“Aaarrgh!” Sylvie shrieked, and went after Luc with the upraised umbrella. “How dare you break into my home? How dare you listen to my private messages? How dare you smirk?”
Luc ducked just in time, and the umbrella came down with a whack on her great-grandmother’s Queen Anne side table, knocking the phone and answering machine to the floor.
Aunt Madeline was spouting off now. “Don’t forget now, dear. You mustn’t make any deals for your love potion. The formula could be very valuable. In fact, Margo and I might be able to help you out… for a fee, of course. We might even be able to market it through our herbal tea company. First things first, though. You need a good lawyer, sweetheart. May I suggest…”
Talk about vultures!
“Hey, babe. This is your lucky day. I just happen to be a lawyer,” Luc pointed out in response to her aunt’s suggestion. He was still smirking.
“Aaarrgh!” she said again, this time more softly. Tears filled her eyes as she surveyed the damage to her home. “How could you do this, Luc? I told you there was no antidote to the love potion.”
“You think I did this? For a lousy antidote?” Luc stiffened, no longer smirking. “God, you must consider me lower than pond scum.”
She counted to ten to stop herself from saying something really vulgar. “Who else, then?”
“Well, how about your boyfriend and his cohorts at Terrebonne Pharmaceuticals? How about some overzealous competitor who wants to get in on the love potion market? How about your scandal-shy, nutcake family? How about the FDA, EPA, the FBI, the CIA? And by the way, where are my lab results?”
“The FBI? The CIA? Give me a break!”
He ignored her interruption. “Not to mention” —he held up the gris-gris doll—”some voodoo fanatic.”
Her eyes bugged out at the voodoo doll.
People who lived in the South might not believe in voodoo, but they would never be so foolish as to disbelieve. Uh-uh! Superstitions ran deep below the Mason-Dixon line, and Sylvie felt a shiver of trepidation run through her.
“This is your fault, Luc. If you hadn’t opened your big mouth at my mother’s party, none of this would have happened.”
“My fault? My fault? If you hadn’t been poking around with human nature, inventing a jelly-bean aphrodisiac, none of this would’ve happened. And if your friend Blanche hadn’t blabbed to a newspaper reporter, we wouldn’t be in this fix,” he declared icily, moving to the French doors, where he examined the broken glass on the floor, being careful not to handle anything that might have fingerprints. “And, by the way, it works just fine, in case you were wondering.”
“What works just fine?” She was having trouble following his rambling train of thought. Was he talking about the doors, or who was at fault, or… oh, my God!
“I’ve been drinking nonstop since Friday night, and I don’t even like to drink all that much anymore. Despite being snockered, I still kept… keep thinking about you.” Sheepishly, and with way too much candor, he explained, “I’ve had a hard-on for you the past forty-eight hours straight.”
She looked down, without thinking, at the flat denim area near his crotch.
“Believe me, it’ll be salutin’ any minute now. And its national anthem ain’t no ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ It’s ‘Star-Spangled Red-Hot, White-Heat, Blue-Flame Sylvie. Put that on your Bunsen burner, babe, and think about it.”
“You are the crudest man I have ever met.”
“Yeah. Maybe that’s what you need in your life, chère. Maybe you’ve had too many la-dee-dah, polite namby-pambies in your life. Men who say, ‘Can I?’ and ‘May I?’ when what they should’ve said was, ‘Park your ass on my lap, sweet buns, and let the good times roll.'”
“I hate you.”
“Likewise.”
They were practically nose to nose now, gritting out their insults to each other, when a loud cracking noise erupted just above their heads. Another pane of glass shattered, followed by a whizzing noise, then a thud against the far wall.
Startled, they turned as one to see a bullet hole the size of a quarter in the cream-colored plaster wall.
“Duck!” Luc shouted, and shoved her to the floor, just before another bullet winged its way through the French doors.