“Yes,” Sylvie said, face heating with embarrassment. “I’m a chemist.”
“Your newspaper pictures don’t do you justice, dear.”
“Well, thank you.” Sylvie’s face grew even hotter. Accepting compliments had been one of the hardest things for her to learn in shyness therapy. Compliments called attention to a person, whereas the timid person would much rather be invisible.
“Is it working?” Tante Lulu asked out of the clear blue sky.
Sylvie knew instinctively what it she referred to. The love potion, of course.
Luc answered for her. “Hell, yes, it’s working.”
“Lu-u-uc,” Sylvie chided. “You can’t tell your aunt things like that.”
But Tante Lulu looked as if her nephew had just handed her a pot of gold. She made another sign of the cross. “Praise God. My prayers are answered.”
“Not that kind of working, Tante Lulu,” Luc intervened quickly, raking the fingers of his right hand through his hair. The left hand still held the pistol. “The other kind.”
“What other kind?” Tante Lulu’s eyes slitted at him, then went wide with understanding. “Don’t you be givin’ me that lust-not-love business. Who said anything about that hop-skip-and-go-naked kind of love? I never said anything about oinking.”
“Not oinking. Boinking,” Luc corrected.
“Whatever!” His aunt threw her hands up in an exasperated manner. “I’m not so old I don’t remember the difference. You been given a love potion, boy, not a lust potion. Ain’t that right, sweetie?” The last was for Sylvie.
“Well, that’s technically right,” Sylvie sputtered, her face flaming with discomfort. What a conversation to be having with this elderly woman!
“See, Luc, I was right,” Tante Lulu said. “Lordy, there are so many things to do.”
“Like what?” Luc inquired suspiciously.
“Feathering the bride, for one.” She tsked at Luc as if he should already know that.
“What’s feathering the bride?” Sylvie asked.
“Oh, my God!” Luc muttered, crossing his eyes with frustration that she would encourage his aunt.
Amazingly, he looked kind of cute when he crossed his eyes.
“That’s when all the Cajun women in the community give a prize chicken to the new bride. That way she has her own money, independent from her husband. She gets to keep all the egg money from her flock for herself.”
“Bride feathering—what a nice tradition!” Sylvie remarked.
Luc’s response was a snort of disgust.
“But who’s the bride?” Sylvie frowned with confusion.
Tante Lulu looked directly at her with a wide smile. Luc looked directly at her with pure disgust for posing the question.
“Me? You can’t mean me,” she protested to Tante Lulu. “I’m not a bride-to-be, and I most definitely do not have any place for chickens at my town house.”
But Tante Lulu ignored her objections as if she’d never spoken. “Yep, I best get home and finish up my crocheting for you, Luc. I still have the bridal quilt to complete before the wedding.”
“What wedding?” she and Luc asked as one, their voices equally filled with shock.
“Dum, dum, dee, dum,” Tante Lulu hummed in response as she strolled in front of them into the living room.
Then the old lady screamed.
Chapter Seven
Criminal elements wouldn’t prompt a peep from Tante Lulu, but damage to her precious handiworks caused her to scream her head off. So, it was not surprising that two hours later, Luc, Sylvie, and Tante Lulu were still in his Houma apartment.
Danger be damned, his great-aunt was determined that they could not leave till she’d picked up and examined each and every one of her—rather his—damaged towels and pot holders and sundry other linens. And Luc understood her dismay. After all, she’d probably spent a thousand hours laboring to produce those priceless items for him.
Claudia Casale had come and gone, once again, after being summoned to assess this new threat. Her opinions had been much the same as those she’d given at Sylvie’s place, except that the damage here was most assuredly related to Luc’s work for the shrimpers, and not Sylvie’s love potion.
He felt comfortable placing the investigative work in Claudia’s hands since she was a true professional. He and Claudia had worked together on numerous cases in the past, but they’d never been involved personally, though he couldn’t say why, exactly. She was a beautiful woman.