Snow on the Bayou: A Tante Lulu Adventure (26 page)

“Lighten up, Em. It’ll be fun,” Belle promised.

Emelie had a bad feeling.

If all else fails, just dance…

C
age was desperate, and desperate men did desperate things. At least, that was what he told himself.

His buddies had long since gone back to Coronado, taking the birds with them. His grandmother had been playing Elvis’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Die” so much that he felt like he could do just that. Tante Lulu was egging him on to do something or stop complaining. So he’d agreed to the dingbat’s crazy-ass, last-ditch effort to solve his love problems.

Yeah, he could have gone back to Em’s place. He could have begged. He could have forced her to listen. But somehow he agreed with Tante Lulu that he needed a grand gesture to convince Em that their love was worth fighting for.

So here he was standing in the back office of Swampy’s tavern, wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy shirt that had once belonged to his dad, and a cowboy hat. Em
might have asked for nude, but this was as far as he was willing to go in public. He felt like an absolute fool and was nervous as hell, but not as bad as he would feel if he were the other guys, standing around out in the hall waiting to go on the stage where René LeDeux’s band was already playing. There were the LeDeux men… Luc, the lawyer, wearing a business suit with no shirt; John, the cop, with no shirt but a police cap and twirling a baton; Remy, the pilot, whose handsome face had been burned on only one side in an Iraqi battle, wearing an Air Force uniform, unbuttoned; a frowning Rusty Lanier, Charmaine’s husband, in cowboy gear; and a friend of the family, Angel Sabato, as a hunky biker dude.

And the women in the act were no better, wearing tight spandex dresses of different, vivid colors, even Tante Lulu, who kept telling Cage to have another shot of bourbon to calm his nerves. Any more bourbon and he’d be joining the Cajun Chippenduds or falling over unconscious.

“She’s here,” Tante Lulu said, peeking into the office. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Are you sure this is gonna work?”

“Sure,” she said, then handed him a little statue of St. Jude, “but mebbe you should say a little prayer jist in case.”

“Oh, hell!”
She thinks I’m hopeless.

And the star of the show was… oh, no!…

Emelie was glad she’d come.

The ladies were all nice, and the music was lively, and
the dancing was fun to watch. René LeDeux, a teacher and former environmental activist, was entertaining the crowd with his band, The Swamp Rats.

Part of the reason for her good mood might be the oyster shooters that everyone kept pushing on her. She was feeling a little woozy.

There had been a hefty door charge when they entered to benefit a charity of Tante Lulu’s. Apparently, every so often she and her family put on this outrageous show for a good cause, and folks didn’t mind paying for the experience.

Just then René LeDeux put up both hands to silence the crowd. “Folks, we have a special treat for you tonight, as you know. The Cajun Village People.”

Much applause and wolf whistles and hooting greeted his words.

Starting with “Macho Man,” the band played, except they substituted “Cajun” for “Macho” and the crowd sang along with them, especially when each of the hunky LeDeux men and their friends put on a sexy performance. Not quite the Chippendales, as in stripteases, although John LeDeux had a good time showing everyone how he could dance and twirl a baton at the same time in a most suggestive way.

When the ladies came shimmying out to “I’m Sexy and I Know It,” René introduced each of them by saying, “This is Sylvie LeDeux, a shy chemist married to my brother Luc.” Sylvie glared at René, then rolled her hips into the rump of her husband, who grinned wickedly at her. “And Rachel LeDeux, a decorator who has feng shuied my brother Remy into about a dozen kids. I’ve lost count.” Rachel did a little shimmy, too, which seemed to embarrass her husband, who had an ugly burn mark on
one side of his face only. The other side was gorgeous. “Then there is Celine LeDeux, who usta be a reporter but now has a full-time job tryin’ ta keep my brother John in line.” John didn’t give Celine a chance to blush or shimmy or anything; he just tugged her into a front-to-back embrace and dirty danced her across the stage. She kept slapping at him but the crowd loved it. Next came Grace Sabato, a friend of the family, a former nun, and a professional poker player, of all things. She was now married to Angel, the biker dude, who pretended to roar a motorcycle right up to her. Charmaine had to coax her glaring husband, Rusty, a rancher, out on the stage by shimmying up and down his backside. Finally he grabbed her by the arm and they both walked out. “And of course there is my wife, Valerie, a lawyer, who has threatened to sue the pants off me more times than I can count, but I always tell her, ‘Honey, all ya gotta do is ask.’ ” Shaking her head at his foolishness, Valerie came out and let René swing her around several times under his arm before pulling her close.

The band segued into a loud rendition of “YMCA” as the couples snake danced around the little stage. When they were done, they all stepped back and Tante Lulu wobbled out onto the stage. She wore shocking pink, high-heeled pumps that matched a shocking pink spandex dress, and yes, a shocking pink wig. The woman was outrageous.

Beaming from ear to ear, she said, “We have a special attraction fer you folks tonight. As ya know, I’m a traiteur, a folk healer, but I’ve been known ta matchmake on occasion, ’specially during our Cajun Village People acts. I hope y’all will give a special welcome ta our next act. He’s a Southern boy, born and bred, though he’s been
away from home fer a spell, and he’s mighty shy about singin’ in public.”

The old lady stepped back to stand with her family and a stool was placed in front of the microphone. The lights dimmed, except for a single spotlight, and a cowboy stepped onto the stage, carrying a guitar. He sat on the stool, head bent over, as he tightened the strings on the guitar in a nervous manner.

A stone silence permeated the room as he strummed softly, then sang, almost in a whisper at first, the lyrics to that old Elvis song, “Love Me Tender.” Only then did he look up, directly at Emelie, and she saw that it was Justin.

Not nude as she’d once jokingly requested, but wearing an open cowboy shirt over jeans tucked into well-worn cowboy boots. On his head was a white Stetson, and he was playing what must have been his father’s guitar.

“Oh, my God!” She slapped a hand over her mouth, and darted a glance right and left to see that everyone at her table had left her alone, even Belle, who stood a short distance away, giving her a little hands folded in prayer gesture of encouragement.

This was so humiliating, Emelie thought, but then immediately realized that it must be way more humiliating for Justin, who was not a professional singer, by any means. Not even that good of a guitarist. But he was doing this… why?

When he finished the first song, Justin kept strumming and spoke as he played soft chords, “Y’know, us men are clueless when it comes ta women.”

Laughter rippled among the crowd, and one woman yelled, “Tell us about it, cowboy!”

He sang a few stanzas of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” and then said, “Are you ever lonesome, Em? I sure as hell am.”

People were craning their necks to see who he was talking to.

“A wise person told me that men need to make a grand gesture if they want to win a woman’s love.”

Tante Lulu waved from behind them to let everyone know that she was the wise person in question.

“I thought about hirin’ a band ta serenade her beneath her window, but that seemed too corny.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Like this isn’t corny!”

“Aaah,” the women in the audience said, and the men agreed, “Corny!”

“I could hire an airplane to fly overhead with a banner reading,
FORGIVE ME,
CHÈRE
, but waitin’ fer you ta make the first move just isn’t workin’.”

“Why dint ya jist knock down her door and carry her off?” a drunk called out.

Cage tilted his head to the side. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He laid down the guitar, kicked the stool aside, and jumped off the stage. Before she could blink, and to the howls of the crowd, he picked Em up off her chair and carried her across the dance floor toward a hallway.

“Are you crazy? Stop it! Put me down. Good Lord, we’re not kids anymore, Justin.”

“No, we’re not, baby,” he said. “The things I want to do to you are definitely not for kids.”

She was swatting at him and squirming to beat the band, speaking of which, was now playing a rowdy Cajun country classic, “Knock, Knock, Knock,” with the crowd joining in with howls and stomping feet every time the band hit the stanza “Knock, Knock, Knock.”

Gator was coming out of the office, took one look at Cage and opened the door wide for him to enter, then closed it after them.

He kind of lost it then as he set Em on her feet. He was kissing her and murmuring love words against her open mouth and unbuttoning her blouse all at the same time, afraid to stop or pause to be zapped with one curt “No!”

But there was no protest. In fact, Em was yanking his open cowboy shirt out of his jeans and kissing his chest.

He pulled back and looked at her. Her blouse was half off one shoulder, dangling outside the waistband of her jeans. How had he managed that? Exposed was a red lace bra. “Oh, man, I love red, and lace, and you,” he said.

She smiled.

Thank you, God!

She was rolling his shirt off his shoulders and undoing his buckle. When she said, “Keep on the cowboy hat,” he knew he was home free.

“Whatever you say, babe.” He was no fool.

“You were almost killed,” she murmured, kissing the scar on his belly.

Oh, damn! She was kneeling before him. When had that happened? No way could he handle
that
right now.

He drew her up and set her rump on the desk, which was fortunately cleared. “ ‘Almost’ is the key word, honey. ‘Almost’ doesn’t count in baseball or life.”

She arched her brows. “You saved Bernie’s life.”

“Hah! And now he trails me like a caboose everywhere I go. I keep tellin’ him this is what we do.”

“SEALs?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m proud of you, Justin.”

He grinned. “How proud?’

It might have been the shortest fuck in history, but it was mighty satisfying, for both of them. By the time they finally crawled off the desk and set it to rights, and tried to straighten out each other’s clothes and hair, they were laughing. It was only then that they realized that the band was still playing “Knock, Knock, Knock” over and over.

“They’re waiting for us to come back,” Em said, horrified. “They all must know what we were doing.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a wink.

She smacked his shoulder.

“Before we go back, Em, you need ta be forewarned,” Cage said, “I wanted ta do somethin’ real sentimental fer you, and that’s why everyone is waitin’ fer us.”

“Uh-oh!” She narrowed her eyes at him.

As they stepped out of the corridor onto the dance floor, Cage had his arm around Em’s waist. The band stopped playing, and there was a sudden silence. Just then, thanks to Tante Lulu’s pull with some engineering people, a shower of white confetti fell from the ceiling, covering them, like snowflakes.

He went down on one knee before her and said, “I always said I wouldn’t come back to Loo-zee-anna ’til snow fell on the bayou. Honey, here I am. For you.”

She tried to pull him up as she blushed with embarrassment. “Stop it. I don’t need this,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said. “Em, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

The crowd began to pound its feet, and the band began to play “Love Me Tender” again, waiting for her response.

“I thought you’d never ask… again.”

Huh? Would he ever figure out women?

Loud applause greeted her announcement, and he began to twirl her around, doing what Cajun men did best. Dance. Well, the second best thing.

And the beat goes on…

J
ustin LeBlanc and Emelie Gaudet were married on June 15 at Our Lady of the Bayou Church in Houma, Louisiana.

Justin’s grandmother, Mary Mae LeBlanc, was not there, having passed a month before, but she did get to share in the happiness of their engagement for several months. During the last few weeks, Emelie had moved into the Bayou Black cottage with Justin, and with the help of hospice, they were able to provide the comfortable setting Miss MaeMae wanted for her last days on this earth. At her funeral, Elvis sang “Amazing Grace,” a song Miss MaeMae had said that Rufus insisted he wanted singing her home. When Rufus had told her that, no one was sure, since she’d been having numerous conversations with him in her dreams near the end.

After the wedding ceremony, Justin in his dress whites led his new bride through an archway of swords provided
by Justin’s SEAL buddies—JAM, Geek, Slick, K-4, F.U., Magnusson, Omar, and Pretty Boy, all of whom wore dress whites, too. All of the guys wanted to come because no one had believed that Cage would ever settle down, and they had to meet the woman who could clip his tail feathers. Marie Delacroix, a close friend of Justin’s and a member of the elite Navy WEALS, was also in the sword brigade.

Women were said to be crashing the wedding reception at the convention hall right and left, just to be able to get a look at all the handsome men. One woman was heard to remark, “And I thought the LeDeux men were sexy!” One man said, “I should have stayed home.” Two hundred people attended the reception; and both Justin and Emelie kept exclaiming that they didn’t know they had that many friends.

Belle, who’d designed Emelie’s ivory wedding gown and veil, was the maid of honor. Francine, Charmaine, and Tante Lulu were her attendants. Belle, Francine, and Charmaine looked classy and sensational, everyone said so, in identical ankle-length sheath dresses in pastel shades of blue, lavender, and green. Tante Lulu also wore an identical sheath, but hers was hot pink. Think Pepto Popsicle. Enough said!

There was no flower girl or ring bearer. The hit of the show was Thad, who marched perfectly down the aisle, without a single woof, on a leash held by Belle, the big red bow around his neck holding the ring.

Emelie’s father, who’d married Francine the previous month, walked Emelie down the aisle, and everyone held their breath until he handed her over to Justin. Some said the old man had a shot of bourbon before the “ordeal,” despite his heart condition, just to give him the courage
to let her go to his least favorite person. Justin was heard whispering to Claude at the altar, “I’ll grow on you.”

Beer and beer and more beer flowed to wet parched throats at the reception, along with sweet tea, of course. Every possible type of Cajun food was laid out on groaning tables, thanks to the supervision of Tante Lulu, who claimed to be taking over for Miss MaeMae and for Emelie’s mother, both deceased but watching closely from
up there
. The wedding cake was a humongous Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake extravaganza. The napkins at each place setting were St. Jude ones, of course.

Justin and Emelie danced first to his daddy’s song “Prison Is a State of Mind.” In the past month, Justin had learned that his father’s song was earning impressive residuals, and a prominent agent was interested in Beau’s entire collection of unpublished songs.

After that it was a wild Cajun/Navy SEAL affair with drinking and dancing and laughing until the wee hours. Tante Lulu was standing, watching the shenanigans, and remarked to her twin nephews, Daniel and Aaron LeDeux, who were standing on either side of her, “St. Jude allus comes through.” But then she looked at one of them, then the other. “I wonder who’s next?”

“Have you met Simone LeDeux? She’s a cop,” Aaron interjected quickly.

“What? Where? A LeDeux, you say?” Tante Lulu could barely contain her excitement.

For some reason, Daniel, Aaron, and Simone all departed early.

Justin and Emelie were leaving in the morning for a honeymoon to California and a stay in the famous Hotel del Coronado. They planned to divide their time between the West Coast and Louisiana for the next three years,
after which they would live in Justin’s homestead, which was already in the process of what would be a slow renovation.

They weren’t able to give Miss MaeMae the gift of a LeBlanc baby, or even news of an upcoming one, before her death. But as always, when men and women think they are the rulers of their own destinies, God, or St. Jude, sticks out His big toe and trips them. Emelie was one month pregnant when she walked down the aisle. If it was a girl, Emelie threatened to call her Snowflake. Justin was horrified. “Kids will give her Flake for a nickname.” They decided to hold off on names until the big event, not wanting to risk any more celestial “big toes” if they set their preferences for girl or boy. After all, the powers-that-be could give them twins.

Later on their wedding night, as the newly married couple lay in their bedroom, he said to her, “Wanna fool around again?”

“Forever and ever.”

Snowflakes were probably falling somewhere.