Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] Page 15

  An alarming thought occurred to him. It couldn’t be . . . no, it couldn’t be Tante Lulu’s thunderbolt of love. No way! Impossible! He was too young . . . not ready. He and Celine were practically enemies.

  The strangest laughter echoed in his head then, and he had a really creepy feeling it was St. Jude.

  Mirror, mirror, where art thou . . .

  By 8 A.M. the next morning, they had a quick washup in the stream, a not so quick dirty swim, a quick pot of coffee, and a quick test to see how much weight the folding table in the kitchen tent could take. Who knew you could do that with cane syrup!

  The rest of the Pirate Project team should be here any minute.

  As a result, Celine was sitting sedately before the computer, uploading all the digital pictures she’d taken the day before.

  John was sedately reading the manual for the magnetometer which had been acting up.

  “Don’t give me any of your looks when they get back,” she ordered. “I don’t want anyone to know about . . . you know.”

  “What look? I don’t have a look.”

  “Hah! You have a look all right. And it goes without saying, you won’t be discussing . . . you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. Me, I’m just a dumb ol’ Cajun. Do you mean the fact that we made love four times . . . five, if you count your attacking me when I was pretending to be asleep. Man, you were on me like a hobo on a hot dog. Or . . . ” He drew his lips in thoughtfully. “Ah, now I know. You mean your thirteen orgasms.”

  “Oh, oh, oh . . . ” she sputtered. “I never attacked you.”

  He arched his brows at her.

  “And I never had that many . . . oh, what’s the use!”

  He was outright laughing at her now.

  She threw a notebook at him.

  He ducked and said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. One would think you were trying to provoke me to toss you over my shoulder and have a little caveman sex with you.”

  “Caveman sex? What the hell is caveman sex? No, don’t tell me. Listen, you idiot, last night was great, but—”

  “This morning was great, too.”

  “—but my brain freeze is over. No. More. Sex. Is that understood?”

  “What? You don’t want a little lagniappe later . . . a matinee, maybe?”

  “Get real! Read my lips, you—”

  “Very nice lips, too, I must say. Yep, you’ve got a hootchie mama mouth.”

  She growled. “No. More. Sex.”

  “Define sex.”

  “Aaarrgh!” She pulled at her own hair.

  “Don’t worry, hon. I’m out of condoms anyhow. Of course, I could always ask Tante Lulu for some. Believe it or not, she carries them in her tote bag . . . for emergencies, she says. Do you think this is an emergency?”

  “Don’t you dare! You are not taking this seriously.”

  “Yeah, I am. To tell the truth, I agree. We are not a couple. We never will be. You are high maintenance and not just because you have a kid. I suspect that affairs aren’t your idea of a relationship. I’m too young for responsibility. End of story.”

  She nodded, though, perversely, now she was disappointed. “We had to know from the get-go that this train wreck of an attraction between us was doomed.”

  “Easy to say, sugar, but the train has already left the station. Five times.”

  “Yoo hoo!” someone yelled.

  They both looked over to the stream where two pirogues pulled up, one carrying Adam and Tante Lulu, the other carrying Caleb and René. No Brenda.

  They got up and walked toward the stream.

  “Brenda got morning sickness real bad and went back home. René come to take her place, temporary like,” Tante Lulu said, even as she was bending over to pick up a bag of greens. The sight of her little butt in red stretch jeans was something to behold, especially when it was topped by a scooped neck shirt that had the logo, “Born to be Wild.” The woman must be registered at Kids Klothes.

  Caleb and Adam were “beaching” the two pirogues, and René, cursing under his breath, had just picked up five grocery bags full of Tante Lulu’s supplies. Then the four of them glanced up at her and John. As one, their jaws dropped.

  Tante Lulu was the first to speak. “Hot diggety damn! You two are cuter’n speckled pups with all those bug bites. But, Lordy, Lordy, how’d yer mouths get so bit up?”

  Adam grinned. “If I had known there was going to be a party, I would have stayed behind.”

  René was shaking his head at John and laughing. “I am so gonna enjoy your pain as you get pushed and shoved down that thunderbolt road.” He rolled his eyes toward Tante Lulu in some meaningful way.

  “Guess yer gonna hafta call off the engagement,” Tante Lulu said to her.

  Oh, God! What is it they say about lies coming back to bite you in the butt?

  “No, no, no,” John protested. “No thunderbolts. We’re just . . . friends.”

  “Friends with benefits?” Adam inquired in his usual oily manner.

  “Lots of benefits,” René agreed.

  All Caleb said was, “Hoo-yah!”

  “I cain’t wait to call Luc and Remy and Charmaine. Payback is gonna be so sweet, little brother.” René was already pulling out a satellite phone.

  “I don’t know what you all mean,” Celine tried to say.

  But John cut her off. “Chill, Celine. It’s best to ignore them.”

  With feet dragging, she followed Tante Lulu up to the food tent and asked, “Do you have a mirror?”

  Without speaking, the old lady dug into a huge tote bag and handed her a small cosmetic mirror.

  It took only one glance in the mirror for Celine to see what everyone else had seen, and this was only her face and neck. Her lips were pink and puffy. There were whisker burns everywhere. God only knew what she would discover under her shirt and pants.

  She handed the mirror back to Tante Lulu, then stomped out to confront John. He was talking to his brother. Right off, she shoved him in the chest. “You rat! Why didn’t you tell me how I looked?”

  He studied her for an extended moment, head to toe. “Ah, well, me, I think you look great.” Then he had the nerve to wink at her.

  She shoved him again, then warned, “You are so screwed.” She immediately regretted her choice of words, but it was too late.

  John smiled at her and said in an undertone, for her ears only, “And very well, thank you very much.”

  Celine flung her hands out with disgust, spun on her heels, about to go to the equipment tent to prepare the camera and tape recorder for today’s activities.

  “Do you think she’s upset with me?” John asked his brother, who was laughing like a stupid hyena.

  Meanwhile Tante Lulu, who was cooking up a batch of couche-couche, a form of Cajun fried cornmeal, for breakfast, stepped outside and yelled, “Holy catfish! What happened to all the cane syrup?”

  At first, there was silence, then everyone turned to look at her and John.

  Did life get any better than this?

  She thought she was unshockable . . .

  Tante Lulu was alone, all the others having gone to the work site. Everything was going according to plan. If she had her druthers, there would be a wedding before Christmas.

  When they’d returned this morning to the project site, she’d been delighted to see that Tee-John and Celine had made a love connection. She could practically see the thunderbolts snapping between the two of them.

  Deep in thought, she stirred the pot of spicy red beans and rice on the camp stove, which she would add to white rice at the last minute. The red beans and rice, a recipe of her mother’s, had been a traditional Monday morning meal on the bayou because Monday was wash day, and this particular dish could cook unattended all day. Plus, it utilized the leftover ham bone from Sunday’s dinner. No one ever said the Cajuns weren’t practical.

  Would her mother approve of the way she’d lived her life? Not many people knew it, but Louise Rivard had once been engaged to a young s
oldier from Lafayette . . . Phillipe Prudhomme. He died on D-Day on a Normandy beach. Oh, how she had loved that handsome brown-eyed boy!

  Her mother had urged her to move on after a year or two of mourning, but her life had taken a different path, especially after Adèle married Valcour LeDeux, bore him three sons, then died when she was barely twenty-five. Tante Lulu had stepped in to help care for the children and shield them from their alcoholic father.

  Yes, a different life path, but no regrets.

  She checked the cooler then. It held six big muffulettas, a New Orleans version of the Italian sub. She’d prepared them early this morning, before dawn. They were best served at room temperature, but she would wait to take them out when she saw the team returning from upstream. It was only eleven o’clock now. The key to a good muffuletta was the olive salad dressing which she would let everyone put on themselves, to avoid the crisp bread getting soggy.

  Having a little time to rest, she sat on a folding lawn chair and sipped at a mug of strong chicory coffee. The caffeine would probably keep her up tonight, but that didn’t matter. When you were two years older than dirt, there would be plenty of time for sleeping way too soon . . . the eternal sleep.

  This would be one of her last big projects, she reckoned. Not the Pirate Project, though that would be fun enough. No, it was the Tee-John Project. She had to get him settled before she went to her final rest.

  Celine Arseneaux wasn’t the one she would have chosen for Tee-John. All along she had thought the rascal would one day marry a really beautiful woman. Oh, Celine was pretty enough, just not flashy. But that was okay. Tante Lulu was more bothered by her uptightness. The girl needed to loosen up. And she needed to flesh out her Cajun roots, add a little joie de vivre to her blood. Then, too, there was the fact that she was already a mother, not what Tante Lulu would have expected for her wild boy . . . becoming an instant father.

  But then, if Celine was the one St. Jude had picked for her nephew, well, there was no arguing with that.

  All this thinking was giving her a headache. Rising from the chair, her bones creaking like an old rocker, she went to rummage through her big purse. Placing it on the folding table, she began to pull things out. An extra bottle of Tabasco sauce she carried everywhere; everyone knew “Cajun lightning” was needed on just about any dish. Five boxes of Snazzy Lady hair dyes: Witchy Black, Nutty Brown, Hot Mama Red, Blonde Bomb, and Pink Fizz. Three tubes of lipstick. Her favorite romance novel: The Red-Hot Cajun; she’d read it five times. Two boxes of condoms, in the event someone had an emergency case of the hornies; she shook one of the boxes, which, oddly, seemed to be empty; she tossed it into the trash. A prescription bottle of Viagra; she had no idea where that came from . . . well, yes, she did . . . whoo-boy! A little mini-vibrator shaped like a butterfly that Charmaine had given her as a joke on her ninetieth birthday. Some joke! She hadn’t yet been able to figure it out. A flashlight, matches, tissues, antacid, wallet, Bible, pistol, rosary beads, a stack of St. Jude prayer cards, house keys, and five pens later, she found her pill box that usually held aspirin. But it was empty. She recalled belatedly that she’d used them all after seeing those newspaper articles about the Hot Cop, and forgot to buy refills.

  “Horsefeathers!” she muttered, went to find the first aid kit, and dug around. They had enough stuff to do brain surgery, but no painkillers.

  Glancing around the tent, she spotted Celine’s purse. She hesitated for only a second at what would be an invasion of privacy. This was a crisis. Sort of.

  Celine’s purse was all neat and organized. Son of a mud bug, she hated organized people. It was a wonder Celine didn’t have one of those accordion-pleated, filing case kind of bags.

  She took the items out one at a time and laid them on the table. There were tissues, keys, a small notebook, and pen in one side flap, and in the other, birth control pills, a wallet, a clear pouch with liquid makeup, mascara, and lipstick, a fold-up brush, an emery board, a wallet, and . . . ta da . . . a little plastic travel case of Tylenol. She popped two in her mouth, downing them with a swig of sweet tea. Then she began to return the items where they had been.

  The last thing to go back was the wallet. She stared at it for a long moment. There was a lot you could learn about someone if you checked out the contents of their wallet, just like she’d learned that Celine was that anal retentive thingee by looking in her purse.

  It really would be nosy, one part of her brain said . . . the St. Jude side, no doubt.

  But the other side said, Nosy ain’t all bad.

  Back and forth, she argued with herself, then snorted with disgust and dropped the darn thing on the ground, causing it to snap open. “Oops, I guess I better pick it up.”

  Celine had about fifty dollars and change, a driver’s license that said she was twenty-six and lived on Crawfish Lane in Houma, two credit cards, a blood donor card, and pictures in clear plastic, which she flipped through quick-like. There were only six of them.

  She frowned. Not even one photograph of Dillon, the fiancé. How strange! There was one picture of her grandfather, James Arseneaux, and the rest of a little boy.

  She glanced closer. And almost had a heart attack, her blood was pumping so fast.

  It was Tee-John. As a baby being held by a younger Celine, then maybe two years old, then three at a birthday party with three candles on a pirate-themed cake, then finally studio portraits in two different poses at about four years old.

  What would Celine be doing with baby photos of Tee-John?

  Her mind moved sluggishly as she pondered the puzzle. Celine hadn’t moved to Houma ’til she was in high school; so, she wouldn’t have even been around then.

  Slowly, her mind came to the only conclusion it could. This must be Celine’s son Etienne. But why did he look like—

  She gasped and put a hand over her heart.

  Surely . . . oh, please, God, no . . . this little chile cain’t be Tee-John’s son. She studied all the pictures closer, especially the last ones. The little boy had the same hair as Tee-John, same devilish eyes, and same smile showing two missing front teeth. It could have been a copy of Tee-John’s kindergarten picture.

  It must be a coincidence.

  Then she checked the date stamp on the back of the birthday pictures. Frowning, she realized that Celine’s boy must be five, not four as she’d told them. But why would she lie? Or was it a lie?

  She would take one of the more recent photos back home with her and compare it to those in her picture album. Then, she would do a little research with some friends who knew stuff about public records.

  If it was Tee-John’s son, did he know about it? If he did, Tante Lulu was going to be very disappointed in the boy. Even more disappointed than the time he got arrested for leading a no-underwear day at Our Lady of the Bayou School when he was eleven. Or the time he got caught at a rainbow party when he was fifteen; Charmaine had had to explain to her what a rainbow party was.

  Tante Lulu did some mental calculations in her head. If Etienne was five, Tee-John must have been a senior at Tulane, about to graduate. And Celine . . . well, she would have been two years behind him. So, that was when the mite had been hatched, if it was Tee-John’s son.

  Could he possibly have a son and not acknowledge him?

  No, that was impossible. He might be Valcour LeDeux’s son, but he wasn’t bad. He would never ignore a child of his blood.

  The other possibility was even more horrendous. Could Celine have had Tee-John’s baby and never told him? If so, why?

  Some of Celine’s behavior began to make sense. The way she bristled every time Tee-John approached. The way she avoided talking about her family. Her whole secretive nature.

  Oh, my heavens, I have to lie down. Her headache was pounding like a swamp woodpecker. She replaced the wallet, turned off the camp stove, then went over to Tee-John’s tent, where she crawled in and made herself a pallet with a rolled-up sleeping bag for a pillow.

  Only then did she pull t
he photo out again.

  “Etienne LeDeux,” she murmured. Then louder, “Etienne LeDeux.”

  She smiled.

  It had a nice sound.

  Chapter 13

  The Motley Crew just got motlier . . .

  Veronica looked at the ever-increasing pile of paperwork on the desk of her Jinx, Inc. office in Barnegat, New Jersey, and said, “To think I left corporate law to avoid this crap.”

  The two people sitting in front of her desk just laughed.

  “I know what you mean. When I was a nun, teaching at St. Anne’s College, I spent half my time filling out church documents. Believe me, the church is as bad as the government when it comes to red tape. And rules! There were so many ‘Do Nots’ it sounded like a Motown song.” This from Grace O’Brien, a professional poker playing buddy of Jake’s; she’d left the convent years ago, for reasons unknown.

  “Honey, you must have been the hottest nun. Playboy would have loved you,” said Angel Sabato, another poker playing buddy of Jake’s. Angel ought to know about the nude modeling; he’d once bared it all for Playgirl under the heading, “His Poker Is Hot.”

  Grace’s lime green eyes flashed with a temper befitting her fiery red hair. “I am tired of you always making jokes about my being a nun. There’s nothing wrong with a religious calling.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Angel held his hands up in surrender, laughing. “Pull in your prickles, Miz Thorny.”

  “You are such a child.”

  “And don’t you just love it?” He tugged on one of her red curls playfully.

  “You wish!” She slapped his hand away.

  The two of them had got knocked out early in the World Poker Tournament in AC, where Jake was still in the game. The talent was intense, Jake had told her when he called this morning. That must account for the snippy moods these two were in. She and Jake had both planned a getaway to a boardwalk hotel, but her grandfather had been unable to babysit at the last minute.

  “Listen, Mr. Studmuffin. You’ve got your tail in a knot just because the redneck from Alabama kept making fun of your earring, and then beat the stuffing out of you in the last round. Don’t take it out on me. Good thing you got rid of that long hair, though, or Leroy would have really been on your case. Either that, or he might have asked you for a date.” Grace grinned as she ragged on Angel.