by Sandra Hill
Frankly, she shouldn’t be here, either. She should be at one of her spas, but she was afraid Mafia thugs would catch up with her in advance of the deadline.
“Seems to me that all yer resolutions are ’bout to melt,” Tante Lulu chortled.
Charmaine turned to see what Tante Lulu was gawking at with that strange little smirk on her face. Then Charmaine did a double take.
It was Raoul Lanier, her first ex-husband. Some people called him Rusty. She’d preferred his real name in the past. Raoul always said he liked the way his name sounded on her tongue, slow and sexy.
She’d been a nineteen-year-old student at LSU and former Miss Louisiana when she’d married Raoul. He’d been twenty-one and a hot-shot football player at the same school.
Charmaine had been avoiding him for weeks, ever since he got released from prison. And, yes, she was bound and determined to think of him as Rusty now. She thought about ducking under the table, but he’d already seen her. And he had a look in his black Cajun eyes that said, “Here I come, baby. Batten down the hatches.”
Man oh man, her hatches had always been weak where Rusty was concerned. All he had to do was wink at her, and she melted. Today he wore faded Wrangler jeans with battered, low-heeled boots, a long-sleeved denim shirt and a cowboy hat. He was six-foot-three of gorgeous, dark-skinned, dark-haired Cajun testosterone. Temptation on the hoof. Good thing she was a born-again virgin.
Women are the root of all trouble, guar-an-teed!
Finally, after a month of off-and-on bird dogging Charmaine, Raoul had finally caught up with her. She wasn’t going to escape now.
“Ladies.” He took off his hat and nodded a greeting, first at Charmaine and then at Tante Lulu, who was wearing the most outlandish outfit. Charmaine wasn’t any better. She wore her usual suggestive attire, which didn’t bear close scrutiny in his present mood. Not that he wasn’t suggestible, especially after two years in the state pen.
He pulled up a chair and sat down, propping his long legs, crossed at the ankle, on the edge of Charmaine’s side of the booth, barring any hasty departure on her part. He was no fool. He recognized the panic in her wide whiskey-brown eyes.
After taking a swallow from the long neck he’d purchased at the bar, he set the bottle down, noticing for the first time the line of oyster shooters in front of Charmaine. Holy shit! Had she really drunk four of them already? In the middle of the afternoon?
“What are we celebrating, chère?” he asked.
“We aren’t celebrating anything,” Charmaine answered churlishly.
“;We’re celebrating Charmaine’s virginity,” Tante Lulu announced.
“Is that a fact?” Raoul said with a grin.
Charmaine groaned and downed another oyster shooter, first the oyster, then the bourbon. Bam-bam! He watched with fascination the shiver that rippled over her body from her throat, across her mighty fine breasts, her belly and all her extremities, including legs encased in skin-tight black jeans. Then his eyes moved back to her breasts where her nipples bloomed under his scrutiny. Charmaine watched him watching her and groaned again.
Tante Lulu chuckled. “Yep, Charmaine’s a born-again virgin. She’s joinin’ a club and everything. Might even have her doo-hickey sewed back up.”
Yeah, and I joined a club, too. It’s called Prison. Raoul wasn’t about to ask Tante Lulu what doohickey she referred to.
“Was you framed?” Tante Lulu asked him all of a sudden.
He hesitated. This was a sore subject with him and not one he was ready to discuss. “Yes,” was all he disclosed in the end.
“I knew it!” Tante Lulu whooped, slapping her knee with a hand, which set the bells on her bracelets to jingling. “This is yer lucky day, boy, ’cause I been thinkin’ ’bout becomin’ a dick.”
That pronouncement boggled his mind till he realized that the old lady meant private eye and that she was offering to help clear his name.
He heard Charmaine giggle at his discomfort.
“Uh, thanks for the offer, but no thanks.” Before Tante Lulu had a chance to protest, he changed the subject. “What’s the reason for the binge, Charmaine?”
“None of your business.” She licked her flame-red lips which were probably desensitized from all the booze.
He’d like a shot at sensitizing them up.
No, no, no! I would not. That would be a bad idea. I am not going to fall for Charmaine again. No way!
Back at the beginning of time—probably post-Garden of Eden since Adam was a dunce, for sure, when it came to Eve—men had learned an important lesson that even today hadn’t sunk in with women. The female of the species should never lick anything in front of the male. Licking gave men ideas. He would bet his boots good ol’ Eve had licked that apple first. So, keep on lickin’, Charmaine, and you might just see what’s tickin’.
“The Mafia is after her,” Tante Lulu said. “And her life’s in the outhouse.”
“The toilet,” Charmaine corrected her aunt, with another lick.
“Huh?” Raoul had lost his train of thought during Charmaine’s licking exercise.
“You asked why Charmaine’s on a binge. And I said the Mafia is after her,” Tante Lulu explained. “You thick or sumpin, boy?”
Raoul should have been insulted, but it was hard to get angry with the old lady who didn’t really mean any offense.
“What’s this about the Mafia, darlin’?” he asked Charmaine.
“Don’t call me darlin’. I am not your darlin’.” How like Charmaine to home in on the most irrelevant thing he’d said.
“They’s gonna kill her, or break her knees,” Tante Lulu interjected.
“Tante Lulu! I can speak for myself,” Charmaine said. She turned to him, slowly, as if unsure if she might topple over, which was a real possibility. “I just have a little money problem to settle with Bucks ’r Us.”
Her words were slurred a bit, but he got the message. “A loan shark? You borrowed money from a loan shark?”
“Doan s’pose you have fifty thousand dollars to spare?” Tante Lulu inquired of him.
Fifty thou? he mouthed to Charmaine, who just nodded. “No, I can’t say that I do.”
Charmaine probably hadn’t expected him to help her, and the question hadn’t even come from her. Still, her shoulders drooped with disappointment.
In that moment, he wished he could help, despite the fact that he was so damn mad at her because she’d made his life miserable not just the past few weeks but the past ten years.
“So, you can see why Charmaine’s a bit depressed,” Tante Lulu said. “That, on top of her pushin’ thirty, not havin’ a date fer six months, and being married and divorced four times. Who wouldn’t be depressed by that?” Tante Lulu stood then, her bells ting-a-linging and said, “I’m outta here. Gotta go to belly dance class. Will you take Charmaine home, Rusty?”
“No!” Charmaine said.
“Yes,” he said.
After the old lady left, he sat down beside Charmaine in the booth, which required a little forceful pushing of his hips against hers. He put one arm over the back of the booth, just above her shoulders, and relished for a brief moment the memory of how good Charmaine felt against him. Same perfume. Same big “Texas” hair she’d had during her beauty pageant days. Same sleek brunette color. Same soft-as-sin curves. “So, you haven’t had a date in six months, huh? Poor baby!”
She lifted her chin with that stubborn pride of hers. “It’s not because I haven’t been asked.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute, chère. And, hey, I haven’t had a date in two years so we’re sort of even.”
“Go away, Rusty. I want to get plastered in private.”
He didn’t mind people calling him Rusty, except for Charmaine. He wanted her to call him Raoul, in that slow, breathy way she had of saying Raaa-oool. No, it was better that she called him Rusty now.
“I have a bit of good news for you, baby.” He could tell she didn’t like him calling her baby by t
he way her body stiffened up like a steer on branding day. That’s probably why he added, “Real good news, baby.”
Her upper lip curled with disgust. She probably would have belted him one if she wasn’t half-drunk. “There isn’t any news you could impart that I would be interested in hearing.”
Wanna bet? “You know how Tante Lulu said you were depressed over being married and divorced four times?”
“Yeah?” she said hesitantly.
“Well, no need to be depressed over that anymore. Guess what? You’re not.”
She blinked several times with confusion. “Not what?”
“Divorced four times.” He took a long swallow of his beer and waited.
It didn’t take Charmaine long to figure it out, even in her fuzzy state. Her big brown eyes went wider, and her flushed face got redder. “You mean . . .?”
He nodded. “You’re not even a one-time divorcée, darlin’. You’ve never been divorced.”
She sat up straighter, turned slowly in her seat to look at him directly, and asked with unflattering horror, “Rusty, are you saying that you and I are still married?”
“Yep, and you can start callin’ me Raoul again anytime you want.” Dumb, dumb, dumb.
That’s when Charmaine leaned against his chest and swooned. Okay, she passed out, but he was taking it as a good sign.
Charmaine Lanier was still his wife, and it was gonna be payback time at the Triple L Ranch. Guar-an-teed!
THE EDITOR’S DIARY
Dear Reader,
Starting over can lead to a second chance at love. And who wouldn’t want to start over with Cajun bad boy Remy LeDeux and sexy professor Max Hunter? You can treat yourself to them both by reading our two Warner Forever titles this July.
According to Publishers Weekly,Sandra Hill brings “a singular blend of humor and romance” to her books and that proves to be the case with her Warner Forever debut TALL, DARK, AND CAJUN. Thirty-something Rachel Fortier has had it with her fiancé. Their five-year engagement has no end in sight! So she packs up and heads south to meet her grandmother and regroup for while. Rachel finds herself stepping into a feud her grandmother is having with a local Cajun—Remy LeDeux, a helicopter pilot and Air Force vet whose face is scarred from battle. But when Remy sees Rachel getting out of a red truck, it’s love at first sight for the long-time bachelor. Despite all the turmoil she brings into his life, especially with her crazy grandmother threatening his life, Remy knows that getting Rachel to say “I do” may very well be worth it!
Switching from love and laughter to heart-stopping suspense, we offer you Karen Rose’s DON’T TELL.New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner calls this thrilling debut novel “utterly compelling . . . Rose delivers high-wire suspense that keeps you riveted to the edge of your seat right up until the climactic end.” Suffering at the hands of her abusive husband, Mary Grace Winters fakes her and her son’s death to escape sadistic police officer Rob Winters. She becomes Caroline Stewart and relocates with her son to another town to start a new life. After nine years, Caroline has almost forgotten her nightmarish past, and has even taken a chance on love with Max Hunter, a man with tender wounds of his own. Then, her car is found at the bottom of a lake. With her husband stopping at nothing until he finds them, Caroline’s peaceful existence that she so painstakingly recreated is in danger. . . .
To find out more about Warner Forever, these June titles, and the authors, visit us at www.warnerforever.com.
With warmest wishes,
Karen Kosztolnyik, Senior Editor
P.S. Next month travel to exotic locales with two exciting Warner Forever titles: go to medieval Scotland where a hot-tempered knight meets his match in a vengeance-seeking noblewoman in Sue-Ellen Welfonder’s MASTER OF THE HIGHLANDS; and with THE NINE MONTH PLAN author Wendy Markham takes you to Queens, New York, with a romantic comedy about a young woman who’s dying to leave home—only to be side-tracked by falling in love with her childhood best friend.