Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) (20 page)

She looked down at the folded black leather, and then back up at him again. “It’s your billfold. I took it out of your pocket while trying to get to the cell phone last night. I thought you might have missed it.”

“It hadn’t crossed my mind. Mandy—”

“Everything is all there, I promise.”

“I’m sure it is.” The coffee he’d swallowed developed a sudden aftertaste like coal tar. “I never thought you were a thief.”

Her sea-green eyes were steady as they met his. “Of course you did, it would be strange if you didn’t. And I was, once upon a time. But I want to be sure you know I didn’t take anything when I had the chance. I would never do that to you.”

This was about her past, Lance thought, but that wasn’t all. Someone must have told her about Brittney, his sticky-fingered ex. Zeni, most likely. He tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I do know that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Her smile was slow in coming, but grew bright enough to light up the barn-like garage, fine competition for the sunbeams that streamed in through chinks around doors and windows. Jumping up, she turned toward the kitchen. “What do you want for breakfast? Bacon and eggs? Pancakes? Toast?”

He wanted to tell her he’d take a sheep herder’s breakfast, which was to say a little bit of “ewe,” pronounced “you,” as in the ancient joke. But he didn’t quite dare go there. Not now, maybe not ever. And wouldn’t that be the shame of the century?

He was up, dressed, and full of pancakes and bacon by the time his next visitor arrived. Hearing her cheery and high-pitched yoo-hoo, he closed his eyes and slumped down in the Adirondack chair he’d set up outside the RV’s entrance, on the garage’s gravel floor.

Mandy sat in another chair next to him, reading in the muted light that found its way inside the old building with its scents of dust, grease and oil. She lifted her brows as she looked up and met his eyes. A moment later, her face cleared as Granny Chauvin came around the front of the RV carrying a platter covered with plastic wrap in her frail hands.

“Well, I swan, if you two aren’t set up all comfy in here! Who’d have thought it?” The elderly woman gave them a rueful smile. “I shouldn’t have come, I expect, but how could I stay away after hearing you’d been shot, Lance, honey. Good Lord, what’s the world coming to?”

“Who told you we were here, Granny?” He got to his feet, taking the platter that threatened to tip sidewise as he reached to give their visitor a gentle hug.

“You know, I don’t rightly remember. Getting old, I guess.”

Lance didn’t think so. It was far more likely she didn’t want to make trouble for her informant. “Now, Granny—”

“But there now,” she went on, blithely talking over him in the way of those with bad hearing. “You Benedict boys never could keep anything from me. Remember the time old man Tweed’s prize watermelon came up missing from his patch the night before the State Fair judging? He was fit to be tied, but I never let on how I saw the culprits with my own eyes while coming from prayer meeting. It was you, Beau and Trey, plain as day. You boys dropped that big old melon and broke it open, trying to see if you could pick it up, so you two just took it off and ate it. You couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven at the time. And then there was the night—”

Willing to forget how she’d come to be there in his need to head off more embarrassing stories, Lance interrupted. “I don’t think you’ve met Amanda Caret, Granny. She lived next door to you for a short while.”

“Oh, yes, I know quite well,” she said, putting out her arthritic hand while twinkling up at Mandy. “How could I miss such a pretty new addition to our boring old neighborhood? And I most certainly recall the way you and Lance hustled away in my Mercury. Oh, yes, I heard all about it from my neighbor across the street. What a sight, with the tires squealing, gravel flying and bullets popping. Just like in the movies!”

“A little too much like it,” Mandy answered with dry humor.

“But it must have been exciting, all the same. There you were, with barely a stitch to wear between you, thrown together in fear of your lives. And then it happened again, though the two of you weren’t quite so lucky this time around. Oh, yes, I’ve heard all about it from Zeni. Such a dear, thoughtful girl. Pretty, too, under the weird colored hair, though I do wish she’d get rid of that nose ring before it gets infected and she loses her whole nose. Why I remember—”

“What’s this you’ve brought us?” Lance asked in desperation as he lifted the plastic wrap on the platter he held. “It wouldn’t be tea cakes, would it?”

“Now you know perfectly well it is. You never could resist my special tea cakes, and I didn’t get to bake them for you while you were with me a few days ago.” She turned to Mandy. “They’re made with real butter, none of that imitation stuff, and real vanilla. Real molasses, too. It’s hard to find real molasses without that nasty sulfur added, you know.”

“They smell wonderful, and I’m sure they’re delicious with iced tea,” Mandy said, throwing herself into the conversational breach as she got to her feet. “Why don’t I bring some out for us? Meanwhile, you can have my chair. No, no, sit down, please. It’s no trouble at all since it’s already made.”

Lance, relinquishing the platter as Mandy reached for it, thought her offer of hospitality might be more of an escape than the support he’d first thought. He watched her disappear inside with a sinking feeling in his chest.

“Such a lovely girl,” Granny said, her shrewd old eyes resting on him as she sank into the chair Mandy had vacated. “Yes, and so sad about them finding her husband dead. I knew that man’s name was familiar when I first heard it, but it was only this morning that it came to me.”

“That man?” It was an effort to focus on what his visitor was saying.

“Her husband, of course. He ran for office, state senator, representative, something like that. Cost him a mint, and he lost anyway. Folks said he used money he didn’t have, so wound up in debt to the wrong people.”

Lance stared at Granny Chauvin for a second with his mouth open. She knew everyone, heard everything, and was sharp as a shiny new tack at over ninety. Her memory might be random, but it was spacious and usually reliable. You never knew what she might pull out of it.

“You sure it was Bruce Caret?”

“Of course I’m sure. Rhymes with carrot, you know. I thought he looked like one, too, skinny at the bottom, round shouldered, no neck and not a lot of hair on top.”

Actually, it rhymed with beret, but Lance was willing to let her be right if it made her happy. “When was this election?”

“Oh, eight years back, I think. I remember the preacher at the church down near the bayou left town about that same time. Seventy if he was a day, the old goat, but found at the ratty motel outside town with some female from his congregation. He was naked as a jay bird except for his favorite silk necktie. Had a Gideon Bible in his hand, reading it to her to all the time he did his business. His poor wife could hardly hold her head up, though I understand she went away with him.”

“Granny,” he began.

“Oh, I know you don’t care about old gossip, but that’s how I recall the election Caret lost, see? One thing is connected to the other.”

He did see. The election must have taken place before Mandy and Caret were married, but still provided food for thought in light of the way the man died.

He had no chance to pursue it, however, as Mandy returned with the iced tea along with paper napkins and small paper plates for the tea cakes. He wondered if she’d overheard what Granny Chauvin said. It wouldn’t be surprising, given their closeness to the door, though the hum of the A/C might have drowned it out. It didn’t matter, except he didn’t care to have her think they were discussing the case behind her back.

He rose from his chair to unfold the small table that leaned against the RV, setting it up as a place for Mandy to unload her burden. She accepted it with a smile, and then turned to pull forward another chair, setting it next to their elderly visitor.

“Why, my dear, what a pretty hair clasp!” Granny exclaimed as she caught sight of the hair drawn back at the nape of Mandy’s neck. “It looks like real tortoiseshell, something I’ve not seen in years. My mother had a Spanish hair comb made of it, though without the pretty gold trim on yours. My father bought it for her back in the Twenties, because she promised not to bob off her long hair. Men love long hair, you know, no matter how straight and stringy it might be. Don’t you agree, Lance? Don’t you love Mandy’s hair?”

“It’s gorgeous,” he answered, more to keep up his end of the conversation than anything else. Not that it wasn’t the truth, “But it’s her hair. She can wear it anyway she pleases.”

“Oh, you.” Granny flapped a hand at him. “And I guess, being the gentleman you are, you’d say she looks gorgeous whatever she does.”

He had to smile at that, because it was also true on more levels than one.

She sent him her gamine grin before turning back to Mandy. “I don’t mean to be a nuisance, dear, but would it ruin your hairdo if I took a look at your tortoiseshell piece?”

Mandy obligingly unfastened the clasp, letting her hair slip forward down one shoulder as she handed it over. It took real effort for Lance to tear his gaze away from the silky tresses that unwound slowly until they lay in a shimmering skein over her breast. His tongue curled at the thought of searching with it for a rosy nipple among them, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Granny Chauvin was oblivious to his predicament, thank goodness. She turned the clasp back and forth in her hand, while a reminiscent smile played over her wrinkled lips. “Oh, yes, a fine example, and similar in color to the one I have, except for that heavy gold flower. You should be proud of it, Mandy, dear.”

“It seemed heavy when I first got it, but I never notice it now,” she answered, taking the clasp as Granny handed it back, gathering up her hair into it again.

“It’s all in what you’re used to, isn’t it? It’s funny, but only old ladies had long hair they kept braided or coiled and pinned on top their heads, while we fast young things showed how modern we were by cutting ours off. Nowadays, it’s the young women who grow theirs out as long as possible or add those extension things, while we white-haired seniors still whack ours off as short as we can get it!”

“I’m sure shorter is easier,” Mandy commented with great diplomacy.

“Yes, and a lot cooler when I work in my yard this time of year. Oh, but you really have such lovely thick hair, my dear. It must be marvelous when you put it up. I should bring you that comb of my mother’s. Tortoiseshell is perfect with your coloring.”

“I couldn’t accept a family heirloom,” Mandy protested.

“Well, heaven knows I’ve no use for it.”

“We’ve just met, it wouldn’t be right.”

Granny’s smile was whimsical. “But I’ve known Lancelot since he was a toddler. Because of it, I predict I’ll soon know you much better.”

There was more in the same vein as they sat eating tea cakes and drinking iced tea there in the dim garage as if it were a living room and they were entertaining a guest. Lance saw no reason to disabuse Granny Chauvin of her assumption that he and Mandy were a couple. What could it hurt, after all? Explanations might allow the sharp old lady to discover more than she knew already, maybe enough to put her in danger. After all, she lived next door to the house where Mandy had been staying.

The main thing, however, was that Granny was lonesome, and he and Mandy were going nowhere anytime soon. Sitting with the two ladies, listening to their lively exchanges while putting in a few words now and then, was far too enjoyable to bring to an end.

He may not touch, but he does look.

Mandy could not get Zeni’s claim out of her head. It kept her awake for hours the night before, and filtered through her dreams when she finally slept. She heard it echoing in her mind at odd moments, a potent distraction. Even now, as she sat chatting, trying to be attentive to what was going on around her, it drifted into her consciousness. Her gaze moved to Lance, resting in half-tantalized speculation on the turn of his jaw, the bandage on his head, the shape and strength of his long fingers.

What would it take to persuade Lance she was touchable?

She had considered that possibility before, though for different reasons. Somehow, she’d been sidetracked. Getting chased all over the state while dodging goons and gunshots could do that. Terror that she might be the cause of a man bleeding to death had been a deterrent, too. Yet there was more to it. Her half-formed intention had run up against Lance’s steely code of honor. More importantly, she’d come to respect that in him, and was reluctant to do anything that might change it.

This was different.

She didn’t want to test him this time, had no need to see what he was like, since she knew all she required. She only wanted to be closer to him, to the natural caring and concern that was so much a part of him. For however brief a time, she longed to feel secure in his arms. Was that too much to ask?

Was it really, even if Trey had warned her away from any such thing?