wide, but her arms had gone around his neck and there was a genuine smile on her face. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t have a real wedding night, but I can carry you over the threshold and hope that you’ll let me kiss you before I bid you good night.” He started down the hall.
“I might be persuaded to do that,” she agreed.
The night was looking up.
chapter six
“Namaste.” Joy LeGrande lowered her head and ended the session with all the reverence of a true believer, but then her head came back and all that peace and serenity was replaced with the energy only a businesswoman could achieve. “And don’t y’all forget. I’m having a jewelry party at my place on Friday. Ten percent discount to the first ten women who show up and bring a friend. I’ve got summer jewelry celebrating all our traditions.”
Hallie snorted quietly. “That means she made gator necklaces, but it’s all right because I heard the gators are all wearing crosses and holding the Bible to prove she’s not into satanism.”
Sera’s eyes widened and she leaned in from the other side of Sylvie. “Why would they think gators are satanic?”
Oh, Sylvie knew some folk could take almost anything and make it satanic. “I don’t think it’s the gators. I think it’s the yoga. Joy goes to that church outside town. They have very specific ideas about how one should move one’s body, and yoga does not make the cut. They don’t dance, either, but Joy doesn’t have a problem with that. I’ve heard she’s getting her Zumba certification.”
Hallie gasped. “The one where they dance all the different kinds of dance? That looks like fun. The only cardio class they have right now is taught by Maxine Renaud, and she doesn’t understand that we’ve moved on from the Olivia Newton-John and Jane Fonda age of aerobics. I was the youngest person there by forty years.”
Sylvie had been working with her parks and recreation team to update the parish’s offerings. Until two years ago they hadn’t even offered kids’ programs beyond sports, and all the arts and crafts had been based on whatever the teacher at the time was trying to sell at the local fairs. She’d realized the parish might have been violating child labor laws. Those poor kiddos had made a whole lot of dreamcatchers and Christmas ornaments.
Of course, now she had to deal with the fact that her mother and Delphine wanted to teach fortune telling for youngsters. As her momma had put it, they had the most future to worry about, so kids should start the mystical arts early.
Yeah, that was going to be a fun town hall meeting.
All around her, the ladies of the Wednesday morning yoga class in Harte Park began to roll up their mats and get ready to move on with their days. She’d come to love this class. It had become a touchstone in the middle of the week when she could see her friends and clear her mind.
Except today she couldn’t seem to do that. Today her mind was stuck on one thing and one thing only.
She needed to focus on the meetings she had today, but all she seemed to be able to think about was the look in Rene’s eyes when she’d closed the door between them the night before.
It had been a week since they’d made their deal that he could kiss her good night and they would see where it went. She’d thought of it as a good-sense plan. Rene had taken it as a challenge.
Every kiss threatened to bypass her good sense and go straight to that place where lust ruled. Every night she joined him in the library and they had a drink and talked. She’d managed to make it to Darois House in time for dinner most of the week, but dinner always involved Cricket and often Louis or one or more of Rene’s relatives who showed up to complain or cajole. It was only in the library that they found some privacy. He would pour her a drink and somehow he would end up with her feet on his lap and she would sigh as those strong hands of his worked out the tension that came from wearing heels most of the day. She would start out telling him he didn’t have to do it and then she would sigh and practically purr. At some point she would sit on his lap and he would kiss her and she would