Her mother understood what she meant without spelling it out. She made a clucking sound and said, “’Course ya are. I never thought otherwise. Still…must ya dress so scandalous?” But then, her mother grinned and said, “On the other hand, pants would come in handy fer gardenin’ and trampin’ through the swamp. Do they come in my size?”
Louise knew suddenly what she would be getting her mother for Christmas this year.
As they walked arm and arm toward the back door, her mother said, “So, what’s with Phillipe?”
“I think I’m in love, Mama.”
“Oh, Lord!”
“What? You don’t like Phillipe?”
“I like him fine, but I suspect my ‘good girl’ is about ta be tested.”
Guar-an-teed!
Chapter 3
Getting to know you…
They spent a leisurely afternoon by the lake, talking, kissing, laughing, looking at each other with wonder. It was the best day of Phillipe’s life. So far.
Louise had brought everything they needed for a picnic in a large basket that barely fit in the trunk of his car. A tablecloth, plates, and silverware that she’d have to return to her mother, and seemingly everything she could find in the cottage icebox. Thin slices of cold chicken, cooked boudin sausage, crawfish salad, beans and rice, leftover fried green tomatoes, charred okra, and spicy pickles. All of it heavy on the Tabasco, also known as Cajun lightning. Phillipe had learned while up north that Louisiana was as famous for inventing the hot sauce, as if it was for its beignets, pralines, and gumbo. Louise had also packed buttered biscuits, a Southern tradition, and some kind of glazed cake made with figs and buttermilk. Two Mason jars of sweet tea chilled in the rocks at the water’s edge.
But the food was incidental to this picnic.
They half reclined on the blanket, watching some boaters paddling by in the distance. He trailed a fingertip over her arm, from the edge of her short sleeve, slowly down to her wrist, and saw the fine hairs raise on her arm in reaction.
His male ego rose about three notches, knowing he could affect her so. His gaze moved upward to see that her lips were parted and her eyelashes fluttering.
Arousal?
Oh, boy!
Another two notches.
“You’re staring, Phillipe,” she said, not for the first time today.
“I know,” he replied and continued to stare. “You are so beautiful.”
She crinkled her nose at him.
He loved the way she crinkled her nose.
“You probably say that to all the girls. I know I’m not beautiful. I’m too short, and my mouth is too big for my face, and Mama says I’m too wild.”
“Number one, there are no other girls. Two, you’re just the right size for me. And three, you have to know how much I like your mouth. As for four, I can’t wait to find out if your mother’s right.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Oh, you!” She tried to swat at him, but he grabbed for her, pulling her down to her back on the blanket so they could neck some more.After a while, they walked barefooted along the lake, holding hands, sometimes not talking, just enjoying being with each other, other times with her chattering away about anything and everything. He’d had to talk her into taking off her shoes. She hated being so short. He told her, “The best things come in small packages.”
“Another line?”
“Maybe,” he said, but truly, he didn’t mind her being almost eight inches shorter than him. It made him feel oddly protective of her in a masculine sense.
“I have to leave in four days,” he told her suddenly, having put off the announcement long enough, not wanting to spoil their day.
She stopped, forcing him to stop, too. They still held hands, her left in his right. She put her right palm on his chest, right over his heart, and looked up at him, a mixture of anger and fear in her pretty brown eyes.
“What do you mean? I thought you had a two-week liberty.”
He nodded, taking her free hand and kissing the knuckles. “I did have a longer leave, but I got a call at the base this morning. We…the S & R team…need to be back in Little Creek, Virginia by Thursday at oh eight hundred. That’s eight a.m.”
“Oh, Phillipe! So little time!”
He resumed walking, still holding her hand. “Let’s spend all the time together that we can. And that won’t be the end, darlin’, I promise. We’ll write. I’ll come back whenever I can, and maybe you can even come see me.” He was talking too much and too fast. A clear sign he was nervous, which had to be obvious to her. Did she wonder why? He wondered himself. Was he nervous about leaving her? The war? Dangers he might be facing? How to handle good-byes? Hah! Those were nothing compared to what really ailed him: How, or if, he should tell her that he loved her, without making any promises.
He didn’t care what thousands of other dumb soldiers did. He wasn’t going to take the chance of marriage, leaving a grieving widow behind. Maybe later, after the war, assuming he survived. But even then, they hadn’t really discussed what life with a traveling military man would be like for a Cajun girl.
No, he needed to take things slowly, cautiously.
“You think too much, Phillipe,” she said, guessing at his dilemma.
Tugging her hand free, she danced ahead of him, deliberately wiggling her bottom at him.
And, yes, he could see by the outline of her trim pants that she had the heart-shaped ass he’d imagined while watching her at the USO last night. Praise God and pass the gumbo, as his mawmaw used to say when she’d looked out the window each morning to see if the sun was shining.
Yes, Louise’s buttocks were a ray of sunshine to this soppy soldier.He laughed.
She laughed, too, and waited for him to catch up and take her hand again. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I’m free, but I have to be back to work on Monday,” she told him.
“Can’t you take a few days off?”
“I don’t know. Yes, I do. I’ll ask for the time off and make it up on the weekends. If my supervisor won’t agree, I’ll quit.”
“I don’t want you to lose your job, chère.”
She shrugged. “There are always other jobs, but these days with you are more important.”
His heart warmed at her words.
“This new S & R unit…the kind of work you’ll be doing…is it dangerous?”
“No more than any other military action,” he lied. “Actually, it’s kind of ironic, but we’ll probably be using the Higgins boats being made in your very factory.”
“So, you’ll be on boats,” she said with relief.
“No, sweetheart. S & R frogmen will be sort of webfoot warriors. Advance men, in the water, up onto the beaches. Scanning the area for best landing sites for our troops. Searching out enemy gun locations. Then reporting back. That kind of thing.”
“And you say that’s not dangerous?” she scoffed.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t dangerous, just that it was no more than— Why are we talking about this stuff? I just want to talk about you, and me. I want to forget the war.”
And they did. For three whole days, they spent practically every minute together until he dropped her off at her New Orleans cottage late at night and picked her up early each morning. They drove around, whenever he could scrounge up enough gas ration cards, swam, and sun bathed on Grand Terre Island, danced at the USO and a jazz nightclub, mostly necked while watching a movie, in fact necked whenever and wherever they got a chance, had dinner one night with his family, a raucous teasing good time with not just his parents but his younger brothers and sisters, and spent a few hours with Louise’s parents at a shrimp festival in Houma.
The most amazing thing about Louise was the way she could make him laugh. She was always saying or doing something that caught him off guard.
Like the dream she related to him, in detail, in which they’d been Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
“Really?” he’d inquired, sensing a trap. “And where exactly was this gar
den? Some paradise in Hawaii? Or the Holy Lands?”
“Actually, it wasn’t a garden. It was a bayou. Right here in Loozeanna.”
“Of course.”
She’d slapped him on the arm for his sarcasm, but didn’t even blink when he’d encouraged her to go on, “And were we naked?”
“Not quite. Instead of fig leaves, we wore cypress moss.”
By then, he’d been grinning. “And the snake…?”
“It was a gator. And the apple was a sweet beignet.”
He’d laughed, not sure if she was making it all up.
But she hadn’t been done with him yet. “Doan’cha wanna know what we did that was so sinful, after we gorged ourselves on beignets?”
“No need, darlin’. I have dreams, too.”
Or the time they passed a certain shop in the French Quarter that sold pin-up posters and pictures for randy soldiers to hang in their lockers or carry off to battle in their duffle bags. Some were merely racy, like the ones of Betty Grable in that famous white bathing suit and Rita Hayworth in a haymow, but others were downright pornographic, in a good way.
“I could do one of those,” Louise had proclaimed.
“Louise!”
“Not the nude ones. The other ones. Like Rita Hayworth in the see-through nightie. Or that gal wearin’ a sailor hat and shorts so short her cheeks are blushin’. Her other cheeks.”
Phillipe had tried to steer her away from the shop window, embarrassed that others would overhear her. But she was not to be deterred.
“Mebbe I’ll have one of these made and send it to you. A surprise present. I could be ridin’ a gator, or reclinin’ on a cypress log, jist ta give it local flavor. What do you think?”
Think? He’d been unable to think at the time, or speak, but he’d been smiling inside. He still was.
He’d drawn the line at the voodoo priestess who sold her wares from a seedy storefront on one of the side streets.
“Thass all right. I know more potions than Madame Fleurette does anyways. Do you wanna know what the best remedy is for the soldiers’ complaint?”
No, he did not! And he’d told her so. With yet another laugh.
And now his leave was almost over, liberty cut short. Why was it that time moved so slowly when waiting for something good to happen, but moved faster than a duck in shark waters when the clock was ticking away toward some grief? And, yes, his departure was going to be a sort of grief to them both.
It was seven p.m. of his final night in Louisiana before heading out early tomorrow morning for Virginia. He’d already said his good-byes to his parents. His duffel bag was packed and ready for him to board the bus at the NSA base. Louise was waiting for him now to pick her up for “a special night” she had planned for him. Despite his coaxing, she’d refused to disclose details. Frankly, he didn’t want any special activity, whether it be a fine restaurant meal, or dancing, or whatever; he just wanted to be with her, alone.
There was so much that hadn’t been said yet, including those three magic words. And maybe they shouldn’t be spoken aloud. Not now. Not when the timing was so half-ass crazy. Once spoken, a bond would be formed, a sort of promise for a future together, especially if the words were reciprocated. Who was he kidding? That bond was already there, blinking like a bloody neon sign.
Why did he always have to overthink everything? Why couldn’t he be spontaneous like other guys? Jump into the water with both feet and worry about the perils later? After all, he was a really good swimmer. He was a sailor, after all.
Aaarrgh!
He was as confused about what to say or do as he had been three days ago.
How could he profess his love when there was every chance he might not come back? Wouldn’t that hurt Louise more? Or was it better to take the chance?
Phillipe had never been much of a gambler.
Still…
And then there was the issue of his future, assuming he survived this blasted war. At least ten, maybe twelve years owed to the Navy, forced to move from base to base. Anywhere from San Diego to the Pacific. And military housing could be drab as hell. No, he just could not picture his Cajun girl anywhere but here near the bayou.
Besides, he knew how he’d been treated when he first moved up north, like an ignorant redneck Southern boy. It had been hard at first. Those Yankee girls would eat Louise alive.
Or would they? Sometimes he suspected Louise was stronger than she pretended to be…that old Southern belle image to keep up. But hadn’t Southern women been proving since the Civil War that while they might be fragile flowers on the outside, they had stems of steel?
He’d just shaved and was staring at himself in the mirror above the sink in the officers’ quarter bathroom at NSA, trying to put on a bright face. He was wearing his dress whites, at Louise’s request. She’d told him that seeing him in uniform made her tummy tingle. What guy could refuse after that titillating image?
With disgust at his indecision over what to say on their final night together, he slapped on some Aqua Velva and made for his date.
One way or another, tonight was going to be a turning point.He hoped he made the right turn.
Chapter 4
You made me love you…
Louise should have been nervous, but she was surprisingly calm as she led Phillipe into the lobby of Maison Rouge, a small, four-story hotel off the beaten path in the French Quarter.
She was tired of Phillipe’s indecision. He hadn’t even told her he loved her yet, pour l’amour de Dieu. She hadn’t actually said the words herself, either, waiting for him to speak first. Enough! Time was running out. Sometimes a woman just needed to take matters into her own hands.
He looked so handsome in his uniform, and he must have shaved again this evening and gotten a haircut. When she looked at him, she felt kind of breathless…and tingly. Not just in her tummy, but all over. Other women looked at him, too, as they walked the short distance from his parked car to the hotel entrance. Louise was proud to be seen with him. Proud that he was hers. Or soon would be, if she had her way.
Louise had dressed special for the occasion, too, in a black, cap-sleeved, knee-length sheath with a sweetheart neckline and epaulette shoulder pads. Her last pair of precious seamed nylons were held up by a new black lace garter belt. In her dark hair, worn long tonight, tucked behind her ear on one side, she wore a waxy white gardenia. On her feet were her favorite red high heels. And, no, contrary to her mama’s belief about red shoes, she was not pantyless…but almost, in scandalous sheer, see-through lace.
She knew she looked good, even without seeing the appreciative gleam in Phillipe’s eyes as he continually gazed at her. The fool loved her, all right. His expressive eyes told her that, even if his lips hadn’t…yet.
When they got inside, Phillipe said, “Ah, I knew your surprise was a good meal. Hopefully in a quiet corner, chère? And oysters! There’s nothing like Gulf oysters, especially on my last night in town. Thank you, thank you.” He started toward Chez Jacques, the restaurant that was located off the lobby, and was known for its specialty, Oysters Tabasco.
But Louise tugged on his hand and directed him the other way, toward the elevator. “Not so fast, sailor.”
He arched his brows but said nothing while in the presence of the red-capped elevator operator.
“Third floor,” she said.
Once they were out of the elevator, though, Phillipe refused to move down the quiet hallway. “Louise, you can’t be serious. We need to talk about this.
”Talk, talk, talk! That’s all they’d done for the past three days. Not that she didn’t like talking to Phillipe, but jeesh! Maybe he needed one of MawMaw’s potions for when an old man’s sap ran dry. “Juju tea mixed with a little goat weed will get the male juices runnin’, lickety split,” MawMaw used to tell her as they harvested the juju plant out in the swamps.
But that was a remedy Louise wasn’t ready to try. “You don’t wanna lay with me?” she asked, pretending to blink away tears, as
she sidled over to Room 301.
“Lay? Lay? Holy mother of God! Of course I do. You know I do. But your reputation will be ruined.”
She shrugged, inserting a key in the door and stepping inside. “Maybe. Maybe not. I reserved the room for my cousin, a famous Navy hero, who just got back from fighting over across the ocean. The poor boy needs a night of rest before going off ta his godmother’s funeral in Lafayette.”
Phillipe had no choice but to follow her inside. “This poor boy’s godmother died ten years ago, and she lived in Baton Rouge.”
She slammed the door behind him before he had a chance to skedaddle. “My belated sympathies.”
“A Navy hero, huh? Seriously, chère, you should save your virginity for the man you marry.”
Oh, those were fighting words. She glared at him and said, “If you’re worried about how ta do this, I can help. I know…stuff.” And she didn’t mean how to mix any darn potion.
His face flushed. “I’m not a virgin.”
She shrugged as if unsure whether to believe him. He couldn’t have been prodded more if she’d thrown down a gauntlet.
“Well, hell’s bells!” he said and tossed his hat up so that it circled in the air before landing smack dab on one post of the bed’s footboard.
Impressive.
He unlaced his shoes and was toeing them off at the same time he was undoing the buttons on his jacket.
“What’s your rush, sweetheart? Slow down. Look at all the preparations I made.” She pointed to the wine bottle in an ice bucket and the plate of raw oysters swimming in Tabasco sauce, also on ice. “Aren’t oysters supposed ta be an aphrodisiac?”
“Fuck your preparations and damn your aphrodisiac!” he said and didn’t even apologize for his bad language.
Maybe she’d pushed him too hard.
Instead, he shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, placing them neatly on a nearby chair so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. It was pure Phillipe, neat and careful, even under pressure. Well, his military training might have added to his fastidiousness, she conceded. He would get no demerits from her, although she couldn’t have shaken him up too much if he still had the cool to maintain his obsession with order.