Tall, Dark, and Cajun

  “Remy!” his aunt repeated.

  “I came to see your aunt, not you. So, why don’t you scram?” She raised her pretty nose so high in the air it was a wonder she didn’t get a nosebleed.

  “Is this a lovers’ quarrel?” his aunt wanted to know.

  “No!” they both answered at the same time.

  “Why did you come to see my aunt?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I think I’ll go pour us some sweet tea, and wash this crap out of my hair.” His aunt waddled off toward the kitchen, leaving them alone.

  Rachel stood with her hands on her hips, staring at him belligerently.

  “I was rude. I’m sorry,” he said. You look like sex on the hoof, babe.

  “So was I.” But she didn’t say she was sorry. And she looked at him as if he was something on the hoof, all right, and it wasn’t sex.

  “I brought maps in hopes that Tante Lulu could pinpoint exactly where you two saw those men on Sunday,” he explained grudgingly. “Then I can give that information to the authorities.” He didn’t say which authorities, which wasn’t really a lie.

  She nodded. “That’s why I came, too, in a way.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her in silent question.

  “I lost my purse that day, with my license and credit cards. I want your aunt to take me back there to find it.”

  “You want to do WHAT?” he practically shouted. He heard his obviously eavesdropping aunt drop some ice cubes on the floor in the kitchen. Rachel jumped with surprise, too.

  “Look, I don’t relish the idea of getting in a boat with your aunt again, but those men are long gone, I’m sure, and I really need my purse.”

  “No!”

  “No? You’re telling me no? You are presuming that you have the right to dictate anything about my life?”

  He took a deep breath for patience. “It’s dangerous. I can’t allow it.”

  “Ooooh, you are pushing me, LeDeux. Allow is a word I would have never accepted from you when we were. . . when we were . . . ”

  “Screwing each other’s brains out?”

  She gave him a look that would curdle milk. “When we were together,” she corrected him, “but it is definitely off the radar now. You won’t allow? Well, allow this, mister!” Rachel gave him the finger then.

  He was shocked. He really was. Oh, he knew some girls and women flipped the bird today, but not females he knew. Not Rachel.

  Tears rose in her eyes, which she swiped away immediately.

  He felt lower than the spots on a snake’s belly for making her cry.

  “See! See what you made me do,” she snapped. “I have never made such an obscene gesture in all my life. You bring out the worst in me.”

  Remy’s spirits rose, learning it was a first-time thing, and he took perverse pride in the fact that he could rile her that much. “I also bring out the best in you sometimes, too, darlin’,” he said in a voice little more than a whisper.

  “Oh, right. Remind me of that now.” She spun on her heels, about to go out the door.

  “Where are you going?” Now that she was leaving, he felt desperate to make her stay. How could he hate being in her presence, and hate her absence as well? The woman is driving me up the wall!

  She turned slowly to face him. Anger flushed her pretty face. “I’m going to go get Beau and his pirogue. Then we’re going to row up and down this damn bayou ’til I find the spot where I lost my purse. Do you have any objections?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said with a sigh of resignation, putting his hands up to bar her from speaking again. “I’ll take you and Tante Lulu. God help me!”

  He will, St. Jude said.

  Somethin’ fishy in the bayou, and it ain’t trout

  All Rachel wanted was to get her purse back. Was that so difficult? She never expected a “posse” to come to her rescue.

  “What is going on here, Remy?” she demanded to know, not for the first time since she’d entered a boat with him.

  He just grunted, same as before. The jerk!

  Yeah, Remy had agreed to take her and Tante Lulu to look for her purse. What he’d neglected to tell her was that he had to make a phone call first to “clear the trip,” whatever the heck that meant. Nor did he inform her that four other men would be coming with them: two in the first boat with Tante Lulu, and two in the boat behind her and Remy, including Larry Ellis, the man she’d met at The Swamp Tavern. All of them wore bulletproof vests and carried weapons—rifles, pistols in shoulder holsters and big things that were probably uzis. Even Rachel and Tante Lulu had been forced to don protective gear. Tante Lulu’s was worn over her muu-muu, and on her head was a clear plastic rain cap that tied under her chin because she claimed it was going to rain, despite the bright sun and clear blue skies with swirling clouds.

  “I’ve lived in D.C. too long not to recognize Feds when I see them,” she told the silent Remy. “I’d bet my Feng-Shui manual that these straight-backed, no-smile guys work for some government agency—if not the CIA or FBI, then some other enforcement division. They are not local police, for sure.”

  Remy just laughed.

  “This is not funny to me, Remy.”

  “Yeah, it is,” he said grumpily. “Do you have any underwear on under that outfit?”

  “Of course I’m wearing underwear.” Not that it was any of his business anymore. “Why?”

  “Just enjoying the view, babe.”

  She turned her head to look back at him without moving the rest of her body, mainly because her hands were gripping the sides of the low-riding boat he called a “Go-Devil” which skimmed over the surface of the water. She gasped when she saw him staring at her behind in the flimsy nylon shorts—her big behind which perched on the little wood seat, probably hanging half off. “Don’t you dare look at me there!”

  “Where would you rather I look? At your nipples that are clearly visible in that little scrap of Victoria’s Secret?”

  “Victoria’s Secret? More like Extreme Sport Exercise-wear.” She looked down at her very demure sport top and saw nothing sticking out, certainly not her nipples. “You can’t see anything.”

  “I can imagine . . . from memory.”

  Rachel very carefully turned herself on the bench seat so that she faced Remy. He wore pleated khaki slacks, loafers and a white golf shirt, open at the collar. In the bright sunlight, his eyes pierced her with their darkness. How could one man, with his scars, look so drop-dead gorgeous? She had a good reason to be upset with him, but instead she melted just looking at him. Was Jill right? Was she being too hard on Remy? Should she give him a chance to explain, if there was an explanation, if he wanted to explain? “Why are you being so mean to me?” she finally asked.

  “Admiring your ass-ets is being mean?”

  “You know what I mean. You’ve been nothing but obnoxious since I arrived at your aunt’s. I’ve done nothing to you to warrant this kind of treatment.”

  “Is that what you think? That you can dump me just because I can’t have kids, then say ’Howdy’ next time I see you? Well, sorry, sugar, but I’ve got a little more pride than that. And turn around if you don’t want me to stare at your tits.”

  She gasped. She couldn’t help herself. Remy wanted to hurt her, and he was doing a darn good job of accomplishing his goal. “You don’t even know how to do vulgar well, Remy, do you know that? You’re all embarrassed over being crude, and don’t you dare deny it. More important, I did not dump you because you can’t have kids. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Forget about it. It’s water over the dam.”

  Rachel’s heart was breaking over Remy’s stubbornness. It appeared he didn’t want to explain—or to make up. Maybe their argument had given him an excuse to break up their relationship before it went too far. Better to change the subject, she decided, before she burst into tears, or begged him to come back to her, regardless of his transgressions. “Remy, what do you do for a living?” r />
  “Huh?”

  “I thought you ran a helicopter service for tourists and land surveyors and stuff like that, but the company you keep . . . well, I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “It’s none of your business, Rachel. What do you care what I do with my time, business or otherwise.”

  She just stared at him, stricken, at the finality of his words.

  “You and me,” he shrugged, “it’s over.”

  He couldn’t make it any clearer than that. “Yeah, it’s over,” she agreed.

  On the other hand, she saw the way he looked at her, with sadness and longing, even as he spit out the hateful words, and she wondered.

  Is it really over?

  Do I want it to be?

  Does he?

  Raining cats and dogs—and Feds

  Once they arrived at the designated spot, all the boats stopped and dropped anchors.

  With perfect timing, the skies opened up with a maddening cloudburst of hard rain. Thunder roared in the distance. Lightning cracked. A miserable, typical afternoon in Louisiana. A ground soaker that would no doubt be over in minutes. But not before drenching everyone and everything in the process.

  His aunt pulled out her umbrella and sat beaming with self-satisfaction in her boat while the DEA agents jumped onto the muddy bank up to their ankles, cursing under their breath.

  “God musta been thinkin’ of hell when he created Louisiana,” Larry Ellis grumbled, to which Tante Lulu countered, “How’d you like an umbrella broken over yer thick head?”

  Frank Porter added, “Did you see those friggin’ alligators back there? For chrissake, we have mondo snakes in Alabama where I grew up, but I prefer them to these big ol’ sonsabitches.”

  “Watch yer mouth, mister. There’s ladies present,” Tante Lulu warned.

  “Everybody stay here ’til we secure the area,” Shelton Peters shouted over the clamor of hard pellets hitting the water and vegetation. “Remy, can you stand guard?”

  He nodded, pulling his pistol out of its shoulder holster. The other men spread out in four directions.

  “Why don’t I just go look for my purse while they’re gone?” Rachel said as she stood, rocking the boat. She was drenched to the skin. Her hair had come loose from its elastic atop her head and lay straggly about her face. Her bra and her shorts were plastered to her body, making her appear almost nude to Remy. No matter if he’d lied before, her nipples definitely stood out now from the cold rain, like freakin’ berries.

  Meanwhile, a very important part of Remy’s waterlogged body came immediately to life. He’d like nothing better than to take her against that tree over there in a knee-trembler to beat all knee-tremblers, giving vertical sex way new meaning. Or down on all fours in the mud—talk about dirty sex! Maybe they could even rock the boat, literally.

  That’s what he thought in his fantasy-sodden brain. What he said was, “Why don’t you just sit your pretty ass down?” No way in this world was he going to stand and push her back down to her seat—not with his embarrassing erection. I am pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. Getting excited by a woman who hates my guts.

  Rachel was about to snarl something back at him, something which would be undoubtedly nasty, when she glanced down at his crotch. Why she had any inclination to peruse that area of his body at a time like this—at any time, actually—defied explanation, but her eyes went wide when she did. Then she surprised the hell out of him. She smiled.

  “All clear,” Pete said, coming up to the boats. “Doesn’t appear to be anyone about. You want to show us where you saw that coffin, Ms. Renaud?”

  Tante Lulu stood carefully and was folding her umbrella since the rain had already stopped. She used it like a cane as she emerged onto the bank in her floppy house slippers.

  Meanwhile, Remy noticed that all four agents were staring goggle-eyed at Rachel and her nipples.

  He made a low growling sound which caused the four men to turn guiltily away and Rachel to smile some more.

  She is going to pay for that smile, he promised himself.

  After a mere fifteen minutes, several facts became evident. The drug container was gone, as evidenced by the cut strap dangling from a streamside tree and by one of the agents taking off his clothes down to his boxers and diving underwater to discover nothing. Most important, to Remy at least, Rachel’s purse was gone.

  How could it have disappeared? Remy wondered.

  You want me to play hide-and-seek with WHOM?

  Rachel just couldn’t believe that her purse had disappeared into thin air. “Could some animal have run off with it?” she asked Pete.

  “Could be, I suppose,” he said dubiously. “What address was on your license? Is anyone living there now?”

  Rachel looked at Remy, then back to Pete. “Yes, my former fiancé, David Lloyd.”

  She saw Remy flinch at her mentioning David. Why he would be upset over her old lover, she had no idea. Well, yes, she did. Even though their brief affair was over, she would probably be jealous if the name of one of his old lovers came up.

  Pete handed her his cell phone and demanded, “Call him.”

  Huh! For two weeks I’ve been avoiding any contact with David. I am definitely not initiating a call to him now. “No.”

  Several men rolled their eyes at what they must consider her irrational behavior. One of the agents had handed Rachel his shirt a short time ago because she’d been shivering. Thank goodness, because she’d been very uncomfortable with them all staring at her revealing garments. Except for Remy. She’d been glad to see that she could still turn him on.

  “Miss, I’m gonna have to insist that you make that call, and ask Mr. Lloyd if anyone unusual has been by, asking for you.”

  “On whose authority do you insist?”

  Pete exhaled loudly with exasperation, then pulled out a leather wallet and flashed her his credentials.

  “DEA?” she exclaimed. “Why is the DEA here?”

  “What’s a DEA?” Tante Lulu wanted to know.

  “Drug Enforcement Agency, ma’am,” Pete explained.

  Tante Lulu was gathering some plant stems and putting them in the pockets of her muu-muu, figuring it wouldn’t be a wasted trip if she gathered some herbs while here. She opened her mouth to ask more questions.

  “Never mind,” Remy said to his aunt. “I’ll explain later.”

  Well, she wished he’d explain to her. “Are you a DEA agent?” she asked Remy.

  He blinked with surprise. “Hell, no.”

  “Then what are you doing with them?” And isn’t it kind of dangerous? What a stupid question! Of course, it’s dangerous. Why does that bother me so much? I don’t care what happens to him. Well, I care if he gets killed or injured or something. I just don’t care the other way. Aaarrgh!

  “Ma’am?” Pete said, still extending his phone to her.

  “He probably won’t be home in the middle of the day anyhow,” Rachel muttered. She punched in the numbers, waited a few seconds while it rang, then practically jumped when David answered. “David? What are you doing home during office hours?”

  She held the phone away from her ear as he yelled so loud that others in the clearing probably heard him, too. “Rachel? Have you lost your effin mind? Some of your friends stopped by to beat the shit out of me. That’s why I’m home—after being in the emergency room all night.”

  “What? What friends? Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. I have a black eye, a chipped tooth, bruised ribs, possible internal injuries, and two pieces of broken Roseville.”

  “Who did it?”

  “You tell me. All I know is that two thugs showed up here yesterday looking for you. When I told them I had no idea where you were, they apparently didn’t believe me, so they tried pounding the information out of me.”

  “Oh, David, I’m sorry to have gotten you involved in this. It’s all because of my missing purse. A mistake.”

  “A mistake?” he shouted. “A parking ticket is a mistake
. A forgotten appointment is a mistake. A botched liposuction is a mistake. Criminals on my doorstep are not a mistake.”

  “Here, let me talk to him,” Pete said and took the phone from her. He spoke for several moments, trying to explain in a cursory way what had happened and promising that two government agents would be at his place within the hour to take his statement and give him protection. When he clicked off the phone, Pete looked at her somberly and said, “That settles it. We need to relocate you to a safe haven till this operation is completed, Miss Fortier.”

  “Huh? What operation? You can’t make me go into hiding. Can you?”

  Pete turned to Remy. “You understand that they may be able to trace her here—that her life might be in danger.”

  Remy nodded grimly, his face ashen.

  “Can you handle this?” Pete asked Remy. “I don’t have any agents free at the moment. It would really help—”

  “Handle what?” Rachel wanted to know.

  “Protecting you,” Pete explained. “Just ’til early next week. Six days at most.”

  “Remy? You want Remy to go into hiding with me?” Rachel flinched at the shrillness of her voice.

  Pete nodded.

  “No!” she and Remy said at the same time.

  Pete raised his eyebrows, not amused by their vehement refusals. “You know how important this mission is, Remy.”

  “No!” Remy insisted, and “NO!” Rachel insisted even louder.

  “Is there some life-or-death reason why you can’t help us provide a temporary safe haven for Miss Fortier?” Pete asked Remy.

  Rachel saw the tight muscle in Remy’s jaw twitch. She saw his eyes flash angrily. She saw him clench and unclench his fists. She saw how very much he did not want to go anywhere with her, let alone some hidden spot where they would be alone.

  She felt the same way, but dammit, she had the right to those emotions. He didn’t.

  Tante Lulu spoke up. “I know jist the place where they can go into hiding.” Everyone jerked up in surprise, not realizing she had been following the conversation. “Luc’s old cabin. It’s so secluded, even Luc has trouble findin’ it sometimes.”