“You’re tired,” Fleur said. “Let’s put off the herb work until another time.”
“All right,” Louise said and yawned again.
“Don’t feel like you have to get up soon. I’ll keep an eye on the kitchen. I might not know how to make bread, but I can certainly bake it.” As she was gathering up the laptop and the receipt book, her cell phone rang. Fleur glanced at the screen and smiled as she read something. It must be one of those text message thingies.
When Fleur put the phone in the pocket of her shorts, Louise asked, “Aaron?” The boy had been gone all day, since early this morning.
Fleur nodded. “He wants to take me out to dinner.”
And what else? Finally, the boy is doin’ what comes natural. Louise wanted to let out a little whoop of triumph but she held back, knowing how skittish Fleur could be on the subject. “But we already have dinner planned fer t’night,” she pretended to argue. As if it was dinner Aaron had in mind!
“I don’t have to go.”
“Thass all right.” Louise sighed. I am such a good actress. I shoulda been in the movies. “It will be good fer you ta get away fer a bit. Is it safe, though?”
“Aaron says it is, where we’re going. Not that I know where that is.”
I kin guess. “That settles it then.”
Once she was alone, Louise had a little talk with St. Jude in her head, like she always did. “So far, so good!”
We make a good team, the voice said.
A boat, the bayou, and Barry . . . what else could she want? . . .
Fleur was ready for her date. The first one in her entire life! How strange was that?
She felt both apprehensive and excited at the same time. Being alone with Aaron, away from the plantation, seemed like crossing a line.
Not that she hadn’t crossed that line a few times already with the bayou bad boy, but each time she’d bounced right back. Would she be able to retreat once again after tonight?
She took one last look at herself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She should have never told Tante Lulu about Aaron’s invitation to dinner because, of course, the interfering busybody (bless her heart), aware of Fleur’s limited wardrobe, had called Charmaine and asked for help. Thus the pretty coral sundress with spaghetti straps, big white belt, and high-heeled white sandals she wore now, from Charmaine’s very own bimbo closet. Not that this attire was slutty, just not Fleur’s style. Like I have a style? Fleur even borrowed some mascara and lip gloss from Samantha’s stash in the medicine cabinet. After she’d shampooed her hair, she’d blown it dry and left it loose about her shoulders.
Fleur barely recognized herself. Was she trying too hard? For a moment, embarrassment flooded her, and she would have changed her outfit, except she checked her watch and saw it was already five forty-five. Aaron had asked her to meet him out front at six.
With a sigh of surrender she headed toward the front staircase. Hopefully, everyone was still down in the kitchen lingering over dinner. No one had come looking for her; so, she assumed that Tante Lulu had made her excuses.
Luck was not with her, though, because sitting out on the front gallery was Mother Jacinta, saying her beads. A cup of after-dinner coffee steamed in a china cup and saucer on a white, wrought iron table. Mother sat on a matching, cushioned, wrought iron chair, one of a set, all of which were probably antiques that Samantha had picked up at an estate sale.
“Oh, don’t you look lovely!” Mother Jacinta said. “I’m so glad I got a chance to see you before I leave in the morning.”
“You’re leaving?” Fleur sank down into the other chair.
“Yes, I want to be at the convent to greet the new girls when they arrive tomorrow night.”
“You seem certain that the mission will work, and the girls will be rescued.”
“As certain as one can be with God on our side.” She raised her rosary beads in the air. “But it’s always best to back up optimism with prayer.”
“I’ve missed you, Mother.”
“And I’ve missed you, too. But I can see that this ‘retreat’ has been good for you.”
“You can?” Fleur wasn’t so sure.
Mother nodded. “You will not be taking final vows.”
Fleur froze. Was this yet another line she was crossing? And was it evident to everyone? “How can you tell?”
“You’re different already. Oh, not in your inner goodness, child. Don’t ever think that I’m judging you. No, I just mean that you’re glowing.”
“I’ve been out in the sun too much.”
“Or perhaps you are being given a chance for a new beginning. To start all over with a clean slate.”
“Hardly a clean slate!”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk! Isn’t it time for you to stop wallowing in guilt? If God forgives you, how can you do any less?”
“I’m not in love,” Fleur blurted out and could have bitten her tongue. Where had those words come from? A classic case of protesting too much, it must appear.
“That’s too bad. It’s the most important thing in the world, you know.”
“Have you been talking to Tante Lulu? She’s been pushing me toward Aaron from the first minute I got here.”
“She means well.”
“Yes, but—”
Just then they heard a door slam, and Aaron walked out of the garçonniére, heading toward his pickup truck in the driveway. He waved at the two of them.
And, oh, my! He had prepared for their date, too. He must have gotten a haircut this afternoon. Not overly short like his brother’s but decidedly shorter and well styled. He’d shaved, as well. He wore his cowboy boots, highly polished tonight, but instead of his usual T-shirt and faded denims, he had on a light blue, long-sleeve, tapered dress shirt, worn outside a pair of black jeans.
Fleur stood, then leaned down to kiss Mother Jacinta on the cheek. “I’ll call this weekend to see how everything is going at your end.”
Mother squeezed her hand and said, “Be happy, my dear.”
Do I even know how anymore? Do I have the right to be happy? Or is Mother right, that I need to move on from my past?
Aaron helped her into his truck, which was a little high to climb with her shoes. “You look amazing,” he said before he closed the door.
“So do you.”
He smiled then, dimple and all. “I’ve been waiting for this night for a long, long time.”
“I thought your dinner invitation was a last-minute idea.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I wasn’t referring to dinner. I’ve been waiting for you and this night all my life.”
Yikes! That sounded ominous.
They drove companionably along the two-lane road, chatting about the day’s events, with her ducking or turning aside anytime they passed another vehicle, just in case Miguel or his thugs were still in the vicinity.
He told her about his meeting with the FAA people this afternoon. It appeared as if his problems were over for the time being, thanks to some favors Tante Lulu had apparently called in from someone in D.C. “Really, that woman gives a new name to networking,” Aaron said.
She regaled him with stories about the running feud between Brother Jake and Sister Mary Michael over some lesser role he’d assigned her for the mission. And they both laughed when she told him that the animals following Brother Brian had gotten so bad that when he went to the bathroom they trotted in after him, which prompted him to shove them all in the rain forest shower and turn on the water. The barking, meowing, and oinking could be heard a mile away. And the mess when they came out took an hour to clean up.
At some point, he’d tugged her closer, across the bench seat so that they were shoulder to shoulder. When he wasn’t using his right hand to shift gears, he rested it on her thigh.
They’d already traveled a couple miles along Bayou Black, in the opposite direction from Houma or any other towns where restaurants might be located. In fact, until they’d passed Tante Lulu’s cottage, Fleur thought he might hav
e been taking her there. But then, they also passed Fleur’s old homestead, which looked as ramshackle and seedy as always. She was surprised that the place hadn’t fallen down onto itself long ago. But there must be someone living there because there was an old truck parked in a driveway overgrown with weeds.
Aaron didn’t say anything as they passed, and she wasn’t about to call it to his attention. Maybe he wasn’t aware that she’d lived there once.
“Where are we going?” she finally asked.
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
They soon came to a large property where a sprawling ranch house perched on a man-built rise overlooking the bayou. “That’s Remy LeDeux’s place,” he told her. Just beyond Remy’s property, he veered his truck off onto a dirt road until they reached the same bayou, farther along, where a houseboat was anchored.
“This is where we’re having dinner?”
“Uh-huh! No way Miguel would ever think to look for you here.”
She slid over and was about to open her passenger door.
“No, wait,” Aaron said, getting out of the truck and coming around to her side. “M’lady,” he quipped as he handed her down.
“Chivalry is not dead on the bayou,” she said.
“We knights do aim to please.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
He took her hand and led her down a path toward a small dock, then across a ramp onto the boat itself. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour or two; so, the water and its surroundings were fairly calm and noise-free. The craft itself was rather shabby, but clean and imposing in size. It might once have been a luxury toy for some millionaire.
“Why does Remy own a houseboat?”
“He bought it used years ago when he got out of the service. He’d been wounded pretty bad in Desert Storm and needed a place to stay. The house we saw back there wasn’t built yet. It was either this houseboat or live with Tante Lulu.”
They smiled at each other at that prospect.
“Anyhow, Remy rents it out occasionally. I lived here for a while before Dan and I bought the plantation.”
There was a railed porch or deck that ran around all sides of the boat. They went toward the back, facing the bayou, and he opened a screen door for her, letting her enter first.
She gasped. “Oh, Aaron! This is wonderful!”
A large great room included a salon, a galley kitchen, and an alcove office. A built-in booth beside the kitchen held a candle centerpiece. A skylight let in enough of the fading sun to turn the cypress walls and floors to a golden yellow. Red fluffy pillows lined the window seat storage units, and a huge oriental carpet, once jewel-toned, now faded rose, sage green, black, and ivory, covered a large portion of the floor.
“Rachel, Remy’s wife, is a feng shui decorator. She did most of the work here,” Aaron explained as he leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, watching her examine the inside of the boat with obvious delight.
“But you’ve been busy here, too,” she commented, making note of the fat candle on the kitchen table, as well as the fragrant, lit candles throughout the room. She couldn’t help but notice how clean the place looked, too, and that all the brass fittings gleamed. Even the narrow horizontal windows that lined the room on two sides sparkled within their frameworks of red velvet drapes. It should have looked bordello-ish, with all that red, but instead it spoke of class and old money. “You must have spent hours getting this place ready.”
“I did.”
“A great bachelor pad.”
Aaron nodded. “It was, for Remy, at one time. But then he married Rachel, they had a bunch of kids, adopted and natural, and a boat no longer suited them.”
She noticed that he hadn’t mentioned himself in the context of a horny man cave. Had he brought other women here? But she wasn’t about to ask that. “You’ve been busy with cooking, too,” she remarked, sniffing the air. Overriding the scented candles and beeswax cleaners was the smell of something in the oven.
“Not cooking. Warming up. I bought take-out from a Houma restaurant. Oysters Rockefeller for appetizers, surf and turf for entrées, as in steak and lobster thermidor, a Caesar salad, and bread pudding for dessert. Are you hungry?”
“Not yet.”
He walked over to the mini fridge, took out a bottle, and poured white wine into two stemmed glasses. He handed one to her and took a sip from the other before placing it on the counter. Reaching back, he flicked a switch which immediately turned on a sound system, and soft Cajun music filled the air.
Turning to her, he said, “Well, I am.”
“What?”
“Hungry. In fact, ravenous.” The way he looked at her, she knew he didn’t mean food. “Can I kiss you now? I’ve wanted to ever since I first saw you coming down the front steps of Bayou Rose in that sexy dress and hot-damn high heels.”
She took a huge gulp of her wine, which burned a path down her throat and settled low in her stomach, radiating shards of sweet shock out to all her extremities.
Aaron walked up to her, took the wine glass, which she’d been clutching with two hands, away from her, and set it on the table behind her. Before he laid his lips on hers, before he took her face in his palms, before he whispered, “Oh, Fleur,” he closed his eyes. His dark lashes made fan shapes on his upper cheeks, and he looked so handsome that Fleur wanted to trace the outlines of his jaw, the hidden dimple, his cheekbones, even his eyebrows, but that would have to come later.
Because he kissed her.
And it was everything a kiss should be.
Fleur was reminded of some country song about a kiss—by Faith Hill, as she recalled. The song talked about a certain man’s kiss being a pivotal moment, a combination of centrifugal motion and perpetual bliss. The singer mentioned sensations of floating and flying at the same time.
All of those impressions flitted through Fleur’s body, hazing her mind until she became mindless.
Aaron’s hands, which had been framing her face, moved to her back, tugging her closer, making wide sweeps down her back, along the bare skin of her shoulders and arms, even cupping her buttocks and pressing her against his erection.
Her hands were busy, too, running fingertips through his hair, stroking the bristles of his shaved jaw, caressing his shoulders. And, yes, she even moved her hands over his tight bottom, too.
And they were dancing.
How had that happened?
And why was she reminded of Aaron’s teasing comment one time about them dancing naked? They weren’t naked now. But it felt like it. And there was no Barry Manilow song playing. But wait, the stereo system clicked and a new stream of songs came on, starting with “Ready to Take a Chance.” She would have smiled at Aaron’s foresight, if she had a chance to think past the whirlwind of emotion flooding her mind and body.
And then, she was naked, wearing nothing but a plain white, strapless bra, bikini underpants, and the white high heels. Did he do that?
And, lo and behold, his shirt was unbuttoned, and his jeans were unsnapped and unzipped. Did I do that?
And still, they danced.
Aaron was right. Kissing was one of his top three talents. And dancing was right up there at number four.
Was she about to find out about his top two?
Would she survive?
Chapter Thirteen
She was the ultimate prize . . .
Aaron talked a good game when it came to sex, and, hell, yes, he was a player. In the past. This night with Fleur was a whole new ball game for him, though. The goal—or the trophy—was Fleur herself.
And that would be better than a Heisman Trophy any old day, ha, ha, ha.
Have I mentioned, I’m losing it here?
But seriously, winning Fleur would require new rules, new strategies, and maybe a Hail Mary pass or two. Bottom line: There was no playbook.
Please, God, help me do this right, he prayed. St. Jude, you suited up yet? Okay, that has to be a new low
for me. Praying for sex.
Well, why not? the voice in his head said.
There was a time when he would have laughed at any person who said they talked to voices in their head. Looney Tunes, for sure. But that was before he’d moved to Louisiana and was introduced to the saint channeler, aka Tante Lulu. All the LeDeuxs experienced it at one time or another.
Families pray before meals. Soldiers pray before battle, El Voice-o continued. God created sex. He wants people to do it, for heaven’s sake. Within the confines of the Holy Sacrament, of course.
I would marry Fleur in a heartbeat, if she would have me.
We’ll hold you to that.
“Are you talking to yourself?” Fleur asked.
“No, I’m praying.”
Instead of laughing, she said, “Me, too.”
Aaron picked Fleur up and carried her, Rhett-style, into the bedroom. He hoped he wouldn’t trip over his jeans. Somehow, Fleur had managed to unsnap and unzip him without his embarrassing himself. But, no, his pants were in no danger of falling down. They were being held up by his mondo erection, hereafter to be referred to as Super Dick.
How embarrassing!
On the other hand, how amazing!
He tossed her on the bed, a queen-size, not the king-size which he was accustomed to, but one of those would never fit in this small space. There were no lamps, but there was enough light from all the candles that he could see the glow of her eyes.
“It smells like a rose garden in here,” she murmured.
“Or else a frickin’ funeral parlor,” he countered with a self-deprecating grimace.
“Are you nervous?”
“No. My hands shake like this all the time.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Shh.” He put up a halting hand. “No talking. I need to concentrate.” And he did, studying the “treat” spread out before him, wondering where to start.
Even though she wore a plain white bra and bikini underpants, nothing Victoria’s Secret extreme, she looked sexy to him. In fact, he liked that she hadn’t gone out of her way to sex herself up, like many females did on a date. If he never saw another set of silk tap pants, and, yes, he knew what they were, or a push-up bra that raised boobs to impossible heights, it wouldn’t bother him a bit.