The Cajun Cowboy Read online

  He’d like a shot at sensitizing them up.

  No, no, no! I would not. That would be a bad idea. I am not going to fall for Charmaine again. No way!

  Still, if she doesn’t stop licking those kiss-me-quick lips, I might just leap over the table and do it for her.

  Back at the beginning of time—probably post-Garden of Eden since Adam was a dunce, for sure, when it came to Eve—men had learned an important lesson that even today hadn’t sunk in with women. The female of the species should never lick anything in front of the male. Licking gave men ideas. Raoul would bet his boots good ol’ Eve had licked that apple first before offering it to Adam. So, keep on lickin’, Charmaine, and you might just see what’s tickin’.

  “The Mafia is after her,” Tante Lulu said. “And her life’s in the outhouse.”

  “The toilet,” Charmaine corrected her aunt, with another lick.

  “Huh?” Raoul had lost his train of thought somewhere between Charmaine’s new virginity and her licking exercise.

  “You asked why Charmaine’s on a binge. And I said the Mafia is after her,” Tante Lulu explained. “You thick or sumpin’, boy?”

  Raoul should have been insulted, but it was hard to get angry with the old lady, who didn’t really mean any offense. Tante Lulu just smiled at him. Every time she moved, the bells on her belly dancer outfit chimed.

  “Great outfit, by the way,” he remarked. It was always smart to stay on Tante Lulu’s good side.

  “It’s a bedleh,” she informed him.

  He said, “How interesting!” Then he addressed Charmaine. “What’s this about the Mafia, darlin’?”

  “Don’t call me darlin’. I am not your darlin’.” How like Charmaine to home in on the most irrelevant thing he’d said.

  “They’s gonna kill her, or break her knees,” Tante Lulu interjected.

  “How about her doo-hickey?” he teased.

  But Tante Lulu took him seriously. “They doan know ’bout that yet.”

  “Tante Lulu! I can speak for myself,” Charmaine said. She turned to him, slowly, as if aware she might topple over—which seemed a real possibility. “I just have a little money problem to settle with Bucks ’r Us.”

  Her words were slurred a bit, but he got the message. “A loan shark? You borrowed money from a loan shark?”

  “Doan s’pose you have fifty thousand dollars to spare?” Tante Lulu inquired of him.

  “Fifty thou?” he mouthed to Charmaine, who just nodded. “No, I can’t say that I do.”

  Charmaine probably hadn’t expected him to help her, and the question hadn’t even come from her. Still, her shoulders drooped with disappointment.

  In that moment, despite everything the flaky Charmaine had ever done to him, he wished he could help.

  “So, you can see why Charmaine’s a bit depressed,” Tante Lulu said. “That, on top of her pushin’ thirty, not havin’ a date fer six months, and being married and divorced four times. Who wouldn’t be depressed by that?” Tante Lulu stood then, her bells ting-a-linging, and said, “I’m outta here. Gotta go to belly dance class. Will you take Charmaine home, Rusty?”

  “No!” Charmaine said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  After the old lady left, he moved beside Charmaine in the booth, which required a little forceful pushing of his hips against hers. He put one arm over the back of the booth, just above her shoulders, and relished just for a brief moment the memory of how good Charmaine felt against him. Same perfume. Same big “Texas” hair as her beauty pageant days. Same sleek brunette color. Same soft-as-sin curves. “So, you haven’t had a date in six months, huh? Poor baby!”

  She lifted her chin with that stubborn pride of hers. “It’s not because I haven’t been asked.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute, chère. And, hey, I haven’t had a date in two years, so we’re sort of even.”

  “Go away, Rusty. I want to get plastered in private.”

  He didn’t mind people calling him Rusty, except for Charmaine. He wanted her to call him Raoul, in that slow, breathy way she had of saying Raaa-oool. No, it was better that she called him Rusty. Besides, it was an apt description of his equipment these days—out of use and rusty as hell.

  “I have a bit of good news for you, baby.” He could tell she didn’t like his calling her baby by the way her body stiffened up like a steer on branding day. That was probably why he added, “Real good news, baby.”

  Her upper lip curled with disgust. She probably would have belted him one if she weren’t half-drunk. “There isn’t any news you could impart that I would be interested in hearing.”

  Wanna bet? “You know how Tante Lulu said you were depressed over being married and divorced four times?”

  “Yeah?” she said hesitantly.

  “Well, no need to be depressed over that anymore. Guess what? You’re not.”

  She blinked several times with confusion. “Not what?”

  “Divorced four times.” He took a long swallow of his beer and waited.

  It didn’t take Charmaine long to figure it out, even in her fuzzy state. Her big brown eyes went wider, and her flushed face got redder. “You mean . . . ?”

  He nodded. “You’re not even a one-time divorcée, darlin’. You’ve never been divorced.” How do you like them apples, Mrs. Lanier?

  She sat up straighter, turned slowly in her seat to look at him directly, and asked with unflattering horror, “Rusty, are you saying that you and I are still married?”

  “Yep, and you can start callin’ me Raoul again anytime you want.” Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  That was when Charmaine leaned against his chest and swooned. Okay, she passed out, but he was taking it as a good sign.

  Charmaine Lanier was still his wife, and it was gonna be payback time at the Triple L Ranch. Guar-an-teed!

  Chapter 2

  Waking from the dead . . .

  Charmaine awakened slowly.

  She felt as if her body were cemented to the mattress, and her head pounded mercilessly, but she was in the bedroom of her own little house out on Bayou Black. Good news, that.

  But then she glanced downward and saw that she was wearing the same red T-shirt over black thong panties. And that was all.

  Uh-oh! She turned her head slowly on the pillow, noticing the bright explosion of orange, yellow, and blue outside her window—the light show of a bayou dawn—meaning she must have slept a full twelve hours since the previous afternoon when she’d started out at Swampy’s. She moaned then in remembrance. It all came back to her, even before the current bane of her existence walked in carrying a tray of strong-smelling Cajun coffee and whistling. Whistling when her head was about to explode!

  “Hi, wifey,” he said with way too much cheeriness. “Did you know you snore?”

  I do not snore. Do I? Well, maybe when I’m sleeping off a drunk, but I can’t remember the last time I did that. “Go away,” she groaned, pulling the sheet over her head. Under the linens, she swiped a hand across her mouth, just to make sure she hadn’t been drooling.

  “Not till we talk,” he insisted, “and you sign some papers.”

  That sounded reasonable. He must want her to sign the divorce papers, though she had done just that ten years ago when his father, the late Charlie Lanier, had brought them to her. She’d assumed that the divorce was formalized after that. She could swear she’d received documents to that effect, but maybe not. She had not been in a logical frame of mind, more like brain-splintering devastated.

  She sat up straighter and let the sheet fall to her waist. Taking the mug of black coffee from him, she sipped slowly, eyeing him warily as he walked about the bedroom checking out photographs and knick-knacks, including a few St. Jude statues that Tante Lulu had gifted her. St. Jude was the patron saint of hopeless causes, and if ever there was a hopeless cause, she was it, apparently. At the foot of her bed rested the “Good Luck” quilt Tante Lulu had given her after her marriage to Rusty. Lot of good it had done her. S
he saw the look Rusty gave the hand-crafted heirloom; he probably recognized it since it had been in their apartment. He must also recognize it as a mark of her failure—well, their failure—and of hopes dashed.

  There were no pictures of Rusty in her room, if that was what he was searching for. Too painful a reminder of a short, blissful period in her life. They’d been married for only six months . . . or so she’d thought till yesterday.

  Are we really still married?

  How awful! the logical side of her brain exclaimed.

  How interesting! another part of her brain countered.

  Charmaine was honest, if nothing else, and she had to admit to being a tiny bit thrilled at the prospect of Rusty Lanier still being her husband. Not that she was going to hop in the sack with him. Uh-uh!

  Still . . .

  And there was definitely exhilaration in knowing that she was no longer a four-time divorcée. Maybe she wasn’t so inadequate, after all.

  Rusty seemed to fill the room as he prowled about, poking in her stuff, but not just because of his six-foot-three height and her low ceilings. There had always been something compelling about him. People’s heads turned when he walked down the street. Men, as well as women. No wonder she’d been sucked in before. Well, never again!

  Still . . .

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, once her head stopped spinning and her stomach settled down and she’d pulled her ogling eyes off Rusty’s tantalizing figure. Cowboy charisma, that’s all it was. There was something about women and cowboys, sort of like women and men in military uniforms. That’s all it is, she told herself.

  “So, go,” he replied, settling his tight butt—which she was not noticing—into a low rocking chair. Rock, rock, rock, he went, just watching her in a most infuriating way.

  “I’m not dressed and I’m not parading my bare behind in front of you.”

  He grinned. “Who do you think undressed you, chère? Besides, there ain’t nothin’ you’ve got that I haven’t seen a hundred times . . . maybe a thousand.”

  She bared her teeth at him. The schmuck! Flipping the sheet aside, she stood and walked past him, pretending not to care that she presented a full-monty posterior. No doubt he was comparing her twenty-nine-year-old butt to her nineteen-year-old one and finding her lacking or, worse, exceeding what she’d had before. She wasn’t about to look and see his reaction, but she thought she heard him mutter, “Mercy!”

  Once she was done in the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and hair, skinning the whole mess back into a high ponytail. She scrubbed her face clean, and considered putting makeup on—she never went out in public without makeup—but Rusty would probably think she did it for him; so she put that aside. Then, after pulling on a pair of capri pants, she went into the kitchen and turned on the radio. BeauSoleil was singing “C’est un Péché de Dire un Menterie,” their own rendition of that 1930s Fats Waller song “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.”

  Rusty soon followed after her, leaning against the doorframe with a casualness belied by the grim expression on his face. He wore the same boots and jeans as yesterday, but somewhere he’d come up with a black T-shirt. And he’d shaved . . . probably with her razor and, yep—she sniffed the air—with her lilac shaving gel. He looked good enough to eat, and Charmaine was hungry.

  “You look about nineteen and innocent as a kitten,” he remarked, taking in her hairdo, scrubbed face, capri pants . . . in fact, all of her.

  Rusty is hungry, too, she realized. But any pathetic notions Charmaine entertained in the feed-the-Cajun category, and she didn’t mean food, soon evaporated with his next words.

  “Charmaine, exactly how close were you to my father over the years?”

  Her head shot up with surprise. There were some things about his father he didn’t know . . . that his father hadn’t wanted him to know. She hadn’t lied to him during the time they’d been together or since, not exactly, but it had been a sin of omission. Like the song. “I visited your father occasionally, and I went to his funeral last year. I liked Charlie. I never got a chance to offer my sympathies to you on your father’s death, but I am sorry.”

  He nodded his acceptance of her condolences.

  “Charlie was saddened over our divorce, you know?”

  “Our nondivorce,” he reminded her. “And, no, I didn’t know that he was saddened, or gladdened, by anything involving me. He never once came to see me in prison. At my insistence. My old man did not need to see me in that hellhole.” He shook his head to clear it of unpleasant images. “But then, you didn’t, either.”

  “Me?” Why would he have expected me to visit him? Would he have even approved me for his visitor list? Does he still care? Does he think I do? All that was beside the point. Charlie and his son had never been close. Although his parents had never married, paternity had never been an issue. Despite that, through no fault of Charlie’s, the only time the father and son had been permitted to see each other were occasional weekends and summer visits. In Charmaine’s opinion, his mother had been a world-class bitch, using her illegitimate son to get back at his father, just because he was an uneducated rancher. “Why did you ask about my relationship with your father?”

  “Because he left you half the ranch.”

  Stunned, Charmaine just gaped at Rusty.

  The hostility he leveled at her was palpable in the air. “Why do you suppose he did that, Charmaine?” Hard to believe that these same eyes, which were hard as black ice now, could ever have danced with mischief or gone smoky with passion.

  “I . . . I don’t know.” But in the back of Charmaine’s mind, hope bloomed. I own half of a freakin’ ranch? Maybe I’ll be able to pay off my loan, after all. “How could this have happened? I mean, Charlie’s been dead for a year. Why am I just now finding out I was in his will?”

  Rusty shrugged. “Dad’s lawyer told me at the time of his death that I was in the will, but details weren’t to be disclosed till after my release. I didn’t know you were in the will, too, until I walked out of Angola several weeks ago. That was also at Dad’s instructions. Thank God, there was a foreman in place when he died. Clarence has been a lifesaver. But, like I said . . . a mess!”

  “Unbelievable!”

  He slammed some papers and a pen on the table.

  “What are they?”

  “Just sign them, dammit.”

  “What are they?” she repeated. He might think she was a ditzy bimbo, but Charmaine was an astute businesswoman, despite her recent loan fiasco. She did not sign legal papers without reading them first. Besides, these would have to be notarized, wouldn’t they?

  Briefly scanning the papers, she noted that the first set was a petition for divorce. Okay, there was a tiny pang in the region of her heart. Only one day after finding out I’m still married, and the brute is this eager to get rid of me.

  The other papers were even more ominous. “You want me to sign over my half of the Triple L Ranch for a token one dollar. Do you think I’m stupid? No, don’t answer that.”

  “Charmaine, you have no use for a ranch. Sign the papers, and I’ll be out of here.”

  “I deserve fair compensation.”

  “Really?” He gave her an insulting once-over, as if she’d asked about her personal worth, not that of the ranch. “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  He laughed. “Darlin’, you haven’t been to the ranch lately if you think that. The property is run-down, the fences are broken in so many places I can’t count, and the cattle are emaciated and hardly worth keeping. If you must know, you own half of a helluva lot of debt.”

  Something peculiar is going on here. She tilted her head in confusion. “How did that happen?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me since you and dear ol’ Dad were so chummy.”

  Chummy? I swear, you are going to pay for that insult. If I were a man, you’d be flattened by now. “That’s not fair.”

  He shrugged. “Life’s not fair.”

&nb
sp; “Well, I’m not giving you my half of the ranch.”

  “Then I’m not giving you a divorce.”

  She went wide-eyed at that announcement. “Is that a punishment? Of course it is. Torture by marriage. Hey, I’m kinda liking not being a divorcée. Maybe I won’t give you a divorce. So there.”

  Clearly not amused by her rebellion, he came up way too close to her, backing her into the sink. She felt his breath on her mouth. He deliberately invaded her space, trying to intimidate her.

  She wasn’t scared of him. She was more scared of herself and the effect he still had on her. And he knew it, too. Dammit.

  “Be reasonable,” she said, trying to move away.

  He put an arm on either side of her on the sink, bracketing her in. “Reasonable? I’ll give you reasonable. If you want to be half owner of the Triple L, you are going to do half the work. And that means shoveling cow manure, castrating bull calves and all the other necessary jobs that might interfere with your perfect manicure. You are not sitting your pretty little ass out on the veranda while I do all the work.”

  This is just great! You couldn’t turn me into a cowgirl if you tried. And broken nails are a killin’ offense, honey. Ha, ha, ha. “Stop being a jerk.”

  “I’ve heard you like jerks. Four of them, to be specific.”

  She made a conscious effort to restrain herself from belting him. He is just baiting me. He wants me to lose my temper. But, really, he’s been through a lot. Going to prison. Losing his vet license. Losing his dad. Still, Charmaine thought about slapping the louse. Or shaking him silly. Or giving him a talking-to in the blue language she excelled at. But, instead, she did something better. She took him by the ears, pulled on him hard, then kissed him with all the pent-up stress of the past weeks and the hunger of ten long years. She bit his lip, she thrust her tongue inside his mouth, she ground herself against him. They were both moaning. She undulated her hips against him; he pressed his erection against her belly. She’d meant to teach the weasel a lesson, but somehow she was the one learning something.

  He finally raised his head and stared at her, dazed for a moment. Then he gave her a little salute and said, “This is war, Charmaine.”