Lulu's Recipe for Cajun Sass - Sandra Hill Page 0,16

away from him, giving her attention back to the children’s games.

He moved as well, closing the distance between them, so that they were almost elbow to elbow, hip to hip. Almost, but not quite. “Really? Dressed lak that? Thass a shame!” He was laying the Cajun patois on thick as bayou mud.

And she replied in kind with, “Mebbe I dress lak this for mahself, not to attract menfolks.”

“Or mebbe you felt lak that in the past, but now you’ve turned over a new leaf. Mebbe you’re ready to dip yer pretty toes in the dating waters again. Mebbe I would be a good experiment, to see if yer ready.”

He thought she laughed, but she wasn’t looking at him; so, he wasn’t sure.

“Listen, Mister Almost-Doctor, I been dealing with men who look like you my entire life. Men so full of their own handsomeness they think the sun comes up to hear them crow. Frankly, a peacock is just a glorified turkey, in my opinion.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d made the turkey/peacock analogy in reference to him. “Wow!” he said. “That was brutal, but you’ve given me a bum rap, chère. Without really knowing me, you put me in a box, smacked a label on it, and set it on a shelf marked ‘Toxic’.”

She blushed, seeming to realize she might have gone a bit too far. “Maybe you’re right. I do tend to jump to conclusions sometimes.”

He was no fool. He took an opening any way he could get it. Besides, now this opinionated woman was a challenge. And, don’t forget, she thought he was handsome as a peacock. He barely suppressed a smile as he said, “Okay, apology accepted,” though she hadn’t really apologized, “but how about me coming out to your place and you teach me about herbal medicines? You wouldn’t deny a doctor his learning, would you?”

She turned to look at him then.

He fluttered his eyelashes at her.

She smiled and shook her head at his persistence. “Are you serious?”

“I am,” he said, and he meant it, though getting to know Louise better would be an obvious lagniappe. Never let it be said there weren’t two ways to skin a rabbit.

Any further discussion on the subject was halted by a sharp scream.

Both Justin and Louise’s heads jerked forward toward the playing field where the games had ended abruptly.

Still screaming was Louise’s niece Adèle who was bending over another little girl who was lying on the ground, unmoving. “She’s dead! She’s dead!”

Without hesitation, Justin leaped over the fence and ran as fast as he could. Louise wasn’t far behind.

Chapter 3

Just one more chance to make a good impression…

Louise calmed Adèle down, but her daughter still hugged her tightly, with arms wrapped around her neck and her legs locked around her hips, as they both watched Justin. He was kneeling on the ground where he worked on the semi-conscious child, lying flat on her back. It was Anna Belle Gaudet, a friend of Adèle’s.

Father Mark had offered to call for an ambulance, but since there were no full-time emergency teams nearby, it was deemed more expedient to get the child stabilized and take her to a medical facility themselves. In the meantime, Anna Belle’s mother, Marie, arrived in a panic. “Mon Dieu! I just went inside to tinkle. I was only gone a minute. What happened?”

Marie hadn’t been addressing anyone in particular, but it was Adèle who answered in a wail, “We was runnin’, me ’n’ Anna Belle, real fast, ’n’ then she jist stopped and fell over, dead.”

“Shh! She’s not dead. She’s just winded.” Louise hoped.

Marie made a tsking sound before dropping down to her knees on the other side of her daughter and asked Justin, “Are you a doctor?”

He nodded, not bothering with the “almost a doctor” explanation.

“Anna Belle has the asthma. She isn’t supposed to exert herself at all, ’specially not on a hot day like today.”

Justin had been giving the little girl artificial respiration, alternating between breaths into her mouth and pumping his locked hands against her chest. Then, he put his ear to Anna Belle’s chest and checked her pulse with fingertips to her neck, things he’d already done several times. “Her heart rate and pulse are steady now, but her breathing is still thready. Does she have a aerohalor? Or any medication she takes?”

“She has the inhaler. At home. No medicine. Jist herbs that Miz Rivard…Louise’s mother…gave me a long time ago, to make a steam tent.” Her voice was teary and guilt-ridden. “She