followed by, “It’s about time!” as if Jude were speaking to someone up above.
When Adèle went inside to get one of her dolls, Louise and Justin carried the produce boxes and the flowers to his truck. “See you around,” Justin said just before lifting himself up to the driver’s seat of his truck. Then he did the worst thing possible. He winked at her.
To Louise, it was the most patronizing, condescending gesture, when done without any evidence of attraction on his part. Like the most popular boy in school winking at the shy, fat wallflower.
A pity wink.
How pathetic! Louise practically growled at what was tantamount to waving the red flag before a bull. A challenge if she ever saw one. How dare he make her feel pathetic?
In that moment, Louise recalled that there was a time when she was the epitome of Cajun Sass, a bayou girl who could stand up to the most arrogant male, and there were plenty of them in bayou land. It had nothing to do with beauty, exactly. More with attitude, which translated to attractiveness, even sensuality. That young Louise never would have allowed Justin Boudreaux to treat her like she was less than what he was accustomed to.
The question was: How to regain her Cajun Sass when she’d lost it for five long years?
On the other hand, did a bayou-born gal ever lose her Cajun Sass?
Maybe she should check her mother and grandmother’s receipt books to see if they’d written a recipe for Cajun Sass. Which was highly improbable.
Or was it?
She laughed out loud.
And heard laughter in her head, too.
Chapter 2
He wasn’t Hank Williams, but, “Hey, good lookin’…”
It was a week later, on a hot Sunday afternoon, that Justin was back in Houma. He had his brother Leon to thank for his being at this boring-as-hell Crawfish Festival at Our Lady of the Bayou Church. They were leaning against a tupelo tree at one side of the front lawn, secretly sipping at cold cans of Dixie Beer, watching the crowd.
Justin didn’t get that much time off from his residency at the hospital in New Orleans, and a Sunday afternoon spent watching old geezers play bingo and shrieking kids run around in organized games was not his idea of fun. Yeah, there was the wild zydeco music played by a local band. And the piles of spicy, boiled mudbugs, corn on the cob, boudin sausage, and potatoes being served on newspaper-covered tables were a sloppy delicacy he missed most when up in Cambridge.
But, really, Justin was beat, physically and emotionally. Doctoring did that to a person sometimes. “No offense, Leon, but I’m gonna head back to my digs in Nawlins and take a nap.” He shared an apartment in a Creole cottage on Lafayette Street with two interns from Charity Hospital. “I was up till two last night.”
“With a hot date?” Leon asked hopefully.
“Hah! More like a breech birth of twin boys that didn’t want to join their five sisters. Followed by a stabbing of a sixteen-year-old kid who bled out. And a massive heart-attack victim who survived but is on a breathing machine today.” Justin had no interest in obstetrics as a profession, but he had to admit to a great satisfaction in bringing forth new life. The teenager with a pierced lung had been a goner before they even examined him, but still a soul-rending loss. It had taken Justin and the doctor on emergency duty an hour to stabilize the obese, chain-smoking heart-attack victim, who hopefully had been scared into a change of lifestyle.
“Ah, my brother, the doc-tor!” Leon teased. “Betcha women crawl all over yer sexy self. Betcha mamas are linin’ up to introduce their daughters to a handsome Cajun who’ll have a money tree in the back yard when he opens his practice. Betcha those Yankee chicks go ga-ga over yer southern accent.”
Justin elbowed his brother and looked left and right to show there were no women lining up. “In truth, I can’t recall the last time I had my ashes hauled. As for a money tree…me, I don’t have two greenbacks to rub together, and it’ll be years before I get out of debt.”
“What about all those scholarships?”
“My scholarships don’t pay half of my bills.”
Leon shrugged. “You doan see me drivin’ no Cadillac, either.”
“As for my southern accent, Yankees call that redneck English.”
“Poor you!”
They grinned at each other. “You don’t do so bad, especially with the dames. Where’s Lily Rose anyhow?”
Lily Rose Fortier was Leon’s fiancée, and she was