Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (9 page)

Silence hung between them, backed only by the engine’s grumble, the hiss of the tires on the wet road, and the steady clack of the windshield wipers. In the dashboard’s glow and headlights of passing cars, Carla’s face appeared set, enduring. Beau figured he could let the strain grow or try to do something about it. He chose the latter.

“So what did you think?”

She flung him a quick look. “About what? Oh, you mean the pageant? It seemed well done, if you like that kind of thing.”

“It ought to be, since it’s been
done
for almost eighty years.”

“A raving success then. Actually, it was nice.”

She’d caught the defensive note in his voice. He shouldn’t be surprised since she was quicker than average on the uptake.

The thing was, he’d wanted her to enjoy tonight with its hint of what was to come. He knew it wasn’t everyone’s idea of high entertainment, but all involved tried so damned hard. “The nightly performances during pilgrimage week coming up are actually impressive when it all comes together.”

“I’m sure.”

He glanced at her again, but she was staring out at the rain that pelted toward them in the headlights. She was also cradling her wrist with her good hand. “You okay? Your wrist not hurting?”

“I’m good.”

Sure she was. And he was a monkey’s uncle.

They passed Granny Chauvin’s house a short time later. The older model Mercury she drove sat under her carport, and a light was on where the bedrooms were located at the end of the 1950s rancher.

“Looks as if Granny made it okay.”

“Good.” She glanced in that direction for an instant, but went back to staring out the windshield.

Distant thunder rumbled and lightning flashed above the tree line. The rain grew stronger, hammering against the truck. Beau flipped the wipers up as fast as they would go. He could barely see the road, not that it mattered; he knew every inch, could have driven it blindfolded.

At least the soil would be settled around the seedlings he’d planted, he thought, his gaze on the wind driven sheets of rain. He only hoped rainwater didn’t stand in the rows until the plants rotted in the ground.

The tension inside the truck, not to mention the disapproval he could feel radiating off his passenger, was beginning to get to him. He should probably keep his mouth shut, since he didn’t care what Carla thought of him, would be just as happy if she’d go away. Well, he had been, anyway, until he’d cradled her on his lap after dumping her off the back of the ATV, felt her warm curves against him as he’d carried her in his arms both yesterday and tonight. But he hated feeling in the wrong when things could be cleared up with a few words.

“Look, if you’re bothered by what happened with Merry Lou—”

“Bothered?” Her voice was cold enough to quick-freeze an elephant, but at least she looked at him.

“Disturbed. Whatever. I wanted to tell you—”

“Your private life is none of my concern.”

“No, but what happened back there wasn’t about my private life. Merry Lou is actually my cousin.”

“How very Southern Gothic.”

“What?” He’d heard her well enough; he just couldn’t believe she’d actually think such a thing. He could almost feel the steam coming out of his ears. It wasn’t helped by the revulsion he saw on her face.

She turned away again. “Let’s forget it, shall we?”

He’d been about to apologize and explain, but that wasn’t happening now. Let her think whatever she wanted. She would anyway.

“Fine, then.”

“Fine.”

He should have known she’d have the last word.

Carla lay staring up into the tester above her, listening to the ceaseless murmur and splatter of the rain. She couldn’t sleep. Her brain kept playing the scene at the rehearsal over and over. The way that woman, Merry Lou, had thrown herself at Beau, plastering her whole body against him. Her noisy kiss. The affectionate warmth in Beau’s eyes as he smiled down at her. The whispered exchange between them.

They seemed so close, so intimate, in spite of the diamonds in the wedding ring on Merry Lou’s finger. Yes, and regardless of the gleeful triumph in the smile she’d given her poor husband from across the gym.

It was so disappointing. It was more than disappointing; it was disgusting.

She’d almost let herself be convinced Robert Galahad Beauregard Benedict was a real gentleman, almost accepted that he had all the fine qualities his Great-Aunt Tillie, Miss Myrtle Chauvin and his housekeeper claimed for him.

She should have known he was too good to be true.

She felt like a fool. Gentlemen of the kind those older women extolled no longer existed. This was a fact she’d accepted since she was old enough to be noticed by boys. More often than not, charm and a pretense of fine manners was mere window dressing to hide the narcissistic man underneath, a front to gain whatever he might want. And what he usually wanted was a naked female in his bed. That said female might be married, with a husband and children that could be hurt, mattered not at all.

Beau Benedict had seemed different, he really had; she wouldn’t be so disillusioned if she hadn’t thought so. She’d been within inches of writing him up as the genuine article.

Trevor would have been shocked and amazed. The mere thought of his reaction had made her grin to herself more than once.

She wasn’t laughing now. For some strange reason, she actually felt like crying.

Ridiculous, wasn’t it? What was there to cry about? It wasn’t as if her faith in men of principle like the knights of old had been destroyed. She’d had precious little belief in that fairy tale, anyway.

Beau had told her he was no gentleman, hadn’t he? She should have listened. She really should, in spite of the way he saved her Manolos from getting soaked.

But no, she’d let herself be lulled by an “aw shucks” manner and life-affirming smile, by the testimony of an elderly admirer and an old family retainer. She’d been so distracted by muscles and a protective attitude that she’d failed to notice his cooperation had begun about the time she mentioned the promotional advantage for his daylily operation. She’d been credulous, and far too easily impressed.

Well, that was over.

For some strange reason, the way Beau had picked her up and carried her through the rain, not once but twice, only added to her ire. She was embarrassed by the shiver of longing she’d felt deep inside, stirred to life by his easy strength, encompassing heat, and something more that seemed to radiate from inside him, developing  between them. That another woman, a married woman, had enjoyed the same kind of embrace seemed a betrayal of all she’d believed about him. It had nothing to do with jealousy, of course it didn’t. It was simply his cavalier attitude, as if holding Merry Lou close was no different to his mind than hugging Granny Chauvin.

It was intolerable in the man chosen as
South of Normal Magazine’s
true Southern Gentleman.

She’d been taught not to write in anger, that it often led to words that had to be retracted. Yet phrases of scorn and satirical disbelief flowed through her head without ceasing. She needed to capture them while they were fresh and clear. Maybe she could sleep once they were out of her system.

Typing was a left-handed game of hunt-and-peck due to her injured wrist. Still, the profile was done an hour and a half later. She read over what she had written, making a few changes, and then read it again.

It wasn’t a bad piece of writing. It said exactly what she felt on the subject of gentlemen in general and one in particular. She’d set down one or two real zingers that she was sure Trevor would appreciate, if only because they proved him right. She would need a couple of candid photos to go with it, but she was basically done. What was the point of waiting to submit the piece?

She sat staring at the computer screen for long moments with her finger hovering over the Send key. A niggling doubt worked its way to the top of her mind. Perhaps she should wait until morning, see how everything looked then?

Yes, but why? What was going to change?

Abruptly, she shook her head. She stabbed the key.

Yet if getting the article done was supposed to help her sleep, it didn’t work. It was only after she’d taken one of the pills prescribed for the pain in her wrist that she finally dropped off.

“Miss Carla? You up?”

It was Eloise, tapping on her bedroom door, calling through it. Carla rolled over enough to look at her travel alarm. Barely seven o’clock, for heaven’s sake.

“You got company, Miss Carla.”

Company? A visitor for her? It was probably Granny Chauvin, since she didn’t really know anyone else. She’d mentioned an interview with the elderly lady, hadn’t she? No point in it now, but she’d rather not let anyone know that just yet.

She’d be gone before lunch time. They could all figure it out then, even Beau. Especially Beau.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Carla called.

She took the time for a quick shower then pulled her hair back into a low ponytail, made quick work of eye liner, mascara and lip gloss, and slid into black jeans. With a glance toward the window where rain still slanted down, she donned a long-sleeved white shirt over a red T-shirt, slipped on black clogs, and was out the door.

The smell of coffee and something baked greeted her on the stairs. She followed it and the murmur of voices to the dining room. A smile curved her lips as she walked through the door.

It faded at once. The woman who sat at the table eating scones and blackberry jam was definitely not Miss Myrtle Chauvin.

“Morning,” Beau’s cousin, Merry Lou, said with easy cheer. “I didn’t mean to get you out of bed.”

Carla returned the greeting automatically. The woman seemed at ease in Windwood’s dining room. Her face was open, her blue gaze candid, and her auburn hair as bouncy as it had been the night before as she whirled around the floor in her hoop skirts. It was difficult to know what to make of her.

Carla glanced at Eloise, but the housekeeper was pouring coffee into a cup set for her across from the visitor. Moving with some caution, she seated herself and reached, left-handed, for the cream.

“I think I hate you,” Merry Lou said with humor tilting one corner of her wide mouth. “You look as gorgeous first thing this morning as you did last night.”

“Thank you. I think.” It wasn’t true by any means, but Carla could accept it as a conversational gambit.

“You’re wondering why I’m here, I suppose?”

“My first guess would be to see Beau.” Carla looked to Eloise again, a brow lifted in silent inquiry.

The housekeeper gave a quick shake of her head. “Mr. Beau’s had his breakfast and gone already. I think he said something about checking the greenhouses.”

Merry Lou laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “I didn’t figure I’d catch him. He’s such an early riser.”

“Is he now?” How the woman might have gained that piece of information was something Carla didn’t care to consider.

“Most farmers are, and I remember how he was always up and out before breakfast when we were kids. But no, it’s you I needed to talk to bright and early this morning.”

“I don’t see—”

“No, maybe not, but it’s about last night. I think you may have gotten the wrong idea. Granny Chauvin thinks so, anyway.”

“Does she.” Carla was in no mood for this, but could see no way out of it.

“She called first thing this morning, and really blessed me out for dragging Beau into the mess I have going on. It was bad timing, I’ll admit, what with you being here and all. Guess I wasn’t thinking too great after finding out what an asshole I’ve been married to all these years. I figured I’d better get over here and set the record straight.”

“It isn’t necessary, not for my part,” Carla said, her voice dry.

“Maybe not, but it will make me feel better and get Granny off my case.” Merry Lou drank the last of her coffee and pushed the cup aside. “What went on when you two showed up at the rehearsal—there was nothing to it. Beau and I have been close since we were in diapers. He knows I’ve been hurting and needed to get back at Jim, give him something to think about, you know. Beau was only helping me out by playing along.”

A sinking feeling invaded Carla’s chest. “By playing along, you mean with the—the kiss.”

“Oh, yeah, the big smack I plastered on him. That was all for my skunk of a soon-to-be-ex-husband’s benefit. Since I found out he’s been running around on me, I’ve been kissing every good looking man I come across. Men are too funny. They think they can have whatever they want on the side, but it really chaps their butts if it looks like the little woman might be getting in on the act. And Beau’s so damned handsome any husband alive would have to sit up and take notice, not to mention Jim’s always been more than a tad jealous of him.”

“You’re saying it was all an act.” Carla felt a strained need to be crystal clear.

“You’ve got it. And of course Beau was, and is, way too much of a softie to tell me to get lost.”

Carla greatly feared what she said was true, though she couldn’t help returning Merry Lou’s smile. “I somehow doubt any of the men you’ve kissed have done that.”