Byrd's Desire Read Free Page A

indulged her yearning at her favorite local restaurant back in Natchitoches or headed home to her mama’s kitchen.
    In Angie’s high tech kitchen , Celia rooted in the cupboards and fridge until she found some frozen grilled chicken breasts.  It wasn’t what she craved but it would do so she plunked two onto a cookie sheet and turned on the oven.  She found a box of dirty rice mix in one cabinet so she followed the package directions for the microwave.  Celia poked deeper into the freezer until she found an Asian vegetable blend with thinly-sliced green beans, onions, snow peas, and broccoli.  She nuked a serving and by the time she carried her plate into the dining room, she had managed to create a small feast.  She ate at the big table, leafing through the notebook, and doing her best to commit all the information to memory.  Celia washed down her meal with a glass of sweet tea and returned the notebook to the kitchen.
    Tomorrow she would assess the available ingredients and check out the pantry Angie had mentioned along with the rest of the basement.  Now, she’d wait for the ranch boss to show up and then she could indulge in the decadent bath she envisioned.  To pass the time, she turned on the television and found more channels than she could count.  Then she recalled a notation in the notebook about satellite programming.  Although not much of one to watch much television , Celia located the remote control and flipped until she found a movie, but after thirty minutes she decided she couldn’t hack any more of it.  The vintage chick flick oozed sweet sentimental goo and romance, something Celia no longer believed possible.  One early and mercifully brief marriage and a string of bad relationships turned her off the entire hearts, flowers, and love thing.  Until her job was eliminated, she’d had an ongoing thing with an anesthesiologist on staff, casual and without commitment.  They’d been friends and sometimes lovers, but neither had any starry-eyed expectations of anything more.
    But Sid headed back to Dallas to find a new job and Celia remained in Cajun country, although she had no idea why she’d stayed.  The life she’d built over the past decade in Natchitoches had unraveled with speed.  Most of her friendships were work connected and faded fast when she became one of many unemployed.  Until Angie called, Celia had sent her resume far and wide, north to Shreveport and south to New Orleans, without any success.   Apparently, social service workers weren’t in high demand.
    Too keyed up to read, Celia wandered out onto the front porch to wait for Chuck.  The cool air refreshed her and she inhaled a country smell she liked , although it didn’t resemble the bayou aroma in the least.  This smelled of wind and water, fresh-cut hay, and distant livestock.  It wasn’t rank but a little gamey and the powerful scent of blooming honeysuckle tempered it into something very pleasant.  She noticed there wasn’t a yard light in evidence, at least not in front or within view.  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Celia noticed the skies were clear and thousands of stars glimmered above.   The vast bright panorama made her seem very small and with a childlike wonder she stepped from the porch to gaze upward.  A sense of timeless peace pervaded her senses and a calm she hadn’t known in ages filtered down through the silver light of the moon.  She imagined taking flight through the stars, winging past the wisps of clouds floating through the sky.  God, it would be so free, she thought, free and marvelous.
    When approaching headlights sliced through the night , Celia became grounded once more.  She retreated to the porch and waited until a beat-up old pickup eased to a halt in the drive.  A mature man climbed out, hair half gray, face lined like tooled leather, and approached the porch with a hitch in his step.  His night vision must be far better than hers because he spotted her