Marisa Carroll - Hotel Marchand 09 (8 page)

Guy snorted again. There was hurt and confusion beneath his anger, though he tried hard to hide it. “I was polite. But I’m not going to Disney World with her and you better not let Dana go, either,” he finished darkly.

“I don’t intend to.”

“No matter how much Grandma Marie cries about it, right?”

Alain met his son’s eyes, so like his own at that age, and saw the worries of a man reflected in their navy-blue depths. “I’ll stand my ground.”

“Good. ’Cause once Dana thinks about it and Mom starts sending her all those little brochures and stuff you get from the travel agent, she’ll make our lives miserable trying to get you to change your mind. Then something will happen and she won’t get to go. I don’t want Dana getting her heart broken.”

“Is that the only thing you’re worried about?”

Guy hacked off a piece of cheese. “She’s always trying to get Dana to come live with her. Paints a real good picture of what it would be like. She used to try the same line of bull with me.”

“Yeah, I know that, too.” No use saying Casey Jo loved him and Dana…in her way. It was a lame explanation and they both knew it. Alain looked down at his half-empty bottle of water and wished it was a beer. He’d known tonight was only the opening skirmish of the Tinker Bell Wars. There would be more battles to come. And, as usual, even if he won, he would lose, too. He would come off looking like the heavy and Casey Jo would play the injured party and Dana and Guy would be caught in the middle.

Guy stomped out of the kitchen to finish his homework and Alain headed for the back porch. The washing machine had just entered the spin cycle, and rather than go back to the kitchen to wait it out, he propped his shoulder against the screen door and stared up into the night sky. The breeze off the bayou carried a chill but with the underlying promise of spring. Winters were cold and damp in this part of Louisiana but they were short, and in a few weeks people would be starting to work in their gardens, and by the end of March, warm weather would be back.

Would Sophie Clarkson still be in Indigo come spring? He doubted it. Maude’s estate wasn’t large. Once she got the paperwork out of the way and found someone to run Past Perfect, or an auction house to appraise the inventory and sell it off for her, she’d head back to Houston. Never to return.

Was he going to let that happen? He hadn’t been in love with her for a long time, but there was still something there, a longing, a yearning deep inside him that had never gone away, even when he’d denied its existence all the years of his marriage to Casey Jo.

Except for that one short week the summer before Dana was born, when it had almost chipped its way out of the locked vault of his heart and come to life again.

He stared at the stars visible through the bare branches of the magnolia tree his grandfather had planted beside the back step sixty years ago. The moon had risen over the bayou and shadows danced along the ground as the big tree’s branches swayed in the night breeze. He shivered as the cold air penetrated his shirt.

He’d never made love to Sophie in the wintertime. Never slept with her beneath a warm blanket while cold winter rains pounded the window beside the bed. He wanted that, he realized with a sudden fierce longing. He wanted to make slow love to her in the dark of a long winter’s night. Their teenage lovemaking had been as heated as the Louisiana sun on their skin, as incendiary as lightning bolts in a summer storm. He’d figured they had their whole lives ahead of them to make love. But their love hadn’t lasted forever. It hadn’t lasted through a single change of seasons.

Her parents had come for her in early September, looking much the same as they had at Maude’s funeral, tanned, toned and successful. To their credit, Donner and Jessica Clarkson hadn’t forbidden her to see him again. They’d only asked her to wait until Christmas, when he’d returned from basic training, to accept his ring. And then they’d whisked her back to Houston, to the life she’d always known.

Outside of rare phone calls, their only connection had been her perfumed little notes on monogrammed stationery chronicling the parties she’d attended, the lunches with friends, shopping trips with her mother, sorority rushes and college mixers that were as alien to his world as life as an army grunt’s wife would be to hers. It hadn’t taken him long to come to his senses. The invasion of Kuwait had just taken place. Already there were rumors of war. He knew he might get sent overseas. He knew he might even get killed. So he had broken off their almost-engagement. Noble, self-sacrificing. Stupid as hell.

She’d called and she’d cried and declared she would love him forever, but he’d stood firm and eventually she gave up trying. Her last little perfumed note to him had been polite and reserved. She had wished him the best of luck in his life, and hoped he did the same for her.

Looking back from where he stood now, Alain figured letting her go had been the biggest mistake he’d ever made.

I
T WAS RAINING
again. Sophie pulled her car into the space beside the opera house where Maude had always parked, and made a dash for the porch. In the ten days since her godmother’s funeral it had rained more often than the sun had shone. But at least today the rain was coming straight down, not being blown around by a chill breeze.

Still, she was thankful for the heavy black cardigan she wore over her cowl-necked, raspberry shell and black jeans. It was February now and not as cold as it had been in late January, but it was still a long way from warm. A long way from the steamy, almost tropical heat of a bayou summer.

Sophie made a face at her wavy reflection in the glass of the opera-house doors. There she went again, letting her mind slip too close to the past. She had thought her overnight trip to Houston to gather more suitable clothes and fill her parents in on her plans to stay in Indigo for a few weeks longer would have helped clear her mind of thoughts of Alain Boudreaux and what might have been, but just the opposite had occurred. She thought of him all the time—memories of him as a boy that enchanted summer, and even more disturbingly, fantasies of him as the man he now was.

She shook the raindrops from the slouchy black hat she’d shoved on her head in a vain attempt to keep the mass of curls under control, and inserted the heavy key into the old-fashioned deadbolt that secured the opera-house door. She didn’t even glance at the keypad of the security system that had been affixed to the wide door frame. It wasn’t turned on and she hadn’t been able to find the instructions on how to reset it or even a contact number for the company that had installed it. She supposed Alain might have the combination on record at the jailhouse, but she hadn’t asked him for it and hoped she didn’t have to.

It didn’t surprise her that she couldn’t find the code. Maude’s filing system, both personal and business, was as eccentric as she had been. It would take weeks to sort everything out. But Sophie was going to start working at it in earnest today, and if she didn’t find what she was looking for, she’d give up and call Alain. Maude may have felt the contents of Past Perfect were safe without the electronic warning system, but she wasn’t so sure.

She’d talked to her grandmother when she was in Houston, a breathtakingly expensive overseas call to New Zealand, where she and Sophie’s grandfather were making a pilgrimage to the
Lord of the Rings
movie sites as part of her birthday tour. Darlene had promised to come to Indigo after her return to the States and help Sophie go through Maude’s personal effects.

“Go back to La Petite Maison,” Darlene had said in her eminently practical way. “Be comfortable. The house can wait.” But the business really needed to be up and running again, or turned over to a reputable appraiser and auctioneer so that the inventory could be liquidated before the enervating heat of a southern Louisiana summer set in and made the buyers too hot and cranky to pay top dollar for the merchandise.

Sophie smiled again as she recalled her grandmother’s words. The advice to ignore the house was blunt, but exactly what Maude’s lawyer had told her. If she was going to put the inventory of Past Perfect on the block by spring, she had to start now.

As soon as she walked through the door, the familiar smell of old roses and lavender, dust and times-gone-by rose to greet her. She felt strangely as if she’d come home, and was a little bit reluctant to part with all of this. She wasn’t going to go there, either. She was a fund-raiser and a good one, not an antique dealer in a small bayou town.

She shut the door behind her, sailed the slouchy hat onto the counter as she passed and opened the big double doors that led to the auditorium of the opera house one at a time, hooking them against the walls with claw-shaped iron hooks that had probably been forged by one of the slaves on the Valois plantation a hundred and fifty years ago.

She turned around and just stared. The daylight coming from the high four-over-four windows was gray and diffused, but there was more than enough to see what confronted her. The space before her was filled with boxes of books, camelback horsehair sofas and turn-of-the-last-century dining suites, the tables stacked high with sets of Depression-era china and boldly colored Fiesta ware. An eighteenth-century fainting couch was covered with hats and handbags that ranged from Jackie Kennedy pillboxes to Victorian garden hats bedecked with faded silk flowers and frayed ribbons. More boxes still unopened, and smaller tables, their surfaces hidden by dozens and dozens of china vases and figurines, filled the wide aisle that bisected the rows of dusty velvet-seated chairs that fronted the stage.

She turned her head, finding bed frames stacked against the wall and a dozen glass and china hurricane lamps marching up one of the narrow stairways to the private boxes that had been her magical childhood hideaway. On her right was a pair of five-drawer metal filing cabinets, their tops piled with baby boomer-era board games in worn cardboard boxes, and a set of green Depression-glass cups and saucers.

Sophie sat down with a thump on a cane-bottomed chair that protested her weight with an ominous squeak. She could never remember Maude carrying so much inventory. “This will take forever,” she said out loud.

The bell above the front door jingled and a female voice called out a greeting in French. She recognized the voice; it belonged to Alain’s mother, Cecily. For a moment Sophie was tempted to stay where she was, mostly hidden from the sales floor by the big open doors, but then another voice spoke and she was on her feet.

“Hello, Mrs. Boudreaux. Hello, Dana.” Alain’s daughter was wearing a red Winnie the Pooh raincoat and matching hat over jeans and a lightweight turtleneck sweater. Her smile showed a gap where she’d lost a tooth since Sophie had last seen her.

“Hello, Sophie,” Cecily said, leaning her umbrella against the wall before following her granddaughter into the storage area. “We just thought we’d stop by and see how you were getting along.”

“I’m trying to get a handle on all this.” Sophie spread her hands to encompass the antiques crowding around them on three sides. “I’m going to need more than just Guy’s help to deal with this stuff. I’ll probably need the entire high-school basketball team. I had no idea Nana Maude had this much inventory.”

“She had several pickers working for her. There’ve been a lot of sales around here over the last year or so. Lots of people gave up and moved after Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit. Maude paid top dollar and people were eager to sell to her, even if some of their things weren’t as valuable as they’d hoped.”

“Yes, of course. I didn’t think of that.”

Cecily shrugged. “Hurricanes are part of life down here. Always have been, always will be, I suppose.”

“I understand this building sustained some damage from those storms, too.”

“Put a big hole in the roof. Insurance paid to have it patched, but they wouldn’t shell out for an entire new roof. That’s what it really needs.”

Automatically the two women looked up as though the ceiling had become transparent, then realized what they had done and began to laugh. Sophie relaxed slightly. She didn’t know Alain’s mother well, had only met her in passing over the years. There had been no reason for them to spend time together once she and Alain broke up. She regretted that. Cecily Boudreaux was an intelligent, no-nonsense woman who’d had her share of hard times, but still managed to enjoy life. Sophie would like to know her better. Perhaps today was a chance to start doing just that.

Dana began to tug on her grandmother’s hand. “Grandma, look. There’s the box of animals. See, right over there on that bench.”

Sophie followed Dana’s pointing finger with her eyes. On the seat of the high-backed, mirrored coat rack, half-hidden behind a raccoon coat that had been the height of fashion on VJ Day, was a shallow plastic storage box filled with colorful stuffed toys. “Are those the animals you were talking about the other day?” Sophie asked, picking her way around a particularly ugly chair made of animal horns. “The ones Nana Maude puts out on display in the armoire?”

Dana was jumping up and down. “Yes. Yes.”

“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Sophie picked up the container and set it on a slightly wobbly table. She poked a finger into the nest of stuffed toys. There was a frog and a teddy bear, a monkey and a small horse among others. Some were quite professional-looking, others more amateurish. She picked up the teddy and blinked in surprise at the amount affixed to the small white tag stapled into his paw. “Four hundred and seventy-five dollars? And this frog has an eighty-dollar tag.” It was a cute teddy, well made, but certainly not worth that amount, and the frog…well, one of its legs was almost an inch shorter than the other, giving it a decidedly lopsided appearance. She glanced at Alain’s mother and saw her face had lost its color.

“There’s been a mistake in the labeling, I imagine,” Cecily said, her voice just a shade too bright and a little loud. “My mother’s cousin makes them for Maude… I mean she made, them for Maude.”

Sophie glanced at the mailing label on the storage container. “Your mother’s cousin lives in Nova Scotia?”

“Yes. She…she loves to sew, and Maude has a small group of customers that are sort of collecting her work…like Beanie Babies. You remember how popular they were?” She cleared her throat.

“But four hundred and seventy-five dollars?”

Dana was busy pawing through the box of animals. “Here’s a cute kitty. Can I have this one someday?”

“Aren’t they all spoken for?” Sophie asked.

“They usually are,” Cecily told her, “but once in a while there’s…one or two…that need a home. Maude puts those them out on the shelf. Usually she keeps them back here until their owners come for them. I…I’ll pass the word around that the shipment arrived.”

“Thank you. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of inventory sheet.”

“I’m sure it’s here somewhere. Like I said, I’ll pass the word around. Dana, come here.” Cecily’s voice was sharp. “We have to be going. You have homework.” She walked past Sophie with a murmured apology, took the kitten the child was holding and put it back in the plastic tub. Her hands were shaking, Sophie noticed.

“Sophie, are you here?” She recognized Marjolaine Savoy’s voice just as Cecily stumbled against the table holding the stuffed animals. A china shepherdess wobbled and a pair of wooden salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like outhouses bounced onto the faded carpet rolled up beneath the table. The whole container of little animals landed on the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” Cecily mumbled. “I’ll pick them up.”

“Don’t bother,” Sophie began as Marjo called her name again.

“No. No. It was my fault. I’ll get them back where they belong. Dana will help.” Alain’s daughter had already dropped onto her knees and started gathering the toys into her arms.

“All right,” Sophie said and excused herself to Cecily with a smile as she stepped back into the shop. “Here I am, Marjo.”

The funeral director held a large manila envelope in her hand. “The copies of Maude’s death certificate came. When I saw your car outside I thought I’d drop them off here rather than make a trip out to the B&B.”

“Thanks, Marjo. I’ll need them when I go to the bank and the lawyer’s office tomorrow.” Sophie took the envelope and laid it on the counter, not really ready to look at the documents that detailed her godmother’s death, but knowing she would have to sooner or later.

“If there’s anything else I can help you with, just give me a ring.” She peered over Sophie’s shoulder into the auditorium. “How’s the patch on the roof holding up? There’s been a lot of rain the last couple of weeks.”

“As far as I can tell everything’s okay. I really haven’t spent too much time back here.”

Marjolaine peeked into the auditorium. “Oh. Hello, Cecily. Dana.”

“Hello, Marjo,” Cecily said, clutching the strap of her shoulder bag with one hand and Dana with the other. “We’re just leaving. We stopped in to see if Sophie needed anything but she seems to be doing just fine.”

“We picked up all the little animals,” Dana piped up.

“Thank you, Dana. Come back soon,” Sophie said. “And please tell Guy I’ll be in touch about helping out around here.” She would need expert advice on the value of the shop’s inventory, but she could at least put the contents in some kind of order on her own.

“I’ll do that.
Adieu
.” Cecily hurried toward the door so quickly that Sophie had to remind her not to forget her umbrella.

Sophie watched Alain’s mother and daughter head down the steps and across the square, then turned back to find Marjolaine, her long French braid swinging down her back, moving toward the far end of the room, where dusty purple drapes were drawn across the stage. She stopped with one hand on the back of an aisle seat and looked up at the plaster ceiling. “As far as I can see, the stain isn’t spreading. That’s a good sign, but it’s really hard to tell unless you’re up in the attic. The stairway is backstage. It’s narrow and steep and gives me the willies every time I climb it.”

“Is that how you get into the cupola? I’ve always wondered where the opening was. Maude would never show me when I was little. She was afraid it wasn’t safe. I’ll bet it’s a great view from up there.”

“It’s one I’d like to see, as well.” Both women turned at the sound of a masculine voice.

“Hello, Luc,” Marjolaine said with a wave.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sophie said.

“I’m delivering a message. Your mother wants you to call her and she says she hasn’t been able to get you on your cell.”

“That’s because I let the battery run down. It’s on the charger in my room. I’ll call her from here.”

“I don’t believe it was anything urgent, but I told her I’d deliver the message since I was coming into town for dinner anyway.”

“Thank you.”

He placed one foot on the cross piece of an aisle seat and braced his hands on his thigh. He looked up at the ceiling just as the two women had done moments earlier. “How’s the patch holding?” he asked Marjolaine.