“It’s not true,” she whispered weakly.
“It’s true, Sylv. It’s true.”
Tears filled her eyes… eyes that were really rather pretty, a luminous shade of blue, like the sky seen through a bayou mist on a summer day. Whoa! He caught himself up short. It was one thing to be a sucker for a woman’s tears, but now he was beginning to notice nice things about Sylvie.
Could her jelly bean potion really be working?
Nah!
He felt kind of low unloading such bad news on Sylvie, though. Was she in love or something with a gay man? “Does it matter so much, Sylvie?” he asked with as much sensitivity as he could summon. He was still having trouble holding back a smile at the whole ludicrous situation.
“Drop dead!” she said with a sniffle.
So much for sensitivity. He walked over to the table and picked up his jar of water. “When can you do the tests? I need an answer ASAP.”
“I’m not doing your tests.”
“Oh, yes, you are, Sylv.” Setting the jar back down, he picked up the dish of remaining jelly beans, scooped them up, and stuffed them in his jeans pocket. Patting the bulge with satisfaction, he said, “Evidence.”
“Don’t you mean blackmail?”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll do it on one condition. You have to go out of town for at least a week. You can’t be anywhere in my vicinity.”
“A week?” he sputtered.
“You did suck up a double dose of those jelly beans,” she said defensively. “So, yeah. At least one week. I’ll put off the human trial runs until your ingestion runs its course.”
Ingestion? Now, it’s an ingestion? Hell! “Oh, all right.” He didn’t have any pressing cases on deck, and he was on vacation; he’d been planning a trip deep into the bayou. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay away for even a week, though. Well, she didn’t need to know that. As a parting shot, he added, “I hope I don’t get hungry tonight… for jelly beans.” He patted his pocket again.
“You wouldn’t!”
Maybe he would, Luc decided. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. But one thing was sure. If he was getting into the blackmail business, he wanted something more than a lab test for his efforts. And he knew just what it was gonna be.
Slooow dancing.
Chapter Three
“I’ve never seen so many men with no behinds in all my life,” Sylvie observed the next evening.
“You’ve got a point there,” Blanche agreed. “Most of them are politicians, and everyone knows they have unleavened buns. Comes from all that hot air, I think. Yep, their inner tubes are leaking.”
Sylvie and Blanche were sitting on lounge chairs beside the pool behind the Breaux family plantation house. The estate was renowned for its spectacular garden of native and imported irises of a thousand different species, which were in full bloom now.
Tonight Inez Breaux-Fontaine was holding a cocktail party for a few of her closest friends… about two hundred people. Some of the men and women wore bathing suits and were enjoying a swim, but most had come for the political and social networking. Sylvie and Blanche, in sun-dresses and sandals, were people-watching as they sucked down watermelon margaritas like salt addicts, and listened to Paul Trebel’s band playing soft jazz over by the archway of live oak trees.
Sylvie licked the crust on her stemmed glass and continued her observations. “God really must be a man, don’t you think? Either that or He has a warped sense of humor. Why else would a woman’s behind blossom into Rubenesque proportions after a certain age, while a man’s behind just disappears?”
“C’est la vie,”—Blanche slurred with margarita-inspired wisdom. “What kind of buns does Charles have?”
“How would I know?” Sylvie was still in a state of shock over Lucien LeDeux eating the jelly beans intended for her boss. She hadn’t lost faith in her potion, but she wasn’t about to try her experiment on Charles or anyone else till she was sure Luc wasn’t lurking about. He’d promised to stay away for a week, but she wasn’t taking any chances. And no way did she believe his contention that Charles was gay. No way. Blanche grinned at her, as if reading her thoughts.