by C. L. Roman
Mrs. Bennington began giving Mrs. Foster orders to get the ownership documents out of her bag, so I excused myself to exit the room with Mr. Moreland.
When I made my way out of the bathroom a few minutes later I could still hear them talking in the conference room, so I put my hands in my pockets and glanced out into the exhibit area. Considering we’d only spent a few hours together, I didn’t think Lacey and I knew each other well enough to have me looking over her shoulder on this sort of transaction.
While I waited, I sent a quick text to Aunt Betty, letting her know our possible ETA, then I strolled towards an old cannon in the far corner. I was bending down to look at the muzzle, studying the cement plug in the end of it, when my phone dinged.
Cabin all set. Bingo tonight. That was Aunt Betty’s way of letting me know that I’d be responsible for getting Lacey situated for her stay. Betty’s weekly bingo appointment was one she never canceled.
“Mr. Rodin.” It was Mrs. Foster’s voice, and I turned with a level expression as she approached me. The woman seemed to have softened a little, but that didn’t mean I liked her any more. “Mrs. Bennington would like to say goodbye to you.”
“Do you always refer to your mom as Mrs. Bennington?” I couldn’t help myself. The question was just begging to be asked.
She drew her lips into a line, and I had the feeling she’d intended to force a smile, but couldn’t manage it. “We must leave shortly.”
It didn’t surprise me that I wasn’t going to get an answer from the woman. It was just as well. Anyway, my point had been made regardless, so I headed off back to the conference room while she turned in the other direction.
“Mr. Rodin.” Mrs. Bennington put out her hand to me, and I embraced hers within both of my palms. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“You too, Mrs. Bennington. And please, just call me Luke.”
“Well, Luke, thank you for being good enough to drive this lovely girl out here to meet with me. When you get to be my age, a day like today is almost as big as Christmas morning is for a child. I’m glad we didn’t have to miss it due to her car trouble.”
My gaze met Lacey’s, her cheeks pink as she smiled and nodded her head. “It was my pleasure. Here.” I reached out for the box she had tucked against her chest. “I’ll hold that for you.”
I watched as she hugged the old woman, the two of them murmuring to one another like they were long-lost relatives. I’d heard it said that true family was what you made of it, so I guessed if Lacey were making her family, she would gladly glue Mrs. Bennington right into the middle of hers. There was movement from the corner of my eyes, and Mrs. Foster came in beside me.
But I think I’d do some trimming away at Mrs. Bennington’s family tree before adding her to mine.
Horace held the door open for Mrs. Foster to wheel Mrs. Bennington out to her car. Daylight was waning, and it would be dark in just a half an hour or so. I followed Lacey out of the door, then turned back to the man. “I feel like I read something somewhere about removing concrete plugs from cannons. Seems like it damages the bronze or something?”
He frowned, then peered over his shoulder. “Yes, um . . .” He moved his head up and down. “You’re correct, I think. We just received that piece as a donation, and I haven’t fully investigated what needs to be done. I’m hoping to find the funding to have it restored.”
I pursed my lips and thought about that, trying to remember where I’d read it. Horace was a good deal more relaxed now that Lacey had chosen to leave the items in the historical society’s care for now. I wasn’t as smart as he was, but I liked fixing things.
“If I can find where I read it, I’ll send you the information. It’s somewhere up here in my memory bank, but I just can’t seem to pull it out right now.” I pointed to my temple.
Horace inclined his head in silent thanks before he locked the door behind me. I turned back towards Lacey, noting the funny grin on her face, head cocked slightly to the side as if in thought.
I hit the clicker and unlocked the doors, then opened hers for her. After she’d hopped into her seat, I handed her the small package with Fritz’s little box in it.
“So,” she said when I’d slid into the drivers’ seat. “Could I buy you dinner?”
Chapter Nine
Lacey
After some brief discussion about restaurants, in which I did the “girl thing” and told him I would eat anything, Luke finally recommended a little dive about a half an hour from Lafayette. It wasn’t nasty or unclean, but it was definitely not a high-end locale. My dad would have called it a hole-in-the-wall, which wasn’t derogatory in the least.
I’d made it clear that I was paying in return for the drive, and I had the feeling he’d probably thought long and hard about a suitable establishment that wouldn’t break my bank.
Letting him choose the restaurant was my limit on being a girl, because instead of ordering a demure salad, I immediately went for the Cajun burger with fries. I wasn’t disappointed when I took that first bite either. The spicy crawfish sauce on the humongous beef patty dribbled out of the bottom of the bun, but it was too good to complain over.
Luke chuckled as he chewed his chicken fried steak, then wiped his mouth and took a drink of sweet tea. “I’m guessing you were hungry.”
I nodded. “Famished.” I used a fry to dip up the sauce then popped it into my mouth. “I had a muffin and coffee before getting on the road this morning. Otherwise I haven’t eaten a thing. And I am not the kinda girl who skips meals normally.”
“I like that in a girl,” he said with a little shrug as he cut into his steak.
“My dad would tease me about drying up and blowing away.”
“Ha! I like that. I’ll have to use that on my kids one day.”
Those words started me thinking, so I took one more big bite to put a dent in my extreme hunger, then leaned back in my chair. “Have anyone in the wings ready to make that happen for you?”
His dark brows pinched together, and he gave me a confused glance.
“Kids, I mean. Do you have a girl in your life?”
“Oh!” He finished off his tea and smiled at the waitress as she refilled his glass. “Christ, no. No girl in my life. I’d like a family one day, though. Bunch of no-good Rodin boys running around. Or some sweet little girls who look just like their mama.”
“You know,” I chuckled, popping a fry into my mouth. “Girls aren’t always sweet. And boys can be a little bit good.”
“Eh, what fun is that, though?”
“Well, my daddy used to insist I was the no-good one between my brother and me.”
“Oh, really? Give me an example of your ‘no-goodness.’”
I thought about that, searching my memory banks for just the right memory. “I was really tough on my mom. Always rebelling against her, even long before my teen years. She bought me this pretty dress for Christmas one year. It was the one I’d picked out. I’d begged her for it, told her I just had to have it. I was all of six years old at the time and notorious for changing my mind. Mommy told me that if she bought me that dress, I had to wear it. But then…”
“You changed your mind,” he laughed.
I nodded. “Yep. And I pitched the biggest fit in the whole wide world. I mean, kicking and screaming. I needed an exorcism or something.” His laughter had turned to guffaws, and that only egged me on further. “So Mommy sent me to bed without supper.”
“Oooh! To bed without supper.”
“So, I ran away from home.”
“What? Where did you go?”
I paused, looked down at my hand a minute, then peered up at him through my lashes. “Arkansas.”
“From Texas!”
The stunned expression on his face was so cute and funny that I burst out laughing, covering my eyes with one hand and doing my best not to snort again. “See, Daddy was a truck driver. I jumped into the back of his rig and hid there, being sure not to make a sound for hours. Finally, I fell
asleep, and it wasn’t until he stopped for the night in Little Rock that he found me. By then Mom was sure I’d been kidnapped, and the police were involved. I was in so much trouble.”
“Hell, yes, you were. I can’t even imagine. A six-year-old kid making it all the way from Santa Fe, Texas to Little Rock, Arkansas. That’s the craziest story I’ve ever heard. So, what happened?”
“Well, lucky for me, the distance gave Mommy time to calm down. I think she was seriously considering locking me away in boarding school or something, except they never could have afforded that. But Daddy . . .” I got a faraway look, remembering sitting beside him in the bed at the back of his truck and listening to the radio that night, “I think on some level, Daddy was kind of impressed. Like his baby girl had done something daring or something. At least it seemed that way.”
I sniffed and forced a smile when the waitress brought the ticket. A few minutes later, we were back in the vehicle and on our way to Simoneaux Bayou. It was night time, and as we got closer to the coast and farther from the bigger cities, it turned darker than I ever remember seeing. Luke turned his high beams on and bopped his thumbs on the steering wheel as we rode in silence.
I peered out the window into the black, wondering how close we were to the beach and whether I might hear the waves if I rolled the window down. When I was a kid, trips to the beach were a special treat. My family just wasn’t much for sun and sand and surf. I remembered the one time we’d rented a cabin down in Rockport.
Daddy had beamed with pride and gushed praise on my brother and me when we made a massive sand castle. He listened intently as we showed him the moat and the draw bridge made out of a piece of driftwood. Daddy might not have gotten to take us on many vacations, but the ones we did have were great memories for me to look back on.
“You miss him. Your dad, I mean.”
I was startled not only by the sound of his voice invading my thoughts, but also by the words. He’d made them as a statement, but there was a tenderness in his words that pierced me. I wondered how he could possibly have known my thoughts.
I inhaled a shaky breath, moving my head up then dropping it down in a quick jerk. “Yeah, I do. A lot. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing. How I should move on, you know?” I wasn’t sure he did know, but it didn’t matter. For some strange reason, it seemed okay to talk to him about it, maybe because it was pitch dark in the truck, and I felt safely ensconced in the black. “I know I’m supposed to. People lose their dads every day, right? But weird things catch me off guard. A scent. A song. Sometimes, I don’t even know what it is that sparks it. Yet even after over a year, it can still gut me.”
I felt stupid then. Like one of those people who just couldn’t get over something and were destined to let it ruin the rest of their entire existence. Sure, I was a functioning adult, working and carrying on my life. And I didn’t think of Daddy every moment of every day, but when his memory did start haunting me, it scared me. Like this would be the time I had a complete freak out and would totally lose control of myself. So, I just couldn’t afford to let that happen.
“I think . . .” He paused, and I sensed he was searching for his words. “People do lose their dads every day. But you don’t. You only had one dad to lose, and what it did to you is yours and no one else’s. You know?”
And that did it. My little thread of control broke, and I started to cry, silently. I did my best to hide it. Biting my lip, I turned my head so he couldn’t see the tracks of tears, but after a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe. I gasped for air and leaned my head against the window, letting the cool glass comfort me.
“Hey,” he murmured, and from the corner of my eye, I saw his hand reached out to me.
I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m just a goof about it sometimes.”
“Hey.” He moved his outstretched hand, and I looked over at him. His eyebrows were raised, and it was clear he was waiting. Finally, I slipped my fingers into his. He brought them to his lips and placed a kiss on my knuckles, then let them drop down to rest on the seat between us. I cried a few minutes more, but our entwined hands grounded me, and it didn’t take long for the tears to dry up.
But then we stayed that way, my hand in his as he continued driving us all the way back to the bayou.
Chapter Ten
Luke
“When we gon’ do sometin’ besides dese burgers, eh?” Pas Bon asked, sniffing the air near the grill as I started slapping patties onto the fire.
“When are you gonna start pitching in on these cookouts, eh?”
The old man laughed, then punched at me and missed. He tried a second time, and I stepped in close so he could land the soft blow to my arm. I saw Mary give me a questioning look from the pavilion a few yards away. I knew she was silently asking if she should come retrieve the old guy, but I just shook my head and smiled.
Pas Bon was a pain in the ass, but we all loved him anyway. He’d been blinded in a fire when Mary was just a little kid, and since he didn’t have anyone in the world, her parents had taken him in. The fact that he’d lost his sight while saving Mary probably had a lot to do with it too. Still, he fit in perfectly here on the bayou and had become a regular fixture at our weekly get-togethers.
“You’s better not let Pas Bon take over. We be done gon’ have dat crawfish, dat shrimp. I tink some fried shrimp be just ta ting.”
“Maybe I can get some for your birthday. How’s that sound?”
He grunted an affirmative, then turned his head when he heard someone approaching.
“Betty Ruth? Dat you?”
It was. She was making her way from a few cabins down, and she had Lacey by her side. My eyes lingered there, taking in the way the wind caught her straight blonde hair and sent it flying all around her face. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts and one of the Porpoise Beach shirts Aunt Betty sold in the store.
“Stop your fussing, Pas Bon. I’m here, and I brought your favorite just like you asked.”
She grabbed a cold beer from her cooler, popped the top and placed it in the old man’s gnarled hand. He gave her a smile that made his burned face look younger and smoother. It was true Aunt Betty had a soft spot for Pas Bon, too, and I even suspected they had a mutual affection for each other that ran deeper.
“Hey, you.” Lacey grinned as she approached the grill and looked over my shoulder at the sizzling burgers. “Smells good.”
“Thanks. You know,” I frowned. “I just thought about it, we had burgers last night. Probably not what you were hoping for this afternoon.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I can pretty much eat burgers any time.”
“Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
I’d dropped her off at the cabin around nine o’clock the night before. I took my time showing her around, making sure she had towels, extra blankets, and anything else I could think she might need. Then I checked the A/C a few times and made sure the fridge was stocked with water. By nine-thirty, I’d run out of reasons to linger, so I’d finally made my way to the door and started to leave. Lacey’s voice had stopped me.
“Luke. Thanks for today. I appreciate it.”
She’d been leaning against the door, peering over at me with a soft-lidded look in her eyes.
“Any time. Glad I could help.”
Then she’d surprised me by leaning in and pressing her lips to mine. Warm, soft supple lips. I’d wanted to pull her close, to hold her tight and back her into the cabin and make sweet love to her. I wanted to get lost in those dark eyes of hers and that long blonde hair and never come up for air.
Instead, I let her step way and close the door with a softly muttered, “Good night.”
It was just a quick kiss, but it stayed on my mind all night long and made it hard for me to get much sleep. Part of me hoped she’d had the same trouble.
“Yep. Slept like a baby.”
Well, so much for my hopes. Maybe the kiss hadn’t been anything special to her.
“Good. The Tangerine
is Aunt Betty’s nicest cabin.” That was all I could think to say.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice.” She put her hands behind her back and stared at me, licking her lips. I immediately wanted to kiss her again. “Have you ever slept there?”
I shook my head, struggling to keep enough focus on the burgers so I didn’t burn them.
“You should try it sometime.”
Lacey was walking away from me, a confident sway to her hips. Mentally, I replayed what she’d just said. Have you ever slept there? You should try it sometime.
Was that an invitation?
“Dat girl’s got da hots for you, boy.”
I nearly dropped one of the patties into the sand and grass at my feet.
I’d forgotten Pas Bon was even there. My gaze pulled away from Lacey’s retreating backside and down at the old man. He was sitting on an old log, the beer in his lap and both hands one on top the other over the lip of the bottle. He had a certain grin on his mangled face, and I snorted a little chuckle.
“Pas Bon knows.” He tapped his forehead with one finger. “Don’t take eyes ta see dat, dat’s fo’ sure.”
Everyone tore through the burgers like Sherman through Georgia, then they all pitched in to clean up the mess. When the food was put away and the paper plates discarded, the music began.
“Do you guys do this a lot?”
I patted the bench beside me to indicate Lacey should sit down, and when she did, I tossed back the last of my beer and grabbed another from the cooler beside us. “Yeah, we do. The perks of beach life, I guess. You a beach person?”
Lacey shrugged, tapping her foot to the country music blaring from the speakers. “I might be if I were around it enough. We went to the beach a few times when I was a kid. Not much time for it now.”
“You know what they say about all work and no play, don’t you?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah, well, Jack wasn’t trying to get a degree and pay the bills.”
“Probably not. By the way, I forgot to tell you, I have some good news.”
