“Damned if I know.”
“Stop kidding around.”
“I wish I were.”
“Is there a boat?”
“A pirogue,” he said, pointing to a canoe that was typically used in low bayou streams. “But it would probably take three days to get to Houma in that thing. I’m not tryin’ it.”
“Me neither,” Tante Lulu called from inside the cabin where she was rattling pots and pans, openly eavesdropping. “No way am I goin’ on a three-day boat ride through the swamps. Not even if Richard Simmons wuz paddlin’ my canoe.”
Richard Simmons again. “What is it with your aunt and Richard Simmons?” Then, “Never mind.” She waved a hand in the air, as if it to dismiss the topic entirely. “Don’t you usually keep in touch by phone?
How long before someone gets worried and comes to check on you?”
“I don’t know. A day or two. Maybe a week. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless Tante Lulu got involved. Unless she called Remy and told him not to come till she says so.
Then there’s no guessing when anyone would show up here. I’m guessing a week.”
A meaningful silence rang out from inside the cabin.
“Why would that old biddy get involved?”
“I already told you. She might think that, if we’re stuck here together long enough, we’ll fall madly in love. The ol’ love thunderbolt thing.”
“Or I might be wantin’ to stop the bolt from happenin’,” Tante Lulu suggested from inside, no longer silent.
“A week ?” Val screamed, a long, loud wail of frustration. “Nooooooo!” About a thousand birds screeched and chirped and flew up out of the island. Folks probably heard her in Big Mamou. She sure hoped so.
“Well, that about peeled the bark off every cypress tree within a mile,” Rene remarked, hitting the side of his head with the heel of his hand as if to clear it.
“Good,” she said. Then she yelled toward the inside of the cabin, “Is there anything good to eat in there, Ms Rivard?”
“ ‘Course they is,” Tante Lulu answered. “I brought a batch of beignets with me.”
Rene was staring at her with concern. He probably worried that she was going off the deep end with this quick change of subject. He reached out a hand to pat her forearm.
She slapped his hand away. “I’ve been on a diet the past ten years, to maintain the perfect TV image.
Lot of good it did me!”
Who the hell cared now? Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“If I’m going be trapped in hell for the next week,” she informed Rene, “I’m sure-God not going to be on a diet.”
More information than any healthy male needs to know . . .
“I haven’t had sex in two years.”
Val surprised him with that astounding revelation after walking, barefooted, out onto the porch with the screen door slamming behind her. She had one of Tante Lulu’s beignets in one hand and a bottled water in the other. Sugar coated her lips, which she proceeded to lick.
Lick, lick, lick.
Good thing I am immune to this woman’s charms.
And, really, any more sugar and she is going to be bouncing off the walls like a kid onKool-Aid.
In the past two hours, she’d eaten just about everything in sight, straightened out his kitchen cabinets and the fridge, color coordinated his ragtag batch of towels, alphabetized the several dozen books on his small bookshelf, and wanted to put tiny labels on all his tools, except he had no tiny labels handy. Thank God!
Even Tante Lulu was going a little crazy with Val’s anal-obsessive need to organize the world.
Actually, a little bit crazier, Rene corrected himself, since Tante Lulu was already a little bit crazy.
So Tante Lulu played a Richard Simmons cassette tape, full blast, and did jumping jacks all over the cabin. Talk about! He didn’t think Val would ever recover from that sight. Neither would he.
After that, Val decided to rummage through his hope chest, which caused Tante Lulu to about have a fit. “Those are fer Rene’s bride. Iffen you doan plan on bein’ that bride, then keep yer paws off his stuff.”
Val just laughed.
That’s when Tante Lulu wisely decided to take a nap till dinner was ready.
And now Val brought up sex, pour l’amour de Dieu. The woman was driving him batty.
Could she possibly be thinking about that one little piddly unimportant time we were together?
I hope not.
He’d done his best over the years to put it behind him, to forget it had ever happened. But a small part of him wanted another shot, to prove he was better. But that would be trouble on the hoof. Totally, absolutely, out of the question.
“I beg your pardon,” he said with as much lack of interest as he could muster. Two years? Meanwhile his you-know-what jumped to attention with no lack of interest.
In fact, it was definitely interested. It had been two weeks since he’d had sex, but weeks were like dog years on the male testosterone thermometer. At least, that’s what his older brother Luc always used to say. Luc had been the expert to all the boys in Houma ever since about age twelve when he’d pilfered a copy of Penthouse from the shelves of Boudreaux’s General Store. Two years?
“Listen, bozo, I haven’t had sex in two years,” she repeated.
“I heard you the first time,” he grumbled, setting down his chinking tool. Without thinking, he reached for the bucket of water he used to clean his tools, and dumped it over his head, hoping to cool his blistering body... and his other tool. Val’s provocative remark was probably some wiseass lawyer strategy for putting a guy off-balance before coming in for the kill. He was definitely off balance, but he’d be damned if he’d let her win in any battle.
After he finger-combed his hair off his face, he looked at her. Two years? “And you are sharing this information with me because?”
She stared at him with seeming fascination as water dripped from his hair and face onto his bare chest. Then she shook her head with a shiver of distaste. That was more like it. Valerie Breaux considered him on the same level with slugs, snakes, and other slimy creatures, and always had. Except for that one time, when her judgment had been colored by pink Slo Gin Fizzes. “I just don’t want you to get any ideas,”
she explained, leaning her head back to chug down about a pint of fluid.
“About what?” Two years?
“Sex.”
“With you?’ Two years?
“No. With that toad over there. Jeesh! Maybe you are dumb as a brick, like I always thought.”
Rene gritted his teeth and counted to ten, then added another five for good measure. Val was still drinking. He watched her long neck with each gulp she took. But he wasn’t looking any lower. Uh-uh.
She’d taken off her jacket, and her white silk blouse was unbuttoned down to never-never land.
Never-never for him, anyhow. “I wouldn’t be getting ideas if you hadn’t brought it up.” Get a grip, guy, he advised himself. I sound like a pathetic goofball.
“You kidnapped me. I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
“I had nothing to do with this... forced vacation.”
She stiffened, morphing quick-as-a-lick into lawyer mode. Greta Van Breaux was about to give him a blistering legal dissertation on his choice of words. “Kidnapping, big boy. That’s a federal crime.”
“I was not involved in that,” he argued.
“Okay, then. Accessory before the fact. Aiding and abetting. Obstruction of justice. Compounding a felony. Battery.”
“Battery?” he interrupted her list of charges, some of which could probably stick.
“I was restrained and bruised. Look at my mouth. It’s still raw from the tape.”
“Battery by duct tape?” He hooted with disbelief.
Her face turned pink, but she lifted her chin high.
Iam in deep shit. “Maybe I’ll just plead insanity.”
“There you go,?
?? she agreed, way too easily.
He decided to try to lighten her mood. “How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” he asked, then answered himself, “One. The lawyer holds the bulb while the rest of the world revolves around her.”
“Oh, God! I’m in the middle of hell and I’m being subjected to lawyer jokes.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with lawyer jokes, honey? Lawyers don’t think they’re funny, and the rest of the world doesn’t consider them jokes.”
“Are you trying to annoy me? Or are you just trying to change the subject?”
“Yeah. The latter.” Two years? “Okay, I’ll bite. What does your non-sex life have to do with me?”
“You have a reputation.”
“For what?” he asked indignantly.
“Smoothness.”
Man, that’s just what J.B. said. Who k new? Maybe us LeDeux men have a smooth gene. He smiled at that idea.
Val made a low growling sound at his smile.
He kind of liked her growl. Yep. Pathetic.
“Just don’t think your silly smoothness will work with me. In fact, considering my weakened state, don’t even try it. I’ll find some way to add it to the charges against you, which are compounding by the minute.”
Leaning back against a porch post, he grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “I make you weak?” Two years?
“Get a life. I’m weak because of the heat and the stress of being kidnapped. I was a jury consultant before I got that Trial TV job. And a defense lawyer before that. A good one. The best defense is a good offense. When I told you that I haven’t had sex in two years, I did it to forewarn you. I am not in a good mood.”
“Horniness does that to a person sometimes.”
“Don’t be cute with me.”
He winked at her.
“I am going to nail your sorry ass to the nearest Angola wall, Mister Smooth.”
“What? Smoothness is a crime now?”
“You are not now and have never been attracted to me. And vice versa.”
“Well, actually, there was that one time,” he blurted out before he had a chance to cut the motor on his tongue.
“Aliens must have stolen my brains. Don’t you dare bring that up now.”
“Okay,” he readily agreed, putting his hands up in surrender.
“Does the word repulsive ring any bells in that hollow head of yours? Just know, any change on your part now will be immediately transparent to me.”
Rene winced inwardly. Whoa! Wait a minute. She just told me that she was a jury consultant at one time. Don’t they study people’s body movements and stuff? Can’t they tell when a person is lying? Can’t they practically read people’s minds? I better be careful. In as offhanded a tone as he could manage, he inquired, “You’ve got me all figured out, huh?”
“Yep.” She sank down into a cushioned Adirondack chair and propped her legs up on the rail.
If he were out in the yard, he would probably be getting a Basic Instinct peek at her thong... again.
“You know, you’ve had it in for me ever since I talked you into showing me your Barbie underpants.”
She gave him one of those “Get real!” looks that women are so good at. “I was seven freakin’ years old. And you were already showing your true colors, especially when you blabbed to all the other kids at Our Lady of the Bayou School afterward.” She saw that he was about to defend himself and raised a hand.
“And, puh-leeze, don’t try to tell me that you reciprocated by flashing me your Superman’s. Once a jerk, always a jerk.”
Sometimes the dumb things men did came back to bite them in the butt; in this case, years of payback from Val for that one little peek at her Barbies. From that point onward, Val had become a world class pain in his ass. At the time, it had seemed worth it.
But, jeesh, Rene had forgotten about those superhero briefs. Tante Lulu had given him and his brothers their own individual sets one particularly bleak Christmas when their father had been absent on one of his alcoholic binges. Those were the days before Valcour LeDeux had sold out family lands to the oil companies. The alcohol still flowed after that, just a better brand of booze. But that Christmas, Tante Lulu had taken the boys into her Bayou Black cottage and made them feel secure, even if only for a week or two. And among her gifts had been the silly briefs. His had been Superman, Luc’s had been Spiderman, and Remy had gotten The Hulk. He’d worn his till they’d practically fallen apart.
“Yoo-hoo! Earth to Rene!”
“Huh?” he said, coming back to the present. He shook his head to clear it, which caused water droplets to fly about. “You were the one who started it all by becoming a world-class snitch. In fact, that was the nickname us guys gave you back in elementary school. We could always rely on you to report all our bad deeds back to Sister Clothilde.”
She shrugged. “There were plenty of them.”
“Well, it’s been great chatting about old times, darlin’, but I’ve got work to do.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
He eyed her carefully to see if she was serious. She was still in her thong-peeping position, which gave him ideas he wouldn’t dare suggest to her. Like, How about another shot? “How do you feel about hard on... uh, hard labor?” Mon Dieu, I’m losin’ my friggin’ mind.
“You mean the kind you’re going to do?”
“No. I mean chinking logs.”
She glanced down at her carefully manicured nails, painted a creamy white color. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Why don’t you go for a swim?”
She arched both eyebrows at him. “Are you suggesting I go jump in the creek?”
“Precisely.” Maybe I’ll jump in, too. Maybe we can both cool off together. Maybe we can do something about that two-year business. Maybe I can show you the staying power I’ve perfected over the years.
“Maybe I will. Just to cool off, till the plane comes back. I’m sure your goofball friends will realize the legal danger they’ve placed you in, and hightail it back here before nightfall.”
“Oh, yeah. For sure.” I wouldn’t bet on it.
CHAPTER THREE
Beware of snakes with Cajun accents . . .
Wearing a pair of Rene’s black boxer shorts and a white Bite Me Bayou Bait Company T-shirt knotted at the waist, Valerie walked down to the stream and proceeded to wade in, waist-deep.
The slow-moving water was deliciously cool. Despite its tea color—from centuries of bark from submerged trees—it was pure enough to drink. She splashed water on her arms and face and the back of her neck, which was exposed by her high ponytail.
A black water snake cruised by, way too close, but not one bit interested in her. Her upper lip curled with distaste. Having grown up near the bayous, she knew non-poisonous snakes from the baddies, a lesson she still remembered from her father. She wasn’t afraid of them, but she didn’t like the creatures.
“Watch out for snakes,” Rene called out, laughing.
She turned and, without thinking, stuck out her tongue at him. It was an immature gesture that Valerie hadn’t made since she was a child, probably at him. But, hey, the cumulative abuse from the rogue and his wacko friends merited the tongue, in her opinion.
He just laughed some more. “Is that lawyer sign language?”
“Yeah. You’ll get my bill.”
“Hey, if I’m gonna get charged for tongue, I want it in a different way. And I don’t mean with ketchup.”
She rolled her eyes.
He stood on the steps of the cabin, which was on stilts—a necessity when this close to an oft-flooding stream. Holding a drill in one hand, he wiped his forehead with the back of his other arm. He was building a rail up the steep stairs. “Wanna hear a lawyer joke?” he asked out of the blue, his dark eyes dancing with mischief.
“No.”
“Did you hear about the new sushi bar that caters to lawyers?”
“No means no, buster. Besides, that one is as old as the hill
s.”
“It’s called Sosumi.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Why don’t you go drill a hole in something... like that hollow globe on top of your neck?”
“What’s the difference between God and a lawyer?”
“I am not listening.”
“God doesn’t think he’s a lawyer.”
Her nap apparently over, Tante Lulu came out onto the porch, carrying a metal pail. “It’s hotter ‘n a June bride in a featherbed.” Then she yelled out to her, “I’m goin’ to pick huckleberries fer dessert since you ate all the beignets.”
How nice of her to remind me.
“Wanna come with me?”
Hell, no! “No, thank you.” The old witch would probably shove her in quicksand or into the jaws of an alligator to get rid of her, just so her stupid love spell, or thunderbolt, or whatever she called it, wouldn’t take effect. Tante Lulu didn’t consider her good enough for her nephew. Hah!
She did a shallow dive under water and swam. It was too dark to see much, but at least she’d shut out Rene’s teasing chatter and the old lady’s insanity.
When she emerged, she was about fifteen yards downstream and closer to the small island that caused a fork in the bayou. She decided to walk the rest of the way and explore a bit.
The island was small, about half the size of a football field. It might very well disappear the next time a big storm hit the Gulf. That was the bayou, constantly reinventing itself.
If she were a nature lover, she would probably be impressed by the stately live oaks with their dripping moss or the cypresses as old as God, but she was a city girl. All she saw were trees. Birdsong filled the air, which sounded raucous to her rather than melodic. The scent of magnolia blossoms and wild roses was cloying in its intensity.
There were probably alligators in residence in the vicinity, but she didn’t see one. If she did, in her present mood, she would probably karate chop it, turn it inside out, and make it into a handbag.
Plopping down on the edge of the bank, she dangled her legs in the water. The weight of the past two days pressed down on her. If she were a crying kind of gal, now would be the time to let loose. But self-pity was not Valerie’s thing, hadn’t been for a long, long time. Stop that whimpering, Valerie, her mother’s voice intruded again. Your father’s never coming back . Never, never, never!