Tall Dark Stranger (Cajun Cowboys Book 1)

by Patricia Watters

  "Then take some advice from a guy who's been fleeced by a Harrison woman," Pike said. "Having things up in the air is a damn site better than losin' every penny you own. Already you've sunk all your money into that house you bought for Anne, and that's only the start with a woman who's been brought up the way she has."

  Joe had no argument. The image of Anne in a silk robe reeking of conspicuous consumption, along with the whole lifestyle over there, couldn't be dashed from his mind, which was precisely his dilemma. "The house is for Joey."

  "Maybe it is now but that's not how it started out. But even without the issue with Joey, if you and Anne got married, how long do you think she'd be content livin' here? As soon as the cane's cut she'd be lookin' across the field at the big house and fancy horse shows and garden parties and all the other pointless activities there."

  "Anne never liked that stuff." As soon as he said the words, Joe knew he wasn't fooling anyone but himself. All the time Anne was growing up she'd been actively involved in working and showing her mare. He'd had no connection with her then, but he'd look across the cane field at the activity, and he came to the same conclusion then as now. Tennessee Walking horses were a rich-person's hobby. The idea of spending a fortune on a horse that wasn't good for anything but prancing around a show ring seemed ludicrous, as did sitting around tables covered in white tablecloths while eating pastries with fancy silver forks and sipping tea from tiny china cups.

  Looking askance at him, Pike said, "Anne might've told you she didn't like that stuff but you've seen her over there with the rest of them durin' those fancy teas. She and Kate ducked out of one to come to a rodeo and you saw the way they were dressed."

  Joe remembered it well. The women slipped away from one of the fundraiser teas Anne's grandmother put on, and even though Anne and Kate stashed their hats and gloves in Anne's car, they'd definitely stood out among the rodeo crowd in their fancy dresses and high heels, though he had to admit she'd gotten his heart pumping, even threw off his timing so he'd messed up that day, landing in the dirt four seconds into his bronc ride. But he didn't want to discuss teas, or show horses, or anything else that went on at the Harrisons because it was all a reminder of what Anne would leave behind if she married him. Sunday bush track races, community barbecues, and lively dancing to Cajun music were a far cry from the way she'd been raised.

  Ace, who was riding alongside Pike, peered around Pike, and said to Joe, "If you get custody, what do you plan to do with Joey when we're out workin' cattle?"

  "Momma said she'll look after him, and Lenora would too, but I haven't said anything yet and I don't want word out about the possibility of Anne and me not gettin' married. Whatever way we go, I'm not cuttin' Anne out of the picture. She's Joey's momma and he needs her."

  Ace eyed Joe with misgiving. "So he'd be spendin' half his time over there with the Harrisons, and they'll be danglin' everything they can in front of him, and before they're done Joey'll be over there showin' horses and runnin' after girls who like sippin' tea in the garden, and the last thing he'll want to do is chase cattle."

  "If I get custody I'll have the final say where Joey goes, and I guarantee he'll have more fun here watchin' match races, eating Cajun food and dancin' to Cajun music than over there."

  "Yeah, and wait till Pépère puts him in a match race when he's eight and Charles Harrison gets wind of it. You'll find yourself in court for child endangerment."

  "I could argue that Harrison's teenage workout riders are in just as much danger runnin' full-out around that track. Besides, we both ran match races at that age and survived," Joe said.

  The memory of his first race still brought a rush of excitement. It was before the last of the old tracks shut down. He was eight at the time, and Pépère took him aside and asked if he wanted to race against Bish LeBlanc's horse. Bish's grandson, Tee Roy, would be riding his grandfather's horse, so Joe took him on since he had a score at school to settle with Tee Roy. In the end, Tee Roy backed out and Joe found himself racing a horse with a rooster tied to his back since bush track rules only stipulated the horse had to carry a live rider.

  "Argue all you want," Ace said, "but Harrison would still get you in court and that'll cost you."

  "Then I'll have a talk with Pépère before then, but we're a long ways off." Joe looked ahead at the ranch compound, and a little beyond to where his house sat on a raised concrete foundation with a porch supported by stout brick columns in keeping with raised houses. It was a solid house, so moving it onto the property was a good investment, even if he might have to mortgage it to fight for Joey, but whatever it took, he would have custody of his son.

  After dismounting, he checked his phone messages and was surprised to find a text from his uncle, reading, Papers are ready. Social Services notified. Come ASAP to finalize, this afternoon if possible.

  When Joe pocketed his phone, Pike said, "Problems? You look worried."

  Joe eyed his house, glad Ace pushed him into finishing it. "I'm about to go into battle with the Harrisons. Meanwhile, I could use some novena backup."

  ***

  By the time Anne returned to the house from the bayou, she was cold and wet, and all she wanted was to shower and get ready for bed, feed and change Joey, and have a dinner tray sent up to her room. She was too exhausted to get into anything with her parents, but mostly, she needed time to adjust to having most of her memory back before approaching them about regaining custody of Joey.

  Mid-morning the following day, after she put Joey down for his nap, Piper came to her room and said, "You were gone a long time, yesterday. Did you square things away with Joe?"

  "What do you mean by squaring things away?" Anne asked.

  "Breaking things off. You can't still want to marry him after what he did."

  Anne was reminded again what Piper's opinion of Joe and the rest of the Broussards was. They were all cowboys, their focus on chasing cattle and busting their butts on broncs at rodeos, an activity Piper considered senseless. Why bounce on the back of a horse for a belt buckle when you can run that baby down a track and bring home big bucks. At least that was Piper's dream as a wannabe female jockey. Anne remembered it all now, her sister's arguments with their father, who was against female jockeys. Their arguments started after she announced her own intentions and moved to Lafayette, so it seems their grandmother was right.

  "How much do you actually know about Joe?" Anne asked, deciding to hold off telling Piper she had a good portion of her memory back.

  "Not a whole lot, other than he and the rest of that bunch seem contented to chase cows, hold illegal races, and throw rowdy parties."

  "Those parties are called fais-do-dos. You ever been to one?"

  "No, but Kate told me all about one she went to with Pike Broussard, but I've got better things to do than hang out with a bunch of coonasses."

  "Like hang out with the kind of guy Kate ran off with, I suppose."

  Piper looked at Anne with curiosity. "What do you know about him?"

  "That the guy conned Pike out of his savings with what he called the chance of a lifetime."

  "All investments can be risky," Piper said.

  "Except this investment was already a bust because the guy knew he was about to lose everything, and he wanted quick cash to cover his losses."

  Piper eyed her, dubiously. "How do you know so much?"

  "I heard Pike telling Joe about the guy's scheme of deeding parcels of an undivided section of land, where all the deed holders would receive royalties on an oil well on the property, never mind that the guy knew the coastline was eroding and before long the well would be underwater and become the property of the state, which it did. But before that, the guy suckered Pike into buying a large parcel, and shortly after that Kate left Pike with the man and greener pastures."

  "No, I mean how do you remember so much? I thought you had amnesia."

  "I did until about a half-hour ago when I was at the bayou and things started coming back."

&nbs
p; "Are you serious? You remember everything now?"

  "Not everything. There are still a lot of gaps to fill, but I remember everything about the flood, right up till the moment the car was sliding off the road, but I don't remember anything after that until I ended up in the homeless shelter. I remember everyone here though."

  "Then you might want to prepare for a battle with Daddy over what you named the baby. He's convinced Joe's behind it just to rub his nose in it, and he's furious. Nana too."

  Anne felt the full force of her clash with her father over Cajuns in general and Joe in particular. "Joey's my son and Joe and I were together on his name, and I stand by it."

  "Then why is Joe fighting you over Joey instead of marrying you?" Piper asked.

  Anne stared at her sister, uncertain how to answer because even she didn't know how Joe could change his mindset so drastically. "Like I said, I only just got my memory back and there are still gaps to fill."

  "That's a pretty big gap. Before Joe sued for custody all you could talk about was getting away from here and marrying him. Meanwhile, if you want to fight him on this you'll have to set your grievances with Daddy aside since he has the money and the lawyers."

  Anne wasn't sure she could do that. For years she'd been standing up for Joe, defending his Acadian heritage and demonizing the British for exiling them to a life of poverty, except Cajuns like the Broussards were strong, resourceful people who'd maintained their culture in the face of people like her family. "I'll think about it. Meanwhile, he said my car was hauled away for scrap and I need a car so there must have been insurance money."

  "I suppose there was but you'll have to talk to Daddy about it since he handled everything after you disappeared. He and Mother are in the family room."

  "Fine. I'll get this over with now."

  Anne marched out of her bedroom, down the stairs, through the living room, and into a large paneled room with comfortable furniture instead of Victorian show pieces, and finding her parents and grandmother there drinking coffee and eating pastries from a breakfast cart, she addressed her father, saying, "My car was insured before the flood, and since you said it was hauled off for scrap, there had to have been insurance money. Where is it?"

  "The claim's still open because you were never declared dead, so nothing could be done."

  "Then I'll assure them I'm alive, collect my money and get another car. I'll also need to get a duplicate driver's license since mine was lost in the flood with my purse."

  "We have your purse and driver's license," her father said. "Your purse was in the car."

  "You're just telling me this now?" Anne felt incensed that she hadn't been given that information before.

  "We were taking things one step at a time."

  "No, you were hiding things from me so you could build a case against Joe and me and take Joey. Was there a cell phone in my purse?"

  Her father nodded vaguely, a man losing his power over her.

  "With photos in it?"

  "Some."

  "And you didn't think those photos might help me recover my memory?"

  "Your mother and I were about to sit down with you and look at the photos when we received Joe's response to our petition and it was the last thing on our minds."

  "Yes, I imagine it would be, me recovering my memory at a time when it would be critical for you to turn me against Joe. Finding photos of us together looking happy would definitely put a crimp in your scheme to bust us up. And just for the record, as of today a huge block of my memory has returned, but don't worry, you might still get your way because Joe and I are barely speaking right now, but I want my purse."

  "I'll get it." Her mother stood and left the room.

  While her mother was gone, her father said, "Since you're not getting on with Joe you might consider renaming your son. You're not married to the man so your son could be a Harrison."

  Anne felt her temper bubbling just below the surface. She might not be getting on with Joe because of the roadblocks everyone was throwing between them, but Joey would always have Joe's name. Squaring her shoulders, she said, "No matter how things turn out between Joe and me, Joe is Joey's father, and just for the record, I was the one who wanted to name Joey after Joseph Beausoleil Broussard, not Joe, but Joe's happy with the name, and so am I."

  Anne's father eyed her with irritation. "Your son's namesake boasted about stealing cattle and other property from the British, he consorted with Indians against British law, he was known as a brawler, and he fathered a child out of wedlock and was hauled to jail for refusing to pay support. The only reason he was released from jail was because the townspeople paid his bail so he could keep fighting the British."

  "Maybe he wasn't an upstanding pillar of the community," Anne said, "but he wasn't the murderous criminal the British make him out to be either. He was fighting back after the British demanded the Acadians speak English instead of French, become Protestants instead of Catholics, and get off land that was theirs, some of it land they'd reclaimed from the sea by building dykes, and when they refused, the British took their land and burned their homes and villages. I'd say that was good enough reason to steal a few cows and consort with Indians for survival."

  "The British took their land only after they were offered a chance to become British subjects when they should've been hanged, but your Cajun hero refused what the British offered, choosing to continue waging guerilla war, even scalping some British."

  Anne felt adrenaline pumping because her old argument with her father was back, complete with details she was eager to throw at him. "If you want to bring in scalping, our beloved ancestor, Charles Lawrence, enacted the British Scalp Proclamation of 1756 which offered a bounty for the scalp of every male prisoner sixteen and over, and equal bounties for women and children prisoners. Yet, during this period, the Mi’kmaq Indians signed a series of peace and friendship treaties with the British, each one later violated by them."

  "Well, right now the father of your son is about to get sole custody and your son will grow up believing the British are the cause of every misfortune any Cajun ever had."

  "And if Joey grew up here he'd not only have a disdain for Cajuns, he'd end up at some fancy college like Winston, probably spending more time partying than studying."

  Her grandmother stabbed her walking cane against the floor. "Your statement, my dear, is somewhat ironic, considering all the partying that goes on next door. At least Winston's not chasing after the kind of women who attend those loud functions, one of the reasons your father shipped him off to Cambridge."

  Which explained, Anne realized, why their father had no problem with Winston changing majors on a regular basis. It gave him time to find a nice British girl to marry instead of embarrassing the family by bringing a Cajun girl into the fold. Maybe he'd already had his eyes on one when he was packed off to England.

  The interaction was interrupted when the butler appeared in the doorway and said to Anne's father, "Sir, you and Mrs. Harrison had better come. There are some people here."

  "People we know?" her father asked.

  "Partly. It's the man from next door who was here last week. He's got the sheriff and a woman with him."

  "Good God!" Anne's father shot to his feet and left the room, followed by Anne. Her mother, who'd gone to fetch Anne's handbag, scurried after them.

  In the entry, the sheriff who Anne recognized as the one who'd come to take Joey to her parents the week before, stood with Joe and a woman Anne had never seen. Before Anne could ask what this was all about, the sheriff stepped forward, flashed his ID and said to her parents, "Charles and Helen Harrison?"

  Anne's parents nodded.

  "I'm Officer Moreau and this is Margaret Terry from the Department of Human Services, and this is for you." He offered a sealed envelope to Anne's father. "We're here to take custody of Joseph Beausoleil Broussard and turn him over to his father."

  CHAPTER 14

  "Well, you got your way," Anne said, as she rode with Joe
in his truck enroute to his house, with Joey in his infant seat between them. "Where will I be staying?"

  "I set up your bedroom for now," Joe replied.

  "For now?" Anne looked askance at him. "Then you apparently don't expect me to stay."

  "I don't know what to expect right now, other than you need to be with Joey until we get this sorted out."

  "Which is your way of saying, until you can figure out what to do with me." Anne clamped her mouth shut, determined to say nothing more for the duration of the ride.

  She still didn't know whether to be angry or relieved with what Joe had done. She was out of her parent's house, which was a relief, but in returning with Joe, things were definitely strained. She also viewed it as his house now, not theirs, and certainly not hers. The problem was, she didn't know where she belonged, other than with Joey.

  For the moment though, she didn't even feel like sharing with Joe what happened down at the bayou the day before because what memory she recovered didn't resolve things with them, and one remaining gap was vital—the reason she'd been dragging her feet about marrying him. She'd tell him in time about what memory she had recovered, but for now she was too distraught to go into it.

  Once at the house, she removed Joey from his infant seat, bundled him in her arms and started up the steps to the porch, and Joe grabbed their bags from the bench seat behind the driver's seat and followed her inside.

  What first hit Anne on entering the house was that the kitchen cabinets were installed and there was a new sink along with a new stove and refrigerator. It was hard to remain mad at Joe after seeing what he'd done to make things right for Joey, but the fact that he'd done it for Joey, not her, cut deeply. Still, she said to Joe, "The kitchen looks nice."

  "It still needs new vinyl on the floor, but I'll get around to it soon," Joe replied.

  Anne noticed he didn't ask her to help select the vinyl, but she said nothing.

  You need to be with Joey until we get this all sorted out.

  She had no idea what Joe meant by those words. Sorted out, as when he'd find a place for her to live where she could see Joey regularly? Sorted out, as when she remembered why she'd been dragging her feet about marrying him? Sorted out, as because he had no faith in her love for him? She had faith in her love for him though. So many things were coming back. She now had a basis for that love, and if the rest of the gaps filled in, maybe they could go back to building a life together, if not for them, then for Joey.