Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (8 page)

Beau touched a finger to his forehead in token of understanding and leave-taking, and then cranked up the tractor again. Turning the big machine, he went back to planting daylily seedlings.

He hadn’t mentioned the pageant to Carla, but he’d be willing to bet she knew about it. Eloise had probably told her, if no one else. The rehearsal for this major attraction of pilgrimage time had to be better entertainment than watching some dumb reality show on television. Who knew, Carla might find something interesting to write about it. He’d mention it at lunch time.

The rain swept back in again in late afternoon, a steady downpour that showed no sign of stopping. It forced Beau out of the field, though he avoided the house, working in the greenhouses instead.

It was still falling when time came to leave for the rehearsal. Beau had to turn on the truck’s windshield wipers full force for the drive. He thought the rumble of the diesel engine and clattering rain would take the place of conversation. That was fine with him since he wasn’t a big talker. Carla had no such problem. It made sense. Asking questions was part of her job.

“What, exactly, is this thing tonight about? I know you called it a pageant rehearsal at lunch, but—”

“It’s the evening program that’s always been part of the pilgrimage. A play of sorts, it’s held in what used to be the old high school gymnasium before the school board found money for a new one.”

“A gym.”

“Now it’s a theater of sorts, thanks to fundraisers by the local women’s groups. What used to be a basketball court was turned into a makeshift stage and polished dance floor, and the old bleachers were remodeled to hold tiers of theater seating.

“Interesting recycling,” she commented.

He stared ahead into the cones of light the truck drilled into the rain washed evening. “You could say that. Older folks around here call it making do.”

“And you’re a part of this pageant?”

“Chamelot is a small town. Everybody pitches in, helping when and where they can. Most take part in the skits on an as-needed basis.”

“For a price, I suppose.” Her gaze had a sardonic cast in the dashboard lights.

“Nobody gets paid.”

“You donate your time, driving out on nights like this one for nothing.”

He met her eyes for an instant. “What, you never heard of civic duty?”

“Of course, but—”

“It’s to benefit Chamelot,” he said, his voice even, “and for the fun of being a part of it all.”

Hard on that bit, Beau pulled into the school parking lot. It was just as well, as far as he was concerned.

As he got out of the truck, he hoisted a big golf umbrella he carried around for times like these, and then went around to get Carla’s door. She already had it open, but he gave her a hand down from the high step. They splashed their way across the parking lot toward where the makeshift theater’s double doors stood open to the night.

The gym hummed with voices raised above the discord of musicians tuning up in a section opposite the door, the hammering of the crew knocking together the sets for the various tableau that would be presented, the muted practice of the award-winning choir from a local church with a mostly African-American membership, and the rain pounding on the roof high overhead. It seemed like quite a crowd, but was really only fifty or so people, maybe sixty if you counted the kids that chased each other around the edges.

A good dozen of the women had on hooped skirts of some kind, the better to practice managing the big petticoats underneath that were like swinging bells. It was also for the guys, so they could gain experience in maneuvering around the skirts as well as controlling the swords in scabbards they wore during a couple of skits. Most of the group had taken part in the pageant for years, however, so were pros at these things.

“What kind of play is this again?” Carla asked, her gaze running over the painted canvas backdrop of a forest on one end of the long space, the mockup of a steamboat behind it, and the false walls of a ballroom, complete with chandeliers, windows hung with draperies and statues in niches that sat at the other end.

She’d put on a long-sleeved top made of some stretchy knit fabric in shades of green and blue, no doubt for ease in getting it on over her injured hand as well as the cool night. The black slacks she wore with it were a nice match for the black canvas sling supporting her wrist, but Beau didn’t think much of her red-soled heels. They might be seriously hot, making her legs look amazingly long, but were also too strappy and too high. On the slick gym floor, with their soles wet from the rain, they were an accident waiting to happen. That was, of course, the only reason he was reluctant to release his hold on her arm.

“It’s always been called a pageant, but that’s for lack of a better word,” Beau answered readily enough, while waving at several folks and nodding to others. “It’s a series of tableau, or skits if you will, that tells the story of the founding of Chamelot back in 1780 or thereabouts, then the way of life during the decades that followed, with its medieval gallantry and notions of honor based on the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Finally, there’s a skit showing the decline after the war.”

“The war? The Civil War?”

He flashed a quick grin down at her. “That would be the War Between the States, dear heart, the only one that matters around here. Well, at least this time of year.”

“I should have known,” she commented, her gaze on the hoop skirts, some of them at least five feet in diameter.

If Carla registered that mild endearment, she gave no sign. It was just as well, since it had slipped out before he could catch it back. It was a habit around people he was either related to or had known all his life, but she didn’t belong among them.

“It’s our heritage, for better or worse,” he answered with an unrepentant shrug. “We can’t change it, so might as well make what we can of it, and leave the rest to history.” He paused, craning his neck to look around. “Come with me a minute. There are some folks you may want to meet.”

He took her back to the old locker rooms that had become dressing rooms and the stage wings combined, starting on the men’s side. This being a rehearsal, no one was likely to be in their undies, but he knocked on the wall and called out to make sure.

Lance was there to keep things legal, along with his honor the mayor, a couple of lawyers, a doctor, the current state senator and a bunch of good old boys who had been pressed into pageant roles by their wives or girlfriends. They all crowded around to shake Carla’s hand, and might have spent the next half hour filling her ears with bull about his past misdeeds if Beau hadn’t carried her off to meet the local ladies.

He wasn’t quite nervy enough to go barging into the women’s dressing room, but it didn’t matter. Lance’s wife, Mandy, caught sight of them and led the charge to greet them. It was curiosity, of course. Everybody in town knew about Carla and the magazine interview by now, and Mandy had probably heard even more from Lance.

The hallway outside the dressing room led directly onto what had become the stage floor. As he stood next to Carla, giving her names and mini-histories so she’d fit in, he heard a shrill whoop. Next thing he knew, his cousin Merry Lou, well-rounded and with fiery auburn curls, came flying toward him in a fluttering mound of petticoats. She launched herself into his arms, hoop skirt and all, a move so unexpected he staggered with it, recovering only with wrenching effort.

“Beau, darling!” she cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been dying to see you!” And she laid a kiss on him with so much suction her mouth popped when she let him go.

The back of his neck burned and he turned red; he knew he did. He also knew Merry Lou’s husband, Jim, was standing, thunder-stuck, in the middle of the gym floor. And Carla was watching with a glacial look in her eyes and her lips twisted in disdain.

“Merry Lou, honey,” he began, while reaching back to catch her arms and unwind them from around his neck.

She interrupted in breathless haste while grabbing fistfuls of his shirt front. “I know this isn’t the place, Beau, darling, but I saw you and just couldn’t help myself. It’s been so long!”

It hadn’t been anything of the kind, no way, no how, since the two of them never saw each other except in public. There wasn’t a thing going on between them and never would be. Glancing at Jim again, Beau had an inkling of why Merry Lou might want people to think there might be, but he didn’t want any part of it.

“This is not the way.”

“I know, I know, but what else can I do?” She looked up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes as she whispered. “Don’t spoil it, Beau. Please, please don’t.”

Beau had played with Merry Lou when they were kids, swam with her in the creek. As a gangling teenager, he’d hung out with her and her friends on the courthouse square on hot summer nights. They were good buddies and third cousins since they shared a great-grandfather somewhere down the line. Certainly, they were not, and never had been, lovers. So she wanted to use him now? The unwritten law was that buddies helped buddies. He couldn’t disappoint her.

He was sure Merry Lou’s husband, that hound dog, Jim, wouldn’t understand. Well, of course he wouldn’t, or there’d be no point.

That Carla would get the difference was unlikely, too. He’d need to do some fast talking to explain it.

That was, if he really wanted to clear it up.

Maybe he didn’t?

Maybe the lady magazine editor would be so disgusted she’d forget about her article. Maybe she’d take herself off and leave him alone.

Was that what he wanted?

It had better be, since the time for clearing up the situation had run out. Music was beginning for the first skit, and places were being called for everyone involved. By some fiend’s arrangement, he was in nearly every skit in the pageant. He’d have no chance to talk to Carla until they were headed back to Windwood.

She turned away without a word or backward glance, heading toward where Granny Chauvin was holding court in the center-front section of seats. At least she’d have somebody to talk to while he was busy. Maybe Granny would give her the lowdown on Merry Lou, since she knew everything that went on in town.

“Uh, oh,” Merry Lou said, releasing his shirt and smoothing at its wrinkles as she watched Carla walk away. “Did I mess things up for you?”

“Not exactly.”

“I think maybe I did. That’s the lady from the magazine I’ve been hearing about, right?”

Was there anybody who didn’t have their nose in his business?

“Yeah, it is.”

“She didn’t seem too happy. Maybe I should have a quick chat with her.”

“Leave it alone,” Beau said without inflection.

“No, really, I don’t want her thinking—”

“I said let it go. What she thinks isn’t important.”

Merry Lou gave him an appraising stare. “No? Then why are you looking like a sick calf?”

He tried for a grin, but wasn’t sure he made it. “Maybe I’m afraid Jim will want to meet me out behind the gym.”

“That I’d like to see!” Merry Lou threw back her curly head and hooted with laughter. “But come on. Let’s go put on a waltz that will make him think he’d better tend the home fires before I burn the place down!”

It took the best part of two hours to run through the whole series of skits, and another one to get the waltz right, which was to say as dreamily romantic as the gray-haired, iron-hearted director wanted. Regardless, the rain was still falling in relentless monotony when the players were released and Beau was free to find Carla.

She was not alone, but stood talking to Merry Lou’s husband a few feet inside the entrance. Beau would have given a lot to know whether good old Jim had cornered her or if Carla had waylaid his cousin’s husband. Either way, it was time to break it up.

“Ready?” The question came out flatter than he’d intended, as he moved in behind her.

“Long ago.” She barely glanced at him before she went on. “I almost left with Granny Chauvin.”

Before Beau could answer, Jim put in his two cents. “Good thing you didn’t. Granny’s 90 if she’s a day, and blind as a bat. She’ll be lucky to get home in that old car of hers in this infernal rain. Besides, I’d have missed getting to know you.”

“Granny Chauvin,” Beau said in hard tones, “has owned a total of four cars in her seven-plus decades of driving. Far as I know, she’s never put a scratch on any of them. And neither has anyone else.”

It was probably a low blow, that reminder of the damage done at Jim’s dealership, but Beau didn’t appreciate his slur about Miss Myrtle Chauvin’s driving when she was still sharp as the needles she used to quilt with, and safer than most behind the wheel.

Jim scowled. “How did you hear about—never mind. Lance told you, I guess. Unless you have a personal source of info?”

He meant information from Merry Lou. Beau didn’t bother to reply as he turned back to Carla and gestured toward the parking lot.

“Shall we? We can drive by Granny Chauvin’s place on the way home, be sure she made it okay.”

She went with him, which was gratifying; he’d thought she might refuse. He handed her the umbrella he’d left at the door earlier and took her arm. That turned out to be a good thing, since she slipped on the steps in her strappy heels he’d noticed earlier. With a single glance toward the rain-speckled lake where the parking lot was supposed to be, he swung her toward him, leaned down, and scooped her high against his chest.

“Don’t,” she exclaimed. “Put me down.”

He shifted her higher, his hold tightening around her in unconscious reaction to the matching tightness below his belt. “What? And let you break your neck in those heels? Not on my watch.”

“It’s my neck.”

She was unyielding in his grasp. He couldn’t help wondering what it might take to make her go soft and pliant against him. And wasn’t that exactly what he needed, to be mindlessly attracted to a female who despised him right now and would probably be gone tomorrow?

He splashed deliberately through the parking lot, kicking water as he went. Reaching the truck, he stowed her inside and closed the passenger door with care. Moments later, they were rolling down the highway.