Bayou Beginnings Read online

  She opened her mouth to speak but coughed on some of that very same dust herself. When she recovered, she found the words had gone. All she could do was stand and stare at the spectacle before her.

  The most irritating man on the planet had just made a total and complete fool of her. Worse, she had helped him to do it by being so. . .what? Naive? Maybe. Nosey. She groaned. Yes.

  Still, he should have been a gentleman and spoken up before she bared her heart before the Lord. Even a heathen would have done that, and she knew Theophile Breaux to be a churchgoing man. Why, his granddaddy had been a preacher and his mama a preacher’s daughter.

  Oh, how he seemed to be enjoying her discomfort. He’d twisted that mouth of his into a grin that would have made him awfully handsome had he not been behaving just plain awful.

  “I’m just sorry I had to go and laugh so soon.” He shifted positions, and the old mattress creaked in protest. “I could have listened to your prayers all day.”

  “Heathen.” There, she said it.

  “Makes a man feel appreciated when a woman praises him to the Lord like that.” He punctuated the statement with a wink. “I had no idea you held me in such high regard. You keep your secrets well, little girl.”

  How dare the man actually pull such a prank at her expense? She climbed to her feet and kicked a shingle out of her way. “You, sir, are the most despicable, dastardly man I have ever met. I do not care to linger in your presence.”

  He swung his long legs over the side and shook his head. Fine particles of debris rained down around him, dancing in the sunlight as they swirled and landed. “My, how your tone has changed. Am I a better man in death than in life, Mademoiselle Trahan? If so, I’d gladly die to hear you sing my praises again.”

  Hands on her hips, she fought her rising temper. “If I weren’t a lady, Monsieur Breaux, why, I just might answer that question.”

  Leaning his elbows on his knees, the carpenter rested his head in his hands. “Seeing as how I’ve got a roof to repair, why don’t we just skip the part about you being a lady and get right to it? Speak your mind. Answer the question. How do you feel about me? Tell me.”

  Oh, how she wanted to. She opened her mouth and tried. Unfortunately, all of Tante Flo’s words about proper behavior came flooding back at once. The only thing she could do was turn and walk away.

  “It’s been a real joy, Mademoiselle Trahan.” The mattress creaked once more. “Do come and see me again soon, eh?”

  She paused in the doorway to turn and face him. To her surprise, he stood mere inches away, looming over her with a broad grin.

  “Change your mind about running off?”

  She tilted her head to stare into his eyes. “It was the schoolhouse I came to see, sir, not you, so don’t flatter yourself by thinking otherwise.”

  This time when she made the decision to turn and flee, she did not look back or pause. Pressing past the shadows, she emerged into the bright sunshine of the porch without slowing down to allow her eyes to adjust. In the process, she ran into the porch post. A sharp jab of pain radiated up from her elbow, but thankfully, the Breaux fellow hadn’t emerged from the cabin to see her near humiliation.

  “You’ll be back,” he called from near the door. “You’ve already proven that you can’t stay away from me.”

  “Humph,” was the most proper answer she dared give as she stormed across the porch, heedless of the delicate condition of the boards. “Just see how I can stay away. I won’t miss you a bit, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh yes, you will,” he called. “You’ll miss me so bad you won’t be able to stand it.”

  “If I do, I’ll go visit the neighbor’s donkey.”

  Oh, she’d have to apologize to the Lord for that comment. And maybe to the carpenter, as well.

  Never.

  Head held high, she forced herself not to pick up her skirts and run. His laughter chased her across the clearing.

  As she stepped into the thicket, she took one last quick look over her shoulder. There stood Theophile Breaux on the porch, covered in dust and leaning against the rail with something brown hanging from the crook of his arm.

  He raised a hand to wave, shaking the object as he stepped toward the edge of the porch. She ignored him and picked up her pace.

  Cleo had almost reached home when she realized what the carpenter held. Her egg basket.

  ❧

  Theo watched the Trahan woman storm off and tried to muster up some measure of irritation. After all, she’d practically caused him to kill himself and ruined three days of backbreaking work in the process.

  Somehow as the swirl of yellow skirts disappeared into the thicket, he knew that trying to work up anger at Clothilde Trahan was a wasted effort. She still vexed him greatly, but the thought of making her so mad that he never saw her again didn’t set well.

  He placed the egg basket on the porch rail and stared at it. The new copy of Godey’s Ladies Book it held was probably meant for Flo. He’d seen her reading a dog-eared copy just the day before yesterday and thought to buy her a new one the next time he went to town. The penny candy had to belong to Joe. As long as he’d known the man, Joe Trahan had always had a sweet of some sort in his pocket.

  Returning these items along with the basket would be the neighborly thing to do. Making Clothilde Trahan eat her words and come back for the thing, however, would be the more satisfying choice.

  Knowing better than to make the decision in his current state of mind, Theo left the basket on the rail and stepped off the porch, limping slowly toward the ladder. He might be a few years shy of thirty, but his bones were going to think he’d hit the century mark by bedtime.

  As he hefted the ladder back into place and reached for his hammer, he felt his muscles complain. Surely he’d go home with bruises he hadn’t come to work with. Those things happened in his line of work but rarely due to female intervention.

  Again, he chuckled. The Trahan girl had left her mark and not just in the toll on his body. His mind protested, as well.

  He picked up his hammer and hefted the bag of nails onto his shoulder, then reached for the nearest rung on the ladder. The bruises would heal. Thoughts of Clothilde Trahan, however, promised to stay with him much longer.

  Eight

  As the sun sank toward the tree line, Theo’s conscience began to bother him more than the ache in his bones. Clothilde Trahan had most likely arrived home and been asked to explain how she came to return without the items she went to town for.

  He should put the girl out of her misery and just take the basket to her. Joe had probably run out of candy by now, and Flo surely had nothing new to read. There was no sense in the two of them paying the price for their niece’s silliness.

  Yes, that’s what he ought to do. Just a quick trip to the Trahan place, and he’d be on his way. Leaning against the porch rail, he tried to come up with a good reason why he shouldn’t.

  In short order, he decided there were any number of reasons for going straight home now that the dinner hour was coming soon, not the least of which that his mama had promised a big mess of shrimp étouffée and hush puppies for supper. He did love fresh-caught shrimp cooked up over rice, and his mama’s cornmeal, green onion, and spice concoction made for the best hush puppies in south Louisiana.

  His stomach growled at the thought. Yes, indeed, forgetting all about today and heading for a meal made for a hard-working bayou man was just the thing to end the day better than it started.

  Still, there was the matter of the basket.

  Scanning the horizon, he almost hoped he might see a flash of yellow that would tell him the girl was at her games again—spying from the thicket until he left so she could sneak up and fetch the lost basket. That would certainly get him off the hook, and he could go home with an empty stomach and a clear conscience. Unfortunately, no sign of anyone, male or female, greeted him.

  Theo sighed and shoved the hammer into his belt as he turned his attention back to the work
at hand. He’d done a fair job of patching the Breaux-sized hole in the roof and weathering it in. Tomorrow he’d begin the tedious process of lining up the shingles and hammering them in place—again.

  This time he would use twice the number of nails to make the roof stronger, not that he planned to take another dive through the thing. Of course, with Clothilde Trahan on the loose, a man never knew.

  Anything could happen.

  Theo wiped his brow and looked off toward the west. Dark clouds had been gathering all afternoon and now rode in great gray clumps along the horizon. Their fat bodies stretched as far as the eye could see, covering the sun and leaving the earthy scent of rain in the air.

  Unless he missed his guess, the night would be a stormy one. At least the cabin’s front room would stay dry.

  He thought of the abandoned iron bed and the feather mattress upon which he’d landed. Someday if I marry up with that girl, I’ll have to have that bedstead for our home.

  Theo nearly fell off the ladder. Where in the world had that come from?

  Climbing down with care, he decided he must have hit his head on his way through the roof earlier. Nothing could be further from possible than for him to marry up with any bayou girl, least of all that one.

  He’d wed himself to that donkey she’d told him about before he’d shackle himself to her.

  For just a moment, he put aside his plans and allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to wake up next to the fiery beauty every morning until the Lord took him home. On first consideration, the idea did have some appeal, at least in the abstract.

  He chuckled. Life might be entertaining, but it would never be boring. With his luck, they’d end up with a dozen daughters just like her. Now that was a sobering thought.

  No, surely the Lord had better things for him than a trip down the aisle with a certain hardheaded busybody, even if she was the prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on. Mama told him God only held the best for each of His children, and in Theo’s estimation, the best had to be something other than a life spent never knowing when he’d fall through the next roof.

  Besides, he still had roads to travel and adventures to live. There was plenty of time for him to settle down someday.

  Life as a married man could start after he’d seen the world—starting with Canada. He’d get there before the first snow fell and stay through the spring. After that, who knew? Alaska maybe, or perhaps he’d just hop a ship to parts unknown.

  He’d always wanted to see the world. No better time than the present.

  But first he had a mess of shrimp and hush puppies to eat, and if he didn’t get home on time, there’d be nothing left but the crumbs.

  That decided, Theo left the basket on the porch rail and headed for home. If she wanted it, she’d find it.

  He got close enough to the home place to smell the shrimp frying before he turned around and headed back to the cabin to fetch the basket off the porch rail. The Lord might be willing to let Theo see the world, but it seemed as though He was telling him he needed to clear up a bit of business with Clothilde Trahan first.

  Stomping his way to the Trahan place under protest, Theo clutched the basket in his hand. As he neared Joe’s home, the first fat drops of rain hit him square on the head.

  “Great,” he grumbled as he stopped to pull the magazine from the basket and slide it beneath his shirt.

  The candy fit easily into his pants pocket. Basket empty and Trahan treasures secured, Theo set back on his way as the rain began to come down in earnest.

  He arrived at the Trahans’ front door, soaked to the skin and starved. As he knocked, he smelled the unmistakable scent of shrimp étouffée. His stomach groaned, and so did he.

  Why the Lord seemed to be picking on him today was beyond understanding.

  A thought occurred. He could leave the basket right here and take off for home without any member of the Trahan family knowing he stood on their porch. He removed the slightly damp Godey’s Ladies Book from beneath his shirt and placed it in the basket, then dumped the penny candies in after it.

  Now to find a place to leave the basket where it wouldn’t get wet. The porch rail was out of the question as the rain poured down upon it. A swing sat at the far end of the porch, but it might be days before someone thought to look all the way down there.

  “Come on in here out of the weather.”

  Theo jumped and nearly sent the basket and its contents flying across the porch. He gathered his wits and turned to see Flo standing at the door, an apron tied around her waist and a dish towel thrown over one shoulder.

  “Well, actually I just brought—”

  “Is that Theo Breaux?” Joe Trahan pressed past his wife to shake Theo’s hand. “How’s it going, boy? You come by to share supper with us?”

  He thrust the basket in Joe’s direction. Rather than take it, Joe stared at the item as if he’d never seen it, then turned his gaze on Theo.

  “Did my niece know you’d be visiting tonight?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said, although it was just a guess.

  Flo looped her hand around the basket’s handle and smiled. “Well, thank you for bringing this by, Theo. Especially in this weather. I’m so pleased to have something new to read. And Joe, isn’t it nice that Theo would go to all this trouble to bring your penny candy by tonight?”

  Relief flooded Theo’s aching bones. “It was no trouble, really.”

  Joe took a step toward Theo and grasped him by the elbow. “Flo, set another place at the table. Theo and I’ll be in just as soon as we talk some business.”

  Theo made a weak attempt to protest, but Flo had already disappeared inside. He turned his attention to Joe. Maybe he could talk his way out of staying. Surely Joe Trahan wouldn’t hold a man to a dinner invitation he didn’t want to accept.

  “I appreciate the offer,” Theo said, “but I really ought to get on home.”

  Joe tightened his grip on Theo’s elbow past the point where it felt neighborly. Theo looked down into the older Cajun’s eyes and saw something that surprised him.

  The man looked positively angry.

  “I’m glad you stopped by, young man.” He motioned to the swing on the far end of the porch. “Go sit down. I was speaking the truth when I told Flo you and I had some business to discuss. If you hadn’t had the decency to show up at my front door tonight, I would have been at yours before bedtime.”

  From the look on Joe’s face and the urgency in his words, there was something big going on down at the schoolhouse. The last thing Theo needed was to try and make sense of another set of building plans.

  It was hard enough to make out the chicken scratching Joe wrote on the pages he regularly gave Theo. Generally Theo would smile and do the best he could, then take the papers home for his brother Alphonse to decipher. Tonight of all nights he just didn’t have the strength to deal with it.

  “Honestly, sir, it’s been a long day,” he said with the best smile he could muster. “How about I come a little early for coffee in the morning? We can talk all you want then, eh?”

  Joe leveled a hard stare in Theo’s direction. “After I finish with you, I’m not sure you and I will be having coffee in the mornings anymore.”

  Nine

  Cleo drew back from the window and sucked in a deep breath. Whatever happened between Uncle Joe and the Breaux fellow, neither seemed to be happy about it. She could certainly sympathize. His arrival on their doorstep hadn’t exactly filled her with joy, either.

  At least he’d returned the basket.

  “Clothilde Trahan, are you spying again?” Tante Flo stood at the parlor door with a frown and a dish towel. She held the basket in the crook of her elbow. “I thought you learned your lesson when that boy out there fell through the roof this afternoon.”

  Cleo had told her aunt the whole story when she arrived home earlier that afternoon, even backtracking to describe the previous incident with the snake. Of course, telling Tante Flo had been easy compa
red to worrying about delivering the news to Uncle Joe that her snooping had almost ended in disaster—twice.

  “I saw the lightning and wondered if we had a storm coming.” Cleo released the hem of the starched cotton curtain. “I didn’t know we had company.”

  Her aunt set the basket on the sideboard. “So you weren’t expecting him?”

  “No.”

  But had she expected him? Cleo wasn’t sure how to answer.

  A gentleman would have saved her the trip and the explanations. A man like she figured Theophile Breaux to be would have waited to gloat when she finally returned to the cabin to claim it.

  “I thought I might find Uncle Joe alone and speak to him about what happened this afternoon before we sat down to supper. Do you think he spied me coming up the road this afternoon?”

  “All I know’s if he did, he never said anything to me.” Tante Flo shrugged. “But then he’s been busy all day doing this and that. Until he came in to wash up for supper, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since lunchtime.”

  “I just hope he was too busy to notice.” Cleo looked away. “If he saw me before I had a chance to brush the pine needles out of my hair, he probably thought the same thing you did.”

  Tante Flo’s frown tilted into a smile as her fingers worried with the end of the dish towel. “What else is a mother to think when her girl comes home from town covered in dust and her hair all in a mess? And the basket, well, I asked myself why wasn’t it with her?”

  “Yes, I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not your real mama, but I sure feel like it, and I don’t keep my mouth shut at times like that.”

  Stepping away from the window, Cleo embraced her aunt. “I’m so glad you feel that way. I wonder if you guessed what a trouble I’d be.”

  “Trouble? Nonsense. Why this old house has become a home since you came to live in it.”

  Cleo shook her head. “That’s very kind, but I doubt you expected you would end up with someone so. . .well. . . curious.”