When Love Came to Town

“Hello,” he said as he strolled toward them, then touched a hand to Little Tobbie’s arm in greeting. “You folks need any help?”

“Mr. Love,” Rosie Lee said, laughing so hard her whole belly shook, “you the guest. We the workers.”

Mick shrugged and laughed right along with her. He liked her strong Cajun accent. “Sorry. I’m just used to earning my keep.”

Tobias immediately jumped up. “I saw you up in a tree. Don’t you get scared, being way up high like that?”

“Nope,” Mick replied, leaning over to ruffle the boy’s shining black hair. “I’m so used to it, I don’t even think about it.”

Tobias’s black eyes burned with questions. “I can climb way up high, too. Maybe I can be a tree man one day.”

His mother groaned, then turned to her son. “You stay out of Mr. Love’s way, you hear? Don’t go climbing any more trees, either. You almost got stuck the other day, remember?”

“I need me one of them buckets like Mr. Mick uses, I guess.” Tobias grinned, then scooted away before his mother could grab him.

“I’m going out back to play,” he called, already running out the open door.

“Don’t bother Mr. Love’s equipment,” his father warned.

Mick grinned, then turned to Tobbie. “I bet he’s a handful.”

“Yep. And his older brothers just make it worse by teaching him their bad ways, too. Our house is always full of fightin’ boys.”

“And a couple of quiet girls,” his wife said with a grin and a nod.

Mick glanced around the beautiful room. “Sure is quiet around here tonight.”

Tobbie winked at him. “All the other guests gone and checked out. Storm got to ’em. So we gonna treat you like royalty—you and your men, that is.”

“Nah, now,” Mick replied, holding up a hand. “I’m just a regular joe—no prince. But I have to admit, I could get used to this. This place is amazing.”

Just like the women who run it, he thought to himself. Especially the woman now alone in the kitchen. The woman who didn’t want him to see that she was still frightened as a result of the tornado.

But what else was scaring Lorna? He thought about asking Tobbie what had happened to Lorna’s parents, but footsteps from the front of the house halted him.

“Hey, man, c’mon up here to the parlor,” Lucas called from the wide central hallway, his cowboy boots clicking on the hardwood floors as he walked toward Mick.

“Coming,” Mick said, lifting a hand to Rosie Lee and Tobbie. “Oh, Lorna’s ready to serve now,” he remembered to tell them.

Lucas had an accent similar to theirs, but a bit more cultured. Yet he seemed every bit as Cajun as the Babineaux, while his sisters seemed more refined and pure Southern. But then, this family was as mysterious and full of contrasts as the swamp down below the back gardens.

Maybe if he made small talk with her family, Mick would be able to get a handle on Lorna. He didn’t yet understand why she brought out all his protective instincts, or why she fought so hard to hide behind that wall of control. He reckoned it had something to do with him falling headlong into her out there beneath the great oaks this morning.

Saving someone from near death did have a dramatic effect on a person. Didn’t that mean he had to protect her for life now? Or was that the other way around? Did she now owe him something in return? That option was certainly worth exploring.

“How ya doing?” Lucas asked, as Mick approached him. “Want some mint iced tea or a cup of coffee? We’ve even got some kind of fancy mineral water—Lorna insists on keeping it for our guests.”

“I’m fine,” Mick replied, his gaze sweeping across the winding marble staircase. “Hey, this house is unbelievable.”

“Nearly as old as the dirt it’s sitting upon,” Lucas replied, his grin showing a row of gleaming white teeth, his dark eyes shifting to a deep rich brown as the light hit them. “Been here for well over a hundred and fifty years, at least.” He shrugged. “My sisters are the experts on the history of this old house. Me, I prefer hanging out in the swamps where the real history is found.”

That statement intrigued Mick. “I bet you’ve seen some stuff out there.”

Lucas nodded, then, with a sweeping gesture, announced Mick to his aunt and sister. “Mr. Mick Love, ladies.” Then he turned back to Mick. “The swamp holds all of her secrets close, but I’ve seen a few of her treasures and a few of her dangers, yeah.”

Mick thought that best described Lucas’s sister, too. Lorna obviously held her secrets close. But Mick had seen something deep and dark and mysterious there in her green eyes. Something he wanted to explore and expose, bring out into the open. Which might prove to be dangerous, too. He worked too many long hours to even think about getting involved with a redheaded woman.

Glancing around the long parlor, he was once again assaulted by the opulence and old-world elegance of Bayou le Jardin. His gaze swept the fireplace, then settled on a small portrait of a dark-haired man and a beautiful woman with strawberry-blond hair, centered over the mantel.

“Our parents,” Lucas told him in a low voice, his black eyes as unreadable as a moonless night. “They died when we were children.”

Mick wanted to ask Lucas what had happened, but on seeing the look on the other man’s face he decided that might not be such a good idea. Mick had lots of questions, for lots of reasons he couldn’t even begin to understand or explain.

Right now, though, he had to remember his manners and make polite conversation with the Dorsette bunch. And wonder all the while why he was so attracted to Lorna.

“That was one of the best meals I’ve had in a very long time,” Mick told Lorna later, as they all sat around the long mahogany dining table. “I don’t get much home cooking.”

“Oh, and why is that?” Aunt Hilda asked. She sat, stirring rich cream into her coffee, a bowl of bread pudding on her dessert plate. “And while we’re talking, where did you grow up? Who’s your family?”

Mick glanced around the table. Everything about Bayou le Jardin was elegant and cultured, down to the silverware and lace-edged linen napkins. And he was sure the lineage went back centuries, too. Aunt Hilda’s question was typical of blue-blooded rich people. They didn’t really care about you; they just wanted to make sure you came from good Southern stock. He didn’t begrudge her the question, but he did find it pointed and obvious, and amusing. She wanted to know if she could trust him, count on him to do what was right.

Did he really want to tell these people that he’d grown up in a trailer park deep in the Mississippi Delta with an abusive father? Or should he just tell them that after his old man had drunk himself to death, his mother had changed from a weak, submissive wife into a strong, determined woman who wanted the best for her only son? Should he tell them she’d worked two jobs just to make sure Mick finished school and learned a trade? Or that she had died from a heart attack before she could enjoy his success? Should he tell them that he had no one to go home to, now that she was dead? And that the woman he’d planned on marrying had dumped him for someone else? That he’d left the Delta and had never looked back?

Mick looked at Lorna, saw the questioning lift of her arched brows, and knew he wasn’t nearly good enough to be sitting at this table. So he simply said, “I was born and raised in Mississippi, and I still have a home there right outside of Vicksburg—that is, when I can ever get back to it.”

“So you travel around a lot.” This statement came from Lorna. She’d obviously already summed him up.

Mick glanced over at her without bothering to defend himself. She sat there, bathed in golden light from the multifaceted chandelier hanging over the table, her hands in her lap, her hair falling in ringlets of satin fire around her face and down her back. She was beautiful in a different kind of way. Not classic, but fiery and defiant. Mick couldn’t explain it, but he could certainly see that beauty. And feel it. It washed over him like a golden rain, leaving him unsteady and unsure.

Wanting to give her a good answer, he went for the truth this time. “Yeah, we stay on the road a lot. We travel all over the state, and on rare occasions, such as this, we travel out of state. Do a lot of work in Alabama and Georgia, too. I reckon you could say we go wherever the work takes us.”

“You probably keep steady,” Lucas said, before taking a long swig of his tea. “There’s always trees around.”

“If you have your way, that is,” Lacey interjected. “Lucas is a naturalist—the protector of the bayou.” She grinned, but Mick didn’t miss the pride in her eyes.

“Among my many other talents,” Lucas said, his dark eyes twinkling with merriment.

“Yes, and if we could just pinpoint what exactly you are good at and make you stick with it, we might all be able to retire with a nice nest egg,” Lorna stated, her attention now on her brother.

Lucas pumped up his chest. “Now, suga’, you know I’m good at whatever I set my mind to.”

His sisters and aunt all laughed, then shook their heads. Soon, they were all talking at once, each giving pointed suggestions as to what Lucas needed to do with his sorry life.

Mick was just glad the conversation had switched away from him. Even if Lorna’s gaze did drift back to him now and again.

Then Lucas made an intriguing remark. “Well, sister, you’re a fine one to ask Mr. Love about traveling.” He grinned toward Mick. “Lorna took off a few years back, traveled all over the world, settled in Paris for a while.”

“I went to cooking school,” Lorna snapped as she stared hard at her brother.