Blue Bayou

by JoAnn Ross

  Dani was, of course, sorry the man she'd married right out of college was dead. After all, he was her son's father. But still, she hadn't experienced any sense of grave personal loss. It certainly hadn't been as devastating as that fateful day nineteen months ago when a reporter from The Washington Post had called her and told her to turn on the six o'clock news.

  Watching Congressman Lowell Dupree's press conference—held in the Watergate, where apparently he'd leased a cozy little love nest with his brunette barracuda chief of staff—Dani had been stunned to hear her husband tell the world that he was divorcing his wife.

  Divorcing her.

  Since he was the one who'd been so hot to set up housekeeping with another woman, Dani hadn't understood why he'd dragged their divorce out for eighteen long, contentious months during which time he'd raided their joint bank accounts, held back child support for the flimsiest of grounds that never held up in court, and refused to grant her lawyer access to financial records.

  It was only after his death that Dani discovered her husband's high-flying venture into tech and Internet stocks had gone south, leaving him to die deeply in debt.

  “Mom, I can't find my Hot Wheels.”

  “I packed them with your Hogwarts figures in the box with the orange stickers.”

  Her eight-old-son, Matt, was a die-hard Baltimore Orioles fan, which was why she'd assigned him orange in her moving-box color-coding system. She'd chosen red for herself, since it was supposed to be a power color, and she figured right now she needed all the help she could get.

  “I forgot. Thanks, Mom.”

  “You're very welcome, darling.” She drew a line through the box of books on her packing list.

  Pleased to have averted a potential crisis, Dani returned to the house to strip the sheets off the king-size bed, which surprisingly hadn't proven at all lonely during the nineteen months she'd been sleeping by herself.

  Three hours later the house was emptied, and her son was buckled into the backseat of the wagon with its READ vanity license plate.

  “It feels funny not to be going to school,” Matt said.

  “I know, but you'll be in your new school in just a few days.” Dani turned a corner and left the red brick Federal house—along with her former life—behind in the Volvo's rearview mirror. “Today we're going home.”

  The day dawned hot and drenched with humidity. Outside the open window a jay raucously scolded the rising sun, and the distant thrum of an outboard motor echoed from somewhere on the water. When a soft breath fanned against the back of his neck, every nerve in Jack's body went on alert.

  There'd been a time when he would have been out of bed like a shot, weapon in hand, adrenaline racing through his veins. Now he forced his mind to calm and thought back to last night.

  How much had he drunk? While there had admittedly been mornings in the past when he'd wake up in bed with some strange woman, unable to recall the events that had gotten them there, Jack knew this wasn't one of those times.

  He'd been fighting his new book for a week. He remembered telling the construction crew not to interrupt him unless it had to do with blood—and a helluva lot of it—or fire. Then, shutting off the outside world, he'd waded back into battle with his rebellious characters.

  He recalled taking a break last night, emerging from the isolation of his writer's cave to check out the work that had been done on the house. Satisfied at the progress, he'd been sitting on the gallerie when he'd started thinking about Danielle. Which was always a mistake, though probably inevitable since he was, after all, living in her house.

  He remembered the bloodred moon. . . . The flashes of lightning out on the Gulf. . . . The croak of hidden bullfrogs. . . . The dog.

  He turned his head, which some fiendish intruder had obviously split in half with a ragged ax while he'd been sleeping, and found himself staring straight into huge, adoring, crusted dark-rimmed eyes.

  “I know damn well I didn't invite you up here.”

  Undeterred by his gritty tone, the mutt stretched her lanky frame. Then licked his face—a long wet slurp.

  He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, which tasted as if he'd sucked up all the mud in the entire Mississippi delta. “Didn't your maman ever warn you about climbing into a strange man's bed?”

  As her tail thudded against the mattress, Jack wondered how many fleas she'd deposited in his sheets.

  He crawled out of bed, allowing himself the indulgence of a few ragged groans that stopped just short of being whimpers. Bracing one hand against the wall, he dragged himself into the bathroom.

  He blearily regarded the face in the mirror through eyes as red-veined as a Louisiana road map. He rubbed his hand over the heavy stubble of dark beard. “You should be writin' horror, you. 'Cause you're a dead ringer for Loup Garou.” The legendary shapeshifter was the bayou's answer to the Abominable snowman.

  Whiskey, beer, and stale nicotine were seeping from his pores. Since it was a tossup which of them smelled worse, he debated dragging the dog into the shower with him, then decided not to bother. She'd get a bath along with her tick-dip at the shelter.

  He steamed up the small bathroom, willing the pounding water to beat the poisons out of his aching body and continued to think back on last night. By the time he'd staggered to bed, the drug kingpin's daughter had begun spinning her deadly web for the DEA agent, and he'd unearthed his story's conflict. From here on in, it should be easy sailing.

  Too bad he'd probably never finish it. Because odds were he'd be dead by noon.

  The crew had already arrived and was at work on the roof of the big house, the drumming of hammers echoing the pounding in his head. Jack let the dog out the screen door, cringing against the squeak of the hinges he'd been meaning to oil for weeks, and watched her sniff around the base of one of the old oaks.

  “That's good you're housebroken. It'll make it easier to find you a new family.”

  After drawing a glass of water from the tap, Jack swallowed three aspirins, then made coffee. He was waiting for what seemed like an interminably long time for the damn water to drip through the dark grounds when a high-pitched barking struck like an ice pick into the most delicate part of his brain.

  “Hey, Jack,” a male voice called. “Want to call off your mangy guard horse?”

  “She's not mine.” He pushed open the screen door again and vowed that if he lived another five minutes, he'd find the WD-40 and oil the damn thing.

  “Hey, you,” he said to the mutt. “Knock it off. Nate's on our side. He's one of the good guys.”

  She immediately stopped barking. With back fur still bristling, she sat down beside Jack, pressing against his leg.

  “Remember when I was building an addition onto Pete Marchand's Tack-in-the-Box store a couple months back?” Nate Callahan, Jack's younger brother and the contractor in charge of Beau Soleil's renovation, asked.

  “Yeah, I recall something about that. Why?”

  “ 'Cause I saw a real nice hand-tooled saddle in the window that'd probably fit your new pal just fine.”

  “Boy, you're such a comedian I'm surprised no one's given you your own TV show.” Jack rubbed his throbbing temples.

  “Hangover?”

  “Thanks, anyway. But I've already got one of my own.”

  “Hope it was worth it. So, the dog gotta name?”

  “Hell if I know.” She wouldn't, if she was depending on him. “She's a stray.” Jack leaned a shoulder against the door frame, folded his arms, and braced for bad news. “What's today's problem?”

  He'd been warned, before buying Beau Soleil, that restoring the plantation house to its former glory would be a challenge. That had proven an understatement. The truth was, the place was not only a money pit, it was turning out to be one damn thing after another.

  The first day he'd discovered he was going to have to replace most of the rotting foundation walls. Things had gone downhill from there.

  “No problem. At least not yet. But hell, th
e day's still young.”

  Nate held out a foam cup. Jack pried off the lid and appreciatively inhaled the fragrant steam. Risking a scorched tongue, he took a drink of the black chicory-flavored coffee and decided he just may live after all.

  “Too bad you're my brother. Otherwise, I could just turn gay and marry you so you could bring me coffee every morning.”

  “Sorry, even if we weren't related, you're not my type. I've got this personal thing about not locking lips with someone with a heavier beard than mine.”

  “Picky, picky.”

  “Though,” Nate considered, “it might solve my recent problem with Suzanne.”

  “Marriage bug bite again?”

  “I don' know what's gotten into women lately.” Nate whipped off his billed cap and plowed a hand through his sun-streaked hair. “They're fabulous creatures. They smell damn good, too. You know I've always enjoyed everything about them.”

  “That's no exaggeration.” From the moment he'd hit puberty and stumbled across their older brother Finn's stash of Playboy magazines, Nate had acquired a genuine appreciation for seemingly the entire female gender. From what Jack had been able to tell, the majority of those females had appreciated him right back.

  “Used to be you could hit it off with a woman and the two of you'd pass a good time. Everyone had a little fun, nobody got hurt. Or mad. But no more. Hell, you go out a few times, share a few laughs . . .”

  “A few rolls in the hay.” Amused, Jack lit a cigarette. “A gentleman never rolls and tells. But, Christ,” Nate continued, “even when both parties agree goin' in to keep things light, the next thing you know, she's askin' whether you like Chrysanthemum or Buttercup better.”

  Jack shrugged. “Most women like flowers.”

  “That's what I thought when she first brought it up. But turns out they're not flowers. They're goddamned silverware patterns.”

  “I'm no expert on the subject, but my guess would be it's best just to go along with whatever the lady likes.”

  “Easy for you to say. She happens to like Chrysanthemum because it's the same pattern her momma has, is from Tiffany's, and a single damn iced-tea spoon would probably pay my subcontractor bills for a month. But my problem isn't about any damn flatware.”

  “Just the fact that you know the term flatware suggests you're in trouble, little brother.”

  “My point,” Nathan plowed on through gritted teeth, “is that the female pattern is always the same. Have a few dates, share a few kisses, okay, maybe go to bed, and suddenly copies of Bride magazine start mysteriously showin' up on the bedside table and you're giving up NASCAR to watch Sense and Sensibility on the chick channel.”

  Jack blew out a surprised cloud of smoke. “You're kidding.”

  “I wish I were. A guy could die of estrogen overdose watching that movie. Last night it was Sleepless in Seattle. And this morning she brought me breakfast in bed.”

  “Well, that's certainly a hangin' offense. Are we talkin' fresh fruit in dainty crystal bowls and croissants on flowered plates with white doilies? Or a decent manly meal with buckets of grease and cholesterol?”

  “This morning it was boudin, cush cush, three fried eggs, and cottage fries.”

  “Gotta hate a woman who'd fry you up a mess of sausage and eggs.” Jack's mouth watered. “Maybe when Suzanne gets tired of cookin' for an unappreciative yahoo, you can send her out here.”

  “You'd run her off in a day. Besides, it's not the cooking that's my problem, it's the reason a woman who probably grew up not even knowin' the way to the kitchen has gotten all domestic in the first place. Dammit, Jack, I feel like a tournament bass trying to hide out in the shallows, and she's on the bank baitin' the damn hook.”

  “So, don't bite.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Nate grumbled as they watched the new roof going on. “Good to see you finally coming out of hibernation, even if you look like death warmed over,” he said, switching gears. “Does this mean the book's finally starting to go well?”

  “Depends on your meaning of well.”

  “I sure don't understand, given all that happened to you, why you'd want to write about murder.”

  “It's called makin' a living.”

  “You can't sit at that computer twenty-four hours a day. Ever think about running for sheriff when you get this placed all fixed up? Lord knows this parish could use a new one. Jimbo Lott gets more corrupt every year.”

  “I notice he keeps getting elected.”

  “Only 'cause nobody runs against him.”

  “In case you haven't noticed, the reason I came back here is because I'm out of the crime-fighting business.”

  “Nah. You may be a hot shot novelist now, but you've got our daddy's blood running through your veins. You and Finn always were the most like him, always wantin' to play cops and robbers.”

  “While you were off dragging lumber in from the swamp.”

  “Somebody had to build the jail to put the robbers in after you two captured them. I don't believe you can ignore nature, Jack.”

  “Believe it. I turned in my badge because I finally realized that tilting at windmills just gets you ripped to fuckin' pieces.”

  “So you're going to spend the rest of your life hiding out here, trying to find redemption by writing your depressing books?”

  “Unlike some people who haven't learned how to mind their own business, I don't believe in redemption. And a helluva lot of readers must like depressing, because I sell damn well.”

  Jack had never been able to figure out why readers the world over would actually pay to share his nightmares, but as his agent and editor kept assuring him, his thinly veiled true crime stories about a divorced, alcoholic narcotics agent who lived on the fringes of society had found a huge audience.

  “There's probably an audience for televised executions,” Nate said mildly. “But that doesn't necessarily mean the networks should supply it.”

  “Hell, if they ever figure out a way to get by the government censors, Old Sparky will become a Saturday night blockbuster.”

  “You know, I'm beginnin' to worry you may just be nearly as cynical as you're trying to convince me you are.”

  “Not cynical. I'm just a realist. I decided after holding up my dead partner's widow at his gravesite that I'd leave saving the world to people like our older brother.”

  “You've always had a knack for tellin' stories,” Nate allowed. “But ever think 'bout writing more uplifting ones?”

  “I just write the world like I see it.”

  “Well, I sure don't envy you your view.”

  Jack merely shrugged.

  “Speaking of views, the scenery around Blue Bayou's about to get a whole lot prettier.”

  An intuition Jack had learned to trust, the same one that had saved his life on more than one occasion, had the hair at the back of his neck prickling. As the sun burned off the morning mist, he curled his hand around the cup and waited.

  “Danielle's coming back home.”

  Ignoring the sideways look directed his way, Jack polished off the rest of the cooling coffee and wished to hell it was something stronger.

  Heat shimmered on the empty roadway, a glistening black ribbon that twined its way around laconic waters and through root-laced swamps, unrolling before Dani like a welcome mat. Despite all her problems, the deeper into the bayou she drove, the more her tangled nerves began to unwind. There was something calming about this land that time had forgot. Calming and infinitely reassuring, despite the rumbling from storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

  Fields of sugar cane were occasionally broken by an oak tree, or a sleepy strip town, often little more than one house deep, the valuable land being needed more for crops than commerce. Lush green fields were laid out in a near-surgical precision at odds with the personalities of the Cajun farmers who lived there. Here in southern Louisiana the mighty Mississippi hadn't carved valleys as it had upriver. Instead, it had carried rich topsoil washed away from northern
states and deposited it across the soggy terrain to create valuable fertile land. Water and bog warred continually, with water winning more battles over the eons.

  Pretty Victorian homes stood next door to brightly painted Creole West Indies cottages, which neighbored antebellum plantation homes, many of which were crumbling, reclaimed by time and water. Every so often Dani would pass a sugar mill, whose sweet odor, come winter grinding season, would make the eyes water.

  It was a long way from Fairfax, Virginia, to Blue Bayou, Louisiana. An even longer way from the hustle and bustle of the nation's capital to this secret, hidden corner of the world. Dani had missed it without knowing it'd been missed. Trying to keep a demanding life on track, while juggling the roles of congressional wife, student, mother, and librarian, running from a painful past she tried not to think about, had kept her nearly too busy to breathe. Let alone stop and think. Or feel.

  Which is why, she thought sadly, she hadn't realized that Lowell had emotionally left their marriage—and her—before they'd returned from their St. Thomas honeymoon.

  Matt, who normally passed long drives with his nose in a library book, wasn't saying much about the change of scenery, but whenever Dani would glance in the rearview mirror, she'd see him drinking everything in.

  “Some of the kids didn't believe me when I said we were going to be living in a library,” he offered from the backseat.

  “We're not going to be living in the library. We'll be living above it.”

  Dani had been more than a little relieved when an online search of the Cajun Clarion's classified pages had revealed an opening for parish librarian. She'd immediately called the number, which turned out to be the mayor's office, and had, in the space of that single phone call, been hired by Nate Callahan, Blue Bayou's newly elected mayor. The pay might not be up to big-city standards, but Dani would have been willing to clean tables and wash dishes in Cajun Cal's Country Café if that's what it took to feed her son.

  “Since the library's been closed for the past two months, ever since the former librarian moved to Alexandria to live with her granddaughter, the parish commissioners were so relieved to hear they were going to be able to open it, they threw in the apartment as a lagniappe.” Which was fortunate, since the salary would have made paying rent difficult.