Snow on the Bayou: A Tante Lulu Adventure (11 page)

“Are we talking about the same person?” Maybe Justin had changed over the years. Hah! Who was she kidding? He’d definitely changed.

They finished rolling up three hoses and tossing two in the trash.

Back in the yard, the men and teenagers were just about done bagging up all the animal poop. So she joined Charmaine and Belle in setting out massive amounts of food and drinks on several folding tables around the hard-packed dirt clearing. The animals had done a job, literally, on what had been a lawn at one time leading down to the bayou, but Justin would have to wait until springtime to have the area roto-tilled and seeded. Would he still be here by then? God, she hoped so, for Miss MaeMae’s sake, because that would mean she was still alive.

Additional pens were built for some of the animals—a potbellied pig, a sheep, a goat, and a dog. During the following week, they all agreed to try to find homes for these abandoned animals. And no, Emelie had insisted, she was not interested in a potbellied pig. Nor the monster dog, which kept sidling up and staring with different-colored doleful eyes at her. A cat, maybe. That dog, no. Not even if it did have silky fur once Max and Mike had shampooed it under a hose and brushed its tangled hair. Not even if everyone said it would make a good burglar deterrent for a single woman living alone. Still, she was the one to give the dog a name. Thaddeus.

Tante Lulu let out a whoop of pleasure when she heard. “Didja know thass St. Jude’s second name? St. Jude of Thaddeus. It’s an omen, I declare.”

An omen of what?
Emelie wondered but wasn’t about to say aloud. Tante Lulu had been making too many hints about her and Justin. Speaking of whom, she and the scoundrel, who’d somehow managed to get her to stay here, were acutely aware of each other the whole day. Even when he wasn’t touching her shoulder in passing, or brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes when she was mixing another pitcher of sweet tea, he was always
watching her, his heavy-lidded eyes following her every movement. And she watched him, too, which sometimes caused the edge of his mouth to quirk into the lopsided grin she had once loved.

“Haul your sweet self over here, hon,” Justin said at one point near the end of the afternoon and led her to a two-seater wooden swing that hung from the limb of an oak tree down by the water. Mike and Max had painted it red that afternoon, half of the fast-drying paint going on their T-shirts and jeans. The boys were having a good time, competing with each other for the attention of Remy’s daughter, who was a mere two years older than them.

“You’re being awful bossy with me,” Emelie complained, but allowed herself to be pushed down into the swing. She hadn’t realized how tired she was and leaned back, closing her eyes for a moment. As Justin lifted one arm over the back of the swing, she smelled the deodorant or soap he’d used that morning. Something piney, like Irish Spring. And either the swing was smaller than she’d thought or else Justin was taking up more room than needed because his thigh and hip and chest were aligned tightly against her.

“Thanks for stayin’, Em,” he said. “I appreciate it, and I know my grandmother does, too.”

“She looked good today, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “She’s happy. It’s my goal to bring her as many of those happy moments as I can.” His voice cracked on the end, and she squeezed his thigh to show she understood.

“You could do that up higher if you want,” he said, his wicked Cajun eyes dancing with mischief.

She jerked her hand away. “What kind of things will you do to make her happy?”

“Hah! The only thing she wants is… well, never mind.” He grimaced, then said, “She’s a simple woman. She really doesn’t want much. Nothing that money can buy anyhow.”

“You,” Emelie guessed. “You being here is probably what makes her happiest.”

He nodded and twirled a strand of her hair around one finger of the hand lying over her shoulder. Disconcerted, she ignored his finger and asked, “How long will you be able to stay?”

“As long as it takes.”

She arched her brows. “Can you stay as long as… well, indefinitely?”

“I will, even if I have to quit the teams, but it probably won’t come to that. I’ve got liberty and medical leave coming. After that, I can probably go out on short missions if there were someone to stay with my grandmother until I return.”

“I would do that.”

He tilted his head in surprise. She thought he would ask her why she would volunteer, considering their history, but she beat him to the punch. “My grandmother was a friend of Miss MaeMae, as you know. And don’t bring up that ‘I’ve seen you in diapers, babe’ nonsense.”

He raised both hands in surrender as if the thought had never occurred to him. But he grinned companionably and returned his arm to her shoulders.

“Anyhow, my grandmother would be the first one here.”

“So you would do it for your grandmother?”

She shook her head. “I’m not saying it right. I was thinking a little while ago about how easily I’ve forgotten my Cajun roots. Being here today reminded me how wonderfully
giving the Cajun culture is. Everyone is family. You help those in need, without being asked.”

Justin nodded. “Same thing for me. The guys all call me Cage back in Coronado, short for Cajun, but it’s only back here on the bayou that I’m reminded of exactly what it means to be Cajun. Wanna dance?”

“Huh?” She looked up to see several couples dancing a lively Cajun two-step to “Diggy Diggy Lou.” Max and Remy’s daughter. Charmaine and Rusty, who was one absolutely gorgeous man, cover model material, with his cowboy shirt and hat. He was a rancher, after all. Rusty did not look too happy to be dancing, unlike most Cajun men, who had a dance gene in their makeup. JAM was with Belle, who beamed her way and mouthed, “Wow!” Even Tante Lulu was dancing with Mike, who had to bend over to meet her diminutive height.

“Do you remember the time you danced the shrimp?” she asked Justin suddenly as he pulled her up from the swing.

“I remember the time
we
danced the shrimp,” he said, tugging her close into a tight embrace. He whispered against her ear, and his breath caused tingles to ripple to all the erotic spots in her body. “I remember a lot of things.” Then he twirled her under his arm.

Justin liked to dance, obviously, as evidenced by his skill as well as his intermittent smiles and sometimes bursts of laughter. He danced around her. He came up behind her and brushed her behind in a suggestive way. When she turned to reprimand him, he swung her into a dizzying spin that forced her to hold on to his shoulders tightly. She laughed then.

Emelie liked to dance, too, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d let loose so freely. Music was in
her soul, of course, and many a time when she sang at the club, she watched couples dancing and envied them. Unfortunately, there had been no man in her life for a long time. And Bernie, when they’d been together, had exhibited the smoothness of a moose on the dance floor.

The next song on the CD player was slower. “Louisiana Man.” Most of the other couples had exerted themselves on the fast dances so much that they gave up now and went over to the refreshment table for drinks. Beer or the sweet tea, which Emelie had, in fact, made several times so far.

Not Justin, though. He seemed to be on an adrenaline high as he tugged her close with both arms around her waist and lifted her arms to wrap around his shoulders. “At last,” he said, smiling down at her.

Oooh, she was in dangerous territory. Justin’s smiles were deadly. He turned serious then. As they swayed from side to side, he stared down at her. The expression on his face could only be described as hungry.

“Don’t look at me like that, Justin.”

“How?”

“Like we’re going to start something up again. We’re not.”

He didn’t say anything, just smoldered down at her… and maybe tugged her a little bit closer. Or maybe she’d moved closer on her own.

“I mean it, Justin. Stop smoldering at me.”

He laughed then. “I do not smolder.”

“Oh, you smolder all right,” she said teasingly.

“So maybe my smolder should ignite your spark.”

“Oh, please! Light my fire? That’s a little dated, don’t you think?”

“Are you trying to say I’m not smooth? I’ll have
you know, I’m known as the king of smooth back at Coronado.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute. And that’s my point, by the way. I’m here. You’re in California. The twain are not going to meet, buddy.”

“Twain? I can think of another word for it.” He laughed.

“Seriously, do you plan on staying here in Louisiana? For good?”

“Hell, no! I have a job.”

“Exactly. Don’t think for one minute that I’m going to have a one-night stand, or two, with you, then stand by when you dump me again.”

“I never
dumped
you.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “That’s all water under the bridge. We’re not going to rehash old history.
And
”—she glared at him—“we are not going to repeat old history either. As in, no sex.”

He grinned. “That was blunt.”

“Are we on the same page here, Justin?”

“Not even close,” he said, and yanked her forward so far a gnat couldn’t fit between them. His teeth nipped at the curve of her neck before he repeated, “Not even close.”

Just then Belle rushed up to them. “Em, it’s Francine. When she wasn’t able to get you on your cell, she called me.”

Emelie could guess why she was calling. Daddy Dearest was missing her at his birthday bash. Big frickin’ deal! “Tell her I’m busy.”

“It’s an emergency, Em,” Belle insisted.

She and Justin stopped dancing and Belle handed her the phone.

“Hello.”

“Thank God, Emelie! Listen, your father had a heart attack. We’re on the way to the hospital.”

Emelie slapped a hand over her own suddenly racing heart. “Is it bad?”

“We won’t know until we get there. He’s awake, though, and asking for you.”

Despite her hard feelings for her father, she said, “I’ll be there within a half hour.”

“Say a prayer, honey,” Francine concluded.

Emelie told Justin and Belle what she’d been told. She was already rushing toward the house to say her good-bye to Miss MaeMae and grab her handbag.

“I’ll go with you,” Justin offered.

“Are you crazy? One look at you, and my father will have another heart attack.”

Justin shrugged, an admission that she was right. Justin LeBlanc was the last person her father would want at his bedside.

“I’m okay going myself. The hospital is in Houma.”

Thus it was that her day, which had started with a shock on visiting with Miss MaeMae, was ending with a shock. She shuddered to think what would come next.

When she was about to back the van out of the driveway after several people moved their vehicles, Justin said to her through the open window, “We’re not done yet,
chère
.”

She knew better.

There are benefits to some friendships…

E
melie was nuts if she thought he’d let her go to the hospital alone to face God only knew what. So he jumped in his Jeep and followed her.

She was already in the emergency room of Terrebonne General Medical Center, asking a nurse for information about her father. Her voice was shaky and her skin was pale as a ghost when the nurse told her that her father was in surgery, an urgent bypass, but she could wait in the intensive care lounge for news. It would probably be at least three hours before he was in recovery.

“Em?” Cage said when he came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

She jerked with surprise, gave him a glower, but then squeezed his hand. “Thanks for coming, but I really don’t think—”

“I’ll stay out of the way,” he interrupted. “Your father will never know I’m in the building. I’m here for you, babe.”

“Are you family?” the stern-faced nurse asked Cage.

“Yes,” he answered quickly.

“No,” Em said at the same time.

The nurse folded her arms over her chest.

“We’re engaged,” Cage lied. Where that one had come from, he had no idea, but Em was not amused. “Practically family,” he told the nurse with a grin. Before the nurse could ask any further questions, he took Em by the hand and led her away.

“You’re outrageous,” she said.

“I know.”

But then tears filled her eyes. “My father’s never had any heart issues before. He always claimed to be healthy as a horse. What if he dies?”

“He’s not gonna die, Em,”
though he probably deserves to, the old bastard
, “Your dad’s a tough old bird.”
A buzzard, if you ask me.

“I’m so angry with him over… well, things he’s done. How can I still love him and worry over him when I don’t like him?”

“That’s life, sweetheart. What’s he done now?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

It was no skin off his nose, but the old fart must have really screwed up this time. “No problem. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Actually…” she began, looking as if she might argue the point, but then nodded.

There was a story here, but she was in too fragile a condition to be pressed.

He tucked her into his side, and they walked toward the elevators. When they got to the visitors’ lounge, an attractive older woman was there. He soon realized that it was Francine Lagasse, whom Emelie introduced as her
father’s longtime friend. Francine appeared to have been crying and still held a wad of wet tissues in her hand.

“What happened?” Em wanted to know.

“We were having lunch… the birthday lunch. When you didn’t come and you didn’t come, and the praline ice cream cake I made with his favorite frosting began to melt, your father got more and more agitated. He guessed that you might be with ‘that LeBlanc loser.’ Sorry.” She gave Cage an apologetic shrug.

He shrugged back. He knew how the old man felt about him seventeen years ago. No big surprise that he wasn’t forming a fan club for him now.

“Then when I got your text message that you wouldn’t be coming,” Francine continued, “your father went into a rage. Before I knew what was happening, he was bent over, complaining of chest pains.”

Oddly, Em didn’t appear guilty over her failure to attend her father’s birthday lunch. She was concerned, though. “Have you spoken with the doctors?”

Francine nodded. “We got here in the ambulance about three hours ago. I kept trying your cell phone but got no answer. After an examination in the emergency room, a heart specialist was called in. It wasn’t a major heart attack, but your father has a blockage that could prove fatal in the future if not corrected. So they decided to operate right away.”

“Why don’t I go down to the coffee shop?” Cage suggested. “Give you two a chance to talk.”

Em nodded her thanks to him.

When he was about to purchase three coffees, he noticed the woman standing in line before him. “Adele?” he asked.

“Justin!”

He hadn’t seen Adele Hebert since high school, but she hadn’t changed all that much with her flaming red hair and six-foot-tall frame. They hugged, though they hadn’t been close friends back then.

He noticed she was wearing a white medical-type jacket with a name label:
DR. ADELE HEBERT
.

“Whoa! Look at you,” he said. “A doctor?”

She nodded. “Physical therapist.”

“Now that’s synchronicity.” He grinned and told her how he was in need of a good physical therapy program.

Then she smacked him on the shoulder playfully. “And how ’bout you,
cher
? I hear you’re a Navy SEAL now. Talk about!”

Guys in the teams didn’t advertise their jobs. In fact, they kept a pretty low profile. But there were no secrets on the bayou grapevine.

“Yep. Lieutenant, second grade. A lifer.”

“Well, you always were wild. Guess special forces kind of work can be wild sometimes, too.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Other times it’s as boring as any other job.”

“And you live in California?”

He nodded. “Coronado.”

“What are you doing back in Louisiana?”

He explained about his grandmother’s cancer.

“I’m so sorry. Is she here at the hospital?”

“No. I came in with Emelie Gaudet. Her father had a heart attack.”

“Ah,” she said. “You two are a couple again.”

He hesitated. “Nah. Just friends.”

She glanced at his ringless finger. “You’re not married?”

“Nope. Never have been.” He pointed to her badge. “Hebert. So you never married either?”

“Actually I did, but it didn’t work out. Luckily I kept my maiden name.”

“Listen, give me your card and I’ll set up an appointment for therapy. I’ve got to get back into a regular routine.”

“I don’t have any cards with me. They’re in my office. I’ll bring one up to the lounge in a bit. And maybe I can get some inside info on Claude Gaudet for you.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Adele squeezed his arm. “It was good meeting you again, Justin.”

“Likewise,” he said, and knew instinctively that he could hook up with her if he was so inclined. She was a very attractive woman. A few years under the belt, just like him, but sexy as hell. Unfortunately, he was not inclined. Maybe JAM or Geek would be interested.

When he got back to the lounge with a cardboard container of three coffees, Emelie was alone, Francine having gone off to the ladies’ room.

“Have you heard anything?” he asked her.

“Not a thing.” She took one of the coffees and sipped at it with a sigh of appreciation.

He drank from his cup, too, and it wasn’t all that bad, for hospital coffee. “So is Francine the same woman your dad was dating way back when? A schoolteacher, I think.”

She nodded. “She retired a few years ago, as did my dad.”

So he’d still been the sheriff for most of those seventeen years. “And he hasn’t made an honest woman of her yet.”

“Francine is divorced. A marriage when she was very young. You know my dad, Catholic to the core.” She shrugged.

“I didn’t think they were still so strict about those things today.”

“Some are. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. A warped set of morals that has my father refusing to marry a divorced woman, but doing the kind of things he’s done to… you, among others.”

What others?
he wanted to ask, but Francine had returned and was grateful for coffee and the caffeine she claimed to need. Soon after that, Adele came in and he introduced her to Em and Francine.

Em looked from him to Adele and back again before saying, “Nice to see you again. I was sorry to hear that your mother died last year.”

“Thanks. It was a shock. A car accident.”

And Francine said, “I taught you in first grade, didn’t I?”

Adele laughed. “Yes. I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Hard to forget your pretty red hair. You wore it in pigtails, though, as I recall.”

Adele told them that her father was in recovery, and that the physician would be here soon to talk with them. Just before leaving, Adele handed him her card and said, “Call me.”

A silence followed. When he glanced up, he saw Em staring at him with arched brows.

“What?”

“You and Adele Hebert?”

“She’s going to hook me up with physical therapy for my knee,” he said.

“Hooking up is about right.”

He loved the fact that Em was jealous. That
was
jealousy sparking in her eyes, wasn’t it?

The doctor came in then, wearing green surgical pants and shirt and cap, booties still on his shoes. He scarcely looked old enough to drive a car, let alone perform a heart operation. How was it doctors were getting younger and younger? Maybe Cage was just getting older.

Dr. Dumaine, who turned out to be thirty-five years old, told them that the operation was a success. If Claude exercised and changed his diet and avoided stress, he could live a long, normal life.

“Stress?” Em said weakly.

“Well, at least during the beginning stages of recovery. He’ll be in the hospital for observation and therapy, but if he progresses as we expect, he could go home in a week.”

“Can we see him?” Francine asked.

“In about an hour. Once he wakes, they’ll bring him up to the intensive care ward.”

“Thank you so much,” Emelie and Francine both said, each shaking the doctor’s hand.

The doctor leaned over and shook Cage’s hand, too. “A Navy SEAL, huh? Adele told me about you.”

Small world!

Emelie was back to glowering at the mention of Adele. A good sign, in Cage’s opinion.

“I appreciate you being here, Justin. More than you can know. But I think you should go now.”

He agreed. What Claude Gaudet didn’t need was the bane of his life standing at the foot of his hospital bed, shocking him into another heart attack.

Em walked him to the elevator and said, choosing her words carefully, “It was nice of you to be here today for me, as a friend, but that’s all you and I can ever be. Don’t be offended.”

“Offended? Who’s offended?” He yanked her into his
arms and kissed her like a bloody maniac with open lips and teeth and tongue until she moaned. Only then did he lean back and say, “See ya,
friend
.”

A young orderly, who came up and pressed one of the elevator buttons, grinned and winked at Em. “Can I be your friend, too?”

“Over my dead body,” Cage muttered and entered the elevator after the chuckling young man.

Em was still there staring at him, dazed, as the doors closed.

Hoo-yah!
Cage thought and gave the orderly a high five.

Home is where the heart is, for sure…

Mary Mae LeBlanc sat at her kitchen table early that evening, a small computer, of all things, sitting before her. Alone, except for Justin’s computer genius friend over there sleeping on the couch in front of the television—
Who was babysitting who?
she wondered with a smile—just waiting for her grandson to return from the hospital.

What a day it had been! Like old times on the bayou… when everyone pitched in to help.

She should have been exhausted, dead on her feet. Inwardly she laughed at her choice of words. She’d be just that soon enough. Death didn’t scare her. In fact, she welcomed it. She could hardly wait to meet her Maker. Just not yet. Too much unfinished business. Still, she wondered, was her husband, Rufus, up there preparing a place for her already? She liked to think so. And her boy, Beau, Justin’s daddy?
Please, God, let Beau be up there.
He’d been a good boy at heart.

She couldn’t think about Beau now, or the tragic turn his life had taken after meeting Marie, Justin’s mother, and her addiction. Not that they’d called it that then. Could she and Rufus have done a better job guiding Beau? Maybe. It broke her heart to think they were at fault for all that happened.

Her heart ached and her breath turned wheezy when she thought of the suffering in Beau’s short life, mostly due to that lost wife of his. And lost she had been, whether in the bottle at a young age or later in a needle. Mary Mae didn’t like to remember the last time she’d seen the once pretty Marie. Pitiful! Pretty no more by the time she died.

Mary Mae’s mind seemed to be racing tonight. So many images.

Even after taking a nap this afternoon, she’d needed to take a pain pill. And she’d been sucking up oxygen like it was manna from heaven. Maybe it was. The blasted disease was growing throughout her body; she could practically feel it. Her clock was ticking away. So far she’d been able to hide its progress from Justin, but she knew there would come a time when he would see with his own eyes how bad off she was becoming. She would spare him that if she could.

She ought to make a list. “Things to Do Before I Die.” Oh, not a bucket list like folks on the television talked about. She had no wish to go jumping out of an airplane like an idiot or climbing some high mountain, just to get to the top, or dancing a jig, though she wouldn’t mind one more Cajun two-step. No, hers would be a “taking care of business” list. And no, she wouldn’t be making her list on this machine in front of her that Justin’s friend Darryl—she refused to call any man Geek—had set up for her. She could write faster with a pad and pencil. She could make a mental list for now.