Sweet Home Carolina by Patricia Rice Page B

“Not guns of that caliber,
normally.”
    “Look, Mommy, Unca Flint is lining them up!” Josh dashed
over to demand his share of the attention.
    Jacques slid over so the boy could settle between him and
Amy. Children still made him uneasy. Admittedly, Amy made him uneasy, but he
assumed it was her open, honest nature that had him occasionally squirming with
discomfort. The children touched him on so many levels of grief and yearning
that he couldn’t begin to sort out his emotions. He could no longer avoid children
if he wished to be with Amy. He understood they were a package deal.
    “Tell me which are your cousins,” he said to the boy,
seeking some topic that would keep him distracted.
    “That’s Johnnie, he’s twelve,” Josh said importantly,
pointing out a gangly youngster with long dark hair and a skull-and-crossbones
earring. “And that’s Adam, he’s thirteen. He’s going to show me how to shoot.”
A slightly older youth with sharp cheekbones and chiseled jaw much like Flint’s
sighted along the barrel of his air rifle beside his brother.
    “They look like very competent young men.” To hide his
discomfort, Jacques took a swig of lemonade — and almost spat it out. The fiery
concoction burned all the way down.
    Jo hooted with laughter at his expression. Holding Louisa,
she cackled and pounded the blanket trying to rein in her amusement, but she
only succeeded in reducing Amy to giggles.
    That, he didn’t mind. Beneath her mop of loose curls, Amy looked
like a mischievous little girl when she laughed, and he had to smile at her
merriment at his expense. She covered her mouth to hold back her chuckles, but
her eyes still danced.
    “Sorry,” she whispered, ever the concerned hostess. “It’s
Jo’s latest idea of a cocktail.”
    “Not quite perfected yet, I assume?” he asked with as much
ease as he could manage while his eyes watered and his gullet burned.
    “It might be smoother if she used something besides cheap
rotgut,” Amy admitted, pulling a bottle of beer from the cooler. “I dilute
mine.”
    He accepted the cold beer without comment.
    The firing began after that, and all attention returned to
the field. The shouts and yells of the audience and the blasts of the air
rifles prevented further conversation.
    Josh’s little body squirmed between them, nearly upsetting
his mother’s drink. Watching the field with practiced eye, Jacques
absentmindedly lifted the youngster onto his lap to hold him still. Leaning
back against the tire of the truck behind him, his shoulder brushed Amy’s.
    She glanced from him to her son in surprise, but another
volley of fire and rebel yells prevented any comment besides the brief flash of
approval in her eyes.
    He felt as if a benediction had been bestowed on him just in
the simple act of holding her son. It felt so good he was almost reluctant to
set the boy aside when the adult competition began.
    But knowing the prize to be won, Jacques returned Josh to
the blanket without compunction.
    If the men of Northfork wanted a pissing contest, he wasn’t
so sophisticated that he couldn’t beat them at their own game.

Nine
    Amy watched Jacques stroll back to the Hummer and retrieve
what appeared to be a shiny new 12-gauge from the back of the vehicle. Most of
the guns here were old, often inherited from fathers and grandfathers. The
advantage of an old shotgun was that one knew its idiosyncrasies. New ones
needed to be tried and tested.
    “Ten to one he brought an arsenal with him,” Jo murmured.
    “They’ll have Homeland Security checking them out,” Amy said
with amusement, torn between following Jacques and staying here, pretending she
wasn’t interested.
    Why should she pretend any longer? She was a free woman — about
to be a homeless one. She might as well take advantage of this terrifying
independence to practice her flirting.
    Of course, somewhere in the back of her mind, she kept
hoping she’d find a way of talking Jacques out of the mill.