Behind Iron Lace Read online

  “He agreed with you. Come on in. How was your drive?” Caleb took the strap from him and slung the portfolio over his shoulder as he led him into the semi-dark interior of the house.

  “It was good, nice to be out of the city for a change.” A hushed feel settled upon him, almost as if the house were mourning something. A white clad woman shuffled through the hall, she was barefoot as well. “Should I take my shoes off?”

  “Only if you want,” Caleb said looking pointedly at Darcy’s worn out loafers. “We’re pretty casual around here nowadays. Come on out to the sun porch, we’ll have some lunch and then get to work.”

  The woman in white swept out of a room with sliding double pocket doors, her look when she met his eyes was stern. “Mr Caleb.” She nodded and then went off down a shadowed hallway. Caleb didn’t offer a greeting in return.

  He walked quickly through the rooms, decorated with antiques from the last two or three centuries, as if he didn’t see them. He probably didn’t anymore, Darcy reasoned, when they stepped out into the bright light of the afternoon sun.

  “Oh wow,” Darcy breathed. Flowers were everywhere; in colors he’d never known existed. Exotic foliage filling pots and planters everywhere he looked. Out past the glass walls of the sunroom was a pool, complete with an ornate fountain in the middle that looked more like something he’d seen in photos of European palaces.

  “Would you like a beer? Or something stronger? I’ve got just about everything.” Caleb set the portfolio on a long table in the shade. Without looking Darcy’s way—he hadn’t met his eyes once since he’d arrived Darcy realized—Caleb walked over to a buffet loaded with food. “Help yourself,” he said plucking a bottle of beer from an ice bucket. He went to sit at a white wrought iron table, propping his long legs up on a matching bench.

  “I can’t help but wonder if this is the right time for this, you seem—distracted.” He had no idea why he said those particular words, but Caleb looked at him finally, the intensity in his eyes startled him for a second and then it passed as if it never had been there. He smiled then, the simple motion seeming to relax his entire body.

  “It’s been a bad morning, nothing personal, Darcy, I assure you. Go ahead and eat, I’ll get something later. We can talk about the magazine or the beach, if you want. Hell, I’ll even talk football, though I’d rather not.”

  An older woman, dressed in khaki walking shorts and a soft yellow striped cardigan sweater, joined them from a set of French doors a little farther along the porch. “You have no manners anymore, Caleb. Maybe your friend would like to freshen up before you challenge him to an arm wrestling match.”

  “That’s southern for use the john, in case you didn’t know already.” Caleb only scowled at the woman. “Martha, this is my friend Darcy, he runs a magazine in the city, and I’m doing some freelance work for him. Darcy, this is ah—what exactly are you to me anyway? I’d say my housekeeper, but you’d probably smack me upside the head.”

  “And you would probably be right.” She smiled, a sad but patient smile, before she turned back to Darcy. “Nice meeting you, Mr Darcy.”

  Darcy couldn’t help but wince when she said it, it wasn’t something he heard often, but lately, once was too often. Caleb snorted, and ducked when she tossed him a withering gaze.

  “What’s funny?”

  “It’s just Darcy, please, Darcy Butler. My mother thought it was funny to name me after a character in her favorite book. I have yet to live it down. And thank you, but I’m fine right now. Thirsty and overwhelmed with all of this stunning architecture, but fine.” He tried to answer all of her questions, but it just made Caleb laugh harder.

  “I understand now, Darcy, and don’t mind him, he’s nothing but a spoiled snot. A good kick in the pants would cure what ails him, but he scares everyone to death so no one has tried. Just let me know if you need anything while you’re here.” She winked at him and went back inside, leaving Darcy alone and slightly bewildered, with a man who might actually be on the crazy side.

  “Grab some grub, Darcy, and don’t worry about things so much. Like I said, it’s been a bad morning. We’re all pretty much on edge, and all up in each other’s business. It’ll pass. So tell me about your Ducks.” Caleb swigged his beer, the silver linked chains he wore around his wrist slipped to his forearm, making a slight jingling sound Darcy found soothing.

  “Honestly, I don’t know much about football.” He picked through the selection of food, opting for a sandwich and coleslaw. Taking a beer, he joined Caleb at the table. He tried not to wonder how Caleb knew what he was thinking.

  “That’s good because it’s never been a particular favorite of mine either. I prefer horseracing to football, or just about any other sport.”

  “Really?” He didn’t look like the type, car or motorcycle racing yes, horses not so much. “Do you ride?”

  “I’m pretty good on a horse, yes. Do I race, no, I’m too big. I did dressage as a kid, you know, jumping fences in fancy gear, until I think I was nine and then puberty happened. Life happened. I don’t ride so much anymore.” He sat facing him, just like the day before. His eyes seemed to caress him, also just like the day before. His gaze followed Darcy’s hands as he ate, the attention made him shiver. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

  “Well, that was blunt.” Darcy choked on his sandwich. Coughing, he tried to play it off. “No, why would you?”

  “You keep staring at my bracelets, I was wondering.” His smile was slightly cocked to one side, his eyes guarded.

  “Do I? Well, they are shiny, and I’m nothing if not easily distracted. Besides, I might come from a new age hippie Mecca, but I’m pretty uptight, new takes time for me to get used to.” What was it about Caleb Mitchell, Darcy wondered, that turned him into a blithering idiot?

  Caleb smiled then, his eyes alive with glee. “Bet you had some serious culture shock when you first came to N’Awlins. We are loaded with nuts down here, chocolate covered nuts rolled in nuts. It’s the heat and the humidity, it makes us peculiar.”

  Darcy found himself relaxing under the man’s gaze enough to agree. “And let’s not forget the bugs. I think it’s the bugs I can’t get used to most of all. Tiny flying things I can’t see or great big black cockroaches.” He shuddered just thinking about the hairy spider he’d found in his shower the first night.

  “You’re all right, Darcy, you know that?” Caleb laughed again, this time the sound was natural and smooth, the timbre rolling over him like a feather. Darcy shivered as the sound wrapped around him.

  “And this is good barbeque. One thing I do like is the food. Lord, I could live on pulled pork, or fried chicken, and never get tired of it.” He changed the subject, hoping to shake off the unfamiliar sensation pitting in his stomach.

  “What about gumbo?”

  Darcy nodded, “And those square donut things with the powdered sugar.”

  “Beignets, remind me next time you come out and I’ll have Martha whip up a batch. The woman is a tremendous cook. I’m going to miss that about her.” His voice turned wistful, then almost as if he’d never said a thing, he perked up. “Anyway, it’s cooler out here than in the city at least. Not much, but some, and it smells better.”

  “That’s for sure.” Darcy finished his coleslaw, and the last of his sandwich. “I don’t know what I was expecting when we first moved here, but New Orleans isn’t exactly how I pictured it.”

  “Why did you move here, if you don’t mind me asking? Seems your magazine was better suited to the more progressive minded twenty or early thirty something college graduates that populate the Pacific Northwest.” Caleb stated bluntly.

  “Money. It’s that simple. The high cost of doing business, the high rent, the exorbitant cost of contracting out, high salaries, it was all combining to drag us under. Bailey came down for vacation last summer, she fell in love with the city, and somehow I let her talk me into buying a building and moving everything down lock, stock, and barrel.” He tipped his beer up
, draining the last of it.

  “And you regret that decision.” Caleb went over to the buffet and grabbed two more beers, handing one to him before he sat down again.

  Darcy sighed, “I don’t regret moving here from a business perspective. I’m just…” he didn’t know how to explain this feeling in his stomach.

  “Homesick.” Caleb finished for him. “I can tell. Why don’t you go back? Your relationship with Bailey?”

  “How’d you know?” Darcy gave up on trying to figure out Caleb and his uncanny ability to know what he was feeling. Caleb looked at him expectantly with eerie green eyes that seemed to look right through to Darcy’s soul. Again, Darcy felt the peculiar fluttering in the pit of his stomach. “Bailey and I are, were, shit, I don’t know what we are anymore. Friends, colleagues, she might be the best friend I ever had, but lately something has changed. I can’t really say more than that.”

  “She took another lover?”

  How would he know that? “I don’t know, I suspect so, we never had an arrangement.”

  “Friends with benefits, I got ya. You know those relationships never work out, right?” The smile Caleb gave him softened the truth of the words, but Darcy still felt them, keenly. He knew. He’d always known nothing good would ever come from sex with Bailey just for the sake of having someone to fuck. “Would you like anything else, or to freshen up, before we go into my studio?”

  Glad the too personal questions were out of the way, Darcy shook his head, “I’m good.”

  “Good.” There was that slow smile again, Caleb’s gaze slowly sliding over him, making him shiver. “Martha,” he shouted out, waiting for the housekeeper to stick her head out. “I’m going to take Darcy down to my studio, probably for the rest of the afternoon. I’ve got my phone if you need me.”

  “Sure thing, Caleb,” she called out and then disappeared back into the house.

  “Hey, come on. Oh, grab a couple more beers, will you?” Caleb retrieved the portfolio as Darcy went to get two more bottles. He thought better of a third for himself and selected a bottle of water instead. He then followed Caleb through a glass door and into the heat of the afternoon. “Do you feel like walking or would you rather take the golf cart, it’s about a mile.”

  “I could use the exercise.” Darcy fell into step beside the taller man, matching his long-legged gait.

  “You might regret that decision in a minute, city boy; just try and keep up.” Almost as if stepping out into the fresh air and sunshine washed something dark from him, Caleb’s eyes began to dance with laughter, his voice changed again, allowing a slightly heavy accent in, but not one Darcy had ever heard before. Again, Darcy wondered if something about the man wasn’t a tad bit off.

  The smell of death slowly ebbed from Caleb’s memory, the sun felt so good on his shoulders. The man beside him smelled nice, even from a distance, like fabric softener and shampoo. Caleb liked the combination; it was strangely erotic to him. Speaking of erotic, watching Darcy Butler eat had been an exercise in torture. Stupid conversation to keep his mind from wandering to what his guest would taste like only distracted him for so long.

  He liked how he blushed and didn’t even know it, when he caught him staring at him. It wasn’t that Caleb set out to embarrass him during lunch; he couldn’t seem to help it. His crystal blue gaze, blunt in its appraisal of him, had him off balance almost from the second he drove up. Alone. Oh God, he’d expected at least two of his colleagues. He wasn’t prepared to deal with Darcy, dressed in long cargo shorts and a short sleeve oxford shirt and beat up loafers, alone. Damn, the man had nice legs. Legs that were white as snow, from lack of exposure to the sun, with a fine sprinkling of dark hair; the muscles in his calves flexed as he walked, or sat or stretched. Jesus Christ.

  For a city boy, Darcy could move, he matched his pace across the back lawn, but when grass turned to underbrush and finally to woods, his step dragged some. Caleb stopped to let him catch up only to find him staring into the trees as if he’d never seen them this close before. “There’s a hawk or something up there,” he said, shading his eyes as he looked skyward.

  “Looks like a hawk. It’s probably fishing, or waiting for a rabbit to dart out of the underbrush.” The bird was pretty high up, but it didn’t move, instead it cocked its head to one side and looked down at them. “Come on, Darcy, before the hawk thinks you’re what’s for dinner.”

  “It’s probably got a nest up there,” he said when he finally caught up. “Why are we in the woods anyway? I thought we were going to your studio.”

  “We are. Just wait a minute and you’ll see.” Caleb didn’t want to spoil it for him. In a few seconds, the scraggly patch of woods gave way to a clearing on the bank of the lake, his house, high up above the water, gave him chills every time he saw it.

  “Wow. This is fabulous.” Darcy stopped to take in the sight. Caleb looked at it from his perspective. Set atop steel and concrete pilings, he’d built a round contemporary building with windows for walls and a sloped roof for wind resistance. “It’s not gorgeous, mind you, it’s too stark, and after the grace of the main house, it is shocking to see something so modern just sitting above the water like that.

  “Which is more or less what I was going for. Of course, the hurricane sort of dictated its shape. I sure as fuck didn’t want to lose another place, but I couldn’t give up being over the water.” Caleb led him up the wide concrete steps, to the landing nearly two stories above.

  “You live out here? I thought the mansion…” his voice trailed off when he stepped inside the circular room, light from all sides illuminating the furniture and the art.

  “My mother’s house, this is mine, when I’m here. The living area is down here, my equipment is everywhere, when I feel like painting, I have everything. My computer and drafting equipment is state of the art. I keep my cameras upstairs, in the darkroom next to my bedroom. The only thing I can’t do here is cook. Of course, I can’t cook so that makes sense, right, and I have Martha to spoil me.” He went inside past the white leather furniture and the blood-red carpet to his desk.

  Darcy paused for a moment, a look of uncertainty on his face passing quickly, before kicking his shoes off and striding across the room to stand next to him as he pulled out the magazine galleys and lined them up on his drafting table.

  Caleb moved the mock up pages around, looking them over with a practiced eye. “Do you have an electronic version with you?” he asked after a few moments of study.

  “Yeah, sure.” Darcy pulled his keys out of his pocket and handed him the flash drive fob. “It’s labeled by tomorrow’s date. What do you think?”

  “Serviceable, stark, the information is all there, nothing you need to change but you can play with layout and color. Color will do more than you think. Make a story warm, or cold. Right now it’s cold.” He plugged the device into his computer, pulling the pages up on the large screen side by side, so Darcy could see them.

  A story about a couple who were both laid off from bank jobs in San Francisco and moved to Louisiana to raise sheep. They now have a thriving e-business, featuring handmade wool products. He pulled up a program and started playing with background color, settling on a rough-hewn mustard, fabric looking background. He then changed the photos around, shopping some images out and layering them over and around the text. Until he’d changed the entire page from a stark white background to something resembling a scrapbook page. “You can put advertising in where you need it, and still keep the country feeling for this article. The photos in this one are pretty good, did one of your crew take them?”

  “Yeah, we go visit our subjects, interview them personally, take photos, it’s all hands on. Amber Gaines is the author of this piece.”

  Caleb looked over the photographs, there was promise there, and she had a good eye. “Give her to me; I’ll turn her into a pro. And open up your budget for camera equipment, digital is fine, I prefer film but times, they are a changing.”

  He went through the ot
her stories and did the same with each one, took the major theme and created a stylized background suited for each. “And your computers might be outdated. But I can work with just about anything, even going back to the dark ages, though I’d rather not.”

  Darcy leaned over him, listening. Caleb could feel his eyes on him as he snapped through the program using the touch screen to highlight and move the text around. “Bailey would kill for one of these. She’s going to love this. Love you.” His breath caressed his neck, Caleb had to fight back a moan, and he had to force his brain to continue to function. Oh, God, he really had no idea at all how to deal with this—this want. Ignore it, just ignore it.

  “What about you? What do you think?” He hit print after he finished the last article, holding his breath, Caleb waited for the man to offer praise. He didn’t realize how much it would mean to him, to know Darcy Butler liked what he could do for him. “Do I get the job?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you’re an effin’ genius. I love these.” He held the pages, printed on glossy paper. “These look like a magazine, whereas before, it was just a newsletter.”

  “I take it then, you like what you see?”

  “I love what I see. Damn, Caleb, these are beautiful.” Caleb felt the praise to his toes. For an egomaniac like himself to be so worried about how some small time editor thought about his work was a statement in itself. Maybe his uncle was right, maybe something was very wrong with him.

  “Okay then, I’m going to save this as a separate file and you’re all set for tomorrow.” He saved the data to the flash drive and disconnected the device, handing it back to Darcy. “So, that took all of thirty minutes. Are you in a hurry to get back to the city?”

  “Not particularly. Everyone I know has gone to an island for the day. I can go talk to O’Doul but after a while he gets to be a little tiresome, you know?” He tucked the prints into the portfolio with the originals and laid his keys on top of the bag.