Page 19 of The Cajun Doctor

“Yeah, it was great, wasn’t it? Did you see Charmaine dirty dancing around her husband Rusty, like he was a friggin’ stripper pole?”

“No, I must have left by then.”

“She was three sheets to the wind, although it doesn’t take much of a breeze for Charmaine to show off her assets.” He grinned and added, “Never thought I’d see the day my brother Tee-John would settle down, though.”

Actually, Luc, Remy, and René were brothers, while John and Charmaine were half brother and half sister, having different mothers. Or something like that.

“Way I hear it, all you LeDeux men were . . . are . . . wild.”

“True enough,” he said, making a little bow, as if she’d paid him a compliment, “but all in the past, once we married.” He winked at her to show he hadn’t tamed down all that much. “Anyhow, none of us were ever as bad . . . or good . . . as Tee-John. I was certainly never a stripper, even if Tee-John only ever did it for a week or so on a bet until Tante Lulu dragged him home by the ear from Atlantic City. That boy probably taught Charmaine some of the moves she demonstrated at the wedding, or maybe it was the other way around.” He grinned at Samantha, and she could see why the LeDeuxs had a reputation for charm.

“Well, Tee-John might be the king of cool, but the Cajun Men Revue your family puts on occasionally comes a close second. I saw you out at Angola Prison a few years ago.” And they had been really good, doing a bayou version of that old Village People act. Even Luc in his conservative business suit. Macho Man, for sure.

“Don’t remind me. I swear, my aunt could talk a bear into doing the hula.” He shook his head as if to rid it of a distasteful memory.

The LeDeux clan was notorious throughout the South, especially with their leader, the outrageous Tante Lulu, calling all the shots. But, really, the Starr family was no better, Samantha had to admit. And there was an amazing thirty-some of them floating around, most of them involved with the family business, others just reaping the profits. Can anyone say alimony? Or freeloader? But all of them a little bit weird.

Stanley Starr, her grandfather who founded the grocery store chain, walked around in white plantation suits, under which he wore suspenders and arm garters. With his white hair and goatee, he resembled the late Colonel Sanders of chicken fame. Grandfather had a thing for Elvis and would allow no Muzak in his one hundred stores, only old Elvis songs. Coming from Scottish immigrants, Stanley instilled in his children . . . or at least some of them . . . a love of all things Scottish.

Then there was her father Bruce Starr who was currently on his fifth wife, Florence, a former women’s prison warden. Well, actually a superintendent of women’s prisons for the state of Alabama, a political appointment. Bruce cherished his Scottish heritage, too, and was often seen in a kilt, knee socks, and sporran. In Louisiana! They’d even had haggis for Thanksgiving one time. Eew!

Samantha’s mother Colette Starr, the first wife, lived on the Cote d’Azur when she wasn’t skipping from one society hot spot to another. You’d never know that her mother had been born in a Baton Rouge trailer park and her real name was Colleen.

Aunt Dot, a fifty-something, butch lesbian to the max and proud of it, ran the marketing section of Starr Foods like a general. She was responsible for Starr Foods being a gay pride sponsor for one of the Mardi Gras floats last year.

Her uncle Douglas (which he insisted be pronounced Doog-lass in a Scots dialect) was an overaged Casanova who hit on every woman he met. He, too, was often seen in a kilt and liked to use words like “bonnie” and “braw” and “Wheesht!” and “lassie” and “Dinna fash yerself!”

Her half brother Wallace was responsible for Starr Foods owning a thoroughbred racing farm in Kentucky. They’d yet to have a winner, but it was a great write-off in taxes, or so Wallace claimed. All of his racers had names related to Scotland, such as “Highlander,” “Braw Laddie,” “Loch Lassie,” “Bagpiper,” “Tartan,” “Heather Now,” and “Whiskey Girl.”

Aunt Maire had an obsession with pink, the color, not the singer. Everything she wore had to be pink, even her hair, lipstick, and nail enamel. Her house in the French Quarter was painted pink (which gave the historical preservationists a fit), and the interior was enough to give a person a Pepto-Bismol headache.

Angus Starr, her stepbrother by marriage or some such thing (yes, Angus, like the cow), was never seen without a laptop or the latest electronic gismo. Angus, ten or so years younger than Samantha, was the son by a previous marriage of Darla, her father’s third wife. Angus, when he wasn’t attending one college or another (Can anyone say professional student?) was supposedly working on a computer project for Starr Foods that would revolutionize their distribution, but he rarely showed up for work, it being too boring for his superior brain.

“I heard you met the newest additions to the LeDeux clan. At the wedding,” Luc said, jarring her from her reverie.

“News travels fast on the bayou. You mean the Alaska twins?”

“Yep. Tante Lulu’s already got her matchmaking wheels whirring.”

“Not in my direction, I hope.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Puh-leeze. I have enough of a man problem with Nick. Besides, what I don’t need is another egotistical, arrogant, two-timing doctor.”

“You paint all the medical profession with one brushstroke?”

“Believe me, I’ve seen enough with Nick and all his colleagues to write a book. Sleazebag doctors and the women they screw. You know the difference between God and doctors? God doesn’t think he’s a doctor.”

“Whoa,” Luc said with a laugh. “Anyhow, only one of the twins is a doctor. Daniel. The other one is a pilot. In fact, Aaron has already talked to Remy about possibly flying copters with his company.”

“Oh.” Funny, but the only one she’d noticed was Daniel. He’d been so compellingly attractive to her that she hadn’t even noticed the brother Aaron. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m not in the market for another man in my life, doctor or otherwise.”

“Okay. Tell me what Nick’s been up to.” Luc took a small notebook and a pen out of the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket.

“I told you about his threats after the hearing.”

“That was two weeks ago. Are you regretting not filing a complaint like I suggested?”