The Road to Bayou Bridge

Darby didn’t turn toward his brother, but he could hear him getting closer. He couldn’t take his eyes off his wife. Okay, not his wife, but, still, his wife. It had been so long and she looked as good as a piece of pecan pie and a cup of chicory coffee—the epitome of all things Southern and Louisianan. He hadn’t expected to feel anything for her. He’d thought his feelings toward her childlike and gone in the wind like the world he’d left behind. But like a shadow, his past clung to him refusing to allow him to forget who he was, where he’d come from, and the girl he’d once loved.

Why was that so?

He didn’t want to feel anything for Renny. Or for this flooded field he stood in. Or the creaky boards squeaking beneath his feet as he climbed the stairs in the house in which he’d been raised.

He had to be done with Renny and Bayou Bridge. He had a new life waiting for him, and if all went as planned with Shelby and the job at her father’s firm, it was a given the sophisticated blonde would one day wear his great-aunt Felicia’s yellow diamond.

He just had to deal with the women of his past before that could happen, and unfortunately, both Della and Renny were like a backlash in his fishing reel. Not easy to untangle.

“Oh, hey, Renny,” Nate said, halting beside him. “What’re you doing out here? And what’re you wearing?”

“A costume.”

“Early for Halloween, isn’t it?” Nate cracked. Darby glanced at his brother, who’d grown a hunting beard like so many guys did when mid-September rolled around. Nate’s eyes crinkled and Darby almost didn’t recognize the former sheriff’s detective who’d nearly ground his nose off in an effort to solve cases. His wife, Annie, and son, Pax, had softened him, given him laugh lines and a lightness in his step.

Renny finally smiled and Darby felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. Good Lord. Obviously this was about more than the past. He had to dash a crazy impulse to grab Renny by the shoulders and kiss her. This wasn’t good. He was no longer a horny, devil-take-it guy with no responsibilities and a flask of Crown in his back pocket.

“Required when we’re approaching our cranes. Don’t want them to trust humans, so I go around playing Casper.” Renny shrugged with another guarded smile.

“Mom told me we had a crane on the property. She was pretty excited about it because the crane is a family symbol to her. She wanted to try and get a picture.” Nate’s gaze searched the tree line behind Renny. “Thought I saw it take off over there.”

She turned around. “Yeah, she’s likely in another tree. I need to a get a visual on her and then I’ll go. I doubt she’ll stick around too much longer because her natural habitat is the grasslands below here. But who knows, maybe the whooper likes the way your crawfish taste.”

“Mmm, crawfish. Haven’t had those in years,” Darby said as the thought of five pounds of the fire-red mudbugs accompanying a bottle of locally brewed beer made his mouth literally water. Wasn’t the season, but surely he could find some at the Crawfish Palace over in Henderson. But what would slake the old desire welling inside him for Renny?

Maybe a well-placed knee when he told her they were married? “Hey, Ren, I’ll give you a call, okay?”

“No.”

Nate made a whirring sound before balling his hands and flinging them apart. “Crash and burn.”

“Shut up, Nate. Not a date. Just some stuff Renny and I need to clear up.”

Renny shook her head, and he thought he glimpsed some flash of hurt. Or maybe it was regret. Something. “I don’t think there’s anything to catch up on, and I have plans this weekend with some friends, so...”

He could tell she was lying. He always could. Not a conniving, lying bone in Renny’s hot body, and speaking of which, wasn’t she burning up in all that white draping? She should take her costume off and show him what the good Lord had bestowed on her while he’d been doing push-ups in the mud and studying jurisprudence. “I get you may not want to spend any time with me, but there really is something we have to talk about. Like a must.”

A wrinkle settled between Renny’s dark eyebrows and he decided he didn’t like that wrinkle much. She was too beautiful to scowl. “Okay. Fine. Your mother has my information including my cell number. Call me and we’ll find a time to talk about whatever you’re so hell-bent on saying to me. But right now I have to go.”

She turned and started toward the place where the bird had disappeared, and that’s when Darby noticed her limp. Rolling with a small lurch. Jesus.

“She limps,” he whispered under his breath.

Nate’s gaze jetted to his. “Yeah, the wreck nearly killed her, remember?”

He shook his head. “No. I knew she broke her leg, but I didn’t know much about it. Her mother wouldn’t even let me see her and then when—” No sense in bringing up what had happened after the accident with his father. “You know, doesn’t matter anymore. I didn’t know Renny had been affected to such a degree.”

His eyes landed on the back of the slim woman moving through the grasses in her big, ugly white boots that came to her knees. The white drape covered the rest, but there was no disguising the pronounced limp. Something jabbed at his insides. Not pity because he could never pity anything as uniquely beautiful as Renny, but something sharp and bitter. Regret. Shame. Guilt. Something. Because he’d done that to her. He’d broken the girl he’d loved. And that stung. Even if no one had allowed him to make it right all those years ago.

Of course Renny hadn’t wanted him or his apology. That much had been made absolutely clear that damp May afternoon when he stood waiting for her in the obscene raucousness of Jackson Square and accepted there would be no more Darby and Renny.

“Come on. Let’s set out bait. Annie said if I bring that slop in my bucket back to the house, I could sleep on the couch, and I like my bed.” Nate headed for the ATV and the rotting chicken he had been marinating in his back shed for the past week in anticipation of alligator season.

With one last glance at the flash of white disappearing into the brush, Darby turned and followed his brother. “I’m in the mood for crawfish. Want to head over to Henderson?”

“Nah, Annie cooked something in the Crock-Pot. Take Renny and rehash all the good ol’ days.”

He would if he could, but he had a feeling getting Renny to go anywhere with him would be akin to Hercules facing his twelve feats. Almost impossible.

* * *

RENNY TRIED TO CONTROL her trembling hands, but the shaking that had originated deep inside her belly had spilled over. Even her teeth chattered—incredible since it was a blistering ninety-one degrees outside.

Darby Dufrene.

Here.

In Louisiana.

She closed her eyes, for a split second wondering if perhaps she’d fallen asleep in her office chair and had a horrible nightmare.

She opened her eyes and stared at the rough bark on the tree dead ahead. Nope. Still at Beau Soleil.

Could a girl ever prepare to run into her ex?

No, not totally. But she had been remarkably calm considering her sweaty hair was plastered to her neck and she was wrapped up in a white drape like an old couch hidden beneath a drop cloth. Plus, she wore not an ounce of makeup. Yeah, not prepared, but at least she hadn’t shaken in front of him. She turned her thoughts to the task at hand. Put him out of sight. Put him out of mind.

She placed the hat that swathed her face back on and cautiously approached the crane, trying to make her steps as level as possible even though chances were good the bird would recognize her uneven gait and feel some measure of safety.

Up ahead L9-10 flapped its wings as it clung to the lowest branch of a scrubby tree where there wasn’t much room for a five-foot crane. The tracking device was firmly affixed and the bird looked healthy, so other than gathering some water samples and making some notes on the general area the bird inhabited, there wasn’t much left to do.

Why are you here? she mouthed as she looked up at the bird. The crane twisted its head, the black eyes alert to Renny below her, but it didn’t do anything more than grow still. The encounter with the gator had spooked the bird, but the familiarity of the white costume had a marked effect.

Renny glanced across the field as the ATV rattled up the embankment, carrying Darby and his brother away from the field, and the separation was enough so her hands stopped trembling and her heart stopped thumping against her rib cage.

Dear God.

He’d looked so good. Different but good. His bearing was exact, no longer loose and rolling, and his carriage more erect. No lazy smile, no flirty blue eyes, no privileged fraternity boy blond hair flopping over his brow. Darby Dufrene had changed...and she hadn’t expected that.

But why hadn’t she? It had been over ten years since they’d last seen each other. Darby had moved on to military school, the Naval Academy and law school. This was no boy slinking among the oaks with a fake ID and a naughty promise for some grown-up fun. This was a man who’d served his country, broadened his shoulders and his horizons, and maybe forgotten the Louisiana girl he’d left behind.

Something zinged in her chest.

Renny shook her head, furious at herself for feeling any sort of hurt or regret over the man who’d ridden away and not looked back. She didn’t need him—then or now.

What did he have to say that was so important? It was too late for an apology, but maybe he’d truly grown up and wanted some sort of closure crap like ex-lovers demanded in all the movies.

Fine. She’d give it to him.