“You can buy underwear with padding in the ass area,” Linc told Clarence.
“Really?” Unbelievably, Clarence appeared interested.
Maybe men are really as dumb as women claim we are. “I only said that Charmaine suggested a dude ranch,” Raoul tried to explain, “not that it would ever happen.”
But nobody listened to him. Clarence and Linc had moved on to discussing the pros and cons of putting a sock in the crotch of their jockey shorts. A bulge was apparently a definite hunk requirement.
Aaarrgh! He and St. Jude both thought that at the same time. Scary, huh?
And then the big boys arrived…
Charmaine was still bristling over Rusty’s cavalier disregard of her dude ranch proposal by early that afternoon.
She and Tante Lulu were making a grocery list for the Thanksgiving feast to be held two days hence. Truth to tell, Charmaine wasn’t feeling very thankful. She still owed a ton of money to the loan shark. Her relationship with Rusty was hanging in limbo, or worse. Tante Lulu was making her nervous about all the food she was planning to cook, and she wouldn’t shut up about a Christmas wedding.
“I still think we should shoot one of them cows and dig a pit in the backyard down by the bayou. If Rusty won’ do it, I will.” Tante Lulu just never gave up. She’d been harping on the beef barbecue idea since yesterday. “Let that big ol’ side of beef cook over the hot coals fer two days. Lot less trouble than stuffing a couple of turkeys. Although we could do the birds Cajun style. Inject ’em with marinade and deep fry ’em in hot oil. Yum! Whaddya think, sweetie?”
I think I’m getting the mother of all headaches… or the mother of all P.M.S… or both. “Whatever you decide is okay with me… except for shooting a cow. I won’t have any part of that.”
“Didja hear that?” Tante Lulu asked. “Sounds like a car out front.”
Since Rusty and the guys had ridden horses out to the north pasture to introduce the seven new bulls to the herd, it couldn’t be them. She and Tante Lulu made their way through the living room to the front porch.
“Son of a bitch!” the old lady swore, which was really out of character for her, except when you considered who she was calling a son of a bitch.
Therefore, Charmaine concurred, “Son of a bitch!”
It was her father, Valcour LeDeux, getting out of a black limo, along with three other men, all of them dressed in tailored suits that combined probably could have paid off her loan shark.
“What are you doing here?” Charmaine demanded of her father.
“What are you doing here?” her father demanded back.
“You’re not welcome here. Go the hell away.” She sniffed the air dramatically. “Have you been drinking? At 11 A.M.?”
He was still a good-looking man, despite his years, but his cheeks and nose were indeed flushed. Perhaps that was a permanent state for His Alcoholic Highness.
“We’re here to see Lanier about some ranch business,” he said.
“Is that a fact? Well, Daddy Dearest, Rusty’s not here; so you can discuss your ranch business with me,” Charmaine said.
“Funny bizness is what it is if it comes from you, Valcour, you slimy toad, you.” Tante Lulu stepped up to stand beside Charmaine, regarding Valcour like one of the cow pies that littered the Triple L Ranch pastures.
“You!” Valcour spit out, regarding Tante Lulu with equal venom.
“Any business you have to discuss with Rusty can be said to me,” Charmaine said. “He won’t be back till late this afternoon, and you will for damn sure be gone by then.”
“Val, let me handle this,” said one impeccably groomed gentleman as he stepped to the forefront. He had thick white hair styled, no doubt, by one of the New Orleans celebrity hairdressers at five hundred dollars a pop. “I assume this lovely lady is your daughter and the other lovely lady is Miz Rivard of Bayou Black. I’ve heard so much about both of you.” Charmaine recognized the jerk from newspaper photos as one of the top execs at Cypress Oil.