by Jana DeLeon
They all shook their heads. Finally, Luc cleared his throat and spoke, his voice barely disguising his anger. “This entire situation is ridiculous. What the hell was that woman thinking? It’s no wonder everyone hated her.”
“Got that one right,” Mildred agreed, and gave Luc a nod.
Maryse sighed. “I don’t know what Helena was thinking.” Even though I talk to her on a semi-regular basis. “Probably she just thought that the land would remain in the care of the state. And as long as I owned it, Mudbug wouldn’t become one big oil field.”
Mildred wasn’t convinced. “Helena or her attorney should have known that worthless son and husband of hers wouldn’t let you keep something so valuable.”
Maryse stared at the wall for a moment, casting her mind back to the will reading. “I got the impression that all the ‘rules’ of the inheritance weren’t exactly in the forefront of Wheeler’s mind. He even said he needed to review everything again before we talked because it had been so long since he’d read everything over. Probably Helena forgot too, since she inherited everything as a child.”
Luc shook his head. “Well, Helena should have reread the rules before she handed you a death sentence.”
“There’s nothing that can be done about this clause?” Mildred asked. “Can’t you just give the land back?”
Maryse shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve never asked.”
Mildred looked at the others and gave them a nod. “Then I say your first order of business is getting in touch with that attorney of Helena’s and finding out what your options are. He’s got to be able to do something to protect you.”
“Maybe,” Maryse said. It was a thought, anyway, and better than anything Maryse had come up with so far. “I’ll call him as soon as his office opens.”
Sabine nodded to Mildred, then looked over at Maryse. “And what do you plan on doing today? We don’t think you should be alone. One of us should be with you at all times, and we don’t think you should be in the bayou at all.”
Maryse stared at them. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t spend your entire day following me around. Mildred, you have a hotel to run. Sabine, you have a business, and Luc…” What the hell did Luc do exactly? “Luc has to do whatever it is he does for the state. Besides, I’d like to know what any of you could have done to protect me from that explosion. More likely, you’d have been hurt as much or more than I was.”
“I can stick with you,” Luc said. “I have a ton of vacation accrued. Long overdue, as a matter of fact. I can take a couple of days until the attorney can figure something else out.”
Maryse stared at Luc in disbelief. “You actually want me to spend every waking hour of my day with you? Take you everywhere I go? We don’t get along all that great in the few minutes a day we’re in contact at the office. How the heck do you think we can manage an entire day?”
Luc shrugged. “I get along just fine. You’re the one with the problem.”
Maryse felt her pulse quicken. Luc was right. She was the one with the problem. The main problem being that even a small amount of time around Luc LeJeune led to thoughts that she had no business thinking. How in the world was she supposed to manage an entire day? “I am not going clothes shopping with him,” Maryse said finally, “and that’s my first order of business for today.”
“Oh, c’mon, Maryse,” Sabine pleaded. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like he’s going to follow you into the dressing room.”
Luc perked up a bit and smiled, and Maryse felt a flush start at the base of her neck and slowly creep up her face. She shot him a dirty look that should have cut him to his knees, but it only made him smile more. “I am not selecting undergarments with a man.”
Sabine laughed. “You don’t even wear underwear, Maryse.”
“I do on Sundays,” Maryse grumbled, feeling her independence slipping away even as she made her futile arguments.
“It’s only Friday,” Luc said, and grinned. “You’ve still got time to change your mind.”
Chapter Twelve
Shopping with Luc wasn’t quite as bad as Maryse had originally imagined and probably not near as sexual as Luc had hoped. But given her slightly rough condition and the fact that her job didn’t exactly involve tailored dresswear, Maryse saw absolutely no reason to shop for anything cute or nice at the moment. Even if she was back in the bayou sometime soon, alligators and nutria didn’t appreciate fashion.
So a trip to Wal-Mart was as much shopping as Luc was going to see.
Maryse walked right into the women’s athletic section and pulled shorts, sweats, and T-shirts off the racks and shoved them into the cart she’d conned Luc into pushing. That was it. No tube tops, no spandex, no sexy lingerie—no dressing rooms. Then it was off to find some sports bras.
Luc stared wistfully at the rows of lacy, multi-colored underwear and reached up to finger a pair in girly pink. Maryse hid a grin. He was barking up the wrong tree with her. Not only was underwear purely optional, but Luc LeJeune was the last person she wanted getting a view of anything she might wear in that area. There were some temptations you just avoided altogether.
Apparently deciding Maryse wasn’t going to contemplate anything even remotely sexy, Luc gave up and yanked out his cell phone. Maryse ignored him and continued looking over her selection of activewear. She had just narrowed her choice down to two different crossed-back sports bras when Luc snapped the phone shut and gave her a curious look.
“There was a message on the office phone from someone named Aaron. He said that the mice cruised through the trial and he was moving on but he’s going to need more of the sample before he can go any further after that. What does that mean? What is he testing?”
Maryse tried to appear completely normal, even though she wanted to jump and shout, head injury not withstanding. “It’s nothing,” she said, and waved a hand in dismissal. Nothing but a successful Trial 3, which you’ve never made it through before now. “Just some different stuff I’m trying out—you know, herbal remedies and such.”
Luc narrowed his eyes. “What kind of remedies?”
Maryse turned away from him and concentrated on the bras. “Nothing that would interest you. Although two weeks ago, I found a natural cure for gas.” She looked back at him with a broad smile.
Luc shook his head and shot her a disbelieving look, but thankfully he dropped the subject and took up position at the edge of the department where he could scan the magazines. A successful Trial 3. It was all she could do to keep from dancing in the aisles. She was close to the answer, she could just feel it. And for now, at least, that thrill totally overrode all the bad things going on.
Maryse picked a couple of sports bras from the rack and tossed them in the basket, then pushed her cart down the aisle, whistling as she went. She was just about to leave the section altogether when the pink, lacy underwear that Luc had been studying earlier caught her eye. She glanced down the aisle at Luc, who had a magazine open and was concentrating intently on whatever he was reading. Looking back at the underwear, she bit her lip, knowing that even looking at the underwear was trouble. Buying them was even worse. It was the equivalent of purchasing a ticket to the “Sleep With Luc” concert.
But then there was that whole death thing to consider, and that was the clincher.
If she died today, the last man she would have slept with was Hank. Hell, the only man she’d slept with was Hank, and on so many levels, that was just wrong. She glanced over at Luc once more. Before she could change her mind, she snatched the underwear off the rack, tugged them off the hanger, yanked off the tag, and stuffed them in her pocket. No way was she letting Luc see her buy those panties. That was just asking for it. At least this way, she was still in control. Unless of course, she was arrested for shoplifting before she could get through checkout and use the underwear tag to pay for her secret bounty.
She tried to act normal as she walked to the end of the aisle and called out to Luc. “I’m going to hea
d over to checkout. Take your time. I’ll meet you at the end of the register.”
Luc nodded, and she could feel his gaze on her as she entered the only available check-out line, which was a mere six feet away from the magazine stand. She began placing her items on the belt, and when she finished, stepped close to the register, slipping the underwear tag to the clerk. “I liked these so much, I decided to wear them,” she said, her voice low.
The clerk stared at her for a moment, obviously trying to decide if she was a loon or a thief. Loon must have won out, because the clerk took the tag from her, scanned it, and tossed it in the bag with her bras. “That will be one hundred eight dollars and thirty-two cents.” She gave Maryse a shrewd look. “Unless you’re wearing anything else.”
Maryse shook her head and swiped her debit card, certain her face was beet red. She looked over at Luc, who plopped the magazine back on the shelf and turned toward the check-out lane. Catching her eye, he smiled and walked over to her.
“Ready?” he asked.
Maryse felt a slow burn in her center as she stared at the smiling Luc. Her hand moved involuntarily to her pocket and closed around the lacy underwear. “You have no idea,” she said.
“Then let’s do it.”
Oh God. Maryse felt her knees weaken. There was no way out, she was certain. If someone didn’t kill her first, she was going to sleep with Luc LeJeune.
As they exited Wal-Mart, Luc scanned the parking lot for possible threats but finally decided that the only threat to Maryse at the moment was him. He glanced over at her and held in a sigh. It simply made no sense at all. Maryse was so unlike the women he normally went for. His past conquests had all been girly and clingy and had the helpless woman routine down pat, whether helpless or not. They were fluff, eye candy…the kind of woman who made you look like a stud at the company Christmas party but not the kind you’d ever introduce to your family.
Especially not his family. Women like his mother and grandmother did not suffer weakness or fools.
Maryse, with her fierce and sometimes frustrating independence, was a breath of fresh air. And the fact that she didn’t fall at his feet and overload him with compliments only made him more interested rather than less. He glanced down at the shopping bags he carried and shook his head. Her wardrobe definitely needed work, but for whatever reason, the faded jeans and rubber boots she’d worn into the bayou had never been a turnoff. In fact, it was exactly the opposite, which was uncharted territory for him.
He’d been with women who’d worn their stiletto heels to bed, and he had to admit, it was a huge turn-on. But on the occasion when his guard slipped and he allowed himself the luxury of that one-second vision of Maryse in his bed, damned if she wasn’t completely nude except for those rubber boots. He felt his pulse quicken every time that picture flashed through his mind and knew that he would have to be very careful with Maryse Robicheaux.
Women who caused high blood pressure by wearing rubber boots were not to be taken lightly. If he made a genuine move in that direction, he knew there would be no going back. Maryse Robicheaux was no good-time girl or one-night stand. Maryse Robicheaux was the kind of woman who inspired men to make long-term plans.
They climbed into Luc’s Jeep, packages in tow, and Luc pulled out of the parking space. As he exited the parking lot, Maryse pulled out her cell phone and punched in a number. Luc felt his pulse quicken for a moment, wondering who she was calling, but relaxed when she asked to speak to the attorney, Wheeler.
Clutching the steering wheel, he stared down the highway. What the hell was wrong with him? He was acting like a jealous husband, worried that his wife might be talking to another man. He needed to get a grip and get a grip fast. He wasn’t going to be any help to Maryse if he spent all his time mentally undressing her rather than protecting her.
As Maryse finished her conversation and snapped the phone shut, he erased the rubber boot scene from his mind and looked over at her. “Wheeler meeting you this afternoon?” he asked.
Maryse nodded. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m losing my mind with the questions I asked, but I didn’t want to get into everything over the phone.”
“Probably best to spring a house exploding on him in person,” Luc agreed.
“He’s meeting me at the café at two, hopefully with answers to all the questions that I asked.” She sighed. “You know, somehow having this discussion over a cup of coffee and blueberry pancakes just seems wrong.”
“Probably more of a shot of rot-gut whiskey sort of moment.”
“Or battery acid,” she said, and frowned.
Luc studied her for a moment, the questions she’d asked Wheeler rolling through his mind. “Are you really thinking about signing the land over to Hank?”
Maryse shook her head. “No. But if everyone thought that I could, and had, that would take the pressure off of me if the whole point of this mess was someone thinking Hank was going to inherit in the first place.”
Luc studied Maryse for a moment, then frowned. She’d processed things quicker than he thought she would, so the thoughts rolling through her mind must be overwhelming. “You realize what you’re saying?” he asked, just to be sure they were on the same page. “You think someone wanted that land so bad that they killed Helena Henry thinking Hank would inherit and make a deal. And when you inherited instead, they shifted to killing you.”
He paused for a moment, carefully deciding on his next words. “It would take someone very desperate to attempt that in the first place. And it would take someone who knew enough about the land, and you and Helena, to know the score.”
“I know what I’m saying,” Maryse said, and stared out the car window. “Someone I know, possibly someone I consider a friend, is trying to kill me.”
Maryse’s two o’clock meeting with Wheeler started off a bit rocky. First off, both Luc and Sabine insisted on attending. Apparently they had decided that if Maryse couldn’t come up with a better idea for protecting herself, they were going to wring one out of the attorney. Wheeler entered the café, took one look at Maryse, and gasped.
“Oh, my word,” he said as he slid onto the chair across from her. “What happened to you?”
“A couple of things you should be aware of,” Maryse said, and told him about the truck wreck and the explosion at her cabin.
Wheeler looked at Maryse, then over at Sabine and Luc, apparently hoping this was all a joke and they were the hidden-camera crew. When no one said a word, Wheeler looked back at Maryse, cleared his throat, and finally said, “Are you implying that someone is trying to remove you from the inheritance line?”
“Jesus, Wheeler,” Maryse said, her exasperation with the situation overcoming any subtlety she might have otherwise had. “Where did you learn to talk that way?” She supposed his highbrow, cultured existence didn’t allow him to say or think of such sordid things as murder, but damn it, they had no time to pussyfoot around reality. “I’m saying someone is trying to kill me. Are you with me now?”
Wheeler paled and used his table napkin to wipe his brow. “You’re sure?” he asked, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he shook his head and looked contrite. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re sure or you wouldn’t be here talking to me. I guess it’s just so startling because I can’t imagine anyone running the risk of an arrest for something that may be worth considerable money someday but isn’t really worth all that much right now.”
“If only that were true, Wheeler,” Maryse said, “but your client neglected to inform you of the billions of dollars in oil that are in the marsh. Seems she neglected to tell everyone that little bit of information, but apparently someone out there knows.”
Wheeler stared at her for a moment, then drained half his glass of water. “Billions? I can see where that might be a problem. So what can I do?”
“I need to know what my options are. That’s why I gave you that list of questions to research earlier.”
Wheeler nodded and pulled a tablet from his
briefcase. “I have all the answers here. Where would you like to start?”
Maryse took a deep breath and looked over at Luc, who nodded. “Can I give the land back to the estate?” Maryse asked.
Sabine stared at Maryse in shock. “If the land goes back to the estate, won’t Hank inherit? I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, Maryse, but I thought you were dead set against that idea.”
Maryse put one hand up. “I’m not saying that’s what I want to do, but I need to know all my options and how they would work.”
Maryse looked expectantly at Wheeler, but he shook his head. “I couldn’t find any provision that would allow you to forgo your inheritance.”
“Except being dead, of course,” Luc threw in, his expression dark.