by Sandra Hill
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Rene was pounding at the rail now, with a vengeance. Maybe he was frustrated by the cards fate had dealt him, too. She almost considered feeling sorry for him. Almost.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Whatever possessed me to tell him I hadn’t had sex in two years? My brain must be melting in allthis heat.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Valerie gritted her teeth as he continued his incessant pounding. Every damn bird in the bayou chimed in with protest.
Bam, bam. Squawk , squawk . Chirp, chirp. Eek , eek . Bam, bam... It was enough to drive a sane person crazy. Not that she felt particularly sane.
Rene reached in his tool belt for more nails, and blessed silence reigned. But only for a second.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Valerie had been a list maker from the time she was a little girl. Probably an inborn trait with the females of the Breaux family. They were businesswomen, Congress-women, jury consultants, Court TV anchors, chemists. In any case, the first step in solving a problem was understanding the problem and that always began with a list.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
She decided to make a mental list now—of all the reasons she disliked Rene LeDeux.
No. 1: He made too much noise.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
No. 2: He wasted too much time on nonsense, like building a cabin, when he should be doing something bigger, like making gobs of money, or influencing society, or inventing a cure for cancer. Even lobbying to preserve the Louisiana environment, although even she knew that was a losing battle.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
No. 3: He should row that pirogue down the bayou and get help, even if it took three days. She would wait here for him, of course, sipping mint juleps and nibbling on bonbons. Lots of bonbons. There were probably bonbons hidden away in that Vermont-sized handbag Tante Lulu lugged around.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
No. 4: He should stop looking so damned tempting. Even with sweat rolling off him in buckets, even with that annoying smirk, even with way too many muscles, he was one prime specimen. Not her type at all, but prime nonetheless, she had to admit.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Okay, so much for Rene. She had enough problems of her own.
When Elton Davis, TTN’s “Daily Update” producer, had called her into his office two days ago, she’d been shocked to be handed a pink slip. Not so shocked when she learned that her replacement was Sonja Smith, a twenty-four-year-old former intern, who also happened to be Elton’s girlfriend du jour. Sonja, you are way too good to work your way up through the bed sheets.
Valerie should have seen it coming. Five years of jury analyses alone should have given her all the clues. She was asleep at the wheel—uh, microphone—this time. She thought she knew how to swim with the sharks, but apparently she’d let her radar down.
For months, Elton had been hinting that she might want to consider plastic surgery to reduce a few wrinkles. The nerve! I do not have wrinkles, even if Tante Lulu implied I have grumpy lines. Maybe a smile line or two. But definitely no wrinkles. I’m only thirty-five, for heaven’s sake!
Then there was the issue of her “coldness.” Elton had actually tried to talk her into personality classes.
She’d told him in no uncertain terms, “The only person in this room who’s in need of a personality transplant has a penis. A small one, at that.”
The final straw must have been when she’d refused to spice up her trial news analyses by doing more National Enquirer-style segments. The jerk had lined up, without her permission, actors to re-enact a so-called celebrity rape case, which was still wending its way through the justice system. She’d walked off the set that day, thinking she’d taken the high road. Little did she know it was the road to unemployment.
She could have stayed and fought for her job. But she decided, instead, to come back home and think.
Years of law school and courtroom training had taught her never to act with haste. Cool down, plan, then take your opponent by surprise.
Hard to do when you’re kidnapped, though.
I can still strategize.
The Trial TV bigwigs are probably looking for me already. Elton is no doubt in trouble. They’llbe begging me to come back .
If they can find me.
Hmmmm. I need to think about what to ask for before I go back . No, if I go back .
Now where did that if come from? Of course, I’ll go back , with the right incentives. Won’t I?
Even if they beg me to come back , it’s humiliating to be put in this position. Doubly humiliatingwhen you consider I’ve been fired and kidnapped practically in the same day.
Somebody is going to pay. And not just the guy with the little penis.
But enough self-pity. Like that old lawyer joke— put a hundred lawyers in the basement and what have you got? A whine cellar. Valerie chuckled. Things must be really bad if I’m telling myself lawyer jokes.
And Rene doesn’t think I have a sense of humor. Hah!
Alice in who?
“I feel like Alice in Wonderland after she fell down that rabbit hole,” Rend said, propping his chin in one hand, the elbow braced on the table. “My world has certainly been turned into chaos and nonsense.”
About an hour ago, he had gone into the cabin where Tante Lulu’s cooking had raised the impossibly hot temperature to scalding, which would make indoor dining torture. As a result, he, Tante Lulu, and Val were holding their very own version of the Mad Tea Party outside the cabin, their table being an old wooden door laid over two sawhorses. There was sweet tea, but, instead of the Queen of Heart’s tarts, his aunt served them Cajun gumbo, crusty French bread, dandelion-vinegar salad, and some delicious concoction his aunt fancifully called Blueberry Huckle Buckle.
He sat on a high stump, and the two ladies sat on folding chairs. Their feast took place under a ridiculous tent-like structure of mosquito netting, which he’d erected at his aunt’s insistence to keep away pesky mosquitoes and no-see-ums, those tiny gnats that plagued the bayou.
“Alex in Wonderland would be more like it,” Val said with a soft smile, which she’d probably intended as a smirk. She had a really nice smile, Rene had to admit, when she wasn’t sniping at him, which she did most of the time.
“Well, if you gets to be the main character, then I guess I gotta be the white rabbit,” Tante Lulu remarked with a laugh as she patted her white curls. “Or mebbe the Cheshire Cat.” She looked from him to Val in the oddest way, as if she knew something they didn’t.
“Forget the Alice I Alex bit. I’m way more like the Mad Hatter.” Pure, one hundred proof, over-the-edge mental case. That’s me. Rene winked at Val to show he was just teasing.
She went suddenly still, and he wondered if the usually cold-as-ice Val could be affected by his wink.
Some women were, Rene knew from past experience. Hmmm. A bit of information to store for future reference.
“Who you gonna be?” Tante Lulu asked Val.
“I cannot believe you guys are playing games while my life is falling apart. Crime scene charades.
Jeesh!” She shrugged. “Okay, I can play, too. I guess I’m the Queen of Hearts.”
I’d rather you be the Queen of Hearts tart, baby, especially packing those “two years”. No, no,no, I did not think that. It was just a mind blip.
“Well, iffen yer the Queen of Hearts, then Rene has to be the King of Hearts.”
Holy shit!
“Why—?” Val started to ask.
“Don’t ask,” he interrupted.
Too late. Val finished, “—is that?”
“ ‘Cause yer soul mates. Jeesh, ain’t ya got the message yet, girlie?”
Val rolled her eyes. “We are not soul mates, but let’s assume that absurd hypothesis and say that we are. I thought you didn’t want me and Rene to get together.”
“I don’t, but sometimes ya jist gotta go with the flow.”
“Which—?”
“Don’t ask,” he ordered
again.
Too late again. She finished, “—flow would that be?”
“The thunderbolt. Bless yer heart, Val, but yer not too bright when it comes to love, are you?”
Val shook her head at the uselessness of arguing with Rene’s aunt, something he and his brothers had learned long ago.
“Apparently not.”
“Besides, it might not be too late. Mebbe if I stick around as a chaperon—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Val said. “Having a chaperon assumes there is something going on between me and Rene, which there is not. Not now, not ever.”
Idon’t know about that. There was that one time. And nothing at all during those “two years”.
Man, oh man, why do I keep thinking about that? They oughta nominate me for the Dumb Men Hallof Fame.
Tante Lulu continued as if Val hadn’t even spoken. “As a chaperon, I could mebbe steer the thunderbolt in some other direction. Remember that nice Cajun girl ya wuz engaged to at one time, Rene?
Francine Pitre. Mebbe I should invite her to come out here. That would sure as shootin’ bend the bolt, I betcha.”
“Don’t you dare.” What an idea! We could turn the Mad Hatters Tea Party into the Madder Hatters Tea Party. Ha, ha, ha.
“You were engaged?” Val asked. Now she was the one with her chin propped on a cupped hand, her elbow on the table. She stared at him with incredulity.
What? A guy like me couldn’t ever be engaged? “I wasn’t engaged. I was... uh, engaged to be engaged.”
“Same difference.” Tante Lulu waved a hand in the air.
“And it was ten years ago, for God’s sake.”
Val continued to study him. “What happened?”
“We called it off.” He could feel his face heat, which was a real feat in this already overheated atmosphere.
“Pffff! Frannie wanted to get married and have babies. Rene wanted to have hanky-panky. Thass what I think.” Tante Lulu had an opinion on everything in the world, but she wasn’t far off the mark with that one. At least that had been Francine’s original plan... before she discovered something important about herself.
“What does this Francine do now? Is she married? With lots of babies?”
“Hell, no!” Rene said. “She’s a Victoria’s Secret model, never married, no kids.”
Victoria’s Secret? Val mouthed silently at him.
“I saw her last month in N’awlins, and she asked ‘bout you. I think she still has a crush on you.”
Another of Tante Lulu’s opinions, this time so off the mark it boggled the mind.
Truth to tell, Francine was a lesbian and she lived with her long-time lover. She’d probably been bisexual at one point, when they’d been dating. But then she’d discovered her inner Ellen DeGeneres and it had been off to the races from then on. The female races, that is. What a guy l am. Turn the ladies gay, that’s what I do. “A crush? Puh-leeze, Auntie. Thirty-five-year-old women don’t have crushes.”
“Why not?” Val asked.
He gave her a look that he hoped conveyed that she not encourage his aunt.
“And, wow, thirty-five and a Victoria’s Secret model. She must be something else.”
“She is,” Rene and Tante both said.
The most peculiar expression swept over Val’s face. He understood it only when she glanced down at herself. In this regard at least, Val was like every other woman Rene had ever met. She thought her body was less than perfect.
Frankly, he thought her body was just right, not that he would ever say that aloud. His aunt had no such compunctions, however.
“Francine allus wuz too skinny. Yer jist right,” Tante Lulu said, patting Val on the forearm.
“Hah! I’m always on a diet and never skinny enough.”
Tante Lulu tried to be nice. “Everyone allus says people look ten pounds heavier on TV.”
“Yeah, add that to the ten I need to lose off-camera, and you get the picture.”
Rene smiled. He’d like to see where she was hiding those ten pounds.
“Stop smiling,” Val said, noticing the direction of his stare, which homed in on the Bite Me slogan on her shirt. Talk about embarrassing!
Yep, there were a few parts of her body that looked good enough to eat.. . uh, bite, Rene thought.
He glanced over at the St. Jude statue sitting outside their tent. Hey, big boy, I’m having impure thoughts here. Can’t you do something about it?
Like? a scoffing voice said in his head.
Like cleanse my mental palate.
You mean, a lust exorcism?
Oh, well, I don’t know about that. Would there be green vomit involved?
Tsk -tsk -tsk . You watch too many movies.
So, you gonna help me?
No.
Why?
The Lord has a plan for you.
Uh-oh!
All he heard then was mental laughter, which was really weird, not that carrying on a telepathic chat with a plastic statue wasn’t weird to begin with. Bonkers, that’s where he was headed. He turned to face Val again. “Can we change the subject?”
“Please do,” Val said.
“We need to discuss what we’re going to do about our situation here.”
“Do you mean the kidnapping situation?” she inquired sweetly.
Tante Lulu made a tongue-clucking sound of reproval as she began to gather up the dishes to take inside to wash. She got tangled in the mosquito netting, but finally managed to get free. Once inside the cabin, she must have turned on the radio because soft Cajun music drifted out to them.
“I care deeply about the bayou, Val, even though I’m not working for the Shrimpers Association anymore. And I understand the desperation that prompted J.B. and Mad-die to bring you here, misguided as they were. You think it’s a crime that they forced you to come here, which it probably is, but it’s just as much a crime what’s being done to the land in Southern Louisiana.”
“But it’s not my crime.”
“I realize that.”
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Even though I wasn’t involved to begin with, I am now. J.B. and Maddie are good friends. If I take you back now, in your present mood, you’ll put them in jail. I can’t allow that.”
“Allow... allow... ?” she sputtered.
He nodded. “I might not have had anything to do with bringing you here, but I’m not doing squat to help you get back. Unless...”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Unless what?”
“Unless you agree to forget this whole incident happened. No charges. No publicity. Nada.”
“Hah!”
He shrugged. “Then, welcome to Club Med Bayou, chère.”
She bared her teeth at him.
“I just don’t understand you two,” Tante Lulu said, lifting the netting and coming back to the table for more dishes. “Where did all this hostility come from?”
“It goes way back,” Val told her.
Please don’t tell Tante Lulu about the incident. “Are you still fixating on the pantie incident?” he asked.
“What pantie incident?” Tante Lulu wanted to know.
“Your precious nephew talked me into showing him my Barbie panties.” Val folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.
Not the incident! Thank you, God!
You could thank me, too, said St. Jude, or his overactive conscience. Whatever. At least he’d dodged another bullet.
“Rene!” Tante Lulu chided him.
“I was only seven years old,” he said defensively. “And how about the time you told Sister Clothilde that I put itching powder on the toilet seats in the teachers’ bathroom?”
“Well, you did.”
“Rene!” his aunt said again, although a little smile quirked at her lips.
“But you didn’t have to tell,” he complained to Val. “I got ten smacks across the knuckles with Sister’s ruler that day.”
�
�Then there was the time you pinched my butt in the coat room,” Val added to her list of grievances.
“You pinched me back. How about the time you told the other kids that I had cooties?”
“How about the time you mooned me?”
“I was mooning the whole Girl Scout troop, not just you.”
“Lord-a-mercy!” Tante Lulu exclaimed.
“You were always teasing me.”
“Mebbe he teased you ‘cause he liked you,” Tante Lulu said. “And maybe you retaliated because you liked him.”
He and Val both ignored those remarks.
“You called me an asshole more than once,” he reminded Val.
“Tsk-tsk!” Tante Lulu opined at his language.
“You were,” Val contended.
“Was not.”
“Enough!” Tante Lulu yelled out. They both looked at her. With fists propped on both of her tiny hips, she looked like an over aged, midget Rambo. “All that is old history.”
“Obviously not,” Rene said. You don’t know the whole of it, Auntie.
“A snake doesn’t change its spots,” Val said.
“That’s supposed to be a leopard, not a snake,” he corrected her.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“That’s the second time today you’ve given me tongue, cupcake. Are you trying to send me a message?”
She snarled something under her breath that sounded a lot like “Asshole!”
“You wanna know what I think?” Tante Lulu asked.
“No!” he and Val said at the same time.
“I think you two been sniping at each other since you were youngins. I think it’s past time you two...”
She paused for dramatic effect.
Rene groaned.
Val, who could be such a fool sometimes, asked, “What?”
“Kiss and make up,” his aunt declared, beaming.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “Not in this lifetime,” Val said. “I wouldn’t bet on that,” Tante Lulu said, glancing pointedly at the St. Jude statue.
Rene could swear the old guy grinned at them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Just girl talk . . .
“Whass that tickin’ noise?”
“It must be some insect. Or a woodpecker.”