Something Beautiful and Lacey's Retreat: Something Beautiful / Lacey's Retreat

“But just not with your fair friend Willa.”

“I didn’t say that. Actually, it would be nice if—”

Willa came into the room then, her crystal-blue eyes bright and red-rimmed, her expression bordering on frantic. In spite of that, she looked glorious in a long, straight blue cotton sundress etched with embroidered daisies on its wide crisscrossed straps.

Lucas started to question her but glanced at his sister and saw the warning look in Lorna’s worried eyes.

He turned to Willa, hoping to lighten her mood. “I hear you’re joining us for dinner. Most of the guests eat in the restaurant, so we’re glad to have you at our table.”

“Thank you,” she said, her words just above a whisper. “I hope I won’t be intruding on a family gathering.”

“Not at all,” Aunt Hilda told Willa, her sharp gaze taking in everything. “As Lucas said, we don’t provide dinner for our guests—just breakfast. But Lorna figured out a way around that with her booming restaurant.”

Lucas grinned, then took his aunt by one arm as he extended the other to Willa. “But we never turn down a beautiful face at the dinner table, either, when the occasion presents itself.”

He waited, saw Willa hesitate, wondering. He wanted to pull his hands through her haphazardly upswept hair.

Then she put her arm around his, lifted her head and gave him a brilliant smile that would probably sell lots of lipstick in a magazine shot. “How can I refuse, then?”

How, indeed, Lucas wondered. She seemed anything but eager to have dinner with his family. She seemed sad and forlorn, just like his lost, forgotten garden in the bayou.

Lucas wanted to wipe away her tears, make her smile again, from the heart. But first he had to find out what had brought her here and why she seemed so fragile.

As he walked with his aunt and Willa up the central hallway of Bayou le Jardin, Lucas knew one thing for sure.

God had brought Willa to him. And Lucas had been right to take her to his private garden.

It was the place where he kept his fears and sadness intact, nurturing them as if they were cherished blossoms lost deep inside the swamp.

He looked at Willa and knew that beneath her pain, the beauty was still there, just as with his garden. He felt an acute need to clear away the bramble and entanglements surrounding Willa’s smile and bring that beauty into the light.

Chapter Four

Lucas flipped on the light by his favorite armchair in the little den off the kitchen. “Well, well. Would you look at that?”

“I knew you’d want to see it,” Rosie Lee told him, shaking her head. “Dem fellows might be back, Lucas.”

“Yeap, they just might. And I just might be waiting for them.”

Lucas focused on the supermarket tabloid Rosie Lee had handed him. The supermarket tabloid that had a picture of Willa O’Connor, standing on the bayou, plastered across its front cover, complete with the headline “Supermodel flees New York for bed-and-breakfast retreat in Louisiana.” Then, in a subhead, “Why did Willa O’Connor cancel her appearance in benefit fashion show? Details inside.”

Lucas wanted the details. But not this way. He wanted Willa to tell him what was going on. If she saw this, she’d probably pack up and head for parts unknown.

Because she was obviously running from something.

Lucas knew this because, hey, it took one to know one. He’d certainly run away a few times in his life. To the swamp. To New Orleans. To his garden pagoda. He could see all the signs.

But why had Willa come here?

Maybe because she needed to be here; God wanted her to be here right now. Last night at dinner, she’d been polite—her manners were impeccable. She’d also been aloof and withdrawn, traits expected of a haughty model, but they didn’t fit the Willa he’d seen when they’d been alone in the garden. There she’d been more open, more down to earth. Lucas wished he could figure out the real Willa O’Connor, not the glossy image she’d managed to project both on paper and in the flesh.

He put down the tabloid, telling himself he wouldn’t read the disgusting and obviously untrue article inside. Then he pulled out the worn picture he’d found of Willa in the fashion magazine the other morning, comparing it to the blurry headshot from the tabloid.

There was no comparison.

In the glossy magazine shot, Willa looked picture-perfect as she stood smiling on a bridge in Venice, wearing a shimmering baby blue satin evening gown and dazzling jewels. It was an ad for a very expensive designer perfume. It worked for him.

In the tabloid picture, Willa looked lovely, but she had that same lost, worried look on her face Lucas had noticed so many times in the past two days. She was staring at the water as if hoping to find answers there. The intrusive photographers had captured her in a very private moment. And they’d obviously had more than one roll of film, since Lucas had destroyed the rolls in their cameras.

That didn’t work for Lucas.

He wanted to find those two clowns and grind them both to pulp. But Aunt Hilda would tell him that wasn’t the way a Dorsette resolved conflict.

So did he pray for their rotten, misguided souls instead?

Better to pray for Willa. To pray that he could find a way to get closer to her, help her through whatever problem she’d come here to solve.

Rosie Lee stuck her head in the doorway. “Want more coffee, Lucas?”

“Non.” He got up, threw the trashy tabloid on the worn coffee table. “I’m going out to find the rest of the breakfast crowd. Then I’ve got a busy day—got to check the dip nets and trotlines so Lorna will have fresh seafood for dinner tonight. Then I’m supposed to get with Mick and Justin to go over the renovation plans for later this fall. But first I need to see—”

“Willa O’Connor is out on the gallery,” Rosie Lee told him with a grin.

It was uncanny the way Rosie Lee could read his mind, Lucas thought as he grabbed his cup of now cold coffee and headed through the kitchen to the back gardens. Glancing over the clusters of people eating their morning meal, Lucas saw a couple of new faces.

And the one face he’d been searching for.

They were booked solid for the summer, in spite of the damage from the storms earlier in the spring. Of course, Justin and the whole clan had worked around the clock to get the house and gardens in order, but there was still a lot that needed to be done, which was why they would probably have to shut down for a couple weeks in the less busy late fall.

Upkeep on the place was a never-ending battle, but one they gladly accepted. Lucas had pitched in, too. He loved these gardens and their home as much as his aunt and sisters did.

And right now, he especially loved having Willa O’Connor sitting at a wrought-iron table in beige linen pleated slacks and a stark black sleeveless summer sweater, her long hair pulled from her classic face with an exotic metal and wooden clip, her face devoid of any makeup. She looked as if she belonged in a country garden.

As always, her natural beauty assaulted Lucas with the same force as the many flowers blooming around them. It slammed into his gut with a gentle rendering, making him inhale then exhale in one quick breath. He didn’t understand this attraction, had never had to deal with anything quite so strong and sure before. He’d been attracted to other women, but he’d never felt a jolt that went all the way from his stomach to his toes.

And he’d never felt such a fierce longing, a mixture of wanting to protect her and nurture her coupled with a need to know everything about her.

“Staring is quite rude,” Aunt Hilda said under her breath as she walked past him. She took the time to stop and rap his leg with her cane before she moved on, a twinkle in her eyes. “I’m going to work. And you, try to stay out of trouble.”

Lucas snapped to attention, then realized he wasn’t the only one staring at Willa. An older couple sitting at the next table—the Gilberts from East Texas—were whispering and staring. And Mrs. Gilbert had a copy of that annoying tabloid in her plump little hand.

Lucas saw the ambush coming before he could take a step to warn Willa.

“It is you, isn’t it?” Mrs. Gilbert chirped as she fluttered to her feet and rushed to Willa’s table. “See. It says so right here.” She pointed to the picture, then looked at Willa, smug and proud of her discovery. “I told William I thought this was you. The story says you didn’t show up at an important fashion event. Says you’re having personal problems.”

Lucas watched as Willa’s smile turned to stony surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“Honey, it’s okay, really,” Mrs. Gilbert said, leaning close. “I can understand why you’d want a little downtime. I mean, traveling to all those exotic places, wearing all those beautiful, costly clothes at fashion shows.” She made a shushing sound, then rolled her eyes. “I wish I had it so hard.” She beamed a smile at Willa. “Did you really walk away from a cancer benefit fashion show in New York last week?”