style that fitted her mood today.
“Welcome, everyone!” said Raoul Lanier, or Rusty as he was known, who came down the wide front steps of the big, rambling log home they referred to as a “lodge” to greet them. He waved at Sylvie who was just getting out of the car and said, “And happy birthday to you, young Christopher.”
Chris was still half asleep in his mother’s arms, his head resting on her shoulder, a thumb locked in his tiny mouth, but he gave Rusty a shy smile.
Rusty was around fifty years old, but he was still the hottest Cajun in Louisiana. And that was saying a lot. All the LeDeux males were good looking, and Cajun men in general had what girls in her day called the va-va-voom factor. But with Rusty…well, women did double takes when he walked down the street, especially if he was wearing his cowboy hat and tight jeans. Whoo-ee! She had to give the man credit, though; he had eyes only for Charmaine. Even after all these years, his eyes lit up when she walked into a room (usually with a sexy swish of her hips) and he was wont to mutter his usual expression, “Mercy!”
Sylvie went into the house with Chris, mentioning something about needing a bathroom. Rusty leaned down and gave Louise a warm hug, followed by a full-body perusal and a wolf whistle. “You’re lookin’ good today, Tante Lulu.”
Louise wasn’t sure if he was serious or poking fun at her. Didn’t matter. She dressed for herself, not anyone else. “Kin you help Luc with mah cake? Mebbe you should put it in the fridge fer a while. It might melt in this heat.”
Rusty’s attention was drawn then to Luc, who was swearing under his breath (as if I can’t hear him) as he tried to maneuver her unwieldy cake out of the car; it must weigh about ten pounds.
“We don’t have a fridge that big,” Rusty said.
“Put it in one of yer cow trucks then.”
“My cow trucks?” Rusty looked at Luc who had pulled the cake on its three-foot tray onto the tailgate of his SUV.
Luc shrugged at Rusty. “She probably means one of those refrigerated meat trucks.”
Why were people always trying to interpret what she said? As if she spoke another language. Idjits, that’s what they were!
Rusty looked back at her. “I don’t have refrigerated meat trucks. My cows are alive when we truck them to market.”
Louise waved a hand airily. “Whatever. I smell cow.”
“Of course you smell cow. This is a cattle ranch.”
“Doan be snippy with me. I meant cooked cow.”
“Oh. Sorry. The firepits were just opened, and the meat is resting.”
“Come out on the patio, auntie,” Charmaine said. She’d just come out of the front door and onto the porch. “Everyone’s here, waitin’ fer you so the party can start.”
Louise didn’t doubt that one bit. “Where’s Timmy?”
“I just put him down for a nap. He’s been crawling around like a crazy bedbug all morning.”
Charmaine came down the steps and hugged Louise. “You look wonderful today, auntie,” she said.
Rusty and Luc looked at her like she must be blind, or was seeing something they didn’t.
But then, Charmaine was dressed in a strapless little hot pink sundress that molded her body on top and swirled out in a bunch of pleats to mid-thigh. On her feet were high-heeled wedgie sandals, which, combined with her already tall frame, made her about six feet tall. Her hair was a mass of spiral curls. Her make-up was perfect. And huge chandelier earrings dangled all the way to her shoulders. Since she’d begun nursing her baby and still did occasionally, her breasts, already a buxom 34C, had blossomed out to porno fullness. In her strapless dress made of some light cotton material, the shape of the enlarged nipples was clearly visible.
“Girl, be careful we doan get any breezes t’day, or yer gonna get old and new-monia in that outfit. Tee, hee, hee,” Louise said.
Rusty gaped as Charmaine approached him and said, clear as a bell, “Mercy!”
Luc, who was Charmaine’s half-brother, said, “I am not looking. I am not looking.”
Honestly, Charmaine had Cajun Sass down to an art form. It still puzzled Louise why Mary Lou went to someone as old as her and not to Charmaine for advice. But then, she recalled that Mary Lou had mentioned how embarrassing it would be to confide in her mother.
Which reminded Louise…it was her goal today to see just how well Mary Lou was doing in her Cajun