moved.”
“Hmm.” Jillian tied her apron. “This is Blanche.”
“We’ve met.” Blanche looked like she was working on vaporizing him with the glint from her narrowed eyes. “I was fixing to say that my mama always told me to be polite to folks, but I’ll make an exception for you if you start upsetting my Jillian here—”
“Blanche—” Jillian tried, but Blanche was not to be deterred.
“—and I don’t care how pretty you are. I’ll snatch that cane right out of your hand and wallop you upside the head with it. And then—”
Oh, for God’s sake. “Blanche.”
“—I’ll take the broken ends and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine. And that’d hurt me more’n it’d hurt you, ’cause you’ve got one fine ass. But I’d do it.” Here Blanche paused long enough to extend a plate of pumpkin muffins and flash Beau a smile that held all the warmth of a snarl from a rabid wolf. “Help yourself, sugar. There’s butter if you need it.”
Grateful as she was for this massive show of support, Jillian wanted to tell Blanche to duck and run because the poor woman had no idea what she was up against. Any second now, Beau would unleash his overwhelming, devastating charm, and Blanche, who was more susceptible to a handsome man than the average woman, would be reduced to a simpering mass of blushes and giggles.
Jillian might as well pop some corn, pull up a chair and watch the show.
Only, Beau didn’t fall back on his masculine appeal. He didn’t even smile.
Instead—oh, wow, would he ever stop surprising her today?—he nodded in a grim show of humility and met Blanche’s ferocity head-on with no excuses.
“I deserve that,” he told Blanche. “Hell, if you knew all the trouble I’ve caused in my life, you’d go ahead and call the sheriff to escort me off the property right now.”
Neither of the women had expected this and they exchanged a wide-eyed look over Beau’s shoulder. Blanche recovered from her surprise quickly enough to put down the plate, fold her arms over her chest and hike up her chin as though she’d like nothing better than to take the meat mallet to him.
Beau didn’t quake before this withering assessment, didn’t even blink. “I’m glad Jillian has a friend like you. I hope one day I can earn your trust.”
The disapproving lines around Blanche’s mouth softened for a second, but then she caught herself and renewed her disdain. “Doubtful,” she said.
Beau’s energy seemed to dim, as though a light had gone out inside him, but he held tight to his cane and stood tall. “I understand.” One corner of his mouth twisted up, crooked and humorless, and that vivid red scar puckered. “I’m not giving up, but I do understand.”
Blanche shrugged. “Honey, you can do what you want. Long as you understand that I’m protecting my girl here.” She looked to Jillian. “You want me to toss him out? We got lunch to fix.”
Yes. Toss him out. Bolt the door. Call the sheriff.
The words were all right on the tip of Jillian’s tongue, but then Beau pivoted on his good leg to submit to her verdict on his fate, and she couldn’t speak to save her life.
What was this new thing about him? There was infinite patience in his expression, resignation as well as determination, and she had the terrible feeling that if she told him to come back tomorrow each day for the next fifty years, he’d come back tomorrow.
But the one thing he would not do was give up.
This put her in an untenable position, stuck squarely between her need to stay as far away from him as humanly possible, and her conflicting resolve to be brave and not let him turn her into a panic-attack-stricken mess.
Her pride won out in the end, and she shrugged in an Oscar-worthy display of indifference. Keeping her voice strong and audible was much harder.
“If you want to stand there for three minutes and watch me fix lunch for my guests, that’s fine with me. I’ve already said everything I have to say.”
A relieved grin flashed across his face, as brilliant as a streaking comet across the starry night sky. And then he sobered just as Jillian’s knees were weakening to mush. “Thank you.”
Oh, God, this was a mistake.
Already her pulse was flittering again in the telltale skip that told her another panic attack was in her near future, but it was too late to backtrack now. Blanche was moving toward the hall, about to leave them alone together, and there was no way Jillian could weasel out of it without looking like the full-grown, yellow-bellied coward that she was.
“Humph.” Blanche pursed her lips, shot Beau a few more death sparks from her blue eyes and disappeared.
And Jillian faced Beau.
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