Resurrection in Mudbug (2 page)

But instead of hearing the sound of a fist connecting with a face, she heard a dull thud and rose up to see the sheriff holding the moron’s fist in his hand, just an inch from his jaw. 

Despite the instant disliking she’d taken to the sheriff, Jadyn was impressed.

In one fluid move, the sheriff twisted the man’s arm behind his back and cuffed him. “That one buys you a night in jail, Junior.”

“What for?” Junior protested. “I didn’t even hit anyone.”

 “That’s because you suck at fighting,” the sheriff said. “Besides, you insulted our new game warden and if that’s not against the law, it probably will be when the mayor lays eyes on her.” 

He pushed Junior up the bank. “The rest of you, get the hell out of here and leave everything you grabbed on the hood of my truck on the way out. If I see you here again or suspect you didn’t turn over the money, I’m going to arrest you all and search your houses and boats. Anyone who buys a new toy will have it impounded because I know you’re all broke. Are we clear?”

The men grumbled, but surprised Jadyn when they piled crumpled wet bills on the sheriff’s truck. Clearly, they took Bertrand at his word, even Junior, who babbled about the cash in his overalls pocket. 

“I’ll get that when you strip at the jail,” Sheriff Bertrand said as he pushed Junior down to sit on the bank. “The last thing in the world I’m going to do is dig in your pockets.”

Jadyn hesitated on the bank, unsure what was expected of her in this situation. The men were already pulling away from the pond in boats, trucks, and ATVs, and surely her job description didn’t include jumping into the pond and retrieving the remaining cash.

“So how do you want to handle this?” Sheriff Bertrand asked.

She turned around to look at him, not understanding the question, so unable to formulate a decent answer. “What do you mean? Looks like you’ve got it all under control.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Exactly how long have you been on the job?”

Her back tightened again. “If you mean here in Mudbug, today’s my first day, but I’ve been the assistant game warden in Caddo Parish for the last five years.”

“North Louisiana. That explains it.”

Jadyn was certain she’d just been insulted, but couldn’t figure out exactly what the insult was. “It explains what?”

“Why you don’t see the bigger problem than those fools trying to kill themselves over a couple hundred dollars each.”

Dumbass! 

She’d been so focused on getting the men out of the pond before the alligators lined up for a buffet that she hadn’t stopped to consider the ramifications of why they were willing to risk life and limb. She sucked in a breath.

“That’s a shrimp boat, right?” she asked. 

He nodded.

“I’m not overly familiar with the shrimping industry, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume shrimpers don’t usually carry around Baggies full of hundred-dollar bills.”

“No, they do not.”

“Shit.”

He looked at the pond and sighed. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Chapter Three

Colt thanked the tow truck driver and sent him down the narrow road, pulling what remained of the sunken shrimp boat on a flatbed trailer. With no other option but waiting on the state to send the proper equipment, Colt had called on the Mudbug residents for help extracting the boat. 

By now, everyone in Mudbug knew what was in the pond, and he couldn’t risk a drunken midnight parade from Pete’s Bar, attempting to recover anything left in the boat. The new game warden agreed immediately to his plan, apparently having no trouble believing the men might come back drunk and attempt to resurrect the boat. 

The whole event was a sketchy proposition but within a mere twelve hours, the one tow truck, six dualies, fourteen ATVs, and a horse finally managed to drag the boat out of the pond and onto the trailer. 

“Marty Breaux owns the mechanic shop in town,” Colt said to Jadyn as she walked up the bank, looking as exhausted as he felt. “He works on everything, so he’s got stalls big enough for boats. I’ll have him lock it up tonight, and you can decide what to do about it tomorrow.”

Jadyn looked confused. “You’re going to investigate, right? I assume that was drug money.”

“Drug money is a good guess, but I’m not the one who should be guessing. See, that pond is in the game preserve, and I know how you game wardens are about your jurisdiction. This baby is all yours.”

Her dismay was so apparent, it was almost cute. He clapped her on the back before walking toward his truck. “Welcome to Mudbug.”

She was still standing on the bank, looking shell-shocked, when he climbed into his truck, but as he started to pull away, she came alive and stomped up the bank to her Jeep. Convinced she was safely leaving the scene of the crime, he took off down the dirt road back to town. He needed an hour-long shower and a six-pack of beer to erase the stench of the day.

He rolled his neck around, trying to release some of the tension, but it was useless. Even though he’d been accurate with his assessment that the boat and everything that came along with it was a problem for the game warden, there was no way he was leaving an investigation to the wide-eyed doe. 

She was a top marksman, and she had completely surprised him—and Junior—with her martial arts ability, but no way was she qualified for a problem of this caliber. Problems like this one were often the precursor to a pileup of bodies. He’d seen it more than once working for the New Orleans Police Department. In fact, it was exactly this sort of problem that he’d been hoping to escape when he’d returned back home to Mudbug, a town with fewer people than New Orleans housed on a city block.

He sighed. All that running and the same problem had landed right back in his lap, but without the resources or experience he’d had at his disposal in New Orleans. Jadyn St. James was a hell of a good shot and she was way easier on the eyes than the previous game warden, who was three hundred pounds if he was an ounce and who’d had a perpetual case of exposed butt crack. 

But she wasn’t even remotely qualified to handle this kind of criminal.

The question was—was he prepared to do it? And the even bigger question—was he qualified to handle Jadyn St. James?

One look at the fit, dark-headed beauty had sent his mind right back to Maria, and that was a place he never wanted to go. The truth was, he’d left New Orleans to get away from memories of Maria as much as he had the despicable criminals he’d been chasing. Every street, every building, every tourist...they all reminded him of her in some way. He’d thought returning to Mudbug would cause his childhood memories to return and eclipse his more recent ones. And so far it had worked pretty well.

Until today.

###

When Colt started his truck, Jadyn fought the overwhelming urge to scramble up the bank and run for her Jeep. The sun had already set, and it suddenly occurred to her that she might not be able to find her way back to town in the dark. 

She forced herself to maintain a fast walk, but pushed her Jeep quicker than comfortable down the bumpy dirt road until she saw Colt’s taillights rounding a corner about fifty feet in front of her. She slowed a bit and maintained that distance until they pulled onto the paved farm road that led back into Mudbug.

Colt turned off onto another dirt road about a mile outside of Mudbug—presumably to his house—waving at her as she drove past. 

Jadyn gave a silent prayer of thanks that he lived off the main road and not buried somewhere back in the paths they’d just traversed. She didn’t even want to imagine the humiliation she would have experienced if she’d quite literally followed the man to his front door. Lord only knows what he and everyone else in town would have made of that.

As she parked in front of the Mudbug Hotel, she felt some of the tension in her back and neck slip away. She’d call in a dinner order at Carolyn’s Cajun Kitchen, then she’d take the hottest shower possible while waiting on her food to arrive and try not to think about the hundreds of daunting decisions she needed to make the next day.

Mildred, the hotel owner, was finishing up paperwork at the front desk when Jadyn walked in. The older woman looked up at her and gave her a sympathetic smile. 

“I heard you had a pretty hard first day,” Mildred said.

“It definitely wasn’t what I expected.”

Mildred shook her head. “It’s not something we should ever expect in Mudbug. I was pretty floored, and very little surprises me anymore. I don’t like to think that the kind of business that carries cash in Baggies is going on in my town.”

“I don’t blame you, but don’t start worrying just yet. I’m hoping that storm yesterday blew the boat off-course. If that’s the case, then the problem still exists, but maybe not in Mudbug.”

Mildred brightened a bit. “That would be great…I mean, not for the other town, of course, but we had our share of trouble a little over a year ago. Things have settled down since, and I’d prefer they not get stirred up again.”

Jadyn nodded. “I read a bit about that in the papers. Sounded like a nightmare.”

“Oh, the reporters can’t capture even the half of how horrible it was. I thought I was going to lose Maryse in that fray, then her friends. It was the worst months of my life.”

“I’m sure this will turn out to be nothing,” she reassured Mildred. “I’m going to think positive.”

“Then I will too. By the way, the dispatcher called to let me know you were on your way back in. I figured you’d be starving, so I ordered you fish and chips and cobbler. Hurry up for a shower, and I’ll bring the food up when it gets here.”

Jadyn warmed at the older woman’s words. Her own mother had been more interested in maintaining her marriage to her wealthy husband than raising Jadyn. It was nice having someone take care of her, even in a small way. 

“I appreciate it. And yes, I’m starving. Thanks.” 

Jadyn hurried up the stairs to her room and turned the shower on full blast. She’d been a bit apprehensive about living in the hotel, but Mudbug had a limited supply of rental property and nothing would be available for another month. It was either stay at the hotel or pass on the job, and she wasn’t about to pass on the job. Game warden positions in Louisiana weren’t all that plentiful, and women had an even harder time getting the top nod. 

Jadyn was certain the fact that Maryse owned the preserve had a lot to do with her gaining the position, and she wasn’t about to let her cousin down, especially since Maryse had vouched for her without really knowing her. Given that Jadyn’s mother thought Maryse’s parents were beneath her social status, Jadyn had never really met her cousin until she came for the interview, but she’d taken an instant liking to her outdoorsy, down-to-earth manner and looked forward to getting to know her better.

The hot shower did wonders for her back, neck, and overall attitude, and she toweled off, her mouth already primed for the food she knew was on its way. As Mildred was the only person who would see her, she simply pulled her long wet hair back into a ponytail and threw on shorts and a T-shirt. She didn’t even bother with shoes—a habit her mother loathed—but Jadyn was now her own woman with her own money and if she decided to go barefoot every day, by God she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

As she headed for the lobby, she forced all thoughts of her mother out of her mind. The game warden position and Mudbug were her big chance at a new, normal life.

And she was going to take it.

###

Maryse pushed open the door to the Mudbug Hotel with one hand and gripped the bag of food with the other, giving Mildred a wave as she walked across the lobby. She’d intended to visit the hotel owner earlier in the day, but work and other obligations had interfered and this was the first opportunity she’d gotten to fill Mildred in on the Helena situation. Mildred had raised Maryse after her mother died and was going to be unhappy and worried about this turn of events.

“Luc got a call in the middle of dinner and had to dash,” Maryse said. “Sally was about to bring this over for Jadyn, so I told her I’d take it. I needed to talk to you anyway.”

“Another dinner interruption for Luc?” Mildred frowned. “That’s three nights in a row.”

Maryse waved a hand in dismissal. “Occupational hazard. Apparently nothing interests the DEA until we’re sitting down to eat. He’ll be home late tonight and starving. I have the rest of his dinner in the truck.”

“I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to get a grandchild out of this arrangement if the man’s never at home or exhausted from work when he is.”

Maryse rolled her eyes. “Luc is never too exhausted for that, and bite your tongue—babies are not even on my radar right now. You’ll just have to live vicariously through Lila.”

Mildred smiled. “Can you believe Hank Henry is sober, employed, married, and having a baby? If you’d told me that a year ago, I would have laughed so hard I peed myself.”

Maryse laughed, the thought of her previously irresponsible ex-husband now a productive citizen and future father still somewhat unbelievable. “You and me both, but it looks like he’s really turned his life around. I’m glad. I really like Lila, and she’s good for him.”

“Well, if you didn’t come to talk about my future as a grandmother, then what’s got you playing delivery service?”

The smiled faded from Maryse’s face as quickly as it had appeared, and she struggled to get out the words she’d been planning to say all day. No matter what combination she’d come up with, she hadn’t found a good way to deliver the news to Mildred that Helena was back. She’d finally decided that blurting it out was probably the best way to go. After all, it wasn’t just knowing that Helena was present that was painful. It was all the terror she’d no doubt bring with her.

“This morning—”

Maryse broke off as Jadyn ran down the stairs and into the lobby, giving her a wave as she jumped over the last two steps. 

“I could smell hush puppies as soon as I opened my room door,” Jadyn said. “Thanks for bringing this over. I am officially starving.”

“You’re welcome,” Maryse said, feeling relieved that the Helena conversation had been pushed back a bit. “I heard you had a momentous first day. I didn’t really expect the job to be this exciting when I recommended it. I hope you’re not going to hold it against me.”