by Sandra Hill
“Yeah, but he’s in luuuuuve,” Daniel pointed out with a grin.
“Hah! Love to that rogue is spelled S-E-X.”
“It appears the boy hasn’t changed a bit,” Aunt Mel inserted, reminiscing. “Remember the time in high school, Dan, when Aaron had two dates for the prom, and he talked you into impersonating him with one of the girls.”
“And it worked.” Daniel beamed, until his wife reached over and smacked him on the arm.
“I don’t want to know how well it worked,” Samantha said.
“Me neither,” Aunt Mel added.
Louise wasn’t buying any of their theories about Fleur and Aaron being off somewhere doing naughty things. Fleur was still a “wounded bird” when it came to men. Hanky panky would be the last thing on her mind.
Sidling away unobtrusively, she went back into the kitchen and through the corridor, either side of which held storage rooms, until she got to the ground floor verandah out front. Her car trunk was open and the ice chest was still sitting there, baking in the sun. No sign of either Aaron or Fleur. She was about to stomp over to the garçonniére when she heard a dog bark and a male voice grumble, “Go away, Axel.”
Following the sound, she discovered Aaron sitting on a bench with his face in his hands, a big old dog sitting on the ground next to his feet, staring up at him dolefully. Louise didn’t know which one looked more pitiful.
Samantha had done a great job bringing the rose garden back to life, and Louise had contributed the St. Jude statue sitting atop a stone bird bath, which was perfect for the spot, if she did say so herself, despite what Samantha said about it being historically inaccurate. To which, Louise had responded, “St. Jude is lots older than this plantation. Who sez they dint have St. Judes around then?”
“Feelin’ lower than a doodlebug?” she asked Aaron. “Kind of hopeless, are ya?”
“You have no idea.”
“Well, ya came ta the right place. St. Jude listens ta folks who ask fer his help.”
“I wasn’t praying.”
“Ya oughta be.”
“Go away, old lady. I’m not in the mood.”
Sitting down on the bench next to Aaron, she said, “Raise yer head up, boy, and answer me proper.”
He did as she bid. His dark Cajun eyes were bleak with sadness.
“So you know,” she concluded.
“I know.”
“You doan know diddly squat, if yer sittin’ here feelin’ sorry fer yerself, boy.”
“I’m not a boy, and I don’t need any lectures.”
“Well, yer not the man I thought ya were if yer judgin’ that girl.”
“Girl!” he scoffed. “She was a prostitute. A prostitute!”
“What did you say when she told you about her Shady Past?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” she practically shrieked. “A fool’s tongue is long enough to cut his own throat.”
“What does that mean?”
“Listen, you fool. Some women are sluts because they’ve seen more ceilings than Michelangelo. But some women could lie with a thousand men and still be a saint.”
“You saying Fleur is a saint?”
She rolled her eyes. “In that movie Forrest Gump, the young man said life is like a box of chocolates. I doan know ’bout that. For some clueless men—and I ain’t namin’ names here—life is more like a jar of jalapeño peppers, and what they do t’day is gonna sure as shootin’ burn their butt t’morrow.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” he protested.
“That’s the point, idjit.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Think, boy. Just think.”
“About what? You lost me back there with the bordello ceilings.”
She slapped him on the arm with the folded St. Jude fan attached to her wrist with a loop of yarn.
“Sorry. Listen, Tante Lulu, I know you mean well, but this is something I have to handle myself.”
“Fine, but while yer doin’ all that handlin’, ask yerself this question. If Fleur is almost thirty years old, and she was in the convent fer ten years, and she was a Shady Lady fer six years, when—or how—did she first cross over ta the shady side of the street?”
It took Aaron several moments to understand.
Dumber than dirt, some men were!
“Fourteen! She was fourteen years old! Oh my God! She was kidnapped, wasn’t she, just like those girls she rescues now?” he guessed.
“Those are questions fer Fleur ta answer. Ya ever hear of Hosea?”
“Huh? Is he the butcher at Boudreux’s General Store?”
“No, that’s Jeremiah. Hosea is the dude from the Bible who was ordered to marry a fallen woman, by God. Ya could learn somethin’ by checkin’ him out.”
Aaron made his eyes go cross-eyed. She could tell that he thought the Bible had nothing to do with his situation. He would be wrong. “By the way, where is Fleur now?”
“I don’t know. Last I saw, she was walking down the driveway. Probably headed back to your cottage.”
“What? It’s five miles ta my cottage, and it’s hotter ’n Hades t’day. Go get her and bring her back here.”
“Maybe Daniel could—”
“Not Daniel. You.” She waved her fan in his face, to get his attention. “You doan hafta come ta any understandin’ with her. Jist bring her back here, and act like the gentleman I know you are.”
He grumbled, but he stood, probably realizing, belatedly, how unkind it had been to let Fleur go off by herself. “She won’t want to come back here.”
“Talk her into it. I hear ya got the devil’s own tongue when it comes ta women.”
After Aaron left, Louise just sat, relishing the solitude, and the presence of St. Jude, of course. She looked up at the statue and said, “This one’s gonna be a hard nut ta crack. Aaron, like most men, is still livin’ in the time of the old double standard. He’ll learn.”
St. Jude answered her, in her head, clear as if he was sitting beside her, Use me for the hammer.
“My very own nutcracker,” she joked.
A celestial nutcracker, he agreed.
Aaron didn’t stand a chance.
He was click-worthy, for sure . . .
Aaron drove his pickup truck about half a mile down the two-lane road before he saw Fleur traipsing along the berm. Even with the AC blasting inside his vehicle, it was hot as hell. She must be roasting.
He felt like an ass for letting her walk off like he had. He hadn’t liked what she’d told him. In fact, he’d been flat-out shocked. But that was no excuse for such rude behavior. His mother had taught him better.
He slowed down when he came even with her and rolled down the electric window on the passenger side. “Get in, Fleur.”
“Click,” she said, and continued walking.
He kept pace with her at about two miles per hour. She was walking really fast. “What does ‘click’ mean?”
“I’m trying not to swear.”
“Or give me the finger?” he tried to joke.
“Click, click.”
“So, you’re saying I bring out the clicks in you?”
“Bingo.”
Her face and shoulders were already sunburned but she walked on steadily. The soles of her feet were probably blistering in those thin-soled sandals against the hot asphalt.
“This is ridiculous. Get in the truck,” he said, keeping pace with her.
“Don’t you want to ask me, ‘How much?’ or call out, ‘Hey, baby, you wanna date?’ or ‘Do you like it rough, sugar?’ That’s the usual protocol for you johns cruising along the highway.”
“I am not a john, and I am not soliciting you for sex,” he gritted out, even though he knew she was just taunting him.
“And my fav, in the early days, was, ‘Honey, how old are you? I prefer girls under thirteen.’”
Aaron felt sick in his stomach. He drove forward about fifty feet, threw the truck in Park, and stomped back toward her.
She stopped, put
her hands on her hips, and glared at him. For just a second, he saw the pain in her eyes, and he felt like a piece of shit for hurting her. Guilt and anger mixed up in him and he wasn’t sure what to do. So, he just grabbed for her and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
She screamed and squealed and pounded his back with her fist, but he wouldn’t loosen his grip on her until he got to his truck and tossed her in the passenger seat. He used the remote child lock on the key device to keep her from jumping out.
“Click, click, click,” she said, staring straight ahead once he was in the driver’s seat.
“Shit, shit, shit!” he said. Then, “Why don’t you say what you really want to?”
She bit her bottom lip and refused to look his way.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You didn’t say anything to offend me.”
“I know. I didn’t say anything, and that in itself was offensive, but you have to realize how shocked I was.”
“Poor boy!”
“I wasn’t asking for pity.”
“Neither am I.”
“Let’s discuss this rationally. I wasn’t repulsed by you. I was repulsed by the things that had been done to you. I mean—”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you, now or ever.”
“We have to go back to the plantation. They’re about to serve lunch, or brunch, or something.”
“I’m not going back there.”
“You have to, unless you want everyone speculating about what prompted your quick exit.”
“You could always say that you made a pass at me.”
“That wouldn’t work. They know how successful I am when I make my move.”
She didn’t even crack a grin, let alone a smile.
“Look, we’ll pretend you never told me anything.”
“That’s not the kind of thing you can wipe from your memory, like a blackboard slate.”
“We’ll go back and say it was just a misunderstanding, that you walked down to the bayou to pick some flowers or something.”
She gave him a look that put him in the same category as idiots and morons and clueless men.
“If you can do better, go for it, but we are going back. Tante Lulu gave me orders.”
“So, that’s why you came after me?”
He could feel his face turning red, too. “I would have come, anyway.”
“Click,” she said.
“That click business is really starting to annoy me.”
“Click, click.”
“Can we talk about . . . you know?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I never talk about it, and I’m certainly not going to start with a man who wouldn’t understand.”
“So, this is why you persist in this nun nonsense?”
She visibly breathed in and out to calm down.
“I can’t win with you, in this mood.”
She made a low growling sound.
“See. You’re ready to be insulted, no matter what I say.”
“How about you say nothing? Take me back to Tante Lulu’s cottage and go on your merry old way. I’m nothing to you, you’re nothing to me. My past, your past, none of it matters.”
“Now, who’s being insulting?”
“Why is that insulting?”
“Because you know how I feel about you.”
“Felt about me. Past tense.”
“Says who?”
“Oh, Aaron, you wear me down.”
He grinned at her. “That’s one of my strong points.”
“Don’t flash that dimple at me. I’m impervious.”
“You noticed my dimple,” he said, touching the indentation to the left side of his mouth. “I only show it to special people.”
She laughed. “You’re impossible.”
“I know,” he said, and reached over to take her hand, assuming that her laugh signified a lessening of stress.
She flinched slightly, like she always did when he touched her, even in passing, but now he suspected it wasn’t him, precisely, who brought out this reaction. She didn’t like to be touched, period, because of what had happened to her.
That was an issue to be addressed later. Or not at all.
Instead of letting her draw her hand away, though, he laced their fingers and squeezed. “Let’s be friends, Fleur. We’re going to run into each other while you’re living here, what with mutual friends and family, not to mention any possible future ops to save the girls. Even if it’s over, for us, we can be friends.” Sometimes he impressed even himself with his smooth talking.
She nodded, reluctantly.
But he noticed something she didn’t. The zing of sexual chemistry that sparked where their two hands were joined was so powerful that he felt it ricocheting to all his extremities, and some important places in between. Like his heart, which swelled and ached for a brief blip of a second, causing him to catch his breath.
It wasn’t over. Not by a bayou longshot.
Chapter Four
Just another day down on the bayou . . .
It was uncomfortable for Fleur when she first returned to the plantation, making some lame excuse for her absence, but Tante Lulu was more concerned about her cake, which had to be rescued by being placed in the freezer for a half hour. Then Aaron, bless his conniving heart, diverted attention away from her by mentioning his plan for, of all things, a St. Jude swimming pool.
“Aaron! Are you crazy?” his brother Daniel exclaimed. “Our next big project is a central AC system, not some fool hole in the ground.”
“But a St. Jude pool!” Tante Lulu sighed. “It’s so hot t’day, I do declare the hens must be layin’ hard-boiled eggs. Wonder where Charmaine hid my bikini?”
“Imagine Lucy and Desi learning to swim in their very own swimming pool,” Aaron persisted, as he probably tried to ignore the image of Tante Lulu half-naked. “Bet the little gremlins will be able to doggie paddle right from the get-go.”
Axel, who had been spread-eagled on the flagstone patio, raised his head at the mention of dogs, but then went back to snoozing when nothing more was said on the subject. The three cats weren’t all that interested, cats not being water lovers, at least of the immersion kind. And Emily, sitting adoringly on Daniel’s lap, had no opinion at all.
Samantha was another story. “Aaah,” she sighed at the image of her little ones swimming.
“Idiot!” Daniel said.
“Are you calling me an idiot, honey?” Samantha asked.
“No, I’m calling my brother, the idiot, an idiot,” Daniel explained.
Aaron bowed, as if he’d been given a compliment.
“I wouldn’t mind sunning myself beside a pool,” Aunt Mel interjected.
“You and every gator south of New Orleans!” Daniel protested. “And snakes! They’re attracted by water, aren’t they?”
“Not when it’s a St. Jude swimming pool,” Tante Lulu claimed.
“It’s too damn expensive,” Daniel practically shouted.
“I might be willing to give you and Aaron a sort of early inheritance,” Aunt Mel offered. “Why not enjoy the money while I’m alive, instead of after I’m gone?”
“If it’s gonna be a St. Jude swimming pool, I could scrounge up some cash, too. For the cause.” This from Tante Lulu.
“Holy crap! Next we’ll be having pilgrimages here.” Daniel was getting red in the face with frustration.
“There’s a thought. We could raise funds by scheduling ‘Blessed Plantation Tours’ with a St. Jude gift shop in that old garden shed. Bet none of the other plantations in the Southland have anything like that.” Aaron looked at Tante Lulu for her approval.
She gave him a high five.
Daniel put his face in his hands.
Meanwhile, they were devouring the delicious food spread out on a long table on the covered verandah outside the kitchen. A Cajun omelet containing the holy trinity of Cajun cooking (onions, bell pep
pers, and celery), along with crawfish, mushrooms, cheese, and Tabasco. Shrimp and andouille grits. Light as feather biscuits, still warm from the oven, dripping butter. Fresh fruit, diced and swimming in natural juices, served from a silver bowl set in a bigger silver bowl loaded with ice. Paper-thin slices of salty ham and links of spicy boudin sausage. Fresh-squeezed orange juice and pitchers of sweet tea, along with cups of strong Creole coffee.
And then, Fleur’s favorite. Fried green tomatoes, a specialty dish of the South that she missed above all others, even sweet beignets, when living in Mexico. These served today were from Aunt Mel’s recipe which she called Alaskan Fried Green Tomatoes. They were crunchy and tart and delicious, using flour, sweet cream, and panko bread crumbs, instead of the traditional flour, buttermilk, and cornmeal. Plus, hers were served “loaded,” with a topping of crumbled bacon and melted Asiago cheese. About a thousand calories per slice and worth every bite!
And, of course, Tante Lulu’s famous Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake was the grand finale. It melted in the mouth, but had just the right texture with its praline crunch and juicy peaches. Everyone said it was even better this time for having cooled in the freezer.
By the time Fleur and Tante Lulu returned to the cottage late that afternoon, Fleur felt as if she’d been through the wringer. And not just because of the heat-induced sweat. After she took a shower and donned a light robe (another Charmaine hand-off . . . scarlet silk! Enough said!), Fleur set her laptop on the kitchen table and inputted a number of the herbal recipes from the old receipt book, with notes to herself for additional info she would need to garner about each of them. Tante Lulu sat in her bedroom reading her Bible.
As evening approached, both disdaining dinner after their heavy brunch, they moved to the back porch with its comfy rockers and enjoyed the quiet. Well, as quiet as the bayou could be with dusk falling over the area like a foggy blanket.
The calm was deceptive, though. In this region, the peace could explode on a moment’s notice, either from the attack of one animal on another, the fall of yet another of the ancient cypress trees which rose from the swamps like skinny old ladies with knobby knees, or the climate itself which could go from sunshine to hurricane in an instant. In fact, the humidity was about one hundred percent this evening, which presaged a storm, or at least a shower, during the night.
