Tall Dark Stranger (Cajun Cowboys Book 1)

by Patricia Watters

  "We did, and it's time to fill in more gaps." Joe set the roll of tape aside, walked over to Anne, took her by the arms and kissed her. She found herself wanting to put her hands around his neck and kiss him back, but she couldn't because Joey was sandwiched between them, so she allowed Joe's lips to caress hers, and the kiss to hold until she needed to take a breath. His hands still on her arms, he said, "Did that bring anything back?"

  Anne wasn't sure if what she felt was from her past with him, or because she was looking at an exceptionally handsome face with a pair of dark eyes that had her heart racing, and a decidedly masculine mouth the sight of which made her chest feel tight, but she definitely felt flutters in her stomach from the kiss, and her lips tingled with familiarity. "I don't know if it's memories, but it stirred up feelings."

  "What kind of feelings?"

  "I suppose the kind a woman gets when the man she loves kisses her. I just wish I could remember why I loved you."

  "You will in time, sugah. Meanwhile, I need to keep maskin' these moldings so I can start paintin' this room." He gave her a quick kiss, stroked Joey's cheek with the curve of his knuckle, then crouched on his knees and picked up the roll of tape and continued masking the baseboard. "Incidentally, Momma says to come for lunch so she and Mamere and the rest of the family can spend time with you and Joey. Momma fixes a big midday meal, and with this house the way it is right now I haven't been eating here, so the kitchen's not stocked with food."

  "Then you'll be with me when I go there?" Anne asked.

  "I'll walk you there and grab a bite to eat, but I want to get back here and finish paintin' the rooms and getting the house ready for refinishing the floors."

  Anne eyed him with uncertainty. "What if your family asks me questions? My mind's still a blank slate and it's embarrassing when I can't answer even the simplest question."

  "My family knows what happened and they understand. Momma and Mamere want to start spoilin' our little rebel." When Joe reached up and brushed Joey's cheek with the pad of his finger, Joey smiled, kicked out a leg and let out a coo, which had Joe grinning.

  "Then they must know what we named him," Anne said.

  "They do. Are you okay with him bein' baptized in the Catholic Church?"

  "I suppose." Anne figured it must have been okay since she'd agreed to be married by a priest. "When is this baptism supposed to take place?"

  "Right after mass. Father Thomas needs to know who the godparents will be, and my cousin, Zenon, and his wife, Leona, want to take on the responsibility if that's okay."

  "That's fine," Anne said. "Then this will be a big church affair?"

  "No. It'll follow Sunday mass so it'll only be family and close friends. Invite your folks if you want, but I can tell you right off, they won't come."

  "I know, and I'm fine with that."

  "Just so you'll be prepared, my family's plannin' a big celebration for after the baptism."

  "How big?" Anne asked, uncomfortable with the thought of being the focus of a crowd.

  "Big, but don’t worry, darlin'. You and I will be lost in the mob. Cajun celebrations are pretty much the same. We look for reasons to get together for good food, and there's always plenty of beer and a band to get folks dancin', but this time I'll be dancin' with the prettiest girl in the parish."

  When Joe smiled, Anne's heart quickened. His was a face she was beginning to know. She could imagine looking at it over the years and even growing old with Joe, an odd thought to have since she'd intended to marry him before, but until she straightened his bed and found the nightgown, he'd just been a tall dark stranger, not a man she could imagine sharing that bed with.

  Her attention was drawn to the front door where, through the glass window in it, she saw two young women. "Do you have sisters?" she asked.

  Joe glanced around. "No, you do. Those are your sisters, Piper and Georgia."

  "Then you know them?"

  "About as well as they know me. The smaller one with the brown hair's your younger sister, Piper, and the tall one with the reddish hair's your older sister, Georgia." He opened the door and said to them, "The place is a mess but you can visit Anne in her bedroom."

  The tall one with the reddish hair stepped just inside the door, and said to Joe, "That would be okay, but we really came to bring Anne to our house."

  From the expression on Joe's face, he seemed as disturbed by that suggestion as Anne was, and when he looked at her to see what she wanted to do, she said to the one he'd referred to as Georgia, "I'm sorry, but I'd rather stay here, but I would like to talk to both of you."

  "Then you know who I am?" Georgia asked.

  Anne nodded. "Joe just told me you're my older sister, but I really don't recognize you. Maybe after we talk a while it'll start to come back." She hated having to explain something so basic yet so baffling, finding it both awkward and humiliating.

  Georgia patted her arm. "It's okay. Daddy explained it to us, including what the doctor said, so we really do understand."

  Anne was struck by her sister's reference to the man she knew to be her father, as Daddy. She couldn't imagine feeling that kind of affection for the man. But she couldn't imagine calling him Dad or Father either. "I'm glad you do understand because it's awkward."

  "Don't let it be. Nana, our grandmother, also wants to see you, but she won't come here." Georgia looked at Joe with a start, then her expression became contrite as she added, "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

  Joe shrugged. "She probably wouldn't feel any more welcome here than I would at your place, so it evens out."

  "Our parents are trying to adjust to this… situation," Georgia said.

  "Your parents don't have to adjust to anything," Joe replied. "Anne's free to go there any time she wants."

  The other sister stepped inside. "I'm Piper," she said to Anne, "but you always called me Pip. Do I look familiar at all?"

  Anne scanned the length of her sister, the one aspiring to be the jockey, affirmed by her petite size, worn pants and scuffed knee-high boots. "This thing with my memory, it's hard to explain."

  "You don't need to," Piper said. "We're just so relieved you're okay, and once you're back home your memory will start to return."

  Anne was finally beginning to understand the nature of this visit from her sisters. They'd been sent by their parents to bring her home. "I am home, and some things have already started to come back while I've been here," she said. All of them, things about Joe she realized. The touch of his hand. The smoky taste of his tongue. The smell of leather and lavender. The shape of his distinctly masculine mouth and large square hands.

  "I meant the home where we all grew up," Georgia said. "But you will be coming to the house and spending time in your old room, won't you?"

  Anne felt decidedly uncomfortable with that idea. The thought of being there without Joe made her feel vulnerable because, whereas she trusted Joe to tell her the truth when filling in details about her life before her memory loss, she didn't trust the man who was her father. He could fill her blank slate with biased information about Joe and his family. She wasn't certain what to think about her sisters either. They could share her father's antipathy towards Cajuns. And her grandmother, the woman she apparently referred to as the dowager duchess, would definitely be biased. She looked at Georgia. "I'll get over there eventually, but for now, I want to stay here."

  Georgia looked down at Joey, who was cradled in Anne's arms, and said, "It's hard to believe you have a baby. Can I hold him?"

  Before Anne could reply, Joe cut in, saying, "Maybe y'all could continue this in Anne's bedroom so I can start paintin' the room."

  "That's fine." Anne led her sisters down the hallway to her bedroom and sat at the head of the bed, with Joey on her lap so her sisters could sit at the foot, but for the moment, both sisters stood looking around the room, which had not been painted and had scuff marks on the walls, hand smudges around the doorway, and scratched and worn floors in need of refinishing.

>   Georgia was first to speak. "It's good you're not staying in Joe's bedroom with him, which will give you time to think this thing through before jumping in with both feet and marrying him. Mother and Daddy said you were pretty determined to do that."

  "Joe's the father of my son," Anne pointed out.

  "But you're still not married to him so there's no need to rush into things."

  "Marrying the father of my two-month-old son isn't exactly rushing into things, and since I wanted to marry Joe before I lost my memory, it stands to reason I'll want to marry him after my memory comes back. Besides, I like being around him. I find him very attractive."

  Georgia folded her arms. "A lot of men are attractive, all of Joe's brothers in fact, but that's not a reason to marry them. Joe might be the greatest guy going, but if you marry him you'll live in a place like this for the rest of your life when you could do so much better. If you lived at home there would always be someone to look after the baby so you could go to college and meet an educated man who'd one day have the money to give you a decent house."

  "Is that why everyone wants me back there, so they can talk me out of marrying Joe?" Anne was becoming increasingly annoyed with the direction of the conversation. When her sisters arrived she'd hoped to talk to them as a means of recovering at least some of her memory, but now all she wanted was for them to leave.

  "Georgia, drop it," Piper said. She turned to Anne. "Don't mind Georgia. She always likes to boss people around, and we're not here to try to talk you out of anything. We just want you home where we can be with you and help you get your memory back. We all thought you were dead, and now you're here." She lowered herself to the bed beside Anne, and looking at Joey, who was still cradled in Anne's arms, she said, "He's really cute. What's his name?"

  "Joseph Beausoleil Broussard," Anne announced.

  Georgia eyed Anne with misgiving. "That's the name of the man you used to get into heated arguments with Daddy about."

  "I don't remember doing that," Anne admitted, "but Joe said I did, so I guess I did."

  "Then Joe's behind giving the baby that name," Georgia said.

  "No, he left it up to me and, before the accident, that's the name I told him I wanted and I like it. So, a few days ago we went to the courthouse and filled out the paperwork to legally change Joey's name to Joseph Beausoleil Broussard."

  "You do know Daddy will think you did it to get back at him," Georgia said.

  "Get back at him for what?"

  "Forbidding you to see Joe! Your senior year in high school, word was going around that you and Joe were an item. Daddy told you he hoped it wasn't true, even threatened to send you away to school if it was. Then he forbid you to have anything to do with Joe because the Broussards were… well, I won't repeat what he said, but he was angry and upset that you might throw your life away by running off with someone who was nothing more than a Cajun cowboy."

  "Then I take it he knew nothing about Joe coming to Lafayette to see me on weekends," Anne said, wanting to get some details about her life with her family, maybe some insight into her strained relationship with her father.

  "He didn't know for a while," Georgia said. "When you left here and got a job and an apartment in Lafayette he thought that was the end of it, but a couple of weeks before Christmas, last year, you came home for a party that Mother and Daddy were giving, and someone told Daddy their son saw you holding hands with Joe at a fais do-do. After the party, Daddy was steamed, but you assured him your seeing Joe was a chance meeting, which is why Daddy was so shocked to learn the night of the flood that you'd been seeing Joe all along."

  Georgia's words triggered feelings of anger and determination, leading Anne to wonder again if she'd moved away as a means of defying her father and tying herself to Joe permanently. She hoped she hadn't done so out of rebelliousness. From her reaction when Joe kissed her, or even looked at her, she felt certain she did so because she loved him, but she wouldn't know her true motivation until her memory returned.

  CHAPTER 7

  During the baptism ceremony, Anne had three startling awakenings. The first came when the priest asked the baby's name and she stated, "Joseph Beausoleil Broussard," a name that would infuriate her father, her grandmother, and probably the entire Harrison family, but the deed was done, first at the courthouse, and now with a sacrament that sealed Joey's name in the church records, so the family would have to live with it.

  The second awakening came while she stood beside Joe as the priest had them make declarations and answer questions. It was like a ceremonial bonding between her and Joe, both making pledges for their son, a kind of pseudo wedding.

  The third awakening came while she looked at her baby boy, cradled in his godmother's arms and dressed in the christening gown his Cajun father and grandfather had worn when they were baptized, and an image emerged, another christening gown, one that had come down through the Harrison family and was stored in a special box. It was unclear where the box was, but she knew the gown existed, which meant her family was associated with a church. From her father's derogatory remark about Catholics, they'd have to be Protestant, so when they'd learn Joey was baptized by a Catholic priest with only Joe's family present, it would be another statement of who Joey was.

  On walking out of the church, with Joe holding Joey, and a parade of friends and family around and behind them, Anne began to have second thoughts about the name they'd chosen. "I hope we didn't make a mistake with Joey's name," she said to Joe.

  Joe positioned Joey in the crook of his arm, curved his other arm around Anne and said, "It wasn't a mistake, Sugah. Joey has a name to be proud of so your family will either have to come to terms with it or distance themselves from us, which I wouldn't want for your sake. For me, it makes no difference. Joey's been baptized and he has a good name."

  "I suppose." Anne glanced up at Joe, who looked as proud as a peacock while holding his infant son as family and friends began to gather around to admire the baby in his arms and make a fuss over him, all the while little Joseph Beausoleil Broussard gurgled, and chortled, and chirped and blew spit bubbles and entertained everyone with his innocent baby antics.

  After a few minutes, an elderly woman who resembled Joe's mother, came up to them. Joe kissed her on the cheek and said to Anne, "This is Tante Cece, my aunt."

  The woman eyed Anne closely, but only momentarily before she smiled at Joe, and said, "Ca c'est bon. It's time."

  Joe winked at Anne. "Tante Cece thinks if a man reaches twenty-four and isn't married he's up to no good, and before long, no woman'll want him." Turning to his aunt, he said, "I'm hopin' to be married soon. In the meantime, Anne dances the two-step as good as any Cajun girl."

  Tante Cece smiled at Anne, then looking at Joey, she patted his plump cheek and said to him, "Aw, cher t’bebe," then patted Joe's cheek, hugged Anne, and walked off.

  "I'm surprised she's so friendly," Anne said after the woman was out of hearing distance. "Does she know who my family is?"

  "She knows and doesn't care as long as you marry me, attend the Catholic Church, and we have lots of kids." Joe grinned, which Anne took as him thinking about them spending time in bed to make all those kids, which wasn't so unthinkable anymore.

  To set him straight for the moment though, she said, "Your aunt might have to wait a little longer on us marrying, but about dancing the two-step, you told her I could, but I don't remember anything about it."

  "It'll come back when we get started. You'd never done two-step the first night you showed up at a fais do-do, and before the night was done you were spinnin' out and dancin' like a Cajun. I wasn't about to let any other guy steal you from me."

  Anne smiled as a scene emerged, a sketchy memory of lively music, and couples hopping and jumping around a dance floor, and a feeling of jubilation and excitement filling her.

  All too soon the scene faded as those gathered around them parted.

  Anne looked ahead as Joe's grandmother made her way toward them. Gazing down
at Joey, Mamere said, "Cher, le petite Jesus. Ooo, Ima pinch dat cheek, yeah." She gave Joey's cheek a little affectionate tweak, which had Joey smiling and flailing his arms. She touched the lacy gown, her eyes holding the flicker of memory, then she patted Joey's chest, smiled, and said to the crowd surrounding them, "Allons. Let's go."

  With her words, everyone started toward their vehicles, and soon, an entourage of cars and trucks headed for the Broussard ranch.

  When they arrived, friends had already assembled a giant canopy in case it rained. Beneath the canopy, which backed up to the wide-open doors of the barn, were numerous long tables covered in plastic cloths, and inside the barn, Anne could see a band setting up.

  At the house, Joe pulled to a halt then went around the truck, and removing Joey from his infant seat, carried him inside. Anne noticed that every chance he got, Joe held his son, a man who was proud to be a father. It came to her that Cajuns were truly family-oriented people. Joe had talked about the things he and his kin did together, but for some reason it hadn't sunk in, maybe because there was almost too much to enter on her growing memory slate, but the realization of what Joe had been telling her came today.

  Cajuns worked together, helped build each other's houses, went to the same church, cared for each other's kids, and socialized and celebrated together on a regular basis. They were a part of each other's lives, and what she saw today was a happy, cohesive group of people who lived, loved, and interacted in a good way, and for the first time since Joe found her, she was thankful to be a part of their lives.

  Taking Joey from Joe so she could nurse him, she commented, "It was a nice baptism. I like your family even though I feel a little out of place."

  "You won't for long," Joe said. "You'll be absorbed before you know it."

  Anne liked that idea because at this point she couldn’t imagine being absorbed by the family living across the cane field. She might have grown up there, but she felt no connection. She didn't even feel a connection with her sisters, whose purpose with their visit had been to bust up her relationship with Joe and bring her home to a family that didn't understand her.