Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (7 page)

John spoke up first, as if he hadn’t just talked to her, “Hiii, Celine. Welcome to the Pirate Project.”

“Drop dead,” she said.

He chuckled.

“I’m Adam Famosa. Anything you need, just come to me, baby.” Apparently, he was taking John’s ill-advice that Celine liked men who came on strong. For a college professor, Famosa had the brains of a bayou gnat. But then, he was a Yankee. They didn’t know jack about women.

Not surprisingly, Celine gave Famosa the same message she’d given him.
Drop dead, baby.
Except in Famosa’s case it was an unspoken message contained in a disapproving glower.

Famosa glared at him.

He shrugged his innocence.

Famosa stomped off, mumbling something about redneck pricks.

As Ronnie led Celine to meet the other team members, John found himself watching Celine’s back view. She was tall, maybe five-nine, kind of slim, but he noticed the rounded cheeks of her ass moving, first one, then the other, alternating up and down. A real nice rhythm she had going there. Hot-cha-cha. He supposed it was what they called a heart-shaped bootie.

And her legs. Man, she had nice, long, tanned legs, with the most intriguing dips behind her knees. Dips he suddenly envisioned himself licking. Slowly. Long, long laps like a cat. Would she taste sweet, like cream, or tangy with sweat from a bout of hard, energetic sex?

A jolt at his crotch called him up short.
Holy crawfish! I’m getting a hard-on over Celine the Geek’s knees.
That’s what she had been known as in high school, and even college when she’d blossomed a bit. A true blue high IQ, high achiever who looked down on those less intelligent or prone to unimportant things, like fun. God only knew why she’d deigned to go to bed with him that one time. Well, yes, he did know. They’d both been wasted, celebrating the end of exams just before spring break.
But knees? Who knows what I’ll do when I get a gander at her breasts?
Another jolt of his you-know-what was his answer. Despite his reputation, it had been a long time since John had a steady lover, or even a one-night stand. Yep, that must be it. It wasn’t Celine. He just needed to get laid.

But then she turned, and while she was talking to Brenda, she casually whipped out a tube of chapstick, a protection against the fierce sun. She was running it over her mouth. The top lip, right to left. The same for the bottom lip. She filled in the fullness of both lips. Then pressed her lips together.

The blood drained from his head and passed through his body in waves, making him feel faint, all over. His jockeys suddenly got tighter.

This was unbelievable. Totally unbelievable.

Could it be . . . ?

He gasped, spun on his heels, and practically ran over to his aunt. “Tante Lulu, did you put some kind of voodoo aphrodisiac love spell crap on me?”

She was trying to find something in her purse, which was big enough to give a grown man carrying it a hernia . . . “What you talkin’ ’bout, boy?”

“Celine Arseneaux. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Did you put some kind of love potion in my coffee this morning?”

It wasn’t as outrageous a suggestion as it might seem. His sister-in-law Sylvie was a chemist who’d once invented a dingbat love potion that she put in jelly beans. His aunt was big on juju tea. And practically every woman in Louisiana, the birthplace of that celebrated priestess Marie Laveau, knew about voodoo spells.

His aunt just stared at him, for once in her life at a loss for words. Then she grinned, slowly, and did a little Snoopy dance, waving a handkerchief like the marchers in a Bourbon Street funeral. “Praise the Lord and pass the gumbo. The thunderbolt done struck again.”

Celine made her way over to the picnic table where John was chewing on a mechanical pencil, staring with much concentration at a laptop screen, occasionally typing in some data.

“What are you doing?”

He jumped, not having heard her approach, then turned back to the computer, ignoring her.

Okay. So, that’s the way he’s going to play it. Yeah, I agreed not to interview him, but this is taking things too far.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little immature?”

Without looking her way, he replied, “Says she of ‘Drop Dead’ and ‘Sex Cop’ fame.”

“You annoy me.”

Silence.

“I didn’t want this assignment.”

Silence.

“My editor forced me to come.”

Silence.

“What do you think of my belly button ring?”

His head jerked toward her. “Very funny!” He turned away and resumed his silence.

Remy LeDeux, his brother and a pilot, had already taken half the Jinx team in his hydroplane to the project site. She, John, and the rest would go next. That Remy, he was one drop-dead gorgeous LeDeux, but only from one side. Apparently one side of his body, including his face, had been burned in an explosion in Iraq some time ago.

She stared at John in frustration. He was wearing a pair of tan cargo shorts today with a drab green “Bite Me Bayou Bait Company” T-shirt, and flip-flops. His tanned arms and long legs showed muscle definition of either an athlete or guy who worked out regularly. She assumed the latter in his case, probably jogging. His dark brown, almost black hair was a little long, halfway down his neck, now that he’d removed the ridiculous wig.

No doubt about it, John was a good looker, like all the LeDeux men. Even better than he’d been in college when she’d made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Well, not a mistake when she considered the result . . . Etienne.

Meanwhile, John continued to ignore her.

“I had a double major in college. Journalism and computer science,” she told him. In fact, for many years she’d earned the tag of computer geek. “I could help with that computer work.”

Silence.

She was seriously contemplating whacking him over the head with that oar propped again a pirogue sitting on the bank. That would get his attention. “So what’s with Adam?”

He chuckled. “What? Our Cuban Lothario been hittin’ on you,
chère?
”

“Constantly. And I’ve only been here an hour. Is he perpetually horny?”

“Nah. He’s just hardwired to make a move on any beautiful woman.” He shook his head, as if disgusted, whether with himself for talking to her, or with Adam for hitting on her, or for his referring to her as beautiful, she wasn’t sure.

And, no, she was not going to let that back-handed compliment please her in any way, even though she couldn’t recall the last time anyone had called her beautiful.

“Sort of like a dog that rushes in to mark his territory before another dog can get there first,” he elaborated.

Okay, so I’m not complimented.
“Are you comparing me to a dog?”

He grinned. “No. The hydrant.”

She laughed. “I stepped into that one.”

“Anyhow, Famosa comes on strong, but he’s a good guy.” He paused, then made a snorting sound. “I cain’t believe I’m defendin’ that Yankee brick-for-brains.” Celine had been living around southern drawls most of her life, but John’s was particularly attractive . . . slow and sexy, even when he was discussing fire hydrants.

Then, the lout went back to ignoring her.

She started to flick through some laminated maps spread out next to him.

“Don’t touch those,” he snapped, leaning over and slapping the maps out of her hands. Then he went back to his keyboard tapping.

“Touchy, touchy!”

He turned around, flashing her a glower, before his gaze lowered.

“Why are you staring at my knees?”

“You doan wanna know, baby.” His voice had dropped again into a lazy Cajun drawl.

“Huh?”

“Listen, if ya gotta interview someone, go pester Ronnie.”

“Pester? Do you try hard to be obnoxious?”

“No, it comes naturally.”

“Can’t we call a truce here?”

“Hell, no. You are not gonna make me the star of any more of your fantasies.”

“I beg your pardon. I have never had any sexual fantasies about you.”

He grinned. “I wasn’t referrin’ to sexual fantasies. Talk about! I meant you makin’ me out to be some sex cop in a newspaper article, even if you didn’t name me. A fantasy, guar-an-teed.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

His eyebrows shot up in disbelief, highlighting dark brown eyes that were beyond pretty. For a man. Like rich chocolate. “I was so embarrassed. So, do me a favor, baby, and take your sweet ass somewhere else. Like Alaska.”

Celine had been feeling guilty over that sidebar, but she did not like his attitude. Not one bit. So, instead of apologizing, she said, “I didn’t think there was anything that could embarrass you.”

He swung around in his chair and gave her his full attention. “You know what’s embarrassing? As repulsed as I am by what you’ve done to me, I have the strangest compulsion to lick the back of your knees. Now, that’s embarrassing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wanna bet?”

“My knees?”

“The back of your knees.”

She felt the most delicious sensation behind her knees . . . and up higher. As if he could turn her on by touching her knees! Her knees were not erotic spots for her. Besides, she wouldn’t let John LeDeux within a bayou mile of her body, in the sexual sense. Not again. “This is a joke, right?”

“I wish! Not to worry, though. I think it’s some love spell nonsense my aunt is pullin’ on me. It’ll pass. Either that, or I’m gonna kill myself.”

“It’s that unpalatable that you would be attracted to me?” she asked before she had a chance to bite her tongue.

“Not unpalatable. After all, I sure as sin didn’t find you unpalatable that one time.” His lips parted, and his dark eyes went half-shuttered at mention of her one and only fall from grace. The man was a menace to womankind.

“Never mind.”

“No, no, no! You can’t say somethin’ like that and then just drop it. I don’t find you unpalatable, Celine. Just dangerous.”

Now, that she could not ignore. “Dangerous how?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Yes.
“No.”

As if she hadn’t spoken at all, he went on, “One, next time you might use my name and that could ruin my career. Two, you hate my guts, which would be a challenge to any red-blooded male, but especially to this Cajun hot-blooded male, to seduce you into . . . well, the opposite of hate. Three, I haven’t been laid in a month, and I’ve got testosterone oozing out my pores. Four, I am not in the market for a bride, no matter what my aunt says. Five, this is a serious venture, and you are a distraction . . . to everyone.” He turned back to the computer.

Celine’s anger rose higher and higher with each of his numbered remarks. She’d like to answer, one by one, his outrageous assessments of her. But she knew that’s what he intended . . . to bait her into an outburst of temper. Instead, she plunked herself down on the bench beside him and said, “So, what are we working on here, John? It looks like a grid. Is it the project site?”

“That does it,” he said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With a couple of quick clicks, he exited the program, logged off, then asked her in an sickly sweet southern drawl, “Would ya lak ta see mah new screen saver, sweet thang?”

Without waiting for her reply, he pulled up what appeared to be the beginning of a puzzle. The first piece was the back of a neck. Then the back of another neck . . . a woman’s neck, with male fingers cupping the nape. Dark hair, on two different people. A diamond post earring. Then red lips.
Yikes!
It was her red lips. Being kissed by John LeDeux. And it looked as if she was kissing him back. The jerk had blown up the photo of the kiss he’d given her at the Playpen into a seventeen- inch head shot. The kiss that had been a ruse to filch her camera and mike, but you’d never know it by this piece of carnal photography.

Stunned, she couldn’t speak, at first. His mouth was open over hers. And her mouth was open, too. Probably in outrage, about to protest, but no one looking would know that. Both of their eyes were closed, long lashes like sensuous fans against his dark and her lighter face. It was just a kiss, but if she hadn’t known better, she would have considered it a highly erotic bit of foreplay.

“You had no right—”

“Is my tongue in your mouth there? I don’t remember, but hot damn, it sure looks like it.”

She sputtered. A mistake. It gave him an opportunity to continue.

“Every time I look at this picture, I get turned on. How ’bout you, Celine? Do you get turned on lookin’ at our kiss?”

Actually, yes.
“You are such a toad.” She stood, uncaring that John had accomplished his goal . . . getting rid of her.

He said the oddest thing then when she was about to stomp away.

“If I were you, I’d steer clear of Tante Lulu. I suspect she’ll be sprinkling juju dust all over you.”

Chapter
6

The day had been a bust.

Well, not entirely.

John and all the others had worked steadily once they arrived at René’s cabin. First, on orders from Tante Lulu, they’d carted in supplies to the state-of-the-art kitchen, started the generator, turned on the air conditioner, and cleared the pipes to the cistern. No cooking over the campfire here. They were about to sit down to the feast Tante Lulu had spent the past few hours preparing.

They’d also brought in laptop computers which were set up in one corner of the great room, another word for a frickin’ big living room. They still called René’s place here a cabin, or fishing camp, even though the original fishing camp had been replaced with this Better Homes and Bayou Lodge. Donald Trump would be comfortable here.

John hadn’t participated in a Jinx treasure hunt for two years, before he’d joined the police force. But he had done some diving in the interim and kept up his licenses. It would be a different kind of diving in the bayou waters which were pure but the color of well-steeped tea. Plus, the depth was nowhere near like their ocean dives. They probably wouldn’t need more than one tank each. And wet suits, not dry suits.

Using a fifty-by-sixty-foot grid system with twenty-five cubes, they would begin their dives tomorrow morning. One cube of bayou waters at a time, like a lawn mower. Bayou streams varied vastly in width, in some places so narrow a person standing in the middle could extend arms and touch each bank, but in others as wide as the Mississippi. At the project site, the bayou was about sixty feet wide.

Celine, as excited as a kid with a new video game, was fiddling around at the end of the porch, by herself, with a backup sonar scanner, after some sickeningly cozy shoulder-to-shoulder instructions from Famosa. No one had paid any attention to John when he’d warned the team to be careful in how much they let a newspaper reporter participate in the project. Ronnie had taken Celine at her word, that she could be trusted.

John didn’t trust her any farther than he could throw her.

Waiting for dinner, he leaned against the porch rail, drinking a longneck Dixie, keeping an eye on Ms. Tabloid . . . which wasn’t a burden; she had changed to a red tank top and scrunched her hair on top of her head, exposing her neck and shoulders. Now he had fantasies not only about the back of her knees, but her neck and shoulders, too, and especially her ears. In fact, he’d been playing a game with himself. Counting up all the different things he could do to her ears. Seventeen so far.

He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra, but he was saving that fantasy feast for later.

Famosa and Peachey were down at the stream attempting to catch some fish. He could show them how it was done here on the bayou. Maybe later. Ronnie and Brenda were inside helping Tante Lulu. Remy had left, but would return occasionally with René who would no doubt want to make sure the team was doing everything in an environmentally friendly manner, not to mention checking up on his property.

They’d all worked hard this afternoon taking supplies to the project site by pirogues. Then they’d had to build a raft to carry the heavier equipment . . . the primary sonar scanner to take pictures of the bayou floor; the magnetometer to detect iron and steel, even when well buried in the muddy bottom; shovels, pickaxes, vacuum pumps, and blowing devices. Regular and underwater cameras. Diving suits and oxygen tanks.

“How about a drink?” Celine asked.

He’d been lost in his own thoughts and hadn’t realized she’d come up to him and was reaching for his beer, which was half empty.

She tipped her head back and he watched, mesmerized, as her throat worked. Chug, chug, chug. And, yep, he’d been right. No bra. Raising her arms caused her chest to arc out, giving him a really good idea of just how her breasts would look uncovered. A nice handful, in his estimation, but would they be pink-tipped or dark rose? He couldn’t recall from that one time they’d been together. Hell, he couldn’t even recall if they’d taken their clothes off.

“Stop it!”

His eyes shot up. “What?”

“You know what. First my knees, now my boobs.”

“Sorry. You planted them right in my face. What was I supposed to do?”

“Look the other way.”

“Yeah, right.”

“This place is really nice,” she commented, bracing her hands on the rail beside him.

He turned to stare in the same direction as she was. “It
is
a pretty spot . . . René calls it his paradise.” The cabin faced a wide section of Bayou Black. Off on the right, the water veered into a fork, the center of which was a small island, about half the size of a football field.

“Do you ever go over to the island?”

“Sure. Sometimes during storms, it gets covered by water, but mostly it stays above ground. It’s the natural habitat of a zillion birds and animals. A microcosm of its own.
National Geographic
filmed here one time as a segment of its ‘Hidden Treasures of Nature’ TV special. I’ll take you over sometime this week, if we have time.”

She nodded, but she did it reluctantly, which really pissed him off. Even when he was being nice, she couldn’t bend a little. “What is it with you and that chip on your shoulder with my name on it? What did I ever do to you?”

Her face went stiff and closed in, as if she was trying to hide something.

This was getting weirder and weirder.

He cocked his head to the side. “Surely, you don’t hold it against me that we did the dirty that one time. It was consensual, babe. I didn’t force you into anything you didn’t want to do.”

“I never said you did, and I don’t appreciate talking about it, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don’t you want to talk about it? Are you ashamed?”

“Of course not. Well, yes, I am. I was never in your league, and I feel foolish that I put myself in that position.”

“League? What league?”

“I was invisible to you, before and after the . . . uh, incident.”

Incident? That’s what they’re calling the deed today?
“What a crock!”

“Don’t try to say you ever noticed me in high school or in college before that party. And you sure as Satan ignored me afterward.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.
“I did not ignore you. You walked by me with your nose so high in the air that, if we’d had a rain storm, you would have drowned.”

“I only ignored you because you ignored me. This is a pointless discussion. You asked me what I have against you. Well, you treat women as sex objects, bouncing from one to the other as if life is a sexual trampoline. You’re too frivolous. You think you’re hot stuff. How’s that for a start?”

“You do not know me. At all. Yeah, I like women, but my reputation is vastly exaggerated. And I like havin’ a good time. Why not? My life at home was hell, if you must know, an abusive alcoholic father and a clueless mother who cared more about shopping than any bruises on my body. I work hard at a job that provides a service, and I’m a good cop, too, despite your friggin’ article. As for hot stuff . . . ” He shrugged. “Yeah, I am pretty hot.”

They both glared at each other, then burst out laughing at the same time. He reached over and gave her a quick hug, just to show there were no hard feelings.

“Come eat,” Tante Lulu yelled from the doorway which was only about three feet from where they were standing.

Startled, he and Celine jerked apart. The gleam in his aunt’s eye told him that she interpreted the hug as another spark from the thunderbolt. He would have to set her straight later.

Before they went into the house, he reminded Celine, “I still intend to collect on my payback.”

She ignored his threat, but he could tell that she knew what he meant. Just in case, he said, “A weekend of hot screaming can’t-get-enough sex at a place of my choice.”

“Moron,” she muttered. But she was smiling.

Soon they were all seated at a long, rustic pine table with benches on either side and armed chairs at either end. He made sure he was at the opposite end of the table from Celine, not chancing any further conversation that would give her more ammunition to use against him.

But he wasn’t the only one with trust issues.

Despite her best intentions, she glanced at John more times than she should. She didn’t trust the Cajun rogue any more than she would trust that friendly alligator Useless. He was a devil, that’s what he was, just waiting for the opportunity to jab her with his pitchfork, in one way or another. She felt like she was fifteen again, the Plain Jane Geek watching the Cool Guy stroll by, never sure if he was going to cut her dead by ignoring her or do something to humiliate her . . . like smile . . . or wink.

Aaarrgh! This assignment was going to be the death of her.

Meanwhile, various conversations were taking place around the table, and she had to admit it was an interesting group of people. They would make a colorful feature story, in themselves.

“How long have you been a newspaper reporter?” asked Brenda Caslow, who was seated on her right. And, boy, talk about interesting! She was a former race car mechanic and was married to superstar NASCAR driver Lance Caslow. The sports editor at the
Times-Tribune
was going to have a bird when he found out she’d gotten a promise of a personal interview with Lance and an exclusive on some yet-to-be-disclosed future plans.

“Since I graduated from college. I started out with a Houston weekly, went to the
Dallas Morning Call
, and then six months ago moved to the New Orleans paper.”

Adam Famosa, the Cuban professor, turned to her, from her other side. He was about forty, with silver-threaded black hair tied at his nape with a leather thong. Not unattractive when he wasn’t aggressively hitting on her. She suspected there was a human interest story in him, too. Just how did he arrive in this country at age eleven? “John says you’ve had lots of awards . . . for someone so young.”

Celine’s gaze shot to John with surprise.

“What?” said John. “You didn’t think I knew anything about you,
chère?
”

Now, that is an alarming idea.
“Why would you care to know anything about me?”

“Darlin’,” he chided her, “you’re a good-lookin’ woman. I’m a Cajun man. Enough said.”

“Bull! I don’t want you checking out anything about me.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, as if to show he was definitely checking her out. “What? It’s okay for you to dig into my past, but reciprocation is taboo?”

He had a point there. She crinkled her nose at him.

“What’s with you two sniping at each other all the time?” asked Caleb Peachey, an ex-Amish Navy SEAL, of all things. Caleb was overly serious and rarely spoke about anything personal, Celine had noticed. Getting his life story wouldn’t be easy. “You two got a thing goin’ on?”

“No!” she and John said as one.

“Mebbe,” Tante Lulu interjected.

Celine’s head swiveled on her neck to stare with shock at the old lady behind her at the stove. She hated to admit it, but Tante Lulu was the most interesting of them all. Outrageous in appearance and the things she said, the old lady had a reputation throughout the bayou as a respected healer. “Where would you get such a ludicrous idea?”

John laughed and put his hands up in a “Not me!” fashion.

“Doan go gettin’ yer thong all bunched up, Celine. I jist said mebbe.”

“There is no maybe,” Celine insisted, her face flaming at the mention of her wearing a thong. She never wore thongs, but they were all probably picturing her in one.

“Methinks the chick doth protest too much,” Adam murmured.

The
chick?
With still heated face, she decided to ignore the bunch of them and resumed eating the shrimp étouffée which Tante Lulu had placed before them along with warm French bread and a crisp green salad smothered in vinaigrette dressing. “The food is delicious,” she remarked. “As good as any meal in a French Quarter restaurant. I expected to see cold sandwiches and bottled water.”

“Not with my aunt,” John pointed out. He and Tante Lulu exchanged warm smiles. It was obvious that they were really close.

“Thank ya very much, sweetie,” Tante Lulu said to her. “We’s havin’ okra ice cream fer dessert.”

Celine’s head shot up, along with a few others at the table.

“Jist kiddin’. There’s beignets and coffee comin’ up.”

“I hate okra,” Celine said with a shiver of distaste.

“Ya cain’t be Cajun and hate okra,” Tante Lulu contended. “How come ya doan have a Cajun accent? And what’s with them blue eyes?”

“I was born in Houma but moved away with my parents when I was six. My mother was half Cajun. I didn’t come back ’til I was in high school to live with my grandfather. My mother died of cancer when I was fifteen, and my father . . . ” She paused, not wanting to mention her father’s suicide, “He died soon after. I guess I moved here too late to take on Cajun traits.”

Tante Lulu squeezed her shoulder, obviously aware of her father’s suicide, and the gesture touched Celine in the oddest way. In that instant, she realized how much she missed a woman’s touch . . . a mother’s touch, actually. She blinked back tears.

Ronnie, Jake, John, Adam, Caleb, and Brenda began talking about what they hoped to accomplish the next day. Apparently, they would be working from dawn ’til dusk, if necessary. Celine was glad to have the attention diverted away from her.

They really were professionals, which was enlightening to her. In the past, she’d viewed treasure hunters as delusional crackpots out for a quick buck. But these people, even Ronnie, who had been a corporate lawyer, took treasure hunting seriously. Trained divers. Computer savvy. Mechanically proficient. Able to work as a team. All these things, along with their research talents, impressed her more than she’d expected.

Everyone in southern Louisiana knew about the pirate Jean Lafitte. He was part of their heritage. Both the good and the bad. Yes, he had been an out-and-out pirate, even involved in the slave trade at one point, but he had also been a hero. Never attacking an American ship . . . in fact, aiding the Americans in the war against the British. Giving to the poor. Not to mention having a reputation as a great lover.