Restoring Hope (20 page)

When Nic came to a bend in the river, he took a right off the main waterway to a narrower inlet. After several hundred yards, he killed the motor, and they drifted onto a bank of solid ground as Nicky jumped out to stop the boat from floating back out. Thankfully, it was sunny where he’d parked, the mosquitoes were forming in the shade waiting to attack Hope and Nic didn’t want her porcelain skin marred by bug bites. Stepping out of the back, his shrimp boots on to protect his legs, Nic leaned in without a word and yanked Hope out of the boat and carried her onto the bank placing her on the solid ground, and she sunk to the tops of her feet.

Solid ground in the bayou isn’t exactly solid, more like squishy mud, and she’d been caught off guard. She didn’t say a word to him at first as he put her down, stealing a brief kiss before heading back to the boat to retrieve the traps. For some reason, he liked carrying her places, but she felt like a child when he did it.

“I could have walked you know.”

“And deprive me of the satisfaction of carrying you?” Nic replied over his shoulder as he handed Nicky a trap.

“You’re a caveman you know that, right?” Nic winked at her as his only answer and continued unloading.

Hope looked around, saw a fallen tree nearby, and decided to sit while she watched the two Beuve men set about baiting, then wading out into the shallows, dropping the mesh traps into the water and then wading back to the so-called bank. When they both came out of the water and stood before her, she knew if she ever wondered what Nic looked like as a kid, she only had to look to Nicky. Even their walk was the same. Now they were standing in front of her, with their hands on their hips, both smiling the same smile and about to laugh.

“What?”

“I hate to tell you this, sugar, but you’re sittin’ on poison ivy.”

Hope jumped from the log to see a green waxy looking vine covering the surface. She’d worn jeans out of habit, but she wasn’t sure she hadn’t touched it. Nic grabbed her arm, and Nicky snickered as he followed behind them. Hope heard it, turned her head and stuck out her tongue turning the snicker into a laugh. Nic stopped near a bag, pulled out liquid soap and ordered, “Wash your hands and don’t touch your face.” When she finished, Nic hoisted the bag back into the boat, turned and without a word picked her up again and placed her in the boat. Then he climbed back in as Nicky shoved them of the bank, climbing in the front, and Hope was confused.

“Why are we leaving?”

“Gotta let them soak for a few hours,” Nicky answered.

“We’ll take a tour of the area, grab some lunch at the “Poor Man’s Shack” and then come back after the crawfish has had time to fill the trap,” Nic added as he leaned in and kissed her one more time for good measure. Now that he could show more affection in front of Nicky, he intended to at every opportunity.

Grabbing a pole out of storage in the front of the boat, Nicky turned the nose of the boat towards the water, as Nic fired up the propeller. The loud thunder of the engine sent birds flying into the air as Nic gunned the engine and moved them back the way they’d came. Once on the river, Nic opened up the throttle, and they went flying on top of the water. After a mile or so, they came to an area with tall grass and Nic turned the boat out of the river and flew across the wetlands. Birds went flying again, and Nicky pointed to an alligator hidden amongst the reeds catching some sun. Twenty feet or so off the right side, Hope saw an animal that looked like a beaver and Nicky hollered, “Swamp rat,” to her questioning eyes. Further up, in a crop of trees, she saw a huge nest at the top of the tree line and was about to ask what kind of bird had a nest that large when a bald eagle landed with some animal in its mouth to feed their young.

It was amazing the different topography in a bayou, wide rivers, narrow inlets, and wetlands teaming with wildlife all within miles of each other. All her life she had this vision of the swamp being just that, a swamp, dark, creepy and mysterious, but their outing today had opened her eyes to the beauty of the place.

Time passed quickly and soon Nic was heading back down the river towards the inlet where they’d set their traps. When he passed the little cove, she looked up at Nic, and he shouted “Lunch.” Further down, he took a right off the river and made his way slowly around fallen trees, past other boats tethered with men eating sandwiches, until a large shack came into view. There was an old man on his deck manning a smoker, and a sign on his dock that said, “Don’t ask and I won’t tell, BBQ sandwich and chips $5.”

Hope raised her brows at Nic, and he grinned. Determined not to
ask
for fear she would find out, Hope said nothing. Nic cut the engine and glided his boat alongside the porch, and then reached out a hand to shake the old man’s and said “Where y’at, Virgil.”

“Awrite’,” Virgil replied and then said, “T’ree?”

“Three will do, and throw in some Zapp’s.”

Virgil leaned over and opened a cooler at his feet; he pulled out three foiled covered sandwiches, three bags of plain Zapp’s potato chips and handed them to Nicky. Nic pulled out his wallet and handed the man double what the price said, and Hope smiled at his generosity to the old man. The man obviously wasn’t one for conversation, because he took Nic’s money, gave them a salute, and then turned back to his smoker as Nic pushed off the deck and started the boat to head back towards the river. Nic took them back to their fishing spot, and they stayed in the boat while they ate. Slowly unwrapping the sandwich Nicky had handed her, Hope sniffed it and then watched as Nicky took a large bite and then smiled at her.

“Do I want to know?” she asked the boat at large.

“Nope,” Nic laughed and then bit into his own sandwich winking at her.

Pulling the soft, spongy bread apart, Hope looked at the meat, it didn’t look like snake or alligator, and when she sniffed it, it smelled like pork. Not wanting to be a girl and refuse to eat it, she mentally made the sign of the cross and took a bite. Surprisingly, it tasted like pork, but a bit gamey and tough. Nic handed her a bottle of water from the cooler, and she opened her bag of chips while she kept eating the sandwich. It was peaceful as they ate, while Nicky asked questions about mundane stuff until he turned the conversation to Hope.

“So, T-Hope, where are you from?” Without thinking, she answered and could have kicked herself.

“Nevada.”

“Is your family there?” he continued.

“Um, no, they died when I was a kid,” she again answered without thinking, and hoped Nicky wouldn’t ask any more questions about her past. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of growing up in foster care; it just sounded so pitiful, and she hated the looks she got when people found out. Not to mention, there were some who thought if she grew up in the system, she was somehow uneducated, or in some cases a bad person, who’d do anything to survive.

When Nic cleared his throat but said nothing, she knew he was holding back. Then Nicky, being his father’s son, meaning he wasn’t dumb, said, “If you didn’t have parents who raised you?”

“A very nice older couple that took in kids who needed homes raised me.” She wouldn’t tell him that the Johnson’s had been wonderful, but so old they couldn’t keep her and the other kids for very long, or that once they turned the kids back over to the state, it had been one bad home after another.

“Like grandparents?” he asked.

“Just like grandparents,” she replied.

Deciding it was time to change the subject, not wanting Hope upset by any more questions Nicky might ask, Nic cleared his throat again as he thought about tiny Hope in the care of strangers. He’d heard some of the horror stories about kids in foster care, and he prayed to God that wasn’t Hope’s story. He’d add that to the list of things he needed to get her to open up about, but patience was something he was sure he would need to have where she was concerned. As far as he could tell, her life had been one bad thing after another, and he intended to rectify that as soon as possible.

After clearing his throat to break the flow of conversation, he nudged Nicky on the shoulder saying, “Time to get the traps.” He then turned to Hope and ordered, “You stay in the boat while we wade out and get them.”

“I need to, um, use a bush,” she answered back, and Nic looked around to see where she could go. About fifty feet inland were a group of bushes she could make it to without any help, so he pointed to them.

“Use those bushes, I’ll wait here and keep an eye out, shout if you need me,” and then he smiled and finished with a crooked grin, “And watch out for poison ivy.”

Rolling her eyes, Hope stood, and Nic helped her off the boat handing her some napkins. She looked at them and felt her face grow warm with embarrassment. She said “Thanks,” and then stomped her way carefully through the swampy mud towards the bushes, mortified they were just sitting there watching her go pee.

Hope rounded the bushes, pulled down her jeans and started to squat when she heard a grunting noise behind her. She turned around, and saw what looked like baby hogs about ten feet away grazing on the grass. In awe at seeing wild hogs, she watched them for a moment and then squatted again to do her business. As she stood and pulled up her jeans, she heard a guttural cry from a larger hog and turned to see one the size of a German Sheppard heading straight for her. Its mouth was open, large canine teeth like spears aimed right at her and Hope screamed “NIC,” as she started running in the direction of the boat.

Nic heard the hogs cry right before Hope screamed, and his stomach hit his throat. Not missing a beat, he jumped into the boat, grabbed the rifle he had stored in the front, and jumped out of the boat moving as fast as he could through the mud and water. Hogs were fast, faster than humans were, and they could be lethal if provoked. Nic knew she couldn’t outrun it; her only chance was to climb high.

“Angel, tree, NOW!” Nic shouted and then drew aim on the hog.

Hope followed his instructions, headed to a Cypress with lower limbs, and jumped reaching for the branch. The hog grabbed a hold of her pant leg as she hung there trying to pull her back down. Nic put the crosshairs of his rifle on the huge beast and squeezed the trigger aiming for its head. Blood went flying as the hog stumbled back and then went down, its legs convulsing as it took its last breath.

Hope, still hanging onto the tree limb, watched the hog drop and then lost her grip and fell to the ground. Nicky shouted, “Hope,” as he ran past his dad and Nic followed. When they reached her, she was sitting up looking over her shoulder at the hog, pissed as hell.

“You okay?” Nicky asked.

“Yeah, but that stupid pig put a hole in my jeans, and these were my favorite dang-it.”

Nic barked out a laugh and then helped her stand, pulling plant life from her hair as she looked at her soggy jeans covered in mud. He looked her over, making sure she was unharmed except for her jeans of course, and then moved to the hog. He guessed it weighed close to a hundred and fifty pounds and figured Virgil could use another meat source besides swamp rat.

After wrapping the hog in a tarp, somehow getting it and the onion bags full of crawfish onto the boat, the traps secured and Hope in her seat, Nicky shoved them off once again. They headed back to the river as the sun started setting on the bayou. In his youth, Nic had thought there was nothing prettier than the sun setting while you watched from a boat. He was wrong. As the sun lowered indicating another day was done, the glow it put on the water seemed to throw an ethereal halo around Hope’s face. If he hadn’t already thought she was an angel sent from heaven, he would have been convinced at that moment.

Chapter Sixteen

The incessant ringing of Hope’s doorbell woke her the next morning. Tired from her day in the sun and heat, Nic had told her “Shower then bed, sugar,” when he’d woken her in the car once, they arrived back in New Orleans. She’d fallen asleep during the drive back, a full day exhausting her. When she’d woken, finding her head on Nicky’s shoulder, his dark eyes smiling back at her blue ones, she’d just nodded, kissed Nicky on the cheek, Nic on the lips, and stumbled with Nic’s help into her condo waving good night to both. Now it was morning, barely, and someone was ringing her bell, repeatedly.

Throwing the covers back, mumbling, “Coming, where’s the fire?” she made her way to the front door and opened it, expecting to find Nic. What she found were a pair of blue eyes, similar to her own, with professionally arched brows that had been done in a neutral palate. Kat, not waiting for an invitation, dressed to kill in another wrap dress of light blue that highlighted her eyes and compliment her blonde hair, pushed through Hope’s door as if she owned the place. She took in Hope’s appearance from head to toe, and her lip curled. Unlike Kat’s perfect ensemble, Hope was in another T-shirt. She’d taken a shower, barely combed out her hair, and then thrown on a clean shirt, moisturized and fallen face first into the pillow. Hope had neither curly hair nor straight, but if she went to bed with it wet, her extra thick hair would be a tumbled mess. Some might call it sex hair; Hope just called it a pain in her ass.