“I don’t want them to have a different impression of you,” he said. “I really do want my family and friends to know you.”
“Because it will make them let up on you?” she said. “I don’t want them to blame me for you rejecting everything here.” Her annoyance wavered. For a second she looked almost hurt. “That’s your choice and it’s not fair to let them think it’s me.”
Bennett nodded. “You’re right.” He bent a little to look her in the eyes. “You okay? You can go back upstairs and change. Honestly, Ken, you don’t have to go along with my mom.”
She shook her head. “It’s not your mom.”
“Then what?”
She took a breath and then met his eyes, lifting her chin slightly. “You talk about the bayou as if it’s truly your new passion. I told myself that you were just playing around and having fun with something new—including me. But I didn’t realize until your mom said that it’s all just your way of punishing your father, that I really wanted to believe that you liked it, I guess.” She shrugged. “I wanted your enthusiasm for Autre and Boys of the Bayou…to be real.”
She’d hesitated after Boys of the Bayou, and Bennett could have sworn she was going to add on to that thought right there. His heart was suddenly pounding. He lifted her chin with his finger, realizing she was now looking at the collar of his button-down shirt. “And you?” he asked, his voice a little gruff.
“And me what?”
“You wanted my enthusiasm for you to be real, too?”
She pressed her lips together. She didn’t answer. But she didn’t have to.
He gave a half groan, half laugh. “God, Kennedy, I’m so enthusiastic about you I don’t even know what to do.”
“I know we have chemistry. I’m enthusiastic about that, too,” she said. “But—”
“It’s more than that.”
“How can it be? We don’t even really know each other that well.”
“I know you,” he said. “I know your family. I see how much Sawyer getting back to normal has meant to you. I know how much you love Tori for loving Josh. I see your relationship with Leo. I see your affection for and annoyance with Cora and Ellie. I see how you treat the customers. You don’t let anyone get away with anything, but you’re also kind and patient and you want everyone who comes to the bayou to leave loving it at least a little. The business matters to you, your family matters to you, the town matters to you. Because you value roots and loyalty and being true and honest.”
There was a flicker of emotion in her eyes, almost a wariness.
“But I didn’t know any of this about you,” she said, quietly.
“I know. I guess maybe that was part of bringing you here, too. I wanted you to know.” He sighed. “Though I really didn’t expect my mother to jump right in on campaigning and pushing. I probably should have.”
Kennedy was chewing her bottom lip now.
“What is it?” There was something going on with her and it was making him feel edgy.
“I just…” She swallowed and shook her head. “I take after my grandpa. I become attached to people and then I’m just done. I’ll defend them no matter what they do. I’ll stick by them no matter what. I’ll hang on, caring about them, even if they treat me like crap.”
“Okay,” Bennett said slowly.
“So I can’t get attached to you,” she said with a shrug. “There’s a lot of stuff really uncertain in your life. You have a lot of issues to work out, things to figure out. And I can’t get attached because once I’m there, I won’t let go. Even if that means I have to change everything up to move to Savannah and”—She looked down at her dress, flipping the skirt—“wearing pink, lacey dresses.” She looked up at him. “I would do it. Even if it wasn’t what I really wanted. And I just think it would be better if we…don’t go there.”
His heart thunked and his gut clenched.
He was already there.
“I don’t want Savannah and I don’t want you in pink, lacey dresses,” he told her.
“I believe you at this exact moment,” she said. “But your mom basically said you were born to be a politician. You’re resisting that for whatever reason. But that might not hold. Not if that’s really what you should be doing.”
“It’s not.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I was thinking about it while I was getting my pedicure. Why don’t you want to be a politician? Make a change? Do some good?”
He scoffed. “Is that what you think politicians do?”
“Don’t they?”
“It’s sweet that you think so.” He’d once thought so, too.
She frowned. “Well, then even more reason to get in there and change things.”
“It’s too far gone.” God, he really wished he didn’t feel that way. But he knew too much.
Her eyes widened. “Wow.”
“What?”
“You think I look different wearing pink lace, you really look different wearing cynicism and bitterness.”
He blew out a breath. “Sorry. I just know how it works. I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to make a difference.”
She nodded. “Okay. Well, good then.”
“Good?”
“Sure. You’re way less sexy when you’re negative and jaded. And if you definitely want nothing to do with it, then I guess we can keep messing around.”
It was stupid, but for just a second, her words gave him pause. Did he definitely want nothing to do with it?
But he shook his head. Of course he was sure that he didn’t want to get involved in politics. He knew better. He’d made that decision. He was going to be a bayou boy now.
He put his hands on her hips and pulled her against him. “There might be one way I’d like pink lace on you.”
“Gee, I have no idea what you mean,” she said, teasing in her tone.
As she slid her arms around his neck, Bennett felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. He understood, completely, where she was coming from not wanting to be his excuse for how things were with him and his dad. It wasn’t fair of him to make it look that way. But the fact that she still let him hold her made him feel like it would be okay.
He leaned in, rubbing his chin along the sensitive skin of her neck behind her ear. “I’m thinking a barely-there thong, with some pretty pink lace that I can rip with my teeth when I’m on my way to making your sweet pussy drip for me, would be okay.”
She shivered and Bennett grinned. There was no denying the chemistry, and if he had to use that to keep her close, for now, he would. Without apology.
“Well, I did mention that I might take you behind the gazebo a little later,” she said.
“You did? To who?”
“Your mom.”
Bennett pulled back. “Oh really?”
“We had a…nice…talk,” Kennedy said. “At least, I think we both know where the other stands.”
Now see, this was what he’d expect from Kennedy. Even without black nail polish on, she wasn’t a pushover. Not even with Maria Baxter.
“Did you exert yourself with my mom, Kennedy?” he asked with a little smile.
“What do you think?”
He thought that Kennedy would always be honest and true to herself. And it made him want her even more.
“Should we get back over there for dinner?” she asked.
He sighed.
“You have to face this, Bennett. Make a decision and stand by it. Make them listen.”
That was the problem. In the past, he hadn’t been as firm as he should have been. Because he’d been wavering in his own mind. Saying absolutely no to all future opportunities was difficult, for some reason.
But, whether she wanted to be his excuse or not, Kennedy was making it a lot easier for him to look in this new direction with more confidence. Enthusiasm had never been a problem. He’d wanted the bayou since the first time he’d set foot on that dock. Confidence about it being the right decision had been harder to come by.
The woman in his arms was making him more and more sure.
“Okay, dinner,” he said, slipping her hand into his. “And I should tell you about the seating arrangement.”
“Oh, your mom already did.”
“Of course she did,” Bennett said with a sigh.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Honestly. It will be okay. I can talk to your aunt and uncle on the far end of the table while you let the governor kiss up to you before disappointing him.”
Bennett lifted her hand to his lips and gave it a quick kiss.
“But your mom did ask me for one thing I’m not sure I can do,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“To not be a distraction,” she said.
“You’re going to try to be a distraction?” he asked. ‘That’s not gonna be hard.”
She gave him a mischievous grin. “I totally want you to be distracted thinking about how to get enough chocolate out of that fountain and into a container that we can take behind the gazebo for the blow job that’s going to be sticky and sweet and that will make you definitely take me upstairs and straight into that shower with all the nozzles.”
Bennett sucked breath in through his nose. “You’re a cruel and wonderful woman.”
“I’m comfortable with that assessment,” she told him.
He took her back to the party, proud of himself for not taking the detour around behind the gazebo on the way. Though the reason was less his self-control and more that he didn’t have that container of chocolate yet.
7
“You don’t know about the buried treasure?” Kennedy looked back and forth between the little girl and the little boy seated across from her at the dinner table. They were the grandkids of Maria Baxter’s brother. She looked at Teddy Benoit. “You haven’t passed down the stories?”
Teddy shrugged. “I’ll admit we’ve gotten away from it a bit. Bein’ away from the bayou means this stuff doesn’t come up as much.”
Kennedy shook her head, looking at the kids, Jaxon and Adeline. “Well, I’m gonna fix some of that right here and now. You wanna know about the pirates?”
“Yes!” Adeline gushed.
Jaxon nodded enthusiastically.
Kennedy set her fork down and leaned in.
They were through the salad course and halfway through the entrée. No one seemed overly excited about the chicken cordon bleu and roasted asparagus. Fortunately, Bennett was a gentleman—and a good listener—and he’d nabbed her an entire tray of hors d’oeuvres when they’d returned to the party. The stuffed mushrooms had been divine as had the mini quiches and the crab puffs. There had been no pigs in a blanket but she’d dipped two strawberries in chocolate. And had very much enjoyed licking the chocolate off while Bennett watched.
The kids also put their forks down and leaned in. Adeline tucked her knees under her butt so she was taller on her chair. Kennedy grinned at Teddy, who gave her a wink.
So far the dinner conversation had been easy and friendly. Teddy and Bonnie Benoit were down-to-earth people. Their kids—two sons and their wives—were a little louder, laughed more, talked more, and had more of the borderline-inappropriate sense of humor that she was used to with the Landrys. But everyone was laughing and eating and drinking and seemed relatively comfortable even in the suit jackets and dresses they wore. Still, Kennedy sensed that they would be completely at ease down on the bayou gathered around her grandma’s crawfish boil pot, too, and she’d already invited them to town for swamp tours and a party.
“Okay, so the biggest pirate, the one you have to know about if you’re gonna call yourself Cajuns, was Jean Lafitte. He was a French pirate and worked the Gulf. He also loved to party. There’s stuff all over New Orleans named after him.” She grinned at the kids. “Legend has it that he and his brother buried bits of their treasure all over the Gulf Coast to keep anyone from finding it all, and people claim that there’s a lot of it still lost. People keep looking anyway. But he was pretty wily. I totally believe there’s still treasure out there, but I don’t know if anyone will ever find it.”
As the servers cleaned up their plates and started serving dessert, Kennedy went on to tell them more stories about Jean Lafitte along with the wealthy plantation owners who buried their treasures and money when they fled their homes in the Civil War. There were tons of stories around buried treasure and, even more fun, stories about the ghosts and spirits that protected the treasure.
“So if you find treasure and want to dig it up, there are some rules you have to follow to keep the spirits happy,” she said, cutting into the amazing looking strawberry cake.
“The spirits?” Adeline asked, ignoring her own cake.
Kennedy chewed and swallowed, realizing that all of the adults were also listening, as well as a few from further up the table. She didn’t know who those people were, but she suspected they were lawyers or politicians that were in Preston Baxter’s inner circle.
“Yep. According to some of the biggest treasure hunters around, there are spirits protecting all of the hidden treasures. They will only let people who are worthy get close to it. If someone who’s greedy or cruel comes to nab the treasure, the spirits scare them off.”
Jaxon’s eyes were wide.
“There’s a story that a little girl was walking in the woods one day on her way home. She got lost and wandered into an old mine shaft. Said she saw piles of gold and jewels. She ran out and straight home to get a grown-up, but she was never able to find her way back to that mine shaft and even though they combed the area for weeks, no one else could ever find even where an old mine had ever been, not to mention any treasure.”
“So the ghosts hid it after she accidentally found it?” Adeline asked.
“Or the ghosts decided that the people she brought back with her weren’t worthy of the treasure. At least, that’s what people say,” Kennedy told her with a nod.
Honestly, that’s what Kennedy thought, too. She completely believed that there were spirits roaming the bayous and woods where she grew up, and she also believed that if you were a good person with good intentions who didn’t mess around with them or their space for any nefarious purposes, then they’d pretty much leave you alone. She even thought some of them protected people who lived there, keeping them safe from the storms and other things that made southern Louisiana a tough place to call home sometimes.
“But sometimes people do find treasure and dig it up?” Jaxon asked.
“Oh yeah. There’s a guy not too far from where I grew up who was out digging in his garden one day—now, keep in mind, this guy was in his sixties and had been living there for a long time. He’d been planting that garden every year for years. Just like he was doing that day—and all of a sudden his shovel hits something hard.”
She paused, enjoying the rapt attention from the kids but also aware that her audience had grown. Most of the lower half of the table was now listening. And she thought she’d seen Bennett glancing her way.
Kennedy had restricted her looks at Bennett to quick glances only, but he was definitely into the conversation—whatever it was about. He might say that he didn’t want this life and wasn’t interested in what the governor was saying, but Kennedy wasn’t buying it. He was a natural.
“What was it?” Jaxon asked, his eyes wide.
“What do you think?” Kennedy asked the little boy, turning her full attention back to the story. She could do this all night. She might not be able to talk politics and policy, but she could tell all the legends and myths from the bayou. And she didn’t even have to exaggerate them. Much.
“It was a treasure chest!” Adeline exclaimed.
Kennedy laughed. “Yep. It sure was. It wasn’t very big, but it was heavy. He had to call his son over to help him pull it out of the ground,” she said, getting back into the story easily. She’d sat for hours listening to these stories from the old guys and gals who sat around her grandma’s bar. “And when they finally got it out and pried it open, it was full of silv
er coins. It came up to about two hundred thousand dollars.”
She glanced at the adults. There were several wide eyes. The kids wouldn’t have an idea how much that was, but the adults were impressed. Kennedy looked back at the kids. “People say that the spirits gave him that treasure that day. His wife had just died and he was sick and needed the money so that he could stay in his house.”
“So the ghosts sometimes give the treasure away?” Jaxon asked.
“That’s what they say.” Again, she also believed it. “But,” she said. “Sometimes you do have to earn it. Some of the hunters who’ve found treasure have had to really work for a long time to figure out all the rules.”
“What are the rules?” Jaxon had to know.
“Well, the most successful hunter says that you have to go at dusk—a lot of people think you have to hunt at night and that’s not true. You also have to go with a pure heart, and everyone who comes with you has to be a good person, too. One time when he and some guys were out, they opened up this door that led down to the cellar of a house and they started down the stairs. All of a sudden, it started filling up with water and they heard a voice whispering ‘murderer.’”
Kennedy paused for effect and she thought that Jaxon was probably holding his breath.
“Well, this guy knew he’d never killed anybody and he knew a couple of the other guys really well, but there were two he didn’t know. No one ever confessed, of course, but he says he’s positive now that one of those guys killed somebody sometime. The ghosts always know.”
Kennedy grinned as she looked around, finding the same unblinking attention from several of the adults as well.
“He also takes a gift for the spirits. Usually really good liquor or tobacco.”
Adeline gasped. “The ghosts can drink stuff and smoke?”
Kennedy laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess so? They’re always friendlier when he brings those things. He’s tried other gifts, but the digs don’t go as well as they do when it’s those.”
“So he has found actual treasure?” This question came from one of the men sitting a couple spots down from Teddy.
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