by Sandra Hill
Whoa! Where did that come from? “How do you know that?” Adam asked.
“One of the choir members mentioned a party of folks, including her cousin, Randy, that caught eight giant catfish on the bayou yesterday, one of them fifty pounds,” his father answered for her.
“See-mone was one of the people there. They caught the fish with their bare hands, Daddy. Thass called noodlin’,” Maisie elaborated.
“I know what noodling is,” he griped.
“Don’t take your bad mood out on the girl,” his father said.
“Sorry, sweetheart.”
“Thass all right. PawPaw sez everyone gets their panties in a twist sometimes. But you don’t wear panties, do you, Daddy? Tee-hee-hee! PawPaw sez that Uncle Dave should send you some man panties. Tee-hee-hee! When kin we go noodlin’?”
“Someday,” he said, giving his father a glare. If Uncle Dave was there, he’d give him a glare, too. His dad and his jokes! Dave and his panty gifts!
But what really burned his butt was, I was torturing myself all day yesterday waiting for her to call, and she was out partying on the bayou with some guy named Randy. I . . . am . . . a . . . fool!
When he got home, he decided to go for a run, and gave up after a half mile. Even so, he congratulated himself for not taking his cell phone with him.
His father ruined his saintly effort by announcing on his return, “She didn’t call.”
To which, he said a foul word.
To which, his father said he would stick a bar of soap in his mouth when he was sleeping. But then his father softened his tone and said, “Just call her, son. You know you want to.”
Yeah, he did. But, no, he didn’t want to make that call. He wanted to talk to her when she called him. Which wasn’t happening.
Finally, he did call, around nine p.m. on Sunday night, roughly forty-three hours since he’d seen her last. He got her answering machine, “Hi, this is Simone. I’m not available at the moment. Leave a message.”
He left no message. What he had to say, and he had no idea what that would be, was best said to her, not on a voice mail.
He called again at ten p.m.
Another recording.
Again at eleven p.m.
Another recording.
He may not be leaving any messages, but her message was clear. She wasn’t going to pick up for him. She didn’t want to talk with him.
Maybe I waited too long.
He could swear he heard a voice in his head say, Ya think?
Maybe it was St. Jude, sitting up there on a cloud with God, making the latest entry in the big book he held in his hands: The Clueless Men Hall of Fame.
On the other hand, he could hold out as long as she could.
Now he heard laughter in his head.
It’s not that she wanted him to grovel . . . much . . .
Simone knew that Adam had been trying to call her, but only because she’d checked her caller ID constantly. He’d left no messages.
What did he think? After almost two days of silence, he was suddenly going to make amends? Big whoop! Or maybe he was just calling to berate her some more. Let him try!
She still loved him. Dammit! But she would get over it, like a bad cold, like a rash that itched like crazy, like all the other love mistakes in her life.
The question was, had she ever really been in love before?
Not like this. Dammit!
After a joint meeting on Monday afternoon with Helene and Gabe, and viewing the material he’d put together in a visual and audio presentation, they called Saffron Pitot. She agreed to come into the office the next morning.
By Monday night, she’d had three more calls from Adam, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening. With the last one, he left a message, finally. “Call me.” That was all.
Pfff! Not even a please! He could have at least said he was sorry, or better yet, “I love you.”
She spent the night giving herself another hair-conditioning treatment. Much more of this and they’d be tossing her in salads.
The meeting with Saffron on Tuesday morning went well. Pitot’s wife was pleased with their work and didn’t balk at the bill they presented. When she saw the photo of her husband in the bull outfit, she merely laughed and said, “Old farts never die; they just keep making fools of themselves!”
After the meeting, Saffron agreed to go to lunch with Gabe to discuss soap operas. In fact, she was preening under the adulation of the much younger man who’d done his homework and researched all the old soaps she’d appeared in.
That afternoon Simone decided to make a quick visit to Chicago. She flew out Wednesday morning and when she got there tied up a few loose ends, like getting some of the furniture she’d put in storage delivered to Louisiana. But she didn’t contact Jack Landry while she was there. That door closed weeks ago, for good. She did visit a specialty shop that that dealt in security devices mostly used by law enforcement. An FBI acquaintance of hers had recommended the out-of-the-way boutique.
When she returned on Thursday, BaRa informed her that a fuming Adam had come into the agency the day before. He’d been shocked to learn that Simone had gone out of town again. He probably thought she was doing another Pitot-type job. Hah! Let him think that. Or else he thought she was moving back to the Windy City. Hah! Let him think that!
Although . . .
While she’d been away, she’d gained a little perspective. Maybe if she and Adam sat down, they’d be able to resolve some of their issues. Her need for independence, his need to protect. Were they really so irreconcilable? She wasn’t sure. He needed to respect her work.
So she was prepared, somewhat, when he stormed into her office late Thursday afternoon.
“Where the hell have you been?” he yelled.
Not a good start!
“I beg your pardon.”
He combed his fingers through his hair with frustration and paced in front of her desk. “I’ve been imagining all kinds of scenarios. You dead in some alley. You hugging a concrete block at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain. You being eaten by a giant catfish while noodling.”
That last example drew her eyebrows into twin arches. So, he knew about her catfishing. Did that mean he was jealous, or just mocking her?
“I was in Chicago,” she informed him. “I left Wednesday morning and stayed overnight.”
That stopped his pacing. “Why? Are you moving back there? Just because I might have yelled at you?”
“No, Adam, I am not moving back to Chicago. I went to arrange for some furniture in storage to be moved here.”
“Oh.” He had such a hangdog expression on his face that she almost felt sorry for him. Almost but not quite, because he still hadn’t said the words she needed to hear.
“I called,” he said.
Big fat hairy deal! “I know.”
“A lot.”
And I should care . . . why? “I know.”
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
“Because nothing has changed.” C’mon, Adam, say the words. Say the frickin’ words!
“When I left . . . that night . . . you said that you didn’t care. Is that true?”
Oh, this is ridiculous! “You said nasty things, too, Adam. Did you mean them?”
He frowned with puzzlement. “What nasty things? What did I say?”
I give up! “If you can’t recall, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
She rolled her eyes.
He had his hands in the pockets of his suit slacks, his hip cocked, just staring at her.
“What do you want, Adam?”
He didn’t hesitate before saying, “You.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She was touched, but it wasn’t good enough. She needed two more words in front of the you. Even then, they still had problems, but it would be a start.
“How do you want me? As a dating partner again? As a hookup when it’s convenient? Or more than that?”
&nb
sp; “Isn’t it enough that I want you?”
“No.”
“Then, I don’t know.”
She tossed her hands in the air. “Well, you know what? Call me when you decide. In the meantime, I have work to do.”
He left, his chin held up pridefully, his precious male ego still intact, but Simone heard him say to BaRa, who’d probably eavesdropped on everything they’d said through the half-open door, “I think I might have screwed up in there.”
“Big-time,” BaRa remarked, as only she could.
Suddenly, he turned around, came back into her office, moved behind her desk, and lifted her by the upper arms so that she was standing on tiptoe. Then he kissed her. He really, really, really kissed her. When he released her arms, she fell back into her chair.
And he stomped out.
She heard BaRa say, “Much better.”
Knight in shining PJs? . . .
Simone awakened in the middle of the night to an annoying beep, beep, beep noise. That stupid smoke alarm! It was always going off, especially when something got burned accidentally in the bakery next door.
She tried hiding her head under a pillow, but the darn pinging just got more strident. In fact, it sounded as if another device had joined in.
What?
Just as she sat bolt upright, she heard the fire alarm go off down below. She jumped out of bed and realized immediately once she opened her bedroom door that the smell of smoke was everywhere, and it wasn’t a burned cookie smell, either. More like . . . gas? Oh, my God! Was there a gas leak somewhere?
She rushed over to the door leading downstairs, opened it, then immediately slammed it shut. Flames were shooting up the steps. She could hear the sirens of fire trucks approaching already, alerted by the direct-to-station fire alarms in the office, no doubt. She grabbed her cell phone, handbag, and laptop and made her way down the back exterior stairs and around to the front.
Her building was a mass of flames, as were the two buildings attached on each side, the bakery and the dress shop.
She glanced at her watch. It was two a.m. How had this happened so fast?
Suddenly, there was a pop-pop-popping noise, followed by an explosion that caused the windows to blow out.
“Move back, move back,” a fireman yelled to her and the small crowd that had already assembled.
One of the firefighters, Calvin Hebert, who’d graduated from high school with her, came up and put an arm around her shoulder. “This your buildin’, chère?”
She nodded. “The one in the middle. How did it start?”
“We won’t know till tomorrow, prob’ly. Or later. Why doan you sit yer sweet self down over there till we get the fire out? My boss will have questions, guaranteed.”
She nodded and sat down on a bench across the street in front of Duff’s Drugstore. Soon, someone came and put a blanket over her, even though she wasn’t cold. The temperature was mild, even hot from the fire, and she was wearing a cropped-top pajama set, though she was barefooted. Oh, she realized, the blanket is probably for shock.
She had just enough sense left to call Helene.
“What? What’s wrong?” Helene asked after just one ring, before Simone even said anything. Wasn’t it always bad news when the phone rang at this time of night?
“The building’s on fire.”
“Oh, my God! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, but her voice was shaky, even with that single word.
“And Scarlett?”
“She’s still at my mother’s, thank God!”
“Where are you?”
“Sitting on a bench in front of Duff’s watching all our dreams go up in flames.” That sounded overly dramatic even to her own ears.
“Oh, honey! I’ll be right there.”
Before Helene’s arrival, someone else came. Her knight in shining armor. Again. Except this time he was her knight in white T-shirt, plaid pajama bottoms, and loafers without socks. His hair stood out in sleepy spikes. Not a white stallion or sword in hand, but there was a black Lexus parked down the street and he did hand her a clean white handkerchief, which came away sooty when she wiped her face.
“Adam!” she said. “How did you know?”
He sat down on the bench beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her close. “John LeDeux heard it on the police scanner. He called Luc, and Luc called me. Luc is over there, talking to the police chief.” He was hugging her, and kissing the top of her hair, and tucking the blanket tighter around her. “I was so scared,” he said in a choked voice. “Especially when they said there was an explosion.”
He probably came here expecting to find a body, she realized.
“Do you think it was a gas leak?” she asked, just as she’d asked Cal.
He shrugged. “Maybe Luc will learn something.”
“Look at the fire, Adam. The whole place will be gone.” To her surprise, she wasn’t crying. She must be in shock, after all. “All of Rachel’s hard work gone—poof.” Yep, definitely shock, or the onset of hysteria.
“Is there anything important that can’t be replaced?”
“I don’t think so, though I was partial to that fish rug.”
He squeezed her in reprimand. “I’ll buy you another fish rug. In fact, I’ll buy you a shark rug, if there is such a thing. For legal sharks, get it?”
He was trying to be a comedian at a time like this? It was sweet of him, actually.
“Our business records are the most important thing, of course,” she mused. “Critical files are digitized and stored in a secure web-based system at the end of every day, and we had some fireproof cabinets inside; so, that’s one worry out of the way. But . . . oh, Adam! We’re ruined before we even started.”
“That’s not true,” Helene said. She’d just arrived and sat down on Simone’s other side, giving her a warm hug, on top of Adam’s arm that was still wrapped around her shoulders. Like Adam, Helene looked as if she’d just crawled out of bed, except she wore tights under a Yogi Bear sleep shirt with ballet slippers. Her hair was twisted into a loose knot atop her head. “We did it once, my friend. We can do it again.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“We can find a temporary space and open for business again in a few days, you’ll see.”
“Hell, you can open up for business in my garage, if need be,” Adam offered.
That got Simone’s attention. She sat up straighter and stared at him. He’d released his hold on her by now. “You don’t mean that.” Not that she would take him up on the offer, but the fact that he made it, feeling as he did about the dangers of her business, said something. She wasn’t sure what.
“Of course I mean it. You can even sleep in my bed.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
They all laughed.
“Seriously, I have plenty of room at my house. You can stay there until you get situated.”
“No, she can stay with me,” Helene said.
“I’m not staying with either one of you.” With a shudder, Simone announced, “I’m going back to The Gates.”
“Doesn’t your mother have a guest?” Adam asked.
At any other time, Simone would have asked how he knew that, but then she recalled him mentioning the danger she’d placed her mother in during his tirade the other night. She’d failed to ask him then, in the midst of all her other problems. She couldn’t think about that now. So she just shrugged in answer to his question. “I can sleep on my mother’s couch.”
“The same one where Cletus was sleeping?” Helene asked. “Eew! It probably still smells like beer farts.”
Simone pretended surprise. “Helene! I can’t believe you said that.”
“I can’t believe you two are sitting here discussing gas—and I don’t mean the kind that probably started this fire—whereas I’m offering a perfectly good solution to a non-problem,” Adam said.
“Whereas I can find my own solutions. He sounds like a lawyer,” Simone said to Helen
e.
“Hey, I’m a lawyer, too.”
“But you don’t say whereas and wherefore in normal conversation.”
“Aaarrgh!” Adam said.
Their discussion was cut short by the fire marshal who had a few questions for Simone. And then the EMTs examined her and wanted to take her to the hospital, just to make sure she was all right. She refused.
A large crowd had assembled by then, including the owners of the bakery and the dress boutique, both of whom were understandably distraught. The absentee owner of the buildings, a family trust in Texas, would be contacted by the police. There was some question about whether the gas ovens had developed problems, or whether a recent shipment of dresses from China had been flammable.
Luc came up then and told them that the fires would be put out within the hour, but it might be days before they had an answer as to the cause. They were advised to go home. There was nothing more to be done at the moment. Tomorrow they would see what could be salvaged.
Helene went home alone, reluctantly, and Adam insisted on driving Simone out to The Gates. “But what about my car? I’ll need my car to come back in tomorrow . . . I mean, this morning.”
“I’ll arrange to get your car out there for you.”
The deciding factor was when Luc came back from talking to some business people, no doubt rounding up business from the fire. Who to sue and all that. That was mean, she immediately chided herself. He was a caring individual. Although they hadn’t had any contact until they were adults, he was her half brother, she had to remind herself. Family.
“Tante Lulu just called me. She heard about the fire,” Luc announced.
Oh, boy!
“How did she hear about the fire from her house out on the bayou?” Adam wanted to know. Little did Adam know how the bayou gossip line worked.
Simone, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised. She did have a concern, though. “Please don’t tell me that she’s coming in. Not at this time of night! And, please God, not by driving herself.”
“She wanted me to bring you out there to stay with her,” Luc said. “I can’t predict what she’ll do if you don’t show up.”