had no part in his company.
His family had a civilized relationship. His mother traveled the world hawking
her art and her knowledge. His father traveled collecting art and knowledge. Jacques
had spent his growing up years in boarding schools. It worked out well as long
as none of them required any emotional commitment.

“Virginia Adams, the art historian who helped restorations
from the White House to Buckingham Palace?” she whispered. “
That
Virginia Adams? Her knowledge of
British and American art and design is
famous
.”

“Infamous, more like.” It was his turn to mutter.

“Infamous? She’s highly respected,” Amy argued, finally
stopping her nervous bouncing and turning to look at him fully.

“It is nothing.” Jacques waved off the subject. “Let us go
back to our list.”

“His father, her husband, is an international art collector
and historian. The two cannot live in the same country without starting a small
war,” Brigitte said matter-of-factly.

“Whatever could they fight over?” Amy was now talking to
Brigitte and ignoring him. “I would think they’d have a lot in common.”

“They disagree on the color red,” Brigitte said with a
shrug. “One is French, the other British-American, each with their own
prejudices.”

“It is a match made in hell,” Jacques finished curtly as the
Hummer stopped in front of the café. “And now we have wasted our meeting on old
news. Let us try to be more productive over lunch.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Amy protested. “I have to pick
Josh up at school. I’ll make a list of employees who might help and give you a
call later.”

“Nonsense.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Brigitte, you
will get out here. You and Pascal can reserve us a table. Luigi will take us to
the school. Give him the directions.” He sat back and crossed his arms
expectantly.

Amy studied him through narrowed eyes, but he had her
number. She had little practice in defying direct orders.

“Reservations are hardly necessary,” she said quietly. “It’s
well past the lunch hour. There is no reason for Brigitte to get out.”

Jacques grinned. “There is if she knows what’s good for
her.”

And Brigitte did. He hired only bright assistants. She was
already out of the obnoxious tank of a car Luigi had insisted on renting.