by Sandra Hill
Great taste in men, Simone! The only similarity he could see about them was they were all Cajun.
He didn’t need the various photos to remind him of how she had looked, although she was especially hot in one where she was wearing a SWAT uniform. He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to make love to a woman wearing boots, a police hat, and a flak jacket, and nothing else, except maybe a black thong. No, the image of her standing in this office was the best, the one imprinted on his testosterone-teeming brain.
Tall. Not too slender like many tall women were today. Model thin, they called it. More like Skinny Minnie. He’d had sex one time with a woman whose hip bone had given him a bruise on the shoulder that lasted for a week. Simone had more meat on the bone, and muscle, from her shoulders to her ample breasts to narrow belted waist to wider hips, and she had mile long legs, and in the middle, oh, my Lord, a butt to die for. When she’d turned to leave his office, he’d noticed the way her dress cupped her buttocks. He’d never been a butt man before, but he was becoming a convert.
She was Cajun, no doubt about that, but not the sweet, petite, brown-eyed, brunette southern Louisiana belle he was accustomed to. Her eyes were alert and intelligent, daring him, or any man, to say the wrong thing. I can think of about fifty inappropriate things right off the bat. With her police training, she probably had a pistol in her pocket or hidden in an inner thigh holster. God bless the male imagination. Her lips were full, and flame-red today. Sassy, he would guess, when she let herself go. Does she ever let herself go? She must, if she’s been married three times. And did he mention she had a world-class ass?
Later that day, Adam decided that he should buy some beignets to take home for dessert, and of course he headed to Sweet Buns down the street. That was the name of the bakery, not . . . well, never mind. It was a coincidence, of course, that the bakery was next door to the soon-to-be home of Legal Belles. Maybe he could get another look at Ms. Simone LeDeux, and see if his first reaction had been a one-off. Maybe he would notice something distasteful a second time around that would turn him off.
Even though it was a short distance, he drove his Harley, figuring he would go directly home from there. Dinnertime traffic was heavy and he would have made better time walking, but it gave him time to think. He felt a little creepy chasing after a woman, or at least uncomfortable. Would she think he was a stalker? No, he wasn’t stalking. But he was behaving out of character, and that was alarming. To him.
The prospect stopped him dead. What the hell was he doing? He shook his head to clear it and turned the cycle around, heading back to the office.
He would be more careful in the future. It was not a good idea to care too much about a woman. Not a good idea at all.
And next time his sweet tooth called, he would find some other bakery. Like Haydel’s in New Orleans which sold Cajunnolis, a trademarked specialty, which was Maisie’s favorite. Crisp shells filled with praline cream cheese and the ends dipped in chopped pecans. Better than beignets any day. To Maisie, anyhow. He would make a special trip there soon.
That was a close call, he decided later. One he was going to avoid at all costs. And he wasn’t talking . . . thinking . . . about pastry.
Chapter Three
It’s hard work being a busybody . . .
Louise Rivard, a noted traiteur, or folk healer, when she wasn’t busy matchmaking up and down the bayou, was standing at the butcher block table in her herb pantry mashing up crumbled alligator teeth with a mortar and pestle. Over the years, she got so many requests for her famous gator anti-itch salve, she could have bottled it and made a fortune. In fact, her nephew John, or Tee-John, said she ought to sell it in that eBay store. Hah! Like she didn’t have enough work to do.
She could have used the handy-dandy mini electric food chopper that her eldest nephew, Luc, had given her last Christmas, but there was something soothing about the old methods. Grind, grind, grind. Rasp, rasp, rasp. Gave you time to think. And today she had a lot to think about.
Folks wondered about her using gator teeth in a remedy, but it made a fine abrasive. What those fancy-pancy cosmetic companies called an ex-folly-ant.
She didn’t need to worry about finding the animal teeth, either. Her pet gator, Useless, who lived in the bayou out back when it suited his cranky self or when she had enough of his favorite Cheez Doodles on hand, shed them like dandruff. In fact, her nephew René, an environmentalist who knew everything and then some about the bayou, claimed that gators grew new teeth whenever their old ones wore down or broke off so that over a fifty-year lifetime they might replace the seventy-five teeth in their big mouths to the tune of three thousand new teeth.
Too bad humans couldn’t do the same. It probably had something to do with the big sin in the Garden of Eden. God took away lots of gifts for people after that, like never growing old, because of that darn apple. She wouldn’t mind looking like she had at twenty, hubba hubba, even if her bones were older than dirt. Whoever said wrinkles were signs of wisdom was dumber than . . . well, dirt. They were just another of God’s punishments for that gol-darn apple.
When the gator tooth powder was fine enough, she dumped it in a pottery bowl and added some juniper berries, peppermint oil, aloe vera, and a few other secret ingredients before whipping the mess into a smooth cream that would thicken up after sitting for a while. Already it had a pleasing candy cane aroma.
While she spooned the salve into separate miniature tins she’d bought in a hobby shop (In the old days, she’d used little aspirin tins which they don’t make anymore.), and then cleaned up her supplies, she kept thinking, thinking, thinking. Something was niggling at the back of her brain, and she knew what it was. The thunderbolt of love was about to strike again, and it needed her help.
But who was it this time?
Was it Aaron LeDeux, the pilot from Alaska? She’d heard he was up to some strange antics. Away every night. But not a woman in sight. Could it be he was gay? Now, that would be a wonder, especially since it was his twin brother, Daniel, she’d always hinted might be playing for the other team.
Or maybe it was that crazy Simone LeDeux who’d been looking for love in all the wrong places for so long it gave a body a heartache . . . or heartburn. That girl needed a GPS to find her way through the man jungle out there.
Of course, there were always more of Valcour LeDeux’s children crawling out of the woodwork. Just when you thought you’d tagged them all, another one showed up. They ought to bottle up his sperm and put it in one of them fertility banks, or else cut off his wiener to end it all. She wouldn’t mind doing it herself. With a rusty butter knife. She’d even offered, more than once, which was why Valcour got a restraining order against her one time. Like that would stop her if she actually got the notion!
Later, her niece Charmaine showed up, supposedly to bring her some beauty product samples from one of her salons, but really to check up on her. Her nephews and nieces did that all the time. Probably thought she was going to pass to the Great Beyond during the night. She had news for them. She had lots to do before she was ready to pass anything but a bit of wind.
Charmaine sank down into a rocking chair next to hers on the back porch facing the bayou. They both had glasses of iced sweet tea in their hands.
Louise loved this view and this simple cottage, which had been a source of peace to her for so many years after the horror and bad years following her Big Grief, which she didn’t like to think about. Not anymore.
There was a stretch of lawn leading down to the water, its highlight being a beautiful fig tree that was practically as old as she was, planted by her daddy for her mother on one of their anniversaries. Then there was the St. Jude birdbath surrounded by flowers that she’d put in a few years back. And her vegetable garden, of course. She would have to pick tomatoes tomorrow, lest they go rotten on the vine. And okra, too. Lordy, that okra did flourish here. So much so, she could hardly give it away anymore.
There was something almost holy about the can
opy of live oaks streaming their gray moss over a slow-moving bayou and a sun-warmed garden alongside. You could almost hear a butterfly fluttering its angel wings.
“So, Tante, what’s new?” Charmaine asked, casual-like, jarring her from her reverie.
Everyone called her Tante, or aunt, even though half of them weren’t actual kin. Luc, Remy, and René were sons of her deceased niece Adèle with Valcour LeDeux, while Tee-John was the son of Valcour and his wife, Jolie. All the rest—Charmaine, Simone, Daniel, Aaron and others—were Valcour’s illegitimate children from various women. But Louise considered herself great-aunt to them all, blood or not.
“Is that why ya come all the way out here? Ta see what’s new? I’d think ya got all the gossip ya need in yer beauty shops.”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk! It’s not like you ta be so sarcastic. If ya must know, I had a feelin’ somethin’ was up and thought I oughta come out ta see mah favorite aunt.”
Bull-pucky! She cain’t butter me up lak a Sunday biscuit, ’specially since I know she ain’t got no other aunt. But Charmaine means well. I shouldn’t take out my crankiness on her. “Ya had a feelin’, too? Talk about!” In truth, it pleased her that her niece was the one who would take over as the family matriarch/matchmaker/busybody one day. It was hard work minding everyone’s business, and she welcomed the help. “Someone’s needin’ a boost in the love department.”
“Really? St. Jude tell ya that?” Charmaine teased.
Everyone knew that St. Jude was Louise’s favorite saint. The patron of hopeless causes, Jude had been her go-to guy from way back when her fiancé, Phillipe, had died in the Big War . . . source of the Big Grief in her life. But she didn’t want to think about that now. She was cranky enough already. “No, St. Jude dint tell me. I jist have this nigglin’ sense of somethin’ comin’. Sorta like the calm before the storm.”
“Any idea who?”
Louise shook her head. “Ya heard anythin’ more ’bout that Simone? Ya tol’ me las’ week ’bout that new bizness she was thinkin’ of.”
“It’s more than thinkin’ now, and she decided on a name. It’s called Legal Belles. They rented Yancy Butler’s old insurance office.”
“Legal Belles, huh? I still say Beat the Cheat would be a better name. Tells folks right up front what they’re about.”
“They’ll be investigatin’ more than cheats.”
“But that’s what’ll be their biggest draw.”
“Are ya thinkin’ about aimin’ yer thunderbolt her way? She’ll probably be too busy fer any kind of love life at the moment.”
“Number one, I doan never aim the thunderbolt. It aims itself. And, second, when it hits, time doan matter. It’s sorta lak a miracle every time it happens.”
Louise looked more closely at her niece then. She was wearing a tight red T-shirt with the logo of one of her salons on it, Hair & Beyond, over black skinny jeans and red high heels. Her black hair was piled on top of her head with a red bow. Her make-up was perfect, and pretty silver crosses dangled from her ears. But that was her usual appearance. There was something different about her today. She glowed.
“Charmaine, how old are you?” Louise narrowed her eyes at her niece, who was more than forty, closer to forty-five. Well-preserved, of course, being a former beauty pageant queen, but still, no longer a young chick.
“What? Why do you want to know?”
“Because . . .” She smiled and slapped her knee with glee. “I think yer preggers.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m already startin’ menopause. No, it’s not possible. Don’t you dare pre—suggest such a thing. It would be a miracle if I was pregnant at mah age.”
“Dint I jist mention miracles to ya, girl?” Louise glanced toward the St. Jude birdbath statue, and she could swear the guy winked at her.
“Old lady, did you wish this on me?”
“Oh, so now I’m ‘old lady’? So much fer yer favorite auntie.”
Charmaine made a low growling sound, a sign she was restraining herself from wringing her auntie’s neck. Folks did that all the time around Louise.
Whatever!
“Did. Ya. Wish. It?” Charmaine asked through gritted teeth.
“Not ’zackly. I mighta wished there would be more babies what dint come from Valcour LeDeux, no offense since he’s yer daddy an’ all.”
Charmaine growled again.
“All that growlin’ probably ain’t a good thing iffen ya really are breedin’, girl. Too much stress killed the cat, y’know.”
“That was curiosity,” Charmaine corrected.
“Same thing.”
Charmaine crossed her eyes with frustration.
Which also wasn’t a good thing. Caused frowns, it did, which could evolve into wrinkles. But Louise refrained from pointing that out. If anyone knew about wrinkles, Charmaine did. She’d been worrying about her complexion since she was thirteen and refused to smile for a whole week because someone said smiles were just wrinkles turned upside down.
Louise had even more to think about now. And more to do. Hallelujah! Maybe she had a double mission this time. A match made in heaven and a new baby. Or lots of new babies. Now that would be a miracle!
One could only wish!
And she did!
Life was good.
It was raining miracles . . .
Later that day, after taking a home pregnancy test that turned out positive, a stunned Charmaine shared the results with her husband, Rusty, who was equally stunned, and then ecstatic with happiness. She threatened to slap him silly if he didn’t stop grinning.
Soon the bayou grapevine took over. And Charmaine hadn’t even called Tante Lulu. She was afraid she would say something that couldn’t be unsaid later when her temper settled down.
Tee-John LeDeux, fearing a tsunami of LeDeux miracles—you couldn’t be too careful with Tante Lulu—told his wife, Celine, he was buying a case of double-strength condoms. Three children were enough for him, especially with his wild Etienne. And he rubbed the St. Jude medal he wore around his neck three times, just for luck.
Remy LeDeux, who already had six adopted and one natural child, told his wife to say a novena, or two. Rachel, a feng shui decorator, said that the energy in their home had been off kilter for some time and hoped that wasn’t a sign. She started moving furniture around like a mad woman.
When René LeDeux mentioned the “threat,” his wife, Val, a lawyer, said she would sue the granny panties off the old lady if she ended up with another child. They already had a boy and a girl. Two was a couple, three would be a crowd. For some reason, René recalled that he’d found a bunch of four-leaf clovers when he was out foraging with his biology class yesterday. Not that he was superstitious.
Luc, who’d had a vasectomy years ago after his third daughter was born, tried to schedule an appointment with his doctor to make sure his swimmers were still unable to swim. Unfortunately, his surgeon was on a golf vacation for the next two weeks. Luc stopped at the pharmacy on the way to his office for a super-size bottle of antacids.
Daniel LeDeux just shrugged. Married recently to Samantha Starr, they would welcome a child.
Everyone else was nervous. Love was in the air, and they all knew what love could lead to. Even worse, they knew the havoc their great-aunt could create. Had she made some kind of wish that got misdirected by the celestial powers that be?
That old black (Cajun) magic was at work again . . .
It was only two days since she’d signed the final papers in Luc’s office, but it felt like two months. Simone couldn’t stop thinking about that blasted hunk of Cajun temptation, Adam Lanier.
Of course, she’d Googled him on her computer and discovered he was a hotshot lawyer with a propensity for courtroom antics (in other words, a showoff . . . albeit a successful one). She wasn’t too fond of lawyers to begin with, except for Helene—her courtroom experience as a cop had exposed her to more than a little sleazy legal red tape that let bad guys go free.
But, even worse,
Adam Lanier was a hotshot outside the courtroom, too, if she went by the photographs taken at various New Orleans charity events and nightclubs. It was obvious that the man spread his favors, unapologetically, among many women. And this, even when his wife had still been alive! And he had a young daughter, too.
The most recent photo, taken last month at a Baton Rouge marathon, showed him with a yoga instructor who looked like a size zero in her designer tights. Simone hadn’t been a size zero since she was eight years old, if then.
Nope, Adam Lanier was the worst kind of man for her. A shameless, quintessential player. Was fidelity an outdated word in this modern world of hookups and casual sex?
Well, her research had sealed the deal for her. A bad-boy Cajun lawyer was not for her. That was a no brainer. Good thing she’d looked him up. Informed was armed.
If only she could stop thinking about him!
Luckily, she had her new business to keep her busy. Legal Belles was taking shape faster than she’d expected. All the furniture had been removed from the first and second floors (salvageable pieces put in temporary storage), the carpet pulled up, and the golden cypress floors exposed for refinishing.
Simone was looking over paint chips with Ed Gillotte, a contractor who worked for her half brother Daniel LeDeux over at Bayou Rose Plantation. He’d started work yesterday, and already the place looked better, or at least was showing its potential. He’d even painted the trim on the outside of the bay window, along with the door, a warm green and blue to match the new sign erected above the windows.