Stand-in Bride Page 12

  Louis looked at his watch with a slight frown. "Aren't you two late for school?"

  After his long silence, Jimmy suddenly was compelled to take part in the conversation. "We're not going to school today. We have permission from our schools to take a day off. After a practice match with Nicole and Adrian, her brother is taking us out on a real fishing boat!" His voice vibrated with anticipation.

  "Playing hooky from school!" Angela's exclamation was heavy with malice. "See what goes on when you're away?" She turned to Louis with a sympathetic cluck.

  If she had expected some open criticism of Nicole for her laxity, she was badly disappointed. Louis's expression was guarded, his thoughts unreadable, as he said, "Elaine is an excellent student, and I trust Nicole's judgment implicitly. Now we'd better get a move on. If I know Andrew, he'll expect his party to be on time."

  Nicole expelled the breath she had unconsciously been holding. Surely she'd had sufficient proof before now that her self-possessed husband would never berate his wife in front of outsiders. Such behavior would violate his ironbound code of family pride and decorum.

  What really took her by surprise was what followed. They all stood up from the breakfast table about to go their separate ways. Louis came around to stand beside Nicole and said in a voice blatantly proprietorial, "I like that outfit on you, darling." Then he bent with slow deliberation and brushed his lips against hers. "Off to your tennis game, now," he ordered briskly, ignoring the seething resentment in Adrian's eyes and the undisguised fury in Angela's.

  "What kind of game is he playing, anyway?" Adrian demanded in a low, harsh voice as he walked with Nicole to one end of the tennis court.

  "What do you mean?" she hedged, still numb with shock.

  "The great display of husbandly affection after all these months," he retorted. "Not that any man in his right mind wouldn't love you," he said in a voice husky with emotion. "But why is he still hanging around with that poisonous little blonde who ditched him in the first place?"

  Her heart ached so with the obviousness of the answer to that last question that she had great difficulty concentrating on the game. It was by far her worst performance to date. Adrian's question tormented her. Underneath the delicacy of phrasing it was obvious that he wondered, too, how a man could make love to one woman and love another.

  Where were Angela and Louis now? What were they doing? Was he holding her in those strong arms, caressing her with the finely shaped hands whose touch banished all willpower and common sense from Nicole? She loved everything about him, but especially his hands.

  "We might as well call it quits today." The tone of resignation in Elaine's voice was seconded by the way Jimmy walked quickly to the side of the court and zipped the cover onto his expensive graphite racquet. Nicole's feelings of apology were exceeded only by relief at getting off the court. This was one dismal instance when tennis had failed to get her mind off her troubles.

  "What time shall I meet you at the marina?" Jimmy's voice was eager. The four of them consulted on the time schedule and then separated. Adrian would return in thirty minutes to drive Nicole and Elaine in one of the plantation four-wheel-drive vehicles. They needed lots of room for the bounteous lunch Mrs. Holden had prepared, plus additional coolers of soft drinks and beer. It had all the makings of quite a party.

  Andrew had been good-natured but convincing in stating he took no freeloaders aboard his boat. They might as well come dressed as crew members, not "duded up in fancy yachting rigs." That notion suited Elaine perfectly, since jeans and T-shirts were second only to shorts and T-shirts in her preference of clothes to wear.

  Nicole pulled on a pair of beige brushed-denim jeans that molded her supple figure like a second skin. Her dark brown cotton turtleneck was tucked under the snug waistband. No doubt it would be cool out on the water when the boat was under way. With that thought, she slipped on a brown-and-beige plaid shirt which she left unbuttoned and knotted casually at the waist.

  Some elfin instinct made her plait her glossy hair into two heavy braids. It was the same way she'd worn her hair when she was Elaine's age and her father took her out on his boat along with Andrew, who even at that tender age had been fascinated with the whole process of fishing for shrimp. With dainty gold rings in her ears and a jaunty brown cap pulled low over her forehead, she looked closer to Elaine's age than to her own twenty-two years.

  "You look cu-ute!" Adrian's eyes seconded Elaine's compliment as they climbed into the sturdy jeeplike vehicle with CHAUVIN PLANTATIONS painted on the side doors. The back was loaded with lunch hamper and coolers.

  "I wonder what happened to Louis and Angel Face." Elaine echoed Nicole's own thoughts as she voiced the question. Adrian muttered something unintelligible, suspiciously akin to "Who cares?"

  Nicole instinctively defended Louis. "You've got to admit he's not exactly a slave driver, at least where you're concerned," she chided gently.

  He grinned a rueful acknowledgment. "You're right. I'd sure hate to give up this job, for more than one reason. As a matter of fact, I've always liked Louis a lot—admired him, too—until… just lately…" His voice trailed away lamely, and Nicole realized he was too tactful to speak frankly in front of Elaine.

  She knew instinctively what he had not verbalized. He had always liked his employer until she had come along and appealed to Adrian's chivalric instincts. He apparently saw her as a kind of underdog, overshadowed by the glamorous Angela, and he felt sorry for her.

  Only there was no contest here, just a cut-and-dried situation where she could only lose. It looked more and more as if the only considerate thing she could do for everybody concerned was to remove herself from the playing field. The last thing she wanted was to cause Adrian problems with his job. A young man with his interests would be hard put to find another job so perfectly tailored to his needs, one offering so many advantages.

  And then there was Elaine. It all seemed to come back to her. Nicole heaved a sigh, mindless of the searching look she received from the clear hazel eyes of the man at the wheel. Well, she would definitely stay at Mimosa House until after the Dryades Tournament at Thanksgiving. After that Elaine would have already proved her exceptional ability, and Louis would see to it she had the opportunity for further competition. Nicole was sure he would. He loved Elaine very much. After that—well, who could say? She noted with relief their arrival at the marina. This outing was going to be fun for all of them, and nothing should be allowed to spoil it. Nothing!

  Chapter Nine

  Jimmy was waiting in his canary yellow VW convertible when they pulled into the marina parking area. He wasted no time in hefting one of the heavy coolers to a stout shoulder. Adrian did the same with the other cooler, and Elaine and Nicole managed the wicker lunch hamper between them. The four of them proceeded cautiously along the weathered dock in time to Jimmy's teenage litany, "Wow, man, is this neat! This is cool!"

  Andrew was out on deck waiting for them. For several minutes everyone was preoccupied with getting the lunch hamper and coolers aboard and situated where they would be accessible yet not in the way. The coolers went into the capacious wheelhouse, which also doubled as a dining room, and the hamper went into the compact but well-equipped galley.

  Jimmy's eyes couldn't stop moving as he plied Andrew with question after question. Nicole's sisterly pride swelled at the grave assurance of her younger brother. After all, he wasn't all that many years older than Jimmy, but he had already felt the heavy hand of tragedy and had been forced to mature young. Yet he appeared happy and confident as he introduced his admiring young guest to the wonderful mysteries of a shrimping boat.

  Elaine was already familiar with the electrified winches and mammoth trawling nets and huge storage compartments of the boat, having been given the tour on earlier visits with Nicole. But she tagged along nonetheless, standing as close to Jimmy as she dared. It was clear to the aware observer that proximity to Andrew revived her former crush on him and produced a conflict of interests.
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  Andrew glanced at his watch several times as he led Jimmy from one point of interest to another. "I wonder what he's waiting for?" Nicole said in a low voice to Adrian, as the two of them stood together watching the three younger members of the group with a mixture of indulgence and amusement. Seconds later it was obvious that sometime during the morning two additional guests had been invited to the party.

  "Uh-oh. Look who's coming," Adrian muttered suddenly.

  "You can all blame me for holding you up!" trilled Angela from the dock, clinging tightly to Louis's arm. Her self-confidence wavered slightly at the sight of the group already aboard the boat. She had obviously made a mistake in choice of clothing for the outing.

  She wore white silk slacks and a blue blazer over a navy-and-white print blouse. It was a stunning and obviously expensive ensemble, perfect for a cruise on a luxurious motor yacht but strikingly out of place in the rustic simplicity of the marina where the fishing fleet docked.

  Her most glaring mistake, though, was choice of shoes. Nicole wondered how she had managed to negotiate the long, unevenly planked dock without breaking her neck in those incredibly high-heeled backless sandals that were the latest rage. There was a moment of awkward silence as Andrew looked with visible distaste at the spiky heels, certain to damage his shiny new decks. Yet how could he refuse to extend hospitality to the companion of the man who had paid the bulk of the cost of the boat?

  With the quick comprehension that could easily manifest itself in brutal tactlessness, Elaine gasped, "Oh, ma gosh, Andrew doesn't let anyone come on this boat with hard-soled shoes!"

  "I suppose I have to take the blame." Louis looked as if he would gladly toss them all overboard at the slightest provocation. "We were late and I'm afraid I paid little attention to Angela's footgear."

  A likely story, Nicole reflected rebelliously. She pulled herself out of the lethargy induced by the galling sight of Angela's blond head pressed possessively against that rugged shoulder. The light blue of the windbreaker emphasized the blackness of his windblown hair and the electric quality of his dark blue eyes.

  Nicole, caught right in the middle in her dual role as Andrew's sister and Louis's wife, definitely had to do something to ease the painful situation. Besides, she felt a twinge of sympathy for Angela, whose lip trembled slightly at the unexpected censure elicited by her expensive shoes and the chagrin at not having dressed appropriately.

  "That's a striking outfit, Angela," she praised warmly, moving forward to smile at the pouting young woman. "Those shoes are too dangerous to wear on the boat, but fortunately I keep a pair of sneakers aboard just in case I drop by to see Andy on the spur of the moment. Here, you can fit into my moccasins. Sorry they're not the right color."

  She slipped her feet out of the brown rubber-soled moccasins and thrust them across the gap between the boat and the dock into Louis's outstretched hand. His eyes showed gratitude mixed with some other indefinable emotion in their blue depths.

  Angela hesitated only a second, wisely deciding to concede the issue. Nicole couldn't repress the wry thought that this was the first time in Angela's spoiled life she had made an error in dressing for an occasion.

  The awkwardness eased as Andrew stepped forward to help Angela aboard, his sensitive features relieved. He looked slightly breathless when the exquisite little blonde stumbled and clung to him for several seconds.

  "Nicole never mentioned having such a handsome brother," she purred, gazing up at the mobile features that were so like his sister's.

  Nicole groaned inwardly at the obviousness of Angela's appeal to her young brother's masculine instincts. Fortunately, he wasn't in her league and consequently wasn't in any serious danger of becoming one of her conquests.

  "You'd better stop acting like a mother hen and get those other shoes on." At the sound of the low, amused voice close beside her, she started and looked up guiltily into Louis's teasing eyes. He had correctly appraised her protectiveness toward Andrew and now read the unspoken question in her face.

  "Andrew telephoned this morning while you were out practicing. He wanted to confirm the time for today's excursion. When he found out I was home…" He shrugged expressively.

  Nicole could finish the explanation for herself. Of course, Andrew had extended the invitation to include the man who was his benefactor and whom he also genuinely liked. She didn't wait to hear how Angela had come to be included, but turned quickly away from him, murmuring, "You're right. I'd better get the other shoes." She hoped he wasn't aware of the havoc his nearness produced in her body, speeding up her heartbeat and creating strange feathery sensations down her backbone.

  Things went smoothly as Andrew took charge and gave clear directions to the other men. They untied the docking lines and pushed the boat away from the creosoted pilings when it threatened to graze or bump up against one of them. The young captain handled the wheel and backed the boat from its slip with expertise. Once they were clear of the channel and out into open water, he turned the wheel over to a hopeful Jimmy Martin.

  By this time everyone was feeling the tug of hunger, and Elaine offered to help Nicole in the galley. Angela didn't even bother to offer. She was hanging on Andrew's arm, giving a breathtakingly convincing performance that a shrimp boat was an object of utmost fascination and its young captain even more so. Andrew's face glowed in response to the heady experience of attention from one of Iberville's most beautiful society girls.

  Adrian had acted very detached since the arrival of his employer and stood now in conversation with Jimmy in the wheelhouse. Louis was out on deck leaning against the rail up in the bow, his arms crossed over his chest with one hand cradling the bowl of his pipe as he stared reflectively out to sea.

  Tall and lean in soft denim jeans that hugged the muscles in his taut thighs, he looked very much at home in his surroundings. There was an aura of command and confidence about him that made one instinctively sure he would be a good person to have along in a crisis. He would not hesitate to act when the need arose.

  "Come on, Nicole, you're just standing there staring at Louis like you've never seen him before! I'm starving!" Elaine's insistent voice awoke Nicole from her reverie with a start.

  "Come along, impatient one, and we'll set out lunch," she said, giving the girl a playful slap on her trim rear end.

  When the contents of the lunch hamper were arranged on the table in the wheelhouse, Andrew turned off the big, throbbing engines and allowed the boat to drift in silence on what was a relatively calm sea.

  "We're lucky," he said. "According to the forecast, the wind from the north is supposed to pick up."

  "What happens then?" Jimmy's voice and expression indicated he would be satisfied with nothing tamer than a hurricane.

  "We'd have some pretty rough seas. Hopefully, we'll be back in before things get bad."

  Nobody had to be urged to help themselves to golden fried chicken, potato salad, ham and roast beef sandwiches, and assorted pickles and relishes provided by Mrs. Holden. They loaded food on paper plates of the stout, unbendable variety and fished the drink of their choice from the ice-filled coolers.

  Jimmy wandered outside with his plate, followed by a dogged Elaine, who settled down beside him on the foredeck. Angela brought a luminous light to Andrew's eyes when she suggested, "Let's go outside and sit where we can talk without so many other people around." A few minutes later he had lifted her to the top of the forward cabin with the care he might have exercised with a shipment of fragile porcelain.

  That left Adrian, Louis, and Nicole in the wheel-house. One part of her mind was uneasily considering where she should eat her own lunch, while the other part was fuming angrily. What was Angela trying to prove, making a play for Andrew like that? He was undeniably a good-looking kid who had attracted his share of girls his own age, but Angela was a gilded butterfly from another world. Was she plotting some devious punishment for Nicole through her vulnerable young brother?

  "Well, shall we choose some pl
ace to light or just hover here?" The irritated amusement in Louis's voice brought her attention sharply back to her own indecisive presence in the wheelhouse. Close beside her was her husband, who awoke every nerve end in her responsive flesh, and Adrian, who displayed, a sullen unwillingness to abandon her to the other man's company.

  She looked from one man to the other helplessly and then glanced nervously out the front windshield at the couple leaning so intimately together on the cabin top.

  Without any further word, Louis strode out the door along the side deck, edging around toward the spot where Andrew and Angela sat. Disappointment sucked at Nicole's insides as he swung himself up beside Angela, making some remark that obviously triggered her pleasure. She unfurled a dazzling smile at him, turning her back quite callously on Andrew.

  The shadow crossing her brother's face hurt Nicole, but she recognized the bitter irony in the scene. How ambivalent were her own feelings! Louis was rescuing Andrew from the threat Angela presented; the only damage so far was the blow to his ego. Yet the relief Nicole breathed at Andrew's safety was undermined by a sharp stab of pain at the proximity of those broad shoulders to the tousled gold of Angela's curls.

  "Watch an expert at work," Adrian gibed between clenched teeth.

  Watch two experts at work, Nicole felt like retorting, but she bit back the words. At least it was clear now that Angela had only been flirting with Andrew to make Louis jealous. Apparently she had succeeded, judging from the way he was smiling into her eyes.

  Nicole plopped down on the settee running along the wall of the wheelhouse. "Since everybody else has vacated, why don't we just sit here out of the wind?"

  He sat down beside her. "Yeah, it looks to my inexperienced eye like the wind is picking up. Hope it doesn't get too rough before we get back into the marina."

  "Don't worry. Andrew will take care of us," she assured him.

  In a short time her brother came into the wheelhouse to start the engines. Distress from Angela's blatant rejection of his company in favor of the older man showed only in the tight set of his lips and the proud tilt of his head, the last a family characteristic.