The Bourbon Kings
Page 20

He stopped in front of her. “Yes?”
“I need just over twelve grand for the tent company and Mrs. Freeland is not here. Can you cut checks?”
“They require twelve thousand dollars?” he said in his clipped accent. “Whyever for?”
“The tent rental. It’s a new company policy I’m guessing. They’ve never done this before.”
“This is Easterly. We have had an account with them since the turn of the century and they will defer. Allow me.”
Pivoting on his spit-polish shoeshine, he headed for his quarters—no doubt to call the rental company’s owner personally.
If he could pull this off and Lizzie could keep her tents and tables? His PITA attitude might well be worth the trouble.
Besides, if worst came to worst, Greta could write the check.
One thing was certain, Lizzie was not going to ask Lane for it and they needed that tent: In less than forty-eight hours, the world was descending on the property, and nothing pissed off the Bradfords more than something, anything out of place.
As she waited for the butler to reemerge, all triumphant in his penguin suit, she leaned back against the smooth, cool plaster wall and found herself thinking about the dumbest decision she had ever made …
She should have let the whole thing rest.
After the dreaded Lane Baldwine had sought her out in the dark in the garden, she should have let the argument between them go. Why on earth did she care how wrong he was about her? How insane, egocentric, and ridiculous that silver-spooned fool was? She didn’t owe him any kind of world-view realignment—besides, that wasn’t going to happen without a sledgehammer.
Not that she wouldn’t enjoy an attempt on those terms.
The problem was, however, that among her own deficiencies was the paralytic need not to be misinterpreted by Channing Tatum’s doppelgänger.
So she had to set him straight. And in fact, she talked to him all the way home that night. As well as all the way back to Easterly the following morning. And then throughout the next week.
Eventually, she became convinced he was avoiding her: For the first time since he’d come home on his break from graduate school, she didn’t see him for seven days straight. The good news, if you could look at it that way, was that at least there weren’t any females coming around the house and leaving at odd hours in porn combinations. The bad news was that she was now overprepared with all her speeches, and in danger of revealing exactly how much time she’d wasted yelling at him in her head.
And Lane was definitely still at Easterly. His Porsche—like he would drive anything else—was still around by the garages, and whenever she was forced to take a bouquet up to his room, she could smell his cologne in the air and see his wallet on the bureau with his gold cuff links.
He was playing her—and as much as she hated to admit it, the act was working. She was getting more frustrated and more determined to find him, instead of less so.
He was a master at women, all right.
The bastard.
With yet another fresh bouquet in hand, she headed up the back stairs for his room. She didn’t expect him to be in there, but somehow, the idea of walking into his space and throwing out a couple of choice sound bites was going to offer her a release. When she knocked on his door, it was a hard demand, and after a moment, she pushed her way in—
Lane was there.
Sitting on the edge of his bed. Head in his hands, body bowed.
He did not look to the door.
Didn’t seem to know anyone had come in at all.
Lizzie cleared her throat once. Twice. “Excuse me, I’m here to switch out your flowers.”
He jumped and twisted around toward her. Red-rimmed eyes seemed to struggle to focus, and when he spoke up, his voice was rough. “Sorry? What?”
“Flowers.” She lifted the bouquet a little higher. “I’m here to replace your flowers.”
“Oh. Thank you. That’s awfully good of you.”
Clearly, he had no clue what he was saying to her. The politeness seemed like just a reflex, the conversational equivalent of a lower leg kicking when its knee was hit with a rubber hammer.
This is not your business, she told herself as she went across to the bureau.
The swap took a split second, and then she had the barely wilted, old one in her hands, and was walking back over to the half-open door. She told herself not to look over at him as she left. For all she knew, his favorite hunting dog had ringworm … or maybe that girlfriend of his in Virginia had found out about all his extracurricular exercise here in Charlemont.
That biggest mistake thing happened just as she got to the jambs.
Later, when things had blown up in her face, after she’d overridden her walls of self-protection and gotten burned, she would become convinced that if she’d only kept going, she would have been fine. Their lives wouldn’t have slammed into each other’s and left such shrapnel all over her.
But she did look back at him.
And she just had to open her mouth again: “What’s wrong?”
Lane’s eyes swung up to her. “I’m sorry?”
“What’s your problem?”
He braced his hands against his knees. “I’m sorry.”
She waited for something else. “About what?”
His eyes closed, his head ducking down again.
Even though he made no sound, she knew he was weeping.
And that was so completely not what she expected from someone like him.
Closing the door, she wanted to protect his privacy for him. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”