A Cajun Dream (The Cajun Series Book 5)

by Claire, Cherie

  Amanda stretched across half of the bed, her arm lying nonchalantly over her forehead, a slight smile perched on her lips. René settled back down and snaked an arm around her shoulders. She sighed with pleasure and nestled her face into the crook of his arm. René moved his free hand to her face, brushing the yellow curls from her forehead.

  How incredibly right she felt in his arms, fitting into his embrace as if she was born to do so.

  He remembered the day his father had taken him into the woods in search of a cypress log for a new pirogue, a canoe they would use in fishing. “You must search for the perfect log,” his father had said. “One that will allow you to completely transform it into a pirogue. If you look closely, you will see the boat existing within the tree trunk. Listen, and the log will whisper to you if it is the right one. Pick the wrong log, relying simply on what it looks like on the outside, and it will not allow you to carve it.”

  René’s easy-natured father had then laughed. “It’s kind of like choosing a wife. If men would use the same logic in picking a wife as they do pirogue building they would live happier lives. Instead, they rely too much on beauty, and not enough on what their hearts tell them and what’s inside the hearts of their women.”

  When René had first walked down Main Street and encountered the blue eyes of his angel, he knew Amanda would fill the empty parts of his life. His heart agreed when her smile whispered of a happy, married life together.

  Perhaps he was kidding himself. Alcée insisted he was. Still, lying next to Amanda felt natural, like coming home.

  René caressed the warm, satiny skin of her arm, while inhaling the feminine scent of her wavy blonde hair. He kissed her closed eyelids while his hand explored the gentle curve of her back, pressing her tightly against him. Amanda murmured and sighed, and bent her knee to allow them closer proximity. René’s heart raced with desire as he slipped his own knee between her thighs.

  Amanda sighed again, and René gently tilted her head back, rubbed her generous lips with his thumb and then softly touched her lips with his. His kiss was much like the one he offered at the altar, a courting kiss one gave his amour that spoke of passion, but didn’t give in to desire. Amanda reacted slightly, neither pulling away nor awakening. Instead, she wrapped her arm around René’s back, emitting a soft moan as she caressed the broad expanse of muscles there.

  The temptation became too great. René deepened his kiss, pressing Amanda closer with his hand at the small of her back and urging his knee inward. She was so warm, so soft, so incredibly near. He wanted her with all his soul, his mind bent on only one objective: to love this blonde angel, the passion of his life.

  Pulling Amanda closer still, René moaned. It was then Amanda awoke, her eyes wild with accusations, her arms vehemently pushing René away, desperately trying to break from his embrace. When she finally realized he had let go, she grabbed the sheet, pulled it tightly against her chest and retreated hastily to the far side of the bed. She sat trembling, staring at René as if she had just been attacked by a hungry alligator.

  “I’m sorry. I was only trying to awaken you with a kiss,” René said, knowing that only half of that was true. “Please, I never meant to hurt you.”

  As if she suddenly recognized him, Amanda let out a deep breath and began to relax. “No, I am sorry. I thought you were....” Amanda stared down at her free hand that was busy twisting the sheet fabric into a tight knot. “I must have been dreaming.”

  René moved closer and brought her chin up with his finger so their eyes met. “Amanda, I asked you this once before, but I will ask you again. Did Henry Tanner hurt you?”

  Amanda stared deeply into his eyes and shook her head slightly.

  “Did he try to hurt you?”

  At this question, she gazed back down at her lap. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  René slipped his hand gently around her cheek and kissed her forehead. His heart still beat wildly from their earlier embrace, and he inhaled her sweet aroma one last time before moving away.

  “It was all my fault,” Amanda said, almost to herself. “I am such a stupid girl.”

  “Don’t say that, chèr. You did not ask to be carried away to a drunkard’s port in the middle of the night.”

  Amanda shook her head. “But I did. I practically asked him to. I got exactly what I deserved.”

  Her last words were more sobering than if René had plunged his head into the Bayou Teche. So this was her story. Amanda had thrown herself at the town’s rogue and now the poor rich American was forced to spend the rest of her days married to an Acadian.

  “How devastating for you,” he said sarcastically, “to end up having to marry someone like me.”

  Amanda’s eyes instantly met his. “I never meant…. “René, you know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Didn’t you?” He pulled the mosquito netting free and headed for the door.

  Before Amanda could answer, René had slammed the door shut between them.

  What just happened, Amanda wondered? One minute she was dreaming pleasantly of René making love to her and the next thing she knew she had offended him again. In between it all, Henry Tanner had made his horrid presence known, invading her sleep like a devil.

  Amanda pulled her fingers through her hair in exasperation, trying to brush the curls out of her eyes. She could still sense René’s gentle fingers on her cheeks, his lips softly kissing her forehead.

  Next door, René was stomping through his room, and Amanda quickly realized he was dressing and heading for the racetrack. In a few minutes, he would be gone. She couldn’t let him leave angry, offended by words she didn’t mean.

  Amanda threw back the sheet and netting and hurried to dress. She had to stop him, to explain her seemingly hurtful words. More than anything, she realized, she had to see him again. She couldn’t spend another day and night without talking to René, without being near him. Like her mornings at the front fence, Amanda longed to be close to René Comeaux.

  Her fingers froze on her chemise’s buttons. She cared for René, and it was more than simple gratitude. It always had been. From the moment she awoke in the morning in her father’s dreary, dark house, she couldn’t wait to see René’s smiling, beaming face heading her way down the street.

  Slowly and carefully Amanda peered up at the portrait, afraid of what secrets it would reveal. René’s smile washed down upon her like a welcome rain. She wondered if their children would be tall like René, or resemble her Germanic and English paternal side of her family. Perhaps they’d have the dark eyes of his mother and Alcée. Amanda glanced back down at her bare arms and undergarments. Had it been a dream or did René touch her the way she imagined he did?

  The butterflies resumed their wild activities inside her stomach and Amanda smiled. Yes, she was certain. She cared for this man.

  René stormed down the stairs taking two steps at a time, his anger quickening his pulse. He was always so good at staying calm, always so diplomatic. His father used to say he could sell fish to a fisherman.

  But women were another story. They were married two days and already she was slowly making him insane.

  “Where are you headed in such a huff?”

  René spun around to find Alcée returning to the house from the nearby fields with two ripe, plump watermelons under each arm. “Aren’t they beautiful? Always taste better when you pick them before sunrise.”

  “What did you find out in town?” René asked gruffly.

  Alcée gently placed the melons in a covered spot on the back gallery. “Nice to see you too, nephew.”

  René ignored the comment, inhaling deeply to try to release his anger. “I’m sorry, Alcée. It’s just that we haven’t had a chance to speak about it yet.”

  Alcée waved his hand to let René know there were no hard feelings. “Women will do that to you.”

  René thrust his hands into his pants pockets and placed a foot on a nearby bench. Amanda’s stinging words reverberated through his head.
Still, it was his job as her husband to protect her and he needed to make sure Tanner was no longer a threat.

  “He’s back,” Alcée began. “He returned to the plantation yesterday. I don’t know how he found out, but he knew you married Miss Richardson before he came back to Franklin. My source said he rode in straight from the coast to the plantation, skipping town altogether.”

  “I suspect he went from Berwick to Port Cocodrie and found Amanda gone,” René explained, pulling on the leather boots he left there the night before. “I informed the innkeeper, so he would have passed on the information to Tanner.”

  “Then Tanner knew that you had left Port Cocodrie with Amanda with the intention of marrying her?”

  “Yes.”

  Alcée pulled his fingers through his hair nervously. “I don’t like this, René. You have taken his woman from underneath his nose. He’s not going to stand for this.”

  “He won’t challenge me.” René pounded his feet to shake the boots into place. “Any action he takes against me will only attract attention to himself. Tanner will not want Judge Richardson to know of his actions, I am sure.”

  “Tanner is a sly one,” Alcée warned. “He may not attack you openly, but he will seek revenge.”

  “He works for the Judge, and Amanda is still the Judge’s daughter. He won’t take the chance.”

  Uncle and nephew stared at each other until Alcée broke the silence. “About the Judge’s daughter. There’s something I have to tell you about her.”

  Before he could explain, the upstairs door opened and Amanda hurried down the stairs.

  “Thank God you are still here,” she said breathlessly. René noticed her hair was not pinned up in its usual bun, but casually tied in the back with a ribbon as if she had been in a hurry, the blonde curls cascaded down her back. Underneath her skirt and layers of petticoats, René could have sworn he had seen two bare feet.

  “I’ll fix you breakfast,” she started. “You mustn’t leave.”

  “Non, merci,” René answered back sternly, still reeling from her earlier words. “I don’t eat breakfast.”

  “But you must. It’s important to have a good breakfast before you start the day.”

  Alcée laughed at her last remark. “You’ve been married less than two days and already she’s telling you what to do,” he joked to his nephew in French. Amanda glared at Alcée. For a moment, René imagined she understood what he said.

  “I have to go.” René grabbed his hat. “Sunrise is minutes away. Colette brings food and coffee to us at mid-morning, so you needn’t worry about me starving.”

  “But...”

  When René saw Amanda stumble for words, he knew she was searching for the right way to apologize. Damn, but women were complicated creatures. Suddenly, a wicked thought came to him. “I’d ask you to come with Colette, but I wouldn’t dream of asking the daughter of Judge Richardson to be seen at a horse track.”

  Amanda’s eyes flew open and her hands slowly found a defensive spot at her hips. René knew she wanted to object, but she wouldn’t dream of upsetting her father and his puritan views on horse racing and gambling. It was common knowledge in the parish that the Judge did not condone games of chance in any shape or form. But her following words surprised him more than her lack of shoes.

  “I’m not married to my father,” Amanda said as if doubting her words. Gathering up more courage, she added, “I’ll be there at mid-morning.”

  For a brief moment, René believed she was sincere in her attempt at an apology. Before logic could replace the pleasant thought, René imagined Amanda honestly did not mean what she had said before in his bedroom.

  He gazed over at Alcée who stood staring at his blonde wife with curiosity. Then Alcée smiled, and again René hoped his wife would care for him. Before his recurrent doubts could make their presence known, René placed his hat on his head and headed for the racetrack, a smile lingering on his lips.

  On a sugar cane plantation sunrise in summer meant one thing and one thing only — another sticky, humid day of relentless, back-breaking work. Tanner despised everything about his job as slave overseer. He hated the insufferable weather, the demanding hours in the inescapable sun and semi-tropical thunderstorms and abhorred the meager house that was completely inadequate for his needs and wants.

  The most despicable aspect of the job was the pitiful eyes of the dark men he supervised. They stared at him accusingly, as if silently blaming him for their predicament in life. Hell, he didn’t invent the institution; he wasn’t personally responsible for shipping them to Louisiana. They were ignorant, primitive savages. They were lucky to have the work and a roof over their heads. And the next time one gave him so much as a glance, he would have him severely flogged.

  Tanner angrily rubbed at his temples, but the throbbing pain would not abate. After a night and a day of one frustration after another, he had ridden back to the plantation and quickly sought refuge in every drop of rum he could find in the house. But all the grog in the world would not erase the fact that he owed William McDuff three thousand dollars — a sum he had held in the palm of his hand while Amanda Rose Richardson sat across from him in his carriage.

  Why did he have to leave her at Port Cocodrie, he chided himself for the hundredth time? He could have taken her with him to Berwick, then back to town when he realized Judge Richardson had gone to Charenton instead. But what would the Judge have said to his shivering, frightened daughter standing before him like a kidnapped child? The Judge would have hanged him for sure.

  Instead, the bitch marries the Cajun horse track owner, for what possible reason he could not imagine. He presented the spoiled brat the best offer she would ever get. The Baldwin girl said no one would marry her on account of her being Catholic. Why would she choose a Cajun when Tanner was ready and willing?

  Maybe she spooked when he tried to kiss her. He thought that was what she wanted. “Teasing bitch,” he said aloud. One minute she asks for it, the next minute she’s bolting like a frightened filly.

  But the Cajun man? That was a puzzle. Even the Judge had been destroyed by the news. Who would have thought amiable René Comeaux would have had it in him. He was so demure, so business-like and personable with the Americans. He fooled us all, Tanner thought, gritting his teeth with disdain, sneaking behind our backs and stealing our women.

  The sun rose higher and men began to stir throughout the slave quarters. The pounding in Tanner’s skull continued. McDuff had made his choice clear: three thousand by next Monday or someone’s dapper body would be found floating in Bayou Teche. He still had a week to raise the money. Horse track owners and pretty blonde daughters of sugar cane-producing judges were prime sources of wealth. One way or another he would escape this trap.

  As the men lined up for the morning duties, Tanner dared them to even give him so much as a glance. It wasn’t his fault they were slaves and he was stuck in this God-forsaken place as their overseer. If he hadn’t been swindled out of his inheritance by that con artist gambler from St. Louis, he would be in New Orleans now enjoying his life as a gentleman, a voluptuous woman on each knee.

  Come Monday, Tanner thought, someone may be floating in the bayou, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him. One less Cajun in the world wasn’t going to bother anyone.

  Amanda tried hard to keep up with Colette and the boys, but maintaining raised skirts, watching the ground for crawfish holes or, God forbid, snakes, plus carrying a large sack of bread in one arm kept forcing her to lag behind. Just when she had a good grip on her skirt, forcing it high enough to avoid the mud but discreet enough to meet the top of her boots, the sack would slip beneath her left arm and she would have to stop and reassemble.

  After the half-dozen time, Amanda admitted defeat. She was about to call out for Colette to stop when she realized they entered a clearing. The large meadow contained tall grasses and weeds, but its center was laid out flat and bare before them. A long road with a low wooden fence on either side stre
tched from one end of the meadow to the other. At one end were a series of stables, plus a collection of wooden chairs underneath an expansive oak. At the other, about four arpents away, stood René, T-Emile and two men on horseback.

  Colette waved to the group and then headed toward the stables with her children and coffee in tow. René immediately sent T-Emile to Amanda’s aid, and the young boy grabbed her package, shyly smiled and moved to follow Colette.

  Amanda stood alone in the middle of the field, uncertain of which direction to take. She could feel René’s eyes burning into her, clearly surprised she had come. She remembered his earlier astonished stare when she had mentioned visiting the racetrack. This time, he was smiling.

  René waved for her to join them. When she moved within earshot, she realized the other two men were also Acadian. They had dismounted and stood about asking René a series of questions in French about why Judge Richardson’s daughter was at the Comeaux/Dugas racetrack. René didn’t answer, but continued staring at Amanda as if contemplating his next course of action. She knew he was calculating how he was going to tell the world he had married the American judge’s daughter.

  Finally, René turned toward the duo. “She’s my wife.”

  At first, neither one spoke. Then they both broke into laughter, slapping him on the back and saying in French what Amanda thought was “perhaps in your dreams.” René began to darken as the laughing and joking continued unabated.

  “Bonjour,” Amanda announced to the men, who immediately stopped laughing and stared at her. “Let me introduce myself,” she continued in her best French. “I am Amanda Comeaux.”

  The awkward silence that fell over the group was deafening. Amanda felt a soft breeze cool the perspiration gathering at her neck and she shivered. Neither man moved to acknowledge her, and René stared equally as hard.

  When she extended her hand, the plump, balding one who stood the closest accepted it gingerly.

  “Amanda,” René began, coming to life. “This is Eraste Boudreaux.”