Contents
Cover
Title Page
A Note from Sandra Hill
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Reader Letter
An Excerpt from The Cajun Doctor Chapter One
About the Author
By Sandra Hill
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Note from Sandra Hill
Does it feel like a black cloud is hanging over mankind? Like everything is hopeless? Like every day is a struggle through the mire of negativity?
And yet we survive?
Why? How?
It’s because we are coyotes, my friends. And this book is dedicated to coyotes everywhere.
My husband was for many years a financial consultant and manager of a stock brokerage company. He believed in the principle of positivity (never start the day with a negative thought) and therefore was always coming home with new motivational quotes for me and our four sons, to the point that the boys would sometimes hide, or put their faces in their hands, when good ol’ Dad started spouting his bits of inspiration. Such as, “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there,” attributed to Vince Lombardi. You could say Robert was a more elite Tante Lulu with her homespun Cajun proverbs.
The most memorable of these were the coyote ones. I remember distinctly the time Robert and I went to a business conference in Atlantic City called the Coyote Seminars. The principle behind this program was that coyotes are creatures forced to live in the wild (can anyone say Wall Street, or this political jungle of modern times?), constantly the target of hunters (CNN, Fox News, etc.) and those determined to reduce their population. The beasts have a bad reputation, for sure. Like, dare I say, some stock brokers?
But did they die off? The coyotes, not the brokers. Oh no! In fact, their numbers increased. They would be found in the forests minus a limb, dragging a metal trap, missing an eye, with several bullet wounds, fur all dirty and mangy, but limping along. In fact, a news report recently showed a male coyote trapped in an iron clamp, and its female mate coming to feed it every day.
The message here is that life is not hopeless, that no matter what life throws your way, you can survive. Yeah, get your crazy on, when necessary, like Simone LeDeux, the heroine of this book. Or get you a little St. Jude, if you are so inclined, like my outrageous Tante Lulu. But most of all, be a coyote.
Now, I must tell you that my husband is retired and has been wheelchair-bound for more than four years, following a medical catastrophe, but he still retains his wonderful sense of humor. When one or the other of us gets depressed, and we do, we’ve been known to give a little coyote howl. We are surviving.
Imagine what the world would be like if we were all out there howling.
Chapter One
Between the cheats . . .
Simone LeDeux replayed the voice mail from her mother, Adelaide Daigle, for the second time as she stood at the kitchen counter of her Chicago apartment. She was eating a cheese sandwich on toast and drinking a glass of cold sweet tea. She always kept homemade sweet tea in her fridge, like the good Cajun girl she no longer was. As for food, whatever!
It was midnight, and although she’d turned up the thermostat when she got home, there was a chill in the air. March in Chicago with its blustery winds was not for the faint of Southern heart.
Simone had just ended her shift as a detective with the Chicago PD. After her grueling night—images of a preteen girl overdosing came to mind—her mother’s voice was soothing to her bruised senses. Hard to believe after the years of strife between the two of them, most of it ignited by Simone, who’d given the phrase difficult child new meaning.
She had to smile at the length of the message. Her mother had no concept of electronic devices. There had been a few times when her long messages—as much as five minutes—had caused her voice mailbox to shut down.
Simone also smiled at the familiarity of her mother’s deep Southern accent. Simone had lost most of hers, except for an occasional lapse into a Cajunism, such as “Holy Crawfish!” Or the traditional, “Mon Dieu!”
However, even as she welcomed her mother’s call, she felt a shiver of alarm at the synchronicity of her words. The timing was, at the least, a coincidence. Was God, or the powers that be, conspiring to draw her back to the bayou . . . her worst nightmare? Or was it just Cajun mothers who had this instinct for sensing when their daughters were in need of help, even if only a hug.
“Hi, honey. I haven’t heard from you since las’ week. Did ya kick that no-good Jack Landry out on his cheatin’ be-hind, lak I told you to?”
“Yes, Mama, Jack is history,” Simone replied out loud to her cat, Scarlett, who was enjoying the remnants of the unpalatable sandwich. Talking to her cat was nothing new, but this time it was an indication of her exhaustion and, yes, disgust, at once again being duped by a man she trusted. Honest to goodness! One year and thirteen days wasted!
“Heavens ta horseradish, girl, how you manage ta attract so many losers is beyond me, and all of them from Loo-zee-anna? Even when you move ta Chee-cah-go, you gotta latch on to a slow-drawlin’ Southern man.”
Simone couldn’t argue with that. There was something about a man who could say darlin’ in a husky, slow croon that could make any girl melt. Especially her, with her Southern roots. Darlin’ was the Dixie male’s equivalent to the Yankee man’s babe, a girlfriend of hers in Chicago had said one time. Face it, she was a magnet for a Louisiana man, even if he’d lived in Chicago for almost fifteen years, as Jack Landry had. “World-class architect, low-class loser,” she muttered.
Scarlett stretched with disinterest, expressing her boredom as only a cat could, pretty much saying, “Man problems again! Yada, yada, yada. You oughta be fixed, like me.” The cat went off to sleep on Simone’s bed, which was forbidden. The cat had heard her man complaints before. Lots of times!
“Are you Cajun crazy, or sumpin’? I remember the first time I called you Cajun crazy. It was when you were fourteen years old and you fell head-over-hiney in love with that pimple-faced hell-raiser Mark Comeaux jist ’cause he had that devilish Cajun grin . . . and a pirogue with a motor.
“I talked ta Tante Lulu yesterday an’ she said some women jist got bayou mud in their eyes when it comes ta a Cajun man who’s hotter ‘n a billy goat’s behind in a pepper patch, ’specially when they’re in the middle of a stretch of hormone hot-cha-chas. I told her you were smarter’n that, bein’ a po-lice detective an’ all, but maybe she’s right.
“Me? I got a thing fer men with a mustache, as you know. But that’s another story. Ha, ha, ha!”
Yep, a billy goat’s butt. She’d have to remember that one when the hot-cha-cha hormones hit her next time. Which would be NEVER AGAIN.
Her mother was right, though. You’d think Simone would have learned her lesson by now. She’d been married and divorced three times (well, one of them was an annulment after one week—don’t ask!), and she’d been jilted, robbed, humiliated, punked, and seduced by more men than one woman should have in her twenty-nine-and-a-half years. With a college degree and eight years in police work, she should have more sense.
“Anyways, I went ta the bone doctor t’day, and he said I gotta lose thirty
pounds and I need two new knees, unless I wanna spend my las’ years in a wheelchair.”
What? This sounded serious.
“I’m not that old yet! I’m only fifty. I would lak ta have them new knees, though. But, nope, not an option, not ’cause I cain’t lose the weight, please God, but the doctor sez I need ta have someone at home with me fer three months of out-patient rehab after I’m released from the hospital. My insurance won’t cover three months in a rehab place. Oh, well. I’m gonna buy the Skinny Gals exercise video tomorrow or sign up fer the Prayers fer Pounds program at Our Lady of the Bayou Church.”
Uh-oh! Was her mother pitching a guilt trip her way? Come home and help her, live with her once again in the Pearly Gates Heavenly Trailer Park on Bayou Black, best known as The Gates? Me and Mom as roomies? Horror of horrors!
Wait . . . wasn’t it a timely coincidence that this all came up just when she’d ended another relationship?
But, no, even her mother wasn’t devious enough to do that. The situation must be dire. Last time she’d been home, her mother had walked with a decided limp and could only go short distances before sitting down, due to the bad knees and her excess weight. All of which hampered her duties, even back then, as a longtime waitress at Crawfish Daddy’s restaurant.
And thirty pounds was a gross underestimation, in her opinion. Her mother had been plump as long as Simone could remember, but she hid it well, being so tall and big-boned. Like all the women in her family—including Simone, darn it—who were always fighting diets and the genetic big butt bane. Thank the exercise gods for jogging and daily rounds of tush crunches!
Peeling off her jacket and her shoulder holster, she continued to listen to the voice mail.
“That’s about all that’s new here. I hear the pingin’ noise. I think it means it’s time fer me ta shut up. Why don’t ya get a bigger mailbox? Call me, sweetie, and don’t be cryin’ no more tears over that Jack Landry. I’ll be prayin’ fer you. Kiss, kiss!”
Simone yawned widely. She would call her mother in the morning.
As for Jack Landry, Chicago architect, but born and bred in Baton Rouge . . . Simone was done crying. In fact, from the moment she’d discovered his secret life, she’d been more embarrassed than hurt. Okay, she’d been hurt, too. Badly. She’d been dumb enough to think Jack was “the one.” Which was ridiculous for a twenty-nine-and-a-half-year-old woman. When would girls stop looking for “the one,” and settle for the “not so bad”?
All Simone could do now was repeat an old joke that had become her motto, or should. George Strait might wail about “All My Ex’s Live in Texas,” but Simone would modify that to, “All My Losers Come from Loo-zee-anna.”
She was thinking about having it tattooed on her butt, which was big enough.
From the mouths of babes . . .
Adam Lanier was driving his daughter Mary Sue, or Maisie, to her kindergarten class at Our Lady of the Bayou School in Houma, Louisiana. Wending his Harley through the early-morning traffic, with Maisie riding pillion behind him, he barely noticed the people who gave them double takes, not so much because of their mode of transportation, but because he was in a business suit with biker boots, and his little Mini-Me, with her arms wrapped around him, was wearing a T-shirt and skinny jeans tucked into her own tiny boots. (Yes, they made skinny jeans for five-year-olds! And teeny tiny bustiers for tykes who were a decade or so away from having any bust to speak of. But that was another story.)
There were also those busybodies who disapproved of his having a child on a motorcycle. Screw them! He’d bought a special backrest attachment for his bike seat and fitted foot pegs as well as a buddy belt harness to protect his daughter. Maisie was more likely to have an accident on her bicycle than on his motorcycle with all the precautions he took.
After dropping off the kid, he would go to his office, LeDeux & Lanier, Esq., where he’d recently formed a partnership with Lucien LeDeux, the half brother of his cousin Rusty Lanier’s wife, Charmaine. A convoluted kinship by marriage that would have the average person crossing their eyes in confusion but was typical of the bayou network of families.
He and Maisie had moved from New Orleans to Bayou Black six months ago, and it was the best decision Adam had ever made. At least, he hoped so. He’d made a name for himself in the Crescent City DA’s office as a sometimes outrageous, almost always winning, prosecutor. The news media had loved him, and he played up the image for his own purposes.
This was his first venture into private practice and a switch from indicting to defending. But it was a good match, working with Luc, who had an equal or more outrageous reputation for courtroom antics . . . uh, skills. Luc wasn’t known as the “Swamp Solicitor” for nothing. Maybe, he thought with a laugh, Adam would become known as the Bayou Barrister.
Bottom line—the law was a game he’d learned to play, well. Didn’t matter if it was in the city or in a Cajun courtroom, or whether he played on the black or white side.
Stopping for a red light, with the cycle idling, he glanced over his shoulder and inquired with seeming casualness, “So, Maisie Daisie, you settlin’ in okay?”
“Oh, Daddy, stop worryin’,” she advised in her too-old-for-her-five-years voice. “I’m fine. ’Specially since PawPaw came ta live with us. He makes better pancakes than you.”
He laughed. His father made everything better than he did. Adam was one of the best lawyers in the state, hands down. And the best single parent he could be. But a cook Adam was not. Nor a housekeeper. And reliable babysitters to hold down the fort while he worked were hard to find. Thus his finally throwing in the towel and asking his widowed father, Frank Lanier, to move here from northern Louisiana.
Who would have imagined that a self-proclaimed legal (and personal, truth to tell) hell-raiser like himself, at the ripe old age of thirty-five, would be back to living with his father, who’d raised him pretty much alone after Adam’s mother died in a car accident when he was seven years old and his brother, Dave, only four? But then, who would have imagined that Adam’s wife, Hannah, would die of a brain tumor, diagnosed too late for treatment? She’d been only twenty-eight. That had been two years ago, and like the old cliché said, life went on.
“Thank you for taking off the ballerina tutu,” he said. His dainty daughter, with her mass of black corkscrew curls, liked to pick her own attire, and if left to her own devices, the attire would have involved girly frills and ruffles, sometimes inappropriate-for-her-age choices. Like the tutu that showed her Snow White panties when she bent over.
He would be glad next year when Maisie moved into first grade where school uniforms were required. He didn’t doubt for one minute that Maisie would find a way to glam up the staid plaid skirts and white blouses.
“Ya didn’t give me any choice, Daddy,” she pointed out, “but don’t worry. I’m still wearin’ my sparkle shirt.”
She was, indeed, wearing a tiny red T-shirt that proclaimed in silver letters, “I’m Hot. Live With It.” A gift from his brother, Dave, who was a captain in the Army, a Green Beret currently serving in some super secret, especially important black op in Afghanistan. According to Dave, that was. He was probably just banging some nurse in Tahiti, for all Adam knew. But then, Dave did have a lot of medals, so maybe he was telling the truth.
“Besides, you tol’ me you would pick me up on the Harley after school if I changed. That way PawPaw kin get a haircut and a mustache trim soz he kin go ta the casino t’night with Tante Lulu and Addie Daigle.”
The imp loved riding pillion on his classic motorcycle, and his father loved to gamble. The nickle slots or Poor Man Craps (a low minimum dice game). He guessed there were worse things than a bikeress-in-training and a senior citizen with a lust for the Big Payoff.
“Do ya think Tante Lulu and Addie Daigle are PawPaw’s girlfriends? Kin a man have more than one girlfriend? What’s hanky panky? That’s what PawPaw said this mornin’ . . . he has ta get his hanky panky on before his hanky gets rusted out. He was talkin’
ta Uncle Dave. How can a hanky get rusty? Is your hanky rusty, Daddy?”
What could Adam say to that?
The light changed, thank God, and he eased the throttle to move forward.
You can go home again, but leave the motor running . . .
Simone was blow-drying her long brunette hair in the phone-booth-size bathroom of her mother’s double-wide trailer in the mobile home park on Bayou Black. Although mobile was a misnomer since none of the tin cans here had been moved in at least twenty years.
Every time she turned a certain way, she knocked her elbow on the curtain rod. At five-foot-nine, she could easily touch the ceiling. The mirror over the sink was six inches too low; so, she had to bend her knees to see properly. The dryer heat, on top of the subtropical temperature of a unseasonably warm, late April morning in Louisiana, on top of the two-mile jogging run she’d just completed an hour ago, on top of the fifty tush crunches she did religiously every morning to hold back the posterior tide, all followed by a tepid shower, was enough to make her almost faint. Even her cat, Scarlett, which she’d brought with her to Louisiana, was panting near the door. The cubby under the sink was her favorite napping spot. Every once in a while Scarlett gave her a look that pretty much said, “And we’re living here . . . why?”
“I gotta get out of this dump,” she crooned softly, putting her own words to that old rock song by the Animals as she danced in place, shutting off the dryer, “and it won’t be the last thing I ever do.”
And she would shortly. Get out of this place.
She hoped.
No, no hoping about it. She’d be leaving, definitely, one way or another. The question was, which way to go?
There was a knock on the door. “You almos’ done in there? I gotta pee,” her mother said.
“Just a sec,” she replied, pulling her hair off her face and twisting the mass into a long coil which she secured to the back of her head with a claw comb. Her make-up could wait till later. It would probably melt if she did it now, anyway.