Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03]

by Wild Jinx

  “Not this time.”

  “Auntie, you know what you always say. There’s no problem too big for St. Jude.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Yer right. How could I have fergot that?”

  “So, can I help you?”

  “Wouldja?”

  “You know I would do anything for you, Auntie.”

  “Even if I swore ya ta secrecy?”

  “Even then.”

  “It’s about Tee-John.”

  “What’s the Sex Cop done now?”

  “Thass not funny.”

  He made a show of zipping his lips.

  “Tee-John is a daddy, thass what.”

  He laughed.

  “Ya ain’t got no call ta be laughin’ at me. It’s the truth.”

  Tante Lulu had stunned him many times over the years, but this one took the cake. He had to have heard wrong. He shook his head as if to get rid of the wax in his ears. “Pass that by me again. I had to have heard you wrong.”

  “Ya heard right.” She took a photograph out of her purse and handed it to him.

  He tilted his head at his aunt.

  “Celine Arseneaux’s little boy, Etienne,” said Tante Lulu.

  He looked at the picture. “Un-be-liev-able!”

  Chapter 14

  I know how to destress you, baby . . .

  “We’re comin’ home.”

  “Oh, Gramps, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Celine said into the satellite phone John had handed her a few moments ago after a convoluted procedure of circuiting the call through his police chief. In her opinion, they were over-obsessing on the danger.

  “All this hay and grass is givin’ me asthma, chère. And Etienne is gettin’ bored with ridin’ that pony. He wants ta ride a stallion, and you know, girl, if I don’t watch him good, he’ll be ridin’ off like a Kentucky Derby jockey.”

  “Has he been behaving?”

  “What do you think?”

  She laughed.

  “Actually, he’s been pretty good, ’ceptin’ for the time he tol’ one ranch hand’s little girl where babies come from.”

  “That little bugger! Did you tell him about . . . you know? I never told him.”

  Her grandfather laughed. “According to Professor Etienne, a guy spits in a girl’s belly button, and a baby starts to grow underneath.”

  She laughed, too.

  “How much longer you gonna be gone on this assignment?”

  “I’m not sure . . . it might be as much as a week.”

  “Why can’t you tell me where you are?”

  “I’ll explain when I’m done here.”

  “You’ve never been away from the boy for this long.”

  “I know,” she said a bit tearfully. “Can I talk to him?”

  There was a brief shuffle, followed by, “Hey, Mom. I got a new tooth t’day. Didja know girls cain’t pee standin’ up? Kin I have a pig?”

  “A pig! I thought you wanted a dog.”

  “I do, but pigs stink real good. And they fart real loud.”

  What was it about boys and body humor? Little girls got great pleasure out of Barbie’s new hairdo; little boys would rather hear Ken fart.

  “If I can’t have a pig, a goat would be nice.”

  “Oh, Etienne!” She smiled into the phone. “Maybe we’ll look for a puppy once I get home.”

  His jubilant yells were so loud she held the phone away from her ear. She was still smiling when she clicked off the phone.

  John was standing there waiting for her to return it to him.

  “Do you have to eavesdrop?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t have you divulging any secrets.”

  “To a five-year-old child?”

  “I thought he was four.”

  “He is. I misspoke.”

  He frowned and was about to argue with her, about how mothers never misspoke their children’s ages, no doubt, especially when they only had one. “Listen, this assignment is not working out for me. I’m thinking I should call my editor and bow out.”

  “What you really mean is that you’re scared about us?”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “I never thought you were. I ’spect you’re afraid you’ll jump my bones again.”

  “You . . . you . . . you,” she sputtered, following after him as he walked away from her toward the cabin. Caleb and Adam were laying out the equipment they would be using for tomorrow’s move to a land dig. René was inside the cabin cooking, or rather heating up various dishes Tante Lulu had left, enough to last them for several days. René intended to stay only one more day ’til two new Jinx team members would arrive. It was like a revolving door of people here. Except for her. They were making her stay put. “You are a delusional slimebucket, John LeDeux.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere, darlin’.” He went inside and let the screen door slam in her face.

  She yanked it open and hurried after him. “Killing is a legal defense in some parts of Loo-zee-anna, you know? I want to go home.”

  René glanced up at her words, then glanced at his brother.

  “Not an option,” John declared while picking up a mini carrot off the counter and popping it into his mouth.

  “You can’t make me stay here.”

  “Wanna bet?” Crunch, crunch, crunch!

  “I’m gonna let you two lovebirds settle this. Why don’t you make a salad to go with this jambalaya, Tee-John? Call us when dinner’s ready.” He was chuckling as he walked off.

  “He didn’t have to leave.”

  “He’s probably off to call my brothers.”

  “Why?”

  “To blab about what you just said.”

  “Why?”

  “Because everyone in my family is a busybody.”

  “I’m sure you give them plenty to busybody about.”

  “I try. You know what your problem is, Celine?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “You have a perpetual grouch problem. Comes from not enough oxytocin hormones in your body.”

  She almost laughed. “I’ve never heard of oxytocin.”

  “It’s better known as the cuddle hormone.”

  She did laugh then. “Are you for real?”

  “It takes only twenty seconds of hugging to produce oxytocin, which in turn counteracts stress. And, baby, you are loaded with stress.”

  “You’re making this all up.”

  “Cross my heart. I read about it in Men’s Health magazine.”

  “And you honestly think a hug from you is going to solve all my problems?”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Pass that salad bowl over here. You’re mushing up the tomatoes when you slice like that.”

  He shoved the bowl and all the ingredients over to her while he turned to check on the jambalaya. The table had already been set by René and a loaf of leftover bread set out along with a stick of butter, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

  “So, what were you laughing about when you talked to your grandfather on the phone?”

  “My son. He told a little girl on the ranch that babies are made when the guy spits in the girl’s belly button.”

  “Hey, I told Sally Sue Benoit the same thing when we were in kindergarten.”

  “And did she let you spit in her belly button?”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah, when we were sixteen. But no babies, thank the Lord.”

  The sound of a guitar could be heard from the porch then. It was René, an accomplished musician, who was strumming and singing softly in French. A famous Cajun ballad called “Jolie Blon.”

  During one of the pauses, she asked John, “You don’t want children?”

  “Hell, no! My brothers are doin’ more than enough to overpopulate the world, and I won’t even talk about my father . . . the bayou sperm donor to the masses. Besides, can you imagine me as a father?”

  No. “Not ever?”

  “Oh, maybe someday . . . when
I’m forty or so.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  Somehow those waggling eyebrows didn’t touch any funny bones in her body.

  Sensing her bad mood’s return, John said, “Are you sure you don’t want a hug?”

  How’d you like to mud wrestle? . . .

  Mud, mud, mud.

  Every one of them was covered with mud, smelled like mud, and was eating mud by ten-thirty the next morning, except for René, who’d stayed back at the cabin to fix a pump.

  John was the only one who wasn’t surprised about the mud. “What did you expect, ya dingbats?”

  “Shut up!” Peachey said as he leaned against the handle of his shovel and swiped an arm over his forehead, which resulted in more smearing of mud.

  “He’s right,” Celine said . . . probably the first time she’d ever agreed with him. “Louisiana’s land is below sea level. All you have to do is dig a few feet and you’ll hit water, anywhere. Why do you think we have our cemeteries above ground?”

  “I thought you rednecks just dropped your dead in the bayous to feed the gators,” Famosa added. To John’s immense satisfaction, the Cuban wore more mud than any of them.

  “Only some of them. Usually Yankees that have the misfortune to drop dead here in the South.” Famosa was gonna have a tag on his toe by the end of this project if he kept needling him, John swore to himself.

  “You guys ought to do a TV documentary about this project . . . not just finding a treasure, but the process of searching. It’s fascinating.” Celine spoke even as she moved the video camera around the site.

  “Yeah, we could call it Creatures from the Bayou Black Lagoon,” John quipped.

  “It’s not a bad idea.” Peachey tapped his closed lips thoughtfully . . . lips that now wore mud lipstick. “We have all that footage left over from the pink diamond project and the cave pearls.”

  “Count me out,” Famosa said. “No way am I gonna let you guys make a fool of me in public.”

  “As compared to making a fool of yourself in private?” Peachey inquired.

  “I know, we could throw in a little male/female mud wrestling, and it would be a big hit,” John offered.

  “Get a life!” Celine offered back.

  Man, she had no sense of humor at all.

  “Uh-oh!” Caleb leaned down into the hole they had been digging for the past hour and pulled out the remnants of a hoe. “Guess this is what the metal detector picked up.”

  There were more than a few swear words blueing up the air then, including a choice one from Celine, to his surprise.

  “What? You thought I didn’t know any swear words?” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “You do not want to show me your tongue, darlin’. To a Cajun man, that is a pure, one hundred proof invitation.”

  “Would you two stop with the verbal foreplay?” Famosa griped. “You’re turning me on.”

  “Yeech!” he and Celine said at the same time.

  “I think I’ve landed in Alice in Wonderland’s bayou hole.” Peachey shook his head at all of them.

  Famosa pulled a copy of the map out of his back pocket. “Okay, let’s start on the next tract, north of here. I’ll run the magnetometer. LeDeux and Peachey can start diving on opposite sides of the grid.”

  “I’ll record the data about this dig,” Celine offered. “Do you want me to continue videotaping?”

  “Yes, to both,” Famosa agreed. “Thanks.”

  What a suck-up! “Thanks,” John mimicked silently to Celine.

  She ignored him, which was almost more of a red cape challenge to him than the tongue thing.

  He walked up behind her and said in a low enough voice that only she could hear, “When I bathed this morning, I noticed I had whisker burns on my butt. You might want to shave your legs.”

  She turned slowly, inch by inch. The look she gave him then practically shouted, “Come a little closer, baby, so I can cut your jugular with my teeth.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I crossed the line with that one.” He put up his hands in surrender. “But you have to know . . . what Famosa said about foreplay . . . well, I’m the one who gets turned on. By you. All the time. Dammit.”

  For once she was speechless.

  And maybe a little bit turned on. He could hope. Or not hope.

  Hell, he was screwed either way.

  When three people know a secret, is it still a secret?

  It seemed to John that something really strange was going on.

  Remy had brought Grace O’Brien and Angel Sabato to René’s cabin, a short time ago, just after the lunch break. They’d all met these poker friends of Jake’s before, except for René and Celine.

  Grace was talking animatedly to Celine, and Sabato was getting the rundown from Famosa and Peachey on the project work, which would resume shortly. His aunt hadn’t returned, but sent a message that she had work to do.

  The thing that was strange was the way that Remy and René were acting. Remy was telling René something which clearly shocked him, and every couple seconds the two of them glanced his way, with expressions that alternated between horror and sympathy.

  What am I being accused of now?

  He ambled over, and his brothers stopped talking suddenly. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “What makes you think somethin’s goin’ on?” Remy shifted from foot to foot.

  “The way you two are actin’ like old biddy gossips at Our Lady of the Bayou bingo night. If you have somethin’ to say to me or about me, just spit it out.”

  René made the mistake of glancing Celine’s way and then back to him.

  “Oh, shit! Is this about me and Celine?”

  Both his brothers went a bit red-faced.

  “I know what’s up.”

  “You do?” his brothers said as one.

  “Tante Lulu is on her bandwagon again. Well, I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to marry Celine Arseneaux.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, bro,” Remy said, and he wasn’t smiling.

  “She better not be plannin’ a surprise wedding.”

  “There’ll only ever be one of those, and I got the honors,” René said. He wasn’t smiling either.

  “What’s goin’ on, then?”

  “I promised I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “You told René.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you . . . yet.”

  René patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry . . . ’til Tante Lulu is done investigating.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel better.” Tante Lulu investigating? This is not good. An idea came to him. “Hey, if this is about Celine not having a fiancé, I already know that.”

  “Celine has a fiancé? You didn’t tell me that,” Remy chastised René.

  “It better not be one of those dorky Village People events either.” His family had a habit of performing these outrageous Village People musical extravaganzas when one of them was close to the altar. Which he wasn’t.

  “No Village People act,” René promised. “At least not yet.”

  “You better watch the competition, though,” Remy warned, motioning his head toward the other side of the clearing where Sabato was talking to Celine, who was leaning against a tupelo tree.

  For some reason, he felt proprietary about Celine being against a tree like that. Too much of a reminder of what they had done against a tree yesterday. And Sabato for damn sure was looking at her as if he’d like to pluck a few peaches off of her tree.

  He hated feeling like this.

  Maybe there was something to Tante Lulu’s thunderbolt crap.

  Scary thought, that.

  No way!

  He decided then and there to begin his own novena to St. Jude, asking for a thunderbolt antidote.

  Who are they kidding? . . .

  Angel leaned backward, hands at his waist, and groaned as he worked out the kinks.

  He noticed Grace watching him. She did a lot of that lately. He winked.

  She sno
rted.

  “I haven’t done this much physical labor since I was on a reform school chain gang.”

  She snorted again. Honestly, she had the cutest snort. “They haven’t had chain gangs for ages.”

  LeDeux raised a finger in the air. “Correction. Some prisons in the South still do chain gangs.”

  “Well, for teenagers, then,” Grace amended.

  “Okay, so it was a reform school farm,” Angel said, walking over to tug on one of her red curls. She hated when he did that.

  “I can attest to that,” Peachey interjected. “I grew up on a farm. Ugh! Chain gang, for sure.”

  “Did you hear about the Mother Superior who ordered one hundred and twenty bananas for the convent?”

  Grace groaned.

  “When the grocer said he could give her a discount if she took one hundred forty-four, the Mother said she supposed they could eat the other twenty-four.”

  “You are weird, do you know that, Angel? Weird.”

  “And dontcha just love it?”

  “Break’s over, people,” Famosa said. He was project leader and a pain in the ass. The Cuban dirtbag had taken a special interest in Grace. And Grace was returning the interest, dammit. Apparently, Grace had visited Cuba one time in her nun capacity.

  He had known Grace for about ten years, and she had already left the convent by then. As close as they were, as friends, even he was in the dark about what had happened. But then, he didn’t talk about his younger days either. All those years of friendship had caused him to be protective of Grace when men were putting the moves on her.

  Who was he kidding? He had been in love with her for so long he ached with it. She didn’t suspect a thing, and he didn’t intend to ever tell her. She’d been a nun, for the love of a Harley. He, on the other hand, had been things he never wanted her, or anyone else, to know about. A buried past, which would hopefully stay that way.

  “Got it bad, do you?” LeDeux remarked, coming up to shovel next to him.

  That jarred him a bit . . . that he’d been so obvious. He must be slipping.

  “No one else noticed,” LeDeux assured him, as if that was any assurance. One word to LeDeux’s wacky aunt, and he would have the Cajun matchmaker riding his tail.