Page 12 of Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass

Leon waggled his eyebrows, unrepentant. “Those ashes are piling up.”

“Pfff!” But then, Justin exclaimed, “Hubba hubba!” and he wasn’t remarking on Lily Rose or her whistle-bait friends. No, it was a new arrival on the scene. Walking out of the church activity center was a woman in a knee-length, haltered sundress, white polka dots on a red background. A petite but sensational figure was outlined by the fitted bodice that flared out from the waist over curvy hips. Long, dark brown, almost black hair hung in waves about her bare shoulders. Even from this distance, he could see that red lipstick matched the red in her dress, drawing the eye like an erotic magnet.

And he wasn’t the only one caught by her allure. As she walked down the steps, a man going up did a double take, and smiled.

Louise didn’t smile back, if she even noticed the attention.

“Mon Dieu! Who…is…that?” Justin asked.

“Who…oh…that’s Louise Rivard. Lulu,” his brother said, finishing his beer and tossing the can into a waste receptacle.

“No. No, no, no!” Justin declared, shaking his head emphatically. He got rid of his beer can, too. “I’ve met Louise, and that is not her.”

“She’s let herself go lately,” Leon admitted, “but this is the way she used to look before her Big Grief. In fact, I remember her decked out in that very dress, cutting a rug at the USO in Nawleans during the war.”

“Big Grief?” Justin had to laugh. Sometimes he forgot the way Southerners came up with such wacky concepts for every little thing. The War of Northern Aggression (referring to the Civil War), the Big Lazies, Blue Devils, Hissy Fits, and his grandmother’s old standby excuse for why bayou women behaved the way they did, Cajun Sass.

One time he’d asked gran’mère how come girls got to blame all their bad deeds on Cajun Sass, and she’d told him it was because they needed that defense against the Cajun Brass of bayou bad boys. He hadn’t understood what she’d meant at the time. He did now.

“Yep. Lost her fiancé in the war and been wallowin’ in her mourning ever since then.”

“Kind of selfish of her, considering her having a bun in the oven back then. A child needs a mother’s undivided attention.” Justin did volunteer work in a low-income clinic in Boston where he saw numerous examples of neglected children…the war babies delivered to women too young and unprepared for motherhood, many of them illegitimate and unwanted.

“Oh, that’s not her child. It’s her niece. And she gives the girl plenty of attention,” Leon continued. “Too much, maybe. Nothin’ selfish there.”

Justin frowned, trying to recall if Louise had introduced the little girl that way, or if he’d just assumed. Yeah, now that he thought about it, the child had called her tante, or aunt. Tante Lulu. A dumb mistake. But, more than that, his assumptions about her appearance bothered him the most. He wasn’t usually so blind. As a doctor, he was trained to see beyond the obvious.

Even worse, he suspected that he’d been a mite rude. He might have shown his lack of interest in her, single man to single woman, in some inadvertent, but insulting way. Not to mention his questioning the validity of herbal medicine. What an opinionated ass he must have appeared.

Seeing Justin’s interest, Leon advised, “Forget about lookin’ Louise’s way, brother. You have as much chance with her as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Better men have been shot down.”

Justin arched his brows at what he considered a challenge.“See you later,” he said and walked away from his brother.

“Whoa! Where you going?”

“To make amends.” His mama always said you couldn’t undo burnt roux, but Justin figured he could try to offer Louise a different dish, or rather a different version of himself, hopefully one a lot less opinionated.

“But…but aren’t you going to wait for Lily Rose and her friends?”

“Nope.” Find some other sap to occupy your girlfriend’s girlfriends.

Louise didn’t notice him at first because she’d walked over to the playing field where a children’s game involving balloons and bushel baskets was in full swing. A waist-high, portable fence had been arranged around the perimeter of the designated area. Laughing and cheering before the fence, Louise’s attention was focused on a dark-haired girl with pigtails, wearing a pink, ruffled blouse, pink dungarees, and pink sneakers. He could see why he’d mistakenly believed she was Louise’s daughter. The resemblance was remarkable, but then there was the family connection, according to Leon.

He was several yards away when he observed that she was taller than he remembered. But then he realized she wore high-heeled, wedge-type sandals that probably gave her a few inches. Even so, he towered over her at a modest five-eleven.

She was a small package, as he’d imagined in those baggy overalls she’d had on last week, but what he hadn’t imagined was the curves. Perfect breasts the size of halved baseballs, a tiny waist flaring out over rounded hips, and he was guessing an ass resembling an inverted heart, his favorite kind.

“Lou-ise, Lou-ise, Lou-ise,” he chided. Somehow, he couldn’t think of her by that silly nickname of Lulu when she looked like this.

Her head jerked to the side. Apparently, she hadn’t been aware of his approach. But she recognized him immediately. He could tell by the flare of her nostrils. Yep, he’d offended her on their previous meeting.

Not to be thwarted, he bulldozed ahead. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Hiding your light under a bushel basket ain’t the Cajun way, chère. Glad I am to see you turn a new leaf.” He gave her a deliberate, full-body appraisal. “Dare I hope I was responsible?”

It was the wrong thing to say, he grasped immediately.

But before he had a chance to backtrack, or apologize, she put a hand on one hip, cocked her head, and said, “Is there anything worse than a turkey who thinks it’s a peacock?” Then she turned back to look at the children’s game, dismissing him.

“Aw, c’mon, Louise, give me a break. You were looking like Farmer Jane after a day plowing the lower forty. Now…”