Page 116 of The Cajun Doctor

“Thank you,” he said, for more reasons than one. He hadn’t thought about his disastrous relationship with Samantha for, oh, fifteen minutes, with all the old lady’s chatter.

Lily Beth waddled up and helped as much as she could. And when Aaron returned, complaining about the amount of groceries he’d been forced to buy, Tante Lulu went back to the kitchen to start dinner, but not before she pulled a framed St. Jude picture from her handbag and hung it on the wall. To no one’s surprise, she also had a hammer and nails in the blasted bag.

Lily Beth went back to the house with her. And Aaron stayed to help Daniel pull out the rusted metal fence.

“I think there’s some white picket fencing stored in one of the sheds. Used to encircle these cottages at one time,” Aaron told him. “Of course, it hasn’t been white for a lot of years, but nothing a little paint won’t handle.”

“Let’s not go overboard. This is just for one guy, for a short time.”

“Uh-huh,” Aaron said, just as disbelieving as Tante Lulu had been.

“By the way, do you still have the key to Remy’s houseboat?” Until they bought this plantation, Aaron had been living on Remy LeDeux’s old houseboat while Daniel lived in the bayou fishing camp.

Aaron stopped what he was doing, stacking the dismantled wire fencing, to stare at him. “Trouble in paradise already?”

“Aaron,” he cautioned.

“Yeah, I have the key. It’s in my bedroom dresser. Why do you need to stay there?”

Daniel declined to answer.

“Ah, Dan,” his brother said. “I knew she would hurt you, but I didn’t expect it so soon.”

“It’s not her fault, and don’t you dare say anything to her. It’s my fault for assuming too much.”

“Uh-huh. So, this whole safe house business here still goes on?”

Daniel shrugged. “I expect so. The Dixie Mob arrests still haven’t taken place, as far as I know. And I’m not sure when the news will break on Nick Coltrane’s death and crimes, and whether Samantha and Angus’s names will come up. At the very least, they’ll want to avoid the news media, at first.”

Aaron continued to study him, the way only twins could, and did. Seeing more. “Why don’t you go back to your garconniére apartment, and I’ll stay in the houseboat?”

Daniel shook his head. “I’d rather not be here when they all come back.”

“Bok, bok! A little chicken-ish, dontcha think?”

“I’m not afraid to be around Samantha, but it could be a little awkward today with so many people around. Besides, Tante Lulu will probably still be there, and you know damn well she’ll be harping at me about thunderbolts.”

Just then, there was a crack of thunder in the distance. It was probably just a portend of a typical Louisiana summer storm to come.

But, holy crap! Maybe not.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

When the dust settled, she was alone . . . again . . .

Much to Samantha’s disappointment, Daniel wasn’t at the plantation when Samantha returned with Angus and John LeDeux around six o’clock. Two cops came, too, to provide continued security for them until all the danger was gone, but they became invisible almost immediately.

Tante Lulu explained that Daniel and Aaron had gone off somewhere and hadn’t said when they would return. Couldn’t Daniel have waited for her to come back first?

And Tante Lulu had also relayed some crazy story about Daniel renovating one of the slave cabins so the father of some kid with cancer could live there. Well, that part she could sort of understand, but Tante Lulu went on some rambling discourse about life and fate and things meant to be, and this was why Daniel and Aaron had bought this plantation in the first place, though they didn’t know it yet. All of this was accentuated by the arrival of that too-hot-to-believe cowboy husband of Charmaine’s, Rusty Lanier. Whoo-boy! He gave a new twist to Cajun and cowboy in one neat package. Rusty, without Daniel being there to direct him, just emptied his pickup truck of a load of furniture that supposedly Daniel, via Tante Lulu and Charmaine, had ordered that afternoon. He left it all on the cabin porch for Daniel to sort out tomorrow, or whenever.

Daniel had apparently been a busy bee while she’d been off at the hospital being checked over this afternoon, after the incident with Nick.

She didn’t like the way their meeting had ended earlier today, when he’d tried to convince her not to meet with Nick. For the first time, she began to wonder if he was still upset. She’d been thinking how happy Daniel would be to see her safe and Nick out of the picture, though none of them had wished Nick dead. How naïve of her!

Maybe he wasn’t as happy as she’d imagined.

But then, maybe she was overthinking everything.