Sandra Hill
PO Box 604
State College, PA 16804
Web site: www.sandrahill.net
email:
[email protected] About the Author
Sandra Hill lives in the middle of chaos, surrounded by a husband, four sons, a live-in girlfriend, two grandchildren, a male German Shepherd the size of a horse, and five cats. Each of them is more outrageous than the other. Sometimes three other dogs come to visit. No wonder she has developed a zany sense of humor. And the clutter is never-ending: golf clubs, skis, wrestling gear, baseball bats and gloves, tennis rackets, mountain-climbing ropes, fishing rods, bikes, exercise equipment. . . .
Sandra and her stockbroker husband, Robert, own two cottages on a world-renowned fishing stream (which are supposed to be refuges), two condos in Myrtle Beach (which are too far away to be used), and seven Domino’s Pizza stores (don’t ask!). One son and his significant other had Sandra’s first grandchild at home with an Amish midwife. Another son says he won’t marry his longtime girlfriend unless they can have a Star Wars wedding. Another son at twenty-three fashions himself the Donald Trump of central Pennsylvania. A fourth son . . . well, you get the picture.
Robert and Sandra love their sons dearly, but Robert says they are boomerangs: They keep coming back. Sandra says it must be a sign of what good parents they are, that the boys want to be with them.
No wonder Sandra likes to escape to the library in her home, which is luckily soundproof, where she can dwell in the more sane, laugh-out-loud world of her Cajuns. When asked by others where Sandra got her marvelous sense of humor, her husband and sons just gape. They don’t think she’s funny at all.
Sandra is a USA Today, New York Times extended and Waldenbooks best-selling author of seventeen novels and four novellas. All of her books are heavy on humor and sizzle.
Little do Sandra’s husband and sons know what she’s doing in that library.
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THE RED-HOT CAJUN
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Chapter 1
The long hot summer just got hotter . . .
“That Richard Simmons sure is a hottie.”
Whaaat? René LeDeux put down the caulking gun he’d been using to chink the logs of his home-in-progress, and stared in astonishment at his great aunt Louise Rivard, who had made that astounding revelation. Tante Lulu, as she was known, lounged in a hammock in the front yard, cool as a Cajun cucumber.
René wore no shirt, only cargo shorts, a tool belt, and work boots, in deference to the scorching heat—the hottest summer in Louisiana history. He swiped the back of an arm across his forehead, as much to gather patience as sweat, before speaking. “Tante Lulu! Richard Simmons is not a hottie. Not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination.”
“He is in mine. Whoo-ee! When he wears those short-shorts, I just melt.”
Now, that was an image he did not need—his seventy-nine-year-old great aunt in hormone overload. Talk about! But it did explain her attire: a pink headband encircling tight white curls, a red tank top with the logo EXERCISE THAT!, purple nylon running shorts, and white athletic shoes with short anklets sporting pink pom-poms on the back. She was a five-foot-zero package of wrinkled skinniness, the last person in the world in need of a workout. That she was a noted traiteur, or folk healer, while at the same time a bit batty, was a fact he and his brothers had accepted all their lives.
He adored the old lady. They all did.
He started to walk toward her and cracked his shin against the big wooden box in the middle of the porch. “Ow, ow, ow!” he squealed aloud—screaming much fouler words in his head—and hopped about on one foot.
“I tol’ you ya shoulda put yer hope chest inside,” Tante Lulu said as she raised her head slightly to see what all his ruckus was about. “Doan want to get rain or bird poop on it or nuthin’.”
Actually, inside wasn’t much better than outside when it came to René’s raised log house. He had the roof and frame up, but no windows. It was all just one big room at this point, aside from the bathroom, which was operational thanks to a rain-filled cistern. A battery-operated generator provided electricity for the fridge and stove. That was it. Except for a card table, two folding chairs, and a bed with mosquito netting, there was no furniture. That’s the way he liked it.
Of course, now he had a hope chest to add to his furnishings. And the midget-size plastic St. Jude statue sitting in the front yard, another of Tante Lulu’s “gifts.” St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless causes. Tante Lulu was giving him a message with both her gifts.
“Auntie, there is something I need to say to you. My life is in shambles right now. I quit my job. I’m burned out totally. Don’t even think of trying to set me up with some woman. I am not in the market for a wife.”
René was no fool. He knew the purpose of his great aunt’s hope chest and statue. Whenever she thought it was time for one of her nephews to bite the bullet, she started in on them. Embroidered pillow cases, bridal quilts, doilies, for chrissake. She was a one-woman Delta Force when she got a bee in her matchmaking bonnet.
Right now, he was the bee.
Tante Lulu ignored everything he said and continued on about the exercise guru. “Charmaine is gonna try to get us tickets to go see Richard—I likes to call him Richard, or Dickie—next time he comes to N’awlins.”
Dickie? Mon dieu!
“Mebbe I’ll even get picked fer one of his TV shows.”
That was a hopeless wish if he ever heard one. He hoped. He thought a moment, then said silently, just in case, St. Jude, you wouldn’t! Would you?
Charmaine was his half-sister and as much a bubblehead as Tante Lulu. The prospect of his great aunt doing jumping jacks on TV was downright scary. But then, Tante Lulu and Charmaine had entered a belly dancing contest not too long ago. So, it was not out of the realm of possibilities.
“Mebbe you could go to his show with us. Mebbe you could meet a girl there. Then I wouldn’t have to fix you up.”
“Don’t you dare try fixing me up.”
“And Charmaine’s fixin’ to get me the latest video of Sweatin’ to the Oldies fer my birthday in September. You want she should get you one, too?”
“No, I don’t want an exercise video. Besides, I thought Charmaine was planning a big birthday bash for your gift.”
“Cain’t a girl get two gifts? Jeesh!” She eyed him craftily and added, “Actually, I’m hopin’ fer three gifts.”
At first, he didn’t understand. Then he raised both hands in protest. “No, no, no! I am not getting leg-shackled to some woman just to give you a birthday present. How about I take you to the race track again this year for a birthday gift, like I did last year?”
She shook her head. “Nope, this birthday is a biggie. I’m ’spectin’ biggie gifts.” She gave him another of her pointed looks.
“No!”
“Of course, I might be dead. Then you won’t hafta give me anythin’, I reckon.”
He had to laugh at the sly old bird. She would try anything to get her own way.
“I’m only thirty-six years old. I got plenty of time.”
“Thirty-six!” she exclaimed, as if it were an ancient age. “All yer juices is gonna dry up iffen ya wait too long.”
“My juices are just fine, thank you very much.” Jeesh! Next, she’ll be asking me if I can still get it up.
“You can still do it, cain’t you?”
He refused to answer.
“I want to rock one of yer bébés afore I die.”
“No. No, no, no!”
“We’ll see.” Tante Lulu smiled and saluted the St. Jude statue. “Remember, sweetie, when the thunderbolt hits, there ain’t no help fer it.”
René had been hearing about the thunderbolt ever since he was a little boy and needed to hide out from his alcoholic father. He and his brothers
Luc and Remy would hot-tail it for Tante Lulu’s welcoming cottage. The thunderbolt pretty much represented love in the old lady’s book.
He had news for her. This piece of land was all the love he needed. In truth, it was all the love—meaning trouble—he could handle at the moment. To say his life was in chaos was a world-class understatement.
He’d recently quit his job in Washington as an environmental lobbyist. Burned out after years of hitting his head against the brick wall, which was comprised of the oil industry, developers, and sport fishermen who were destroying the bayou he was so passionate about. For every battle he’d won in his fight to protect the Louisiana coastal wetlands, he’d lost the war.
Before he had become an environmental advocate, he’d been a shrimp fisherman, every type of blue-collar worker imaginable, and a musician (he played a mean accordion). Hell, if he ever finished his doctoral thesis, he could probably be a college professor, as well.
But there was no point to any of it. He was a failure in his most important work: the bayou. The fire in his belly had turned to cold ashes. For sure, the joie de vivre was gone from his life.
So he’d hung tail and come back to southern Louisiana and resumed work on this cabin in one of the most remote regions of Bayou Black. He loved this piece of property, which he’d purchased ten years ago. It included a wide section of the slow-moving stream at a point where it forked off in two directions, separated by a small island that was home to every imaginable bird in the world, including the wonderful stilt-legged egret. The only access to the land was by hydroplane or a three-day grueling pirogue ride from Houma. No Wal-Marts. No super highways. No look-alike housing developments. No wonder he’d been able to buy it for a song. No one else had wanted it. “I think I hear a plane.” Tante Lulu interrupted his reverie. “Help me offa this thing. I’m stuck.”
He went over and lifted her off the hammock and onto her feet. The top of her head barely reached his chest.
“It mus’ be Remy,” she said, peering upward.
His brother Remy was a pilot. He’d brought Tante Lulu here earlier that day for a visit, promising to return for her before evening.
But, no, it wasn’t Remy, they soon discovered. It was his friends Joe Bob and Madeline Doucet. J.B. and Maddie could best be described as overage hippies. Both of them had long hair hanging down their backs, black with strands of gray. At fifty and childless, they were devoted to each other and the bayou where generations of both their families had lived and “farmed” for shrimp. They were quintessential tree huggers and they couldn’t seem to accept that René had dropped out of the fight.
“Lordy-a-mercy! It’s those wacky friends of yers,” Tante Lulu said as they watched the couple climb out of the rusty old hydroplane and anchor it to the shore by tying ropes around a nearby oak tree.
Tante Lulu calling someone wacky was like the alligator calling the water snake wet. But they were eccentric. And not just in their often unpredictable behavior. Like, right now, J.B. wore his old Special Forces camouflage fatigues; the only thing missing was an ammunition belt and rifle. Maddie wore an orange jumpsuit that either had a former life with an airplane mechanic or a prisoner. Probably a prisoner. They had both served time on occasions when their participation in peaceful protests had become not-so-peaceful. J.B. had been a well-decorated soldier, then came home to emerge as a soldier for domestic causes.
“Holy crawfish! Where do those two shop? Goodwill or Army Surplus?” Tante Lulu whispered to him.
But he had no time to comment on that or warn his great aunt to be nice. Not that she would ever deliberately hurt anyone . . . unless she perceived them to be a threat to her family. She did have a tendency to be blunt, though.
“Hey, Joe Bob. Hey, Maddie. Whatchya doin’ here?” Tante Lulu asked as they walked toward them.
Yep, blunt-is-us. He groaned inwardly but smiled. “J.B. Maddie. Good to see you again so soon.” Whatchya doin’ here?
They didn’t smile back.
Uh-oh! The serious expressions on their faces gave René pause. Something was up.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Now, René, don’t be gettin’ mad till you’ve heard us out,” Maddie urged.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on high alert. “Why would I get mad at you?” The last time he’d lost his temper with them was two years ago when they’d used their shrimp boat as a battering ram against a hundred thousand dollar sport fishing boat out on the Gulf. The sport fishermen’s crime: they’d been hauling up near-extinct species of native fish as bycatch, which meant they just tossed them back into the water, dead. It had taken all of his brother Luc’s legal expertise to extricate J.B. and Maddie from that mess.
“You got a lot of work done since we were here last week,” J.B. remarked, ignoring both his wife’s and René’s words. The idiot was obviously making polite conversation to cover the fact that he was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I wonder why. “Forget the casual bullshit. What’s going on?” René insisted.
“Remember how you said one time that what we need out here in the bayou is some celebrity to get behind our cause? Like Dan Rather or Diane Sawyer? TV reporters or somethin’ who would spend a week or two here where they could see firsthand how the bayou is bein’ destroyed. Put us on the news or make a documentary exposing the corruption.” It was Maddie who put forth that fervent reminder. And, man oh man, he hated it when people quoted back to him stuff he didn’t recall saying.
“Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “So, did you bring Dan and Diane out here? Ha, ha, ha! Like that would ever happen!”
“Well, actually . . .” J.B. began.
René went stiff.
Tante Lulu whooped, “Hot diggity damn!”
It was then that René noticed how J.B. and Maddie kept casting surreptitious glances toward the plane.
“What’s this all about? What’s in the plane?”
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! They musta brought Dan Rather here,” his great aunt said, slapping her knee with glee. “Great idea! I allus wanted to meet Dan Rather. Do ya think he’d give me an autograph?”
“It’s not Dan Rather,” Maddie said, her face flushing in the oddest way. Odd because nothing embarrassed Maddie. Nothing.
This must be really bad. “Spit it out, guys. If it’s not Dan Rather”—he couldn’t believe he actually said that—“then who is it?”
“Oh, mon dieu! It mus’ be Diane Sawyer then. I allus wanted her autograph, too. Betcha she could introduce me to Richard Simmons.”
“What you be wantin’ with that flake Richard Simmons?” J.B. asked.
Tante Lulu slapped J.B.’s upper arm. “Bite yer tongue, boy. He’s a hottie.”
“Are you nuts?” Maddie said.
“No more’n you,” Tante Lulu shot back.
“Unbelievable!” René said, putting his face in his hands. After counting to ten, he turned on J.B. “Is there a human being on that plane?”
J.B. nodded.
There is! Son of a bitch! I sense a disaster here. A monumental disaster. And I thought I was escaping here to peace and tranquility. “Why is that human being not getting off the plane?” he asked very slowly, hoping desperately that his suspicions were unfounded.
“Because the human being is tied up.” J.B. also spoke very slowly.
Tied up? They kidnapped someone and brought that someone here. Holy shit! Holy freakin’ shit! I am getting the mother of all headaches. St. Jude, where are you? I could use a little help.
A voice in his head replied, Not when you use bad language. Tsk, tsk, tsk!
It was either St. Jude, or he was losing his mind. He was betting on the latter.
“A network TV anchor?” he finally asked, even though he was fairly certain they weren’t that crazy. Best to make sure, though. “Did you kidnap a major network TV reporter?”
“Not quite,” Maddie said.
Not the answer I want to hear. He addressed Madd
ie, slicing her with his best icy glare. “What the hell does ‘not quite,’ mean?”
“Not from a major network.” She glanced at her husband and said, “I told you René would get mad.”
Mad doesn’t begin to express how I’m feeling. “What the hell does ‘not from a major network’ mean?”
“She’s a court TV reporter. And you don’t have to yell.”
You haven’t heard yelling yet, Maddie girl. “She? You kidnapped a female celebrity?” His headache had turned into a sledgehammer, and it was doing the rumba against his brain.
He looked at Tante Lulu, and Tante Lulu looked at him. At the same time they swung around to the dingbat duo and exclaimed, “Valerie Breaux!”
“Yep,” the dingbat duo said together.
“You kidnapped Valerie ‘Ice’ Breaux?” René choked out. “The Trial Television Network anchor? My sister-in-law Rachel’s cousin?”
J.B. and Maddie beamed at him as if he’d just congratulated them, not raised a question in horror.
“Why her?” he asked through gritted teeth. Valerie Breaux was such a straight arrow she would probably turn her mother in for tasting the grapes in the supermarket.
J.B. shrugged. “She was available. She’s from Louisiana. I heard she had a crush on you at one time.”
“You heard wrong. Valerie Breaux can’t stand my guts.”
“Oops,” Maddie said.
“Maybe you could charm her,” J.B. advised. “You can be damn charming with the ladies when you wanna be.”
“Charm that!” he said, giving J.B. the finger. Luckily, Tante Lulu didn’t see him.
“She’s the answer to our prayers,” Maddie asserted.
“Oh, no! She cain’t be the one,” Tante Lulu wailed, now that the implications of their conversation sank in. “I won’t let that snooty girl be the one. I remember the time she asked me iffen I ever looked in a mirror, jist cause I tol’ her she could use a good girdle? She’s not even Cajun. She’s a Creole. Her blue blood’s so blue she gives the sky a bad name. She looks down on us low-down Cajuns. Take her back. I doan want her to be the one fer René. St. Jude, do somethin’ quick.”