A deafening silence followed in which Luc felt like crawling into one of the filthy cracks in Swampy’s plank floors.
“Uh. Luc, I think you’d better explain.” Remy’s voice was oddly strangled.
“What can I say? I was a college senior, home on break, suffering from terminal horniness. There was a Christmas party… I’d been drinking… and Jolie crawled into my bed. So, maybe… just maybe… Tee-John is mine.”
“And Sylvie found out?” Remy guessed.
“Yep. Just call me ‘the bad boy of the bayou,’ through and through.”
Remy inhaled deeply, then let out a whoosh of air. “Well, you’d better make that ‘the bad boys of the bayou.’ ‘Cause I was eighteen at the time and living at home. Suffice it to say, I always wondered if Tee-John was my son. Like you, there was only one time with the round-heeled Jolie, but I guess that’s all it takes.”
“Remy!” Luc exclaimed. “Are you saying you’ve been as guilt-ridden as I’ve been all these years?”
“Absolutely. I guess it’s why we’ve both kept such a close eye on the kid. I would have moved to Alaska long ago to open my own small aircraft business, but I felt the need to stick close to Houma.”
Luc stared at his brother in astonishment. “What a helluva mess! I just can’t believe Jolie went after both of us.”
“Uh, actually…” René raised a hand sheepishly. “I was nineteen, and Jolie came to my shrimp boat one night. You can’t imagine how guilty I’ve been feeling all these years. And I’ve been keepin’ an eagle eye on Tee-John too.”
They all glanced at each other, stunned at the enormity of what they’d just discovered.
“What a sorry bunch of sonofabitches we are!” René concluded with a mirthless laugh.
“Man, that Jolie must have been laughin’ up her miniskirt all these years,” Luc commented. “Pulling all our strings, even Dad’s. I’m thinking she’s not as dumb as she acts.”
“You should tell Sylvie about this, Luc,” Remy suggested. “Betcha she’d understand.”
He shook his head. “No, don’t you see, it’s not the possible paternity that upset her. It’s that she believes my failure to take responsibility has put Tee-John in physical jeopardy. I’m A-l reckless scum in her book, guaranteed.”
His brothers nodded. Women had a different way of thinking than men, and they knew it.
“Well, one thing’s for damn sure. We’re going to find out one way or another who the proud papa is. Now,” Luc vowed, and everyone agreed.
The next day, DNA tests were performed in a hospital lab on Tee-John LeDeux and his three “brothers,” not to mention an enraged Valcour LeDeux.
The father was proven to be Valcour, much to Jolie’s delight. “Do y’all think I would’ve risked mah fortune gettin’ knocked up by you penniless schmucks?” Jolie remarked to them with a laugh.
“She has a point there,” Luc agreed.
“Yep, schmucks ‘r us,” was Remy’s astute observation.
“Do they sell cigars to celebrate non-fatherhood?” René put in.
Valcour just glowered at them all.
Valcour and Jolie were married the following day in a civil ceremony… but only after Jolie signed a generous pre-nup, put together by The Swamp Solicitor, no less.
Although some of the burden of guilt was lifted from Luc’s, René’s, and Remy’s shoulders, they were sobered by the secret they’d harbored all these years and the repercussions that could occur when morality wavered. And they’d all confessed to having worried that there was a bit of their father’s bad blood in them.
Luc was determined to explain all of this to Sylvie and hope she would understand, but thus far she’d avoided his calls. Not to worry. He had a plan that should redeem himself in her eyes. The world was going to know as well as he did just how great a chemist Sylvie was. She was sure to melt when he made his big announcement.
He hoped.
But just for good measure, Luc pulled out his St. Jude medal and said a little prayer. St. Jude wasn’t the patron saint of hopeless cases for nothing.
Sylvie had been meeting with Charles for more than an hour, trying to convince him to put a temporary halt on the JBX project.