The Perfect Match: A New Adult Erotic Romance (Inseparable Book 2) (3 page)

The other guests around the table included Julie, Jack, Jen, Jackson, and the members of the Meyer family. Bella Brousard Meyer was Jack’s next older sister. Her husband, Stephen, and their three children, Peter, Svetlana, and Jordan, were laughing and talking about the fais do-do the night before. It made for a very loud morning after a late night of drinking and dancing.

When Polly looked up, Julie was grinning. “What?” Polly growled as she took another sip of her hot black coffee.

“You look like you had fun last night,” Julie said as she spooned another bite of oatmeal into Jackson’s open mouth.

“I did,” she said. “It was just so... different than I imagined.”

Bella laughed from across the table. “I take it you don’t have a big family?”

“Not here in the states. It was just me and my older brother growing up. When I go visiting relatives in Botswana they throw a nice party, but trust me, they don’t party like y’all do.”

That made all the adults in the room laugh. Claire came around to add more pancakes to the platter in the middle of the table and said, “We're happy you came to visit.”

“Oh, I’m happy I came, too!” Polly chuckled. “It was just so much more fun than I expected.”

Lisa pointed at the pile of pancakes and looked at Polly. “More!”

“More, please,” Polly corrected.

“More, please,” repeated the fouryear-old girl.

“Julie,” Bella said to get her attention. “I hear you’re doing interior decorating now.”

Julie made a face at Jackson to get him to open his mouth, then spooned in another spoonful of oatmeal. “It sounds like bigger deal than it really is.”

Jack shook his head at Julie, then said to his sister, “It
is
a big deal. The lady she works for is basically training Julie to take over the business someday. One of her designs got written up on the
Houston Homes
website with a big spread of pictures.”

Julie blushed and chuckled. “Seriously, it’s just a website. Bonnie’s always putting pictures up on the web.”

“Don’t believe her, Bella. She’s going to end up making more than me,” Jack said as he beamed at his wife. “Just you wait and see.”

Polly let out an exaggerated sigh and Julie kicked her in the leg. “Ow! What was that for?” Polly asked with a chuckle.

“You know what that was for,” Julie growled, then turned to the room. “Polly does that every time she thinks we start acting too cute.”

Bella had a broad grin when she leaned towards Polly to whisper, “Newlyweds! I swear they give love a bad name.”

“I know, right?” Polly said as she finished cutting Lisa’s second pancake and slid her plate over.

Stephen took the quiet moment to ask, “So Jack, how’s work going?”

“Really well. I’ve nearly doubled Deep Drilling’s business over last year’s.”

“How’d you manage that?” Stephen asked.

“Well, I’d love to say it’s my winning personality, but my old company has been dropping the ball pretty bad. I’ve had a half-dozen old clients call me at
home
to find out where I’m working now. It’s sad, really.” Jack didn’t look very sad to Polly.

“And how’s Sophie doing?” Bella asked over her cup of coffee.

Jack glanced at the girls and pinched his lips. “She’s working at a department store in the Galleria selling high-end clothing.”

Jen looked up at her Aunt Bella and said, “I don’t like her new boyfriend.”

“Why not, sweetie?” Bella asked with exaggerated innocence.

“We used to do fun stuff on the weekends, but now we go sit at his creepy art gallery. It’s boring. There are these naked mannequins there with paint all over them. Mom says they’re
important works of art
, but they just look stupid to me.” Jen ate the last bite of her pancakes and looked at Jack. “Can I go see the chickens?”

The back door opened before Jack could answer and Kurt walked in. Polly noticed he had shaved the goofy looking scruff off his face and was wearing clean jeans and a t-shirt. His eyes scanned the room and stopped on her face with a smile, then he quickly looked away to give his grandmother a kiss.

“Mornin’ Meemee,” he said as he hugged her tight.

“Good mornin’,
sha
,” she said, using the familiar Cajun term of endearment. “You want some breakfast? We got plenty.”

“No, I was coming over to see if the kids might want to go on a boat ride. Last night Uncle Charlie said I could use one of the small supply ships to go down the Atchafalaya to look at the wildlife.”

“Yay!” Lisa said as she clapped her hands. “I want to go!”

“Dad, can we?” Jen asked with her hands clasped in front of her body. “Please?”

Julie chuckled at their excitement. “I don’t have a problem with you going, but I don’t want Jackson out in the wind all day.”

“I’ll take the girls,” Polly said. “It sounds like fun!”

“Just make sure they keep their life vests on the whole time,” Jack said. “I want a good report from Aunt Polly when you come back.”

* * *

T
he news of the boat ride spread quickly as the parents called and texted each other about the opportunity. The chance of spending the day without worrying about the kids proved too tempting, and by the time Polly arrived at the dock there were close to twenty children and teens boarding the boat.

Jack dropped them off with a kiss for the girls while Polly gathered their jackets and hats. “I’ll call you when we’re on our way back. Do you have the sunscreen?” she asked Jack through the open door.

“Here,” he said as he passed her the pink bottle. “Have fun!”

“We will,” Polly said as she took the girls by their hands to lead them to the boat. Charlotte was helping some of the younger kids get their life vests on.

“Hey, Charlotte,” Polly called as they got close.

“Oh, great! I was hoping you’d come with the girls. I had so much fun hanging out with you last night.”

“Me, too,” she said as the girls picked out their orange vests from the pile near the dock. “It’s sweet of Kurt to do this for the kids.”

“It was all his idea, too,” she said as reached over to help Lisa snap her vest closed. The two girls ran off to join their cousins getting on the boat while Charlotte and Polly put on their own life vests.

“So what’s up with that Kendall chick?” Polly asked. She felt bad about leaving Kurt to go dancing with Trey, but there had clearly been something going on.

“She’s a piece of work. Kurt dated her for a while last year, but then he caught her trying to trap him by getting pregnant. He wasn’t ready for that, and I sure ain’t ready to be Aunt Charlotte yet.”

“Oh my god, seriously?”

“Yeah, I’ll spare you the gory details, but it got ugly at the end. Of course, she’s the daughter of Mom’s best friend, so everyone started planning their wedding right after they started dating. Kurt never led her on. She just went out of her mind.”

“Damn,” Polly said as they approached the ship. It was called the
St. Marie
according to the name on the bow and was easily sixty feet long. The back was one large open area surrounded by a waist high wall, with the pilot house situated at the very front. Kurt was yelling to a couple of guys near the ropes that tied the boat to the wharf.

“Would you mind helping me with the lunch later?” Charlotte asked. “I’ve got a couple of coolers full of sandwiches and juice pouches for the kids.”

“We’ll be out that long?”

“Most of the day, yeah,” Charlotte said as she gathered her long brown hair back in a ponytail and slipped it through a scrunchy.

It didn’t take long before they were underway. Seeing Kurt in his element gave Polly a little flutter in her stomach. He appeared strong and decisive as he stood at the helm yelling for the men to cast off. The rumbling engine under her feet roared to life, roiling a white wake in the water at the stern of the boat.

The kids waved to the parents still standing at the dock. Kurt honked the loud airhorns making the kids jump, then they all cheered for him to do it again. The boat made its way out of its berth where dozens of shrimp boats, charters, and transport vessels lined the wharf outside Morgan City’s seawall.

The kids hugged the sides, watching with pointed fingers when someone called out the landmarks they passed. After turning into a broad, brown waterway, Kurt revved the engines making the boat speed along a little faster.

The kids were occupied under the watchful eyes of the older teens and young adults, so Polly made her way up to the cabin where Kurt was piloting the boat. The two deck hands she saw earlier were relaxing against the cabin wall and stopped talking to grin at her approach.

Ignoring the leers, she stepped into the small cabin to find Kurt sitting in a tall chair bolted to the floor in front of the chrome-spoked ships wheel.

“Hey,” she said as she stopped next to him to look out the front window at the Atchafalaya river opening up in front of them. He seemed a little down when she first came in, but as soon as he saw her his face lit right up.

“Hey,” he replied. “How’re you doin’ this mornin’?”

“Better after your Meemee’s coffee,” she said as she turned to look at his face. His strong jawline and tanned skin made him look more mature than he had the night before. When he glanced at her, she noticed his eyes drop down to her chest.
Typical
, she thought to herself with irritation.

“Yeah, that old percolator she has does the trick better than the new machines they got,” he said as his gaze returned to the river. “You have fun last night?”

“Yeah, it was nice,” she answered noting the slightly irritated tone in his voice when he asked. “How about you?”

“Naw, not really,” he said. “But sittin’ with you that little bit was nice.”

“You and Trey didn’t seem to get along,” she said, guessing at what might be bother him.

“He’s all right,” Kurt said. “Just stuck up some, like his mama.”

“Look, I wanted to apologize for leaving you there with the baby and Kendall. Charlotte filled me in this morning on the situation with her. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have just left you there.”

He shut his eyes for a second and rubbed his forehead. “It’s fine. You can’t get away from people in a town this small anyway.”

“So, tell me about yourself. I already know you play guitar and drive huge boats like this one,” she said, hoping to get on easier topics.

“The
St. Marie
here is only eighteen meters. She ain’t big. We use her to get crews to the rigs out in the swamps or just off the coast. Great Uncle Charlie, he got a sixty meter boat called the
Grand Béatrice
that he takes deep into the gulf that is three times this big and has three decks.”

“You ever get to drive that one?”

“Sometimes, but it’s a bitch to dock without thumping the wharf, so usually Uncle Charlie does that part.”

The conversation lulled for a moment as they both looked at the passing scenery. “It’s peaceful,” Polly whispered.

“Yeah, and a little boring after doing it for ten years, but it’ll do ‘til I figure out what I want to do next.”

“What do you want to do?” she asked, watching his dark brown eyes dart around the river. He glanced at her with a wistful expression for a moment, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“That’s the big question, ain’t it.” He was quiet for a while, but Polly could tell he was thinking about the answer. “Sometimes you can feel the world pushing in on you out here, but it never quite reaches you. Like it’s a TV show or something. I keep telling myself I’m gonna get out of here and see what it’s like livin’ out there, but then another year passes and here I sit.”

Polly could see his eyes getting misty, but he blinked it away. She asked, “So why don’t you just get in your car and drive? Go see what’s out there for yourself?”

Kurt shook his head. “I been places, but they never stuck. I don’t know, maybe I’m afraid of being alone, or maybe it’s just nice being somewhere you belong, where people know you.”

“What about going away to school or joining the service?” she asked as he clenched his jaw with pinched lips.

“I had problems in school,” he said without looking at her. “It ain’t gonna happen.”

“I’m sorry, I wish I could help,” she said and put her hand on his arm. His skin prickled and she felt a shock pass between them almost like static electricity. Kurt put his warm hand over hers and looked her in the eyes.

“You have,
sha
,” he said as he smiled sadly. “Thanks for listening to me bitch about it.”

Charlotte poked her head in the door and said, “Hey Polly, the kids are going crazy for snacks and a drink. Can you give me a hand?”

“Coming,” she said, squeezing his arm before letting go. On the way out she raised her hand to her lips without thinking, finding the scent of his cologne on her fingertips.

* * *

A
fter distributing the food and drink pouches, she listened as Charlotte and her cousin Jean pointed out plants and animals on the river. The great oak trees with beards of Spanish moss were so beautiful Polly took pictures of them with her phone. They saw plenty of nutria swimming on near the shore, which Polly thought looked like beavers with skinny tails. There were hundreds of birds, including tall cranes, colorful ducks, and even some eagles diving after fish.

When the boat docked again and was tied off to the wharf, Polly ushered her two charges into the waiting arms of their parents with a smile. Jack and Julie listened as the girls recounted everything they saw on the trip with the excitement only children seem to possess.

While Jack asked the girls questions, Julie looked up at Polly and asked, “Did they behave?”

“Oh, yes, they were great. Who kidnapped Jackson?” Polly asked with a grin.

“Meemee, of course,” Julie said with a laugh. “She was too busy yesterday with all the cooking, so she grabbed him out of my arms as soon as he’d been fed this afternoon.”

“I’m gonna stay and help clean up. I’ll get a ride back with Kurt and Charlotte.”

“Have fun!” Julie said with a wink.

Back on the boat, Polly helped Charlotte and Kurt clean up the mess of juice pouches and sandwich bags. Kurt let the two hands go and locked up the boat’s cabin. After they dumped the melted ice overboard into the river, Polly and Charlotte carried the empty ice chests down the gangway to a faded green sedan. Kurt walked up jangling his keys, then opened the trunk for them to put away the ice chests.