“Do you really think it’s okay for me to leave?” Marjolaine had told her the same thing, but Sophie felt uncomfortable just walking away from Maude’s wake. She looked around the room. Three of Maude’s friends—the Lagniappe Ladies, Marjolaine had called them—were sitting on chairs to the left of the casket. Two of them were Alain’s mother and Estelle Jefferson, whom Sophie had met earlier. The third was Alain’s ex-mother-in-law, Marie Lesatz. If Sophie stayed, she would be expected to join them at their vigil.
And then there was Alain himself. She was coward enough to be happy to avoid seeing him at all if she could manage it. She turned back to Luc, willing a smile to her lips. “I would love to stay at La Petite Maison. Can you wait a moment while I get my coat?”
Five minutes later they were standing on the wide verandah of the funeral home. The rain was still coming down, cold and relentless. Fog rose from the low places in the rolling lawn that surrounded the building and wreathed the streetlight overhead. Sophie shivered. It wasn’t as cold as it sometimes got in Houston, but the dampness crept into your bones if you lingered outside too long.
“Is your car nearby?” Luc asked her. He was holding the huge black umbrella that Marjolaine had pressed on Sophie when she’d sought out the funeral home manager to tell her of the change in plans. Marjolaine had seemed pleased with her decision, stating that she was looking forward to seeing the improvements Luc Carter had made to La Petite Maison, and laying to rest any last doubts Sophie had about driving off into the night with the handsome stranger.
“I’m parked in the church lot.” She pointed across the street to St. Timothy’s.
“If you give me your keys I’ll bring your car around.”
Sophie opened her mouth to assure him she could find her own way to the bed-and-breakfast when a big black SUV with a reflective Indigo Police Department decal rolled to a stop beside them. The door opened and Alain Boudreaux got out. Sophie would have known him anywhere, the tall lanky build, the easy athletic grace with which he moved, the way he tilted his head a little to the left when he walked. He was still in uniform, and aside from the plastic-covered gray Stetson on his head, dressed all in black—shirt, pants, shoes and leather bomber jacket. “Speak of the devil,” Luc said quietly under his breath. “I believe it’s Chief Boudreaux himself come to pay his respects to the dead.”
“CARTER.” Alain touched his fingers to the brim of his hat.
“Chief,” Luc responded in a neutral tone. “Busy night?” he inquired pleasantly enough.
“Always is when it rains this hard. Some people just never get the hang of driving on wet roads.” Alain turned his head slightly to bring the woman standing beside Indigo’s newest citizen into view. “Hello, Sophie,” he said. Her face was shadowed by the big black umbrella Carter held over both of them, but he didn’t need to see the expression in her slanting, gray-blue eyes to know she was wary of him.
“Hello, Alain,” she said in a polite, distantly friendly voice, as if he were only another of the near strangers who had already offered her condolences that night. He didn’t attempt to shake her hand because he didn’t quite trust himself to touch her. Would that old snap and sizzle of awareness still be there between them? Or was it gone, withered away with the passage of time and neglect? He wasn’t prepared to find out just then.
She didn’t offer her hand either, keeping both of them shoved deep into the pockets of her expensive-looking suede trench coat. She had belted it close around her slim waist, showing him she still had the kind of figure that stirred a man’s blood.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier to pay my respects. There was an accident out on the highway. Three-car pileup, and the parish sheriff couldn’t see his way clear to send a deputy this far south just for roadblock patrol.” That kind of neglect of Indigo and its environs was all too common an occurrence, and one of the reasons he was thinking of running for sheriff himself come the next election.
“You don’t have to apologize for doing your job, Alain. I hope no one was seriously hurt.” Her voice was softer this time.
“No fatalities,” he said.
“I’m glad.”
“I’m taking Ms. Clarkson to La Petite Maison so she can get a couple of hours rest,” Carter inserted smoothly. Alain cut a glance at the younger man. He was dressed in a dark suit and white shirt open at the throat. The shirt was silk and the suit had a European cut and looked to be imported. He and Sophie made a striking couple. A remnant of his old insecurity stirred inside Alain, surprising him with its resurrection. It had been a long time since he’d felt he didn’t measure up.
He turned his attention back to Sophie. “I was bringing you Maude’s effects,” he said, angling his head toward the SUV. “I meant to get them to you several hours before this. I’m sorry I didn’t make it.” Rain dripped off the brim of his hat and found its way down the collar of his coat. He hunched his shoulders slightly against the chill.
“Your duty comes first,” Sophie said once more in that polite but distant tone that told him she didn’t want any more to do with him than she had to.
“I can give you a lift to Maude’s place if you don’t want to make the drive out to the B&B.” The offer came out of his mouth without his thinking of it. It was an automatic response, a learned behavior. She was unfamiliar with the area. It was late at night, raining hard. It was his duty as an officer of the law to make sure she didn’t come to harm. Nothing more.
“La Petite Maison’s only a mile out of town, but I was about to offer Ms. Clarkson a ride if she’s too tired to drive her own car.”
Again Alain turned his attention to the other man. It was the look in his eyes, he decided, something that told him the suit and the shirt and shoes might be expensive, but Luc Carter hadn’t always been rolling in dough. And then there were the unanswered questions about his past. The trouble in New Orleans that had landed him in enough hot water to get him sentenced to probation for two years and exiled to a place like Indigo.
“What I’m too tired to do is stand here in the rain arguing about where to spend the night.” Sophie’s sharp words cut into his musings about Luc Carter’s recent brush with the law. “I thank you both for your offers to drive me to my night’s lodging, but I think I can manage to get to the B&B on my own. Chief Boudreaux, I’d appreciate it if you’d have my godmother’s effects ready when I pull up.” She gave him a look that even in the dim light was easy enough for Alain to read: she’d had a long day with another one looming before her and she had no intention of becoming the bone in a dog fight. She ducked out from under the sheltering umbrella and headed for her car.
“I think we’ve been put in our places,” Luc said, watching her slim, straight back disappear into the shadow of St. Timothy’s.
“Without a doubt.” Alain kept his attention focused on the other man. Maybe it was time to dig a little deeper into Luc Carter’s past. The B&B was owned by Celeste Robichaux, Luc’s grandmother. Luc’s father had been her son, Pierre, though Luc had chosen to go by his mother’s maiden name for some reason. To the old-timers of Indigo, Celeste Robichaux was a well-known figure. But few people, except those such as Alain’s own grandmother, to whom family ties and blood lines were all-important, knew that Celeste’s daughter had married a man named Remy Marchand and now owned a hotel in New Orleans.
A hotel that had been in the news a lot a year or so ago.
“I can see the wheels turning in your head, Boudreaux,” Luc said. “I haven’t stepped one foot out of line or been as much as five minutes late meeting my parole officer since I got here.”
“I know.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Professional courtesy between the New Orleans PD and Indigo?”
“Something like that.”
“No need to start hassling me just because I offered the lady a place to stay for the night. It’s my job, remember.”
“No hassle, Carter. Just doing my job. You were charged with felony theft, criminal mischief, f
raud and conspiracy. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of your good citizenship. Sending a woman off alone with an accused felon wouldn’t be fulfilling my obligation to serve and protect the citizens of Indigo, now would it?”
“Look, what I did back in New Orleans wasn’t smart, but I’ve spent the last ten months working my fingers to the bone on the cottage to make restitution to the Marchands.”
“Your family, you mean.”
When Luc didn’t say anything, Alain decided not to press the matter.
Luc’s eyes glittered in the reflected light of the streetlamp. “I’m serving two years probation. After that, three more years of model citizenship will get me a clean record. It will sure as hell be easier to accomplish if the whole town doesn’t know about me.” A car engine purred to life in the church parking lot. Carter angled his head in that direction. “Here comes Ms. Clarkson. What am I supposed to tell her?”
Luc was right. He’d kept his nose clean since he’d come to Indigo and Alain had no good reason for giving him a hard time, other than the fact that he hadn’t liked seeing him stand so close to Sophie under the big umbrella. He gave the other man a curt nod. “I’ll get Maude’s things for her while you bring your car around.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DAY of the funeral was cool but sunny. The low dark clouds and cold rain that had persisted all through the night of Maude’s wake had been blown away by the wind that sprang up just before dawn, allowing the few weary mourners who remained a glimpse of a glorious sunrise. By the time her godmother was laid to rest in the pink marble Picard vault in the cemetery behind St. Timothy’s church, blue skies canopied the crowd of friends and townspeople who attended the service.
There had been tears at the funeral, but none at the luncheon that followed in the church hall. Like the dark clouds, the sadness was swept away by the happy memories of Maude’s long, busy life. By the time Sophie had said her last goodbyes to the mourners, assured her parents it was okay for them to go back to Houston and leave her behind in Indigo, and driven back to the B&B, she was so tired she’d gone directly to bed and slept until noon the next day.
She’d awakened feeling rested physically, but reluctant to leave the B&B. She wished her grandmother could be with her. She didn’t want to face sorting through Maude’s possessions on her own. Now it was the middle of the afternoon and she still hadn’t stirred herself to go into town but sat rocking on the wide front porch of La Petite Maison. She wrapped her sweater more tightly around her and set her chair gently swaying with her foot. She was honest enough to admit that some of her reluctance to leave the B&B resulted from the fear she would find more than a few unwanted memories of her long-ago summer romance with Alain Boudreaux lurking among Maude’s things.
The screen door opened. “I brought tea and scones and muffins,” Luc announced, offering her a teak tray covered with a vintage embroidered tea towel and set with green Depression glass and a silver teapot, covered with a second towel knotted around it as a cozy. “But I can take them back if you’re not in the mood for tea right now.”
“No. Please stay. A cup of tea sounds heavenly.”
“I don’t want to interrupt your reverie.”
“My reverie was coming perilously close to turning into a nap,” Sophie admitted. “It’s so pleasant out here I’m tempted never to move again.” The B&B was a wonderful place. An authentic, two-hundred-year-old raised Creole cottage built of native cypress timber with a cedar-shake roof. The guest rooms all recently remodeled, had access to the porches that ran the length of the building. Her tiny attic suite even had a small balcony of its own. In another month or two the yard would be a riot of blooming shrubs and spring flowers lining the brick walkway that led to the bayou, but today winter grays and browns still held sway.
“It is nice this afternoon. A welcome change from the cold weather we’ve been having.”
She uncurled her legs from beneath her paisley skirt and rested her hands in her lap. “I’m a little ashamed of myself for frittering away the day like this. I should be at Maude’s, or the shop, setting things to rights.”
Luc studied her for a moment with shrewd blue eyes before he spoke again. “You’ve had a tough couple of days. Maude’s things will wait. The Lagniappe Ladies took care of all the perishables in Maude’s house. Her neighbor is feeding her cat. There’s no reason for you to wear yourself out sorting through her things until you’re rested and ready.” He set the tea tray on a small wrought-iron table beside her left hand, seated himself in the chair on the other side of it, and began to pour the tea with none of the self-consciousness most men would exhibit performing such a feminine task. But then he was an innkeeper, and a hotelier by trade, she reminded herself, at ease with such rituals of hospitality.
He was certainly easy on the eyes, wearing a silky black polo shirt and a pair of stone-gray slacks with a knife-sharp crease.
“These muffins are wonderful,” she said hurriedly when he caught her absentmindedly licking melted sugar from her fingers. She hoped he wasn’t reading her thoughts. “What kind are they?” She looked down at the crumbs on her plate. She hadn’t even known she was hungry, but she’d eaten a scone and two of the mini-muffins—and was thinking about trying a third.
He pointed them out. “Honey orange. Cranberry walnut and blueberry.”
“They’re marvelous. Just like the nut bread I had for breakfast.”
“I’ll pass the word on to the baker, Loretta Castille. She’s starting her own business and she’ll appreciate the compliment.”
“I wish I could bake like this.” She didn’t even own baking dishes. She seldom cooked, seldom ate at home. Her business was entertaining the prospective philanthropic donors of her firms’ clients at Houston’s finer restaurants, not cooking for them herself.
“It’s an art as well as a skill.”
“I never looked at it like that, but you’re right.” With a smile she gave in to temptation and popped a bite-size blueberry muffin into her mouth. When she’d finished her second cup of tea she knew she couldn’t put off her trip into Indigo any longer. “I think I can make it through to dinner now.”
She stood up and Luc stood with her. “I noticed there’s turtle soup on the menu tonight at the Blue Moon when I drove through town earlier,” he said. “I highly recommend it.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.” He held the door for her while she went inside to get her purse.
“If you want some company, I’m not busy,” Luc said easily, but his blue gaze was still assessing, and all too perceptive.
“Thanks, but no. I’ll be fine.” She appreciated his offer, but she realized she needed to do this on her own.
Still, she was almost sorry she’d turned him down when she opened the door to Maude’s house and was greeted with the familiar smell of cats, old leather and lavender sachet that she’d always associated with her godmother. The room was small, packed with heavy, thirties-era upholstered furniture, except for a nearly new flat-screen TV that looked out of place on the drum table where it was sitting. The walls were papered in a faded rose print, covered in landscapes and amateurish still lifes, juxtaposed with fretwork shelves packed chockablock with all manner of glassware and china figurines.
It was all so familiar, and yet sadly empty without Maude’s bustling presence. Sophie sat down on the edge of the sagging chintz sofa and covered her face with her hands, the tears she’d felt burning at the back of her eyelids all afternoon spilling over at last. “Goodbye, Nana,” she whispered into the quiet. “I’ll miss you, and so will Grandma Darlene.”
She had spent so many happy times with Maude when she was younger. Sophie was an only child. Her parents were successful, driven people, her mother now a state district court judge, her father head of the prestigious fund-raising firm of Clarkson and Hillman. Her grandmother was a loving woman, but with a full and busy life of her own that left little time for playing dolls and dress-up with a sometimes lonely little girl.
But it hadn’t been that way when she’d visited Maude in Indigo. There were always vintage clothes in the storage area of Past Perfect to play dress-up in, and bedraggled baby dolls to clean up and bedeck in the yellowing doll clothes that had belonged to Maude herself. She had had summer friends to go on bike rides with along the bayou, swimming in the pool the town had built in the river park, ice-cream cones and ice-cold watermelon slices at the church festivals that went on almost every weekend…and then the summer she turned eighteen…Alain.
She remembered him as he had been in those days, thin and gangly, his big hands dangling from skinny arms, his hair long and slightly shaggy, the way all the boys were wearing it then, his nose too big for his face. He didn’t look like that anymore. He’d grown into his body and his nose. He was harder and stronger…and she wasn’t going to think about him anymore.
Suiting action to thoughts, she stood up and walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, peeking into the room that was always hers when she stayed with Maude. Nothing had changed since her last visit, the familiar pale-yellow wallpaper festooned with purple honeysuckle, the colors faded a tiny bit more than they’d been in the spring, the muted blues and reds of the Oriental carpet, the same walnut armoire and dressing table, the same white candlewick spread on the squeaky iron bedstead and lace curtains at the window.
She went across the hall to stand in the doorway of Maude’s bedroom. The bed, with its antique wedding-ring quilt, was neatly made, her chenille robe, the same one she’d been wearing as long as Sophie could remember, folded at the end of the bed, her slippers peeping out from beneath the coverlet. Her friends had taken care to make it look as if she’d just stepped out of the room, not left it forever.
The kitchen, spanning the width of the narrow house, as the living room did, was just as she remembered it, too. Chrome table and chairs, white-painted, glass-front cupboards and scrubbed pine counters and the collection of china hen-and-rooster salt and pepper shakers on the windowsill above the sink. Surely she didn’t have to start dismantling the bits and pieces of Maude’s life right this minute? Tomorrow or the next day would be soon enough. She left the house, locking the door softly behind her. She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in her throat.
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