Butterfly Bayou

by Lexi Blake

  She’d never truly loved someone, and in that moment, she’d understood that loving someone was more important than anything else. Not having someone love her. It was different. She wanted to look into that gun and pray for one more minute with the man she loved, but all she’d felt was impatience to get it over with, regret that she didn’t care more.

  She took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

  “Come here.”

  Oh god, she wasn’t alone. Not that she could forget that Armie LaVigne was in her bed since he was taking up almost all the space. She should get up and let him sleep. When she dreamed about that day, she never got back to sleep. It was only four in the morning. Armie didn’t have to be back at the station house until nine. He needed rest.

  “Go back to sleep. I’m okay.” She hated this, hated that she would think about it for the rest of the night, hated that it was going to ruin what had been almost perfect.

  Almost? He’d been beyond perfect. He’d shown her how good sex could be, and now that seemed to be erased.

  She wanted to go back to that moment when he’d been her whole world. For a brief time, everything else had fallen away and Armie had been all that mattered. Armie had played her body like a master, drawing her out of herself and giving her pleasure and more importantly, peace.

  His hand came out, reaching for hers and drawing her toward him. “Tell me about it. You had a bad dream, right?”

  He was so damn sexy lying there taking up two thirds of her bed. Moonlight streamed in through the filmy curtains and illuminated his sleepy eyes. Her comforter was down around his waist, showing off that cut chest with its dusting of dark hair.

  But she couldn’t go there with him. Not now. This was a one-night thing.

  Why? Because he said something that pissed you off? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but you get pissed off pretty easily. You said some stuff you shouldn’t have said, either, and he’s still here. How about you chill and see where things go? You do not always have to know where a relationship is heading to enjoy one.

  He tugged on her hand and she decided to indulge him. She slid under the covers and let him pull her close. She sighed as his arm went around her and her head found his chest.

  “It was only a dream,” she said, settling in. She would wait until he fell back asleep and then she would sneak out of bed. Or she could lie here and hold him and try to think about something other than the demons that hadn’t stayed in Dallas, where they’d belonged.

  “Dreams can kick your ass,” he murmured with a sleepy sigh.

  “You have nightmares?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I have some recurring dreams that aren’t so pleasant. A couple of them come from when I was on the force in New Orleans. I got pinned down in a nasty neighborhood once. My partner and I were chasing a suspect and ended up in a part of the city where we weren’t welcome. We wound up in an alley with nowhere to go. He took a bullet to the chest. I had to drag him behind a dumpster and keep him alive until backup came.”

  It was easy to forget his job hadn’t always been as sheriff of a sleepy town, where most of his job was enforcing the speed limit and making sure the tourists didn’t irritate the locals. “Was your partner okay?”

  “Yeah, but it was a close thing. I couldn’t sleep without dreaming about it for months afterward. And I swear I still dream about the accident Noelle was in and I wasn’t even there. My mind fills in the blanks. Sometimes I feel guilty that I wasn’t in the car, that I wasn’t the one who got stuck in that wheelchair. Hell, sometimes I wish I was the one who died. I worry Noelle would have been better off with her mom.”

  “That’s not true.” Her body wasn’t in line with her head. Her body had relaxed the second he’d put his arms around her, going soft and sleepy again.

  Because she was safe.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said with a long sigh. “I’m not good with the whole teenage-girl stuff.”

  She could imagine he was made distinctly uncomfortable by certain parts of raising a daughter. “Somehow I think she’ll find her way. She seems to have a lot of friends and she’s good at utilizing her resources.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll be a good resource for her. I know she was excited to have a doctor she wasn’t going to be embarrassed talking to. It’s good to have someone to talk to.”

  “I dream about what happened.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but they came out as though she couldn’t keep them in anymore, as though they didn’t have a place to hide in the sweet, happy world she’d found in this bed and this man.

  “Of course you do, chère.” His hand moved over her flesh, stroking her with easy affection. “You go through what you went through and it sticks to you the rest of your life. But you don’t have to go through it alone.”

  She was quiet for a moment, the silence oddly comfortable. It should be awkward. They were new to the lovers thing, but it felt . . . right. Normal. Like they’d been here a hundred times and it was her right to take comfort from him. “Sometimes in the dream I look down and I’m the one dying on the floor. He wouldn’t let me help her. He shot at me when I tried to stop the bleeding.”

  His arms tightened around her. “I can’t imagine how hard that was on you.”

  It had been the hardest moment she’d ever faced. That one moment was beginning to define her life. If she wasn’t careful, she might be attempting to atone for a moment she couldn’t control for the rest of her life. Sometimes she closed her eyes and couldn’t see anything but Maryanne.

  “I could have saved her. I was in a trauma room. We would go in there when we needed a couple of minutes of peace. We would get to take a breather and we would talk. Even a couple of minutes helped. I was the one who talked her into leaving her husband. I know that was the right thing to do. I know it in my head, but there’s a part of me that thinks she would be alive if I’d left things alone.”

  “He was physically abusive?”

  “Oh, yes. He was good at hiding it, or rather Maryanne was, but he beat her on a regular basis. It was more than physical abuse. He tried to isolate her. He bullied her constantly. We were friends for seven years and I watched her go from a scared mouse to a woman who valued herself. It was a long road. She got out and he still killed her. Should I have left her alone? Would she be alive if I had?”

  “Probably not.”

  It was soothing that he didn’t make a big deal out of this conversation even though it was a big deal. He didn’t turn on the light or force her to sit up and look him in the eyes. He held her and let her wrap herself around him like he was the best teddy bear ever.

  “That’s what I tell myself. He wouldn’t have stopped. I wanted to get her out of the situation before they had kids,” she explained.

  His hand moved up and down her back. “Lila, you have to know you did everything you could. And that it’s normal to feel guilty. You survived. Your friend didn’t. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel it.”

  No “You’re crazy. It wasn’t your fault.” No “How can you possibly think that way?” Just a steady “Of course you do.”

  He understood her.

  “I know it’s stupid, but I feel like I should have been able to fight through the man with the gun to save her. I didn’t think I would sit there, afraid for my own life.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Because you are not the type of woman who ever puts herself first, and that’s something we’re going to deal with. Tu es mon raison d’être, chérie.”

  “I get the feeling you are saying things you think I’m not ready to hear yet.”

  “Tu es la plus intelligente femme que je connaisse.” He kissed the top of her head and sighed, a contented sound. “I want to forget the things we said at the café. Can we erase that part of the day? I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

  She could forgive him. That part was simple.
“Of course, and I’m sorry, too. But, Armie, I’m still not going to fit in the way you need me to.”

  “I don’t need you to fit with anyone but me.”

  It was a lovely thought. “You’re an elected official. I don’t think it’s going to help you to be associated with me.”

  He chuckled, his whole body moving. “I’d love to see them bring someone else in to run against me. No one wants my job. No one wants to deal with the crazies, I assure you.”

  “They’re not so crazy.” It felt good to be here with him, too good. “I never thought I would be here. I actually was very against my sister marrying Remy and moving here.”

  Armie chuckled. “As you should have been. Have you met his family? Sera is okay, but Zep keeps an overnight bag at the station house because he’s in jail so much, and I swear Delphine Dellacourt Guidry is a con artist of the highest order. She’s worked some kooky schemes with Miss Marcelle. Makes us all crazy.”

  “It wasn’t about that. I didn’t think he was good enough for her.”

  “He’s definitely not.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “No, you’re piling on and you’re trying to put up walls I have to climb over to get to you because you’re afraid you’ve done bad shit in the past, which means you don’t deserve to have a man as sexy, smart, and unbelievable as me.”

  She snorted, a completely unsexy sound, but she couldn’t help it. “Think a lot of yourself, huh?” But he wasn’t necessarily wrong. He was all the things he’d said he was and she was definitely scared of falling in deep with him. “I was just pointing out that there are reasons I don’t fit in here.”

  “Give it time. You’ll fit in nicely once people get used to the idea of you. Folks around here don’t like change because change is almost always a bad thing for them. You’re a good thing. It’ll all be okay.”

  She wasn’t sure about that. Today had been out of the norm. “Even as I was stabilizing Janice today she told me she wouldn’t come back. She actually said to me she wouldn’t go to a female doctor. She told me she remembered how she’d been when she used to have periods and she wasn’t about to risk it.”

  He chuckled again, the deep sound soothing. “Janice is a character. And I think she’ll come around because you definitely made a believer of Hallie.”

  “It was one day. They’ll forget. Something else will happen and they’ll forget about it and I’ll be the new girl again.” She was afraid she could live here for twenty years and she’d always be the new girl. Her sister was far better at fitting in than she was.

  His big body moved and suddenly he was rolling on top of her. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight as he reached out and pinned her arms over her head. His body weighed her down deliciously, making her sink into the bed. “That’s where you’re wrong. That’s where you don’t understand this town. Nothing else will happen. Not for a long time, and people here have good memories. They don’t go from one crisis to the next because there are almost no crises to be had. What happened today will be talked about for years. Likely as long as you live. You’ll be the woman who saved four people.”

  “Only three.”

  “Oh, I think Hallie would disagree. I think she would say you saved her life today, too.”

  It hit her all at once. She was used to being in an ER, being in a trauma situation, but she wasn’t used to being alone. She’d been in the field before, but she’d always been support. She hadn’t been one hundred percent in charge. She could have lost that baby or her grandma. One wrong call and she could have lost a man who was in the prime of his life.

  It had all been on her. Every second of the fallout from that accident had been on her.

  “It’s all right, chère. Cry. You need it. You deserve it. You got through it all and you performed magnificently. Now let the pressure go. Let it out. You’re safe now.”

  It welled up, a volcano she’d thought was dormant. The day flashed through her, the sights and sounds, the knowledge of the edge she played on. One wrong move. Only one wrong word from her mouth and the day would have ended differently. Lives would have been changed.

  The tears flowed freely. “I could have killed them. It’s every nurse’s fear. Every medical professional’s. That we’ll make the wrong call and have to live with it forever. When you’re in an ER, it’s easier to distance, but I won’t be able to do that here.”

  He shook his head and his eyes shone in the dimly lit room. “No, you won’t. You’ll eventually know these people and you’ll feel every death. It won’t matter if someone dies from old age or in an accident. You’ll feel it, Lila, and it will be the single best thing that ever happened to you because it will mean you cared, you loved. The pain is going to be worth it because they will love you, too, if you’re patient enough.”

  She’d held herself apart for so long. Her life had been safe. She’d closed herself off, sinking into intellectualism and professionalism, but it had left her behind walls. Those walls had crumbled and it was time to decide if she was going to rebuild them or find a new life.

  She held on to Armie and cried out the stress of the day.

  He shifted and drew her close, resting her head on his chest as he let her cry.

  She fell asleep to the sound of his heart beating. Safe, this time, didn’t mean alone.

  chapter ten

  The knock on the door damn near shook the house. It made him shoot out of bed, but Lila merely turned over and yawned before her breathing became easy again. The woman needed sleep and according to the clock on the nightstand, she should have at least another forty-five minutes before she had to get up.

  The knocking began again and he hustled to drag on his slacks. The shirt would have to wait because he was about to have a conversation with whoever was knocking on the door at damn 7:14 in the morning.

  He worked his way around the plastic containers and nearly tripped on a surprising amount of buttons, but he managed to get to the door before a third set of thunder shook the place. “What? Did you know it is illegal to knock on the door before eight a.m.?”

  He asked the question as he flung the door open and then had to sigh because he couldn’t tell the two people standing there to go away. Remy and Lisa Guidry were on Lila’s doorstep. Her sister looked like she hadn’t slept and Remy had a fierce frown on his face.

  “You started making up new laws now?” Remy asked.

  It had been worth a try. Sometimes he could intimidate people into doing the right thing. Remy wasn’t one of those people. “It would have been a misdemeanor. I take it you heard about what happened yesterday? Come on in, but she’s asleep and she needs it. I’m not waking her up until I have to.”

  Not even for her sister. Lisa could wait forty-five minutes more to assure herself that Lila was okay.

  Lisa stepped inside, followed by her husband. “I was so worried when she didn’t answer her phone. She always has her phone on her. I didn’t hear about what happened until late last night. I tried to call but it went to voice mail.”

  “We had a couple of business meetings and then we went out to dinner,” Remy explained. “When we got back to the hotel, I called Seraphina to see how things had gone at the marina. She told us what happened.”

  “I wanted to come home, but Remy wouldn’t drive me until this morning.” Lisa entered the living room and turned to look at him, her arms folding over her chest. “Is there a reason you’re in my sister’s house? And do you own a shirt?”

  She glanced down at the couch and he could see her make note of the fact that no one had slept on it.

  “I’m in your sister’s house because I slept here last night. I don’t have a shirt on because I was trying to ensure that your sister got all the sleep she could after a very rough day. I ran to get the door before you woke her up.” He moved into the kitchen. Lila would need coffee and breakfast before she went to work. “I d
rove her home last night.”

  “And decided to stay?” There was a well of judgement in Lisa’s tone.

  “Chère, tread carefully,” Remy warned his wife. “You didn’t like your sister getting into your business.”

  “And yet she did,” Lisa replied tartly. “So she shouldn’t be surprised that turnabout is fair play. She’s new in town and I don’t want some Romeo law enforcement officer coming in here and showing off his abs and taking advantage of her.”

  He pulled out the coffee filters and found the can of coffee. He was going to have to suck it up and drink it. He preferred chicory because the normal stuff was bland comparatively. “I’m not the one taking advantage. I’ve made my intentions plain. Your sister is the one who wants to use me for sex. My abs were my only way in.”

  Remy laughed and shook his head. “I told you Lila can handle herself.”

  “Not with men she can’t. But first off, how is everyone? I heard Rene almost died,” Lisa said, moving into the kitchen beside him, pulling a can from the cabinet. “I cut those bland beans of hers with about a quarter of this. I bought it when I stocked up her kitchen. I planned to come over for coffee and start making the switch. Lila has to be eased into change. She struggles with it.”

  “Yes, and she’s had a lot of change lately, so maybe she should have the coffee she likes.” He wasn’t going to force anything on her.

  Lisa finally gave him a half smile that didn’t hold a hint of judgement. “I lived with her most of my life. Trust me. She’ll love it if you can get her to try it. It’s a leftover from our childhood. We never had a ton of food and she had to eat stuff she didn’t like. Now she almost always ends up ordering the same thing because in the back of her head she’s afraid she won’t like it and she’ll go hungry. She’ll eat steak and salad and chicken breasts and nothing else if you let her. I managed to talk her into jambalaya the other day. It was the blandest jambalaya ever, and I had to promise our chef that he could start having a chef’s special once a month to get him to actually make it. She’s now had it three times, and I’ve been gently pumping up the spice.”