Lulu's Recipe for Cajun Sass - Sandra Hill Page 0,21
“You are really organized.”
His eyes took in the large canvas carry bag she’d made with special pockets for certain things, like the packets for plants and seeds, small jars and bottles, a pen and gummed labels, a hand spade, secateurs and a sharp knife, her homemade bug repellant, a machete, and a pistol. But then, he said, “Whoa! What are these for?” He was pointing to the last two items.
“The machete is needed for those places where the weeds are high. You never know when some snakes might be lurking about. Same is true of the pistol. I’m too small to wrestle an alligator.”
He didn’t laugh at her weak attempt at humor. “Do you know how to use a weapon?”
She nodded. “I do. It belonged to my brother Frank, and he taught me when I was scarcely a teenager.”
“Have you ever had to use it?”
She gave him a look which pretty much said, “Are you kidding me?” Then she laughed. “It also comes in handy to ward off randy men who come a-callin’ with naughty intentions.”
“Point taken,” he said with a grin. “I recall you telling me before that all Cajun men have a twinkle in their eyes…a naughty twinkle.”
“I said that?”
“You did. I believe it was when you mentioned my being a dreamboat.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She bit her bottom lip to prevent herself from smiling. Justin was way too charming. And full of himself.
“Speaking of your brother Frank, where’s his little girl?” he asked then.
Louise felt her face heat with color. She wasn’t ashamed of being Adèle’s mother, but it wasn’t something she shared with many people either. In fact, now that her mother was gone, and an old parish priest they’d confided in had been transferred, almost no one knew. “Adèle is playing with Anna Belle today.”
“Ah. So Anna Belle has recovered?”
“Totally. As I told you before, you did a good job with her.”
“Another compliment?” He bowed his thanks at her.
She cringed. “I haven’t been that bad, have I?”
“Mais oui! You have been hard on me. I must admit, though, that it has been well-deserved.”
“Meaning that you have naughty intentions?”
He laughed.
“So, we’re even?”
“Well, you may need to offer me a little extra incentive…to heal my wounded pride.”
“Hah! Your pride could take a few notches down. I haven’t met a man so biggity since I don’t know when.”
“Biggity?” He put a hand over his heart, as if wounded. “You think this…” he waved a hand between the two of them, “is about pride? Hah! When I’m around you, I get light-headed. My brain goes mushy. And I blurt out things I normally wouldn’t say…leastways, not this early in a relationship.”
She was stunned speechless, for a moment. “That is so much malarkey. And, just so we’re clear, you and I don’t have a relationship.”
He just stared at her.
Unspoken before them was the word “yet.”
“Anyhow, let’s get this show on the road…uh, bayou,” he said. “What exactly are we looking for today?”
She chastised herself silently for falling into the charmer’s sexy banter. Breathing in and out to calm herself down, she then explained, “There are three particular plants I need.” She sat down at the table and flicked carefully through one of her grandmother’s receipt books. The spine of the hard-backed book, the kind that had been used since the Civil War for small business accounts or rent tallies, was broken, and the stained, sepia-toned pages were mostly loose, the whole held together with a rubber band. “Burdock and dandelion and nettle, those I can find just by walking along the stream, but it’s these other more rare ones that I have to resupply.”
She showed him one page for lizard’s tail with its accompanying pencil sketch. The handwritten instructions…which must have been written by her grandmother, or maybe her mother—it was difficult to tell the difference—said, “For poultice on wounds, mash boiled roots. Also, for baby cutting teeth, put roots in glass of water with elm shavings, change water every day, add to milk or mix in honey for flavor.”
“Where did you get these?” He pointed to the books.
“My grandmother started them. Then my mother added to them. Now me.”
“These are fantastic,” he said. “They remind me of the Audubon sketches of birds here in Louisiana.”
She shouldn’t care that he approved, but she did. Darn it! “This is the other plant I’m looking for today.” She turned to a later page in the first book. “The mamou, or coral bean plant.” The drawing showed beautiful crimson flowers with