“And still you haven’t done anything?” Aaron threw his hands in the air.
“Give me time.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “She’s not really that attractive, you know. All those freckles. Eew!”
“Are you nuts? She’s so hot, she makes my blood steam. As for the freckles, can you imagine licking them? One at a time. Everywhere.”
Aaron grinned, having gotten the reaction he wanted.
More grinning! Daniel fake-punched his brother in the chest.
Aaron left then, but he was shaking his head at Daniel’s hopelessness.
It was true. Daniel did think a lot about things. It was probably the doctor in him. You could take the man out of medicine, but you couldn’t take the medicine out of the man, or some such thing. That wasn’t hopelessness. It was smart. So what if he didn’t act impulsively! Well, except for his impulsive invitation for Samantha, Angus, Lily Beth, and the animals to come to Rose Plantation. And look where that had gotten him? Drowning in animals . . . and lust quicksand.
As a doctor, a student of science, Daniel knew that sexual arousal had four stages: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. It began in the brain as an erotic thought (Boy, do I have a few, or twenty, of those.), or image (Can anyone say nudity?), or touch (I wanna hold your haaaaand, or another body part.), or feelings of affection for a particular partner (Not so much that one, except . . . ), each or all of which triggered signals to all the erogenous zones on the body, especially the genitals. Easily explained by dopamine D4 receptors in the brain, as well as biological chemicals, like hormones and testosterone.
Forget the doctor perspective. As a man, Daniel recognized the overwhelming desire to engage in sexual activity, i.e. fucking, simply for what it was. Lust, libido, horniness, the itch that couldn’t be scratched. When he was being nice, or trying to worm his way into a woman’s bed, a man might use less graphic words, like passion, or desire, or even love, if he were particularly desperate, or emotional. Sexual deprivation did tend to make a man desperate. Whatever the word or the cause, sexual arousal to a man was an overwhelming drive for satisfaction that only a woman could provide. Like being caught on a fast train with no brakes. Okay, a man could do the job himself, but that wasn’t nearly as satisfying.
Daniel wanted Samantha, pure and simple. And he wanted her bad. It was all he could think about. Like a seed planted in his brain, it kept growing, and nothing was going to make it go away. (Except for the obvious.) The seed . . . the idea of sex with Samantha . . . had grown into a big honkin’ plant, a vine with tendrils extending to all parts of his body. Like kudzu, it was, and everyone knew kudzu was “the vine that ate the South.” If the South couldn’t overcome the assault, how could he?
Holy crap! Now I’m making jokes with myself about kudzu. And all these stupid analogies: trains, seeds, vines. What next? Rockets?
So, he and Emily went to the storage facility where he hired a couple of high school kids to help him load the double size bed frame and dresser, along with a couple of antique mirrors that weighed a ton. He would come back tomorrow for the rest of the bedroom set . . . an armoire and a dry sink . . . as well as two single bed frames that were lodged in the back of the unit.
And the mental assaults continued. The whole time he was lugging furniture, including the antique rice bed frame (Whatever the hell a rice bed was!), his fool brain kept picturing a bed sitting arranged before open French doors with a soft white down comforter. On it reclined Samantha, reddish hair spread all over the pillow, miles of creamy skin, and freckles. Her arms were raised above her head, and one knee was raised. She was nude, of course, wearing nothing but an old-fashioned ankle bracelet, which in this case was just a thin chain of fine gold. Her nails were unpainted, but her lips were cherry red.
Yes, he fantasized in detail.
And, yes, now he was having sex dreams in the daytime, while he was awake. Walking sex dreams.
Why did ankle bracelets go out of style, anyway? They were sexy as hell, in his opinion. In fact, he and Aaron had talked about it one time. Aaron considered seamed stockings and a garter belt on a woman to be a lost female attraction. Whereas Daniel thought seamed stockings and garter belts were just sort of silly, right up there with padded bras and waist cinchers. Well, sometimes waist cinchers held an appeal, depending on the circumstance . . . or fantasy. But honestly, an eighteen-inch waist and fifty-two-inch hips?
You could tell he’d thought about this a lot. Now that was hopeless!
Emily looked at him, as if to say “I know just how you feel.”
He put a leash on Emily when they got to the Pet Psychiatric Clinic, which was probably unnecessary since she couldn’t trot more than ten feet a minute and stopped to take a dainty dump every other step. While at the clinic, an overweight psychologist with halitosis oohed and cooed over the pig, pretending to communicate in pig language (Pig latin, maybe. Ha, ha, ha!), and proclaimed that Emily was getting better. And handed her a pig treat for being such “a good piggy.”
“That will be fifty dollars,” the receptionist told him. “And bring Emily back in two weeks.”
Yeah, right.
He stopped once at a park where he gave the pig a chance to do its job again. The grass was lush and green here, thanks to the tropical heat and rains, and of course he pictured himself and Samantha lying, naked, on a similar lawn. No, it was a pasture filled with clover. The crushed clover smelled like fresh-cut grass with a hint of basil. When he rolled over, on top of her—
“Oink, oink,” Emily said, ready to return to the truck.
“We need to get you a boyfriend, Emily,” he told the pig, as he adjusted the seat belt around its fat belly.
The pig gave him such a soulful look, you’d think she understood.
When he got back to the mansion, he took the pig to the second parlor with the other animals, then looked for Angus to help him unload the truck. He found him in the first parlor with Lily Beth, slow dancing to some John Legend song playing on his laptop. Which was kind of sweet and comical at the same time, with her pregnancy bump, which was more like a mountain, impeding any real closeness.
Dancing? In the midst of all the danger they faced? He could hardly believe it!
But then, he got a sudden image in his brain (Surprise, surprise!) of him slow dancing with Samantha. Except this time the music was something more intensely sexual, and even more cornball, like Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” He was wearing jeans and nothing else, not even shoes. She was bare-footed, too, wearing that hot sleep outfit, red silky pants and silky black camisole top edged in red. No underwear, he could tell, because he could see her nipples and the curve of her buttocks. She looped her arms around his neck. His hands held her hips, just above her butt cheeks. He wasn’t all that interested in dancing, but they were just swaying, feeling the rhythm of the music. Oh, man! Man oh man oh man!
Just then, a horn honked outside, jarring him from his reverie and Angus and Lily Beth from their dancing. It was the delivery truck from the furniture warehouse. Daniel told Angus and Lily Beth to stay out of sight, just in case.
Samantha came to see what was going on.
“How’s Max?”
“Just great, and the kittens are so cute.”
“I’ll bet.” He was being sarcastic, but at the same time, he was picturing her petting the big cat. Her long tapered finger caressed the feline from nape to tail, softly, like butterfly wings on the skin . . . uh, fur. The cat arched its back with sheer pleasure and—
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
He blinked several times and looked at her. She still wore that blue shorts outfit with the bare shoulders and halter top with a bow tied right between heaven and hell. The things a guy imagined he could do with a bow!
“Earth to Daniel! Why are you looking at me like that?” she repeated.
Busted! “Like what?” He pretended to be confused. Then, “I was just noticing the cat hair on your shoulders.” An
d all that creamy, freckled skin. He reached over and pretended to flick some stray hairs off the bare skin, which caused goose bumps to rise all over her arms. He took that as a good sign.
She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.
He winked at her. When all else fails, try the wink, he told himself. Lust is turning my brain to mush.
She was still eyeing him suspiciously, or maybe like he’d lost a few marbles. Enough of this madness! They had work to do. She oversaw the installation of the new fridge (which did fit, hallelujah!) and the removal of the old, while he directed the two delivery men. Afterward, while Samantha put the food from the old fridge into the new, he prepared to go outside with Angus and unload the furniture from the truck.
“Just put those twin mattresses in the front parlor for now,” Samantha suggested. “I don’t like the idea of Lily Beth having to get up and down from that air mattress on the floor. Did you bring any twin bed frames?”
“No. They’re in the back of the unit. I’ll get them tomorrow.”
“Well, then, maybe you should set up the double bed in there, for now, since you have a frame for it.”
The infamous rice bed. He thought about asking what a rice bed was, but decided he didn’t really care. “Okay,” he said, his mind elsewhere. Again! He was looking at the freezer on the bigass fridge and thinking about buying some ice cream. Not because the cold ice cream would be welcome on this hot day, but because of the kinds of thing a creative man could do with ice cream. And they wouldn’t even have to leave the kitchen. There was that table, and—
“You’re looking at me like that again,” she pointed out.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a cold drink on a sizzling Louisiana day, and you’d like to suck me up.”
He laughed. “You got that right, babe.” Then, he went back outside with Angus. It was best he got out of her sight before he acted on his fantasies. Not that he didn’t intend to act on them at some point. Just waiting for the right time. On second thought, he went back inside, pressed her up against the fridge and kissed her, openmouthed and hungry, with his hard-on obvious and hard against her belly. She was so surprised, she still held a carton of orange juice in one hand, and a package of cheese in the other. Then, without saying a word, he turned again and left.
Yep, drowning! Either in lust, or stupidity, or both.
It was a hundred degrees in the shade today, and he was feeling every bit of the heat. And, yes, he meant that as a double entendre.
No mission was impossible for this old lady . . .
Louise awakened from an afternoon nap to the sound of thunder clapping in her head. She imagined that St. Jude was tapping her on the shoulder, not to come to the Pearly Gates, but to start on a new heavenly mission. “Tante Lulu, thou art needed!” the heavenly voice said in her head.
Yes, even St. Jude called her Tante Lulu.
She tried to go back to sleep, but the thunder kept a-clappin’. She checked the bedside clock and saw that it was four o’clock. Time to get up and work on some of her herbs before dinner. Leftover gumbo. The best kind!
She didn’t get up yet. It was so comfy in her small bed.
Her family always acted worried when they walked in on her sleeping during the daytime, like the next step would be her napping in a coffin. Holy crawfish! Young folks didn’t understand that naps energized a person . . . persons of any age. You didn’t need any of that Red Bull stuff when you took a daily nap.
“It’s a power nap, fer heaven’s sake, not one of those old age, fuddy duddy naps,” she told the naysayers, repeatedly. “Doan be puttin’ me in no grave yet. Age is what ya want it ta be, and I ain’t old yet. I still got giddyup in my heart and juice in my lady parts.”
That always caught their attention and they tsk-tsked at her for speaking her mind. “Who else’ll speak iffen I don’t?” Not a bit of humor in the whole lot, ’cept for Tee-John and Charmaine.
Her knees creaked as she eased her way off the bed. Not from old age, mind. Just a little cramp from sleeping in one position.
But back to the thunderbolt that had awakened her. The sky was clear blue, no storm in sight. She grinned then and did a little Snoopy dance around her bedroom. I cain’t be old iffen I kin still dance. To prove her point, to herself, she added a little spin to her dance, and almost fell on her hiney.
She knew exactly what the thunderbolt meant. The thunderbolt of love was hitting someone she knew, and they needed her help to recognize it for what it was . . . a heavenly gift. And she knew exactly who it had hit, too. That stubborn, grouchy, too-sensitive-to-live Daniel LeDeux.
She already had his hope chest made. She made hope chests for all the men in her family, and the men who were close to her family. She would have to check and see if she had enough embroidered pillowcases, and doilies, and St. Jude place mats for Daniel’s. Maybe she should start on a bride quilt for Samantha, who was no doubt being hit by the thunderbolt, too.
The phone rang, and she picked it up right away.
“Tante Lulu?” her nephew Luc asked.
“Who else would it be? Richard Simmons? Not that I would mind if he were here takin’ a nap with me.”
Luc groaned. “I’m calling ta remind you about your birthday party here on Saturday.”
“How could I forget? Ya keep callin’ me every day ta remind me. Do ya think I got de-men-chah jist cause I’m approachin’ eighty.”
Luc made a snorting sound at that number. Louise never disclosed her true age. It was nobody’s bizness. But Luc was a lawyer. He could count.
“Anyways, I was jist about to call you. I’m thinkin’ about goin’ over ta Bayou Rose Plantation t’morrow ta help Daniel with his . . . uh, problem. And I was wonderin’—”
“Mon Dieu! Who told you? You weren’t supposed ta know.”
Huh? Red flags went up in her head. Her family was always trying to hide important things from her. “Doan matter how I know,” she said carefully. “Daniel and Samantha need my help, and that’s that.”
“No, it’s not that that. No one needs your help. The FBI will be there, and police. Stay home and give yourself a perm or somethin’ fer your party.”
The FBI? And the police. “So, Tee-John is involved, too?” She was going to smack that boy up one side and down the other. He was her favorite nephew, and he usually understood her need to be involved.
“Of course, Tee-John is involved. He and I were the first ones ta learn about this mess.”
“I could bring over a mess of greens and a crawfish casserole. Mebbe I should bake a pie. I got blueberries big as marbles.”
“No! Samantha can do any cooking that needs done. Or Lily Beth. Unless the girl decides to pop out her baby in the middle of the chaos.”
A pregnant girl? He cain’t mean Samantha. I jist saw her on Sunday. And chaos? My favorite thing. But they’re shuttin’ me out? We’ll see about that! “I doan think I know Lily Beth. How far along do ya suppose she is?” Tante Lulu asked.
“Supposedly seven months, but she looks more than that.”
She did a mental inventory of the closet in her second bedroom where she stored all the knitted and crocheted items she made in her spare time for “just in case” situations. Yep, she recalled a little green jacket and cap she’d made a few years back. She could take that for a gift.
“Are you still there?” Luc asked.
“’Course I am. Where ya think I am? In mah bayou stream doin’ laps?”
“Don’t you dare go near that water. I don’t trust that pet gator you keep around there. We oughta call Pet Control ta relocate that beast.”
“Useless is harmless,” she said.
“Anyhow, stay home tomorrow. Rest. Don’t even think about goin’ ta Bayou Rose.”
“How could I go even if I wanted to? Ya took mah keys ta Lillian.” Lillian was the name of her vintage lavender convertible.
“Fer your own good, darlin’.”
Bull puckies! “I know, sweetie. Well, I
gotta go pee.”
“Okay, I’ll pick ya up at five on Saturday. Love ya!”
“Love ya back,” she said.
Wonder where I hid that second set of car keys?
Chapter Nineteen
It always comes back to sex . . .
Samantha’s cell phone kept ringing all day. Some of the callers left voice messages, some didn’t, but she saw their caller IDs.
There were seven voice messages from Nick that went from polite to not-so-polite. Everything from, “Hey Samantha. Nick here. Just touching base. Give me a call when you can” to “You didn’t call me back. I stopped by your house, and no one was there. Where are you, darlin’?” to “I’m really getting pissed” to “This is important, dammit. Don’t push me too far, I’m warning you” to a bunch of swear words that included something about a “stupid bitch.”
Her father Bruce called, too. He was still at a conference in Los Angeles where Nick apparently had him pulled from a meeting to ask about Angus’s whereabouts. “Nick has been calling me. What’s Angus done now?” Her father was clearly beyond annoyed. “I swear, I’m done bailing that boy out of one scrape after another. I also got a call from someone named Jimmy Guenot. Do you know who that is? Florie claims he’s the head of the Dixie Mob in Southern Loo-zee-anna, but I can hardly credit that.” Florie would be Florence, Bruce’s fifth and current wife, the one who had been a superintendent of women’s prisons. She ought to know.
There were also a number of calls from the Starr Foods headquarters (Nick had probably been bugging them there, too.), the foundation office, two of her neighbors, and the rescue farm that wanted to know if she could foster two more pets . . . a pet python “that is really cute,” and a bunch of gerbils “that are no trouble at all.” Even under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have taken either of those.
Her Aunt Maire, the one with the pink obsession, said on her voice mail, “That cute ex-husband of yours stopped by. I gave him one of Larry’s old pink ties.” Larry was Maire’s long deceased husband, the one who’d given her a pink diamond engagement ring that started this whole craze more than fifty years ago. “Did you know that Nickie loves pink as much as I do?”