The Red-Hot Cajun Read Free Page B

kidding.”
    “I’m warnin’ ya, Rene, honey, iffen ya warm up a snake, it’s gonna turn ‘round and bite you, sure as shootin’.”
    “I have no intention of warming up anything,” he protested.
    Tante Lulu gave Valerie a disgusted look of resignation. “Well, if yer the one, yer the one. Doan suppose ya have a bride quilt yet? No. Tsk-tsk. Guess I’ll hafta start sewin’.”
    It was hard following the train of Tante Lulu’s thoughts, if she did in fact ever think in a logical manner.
    “On the other hand, mebbe I should stay here and try to break the love spell. Guess I better call Remy and tell him not to come fer me today. Holy sac-au-lait! It’s hottern ‘n a goat’s butt in a pepper patch t’day.”
    She was already reaching for Rene’s satellite phone on the porch. “Lordy, Lordy, Valerie ‘I am perfect’ Breaux in my family! Charmaine’ll eat ‘er alive. Or mebbe she’ll eat Charmaine alive. We gotta stop this thing afore it explodes.”
    It took several moments for Valerie to digest everything the old lady rambled on about. When Tante Lulu ended her phone call to Remy with a “Bye-bye, sweetie,” Valerie wagged her forefinger at the looney-bird. “Old lady, don’t you dare sew anything for me. As for love spells, forget about it. I am immune.”
    “No one is immune once the thunderbolt hits,” Tante Lulu pronounced.
    To J.B. and Maddie, who cowered in the background trying to be invisible, Valerie ordered, “Take me back to Houma immediately... right after I use the bathroom.” Before they had a chance to balk, she inquired of Rene, “You do have a toilet in this dump, don’t you?”
    He nodded, not at all pleased by her reference to his home as a dump, which was mean of her. But she was in a mean mood.
    “Please don’t tell me it’s an outhouse. That would be the final indignity.”
    He sneered and said something foul under his breath. But he steered her up the steps. He was probably ogling her butt; humiliating as that prospect was, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of checking.
    The inside of the cabin was one large room with very little furniture. Exposed log walls and open rafters. Hardwood floors. Basic kitchen. Unfinished loft. Great ambience if you liked rustic, which Valerie did not. She thought of her small apartment back in Manhattan with its doorman, its elegant antiques, and access to all the amenities the city had to offer.
    The contrast in their abodes correlated to the differences in their personalities. He had always been earthy, raw, and wild, while she’d been poised, ambitious, and in control, even at a young age.
    Iwasn’t always that way, she thought all of a sudden, surprising herself. There was a time when I would go fishing on the bayou with Papa. Lazy days spent lolling about. Eating our catches over an open fire with crusty French bread we bought on the way at a roadside mark et. Coming home late, grubby and tired. But so very, very happy. Even when Mother launched into us when we returned to her nice pristine house. That was before she turned eight. Before her father, Henri Breaux, had left her and her mother behind in Louisiana and hightailed it off to France to lead the good life. He never came back.
    The next eighteen years, till she’d graduated from law school, had been spent under the thumb of her rigid, and sometimes abusive, mother, Simone Fontenot Breaux, a Houma realtor. All of the Breaux women, whether they were Breauxs by blood or marriage, were ambitious, perfect, and cold as ice. If they weren’t born with the ice gene, it was beaten into them. Val knew that all too well.
    All men are pigs, Valerie. Stop whining over your no-good father. All men leave in the end. Beindependent. Work hard. Keep your emotions in check . Stop being a baby. You are a Breaux. Act like one.
    My God! Why was she thinking about all that now? Water under the bridge. Such maudlin thoughts just because Tante Lulu pushed her buttons! She shook her