The Road to Bayou Bridge

“What?”

“Blue toothbrush. Sounds boring.”

He almost laughed. “Mom, come on. You haven’t even met her and you’re writing her off. Besides, Nate only knew Annie for three weeks before he promised happily ever after.”

“You’re not your brother, and I’m not writing her off. I’m sure she’s perfectly lovely. I just can’t imagine you living on the West Coast. This place has always been such a part of you. Never figured you wouldn’t come home once you were done roaming.”

“I’m home now, and there are these things called airplanes. You climb inside, buckle up and they get you where you need to go pretty quickly.”

His mother frowned. “And cost an arm and a leg. I happen to be fond of my appendages.”

Darby closed his eyes for a moment. Dealing with his mother had never been easy. They brushed against each other like earth along a fault line. Many said their butting heads were a result of being too much alike, but Darby knew it was because his mother tried to control every aspect of life surrounding her, including his own. Only he and his siblings saw it. Everyone else thought her harmless and loving.

Picou had been avoiding the topic of his heading to Seattle since he’d arrived home a day before. Any time he mentioned his intent of interviewing for the position with Mackey and Associates, she snorted, sniffed or blatantly ignored him. At times she resembled his boyhood pony Marigold, but somehow he doubted feeding her an apple would appease her.

She turned back around to face him, her face softening into the woman who’d wiped his brow when he’d vomited or blown on his boo-boos after applying antiseptic. “I understand it’s your life to live, sweetheart, but I think you should give considerable thought before making such a drastic decision. You haven’t been home in years. The distance has distorted your image of this place.”

He blinked. “Mom, I’m not moving back to Bayou Bridge. I’m not moving into Beau Soleil. I’m nearly thirty years old, and I’ve been on my own for a long time now. I can’t go back in time.”

“I know how old you are, and I’m not pulling out your old Star Wars sheets to put on your bed. All I’m asking, even if it sounds unreasonable, is for you to spend some time thinking about what moving to Seattle to pursue a career and wife there means in the long run.” He could see his mother tried to say the right things, the things he wanted to hear, but he knew her. On the surface she said one thing, but underneath she plotted something quite different. She wanted her baby home. She wanted him to be part of the family—a family that was finally complete with the discovery of his twin sister, Della.

Everyone but he and Picou had believed Della to be dead. Picou proclaimed some spiritual knowledge about her children, but Darby had known. Like in his bones. When he was young, he’d dream about his sister, wake crying, asking why no one would go and get her.

And he’d been right.

Della had been living two hours southeast of Beau Soleil in the backwaters off Bayou Lafourche, raised by a tough old bayou woman named Enola Cheramie. Even Enola hadn’t known the girl she called Sally was the long-lost Della, for the child had been hidden there by her kidnapper, Enola’s grandson, whose body had been discovered in the waters not far from Bayou Bridge. That Della had been found was a fluke, one started when Sally discovered by accident that she wasn’t related to Enola. One thing led to another and her file had landed on Nate’s desk. His older brother said it had taken one glance to know the young teacher was a Dufrene—Della had looked almost exactly like the young Picou Dufrene in the wedding photograph sitting in the formal living room.

So, yeah, Picou wanted to gather her brood together so she might tend them all without any interference from a husband whose will was as strong as hers. But like Martin, she’d had a hand in making Darby feel as he did. Picou had not made waves when his father sent him away. She couldn’t undo what she’d done easily.

Picou wanted him to live the life she’d built in her head for him—living down the street, eating at her dinner table every Sunday, fishing with his brothers, basically just being at hand. But Darby had not been part of life at Beau Soleil for some time. He didn’t feel comfortable here, didn’t know what doors stuck or where Lucille hid the cookies she baked. Even hunting with Nate that afternoon had felt forced.

Darby sighed. “I’m considering all things, Mom, but I can’t imagine a life here in Bayou Bridge. If I stayed in Louisiana, I’d be looking at New Orleans or Baton Rouge. I’m different now, and I won’t go back to being the boy I was.”

“Whoever said you were so awful as a child? I hope the past is not keeping you away from the present,” she said, her voice soft as the velvet hanging in the windows in the front parlor.

“Seriously? You and Dad sent me away. Remember?”

His mother shook her head as tears gathered in her eyes. “To grow up, not become like—”

“That’s what I did,” he interrupted. “I grew up and I became a man who recognizes responsibility and doesn’t shirk it. A man who doesn’t want to come back to a place that is finished for him. I like where I’m headed.”

Picou bit her lip and said nothing.

He didn’t understand why his mother was so disappointed. His parents had sent him away, hoping military school would break him. It had. Broken him down then built him up. The navy had taken over and done the rest, and he’d emerged a skilled, reliable attorney and naval officer. “I’m here, aren’t I? This was what you wanted—for me to come home, meet Della, and sew things up for the family. But I’m not staying.”

Picou stared at him for a full minute before shaking her head. “I don’t expect you to fix anything, Darby. I only wanted you to meet your sister and help her if you can. Just be part of this family, and don’t be afraid of finding a piece of the boy you left behind. You don’t have to live here, but you shouldn’t close your mind off and dust your hands of who you are.”

Darby shrugged. “I’ll try.”

He didn’t want to admit part of that boy he’d left behind had showed up that afternoon at first sight of Renny. Sheer lust had lurched through his body, stirring him, waking him, making him want to do irrational things.

Which was a bad idea.

Renny might be his legal wife, but that title meant little. In fact, before he’d come to Beau Soleil, he’d stopped in Lafayette to talk with Sid Platt, his father’s former college roommate and long-time legal advisor to the Dufrene family, and had him discreetly initiate divorce proceedings. Since neither he nor Renny would contest and neither had cohabited, the case should move through the cogwheels without difficulty. Six months easily, but if Sid could work some magic, maybe even sooner.

“There is no try, only do.”

Darby rolled his eyes. “Yoda?”

Picou gave a small smile and turned back to whatever brew she was concocting as he slipped out the swinging door and headed up to his former room for a quick shower. Maybe he could stop by Renny’s place and break the news they were married. Didn’t know how he’d do it, but the longer he waited, the more the secret burned inside him.

She needed to know.

Of course, he had no clue where she lived or if she had plans for the evening, but once he cleared the air, he’d feel better. Maybe.

Then he could focus on meeting Della and getting his ass to Seattle to start a new life.

Seattle. He’d been kicking around the possibilities of where to settle as his time in the service wound down and the Pacific Coast city was high on his list. Then when he met Shelby at an officer mixer and struck up a conversation with her, things fell into place. She was from Seattle, leaving to return to her home in mere weeks, and her father was looking for a new associate for his firm situated in the heart of the city. At that moment, standing there holding a gin and tonic, he’d felt destiny tap him on the shoulder and ask him to dance the pretty teacher all the way to a new life.

So he’d taken Shelby’s hand and vowed to listen to reason. To fate. To what the stars had lined up for him. It was as if life had laid all the pieces out in front of him and said, Here you go, Darby.

Seattle and Shelby sounded good. There he wasn’t known and could be whoever he wanted to be without any preconceived notions. Without a family name. Without whispers of his past or a meddling mother trying to dredge up history so she could spackle it with plaster and make it all better.

Onward and upward.

Or maybe backward and downward.

He wasn’t sure.

But before he could move anywhere, he had to divorce Renny.

* * *

RENNY GLARED AT THE MAN standing on her front porch holding two take-out boxes and a bottle of wine.

What in the hell did he think he was doing?

She gripped the French door and tried not to let her bad leg buckle. “What do you think you’re—”

“I’ve got to talk to you,” he said, shouldering past her into her house. “Better to do this in private.”

She spun around. “Get out.”

“You don’t want the neighbors to hear this. I brought food.” He walked through her living area to the adjoining dining area and set the boxes on her newly restored antique drop-leaf table, looking as if he had every right to stalk into her world and tilt it on its side. Typical Darby. It was how he’d always been. Presumptuous and entitled. A true Dufrene.

“I didn’t invite you in, and I really don’t want to hear what you have to say to me. Nor do I want any food. So get the hell out before I call the police.” She waved toward the open door. Her body trembled with rage and something unidentifiable. She didn’t have time to worry about what that was. She needed him to take his larger-than-life body and remove it from the intimacy of her living room.

“Give me a few minutes, okay? You need to hear me out. Trust me.”

“Trust you? I don’t even know you anymore. You’re a memory. That’s it.”

He turned around and waved the wine bottle. “Do you have an opener? Trust or not, you’ll need a drink for this conversation.”

“I don’t want a drink. I want you to leave. Don’t be an asshole, Darby. If you need closure, fine. I forgive you for getting drunk, hitting a tree, nearly killing me and then forgetting about me while you went off to the East Coast. There. Done. Now get out.” Her knee did that buckle thing and the scar on her thigh ached. She wanted to sit down, but didn’t dare show weakness in front of this man.

“I didn’t forget you,” he said, his brow crinkling in confusion. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Realizing he wasn’t going to leave without her actually calling the sheriff, she slammed the door. “Fine. You want to talk. Bring it on. I’ll get the damn bottle opener.”

Renny moved toward the kitchen, more aware of her limp than normal. She didn’t want him to watch her. Didn’t want his pity or his guilt, but even so, she felt it with every step. “Stop looking at me.”

She swallowed unshed emotion that had appeared out of nowhere and entered the kitchen, yanking open a drawer and ignoring the fact her cat, Chauncey, had leaped onto the counter and drank milk from the cereal bowl she’d left in the sink that morning.

She turned and jabbed the opener toward the man who’d followed her into the kitchen. “Here.”

“Why wouldn’t I look at you? You’re still so beautiful it takes my breath away.”

His words slammed her and she flinched. “Oh, God, Darby. Are you serious? That’s what you’re going to say. I’m beautiful?”

He shrugged in a matter-of-fact manner that was so achingly familiar it made her heart hurt.

“Look, I know what I am, so don’t give me your pity. At least show me that courtesy.” She waggled the opener before thrusting it at him once again.

His blue eyes darkened and his mouth softened. She wished she hadn’t noticed, but she had. The man was abnormally good-looking with that golden hair and tan skin. Probably had a six-pack, too. He was too good to be true...like most things were. She wasn’t biting whatever worm he wriggled at her. She knew what trusting Darby had gotten her. “Lord, Renny, I don’t pity you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, sure. No one pities me. I don’t have a complex. I swear. Something about you here in my kitchen, in my space, freaks me out. Let’s go back into the living room.”

He reached out and brushed a piece of hair from her cheek and she flinched again. Not because she didn’t want his touch, but because the heat in that simple gesture seared her. It was as if a match had been struck and the air thickened with something dangerous. “I don’t want to freak you out. I’m sorry about that, but don’t ever think I would pity something as rare as you.”

His words plucked a chord in her and she didn’t like where her heart and head were sliding. She needed to get it together. Fast. “Lay that manure on someone else, Darby.”

She jerked away from him and headed back to the dining room. As she pulled out a chair, she begged her body to obey the dictates of her mind. Stay away. Keep the wall up. Don’t allow Darby access to anything he could use to drag the past forward. Be polite and aloof. Be the woman you are today, Renny. “So, you brought dinner. At least I’ll get something out of this.”

“Your cat is drinking something out of your sink. Is that okay?”

“You implying that I’m a lonely cat woman?”

The sound of the wine bottle being uncorked accompanied his question. “Well, if you’re a cat woman, I wanna see you in that black leather costume and not that weird white furniture cover.”

Renny stifled a smile. Here was the charm that bled out of Darby as easily as the sun shone. It played havoc with a girl’s intent. “In your dreams, Officer.”

He emerged from around the corner. “How did you know one of my fantasies is you in a catsuit?”

“You were always a degenerate.”

At that, his eyes shuttered and she felt his mood shift. “I was many things, wasn’t I?”

She didn’t answer because suddenly it felt a little like swimming into the unknown, so she stalled by prying open the nearest take-out box. Steam rose off the crawfish fettuccini inside and made her mouth water.

He set the bottle on the table. “I know you get lots of home cooking, but it’s been a while for me, so I stopped at Jacqueline’s.”

“Good choice. Her food’s the best, so I guess I’ll have to force myself.” She tempered her words with a small smile, determined to throw a speed bump in front of their forthcoming conversation so she could enjoy the meal. No sense in letting good food go to waste, even if it was with a man she’d hoped never to lay eyes on again. Darby had obviously snagged two wineglasses from her cabinet while in the kitchen. He poured a healthy portion into each glass and handed one to her.

“Please don’t toast,” she warned, taking the glass from him, careful not to touch his hand. She wanted no more flares of awareness. Couldn’t handle them.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he muttered, taking a big gulp of the chardonnay. He opened his own box, revealing another serving of crawfish pasta, and dug in. A semi-comfortable silence settled in as they ate.

After several minutes, Renny looked up. “I don’t like being forced into something, but I do appreciate dinner. The wine’s not bad, either.”

He wiped his mouth. “I’m not real comfortable being here myself, but it’s got to be done.”

Renny cocked her head. “Why? It’s been years and we’re both different people. Is there really a need to drag up old feelings? I’ve moved on. You’ve moved on. Can’t we let it be what it was—two crazy kids looking to thumb their noses at authority then learning they weren’t as smart as they thought they were? We were both to blame for what happened, so we don’t need apologies.”

Darby took another swallow of the crisp wine and leveled his blue eyes at her. “It’s not about apologies though I do think I owe you one. I had no idea you were injured so severely.”

The sorrow in his gaze melted something and for the first time in a long time a familiar longing wormed its way along the tunnels of her soul, convincing her the misery she’d suffered after the accident hadn’t been so awful after all. She dashed that devil of a feeling against the stone-hard resolve built long ago in the recesses of her heart. “You wouldn’t have, because you never bothered to come see me.”

“What are you talking about? You refused to see me.” Truth sat in his gaze. He wasn’t jerking her chain. The reaction was honest.

“I never refused you anything. Ever. That was the problem.”

For a moment, they held each other’s gaze. Dawning descended and in that moment, they both seemed to understand something—they had not been the only players that moonlit night. There had been others involved, each with his or her own motives.

“No, you never did, did you?” His words were almost a whisper and the tone in those words made Renny swallow hard.

“But that’s the past,” she muttered, reaching for her wineglass so quickly she knocked it over. The liquid splashed across the buffed cypress table she’d found in an old warehouse outside Lake Charles and ran off onto the carpet.

“I’ll get it,” Darby said, leaping to his feet, jogging toward the kitchen and reemerging with a dish towel. Chauncey shot out behind him as he knelt to wipe up the spill. Renny sat glued to her chair, mostly because she didn’t trust her legs, especially the one that had been broken in several places and gouged by the splintered fence...but that wasn’t the true reason she couldn’t manage to rise. No, the true reason hummed inside her.

Most of what she’d believed about the man stooping at her feet had been a lie—a lie perpetuated by her mother. The Dufrenes. Hell, even the hospital staff.

He hadn’t denied her.

Why hadn’t she known that?

Darby tossed the cloth on the table and looked up. His eyes were so blue and the chin that had once been smooth to the touch was scruffy and manly.

It was a face she knew well.

It was a stranger’s face.

“You know why I came tonight?”

She licked her lips and shook her head. “I guess I don’t.”

He eased forward and lifted one of the hands she’d curled in her lap. The warmth of his touch and the heady smell of the spilled wine kick-started something slithery and dangerous in her belly.

“It’s not about apologies.” He shook his head. “Man, this isn’t easy. I don’t know how to do this.”

“What?” She looked down at him on his knees and for an instant her mind flitted back to an eighteen-year-old Darby on his knees outside the Bayou Bridge high school football stadium. The flash of a simple gold band—one still lying at the bottom of her jewelry box. The flash of his smile. The hope and possibility of young love under a February moon.

“Renny, I’d like to ask you to unmarry me.”

She pulled her hand away. “What? Unmarry you? We’re not—”

“You remember what happened that afternoon before we guzzled two bottles of champagne?” Darby interrupted, wiping his hand on the thigh of his jeans. Now her mind flashed to champagne dripping down her neck and Darby licking it off before his head went lower and lower still. Before they spread the blanket he’d packed in the back of his pickup and made love beneath the arms of the live oak in the center of the property his grandfather had left him. “Before the car accident?”

Renny shook her head as something much heavier replaced the desire brewing inside her. It felt like she’d reached the zenith of the world’s highest roller coaster and the track tilted south. “Oh, God, we got married.”

CHAPTER FOUR

DARBY WATCHED THE EMOTIONS dance across Renny’s face—dawning, incredulity, anger, and then confusion. All the same things he felt nearly two weeks ago when he’d found the marriage certificate among his old papers.

“How? It wasn’t legal.”

Her question was the simplest of questions, but he didn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know. Somehow the license was filed. I’m checking into that, but hold on a sec—”

He went back to where he’d laid the boxes, picked up a manila envelope she hadn’t seen earlier and gave it to her.

Renny pulled the document from its sheath and studied it with a little crinkle in her forehead. He sank back into the chair he’d abandoned and waited.

“This is official? Not a joke?”

“Who would have forged a marriage certificate and mailed it to me at Winston Prep?”

She shrugged. “I don’t understand. That boat captain was drunk and there wasn’t really anything official about it. I don’t even remember signing this.”

“But it’s my signature, and if I’m remembering correctly, that’s yours. Whatever may have happened, somehow we ended up married.”

Renny slumped back in her chair, fork abandoned in the half-eaten pasta, and rubbed her face. “This is crazy.”

“Yeah. More than a little.”

She sat up straight. “Oh, my God! What if one of us had gotten married...had kids?”

“That would have been...awkward. Guess that’s a silver lining in all this. We both stayed single...or rather secretly married.”

The sound of the chair scraping against the floor jarred him. Renny launched herself from the table, whipping up his empty container along with her empty wineglass, and headed toward the kitchen. “I can’t deal with this right now. This is nuts.”

He didn’t move, because he knew she needed time to process. Likely she was in the kitchen trying not to hyperventilate. Maybe he should go check on her, but that didn’t feel like the thing to do. She needed space—from him. Her cat curled in and out through his outstretched legs and purred. Any other time, he’d have reached down and given it a pat, but he didn’t feel friendly toward any creature at the moment, so he jerked his legs away and shooed the long-haired cat away.

The sound of glass breaking in the kitchen made him leap to his feet.

“Damn it.” Her words sounded tinged in tears. Or hysteria. He wasn’t sure which but neither was good.

He nearly tripped over the cat as he hurried to the kitchen. A yowl later, he found Renny standing at the sink with a broken wineglass in one hand, her other under the faucet.

“You okay?”

“No.” She held up a hand and studied the blood streaming down her finger and dropping into the ceramic sink. “I cut my finger.”

“Here,” he said, taking her wrist in his hand and studying the gash on her pointer finger. No slivers of glass and no need for stitches. “Don’t think we’ll have to go to the hospital. Let’s put pressure on it.”

He grabbed a clean white towel from the half-open drawer next to the sink and wrapped her finger in it, holding it firmly to stop the bleeding. Renny studied his hand curled around hers, reverting to careful observation like any good scientist. He followed her gaze and noticed their two left hands were linked together and wondered about her thoughts.

“Better?” he asked, dropping his voice to a lower, softer register.

Renny shrugged and lifted her brown eyes to meet his gaze. The emotions pooling within the depths socked him hard in the solar plexus and sucked him back in time. How many times had he looked into those eyes? How many times had he smelled that scent that was hers alone? How many times had he bent his head to hers? Too many to name. Déjà vu blanketed him, covering him in memories, forcing him to remember how much he’d once loved this woman.

“Renny,” he breathed, exhaling her name like a prayer. He didn’t want to want her with such intensity. But he did.

“Don’t,” she whispered, stepping back.

But he couldn’t help himself.

Old feelings had tumbled down, slamming into them both. He could see the same in her eyes—the want, the confusion, the desire.

He lowered his head and caught her lips as he’d done so many times before. Her slight intake of breath only invited him further.

Ah, sweet, sweet Renny.

“Darby,” she whispered, before closing her eyes and surrendering. He needed no further invitation. He slid his free arm around her waist, trapping her between him and the sink, and deepened the kiss.