The Cajun Cowboy

  His face flushed, but he didn’t answer.

  “Tante Lulu? Luc? Remy?”

  His face turned redder, but still no answer.

  She shook her head sadly at the circumstance she found herself in. Everyone she knew and loved had kept her out of the loop. Why? Could it be because they considered her too dumb to handle the situation? Too untrustworthy? Too insignificant? “I still want to wring your neck, but you’ll have to stand in line. A few other people are going to come first.”

  The implications of what Dirk had just told her spun in Charmaine’s head. She could barely comprehend it all. So many questions remained unanswered.

  Most important, why had Raoul sent her away? Had there been another reason? Had she been tricked by him, just as she had by everyone else around her?

  Being blue on Bayou Black . . .

  Finally, finally, finally. Charmaine had her life back.

  She was again ensconced in her home on Bayou Black.

  But it didn’t feel like home anymore.

  She was free to go into her shops and resume work.

  But she couldn’t drag herself out of bed.

  She was blessedly alone for the first time in a month.

  And the quiet was driving her bonkers.

  It had been two days since Remy picked her up in his helicopter and brought her back here. The first thing she’d done was disconnect her phone and unplug the answering machine. She’d ordered Remy to relay a message to all her meddling relatives: “Leave Charmaine alone.”

  Which they had done.

  Darn it!

  Charmaine had thought she needed time to sort out all the confusing questions in her mind. But all she had thought about was Raoul, which made her more confused than ever.

  So now she did the one thing she never thought she would. She reconnected her phone and called Tante Lulu.

  The phone picked up on the first ring. “Hallo!”

  “Tante Lulu, it’s Charmaine.”

  “It’s ’bout time you called, girlie. I bin worried ’bout you, but Remy made me swear an oath not to bother you till you wuz ready. I ’bout peed my pants waitin’.”

  Charmaine took a deep breath, then asked, “What’s new?”

  Tante Lulu chuckled with glee. “I’ll be right over. I got gumbo and Lost Bread right out of the oven. And a new St. Jude statue fer you . . . a teeny tiny one that can fit in yer purse.”

  In some cultures, chicken soup was the solution to all problems. In Tante Lulu’s world, it was gumbo. And St. Jude.

  Within an hour, Tante Lulu arrived. She must have been gardening when Charmaine had called because she was wearing bib overalls and rubber shoes. On her head was a big straw hat over black-as-coal hair. Lordy, Lordy! I wonder who dyed her hair. The shoe repair guy? It looks like bootblack.

  The first thing Charmaine did was sit down on the front steps with the old lady and cry her heart out. Again!

  “Now, now, everythin’s gonna be all right.” She patted Charmaine’s back like she was a little girl. How many times had Charmaine done this over the years? Tante Lulu was more like a mother to her than her own mother, though Charmaine had been taken aback by the news that her mother had come to the ranch with the FBI guy to protect her. “Have a good cry, then pull yerself t’gether. Yer a strong woman. Time ya picked yerself up and stopped wallowin’.”

  Well, no pity from that quarter. And, really, Charmaine did not want pity.

  “Ya go take yerself a nice, hot bubble bath while I fix us up some lunch. Take a glass of wine in with ya. I brought some of my dandelion wine from last year’s batch.”

  A short time later, a much-refreshed Charmaine sat down at the kitchen table with Tante Lulu. Crawfish gumbo steamed in the bowl in front of her with a hunk of fresh bread to one side and another glass of dandelion wine to the other. To her surprise, Charmaine found that her appetite had returned, and she consumed everything that had been placed before her.

  “Did ya see this?” her aunt asked, shoving yesterday’s edition of the Houma newspaper in front of her. The headline read, “Local Mafia Thugs Nabbed,” while the photo showed Bobby Doucet and some of his cronies being led off to jail in handcuffs. FBI agent Dirkson Denney was quoted profusely in the article and attributed with a prime role in bringing the bad guys to justice. Charmaine’s name was not mentioned, but Remy had told her that she might be asked to testify when it came to trial. She’d told him she would do so gladly.

  “How’d you get your car back?” Charmaine had noticed Tante Lulu driving up in the infamous T-bird.

  “Clarence drove it to my house last week and left it there while we was in hiding. That was great fun, wasn’t it? All of us crammed in that Whinny-bago?”

  Oh, yeah. Great fun!

  Silence hung in the air between them then as Charmaine pondered whether to ask the next question or not. She had to, of course. “How is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Pfff! You know who.”

  Tante Lulu patted her hand. “He’s fine.”

  “And that’s all you’re going to say?”

  “The lawyers from Blue Heron Oil are scurryin’ aroun’ like rats, tryin’ to avoid jail time and big fines, but they pretty much admitted intimidating Charlie Lanier before his death, killin’ those steers, and settin’ the fire.”

  “What a bunch of scuzzbags!”

  “Speaking of scuzzbags, yer father, ever the one fer good timing, went out to the ranch last week and tried again ta get Rusty ta sell. Dint even bat an eyelash at the burned-down barn.”

  “And?”

  “And Rusty tol’ him to go ta hell.”

  Charmaine smiled. Even when she swore, Tante Lulu was adorable.

  “That cop that got Rusty busted fer sellin’ drugs has been busted himself now. When the dust settles down, I ’spect there’ll be other cops what was on the take from Blue Heron. But the most important thing is Rusty got his conviction reversed. Went to court and everythin’ yesterday to get it all settled.”

  And he didn’t feel the need to tell me.

  But my phone was off the hook.

  That wouldn’t have stopped me.

  “So now he can be a veterinarian again, I suppose.” Charmaine imagined that would make him happiest of all. Finally, he would get to do the work he loved most. Maybe he would even leave the ranch to Clarence’s management while he went off to Lake Charles to set up a practice with the good Dr. Amelie.

  “I doan know ’bout that. He’s bin callin’ Luc all the time, askin’ ’bout you. Then he started callin’ me yesterday after I got back. He’s worried ’bout you, honey.”

  “Who?”

  “Rusty, thass who!”

  “Puh-leeze! He’s just feeling guilty over the way he treated me.” He screwed me in bed, then he screwed me again by kicking me out of his life.

  “Prob’ly. He asked me to ask you to call him . . . when yer ready.”

  “Is he nuts? What would ever make him think that I would contact him? Bad enough that I begged him not to send me away! Now he expects me to crawl on my knees and swallow my pride again? No way!”

  “I doan think he meant it that way.”

  “I think he meant it exactly that way. He probably wants me to give him back that envelope you packed for me with twenty five thousand dollars in bonds. Now that he’s had a chance to think about it, he probably thinks he deserves all of it. The louse!”

  “Where you goin’?”

  Charmaine had hopped up from the table and probably had a maniacal gleam in her eyes. “You were right. I’ve been wallowing too long. Time for me to get on with my life. I’m going to my shops to check up on things. Then I’m going shopping.”

  “Oh, thass a good idea. Shoppin’ always gets me out of the blue slumps. Buy yerself a pair of shoes. That’ll make ya feel good. Red ones. With high heels.”

  “I forgot. I sold my car. Can I drop you off and borrow your car till tomorrow? I need to buy myself a new car.”

  As they
walked out the door a short time later, Tante Lulu asked her, “What kind of car you gonna get? Another BMW?”

  “Nope. A Corvette.”

  Tante Lulu smiled and gave her a high five. “Red, I hope. Ta match yer new shoes.”

  “For sure. This is a new beginning for me.”

  “Uh-oh, the last time you had a new beginning, you became a born-again virgin. And look how that turned out.”

  “This is a different kind of new beginning. I’m gonna get me a Corvette, then I’m gonna find me a new man.”

  Charmaine wasn’t sure if it was Tante Lulu or the statue in her purse that groaned then.

  Chapter 18

  Everybody is an Ann Landers . . .

  “If you want to know what I think, Rusty—” Clarence started to say.

  “I don’t. Just sit down and eat your supper.” I am sick, sick, sick of everyone telling me what to do to get Charmaine back. If she wanted me, she’d fight to get me back. If she loved me, like she said, she’d forgive me. Shouldn’t she figure out by now why I behaved like a horse’s ass? If I am as hopeless as everyone says I am, St. Jude would be here with a herd of saints fighting on my behalf.

  Even to himself, that line of thinking sounded lame.

  And a disgusted St. Jude said in his head, I’m here, I’m here already.

  “Grilled cheese and tomato soup!” Jimmy grimaced with distaste.

  “Shut your mouth, boy,” Linc told him. “At least it’s not SpaghettiOs again.”

  “I wish we had a Domino’s nearby,” Clarence said wistfully.

  “Well, we don’t. So there.” Raoul sat down and ate with as much enthusiasm as he could garner for such fare. They had all been spoiled in one week by both Charmaine and Tante Lulu’s cooking.

  “Anyhow, we gotta find a way to get Charmaine back,” Clarence continued.

  “We don’t gotta do anything,” Raoul grumbled.

  “Well, if you’re sittin’ here waitin’ fer stuff to happen, maybe we should take over,” Clarence said huffily. “Mebbe I should pay her a visit in that beauty spa of hers.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Hey, I can be subtle when I wants to be. I’ll jist make an appointment fer a massage.”

  “That’s subtle, all right.”

  “They give massages there?” Linc asked with great interest.

  “I could offer to help her with her business computers. She tol’ me one time that she had a problem with Excel.” That was Jimmy’s solution to Raoul’s lovelorn dilemma.

  “None of you are going to visit Charmaine on my behalf.”

  “Nothin’ dumber than a man who won’t accept a helping hand,” Clarence pronounced, eating up his grilled cheese and setting aside the soup, which Raoul had scorched . . . slightly.

  “If y’all must know, I tried to call Charmaine yesterday, and she hung up on me,” he admitted.

  “Well, I would have hung up on you, too.” Linc gave him a look that pretty much put him in the category of dimwitted losers. “What’s it been? Two weeks, and this is the first you’ve called?”

  “It’s been two weeks and four days. Not that I’m keeping count. And I did call two days before that, but she wasn’t in. I left a message on her answering machine asking her to call me back. Which she didn’t.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” Linc muttered.

  “Bowlegged, boy. I keep tellin’ ya, thass the trick,” Clarence said.

  “How the hell am I going to do that when she won’t let me near her with a ten-foot pole?”

  “You got a ten-foot pole?” Linc asked.

  “Very funny!”

  “I don’t get it,” Jimmy chimed in.

  “Good!” they all said.

  Just then, the phone rang. Maybe it’s Charmaine. Please, God. When Raoul picked it up, he discovered it was Luc. Thanks a lot, God.

  You’re welcome.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you talkin’ to us or the guy on the phone?” Clarence wanted to know.

  “Just God.”

  “I think he’s goin’ off the deep end,” Linc remarked to Clarence.

  For sure.

  “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” Luc asked on the phone.

  “Just super.”

  “That bad, huh?” Luc was laughing. “I got the information you wanted on filing a civil suit against the police department and Blue Heron Oil. I’ll be ready to file by Monday.”

  “Okay.” He hesitated, then asked, “How is she?”

  “Bleepin’ effervescent on the outside, and miserable inside.”

  Raoul had no idea what an effervescent outside would be like on Charmaine, but he was kind of glad she was sharing his misery inside. Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful.

  “She bought herself a red Corvette, red high heels and a mini-dress that will make your tongue hang out,” Luc told him, way too gleefully.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel good?”

  “No, that’s just leading up to the bad news.”

  I don’t know if I can take any more bad news. Oh, please, God, don’t let her have gotten married again.

  Oh, ye of little faith, God or St. Jude or his plain ol’ conscience said in his head.

  “Spill it,” he said finally to Luc, even as he braced himself for the worst.

  And it was.

  “Charmaine signed the divorce papers today.” There was a long silence before Luc added, “You better get your butt in town.”

  “Why?” If she signed the papers, her mind is made up. Too late! Too friggin’ late!

  “Tante Lulu has called a family meeting. Tomorrow evening. Seven o’clock. Her house.”

  “Why?” I sound like a toddler with that incessant “why” question, or a dumb dolt.

  “To help you get Charmaine back.”

  “I keep telling everyone I don’t need any help—”

  But Luc had already hung up on him. Was it a family trait?

  Charmaine is going to divorce me.

  What am I going to do?

  A voice in his head suggested, Try prayer.

  There’s no place like home, except . . .

  Charmaine sat on the front porch of her cottage on Bayou Black, waiting for her date to arrive. Jake Theriot, a longtime friend since high school, who also happened to be her stockbroker.

  She loved this bayou setting. In fact, it was what had sold her on the house when she’d bought it three years ago.

  The cottage itself was nothing special . . . a one-story home in the old Cajun style. The split plank, horizontally arranged logs with their white chinking were quaint, especially with the red shingled hip roof, matching red shutters, and the long loggia or porch that ran across the back, facing the water.

  But it was the setting that had made her sigh the first time she saw the place. A short stretch of lawn, which required constant cutting in this humid climate, led down to a narrow bayou stream. Every species of wildlife seemed to inhabit her small piece of paradise, including the occasional alligator, which ambled up to the house for some shade. Right now a blue heron couple, male and female, were building a nest in a dead oak tree half- submerged in the water slightly downstream. As they worked diligently, supposedly for an upcoming increase in their family, the birds twined their necks around each other. A heron version of foreplay, she supposed. Or maybe just love, she liked to think.

  The bayou was such a microcosm of life itself. Never ending. Except for the house and manicured landscape, this was the way it must have looked a thousand years ago. It would be here in pretty much the same condition a thousand years into the future. Life went on.

  And that was precisely what Charmaine had decided about her own life. She had to stop thinking about Raoul and what might have been. Christmas was ten days away, a season she usually loved, but she had barely been able to put up the decorations in her shops, which was a business necessity. She hadn’t had the energy to buy a tree for her own home, whereas she usually had one up a month before the holidays. She and T
ante Lulu were alike in that regard. So, Remy and Rachel had brought one over yesterday and set it up in the living room for her. Maybe tomorrow she would decorate it.

  No, enough wallowing! Enough postponing! She would go inside now and begin trimming the tree till her date arrived. Yesterday she had signed the divorce papers. Today she was going out to dinner with a good friend, who might become more than that.

  She’d gotten the miniature lights on the tree and had just opened a box of old ornaments when she heard a car pull up. “Come on in, Jake,” she yelled out. “I need some help getting this star on top.” The tree was seven feet tall, a short-needled blue spruce, which would touch the ceiling once the star was on. Much too big for this small room, but just right in her opinion.

  “Jake who?” she heard behind her.

  Charmaine jumped with surprise. It wasn’t Jake, of course. It was Raoul.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped. Nice welcome. Well, he doesn’t deserve a welcome . . . nice or otherwise.

  He looked awful. Dark circles under his eyes. A one- or two-day-old beard on his face. His T-shirt and Wranglers were wrinkled, as if he’d taken them out of a clothes basket. He carried a dusty cowboy hat in his hands. His boots were scuffed, as if he’d just come from work on the ranch. And he’d lost weight.

  Despite all that, he was bone-melting handsome . . . to her, anyway.

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated.

  He looked pointedly at her in her new red dress and high heels, at the Christmas tree, then back to her. “Come to help you decorate your tree?”

  She could swear she heard the St. Jude statue in the corner say, Is that the best you can do?

  Dog days of winter . . .

  “Here. Let me put that up for you,” Raoul said, setting his hat down and taking the star out of Charmaine’s hand.

  She stood there, hands on hips of a skintight red dress that reached mid-thigh, showcasing mile-long, silk-clad legs and red high heels that gave a guy ideas. Her black hair was piled atop her head in a sort of bun with little curls springing around her face. Her mouth, which was scowling at him right now, was painted a sinful crimson. “I asked you a question, Raoul. What are you doing here?”