Page 13 of The Cajun Doctor

How could they refuse now?

Barry was thankfully silent.

Chapter Three

(two months later)

More LeDeux men? Hallelujah! The South will rise again! . . .

Daniel agreed to go to Louisiana with Aaron, provided they only stay long enough to get the mysterious “gift” Louise Rivard had for them. Then, they were off to the Bahamas for a week of bonefishing.

To everyone’s surprise, Daniel really had resigned from his medical practice. It had taken two months to tie up all the red tape. And Aunt Mel really was entertaining an offer for the air shipping business.

Now he and Aaron had decisions to make about the rest of their lives. Where better than out on a boat with a fishing rod in one hand, a cold beer in the other, basking in the warm sun?

Better that than the cold glacier he had been contemplating.

They boarded an Alaska Airlines flight headed for Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, and almost immediately began running into people who knew their Southern kinfolks. Especially the apparently notorious Louise Rivard, known to one and all as Tante Lulu, even though tante translated to “aunt” in Cajun.

Kinfolks? Did I say . . . uh, think kinfolks? See, already I’m talking like a redneck. Next I’ll be saying y’all and darlin’ and “pass me the grits.”

“I remember the time Tante Lulu entered a belly dancing contest when she was eighty years old. And won,” a Delta Airline attendant told Aaron at a stopover in Seattle. Aaron had been flirting nonstop with Vanessa between her hostessing duties while Daniel tried to sleep.

“My PawPaw swears by Tante Lulu’s rheumatiz potions,” Frank Guidry, the pilot, who was “born on the bayou,” confided to Daniel. “The old lady is a first class traiteur, y’know. A folk healer.”

Daniel knew, and barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes.

“If you ever need a lawyer, check out Lucien LeDeux,” a fellow passenger, a gray-haired businesswoman from Baton Rouge, advised from across the aisle. She had a silver pin that said “Proud to Be a Cajun” on the lapel of a neat, rose-colored suit. “He’s known as the Swamp Solicitor. Slicker than spit on a doorknob, he is. In a good way,” she’d added at the apparent expression of distaste on Daniel’s face.

Okaaay.

The desk clerk, Linda Jo Dupuis, at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel where they stayed that night, had taken one look at the register as they’d signed in and exclaimed, “LeDeuxs! I dint think there were any more of you stud muffins left. Are you two as wild as the rest of the LeDeux men?”

“Yes,” Aaron answered before Daniel could react.

No filters! People below the Mason-Dixon line appeared to have no filters on their mouths. And his brother was no better!

Linda Jo was six-foot tall. Although she wore a conservative black, belted dress, it was sleeveless, exposing the biceps of a linebacker and tattoos up one side and down the other of her muscular frame. She looked as if she could handle any old wild thing that came her way, man or animal.

Good thing I decided to quit medicine. I’d never be able to hang my shingle here, unless I want to be known as the Stud Muffin Doctor. Holy crap!

“Are you here fer the weddin’?”

“What wedding?” Aaron asked.

“Are you kiddin’? Half the wimmin in Dixie are cryin’ the blues, as we speak. Everyone knows that Tee-John LeDeux is gettin’ hitched t’morrow. He was the wildest of the LeDeux bunch, guar-an-teed. Unless . . .” Beulah eyed him and Aaron speculatively.

Daniel answered before Aaron could this time. “No! We’ll leave that distinction to our . . . um . . . to John LeDeux.” Daniel still couldn’t believe he had half brothers, let alone say it out loud. Including, presumably, this John person. And at least three others, besides! And those were only the “legitimate” ones.

The porter, who carried their luggage to the room, having overheard the conversation at the reception desk, surmised, out loud, that Valcour LeDeux might have fathered up to a dozen children in all. Once again, Daniel mused that people here in the South seemed to have no reservations about discussing personal matters, even with strangers.

But, really, hadn’t their father ever heard of condoms?

They drove their rental car into Houma late the next morning and got directions to Tante Lulu’s home at a beauty salon owned by their half sister Charmaine LeDeux Lanier. They’d tried calling Tante Lulu last night and this morning, but all they’d gotten so far was her answering machine: “Hi, y’all. This is Tante Lulu, as if ya dint know. Tee-hee-hee. Leave a message or call me back. Iffen this is an emergency, and ya need some herbs quick like, jist come on by and get ’em from mah pantry. Buh-bye!”

That is just great! Drive-by prescriptions!

Charmaine wasn’t in her shop, but a huge framed photograph of her hung in the foyer, taken a long time ago when she’d been Miss Louisiana. A good-looking woman, Daniel had to admit, especially in that skimpy white bathing suit, and despite all the big fluffy black hair, which must have been the style back then, at least for Southern belles. “Why did they wear high heels with bathing suits in competitions back then?” he asked Aaron as they returned to the rental car. “I mean, how many women do you see walking around the pool in high heels?”