by Lexi Blake
“How do you know that? Maybe I’ve been here all along and no one’s noticed me.”
Her nose wrinkled sweetly. “Oh, they all notice you. That’s how I know you’re the new guy. Welcome to Papillon. I came over to give you fair warning. I think single people need to stick together in an effort to stay single despite the societal pressure to give in to the patriarchy. If my mother tries to convince you to let me show you around, she’s really trying to find me a husband.”
Oh, but he might not mind her showing him the town. She was gorgeous, and he liked the sass she was throwing his way. He was self-aware enough to admit that women had come easy to him. He wasn’t hard on the eyes, but finding one who got him was a different story. “That seems to be a theme. The church secretary already tried to have her granddaughter show me around.”
A single brow rose over those heavenly eyes of hers. “Debra? Yeah, you have to be careful with her.”
“I’ve heard she’s handsy.” He nodded. “And she talks a lot.”
“Yeah, she also drinks a lot more than Helena will admit, and she’s started a couple of spectacular bar fights. She likes to pit her suitors against each other and make them fight for her.”
“Good to know.” He glanced around, and sure enough, every eye was on him. “Well, I don’t suppose you would show me around. Maybe if you showed me around, people would stop offering up their daughters. I noticed no one has asked me if their sons could show me the town. Do the men of Papillon not know their way around?”
“Well, you could say that about a lot of them. But no, it’s because there aren’t many available men, and when a new one comes to town, it’s like a medieval parade of who has the best dowry. You need to remember that whatever my momma tells you, I’ve got no dowry whatsoever. I come with a lot of baggage. Tons of baggage.” She gasped as though she’d just had a thought. “Unless you would rather have a nice man show you around our town. I hadn’t considered that and it was awfully backward thinking of me. I know a great guy. His name is Michael Hendricks and he’s such a doll. You would get along so well.”
Whoa. That had taken a turn. She was smiling, and that smile took her from beautiful to gorgeous. That smile kind of lit up his world, but she was working under a big misconception. “I’m comfortable with women showing me the sights. Did you get excited about setting me up with your friend?”
A hand cupped her hip, and the sass factor went sky high. “Is there a reason you wouldn’t like my friend?”
He had to chuckle. This one was obviously a fierce warrior. “I’m sure I would like him but I would only like him, not like like him because I like women. Like like them.”
The cutest frown came over her face. “You’re a confusing man.”
“So I’ve been told.” Oh, he liked her. A lot. She would be a ton of fun, and not in the way Cal meant it. He would very much enjoy getting to know this woman. “How about tomorrow? It’s Sunday. I can take the afternoon off.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you hitting on me at my great-aunt’s funeral?”
He had probably gone a nice shade of red. He hadn’t thought this through, and he definitely hadn’t realized she was related to the deceased. He thought she was one of those people who’d come for the gumbo. “Well, that would be rude of me so no, I am not.”
She looked him up and down. “It would be rude, and I was only coming over to warn you that my mom will likely try to trick you into dating me. Don’t fall for it.”
She turned on her heel and started to walk away.
“Hey, you didn’t even tell me your name. How will I know who to avoid if you don’t tell me your name?”
She glanced back, that blond hair swaying. “Seraphina Guidry. Remember it so we don’t have to go through all of this again. Welcome to Papillon, Mr. Jefferys. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
He stared at her as she joined a group of women around her age. They all started talking, and that conversation was absolutely about him. No question about it. But her eyes came back up and found his before turning away again.
Seraphina Guidry. The one woman his aunt had told him expressly to stay away from.
She’s already ruined one member of my family. I won’t let that gold digger take another one from me.
The good news was he didn’t have any gold for her to dig. If she went out with him, she would have to take him as he was.
He should stay away. He walked over and got himself a glass of that lemonade and promised he would make good choices.
As he watched Seraphina with her friends, he knew it might be a promise he couldn’t keep.
chapter two
The ceiling fan turned overhead, the hum the only sound cutting through Quaid Havery’s words. Seraphina had barely heard the man because Luc was squirming in her arms. Her baby boy was in a climbing phase. He climbed out of his crib most nights, terrifying her and keeping her awake. He scaled the bookcases and china cabinet of her childhood home with ease. He climbed up anyone who happened to be holding him as though the child had been born with an innate need to always be at the highest place of any room.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to say to Papillon’s one and only lawyer. “I should have found a babysitter but pretty much everyone who normally babysits for me is in this room. Noelle LaVigne is at a science camp at LSU. I had to bring him.”
It was also hard to find babysitting on Sunday mornings since for the most part everyone would be at church. The irony being if she was actually at church, she could have dropped Luc off at the childcare center and they wouldn’t have this problem. But no, they’d been told that Aunt Irene wanted her will read the morning after her funeral and there would be no delay. Her great-aunt was having one last moment of pure stubbornness.
Her oldest brother stood up and held his hands out. “Come here, Luc. I don’t like sitting any more than you do. Quaid, how long is this? We all know she was going to give what little she had to that cat shelter.”
They were all here, her family. Her mother and brothers, Remy and Zep, and her sweet sister-in-law, Lisa. They were down to the six of them with Luc. She remembered a time when her grandparents and dad had been alive and holidays were big, chaotic events. She’d grown up surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins, but one by one they’d all left Papillon for greater opportunities, and as the older generation had passed on, the younger ones had lost touch.
The idea of not giving her son what she’d had made her sad inside, but then she had to wonder what her grandparents would have thought of her having a baby out of wedlock.
Remy took Luc and lifted him up. Luc giggled and generally looked at his uncle with worshipful adoration.
At least he knew he was loved.
“Remy’s right.” Her mother was dressed in her favorite jungle-printed caftan, her hair up in a light blue turban she claimed made her look mystical and wise, but Sera was fairly certain she wore so she didn’t have to do her hair every day. “I don’t understand the purpose of this meeting. Irene didn’t have much beyond that ramshackle house of hers, and it probably should be condemned. The only reason they didn’t do it before was everyone knew she had a shotgun and wasn’t afraid to use it.”
Her great-aunt had been what they liked to call in these parts a “character.”
“Did she maybe have a million dollars in cash stuffed in that old mattress of hers?” Zep asked.
Her younger brother was a character, too. “I assure you she did not. I spent the most time with her and she didn’t have two cents to rub together.”
“Well, maybe a couple of cents,” Quaid said in that I-know-something-you-don’t-know way of his. Quaid was in his thirties and made most of his money working for the two wealthiest families in the parish. He made enough off the Daroises and Beaumonts that he did a lot of pro bono work. Though Sera was surprised her great-aunt had bothered with a will.
After a
ll, she’d told Sera she wanted her to float her body out in the bayou and let the gators take her because that was the circle of life. Sera had argued that the circle of life didn’t normally involve stringing together enough pool noodles to carry a body out to sea . . . or into Otis’s belly. She rather thought her aunt simply wanted to frighten the kiddos one last time or to become a legend. The legend of Floating Irene.
They had enough ghost stories.
“So she wrote us all a letter? We should listen to it. It’s the last thing she’s ever going to request of us.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say that, Sera.” Quaid grimaced as he held up a piece of paper. “I have to read this exactly as it’s written. You understand that, right? I’m legally obligated to read every word, though her opinions might not be my own.”
“What does that mean?” Lisa asked.
Zep groaned. “It means she’s got to get her digs in. Go on. It’s not going to be anything I haven’t heard before. Let’s see. I’m going to guess. I’m a moron. I need to stop . . . what did she call it? Spreading my seed everywhere and hoping it grows. See, I never hope it grows. I kind of pray it doesn’t grow.”
“How about I just get through it?” Quaid looked down at the piece of paper he held. Sera recognized it. She’d bought her aunt a couple of spiral notebooks so she could write down grocery lists because she refused to use a cell phone and text her order. Apparently the government cared about what kind of denture cream she used.
“Please do.” She had a lot going on this afternoon. She was working six days next week and that meant running errands today. Normally she would have gone out to Irene’s to make sure she had everything she needed.
She was going to miss her. Even with all her eccentricities, she’d been kind in her own ways. When she was younger, it had been Irene who’d taught Sera to fish, who’d let her and her brothers run wild on her property. When they’d gone out to Aunt Irene’s, the only rules had been checking in at supper time and not disturbing the numerous traps she had around the grounds. She’d even told them where the traps were, and her mom had claimed that was how a person knew Irene cared.
“Yeah, let’s hear what she had to say.” Remy bounced Luc and slid a smile Sera’s way as though he was remembering those times, too.
“All right.” Quaid sat up in his chair and took a long breath. “Dear beloved family, If Quaid Havery is reading this, then I am dead and I wasted money on an uppity lawyer because the world is a terrible place. I wanted to leave you with a few words of wisdom while dispensing with my worldly goods.”
“I thought we already dispensed with her worldly goods,” her mother said with a shake of her turban. “Seraphina had to rehome all those cats.”
She’d worked hard to find a place for her aunt’s kitties. She’d run those cats all over Southern Louisiana, but she couldn’t put them in shelters. Those cats had been her aunt’s babies. She wouldn’t have been able to even look at Aunt Irene’s coffin unless she’d done her absolute best.
“She left each of you something,” Quaid said, looking back to the letter. “Delphine, you’re a ridiculous woman who believes in everything from mystical crystals to swamp men.”
Her mother held up a hand. “Well, I have actually seen a swamp man. Or it might have been Buddy Evers after a bad day of trapping. Sometimes I can’t tell, but Irene would have done well to have had a few healing crystals around.”
“I’m going to continue,” Quaid said. “You might be some silly thing my brother married despite me telling him it was a bad idea, but oddly you managed to have a couple of decent children, so here’s my advice. My brother died a long time ago. Get out and live, Delphine. I didn’t because I didn’t care to. I liked how I lived. You are not me. You did a good job. You were dumb but faithful. Go have fun, and I don’t mean by pulling short cons on tourists. I leave you the ring my brother should have given you. I was selfish and kept it for myself because I was jealous, but now it’s yours and not because you married my brother. Because you honored this family by staying when it would have been easier to go. But you’re old, girl. You don’t have much time left. You should have fun as fast as you can because those wrinkles are catching up no matter how tight you tie that turban.”
Sera bit back a laugh. That was her aunt.
“She left me the ring?” Her mother sniffled and then touched her turban. “And this is much cheaper than Botox and far healthier. Not that I have many wrinkles. But I appreciate the ring. It was her mother’s ring. It was supposed to go to your father to propose with but Irene got upset. I didn’t argue, but I always loved that ring.”
“To my nephew Remy I leave twenty dollars so he can get a haircut. And don’t go to Seraphina because she can’t cut hair to save her life.” Quaid sighed. “Like I said, not my words, man.”
Remy chuckled. “That old woman was always on me to get my hair cut, but my wife thinks it’s sexy like it is so I’ll be donating that twenty bucks.”
“It’s specifically for a haircut. I’m supposed to verify that you do it,” Quaid replied.
“I think we’ll survive without the twenty,” Lisa said with a shake of her head.
“I could use twenty bucks.” Zep sat up. “I’ll cut my hair. I look good with or without hair. I have one of those jawlines that can handle any style.”
Quaid simply ignored him. Which proved Quaid had been around Zep a lot. “As to Zéphirin Guidry, I give you a box of condoms and the prayer that you will have the sense to use them. A young man should not spread his seed.”
Zep pointed Quaid’s way. “See, I told you. I’ll take those condoms, though. Every time I go to buy them at the Fast Mart, Evelyn Gillwater prays for me. Right there in the middle of the store. It’s embarrassing since she won’t actually give me the box until she’s done praying.”
Dread crept across Sera’s system because she was certain her aunt had something terrible planned for her, too. Irene had always been on her about finding a career and how often she changed jobs, and then there was the unplanned pregnancy when she refused to divulge the name of the father, so Irene had decided he was a married man and Seraphina had brought shame on the family name.
“To my niece Seraphina I leave this advice. You’ve screwed up your whole life. You didn’t try in school. You were lazy about studying. You partied too hard and then you got yourself in trouble.”
Tears pierced her eyes and she wanted to push back the chair and walk out. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. If she’d been in a big city, no one would have taken any notice of a twenty-one-year-old giving birth out of wedlock. Hallie had been twenty-three when she’d had her baby. But Hallie was married and the town treated it like a big party, congratulating her best friend, whereas they’d all looked at Sera like she was a walking tragedy.
She sucked it up because she wasn’t going to run away. She’d done right by her aunt. She couldn’t control what her aunt did now.
Quaid looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “It gets better, Sera. Let me finish. You got yourself in trouble. You can get yourself out. I know all your life people have told you how pretty you are, but you can be more if you choose to. You have to be more because you’re a momma now and that boy deserves everything you have. It’s time to stop playing around and pretending to be something you’re not. You are a caretaker, Seraphina Guidry. You are a person who makes life easy on others, even old women who don’t like the world much anymore. To my niece Seraphina I leave my home, my land, and fifty thousand dollars to be used to improve it. It would have been fifty-two thousand but Quaid Havery is extremely proud of that expensive education he got. This is your chance, girl. Sell it. Keep it. Turn it into something beautiful. Thank you for your kindness. Good-bye to you all.”
Now the tears started in earnest. The words reached into her soul. Could she be more? This was a massive gift and she couldn’t take it. Could she? She shook her head,
trying to let it all sink in.
“Damn,” Zep breathed.
She turned to her youngest brother. How could she take fifty thousand dollars and not share it with her family? Wouldn’t they be upset they’d gotten nothing and she’d gotten a small fortune? It wasn’t fair. “Zep, we should talk about this.”
Her brother nodded. “Damn straight we should. Quaid here got two thousand dollars for reading a letter. Momma, I need to go to law school.”
“There was a little more involved,” Quaid protested.
“Aunt Irene had fifty grand?” Remy looked shocked. “She once tried to serve me salad dressing that had expired five years before, and when I pointed out that ranch wasn’t supposed to be green, she told me I was acting uppity.”
“Guys, I can’t take it all myself. We need to split it up.” They would sell the land. It made her sick to think about it because she’d always adored that land. It had been her childhood playground. Despite the fact that the place was kind of falling apart, she’d always loved that house. It had a big wraparound porch that looked out over the water and gorgeous columns that dominated the front of the house. Well, they would be gorgeous if they were sanded and repainted. There was a lot of restoration work to be done. It wasn’t like she could do it herself.
But if she had fifty thousand dollars, she might be able to make the place shine.
She couldn’t spend fifty grand on a home improvement project.
“There can be no splitting up the cash,” Quaid said. “I’m executor of this will and the only thing you’re allowed to spend this money on is repairing Guidry Place. I hold the purse strings and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t honor the will.”
“Sera, Zep and I aren’t taking any money,” Remy said. “This is yours.”
