The Legacy (14 page)

I
NDIGO HAD BECOME
a town transformed. People were bustling up and down the streets, circling the town square and the opera house, adding the finishing touches for the CajunFest.

Last night, Loretta’s VIP dinner in the opera house lobby had been a huge hit. The food was great, catered primarily by Luc’s cousin, a chef in New Orleans, and after all the paint and polish, the lobby and auditorium of the opera house looked much as they must have years ago. There was still work to be done, but the guests last night had been duly impressed. Marjo took that as a good—no, very good—sign of the opera house’s future.

The morning had dawned sunny and slightly warm. Colorful booths crowded the grassy lawn like some exotic market. The scent of Loretta’s tasty artisanal breads drifted through the air from her booth, along with the hum of musicians tuning up inside the opera house. The doors of the building were open, welcoming anyone who wanted to step into Indigo’s past.

Marjo gave tours of the building in the morning, then helped the various acts on and off the stage, doing the introductions so Alain could coordinate security with his deputies and off-duty officers he’d called in from neighboring forces.

The busier Marjo stayed, the easier it was to push her worries about the funeral home and her future to the side. She also wasn’t quite ready to deal with the incredible night she’d spent with Paul Clermont. As awesome as it had been, all it had done was muddy the waters, leaving her more confused than ever. Was this a fling? Or the start of something more?

And if it was, did she have room in her life for that right now? Was she willing to risk the safe, secure world she had created for herself and Gabriel for something that might not end in happily-ever-after?

Tomorrow, she’d deal with all that. Hadn’t that philosophy worked for Scarlett O’Hara?

Okay, it hadn’t, at least not with a happily-ever-after.

During the day, Jenny and other committee members had come up to Marjo, apologizing for wanting to pull the plug on the project. “You’ve worked a miracle,” Jenny said. “Thank God you finally convinced Paul Clermont to back this.”

Marjo wasn’t so sure she’d convinced Paul of a darn thing. At least, not after last night. He’d left before she woke up, leaving a note on her pillow that said he had a special surprise for her today.

There wasn’t a word of affection in the note. He’d simply scrawled his name at the bottom. What did that mean?

She pushed him out of her mind and made her way back up to the opera house stage. Nearly every seat was filled. She wasn’t sure about numbers yet, but from what she’d seen of the crowds around town and here, the festival was going to be even more successful than they’d thought. Jenny had told her they’d sold hundreds of the vintage postcards Hugh had had printed before his death from different periods of Indigo’s history.

Marjo slipped behind the thick curtains and peeked out. She saw plenty of happy faces, and many people had bags filled with purchases from the various booths. Sophie’s idea of expanding the CajunFest to include businesses from neighboring towns had been a great idea and ensured wider media coverage. Already, there had been some buzz about future performances at the opera house.

The future of the opera house and the town, which Marjo and so many others had worked hard for, was finally coming to fruition.

“They’ll be talking about this day at the Blue Moon for the next year,” Alain said, coming up beside her. “I’ve never seen this many people in Indigo. We’re practically a city.”

Marjo laughed. “It is amazing, isn’t it? I mean, the committee was hoping to hit twenty thousand attendees, but I don’t think any of us really thought it would happen.”

“You should see Luc. The man is in heaven. His bayou cruises are booked for today but people are making reservations like crazy. He’s going to have to hire someone to help him and maybe even spring for another boat come spring.”

“We have a party going on,” Cally said, coming up to them. She swiveled her hips in a little dance. Cally was in charge of set design, moving the backgrounds and curtains for each act. Her clothes were a bit dusty, but the smile on her face said she was having fun.

Marjo laughed. “It does feel pretty festive, doesn’t it?”

“Totally.”

They waved Alain off as he headed over to check on the next act. Loretta’s daughter Zara was just beginning her fiddle solo, and Alain was already beaming at his young student. Zara had really come around in the last few weeks, as if her mother’s happiness with Luc had rubbed off on her daughter, too.

Cally touched Marjo’s shoulder. “I just wanted to pop in with a quick hello before I find a seat to watch the Indigo Boneshakers. Billy Paul is playing and I’d hate to miss it.”

“Things seem to be heating up between the two of you,” Marjo said.

“Hey, he’s a drummer.” Cally winked. “You know I can’t resist a man who knows how to use his sticks.”

Marjo was still laughing as Cally left. The Indigo
Boneshakers were the next act, and once they were set up, Marjo headed out to the stage to introduce them. She glanced at the bio that had been printed in the program, then noticed the next act.

Paul Clermont and Alain Boudreaux. Fiddle duet.

Her heart skipped a beat. She’d been too busy today to see much more than a glimpse of Paul, and each time she had, he’d been in the company of one of the locals.

It seemed as if the man from Cape Breton had been unofficially adopted by the town. All Marjo had to do was to look to see why. His contribution had been like a shot of caffeine to a town that had almost given up on this festival, especially since Hugh’s death.

Marjo finished her introduction, then returned to the wings of the stage, watching the Boneshakers get their show under way. In the back corner of the auditorium, a friend of the band’s was selling copies of their newly created CD.

“There you are.”

She turned and saw Paul standing a few feet away, a fiddle in his hand. He had on a light blue button-down shirt, open at the neck, exposing just a tease of the chest she had explored last night. His jeans hugged his hips, sending a shiver of desire through her. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi, yourself.” He grinned, the approval in his eyes making her glad she’d chosen a figure-flattering dark cranberry dress. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That…and more,” she said, one corner of her mouth turning up.

He chuckled. “Maybe we can, uh, get acquainted again, after my set.”

“Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?”

“Considering you nearly killed me last night, I might need to keep a defibrillator on the nightstand.”

“Hey, the fourth time was all your idea.”

“I can’t help it.” He took a step forward, his hand reaching up to cup her chin, thumb tracing along her lower lip. “You make me crazy. You have from the first day I met you.”

“At least it’s a better crazy now than it was that day.”

“Much better,” Paul murmured just before leaning down and kissing her.

Everything went still within her at his touch. When he pulled back and looked down at her, there was something in his eyes that was much deeper than the simple heat of attraction.

“Marjo, while I was in Cape Breton, I did a lot of thinking,” he said. “I didn’t just come back to Indigo to see you. I also came to tell you that I want you to be with me.” He took her hands in his. “All the time.”

For a second she thought he was proposing, then she realized the word marriage hadn’t even skated along the edge of his sentence.

“I can’t leave here.” She gestured toward the stage. “I’m introducing all the acts.”

“I meant after this is all over. I have to go to Tibet
to do a piece on an ancient temple that’s been unearthed in a mountainside. I want you with me. I want you to see what I see when I travel the world. I want you to see what the world is like outside of Indigo.”

“Tibet?” Marjo stepped back. “I can’t go to Tibet.”

“Why not? It would only be for a couple of weeks. When you come back, it’ll probably be time to oversee the reconstruction of the funeral home. Besides, right now you’re unemployed and madly in love with me.” He grinned. “A win-win all around.”

She didn’t debate the madly-in-love part. She wasn’t quite sure yet how she felt about Paul Clermont, except that whenever he was around she experienced a tightening in her chest and a sense of breathless anticipation that filled her whenever he wasn’t around. “I may be unemployed, but I still have Gabriel. And there’s plenty of other things to do before the rebuild starts—”

“Come with me, Marjo, and leave all that behind. For just a little while. After all this, you deserve a vacation.”

The idea was tempting. It curled around her, urging her to say yes, to forget all those responsibilities for a few days. A week. A month. To finally put herself first, instead of an entire town. And Gabriel.

Over at La Petite Maison, her trusting brother was helping Luc with the boat tours. Probably waiting for the day to be over so that he and Marjo could go
home, have dinner and maybe a cold glass of tea on the porch while they listened to the night sounds and debated the merits of vanilla ice cream over Rocky Road.

Who was she kidding? Marjo couldn’t remember the last time they’d done that. It used to be a daily thing, but then, sometime in the last year, those evenings on the porch had stopped. Gabriel was out more often than he was in. Usually with Darcy.

It seemed as if she was losing her brother. Just the thought of him not being here left her feeling empty. At odds. If that was how she felt, how would it be for Gabriel if she went to Tibet?

“I want to go with you,” Marjo said to Paul. “But there’s still too much holding me here. Maybe in another year or—”

“Another year?” He frowned. “There’s nothing holding you here, Marjo, except yourself.”

“That’s not true.”

“No one in this town expects you to carry the burden by yourself. Just look around the festival, at the dozens of people who are working to give Indigo a new lease on life.”

“I head up the committees. There’ll be a lot of work once the festival is over. I need to coordinate all that.”

“What happened when Hugh died? Life went on. The festival still happened.” He studied her. “What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“You are, too. You’re terrified to change your life.
To do anything more than sing at Skeeter’s because you are too damned afraid to leave this town. Indigo isn’t a home for you, it’s a security blanket.”

The words hit home, but Marjo refused to accept their truth. “How dare you say that?”

“Because I’ve seen it in my own family. My mother, too afraid to leave Cape Breton, yet at the same time too afraid to deal with life when my father wasn’t there. My cousins, struggling for years, hoping next year’s catch would be better and refusing to learn another trade because fishing was what they knew. They tied themselves to a world that had nothing to offer.”

“Nothing except family.”

“Family doesn’t pay the bills, Marjo.” He shook his head. “The place they loved became a trap.”

“And you escaped that trap by traveling, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes. And so can you.” Paul’s expression filled with concern. “I want you with me, Marjo. I want to show you my world.”

“Paul, I live here because it’s my home. Not because it’s some prison I want to escape. You don’t understand.”

“I understand all right.” She couldn’t mistake the hurt in his voice.

For a second she wanted to take it all back, to tell him yes, she’d go to Tibet, hop on the first plane out of here with him and never look back. But if she did, she’d be lying. As much as she wanted to, she truly couldn’t leave.

She was needed here, to comfort the grieving, to give Gabriel a home and to help him navigate the waters ahead. She couldn’t do any of those things from some mountainside in Tibet.

The music stopped and applause erupted from the audience, telling her that the Boneshakers were done with their set. Alain came striding up, his fiddle already in his hands. He clapped Paul on the back. “You ready?” He looked at Marjo. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not interrupting, am I?”

“No, you aren’t interrupting anything,” Paul said. “Nothing important at all.” Then he walked over to Alain, and the second the Boneshakers exited the stage, Paul strode out, fiddle in hand, trailed by Alain. Paul didn’t even wait for Marjo to introduce them before launching into the fiddle duet.

Just as well, she told herself. His offer had probably been brought about by lingering feelings from last night. Tomorrow, he’d change his mind.

But as she looked out over the audience and saw Sophie, Alain’s very pregnant wife, beaming at her husband, Marjo’s chest constricted. Sophie’s love for Alain was evident in every inch of her face, in the protective hand she rested on her abdomen, as if the baby were included in this moment between them.

Envy raced through Marjo. She wanted that for herself, too. She always had, no matter what lies she had told herself so that she could get through the hard days after her parents died.

She glanced again at Paul. With just a few words, she would be closer to making that dream come true.

The problem was, she would be forced to choose—her brother over Paul. She’d had to make a similar choice once before, and had opted for Gabriel, as she always had.

Marjo turned away from the sight of Sophie and Alain. She was making the right decision, she was sure of it. If so, why did it drive such a painful wedge into her heart?

A
S SOON AS
Paul launched into his duet with Alain, he knew he’d been wrong to force Marjo to make such a big decision on the spur of the moment. He glanced over at her and he could see her fiery spirit in her eyes, her smile, the way she stood.

She deserved more than what she allowed herself. The problem was convincing her of that.

When the duet was over, the crowd applauded and cheered in appreciation, Paul glanced at the program that sat beside his sheet music. Beneath his and Alain’s names, he saw that the following act had been crossed out, with the word canceled written beside it.

Marjolaine Savoy.

Before Marjo could come onto the stage and announce the next act, Paul took the mike in his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce an incredible singer—Miss Marjo Savoy. Please give her a warm welcome.”

From the sidelines, Marjo shot him the kind of look that could be considered a felony in certain
states. He just grinned, laid down his fiddle then crossed the stage and grabbed her hand before she could back out again.

The audience clapped in anticipation. “I’m sorry for pushing you into a decision about traveling with me,” Paul said. “You’re right. You do have responsibilities here. A life.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, speechless. From the audience, a couple of people called her name.

“Just give me this one song, and afterward, we’ll figure out a way to make this relationship work. A way that works for both of us, whether you’re here or I’m there. Just sing for me, Marjo, and we’ll work it out.”

“You’re nuts.” She shook her head, but he detected a lilting laughter in her voice.

“Yeah, maybe I am,” he conceded. “But you are amazing, so please give this crowd—” he waved toward the audience, who were chanting her name by now “—what they want. And what you want. You
can
have it all, Marjo, if you try.”

“One song,” she said, making no promises about the rest.

Once she reached the center of the stage, Marjo froze, the panic clear in her eyes. But then, as soon as she grabbed the microphone, everything within her seemed to relax, as if she’d just come home at the end of a long day.

Paul picked up his fiddle, moved into place
behind her and started the song he had been practicing all last night. The same one she had sung a capella to him, and then again in Skeeter’s. The song that had never left his mind since she’d granted him that private concert. He struck the first note, sure she was going to clam up just to spite him.

Instead, Marjo opened her mouth and began to sing. Not just sing—this time she created magic with her voice, captivating the audience with the French words, telling a story with only notes and inflection, bringing the old Cajun tune to life.

After she finished, the audience applauded wildly, then called for more. “Do you know
Quelle Etoile?
” she asked Paul.

He did, thankfully. He nodded, then started the new song with its story about which star to seek. Once again, she stepped in with perfect pitch and tone.

They did three more songs, a couple of Cajun waltzes and a fast-paced song about broken hearts, all at the urging of the audience. With each one, Paul saw a different side of Marjo emerge, like a butterfly that had finally been released from its cocoon. This was clearly what she was meant to do.

When she finished, the two of them hurried off the stage to make room for Heather Bateman. Marjo had told Paul that Heather, an accomplished classical violinist, had come to Indigo in the summer to convince her sister Joan to leave the small town. But Heather had fallen in love with Samuel Kane, an
Indigo carpenter, and hadn’t left yet. The fiddle she lifted to her shoulder was a priceless antique that had been in Samuel’s family for generations. As she started playing a Cajun tune, Paul caught sight of Samuel in the audience, love and pride radiating from his eyes.

Marjo stood in the wings of the stage, clearly exuberant about the performance she and Paul had just completed. “You were right.”

“Wow. Twice in the space of two weeks you’ve said that. Are you sure you haven’t just transplanted the real Marjo with a kinder, gentler version?”

She gave him a light jab. “Watch it, or I’ll hit you again. Lower.”

He grinned. “You wouldn’t dare, because that would ruin all your fun, too.”

Marjo blushed, but she had to admit Paul was right, and not just about protecting her interests. Singing in the opera house had fulfilled a lifelong dream of hers. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Thank you.” For returning. For the unforgettable time in her bed last night. And for giving her an experience onstage that she would remember forever.

“Marjolaine Savoy?”

Marjo turned and saw a tall man in a black suit with thick white pinstripes. He was balding, and wore wire-rimmed glasses that were too wide for his face, giving him the appearance of a wise old owl. Maybe that was why he wore the trendy suit. “Yes? That’s me.”

“Dave Basie, with the Merit Agency in New York.” He put out his hand, took Marjo’s and gave it a firm shake. “I was very impressed.”

For a second Marjo stood there, mouth agape. She recognized the name of the agency. Surely he wasn’t here for her.

“We’ve got a lot of talent in our little town,” she agreed. “The Indigo Boneshakers even put together a CD—”

“I was referring to you.”

She heard the words, but they didn’t process for a long second. “With
me?
”

“The other acts were impressive, I agree. And I’ll recommend some of them to my colleagues. But you have a unique style and sound. Not quite traditional Cajun, but not middle America, either.”

“I—I don’t know what to say.” She glanced over at Paul, who had a Cheshire cat smile on his face.

The agent grinned. “That’s the easy part. Say you’ll allow me to represent you and then we’ll take your voice to the next level. Record deals, concert dates—”

She put up her hands to stop him. “I can’t do all that. I can’t leave here. I have a job, my brother.”

He reached into the breast pocket of his suit, pulled out a monogrammed silver case. From it, he withdrew a business card, which he placed in her hand. She stared at it. A couple decades ago, this would have been the answer to all her dreams, to all she had trained for when she was young.

“I know, all this is a little overwhelming right now,” he said. “Take my card and think about it. Call me when you make up your mind.” He gave her a smile, then sent a nod Paul’s way. “Thank you for bringing me down here. You were right, it
was
worth my time.” Then he turned and left.

Holy cow. An agent. Here. Listening to her. And even more,
liking
what he heard.

“You did this?” she said to Paul.

He grinned. “Yep.”

“But…why?”

He pulled her further into the recesses of the stage, where old sets and props lay stacked against the wall. “Because you have a wonderful talent, Marjo, and I really believe it’s one you should share with the world.”

“I appreciate that, Paul, but I just can’t do anything right now. Maybe next year—”

“You need to do something now, Marjo.” There was an urgency in Paul’s voice.

“When Gabriel doesn’t need me anymore, I can call that agent.”

“Gabriel is grown up. You’re the one who’s afraid of letting go and moving forward.” He shook his head, and a sadness filled his eyes that nearly killed her. “When you’re ready to make room for something more than just a single appearance.”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the opera house that had once inspired romantic dreams in Marjo.

P
AUL WALKED THROUGH
the festival, trying a sample of Loretta’s breads and her father’s honey, sampling a new recipe from Willis’s kitchen at the Blue Moon Diner and thanking Joan Bateman for writing the brochure. He also picked up a copy of her latest book,
Bayou Betrayal.
“I had no idea you wrote under the pseudonym Jules Burrell,” he said. “I’ve read almost all his—your—books.”

Joan winked. “It was a secret for a long time, but I have to admit, it’s fun having people—especially fans—know who I am.”

“Well, I’m glad for something new to read. I finished your last book yesterday and already need another crime mystery fix.”

“Thank you. Hope you enjoy this one, too,” she said as she signed the book and handed it over to him.

Everywhere he went at the festival, it seemed he ran into someone he knew. As he made his way down the main street of Indigo, he felt a heaviness descend over his heart. Leaving this place a second time—the final time—would be harder than he’d thought.

As much as he’d hoped otherwise, it was clear nothing was ever going to happen between him and Marjo. He couldn’t will a relationship with her and she didn’t want to make room in her life for one.

Staying would only prolong the inevitable. There was no way he could live here and see her every day, knowing they had no future.

He took his camera out of the bag that was per
petually over his shoulder and snapped a few more shots of Indigo. Eventually he wandered behind St. Timothy’s Church, slipping in and out among the gravestones in the small cemetery behind the building. Finally he came to the white marble vault of the Valois family.

Alexandre and Amelie. Together in death, even if they had been robbed of the long, happy life they’d wanted. Paul touched the smooth marble.

They had been here. Lived in this place. Loved each other.

Was staying in one place really so bad? What if he kept traveling…and missed out on a love as deep and everlasting as theirs had been?

He took a photo of the vault with the angel on top, then the battery beeped a warning that it was getting low. Time to quit. To leave Indigo and Marjolaine Savoy. He tucked his camera back into his backpack, then headed for his rental car.

He’d go back to the bed-and-breakfast and book the first flight out, before he tried something really stupid to get Marjo’s attention—like propose.