Loved Bayou (Martin Family Book 1)

One of our favorite things to do here was to take a small grocery store and meat market and turn half of it into a restaurant. These ultra-casual places usually specialized in things that were either deep fried or served in a casing, such as sausage and boudin (boo-danh). Most of them had red and white checkerboard, plastic tablecloths with some sort of DIY contraption on the tables made out of a huge tin can that now served as a paper towel dispenser.

I grew up down on the bayous of south Louisiana, and you could find at least one of these types of places in every small town. This one was called Ty's. It was popular for its boudin and boudin balls. Boudin is a lovely (and usually spicy) pork and rice concoction served in a casing similar to sausage. There's always rice involved, but the protein's not always pork. You can get several different types of boudin in varying degrees of spiciness.

To make a boudin ball, you take this already delicious 'dirty rice' mixture out of it's casing, roll it into a ball roughly the size of a baseball, batter it, and drop it into a fryer. Boudin, in its original form or as "a ball", can be found at just about every grocery store and most gas stations in south Louisiana. Ty's was the best, though, a fact for which I was grateful since it was extremely close to where I grew up.

Technically, we were a part of the greater New Orleans metropolitan area, but it took nearly an hour to get downtown from where I lived. We were out in the boonies, in the watery swamps, south of New Orleans. I'd done enough traveling to know that we had something special out here. I left for four years and went to college in Boston, during which time I took several trips overseas. My travels only made me miss Louisiana. There was something romantic and mysterious about the swamp, and I couldn’t wait to get back once I finished school. I came home right after I got my degree.

Let me back up just a little.

I'm Alex Martin, the firstborn daughter of Mitch Martin, co-founder and CEO of Martin Outfitters.

My dad and his brother, Steve, had always been extremely competitive. They were so driven to out-do each other, that it sometimes worked against them. It wasn't until they applied their competitive natures to the same goal by going into business together that they realized their dreams.

The small sports and outdoors company that they started in their twenties had grown into the nationwide chain you know today. Martin Outfitters mega stores could now be found in thirty-eight states and counting.

I went to business school at Harvard, which may or may not have been a competitive move on my father's part. See, Uncle Steve and his wife, Debbie, had two strapping boys, and my parents gave birth to three girls. Dad never made us feel like he didn't love us because we were born girls, but there was an underlying thing going on between him and Uncle Steve about it. My dad had always tried to make us do things that were equally important to our male cousin counterparts, and me going to Harvard was one of the things of which my father was most proud.

I was onboard for going because I wanted to spread my wings a little bit, anyway. I was intrigued by the Northeast and wanted to check it out. I did not graduate at the top of my class, but I did well in my studies, and I got a degree from Harvard Business, which made my father ecstatic.

I came back to Louisiana to work for the family business as soon as I finished. Our main office was up in Gretna. I made the trip there about three times a week and worked from home the rest of the time. I lived in a small house in the same wooded, waterfront neighborhood as my parents. I actually bought a lot next to theirs, which they had purchased with that very intention. Our Acadian style houses backed up to the bayou on one side, so I could reach my parent's house by boat if I didn't feel like driving or walking through the woods. Our houses were separated by several acres of woods, so even though my parents were close by, I couldn’t see their house from mine.

My uncles and cousins had property nearby as well. My dad and Uncle Steve bought fifty acres together and split it right down the middle. The parents intentionally built closer to the centerline so that the children could build on the property as years went by. My cousin, Cole, had his house built before me, and Cam was still in the middle of construction on his. The boys worked for the family business as well and we all three kept about the same hours, working part-time from home.

My dad and Uncle Steve were very much still in charge, but Cole, Cam, and I were being groomed to take over one day. My two younger sisters (one in college, and one who was still in high school) may or may not follow in the family footsteps. They'll both receive stock in the family business regardless of what they choose to do for a job, but I quite enjoyed working at Martin Outfitters as my fulltime gig, and was happy with the direction I was going.

I could have done most of my work from home, but going to the office gave me an excuse to get into New Orleans a few times a week, which I enjoyed. At least once a week, I'd venture out and try a new restaurant. Sometimes, I'd like one so well that I'd eat there several times in a row and make myself sick of it for a while.

I'd been home for a couple of years now. I enjoyed my work, I was making a good living, and I had settled into a comfortable routine.

This leads me back to what I was trying to get around to when I first started the story.

Jacob Fox.

I was minding my own business and felt completely comfortable with my life how it was when my friend, Shonda, who worked at Ty's, had to go making me feel bad for some guy I didn't even know.

"Jacob Fox," Shonda said, leaning over to wipe the counter. She was a few years older than me and had been working at Ty's since high school. She knew everything that went on in this town. "He came in here earlier."

I made an expression that reflected my confusion, which made her pull back and shoot me a disbelieving expression.

"Surely, you've heard of him," she said.

I shook my head to let her know I had no idea who she was talking about.

She wiped the bar in front of me again just to look like she was busy. "He's the kid of that televangelist guy—the one who died recently, remember? They had that trial and everything, and his wife went missing." She paused and stared at me as if expecting me to know exactly who she was talking about.

I shrugged. "I don't watch the news," I said.

She looked at me with skepticism. "I know you've heard of it," she said. "It was all over the place."

I had heard of it, actually. In spite of my aversion to the news, this bit of gossip was inescapable. I had never seen pictures of the family, but I was familiar with the story. A well-known televangelist couple got charged with extortion and fraud. The wife mysteriously disappeared and the husband died in a car accident. I only vaguely remembered hearing about it, and didn't really pay attention to it when I did.

"Apparently, there was some sort of insurance settlement that went to their son when Neil Fox died," she whispered, looking over my shoulder as if she expected the guy in question to come walking up and overhear her. "There was a big to-do about his son getting the money," she continued. "People in the church were wanting to sue him even though he wasn't involved with what his parents were doing."

"What happened?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I guess nothing ever came of it," she said. "I just sort of quit hearing about it like everything else. They must not have sued him, though. Your fine cousin said he was richer than y'all's dads."

"Who said that?"

"Cam," she said.

"What's Cam know about him?"

She looked at me like she couldn’t believe how out of the loop I was. "That guy's here because he knows your cousins. I think they met each other years ago. Cam and Cole told him about living out on the bayou, and when the settlement went through, he decided to disappear."

I smiled. "Well he's not doing a very good job of disappearing if everybody knows he's here."

"Cam told me not to go repeating who he was to everybody. I just figured you already knew about it since you were family."

I scowled, wondering why I didn't already know about it. Aunt Debbie always cooked dinner for all of us when one of the boys had guests in from out of town, but no one had mentioned getting together to meet this Jacob guy.

"How long's he staying?" I asked, since Shonda seemed to have all the information.

She laughed. "I hope for a long time since it'll take him a while to get back what he paid for that house."

"What house?" I asked.

"The Breaux's place. Out past Cam's lot."

"What?"

"Yeah," she said. "Cole and Cam helped him work it out with the Breauxs." She leaned forward to whisper. "He paid cash for that house if that tells you anything about how much money he got from that settlement."

"How do you know so much?" I asked, feeling the urge to defend the guy for some reason. "I'm sure he didn't choose to have his mom disappear and his dad die in a car crash."

"Everyone thinks it was suicide," she said with wide eyes.

"Even more of a reason to let him have the settlement and leave him alone. You said he didn't have anything to do with it. He's probably getting harassed by all sorts of weird-o's trying to blame him for what his dad did. I don't blame him for wanting to disappear."

Shonda smiled at me with narrowed eyes. Her curly, dark hair swayed as she shook her head knowingly at me.

"What?" I asked, laughing.

"You're taking up for him because you
like
him."

"I do not," I defended. "I didn't even know he was here. I've never even seen him."

"Oh, come on. It was all over the news."

"I promise," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. "I heard about it, but I never saw pictures of any of them. I told you, I don't watch the news."

"Well, your prince charming is handsome, but he's meaner than old-man McCurry."

"I never said he was prince charming, I just said I'm sure he'd appreciate it if we left him alone."

She laughed. "Oh, he makes that
abundantly
clear."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She shrugged and stared into space as if trying to decide how to explain what she was trying to say. "He's cold as ice," she said, scrunching up her face at the memory of him. "He scowls non-stop, and he barely makes any eye contact. I tried to ask how he was doing, and he just completely ignored me. That's what made Cam tell me about who he was, because I was talking about what a jerk he had been when he came in here." She paused and rolled her eyes. "Cam said he was a really great guy when they went to camp together, but I'm sorry to say, he's officially not a great guy now. Totally unapproachable."

"You might be unapproachable, too, if you were in his situation," I said.

"That's what Cam said, but I wasn't even trying to hassle him. I just asked him how he was doing, and he stood there and acted like he didn't even hear me. He better get his act straight. People around here aren’t gonna appreciate that kind of behavior."

I smiled at how offended she'd been simply by the guy ignoring one question. "Maybe he didn't hear you," I said.

"Oh, he heard me all right."

I smiled as I took a sip of my iced tea. "Just try to cut him some slack," I said. "Sell him his groceries or whatever he comes here for, and let him be on his way. He might not be a chatty person."

She laughed. "Chatty is not a word I'd ever, in a million years, use to describe Jacob Fox."

"Then it's probably better if you don't chat with him," I said.

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