Bayou Christmas (Cypress Cove #2) - Suzanne Jenkins Page 0,3
all looked the same from the water. It replaced the original that her grandfather Lonnie Langtry had painted, now hanging over her fireplace.
“Brulee, we’re home.”
Popping her head up, the excitement of arriving anywhere always thrilled the dog, and her tail wagged. Just once, she’d jumped out of the boat into the water to swim to the shore, but Maggie’s wails and crying put an end to that, and she never did it again.
Pulling the boat up to the dock, she got a little closer to the shore to make room for Gus’s visit later. After tying up, she loaded all the groceries on the dock. She’d have to make a couple of trips to haul everything up to the house. Checking her watch, it was getting late. Getting the turkey in the oven was key.
“Come on, miss. You’re staying inside while I haul this loot in.”
She got Brulee in the cottage and made two more trips. The bag of ice went into the bay.
Inside the cottage, she began her preparations for Justin’s dinner. After she stuffed the turkey and wrestled it into the oven, she began preparing the fruit for the apple pie, peeling the apples and slicing them perfectly. She was measuring out sugar and spices when Brulee woofed at the familiar sound of Gus’s outboard, the distinctive clicking of a sticky valve.
“Gus is here!” she shouted, pushing the bowl back so Brulee wouldn’t help herself to the apples.
Letting the screen door bang, she ran back down to the dock, with Brulee at her heels.
“Gus! You’re just in time for lunch,” she called.
“I brought it all, even coffee,” he said, grinning.
She went to the side of his boat, and he lifted a cardboard cup holder up for her to take, and gathered familiar grocery bags together to bring inside.
“You and me will pay Spencer’s rent today,” he said, chuckling.
“Aw, you didn’t have to bring food.”
“I know. It’s a celebration though.”
“I can’t wait,” she squealed, jumping up into the air a little bit.
“I can’t either. I’m going to marry Grace.”
“Gus! How exciting!” she shouted, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “What! When?”
“Ha! I’ll cover everything when we get inside.”
They got the items in the kitchen, and she set out unpacking his bags. “Oh my god, I love tuna hoagies from Spencer’s. They really have the best deli.”
“Miss Spencer told me that’s your favorite.”
“She did, did she? Well, she’s right. What else is in here? Cake! And eclairs.”
“We’ll have coffee and eclairs for dessert. Celebrations call for eclairs.”
“Did you already ask her? Are you engaged?”
“We decided to forfeit the engagement. We’re too old. I’m nearly, well, you know how old I am. I’m almost eighty, fer dern sake, and Grace is seventy. We just want to get married and live together so no one will make fun of us shacking up at our age.”
“Grrrr, I just hate that. You know I overheard Mr. Casson saying something nasty about my mother and Doc Chastain. He said it in front of me.”
“He’s jealous,” Gus said. “I’ve heard him say the same bull about Val Amotte and your aunt Elizabeth. It’s because Beverly Casson is a drinker, and you have anything to say to her, you’d better do it before noon.”
Gus Hebert, Gustavo, grew up in Cypress Cove, right alongside Valentino Amotte, Maggie’s Aunt Elizabeth’s new husband; Victor Chastain, Dave and Justin’s father and Maggie’s mother Rose’s boyfriend; Alfonso Casson, owner of the hardware store; and even Jimmy Spencer, bad boy of New Orleans, who settled down in Cypress Cove after the Army, hoping to make a success of his life by opening a grocery store.
They were all protective of Gus Hebert, youngest son of the wealthiest man in town who owned the biggest house. Gus would come home from Vietnam after serving eight years with the Marines, shell-shocked. But his father would help him lovingly by making sure he had a place to live and a job, dockmaster at Cypress Cove. At this late stage of life, he’d be marrying for the first time.
The woman in question, Grace Breaux, was a retired veterinarian.
“I always thought Grace was a lesbian,” Aunt Elizabeth had said when Gus began to date Grace.
Frowning, Maggie shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Why? Because she was a vet? She doesn’t look like the stereotype. At least not to me.”
“Polly lived with her for a while.”
Polly, the postmistress, who was obviously gay and proud of it. “Aunt Elizabeth, you lived with Polly, too, didn’t you?”
“I most certainly did not!