Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass Read online

  Of course, there had been a man involved.

  Chapter 1

  Bayou Black, 1951…

  Don’t get around much anymore…

  Louise stepped out the back door and off the porch of her cottage, then flinched as the afternoon sun hit her with a wallop of steam heat.

  Even though it was early August in the South with its seasonal high temperatures, she was surprised to find it hotter outside than it was inside where she had a five-gallon pot on the kitchen stove simmering up a new batch of croup syrup. A wave of summer flu had swept through the bayou these past few weeks, leaving her sorely depleted of the highly effective, homemade cough medicine. Fortunately, it appeared to be the tail end of the mini epidemic.

  Putting her hands to the small of her back, she arched out a few of the kinks and sighed. What she really needed was to crawl into bed and take a nap. Or a bubble bath would be nice. She probably smelled as bad as she looked.

  If only she had the time!

  Thou hadst time to drink two cups of coffee this morning. Thou hadst time to take the Lord’s name in vain when chasing that swamp creature. But, forget thy stink, didst say thy morning prayers? No. Ah, the priorities of God’s children!

  St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases, was Louise’s favorite, ever since he’d saved her from a soul-rending despair six years ago. But then he’d stuck around, speaking to her in her head on occasion…like now. To say he was a royal pain in the patoot at times was an understatement. But still, she couldn’t ignore him. Oh, no! One did not ignore a celestial messenger.

  Okay, okay. I’ll shower before Adèle wakes up and then say my prayers.

  Priorities again!

  She made a growly noise. Got it. Prayers first.

  Bless you, child.

  Hah!

  In Louise’s defense, it had been the day from hell (forgive my language, Mister J, if that sounds sacrilegious), starting with two of her late mother’s customers showing up practically at the crack of dawn needing medicinal herbs, not for the croup, but for equally desperate issues…to them, leastways.

  For some reason, without her actually making a decision, people had assumed she would take over as Bayou Black’s only traiteur when her mother died last year. Although she’d learned much at her mother’s side about folk-healing herbs, she was still winging it in many regards. For example, this morning, even though she had the receipt book that had been passed down through three generations of Rivard females, it had taken what seemed like forever, not helped by her sleepiness, to match up the recipes with the dusty bottles on the pantry shelf for two different customers suffering from migraines and male genital rash.

  Another job for her when things settled down—organizing Mama’s “pharmacy.”

  More priorities! St. Jude said.

  Louise rolled her eyes.

  After her customers had left, she had to use a broom to chase a baby alligator out of her blueberry patch and back into the stream where its anxious mama, whom she had named Gloria, was no doubt waiting to take a bite of some tasty human flesh. Her five-year-old niece Adèle had gotten so hyped up by the encounter…jumping up and down with excitement, giggling, screaming, wanting to pet the stupid thing…that it had taken Louise more than an hour afterward to get the by-then weepy, fussy child down for her usual nap. Two loads of laundry were waiting for her, and she still had an order of fresh fruit and vegetables to deliver to Boudreaux’s General Store, a small but essential source of income to supplement her folk-healing proceeds.

  Louise was only twenty-six years old, but she felt like seventy-six most days. And it wasn’t just physical exhaustion that wore her down. It was the never-ending grief of losing her father, her fiancé Phillipe, her brother Frank, and her mother, but mostly Phillipe. And the responsibility of raising her daughter while pretending the child was actually her niece.

  Louise sighed again and picked up a large, oval wicker gathering basket by its handle and walked over to the fig tree where she began to gather the ripe fruit. She would need to make fig jam for herself, but this first harvest would be for sale. Every penny counted these days. She was saving to buy new tires for her jalopy, which she’d named Lillian two years ago after trading in the car she’d inherited from Phillipe when it had broken down once too many times.

  Once she dumped the figs into two sturdy cardboard tomato boxes, she moved to the vegetable garden. Tomatoes, green peppers, scallions, string beans, okra, several varieties of lettuce, squash, zucchini, and snap peas soon filled two more boxes on the porch. She was back in the garden, bent over, pulling out carrots by their green fleecy tops from the loose soil when she heard a motor vehicle approaching, then pulling into the clamshell driveway behind her at the side of the cottage. She didn’t straighten and look back…not at first, figuring it would be another of the traiteur customers seeking some herbal remedy.

  When she did glance back over her shoulder, she saw a man leaning against the front of a short-bed truck, arms folded over his chest, staring at her bottom which was pretty much aimed in his direction.

  Men! Pfff! Wearing loose bib overalls over a short-sleeved man’s undershirt, both of which once belonged to her brother, belted with a twisted scarf at the waist and the ankle cuffs rolled up to mid-calf, she knew her figure was nothing to garner any kind of attention. Heck! Even naked, or wearing fancy lingerie, she was no voluptuous pin-up these days, if she ever had been, never mind those posters she’d done for Phillipe when he’d been stationed overseas. No breasts or hips to speak of, and only five-foot-three on a good day. As for her hair, which was a frizzy dark cloud about her face in this humidity, she couldn’t recall if she’d even brushed it this morning. Usually, she tucked it under one of those red farmer’s handkerchiefs, Rosie the Riveter style. And the sun was doing a great job of turning her skin not to a burnished gold but a red raspberry tone.

  And yet this man had a grin tugging at his lips and his eyes sparkled mischievously as he perused her with bold appreciation.

  Men! she thought again. They can be aroused by a tree limb if it’s the right shape. She straightened and turned, planting her hands on her hips. It was then that she realized he wasn’t looking at her with admiration, but rather amusement. Or indifference.

  The man was not attracted to her.

  More than that, he thought she was funny.

  For some reason, that annoyed her. Not that she was attracted to him. Still, no woman wanted a man to laugh at her.

  On closer scrutiny, she admitted that he was good-looking in a lean, lazily sexual way. Who was she kidding? The man was ten kinds of sexy. And he knew it, if the spark in his whiskey-hued eyes was any indication. Light brown, overlong hair stuck out from under a battered, but jauntily tilted, straw Fedora. A faded plaid, button-down shirt hung over the slim hips of black work pants, ending in scuffed leather boots. He was clean-shaven, but dark whiskers already shadowed his face, not in an unappealing way. He appeared tall, but was probably under six feet.

  There were plenty of men about since the war ended five years ago. Some of them were shell-shocked, and a few had lost a limb or two. But mostly the men of the bayou who’d returned provided a vast array of handsome Cajun masculinity to the girls who’d stayed behind.

  But none of that mattered. A man was the last thing she needed in her complicated life, and, really, no one could ever take Phillipe’s place. “Can I do somethin’ for you?” she asked testily when he continued to just stare at her, and say nothing.

  Which, of course, was a poor choice of words.

  “Oh, mais oui, darlin’,” he said with an exaggerated Cajun accent, pushing away from the truck. Before she had a chance to be offended by his innuendo, which was misplaced considering his lack of attraction, he added, “My father sent me to pick up a delivery.”

  “Your father?”

  “Joseph Boudreaux. I’m his older son, Justin. I believe you know my younger brother Leon.”

  Just then, she noticed the logo on the do
or of the truck. “Boudreaux’s General Store.” She stepped forward out of the garden, clapping her hands together to remove some dried mud. Better not shake hands, she thought, even before his upper lip curled with distaste at her grubbiness.

  “I was fixin’ to deliver the produce later this afternoon.”

  He shrugged. “I had to be out this way, so Dad asked me to stop and save you the trouble.” It was obvious the side trip was not a welcome one.

  She motioned him toward the back porch. “Come, you, sit down while I get the rest of my order ready. Would you like a glass of sweet tea while you wait?” Or some sour lemonade to match your mood?

  He frowned as he watched a gator floating down the bayou stream. Possibly, Gloria, the baby’s mother from this morning, but, no, this one was much bigger. Had to be a male. Maybe Gloria’s boyfriend. She didn’t know why Justin should be frowning, though. Gators and other wild creatures were a fact of life on the bayou.

  “I’d love a cold drink,” he said, once the gator was out of sight, then sank down into one of the two high-backed rocking chairs. There was a two-person swing at the other end of the porch.

  “Be back directly,” she told him and went inside to wash her hands and turn down the heat on the stove. Before she returned outside to pack up the rest of the produce, she checked on Adèle, who was thankfully still knocked out on her cot from her energetic morning. As Louise had suspected, when she glanced in the mirror, she saw that she was a mess. There were even some twigs in her hair. Oh, well. She wasn’t out to impress anyone…least of all a full-of-himself Cajun stud.

  “Can I help you?” he asked half-heartedly a short time later as he sipped at his drink, his long legs extended and crossed at the ankles.

  “No. I’m fine. I’ll be toting in lots more over the next few weeks, gettin’ ready for Labor Day weekend.”

  He nodded, and contented himself with observing her packing up more of the vegetables into boxes, along with a passel of fresh-cut sunflowers which she tied with a string into a half dozen clumps and slid into a paper sack. Sometimes folks bought a bouquet or two on a whim, though she wasn’t about to explain that to him.

  “Who is that?” he asked, holding up a paper napkin with a face imprinted on it, then pointing upward to the wind chimes hanging from the porch ceiling with bronze discs displaying the same image.

  “St. Jude.”

  He arched his brows in question. “You mean the traitor, the guy who betrayed Jesus.”

  “No. Jude Thaddeus, the brother of James, was an apostle. He’s often confused with that other apostle Judas Iscariot, the bad guy,” she told him. She waved at the napkin and wind chime and explained, “Maisie Fontenot got them for me when she went to Rome last year. She also bought me a St. Jude umbrella.”

  “Isn’t Jude the patron saint of hopeless cases?”

  She felt her face heat. Why did she always have to defend her devotion to St. Jude, like it was weird of something? “Yes.”

  “Are you feeling hopeless?”

  “Not now. But there have been times in my past.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe I could use a little of his help in preparing for my medical board exams.”

  He was probably joking. Still, she offered, “I could give you a medal.” She had more than twenty left from the stash she’d bought at a church rummage sale last year.

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass for now.” She must have given him a dirty look because he added, “I’m not much for wearing jewelry.”

  She thought about warning him not to annoy the saint, but then St. Jude whispered in her head, Not to worry, child. I am overburdened with prayers for help these days.

  Suddenly, Justin scrooched up his nose, looking toward the open door of the cottage. “What is that godawful smell?”

  At first, she thought he referred to her body odor and barely restrained herself from sniffing at an armpit. But then she noticed him looking toward the cottage interior. “Croup cough syrup.” She’d become immune to the pungent odors after all this time.

  “You’re making medicine? Isn’t that…illegal?”

  “I don’t call it medicine. Folk healing relies on herbs and such.” Although the new FDA regulations under the Durham-Humphrey Act didn’t speak to folk medicine, it clearly tried to outlaw any drugs that could be harmful or habit-forming without a physician’s prescription. Which wasn’t a problem for Louise. But it was best to be careful. The last thing she needed was some FDA person snooping into her business.

  He frowned and gave her a skeptical look. “That’s splittin’ hairs, don’t you think?”

  “What are you…the medicine police?” Lordy, Lordy, could he be FDA?

  “No, but I am a doctor, or almost a doctor.”

  She stopped loading her produce and looked to him with question. Now that he mentioned it, she recalled Leon mentioning a brother, about four or five years older than the two of them, who was studying medicine. “Almost?”

  “I’m doin’ a residency this summer at Charity Hospital in Nawleans. Hope to finish up by next month.”

  “And then?”

  He shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe continue my studies with a specialty. Or take a job with a family practice for a year or two, then decide if I want to branch off.”

  “Back here in the bayou?”

  “I’m not sure. There are some excellent hospitals up north where I could learn a lot. It would be an honor to be asked to join them.”

  “And are there no ‘excellent hospitals’ in the South?”

  “Of course. It just depends on what specialty I choose, if I choose a specialty.”

  “And in the meantime you’re deliverin’ vegetables. And gettin’ all hoity-toity over my cough syrup.”

  He laughed, and, boy oh boy, his handsomeness amped up to about too-hot-to-handle. “No, I was just helpin’ Dad on my afternoon off work.”

  Good for you, daddy’s boy, she thought. But you probably hoped to hook up with some beautiful bayou gal along the way. Instead, you got stuck with me.

  A grin twitched at his lips as if he knew what she was thinking.

  The fathead.

  His head shot up as if a sudden thought had come to him. “Please don’t tell me you were doling out medicines during that recent Asian influenza epidemic?”

  She bristled. Something about this almost-doctor really got her dander up and she exploded, “No, I did not. Me, I am not so much a fool that I would think I have a cure for some strange virus. If I did, I would be famous and rich as one of them Rockerfellers, now wouldn’t I? But what I did do was give my customers herbal remedies to relieve shortness of breath or fever for the summer flu that hit here, not an epidemic. And, yes, I kept my pantry cleaner than a bleach factory, cleaner than some doctor’s offices I been in.”

  He was clearly amused by her reaction, probably an overreaction, to his insulting words, which might very well have been teasing. She didn’t know him well enough to tell the difference.

  “Where at you studyin’ medicine?” Sometimes Louise deliberately dumbed down her language when she was around people who considered themselves superior intellectually.

  “Up north. Harvard.”

  Well, you couldn’t get any higher intellectual reputation than Harvard, she supposed. “Well, la dee da! So, you become Yankee now?”

  He smiled. “Hardly. You jump to a lot of assumptions, my dear.”

  He even sounded uppity, not at all Cajun-ish. “You know what they say about Yankees, dontcha? They’re like hemorrhoids. A pain in the be-hind when they come south, but a relief when they go back up.”

  A slight tic at the side of his closed lips was the only indication she’d pricked his pride. “That joke is as old as time.”

  She shrugged. “If the boot fits, no sense throwing it out.”

  But then he smiled. “I can’t believe we’re arguing about old jokes. You’re a little bit snippy, darlin’. Did I say somethin’ to offend you?”

  Hah! He thought he could toss ou
t a “darlin’” with a sexy smile and suddenly become Cajun-ish. “Is the sky blue, darlin’? Do birds fly?” she inquired sweetly, then explained, deliberately dumbing down her language again, “Ain’t ah knowin’ what yer thinkin’ here, cher? You, a Southerner-turned-Yankee raise yer precious nose at mah croup syrup. Like all doctors, ya think folk healers are quacks.”

  “Don’t presume to guess what I’m thinking, chère. Just because I said your concoction stinks, doesn’t mean I disapprove of your work; so, no need to pitch a hissy fit.” He inhaled and exhaled, as if to control his temper, then said in a softer tone, “You have to admit, there are lots of charlatans out there, putting out magic elixirs that cure everything from constipation to cancer, but—”

  She put up two hands to halt his words. “Truce,” she declared with a laugh. “Anyways, how come it’s taken you so long to get through medical school? You gotta be at least thirty.”

  “Thirty-one,” he said. “I spent three years in the Army during the war as a combat medic.”

  Ah, Louise realized the irony then. Her Phillipe had intended to study medicine after the war, as well. Unfortunately, he hadn’t survived to fulfill that dream. It wasn’t a subject she wanted to discuss further. And she didn’t have to because, just then, a whimper came from within the cottage, followed by the sound of tiny feet walking through the rooms. “Tante Lulu!” Adèle cried, dragging her pet blanket on the floor behind her.

  Louise opened the door and lifted the child into her arms, blanket and all.

  “Lulu?” Justin inquired.

  “This is Adèle,” she said, kissing the top of the girl’s tousled hair. “From the time she was a toddler, she was unable to say Louise, so, Lulu it became. And stuck.”