Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (20 page)

“I was baptized Catholic, but I’ve lapsed.”

“Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.”

There was no sense arguing with the old lady.

“A mommy and daddy should be together with their chile.”

“Lots of single parents raise children today.”

“Not in my fam’ly.”

“You can’t force things just because you want them a certain way.”

“Won’t be no forcin’ necessary when the thunderbolt and St. Jude are at yer back. I already started on yer bride quilt. Since ya doan have a mama, I figger Charmaine kin give ya advice, be the mother of the bride, that kinda thing.”

Charmaine, the quintessential bimbo?
“That’s nice.”

“That Tee-John is gonna make the prettiest groom. Whoo-ee, the gals from here ta Texas gonna be cryin’ when he walks down the aisle.”

“I thought it was the bride who walked down the aisle, and she’s the one supposed to be pretty.”

“That goes without sayin’. I gots an antique weddin’ gown that was never used iffen ya might be interested.”

Tante Lulu made that offer in an offhand manner, but Celine could tell it was important to her. Was it possible . . . ? “Yours?”

Tante Lulu nodded.

“Me ’n Phillipe was gonna be married when he got home from the war, but he died on D-day.”

“If I were going to be married—and I’m not—I would be honored to wear your gown. However, you’re a lot smaller than me.”

“I usta be taller. I had boobs and a butt at one time, too. Anyways, gowns can be altered ta fit. I’ll show it to ya next time yer back at my place.”

This conversation was making her way too uncomfortable. “Listen, Tante Lulu, you should know that John is talking about a lawsuit.”

Tante Lulu waved a hand dismissively. “He’s jist upset. He’ll come around.”

Celine wasn’t so sure about that. “I think I’ll go see how Etienne is doing at the work site.”

“One more thing,” Tante Lulu said. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Etienne. He’s the bestest gift I’ve had in a long while.”

It was with tears in her eyes that Celine left.

Fatherhood was wearing a bit thin for John.

Picking up the little snot by the belt at the back of his shorts, he carried him over to the stream and dropped him in to wash off about ten pounds of mud.

Sputtering and laughing, Etienne stood in the shallow water and said, “Do it again.”

“No. That’s enough. You’ve gotta settle down, Etienne. You don’t throw mud. You don’t say bad words when someone corrects you. You don’t put gold coins in your mouth. And the next time I say, ‘Come here!’ I mean
now.
”

“Yer mean.” His bottom lip quivered, and he burst out bawling.

“Oh, God! Now what?” He picked him up, sopping wet, and began to carry him the short distance to the work site camp. Halfway there, Etienne stopped crying and struggling, laid his head on his shoulder, and went limp. Totally asleep. Just like that. Tantrum to zonkers in one second flat. Meanwhile, the whole front of John was wet.

He’d just laid Etienne down on a pallet inside one of the tents and sunk to the ground outside with exhaustion, when Celine showed up.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice shrill with concern.

“Shhhh. He’s asleep.”

She peered inside. Then, satisfied that her son was all right, she sank down to the ground next to him. “So? What happened?”

“Nothing. He just had a meltdown after two hours of Energizer Bunny nonstop activity.”

“In other words, the usual.”

“How does your grandfather handle him?”

“He has help, and Etienne goes to play school three mornings a week. In the fall, he starts kindergarten. But, yeah, by the time I get home, my grandfather is beat. You have to understand, though, Etienne is being well cared for. I’m lucky to have my grandfather’s help.”

“I wasn’t criticizing.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you suggested yesterday. Maybe, instead of lawyers, we should be talking to a mediator.”

“In order to mediate, you have to be willing to compromise. So far, all I’ve heard is how I need to go slow and be nice. I’ve been nice for twenty-eight freakin’ years. Time for some bad.” Even he realized how juvenile that last sounded, but like his son, he was having a meltdown, too, except his couldn’t be corrected with a nap.

“I am not going to let Etienne live with you; that is totally off the table. Furthermore, I can’t let him stay with you for any extended period of time, either, not ’til I see how . . . well, how things go.”

“Why don’t you say what you really mean?”

“I mean, I can’t be sure you’ll even want to be a real father, once the novelty wears off. And I can’t have him exposed to your lifestyle.”

“Now you’ve gone too far. What do you think I do in my spare time? Engage in orgies? Oh, God, you do, don’t you?”

Her face pinkened with embarrassment. “Not orgies, precisely, but a steady parade of women.”

“Unbelievable . . . that’s what you are. Celine, I hadn’t had carnal knowledge with a woman for a month before we did the deed.”

“A whole month? Poor deprived boy!”

He gritted his teeth before speaking again. “Be careful of that corner you’re backin’ yourself into,
chère.
”

“I won’t be threatened by you.”

“That wasn’t a threat. Just a bit of friendly advice.”

“John, be reasonable—”

“I’m tired of being reasonable, too.”

“A couple hours in his company and you’re already wiped out.”

“I’ll get better.” Then he muttered under his breath, “I better.”

She smiled at him.

She had a really nice smile. And he hated that he couldn’t allow himself to like her smile. “You know, I was startin’ to like you before you pulled this crap.”

“Same here.”

They were both quiet for a while.

“What do you mean, ‘same here’?” Man, he was pitiful. She’d just about gut punched him with the news of his son, betrayed him essentially, and made him so mad he had to clench his fists to keep from shaking her, and here he was asking if she liked him.

“I mean the same thing you did. I was starting to like you. It might have led to something more. No, it wouldn’t have. But still, my opinion of you was changing a bit.”

“Was there a compliment in there somewhere?”

She glanced at him, and smiled again.

Which caused his little ol’ heart to go all fluttery. Jeesh! “I’m still angry at you, and I’m still gonna make you pay, and you’re gonna wish you never met me.”

“Actually, that would never happen, John.” Her face was all serious and misty-eyed now. “Because if I’d never met you, there would never have been an Etienne, and, like your aunt said, he’s a gift.”

He hated to admit it to himself, but John was touched. With a cough to clear his throat, he said, “I think our gift is stirring.”

Chapter
19

After dinner, Celine sat at the table talking with all the adults, while Etienne played a video game on a minuscule black-and-white TV set over in the corner. Everyone was pretending to ignore the glaring tension between her and John.

“Exactly how much gold have we recovered so far?” Ronnie asked Adam.

“Roughly a thousand gold coins, an equal amount of silver, and a half dozen items of jewelry,” Adam answered. “Mostly Spanish doubloons, but some silver reales, and coins from a few other countries. Dutch, French, Portuguese.”

“A cursory search on the Internet,” piped in Celine, who had been able to put her computer geek skills to good use, “estimates the value in the range of two to three million.”

“It’ll be even higher if we can establish the provenance to Lafitte through one of those unusual necklaces,” Caleb pointed out.

“I have a jewelry expert friend of mine working on that right now,” Adam said.

“Celine, some of us have been talking,” Jake began, “and we don’t think you should run your story ’til there’s a verdict in the trial and the bad guys are in jail.” She was about to object . . . that could take weeks, but Jake continued, “You gotta know that once we announce this treasure and where it was located, reporters and every looney bird Harrison Ford wannabe is gonna flock to Bayou Black. The Mafia thugs might deduce, just by proximity to René LeDeux’s cabin, that John has been hiding out here.”

“Won’t there always be that threat to John?” she asked, not looking at him, suddenly realizing that she had ammunition against his custody threats. She and Etienne would always be at risk, just by association with him.

“No, there won’t,” John insisted. “No more than a lawyer who prosecutes a criminal, or a stockbroker who loses a pigload of money for a client through no fault of his own, or a newspaper reporter who offends just about every breathing body in the universe.” He cast her a “So there!” smirk.

Celine wasn’t convinced of his logic, but she would save that argument for later.

“We’ve come to trust you, Celine,” Ronnie added. “Therefore, I see no reason why you can’t return to your home,
provided
that you assure us there will be no story ’til we give the go-ahead . . . and, of course, don’t mention John’s involvement. John’s boss called a little bit ago and gave his okay, reluctantly.”

She nodded, although she wasn’t sure her editor would agree to the delay. In fact, she could lose her job over the issue.

“René is gonna have a bird tryin’ to keep them amateur treasure hunters from trampin’ around his precious bayou,” John pointed out.

“We’ll try our best not to be specific about the discovery site, and we’ll alert the state to set up ‘No Trespassing’ signs all along Bayou Black,” Ronnie said. “That won’t eliminate the problem, but it should alleviate it.”

“I think we should have a big party, Cajun style, to announce the Pirate Project treasures,” Tante Lulu interjected, changing the subject, as usual. “A reg’lar
fais do-do
, a party down on the bayou.” She was walking around the table, refilling glasses of lemonade, sweet tea, or rhubarb wine.

“If it’s anything like the one we did for the cave pearl project, we can work it to our advantage. Great press for Jinx, Inc., and control of how the story is presented to the media.” Caleb glanced sheepishly at Celine. “In fact, maybe our resident newshound could help us with that.”

“Maybe,” she hedged. She’d already crossed the line between objectivity and bias long ago on this story.

“Hey, I have a great idea,” Angel said. “I have some Hells Angels pals—”

“Angel is big into motorcycles,” Grace interjected, as if Angel needed her backup.

“Some of these bikers are heavily involved in pirate crap. I mean, they have their own reenactment events, and Web sites on how to talk pirate and how to hook up with other pirates. This whole phenomenon is called pirattitude,” Angel explained. “They probably figure that bikers are modern-day pirates.”

“It could be great fun.” Tante Lulu was practically dancing with glee. “In fact, we could all dress up like pirates.”

There were some groans around the table, Adam and Caleb both demurring on their actually donning such hokey costumes . . . although Tante Lulu would probably talk them into it.

“And you could get an exclusive,” Ronnie told her, the message being, you rub our back, we rub yours.

Just then the bleeping of the video game stopped and Etienne sidled up to Angel, apparently having heard the word
pirate.
“Do you know Johnny Depp?”

Angel laughed and said, “No.”

Finding Angel no longer interesting, he walked over to Celine and climbed up onto her lap. In one of the brief silences, Etienne announced, “John was makin’ googly eyes at my mom t’day when she wasn’t lookin’. Pete says boys and girls make googly eyes when they wanna make babies.” He made loud kissing noises for those who didn’t get the whole picture, which was no one.

Laughter erupted around the table.

Encouraged by this show of appreciation, Etienne elaborated, “Girls give boys cooties when they kiss.”

“This from Pete again, I suppose,” John said.

“Yep. Did you ever get cooties?” the bundle of bigmouth joy in her lap asked John.

“Lots of times.”

“Eeeh!
My
mom never kissed a boy.”

“Is that a fact?” John remarked, glancing her way.

“Uh-huh. She tol’ me.”

She sat there, her face turning five shades of red, she suspected.

Everyone was laughing, which made Etienne think he had done something wonderful. He grinned from ear to ear. “John tol’ me that boys kin—” he started to say.

She slapped a hand against his mouth.

Now John was blushing. She could only imagine what he’d told Etienne.

Tante Lulu pretty well summed up the situation: “Tee-John, this is payback fer all the years ya did jist the same thing ta yer brothers and Charmaine. Remember the time ya asked Luc about penile rings, right out in public?”

Into the stunned silence, Etienne asked, “What’s a pee-nail ring?”

John had been at René’s cabin by himself for five days, waiting for a verdict. Everyone else had left.

He cleaned up the work site, packed tents, folded tables and chairs, stored pirogues, and, throughout it all, was generally thinking, thinking, thinking. It was lonely here, but not bad lonely. He needed solitary time to consider everything that had happened and what he wanted for the future.

It was a life-defining moment, and not to be taken lightly. His head needed to be on straight before he made any final decisions.

At one moment, the burning rage would take over, and he vowed to fight Celine in court for full custody of Etienne. He’d even talked it over several times with Luc, who kept trying to discourage such drastic action. It didn’t seem drastic to him. Drastic was keeping a father ignorant of his son’s existence for five years.

In saner moments, he admitted to himself that he was incapable at the present time of caring for a kid. First of all, he had to work, sometimes up to eighty hours a week. It would be unfair to leave Etienne alone all that time, even if his family would help out. Still, it rankled that Celine would win, and that’s how it felt. A juvenile opinion, he knew, but there it was.

Then, too, having a kid forced a man to become responsible . . . mature even. And John resisted growing up. Yeah, at twenty-eight he should be past all the wildness, but that choice should have been his, dammit.

Then that insane fury would return, and he didn’t care about the consequences. He wanted his son, and he would have him, no matter the collateral damage.

He was trying to catch some crawfish for his dinner, using a green leafy branch and a long-handled net, when he heard the sound of an engine. Soon Remy’s hydroplane had landed in the stream, churning up the waters, thus putting an end to his crawfishing for the day.

“Surprise!” someone yelled.

And his entire friggin’ family converged on his alone time.

Luc, Sylvie, Remy, Rachel, René, Val, Charmaine, Rusty, and Tante Lulu. The only saving grace was that they’d left their kids behind.

“We come ta give ya an intervention,” Tante Lulu said right off.

“For what?” Horrified, he took the bag she handed him and her purse that felt as if she was carting around a dozen bricks.

“Yer wild ways. Bein’ a good daddy. Fightin’ the thunderbolt. Lookin’ fer love in all the wrong places. Marryin’ up with yer baby’s mother. Take yer pick.” Tante Lulu was already huffing and puffing toward the porch.

He looked at his brothers for help. They just shrugged, as they, too, lugged bags of what he assumed were groceries. Were they planning an extended stay?

“We just wanna give you advice, sugah,” Charmaine said. Her husband Rusty was having a good time watching her ass, which had been poured into a pair of skintight white jeans, as she walked up the incline in a pair of red cowboy boots. Typical Charmaine!

It was also typical of Rusty to be so obsessed with his wife.

“What kind of advice?” John rushed after her.

“Luuuvvve advice,” René said, catching up and waggling his eyebrows at him.

“I am not in love. Celine is not in love. Forget the frickin’ love.”

“You
made
love, John, and you
made
a child.” Sylvie, Luc’s wife, leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Everything would be a lot easier if you could fall in love with Celine. In fact, I have a jelly bean I could give you.”

“Don’t you dare give me any dumbass love potion jelly bean. Whatever I decide to do, it will be about Etienne and what’s best for him, not his lying mother.”

“Couples don’t get together or stay together for the sake of a child today,” Val, ever the feminist lawyer, said to Sylvie, then advised him, “Don’t let anyone guilt you into hasty action . . . even if I do think a merger between you and Celine would be a good idea.”

“Mer-merger?” he sputtered out. “
Mon Dieu!
”

“Court should be a last resort, as I’ve told you at least a dozen times this week,” Luc addressed him. To the others, Luc explained, “Tee-John has a skull as thick as a hundred-year-old bayou turtle.”

“I want to get to know my son; I have five years to make up for. And I can’t do that on the occasional weekend or a few weeks of summer vacation. Celine won’t agree. So, I sue her butt off. End of story.”

“I hope you didn’t tell her like that,” Rachel said.

His face heated up.

“He did!” Sylvie hooted.

“No wonder she’s stopped talking to him,” Val remarked.

“Dumber ’n dirt,” Tante Lulu proclaimed. “Thass what men are when it comes ta wooin’ a woman.”

“Hey, I’m a good wooer. Not that I’m wooin’ Celine.”

“You need another St. Jude statue,” Tante Lulu concluded.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think you guys are takin’ a risk comin’ here en masse like this? What if you’re bein’ followed?”

“Hah! You wouldn’t believe the maze Luc made us follow to get to Remy’s plane in Lafayette,” René complained. “We all had to go separately. Then we set up these sort of dummy figures in each of our houses to appear as if we’re home. All for you, bro.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

An hour later they were sitting at the newspaper- covered table expertly devouring crawfish; he’d added the two dozen he caught to the bushel they’d brought. In between, they ate buttered sweet corn on the cob, and thick slices of garden tomatoes covered with olive oil and vinegar and liberally dusted with salt and pepper. All of it washed down with Dixie beer. Another Cajun feast.

“Okay, we gotta come up with a plan,” Charmaine said, licking the butter off her fingers, while Rusty watched, fascinated. When a southern belle caught a man, she caught him good, John observed silently. “A Tee-John Plan.”

“Huh?” He choked on a mixture of beer and crawfish spices. By the time he cleared his throat, the gang was going full guns ahead.

“I don’t think we can do the usual Village People routine,” Sylvie said. In the past, his family had pulled off these hokey Village People entertainment events, dressed as sexy cowboys, construction workers, Indians, and, yes, cops, all to convince either one of their own, or their love-to-be, that it was a match made in heaven . . . Cajun heaven.

John had participated in every single one of them, enjoying immensely the target of their song/dance revues. He would not enjoy being the target. Before he could say so, not that it would deter anyone, Tante Lulu mused, “Well, Celine is a newspaper reporter . . . like that Lois Lane gal, and—”

Everyone, except him, got all excited as ideas popped into their dingy heads.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Once he got them quieted down, he said, “Listen, I think it’s time we retired the Village People nutcase spectacles.”

“Says he who instigated many of them,” Remy remarked.

He ignored Remy. “Seriously, we LeDeuxs have a reputation now for being flaming goofballs.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Charmaine demanded to know.

“Especially after the last one . . . the secret wedding for René.”

“Now ya gone too far, Tee-John,” Tante Lulu said, smacking him on the arm with a wooden spoon. “That was one of my best St. Jude plans.”

“I liked it,” Val said in a soft voice. She and René exchanged one of those I-love-you-baby looks.

“You didn’t at the time,” John pointed out.

“Back to Lois Lane,” Charmaine said. “I think it has possibilities.”

“If you think for one damn minute that I’m gonna wear tights and a Superman cape, you’ve got another thing comin’. Jeesh! Next you’ll be askin’ me to jump off some tall New Orleans building.”

“Mebbe jist a small buildin’, sweetie.” Tante Lulu was now patting the same arm she’d just whacked with her spoon.

“You could probably get Etienne to play Robin,” Luc offered.

Traitor!
he mouthed at him.

Luc just smirked.

“Well, I get to be Catwoman.” This from Charmaine, of course.

“Hey, I wanted to be Catwoman,” Rachel whined.