Page 8 of Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass

More priorities! St. Jude said.

Louise rolled her eyes.

After her customers had left, she had to use a broom to chase a baby alligator out of her blueberry patch and back into the stream where its anxious mama, whom she had named Gloria, was no doubt waiting to take a bite of some tasty human flesh. Her five-year-old niece Adèle had gotten so hyped up by the encounter…jumping up and down with excitement, giggling, screaming, wanting to pet the stupid thing…that it had taken Louise more than an hour afterward to get the by-then weepy, fussy child down for her usual nap. Two loads of laundry were waiting for her, and she still had an order of fresh fruit and vegetables to deliver to Boudreaux’s General Store, a small but essential source of income to supplement her folk-healing proceeds.

Louise was only twenty-six years old, but she felt like seventy-six most days. And it wasn’t just physical exhaustion that wore her down. It was the never-ending grief of losing her father, her fiancé Phillipe, her brother Frank, and her mother, but mostly Phillipe. And the responsibility of raising her daughter while pretending the child was actually her niece.

Louise sighed again and picked up a large, oval wicker gathering basket by its handle and walked over to the fig tree where she began to gather the ripe fruit. She would need to make fig jam for herself, but this first harvest would be for sale. Every penny counted these days. She was saving to buy new tires for her jalopy, which she’d named Lillian two years ago after trading in the car she’d inherited from Phillipe when it had broken down once too many times.

Once she dumped the figs into two sturdy cardboard tomato boxes, she moved to the vegetable garden. Tomatoes, green peppers, scallions, string beans, okra, several varieties of lettuce, squash, zucchini, and snap peas soon filled two more boxes on the porch. She was back in the garden, bent over, pulling out carrots by their green fleecy tops from the loose soil when she heard a motor vehicle approaching, then pulling into the clamshell driveway behind her at the side of the cottage. She didn’t straighten and look back…not at first, figuring it would be another of the traiteur customers seeking some herbal remedy.

When she did glance back over her shoulder, she saw a man leaning against the front of a short-bed truck, arms folded over his chest, staring at her bottom which was pretty much aimed in his direction.

Men! Pfff! Wearing loose bib overalls over a short-sleeved man’s undershirt, both of which once belonged to her brother, belted with a twisted scarf at the waist and the ankle cuffs rolled up to mid-calf, she knew her figure was nothing to garner any kind of attention. Heck! Even naked, or wearing fancy lingerie, she was no voluptuous pin-up these days, if she ever had been, never mind those posters she’d done for Phillipe when he’d been stationed overseas. No breasts or hips to speak of, and only five-foot-three on a good day. As for her hair, which was a frizzy dark cloud about her face in this humidity, she couldn’t recall if she’d even brushed it this morning. Usually, she tucked it under one of those red farmer’s handkerchiefs, Rosie the Riveter style. And the sun was doing a great job of turning her skin not to a burnished gold but a red raspberry tone.

And yet this man had a grin tugging at his lips and his eyes sparkled mischievously as he perused her with bold appreciation.

Men! she thought again. They can be aroused by a tree limb if it’s the right shape. She straightened and turned, planting her hands on her hips. It was then that she realized he wasn’t looking at her with admiration, but rather amusement. Or indifference.

The man was not attracted to her.

More than that, he thought she was funny.

For some reason, that annoyed her. Not that she was attracted to him. Still, no woman wanted a man to laugh at her.

On closer scrutiny, she admitted that he was good-looking in a lean, lazily sexual way. Who was she kidding? The man was ten kinds of sexy. And he knew it, if the spark in his whiskey-hued eyes was any indication. Light brown, overlong hair stuck out from under a battered, but jauntily tilted, straw Fedora. A faded plaid, button-down shirt hung over the slim hips of black work pants, ending in scuffed leather boots. He was clean-shaven, but dark whiskers already shadowed his face, not in an unappealing way. He appeared tall, but was probably under six feet.

There were plenty of men about since the war ended five years ago. Some of them were shell-shocked, and a few had lost a limb or two. But mostly the men of the bayou who’d returned provided a vast array of handsome Cajun masculinity to the girls who’d stayed behind.

But none of that mattered. A man was the last thing she needed in her complicated life, and, really, no one could ever take Phillipe’s place. “Can I do somethin’ for you?” she asked testily when he continued to just stare at her, and say nothing.

Which, of course, was a poor choice of words.

“Oh, mais oui, darlin’,” he said with an exaggerated Cajun accent, pushing away from the truck. Before she had a chance to be offended by his innuendo, which was misplaced considering his lack of attraction, he added, “My father sent me to pick up a delivery.”

“Your father?”

“Joseph Boudreaux. I’m his older son, Justin. I believe you know my younger brother Leon.”

Just then, she noticed the logo on the door of the truck. “Boudreaux’s General Store.” She stepped forward out of the garden, clapping her hands together to remove some dried mud. Better not shake hands, she thought, even before his upper lip curled with distaste at her grubbiness.

“I was fixin’ to deliver the produce later this afternoon.”

He shrugged. “I had to be out this way, so Dad asked me to stop and save you the trouble.” It was obvious the side trip was not a welcome one.

She motioned him toward the back porch. “Come, you, sit down while I get the rest of my order ready. Would you like a glass of sweet tea while you wait?” Or some sour lemonade to match your mood?

He frowned as he watched a gator floating down the bayou stream. Possibly, Gloria, the baby’s mother from this morning, but, no, this one was much bigger. Had to be a male. Maybe Gloria’s boyfriend. She didn’t know why Justin should be frowning, though. Gators and other wild creatures were a fact of life on the bayou.

“I’d love a cold drink,” he said, once the gator was out of sight, then sank down into one of the two high-backed rocking chairs. There was a two-person swing at the other end of the porch.

“Be back directly,” she told him and went inside to wash her hands and turn down the heat on the stove. Before she returned outside to pack up the rest of the produce, she checked on Adèle, who was thankfully still knocked out on her cot from her energetic morning. As Louise had suspected, when she glanced in the mirror, she saw that she was a mess. There were even some twigs in her hair. Oh, well. She wasn’t out to impress anyone…least of all a full-of-himself Cajun stud.

“Can I help you?” he asked half-heartedly a short time later as he sipped at his drink, his long legs extended and crossed at the ankles.

“No. I’m fine. I’ll be toting in lots more over the next few weeks, gettin’ ready for Labor Day weekend.”

He nodded, and contented himself with observing her packing up more of the vegetables into boxes, along with a passel of fresh-cut sunflowers which she tied with a string into a half dozen clumps and slid into a paper sack. Sometimes folks bought a bouquet or two on a whim, though she wasn’t about to explain that to him.