Page 35 of Frankly, My Dear

Selene jolted to awareness. Reba had left her side and stood next to Fergus near the boat, talking animatedly. To Selene’s embarrassment, James was standing in front of her, hands on hips, legs widespread. Still under the spell of her romantic fantasy, she felt an insane inclination to use the hem of her wide skirt to wipe the perspiration that ran down his face, dripping off his chin, making rivulets through the crisp black hair on his chest, all the way down to a delicious vee near the low-slung waistband of his trousers.

He made a clucking sound of disgust as his eyes followed the path of her gaze. He knew exactly what she’d been thinking, Selene realized with dismay. Then his eyes latched onto the pointed nipples which showed through her blouse.

“That must have been some daydream,” he remarked dryly.

She put the fingertips of both hands to her warm cheeks, hoping he would attribute the flush she felt to the hot sun.

No such luck.

“Your timing is way off, sweetheart, if you have in mind what I think you do.”

“I do not…” she protested weakly. “Have in mind what you think I do, I mean.” She realized with chagrin that her stammering betrayed her guilt even more.

“You don’t lie very well, but since we’re on the subject, I think we should make one thing clear. I’m not looking for a mistress.”

Selene inhaled sharply with outrage. “Why, you over-bearing chauvinist!”

He ignored her words and continued, “I might have considered bedding you back in New Orleans, as unwise as that would have been. But I have too many problems at Bayou Noir to handle the entanglements of a mistress. So, please, no games of seduction.”

The nerve of the guy, thinking she would try to seduce him. As if she knew how! “You are an arrogant bastard.”

“Merci. I try.”

“I have absolutely no interest in you…that way.”

He slanted a look of disbelief her way.

“And I’ll thank you not to try any games of seduction on me,” Selene countered. “Because I’m going home the first chance I get. I hate this time. I hate this heat. And most of all I hate you.” Swiping at the tears rimming her eyes, she turned her back on him and started to stomp away.

“Je m’en fous.” When she didn’t react, he repeated in English, “Frankly, Selene, I don’t give a damn.”

Selene stopped.

A chill began in her fingertips, traveled up her arms to her brain, making her light-headed, then careened all the way down to her toes.

“What…did…you…say?” she asked incredulously, spinning on her heel to face him.

“Nothing,” he snapped and brushed past her on the way to the boat.

Selene stared after him for a long time before she finally murmured on a groan, “Welcome to my fantasy, Rhett.”

Hours later, Selene was sitting on a wooden crate under the shady keelboat shelter watching the mysterious bayou landscape pass by. Like a piece of intricate lace, the Louisiana bayous wove throughout the state. In some places, they joined together as wide as rivers. In others, like this one, the waterway was so narrow that the giant, Spanish-moss-bearded oak trees on either side almost met, like fingers raised in prayer, forming a canopy not unlike a cathedral.

A whispery, ethereal silence pervaded her senses, broken by the occasional swish of the sluggish current and the myriad, sometimes mellifluous calls of the birds from the dense trees.

Suddenly Selene heard a loud noise. Looking to the side, she saw an alligator the size of a Buick, no more than six feet from her, casually ramming the side of the raft. She looked about, only to see a dozen of the beast’s brothers and sisters floating about the bayou stream, some showing off a dazzling display of teeth that could snap an iron bar with no effort at all. And enough leathery skin to furnish Imelda Marcos with shoes and handbags for the rest of her extravagant life, Selene thought with morbid irrelevance.

Frantically her eyes darted about the boat. Apparently she was the only one who’d noticed the danger. Everyone, including James, Fergus, and the slaves, was working efficiently, propelling the boat with long poles, and rearranging the supplies. Reba was resting indolently on a pile of fabric bolts under the shelter, her eyes closed, her hand absently fanning her face.

Selene did the natural thing, of course. She screamed her terrified head off.

Hundreds of birds rose from their nests in trees and undergrowth, raising a ruckus that would wake the dead. Even a huge turtle, weighing at least two hundred pounds, stopped its slow amble along the bank and peered toward her curiously. The gator yawned widely, showing off a vast assortment of yellow, industrial-sized teeth, and then just stared at her with its big eyes, waiting.

James lurched and almost fell off the boat near the front edge where he had apparently been teaching a slave how to steer with the long poles. He hurried to her side.

“What? What happened?”

Selene put one palm to her chest, feeling as if her heart might explode from fright. With the other hand, she pointed at the alligator, which hissed and then made a low rumbling noise, like a belch. She shivered, imagining what it might have had for lunch. Then the animal resumed its casual gnawing on the side of the wood boat.