Loved Bayou (Martin Family Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter 4

"I don't know anything about your dad," I said.

I stood there with my hands on my hips for a second before bending over to pick up the bag full of food that was still sitting between my feet.

"Oh please," he said sarcastically.

I held the bag of food out as if telling him to reach out and take it. "Look, truce, okay," I said, shaking the bag to remind him to reach for it.

He didn't reach out. He just stood in the same place ten feet away and shook his head. "There's nothing between us that would call for a truce," he said, regarding me as if I was a little loopy. He gestured with a sweep of his finger to the dirt driveway. "Do us both a favor and forget you even know I'm out here."

I returned his scowl, and shook my head disappointedly at him. "You can't possibly be this uncompromising."

He scoffed at me. "Uncompromising?" He looked around like he was missing something. "There's nothing to compromise. I asked you to go back the way you came and leave me alone, and that's what I expect you to do."

Larry was still chewing the sausage as he made his way back to his owner's side. I absentmindedly noticed him since I was preoccupied with
Jacob the impossible
. I was so frustrated that I threw the bag of food to him from where I was standing. I held it to my chest and sent it launching with both hands like you would a basketball. I didn't do it too hard because I wanted him to catch it. I hated for the food to go to waste, after all.

"You have a bad habit of throwing things," he said after catching the bag.

I shrugged stubbornly. "I don't usually," I said. "And you didn't leave me any other choice, since you wouldn't walk over here and take it from me like a man."

"Me not wanting you out here has nothing to do with my manhood," he said.

I was already mad, but I could feel my face turning red at his words. I shook my head, and turned to walk back to my car, planning on driving off without saying another word to him.

"Aren't you going to get your mace?" he asked, seeing that I was headed to my car.

"Not really," I said without looking at him.

"I saw where it landed."

"If I go over there and get it, I'm liable to use it on
you
, so it's better we leave it where it is. I'll get a new one since my family
owns the freaking mace store
." I said that last part as if was delivering some major cut down and didn't realize how silly it sounded until after it came out of my mouth. I continued walking toward my car, feeling too stubborn and angry to glance at him.

"Your family owns a mace store?" he asked. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he wasn't smiling, but he was clearly giving me a hard time, which was at least a tiny glimmer of some humanity. Unfortunately, I was already too angry to care.

"I told you I was Cole's cousin, so you know what store my family owns. And, yes, we
do
sell mace there."

"Why would you get a new one when your old one's just right over there?"

I stopped walking, turned, and glared at him through narrowed eyes. "Because you, mister, made it
abundantly clear
that you wanted me off of your property."

"Never mind, then," he said. "Just leave it there and get yourself a new one at your daddy's store."

"I will," I said.

"Good," he said. "I needed some mace, anyway."

I flashed him a narrow-eyed expression, but didn't say anything else. After several paces toward my car, I turned to him again and said, "I was trying to be nice, you know."

I was walking around the gate to get to my car when he said, "Don’t waste your time."

"Don't worry, I won't!" I said. "You got your wish. You'll never see or hear from me again."

Somewhere way down deep I said that hoping the statement would knock some sense into him and he would reconsider being so cold, but it didn't work. Jacob Fox just stood there and watched me get into my car and pull out of his driveway.

I was seeing red—maybe the maddest I had ever been in my whole life. I once heard that, most of the time, when people are angry it stemmed from embarrassment, and that was the absolute truth in my case. It was difficult for me to comprehend how he could be so cold and mean after all the effort I had gone through to be nice to him. I was also mad at myself for going there twice in one day. I should have known to stay away by how he treated me the first time, and I couldn't believe I had tried it twice in a row like that. I made myself too vulnerable, and I felt sick to my stomach because of it.

I had plans to go over to my parent's house that night for dinner, but I didn't. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone (or to eat, for that matter).

"Why didn't you come over?" my little sister asked as she came in the side door of my house, which led into my kitchen. I was sitting in the living room eating ice cream straight out of the pint container. Amelia, the youngest of us three girls, was about to start her senior year of high school. The instant she caught sight of me on the couch, she made a grossed-out face that only a teenager could make. I hadn't even had the chance to answer her initial question about not coming over for dinner when she said, "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, why?" I asked.

"Because you look like you've been sitting like that for about three days."

"I was at work all day today," I said, defending myself.

"It's only six o'clock in the afternoon," she said, watching me walk toward her as I met her in the kitchen.

I realized I still had on a headband from when I took a bath. That, combined with my pajamas and the fact that I was eating ice cream straight out of the container, might be why she was taken aback. Amelia had a plate and a bowl both covered in tin foil. She set them on the counter and stared down at her phone for a second before stashing it in her pocket and turning to me again.

"Are you sick or something?"

"No," I said, peeking at the plate, which was rice and gravy with some stew meat. I lifted the foil just far enough to see what it was before closing it again. "I just felt like getting a bath and watching TV," I said. "I told Mom not to worry about sending anything over here."

Amelia shrugged before jumping up to sit on my kitchen counter. She reached out and pulled off my bath-time headband as if it would help me reenter the land of the living.

"Why didn't Wynn come?" I asked, going to get a fork out of the drawer.

Our middle sister was going into her junior year of college. She went to UL in Lafayette, but she lived with my parents and Amelia during the summer. She was about to head back to school for the fall semester.

"She wasn't home," Amelia said. "I think she went to Claire's house. Mom was mad that she cooked all that food and neither of y'all came by."

"I just didn't feel like it," I said, opening the foil again now that I was armed with a fork. I took a bite of the meat, which was still somewhat warm. I was unable to tell whether it was pork or beef, but it was good, whichever it was. My sister watched me as I chewed, wearing a slightly disgusted face the whole time.

"What's
wrong
with you?" she asked again.

I shrugged like I didn't know what she was talking about as I continued to chew.

"You're being all weird and quiet," she said.

"No I'm not."

She laughed, still looking at me funny. "Yes you are." She looked down at her phone again while I took a few more bites. "That TV preacher-guy moved in down the street," Amelia said out of nowhere.

"What's that have to do with anything?" I asked, maybe a little too defensively.

"It doesn't," she retorted, screwing up her face at me for snapping at her.

"How'd you even hear about it?" I asked.

"He's friends with Cole, even though Cole won't really say much. I heard Mom and Aunt Debbie talking about it. Aunt Debbie said he wasn't very friendly. Claire's brothers ran into him down by the gas station, too, and they said the same thing."

"He just wants to be left alone," I said.

Was I really defending him after everything that had just happened?
I felt nauseated thinking about it. I closed the foil and stashed the plate and bowl in my refrigerator.

"I looked him up," she said. "I think he'd be hot, but it's hard to tell because he seems miserable in all of his photos."

She was telling the truth about him looking miserable in all of his pictures. I had searched his images as well, and couldn't find a single picture on the internet where Jacob looked happy. He was without a smile, even in the ones that were a little older. My heart ached for him in a way that was not at all right for someone who hated my guts. It should have been easy for me to hate him, but I found it impossible. I was inexplicably sad as a result of his sadness.

Empathy had always been a problem for me. I so identified with people's pain that it would affect me on a personal level. I hated seeing people suffer. I quit watching the news all together when I was a teenager, and I hadn't looked back. Anyway, I told myself this was why I couldn't get Jacob off my mind, but I really wasn't sure if that was the truth. It felt like more. Maybe somewhere deep down, I thought he was cute, and I was checking him out—maybe that's why the rejection hurt so bad.

"You look like your dog just died," my sister said, calling me from my thoughts.

"I think you should tell anyone who's talking about that guy to just mind their own business," I said. "Especially if they're being mean."

"Why do you care?"

"Because he's got good in him, and all he wants is to be left alone."

"Did you talk to him or something?" she asked.

"I might've," I said, shrugging one shoulder.

Amelia shot me a look that said I should just go ahead and tell the rest of the story, which made me shrug again. "It was nothing," I said.

"Where'd you see him?"

"I went by there."

"Why?"

"I wanted to welcome him to Louisiana or whatever, and I was curious, I guess."

"Is he cute?" she asked. She paused and waited for my answer like the question was really important.

I shrugged again, this time staring at her like she was the crazy one. "I don't know," I said. "He just told me to get off of his property before we could really see each other clearly." It was a blatant lie, and I hated telling them, but that's just how humiliated I felt. I saw him plain as day, and he saw me back. We took a good, long look at each other, and he
still
told me to get off of his property.

"He fussed at you?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"He just yelled and said I should have obeyed the signs."

She scoffed. "What a jerk."

"I was the one who went onto his property," I said. I didn't add that I did it twice or that I bought him food, or that he was really much jerkier than I'd already said.

"It's so random that
that
dude would move in right down the road," she said.

"Not really," I said. "Him and Cole were friends way back. I'm sure he just wants to disappear for a little while after all the media crud he's been through. I don't think he's mean deep down. I think he wants to be by himself for little while. None of us understand that because we're all up in each other's space all the time."

"Coming from the girl who lives by herself," Amelia said.

"Hey, I'm twenty-five and it's the first time in my whole life that I've lived alone. And don't act like I don't see y'all just about everyday."

"I don't even know what you're saying right now," she said. "Are you trying to defend him or something? Because I don't really care."

"I don't know what' I'm trying to say," I said. "I guess I'm just saying we should respect his wishes and leave him alone even if we can't fathom why he wouldn't want to be around us."

"I don't really care if he wants to be around us or not," she said. "I just thought it was crazy that that same guy from all that drama moved in right down the street."

"It is crazy," I said even though it was an understatement for the whirlwind of feelings I was experiencing because of it.

Chapter 5

There was a bottle of mace sitting on my porch the next morning when I left for work. I went out the side door, and wouldn't have seen it had I not glanced at the front of the house as I pulled out of the driveway.

There was a foreign object sitting on the porch railing when I looked that way. I didn't know what it was at first, but as I got closer to it, I could see that it was indeed the bottle of mace that I had thrown into the woods at Jacob's house. I picked it up and stared down at it.

I thought about Jacob looking for it and then going out of his way to bring it back. I wondered how he knew which house was mine. These lots were wooded, and you couldn't see my house or car from the road. I vaguely remember telling him I lived four doors down, so I thought maybe he just counted driveways. I stood there and stared at it for several seconds before it hit me that the
very
person who was so against trespassing had been on
my
property.

I did what anyone in my position would do.

I decided to go to his house again.

I knew a different side of him existed, and I found myself wanting to find it—expose it. I was looking for an excuse to see him again, and confronting him for trespassing on my property was just as good as any.

I was able to set my own hours as long as I got my work done, thus I was in no real hurry to get to New Orleans. I decided to go straight to Jacob's house, mostly because I knew that if I didn't go right then, I would think better of it and change my mind.

His gate was open this time, so I drove straight to his house. I put my car in park, and prepared for a barking dog to come jump on my window, but that never happened. I waited there for several long seconds, but the only movement I saw was a few chickens and ducks on the other side of the yard. I got out of the car, holding my mace in the ready position just in case.

I happened to love this house, and I admired it as I walked up the steps and onto the front porch. It was a traditional, Acadian style house, and Mr. Breaux was an architect, so there were beautiful details that I could only appreciate now that I had gone through the process of building a house myself. I couldn’t help but take them in as I walked tentatively onto the front porch.

I knocked twice and then took a step back, preparing myself for whatever was on the other side. I told myself it could be a booby trap and that I should be ready for anything. I heard the dog bark, and then a few seconds later, the sound of the door opening. It cracked slowly, and the next thing I knew I was standing eye-to-eye with Jacob. There was still a screen door separating us, but it was as close to him as I had ever been. I couldn't stop my eyes from roaming over in his face.

He was staring at me with that same stone-faced expression he wore every time. He cocked his head at me and let out a long, agitated sigh that basically asked what I was doing there.

I was too nervous to speak right away or even remember why I was there. I glanced down at the dog, who was standing patiently by Jacob's side, before glancing over his shoulder at the open living room. It didn't look like it used to when the Breauxs lived here. There wasn't much furniture at all. It looked like some sort of workshop.

Jacob adjusted his stance slightly to move in front of my line of vision. "Is there something I can help you with, Ms. Martin?" he asked.

I glanced at him and wasn't surprised to see that he was still not smiling. It was then that I remembered why I came. I held up that mace bottle and gave it a shake, returning his perturbed expression.

"This!" I said, triumphantly.

"What about it?"

"You, mister, had to trespass onto
my property
for it to end up on my front porch."

"Do you have a sign?" he asked.

I hesitated, wondering for a second if you had to have a sign for it to be considered trespassing. "You don't have to have a sign," I said, even though I wasn't really sure. "And you had to walk
right up to my porch
to put it where you did."

"You walked
right up to my porch
just now," he said, pointing at me.

"Well first of all, you're gate was open, and you really can't see the sign when it's like that, and second of all,
you
came up to my house first."

"My gate was open because I'm expecting a delivery, and I wasn't the one who brought it to your house in the first place."

My brain latched onto the fact that he was expecting a delivery and I absentmindedly wondered what it was for a second before I realized what else he had said.

"Did you just say you weren't the one who brought this?" I asked, holding up the mace.

He nodded, still without a smile.

"Who brought it, then?" I asked.

"Your cousin."

"Cole?"

He nodded.

"How'd Cole get it?"

"I gave it to him," he said as if that was obvious.

"You saw Cole after I came here last night?" I asked, feeling confused and annoyed, and most of all embarrassed.

"Yes," he said simply.

"What was he doing over here?" I asked.

Jacob tilted his head and regarded me as if he was confused by my inability to quit overstepping my bounds.

"Seriously," I said, throwing my hands up. "Why are you okay with
him
coming out here?"

"Did you really just ask me that?" he asked, after a few second's hesitation.

"Yes," I said. And in a moment of being really real, I added, "It hurts my feelings for you to keep running me off. I've never had someone just hate me for no reason before, and it makes me feel bad. I barely slept last night."

"You barely slept?" he asked, skeptically.

"Yes," I said. "I don't think I've ever had someone just hate me for no reason before, and it makes me feel funny."

"I don't hate you, Ms. Martin, I just don't want anyone coming out here."

"Alex," I said. "Not Ms. Martin. And that's what I'm saying… you're fine with Cole coming out here."

He just stood there and stared at me after I said that. I had absolutely no idea what he was thinking or what he'd say next. There was a lot of shade, and the screen door made things darker, but I could clearly see his light eyes. I could only imagine how bright they would be up close and in the light.

I sighed and let my shoulders slump a little. "I'm not good at handling rejection, so if you just pretend to like me I'll probably be able to leave you alone. I just don't like to end things with you yelling at me to leave and not come back. That doesn't seem right to me. It leaves me with an unsettled feeling."

"What, do you need a hug or something?" he asked in a completely serious tone.

Something about it made me laugh, and I just stared at him as I giggled.

"Okay," I said. "A hug's a good start, I guess."

"A start?" he asked. "What do you need after that?"

I stood there for a second, wondering what it was that I really wanted from him. "Make me feel like I can come by any time I want… like Cole, where you wouldn't run me off if I stopped by."

"Yeah, but I don't want you coming by," he said, completely serious.

A rush of cold sweats hit me as it sank in that this encounter would probably end awkwardly like the others had.

"Why in the world not?" I asked. "I'm a good person. I come from a good family. We're neighbors." I hesitated before continuing. "Listen, I'm not saying I want to stop by every day—or even on a regular basis—I'm just saying I want to believe I'm welcome if I would ever decide to do it."

Even as the words left my mouth, I realized they made me sound petty and maybe even selfish, but I didn't mean it like that. I just wanted to feel like I was on cordial terms with him. It bugged me to think there was someone out there who specifically didn't want me around.

"I'll vote for you if you're running for mayor or whatever, but I don't really need a friend. Thanks anyway."

"What about Cole."

"He's as bad as
you
are about pushing himself on me, if you want to know the truth."

"Why'd you call him, then? Why'd you even tell him you were moving here?"

Jacob started to speak and then stopped as if my question had taken him by surprise and he needed a second to think about his answer. "I guess I don't really know the answer to that," he said. "Maybe I knew I needed a link to at least one other human. Not that it's any of your business."

"Well, Cole comes with a family, just so you know." I paused. "We all live out here, and we care about each other and our neighbors. I'm not trying to bug you, I just want to be your friend."

"That
is
bugging me," he said. He said it in that same dry tone he always used, but the tiniest hint of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. I stared at it, wondering if I was hallucinating, or if his expression had indeed lightened by a fraction of a percent.

"Can I come in?" I asked, trying to take advantage of the slightest sign of hope.

"No," he said, losing his barely existent smile, and returning to his normal scowl.

"Why not?" I asked. "I thought we were having a moment."

"A moment?" he asked in disbelief.

I nodded. "I thought you were just kind of smiling a little bit," I said. "I was hoping to get that hug and check out your workshop in there. Don't worry, I won't stay but for a second."

He regarded me cautiously. "You people are aggressively friendly down here," he said. "Like violently friendly."

"That's an oxymoron," I said.

He nodded as if he totally agreed. "I thought so too, until I moved down here. I'm just trying to disappear, and you guys keep inviting me to pot-lucks and asking for hugs."

"Because we think it's sad that you're trying to disappear."

"Oh, so everybody's been talking about how sad it is?" he asked.

"No, I, uh," I stuttered. "I'm not talking about anybody else. I don’t even know or care what they think. I'm just talking about me.
I'm
sad that you want to disappear."

"It has nothing to do with you."

"It still makes me sad," I said.

"That makes no sense."

I threw my hands into the air. "Feelings never do," I said.

"I don't want you feeling anything for me," he said.

"Too bad," I said.

"Too bad for you," he said. "Just stop."

"It's too late," I said. "I want to be your friend, and I'm pretty stubborn."

He narrowed his eyes at me like he was thinking something. "Are you trying to hook up with me because you think I have money?" he asked.

I couldn’t believe the accusation.

"If anything, you should be wanting to hook up with me because
I
have money," I said, defensively.

"Are you stuck down here in the swamp with no eligible men or something? Because I promise, I'm no catch."

"
Obviously
," I said. "And no, in spite of your winning personality, I'm not trying to hook up with you. I came over here the first time to be nice, and I came just now because I thought you'd been on my front porch." I stopped and sighed, knowing I'd been misunderstood. "We've already blown it way out of proportion. It's not that I want to stop by in the future, it's just that I want to feel like you'd be okay with it if I did."

"I get what you're saying, but I already said I'd prefer if you didn't," he said.

I stood there and gawked at him, unable to believe that he continued to be unfriendly. I could see the goodness in his eyes, and it made me crazy that just when I thought he'd say something to turn everything around, instead he says something mean and final. I let out a groan and turned to head away from him, not planning on saying anything else.