Cajun Magic 02 - Voodoo for Two (18 page)

Chapter Eighteen

The woman lying on the couch could be no one else but Lucie’s mother, Lynette.

Lynette pushed up to a sitting position, shoved the shoulder-length black hair from her face, and blinked several times. Then her eyes widened, and a smile spilled across her face. “Lucie? Omigod, Lucie!” She leaped to her feet and ran forward, her arms outstretched. “Look at you, you’re all grown up.”

Lucie raised her hands in a defensive block and stepped backward before her mother could throw her arms around her. After schooling her face into an unreadable mask, she asked, “How’d you get in?”

The older version of herself came to a halt two feet in front of her. Her mother’s shoulders sagged and the light in her eyes faded. “Miz Mozelle let me in.”

After waiting all her life to see her mother again, she just couldn’t see past the years of loneliness and heartache she’d been forced to live through because of her.

This was the woman who’d abandoned her.

“Why are you here?” She didn’t soften her question. All twenty years of pain and anguish pushed her words out in a harsh rasp.

“I wanted to see my girls.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.

After twenty years?
Give me a freaking break
.

“Lisa’s in New Orleans, why don’t you go there?”

“I missed you.” Lynette hung her head. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

Lucie spun away, laughing to keep from crying. Yet she didn’t quite succeed. She choked back an unwilling sob, swallowing hard. “After twenty years,” she whispered.

“I know. There’s no excuse for what I’ve done to you. I’m not here to give you excuses.”

“Don’t bother.” Furious, she turned toward the woman who gave birth to her. “Nothing you say now can give me the mother I didn’t have growing up.”

Tears welled out of eyes rimmed with wrinkles. “I don’t deserve it, but would like you to hear me out.”

“I’m tired, Lynette. And I really don’t have the energy to deal with this.” Hell, she had problems enough, without having more turn up on her doorstep.

“I know you’re angry.” She put her hands up when Lucie would have jumped in. “And you have every right to be. What kind of mother would leave her child?”

“The worst kind.”

“Yeah, you’re right. The worst.” She nodded, swiping away traces of tears from her cheek. “I know. I made so many mistakes, I gave up counting.”

After all this time, Lucie would have thought she was immune to a kick in the gut from the one person who could have made a real difference in her life, but had chosen not to. But the kick found its mark. Whether it was intentional or not, Lucie didn’t care.

“And I was one of your mistakes.” She straightened her shoulders and leveled a look as devoid of emotion as she could muster at her biological mother. “You’ve said you’re sorry, now leave. You’re good at that. Good-bye, Lynette. Maybe we can do this again in another twenty years.”

Her mother stared at her for a moment and nodded. “I deserve that, and I can respect your desire to kick me out. I’d really like a chance to talk, but I can see you’re not ready. I’ll be around for a while, in case you change your mind. I’m staying at Mamma’s.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Lucie walked to the door and yanked it open. “I’ll be sure to avoid it.”

Lynette gathered her purse and closed the distance between them. She paused in the doorway and glanced into Lucie’s eyes, her own filled with tears, again. “I didn’t want to leave you and your sister. But I loved you so much, I had no other choice.” She reached up to touch her cheek.

Lucie jerked away as if stung.

Her mother’s hand fell to her side. “I’m very sorry I hurt you.” She turned and left.

With a hefty shove, Lucie slammed the door after her, the ceiling rattling with the force of the impact.

In a numb stupor, she found her way to her small bedroom and fell flat on her back across the bed, clothes and all. She didn’t have the strength to deal with all this, much less to breathe. She was tired of trying to make the right decisions, tired of making mistakes, and tired of trying to find love in a world filled with pain. All she wanted to do was crawl under a rock and hide until it all went away.

With one hand grasping the comforter, she rolled into a fetal position, dragging the blanket over her. Naturally, the bed linens still held Ben’s scent.

God, she couldn’t get away from that man! And now her mother had come back to Bayou Miste. What the hell was she going to do?

Blessed exhaustion claimed her and dragged her into a dream-filled sleep where Voodoo drums beat a haunting echo in her head and Gran LeBieu stood over her, shaking her head.

…

Ben knocked on Miz Mozelle’s blue door the following morning, hoping like hell Lucie wasn’t up and moving about where she could see him. He’d parked his bug truck a block away and walked, just to make sure. What he was about to ask Mozelle Reneau was none of his business, but he needed to know more about the visitor who was at Lucie’s last night.

Miz Mozelle opened the door, and a smile lit her finely wrinkled face. Her bright, unnaturally red curls were a riot of color against her pale skin. “Why Benjamin Boyette, it’s a pleasure to see you. Come in. Come in!” She stepped aside and held the door wide.

The sweet smell of freshly fried beignets wafted through the opening, wrapping around his empty stomach and yanking him across the threshold. “Miz Mozelle, your kitchen smells great! Are you making beignets again?”

“Sure as shootin’! Get your heinie in here and sit a spell, while I fry up the last batch.” She moved ahead of him to the homey kitchen filled with early-morning sunlight. “What brings you along so early this morning, Benjamin?”

How did he broach the subject without sounding like a jealous lover? “Frankly, I was curious about Lucie’s visitor.”

“Ah, yes.” She paused to concentrate on her task. With the expertise of many years of experience, she attacked a ball of pastry dough with a rolling pin, leveling it in a few efficient strokes to an eighth of an inch thick. “That would be Lynette.”

“Lynette? As in Lynette LeBieu? Lucie’s mother?” Ben rose halfway from his chair. “Damn! When did she come back to Bayou Miste?”

“Yesterday.” With a butter knife in hand, she sliced the thin dough into two-and-a-half-inch squares.

Ben sank into his chair at Mozelle’s dinette set and shook his head, trying to picture how Lucie might have reacted to her mother showing up after a twenty-year absence. “Man, Lucie’s not going to be happy.”

“Maybe not, but she needs closure, as my shrink would have said.” Miz Mozelle looked up. “I let her in to wait for Lucie last night.”

Ben leaned to the left to glance out the back window to see if the Cadillac was still there.

As if reading his mind, Mozelle said, “Oh, she left shortly after Lucie got home. By the way, I saw that you dropped her off. What happened to her car? Break down or something?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s in Morgan City at Josie’s shop. Long story.” One he didn’t want to get into. “Any idea what went on over there?”

Mozelle glanced over the pot of bubbling oil as she dropped a thin wafer of dough in. The hot liquid hissed and spit as eruptions of oil popped out of the pot and landed on the stovetop. Within a few short minutes she fished a golden brown beignet out of the vat and laid it on a paper towel. She sprinkled it with powdered sugar, scooped it onto a sandwich plate, and handed it to Ben.

“None whatsoever. But I had a nice long chat with Lynette yesterday evening while she was waiting for Lucie to get off work.”

The delicious, sweet scent of the beignet filled his senses, calling out to him, reminding him he hadn’t eaten breakfast. Without waiting a reasonable amount of time for the confection to cool, he gingerly lifted it by the corners, burning his fingers in the process. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he blew on one side and bit into the featherlight pastry. A dusting of the powdered sugar drifted onto the front of his shirt, but he didn’t care. “Miz Mozelle,” he moaned. “This is heaven.”

She beamed. “Thank you kindly. My Joe thinks I’m trying to fatten him up. Gained fifteen pounds since we started going out.”

“I can feel my arteries clogging as we speak. But if I drop dead of a heart attack, I’d die a happy man.”

“That’s pretty much how Mr. Thibodeaux puts it.” She laughed and pulled another fluffy treat from the hot grease. “So, when are you going to marry Lucie?”

Blindsided, Ben inhaled sharply, dragging powder sugar into his lungs. He burst into a fit of coughing, thanking his lucky stars he was choking so he didn’t have to answer Mozelle’s question.

She shoved a glass of water into his hand and thumped his back with surprising strength. “Got yer breath back now?”

He gulped water until he’d emptied the glass and set it on the table. When his breathing was pretty well back to normal, he polished off the rest of the beignet and started to get up.

“You got so busy coughing, you never answered my question.” Miz Mozelle planted her hands on her hips. “When are you going to marry Lucie?”

Ben cursed silently. “I told you, she turned me down last time I asked.”

“You talkin’ about that mess when you were kids?” The older woman clucked her tongue. “Remember the ol’ saying, ‘That was then, this is now.’”

“She told me I wasn’t good enough for her. As far as she knows, I’m nothin’ more than a bug man.”

“What do you mean?” Mozelle’s brows sank low over her nose and she stared into Ben’s eyes. “Is there more to your return to Bayou Miste than yer lettin’ on?”

He realized his mistake and answered the best he could. “Even if there was, I wouldn’t be at liberty to say.”

“I knew you couldn’t have come back with yer tail tucked between yer legs like some kicked dog.” She grinned and smacked him on the back again.

“Is that what people are saying?”

“No, but it sounded good, didn’t it?”

“You’re a case, Miz Mozelle.”

“Damn straight, and I don’t apologize for nothin’.” She squinted her eyes. “Well, maybe if it’s important, I do. Speakin’ of which, did you ever ask Lucie why she dumped you?”

Mozelle could shift so quickly in midstream she created a whirlpool effect, sucking him under. He shook his head. “I didn’t need to. She’d already told me once I wasn’t good enough.”

“And you believed her, I suppose.” Mozelle rolled her eyes. “I keep forgettin’ how downright thickheaded men are.”

“Thanks a lot.” He stepped into the living room. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s going to marry Eric Littington. And he’s a much better choice for her.”

“How do you figure?”

“He’s not bad-looking, he’s loaded, and he’s a rising star on the political scene. What more could a woman want?”

“Ben, I usta think you were a smart man. Now, I’m not so sure.” She heaved a big sigh. “What about love?”

Love
. That elusive emotion he thought he had experienced just once, only to have it slip away. “Eric’s got that covered. He’s so hung up on her, he’s practically losing sight of his campaign.”

“That’s Eric.” Mozelle retrieved another beignet from the sizzling oil. “What about Lucie?”

He walked through the living room and leaned against the back of a bright floral-print couch. “I don’t know. He proposed two days ago. She hasn’t given him an answer, but he’s bought the ring.”

“Stall them!” Mozelle exclaimed.

He swung toward her. “How can I? He has a date with her tonight after she gets off work. He’s expecting an answer.”

“What do you think she’ll say?”

His chest tightening at the thought, he shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his shoes. “I don’t know.”

“So what are you waiting for? Go find out!”

“How?” He glanced up at the older woman.

“Le’ssee… Ask her?”

“She’d tell me to go jump in the swamp.”

“Men!” She wiped powdered sugar off her hands with a dish towel. “If you want something done, get a woman to do it. Hell, I’d ask her myself, but I promised Joseph I’d go fishin’ with him today.” She dug around in a duffel bag of a purse and pulled out a cell phone. “What did we do before these little jewels?” She punched the keys.

“Who’re you calling?”

She held up a finger. “Hello, Alex?”

“Alex?” His frown cleared and he smiled. “Damn. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Mozelle’s raised brows told him clearly.
Because he was only a man
. “Alex, your brother needs to know if Lucie’s going to say yes to Eric’s proposal tonight.”

Mozelle listened for a moment, and frowned at Ben. “He’s a man. Do I need to say more?”

As an ex-cop, then a detective, and now a member of the elite Criminal Investigator task force, Ben thought of himself as a pretty tough guy. Miz Mozelle was making him out to be a lightweight wimp next to his sister.

“So you’ll do it and report back to your brother?” She paused, listening.

Ben leaned closer. Despite his disgust with himself, he wanted to know if Alex would get the information from Lucie.

“What condition is that?” Mozelle asked.

“Condition?”
he wanted to yell into the phone. “
Alex, for God’s sake, don’t be stubborn!
” But he held his tongue.

Mozelle laughed. “You got it. I’ll send him over with two beignets just for Sport. Thanks, Alex. See ya in church Sunday.” She ended the call and winked at him. “Be nice to your sister. She’s doin’ you a favor.”

“I don’t need favors from you or my sister. I can ask Lucie the question myself.”

“And she’d tell you?” One of Mozelle’s eyebrows crept upward. “Sometimes you ain’t got the sense God gave a gnat.” She patted his cheek. “But I love ya anyway. Now get on outta here. I have a date.”

He headed for the door, stopped, and looked back at the amazing Miz Mozelle. “Thanks.”

“Thank me when you have a ring on that girl’s finger, not a minute sooner.”

He stepped outside and inhaled the heady scent of honeysuckle and magnolia blossoms. If he could convince Lucie not to marry Eric, could he convince her to marry him, instead? His batting average wasn’t so good with oh-for-one. Did he have the fortitude to step up to the plate again with the possibility of being struck out a second time?