Stepping into the dim interior of the tavern, she felt a blast of heat from the numerous bodies inside, even though the place wasn’t filled to capacity. Then she recoiled from the explosion of rowdy music that seemed too loud for the small space. The band had finished “Big Mamou” and swung without interruption into the equally upbeat “Louisiana Man.” Luc’s brother René, the lead singer, had a fair voice, but more important, a foot-stomping, grinning, rebel-yelling demeanor that told his audience he was there to have a low-down good time, just as they were.
Then she saw Luc.
The fiddle dropped from her fingers to the floor with a clunk. “You two-timing, womanizing SOB,” she muttered under her breath, though why she would think the louse owed her any fidelity, she couldn’t say. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears of hurt and blinding jealousy.
Jealousy? Jealousy? No way! Uh-uh! Oh, God, jealousy.
The Louse was leaning back against the bar, braced by his two elbows. One booted foot was propped casually by the heel on the foot rail. A long-necked bottle of beer dangled from the loose fingers of one hand.
Standing in front of Luc was a gorgeous brunette with big hair. Her small hips were stuffed into a pair of skintight jeans and her breasts were pushed all the way up to the North Pole. And Luc was smiling at her. In fact, The Louse threw his head back and laughed out loud at something she said.
Sylvie had never been witty. She’d never had a talent for flirting, as this bimbo obviously did. She didn’t have small hips. Let’s face it, shyness therapy or no shyness therapy, she was a failure in male-female seduction games.
Seduction? Damn! First, jealousy. Now I’m thinking about seduction. With Luc, for God’s sake!
Just then, Luc looked her way, over his girlfriend’s shoulder, and he smiled. The Louse dared to smile at her… in the same roguish, sexy way he did at all women.
And she melted under that smile… the way all women did.
It was untenable. It was humiliating. It was the last straw.
Luc was approaching her now, his smile replaced by a glare as he no doubt recalled that he’d ordered her not to leave the houseboat till he returned. Hah! Without thinking, she reached down for the fiddle and threw it at him. He ducked just in time, and the fiddle barely missed the well-endowed bosom of the bimbo following close behind him, swaying in her high-heeled, white snakeskin boots. Both of them wore stunned expressions on their faces. Hell, Sylvie was pretty well stunned herself by her bizarre behavior.
With a sob, she whirled and made a run for the exit. Luc caught up with her before she reached the bouncer at the door.
“Sylvie? What’s wrong?” Luc asked, his viselike fingers on her forearm holding her in place.
“You!” she railed, struggling to get free. “You’re the problem. I’m locked in that damn houseboat, worrying about you—”
“You were worried about me?” The slow grin that spread across Luc’s lips was the absolute last straw, on top of the previous last straw, that is. Sylvie made a fist with her free hand and swung hard, but all she connected with was Luc’s other hand, which laced with hers and pulled her closer.
“You were worried about me?” he repeated in a husky, too-sexy murmur.
Sylvie smelled the tangy scent of Luc’s aftershave. He must have shaved somewhere this evening. For Barroom Barbie?
“Yes, I was worried about you, you louse! You’ve been gone so long that I thought you might have been hurt, or… or killed. And what do I find? You drinking and flirting with some barroom floozy.”
Luc’s jaw dropped open in surprise.
“Hey!” the barroom floozy said. She was standing right behind Luc, ready to resume whatever had been going on between the two of them. “I’m no floozy.”
“Hah! If it looks like a floozy, and jiggles like a floozy, and hangs out in dives like a floozy, then it must be a floozy,” Sylvie said. Even she was shocked at the snideness of her remark. She had certainly lost her shyness now.