Bayou Angel

by Sandra Hill

  Just then, his eyes caught hers...and held.

  It was the worst kind of cliché, but honestly, it felt as if the universe stopped and they were the only two people in the world. Probably no more than a second passed, but what a second!

  This must be how all of Angel’s women felt. Their IQs dropped down to about their bust sizes, and their hormones went dirty dancing. Not her, though. Nope, this was just an aberration, caused by the heat, no doubt.

  Besides, Angel obviously hadn’t been as affected as she, because he had already turned away and was talking softly to Lena, who pointed to some items she wanted to take with her. His hand was on Lena’s shoulder...long fingers with short, trimmed nails. Fingers that she knew were talented in dealing cards at poker or digging for treasure but would probably be equally talented at other things. Whaaat? Where did that thought come from? Holy Moly! Am I going off the deep end here?

  She watched Angel and Lena as they examined a battered boy’s bike. A clothesline. And a water heater, of all things, which she insisted on taking because it still wasn’t paid for and she didn’t want to waste the money. Maybe she could sell it in one of those weekly circulars, Lena said.

  John sidled up to Grace and whispered in her ear, “You’re droolin’, darlin’.”

  “Drop dead!”

  He laughed. “Tsk, tsk, tsk! Is that any way for a nun to talk?”

  “I haven’t been a nun for ages, so don’t you start with the nun jokes, either.” In the old days, when she’d thought she and Angel were best friends, he used to tease her constantly with hokey nun jokes. Who ever thought she would miss that?

  John put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry,” he said, then negated his apology by calling out to Tante Lulu, “Did you hear thunder, Auntie?”

  Grace sighed. A perfect beginning to another day down the bayou.

  Chapter 6

  Bad girls don’t cry...

  Later, Grace sank down into a folding lawn chair next to Lena, who had been ordered by Angel to “freakin’ sit down and freakin’ rest” after almost fainting in the midday heat.

  To which Grace had told him not to take his bad mood out on the girl.

  For which he had scowled at Grace, then mumbled an apology to Lena.

  Under her breath, Tante Lulu, who had overheard, warned him, “Cool yer engines, boy, or yer train is gonna crash.”

  Angel, a rascal just like the old lady’s nephews, grinned. “My engine is just fine, thank you very much.”

  Meanwhile, the usually shy Miles had taken a fancy to Angel and was following him around like a shadow. She had to give Angel credit. Instead of telling the kid to get lost, even in a nice way, he was giving him small jobs and hunkering down to his level at times to explain how to do certain things the correct way.

  Ella, in her full Hannah Montana regalia right down to a temporary tattoo of her favorite star on her upper arm, was flicking through some fashion magazines that Charmaine had given her. Lionel, with all his myriad piercings, had finally taken off his leather jacket, only to reveal, to Lena’s horror, a sleeveless black T-shirt with the saying, “Coed Naked Gator Wrestling Team.” On the other hand, Tee-John’s son, Etienne, was fascinated by the piercings, as well as the shirt, and asked his father if he could get some, to which Tee-John had replied, “Yeah. When you’re thirty.”

  Charmaine, who today wore skintight black capri pants; a leopard-print shell with the glittery sequined hair stylist message “Let Me Do You”; high-heeled wedgie shoes; and big teased hair, based on a Texas principle of “Higher the hair, closer to God,” handed Grace and Lena glasses of cold sweet tea. “I swear, it’s hot enough to make a southern gal glisten,” she said, exhaling on a long whoosh. Presumably southern girls didn’t ever sweat. They were too refined. Instead, they “glistened.”

  Then Charmaine was off to help Tante Lulu put away the leftover food, of which there wasn’t much. Gone were the fried chicken and fried green tomatoes, a mess of collard greens, potato salad, seafood étouffée, lazy bread, banana and vanilla wafer pudding, and Peachy Praline Cobbler cake.

  “Miles, you come over here,” Lena yelled at her brother, who was tagging after Angel like a puppy. “You’re getting in the way.”

  Angel waved a hand at her. “That’s okay. Miles is my apprentice.”

  Miles beamed as if Angel had just handed him the moon...or an Xbox game.

  With a wink, Angel smiled at Lena in understanding.

  And Lena said, “Oh, my God!” waving a hand in front of her face.

  “Ditto,” Grace agreed.

  The two of them then took long drinks of the deliciously cool beverage and set their half-empty glasses on the ground beside them. Lena sighed deeply. “Why am I still so weak?” she asked tearfully.

  “Honey, you’ve been very sick. It takes time. Speaking of which, we should head back to the cottage soon. You overdid it yesterday at the beach and working here today. Really—”

  “No!” Lena protested with surprising vehemence.

  Grace tilted her head in question, putting a hand on the girl’s jeans-clad knee.

  “I don’t want to leave ’til it’s”—she hiccoughed on a small sob—“all gone.”

  “Why?”

  “This trailer is the only thing we’ve had for sure these past four years. Once it’s gone...I’m scared.”

  “But we’ve promised everything will be all right.”

  She shook her head hard. “No. You can’t be certain. Even if you build the house, that doesn’t mean the authorities will let me keep the kids with me.”

  Actually, Grace had some of the same reservations about them being able to defeat the authorities. Look what they did to those Mormon kids in Texas. Not that she condoned polygamy or marrying off young girls to old men, but CPS swooped in without any proof of abuse, taking hundreds of children from their parents. Sort of like guilt by accusation.

  “I mean, what kind of job would I be able to get to support a new house—even a small one?” Lena continued. “I had trouble taking care of the trailer.”

  “We’re hoping you’ll go to college.”

  “Hah! Like that would help! Even less money coming in.”

  “I understand how you’re feeling. I really do. It’s hard to trust people when you’ve been...hurt.”

  Lena raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Tell me about your mother,” Grace said, not about to speak about herself and her own hurts.

  Lena’s face brightened. She was a very pretty girl, resembling a young Halle Berry. It wasn’t surprising that Remy’s twenty-four-year-old son, Andy LeDeux, a New Orleans Saints football player, kept eyeing her when she wasn’t looking. Adopted from a Romanian orphanage as a child, his nickname was Candy Andy because he was, well, eye candy. To his chagrin, Lena didn’t even notice him.

  “Mama was so pretty, and she sang like an angel. Everyone said so. I have some tapes she made one time. Would you like to hear them?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Daddy always drank a lot, but it got worse after Mama got sick. Way worse. She lingered for two years. He’d be gone for days, even weeks at a time. He said he had gigs in other towns, but...you know. We lost our little house outside N’awleans and rented an apartment that was in a bad part of the city. Couldn’t even go out after dark. Then, after Mama died...” She shivered and couldn’t seem to finish.

  Grace got the picture. Lena had been acting the little mother even before her mother’s death. “Oh, sweetie, you’ve been carrying a heavy burden for such a long time. Maybe it’s time to let someone help.”

  “No! It’s not a burden. It’s—” She deliberately stopped herself, then said with an uncustomary bitterness, “Bet you never had any problems growing up. Bet you were a cheerleader, and your mother baked cookies for the PTA, and you were Daddy’s little girl.”

  “Hardly,” Grace said. “My father was a rigid, sanctimonious bastard, and my mother read the Bible three times a day but didn’t have a matern
al bone in her body. They treated me like crap. Bad girl, bad girl, bad girl, that’s what they always called me. Even when I was only two years old.” Grace clapped a hand over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. She never revealed information about herself like that. Never. And she certainly didn’t cry over a long-buried past. She swiped the back of her hand over both eyes.

  Only then—dammit!—did she see Angel standing in front of them with a photograph he must have found in the trailer. He’d been about to hand it to Lena. The expression on his face could only be described as stunned.

  Other than her loose tongue, the worst thing was the voice in her head, which said, Now we’re getting somewhere.

  “Grace?” Angel said, folding himself down onto his haunches in front of her. “You never said—”

  “No!” She swatted away his hands, which were reaching for her. “I don’t want to talk about it. And would you please go put on a shirt.”

  “Huh?” He looked down at himself. His chest, with dark hair leading down in a vee toward his navel, and the Never-Never Land accentuated by his jeans strained over muscular thighs and a package that was as impressive as it had been years ago when he’d posed for Playgirl magazine. And, yes, she’d checked it out. What woman, or girl, over fifteen hadn’t? “My chest bothers you?”

  She tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle. “Not your chest, you idiot. Your belly button.”

  “There’s a problem with my belly button?”

  “No, there’s no problem with your belly button. That’s the problem.”

  Lena giggled.

  One of the LeDeux men chortled.

  Tante Lulu pulled out a mini St. Jude statue.

  A slow grin crept over Angel’s lips. “You like my belly button,” he accused. Then, “Oh, no, we’re not changing the subject. I want to talk with you.” He rose in one graceful motion, tugging her to her feet. Then, to her consternation, and everyone else’s amusement, he frog-marched her off toward the woods.

  I’ll show you mine if you show me yours...

  Angel pushed Grace forward with hands clamped on both of her upper arms. He was so angry. At those people who had hurt Grace. At Grace for holding it in all these years. At himself for never making the effort to really know her.

  But now he was damn sure going to find out everything she’d been hiding. He sensed it was an important key to understanding Grace...and maybe to his winning her love.

  “Stop shoving me. I can walk on my own.”

  “Maybe I can’t.”

  “Huh?” She turned abruptly and he ran into her, almost knocking them both down. To steady himself, he put his arms around her and held on tight, his legs outspread. It was amazing how well they fit together, despite their differences in height. Even after they were both steady, he still held on.

  A thousand different emotions pelted him as the scent of Grace enveloped him, and he didn’t mean perfume. Most important, love. He loved her so frickin’ much and was frustrated that he couldn’t express himself without her running for the hills. Not that there were many hills in southern Louisiana.

  The encouraging thing was that Grace embraced him back. Only for a moment, but hell, he took his perks wherever he could.

  Stepping back, he studied her in a long, slow sweep of her body, presumably to make sure he hadn’t hurt her, but really because he liked looking at her. A true redhead, she had hair that often took on the highlights of her surroundings. Today, flame-colored in the sunshine. Another day, orangish, like rust. She had a few freckles, but mostly her skin was that creamy white that failed to tan, a stunning contrast to those pale green crystal eyes. She was of average height and build but gave the appearance of being fine-boned and fragile, which she was not. He liked her curves, including a most tempting heart-shaped ass. Today she wore a white Swamp Rats T-shirt, tucked into black jeans with a braided belt.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Huh?” He shook his head to wipe away his forbidden thoughts...forbidden for now, anyhow. “I was just checking to see if I hurt you,” he lied, although he noticed his finger marks on the easily bruised skin of her upper arms. Then he motioned to a dead log lying in a small clearing up ahead. “Let’s sit down there.”

  “Check for snakes first.”

  Yeech! Reptiles were a natural part of the tropical environment here. He wasn’t afraid of them, but that didn’t mean he liked the buggers. Carefully, he kicked the log in several places. Since nothing slithered out, he figured they were safe.

  He sat down.

  When Grace sat next to him, he noticed that she put about three feet of distance between them. Back to step one, are we, babe?

  “What was all that about back there...what you said to Lena?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It was not nothing, dammit.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m making it my business.”

  “Why?”

  “We have a history, Grace. Yeah, yeah, I know. As friends. But I can’t believe you kept such important stuff from me.” He rubbed his nape wearily.

  She bristled. “I don’t know everything about you, either.”

  “Ask away. I’m an open book.”

  She sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I never do. And I don’t want to start now.”

  “If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own.”

  She turned slowly, inch by inch, to glare at him. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll hire a private investigator. And I won’t stop at your family history, either. I’ll uncover all your secrets.”

  She looked as if she was about to throw up.

  Which made him really, really curious. What secrets did she hide?

  “LeDeux—John, I mean—is a cop. Bet he could recommend someone.” He watched her closely, to see her reaction.

  There was fear in her green eyes. Another puzzle. Soon replaced by anger. “I’ll never forgive you if you start digging in my past.”

  “What do I have to lose?”

  “You told me that you were over me—that you didn’t, uh, love me anymore. And you implied we couldn’t even be friends.”

  “So?”

  “So, stop meddling.”

  “Meddle, meddle, meddle.”

  “That was immature.”

  “It’s one of my better attributes.”

  She said something vulgar.

  Which only made him grin.

  “I don’t need your pity, Angel.”

  “Agreed. And I don’t need any sugarcoating.”

  “I had a lousy childhood, okay?”

  “So did I.”

  “Oh, great, now we’re going to play the one-upmanship game...over bad history. Look. It’s no big deal. I was an only child, born to older parents. My mother was forty-two when I was born, my dad was fifty. They were really strict, religious people. Very judgmental. The least little thing was considered a sin, including my red hair—a sign of the devil. In fact, my mother believed she got pregnant so late in life as punishment for some sin or other she had committed...”

  Oh, my God! They considered her a penance to bear. What a burden to put on a kid!

  “... though God knows, the worst thing I ever saw her do was gossip about a fellow parishioner.” Grace was still talking, not having noticed his angry reaction: tight fists, thinned mouth, blood boiling. “They were Catholic, but a small sect that broke off from the modern church. Very conservative.”

  He closed his eyes on a painful thought. “Were you abused?”

  She shook her head. “Not physically...or at least not much. But the stricter they became, the more I rebelled. Until I finally left home at sixteen.”

  “And went where?”

  “The convent.”

  He frowned. “Why would you choose that? I suspect that’s exactly what your parents wanted.”

  “They did, but you know, joining a nunnery wasn’t a bad thing for me. I finished high school, then
college and grad school. I wasn’t unhappy there.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I was playing poker online and had entered a few tournaments—this while I was getting a master’s at NYU. I discovered that I was good.”

  “Don’t tell me. When I first met you, you were a nun?”

  “Yep!”

  He laughed. “Son of a gun! I never would have guessed. As I recall, you were wearing a plain gray shift dress and sandals, and you smelled like vanilla. You wore no makeup and your hair was like a cap of tight red curls.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “Nuns aren’t very fashion conscious. We had been baking vanilla butter cookies for a church sale all afternoon the day of the tournament. I guess we went a little overboard on the vanilla.”

  Something occurred to him then. “Oh, my God, I hit on a nun.”

  “Yes, you did.” She smiled at him, and, man, she had the sweetest smile. It reached all the way up and encompassed her whole face, especially her dancing eyes. “Actually, I was flattered.”

  “And you shot me down. Zap! I don’t get shot down very often, so I was crushed.”

  She smiled some more. “Liar! You just moved on to the other females in the casino that day.”

  “Hey, it was about that time that I posed for Playgirl. Did you know about it?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She grinned at him. “You were already a name in poker, and the title of your feature was ‘His Poker Is Hot.’ ”

  His face heated up. That stupid stunt was going to follow him to the grave. “So, did you look at the picture?”

  A wider grin, accompanied by twinkling green eyes. “What do you think?”

  “A nun ogling soft porn. Tsk, tsk!”

  “What makes you think I was ogling?”

  He pretended to be hurt “You didn’t like my...uh, attributes?”

  She leaned over and smacked him on the arm. “You are such a wuss, fishing for X-rated compliments.”

  “So, is that why you left the convent?”

  She laughed. “Because I was checking out naked guy pictures?”

  “No. Because of the card playing?”