Lancelot of the Pines (Louisiana Knights Book 1) (21 page)

Life is short, Zeni had said.

She vastly preferred Zeni’s thinking over Trey’s.

She didn’t expect forever. One night, two, maybe a week? She would treasure whatever she was allowed.

It seemed she might never have a better chance than now, while they were confined together by his need to keep her under wraps and slowly healing injury. Close quarters should help, and they didn’t get much closer than the baby RV.

Lance had touched her once or twice; he’d held her, kissed her, even if it was for reasons other than true desire. In spite of it, she wasn’t sure how to appeal to him.

She didn’t think he would appreciate it if she simply crawled naked into his bed. She could be wrong, of course, but it seemed that might activate his extreme ideas of right and wrong.

She could ask for what she wanted, of course. If you went by scenes in movies, some men preferred the direct approach. They were flattered if a woman walked up to them and propositioned them in crude, unmistakable language.

That wasn’t her style. She needed to know she was wanted before she dropped her defenses. An encounter had to mean something beyond the sweaty exchange of bodily fluids. She’d had meaningless sex with Bruce, even if it was in marriage, and didn’t want to go there again.

How, then, was she going to convince Lance to take her to bed?

“Honey?”

Granny Chauvin must have said something to her, and she was so lost in her own thoughts she’d barely heard. Good grief.

“Sorry,” she said with a contrite smile. “I was thinking of something else.”

“Never you mind, dear. It’s time I took myself off, and I was telling Lance I’m leaving the rest of the tea cakes. I’m sure there’s more than enough for breakfast for the two of you, maybe a couple of times. I also wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this nice long visit, and ask if I may come again.”

“Please do.” A bit of extra fervor colored her voice as she tried to make amends. “It was nice to finally meet you after being neighbors for most of a week.”

“You’ll see me before long, then, since I must bring you that comb.”

“Don’t worry about that, really. I’d feel guilty taking it.”

Granny reached and took her hand, patting it gently, her wise old eyes filled with kindness. “I want you to have it, my dear. I really do.”

Mandy walked with Lance to the garage’s rear door to see their visitor off. Afterward, they turned back to their temporary home. She picked up the glasses they had used and took them inside. He put away the table and chairs. Both were preoccupied, disinclined to talk. A frown made a groove between Lance’s brows, as if he was perturbed over the ease with which Granny Chauvin had located them. Or perhaps his headache had returned; it was hard to tell. Mandy offered medication, and then busied herself with a pretense of domesticity while he took it.

Yet all the while, a single thought kept running through her mind.

Action or words?

Words or action?

Which would be the best way to get past the barrier of Lance’s sense of duty? Which would persuade Lance to take her to bed? And how long should she wait to be certain he was well enough for it?

Try as she might, she could not come up with the answers.

Forty-eight hours later, Mandy stood at the sink, washing the RV’s real glasses and forks used for the dinner of beef tips and gravy with rice provided in foam boxes from the Watering Hole. Her mind wasn’t on what she was doing, but on Lance. Slouched on the bench seat beside the door with his long legs stretched out across the narrow walkway, he scowled at the toes of his running shoes.

As relaxed as he was, he was still an impressive male specimen, the planes of his chest layered with muscle, a well-defined six-pack across his abdomen and his belly flat and hard. Not that she hadn’t been hyperaware of it for some time—how could she not be?

Neither of them could move nor breathe without the other knowing it. The wonder was that they hadn’t got on each other’s nerves, though she thought that might be coming.

Inactivity seemed to be weighing on Lance; the better he felt, the more restless he became. His edginess and short answers to simple questions left her ready to snap at him in return.

“You have a headache again, don’t you,” she said.

His glance in her direction was brief. “It’s not that bad.”

“Must not be that good, either.”

“My scalp itches now that it’s healing, but otherwise it’s better.”

That seemed reasonable enough. Still, pain was pain. “I know you don’t want the strong stuff, but a couple more ibuprofen can’t hurt.”

He gave a moody shrug.

Fine. Let him be macho.

Or maybe not? She let the dishwater out of the sink and rinsed and dried her hands as she thought about it.

“Massaging your neck and shoulders might help. I could try, if you like.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know, but it’s not as if I have anything more important going on here.”

“Whatever you want.”

Stepping into the bathroom, she picked up the hand lotion dispenser from the narrow counter top. With it in hand, she turned back to Lance. “Take off your shirt.”

Something flickered in the dark brown depths of his eyes that made her aware of how that might have sounded. Heat rose to her cheekbones, and then grew hotter as she realized she’d created a possible opportunity for what she’d been thinking about off and on for days. She hesitated, torn between taking advantage and retreating before it was too late.

The decision was taken from her as he sat up and reached for the back neckline of his T-shirt, pulling it off over his head.

For an instant, she wondered at her gall in thinking he might be interested enough to take her to bed. It fled as he spoke.

“Front or back?”

“What?”

“Which way do you want me?”

The quizzical light in his eyes was almost her undoing. It was as if he invited her to take that question any way she pleased. She wasn’t about to go there; it was too unsettling, too risky for her peace of mind when the truth was she wanted him any way she could have him.

Mandy pumped lotion into her hand and then set the bottle on the table. “Back to me.”

He obliged her, twisting on the bench with one knee bent and resting on the bench cushion for balance. She stepped closer, rubbing her palms together to warm the lotion. It was a little awkward to reach him while standing, so she put a knee on the bench behind him, easing closer before placing her hands on his wide back.

Goose bumps traveled across his shoulders and he jerked a little at the first touch. She felt the shock of it run up her arms to her elbows as well. Inhaling in tried and silent endurance, she smoothed her hands over his corded muscles below his nape and back to the center again, sensing the knots caused by tension and pain. Gently, she kneaded these with her thumbs, waiting for the moment when they became pliant, elongating as they relaxed. Her fingertips brushed the thick whorls of hair that grew along the nape of his neck. She threaded through them again, enjoying their crisp yet silky texture.

“You’re good at this,” he said, turning his head back and forth a little as tension eased from him. “Did you do it for your husband?”

It was the last thing she expected. Mandy stilled a moment before continuing with her steady strokes. “Bruce had professional massages every week. It was my mother who had headaches, or actually migraines.”

“Tough to get rid of, so I’ve heard.”

“Most meds didn’t touch them, nor did alcohol or designer drugs, though she gave them all a try. I was only eight or nine when I started trying to help her—though she may have been trying to make me feel useful when she claimed it did.”

“You said before that she died of an overdose. Was that the cause?”

“I always thought it contributed to it, at least. She started with prescription type drugs, but ended using whatever she could get her hands on. She was surrounded by bottles when they found her.”

“Who told you?”

“The police.” The words were calm, even; she was proud of that.

“And you were—where at the time?”

“Family Services.”

“So that’s where you stayed.”

“I guess.” She didn’t really want to go into details.

“You must have been pretty young when you met Caret.”

“Fourteen when we first met, before I went to the correction center, but eighteen when I went to live with him, nineteen when we were married.”

“And he was old enough to be your father, as I remember from your file. Did you ever go with him to business dinners, cocktail parties, other social events?”

“Sometimes. He preferred having me with him over leaving me alone.”

He tilted his head, as if listening to the sound of her voice as well as the words. “Nice of him.”

“It might have been, except—”

“Except what?”

She lifted a shoulder though she knew he couldn’t see her. “It was really more about showing me off on his arm. Well, and keeping an eye on me. At least that’s the way it seemed.”

“He didn’t trust you.”

“I never gave him any reason not to, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She pressed harder with her thumbs.

“Ouch,” he protested. “I didn’t say you did.”

“You thought it.”

He gave her an unyielding look over his shoulder. “If I’d thought it, I’d have made it clear.”

She was silent, unwilling to concede the point. Maybe he would; maybe he wouldn’t; she didn’t know. Nor could she think about it, because the movement as he turned away again brought the small of his back in contact with her pubic bone. Heated awareness took her breath, while under her fingers, she felt another rash of goose bump bead his skin.

He eased forward again, breaking the contact. It was a second or two before he went on, and the words had a strained sound. “So you met Caret’s friends and colleagues. Did any of them strike you as different? Something other than average lawyer types?”

“You mean did any of them look like drug runners or mafia bosses?” She directed a jaundiced look at the side of his head, and the line of sutures along his injury that he was allowing to air dry without bandaging today.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“Some of the questions asked by the police when Bruce went missing, I guess. But other than lawyers, the men were mainly local bankers and professors, with maybe the occasional congressman.”

“Which you knew because?”

“How they were introduced, of course, then what they talked about and the way they were dressed, in nice suits and silk ties with LSU tigers, crawfish or French Quarter street signs on them for a bit of New Orleans color.”

“Observant,” he said without favor.

“Hard to miss,” she returned in the same tone, but went on after a pause. “An odd thing, though, is that three or four of them showed up where we were staying in the Islands.”

“The Caymans, you mean?”

“Right. Bruce seemed to be expecting them for lunch. He told me I’d be bored by their dry business discussion and should go get some sun, maybe have lunch by the pool. But I noticed them walking into the hotel as I was leaving out the back.”

“You’re sure it was the same men?”

“I noticed because they’d gone so native, were decked out in swim shorts, guayabera-style shirts and leather flip-flops.”

He gave her another backward glance. “You remember the kind of shirts they had on, but not what they looked like?”

“You didn’t ask that.”

“I’m asking now.”

She gave him a quick rundown of ages, features, heights and hair colors that he seemed to like, given the nod of his head. Still, his next question wasn’t long in coming.

“This lunch was a long one?”

“They were still sitting around the table in the suite with their rum punches, when I came back to the room three hours later.”

“I don’t suppose you overheard anything that was said.”

“They stopped talking when I opened the door. Then one of them copped a feel as I walked passed him. Bruce nearly came unglued.”

“There was a fight?”

The muscles in Lance’s shoulders tensed under her fingers again as he asked that question. She wanted to think it was at the idea of some sweaty rich guy putting a hand on her, but didn’t quite dare. “Bruce told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t a call girl, and the man apologized. But the lunch, or meeting, or whatever you might call it broke up after that.”

“Possessive, was he?”

“What was his, was his.” She gave a short laugh. “What was mine was his, too, if it comes to that.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, he gave me a new BMW for Christmas the first year we were married, all wrapped up with a huge red ribbon on top. But the title was in his name—at least at the time. He often bought jewelry for me, but insisted on keeping it in the safe in his office. If I wanted to wear it, I had to ask him, and then return it to him when I took it off.”

Lance stirred under her hands. “Must have been valuable jewelry.”

“I guess.”

“You think it was something else?”

“It felt more about him being in control.” She went on to describe her chronic lack of cash, the credit cards in Bruce’s name with statements sent to his office for payment, the questions about anything of value on them.