“I don’t know. A few days in hiding, as Claudia suggested, seem in order for me to regroup. Somewhere beyond the range of these deranged lowlifes.” He started to walk toward the front door.
Sylvie hesitated for a moment before calling after him. “Take me with you.”
Little alarm bells went off all over Luc’s body at the suggestion. “No way! Uh-uh!” He turned to glare at her, hoping she would see just how impossible her suggestion was.
“You’d leave me here, unprotected? You really are pond scum.”
“Hire a bodyguard. I can recommend a few, and I’ll wait till one gets here. Better yet, why don’t I drop you off at your mother’s? She’d probably hire you a truckload of Rambos.”
“I am not staying at my mother’s,” she said with a vehemence that was telling.
Hey, he could understand that. It would take a grenade to make him stay with Inez Breaux-Fontaine, too.
Then she tossed in the zinger. “Would you stay with your father?”
Guilt…she’s gonna blindside me with guilt
. “You are not coming with me,” he asserted firmly. “It’s too dangerous where I’m going.”
Not that I know exactly where I’m going, but I’m pretty sure it will be dangerous
. “So, take your pick. The police or your mother’s.”
“I could do some more lab tests for you,” she offered as a bribe. “In addition to the data I have in my briefcase, I could even show you some different ways to test that you might not have even considered.”
He was tempted. Almost. But the prospect of spending days…maybe even a week…with Sylvie Fontaine looking down her nose at every little thing he did…He shivered with distaste. “I could make you do the tests anyhow,” he said.
She raised her chin defiantly. “You don’t know me at all, Lucien LeDeux. I don’t do anything under pressure…not anymore.”
Huh? What the hell does that mean? Don’t ask. It’s a lure. The guilt trip again. Don’t freakin’ ask
. “Whatever. I’m outta here.”
“There’s one other thing I could do if you’d take me with you.” She combed the fingers of a shaking hand through her mussed-up hair, making the strands even more tangled. Her bottom lip trembled. Bright red blotches of mortification mottled her cheeks. His heart stopped, then thundered wildly against his chest. She looked unexplainably brave…and adorable.
Adorable?
Luc should have run like hell then. The alarm bells in his head had dropped about three feet and had set off the love potion, big-time.
He felt as if a time bomb were ticking between his legs and in his heart. Still, he stood his ground, put both hands on his hips, and cocked his head in question.
“Honey, there isn’t anything you could offer that would make me change my mind. Save your breath.”
“Slow dancing.”
“No.”
“Real slow…with you.”
“No.”
“In the nude.”
“On the other hand…”
Luc wanted to kick himself a short time later, even before they arrived back at his apartment.
It was a risky business, sticking around town, where gun-wielding, voodoo-practicing criminal elements abounded, with guess-who targeted in their crosshairs. His immediate concern was establishing a safe haven from which to operate. But first he needed to pick up his cell phone before leaving town. And, yes, a pistol, too.
Because of the laughable nature of the alleged love potion, Luc found it easy to forget that there was nothing to laugh about here. Not when his libido was stuck in overdrive…not when fanatics were making gris-gris dolls…not when weapons were being fired. In the midst of all that, what could he have been thinking to have agreed to bring Sylvie with him? It was too damn dangerous, physically and emotionally.
Sylvie thought it was the “slow dancing in the
nude” offer that had convinced him in the end, but she was wrong. True, the invitation held some appeal. Okay, a lot of appeal, considering that it had been a twenty-year fantasy of his…the highlight of many an unconscious erotic dream. But it was the look of fear and vulnerability in her blue eyes, not nude dancing, that had snared him. As she’d stood in the midst of shattered glass in her plundered home, chin lifted with bravery, some powerful and frightening emotion had grabbed hold of his heart and shot all his common sense to hell.
It was too much to hope that it might be indigestion from his big breakfast. He couldn’t help wondering if the blasted love potion had affected his reasoning. He hoped so, unbelievably, because otherwise he would have to face an even more untenable conclusion…that he harbored feelings for Sylvie Fontaine…and had for a long time.
Feelings!
Mon Dieu
, he was becoming a freakin’ Knight in Shining Armor. Next people would be calling him The Cajun Knight, as well as The Swamp Solicitor, for chrissake! Talk about!
“Why are you frowning?” Sylvie asked.
He glanced to the right as his jeep idled at a red light on Verret Street near the courthouse. With her precious briefcase on the floor near her feet, Sylvie was holding onto the overhead crash bar with one hand and the equally precious Happy Meal box with the other. Her ebony hair looked as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket, partly due to the tussle on the floor back at her town house and partly due to the wind produced while riding in his open vehicle. Her face was flushed from fear
and warm sun rays. Her silk blouse was plastered against some rather enticing curves.
Not that he paid any particular attention to these irrelevant details.
“I’m frowning because I’m driving around with two rats. I’m frowning because someone is trying to kill me, or you, or both of us. I’m frowning because we should be the hell out of Houma by now, instead of hanging around like clay pigeons. I’m frowning because you conned me into taking you into hiding with me. I’m frowning because…” He saw that she was about to protest the “con” remark, but he went on quickly before she could speak. “Most of all, I’m frowning because you make me want impossible things.”
Now, what made me disclose that? For sure, my emotional circuits have gone haywire
.
Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again as she stared at him incredulously. “Things?” she finally squeaked out. “You want things from
me?
”
“Yep,” he said. When he saw the panic on her now-beet-red face, he winked. Let her think he was just teasing, as usual. He was just teasing. Really.
Oh, God! First feelings, now I want things from her!
Damn, I should have gone fishing today
.
But, man, I would really, really like to kiss her. For a long time
.
And other things. Oh, yeah, definitely other things, including…
A driver behind him honked to alert him to the light change, and Luc moved forward in the late afternoon traffic.
This whole situation was crazy. So many strange
and deadly serious events had occurred in the past three days, ever since he’d entered Sylvie’s lab. He needed answers to some important questions to figure out who the perps were, but he couldn’t do any investigating while under fire. Claudia Casale was tops in her field, and he trusted her to do the preliminary investigative work for him. But, holy hell, it was going to be hard enough to cover his own ass, let alone Sylvie’s little heart-shaped butt.
What made him think he could do a better job of protecting her than Sylvie’s mother? Without giving it another thought, he swung the wheel of the Jeep and proceeded to make a sharp turn in the highway and over the bayou, much to the fury of the drivers behind him. The operator of a battered pickup truck that fishtailed around him flipped him the bird. As the vehicle—better known as a Louisiana Cadillac—rattled on down the highway, Luc noticed its bumper sticker. “Keep honking…I’m reloading.”
Luc continued to drive, now in a different direction.
“No!” Sylvie exclaimed with alarm. “You are not taking me to my mother’s.”
He gave her a sideways glance of surprise. “How do you know that’s where I’m headed?”
“I can read your face,” she said, “and your face says, ‘How do I dump Sylvie and ride off into the sunset?’ Well, think again, cowboy. I’m going with you. We’re in this together.”
“Oh, yeah?”
That was real bright, LeDeux
. He surreptitiously peeked her way to see if she shared in his low opinion of his conversational skills. Then he did a quick double take.
Sylvie still held onto the crash bar and her
mouse hotel with white-knuckled intensity, but her hands were shaking, and her overwide eyes glistened with tears that she blinked to hold back. The woman was clearly in shock. Plus, she’d probably never ridden in a Jeep with no door before. Lots of firsts in her life today, for sure.
Without hesitation, he swerved the Jeep off the highway, to the tune of blaring car horns, and into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour, drive-through daiquiri stand. Cutting the motor, which, of course, continued to run till it came to a sputtering halt, he pried Sylvie’s hands off the crash bar and Happy Meal box, setting the latter on the floor next to her briefcase. Then he dragged her across the gear shift and onto his lap. Not an easy task in the close confines of the Jeep’s cramped interior.
“Someone’s trying to kill us, Luc,” she said, weeping freely now.
No kidding
.
“I’ve never been so scared in all my life. I feel like such a fool, crying like this. I never cry. My mother taught me to never be weak…never weep or whine…hold in emotion. Oh, God, I am such a weakling.”
Someone should have wrung the neck of Inez Breaux-Fontaine a long time ago. Lord, the woman really is made of ice, like everyone says
. It would seem Luc and Sylvie were both scarred by a parent.
He hugged Sylvie tightly, tucking her face into the crook of his neck and running a comforting palm up and down over her quivering back, the whole time crooning soothing words of assurance. “Hush,
chère
, you can stay with me if you want.
Guess you’re just like all the other women…sticking to ol’ Luc like suckers on a gater’s tail. Just kidding, just kidding. Ah, don’ be cryin’, babe. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You’ll see. I’m gonna be your Cajun Knight.”
Luc drove into a parking space in front of his building on Lafayette Street a short time later, and Sylvie breathed a deep sigh of relief. She had to admit that she was touched by Luc’s comforting words and arms when she had broken down so ignominiously a short while back. But riding in his open-air Jeep had quickly jolted her back to the reality of whom she was dealing with here, especially when his brother René was singing the most outrageous song on a demo tape in Luc’s tape player, “I Gave Her Tongue, She Gave Me Teeth.”
Some Cajun Knight Luc was turning out to be. Whoever heard of a brave protector riding in a broken-down jalopy, cursing a blue streak under his breath? She was pretty sure she was the object of some of those curses since she’d virtually latched onto him like Krazy Glue.
Still, her heart warmed in the strangest way at the idea that he would even suggest such an outrageous concept
…her very own Cajun Knight
. Okay, she admitted to herself, reluctantly, she liked the sound of it. And she sure as Louisiana rain qualified as a damsel in distress.
Even now, she cringed at the thought that she had offered to slow-dance in the nude in exchange for his protection. Having battled so many years to overcome her chronic shyness, she had probably set herself back a decade with that definitely-not-shy proposition. She didn’t want to even think
about the fact that her palms sweated and her head pounded with anxiety now—clear signs of regression to her old shrinking-violet self. She wiped her free hand on her slacks in a nervous, repetitive motion.
Luc noticed, and slanted her a questioning look as he left the jeep. She got out, too, and handed him her briefcase. Clutching the Happy Meal box in one hand, she inhaled and exhaled several times…to settle her nerves.
Taking Sylvie by the other hand, he laced his fingers with hers and led her toward the door of the pale yellow brick, shotgun-style building that housed his office and private residence. His calloused palm pressed against hers…not what you’d expect from a sedentary lawyer…but not surprising for Luc. What
was
surprising was how good that rough skin felt next to hers. Sexy and comforting at the same time.
Did Claudia Casale get to feel that rough skin abrading her flesh? Did he offer to be her Cajun Knight, too? No, Sylvie immediately rejected that notion with a little smile. The more-than-fit private investigator was more likely to offer to be Luc’s protector. Sylvie would like to see what that independent woman’s reaction would be if the rude, crude bad boy of the bayou ever tried to comment on the shape of
her
behind.
Hah! She’d probably like it
, Sylvie’s contrary mind quickly opined.
Sylvie stole a glance through lowered lashes at said bad boy. He wore neatly pressed jeans and a soft cotton denim, collarless shirt, the sleeves buttoned at the wrists. Although he hadn’t shaved, he smelled faintly of some piney soap. His thick hair
was mussed a bit, and his black eyes stared straight ahead with solemnity, checking for danger.
Sylvie had been critical of Luc for many things over the years, but she’d never been able to deny his handsomeness. He was ten kinds of sexy…and then some. Truly, with his dark good looks and his roguish personality, the man was way, way too appealing to certain types of women
—like Claudia Casale, no doubt
. It was oddly disconcerting to discover at this inopportune moment that she was one of those women, too.
Why do I care about his relationship with other women?
Other
women? Was she going crazy? What was it with this “other women” business? She didn’t have a relationship with him.
While her mind had been wandering, the keyless jeep, which had been shut off, was idling away noisily behind them…a crude, belching reminder of the image Luc liked to portray in their mutual hometown of Houma, which was situated at the heart of winding bayous and moss-draped oak trees. Houma was a sophisticated city, despite its earthy Cajun influence and its distance from decadent New Orleans, sixty miles northeast, and from the state capital, Baton Rouge, ninety miles northwest. For the first time, she wondered if perhaps Luc deliberately tried to mask his true self with his outrageous outward appearance. Could she have been wrong about Luc all these years? She’d always thought
he
had an attitude problem, but maybe…just maybe
…she
had a perception problem. Had she been viewing Luc all these years through prejudiced eyes?
No, she was just softening under all the stress today. He was the same rude, crude bad boy of the bayous as he’d always been. She wasn’t going to be tricked into changing her opinion at this late date, Cajun Knight or not.
“Nice place,” she commented, regarding the building in front of them. And she meant it. The structure was old…probably pre-Civil War…and had the charm and character of many of the South’s vintage structures. Not quite the choice she would have expected of Luc. A rusted-out trailer would have been more in line with his rusted-out Jeep. As the old joke went…tornadoes and Southerners going through a divorce have a lot in common…including the fact that someone’s going to lose a trailer.
Geez, there I go again. Basing my opinions on outmoded stereotypes. Why do I find it so difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt? What do I have to lose by granting him a few admirable traits?
Luc turned to her, and she noticed the surprise, then pleasure, on his face at her praise. “I call her The Buff Bimbo.”
“Huh?”
“You know how lots of old mansions and plantation houses are given feminine names, like The Grande Dame or The Pink Lady? Well, behold.” He waved a hand proudly in a
ta-da
fashion toward the two-story, pale-yellow edifice before them. “The Buff Bimbo.” He grinned at her then, but she could tell that he loved the place.
Why that should endear him to her, she could not say. But somehow she liked the fact that a maverick like him would appreciate the timeless beauty of faded bricks, picturesque ironwork, and
time-rippled glass. It was almost as if he had to give the building a coarse appellation to hide his affection, which might be construed as sentimental. God forbid that The Swamp Solicitor might have a mushy spot or two.
“Do you own the building?” she asked.
He nodded. “Some construction crews were about to raze the site and put in an annex to that modern office complex next door,” he explained. “It used to belong to a sugar broker before The War, and I paid an overinflated price to save her.” He shrugged, not bothering to mention which war he was referring to. Everyone in the South knew which war was “The War.”
Then Sylvie thought about his other words. “So, you rescue buildings, as well as damsels, huh?”