This time she did hesitate. “Only one.”
Me? Raoul did a mental high five but zipped his lips. Never in a million years would he step into that mortar field.
But Charmaine saved him a response by asking her own loaded question. “Were you in love with any woman during all those years?”
He answered truthfully, “Only one.”
A dangerous silence hovered in the air.
Raoul decided it was time to change the subject just as Don Williams on the radio launched into an appropriate “Louisiana Saturday Night.” “I meant to compliment you, chère.”
“For what?” she asked suspiciously.
“Great cows,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her. “Can I hear you moo?”
“You louse!” She reached forward to slap him on the arm, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. She landed on his lap. At first, she struggled but, when he assured her, “Relax, nothing’s going to happen,” she shifted her butt in his lap and laid her head on his shoulder.
And, damn, she felt so good in his arms right then. He closed his eyes and relished the softness of her body and the smell of peaches.
“So, what happened with you and Dr. Am-el-ie tonight?” she asked finally, without raising her head.
“Nothing,” he said against her silky hair.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. I told you, we’re just friends.”
“Does she know that?”
“She does now.”
“Oh.”
“She offered me a job as assistant in her clinic till I get my medical license back. Then it would be a full partnership.”
“How convenient! And what string would be attached to that generous offer?”
“None whatsoever. I told you, we’re friends.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Not in the least.”
He laughed softly.
“Maybe a little bit, but it passed once you started acting like you were the boss and I was the dumb bimbo, ordering me to stay home.”
He considered arguing with her, but decided it was best to pick his battles with Charmaine. Instead, he said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Staying home.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I realized that it was dangerous to go out dancing in a public place.”
He did something really stupid then, not that he hadn’t said and done plenty of dumb things tonight. A soft ballad started playing on the radio, “Sweet Cajun Love,” and he asked, “Would you like to dance now, sugar?”
She pulled back slightly to look at him. After a long moment, she shook her head. “I better take a rain check.”
“Why?”
“Because if I dance with you tonight, I’ll end up in your bed.”
I hope, I hope, I hope. “Not necessarily.”
“Liar! I know what a good dancer you are.”
He shrugged. “Most Cajun men are.”
“Besides, you know what they say about men’s opinions of dancing? Just another form of foreplay.”
“You’ve got a point there.” He chuckled. “But I’m beginning to wonder… would our making love be such a bad thing?”
“Definitely a bad thing. You’re forgetting something important here, darlin’.”
“And that is?”
“I’m a born-again virgin.”
Chapter 8
And then their world turned upside down…
Tante Lulu arrived the next day in a whirlwind. Literally.
Remy circled his helicopter over the ranch about noon before landing in an empty field near the ranch house. Empty, that is, after about fifty cows ran like hell for the border.
Charmaine went out to the front yard to meet Tante Lulu, who was dressed today in what she must consider typical ranch attire—blue jeans, a plaid, long-sleeved shirt with snap buttons, boots, complete with spurs, and a cowgirl hat, all purchased in the children’s department at Walmart, no doubt.
Charmaine, at five-foot-nine, had to bend over to give the old lady, five-foot-zero on a good day, a warm hug. “Welcome, Auntie,” she said. “Oooh, we need to do your hair, honey.”
Her black curly hair had about a half inch of white roots showing all around. “Doan I know it! Ain’t had my roots done since before yer troubles. Mary Boudreaux asked me at church’t’day iff en I was goin’ to let my gray hair grow out and start actin’ my age. I asked her iffen she was goin’ to let those chin whiskers of hers grow down to her saggy boobies.”