Is that what Charmaine thinks? Holy bloody hell, I’ve been in jail, not the loony bin.”
Oh, my goodness! This must be Raoul Lanier, the ex-husband. Somehow, Rachel had imagined some redneck trailer-park type, possibly with a mullet and a wad of tobacco in his cheek, not this delicious specimen of manhood who could actually put words together in an intelligent manner.
“I don’t know where Charmaine is,” Remy said. “Try leaving a message on her answering machine, telling her what you want. Or make an appointment for a massage. That works for me.”
Rachel elbowed Remy in the ribs, following Sylvie’s suit.
“God, she is a flake,” Rusty said, referring to Charmaine, of course. “Why can’t she just talk to me?”
“I think she’s afraid you’ll wink at her and she’ll land on her back in the sack,” Luc informed him drolly.
“Or on a massage table,” Remy added in an undertone.
Rachel elbowed him again, and he pretended to be hurt.
“Yeah, right,” Rusty said, but he grinned just the same. Then he turned on his booted heels and stomped away, muttering something about wringing her pretty little neck.
“Why is he dressed like a cowboy?” Rachel asked Sylvie, still a little stunned by the appeal of Charmaine’s ex-husband.
“Because he is a cowboy. His father owned a ranch in Loo-zee-anna, which he inherited last year.”
“I thought he was in jail.”
“He was, but—” Luc never got to finish his explanation because the shrill sound of triple giggles from the vicinity of the pool jerked both him and Sylvie to attention. Sylvie ran off to round up their children with Luc following at a slower pace. It appeared as if their three little ones might be a little too much for just one nanny.
“What do you say to eating some mudbugs, darlin’?” Remy nuzzled her ear as he spoke.
“Muddy bugs? I don’t think so. I’ll stick to chips and dip, thank you very much.” Actually, there were tables all around the property laden with a vast array of finger foods, everything from caviar on toast points to chips and dip.
“Mudbugs are crawfish, silly,” Remy informed her with a chuckle. “They get their name because they burrow down into the muddy stream beds, but, believe me, they are triple washed and spanking clean before they’re thrown into the pot. C’mon, sweetie. You’ll like ’em. They’re like miniature lobsters.”
A short time later, they were seated, side by side, at long tables lined with white butcher paper at the end of the back lawn, along with about a hundred other people who were eating the tiny creatures with gusto. Off to the side, huge cauldrons were boiling over open fires into which burlap sacks of crawfish, peeled potatoes and corn on the cobs were being tossed, along with a bunch of spices.
“There’s an art to eating crawfish,” Remy told her as he dumped large mounds in front of each of them. “First you break off the head from the tail and suck the juice from the head. Like so,” he explained, demonstrating. “Then you dig out the fat from the head with your finger, or a paring knife if you’re particular, and eat that, too, if you want. Some people don’t like the fat. On the other hand, there are some who say it’s what makes Cajun men so smooth and virile. Helps us charm the pants off the ladies.” He winked at her.
“How about Cajun women? What happens when they eat the crawfish fat?”
“Turns them into regular hotties.”
“I’m hot enough, thank you very much.”
“Anyhow, then you peel the first couple segments of shell off the tail, grab that little piece of meat between your teeth, and pinch the tail. It should slide right out. Yum!” He demonstrated with several more crawfish, at one point having her taste a morsel, which was indeed yummy. Then he said, “Okay, your turn, chère.”
Rachel stumbled through the first couple crawfish, getting virtually no juice or meat, but eventually she got the knack. She was sucking and pinching and biting like the best of them ’til she suddenly noticed that Remy had been silent next to her for some time. When she turned, she saw that he had stopped eating and was staring at her.
“What?” she asked as she finished off her margarita and licked the salt off her lips.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he prayed. “Do that again and we may just have sex under the table.”
“Do what again?”
“Sucking and licking. Sucking and licking. You’ve got a tongue that could turn a monk to sin, babe.”
“I like to watch you eat, too,” she confessed and licked some more salt off her mouth.
“Do you now?” He placed one elbow on the table and propped his chin on his fist. “I am falling fast and hard for you, Rachel, you know that, don’t you?”
“Because of my sucking and licking?” she teased.
He used a forefinger to wipe some salt off her upper lip, then put the finger in his own mouth to taste. Finally, he shook his head. “No. Because of you.”
“Maybe that mudbug fat does work after all?”
“You thinkin’ about takin’ off your pants?”
“Maybe.”
He stood and helped her to stand beside him. “Time to dance, sweetheart, before you seduce the hell out of me.” The Paul Trebel jazz band was playing up by the patio where couples had just begun to dance.
“What makes you think that I can’t seduce you while we’re dancing?” she asked flirtatiously.
“I know you can. But, hey, I’m willing if you are.”
They danced several sets to the soft jazz. Maybe it was the setting—the gorgeous plantation house, the pool which resembled a lagoon, the scent of hundreds of different varieties of irises which filled the formal gardens—but Rachel felt dreamy as she lay her head against Remy’s shoulder and slow-danced, matching his rhythm perfectly. “I love you,” she whispered in Remy’s ear.
His only response was to hug her tighter, almost desperately.
She understood perfectly. She wanted to hug him tight, too, and never let go.
“Hey, bro, how about watching the kids for a few minutes so Sylvie and I can dance?” Luc said, tapping Remy on the shoulder.
“Sure,” he said. Remy and Rachel walked over to the pool area and sank down onto the grass where the three girls were rolling and giggling beside their mother.
Luc and Sylvie strolled arm in arm toward the patio dance floor. Sylvie could be heard saying, “Are you sure you can dance with your wound?”
“I’m relyin’ on you to hold me up, babe,” Luc answered as he pinched his wife’s behind and she yelped. Then Luc swung around behind her, and did a little shimmying, dirty dance against her backside as they continued toward the dance floor. He was wincing the whole time in exaggerated pain. Sylvie just laughed at his antics.
Nearby, Inez Breaux stood with a hand clapped over her chest in shock, watching the whole scene. The aunts’ mouths hung open. But Grandma Dixie smiled.
“Uncle Remy’s gonna play with us,” the oldest girl said to her sisters.
“Yippee!” the other two cheered.
Remy was already surrounded by the children who obviously adored him. “Okay, what’ll it be, munchkins?”
“Hide-and-seek!”
“Racing!”
“Patty-cake,” the youngest offered in garbled baby talk, and the other two groaned.
“Girls, I want you to meet my friend, Rachel. Rachel, this big girl is Blanche Marie; she’s three years old.” The little girl beamed with adoration at Remy for referring to her as “big.”
“How do you do?” Rachel reached out a hand to the girl’s tiny one and shook. Blanche appeared impressed that anyone would want to shake her hand.
Remy turned to the next girl and said, “This beauty with the runny nose is Camille; Cammie is two, going on thirty; she wants to be on Sesame Street when she grows up.” The black-haired mop-top looked as if she might be hurt over his mentioning her runny nose, which Remy was wiping with a napkin, but flashed him an adorable smile when he commented on her muppet aspira
tions.
Rachel shook hands with her, as well.
“Then, there is the baby of the family, little Jeanette;
Jeanie Beanie likes to give her Uncle Remy sloppy kisses, and he likes to give her raspberries.” With that he tossed the little one onto her back, lifted her shirt and blew raspberries onto the bare skin of her abdomen.
“Me, too. Me, too,” the other girls squealed.
They launched into a game of “I See” then as Remy mentioned objects about the grounds, and they had to guess what it was. “I see something big and green.” “I see a tiny red animal.” “I see something blue and wet.” “I see something hot and sexy.” He winked at Rachel. “Oops, I meant hot and spicy.”
After that, they took turns riding on the “horsie,” which was of course Remy. Then, he danced with each of the girls in turn, ending with a dance involving all three girls in his arms at once.
When Luc and Sylvie finally returned, Remy pretended to be exhausted from all the hard work of babysitting. Luc, who looked a little white about the gills, and his tribe went off to find a bathroom for the little bladders which were no doubt overflowing, including the one in training pants. He was probably going to put an ice pack on his groin, as well.
Remy and Rachel leaned back on their elbows, enjoying the ambience.
“You are really good with children,” Rachel commented. “Do you plan to have lots of them someday?”
It had been an idle question, but Remy’s silence alerted her that something was wrong. When she turned, she saw that he was staring straight ahead, stone-faced.
“Remy?” A chill of foreboding shook her.
He turned to her with a bleak expression on his face. Instead of answering her, he asked his own question, “Having children . . . it’s really important to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes . . . no . . . actually, I don’t know. I never thought about it much before, but lately I’ve been thinking that, yes, I would like to have children—well, at least one child.” In her mind came the sudden picture of a dark-haired Cajun boy, the same image she’d seen once before.
He looked stricken at her words, which was really odd.
Numb with apprehension, she asked, “How about you?”
At first, he just shook his head. Finally, he regarded her gravely and confessed, “Rachel, I can’t have children.”
“Can’t?” She frowned with confusion. “Or don’t want?” A suffocating sensation tightened her throat.
“Can’t. I was damaged there by the fire,” he elaborated, pointing to his groin. “Oh, the equipment is in working order, as you well know, but I’m shooting blanks.”
Rachel jackknifed to a sitting position. Remy sat up, too.
“Let me get this straight. You knew that I just ended a relationship because a man failed to tell me that he took measures to prevent his having children, and you started a relationship with me, but didn’t consider it important to tell me that you can’t have children?”
“I suspected it might be important, but I hoped . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I just hoped.”
“Let me see if I understand this. You suspected it would be a problem, but you expected it to just go away if it was never mentioned?”
“Something like that. Dammit, Rachel, I didn’t know that children were that important to you.” His eyes were dark pools of appeal.
She grabbed her own hair with both hands and pulled with frustration. “God, you men are clueless! It’s not about the children, you lunkhead. It’s about the failure to inform me ahead of time, to give me the choice.”
“Rachel! We’ve only known each other two weeks.”
“Don’t you dare . . . Don’t you dare . . .” She had to stop for a moment to calm herself. “You and I knew from the moment we first met that something was happening.”
“Did you expect me to blurt it out that first afternoon in Gizelle’s yard?”
“Don’t be snide with me. These two weeks have gone like warp speed in terms of regular relationships. And you had plenty of opportunities for telling me.”
“Like when?”
“Like last night, when we talked all through the night. I thought I was getting to know you. Then today, in the truck, when we were coming here, I told you—I told you—how important trust was to me. That was your perfect opening. Why .. .” Tears choked her, and she was unable to continue.
“Rachel, let me explain.”
“Explain? Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” she practically shrieked.
“If our relationship had progressed, yeah, I would have told you.”
“Our relationship had already progressed, in case you hadn’t noticed. Sex, I-love-you’s, more sex, more I-love-you’s. Call me a fool, but I thought we were a couple—a new couple, maybe—but a couple just the same.”
“Don’t you think you’re being oversensitive?”
Wrong word! “You are a real piece of work, LeDeux.”
He tried to take her in his arms, but she slapped him away.
“Maybe I am oversensitive, but you knew trust was an issue with me. This is just like David all over again, except it took five years for him to pull the zinger on me. It only took you two weeks.”
“That’s unfair. I am nothing like that jerk.”
“If it looks like a jerk, and feels like a jerk .. .”
“I love you, Rachel. You said you loved me.”
“Too bad love isn’t enough.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I can’t have kids.”
“Good Lord! Have you heard a word I’ve said? It’s not about making babies. It’s about trust.”
“Hell, Rachel, I told you now. Why isn’t that good enough?”
“You never volunteered the information. I practically forced you into it by asking a point-blank question. To tell the truth, I probably wouldn’t have cared if you’d told me last night, or earlier today. But now .. . !”
“Now?”
She stood shakily and stared down at Remy. She almost felt sorry for him as he stared hopelessly up at her—almost, but not quite. “Now, it’s over.”
With that, she stomped off, tears streaming down her face. Betrayed again! When will I ever learn? I knew this was too good to be true. I knew I was headed for disaster. Oh, God! Betrayed again!
Chapter 13
Men and the clueless hall of fame
Rachel stayed burrowed in her loft bed-cocoon until noon, trying to sleep, or not think. Neither worked.
All she could think was, It’s over.
Finally, her grandmother launched into a campaign to shame her into coming downstairs. After climbing the steps on her arthritic knees, huffing and puffing loud enough to wake the dead, Granny leaned over her and asked, “You sick, girl?”
“No.”
“Then get your be-hind out of that bed and stop feelin’ sorry fer yerself.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself.”
“Oh, yes, you are, and it’s gonna stop now. Yer a Fortier. We Fortier women are strong. We doan let our men tromp all over us, nosirree.”
It’s over. “No man—nobody—tromped all over me.”
“Hah! That Remy LeDeux did, I’ll wager. Beau sez you were a sorry case when he picked you up last night in Houma. Cryin’ and a-shakin’ like it was the end of the world. I tol’ you not to mess with them LeDeuxs. Man trouble, sure as shootin’.”
It’s over. “What makes you think I have man trouble?”
Granny gave her a look that pretty much said she was a brainless twit if she tried to convince her otherwise. “So, what did the varmint do? He dint hit you, did he? Iffen he did, I’ll cut his worthless heart out with my paring knife, I will.”
“No, he didn’t hit me. For heaven’s sake!”
“What did he do then?”
“It’s not what he did, it’s what he said.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Her gr
andmother threw her hands up in the air with exasperation. “How come you smell like coconut?”
Oh, geesh! Still?
“It must be sunscreen.”
“In bed?”
Holy moly! Talk about persistence! “Granny, leave me alone. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Get out of bed.”
“Oh, all right,” she grumbled.
As she slid out of bed, her silk nighty rode up practically to her crotch and the straps slipped down to her breasts.
Her grandmother exclaimed, “For the love of Mary! What have you been doing with that man? ’Pears as if you been wrestlin’ with a bear.”
Rachel looked down, afraid of what she would see. Then, she wished she could sink back under the feather tick.
There were whisker burns all over her chest.
A bite mark stood out on her inner thigh.
The nail polish had been sucked off of three of her toes.
Fingerprints marked Rachel’s outer thighs where Remy had grabbed her legs and lifted them high. Good thing her grandmother didn’t know that.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk,” Granny said, staring at those very prints.
Yep, she knew.
“This is worser’n I thought,” Granny said. “Me, I never took you fer that kind of girl.”
“I love him, Granny—or I thought I did.” But, damn, damn, damn! It’s over.
“Love doan make the chitlins fry, and it sure doan justify sinnin’.”
Rachel opened her mouth to argue that times were different and it was not immoral to engage in sex with a man to whom a woman was committed. But then she stopped herself. There had never been any commitment between her and Remy, even if she had thought they were leading up to that. What kind of commitment could there ever be without trust? And apparently he hadn’t trusted her enough with his secret. Now she could never trust him again because of his huge lie of omission.
It’s over.
“You look like yer gonna cry again. You want I should put a gris on him?” With a sympathetic sigh, Granny sank down to the mattress and took one of Rachel’s hands in her gnarled one. “I’m the fool, I reckon, but iffen you wants him that bad, mebbe things can be straightened out. Mebbe I could hold my nose every time he’s around, pretend he ain’t a stinkin’ LeDeux. Mebbe I could take my shotgun and go round him up fer you.”