Page 1

CHAPTER 1

“Yo, Danny!” a voice boomed out from across the barroom floor. “Where’s that beer you promised to bring me?”

“I’m getting it,” she yelled back and sighed. She’d been running for the past hour. Usually waiting tables at the Crawdad Hole Bar and Grill, she had volunteered to serve in the giant tent set up to feed the community of Bayou Mambaloa less than a week after the hurricane had swept through southern Louisiana, wrecking the town and outlying homes and businesses.

She spun back to the makeshift bar and dropped the empty beer bottles and cans she’d collected.

Rene DeRoche, the bartender and owner of the Crawdad Hole, filled her tray with full bottles and cans.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to collect money for the food and drinks. Hank Patterson and his wife, movie star Sadie McClain, were sponsoring the party to celebrate the fact that no member of the community had lost his life, despite the destruction.

Everyone had pitched in to help those whose homes had sustained damage. Many houses had been stripped of their shingles, and some had lost their entire roofs. Many of the old trees had been uprooted and had to be cut and moved off the roads. Some had fallen on homes and vehicles.

Danny had been down at the marina for the past few days, helping Mitch Marceaux scrape mud and silt the storm surge had deposited inside the building.

Though exhausted from the cleanup effort, most people were happy to have a chance to enjoy a good meal, drinks, and zydeco music. Mostly, they needed someone else to think about where the next meal would come from and to catch their breath before going back to work.

Slowly, the town was getting back to normal. Linemen from all over the country were quickly getting the electricity back on for so many who’d lost power.

Those without power were camping out in the high school gym or the old boarding house the Bayou Brotherhood Protectors had remodeled for their members who didn’t have other housing arrangements.

Danny had moved into an apartment over Yaya’s Yoga Salon on Main Street a few months back. Most of the shingles had been blown off the structure in the worst of the storm. Some water had found its way through the cracks. Danny had cleaned up the water and, with members of the Brotherhood Protectors, helped stretch a blue tarp over the roof as soon as it was safe to get up there.

She hefted the loaded tray onto her shoulder and worked her way through the picnic benches, depositing drinks and collecting empties.

A hand grabbed her arm, bringing her to an abrupt halt. The full and empty bottles and cans on the tray rocked alarmingly.

Danny looked down at the hand on her arm, her eyes narrowing and then shifting to the owner of the hand.

“Hey, sweet thing,” the man slurred, “I love me a redhead. Are you as red below as you are above?”

Bobby Ray Fontenot was one of the bayou Fontenots, known for the three Bs: bad breath, bad manners and bad decisions. The hand on her arm was the latest of Bobby Ray’s bad decisions.

She met his gaze, her eyes narrowing to slits.

The man beside him leaned close. “Dude, you better let her be. She can mess you up.”

Bobby Ray, having downed almost a six-pack, raked his gaze over Danny and snorted. “She ain’t big enough to hurt a fly, much less a big guy like me.”

“You have three seconds to get your hand off me,” she said, her tone low...dangerous.

“Or what?” Bobby Ray demanded.

“I saw her lay a man flat on his back before he knew what hit him,” Bobby Ray’s buddy said.

“One…” Danny held Bobby’s stare. Anger boiled low in her gut. Men had no right to treat women the way Bobby Ray was treating her. “Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

“My mama ain’t here, now, is she?” Bobby Ray’s fingers tightened on her arm.

“Two…” Danny’s leg muscles tensed.

“Bobby Ray?” a woman shouted from across the crowded tent, where she sat beside another woman. “You causin’ trouble?” Bobby Ray’s wife, Claudine, pressed her lips into a thin line.

Bobby Ray’s face flushed a ruddy red. “No, ma’am,” he called back.

“Damn well better not,” the woman said.

He released his hold on Danny. “Maybe next time, sweet thang.” He winked.