Just then, he noticed two cats walking by, strolling the way cats do, as if they owned the world. One was the one he’d sort of pushed on Bernie those weeks back. Behind scrambled a litter of kittens.
He arched his brows in question.
“You didn’t tell me the cat was pregnant,” Bernie complained.
“I thought it was a kitten.”
“Even small cats can get pregnant,” Bernie informed him, as if he didn’t know that.
“Oh, Bernie, you just made my day.” In the end, turning serious, Cage had to ask, “Was it… the baby… buried?”
Bernie seemed to understand immediately and nodded. “Em insisted.”
Cage felt as if a vise was squeezing his heart as he waited for the final shoe to drop. “Mary Delphine LeBlanc, September 20, 1997, Our Lady of the Bayou Cemetery.” Named after our two grandmothers! And me! Even when she’d been married to Bernie. How many hits can I take today?
Cage left soon after that. As he drove away, he began to calm down, for about the fiftieth time in this roller-coaster of emotions that had become his life. He was beginning to understand the reasons for all the “sins” against him, which weren’t really sins, of course. Fear, it was all about fear. Even that asshole Claude had acted out of fear. And Em… sweet Em… she’d only been sixteen at the time. She must have been terrified.
Okay, he was glossing over the fact that no one had bothered to tell him the truth since he’d come home. And that included his grandmother about some things.
Feeling a bit shattered, he called Emelie, about to make some major amends. Of course, he got her frickin’ answering machine. Gritting his teeth—he hated leaving this particular message on voice mail—he said, “Hey, honey. I just learned more about Mary Delphine LeBlanc.” He paused to get his voice under control. “I am so sorry.”
She never responded to that message.
Luckily, during that week and a half, he was kept busy with Project Boom. The private practice nurse he’d hired, thanks to help from Adele, had proven invaluable, especially because her hours were flexible; Mrs. Ryan, a middle-aged widow, came from Houma whenever she was needed, which was a godsend when he was called on suddenly to be in Lafayette for a meeting.
In the end, it was almost anticlimactic the way Project Boom worked out. Because of the expertise of all the professionals involved working together, they were able to locate all the explosives, where they were currently stored, and where they had been set to go off at four spots along the parade route. After that, it was only a question of bringing in all the tangos to be interrogated and imprisoned… ten in all.
The outcome could have been monumentally disastrous. Any one of those explosives had the power to devastate up to a two-block perimeter, and with the crowds expected on Fat Tuesday in the Crescent City, well, suffice it to say, tragedy was averted. The mayor of New Orleans was particularly thankful that word of this terrorist plot hadn’t leaked out; otherwise, tourism—the lifeblood of the city—would have been severely curtailed.
His SEAL buddies hadn’t returned to California yet because they wanted to see the Mardi Gras parade in two days, especially F.U., who’d apparently been amassing a large supply of beads to be thrown to women at the parade, a practice that usually resulted in the baring of female breasts. John LeDeux had pulled a few strings to get them a prime viewing spot for the parade on the second-floor balcony of a Bourbon Street hotel.
But suddenly, there was a lull in his frenzied activity, and he had to face the mess he’d made of things with Em. Unfortunately, while he was ready to kiss and make up, she still wanted nothing to do with him. He called repeatedly and always got her blasted answering machine message.
“Thass the trouble with young folks t’day,” his grandmother said when he confided in her. “Ya think everythin’ kin be handled with a phone or a text message or an e-mail. I thought ya were smarter than that.”
“Em was in the wrong, too,” he insisted. “She’s the one who should be makin’ the first step.”
“First step. Last step. No steps. Who cares? If ya really love that gal, you’ll crawl if that’s what it takes.”
Well, that was a lot of help.
But he did suck it up and drive to her shop in hopes he’d have more luck in person. Thad greeted him with loud, unfriendly barking, as if they hadn’t been best pals just a few weeks ago. The dog sensed that Cage was in the doghouse more than he was.
When he walked into Em’s workroom without knocking, she glanced up at him. No warm welcome. In fact, there was hostility in her dark eyes, and she told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with him.
“I came because you haven’t been answerin’ my phone calls.”
“Didn’t that tell you something?”
“Not even fond regards for my blue balls,” he joked.
She didn’t crack even a hint of a smile.
“You look good.”
“I look like hell. I’m working twenty hours a day, and I haven’t washed my hair in two days.”
Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and she wore no makeup. A gray sweatshirt, gray sweatpants, and sneakers were her plain attire. Honestly, she looked good to him, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. She would assume it was just a line.
“Your busy time should be over soon, with Mardi Gras.”
“I’m thinking about taking on the museum project, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Oh, it’s my business all right. Everything you do is my business.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not anymore.”
“You said you loved me, Em.”
“Loved. Past tense.”
“You can’t get over love that quick.”
“You did.”
“I did not! I never stopped loving you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” She yanked a calendar off the wall and pointed to one day after another, eleven days since they’d made love after the Mardi Gras ball.
“I called.”
“Pffff! You said some pretty damn nasty things last time you were here.”
“I was shocked and hurt. You can’t toss a grenade like you did and expect a guy to just pass it off as no big deal.”
“How about the eleven days since then?”
“I’ve been busy.” He couldn’t tell her about Project Boom. Or about his intermittent pride and anger. Not now. Maybe later. “Trust me. I had good reasons for stayin’ away. Some important things came up.”
She flinched and put a hand over her heart. “Miss MaeMae?”
“No, she’s fine, or not too bad anyway.”
She arched her brows, waiting for a further explanation. When he had none to give, she said, “Go away, Justin. I have work to do, and you’re bothering me.”
“We have to talk sometime.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. The time for talk is long gone. I don’t want you anymore.”
“That’s what you think, babe.”
“Puhleeze with the babe nonsense. Did you ever see that Johnny Cash movie Walk the Line, where Reese Witherspoon says to Joaquin Phoenix, ‘Baaby, baaby, baaby!’ That’s you all over, Justin. Well, not me.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but he sure as hell would watch the flick when he got home. “I went to see Bernie,” he told her.
“And I should care… why?” He could tell she was interested, despite her words.
“I punched him in his weak chin, for one thing.”
“Why? What’s he ever done to you?”
“Married the girl I love. Didn’t tell me you were pregnant.”
“I did the same thing. Are you going to punch me?”
“Nah. I’d rather do other things to you.” When she didn’t respond to that, he said in a choked voice, “You named our baby girl after my MawMaw and your MawMaw, and you gave her my surname. Thank you.” Her eyes went wide with shock, whether at the news that he knew or that he’d had the nerve to bring it u
p, he wasn’t sure. Well, he might as well go for broke. “I’d like to see Mary’s grave. Will you take me sometime, Em?”
She gasped and bent over at the waist, as if in pain.
He tried to put a comforting arm around her shoulders, but she shoved him away. Too much, too soon, he realized belatedly.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you by bringing this up, but it had to come out in the open sometime. I’ll retreat for now, but we are going to talk about this, and we are going to be together.” For the time being anyhow. “You are mine. Get that through your stubborn head. You. Are. Mine.”
Big mistake! Em looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. She stood and braced her hands on the table. “Get. Out!”
“I love you, Em,” he said as he began to walk away.
She threw a softball-size skein of yarn at him, hitting him squarely in the back of the head. He just laid it carefully on the table and winked at her.
Which infuriated her, of course, if the scowl on her face was any indication. Thad scowled at him, too, as if even a dog could do a better job than he had.
Then, still dumb as dirt, seeking answers in typical male deficit misunderstanding of the female sex, he decided to go around to the front of the building and enter the shop. There he point-blank asked Belle to intercede on his behalf.
Belle told him point-blank that he’d lost his chance. “She didn’t want to get involved with you again, Justin. You hurt her so bad before. Now you’ve done it again.”
“Hey, I got hurt, too.” He hadn’t meant to say that and knew even before the words were out how whiny-assed he sounded.
“Pull up your big boy pants and get over it.”
“My undies are just fine. And I want her.”
Belle shrugged. “We don’t always get what we want, do we?”
On the way home, he stopped at Tante Lulu’s to see if JAM and Geek were up for a few beers and a game of poker that night. The guys had gone to the Carnival Crawfish Boil over in Lafayette with the other SEALs and their new best buddy, Bernie.
“C’mon in and sit yerself down,” Tante Lulu told him. “You look lak you been run over by a thousand-pound gator on roller skates.”
He sat at her kitchen table, where she’d apparently been putting together some of her folk remedies for Geek to put into a word processing program. Handing him a glass of sweet tea, she sat down across from him.
“Well, spill, boy. What did you do ta screw things up?”
Me? Why not Em? “Why do you assume I’m at fault?”
“Doan go gettin’ cross-legged. It’s a known fact that men are clueless ’bout love. Ninety-nine an’ a half percent of the time they say or do somethin’ ta muck up the thunderbolt’s path. They cain’t help themselves. They’s clueless.”
She was probably right about the clueless part. “Do you really believe all that thunderbolt of love crap?”
“I surely do. God throws the bolt, but then we humans gotta follow through. He cain’t do all the work fer you. Remember what the Good Book says. Ask an’ you shall receive.”
“I asked and I didn’t get shit… I mean, nothing.”
“Well, you came to the best person fer love advice.”
Is that what I’m doing? Oh, my God, I’m discussing my love life with a woman who was old when the Dead Sea was still alive. How pathetic is that?
“Tell me what happened.”
And he did. All of it.
Tante Lulu clucked at some points, tsked at others, and shook her head in dismay at his dumb mistakes. “Are yer man parts still in workin’ order?”
“What? Yes. Of course. That’s not the issue.” What left field did that one come from? Am I actually blushing?
“You never know. I vow, some men are jist dummies and doan know that a woman needs good lovin’ once in a while.”
“Are you actually suggesting sex to solve problems?”
“You are an idjet. Lovin’ and boinkin’ ’re two different things. Do I hafta explain the difference?”
“No, no!” Please, no!
“Of course, ya prob’ly figgered that once ya got the deal signed, sealed, and delivered, yer job was done. Ha, ha, ha, didja get that about sealed? Anyways, once we get her in a lovin’ mood, I kin give ya advice on how ta keep yer lady satisfied.”
“I honestly don’t need that kind of advice, but I do need help getting Em to the point where she’ll even talk to me about some important issues, let alone forgive me fer being such a clumsy idiot.”
“Well, ya came ta the right place fer help.”
“I did?”
“I do mah best work with clumsy idiots. Ask mah nephews. I’m thinkin’ it’s time ta pull in the LeDeux troops.”
Uh-oh! He didn’t like the sound of that. “Can’t you just give me some advice?”
“Nah, you’ve let it go too far fer that. Mebbe we could hold our Cajun Village People act at Swampy’s. We ain’t done one of those in a while.”
Cage had heard about those events. The men made total asses of themselves in public in an effort to woo a woman.
“Mebbe some of them Navy SEAL buddies of yers could help. A whole line of hunky men in military uniforms dancin’ and shakin’ their hineys ta Cajun music. I sure do wish someone could convince mah Richard—thass Richard Simmons, the hottie—ta put on a uniform and join the group. You could be the leader.”
Cage’s eyes were about bugged out. “No way! Not gonna happen!”
“You’re awful picky fer someone in desperate straits.”
“It’s not that I’m afraid to play the fool for Em…”
My SEAL buddies would die laughing at this idea, and even worse, they might do it.
“But honestly I don’t think that kind of thing would work for her.”
Surely a bunch of SEALs taking it all off wouldn’t break down her barriers. Would it? She’d probably laugh, but then laughter might be a good starting point. No, that’s crazy.
“She’s a private person and…”
His words trailed off as he thought of something. “I wonder…”
“What?”
“There is this one thing Em mentioned that she would like.” He told her in non-X-rated terms about Em’s fantasy of him wearing a cowboy hat and boots and playing the guitar for her.
“Hmmm.” She tapped her little fingers on the table. “It might work. We could book a time at Swampy’s. René’s band would work with us. And I doan care what ya say, we could still do a little of the Cajun Village People stuff, and then… oh, I’m jist not sure ’bout this. It’s kinda short notice.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, Em would be appalled. No, I’ll have to think of something else. I’ve already given her flowers and a dog. Maybe I could buy her a piece of jewelry, or a kitten,” or nipple rings. No, no, no, I didn’t just think that.
“Put this love sit-ye-a-shun from your mind, boy. I’ll come up with somethin’, dontcha worry. Then, I’ll get back to you. In the meantime,” she told him as they walked to the door, “ya could allus ask the big guy fer help.”
“What big guy?”
Tante Lulu motioned with her head toward a picture on the wall. St. Jude.
He could swear he heard a voice in his head say, “It’s about time.”
Memories never die…
Emelie did not regret cutting off things with Justin, but she did miss him. And the loneliness on this last night of Carnival weighed particularly heavy on her heart.
From the time she was eight years old until he left when she was sixteen, they’d spent Mardi Gras together in one way or another. Amazing, the details that remained imbedded in her mind. Like the floats one year when “Livin’ La Vida Loca” was popular, or the foods they ate only on that date, like his grandmother’s king cake, or the beautiful costumes that instilled the seeds of her later artistic leanings. She remembered how Justin had looked the first time he’d seen a woman bare her breasts for beads. And she remembered how he’d looked the first time she’d bared her b
reasts for him, which couldn’t have been all that exciting since she’d been ten and flat as a board.
Yes, Emelie had made a clean break with Justin last week when he’d barged in here. It had to be done. She never should have opened herself up to the hurt again. And she didn’t blame him. Not totally. She just wished that he would leave the state and she could begin the process of healing again.
But of course, that was selfish of her because he wouldn’t leave until Miss MaeMae was gone, and Emelie couldn’t wish for the quick passing of the dear old woman.
She and Belle closed the shop at noon since the parade route passed less than one block from their street and the revelers could get rowdy, sometimes even destructive, when under the influence. Besides, Belle and her sons were joining Justin and all his SEAL buddies over on the balcony of the Pelican Hotel. Belle had asked her to come, and Justin had, too, via one of his incessant voice mails, but Emelie had declined all offers. Even in a crowd, she wouldn’t be able to handle being near Justin.
“Isn’t it odd that those SEALs have stuck around in Loo-zee-anna for so long?” Emelie mentioned to Belle as they were pulling the barred screen over the windows and drawing shades. “And their friendship with Bernie is just weird.”
“I thought so, too, but JAM told me there was some mission that came up in this area that required them all to be here. Whatever it was is over now. They’ll be leaving on Thursday.”
Emelie tilted her head to the side. “I thought SEALs dealt with terrorists.”
Belle shivered. “Terrorists in Loo-zee-anna?”
Emelie shivered for another reason. “Bernie involved in some special forces operation?”
They both laughed at that and decided there must have been some other reason. Maybe just what Justin had claimed, that SEALs were tight, and supported each other in times of trouble, like his grandmother’s cancer.
Once Emelie was alone, she went up to her apartment, gave Thad a bowl of dog food (he ate like a horse), and took out a frozen dinner from Ella’s that she planned to have later. Pouring herself a glass of chilled white wine, she sat down to watch the local TV network’s coverage of Mardi Gras.