Tall Dark Stranger (Cajun Cowboys Book 1)

by Patricia Watters

  "Yes. It's like little snapshots of memory about us are starting to surface, but there are still giant gaps in between, and that's what's frustrating."

  "Then I'll help fill in some of the gaps." Joe released her hand, and tucking a finger beneath her chin, kissed her, and she kissed him back, her lips moving against his, even parting to allow his tongue to touch hers and hers to glide over his, as if searching for something once familiar. But when the kiss ended, Anne looked puzzled, or maybe questioning.

  "Did that fill any gaps?" he asked.

  Anne licked her lips. "Maybe. It's a taste. Smoky. There's something familiar about it."

  "Alligator."

  "What!?"

  "Alligator jerky. I chew on it a lot. You liked the taste of it."

  Anne looked at him, brows drawn. "I ate alligator?"

  Joe laughed. "No, you liked the taste of my mouth. You were good at exploring it with your tongue when we kissed. You'd even tell me at odd times you wanted to do some exploring, and that's what you'd mean."

  Anne's expression became thoughtful, as if remembering, then her fingers went to her lips and she looked a little embarrassed, no doubt with the knowledge that she'd been that intimate with a man she still viewed as a stranger, or at least someone unfamiliar. A man she found handsome. That thought had him smiling.

  "What's so funny?" she asked.

  "Not funny. Encouraging."

  "In what way?"

  "You like the taste of my mouth and you think I'm handsome."

  "I suppose it's a start." Anne sighed. "I just wish I could remember the rest."

  "Maybe what I have in my pocket will help, but you'll have to take the baby."

  Anne patted the couch beside her. "Put him here, but instead of calling him the baby, I think we should start calling him Joey, or little Joe, or maybe Beau."

  "Joey's fine, but we'll hold back givin' him Beausoleil as a middle name until you remember what it was all about, not what I told you it was about. It'll upset your family and you might change your mind about doin' that after your memory comes back."

  "It does seem pretty drastic on my part. If I'm really the rebel you claim I am, maybe after my memory comes back this whole amnesia thing will have softened me some and I'll see things differently."

  Joe gave her an ironic smile. "I'd hate to see the fire go out, not the fire aimed at your father, but the fire in your belly to level the social playin' field between our families and set things right, and those were pretty much your words."

  Anne's lips tipped in a wry smile. "Judging from the big house and everything I saw across the cane field, naming our son after a Cajun rebel won't exactly accomplish that goal."

  Joe let out a soft snicker. "That's what I told you, but you never were very good at followin' my advice, and you really did like provokin' your father."

  Anne's eyes danced with sparks of devilment. "I can't deny it because something inside me says I did like doing that, though I might just be digesting what you've been telling me about me. Meanwhile, you said you have something in your pocket for me."

  "I do." Joe placed the baby on the couch and dug into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a torn-off piece of a brown paper bag. Unfolding the paper flaps holding the object inside, he tipped a wedding band into his palm. The ring had delicate gold beading around both edges, with what looked to be entangled vines circling the middle. Lifting the ring between his thumb and index finger, he said, "Do you remember this?"

  Anne stared at the ring. "I'm not sure."

  "Then maybe you'll remember if it's where it should be." Joe raised Anne's left hand and slipped the ring on her ring finger. "We went together to pick out a ring and this was the one you wanted. You insisted, no diamond, just a plain gold band, but when you saw this you changed your mind. You said the small gold beads around the outside would represent all the times we snuck away to the bayou, and the twisting vine in the middle was our lives finally coming together and entwining in marriage."

  Anne's face became pensive as she stared at the ring for a lengthy period, as if remembering. Then she said in a questioning voice, "I know we made love to create Joey, but was that the only time?"

  Joe shook his head. "That was the first time. It was the day I asked you to marry me and you said yes. Until then I was tryin' to be a good Catholic boy, and you'd never had a steady boyfriend and had no plans to hop in bed with any guy until you were married, but after that we broke our rules a few times. Do you remember what you told me about my hands?"

  Anne eyed his hand, now resting on his knee, and brushing her thumb across his knuckles, she said in a contemplative voice, "I'm thinking maybe I do." She turned his hand over and looked at his palm. "Was it something about the shape? You have big hands and thick fingers."

  "I know. You told me I had bear paws, which makes me an earth person."

  "Bear paws. I remember something about that, not about telling you, but I read something."

  "Your cousin, Kate. She had a book on palmistry, and that's where you read it."

  Anne ran her thumb over his palm. "Earth-handed people are steady, reliable, and resistant to change, and they love the outdoors." She looked at him, curious. "I don't remember reading the book, but I guess I did."

  "You also told me other things about my hands." Joe held her gaze.

  "I don't remember." Anne returned her attention to his hand, and brushing the pad of her finger over his palm, she said in a reflective voice, "Your hand feels familiar, in a way. What else did I tell you?"

  "That earth people were good with their hands."

  "I suppose they are. Your hand feels work-hardened."

  "Except you meant I was good with my hands when they were on you. You liked the things I did. Maybe you will again, someday."

  When Anne raised her eyes to meet his, Joe saw the first glint of the old spark burning. His dilemma was, did he act on it and chance driving her away, or let the new relationship build in its own time, if that's what was happening, and risk the Harrisons interceding and stealing her from him? His natural impulse was to awaken in her the memory what they once had, but his gut instinct told him to err on the side of caution and let things build gradually because he was walking a fragile line between Anne and her family, one that could easily snap.

  CHAPTER 5

  The following afternoon, after Joey was fed, changed, and sleeping peacefully in his infant carrier in the bedroom, Anne went into the living room and looked out the front window. Joe had gone to town to file the report that she'd been found, but just before he left he told her he wanted her to see a doctor and she agreed. She wanted this veil of murkiness to be lifted. She wanted her past back even if there were things about it she found troubling. But most of all, she wanted her past with Joe back. Some things were beginning to surface, little things, like the shape and feel of his hands. She also imagined him running those hands over her, though not from memory, but from an awareness that she was becoming increasingly attracted to him, a man who stirred her blood. It had been over an hour since he left and she was restless for his return.

  She looked across a wide open area at several outbuildings that Joe pointed out before he left. A large machine shed constructed of concrete blocks housed the tractor and other equipment, a stock barn sided in weathered boards with windows along the length of it was connected to a corral and a line-up of chutes for stock, and a barn with Dutch gable ends allowed hayloft access to its loft, and below, wide sliding doors opened to what became a dance hall after the Sunday match races. And running alongside the cane field that her family owned was the bush race track, a quarter-mile straight-away, fenced on both sides, with a railing down the middle to separate the racing horses.

  A short distance down the drive from Joe's house stood the home where Joe had been raised and where his parents and brothers now lived. It was a large, two-story farm house with a wraparound porch, a plain house that looked as if it hadn't had upgrades since it was built, other than an occasional
coat of paint, though it stood square on its foundation. Two of Joe's five brothers and their father stood in a huddle in front of the barn, no doubt discussing what they'd be doing that day.

  She'd met them and Joe's sister, Mary, as well as Joe's mother and grandparents the night before when they all came filing into the house to meet her and see Joey. They were cordial, though she could feel vibes of uncertainty, like they didn't know what to do with a Harrison among them. She too felt uncertain, sensing that the basis for the animosity between the Broussards and Harrisons was her family's' preconceived bias against Cajuns, though the Broussards had a right to feel bitterness towards the descendants of the man responsible for driving them out of their homeland.

  The question was, would Joey be the link that would finally bring the families together, or a wedge that would further divide them?

  She eyed the men, who were walking toward the stock barn where they stopped at a fence enclosing cows clustered around a feeder, the men seeming to be discussing something about the animals. The Broussards had been working cattle in southwest Louisiana since the late 1700s when Amand Broussard, the son of Joseph Beausoleil Broussard, registered his cattle brand, Joe informed her that morning when she asked questions about the ranch, wanting to learn all she could, hoping to stumble on the trigger that would bring everything back.

  Although nothing seemed familiar, she did learn something about Joe. He was the one who suggested they go into the grass-fed business with the intent of producing beef using no antibiotics or growth hormones, and his brothers were all for it, though it took some effort to convince their father and grandfather. Joe was also proud of the fact that they worked their cattle only on horseback, no ATVs, which meant rounding up cattle in marshes, thickets, swamps and woods using working dogs—Catahoula curs they were called—but working from horses meant less stress on the cattle, even though it took a little longer.

  Turning from the window she glanced around. There was little furniture in the living room and what there was came from a resale shop, since they'd been in her apartment in Lafayette. But the house had possibilities. It was an appealing house with tall, narrow windows typical of old, southwest Louisiana homes. She could tell from the wide moldings at the floors and ceiling that the house had once been a grand house on a smaller scale, and if the walls were painted, the floors restored, and the old kitchen cabinets repaired and refinished, it would be a grand house again, a place where Joey could grow up.

  She ventured into Joe's bedroom, hoping it would generate memories even though she'd never lived with him in this house, but being immersed among his personal belongings might spark something. The queen-sized bed and dresser appeared reasonably new. On the dresser were several framed photos of her, and a couple images like those on Joe's phone. She lifted a larger frame of the two of them together. In the background were people dancing, like at one of those fais-do-does Joe talked about. He had his arm around her, and she had her hand resting just above his belt and her head tipped against his shoulder, and they were smiling into the camera, as if someone they knew well had taken the photo.

  Returning the picture to the dresser, she turned and scanned the unmade bed while trying to envision a time when she would have been with Joe, but nothing came, except perhaps her own imaginings of them in a tangle of sheets with Joe's hands running over her. It was a made-up scene though, not a memory… except there was definitely something familiar about his hands, his large, square, bear paws with their work-hardened palms…

  I don't know why they're called bear paws, but I love the way they touch me all over.

  It was her own voice in her head, words she'd once said to Joe while feeling tingles on her skin, and muggy warmth, a time when they'd made love. She tried to hold onto the memory, but it slipped away, leaving only her words and a vague restlessness she knew would be filled when her past with Joe became clear.

  Deciding to at least straighten the covers, she threw them back so she could smooth the sheets, and to her surprise, found a nightgown bunched close to Joe's pillow, no doubt the gown he'd found when he cleared out her apartment. That he'd kept it close to him was an example of how deeply he felt. As she looked at the gown and pillow together, she longed for something to take her back, an odor, a touch no matter how fleeting. The realization came that she ached for the smell of love, or lust, or passion, one scent to carry her across time and into her past with Joe.

  Lifting his pillow, she held it to her face and inhaled. Filling her lungs with Joe's scent was like passing him through her body. She couldn't define the smell except by comparing it with other odors, like a combination of leather, jerky, and Cajun spices.

  Yet, she could imagine Joe smelling like flowers, too. Lavender.

  Another image emerged. Flesh and muscles, smooth skin and jerky, leather and lavender…

  I love the smell of you.

  It was Joe's voice this time, yet the memory of when and where he'd said the words remained elusive. But when she picked up the gown and smelled it, she detected the faint fragrance of lavender, but she also caught a hint of muskiness that was Joe. It came to her that she was Joe's lavender to his jerky and leather. He was the earthy Cajun to her starched life the other side of the cane field. That thought disturbed her, and she wondered again at her troubling relationship with her father.

  She had just finished straightening Joe's bed when a knock on the front door startled her. Joe wouldn't have knocked, and she was apprehensive about who it could be and uneasy about opening the door and even considered ignoring it so whoever it was would leave.

  Deciding it could be someone from Joe's family, she pulled the door open and found a tall man with a stern face and thick peppery-gray hair, and an attractive woman, who looked to be in her mid-fifties, staring at her, their faces showing shock.

  While waiting for them to announce who they were, the woman threw her arms around her, and said, "Your father and I just heard you were here, and it's true. I can't believe it." When the woman released her hold momentarily to look at her, Anne saw tears in her eyes. "What happened?" the woman asked. "How did you end up in New Orleans?"

  Standing stiffly, Anne had no idea what to say or do because the woman, who she realized was her mother, was also a stranger, one who'd asked questions she couldn't answer, and when she didn't respond, the woman released her and looked at her, baffled. "Anne?"

  Anne backed away in order to put some distance between them.

  While trying to process what to say to these strangers she knew to be her parents, the man, who looked perplexed, said to her, "What's going on here? You disappeared for six months, leaving everyone to believe you were dead, then you turned up in New Orleans, and now you're living in a house barely habitable, with a man you know we're opposed to."

  Realizing these people didn't know about her amnesia, and not wanting to explain something she didn't fully understand herself, yet feeling a need to defend Joe against the man she knew to be her father, she said, "Joe had the house moved here for when we'd be married and he hasn't had a chance to fix it up yet."

  The man gave a reproachful huff. "Hasn't and won't, and you'll end up living hand-to-mouth like the rest of those Cajuns, no goals, no ambition, no education, and before long you'll have a house full of kids hanging onto you. They're all Catholic, born to breed."

  With the man's words, the first ripple of familiarity began to filter into Anne's memory, an awareness that she'd had this conversation with the man, not about Joe, but about a class of people she was to stay clear of. She was also beginning to understand why she'd had issues with her father, not from memories but from a gut feeling coupled with his behavior, a clash of minds and convictions and what she imagined to be diametrically opposed viewpoints.

  Her father eyed her with exasperation. "Do you still have nothing to say, no explanation for putting your mother and me through hell while thinking you'd drowned?"

  "I don't know," Anne said.

  "You don't know? That's it?"
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  "Charles wait," her mother cut in. "Something's wrong. Anne looks confused. I think she's been traumatized, maybe fled to get out of a bad relationship and now he's brought her back."

  The man eyed Anne with uncertainty. Then his expression changed, became concerned. "If she's been abused I'll file a report, but she needs to come with us now, while he's gone."

  "No." Anne backed until she felt the wall behind her. "It's not like that."

  "Then what? Why did you run away to New Orleans?" Her father waited.

  Anne blinked rapidly, trying to come up with an answer. When nothing came because these people caught her off guard, she said, "I don't know. I mean, it's confusing, but Joe didn't do anything to me. He found me there and brought me back, and I'm not leaving here."

  "Charles," her mother cut in again. "This is typical behavior for a battered woman. They deny everything and stick up for the men who abuse them. We see it all the time at the women's shelter." Turning to Anne, she said, "Honey, you need to come with us. Things will be different once you're away from here and safe with us at home."

  "No!" Anne looked through the open doorway beyond them, and to her relief, saw Joe pull his truck to a halt. In an instant he was out of his truck and rushing toward them.

  Nudging his way around her parents, who were all but blocking the entrance, he went over to where Anne stood and said to her, "What's goin' on?"

  Her father stepped forward. "That's what we want to know. Anne's making no sense."

  "She has amnesia," Joe said. "She remembers nothing about bein' in the flood or how she got to N'Awlins. I found her at the race track there and brought her back."

  Her father eyed Joe, warily. "You just happened to find her at the track? That seems a strange coincidence. How long has she been here?"

  Joe held her father's caustic gaze. "Three days."

  "We're her parents. Why weren't we told at once?" Her father's tone was brusque.

  "Because I wanted Anne to settle in here first."