It always amazed Daniel that he had lived more than thirty years in Alaska without knowing he had such a large family here in Louisiana. Not just Tante Lulu, who was a great-great aunt (or something) to them all, but there was Luc and his wife Sylvie and their three daughters, Blanche, Camille, and Jeanette; René and his wife Valerie and their kids, Jude and Louise; Remy and his wife Rachel and their six adopted children, Rashid, Maggie, Andy, Evan, Stephan, and Suzanne, plus their natural-born son, Michael; John LeDeux and his wife Celine and their sons Etienne and Rob, and daughter Annie; Charmaine and her husband Rusty and their daughter Mary Lou; and LaVerne, Amelie, and Simone, whom he’d never met. And those were just the ones he knew about!
Missing from today’s party would be Valcour LeDeux, the father of them all. He and Tante Lulu were archenemies. If he came within twenty yards of the old lady, she would probably shoot him in the balls with one of her pistols.
“You look good today,” Samantha remarked, pulling him out of his reverie.
He glanced down at himself. He wore a navy sport coat over jeans with a blue dress shirt and tie. Samantha had helped him pick out the tie, which had given him more ideas. He was probably overdressed for a pool party, but he’d wanted to please Samantha, who’d said he should be as dressy as she was. Did he mention her sexy dress with the cleavage down to here, and those fuck-me black strappy shoes? She was wearing the nipple rings underneath, at his request. He’d probably have a half hard-on all night just thinking about them. She had sworn that she would buy him a penile ring in retaliation, but he didn’t know about that!
Once they walked up the driveway and skirted around the house to the backyard, they saw that half the people were dressed like they were, while the rest were casual, or in swim attire, especially the younger ones. The patio was converted into a dance floor for the music that was already being played by René LeDeux’s band, The Swamp Rats. Right now, it was a raucous version of “Diggy Diggy Lou,” a Cajun song about a man in the doghouse again. People were scattered around the huge lawn on folding chairs and chaises, or standing about in small groups.
A tent had been erected for food which smelled delicious, even from here. Another tent held an enormous cake, which Tante Lulu would have insisted on making. It appeared to hold only a few candles. The old lady had always been cagey about her age.
Even though she had insisted on a “no gifts” policy, there was a pile of gaily wrapped presents, just the same. Instead, Luc had asked people to send little memories they had of Tante Lulu, and the enormous album that held those notes sat beside the cake. In fact, there were two big albums.
Samantha’s grandfather Stanley Starr, who was a friend of Tante Lulu, came up and kissed his granddaughter, asking her if she was all right following the whole Nick Coltrane business. Stanley Starr was a character. Aside from being an astute businessman, he dressed in true Southern gentleman style (despite his Scotch heritage and other family members’ proclivity to kilts), complete with white suit, white hair, mustache, and goatee, and a straw hat, a la Colonel Sanders. They talked to him for several moments before an older lady, Fleur Robicheaux, Charmaine’s mother, called Stanley over. Fleur was more outrageous in attire and mannerisms than Charmaine, Daniel had learned soon after moving to Louisiana. Can anyone say aging stripper?
Tante Lulu saw them and waved. She was in rare form today, too, wearing a sleeveless pink dress, pink wedgie shoes, and even pink highlights in her gray hair. Her makeup defied description. Suffice it to say, there was pink lipstick. And pink dangly earrings. Samantha’s Aunt Maire would love her!
When she got closer, Tante Lulu looked at them suspiciously, as if she knew what they’d been doing, all night and all morning, even when Edgar arrived to work on the cabin. Then Tante Lulu smiled widely and said, “Thank you, St. Jude! The thunderbolt has done its work again.”
Samantha blushed, but he gloated. Let the old lady have her fun. He had the prize, and for that he could put up with her taking all the credit.
“Daniel, come with me. I jist remembered somethin’,” Tante Lulu said.
He glanced at Samantha who was now talking with Charmaine, who matched her aunt in a matching pink dress and pink wedgie shoes, but on her they were hubba hubba hot (Yes, he’d been hanging around Tante Lulu too much and picking up her expressions.) He squeezed Samantha’s hand and said, “I’ll be right back. I’ll bring some drinks with me.”
She nodded and blew him a kiss, just to tease.
He blew one back, just to tease.
Tante Lulu watched the byplay and smiled as if she’d invented love. She took his arm and walked with him toward the house, speaking to family and guests along the way. When they went through the sliding glass doors into a den, she went straight for her big carry bag and pulled out a small box. “I finally remembered where I put yer Grandma Dolly’s gift.”
Daniel had begun to think there was no bequest. He took the box and eyed her suspiciously. “You knew all along where it was, didn’t you?”
She eyed him back and said, “And you knew all along that I knew but dint want ya ta know that I knew.”
Talking with her was like going around in circles. You always forgot where you started.
“Dolly Doucet always regretted the way her family treated yer mother, but her husband was a mean man. It was hard fer a woman in those days ta defy her husband.”
That made Daniel feel a little better about that side of his family, but not by much. Hell, Valcour LeDeux on the other side was no better. Past history!
“So why are you giving me this now?”
“It’s the right time.”
He opened the box and saw a sparkling diamond ring in a gold setting. He frowned in confusion.
“It belonged to yer Great-Grandma Doucet. I figgered ya might wanna give it ta Samantha fer an engagement ring. ’Course it might be too old-fashioned fer her and the diamond too small, but ya kin allus have it reset and add some other stones.”
“If I got a ring, what does Aaron get?”
“He gets a ring, too, but not till the time is right. His is from the other Great Grandma. She was a Chaussin.”
Touched more than he thought he could be for a gift from a side of his family he’d never connected with, nor wanted to, he merely nodded, and said, “Thank you, Tante Lulu. Thank you very much.”
“Thass all right, honey.” She tugged him down and kissed his cheek. When he put a hand to his face, he said, “Dontcha be worryin’ ’bout no lip print. I’m usin’ the kissproof lipstick Charmaine gave me.”
He didn’t dare ask why.
When he went outside, he bypassed the drinks table, for now, and went up to Samantha, who was talking with Aaron, who was looking good tonight, but then he always did, no matter what he wore. Tonight he was in rare form with a crisp blue, tapered dress shirt (Like minds and all that!) worn outside navy blue shorts with his bare feet tucked into Docksiders. Daniel saw several women eyeing Aaron already. The boy was going to get lucky tonight. If he wanted to. One never knew with Aaron.
Surreptitiously, Daniel slid the ring onto Samantha’s finger while she was talking to Aaron. She felt the movement and glanced down, and then did a double take. “Daniel!” She raised her hand and gasped. Tears immediately filled her eyes. “Daniel!” she repeated.
“If you don’t like it, you can have it reset. I know it’s small, but—”
“It’s perfect!” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gave him a big kiss, right in front of everyone.
He wasn’t even embarrassed.
After that, Aaron said, “Congratulations, little brother,” and yanked him into a bear hug, from which he wouldn’t let go. Holding on tight to him, Aaron whispered against his ear, “Be happy!”
When he drew back, he could swear Aaron had tears in his eyes.
“Where did you get this?” Samantha asked. “You had no time to go shopping today.”
“I’ll explain later,” he promised, wrapping his arm around her shou
lder and tugging her closer to his side.
They moved through the crowd then, ate heartily from the array of gumbos, jambalayas, étouffées, rices, and various desserts, and even danced to a slow version of “Jolie Blon.” Once again, he marveled at how well he and Samantha fit together. Especially with the high heels, they were almost the same height.
Later, they listened to Tante Lulu give a little speech after blowing out the few candles on her birthday cake. “I wish everyone was as happy as I am t’day. I have been blessed with a long life filled with love and family.” She raised her champagne glass and said, “Ta love and family!”
“To love and family!” everyone shouted, and drank. And drank.
It was a wonderful party, everyone agreed, but the best part for Daniel and Samantha was when they went home. And, yes, Bayou Rose was beginning to feel like home, to them both.
Epilogue
In the end, life is just one big fantasy . . .
The wedding of Samantha Starr and Daniel LeDeux did not take place until October. Both the bride and groom wanted the Bayou Rose mansion to be renovated enough to show off to company, although there still wasn’t much furniture, and years of work yet to do. That didn’t matter because the ceremony and reception would be held mostly outdoors in the rose garden. And, yes, thanks to a landscaper and much, much money, Bayou Rose once again had a rose garden to be proud of.
Daniel was working again as a doctor at the cancer center in Houma. He told everyone he had to return to medicine to pay for all the work on Bayou Rose.
What started out as a small family wedding ended up being the Wedding of the Year. With all of the Starr family and all of the LeDeuxs, along with some friends, the number of attendees exceeded a hundred.
Samantha wore an antique lace cocktail dress that probably cost as much as the fancy new range they’d bought for the remodeled kitchen. The stove had cost almost ten thousand dollars and did everything but sing Dixie.
Daniel and his ushers wore tuxedos. Black, even though white was preferred in the Southern weather.
Bruce Starr, dressed in a formal kilt (Who knew there was an informal kilt?) gave his daughter away. His ex-wife Colette, Samantha’s mother, wearing enough jewelry to sink a ship, came all the way from France with her latest boy toy, Armand.
Melanie Yutu . . . Aunt Mel . . . arrived a few days ago from Alaska and was playing the role of “mother” of the groom. She hadn’t decided about moving to Louisiana yet, but she was staying with Tante Lulu in her little bayou cottage for a few weeks. That would either convince her to stay or run for the hills . . . uh, glaciers. Unlike Colette, the only jewelry Aunt Mel wore was half of a silver heart on a chain. The other half had been buried with Claire Doucet.
Molly Gillotte, who had recently been released from the hospital following a successful bone marrow transplant, was flower girl, bumping out Emily for the honor. Molly and her three siblings were living in an expanded cabin on the Bayou Rose estate with their devoted father, Edgar. They were babysitting Samantha’s pets during the wedding. Five of the cabins had been renovated so far, all currently filled with families of children with cancer.
Aaron LeDeux was, of course, his brother’s best man. There was much speculation during the reception about the rumored secret night life of his twin. One person said that she heard he was dating a stripper. Another person said that she heard he was stripping himself. Another said he was making nightly copter flights back and forth to the oil rigs, taking the roughnecks to the New Orleans French Quarter. Someone even conjectured that he was studying to be a priest.
Daniel’s ushers were the rest of the LeDeux brothers: Luc, René, Remy, and John, and Angus Starr. Samantha’s bridal party included Tante Lulu, Charmaine, Rachel, Celine, and Valerie, along with Lily Beth who’d recently delivered a beautiful little Southern belle, Marie Fontenot.
Rashid LeDeux, one of Remy’s adopted sons, a music prodigy who was a student at Juilliard, played the wedding march on a piano which had been brought in for the occasion. The music for the reception came from The Swamp Rats, traditional Cajun classic, along with a few Barry Manilow ballads, in honor of Aunt Mel and Daniel’s mother. Especially appropriate, some said, was the bridal dance song, “It’s a Miracle.”
The couple planned to honeymoon in Alaska, of all places, but they would make their home in the Bayou Rose mansion. Aaron had moved permanently into the garconniére apartment, or as permanently as anything Aaron did.
Later, Tante Lulu was heard to speculate over where the thunderbolt would hit next. Would it be Aaron LeDeux, who was doing a shocking dirty dance with Luc’s oldest daughter? Well, not so shocking compared to what Tee-John was doing with his wife, Celine. That boy could dance!
Or maybe Simone LeDeux, who had flown in from Chicago for the wedding. A real Cajun beauty, that one was, but mysterious. With a rather haunted look in her dark eyes. There was a secret there that Tante Lulu vowed to uncover.
The party went on into the wee hours, but the bride and groom slipped off to spend their wedding night at a motel recommended by Charmaine Lanier and her blushing husband Rusty. Its best feature was the vibrating bed.
Later that night, Samantha told her new husband that she was gifting him the gold bullion.
“Isn’t that a rather extravagant wedding gift?”
“It will do more good renovating Bayou Rose than sitting in a bank vault. Plus, we should set up a foundation to run the cancer housing operation.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. He’d never intended his charitable giving to go beyond one cabin and one father. But he would do anything to please his wife.
His gift to her was much less valuable. A book. A 1,00l Sexual Fantasies. He figured they’d already tried out sixteen of them. He turned to one page and looked at her.
“Isn’t that a bit . . . dangerous?” she asked.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor,” he said with a wink.
“Hmmm. What do you say we try for Number Seventeen, too?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Samantha was wearing an old time nurse’s outfit, even though Daniel had never seen a nurse’s uniform that was so short her thong underwear was exposed. Not that Daniel was complaining. Daniel was dressed as a cowboy.
“Yee-haw!” and “Whatever you say, Doctor!” could be heard at a motel down the bayou that night, accompanied by much laughter. Who knew a horse could vibrate? But that was going to be the best part of their marriage, they promised each other. Love and laughter.
Reader Letter
Dear Readers:
Finally, Daniel LeDeux has had a chance to tell his story. Doesn’t it seem like forever since he first came on the scene? I like to think the burned-out pediatric oncologist is like a fine wine, he gets better with age.
Speaking of age, you will notice that I rarely mention ages in this book. For those who have read the other books in this Cajun series, if you go by the year of first publication, Daniel and his twin Aaron would have to be in their forties by now. Instead, I have said that they are an ambiguous thirty-something. For those who are a stickler for details, let’s pretend this book came out before So Into You and Snow on the Bayou. Either way, The Cajun Doctor should stand on its own.
Another age issue . . . the ageless Tante Lulu. I have promised that the outrageous old lady will never die in any of my books, and that is still true. She has always been cagey about her age. So, maybe she’ll just fool us all.
And, by the way, keep in mind that the very first book in the Cajun series is still available new (and updated and reissued with a new cover). The Love Potion is Lucien LeDeux’s story and the very first place/time that Tante Lulu makes an appearance. She seemed well into senior citizenry, even back then. But again, only Tante Lulu knows her real age.
Of course, now that Daniel has told his story, his twin Aaron will get his chance. Then, too, I think the mysterious Simone LeDeux warrants a closer look. And Charmaine LeDeux’s daughter, Mary Lou Lanier, has got to be specia
l. Will she be as outrageous as her mother (Can anyone say born again virgin?) and Tante Lulu (still belly dancing after all these years), or as good-looking as her father, Cajun cowboy Raoul “Rusty” Lanier, so handsome women trip over themselves when he walks down the street? Then there are the grown-up children of the original Cajun brothers: football pro Andy LeDeux, music prodigy Rash LeDeux, that wild Etienne LeDeux, etc., etc.
And there are historicals and time travels and other genres of books to write yet. Surely, there have to be more Viking Navy SEALs, for example. Or how about the other sons of Tykir and Alinor? Or Alrek, the clumsy Viking? Or Jamie the Scots Viking? So many characters with stories yet to tell!
I love to hear from readers and can be reached on my website, www.sandrahill.net, by email at
[email protected], or on my Facebook page at SandraHillAuthor. As always, I wish you smiles in your reading.
Sandra Hill
SHRIMP GUMBO
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups diced tomatoes with juice
4 cups water or broth (shrimp, crawfish, chicken, whatever)
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
2 cloves minced garlic
2 cups cooked, boneless chicken (see below)
1/2-3/4 cooked shrimp
1/2-3/4 cup andouille sausage (see below)
1 1/2–2 cups okra (sliced, crosswise)
1/2 cup bacon fat (or oil) plus two tsp.
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp. Cajun seasoning (or more, to taste)
Dash of tabasco (or more to taste)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2–4 cups of cooked white rice
2 cups diced tomatoes with juice
4 cups water or broth (shrimp, crawfish, chicken, whatever)
1/2 cup chopped celery