The Red-Hot Cajun Read Online Free Page B

it.”
    “Me neither,” Tante Lulu called from inside the cabin where she was rattling pots and pans, openly eavesdropping. “No way am I goin’ on a three-day boat ride through the swamps. Not even if Richard Simmons wuz paddlin’ my canoe.”
    Richard Simmons again. “What is it with your aunt and Richard Simmons?” Then, “Never mind.” She waved a hand in the air, as if it to dismiss the topic entirely. “Don’t you usually keep in touch by phone?
    How long before someone gets worried and comes to check on you?”
    “I don’t know. A day or two. Maybe a week. Unless...”
    “Unless what?”
    “Unless Tante Lulu got involved. Unless she called Remy and told him not to come till she says so.
    Then there’s no guessing when anyone would show up here. I’m guessing a week.”
    A meaningful silence rang out from inside the cabin.
    “Why would that old biddy get involved?”
    “I already told you. She might think that, if we’re stuck here together long enough, we’ll fall madly in love. The ol’ love thunderbolt thing.”
    “Or I might be wantin’ to stop the bolt from happenin’,” Tante Lulu suggested from inside, no longer silent.
    “A week ?” Val screamed, a long, loud wail of frustration. “Nooooooo!” About a thousand birds screeched and chirped and flew up out of the island. Folks probably heard her in Big Mamou. She sure hoped so.
    “Well, that about peeled the bark off every cypress tree within a mile,” Rene remarked, hitting the side of his head with the heel of his hand as if to clear it.
    “Good,” she said. Then she yelled toward the inside of the cabin, “Is there anything good to eat in there, Ms Rivard?”
    “ ‘Course they is,” Tante Lulu answered. “I brought a batch of beignets with me.”
    Rene was staring at her with concern. He probably worried that she was going off the deep end with this quick change of subject. He reached out a hand to pat her forearm.
    She slapped his hand away. “I’ve been on a diet the past ten years, to maintain the perfect TV image.
    Lot of good it did me!”
    Who the hell cared now? Desperate times called for desperate measures.
    “If I’m going be trapped in hell for the next week,” she informed Rene, “I’m sure-God not going to be on a diet.”
    More information than any healthy male needs to know . . .
    “I haven’t had sex in two years.”
    Val surprised him with that astounding revelation after walking, barefooted, out onto the porch with the screen door slamming behind her. She had one of Tante Lulu’s beignets in one hand and a bottled water in the other. Sugar coated her lips, which she proceeded to lick.
    Lick, lick, lick.
    Good thing I am immune to this woman’s charms.
    And, really, any more sugar and she is going to be bouncing off the walls like a kid onKool-Aid.
    In the past two hours, she’d eaten just about everything in sight, straightened out his kitchen cabinets and the fridge, color coordinated his ragtag batch of towels, alphabetized the several dozen books on his small bookshelf, and wanted to put tiny labels on all his tools, except he had no tiny labels handy. Thank God!
    Even Tante Lulu was going a little crazy with Val’s anal-obsessive need to organize the world.
    Actually, a little bit crazier, Rene corrected himself, since Tante Lulu was already a little bit crazy.
    So Tante Lulu played a Richard Simmons cassette tape, full blast, and did jumping jacks all over the cabin. Talk about! He didn’t think Val would ever recover from that sight. Neither would he.
    After that, Val decided to rummage through his hope chest, which caused Tante Lulu to about have a fit. “Those are fer Rene’s bride. Iffen you doan plan on bein’ that bride, then keep yer paws off his stuff.”
    Val just laughed.
    That’s when Tante Lulu wisely decided to take a nap till dinner was ready.
    And now Val brought up sex, pour l’amour de Dieu. The woman was driving him batty.
    Could she possibly be thinking about that