Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (5 page)

“Yes, sir?”

“Make it hot and strong.”

His shower was possibly the fastest on record, Beau thought as he skimmed into fresh pressed jeans, snatched a clean black T-shirt over his head and tucked it in, then zipped and buttoned up. He didn’t trust the lady in his parlor. She was too pushy in her quiet, determined way, too intense in pursuit of information about him.

She’d been pumping Eloise for the dirt on his ex-wife. He didn’t care about his part in that fiasco, but Leesa didn’t need the grief. She’d endured plenty from her parents and town gossip before she left for a different life in Dallas. The last thing he wanted was to see her brought into this stupid article, as Carla Nicholson would learn in a few short minutes.

Stepping into clean sneakers, he headed to the bathroom. His hair was still wet, but who cared? He’d drag a comb through it and go. Halfway out the door, he stopped, ran a hand over his day-old beard so it rasped like sandpaper. He’d meant to shave when he came out of the field. No time now. He didn’t usually sport the scruffy look, but the magazine lady would have to make do with it.

She wasn’t on the sofa where he’d left her, but was wandering around the parlor with her cup in her hand. Her back was to him as he stepped through the door, so he had a fine view of a nicely curved backside and pale shoulders under a thin blouse that fell away in folds of drifting white fabric. He liked the look a lot better than the business suit of yesterday, maybe liked it a little too well. With scant effort, he could picture the filmy blouse as the top of a nightgown, though minus the close-fitting jeans she wore with it. Minus clothing of any kind, actually.

His imagination was sometimes too damn good for comfort.

“What you have there are flowers made of colored wax, the Victorian lady’s version of an artificial arrangement,” he said as he moved to stand beside Carla. “They’re under glass because they were the devil to dust. Still are, or so Eloise tells me.”

Cool humor lit the hazel-green of her eyes as she turned to him. “Who made them? Do you know?”

“The women who show the house during the pilgrimage would tell you it was that illustrious ancestress of mine over there, in the portrait above the mantle.” He nodded toward the rather tired looking beauty in a pink gown that held a ribbon bedecked straw hat on her lap. “Personally, I’ve never been so sure.”

“You think she bought the flowers ready-made?”

“She had nine children of her own and brought up five others that belonged to a sister who died in childbirth. I doubt she had that much time or was ever that bored.”

Carla met his eyes, her own brightened by natural daylight through the lace curtains beneath looped back draperies. “So your family was once more prolific than in recent years?”

“The current baby drought is totally misleading, I promise. I have cousins all over the parish who are busily making up for the shortfall.”

“But you live alone in this huge house. Have you no plans to remarry?”

Was that question for the magazine article or her own information? He’d give a lot to know the answer. “One day. Maybe.”

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement for wedded bliss.”

Sardonic amusement lifted a corner of her mouth as she spoke. His smile matched it exactly. “I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger, either.”

“No.” Her lashes came down like shutters, concealing her thoughts.

“Your career got in the way?”

“You could say that,” she said evenly. “But this interview is about you, not me.”

“What, you don’t like people asking questions about your personal life?” He couldn’t help the irony in his voice, didn’t really try.

She was silent for a long moment while she held his gaze. Finally, her lips parted for a sigh. “If it looked as if I was prying earlier, I’m sorry. My boss wants something more than a shallow fluff piece. That means digging a bit deeper. But if you’d rather I didn’t—”

“My ex-wife is off limits,” he said before she could get around to telling him what she would and wouldn’t question. “Leesa has enough problems without seeing what happened in the past spread out in print for strangers to cackle over.”

“You’d protect her?”

“Call it that if you like.”

Carla tilted her head to one side so her hair slid over her shoulder with a golden blond shimmer. “Or is it that you’d rather people didn’t know she basically kissed off being married to you?”

Beau took a breath so deep it stretched the seams of his T-shirt as he clamped down on the anger pouring through him. Unclenching his teeth enough to speak was a real effort.

“Leesa was young. She’d been kept under her Baptist preacher dad’s thumb all her life, had it pounded into her that music, dancing, movies, and every other kind of fun led straight to hell. Her mother was one of those that lecture so hard on the evils of alcohol that their kids think its whole purpose is to get stinking, falling down drunk. If she went a little wild, there’s your explanation.”

“You’re more forgiving than most.”

“I’m realistic. Blaming Leesa, holding a grudge for something that wasn’t her fault, never made sense.”

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But not forgiving enough to stay married to her.”

She didn’t shy away from the tough questions, he’d give her that much. His laugh was tight. “As I said, I’m a realist. I wasn’t what she wanted or needed. She’s moved on, I’ve moved on, and that’s the end of it. Now, it looks as if the rain has slacked off for a while. How about the official guided tour of Windwood?”

Carla’s eyes narrowed. Beau thought she was going to refuse, but then she gave him a crooked smile. “By all means. If I can’t get answers for what I ask, I can at least look.”

He’d given her all the answers he had. If she didn’t like them, he couldn’t help it. He’d made it clear in the beginning that there were things he wouldn’t discuss. He’d meant it when he said it, and he meant it still. If she wanted to rethink her interview, fine. He wouldn’t look that gift horse in the mouth.

He hadn’t forgotten his half-formed intention of convincing her she had the wrong man. If he was going to do that, it had better be soon, before she got too tangled up in his personal business and his life.

The best way to see the place was on his ATV, all-terrain vehicle, the way he had come from the cane field after catching sight of Carla on her way to the house. The four-wheeler was parked out back, but he took her out the side door from his study rather than through the kitchen. It was worth the detour to avoid one of Eloise’s black looks. She wasn’t used to being dismissed or making extra coffee for nothing, and wouldn’t mind letting him know it.

“What’s this?” Carla asked in tones of deep suspicion as he stopped beside his chosen transport.

“The way I get around here on the farm. You don’t mind, do you?”

“It looks like a grown-up toy.”

“You could call it that.”

“They never seem quite this big in the TV commercials.”

She was right, in a way, he thought as he swung into the seat. “You’ve never been on an ATV before?”

“Not a lot of use for them in downtown Baltimore.”

That was right, no doubt, as they were off-road vehicles, not licensed for the street. “First time for everything. Hop on.”

“Hop on where?” A frown drew her brows together as she ran her gaze over the four large wheels, engine, mud grip tires, carrying rack, and the single seat.

“Behind me.” He scooted forward a bit and waited expectantly.

She was game. Though the look she slanted him was dark with suspicion, she put a foot on the bracing, swung her leg over and settled into place.

Her thighs were firm and warm as her jeans-clad legs framed his on either side. Her breasts pressed against him, and he could feel their soft curves against his back, not to mention softness elsewhere.

A shudder, quickly controlled, started at the top of his head and ran all the way down to his heels. He’d thought she might be uncomfortable with the intimacy of the arrangement, while he got himself a secret kick out of it.

Stupid move. He was the one about to suffer, while she seemed unfazed. It didn’t seem fair, somehow.

“So where are we going?” she asked, her breath tickling the back of his neck.

“To check out the fields first,” he answered between set teeth as he fired up the engine. “Grab hold of my waist and hang on tight.”

They whizzed down the trail that was no more than ruts worn through thick spring grass. The wind of their passage, with its smells of bruised vegetation, mud and a hint of honeysuckle, felt good on Beau’s hot face. It was unseasonably warm, he thought, and it wasn’t just the effect of his passenger’s pelvis squeezed against his backside, nudging him every time he hit a bump. Clouds were building up in the northwest, a long bank slowly turning dark blue-gray. They promised more rain before dark.

He started the tour with the far sugar cane field where green shoots, already knee high, waved in the rising wind. He planted cane from pure tradition; the men who owned Windwood before him had planted it, and that was good enough. Of course, it helped that he enjoyed home-grown cane syrup.

His real cash crop was closer to the house, though it took a trained eye to tell the difference between the two different stands of growth at this time of year. As he pulled up at the end of the long, even rows, satisfaction rose inside him. Or maybe it was pride. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

“You know what that is?” He nodded at the field.

His passenger leaned out a little, maybe trying to see his face. “What do you mean? It isn’t sugar cane?”

“Not on your life. This is something far more valuable. You might call it a life’s work.”

“Sounds impressive, even if you don’t seem old enough to have such a thing.”

“Not my life’s work, but Aunt Tillie’s. She hybridized these plants, as well as thousands more like them.”

“Your great aunt? She was a horticulturist of some kind?”

He gave a quick shake of his head. “She loved daylilies and enjoyed fooling with them, as she called it. She made crosses between those she liked best, putting pretty with pretty.”

“That’s what all those are, daylilies.”

He didn’t answer, couldn’t for the tightness in his throat. He sat breathing slow and deep, looking out over the fields he’d planted for the woman who had taken him in as a newborn and brought him up with such loving care. The woman who was now gone.

“You raise daylilies for a living.”

Carla’s voice was flat and somehow disparaging, or so it seemed to Beau. It touched him on a spot that was already raw. “I develop special diploids and tetraploids daylilies and sell the improved stock to other growers, mainly, but also to internet customers. I guess you could say I’m a daylily farmer, though my degree is in agronomy.”

She made a soft sound very like annoyance. “Something else that wasn’t in the resume your great-aunt sent. She called you a cane farmer, though all this acreage looks more like a plantation to me.”

“The old place might have been a plantation at one time,” he conceded with a shrug, “but a lot of it has been sold off. It’s a shadow of its former self.”

“It’s Windwood Plantation in the guidebooks.”

He sent her a quick glance over his shoulder. “Just a name.”

“And maybe the name of your company?” The suggestion had a chill edge.

“What else?”

“And I suppose you won’t mind if it appears in the article I’ll be writing?”

He caught his breath, holding onto his temper by a thread. “If you think I was proposed for this crazy contest with some idea of profiting from it, you’re wrong. Such a thing never entered Aunt Tillie’s head. She was proud of the daylilies we develop here, proud they help pay the bills, but she wasn’t mercenary. To her, having enough to get by without skimping was the same as having a fortune.”

The woman behind him was quiet for a minute or two before he felt her nod of acceptance. “Sorry. It was only a thought.”

“No problem.”

“So fine, you’re a daylily farmer. But surely you don’t—what was it you said? Put pretty with pretty?”

The change of subject was more than welcome, since it allowed him to unbend a little. “I cross for size and color like everybody else,” he said evenly, “but also for hardiness and repeat blooming. I guess you could say I put the best with the best.”

“And then what?”

“Then I send the most unusual or spectacular plants from the crosses out to the big daylily shows and conferences.” He couldn’t tell if she really wanted to know, maybe for her article, or if it was simply something to say. Either way, he wasn’t about to go through the whole seed harvesting, seedling sprouting and planting out process for her.

“For what? Display to buyers?”

“Awards,” he said with the lift of a shoulder. “Medals. Sales to high bidders during auctions, photos for promotion in the catalog.”

“Catalog?”

“In full color, mostly online but also in a yearly slick paper mailer. We don’t sell retail directly from Windwood, but do ship around the world—that big barn at the far end of this track is a packing shed. The best cultivars I develop aren’t usually sold, of course, but saved for breeding stock. Well, unless I’m offered top dollar.”