Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (10 page)

“Not yet, but there’s always a first time,” Merry Lou agreed with great cheer. “Anyway, I didn’t want you to blame Beau, not when the whole thing was my doing. It would be awful for him to miss out on this gentleman thing because of me. Not that he’d be too broke up about it for his own sake, I’m sure, but he’d feel bad about letting Aunt Tillie down. She had her heart set on it, she really did. This is one last thing he can do for her, you know?”

Carla could imagine it without any trouble, which made what she’d thought last night, and the result from it, a thousand times worse. The article she’d written would be read by Beau’s friends and neighbors. They would see all the scathing things she’d had to say, and despise her for them. Yes, or else they might wonder if they had misjudged Beau and he was as bad as she said. Either way, he would hate her.

She had to cancel the profile sent during the night. As much as it went against the grain, she’d have to admit to Trevor that she’d made a mistake. There was time; it would be two weeks or more before the layout for the magazine issue was done and sent to the printer. Still, the sooner she sent that retraction, the better it would be.

It was an hour later that she went in search of Beau. She’d not have delayed that long, except Merry Lou had been in no hurry to leave, and then it had taken a while to compose an email with the firm retraction, along with an explanation and proper remorse for the necessity.

At least it was done. With any luck, Beau’s friends and neighbors and the magazine’s readers would never know how close she’d come to making a terrible mistake.

Of course, Beau had to know she’d thought the worst. She’d made that fairly clear on the drive home the night before. Whether she could gloss over that rush to judgment and return to some kind of workable relationship with him remained to be seen.

She’d briefly considered pretending it had never happened, picking up where they’d left off before the rehearsal. Would he allow it? He might, even if he learned of Merry Lou’s visit. But no, it would it be better to make a clean breast of her doubts and start over.

She didn’t do groveling well. But she could try when absolutely necessary.

And it wasn’t just to save her assignment. She owed Beau an unbiased article with as much detail on his lifestyle and attributes as a gentleman as she could discover in the time available. She had been wrong about him, and it didn’t set well with her conscience. She needed to make things right.

Funny, she thought, but she was almost relieved to have more time at Windwood. It was such a picturesque, yet comfortable and welcoming old place. The hints she’d gleaned of the history of the house and the town of Chamelot from the rehearsal the night before made her want to know more. She was even enjoying the rain that tapped on her umbrella, the cool damp air and smell of green, growing things, as she walked along the mud-and-grass verge of the farm track.

Her relief had nothing to do with its owner and her edgy reaction to him. It really didn’t. No, nothing at all.

She found Beau in the largest greenhouse. He appeared to be adjusting the overhead sprinklers for endless beds of seedling daylilies. His sneakers were muddy, his jeans wet to his knees, and a fine mist clung to his hair, making it curl around his ears and his nape. The damp fabric of his T-shirt clung to the muscles of his back and shoulders with such fidelity it was hard not to stare.

She needed a safe and casual conversation opener, and fast.

“Too bad you can’t open the ceiling and let Mother Nature do this for you.”

He looked around with a lifted brow, but returned his attention to the valve in front of him, giving it a quick quarter turn. Over his shoulder, he said, “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here this morning.”

“Nor was I, to tell you the truth.” She paused, but went on when he made no comment. “I’ve come from talking to Merry Lou. It seems I owe you an apology.”

He spared her a brief glance from his study of the spray pattern on the plants. “She was here?”

“At daybreak, or close to it. It seems she was afraid I might have the wrong idea.”

“And did you?”

She drew a deep breath, letting it out on a sigh. “I did, I’m sorry to say.”

“I suppose it didn’t look too good to someone who doesn’t know us.”

That was generous of him. She could be no less. “I should have listened to what you had to say. My only excuse is—well, I’d heard it all before.”

He slid the wrench he held into his back pocket as he descended his ladder. “Not from me and not here.”

“No.”

“From a husband? You don’t wear a wedding ring, but that doesn’t mean a lot these days.”

“I’ve never been married.” She turned her gaze to the march of seedlings in their beds. “The man I work with has an attitude a lot like Merry Lou’s husband, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it goes back further than that.”

He watched her as she paused, searching for words. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you’d rather not. We can take it as given.”

“I’d like for you to understand,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “It was my dad. He was a gentleman, or pretended to be, always ready with the right compliment for my mom and for me, always opening doors, holding chairs, being protective. The trouble was, we weren’t the only ones he treated that way.”

“There were other women?”

“Not the way you mean. He was killed in a collision with a snowplow when I was twelve. At the funeral, we discovered he had another complete family about an hour away from where we lived, a second wife, two daughters and a son.”

“That must have been a shocker.”

The sympathy in that low-voiced comment was almost her undoing. She swallowed hard before she answered. “His marriage to the other wife predated the one to my mother. As a result, my mom wasn’t married at all, which means I-I was illegitimate. He had a nice insurance policy where he worked, but his other wife was the beneficiary. The house my mother and I lived in, its furnishings and the car she drove were all in his name so part of his estate, and we had no legal claim on any of it. His first wife knew nothing about us until the accident. She wasn’t inclined to be generous. We were left with nothing.”

Beau touched her arm, his fingers soothing in their warmth. “It must have been a hard time.”

“I missed him desperately, but also hated him for betraying us.” She’d cried herself to sleep endless nights, knowing her dad would never kiss her goodnight again, never hold her when she was hurt or tell her it would be all right. And then she’d been angry at herself for caring.

“So what happened then?”

“He had promised he would love my mother forever, that he’d always take care of her. Maybe he meant it. Maybe he didn’t expect to die so soon, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t trained for any kind of decent job, had met and married him right out of high school so had no idea how to live on her own. She was so hurt and ashamed and—” Carla shook her head. “I’m sorry. That’s more than you need to know.”

“Not really. What did you do?”

Her smile was strained, though she was grateful for his interest. “We squeezed everything that could be considered personal belongings into two big suitcases and spent most of the cash we could scrape together on bus fare. Our tickets took us as far away from Connecticut as we could ride on the money, which turned out to be Baltimore. I don’t remember how many nights we slept in the bus station, but a policeman finally took us to the nearest women’s shelter.”

“Women’s shelter?”

“And we were grateful to be there, though we didn’t stay long. Someone helped us find a cheap apartment. My mom applied for welfare, and we learned to shop at the thrift stores, make a pound of cheap hamburger last a week, and work the system so she could get free meds for her depression.”

“Tough.”

It had been, yes, the years of worrying the food in the cabinets might not last until the next paycheck, being whispered about at school because her clothes didn’t fit, never having a real birthday party or doing the fun things other teenage girls did with their mothers, such as shopping at the mall or going to music concerts. They’d survived, however, and she and her mother were closer for it. Yes, and maybe stronger.

“How’s your mom now?”

“She’s good.” A touch of pride strengthened her voice as she went on. “It wasn’t easy for her, but she finally got a decent job at a dress shop. She bought a small house, and saved enough to send me to college with the help of scholarships. After I got a job and left home, she finally remarried. Now she manages the dress shop.”

Thinking of her mother made her wonder what she might think of Beau. No doubt she would be impressed, as she’d always prized manners in a man and wasn’t exactly immune to a handsome face. It was a moment before she could attend to what Beau was saying.

“I suppose I can see why you’re not exactly fond of gentlemanly types.”

She answered his rueful smile with one of her own. “I’m not making excuses, really I’m not. And I suppose there’s some doubt my dad was a bona fide gentleman. But I hope you can see why I jumped to conclusions.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Can’t say I blame you too much. The thing with Merry Lou looked bad, I know.”

She met his gaze, while trying not to be too hopeful. “So we can go back to where we were before? I can still hang around here a few days for the article?”

“I guess, if you’re sure you still want to do that after seeing how boring—”

He broke off as his cell began to jingle in his pocket. He fished it out and looked at the display. “Sorry, but I have to take this. Rescue squad.”

Carla recalled Eloise saying something about his volunteer work with the town’s rescue unit. If that’s what he meant, it was certainly more important. She moved away a few steps to give him privacy, though glanced back as she heard his voice rise.

“A what?” he demanded, flashing a look heavenward through the rain-sluiced glass of the greenhouse roof. “You have got to be kidding!”

The ringing of her cell in its turn was a powerful distraction. The dirge it played was dedicated to only one person, so she knew who it was without looking at the screen.

She didn’t want to hear what Trevor had to say, had no wish whatever to discuss the retraction of her article, especially not in front of Beau. She hadn’t mentioned what she’d written to him, and didn’t intend to if she could help it, not when they were so close to agreement.

She canceled the call. Turning off the phone, she slid it into her jeans pocket.

Beau was stowing his phone, too. “How serious are you about sticking with me?” he asked with his trademark grin.

“Very,” Carla said at once, while a curious, singing euphoria surged through her veins.

“Ready for a daring rescue?”

“You bet.”

“You’re sure? It could get dangerous.”

She didn’t quite trust the humor in his eyes or his challenging stance with his hands braced on his hips. “How dangerous?”

“There could be trucks and ladders involved, maybe even flying.”

“You don’t say.” She waited, her eyes narrowed, to see where he was headed.

“You catch on too quick,” he complained, relaxing his stance. “Okay, fine. The call is for an escaped parakeet. Lizzie Masters dialed 911 because she’s afraid a hawk will get her pet or he will catch his death of cold. The bird has taken up a perch in an old oak and won’t come down. Lizzie’s only nine years old and Twitter is her best friend in the world. I’ve got to go.”

“Of course you do. And so do I.”

“This way.” He tipped his head in a half bow as he indicated the double doors at the greenhouse’s far end.

His truck sat on the track outside. Carla took a deep breath, absurdly happy that she was included in this call and things were all right between the two of them. A second later, she joined Beau, striding at his side out into the rain.

The Masters’ home was on the edge of town, an area of rundown frame houses and ramshackle trailers. The small yards were ill-kept and strewn with trash, and driveways were either broken concrete or rutted dirt lanes. Paint was peeling, doors and windows sagged, and the preferred porch seating seemed to be upholstered bench seats from old cars. Cheap curtains hung in most windows, those that weren’t plastered on the inside with aluminum foil.

Lizzie Masters stood waiting for them in her front yard. Tears streaked her face, and she was soaking wet, in spite of the Hello Kitty umbrella she clutched in one hand.

“Where’ve you been?” she shouted the minute Beau opened the truck door on his side. “I’ve been waiting forever!”

“Sorry, honey,” he said. “I got here as quick as I could.”

He had, too, as Carla could attest, driving at the same speed he might if it had been a child trapped in the tree. She watched with an odd quiver in her chest as he caught the small girl in a quick hug, then righted her umbrella above her and asked how her parakeet had escaped.

“I let him out inside the house all the time,” she said with tears making rivulets down her face. “He never flies away because he loves me. But the washer broke, and the man that came to fix it left the door open.”

“Got it,” Beau said. “Now show me which tree Twitter picked out to hide in.”

Carla climbed out of the truck with a frown drawing her brows together. There was no sign of another rescue vehicle with flashing lights, no fire truck with its ladder that Beau had hinted at earlier. A terse message he’d phoned in on the way began to make sense, she thought, as she snapped open her umbrella. He had the call, he’d told the dispatcher, no equipment needed, and no bird trappers, either. He’d meant he intended to handle this alone, without ladders, vehicles with flashing lights or people with nets that might frighten the parakeet into flight so they lost sight of it. Yes, or scare Twitter’s young owner.

Even as she followed after Beau, he took a running jump at a big live oak that spread its canopy over the littered backyard. Gripping the trunk with his knees, he shinnied up it until he could grab a limb maybe fifteen feet off the ground. He climbed then, swinging from one limb to the next with athletic grace while the branches shook, dark evergreen leaves rattled and heavy raindrops splattered the ground. In seconds, he’d disappeared.