Blue Bayou

by JoAnn Ross

  Dani wondered why she was even trying. She'd never been able to get through to the man. What on earth had made her think time would have changed the chasm between them that had often seemed as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon?

  “I hope you're not going to talk this way to Matt.”

  “Should've told the boy I was dead.”

  Dani exchanged another glance with Jack in the mirror, hating the pity she viewed in his eyes.

  “His name is Matthew,” she repeated firmly. “Whether you like it or not, Daddy, we've come back home to Blue Bayou and you're going to live with us and get to know your only grandson, because if you really are terminally ill, the least you can do is make the most of your time.

  “So, you may as well just get used to the idea and quit being so damn negative because I refuse to let Matt feel as shut out of your life as I always did.”

  He turned around and looked at her with blatant surprise. “When did you get that smart mouth?”

  “When I discovered that nobody was giving out plaques to good, acquiescent southern girls.”

  He shot a look at Jack. “I suppose you've got something to do with this.”

  “Not me.” Jack shrugged. “Though personally, I think it suits her.”

  “Figures you'd be all for her sassing her daddy. You also didn't have any right to go tellin' her about my heart condition.”

  “And have you keel over one morning and have her not at least know enough about your medical history to tell the EMTs? Besides, she's your daughter. She obviously, for some reason I sure as hell can't fathom, loves you. And she's damn well entitled to know the truth.”

  “Would you two stop taking about me as if I weren't in the car,” Dani complained. “I'm horribly sorry you're ill, Daddy, and I don't want to unduly upset you, but if something bothers me, I'm going to speak my mind and you're both just going to have to damn well deal with it.”

  Her father folded his arms, glared out the window, and cursed beneath his breath. Dani met Jack's gaze in the mirror again. When he winked, she managed a faint, reluctant smile in return.

  Jack kept telling himself that he shouldn't care that the judge was acting like a first-class prick to his daughter. After all, Danielle was a grown woman, capable of making her own choices. Her father might have wanted her to marry Lowell Dupree, but from what he'd heard, no one had held a shotgun on her, or dragged her kicking and screaming down the aisle.

  No one had asked her to come back to Blue Bayou, either, and he knew the judge sure as hell hadn't invited her out to Angola today. It was obvious the old man wasn't turning cartwheels about her coming back home.

  Hell, truth be told, Jack didn't want her here in Blue Bayou. He didn't want her, with her big hazel eyes and sweet lips and sexy little female body messing with his mind, making him think of things and times he'd done his best to forget.

  He didn't want her here. But, mon Dieu, he sure as hell wanted her. It was just sex, Jack assured himself. That's all it was. That's all he'd let it be.

  A woman like Danielle Dupree would take too much out of a man. Hell, he was already being sucked into emotional quicksand. When he'd found himself having to curl his fingers tighter around the steering wheel, to keep from punching the judge in his frighteningly puffy gray face for having made her look on the verge of crying again, Jack knew he was getting in even deeper.

  Worse yet was the increasingly strong desire to take her back to Beau Soleil and make love to her in that once pretty room where they'd spent so many stolen nights, and promise to protect her.

  Now that, Jack thought, was a fucking damn dangerous thought. He'd stopped believing he could protect anyone that day in a Colombian warehouse when because of him, a helluva lot of people had died and a good woman had been widowed.

  “What on earth?” Dani stared in disbelief at her son. His darling freckled face was bruised and battered, his bottom lip was swollen, his eye—surrounded by ugly purplish blue flesh—was nearly swollen shut, and his knuckles were bleeding.

  “I didn't have any choice, Mom. I had to fight.”

  “There's always another choice besides fighting. You never fought at your old school.”

  “I didn't have to back there.”

  “I don't understand. Assumption is a Catholic school.”

  “Not all kids at Catholic schools are altar boys,” Jack pointed out, reminding Dani that he certainly hadn't been.

  “So, did you manage to get some licks in?” he asked Matt.

  “Yeah.” His split lip curved into a cocky grin. Dani didn't know whether to laugh or cry when her son's masculine pride revealed a bit of the man he would someday become.

  “Good for you.” Jack ruffled his hair.

  “If you don't mind,” Dani said, her voice frost, “I'd just as soon my son not believe problems are solved with his fists.”

  “Spoken just like a damn female,” the judge scoffed. He shot a considering look down at the filthy boy Dani had dressed in his best T-shirt and jeans this morning for the meeting with his grandfather. “Sometimes men have to make a stand.”

  Matt nodded. “Like Gary Cooper did in High Noon. When he had to face down the bad guys.” Dani decided that was the last time she'd let him stay up on a school night to watch old movies with her on the Western Channel.

  “Precisely. Just don't go making a habit of it or you'll end up in trouble.” The judge held out a blue-veined hand. “I'm your grandfather.”

  “Yessir, I know.” Matt stuck his filthy hand into the judge's larger one. “That's what I was . . .” He slammed his mouth shut.

  The judge arched a frosty brow. “So you were fighting about me, were you?” He may be ill, but there was definitely nothing wrong with his mind.

  “Yessir.” Dani was a bit surprised when Matt didn't appear all that intimidated by a man who'd been known to cause hardened criminals to quake in their shoes. “Some of the kids on the bus said you were a jailbird.”

  “They were right.”

  “I'm reading a book about this kid who got sent to this camp for bad boys for stealing sneakers. But he didn't really steal them, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when they fell on his head because of the curse put on his family by a one-legged gypsy after his great-great-grandfather stole a pig. So, it was really just a mistake.” He sucked in a deep, noisy breath. “Just like Mom said you got sent to prison by mistake.”

  “It was a mistake of my own making. And I paid the price.”

  “Whenever I make mistakes Mom says she still loves me. Even when she has to punish me. So, you don't have to worry, Grandpa, because she'll still love you, too.”

  Dani wondered if it was moisture or a trick of the overhead light that made her father's eyes shine.

  “I need some fresh air,” he said gruffly. “That fool car was too damn stuffy.” He shuffled out, leaning heavily on his cane.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Dani murmured.

  “It's okay, Mom. Grandpa probably just has to adjust. Like me at school.” Matt's forehead furrowed. “Mrs. Deveraux, the bus driver, said she was going to tell the principal about the fight. So, I guess you'll be getting a call to come to the school for a conference.”

  Dani sighed. It would be just one more in a recent long list of first-time experiences. “I suppose so.”

  Then, because she was feeling guilty for having put her child in a situation where he was forced to defend his grandfather with his fists, she smoothed the hair Jack had ruffled.

  “Why don't you go upstairs and take a bath. Then I'll put some antibacterial cream on your knuckles, and we'll discuss alternative problem-solving methods.”

  “Okay. But I really didn't have any choice, Mom.”

  She watched him go up the stairs. “I can't believe he actually got in a fistfight,” she murmured.

  “He wouldn't be the first kid to have to stand up to bullies,” Jack said mildly. “Won't be the last.”

  Dani rubbed her temples where the headache she'
d had all day was escalating to jackhammer proportions. “He's just a baby.”

  “He's eight years old. That's no baby. You can't keep him in bubble wrap. It's no good for him.”

  “Excuse me.” She folded her arms. Her voice and her gaze frosted over. “I should have realized you were an expert on child-rearing. Having so many children of your own.” Even as she'd tossed that sarcastic comment at him, her conscience twinged and a familiar ache spread across her chest.

  Instead of appearing offended, his deep, answering laugh rumbled through her. “Mon dieu, I do love it when you get up on that high horse, sugar.”

  Jack ducked his head and kissed her, a quick hard kiss that sent her head spinning and ended much too soon, then skimmed a finger down her nose. “Why don't you go play nurse to your son while I visit with the judge.”

  “So, how's it feel to be back home?” Jack handed the judge one of the bottles of RC cola he'd snagged out of the refrigerator.

  “I wouldn't know. Since this isn't my home,” the judge reminded him.

  Jack refused to apologize for having saved Beau Soleil from those mobster gamblers and the ravages of the bayou environment.

  “You know what they say.” The sun was beginning to set, but the heat and moisture continued to hover over the bayou like a wet blanket. Another thirty minutes and squadrons of mosquitos would begin dive-bombing anyone foolish enough to still be outside. “Home's where the heart is.”

  “Then I still don't have a home. Since my heart's pretty much shot.”

  “So you keep saying.” Jack sat down on the top step of the porch, spread his legs out, and took a long swallow of cola, enjoying the cool flow down his throat. “You know, Danielle's right. From what I've seen, she's sure as hell not the same little girl who let other folks decide what was good for her. She's gotten some steel beneath that pretty cotton-candy exterior, and she's not gonna just sit by and let you die on her without a fight.”

  “It's not her place to tell me what to do. I'm her father.”

  “Then perhaps it's time you started actin' like one, you.”

  “Perhaps you're forgetting who you're talking to, you,” the judge countered with acid sarcasm.

  “Last I looked, you weren't a sitting judge anymore. So you can't sentence me back to jail.” Jack tilted the neck of the bottle toward him. “Besides, DEA agents don't intimidate real easy.”

  “I may no longer be on the bench, but you're no DEA agent, either.” He swept a critical look over Jack's long hair and earring. “Sure don't look much like one, either.”

  “Well, you know, I tried goin' undercover in my Brooks Brothers suit, but for some reason the cartel got suspicious. And I may no longer be on the government payroll, but I could probably find a pair of cuffs around the house somewhere. In case Danielle needs help gettin' you to the doctor.”

  “There's no point. I'm dying. And that's that.”

  “Never thought I'd see the day you'd be actin' the coward.”

  “I'm not a coward. I'm a realist.”

  Jack shook his head even as he wondered why he was bothering to have this conversation. Getting involved in the complex, tortuous relationship between Danielle and her father was like invading a nest of water moccasins. It was definitely not something a sensible man would do.

  The problem was, he'd never been known for his good sense. Especially not where pretty, sweet-smelling Danielle Dupree was concerned.

  “If you really are dying, what would it hurt to go through a few tests? Just to satisfy her?”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Okay, maybe it'd be a real pain. Maybe you'd just as soon spend your last days on earth sitting here on this porch, scratching your butt, and watchin' the sun rise and set than putting on a paper hospital gown with no backside and having people you don' know poking and probin' at you. But the thing is, Judge, you owe her.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “It was you who talked her into marrying Dupree.”

  “Hell, I didn't have to talk all that hard. Lowell Dupree was a charming, intelligent man who knew how to treat a woman.”

  “Yeah, he treated his wife real well, runnin' 'round on her, then leaving her to take care of her boy all by herself. As for the charm, I always thought the guy was more slick than charmin'. Like snot on a doorknob.”

  “If that's any example of your descriptive powers, I find it hard to believe you're a writer.”

  “It's hard for me, too, most times. And it was a long and crooked path gettin' where I am.”

  Jack frowned as he thought about the argument he'd had with his larger-than-life father back in the seventh grade when he'd announced his decision to become a writer instead of a cop. Three days later Jake Callahan had been killed. Jack often wondered if his daddy could see the success he'd achieved. And, more important, if he was proud of him.

  “But we're not talkin' about me.”

  He shook off the sudden and unsettling realization that there was a chance he and Danielle had something more in common than just lust. If he were writing them as two characters in one of his novels, he'd have them both sharing a subconscious need for paternal approval from fathers who couldn't—for different reasons—ever give it to them.

  “We're talking about you and your daughter. About you settin' things right before you kick the bucket. About acting like a father for once in your life.”

  “Don't you tell me I wasn't a good father. The girl never wanted for anything.”

  “Except love. Hell, the only reason she chased after me that summer was because she was so damn emotionally needy she was willin' to convince herself that she was in love. That's the only way a good girl like her could allow herself to get any comfort from havin' sex.”

  “I don't want to talk about you having sex with my daughter.”

  “That makes two of us. But you know, it seems real funny to me that you'd go to prison, even though we both know you were framed—”

  “You didn't tell Danielle that?”

  “No.” But he'd sure as hell had wanted to.

  “Good. I don't want her anywhere near that crime family.”

  Jack hadn't been real sure about that the first time the judge had insisted he keep quiet about what he'd learned about the Maggione family wanting to get the incorruptible law-and-order judge off the bench prior to the trial of one of Papa Joe Maggione's grandsons. Having spent time with Danielle and witnessed the woman she'd become, he suspected she might actually start rocking some potentially dangerous boats.

  “I'm still havin' trouble figuring out why you'd be willing to spend seven years in prison, perhaps even ruin your health, to protect your daughter from getting mixed up with mobsters.”

  “It wasn't just that. There was her husband's career to think of.”

  “There is no way in hell I'm gonna believe that you'd let yourself get convicted just to further some politician's career. Especially if you were betting on him getting elected president some day and giving you an executive pardon. Hell, you'd get better odds with Armand Trusseau.”

  Trusseau was bookmaker of choice for southern Louisiana gamblers, taking bets on everything from horse races to pro and college sports to whatever the market wanted. Jack had even heard stories about him making book on the cake-baking contest at the parish fair, and which high school could get its football team all the way through the season without having one of its players arrested for underage drinking. Since most of the cops, and a number of the judges, were clients, it was only when the press started getting up in arms about all the offtrack betting, that the law would put any heat on Trusseau.

  And even then, all he'd throw into their net would be some middle-school kid who was being used as a runner. Since no one had the stomach to jail a little kid for trying to make a few extra bucks, the case was usually dropped.

  “So you're contending that you spent seven years trying to keep Danielle from having anything to do with the Maggiones, but you won't go the extra distan
ce and try to make up for treating your only child like a stranger all of her life? Sorry, but that just doesn't wash.”

  “The girl never wanted for anything.” The judge's garrulous voice gained strength, sounding, for the first time, more like it had when he'd been making rulings from the bench. He did not, Jack noticed, answer the question he'd been trying to pry out of him for months. Why the hell he hadn't fought what was obviously a frame in the first place.

  “Now that's where you're wrong. She didn't have the one thing she wanted. Needed. She didn't have her daddy's love.”

  The judge opened his mouth. Shut it. Then drilled Jack with a razor-sharp look that had gone a long way to keeping order in his courtroom.

  “What's going on between you and my daughter?”

  “I wish to hell I knew,” Jack muttered as he polished off the beer. “But I'm not sleepin' with her, if that's what you're worried about.”

  “None of my business if you were.” The judge took a long swallow of his own. “The hell it isn't.”

  His eyes were hard, his mouth a grim warning. “You take advantage of my little girl again, Callahan, and you'll have to answer to me. Even if I have to crawl off my deathbed to rip your damn heart out.”

  “I'll keep that in mind,” Jack drawled. “And while we're on the subject of your daughter, it's past time you told her why I left thirteen years ago. Because if you don't, I will.”

  The judge speared him with a lethal look that would have cowered a lesser man. “You've no damn business getting between me and my child.”

  “I'm tired of playing your scapegoat. I wasn't lyin' when I said I don't know what's going on 'tween Danielle and me, but I do know that I want to start out with a clean slate. Which means she's gotta know the truth.”

  “I'll take the matter under advisement.” The judge didn't appear all that surprised by Jack's ultimatum. “How much time do I have?”

  Jack shrugged. “I'll let you get settled in, but if you haven't told her in a week, I'm telling Finn to quit digging around in your case files.”