Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1) Read online

  She looked up at him, and a playful glint shone in those remarkable blue-gray eyes. He’d seen her angry, sad, determined, frightened. He hadn’t seen playful, and he liked it.

  “You’re only asking me to dinner so I’ll leave the cabin. Then you think you can flash your dimples at me a few times and I’ll let you talk me out of coming back here tonight.” She paused. “I have the gift of reading people, just like my Tante Eva. She taught me well. How am I doing?”

  Gentry scowled with effort. She’d noticed he had dimples, which shouldn’t make him so damned pleased with himself. “Out of curiosity, had you not seen right through me, would that tactic have worked? Is there any way I can talk you out of spending the night here other than physically hauling you out?”

  Ceelie picked up the andouille and stuck it in the fridge. “Not a chance, and if you manhandle me, I’m suing Wildlife and Fisheries. I could use the money.” She turned to face him and propped her hands on her hips, but her expression wasn’t combative. “Look, it really hit me today: I own this place. It’s mine, and I’ve never owned anything more valuable than my guitar. I can’t let this jackass scare me off that easily. If I go, then he’s won, hasn’t he? And I don’t want him to win.”

  She began wrestling the outer wrapping off the megapack of ramen noodles, the favorite fare of broke college students everywhere. Gentry reached out and put a hand over both of hers, stilling them. “This isn’t about winning, Ceelie. It’s about making sure you’re safe.”

  “I have a new knife,” she said. Stubborn had set in and was trotting toward pig-headed. “And an old ax.”

  Gentry shook his head and pulled his hand away. “Fine. Dig in your heels, then. Get these doors and windows locked as soon as I leave. Don’t open the door for anyone.”

  She cocked her head. “Even you?”

  He wasn’t joking anymore and gave her a hard look. “Even me, unless I call first. You hear anything, even if you aren’t sure what it is, you call me or the sheriff’s office. I’ll check on you first thing in the morning.”

  She cocked her head. “Why do you care?”

  Damned good question. “Because I obviously have a weakness for women who don’t have the good sense to take care of themselves.” And he was an idiot in general.

  “Don’t waste your weakness on me.”

  After he walked back onto the porch, Ceelie slammed the door behind him and he heard the lock click.

  “She’s determined to stay.” Gentry shook his head at Meizel, who waited by his car. “You guys got anybody patrolling this area tonight?”

  Meizel nodded. “I’ll make sure we do. I don’t like her being out here by herself, though.” He raised his eyebrows. “Thought maybe you’d say you were gonna spend the night. You know, as an acquaintance and all.”

  “Acquaintance only gets you so far with a woman that stubborn,” Gentry said, walking toward his truck. “I’ll check on her tomorrow.”

  “Call me directly if you hear from her during the night. I go off duty in a couple of hours, but I want to know if there’s more trouble.”

  Gentry agreed, climbed in his truck, and drove back to the Jiffy Stop. He bought a turkey sandwich that looked about three months old, along with two chocolate bars and a couple of bottles of water.

  Next, he made a quick run to his friend’s place in Chauvin and bought a nice little AC unit that looked like new.

  Finally, he called Warren to let him know he was going off duty as planned, drove back down the bayou, and switched his truck into all-wheel drive just past Ceelie’s driveway. He pulled to the side of the road until he saw no vehicles in sight, then cut the truck into a muddy stand of trees a dozen yards south of the drive.

  Gentry parked where he had a reasonably clear view of her front and side porches but was hidden from the road. He killed the engine and watched the cabin a minute before pulling the cellophane off his dinner. It was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 10

  Ceelie stood on the edge of the porch, squinting through the early-morning sunlight toward the small stand of trees a few dozen yards south of the cabin.

  “That man is more stubborn than I am,” she muttered. “Not to mention a control freak.”

  It wasn’t a compliment. Whoever sat in the black pickup wasn’t visible to her except in silhouette, but she doubted Tante Eva’s murderer drove a pickup the size of a tank that happened to be the same color as the ones driven by the state’s wildlife agents. The sheriff’s vehicles all seemed to be either brown or white.

  Dusting flour off the front of her light-blue tank and smoothing her braid, she left the door open and returned to her kitchen. She poured a second cup of coffee and set it next to her own. Unless he’d fallen asleep, which she doubted, Gentry had seen her watching him and knew he’d been busted.

  At least she had extra biscuits in the oven. Only because she could save the leftovers for dinner, of course, and not because she’d thought he might drive by this morning, instead of calling, to make sure she hadn’t been murdered in her sleep. The man had called her stupid, and the fact he was right made it sting even more. Plus, he’d put in the deadbolt. She figured a biscuit would be apology enough.

  Ceelie barely had time to pull out a pan for the eggs before he stomped into sight outside the open door, stopping to knock mud off his boots by banging them on the front side of the porch that overhung the bayou.

  “Sleep well?” She propped her hands on her hips and made note of the pickup-truck version of bedhead, dark circles under his eyes, and a healthy case of stubble. The rumpled hair and stubbly jawline looked disturbingly good on him. The dark circles wouldn’t rock anybody’s world.

  “I slept like shit, plus you caught me.” He grinned, and she shook her head, turning back to the important work of cracking eggs into a big stoneware bowl.

  “That I did.” She didn’t want to catch him. How many sins had been forgiven by one look at those dimples and those melted-chocolate eyes? Plenty, she bet. Senior Agent Gentry Broussard and his pheromone-emitting weapons belt probably had strung a line of broken hearts all across Terrebonne Parish. She didn’t plan to be one of them.

  “When did you know I was out there?” He took off the offending belt and laid it on one of the dining chairs—within easy reach should a raving murderer come storming through the door, although Ceelie doubted that would happen.

  “I only knew for sure this morning that you were out there.” She set a cup of coffee in front of him. “What I knew last night is that I was safe; I just didn’t know why.”

  Gentry sipped the coffee, then got up to add some of the milk and sugar she’d set on the counter. “Explain.”

  “You like andouille?” When he nodded, Ceelie chopped bits of sausage into fine chunks and set it aside, along with a few cubes of cheese. “Look at the throwing table—the little table in front of the window where Tante Eva had her ritual stuff.”

  Frowning, Gentry took his coffee cup and walked over to look at the table. Ceelie didn’t need to look: she’d unrolled the leather scroll last night and spread it over the cleaned tabletop. The two tallow candles she’d placed at northwest and southeast—rituals required the opposite poles from divination. A white circle had been outlined in salt on the middle of the leather. Inside the circle sat a small basket of yellow, red, cream, and black, a centuries-old piece made from woven river cane and passed down through generations of the Chitimacha branch of her family.

  He looked back at her. “I still don’t understand. Are you a voo—” He caught himself. “Are you a practitioner?”

  Ceelie was tempted to spout a bunch of voodoo-sounding nonsense at him but decided to cut him some slack. After all, the guy had worked all day and then stayed up all night, sitting in a truck in the woods to make sure she was safe. All because she’d trusted her intuition. It had rarely failed her, but that was a hard thing to explain to a nonbeliever.

  Plus, he was no tourist. He’d grown up around this stuff, so he’d respe
ct it even if he didn’t believe in it.

  “A practitioner? Yes and no.” She finished the andouille omelet she’d made by adding a light sprinkle of cheese. Then she halved it and slid the halves onto two of Tante Eva’s old plates. The dated green-and-yellow floral pattern that danced around the rims was crackled with age and heavy use. “Sit down and eat breakfast, and I’ll explain.”

  He walked back to the table and pulled out one of the chairs. “I’ll trade you what’s in the back of my truck for breakfast if you’ll throw in one of those biscuits.” When she turned to look at him, Ceelie was struck by a couple of things—how much room he took up in this tiny cabin and how much she liked seeing him here.

  The man was a danger to womankind.

  “I bet you have a dog, don’t you?” Too bad Sonia wasn’t here to make a bet with her. “I bet you have a big dog. Or two of them.”

  “What?” Gentry looked puzzled. “Just one. His name is Hoss and he’s lord of the beastmasters. Why?”

  “Hoss.” Because he was probably the size of Hoss Cartwright from the old Bonanza reruns . . . or he was the size of an actual horse. Probably a stallion.

  It confirmed her worst fears. They might have chemistry, but getting mixed up with a born-and-bred Terrebonne Parish man would ruin her life, never mind stall her career plans. Said plans were admittedly vague, but she was pretty certain hooking up with a Louisiana game warden wasn’t part of them.

  Still, it was just breakfast. He hadn’t so much as hinted at anything more.

  “What’s in your truck that’s worth so much?” She dumped the hot biscuits into a napkin-lined plastic basket and held it just out of his reach. “I don’t serve my homemade biscuits to just anyone. They come at a high price.” And there she went, flirting, and he wasn’t even wearing the belt with the dangly bits.

  He reached for the basket and wrapped his fingers around her forearm, tugging the biscuits close enough to grab one. “I was over by Chauvin yesterday after I left here and stopped at my friend’s place. The one I was telling you about. He had a sweet little AC unit in a corner that needed a home.”

  He’d bought an air conditioner for her? Wasn’t that, like, tantamount to an engagement ring around here? A twitch set up in her right eye.

  “Thanks, but I’m kind of on a fixed income. I appreciate the thought, though.” Although if she had to keep the doors and windows closed all the time, she might have to become a nudist, at least until it started cooling down a little, which might happen by Thanksgiving. Maybe.

  “I didn’t say I bought it from him.” Gentry shoveled a forkful of the omelet into his mouth. “Damn, this is good.”

  “It’s sausage and eggs.” No changing the subject. “Why would he give you an AC unit?”

  Gentry hooked the breadbasket with one long forefinger and slid it closer to fish out a second biscuit. “Sinclair—Jena Sinclair, my partner—and I caught a guy who’d been stealing from him, and I helped him haul all his stuff back to his shop on my day off. People work by barter around here, you know?” He chewed a few seconds before gesturing over his shoulder toward the throwing table. “So, what’s with the candles and stuff?”

  They’d be revisiting the free AC.

  “You know much about the Chitimacha?” A lot of folks down here had some connection to the Native American tribes indigenous to South Louisiana, but especially those in the lower reaches of Terrebonne Parish. The ancestral grounds of the Chitimacha lay down the bayou in Isle de Jean Charles, along with their chief and what was left of the undispersed tribe members.

  “I know some. Thanks for breakfast; that was a lot better than what I get at the Country Cajun most mornings.” Gentry pushed his plate back. “One of the agents I work with, Paul Billiot, is part Houma, part Chitimacha. He’s really involved in tribal discussions over how and if they’re gonna get more folks to move away from Isle de Jean Charles or dig in and try to force the state or feds to include them in the levee system.”

  Ceelie jerked her head toward the throwing table. “Tante Eva taught me to throw the bones—that’s voodoo—but also some rituals she said came from her mentor, who was Chitimacha. One of our ancestors made the basket.”

  Her dad had caught her using one of the rituals in her bedroom in Houma when she was sixteen and forbade her to visit her great-aunt again. Her regret over obeying him rested like a bitter pill in her gut. He’d been dying by inches from cancer and she’d been desperate not to upset him. But Tante Eva must have felt abandoned by the girl she’d treated like a daughter, and that thought ate at her.

  “So this”—he jerked his head toward the table—“is Chitimacha ritual?”

  “One of their rituals is for protection. That’s what the salt is for, and the candles are probably from some weird mysticism-voodoo mash-up. You know how things are around here. Everything’s scrambled.”

  He nodded. “Got that right.”

  Catholicism might be the official religion of South Louisiana, an odd pocket in the middle of the protestant Bible Belt, but voodoo and Native American mysticism had infiltrated this area deeply enough it’d give the pope a heart attack if he were aware of it.

  “What did the ritual tell you?” Gentry looked curious but not skeptical, and he wasn’t laughing at her. Points for him.

  “It told me I was in no imminent danger.”

  He raised an eyebrow at that. “But—”

  She held up a hand. “I know you don’t believe, but if it had said otherwise, I would have left last night.” Although the closest hotels were in Houma and she wasn’t sure she’d be safer staying in any roach motel she could afford.

  He scooted his chair closer to hers and looked at her hand on the table. For an awkward second, she thought he was going to take her hand in his. But he just fidgeted.

  “It isn’t that I don’t believe, not exactly. It’s that I don’t want to gamble your life on it. The stakes are way too high if your ritual steers you wrong.”

  She should stop this conversation now. She should thank him for watching over her last night and get on with the outing she had planned for the day. She should do anything other than sit here and feel this awkward attraction.

  She glanced up at him. “Why does it matter? Why do you care?”

  He’d been staring at her hands again, but jerked his gaze up to hers as if surprised by the question. He answered quickly, almost automatically. “I’m a law-enforcement officer. I found your aunt and saw what . . . that animal”—he seemed to struggle with the words—“I saw what he did. And we don’t know why.”

  Ceelie nodded. “So this is how you’d treat anyone whose case you got involved with?” And damn her for feeling disappointed.

  He reached out and tightened his hand around hers. “No, that’s just the answer I needed to give you. That’s the answer I’ll give my lieutenant if he finds out I sat out here in my truck all night holding a shotgun.”

  Ceelie’s heart sped up. Her voice came out in a whisper. “So what’s the real answer?”

  He leaned across the space that divided them, cupping his left hand around her jaw and pulling her toward him as if she were fragile, breakable. His kiss was soft, a pressure of lips, a slight parting, a promise of more. His stubble scratched her chin.

  “That’s the real answer.” His voice was so soft the air around him seemed to soak it up. “And don’t ask me what it means because I’ll be damned if I know.”

  “I understand,” she said, leaning back in her chair and extracting her hand. “It’s called a bad idea. A tempting bad idea.” A really, really tempting bad idea. “I’m pretty sure your lieutenant wouldn’t like the real answer. Better stick with the first one.”

  “Anyway, you’re a short-timer in the parish, right?”

  “Definitely.” She sighed. Who the hell knew. That was her automatic answer too, but the longer she stayed, the more anywhere else sounded dull and white-bread. Which meant she needed to get the hell out of here as soon as she could sell this land.
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br />   They looked at each other another moment before Gentry coughed and pushed his chair back. “I’ll get that AC unit set up for you.” He practically ran out the door.

  Well, that had been beyond uncomfortable. And yet the pressure of his lips on hers remained, like the kiss of a ghost.

  As soon as his footsteps no longer sounded from the porch, Ceelie slapped both hands over her eyes. “What the hell you be doin’, Celestine?” She spoke softly, in the heavy patois of her Tante Eva. “Ça, ça va te coûter.”

  Yeah, kissing Gentry Broussard again—that would cost her plenty.

  In the meantime, it was almost ten a.m. and she needed to get moving. After she’d done the protection ritual last night, she’d spent some time in quiet thought, trying to recall as many names from Tante Eva’s stories as she could. She’d returned to one again and again: Assaud. She was pretty sure it had been the name of Eva’s mentor and that he’d lived farther south in the parish, probably down around Isle de Jean Charles, where Eva’s grandfather had come from. Ceelie’s great-great-grandfather.

  Considering Eva’s age and figuring this mentor had to be even older, chances were slim she’d find him still alive.

  But it was a lead, at least. If anyone knew what secrets Tante Eva or her cabin held that might have led to her death, it could be this mentor. And maybe he had shared the story with someone else who was still alive.

  Using her phone, she had searched for Assauds who lived south of Montegut and found only two, Joseph and Brandon. Brandon was a young man’s name, so she rolled the dice and called Joseph, who lived in Cocodrie—practically at the end of the world. She got voice mail.

  Her stumbling message had intrigued him enough to call her back an hour later. His accent had been thick as the Whiskey Bayou mud Gentry had scraped off his boots. “You be talkin’ ’bout my grand-père Tomas and great-grand-père, also named Joseph, like me,” he said. “Tomas and your Tante Eva learned together from old Joseph. Spent a lotta time down the baya, them, down round Isle de Jean Charles. I was real sorry to hear what happened to Eva.”