Page 60 of The Cajun Doctor

Samantha got out of her car and approached the SUV just as Aaron was approaching from the other side. All they could hear, aside from the nighttime bayou sounds of crickets and frogs and hooty owls, was “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!” coming from the end of the vehicle. The puppies were barking in their backseat crate. Through the rear window could be seen a pregnant woman, attempting to sit up.

Samantha looked at Aaron, who was clearly stunned, and he looked back at her, in question. Daniel had his forehead pressed to the steering wheel, probably swearing a blue streak.

When Daniel finally opened the electric window and looked up, he snarled at his brother, “Don’t say anything. Not a word. Or I swear, I can’t predict what I’ll do.”

“Um. I was just going to say, bro,” Aaron said, scrooching down so he was eye level with Daniel, “do you know you have a pig in the catbird seat?”

Then, there was no stopping Aaron’s laughter. Eventually, Daniel joined in, emerging from his SUV and laughing so hard he finally had to sit down on the steps leading up to the verandah.

Samantha took that as a good sign.

On the other hand, she was clearly in the middle of a walking nervous breakdown.

His brother was his keeper only when he wanted to be . . .

You could say that his brother overreacted a bit to Daniel’s suggestion that Aaron remain in the big house with Angus, Lily Beth, Samantha, and the animals while Daniel retired to his garconniére apartment. That was Daniel’s opinion anyhow. After all, Daniel would be within shouting distance, practically, if there were a problem, which no one expected anymore tonight. But, no, Aaron was being unreasonable . . . when he wasn’t laughing his ass off.

“No!”

“Are you frickin’ kidding me?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Not a chance!”

“You’re the expert on depression, not me. Besides, I like my bacon on a plate, not on my lap. Whoever heard of a lap pig anyhow?”

“And I thought Delilah was weird with her gators!”

“Do you realize that’s a cougar over there? A Savannah cat? Yeah, right! And Delilah raises lizards.”

“I only have one bedroom furnished. Are you suggesting that I sleep with Samantha? Jeesh! You don’t have to yell. I was only teasing. I have a bunch of air mattresses.”

“No, I am not going to tell you where I was all night. Oh, all right. I’ve been taking nocturnal dance lessons. No, I didn’t say nocturnal emissions, you pervert. Lessons. Dance lessons. No, not in the French Quarter, gutter-brain. Down the bayou. Swamp dancing. You never heard of that? Man, you have a dirty mind.”

“Speaking of dirty, who’s going to clean up after all these animals? They’re house-trained? I find that hard to believe. A house-trained pig! No, I am not going to shush. The pig can’t hear me, and even if it could, would it understand? Better yet, do I care?”

Samantha was currently downstairs setting up accommodations for all her pets in the second salon, which was as yet empty of any furniture. Hell, hardly any of the rooms in the fifteen-room house had furniture yet. Luckily, there were a lot of paint drop cloths around.

Angus and Lily Beth had inflated a couple of air mattresses that Aaron had on hand (something about manufacturer’s samples that doubled as rafts in small aircrafts in case of crashes) and were presumably fast asleep on the floor of the front parlor. The pocket doors had been closed for privacy more than an hour ago. The young couple had to be exhausted. Or maybe they just wanted to escape Aaron’s blistering interrogation.

In his defense, Aaron had been brutally honest with them after he’d been told their sorry story. A lot of the concerns were ones Daniel hadn’t even thought of. For example, Aaron said that Costa Rica was not even a remote possibility. Not only were there flight plans to be filed, but also required were pre-planned itineraries, passports, round-trip tickets, and plane parking permits. The biggest deterrent, though, especially with a pregnant woman, was that there had been several cases of the Zika virus in Costa Rica. A slight risk. Still . . . End of that plan!

Until better alternatives could be found, Daniel decided, hiding out at Bayou Rose represented a holding pattern for the couple. A temporary solution. And for Samantha, as well, since she was the linchpin on this whole Rube Goldberg-esque plan.

Which shouldn’t be such a big problem for Daniel, but he kept thinking about The Kiss. Yeah, he had put the moves on Samantha as a ploy to make her look bed-mussed, but he was the one who’d ended up a muss . . . uh, mess. Talk about hair-trigger arousals and sex images now imprinted on his fool brain for life! Or at least until he replaced those images with some even more graphic ones. He could hope!

Bottom line: he wanted to do it again. And more.

And he couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . shouldn’t.

What a muss-mess!

Muss-mess? Good Lord! I’m starting to think like Tante Lulu.

All these thoughts were going through Daniel’s mind while he was upstairs in the only furnished bedroom. Well, it had an IKEA king-size bed and a tall, two-door chest for storing clothing (there being no closets in these old homes . . . due to taxes in historic times being based on number of closets). A matching, smaller-sized bedroom set was in the garconniére, which was a BOGO, Aaron had told him at the time of purchase. Buy one, get another one free. The things he learned in this renovation project!

Daniel was watching Aaron pack a duffel bag with a change of clothes and Dopp Kit with personal products. You’d think he was going on a trip, and not just across the yard.