The Red-Hot Cajun (18 page)

When the band started a slow song, he pulled her back into his embrace and hugged her warmly.

Sweat rolled off both of them in the steamy heat they created. At first, they just danced in silence. Well, silence, except for the panting from physical exertion... or something else. He kissed the side of her head.

“Are you crazy?” she said.

He wasn’t sure if she referred to his blatant seduction, his dancing, or his general state of mind. It didn’t matter. “A little bit,” he admitted, then added, “over you.” And that was the God’s truth. He might kid himself that he was in control of this seduction, but his attraction to Val was way out of his scope of expertise. He was flying without a net here.

He thought she would call him on the cheesy remark, accuse him of giving her a line. But, no, Val fooled him again. “Me, too,” she whispered.

This caused his already feverish testosterone level to go ballistic, like one of those hammer and bell games at a carnival. But then he realized something truly embarrassing. The band had stopped playing to take a break, and he and Val were dancing alone to no music.

“Oh, shit!” he murmured and steered a seemingly dazed Val toward his family’s table where everyone was grinning from ear to ear. Normally he would have been pleased at Val’s dazed condition. Hell, he would have been clapping himself on the back with self-congratulations. Now he pinched her arm to wake her to the reality of the teasing that was sure to come.

“Oh, my God!” she said when she realized what she’d... they’d... done. “What are you doing to me?”

What am I doing to myself?

Introductions were made all around to the six grinning people sitting at the table. Val sat down next to her cousin Sylvie, and he sat on Val’s other side. Charmaine, his half-sister, sat next to him. She sported big Texas hair and lots of makeup. From her ears dangled glow-in-the-dark dangly earrings. Good God, what kind of shirt was that she was wearing? She was the owner of several hair salons, but a skin-tight T-shirt that proclaimed in glittery letters, Expert Blow Jobs? Talk about! The fact that smaller print read Houma Hair Spa was beside the point. What was she thinking? What was her husband thinking, to let her go out in public like this? Hell, what was he thinking, to suppose anyone could tell Charmaine what to do?

Charmaine just grinned at him, as if reading his mind, daring him to say something negative. If he did, she would cut him off at the knees with some outrageous remark. He knew she would—probably something to do with his badass reputation.

“So, Val,” Luc said, mischief glimmering in his eyes, “I hear you haven’t had sex in two years.”

Rene gave Luc a dirty look for blabbing. Sometimes his brother had a warped sense of humor.

Sylvie elbowed Luc for his insensitive remark and whispered something in his ear. Immediately, Luc reached over Sylvie to take Val’s hand and squeeze. “Hey, Val, I’m sorry. Me, I’m just a crude Cajun boy who doan know no better.” Luc was playing the dumb Cajun role to the extreme.

Val turned to Rene in horror. “You told him?”

“I didn’t tell him,” he lied. “He guessed.”

“How could he guess such a thing?” She slapped him on the arm, real hard.

He winced. “Luc is really talented that way. Psychic. Sort of.”

“Bullshit!” Remy said.

Everyone laughed.

“Hey, Val, nothing to be ashamed about,” Charmaine said. “I was a born-again virgin recently.”

Everyone turned to stare at Charmaine, who had been married and divorced four times—virginity on her was like a wart on Cinderella. At least it took the attention away from him and Val.

“Darlin’, be honest with these folks,” Rusty told her. “Your born-again crap didn’t last very long.”

“Long enough,” she said, elbowing him.

“How long?” Remy asked. His wife, Rachel, elbowed him.

Rene moved away slightly from Val in case she decided to join in on the elbowing.

“A few weeks,” Charmaine said. “And it was rather nice. Sexual tension out the kazoo, if you know what I mean. So I admire you for taking a stand, Val. Good for you!”

Rachel and Sylvie concurred.

Val groaned and put her face in her hands for a moment.

No, no, no! Two years of celibacy is not good. Do not encourage Val.

“Could we talk about something else?” Val urged.

The subject changed, thank God, to Tante Lulu’s upcoming birthday bash.

“We rented the Veterans Club meeting hall down the bayou, with all its picnic grounds,” Charmaine told them. “The reception hall at Our Lady of the Bayou church isn’t big enough. Plus, they don’t allow liquor there, and I can’t imagine any Cajun party without beer.”

The men all nodded.

“Just how big is this party going to be?” Rene asked.

“Three hundred or so,” Charmaine said.

“Three hundred?” Val was surprised. None of the rest of them were, though. Tante Lulu had touched a lot of lives over the years.

“Will The Swamp Rats play?” Rachel asked him.

He nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Will you be contacting Richard Simmons about coming?” Charmaine asked Val.

“Huh?” Val appeared as stunned about being singled out as by the question.

“Tante Lulu told us that Val knows him,” Charmaine informed the rest of the table. “God knows where or how Tante Lulu developed this fascination for the guy, but she did, and it would be the biggest thrill for her if he could come.”

Everyone turned their attention to Val, who looked as if she’d been poleaxed. “I... I... I” she sputtered at first. “I don’t know Richard Simmons. I just said I had met his manager a few years ago and—”

Luc waved a hand airily. “Three degrees of separation. Good enough.”

“I... I...” Val continued to sputter. His family had that effect on people sometimes.

“She’ll try,” Rene offered for Val. Then to her, in an undertone, he said, “Just pretend you’re gonna try.

They’ll forget about it eventually.”

“I’m thinking about having a belly dance troupe come in for entertainment, too. The Scheherazades,”

Charmaine said.

My family ought to form its own carnival. Where do they come up with this shit?

“Why belly dancers?” Rachel wanted to know.

“Yeah, Chippendale dancers would be more appropriate for our dear ol’ aunt,” Luc said, chortling.

Sylvie elbowed him again.

“Because Tante Lulu and I took belly dancing lessons at one time under the Scheherazades. We even entered a competition, and she won,” Charmaine explained, beaming.

That picture boggled the minds of them all. Not the picture of Charmaine, but Tante Lulu. “At her advanced age, the image of Tante’s Lulu’s wrinkled skin in a revealing harem outfit is not pretty,” Rend mused aloud.

“I’ve seen her in a belly dancer outfit,” Rusty said, his eyes twinkling merrily. “Actually, she looked kind of cute.”

Charmaine kissed her husband on the cheek. “You are so sweet.”

Rusty gave the guys a look that pretty much said, “You all could learn a thing or two from me.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn belly dancing,” Sylvie said.

Luc grinned at her.

“Me, too,” Rachel said.

Remy grinned at her.

“You really should,” Charmaine advised. “You do know that belly dancers have much better orgasms, don’t you?”

A pronounced silence fell over the table. Then everyone burst out laughing.

“Well, it’s true,” Charmaine said, also laughing.

“It is,” Rusty agreed. And Charmaine elbowed him.

Rene glanced at Val, whose face was red as a beet. He would apologize for his family’s tendency to discuss intimate things, but then he thought,
Nah. She’ll get used to it. If she stick s around that long.

Hmmm. Will she stick around that long?

“Well, it’s been nice, everyone, but I have to go,” Val said, standing abruptly.

That answers my question about her sticking around.

“I have an early morning flight to catch,” she elaborated.

After a brief spurt of conversation all around, he stood next to her and said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes, darlin’,” he said, “I definitely do.”

A walk on the wild side

Valerie and Rene walked across the parking lot toward her car, which was parked near the end since she’d arrived late.

“I would drive you home, but I have to perform the last set with my band,” he said.

“Why do you keep making assumptions like that?”

“Like what?”

“That you would drive me home, simply because you chose to, as if I would have no say in the matter.”

He looked down at her and grinned.

“You have a nice family, Rene. You’re lucky.”

“I’ve grown attached to them, but I’m surprised that you don’t think we’re a kooky bunch.”

“I never said you weren’t kooky. But I learned a lot about people when training to be a jury consultant.

You have to look beneath the surface. For example, you see a guy with sunglasses on a dreary day and the first reaction is he’s a shady character with something to hide, or he thinks sunglasses make him look macho. But there could be other reasons.”

“Like?”

“He has an eye disease. He is shy and hiding behind the dark lenses. He does in fact have something to hide. It was sunny earlier, and he forgot to take them off. Lots of reasons.”

“And how does this apply to my family?”

“Take Charmaine. She gives the impression of being a brainless bimbo. Her attire. Her manner of speaking. Her outrageousness. But if you listen carefully, you hear some intelligent words tossed in. You understand that she built two highly successful businesses, not just from being able to wield a curling iron, but having real business talent. I wonder what she is trying to camouflage with this persona she’s created for herself.”

“That’s amazing. Tell me more.”

“Well, Luc delights in portraying himself as a hick lawyer. Hawaiian shirts, being unshaven even in the courtroom, taking on outrageous cases. My aunts Margo and Madeline hate him for the time he represented that rusted-out trailer park against them in court. He actually convinced a jury that it was a historic treasure. Bottom line, he’s a shrewd lawyer who takes on the underdog, not a badass good-for-nothing.”

He laughed at what she assumed was an accurate portrayal of his brother. “How about me?”

“Aaaah,” she said. “You’re a harder nut to crack.”

“Dark and mysterious, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“You could say that. I can’t believe that you let people think you are a shiftless coonass. You aren’t offended by that word, are you?”

“Hell, no, coonass is a term of endearment amongst us Cajuns. Go on.”

“I still haven’t totally figured you out yet. Like I said a minute ago, things aren’t always what they appear on the surface. Do you deliberately hide your intellect, your college degrees, and your true work because you are modest?”

He snorted his opinion.

“Or because you are involved in secret, dangerous missions?”

“James Bond. That’s me, baby.”

She smiled. “Maybe it’s sort of a slap in the face at people who misjudged you early on when you put a true face forth. You know that saying about you might as well play the game if you’ve got the name.”

“Living up to my bad reputation?”

“Precisely. Then again, it could be because you are insecure at heart. You really don’t think you are worth much. I suspect that living with Valcour LeDeux wouldn’t have done much for a kid’s self-esteem.

Small-minded people might have made you feel like trash.”

Rene said nothing to that, which made her think she had hit too close to the quick. She hadn’t intended to hurt him; so she decided to change the subject. “I can’t believe I have to get up in a couple of hours to get to the airport.”

They arrived at her car. She turned and pressed her back against the driver’s door. He stood in front of her, fingering the lapels of her blouse.

“Will you be coming back?”

“Someday, I’m sure.”

He shook his head. “Soon?”

“I don’t know. It all depends on the outcome of my meetings on Monday.”

“Come back,” he said in a voice that was raw with masculine need. The unspoken words were “to me.”

And suddenly, she really did want to see him again. Well, not so suddenly. She’d been drawn to him ever since her return to Louisiana. “Do you think your aunt put a spell on us?”

He smiled, understanding. “Either that, or it was St. Jude. They’re a powerful combination.”

“I rather doubt a saint would plant such impure thoughts in my head.”

“I don’t know about that. St. Jude has been known to use underhanded methods to gain his ends.” He thought for a second, then added, “You have impure thoughts about me?”