Marisa Carroll - Hotel Marchand 09 (7 page)

“That’s true. Thank you for reminding me. I’ll try and remember that when I’m missing her.”

“Good. Can I go look at the stuffed animals?”

Sophie stood up, gazing around in genuine puzzlement. “Stuffed animals? I have no idea where they might be.”

“Over here.” Dana slipped along a corridor of glass cases, heading for a huge mahogany armoire in a shadowy back corner of the room. Distracted, she stopped midway down the aisle to study an item in one of the cases. “Your fiddle’s still here, Daddy.”

Sophie raised her eyes to Alain’s bemused gaze. “Your fiddle? I didn’t know you played the fiddle. I remember you played the bass guitar…years ago in a garage band.” She remembered a lot more than that about the teenage Alain, but she wasn’t going to reveal any of it. Especially her girlish dreams of being the mother of his children; a boy like Guy, a daughter like Dana, dreams that in that long-ago bayou summer hadn’t seemed like fantasies at all, but only glimpses of the future she was sure would be hers. But her dreams hadn’t come to pass, and Alain’s children were his with Casey Jo. It had all happened a long time ago, but when the past was so close, as it was today, it still hurt. She followed Dana down the narrow aisle, not looking back at Alain for fear he might read her betraying memories in the expression on her face, or the look in her eyes.

“I didn’t play the fiddle then. I took it up after my grandfather died. He left me his instrument. He was quite a musician in his day.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Since when do heavy metal bands like the Rotting Alligators—that was the name, wasn’t it?—use a fiddle player?”

“God, you remember that? I was hoping no one did. I don’t play in a heavy metal band anymore. Or in any band, but I have been studying Cajun fiddling. Took it up for
Mamère’s
sake, to keep the family tradition alive, then I kind of got hooked. Don’t have much time to play any more, but I try to keep my hand in.”

“I don’t understand how your fiddle got in Maude’s display case.” Sophie stopped beside Dana and studied the instrument in the case. Its neck was resting on a velvet cushion and even she, who was far from an expert, could tell it was handmade and probably quite valuable.

“It’s not my fiddle. Wish it was, though. That was Maude’s little joke, calling it mine. It’s a Delacroix. He was a Cajun fiddle maker from over in St. Germain Parish. He was self-taught but a real artist.” He traced the lines of the small violin through the glass. “See here, the inlay work along the bridge? It’s magnolia and black gum. He always worked in native woods. The body’s walnut—you can tell by the grain. He died a few years ago. Most of his instruments are in collectors’ hands. This is one of the few that isn’t. It’s worth a pretty penny. Don’t know why Maude didn’t sell it long before now.”

“Maybe she did want you to have it?” Sophie lifted her eyes to find him watching her, not the fiddle.

He grinned, and her heart gave a quirky little jump that made her catch her breath. “If she did, she never offered me a break on the price.”

“I’d be willing to entertain your best offer.” Sophie realized how provocative the words sounded as soon as they left her mouth.

The sun lines around his eyes tightened and the corners of his mouth hardened momentarily. His tone was as friendly as it had been a moment before, but still she felt the sting of his words. “It’s out of my price range. Besides, I’ve got my granddaddy’s fiddle and it’s a good one. But thanks, anyway.”

“Daddy, the stuffed animals are gone.” Once more Dana had slipped away unnoticed and was standing in front of a heavy mahogany bookcase that was loaded with bric-a-brac, except for the top shelf, which was conspicuously empty. Dana was staring up at it with her head thrown back and her hands on her hips. Her tone was thoroughly disgusted. “They were here the last time
Mamère
Yvonne brought me here. Miss Maude gave me one of them. A green dragon. He’s in my room. And Miss Maude said she’d give me another one when we came back. Do you know where they are, Miss Sophie?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t. But I haven’t had a chance to look in the storeroom yet.”

“We can look now. I’ll help you.”

“I’m afraid I have other plans for the rest of the afternoon.” Suddenly she wanted to be alone, away from Alain and the bittersweet memories his presence brought. Away from his little girl, who was so appealing, and who reminded her of all that was missing in her own life.

“Daddy, tell her we’ll help her.”

“You heard Miss Sophie. She has other plans. And you need to be getting home. Grandma Cecily will be wondering what happened to you.”

“All right.” If Dana’s lower lip jutted out another millimeter, she’d be in a full-fledged pout. “I’ll come back tomorrow or the next day,” she said grudgingly after one last glance at the empty shelf.

“I’m sure I’ll have located the stuffed animals by then.”

“Goodbye,” she said, still reluctant to leave. Her father gave her a gentle push toward the door.

“Goodbye, Dana. I’m so glad I got to meet you and your brother.” Sophie had herself back in hand. Her smile and her words were genuine.

She was rewarded with a brilliant smile in return. “Me, too.” Dana danced toward the front door, heedless of the china and glass on all sides, truly as at home in the crowded space as she’d claimed to be.

“She’s charming, Alain,” Sophie said truthfully. She’d managed to relegate the old hurts to a shadowy corner of her mind. “And Guy’s a fine young man. I’ll be glad to have him help me—” she lifted her hands in a gesture of indecision “—do what has to be done here.”

“You don’t have to give him work.”

“I want to.” That, too, was the truth. She could meet his eyes without flinching when she said it.

He watched her steadily for a moment, then nodded. “He’ll do a good job.”

“I’m sure he will. He’s your son, after all.” They both watched through the wavy glass of the many-paned windows as Dana hopped into the SUV through the door her brother held open for her.

Sophie studied Alain’s face for a moment. His were the features of a man who had known hardship but who had never given in to it. A man who had fulfilled the potential she had sensed in the boy. “They’re both great kids,” he said quietly as he turned to leave. “They’re my whole world, Sophie. That’s why I stayed with their mother as long as I did.”

“S
OPHIE
C
LARKSON
was in Past Perfect today,” Cecily told her mother. She was holed up in her bathroom, sitting on the toilet lid with the portable phone from her bedroom, water running in the sink, whispering so Alain wouldn’t overhear if he walked down the hall.

“What? I can’t hear you, Cecily. You’ll have to speak louder.”

Cecily sighed and gave up. She switched to French. Alain’s Cajun was pretty good but he wasn’t as fluent as she and Yvonne. Most of the time she regretted so few of the family spoke the old tongue anymore, but tonight she was glad. “I said Sophie Clarkson was in Past Perfect today. She’s evidently starting to look through the inventory. Dana was there and spoke to her.”

“What was the little one doing at Maude’s shop?”

“She and Guy were walking home from the school bus and saw Alain there and went inside,” Cecily explained impatiently. She had her own thoughts, and misgivings, about her son spending time with Sophie Clarkson, but she didn’t have time to indulge them right now. It was the shipment that was important. “We have to decide how to get the animals out of there before she notices them.”

“I still can’t hear you. Is that water running?”

Cecily shut off the faucet. “Sorry. My mind wandered there for a moment.”

“Well, wander it back to the problem at hand. We’ve got to get inside Past Perfect and get our medicines.”

Cecily sighed. “Yes, Mama, I know that.”

“Grandma? Are you in there? I need to use the bathroom.” Dana’s voice came through the door, giving Cecily such a start she almost dropped the phone.

“I’ll be out in a minute, honey. I’m just washing my hands.” She turned the water back on.

“I’ve got to go, Mama. Dana needs the bathroom. I’ll think of some way to get into Past Perfect.”

“And how are you going to do that if you don’t know how to turn off the alarm?”

“Merde.”

“Cecily!”

“Pardon, Mama. I didn’t know Maude had installed an alarm for the place.”

“The owner, or at least the lawyer, insisted on one. But Maude was always forgetting to set it. Most days she didn’t remember to turn the deadbolt. Maybe Sophie doesn’t know about it and it’s still turned off. We’ll have to find out before we break in.”

“Grandma! I have to go. Now.”

Cecily’s head hurt. Her feet hurt. She’d put in a ten-hour day at the hospital and still had laundry to do. Instead of sitting in her recliner with Dana on her lap, reading a story, she was planning a B&E over the telephone with her seventy-five-year-old mother. It was bizarre.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“You’ll think of something. In the meantime I’ll call Estelle and Willis and tell them not to worry, we’ll get Willis’s medicine for him by the end of the week.” Yvonne broke the connection from her end.

Cecily stood up. The end of the week, eh? It was her weekend off. At least she wouldn’t have to use up vacation days if she ended up in Alain’s jail.

“H
EY
,
WHAT ARE
you doing still awake?” Alain opened the bedroom door so that light from the hallway crept over the hardwood floor to the edge of Dana’s bed.

“I’m not sleepy,” came the reply from the mound of pillows showing snowy white in the shadows. Dana claimed to hate anything girly, but her room was definitely feminine: pink-flowered wallpaper with sheer ruffled curtains at the window—like a garden, she insisted when he teased her about it, not like a
girl.
Alain sat down on the side of the bed and Dana, her eyes shining in the reflected light, scooted over so that her leg rested against his thigh.

“Why don’t you try closing your eyes and thinking sleepy thoughts. That always helps.”

“Not tonight.” She was twisting the edge of her sheet between her fingers. When she was little she’d carried a fraying piece of her favorite baby blanket with her everywhere until it had literally fallen apart in her hands. She’d outgrown the need for a security blanket, but when she was tired, or upset, he would catch her twisting a lock of her hair, or worrying a bit of fabric the way she was now. “When I close my eyes I think of Momma.”

Alain blew air through his nose. “What did Momma have to say when she called?” His mother had told him Casey Jo had phoned just before he got home from work and Dana had answered the phone before Cecily could get to it. He should have known his ex would try an end run around him to get to the kids. He’d attempted to get hold of her the last three nights to tell her there was no way he was going to allow the Disney World jaunt when it meant taking them out of school even for a couple of days, but she’d avoided his calls with more success than he and Cecily had avoided hers.

“She wants to come and get me to go to Disney World.” Dana’s eyes lit up at the mention of the theme park. “I…I told her I have to ask you first.”

Alain ground his teeth and tried not to let his anger at Casey Jo show on his face or in his voice. “I know you’d really like to go.”

“I would.” She frowned. “But Guy doesn’t want to. He told Momma he couldn’t go because he has driver’s ed classes. I can’t believe he doesn’t want to go to the Magic Kingdom. Can you?”

“He wants to get his driver’s license really bad. Enough to give up a trip to Disney World it seems.”

“Well, not me,” Dana said with a great deal of certainty. “Momma says I can have breakfast with Cinderella and Snow White in the castle. Why doesn’t Guy want to do that?” Her green eyes shone with anticipation and he couldn’t suppress a smile. She looked so much like Casey Jo when she was excited about something that it made his throat ache. It hadn’t been all bad times between them, and when he saw Dana like this, he remembered the good stuff, at least for a little while. “Can I go, Daddy, please?”

He hated always being the bad guy, but that’s what happened when you had children with a woman who never wanted to grow up. While she ran off to follow her own selfish dreams, he got stuck with all the tough jobs. “We’ll see,” he said, not able to dash all her hopes. “But—”

“I know,” she said, sounding suddenly much older than her seven years. “But Momma might change her mind.”

“Yes, she might.” He got himself back in hand and played the heavy. “And I don’t like the idea of you missing school. You only have a two-day vacation. It’s a long way to Florida.”

“Maybe we can go when school’s out,” she said hopefully, but without much conviction. Even at seven she’d learned not to count on anything her mother planned.

She was tired and he didn’t want a bout of tears at bedtime. “We’ll talk about it some more after I get a chance to discuss it with your mom, okay?” He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She locked her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

“Okay. I love you, Daddy,” she whispered in French, then turned over on her side and curled into a ball under the covers.

“I love you, too,
petite
.” He amended his earlier bitter reflection as he inhaled the scent of strawberry shampoo and warm, sweet, little-girl skin. You might get all the tough jobs being a single parent, but you also get all the hugs and baby kisses and I love yous, too. He stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the village he’d called home for nearly all his life. The place he’d chosen to raise his children.

Indigo was a pretty little town, not much crime, not much of a tax base, either. But enough to keep up the infrastructure and lure a few yuppies, tired of city life, to buy, build and rehab the old shotgun houses around the town square, and even a couple of the big Victorian white elephants on either side of his mother’s twenties-era, Craftsman-style two-story. Still, he’d be lying if he said it was the center of the universe. That is, anyone else’s universe other than his own.

He liked being Chief of Police. He liked looking after his neighbors and friends, their parents and grandparents, kith and kin. He liked being able to drive his kids to school and pick them up at night, even if he did never really go off duty. More often than not he’d have to head out for traffic accidents and domestic disputes at all hours of the day and night. That was a cop’s job, after all, and he was a cop, through to his bones. Had been ever since the army had made him an MP and he’d found his calling in life.

It hadn’t always been that way. Once, a long time ago, he’d had other dreams—getting out of Indigo, heading to the big city, making a name for himself as a bass guitarist in Memphis or even L.A. But such grandiose plans hadn’t lasted long after his dad died.

He’d grown up fast that summer he was nineteen, figured out that he wasn’t going anywhere as long as his mom and two younger sisters needed him. But he’d been wrong there, too. Cecily was as determined as he was that he make something of himself. What they differed on was what that something would be. Alain smiled and turned from the window to gaze at his daughter once more.

Dana was sound asleep. He tucked the covers under her chin and tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He went next door to his own room, smaller but with a view out over the backyard where he could glimpse the bayou on clear days. He hadn’t been the greatest student in the world. Hell, you didn’t have to be when you were going to take the music world by storm, so there weren’t any scholarships for him the summer he graduated from high school. But Cecily was determined he go to college. No scholarships and no money. But there was the army, so he’d signed up for a four-year hitch and the college tuition bonus that came with it.

And then one June morning, Sophie Clarkson had strolled into the garage where he was working for his uncle Max until he was called up, and lit up his world. She had been willowy, blond and beautiful, perfect in every way. Rich and sophisticated, or so it seemed to him, and she took his breath away. He’d fallen in love on the spot. And wonder of wonders, she’d seemed to feel the same way.

He grabbed a basket of dirty clothes from the foot of his bed and snorted in self-derision as he headed down the stairs to the laundry room. “Face it, Boudreaux. She still does take your breath away.”

“Did you say something, Alain?” his mother asked from the kitchen as he passed by.

“Nope,” he lied. God, he was talking out loud to himself. That was a bad sign.

“Is Dana asleep?”

“Out like a light.”

“Good. I was afraid she’d be too wound up to sleep after talking to her mother.” Cecily hadn’t taken the time to change from the set of maroon scrubs she’d worn to work that morning and she looked tired as she rested her elbows on the scarred top of the pine table that had sat in the middle of the kitchen floor for as long as Alain could remember. Familiar guilt jabbed at his gut. He was taking advantage of her, living here like this. It was time they moved out on their own.

He stood there holding the basket of dirty laundry, seeing his childhood home, his present sanctuary, in a different light. He knew the rent he paid for living here went a long way toward the upkeep on the old house. It was a monster to heat and cool. But his mother, and her mother before her, had grown up here. If he and the kids moved out, could she keep it? Did she even want to? The question surprised him a little. He hadn’t thought of that before, his mom maybe wanting to move into a nice apartment in New Iberia or even Lafayette. Her life, her roots were planted so deep in the bayou soil he’d never pictured her any place else. But maybe it was time he did.

“Mom—”

She interrupted his attempt to broach the subject. “Are you planning to let Casey Jo take Dana to Florida?”

“Not if I can help it.” He set the basket on the floor and turned one of the high-backed pine chairs around backward to straddle the seat. “Even if she can afford the trip, I don’t want her getting the idea she can take Dana out of school anytime the notion strikes her.” He wasn’t comfortable about letting his ex have the kids un-supervised. He never knew when one of her infrequent bouts of maternal feelings would kick in and she’d decide to try and keep them with her. Not that it would last long, just long enough to disrupt all their lives and cost him six months’ salary for lawyer fees to get them back, but he wasn’t going to take the chance if he could help it.

Cecily tucked a strand of graying hair into the braided knot on top of her head. “Good. Sometimes you’re too soft-hearted.” She got up and went to the coffeepot on the counter and poured a cup. His mom had a cast-iron stomach from drinking hospital coffee for thirty years. He’d be up all night if he drank coffee this late in the day. “If she’s got the money to take the kids to Disney World, then she can damn well hand it over for their college funds, and I would have told her just that if I’d gotten to the phone before Dana did. Between you and me, I don’t like it when she takes them out of the state. No telling what kind of idea that girl’ll go and get in her head.”

“Yeah, Mom. I thought of that, too.” He stood up and heaved the laundry basket onto one hip. “Better get this load washed or it won’t dry before bedtime.”

“I’ll get that,” Cecily said, leaning back against the counter as she cradled her coffee mug in both hands. “You must have better things to do than laundry.”

“You do, too,” he said, heading for the washer and dryer on the back porch off the kitchen.

She snorted. “I don’t know what it would be.”

“Same here,” he laughed. “We’re both just homebodies.”

“You’re too young to be thinking that way.”

“Hey, I’m just glad I’ve got a full duty roster for the weekend. I might even get the magnolia in the backyard trimmed for you. It’s your weekend off. Why don’t you do something special for yourself? Go out to dinner. See a movie. Shop.”

She gave him a quick, almost guilty glance over the top of her mug. “Uh…no. I…I think I’ll just work around the house. Unless…” She turned away and poured the rest of her coffee into the sink, her voice strained. “Unless your grandmother has something planned for me to do.”

S
HE WAS GONE
when Alain returned from loading the washer. Guy had his head inside the refrigerator. He and Dana could stand that way for hours if he let them. Alain wondered if it was too late to bring
Mamère
Yvonne over for a couple of days, establish her at the kitchen table, and let her browbeat them into a healthy state of reluctance about wasting electricity, as she’d done for him and his sisters. He still couldn’t stand in front of an open fridge for more than thirty seconds without feeling guilty about it. “Nothing in there’s going to mutate into anything else while you’re watching,” he said, coming to stand beside his son.

“I’m starving,” the teen muttered.

“We ate less than two hours ago.”

“I’m a growing boy. I don’t suppose I could take the truck and run out to the Gator Hole for a pizza?” The Gator Hole was an old roadhouse, just outside the town limits, that had been converted into a pizza place and carryout a dozen or so years ago. It was a hangout for the local kids. The owner, Eddie Larouche, had been a classmate of Alain’s in high school. He kept the kids under control and in return Alain and his small force kept an eye on the place even though it was technically outside his jurisdiction.

“You suppose right.”

“There’s nothing to eat in here.”

“There’s got to be something. I bought a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of groceries two days ago.”

“Toilet paper and dishwashing soap. I can’t eat those.”

Alain wasn’t going to be suckered into an argument he couldn’t win. He grabbed a can of soda and a package of cheddar cheese and shoved them in his son’s hands. “Make do. There’s a box of those onion crackers you like in the pantry.”

“No more onion crackers. Gives me bad breath.” Guy made a face at the offering, but headed for the tall narrow pantry beside the stove. Bad breath? Was it a girl that had brought on this sudden consideration for others? “Did you know Mom called tonight?” the boy asked as he pulled a paring knife out of the drawer beside the stove. “She still wants to take us to Disney World.”

“I know, Dana told me.” Alain grabbed a bottle of water off the shelf and shut the refrigerator door.

“I told her forget it.” Guy dropped into a chair and propped both feet on another one, slouching down on his spine. His voice had changed over the winter. He didn’t sound like a boy now, but an angry young man. “I told her she could wire the money she’s planning to spend on me into my college account. Like that’s ever gonna happen,” he finished with a sneer.

“You’d better not have used that tone of voice,” Alain said automatically.

“What does it matter?” The tone was still defiant but he didn’t quite meet Alain’s eye. “I hardly ever talk to her anyway.”

“She’s your mother. You should show that much respect.”

Guy snorted and shoved the point of the paring knife into the block of cheese. “Respect, that’s a hoot.”

“All right.” Alain held up his hand in a gesture of surrender. It was an old argument between them, one that wasn’t going to be solved tonight. Guy had been five the first time his mother took off to “find herself,” ten when she’d left for good. In between those years she’d confused and disappointed him often enough that he’d given up waiting for her to come back. They barely spoke. Casey Jo kept trying, and crying on Alain’s shoulder when she got the chance, but it was her own fault, and until she grew up and faced that fact, Alain didn’t hold out much hope for her relationship with their son. “Then I expect you to at least be polite.”