by Liz Talley
“Let’s talk later because I don’t think he’s going to stop with the tour script,” she whispered as the driver turned around to make sure they were listening. After ten more minutes of history lesson, Darby interrupted the man’s practiced monologue to point out his hotel.
“This is as far as you wanna go? I haven’t even got to the gay section of town. It’s got interesting history, too.”
“That’s okay,” Darby said, pulling out some money. “Her ankle isn’t up to snuff and we don’t want to walk back.”
“Your loss,” the man said, taking the money.
“Here,” Renny said, digging for the cash she’d tucked in her back pocket. “I’ll get the tip.”
She was relieved that Darby let her toss in some money for the ride and that suited her fine because she wasn’t some damsel who had to be taken care of.
Equals.
That’s what she wanted.
But Darby didn’t let her hobble from the vehicle. He swept her up Scarlett O’Hara style and strolled into the marble lobby of the hotel as if it were quite natural to carry a woman in.
“Just married?” questioned the hotel clerk with a smirk.
“Nope, been married for eleven years,” Darby said, not bothering to slow his pace.
“Awww, that’s so sweet that y’all keep the romance alive,” she called as he pushed the elevator button.
Renny smiled and then frowned. “Oops. I left my bag of ice in the buggy.”
“I’ll get more from the ice machine,” he said, stepping inside and making room for an older couple who kept smiling at them.
“I used to be able to pick her up like that,” the older man said, eyeing his wife. “Until she found that cupcake bakery down the road.”
The woman hit him with her purse. “Shut up, you old goat. You’re lucky I married you in the first place.”
Then they both grinned good-naturedly like they’d revealed an inside joke.
“Well, I just fell and twisted my ankle,” Renny said, trying to shift her weight so Darby’s arms didn’t get too tired.
The elevator dinged and Darby stepped out without giving the older couple a chance to acknowledge Renny’s declaration. “Night.”
“Have fun, you two,” the man called out.
His wife giggled as the elevator closed.
“They didn’t believe me,” Renny said, counting the doors as Darby strolled toward...a suite. “Is that the honeymoon suite?”
He smiled.
“Sure of yourself much?”
“Not really, but I figured we didn’t get one the first time.”
He slid a key card from his pocket and she heard the door whir and then click open. Darby pushed them through the dark foyer and deposited her on an upholstered chair before clicking on a lamp. Dim light flooded the luxurious room.
“Wow,” Renny breathed, looking around at the canopied bed, sitting area and glittering view of the Vieux Carré. Darby had spared no expense when he’d rolled the dice on her. All in.
“Yeah, but maybe a waste of money...if your words in the carriage are any indication.”
She shrugged. “Beauty is never wasted, is it?”
“Maybe.” He sank onto the adjacent chair. “We should get your ankle looked at by a professional.”
Renny moved her ankle gingerly, trying to discern if she needed to go to the hospital or not. It was still puffy but the ice had done its job. She knew it wasn’t broken. “I’d rather wait and see. I’m pretty sure it’s just sprained. I’ll see how it feels tomorrow and if it hasn’t improved, I’ll go.”
Darby made a face. “I’m not sure—”
“Darby,” she warned. This was what she meant. The man would have to learn to walk the line between concern and control if he wanted this to work.
He snapped his mouth shut. “Sure, that sounds reasonable.”
That made her smile. “It does, doesn’t it?”
They sat there for a moment before he stood. “Let me get you some ice.”
“Okay, and then we’ll talk.”
He hesitated, looking as if he’d like to say more before nodding and grabbing the ice bucket from the ornate cherry bar serving as the division between the sitting area and bedroom.
The door snicked closed and Renny took a deep breath.
So not the way she’d planned the afternoon. She’d envisioned a dramatic reunion, sweet wet kisses and some café au lait and beignets while they discussed where they went from here. Damn her bad leg. She’d not even seen the grate she was in such a hurry to get to Darby.
Which surprised her. Because a day ago, sitting on the flowered bedspread of her hotel, she hadn’t been sure she had the guts to take what she wanted. For a good hour, she’d sat in that room wondering if the hotel room harbored bed bugs...and if she should go to Jackson Square or walk away?
It was the same question she’d asked herself many, many times over the past few weeks, all the while angry at herself for not knowing the answer. But it was the most important question she’d ever faced. She’d missed out on the opportunity to decide the answer over ten years before, and she wasn’t going to pass on the chance to actually be in on the decision.
It was too important.
So it had occupied her mind most of the time.
Darby had given her the rarest of gifts—a choice.
Of course, she’d had a choice all along. She was, after all, a big girl who’d faced bigger battles than the one she’d waged with Darby over their relationship.
Getting her master’s and doctorate hadn’t been a cakewalk—she’d slogged plenty of hours in the nastiest places known to man and woman and had matched wits with the most chauvinistic of men. Not to mention she’d talked her mother out of a ridiculous peacock jacket. Renny could do battle despite what Darby had implied that day out in the field.
But she hadn’t had to.
Because Darby had quite simply, and very romantically, laid out his gift.
Her choice to accept him as her future. Or not.
A great deal of thought had gotten her to where she now sat, even though there were times she wished he’d merely left Bayou Bridge behind and not given her a chance to change her mind. Maybe it would have been easier.
Still, distance from Darby had given her clarity.
And at the very least, she owed him an answer.
This time he wouldn’t stand in the middle of New Orleans waiting for one. She would go to Jackson Square.
For better or for worse.
But what would be her answer?
It had come to her in the small hours just before dawn, when she’d awoken that morning. The epiphany had jackknifed her to sitting, slamming her with truth.
She could live without Darby...but did she want to?
The mechanism on the door lock rotated, jarring her from her thoughts as Darby returned. Her ankle held a dull throb and she was a sweaty, soggy mess thanks to frustrated tears and a drippy ice bag. Her silky blouse was damp and crumpled, and her makeup was long gone.
Goodbye romance. Hello reality.
“Here we go,” Darby said, breezing back into the room, knotting the plastic ice liner before wrapping the bag in a bar towel. “This should work.”
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the makeshift compress as she propped her ankle on the ottoman.
He assumed his former position on the chair beside her and looked at her expectantly.
Okay, time to do this.
“Well, the good news is I choose you, Darby. I do.”
Relief pooled in his eyes. “But...”
“It’s not really a but, just more of a how.”
“How?”
“Let me explain,” she said, leaning back into the plush silk pillows behind her. Her hands shook from the adrenaline rushing through her. This was so important and she didn’t want to screw it up. “I think you know how I feel about your very nature. How I don’t like the whole bulldozer approach, but I understand who you are, Darby.
There’s nothing wrong with going after what you want, and there’s something attractive about your tenaciousness. As long as you can pull in the reins when necessary.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. Renny liked how serious his eyes were, how committed he was to hearing her out. This was important to him, too.
“And distance gave me clarity into why I hid from love for so long. I loved you, but I never felt I measured up to you. To being a Dufrene. All those years ago, I expected you to leave, not because you’d done anything to indicate that, but because I felt inferior. I believed your father not because of you, but because of me.”
He shook his head, “Ah, Renny, being a Dufrene isn’t always easy, but there isn’t a blood test to qualify. We don’t test you to see if you know how to set a table for twelve or force you to do a debutante bow. I’ve never seen you as less than what you are—a smart, beautiful woman.”
Renny smiled. “I can see that now, and I’m sorry you had to be the brave one. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to see my own flaws, to see my own inadequacies.”
“Apology accepted, and I don’t blame you for feeling hunted. I couldn’t seem to stay away from you. Maybe it wasn’t me pushing, maybe it was fate.”
Renny cocked her head. “Perhaps that’s true, but if we are meant to be, we have to carve out the terms.”
Leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, Darby nodded. “Go on.”
“Our relationship has been like a line graph. We started the way love is supposed to start—dating, growing intimacy, sex, and, uh, marriage.” She drew an imaginary line with her finger. “But then we did things backward—marriage, sex, dating. You see what I mean?”
Darby narrowed his eyes. “Kinda.”
“So we’re back where we started.”
“With you in a berry patch?”
They both took a little head trip back in time. She smiled at that young girl with the trim stomach and bramble prickles embedded in her hands. And at that long-haired sun god in a pickup truck wearing no shirt and blaring Toby Keith. “In some small way.”
He grinned. “Well, I loved you in that bikini top and cutoffs shorts, so not a bad thing.”
“Not the way I was dressed, but more in the realm of the mystery of it all. You were right. There’s a lot I don’t know about you. We haven’t been Renny and Darby for ten years, and both of us have changed. Even though our love has remained, as people we’re different.”
He clasped his hands between his knees. “But not so much we can’t bridge that.”
“You’re right. Not too much, but enough that we need time to rediscover the other person, not as lovesick teenagers, but as—”
“Lovesick adults?”
“I can buy what you’re sellin’.”
He slid to his knees and took her hand. “Can you? ’Cause that’s what I’m selling, Renny. Love. True love. The kind I won’t walk away from. No more misunderstandings. No more allowing others to make us doubt what we have. Binding, forever kind of love.”
She swallowed, begging tears not to spring to her eyes. “I do love you, Darby, and that’s exactly what I want. But, I want us together as equals, being patient and allowing ourselves to grow into a lasting, mature love.”
The tears fell despite her attempts. Darby reached up and caught them, brushing them on his jeans, as he leaned forward and kissed her.
A beautiful rightness encompassed her as she leaned into his kiss, wrapping her arms around the man God had made for her.
She knew this as certain as she knew her heart beat or the sun rose in the east.
Renny Latioles and Darby Dufrene were meant to be.
Forever. And ever.
He broke the kiss and leaned back to look at her. “I’m game for taking it slow and giving ourselves time to enjoy this new, yet old, love. I think you’re a pretty smart woman.”
Renny traced the scruffiness of his jaw before running a finger over his thick brows, before pressing a finger to the small cleft of his chin. “You think right.”
He laughed and kissed her again.
She reveled in the kiss.
It was a kiss of freedom. No more guilt. No more concern over whether she should or shouldn’t. No more worry over where it would take them.
It would take them into their future.
Back to Bayou Bridge.
Back to where they’d started.
* * *
PICOU DUFRENE ADJUSTED her flowing skirt so it didn’t get caught in the rockers of the chair and stared out at her children gathered beneath the branches of the oaks that had tangled themselves in the soil of Beau Soleil for hundreds of years.
She couldn’t stop smiling.
Her children.
All together.
All happy.
The thought expanded in her chest, filling her with an immeasurable sweetness.
Nate chased after Paxton, who’d recently started toddling around, shoving anything he could grab into his mouth. Currently, it looked like Nate was working an acorn from the baby’s mouth. His wife, Annie, slid the occasional worried glance his way as she unfolded newspapers and handed them to Lou, who promptly taped them to the two large folding tables sitting on a level part of the lawn. Abram lifted a huge sack of shrimp from the bed of Nate’s truck, and after slapping Lou on the butt and getting the requisite squeal, headed toward Darby, who stood staring at the huge pot sitting on a burner as if he could conjure magic from the depths of the boiling water. Renny stood at a separate small table cutting up onions and lemons. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Darby, which seemed dangerous considering she held a knife in hand.
And then there was Della, who looked as if she were in charge of the whole production. Picou’s daughter wore an old apron made of flour sacks that she’d dug from the bottom of Lucille’s apron drawer. Declaring it just like the ones her grand-mère had sewed for her as a child, she’d donned it and started purging the shrimp with a box of salt,and ordering everyone around.
When Della had decided to be Della, she’d jumped in with both feet. Which had tickled Picou. How easy it seemed the girl had slipped back into being a sister. A daughter. A Dufrene.
The boys were just as amused by their sister’s bossiness, sliding each other funny little glances and doing aggravating stuff to tease Della, which earned them good-natured scoldings from Annie, Lou and Renny.
Picou relished every second of her family’s...well, being a family.
“Are you gonna come help, Mom, or just play mistress of the manor?” Nate called, scooping up Paxton and swiping a finger in his mouth. He pulled something out and made a face. “Oh, God, I think he just ate a bug, Annie.”
His wife dropped the tape and took the baby, who’d started wailing and kicking his little feet.
“What do you need me to do?” Picou called, not bothering to get up. If they couldn’t figure out how to do a simple shrimp boil between the seven of them, there were bigger problems at hand. She’d stay right where she was, sipping hot tea, watching the world she’d created play out in front of her. Plus, she was tired.
She’d made pralines that morning, completed an extra-challenging session of yoga, and trudged out to the rice field to retrieve the plastic storage bin she’d abandoned last month. After a threat of a federal charge for obstruction that she was pretty sure Renny made up, Picou had stopped donning the white makeshift biologist costume and a puppet and put a stop to feeding grapes to the whooping crane. It seemed her son’s soon-to-be ex-wife and current girlfriend didn’t see eye-to-eye with Picou on keeping the bird on the land until the prophecy played out.
She’d had to formally apologize to Renny and she’d taken her one of Lucille’s pies to sweeten the deal, especially since the bird had disappeared. It made Picou desperately sad to miss seeing the bird leave their tiny part of the world. She’d wanted to be a part of the prophecy concluding.
The sound of a car crunching up the driveway interrupted her thoughts and made her stomac
h flip over. She hadn’t been sure he’d come.
“Who’s that?” Darby called, taking a few steps and wrapping an arm around Renny, who smiled as his lips brushed her jawbone. “Did you invite Father Benoit to the boil?”
“No,” Picou called, standing and smoothing down the ballet top over the waistband of her favorite orange broom skirt. She also brushed back the silver hair she’d left to fall past her shoulders. “Just an old friend.”
A dark sedan pulled into view, and she walked down the steps of her home, waving toward the car in greeting. She could feel the stare of her children as she walked toward the gravel parking area.
Picou tried to calm herself, drawing on the strength of the land to center her, calling on her ancestors to give her patience, begging the universe to allow something to still be present between her and whoever would emerge from the car.
The driver’s door opened and a young man climbed out, looking around uncertainly. He had shaggy brown hair and the scruffy five-o’clock beard so popular with the young men today. Jeans and a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves hung on a lean, fit frame, and Picou noted the laugh lines around the man’s eyes and kindness shadowing his mouth.
A very good-looking man, indeed.
Then the passenger door opened, and Gerald Greer stepped out.
“Hi, Gerry,” she said, taking in the man turning toward her, studying her with those emerald-green eyes. He looked good—still trim with massive shoulders, and though he’d aged, he’d done so like a fine antique, the beauty still in the product despite a few dings and chips. “Welcome to Beau Soleil.”
“Picou.” He smiled, and his rich voice caused sheer pleasure to shimmy down her spine. “Aren’t you a sight for these old eyes.”
“Piddle, Gerry. Speak for yourself. I’m not old, just experienced.”
His laughter swirled up through the trees, launching a few birds into flight, as he walked toward her.
Yes, this was a fine figure of a man, with more than a little interest in those luscious eyes. Picou’s heart sped up as Gerald lifted her hand to his lips.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes capturing her gaze, putting to rest those doubts about whether there was something still between them.