Cajun Magic 02 - Voodoo for Two (7 page)

The sound of a vehicle approached from behind. She inched off the road into the tall grass, hoping like hell she wasn’t stepping off the edge into a muddy ditch, or worse, onto an angry water moccasin. She didn’t mind snakes, except when she couldn’t see them.

She brushed the perspiration from her stinging eyes and looked up.

A silver BMW sports car rolled to a stop beside her, the passenger window sliding smoothly down.

“Need a ride?”

She leaned over to peer into the dark leather interior of the car to see Eric’s smiling face, shining like a ray of hope in the black world of sore feet and hopeless pursuit.

“Oh, yes, please.” She melted into the cool leather seat and turned the air vents to blow full blast on her heated skin
.

“Where to?”

Oh yeah, the damned bug.

Lucie stopped just short of saying, “Follow that bug!” Instead she nodded calmly, while her insides knotted like a twisted grapevine. “I was headed for town.” Her cheeks warmed despite the cool air blowing on them. It was just a little white lie. After all, she was following a bug that was heading for town. Close enough.

With a confused smile, Eric stepped on the gas and the BMW shot forward.

Lucie peered through the windshield, straining to see the ladybug as they blew by. She caught a glimpse of fluorescent green. Good, the bug was still heading for Bayou Miste. If she got ahead of it, maybe she could catch it before it made it all the way into town.

“Why didn’t you take your car?” Eric asked.

With an inward curse, Lucie could feel her cheeks burn in anticipation of her next lie. “I was afraid I wouldn’t make it through the picket line. Besides, I felt like walking.” She grimaced. “Until I went half a mile in these heels. I’ll come back to get my ‘Stang later.”

“The blue Mustang convertible I saw in the parking lot? Nice car.”

“Yeah.” Lucie loved her little blue car. “My grandmother gave it to me when I learned to drive. It used to be hers.”

“Where can I drop you?” Eric asked as they whizzed by the first few houses on the edge of the little community.

Her eye on the rearview mirror, Lucie squirmed around. “Park at the marina, there on the right.”

As if landing a spaceship on glass, Eric slowed to a halt on the gravel parking lot outside Thibodeaux Marina.

Before he shifted the powerful sports car into park, she jumped out of the passenger seat, hopping into her high heels, one foot at a time, while lurching back the way they’d come. If she hurried, she could catch the bug before it entered town, spreading misplaced magic on unsuspecting residents.

Boy, Gran LeBieu would have a coronary if she ever found out about her itty-bitty spell.

“Wait!” Eric called out through his opened window. “Where are you going?”

Lucie stopped when she realized how nutty she must look
.
She turned and pasted a calm smile on the straining muscles of her face. “I see someone I need to talk to. If I don’t hurry, I won’t catch it—er, him. Call me tonight.”

No more time. She had to find that bug. She spun on her heels, sliding a little in the gravel. Then, giving up on a dignified exit, she raced off in a cross between a power-walk and an all-out jog down the rough road leading back out of town.

Not far ahead of her, two carloads of protesters pulled up in front of the Cussin’ Cajun, Bayou Miste’s only diner. As the young men and women unloaded, signs and all, they stretched across the street, blocking Lucie’s path.

A flash of fluorescent green winging past the far side of the diner sent a rush of adrenaline through her flagging body. “Excuse me, pardon me.” She pushed her way through the crowd, her gaze focused on the ladybug.

“Hey, Lucie! Where ya goin’?” someone shouted from the steps of the diner.

She struggled to see over the tops of the protesters’ signs. Alex and Calliope stood framed in the doorway of the restaurant.

“No time to talk!” she shouted back, dodging around a man pulling a huge sign off the seat of a gas-guzzling, mammoth SUV. She almost choked on a snort when he swung around, nearly clipping her with the sign that read “Down with Oil.”

With her head tipped to the side, Calliope called out, “What’re you doing?”

“Chasing after George Clooney. What the hell do you think I’m doing?” She didn’t slow as the bug flew over the top of the little two-bedroom cottage Maurice Saulnier shared with his grandmother, heading south.

People edged past Calliope and Alex, easing their way into the crowded diner.

“I didn’t know George was in town,” Calliope called out over the protesters’ heads.

“He’s not, you idiot,” Alex said. “Lucie’s probably after the you-know-what.”

“What?” Calliope said. “You mean George isn’t in town?”

Lucie didn’t have time to wait for Alex to explain to Calliope that she was chasing the love bug, nor did she have time to wait for her friends to catch up. Kicking off her high-heeled sandals, she leaped over the low fence beside the Saulnier house.

Piercing yelps erupted next to her, and she almost jumped back over the fence. At the risk of losing sight of the bug, she glanced downward and did a double take. A cotton-candy-pink toy poodle danced around her ankles, yipping at the top of her little lungs.

“Who’s that out there?” Ouida Saulnier poked her head around the back screen door. Her normally soft white hair was dyed the same startling pink color as the poodle’s.

“It’s just me, Granny,” Lucie reassured the older woman. Ouida Saulnier wasn’t Lucie’s grandmother, but everyone in Bayou Miste called her Granny.

“Lisa LeBieu, what are you doing in my backyard?” Granny stepped out on the porch and planted her bony fists on her equally bony hips. “You chasin’ after my grandson, Maurice?”

“No, ma’am,” Lucie shouted over the deafening noise of the powder puff poodle. “And I’m Lucie, not Lisa.”

The bug landed on a white rose next to the porch handrail. If she could just get close enough to snatch it.

“FeFe, hush!” Granny snapped.

Without missing a single beat, FeFe turned her back on Granny and continued yapping.

Lucie inched toward the old woman. “How have you been, Granny? Is your arthritis still givin’ you trouble?”

“Quit tryin’ to change the subject. You know my arthritis always gives me trouble.” Granny leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. “I still wanna know what the fool-darn-heck yer doin’ in my backyard.”

“I was—” She grasped for a reason that would satisfy Granny when the bug opened the hard casing enclosing its wings and took off past the rose bushes, the hydrangeas, and over the slats of the thigh-high picket fence. “Sorry, I can’t stay and chat. Gotta go! By the way, I love the new hair color
.
Say hi to Mo for me.”

With a smile, Granny patted a hand to her pink hair, then her mouth turned downward. “I will not tell Maurice hi for a no-’count floozy. You got no business but bad business, messin’ around with Maurice. I’ve a good mind to tell your
Mamère
what you’re up to, I do. No decent girl—”

Lucie whipped through the garden gate and chased off after the bug, leaving Granny, who was in full lecture mode, in her wake. For some reason, Granny couldn’t get it through her head that Lisa was Lucie’s twin, and Lisa was the troublesome twin. Usually. Although the love bug incident might prove to be equally troublesome, if Lucie didn’t get it off the streets.

She rounded the corner of the Saulnier house and spotted the ladybug halfway across the road, heading toward the marina and the open swamp beyond. Between her and the bug stood Eric.

With his back to her, he leaned against his BMW, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

Good. Maybe he wouldn’t see her making a complete fool of herself chasing after a stupid bug. She raced across the road, gaining ground on the insect, swatting at the air with her shoe while keeping an eye on Eric.

When the love bug flew out over the docks, she thought for sure she’d lost it. How could she manage to catch a bug in the vastness of the swamp? But the menace landed on a solid wooden post used to tie off the boats Joe Thibodeaux rented out to visiting fisherman.

If she sneaked up on the bug, she had a chance. But how to get past Eric standing in the parking lot?

Crouching close to the corner of a nearby house, Lucie chewed on her thumbnail.

“Boo!”

Lucie jumped straight up and spun around.

Calliope and Alex stood behind her, both sporting huge grins.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she hissed.

“Why are you hiding behind a house?” Calliope asked in a voice loud enough to raise the dead.

“Shh!” Lucie pressed a hand to her lips and pointed toward Eric. “He probably already thinks I’m a complete flake.”

“Where’s the bug?” Alex stepped around Calliope.

“Out there on the dock.”

“Look, I’ll distract Eric. You and Calliope catch the bug.” Alex didn’t wait for a response. She stepped out from the side of the house and strode across the parking lot toward Eric.

“Eric? Eric Littington? I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age.” Alex strolled across the street, darting a glance backward.

Eric turned toward her, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. He lifted a finger and mouthed, “One moment.” He turned back around and spoke into his phone, then clicked it off and once more turned his baby blues on Alex.

Lucie shook her head. Eric really was a good-looking man. A cross between Matthew McConaughey and John F. Kennedy, he had the kind of looks a girl could swoon over. In fact, any woman would be proud to be his wife.

Alex hooked his arm and managed to turn his back to Lucie and Calliope.

“Come on, let’s go.” Calliope slipped away from the house and ran toward the dock.

With little else stopping her now, Lucie took off after her. Maybe Calliope should have distracted Eric. She wasn’t the most coordinated individual, and she was prone to disaster. Her name really should have been Calamity.

Lucie increased her pace, her bare feet taking a beating on the gravel. She reached the dock an inch before Calliope and pushed ahead toward the post where the bug still rested. As she reached out to snatch the creature, it lifted off and hovered over the water, just off the side of the wood decking.

She leaned out to grab the bug when Calliope caught up, stopping too fast to keep from plowing into her.

All her weight shifting from the dock to teetering over the water, Lucie grabbed for Calliope…and missed. Gravity took over and she fell, hitting the water in a painful belly flop that knocked the wind out of her lungs.

Water closed over her as she plummeted downward among old beer cans, plastic bottles, and a faded tennis shoe. Jeez, maybe the environmentalists had a point… Scrambling to an upright position, she pushed her bare feet into the murky green silt, cringing as muck curled around her toes. When she had her feet firmly beneath her, her lungs burning for air, she pushed off the bottom with enough force to launch her head a foot out of the water. She gasped and inhaled deeply, sucking in as much fresh air as she could before she sank below the oily surface.

When she came up this time, a white flotation ring slapped into the swamp next to her and she hooked her arm around it.

Calliope stood with her hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oops. Sorry!”

With a few swear words poised on her lips, Lucie glared up at her friend, rewriting the old adage, “With friends like Calliope, who needs enemies?”

And to top her humiliation, Eric and Alex pounded across the wooden planks of the dock, grinding to a halt beside Calliope.

Eric squatted on the dock and extended his hand. “Grab hold.” In one smooth tug, he hauled her up and out, to stand in the circle of his arms. Strong, virile arms. Arms encased in an oh-so-expensive suit!

She gasped and backed away, her blouse and skirt no longer a smooth powder-blue, but an icky, green-slimed, fishy-smelling mess.

Holy swamp gas! What more could go wrong?

Chapter Seven

“I can’t believe you knocked me into the swamp.” Lucie plopped down in the wooden swing on Alex’s back porch. “In front of Eric, no less.” In a borrowed terry cloth bathrobe, she stared at the remains of Lisa’s best shirt and skirt draped across the railing. She didn’t know why she’d bothered rinsing the fishy smell out of them—the fabric was ruined. Lisa would kill her. With renewed vigor, she scrubbed at her hair with the soft white towel. No use poking at a dead crab.

“I said I was sorry.” Calliope sat in a folding lawn chair several feet away, her arms crossed over her chest and a frown pushing her auburn eyebrows to a point over her nose. “It’s not like I did it on purpose.” Her frown disappeared and she jumped from her chair. “You want me to dry your hair for you?”

How could she be mad for long when Calliope meant only the best? The redhead couldn’t help that every time she tried to assist, she ended up making things worse. Calliope had always been her friend, even in high school when other girls called Lucie the Bayou Bimbo and refused to talk to her, just because her twin was such a tease.

Lucie slid to the side, making room for Calliope. As loyal a friend as they came. Clumsy, maybe, but loyal. Calliope was a lot like Alex’s golden retriever, Sport.

Snatching the towel from her hands, Calliope rubbed at Lucie’s long black hair. “Sure smells better than it did before the shower.”

“Anything smells better than I did before I showered,” she groused, unwilling to let go of her anger.

“So, Lucie, when are you going to tell Gran LeBieu?”

She tensed at Alex’s abrupt question. “I’m not.”

“Don’t tell me you think you can figure your way out of this mess without her.” Alex leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, a tea glass grasped between her hands, dripping condensation onto the wooden floor. “That bug is still out there somewhere, causing who knows what kind of damage.”

“I don’t care.” She knew she sounded defensive, but the lingering tingle of Ben’s kiss just wouldn’t go away. And she hated that uncontrollable surge of desire she got every time she thought about him. “I want out of this swamp, and that bug is the only hope I had. Besides, it’ll surface again. I just know it.”

“Yeah, after it curses half the town. No telling what’ll happen.” Alex set her iced tea on the table beside her and dangled her hand over the side of her chair, patting the golden retriever panting quietly at her feet. “You really should tell your grandmother.”

Lucie sat with her lips pursed shut. What could she say?
I screwed up? Gran LeBieu, please bail me out, again
?

No way.

The cordless phone beside Alex rang, giving Lucie a temporary reprieve from her friend’s lecture.

Instead of answering, Alex let it ring four times until the answering machine just inside the door picked up.

“Alex? Pick up the phone. This is your mother.”

“As if I couldn’t tell by her voice.” Alex heaved a giant sigh.

“I know you’re there. I saw you and your friends going into your house on my way home from getting my hair done.” A pause. “Calliope, honey, pick up the phone since Alex won’t.”

Dropping the towel on the seat, Calliope rose to honor Mrs. Boyette’s command.

Alex leaped from the lounge chair and blocked Calliope’s path. “Don’t you dare. You will not answer that phone.”

“Why not?” Calliope backed up a couple steps, her eyes widening. “It’s your mother, for heaven’s sake.”

“Exactly. She’ll try to foist some poor unsuspecting fool on me again. She never gives up.”

“Is she still setting up blind dates for you?” Lucie asked.

“Hell, yeah.” Alex leaned her head back against the doorframe, rubbing her temples. “Like I said, she never gives up.”

“Just tell her to back off.” Calliope took up the towel again and sat beside Lucie.

With a pointed look at Calliope, Alex said, “You know my mother. Until I’m”—she crooked her fingers, making a quote motion—“‘safely married,’ she won’t quit dragging men off the street for me.”

Lucie grabbed the towel from Calliope and continued drying her own hair. “Maybe I should have your mother work for me instead of you.”

“Believe me, you don’t want that.” Alex squatted next her golden retriever and ruffled his ears. “Right, Sport? My mamma is the matchmaking queen of the parish. Once she’s set her sights on you, you either succumb and marry the latest offering, or kill yourself trying to avoid her other so-called candidates.”

Sport’s tail thumped against the floor and he reached his foot-long tongue out to lay a big wet kiss on Alex’s chin.

Lucie squirmed. She liked dogs, but not in her face. “Have you tried talking to your mother?”

“‘til I’m blue in the face.” Alex straightened. “But we’re not here to talk about me. You’ve got bigger problems. Since the love bug has hexed two men, one being my unwitting brother, I think you really need to consider calling this whole thing off and undo the spell.”

“I can’t,” Lucie said.

“Why not?” Alex demanded.

“I think the spell is already working.” Lucie ducked her head beneath the towel. “Eric seems interested.”

“I’d say.” Calliope practically bounced on the wooden slats of the swing. “Did you see how he looked at you on the dock? If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

“Hell, he couldn’t keep his eyes or his tongue in his head. What red-blooded male could when you could see everything beneath her clothes?” Alex always had a way of bringing Lucie and Calliope back to earth.

Lucie’s cheeks heated. “A good thing Eric had the decency to lend me his blazer.”

“And providing a good excuse to see him again, huh?” Alex nodded, a conspiratorial smile curving her lips.

“Eric sure is dreamy, isn’t he?” Calliope leaned back on the swing, her hands pressed to her chest. “I could go for that one. A regular Adonis, he is.”

“Yeah, but Lucie also has that other problem,” Alex said.

Lucie’s stomach clenched. “Ben.” That amazing kiss in Eric’s office still hadn’t worn off. Even after being tossed in the drink, her lips sizzled.
Damn Ben
. It had taken her seven long years to get over him for a reason, it seemed.

“Oh, yeah, Ben.” Calliope tipped her head to the side, her smile soft and dreamy. “You should go for Ben. I’ve always liked the way that one little lock of hair falls down across his forehead. Mmm. Makes him look dangerous and mega-sexy.”

“Ugh!” Alex stuck her tongue out. “You’re talking about my brother.”

Lucie stared out across Bayou Miste without seeing the houses and streets. Instead she remembered Ben’s hair and how she couldn’t keep her hands out of it when they were younger and so very in love.

Hold it! Back up, regroup. Not love, but lust.
What they’d had could only be classified as lust. Wasn’t it?

Considering how quickly he’d left, and how long it’d taken him to come back, it must have been.

Leaping from the swing, Lucie almost flipped Calliope over the back. “No, I’m not going for Ben. What we had seven years ago is long over.”

“Yeah, except you forgot one thing.” Alex crossed her arms over her chest.

“He thinks I’m pond scum, a bayou bimbo like my sister. What more do I need to remember?”

“Your little bug put a spell on my brother, too. No matter what happened when you were nineteen, Ben’s going to fall in love with you, anyway.”

“Falling in love won’t change his opinion of me.” With a moan, Lucie paced across the porch. “I don’t need this complication to my plan. Not now.”

“You’re pretty much stuck with it.” Alex plunked her fists on her hips. “You’ve got two men in love with you—via magic—and it’s not fair to either one of them. Shame on you, Lucie LeBieu.”

“You sound like
Mamère
.” She hung her head for just a moment and then raised it, her chin jutting out. “I’m not ready to call in the big guns. I can handle this by myself.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like you did today?”

“So, I fell in the swamp.” She tossed the towel on the rail beside her outfit. “No one got hurt.”

“You mean, not yet.” Alex pointed a finger at Lucie. “And, you still don’t have the bug under control.”

“No, but I will. I’ll go out tomorrow before work and look for it.”

“Are there any instructions for undoing this spell?” Alex ran her hand through her dark brown hair, a worried wrinkle in the middle of her forehead replacing her fierce frown.

“I think so.” Or at least she hoped so. But only if she decided she needed to reverse the magic.

Alex’s eyebrows shot upward. “You mean you don’t know how to undo the Voodoo?”

Calliope clapped her hands together and giggled. “Sounds like a song.”

“I think it’s the same ingredients, only you say all the words backward.”

“Do you need the bug?”

Lucie squinched her eyes and hunkered low. “Probably,” she whispered. “And I would have had the damned thing if your brother hadn’t let it go out the window.”

“Good grief.” Alex shook her head, opened her mouth to say something, and clamped it shut.

Like an insect under a microscope, Lucie squirmed on the porch seat. “Why do you have to make such a big deal out of this? It’s just a little love spell. The world will not come to an end.”

“You’re playing with my brother’s heart, Lucie.” Alex spun and paced the deck. “I can’t believe you’d toy with him again. I’m likely not to be your friend after all this is said and done.”

“But—”

Before she could form a response, the phone rang again.

Calliope was first to move.

“Hold it.” Alex flicked her wrist, shoving her palm against Calliope’s chest. “Let the answering machine get it.”

On the fourth ring, Alex’s recorded voice instructed the caller to leave a message at the beep.

“Alexandra, this is Eric Littington. I figured since you’re a friend of Lucie’s you could answer a few questions for me. Please call me back.” He left a phone number and rang off.

Lucie stared at Alex, knowing her friend wasn’t happy with what she’d done. But Alex’s curiosity had to be just as piqued as hers. Would she return the call and find out what Eric wanted, despite her issues with Lucie’s love hex?

Finally, Calliope broke the silence. “Well? What are you going to do?”

“You have to call him back and find out what he wants to know,” Lucie said.

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “What are your intentions toward my brother?”

“Oh, quit sounding so old-fashioned.” She stood. “I have no intentions toward Ben. We were over seven years ago.”

“Then why were you so upset the other day when he first came into town?” Alex asked.

“A girl has a right to be prepared for when her ex-boyfriend comes to town. That way I could be sure to avoid his sorry ass.”

With a narrow-eyed stare, Alex considered her response. “Do you promise to undo the spell on him?”

Why did Alex have to be such a bulldog? Lucie just wanted to pursue her own path, but her friend wasn’t going to let go of the issue. “I’ll try,” she said, without making an actual promise.

Alex gave her another one of those frowny-faced looks she used on her younger siblings. “You
will
.”

“I’ll
try
. That’s the best you’re gonna get.” Lucie walked through the door and, lifting the receiver, handed it to Alex
.
“Are you going to call Eric back?” She held her breath and added. “Please?”

Alex grabbed the phone. “Okay, okay.” She replayed the message, jotting down the number. With a long-suffering sigh, she punched it into the phone a little harder than necessary. “Hello, Eric?”

Lucie leaned close. Calliope crowded the other side of Alex.

Missing his first question, Lucie pressed her ear to the hard plastic on the back of the receiver.

“Yes, usually Lucie and I are friends,” Alex responded.

Lucie jabbed Alex in the ribs.

“What’s Lucie’s favorite flower?” she heard Eric ask. “I’m going to ask her out, but I want to do it with flowers.”

Lucie mouthed the words
white roses.
Eric was going to ask her out! Her heart should be pounding with giddy excitement. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Yet she couldn’t squelch the I’m-gonna-hurl-because-I’m-a-big-fat-liar feeling in her stomach
.

“You know, why don’t you ask her yourself?” Alex shoved the phone into her hands and smiled like Garfield the cat after eating the entire lasagna before Odie could get a bite.

Holy cypress knees! She had Eric on the phone. Now what?

“Lucie, are you there?” Eric’s asked.

Slamming the headset to her ear, Lucie winced. “Yes, yes, it’s me.”

“Somehow I lost your number, but I got Alex’s from Ben. Figured she’d know how to get hold of you.” He stopped for a moment and laughed. “Jeez, I sound like a teenager. The reason I was trying to get you is to invite you to the barbecue my family is hosting at the parish pavilion on Friday night.”

“I heard about that. I thought the entire community was invited. Why the special call?”

After a momentary pause, he answered quietly, “I want you to come as my date.”

…

Ben stood in front of the window of Jason Littington’s spacious study. He’d been all over the house and the grounds conducting a thorough assessment of the security system and checking for bugs. Nothing. Everything was as it should be, tight and operationally sound. Then why was he on edge and ready to jump at the slightest noise?

He refused to consider that his jitters had anything to do with Lucie LeBieu.

Jason Littington sat at his massive desk in the study of the Littington plantation house thrumming his blunt, manicured fingers against the polished surface. “I’m not so sure coming back to Bayou Miste was such a good idea for you, son.”

“How else are we going to identify the creep dogging my life?” Eric paced across the Persian carpet, his progress unmarked by sound.

“You were supposed to keep a low profile while you were here, to aid in your campaign.” Jason shot Eric a pointed look.

Ben settled comfortably in a brown leather chair, observing the dynamics between father and son.

“And what makes you think I’m not keeping a low profile?” Eric countered.