Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (7 page)

She blinked at this evidence of a fast-formed plan. “Well, but I can’t simply move in because of a minor accident.”

“Weren’t you supposed to become my shadow for the next week?” His mouth tugged upward in an intimation of his killer grin.

“Yes, but—”

“Here’s your chance.”

He didn’t wait for more objections, but ducked out into the rain. Carla fumed silently as she watched him jog to where his truck sat in the parking lot. Beau Benedict had it all figured out, it seemed. He knew exactly what she needed and what should be done about it. He would learn differently once they were out on the highway.

Oh, but hold on a minute.

He was right, wasn’t he?

She was supposed to be following him around, spending time in his company. He hadn’t been inclined to give her more than a brief interview up to this point. She should be grabbing this heaven-sent opportunity with both hands.

Another possibility existed, of course. She could forget the in-depth interview. Instead, she could hammer out a fast article using only the application information. From what she’d seen so far, Robert Galahad Beauregard Benedict had every attribute of a gentleman his aunt had listed, and then some.

He was perfect.

Yes, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? No man on earth could be as good as he seemed, as polite, helpful and considerate.

Something had to be wrong with him. She needed to find out what it was before she even outlined her article.

Beyond that, her skinny jeans were still damp and clinging to the muscles of her legs, so it would be a pain to get them off. She needed a warm bath, dry clothes that fit, and something hot to drink. Beau was even wetter than she was, since he hadn’t stopped to change his shirt before bundling her into the truck to drive her here. The best thing she could do was relax and let him have his way.

Yes, no matter how much it went against the grain.

Her cell phone was ringing when they arrived back at Windwood. She fished it out of her purse that she’d left in the parlor and glanced at the number.

Trevor. She had missed several calls from him since she turned off her cell for safety on the road.

She’d call him back later. Other things were more important than satisfying his curiosity.

It was much later, in fact, after a steaming bath, change of clothes, several minutes with a hair dryer, and creamy potato soup and fresh-baked bread for lunch before she finally talked to the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Even then, it was he who rang her cell again.

“What’s going on?” he demanded the moment she answered. “I expected to hear from you early this morning. You’ve met this hayseed you were supposed to see, right? You’ve dissected him and are ready to serve up the pieces?”

“Hello to you, too,” she said, her voice dry. Trevor’s hard-driving, fast-talking attitude rubbed her the wrong way on good days. It was particularly annoying now.

Talk among the female office staff suggested he went about sex in the same manner. Carla didn’t doubt it.

“Yeah, yeah, how are you, and all that?”

“Actually, I had a little accident.”

“That’s nice, but as I was saying— What? Come again?” His voice, naturally high-pitched, almost squeaked on that last word.

“I cracked a bone in my wrist. It may be toward the end of the week before I can file an article.”

“You’re okay, though? I mean, you must be, since you’re talking and everything.”

“I’m staying at Windwood, the Benedict estate. Does that sound okay?”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Trust you to come out ahead. But what do you think of the so-called gentleman? Do we have a thumbs up or thumbs down?”

“It’s hard to say. As much as I hate to admit it, he could be for real.”

“C’mon, Carla, love. This is me you’re talking to. You should realize you can’t pull my leg and get away with it.”

“No, I mean really. It may be in a Southern style, but that’s what the readers voted for, after all.”

“I’m not believing this.”

“Oh, I haven’t given up on finding his weak spot, but this is fair warning. If you expect a hatchet job, you may have to rethink the direction for this edition featuring the gentleman.”

“Hey, you’re not going soft on me, are you? Letting the humidity grow mold on your brain cells?”

“I’m doing my job, Trevor.”

“Sounds to me like you’re being snowed. Maybe I should come down there and take this guy apart for you.”

Her lips tilted at one corner for the idea of Trevor taking on Beau in any physical capacity. Well, or mental either, if it came to that. “Not necessary. I’ll have something to be proofed before the end of the week. Meanwhile, sit tight and let me get on with it.”

“I’d like to sit tight,” he drawled, letting his voice drop to what he no doubt considered a sexy octave, “and you well know where. Say the word, and we can still take in that convention I mentioned last week. Just think, you, me, a private beach, private cabana, no clothes, cold cocktails and hot—”

“I’d rather not. Think, that is.” The words were sharp. The proposition was an old one, made not only to her but to every decent looking woman working at the magazine.

It was a power trip for Trevor, she thought. He disliked being under the thumb of the woman who held the job before him, Diane the Dragon Lady, who had married the magazine’s owner and received it lock, stock and barrel as a wedding present. It not only challenged his masculinity, it offended his sense of the way the world should function. When his frustration level was unbearable, he took it out on the female staff. Understanding that didn’t make him any easier to work with or be around.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Trevor said with pique in his voice.

“I’ll try to restrain my curiosity.” Not that it was too active. She knew what sex was like, had been in a couple of mildly enjoyable relationships of a few months each. She was just highly selective, and the magazine’s editor-in-chief didn’t make the cut.

He grunted, cursing under his breath before he spoke again. “That smart mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

He wanted to fire her; she could hear it in his voice. That he couldn’t was a constant irritant to him. The problem was that Carla had been hired by Diane, and was in some sense her protégée. The Dragon Lady would not be pleased if she was banished without cause.

Trevor still had the power to make Carla’s life so miserable she might quit. She hadn’t made up her mind on that score just yet, but was slowly coming to it.

First she needed more quality stories and articles for her portfolio, good strong pieces that might lead to better things. She had little expectation this profile of the magazine’s chosen gentleman would do much toward that aim. Trevor knew that, of course, which was why he assigned her such low-level stories instead of those with more star potential. If he couldn’t have her in his bed, he didn’t want her at the magazine.

“Goodbye, Trevor.”

Carla sat holding her phone long after she’d punched the off button. She stared at the quietly elegant wallpaper that covered the area beneath the chair rail in the bedroom she’d been given. It was a period room in essence, though on the second floor, beyond the restricted area closed off by a velvet rope where visitors were not allowed to go. It had it all—tester bed with side hangings, armoire, slipper chair, drapes that extended from an ornate window header to a silken pool of excess fabric on the highly polished floor.

She didn’t deserve the honor, not when she fully intended to find and use Beau’s Achilles heel, whatever that might be, to make the piece on him interesting. But for now, she was drowsy beyond words, done in by being warm and dry and a little high on pain medication.

Putting the phone down on the bedside table, she lay back on the soft mattress of the bed with its down pillow. She gazed up at the shirred design of the fabric that lined the tester, noticing its pale wheat color that was a match for the stripes on the walls. She listened to the velvet quiet of the old mansion that was marked now and then by a gentle creak. Sighing, she closed her eyes.

Beau straightened from looking back to watch the seedling attachment drop plants into the trench he had plowed yesterday. An SUV pulling over on the shoulder at the end of his row had distracted him. The white vehicle, light bar across the top and sheriff’s office logo emblazoned on the side, were sure giveaways, but he’d have known the man who got out from miles away.

Everybody knew Sheriff Lance Benedict. Elected a few months ago, replacing the man who had been in office for decades, he was already well-respected for his dedication and fairness. That he was also Beau’s cousin, long-time buddy and partner in teenage hijinks was beside the point.

Beau didn’t hurry, but finished setting plants all the way to the end of the row that stopped at the roadside fence near the SUV. He braked the tractor there and killed the motor. Crossing his wrists and bracing them on top of the steering wheel, he stretched the kinks out of his neck and back.

“Morning, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”

Lance stepped across the ditch that edged the road and walked to the fence. He was a Benedict through and through, tall, broad shouldered, slim in the hip. Near the same age as Beau, he was dark-haired and eagle-eyed, with only one soft spot in his makeup, his wife Mandy.

“Heard you made a trip to the emergency room this morning,” he said, using a thumb to tilt his Stetson back on his head.

“Then you should know it wasn’t for me, but for my houseguest.”

“Thought it was for that lady reporter from the magazine.”

“Yeah, her.”

Lance watched him for a minute. “You wouldn’t, by chance, have dumped her off the back of your ATV on purpose.”

“Very funny,” Beau said, though he wasn’t laughing. He felt like the biggest heel alive every time he pictured Carla lying on the wet ground, hugging her chest as she tried to breathe. He’d known she wasn’t holding on as well as she should, and he’d gunned the ATV anyway.

She hadn’t screamed at him for it; he still couldn’t get over that. He’d have felt better if she had.

“Nah. Guess you don’t want out of this gentleman deal that bad. So now you’ve got her out here at the house, that right?”

Beau twitched a shoulder. “She needed looking after.”

“By you.”

The back of his neck felt hot as he met his cousin’s weighing gaze. “I’m the one she came here to see, I’m the one who got her hurt. I owe her that much.”

“The fact that she’s a real babe wouldn’t have anything to do with it?”

“Where did you come up with that idea?”

“Granny Chauvin said she got your attention.”

“She’ll only be here a week or so, maybe less. When she gets what she wants, she’ll be gone.” That certainty weighed on him, though he hated to admit it.

“Might not be.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. She’s a city girl, Baltimore no less. Nothing here for her.”

Lance set his hands on his hipbones. “She’s not Leesa.”

“I do know that.” Beau put an edge of warning in his voice as he looked away down the blacktop road.

“Fine. Good. But that’s not really what I stopped to talk to you about. You didn’t notice anything going on at Jim White’s car dealership when you started home yesterday, did you?”

The change of subject was more than welcome. “Can’t say I did. What’s up?”

“Somebody did a number on ten of the new vehicles sitting on his car lot. Looks like they walked up one side and down the other with a key in their hand.”

Beau winced. “Jim’s fit to be tied, I guess.”

“Fighting mad, demanding I find the culprit and throw him under the jail. He’s insured, but with a five hundred dollar deductible per car. On top of that, he claims nobody is going to buy a repainted vehicle at new car prices. He figures to lose a chunk of change.”

Beau studied his cousin while he turned over the situation in his mind. Finally he said, “Wasn’t there some talk about Jim and a waitress over toward Lafayette?”

“You think Merry Lou did it?”

“You know what she’s like when she gets mad. I mean, she’s our cousin and all. But, well, you know Merry Lou.” It wouldn’t be the first time a wronged wife hit her husband in the billfold instead of upside the head. And Merry Lou always had been a tad on the wild side.

“Yeah.” Lance’s eyes narrowed. “But did she know about the waitress?”

“Jim’s an egotistical son of a gun, thinks he’s got exactly what the ladies need. I expect he’s pissed off enough people that somebody could have dropped a word in Merry Lou’s ear.”

“Put that way, I wouldn’t doubt it. Guess I better go have a talk with her.” The sheriff turned away, but swung back again. “The magazine lady coming to the pageant rehearsal tonight?”

“Might,” Beau allowed.

“Folks would like the chance to meet her while she’s here.”

“These folks would be?”

A wry smile tugged at Lance’s mouth. “Mandy, for one.”

“And you, for another.”

“Be interesting to see what you’ve got yourself into.”

“Right,” Beau drawled. “I’ll see if she feels up to it.”

“Good deal. See you there.”