At first, Sylvie was too stunned to react. “Oh, I can’t believe you said that. What makes you think I have the power, or the inclination, to hurt your brother?”
“Just take care, that’s all, ma’am.”
“Take care of what?” Luc asked, coming up behind them on the dock in front of the plane.
“Nothing,” Remy said, casting her a speaking glance of warning. Then he noticed the Happy Meal box in Luc’s hand. It was obvious that something live was inside since the waxed paper was rustling up a storm. “What is that?”
“Fucking rats,” Luc replied dryly.
Sylvie put her face in her hands, but still she heard Remy exclaim, “Luc! Now you’ve gone too far with your cursing in front of a lady.”
Sylvie peeked through her fingers and saw Luc open the Happy Meal box in front of Remy’s astounded face. She could just guess what he was witnessing with Samson and Delilah.
“I told you,” Luc said. “Fucking rats.”
Chapter Ten
“I want to go home,” she said a short time later.
Luc, Remy, and René all looked at her, sighed with exasperation, and exclaimed with a communal “Jeesh!”
René stood next to her on the dock. Luc and Remy were in front of them doing something manly with ropes that would presumably allow the plane to lift off soon.
René had come out of the tavern a moment ago. Even though the tavern was still open, the band had quit for the night. Grinning at her unabashedly, he’d inquired, “How’d ya like my song, chère? I’m thinking ’bout sending it to Beau-Soleil to record.” Luc had threatened to break his too-pretty nose then, especially when René informed an amused Remy about his “Cajun Knight” lyrics.
God must have been in a really good mood when he created these three gorgeous men, she thought irrelevantly now, just after making her pronouncement. But perhaps not so irrelevantly since the appeal of one of them was the reason for her current panic.
“I want to go home,” she repeated.
“Uh-oh,” René said.
“Oh, damn,” Luc said.
“I smell trouble,” Remy said.
“Really, I just want to go home. I don’t want to be any trouble, though. I can call a cab… or call my mother to send her driver.” She practically choked on that last offer.
“Do the words ‘spoiled brat’ mean anything to you?” Luc asked. “Or ‘over my dead body’?”
Raising her chin in silent defiance, she felt like a whiny child insisting on some impossible whim, but she had had enough of this “adventure” with Luc. She hated the way mysterious people or events were steering her life, and her lack of control with Luc had been the last straw. Who knows what she would do if she were in his company much longer?
Actually, she knew exactly what would happen, and that was the problem.
“You can’t go home, Sylv. Not for a couple of days, at least,” Luc told her with exaggerated patience.
“Yes, I can. I appreciate your letting me tag along so far, Luc, but I’m not cut out for this Die Hard/Lethal Weapon stuff.”
“And you think I am?” He raised his eyebrows indignantly. “You think I envision myself as some Bruce Willis/Mel Gibson fool?”
He was better than those two, in her opinion, but he didn’t need to know that. “I’ll hire a bodyguard, like you suggested,” she said. “Maybe your friend Claudia can give me a recommendation.”
“My friend Claudia isn’t going to give you diddly-squat, unless I tell her to.”
Oooh, he was making her so mad. First, he didn’t want to take her with him. Now, he wouldn’t let her go. “Listen up, Luc, this is the end of my trip with you. That’s final.”
“Uh, I don’t think so, ma’am,” Remy interjected, raising a hand like a little boy in a classroom. “There are a few things that have happened in the past ten hours or so that you two are not aware of. My boss needed me to deliver some parts to an oil rigger who lives in Houma. It would have appeared odd if I’d refused. The point is, I picked up some news. I had planned to fill you in during the plane ride.”