Sweetheart Reunion (7 page)

“All the more reason to go for it.”

She grasped for something sensible to say. “But Julien’s boats are wooden. Don’t most people use aluminum boats now?”

“Oui,”
Julien said. “I can build one of those, too. But a good, solid cedar bateau or pirogue will get the job done today just the same way they did a century ago.”

“He wants my opinion,” Ramon said, his voice going deep. “On several accounts.”

“It’s not alligator season,” she pointed out.

“All the more reason to be careful what we hook,” her daddy replied.

Alma didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I know you two wouldn’t do anything illegal. So what’s going on?”

“Nothing for you to worry ’bout,” her daddy said through a full-blown Daddy glare. “Business and other man stuff.”

“Okay, all right, fine.” She glared at both of them. “Do you want a refill, Papa?”

“Me,
non
. I’m fine.”

“And I see my food is ready,” Julien said, getting up. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Blanchard.”

Her papa shook Julien’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I’m counting on it.” Julien saluted and then took off to join his brother.

“That was odd,” Callie said as she slid into the booth beside her daddy and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Yes, it was.” Alma looked over at Julien. He looked too smug, too proud.

“What did he really say to you, Daddy?”

“We talked boats and fishing and catching things.”

Callie tossed her hair and snorted a giggle. “Seems I got here just in time.”

“You’re all driving me crazy,” Alma retorted, turning to head back into the kitchen. “I have work to do.”

Winnie grabbed her by the arm. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. But I think Julien is taking my daddy gator hunting. Only it’s not alligator season.”

“No. That’s September,” Winnie answered, twisting her lips.

“Then how can Julien take my daddy gator hunting?”

Winnie grinned. “Maybe they just made that up to fool you.”

“Or maybe I’m just
being
foolish,” Alma said. “I thought they were talking about something else.”

“Like you, maybe?”

“Well, yes.”

Callie came into the kitchen and poured herself some coffee. “Okay, what did I miss? Three people called me to tell me there might be a fight over here between Papa and Julien.”

“No, no,” Winnie said, trying to explain. “I think they’re gonna go out in one of Julien’s custom-made boats to look for gators even though it isn’t gator season.”

“That’s illegal,” Callie replied, her eyes on Alma. “Unless, of course, they’re just looking and not capturing or killing.”

“I think it’s a cover,” Winnie said. “But I think Julien has something else in mind.”

Callie bobbed her head. “I think my daddy might be thinking of
feeding
the alligators. We’ll know if Julien goes missing.”

“I think I’m getting a headache,” Alma retorted, turning back to her work. She had coffee to make and orders to take care of and her supply closet needed to be inventoried.

Callie followed her around and leaned close. “I think Julien is hunting for one thing and one thing only.
You.
”

Alma’s heart did that funny thing again. “I do feel as if I’m being stalked.”

“But in a good way because he’s not dangerous,” Callie said, grinning.

“Maybe not to you,” Alma replied, turning around to gather more napkins and utensils. “But he could hurt me again. I can’t let him do that. And I can’t let my daddy get involved either.”

“Too late,” Callie said. “They just walked out the door together.”

Chapter Seven

J
ulien followed Alma’s father out onto the sidewalk. A playful early morning breeze teased the bright red geraniums planted in two clay pots on each side of the double front doors. Alma liked to keep an inviting entryway.

Mr. Blanchard pushed past the pretty flowers then pulled Julien up close against the brick wall between the café and Callie’s lush nursery and garden store. “Wanna tell me what you’re up to, Julien? ’Cause, me, I’m thinking it’s not so much about boats and alligators as it is about messing with me and my second-born daughter. Am I right?”

The man didn’t waste words.

“Yes, sir.” Julien looked around to make sure his brother was still preoccupied with sweet Mollie. And that no one else was within listening distance. A set of tinkling wind chimes hanging in Callie’s garden played a melody in the wind. “I did want you to see my boats…I mean, if you’re interested…but I’d like to inform you that I aim to work things out with Alma. And I want to make peace with you while I’m at it.”

Ramon put a beefy hand to his ear. “Come again, son?”

“I want to win back Alma.”

There, he’d said it. Julien knew it to be true, but how on earth would he ever get past the stone wall of Ramon Blanchard?

Or the stubborn silence of Alma Marie Blanchard?

Or even his own crusty doubts?

Ramon’s burly black scowl didn’t scare Julien nearly as much as Alma’s solid wall of resistance. But he needed her daddy to believe in him again. To really believe in him. Just another part of the revelation that had shadowed him all week.

“You want to fix things with my little Alma?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how you gonna do dat? It’s been a few years now and dis is the first I’ve heard of such nonsense.”

“It took me a while to figure things out, sir.”

Ramon Blanchard stared over at Julien, his dark eyes as steely and aged as a rusty anchor. “Did you figure out that if you hurt her again I will not only go for a long boat ride into a deep bayou with you, but also I will most assuredly feed you to the alligators myself?”

“Hadn’t figured on that, but now that you mention it—”

“I am not playing around here, son,” Mr. Blanchard said, his smile stuck in one position for all to see. “My family has been through too much pain over the past few years. And my Alma, she takes things to heart. You only get one chance with her and I’m pretty sure you used yours up when you broke her heart before. I can’t let you do that to her again just ’cause you all of a sudden have a hankering to make things right.”

“I don’t plan to break her heart,” Julien replied, his tone low and even. “I never planned to break her heart back then, either.” He shrugged, lowered his head. “I got scared back then.” He glanced up at Ramon, shocking himself with that admission. “Have you ever wanted something so badly that it just tore you up to think about it? About not having it, about having it and losing it, about messing things up?”

Ramon gave him a slanted look, his aged eyes going dark. “I’ve loved and lost, but you know that. I know all about pain and regret and heartache. No need to talk in riddles to me. But you did mess up. You’d better mean it this time, is all I can say.”

With that, he turned and barreled up the street, a big, beefy cut of a man with a heart that had been shattered by a piercing grief.

Julien vowed he would not add to that grief.

He turned to go back inside and found Alma staring at him through the window. She hurried out to meet him before he made it to the door.

“What are you doing, talking to my daddy that way?”

Julien cut to the chase. “I told him I aim to win you back.”

He watched the little river of doubt, followed by a waterfall of possibilities, flowing through her eyes. “And what did he say about that?”

“He told me he’d kill me if I mess things up.”

She smiled, nodded. “I second that.”

“Does that mean you’re interested?” Julien asked, hoping, even with the threat of death hanging over his head.

“I didn’t say that,” she retorted, her hands on her hips. “I just know that my daddy means it when he says something. So be very careful, Julien.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “I want to try, Alma. With you.”

She gave him another long look. “We’ll have to see. I’ve taught myself to not trust you. Taught myself to just ignore you. I’m finding it hard to believe you’ve had such a swift change of heart.”

“My heart never changed,” he blurted out. “But my head was a tad confused.”

She looked skeptical. “So just like that, you want to go back to the past?”

“No, just like that I want to look toward the future.”

“Has that worked? This trying to forget the past? Has it worked for you because I sure have a hard time letting bygones be bygones.”

“I didn’t forget the good parts with you,” he said, thinking he’d have to be honest with her. “I blew it back then, projecting my worst fears on myself by acting like a mule. But time is precious, Alma. We both know that. Life is a gift. I’m tired of wasting it.” He shrugged, pushed at the curls mushing over his forehead. “We’ve wasted time, you and me. We can be friends—I don’t mind that one bit. But while we’re being friends, I just wish you’d consider me. Consider more with me.”

She stood still, as still as she’d been that early morning in the restaurant. “Considering more with you could break my heart, Julien.”

“I am not going to break your heart,” he said, grounding the words out. “I wish everybody would quit saying that.”

She looked sheepish. “I reckon I’m not being fair. I’m supposed to forgive those who trespass against me.”

“That’s what the good book suggests,
oui.
”

“I can’t ignore you,” she said, her tone soft and silky and almost forgiving. “You’re a good customer and you supply me with a lot of my seafood. We have nice
working
relationship. I appreciate that, at least.”

“But…I want more, Alma.”

“I still don’t get why you all of a sudden decided this.”

He couldn’t tell her that seeing her so sad had only reinforced his mother’s wishes and his heart’s deeply buried desires.

“It’s just time,” he said, hoping that would hold her off for a while. “Past time.”

“What if I find somebody else before I decide about you?”

Wondering if she already had, he said, “That would break
my
heart.”

“You’d get over it,” she said. Then she turned to go back inside. “I’m gonna have to think about this. I’ll see you later, Julien.”

“Okay.”

He didn’t know whether that was a good sign or a bad one.
Later
could mean a number of things. “Are you going to the festival meeting tonight?” he asked.

“I’m on the committee,” she replied, letting the door shut behind her.

“I’ll take that for a yes, then.”

Pierre came strolling out, a to-go cup full of coffee in one hand. “I have a date with Pretty Mollie Friday night.”

“You sure work fast,” Julien said, thinking his little brother’s love life was always right on time.

“She’s a sweet girl,” Pierre said, squinting before he jabbed his fancy sunshades onto his nose. “Goes to our church.”

Julien lifted the shades to stare at his brother. “Our church? Since when do you even know the way to our church?”

“I’m going Friday night,” Pierre said, “with Mollie.”

Julien watched his brother walk toward the truck then lifted both his hands in the air. “Thank you, Lord.”

It was a small step in the right direction for Pierre. And maybe another sign for Julien. An inspiration for him to keep fighting the good fight. These past few days had been loaded with signs from above. What next? A knock on his hard head?

Julien turned to stare back inside the café, watching as Alma and Winnie laughed and whispered, watching as Pretty Mollie served the customers with a kind smile and Callie walked around chatting with everyone. He liked how the Fleur Café was a gathering place for the people who lived here, a place where someone in a hurry could serve himself and leave his money or an IOU note on the counter. He liked that Alma kept fresh flowers from her sister’s nursery all around. Alma had a way of making people feel welcome with good food and fine fellowship. She’d always welcomed him, in spite of her harsh feelings toward him. She’d never once turned him away and she could have. Should have.

But that was Alma. Good and kind. Hardworking and trustworthy. Beautiful and pure. She’d stayed here, even after he’d broken her heart, because her family had needed her.

Would she stay here just because he needed her?

That would be the test.

Julien took one last look at the comforting scene inside the café and then turned to get on with his day.

Lord, help me to make this work,
he prayed.
Help my little brother to get back right with You. And help me to get back right with Alma.

Julien figured if he could make everything right in his little world and settle down with Alma, not only would his dear mother be pleased but so would the Lord.

And it might ease his own pent-up grief about losing his father.

A tall order for a man who’d played at life and played just about everyone in his life. The image of his father lying in his boat with a four-hundred-pound alligator dead beside him came front and center into Julien’s mind.

His father had asked him to go out with him that day, but Julien had been hungover and surly and he’d wanted to work on his first attempt at building a boat. Later in the day, his mother had questioned him, asking him to go and take his daddy some lunch. And that’s when Julien had found his papa, tucked away in what he called his secret hunting place.

Dead.

He’d wrestled that gator into the boat all by himself.

And it had killed him. Not the gator. His daddy had shot the monster after he’d hooked him. But somebody had to haul the alligator in. Edward LeBlanc was a renowned alligator hunter, had done that job for most of his life. It was just that his heart had given up. But he hadn’t. At least not before he’d hauled in his prize.

Julien closed his eyes, the image of his stubborn, determined daddy grunting with each hefty lift of that big old alligator clear in his mind. If he’d been there, if he’d helped, his daddy might still be alive today. But Edward LeBlanc didn’t give up on his catch.

That was just how people around here did things. Even in death, the people of Fleur knew how to make a grand exit.

At the funeral, all of his papa’s friends had hailed him as a hero and a conqueror. “Dead beside that gator,” one friend lamented. “Ain’t dat just like Edward to bring in a record-breaking twelve footer, even when he had one foot toward the Pearly Gates and one foot in the fire?”

Julien had mourned his daddy’s death. They all had. The whole town. Alma had sent food and visited with his mother and hugged him close, her eyes full of pain and anger and questions.

That hug had stayed with Julien that night after she’d left. And now the memory held him again. He remembered her pretty dress and the scent of lemons and wisteria. He remembered wanting to run after her and ask her to wrap her arms around him and hold him for a long, long time.

But she’d left.

And the days turned into months and the months into almost a half year now. Julien had worked hard since then. So hard that he fell into bed tired at night. Tired and lonely and grieving.

Was he finally having the meltdown he’d held back for so long?

Was he allowed that? No, LeBlancs didn’t melt. They didn’t give in. They just wrestled until the finish.

Julien knew he was in the wrestling match of his life.

He aimed to win.

* * *

“He seems determined,” Callie pointed out to Alma back in the café. “I mean, he talked to Papa. That took guts.”

“Julien has always had nerve,” Alma replied, her hands busy breaking lettuce for salad. “Sometimes, though, he rushes into things without thinking them through.”

Callie watched the unfortunate lettuce being shredded, bit by bit. “You think he’s being impulsive, wanting to make things right with you? He’s had a long time to think about that, Alma.”

Alma stopped, grabbed a juicy tomato to put in the salad, her efficient knife slicing and dicing perfect chunks of the home-grown Big Boys. “I think he’s going through something. He thinks it involves me. But maybe it just involves him coming to terms with things.”

“Such as?”

“His daddy’s death. It’s coming up on a year now this fall. But spring’s here now and that was always a busy time for Mr. Edward and his sons. Julien took it pretty hard but it’s like a wound that heals over itself, only underneath the wound never really goes away. I think the coming season and his daddy’s birthday has brought out all his angst and grief.”

Callie’s eyes went dark. “I think we all have those kind of seasons.”

Alma gritted her teeth against her sister’s faraway look. “That’s why I can’t be mean to Julien. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own doubts and worries, I don’t think I’ve given him a proper Christian attitude of forgiveness.”