Jacques had wanted this kiss…worked for it as single-mindedly as he did everything that mattered.
If he had known the jolt of electricity from Amy’s plush lips would bring him to his knees, he would have used his cane.
Instead, he grabbed Amy’s shoulders for support and deepened the contact, digging his fingers into her hair and refusing to release her once she responded to his insistent pressure with a hunger as strong as his own. His weariness abruptly fled. Only the noise of the crowd reminded him that this was not the private moment he desperately craved.
Shocked by the extent of his desire for this woman who thought him little more than an idle playboy, Jacques regretfully stepped back. Amy’s wide-eyed look assuaged some of his own surprise. At least, he wasn’t the only one reeling.
“Come, Amy. Let’s give others the chance to win their turkeys.” Keeping his arm across her shoulders, he tugged her next to him.
He enjoyed the caress of her hair against his jaw as the wind tossed it back at him. He wanted to catch the shining strands, turn her head to him, and continue that mind-blowing kiss — somewhere a good deal more private than this.
“I’m thinking I’m the turkey here,” she muttered under her breath as he led her toward the picnic blanket. “I should have known better.”
“Turkeys do not have lovely lush lips for kissing. Is there a barn we can hide behind?”
She laughed at his teasing, but there was wariness in her eyes. She needed to defend her heart — just as he did — so he supposed he shouldn’t drive away her suspicion. But he saw no reason they could not enjoy one of the great pleasures in life for a while.
“Not on a bet, mister.” She halted at the blanket to introduce him to a tall, older woman with the lines of an education in life’s hard knocks etched into her face. “Mama, we’ve told you about Jacques, the man who’s bidding on the mill. Jacques, this is our mother, Marie Sanderson. She worked at the mill for decades.”
He could see the resemblance to Amy in Marie’s wary eyes as he bent over her hand in a gesture meant to impress. The tough woman looked more suspicious than impressed, and he bit back a grin. Like mother, like daughter.
“My pleasure, Mrs. Sanderson.” This time, Jacques allowed Amy to direct his chair to be placed next to Marie’s. He had too much work ahead of him to be crippled by a bad knee.
He didn’t let Amy go but squeezed her hand as he sat down. “Tell Luigi to carry our things here, please.” He didn’t want to let her go, but he had only a few days left to submit his bid, and his fine-honed instincts told him that Marie Sanderson was a resource he could not ignore.
Encouraging Marie with questions, Jacques followed Amy with his eyes, watching as she admirably dealt with their disparate guests. He pondered her willingness to leave the champagne with Catarina and her followers when they refused to join the family circle, and hid a smile when she carefully divided the food between the two parties so everyone could sample all the delicacies. He did not often encounter such unselfishness, or such natural hospitality.
After seeing that plates of fried chicken and side dishes were distributed from the two coolers, Amy finally — almost reluctantly — took the chair reserved for her beside Jacques.
“I don’t want to hear about the mill today,” she warned, cutting his intentions off at the pass while sipping her iced tea. “Tell us how you learned to shoot so well.”
Jacques shrugged. “When I was a boy, I would visit my father’s estate every summer. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I rode the horses in his stable, swam the ponds and river, took fencing lessons from a neighbor. My father had groundsmen who taught me how to shoot. Not so different from here.”
Amy rolled her eyes in that droll manner of hers, and Jacques had the urge to kiss her button nose. Since he was hungrily devouring her delicious chicken, he resisted.
“I’m sure you shot the possums ransacking the chicken coop, just like here, too.”
“Sarcasm does not become you, Amy,” he chided. “My father inherited his land, yes, but we are land rich and cash poor. We must all work to pay for the expense of upkeep. I have used my skills to shoot vermin.”
“He was on the Olympic pentathlon team,” Pascal asserted, reaching for another piece of chicken. “Do not let his modesty trick you into any more wagers.”
“Sore loser.” Jacques laughed. “It is your own fault for thinking an unfamiliar weapon would deter me.”
“Pentathlon?” Flint looked up with interest from his plate. “Fencing, riding, shooting….?”
“Swimming, running, yes, but I do not do all these things so much anymore. The running ruined my knee and put a finish on the fencing. And then life became too busy.”
“The Olympics,” Amy breathed with awe.
Jacques brushed aside his self-deprecation to bask in her admiration a little. He was no longer an athlete and people seldom cared if he had been, but he was prouder of the innocent accomplishments of his youth than of the mercenary prizes he’d accumulated since. “Only once,” he reminded her. “Training for events kept me from terrorizing my parents.” Or vice versa, but his dysfunctional home life was not a subject worth dwelling on.
“That’s what I need — coaches to keep John and Adam busy every minute of the day. Put that on our wish list, Jo,” Flint said through a mouthful of golden biscuit.
The others laughed and jested, but Jacques watched Amy’s wistful expression as she gazed upon her own children. He remembered that feeling of pride in Danielle’s accomplishments, wondering if he should hire coaches or teachers so she might be all that she promised to be. He’d thrilled at her first steps and words, her determination to ride a pony, her willingness to fall asleep in his arms rather than let him go anywhere without her.
The familiar knife of pain ripped through his heart as he once again remembered that life cut too short. He clenched his back teeth to prevent the pang of anguish and looked around brightly for a different subject.
“So, Mrs. Sanderson,” he addressed Amy’s mother. “You have worked many years in the mill, but you are too young to remember their Early American designs from the sixties. Are there others here I might ask?”
Sipping a soft drink, Marie studied him as if trying to decide if his flattery was worth answering. Her cropped graying blond hair framed a weathered face more angular than Amy’s. But her eyes were sharp and watchful.
“I was a kid then,” she answered slowly, “but I remember my mother covering all the living room furniture in that ugly brown and orange. The mills had bolts of that fabric left even after I started there. What do you want with it?”
“Mama, I asked you about those designs earlier,” Amy protested.
“So, I forgot.” Marie looked unrepentant.
Jacques took that to mean she purposefully forgot to mention the fabric. For what reason? Him? He could understand that. How could he persuade her to trust him?
“What goes around, comes around, madam,” he said carelessly, hoping to hide his interest. “The toile de Jouy print has been back for some years. I prefer to work with original design rather than imitation.”
“Oh, these were original, all right. Tiny colonial figures and clapboard farmhouses and sailing ships we never saw in these mountains. I always thought they ought to do dogwoods and rhododendrons and outhouses. Maybe some figures in overalls.”
“Dogwoods aren’t historical, Mama,” Amy said in amusement.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Marie answered gruffly, but apparently accepting Amy’s comment as approval of Jacques’s search, she continued. “Last I saw, all those old pattern cards and platens were in the wooden chest they used for a window seat over in Building Two, but don’t be surprised if someone decided they’d make good kindling and scrap metal. That old barn was cold, and we were always poor.”
Startled that she actually claimed to have seen and recognized the cards, Jacques almost didn’t respond. “Building Two?” he finally regained the sense to ask.
“The Music Barn,” Amy said with excitement. “The mill sold the equipment in there a decade ago. Flint, do you remember an old wooden chest in the barn?”
Dragged away from his conversation with Pascal, Flint had to stop and think before responding. “There’s a window seat filled with junk. Does that count? Jo covered it in cushions.”
“That must be it!” Jacques jumped up from the chair, winced, then gestured excitedly at Luigi. “We must see if they’re still there. Come along, Amy; show us where to look.”
Instead of leaping up in excitement, she lifted one lovely arched eyebrow, glanced around at all the people talking and eating, and remained where she was. “What’s your hurry? The cards aren’t going anywhere.”
A smirking Luigi settled deeper in his chair while Pascal returned to his discussion of country music.
Jacques clenched fists of frustration. “We could finish the bid tonight if I knew for fact that the cards are there. It is what we’ve been looking for all week. Don’t you want to see if they exist?”
Watching this interaction, Amy had to admit, if she was honest about it, she didn’t. She was enjoying this escape from reality. The flirting and attention reminded her that she was still female and apparently attractive. That kiss had stirred her sleeping hormones into a restless hive of bees. She didn’t want to go back to attempting to outbid a man who had access to more money than Midas.
She didn’t want the most excitement she’d seen in years to depart the moment they had what they were looking for. And if she really had to be truthful, that meant she didn’t want to see Jacques leave — at least not until she got to know the woman Jacques saw in her.
Which meant she’d slipped into fantasy again, and she’d better kick his ass out of here as fast as she could, find the cards, and hope he went away. Soon. Reluctantly, she rose from her chair.
“Everyone is entitled to a day off,” she reminded him, nodding at his entourage. If she was going to be reduced to begging to save the mill, she didn’t want an audience. “Let your friends relax. If Jo will look after the kids, I’ll drive you over. It won’t take long to verify the cards are what you want, will it?”
“We came in your SUV, remember?” Jo shot down that suggestion. “If you linger too long, we’ll be out here when the drunks take over.”
“We will take my car,” Jacques said with his usual arrogance. “Amy will drive, and I will rest my knee as promised. Luigi can drive the others when they are ready to return to Asheville. I have my room here. It will all work out, you see?”
Amy saw, all right. She saw Luigi grimace and Pascal look amused. Jacques’s type A personality was no doubt running roughshod over all their plans.
But she wanted this over. She wanted Jacques out of her life before she did something stupid. She wanted to know if life as she knew it was about to end. The mill wasn’t that far away. They could be back within the hour.
“Where’s your car?” she asked in resignation. She thought he’d arrived in the Hummer. That’s what Luigi had been driving him around in all week, but he surely couldn’t mean she should drive that. Catarina and friends would be stranded.
“Over there, on the far side of the Hummer.” Jacques caught her arm in one hand and the walking stick in the other. Displaying more strength than Hoss on a good day, he proceeded to haul her toward his goal and away from the safety of family.
Amy dug in her heels, refusing to let the locomotive on his one-track mind run over her. She kissed the kids and reassured them that Aunt Jo would be right there until she got back. Since they worshipped their cousins Johnnie and Adam, Josh and Louisa accepted her reassurances without protest.
Amy was the one who protested when she saw where Jacques was leading her.
On the far side of the Hummer, a group of men surrounded a low-slung dark vehicle that looked as if it could reach outer space. She hadn’t seen the Porsche since Jacques had hurt his knee. Apparently he’d had Luigi drive the sports car here rather than ride with the others today.
“I am not driving that car.” She came to an abrupt halt, almost tripping Jacques in his hurry to cross the lot.
“Don’t you know a stick shift?”
“My Ranger spits at me if I look at it cross-eyed. I’m not about to touch anything that runs on computers and costs more than a house.”
“Don’t be foolish. It is an engine with wheels. I will drive, if you wish. I suppose it’s not so hard if I do not use the clutch too often.”
Amy imagined careening down the mountain road to the mill without a clutch pedal and closed her eyes in denial. “You are going to regret this,” she warned.
“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” he murmured huskily against her ear, his breath dancing her earring against her neck as he opened the door and helped her in to the tune of admiring whispers. She stifled a shiver of pleasure. Who knew earrings could be so erotic?
She respected his tenacity in maintaining his playboy act until he had what he really wanted. All she had to do was pretend she was accustomed to it. Jacques seriously misunderstood the situation if he thought they were sallying off for an intimate rendezvous. She didn’t do intimate or rendezvouz. They were heading for a showdown.
Sinking into the driver’s luxurious seat, she stared at the cockpit of gleaming dials set in the sumptuous leather of the dash and almost cried. Already, she was at a disadvantage.
“I garden with a hand hoe,” she told Jacques when he lowered himself into the passenger seat with the judicious use of his cane. “I sew quilts by hand and weave on handlooms. I do not touch computers or DVDs or anything that goes buzz or bing.”
He laughed, wrapped his arm over the back of her seat, and leaned over to indicate the ignition. Just his proximity caused alarms in Amy’s head to buzz and bing.
“It practically drives itself,” he assured her. “You will see. We will be there and back before anyone notices we are gone.”
“You have no idea how very wrong you are.” With a sigh, Amy pushed the ignition, and the powerful engine roared to life.
Men backed out of the way as she eased down on the clutch and the gas. The race car tires scratched gravel and flew forward without a hitch, except for an insistent bing, bing, bing from one of the instruments.