Tall, Dark, and Cajun

  No, no, no! the sensible part of her brain wailed inwardly. It was unacceptable, that she, a mature woman of thirty-three, should react like a teenager in heat.

  But the insensible part of her brain countered with, Hot cha-cha! She was turning into a female horny toad.

  “How did you get past Beau’s hunting dog? I’m surprised Chuck isn’t barking up a storm.”

  “Animals like me.”

  She arched her eyebrows in disbelief.

  “Plus, I brought him a handful of Useless’s ginger-snaps.”

  “Useless?”

  “My pet alligator.”

  Aaarrgh! “How did you know I would be awake . . . or outside?”

  “I hoped.”

  “And if I wasn’t?”

  “Guess I would have thrown pebbles against your window. Like that Romeo guy in the play. Truth is, chère, I’m not thinking much tonight.”

  “I don’t think Romeo ever threw pebbles at Juliet’s window,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe he shoulda.”

  “And what if you had hit Granny’s window instead of mine?”

  He laughed. “Guess it was a chance I was willing to take. You know, a man’s got to risk some thorny scratches if he wants to pluck the rose.”

  Pluck? There’s not going to be any plucking here, buster. Time for good sense to take over. “Why did you come?” Another brilliant question! My brain is in lust meltdown.

  “For you.”

  “I beg your pardon,” she choked out and backed up a step and leaned on the wooden rail for support.

  He stepped forward, so that the tip of his boots touched the riser of the step. Even with the height she gained by the step, he was eye level with her. “I had to come,” he explained, which was no explanation at all.

  She said nothing, mainly because she understood without words what he meant.

  “I shouldn’t have come, especially this late, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. This morning, there was something . . . a strange kind of connection . . .” He shrugged. “I can’t explain. Unfinished business, I guess. I couldn’t stay away.”

  Unfinished business? Those words caused Rachel to stiffen with alertness. “The only unfinished business I can think of involves my grandmother, and she swears she’s going to blister your be-hind with buckshot the next time you trespass on her property. So, you better go.”

  He didn’t move.

  “You’re not scared,” she stated.

  “I’m not scared,” he agreed. “And the unfinished business isn’t with your grandmother.”

  Uh-oh! I stepped right into that one.

  “Listen, I know I shouldn’t have come here tonight. It’s the wrong time, baby. Sorry. I shouldn’t have called you baby—yet. . . at all. . . I guess. Oh, hell—heck!” He took a deep breath and started again. “No offense, but I don’t want—I can’t—get involved with anyone right now. And yet, here I am.” He rolled his shoulders helplessly.

  “Wrong timing? Tell me about it! I am definitely not ready for this kind of thing. I just got out of a longtime relationship and—”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” How could he possibly know?

  “Tante Lulu—my great-aunt—she told me.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a second, recalling how his aunt had blatantly pumped her for information this afternoon. “She doesn’t like me. I could tell. Even though we just met. Is it the bonfire?”

  “What bonfire?” He reached out a hand and tugged on a strand of her loose hair. “Here in the moonlight, your hair does look like a bonfire . . . threads of liquid fire.”

  Rachel backed up another step, thus pulling her hair out of his light grip. She hated her hair: the bright red color, the wild, always-needing-to-be-straightened curls. She should tell him that commenting on her hair was no way to get on her good side, but it didn’t matter, really. The sexual chemistry ping-ponging back and forth between them was thick enough to slice. Don’t think about that. Think about something that will toss a little ice water on this fire. David. That’s right. David is a perfect lust quencher. “I burned some property that belonged to my ex-fiancé.” That should spook Remy, make him entertain a few second thoughts about her.

  “What kind of property?” he asked as he casually moved onto the first step. He didn’t appear at all spooked. In fact, his eyes just now seemed to take in the fact that she wore only a thigh-high Miss Piggy nightshirt. And she could swear by the sexy grin that nudged at his lips that he was speculating whether she wore anything underneath.

  She didn’t.

  “Exercise equipment. Lots of it. I hate exercise. Do you like exercise?”

  “Depends on what kind, chère,” he drawled.

  The hot place between her legs lurched.

  “The kind that involves sweat and sore muscles.” Before he had a chance to place any double meanings on those words, she added, “Stairmaster, Butt-Buster, Body by Jake, treadmill, stationary bike . . . that kind of stuff.”

  “You burned all that?” His eyes widened with surprise.

  “Yep. In the parking lot of our apartment complex. That, and twenty-seven different kinds of vitamins, and several tubes of Rogaine.”

  His face showed a quick flash of white as surprise evolved into amusement. He was smiling at her.

  Oh, geez, this is a losing battle. Between his drop-dead good looks, the drawl, and now the smile, just call me “Silly Slut Putty.”

  Just then, a very loud and persistent brill-brill-brill sound erupted nearby.

  “What is that?”

  “Just a gray tree frog.”

  “How do you know—I mean, how do you know it’s a particular kind of frog?” Could I ask a more irrelevant question? As if I care about stinky old frogs. I want to see you smile again. Or hear you smile. Or watch you hitch a hip. Or. . .

  “There are a hundred different frogs here, each with a different song. The deep resonant hum of the bullfrog. The quonk-quonk of a green tree frog. The rattle of a cricket or banjo frog. Living here, you learn to differentiate.” At the mention of each kind of frog, he did a probably accurate imitation of their voices.

  The shrill brill-brill-brill sound broke out again.

  “Well, I’ve never heard one so odd before. I thought frogs were supposed to ribbit.” Dumb, dumb, dumb. Someone please staple my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Next, I’ll be talking about the weather. Oh, I already did that.

  “Only the male frogs vocalize, as a way of attracting females. This particular frog is probably calling out to some hard-to-get female frog downstream. Something like, ’Hey, baby, wanna come up and check out my warts?’ “

  She had to smile at that. And, really, she might as well wave the white flag of surrender. Good looks, the drawl, the smile, and a sense of humor. Yikes! I am done, done, done. Turn me over and prick me with a fork.

  “We were talking about your bonfire. Do you do that kind of thing all the time?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, it was a first time for me. But how did we get on the subject of the bonfire?” she asked, frantic with the need to escape from this man’s magnetism.

  “You were talking about how my great-aunt doesn’t like you, but all that doesn’t matter. I like you.”

  “You can’t like me. You don’t even know me.” Even she heard the panic in her own voice.

  “There’s a surefire way to remedy that, darlin’.” As if he’d been given a cue, he pulled her forward, and his head began to lower toward hers with an intent that was impossible to miss, especially when his lips were already parting and his eyes closing ever so slowly.

  Oh, man, where’s a life buoy when a girl needs one?

  “This is not a good idea,” she protested, even as she leaned up to meet his kiss. Her soft whimper gave lie to the protest.

  “Definitely not a good idea,” he said against her mouth. Rachel could have sworn he whimpered, too.

  “I need to kiss you,” he said.

  “No, you
don’t.”

  “Okay, I want to kiss you.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  Remy felt as if he were drowning in quicksand, and it felt so good.

  This is wrong, wrong, wrong. I should not be here. I should go home. I shouldn’t start something I can’t finish. And this is definitely a lousy time for me to start—or finish—anything. If I had a lick of sense, I’d put a zillion miles between me and this goddess in a Frederick’s of Sesame Street shirt. . . which probably has nothing underneath. The image that prospect conjured up turned his already hot blood hotter.

  She tasted like honey. So sweet. That was Remy’s first thought as he put a hand under her swath of silky hair, gripping her by the nape as he settled his lips over hers. Initially, the kiss was merely a soft, soft shaping of his flesh on hers, learning her contours.

  No, he immediately corrected himself. There is nothing “mere “about this kiss, at all. Quicksand, here I come.

  Remy must have kissed a thousand females in his time— well, at least a hundred—but, in truth, he had never really kissed, or been kissed, before this moment, he decided. This was what a kiss was meant to be. A soft exploration. Coaxing. Tasting. Teasing.

  And then more.

  As his free hand moved to the small of her back and pulled her flush with his body—and, yes, she was naked under the flimsy nightshirt—his kisses grew hungry, harder, more erotic. Pressing. Nipping. Sucking. Plunging.

  And Rachel responded to every lead he provided her. They were like old lovers who knew each other’s moves on the dance floor—or in bed. When he pressed, she pressed back. When he brushed his lips back and forth across hers to find just the right position, she accommodated him by moving in counterpoint. When the tip of his tongue wet her lips, she parted without question and allowed him entrance . . . no, more than that. She welcomed him with her slick, wet heat.

  Remy would have felt embarrassed at his full-fledged erection pressing at her lower belly, but he sensed she was just as aroused as he was. Racing from droopy dick to Blue Steeler in two seconds flat was no record for a guy to be proud of, and Remy certainly wasn’t, but hot damn, if he had the nerve to snake a hand under the hem of her shirt, he would bet she was more than ready for him, too. A heady thought, that. No pun intended.

  He realized then—his fuzzy mind being two beats behind testosterone overload—that Rachel had wrapped her arms around his neck and was moving her hips against him, all the while kissing his brains out. Before he had a chance to react to that tantalizing exercise, she began to suck lightly on his tongue, which just happened to be planted in her mouth. His rocket about launched, prematurely.

  Praying for strength, he pulled away from her slightly and rested his forehead against her forehead. They both panted for breath. He noticed that she hadn’t resisted his breaking the kiss, probably because she was as shocked as he was by their lightning response to each other.

  “I should have known,” he murmured. He withdrew his one hand from her nape and the other from her back, then used both hands to hold her by the upper arms a foot away.

  Her lips were kiss-swollen and her eyes misty with passion, but she appeared relieved that he had put a stop to their runaway kiss. “You should have known what?” she asked dreamily.

  “I came here tonight to see if the attraction I felt on first meeting you this morning was a passing fancy or . . . something else.” Remy was already backing down the step and away from the porch. He desperately needed to put some distance between himself and this witch .. . that’s what she must be, to have entranced him so quickly and soundly. Or a sorceress. There was still voodoo practiced in the remote bayous, but did they know about all this woo-woo stuff in the nation’s capital?

  “And? What did you decide?”

  “Something else, baby. Guar-an-teed!”

  And then he was gone.

  Rachel stared after him for a long time, no longer sure it hadn’t all been a dream. One thing was certain, she felt as if her heart would stop beating—that a huge emptiness swelled in her chest—just because of his absence.

  And the beat goes on

  Unbelievably, Rachel agreed to Feng Shui a beauty shop.

  Actually, Looks to Kill over in Houma was more a beauty spa than a beauty shop, but that’s not what was so unbelievable. The business was owned by Charmaine LeDeux. Criminey, was everyone related to each other here

  in the South? Charmaine was a half-sister of Remy LeDeux, best known, to her at least, for “The Kiss.” That’s how she’d come to regard the event that had occurred between them a week ago—well, actually six days, fourteen hours and thirty minutes ago. Not that she was counting. Rachel had done a good job of avoiding the rogue all week. Or maybe he avoided her.

  Even if she didn’t see him, he was still there, in a manner of speaking. Who knew that the mere touch of a man’s lips to hers could change her life? She couldn’t stop thinking about him—the way he talked, the way his butt filled a pair of tight jeans, the way he grinned, the way he looked overall including his disfigured face, the way he looked at her. Most of all, the way he kissed.

  But she was determined to forget about him. As he had said so succinctly, “Wrong time, baby.” So, she’d decided that work was the answer, especially after her cousin Beau had introduced her to the wacky Charmaine. Beau had come in to the salon—which, surprisingly, had a male clientele, too—to have his mullet hairdo trimmed. The clincher had come when Charmaine had told Rachel, in passing, that she rarely saw her many half-brothers and half-sisters. Apparently, the father, Valcour LeDeux, was a well-known womanizer throughout Louisiana and had bred children all over the place, legitimate and illegitimate, which Charmaine was. At least, Rachel wouldn’t run into Remy here. And she probably wouldn’t think about “The Kiss” anymore.

  Yeah, right!

  “So, what do you think, so far?” Charmaine asked.

  Rachel had been moving about the various rooms in the huge space that Charmaine rented on a busy street in

  Houma. It was Charmaine’s second business establishment, the other being located in Lafayette. Hands extended, Rachel tried to get a feel for the energy that traveled through the various spaces. You’d think people would look at her funny, behaving the way she was, but most barely gave her a second glance. Sometimes, Rachel forgot this was the land of voodoo, and mystical stuff didn’t faze them at all. Flexing her fingers, she moved to a new area. A true Feng Shui expert could see, hear, smell, taste and sense energy with little effort, then decide what corrections needed to be made to establish harmony in the area. Rachel wasn’t that good yet, but she did have the gift to some extent.

  Apartments and offices occupied the upper floors of the historic faded brick building, but Looks to Kill had enough square footage on the ground floor to be divided into numerous rooms serving a variety of spa purposes. The usual hair salon. A massage parlor. Nail emporium. Make-up alcove. Exercise room. Hair removal and body waxing room, including the full monty for those so inclined. Ouch! And there was even a room specifically designated for the mullet hairdo for men, also known as the “Kentucky,” and a bunch of other names, many of them disparaging but proudly claimed by their owners. That’s where Beau was now. This short-on-the-sides-and-top, long-in-the-back style, sported by Billy Ray Cyrus, was so popular it even had its own website, which proclaimed it to be as much a lifestyle as a hairstyle. In fact, there were more than a thousand sites on the information highway devoted to this trailer-park hairdo.

  “Well, I definitely have some thoughts, even this early,” Rachel answered, “but first I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  Charmaine motioned her to a little lounge area where she served frosted glasses of sweet tea before they both sat down. “Shoot away, darlin’,” she said. “By the way, don’t be insulted, but you need a good conditioner, and more pouf to your hair.”

  Pouf? Oh, no! All my life, I’ve been fighting pouf. Definitely no pouf. “This scorching sun here in Louisiana is baking my h
air. I’m just not used to it.”

  Charmaine shrugged. “Not to worry, hon. We’ll fix you up in no time.”

  That’s what Rachel was afraid of. Charmaine was a good-looking woman in her late twenties of medium height. Her high-heeled sandals made her tall. She wore skin-tight white jeans and a sleeveless, V-necked shirt with the sequined logo, HAIRDRESSERS LIKE TO TEASE. Her long, teased brunette hair was the type often referred to as “Texas Hair.” About the salon, Rachel saw photos displayed of Charmaine, who had been Miss Louisiana a decade ago, even then sporting her Texas Hairdo. Also displayed were photos taken thirty or more years ago of Charmaine’s mother, with matching, presumably bleached blonde Texas Hair, from her infamous stripper days. Lordy, Lordy!

  This was not the look Rachel saw for herself. Bad enough she had her wild red hair. Stripper chic would turn her into the Decadent Decorator, at least, or the Happy Hooker, at worst.

  “What impression do you want to convey with your spa? Sophisticated? Serene? Fun? Sexy? Subdued? Expensive? Inexpensive? Healthy? Successful?” She arched a brow at Charmaine in question.

  “All of those,” she replied, without hesitation.

  “Some of them conflict,” Rachel pointed out with a smile.

  “So?”

  “Let’s start with what you have,” Rachel suggested. The spa could only be described as a combination of the debauched Roman baths and a bordello, with faux marble floors and walls, intersected by fake columns, and those interspersed with a good amount of purple velvet draperies with gold loop fringes. Water fountains gurgled in practically every corner. “Do you want to gut the place and start from scratch with a whole new concept? Or do you want me to work with what you have and make minor changes?”

  Charmaine put a long-tipped, shocking pink fingernail to her shocking pink lips and thought for several long moments. “I’m leaning toward the latter, but give me all your ideas and we’ll see.” She sighed on a loud exhale. “I feel as if I’ve been standing still for a long time, both personally and professionally. I need something to jumpstart a change.” She shrugged. “Maybe this is it.”