She squatted near the river’s edge, peering at something.
“Zara?”
She turned and saw him, and a big smile lit up her face. “Luc!”
“Hey, gorgeous. Are you here by yourself?”
“I’m a big girl. I don’t need a babysitter.”
He supposed a nine-year-old could be on her own for short periods, at least in a small town where everyone watched out for each other. But not this close to the bayou.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a nonaccusatory way, just curious.
“Catching crawdads. I’m helping Mama. She said Bryan Givens is giving her fits because he wants to sell her crawdads for her dinner, but he won’t say how many or how much they cost.”
“Crawdads” were what the locals called crawfish, the tiny, lobsterlike critters that were a mainstay of the Cajun diet. Luc had not developed a taste for them-it was too much work to get that tiny piece of meat out of the shell-and he felt nauseous every time he saw someone sucking on a detached crayfish head, which was what Louisianans did. But the local specialty was an integral part of Loretta’s authentic Cajun feast.
“Got one!” Zara announced, and he saw now that she was watching a crayfish mound, into which she’d dropped a string. She slowly pulled on the string until the crayfish popped out. “See, they’re so dumb, they latch onto that little bit o’bacon and they won’t let go.” She grabbed her prize and dropped it into a bucket, where it joined about half a dozen of its neighbors.
Zara would have to catch a few hundred more if she wanted to make a dent in her mother’s crawfish requirements, but Luc thought the effort was sweet.
“That’s real noble of you to want to help out, but I’m a little worried about you down here by yourself.”
“Why? I can swim. Like a fish, Granddaddy says.”
He didn’t want to scare Zara, but he felt obligated to explain to her about the danger. “I saw an alligator not far from here a few days ago.”
But she wasn’t afraid. He should have known. “I want to see the alligator!” She peered hopefully out into the murky water.
“You probably wouldn’t be able to see it. It looks just like a log-until it pops out of the water and grabs you.”
“Ew.”
“How about I fix you a snack? Have you had lunch?”
“No, I sort of forgot. What kind of snack?”
“Brie cheese and grapes?” He had some left over from the picnic. “But you’ll have to help me carry in the picnic things.”
“Cool. Okay.” She grabbed her bucket, and they walked to the live oak tree. There wasn’t much left to take in. He gave Zara a plastic sack containing the leftover food, then he gathered up the tablecloth and they walked together up to the cottage.
Some of the guests had gathered on the back veranda to sit in the rocking chairs and enjoy the fine weather. Two older women took one look at Zara and began fawning over her, which she endured stoically. Cute as she was, she probably got this type of attention a lot.
“What’s your name, honey?” one woman asked.
“How old are you?”
“What’s in the bucket?”
“That’s a mighty pretty pair of tennis shoes.”
“Don’t be shy, now.”
After Zara politely answered their questions, one of the ladies looked up at Luc and beamed. “You have a beautiful daughter, and so sweet and bright.”
Luc was shocked at the feeling that welled up in him. In fact, for a split second, it had felt like Zara was his. And he’d experienced a surge of pride-as if she really were his daughter.
CHAPTER NINE
ZARA GIGGLED but didn’t correct the woman.
Luc felt he should. “She’s actually the daughter of a friend of mine. But thank you. I’ll pass on your compliments to her mother.”
Once they were safely inside, Zara laughed again. “That lady thought you were my dad. We don’t look anything alike.”
“Sometimes parents and their kids don’t look alike.”
“Do you have any kids?” Zara asked innocently.
“No, I’ve never been married, so I haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Oh, so you want kids?”
Alarm bells went off in Luc’s mind. Maybe Zara’s question hadn’t been so innocent after all. “I like kids, but I move around a lot. It’s kind of hard to be a good dad if you’re moving all the time.”
“Yeah, my dad-my real dad-was like that,” she said, seemingly unconcerned about it. “I don’t remember him, and now he’s dead.”
“My father died a couple of years ago, too.” More than three, actually. That hardly seemed possible. His memories of sitting by his father’s deathbed were still so clear in his mind. Pierre Robichaux, the man who’d fathered him but had never been much of a father, had asked one thing from Luc.
And Luc, who’d blamed himself for Pierre abandoning his family, had been all too eager to follow Pierre’s wishes. Fueled by his anger over the way his father’s family had treated him-relying far too heavily on Pierre’s version of the truth-Luc had crossed a line he wished he hadn’t.
Which was how he’d ended up here in Indigo.
“Wash your hands, please, Zara.”
She complied, barely able to reach the kitchen sink. He put a wedge of Brie cheese and grapes onto a small plate, then added some crackers and a spreading knife.
“So why do you move around so much?” Zara asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “It’s just what I do. I’ve been all over the world and I haven’t seen a thousandth of the amazing things that I hope to see.”
“Well, I see amazing things here in Indigo every day, and I don’t even have to travel. I even saw an ivory-billed woodpecker once, but no one believes me ’cept my mom.” Zara settled into a chair at the wrought iron table and surveyed the feast. “Is this Brie cheese?”
“Yup. If you don’t like it, I have some cheddar.”
“Oh, no, this will do fine. I’m not a fussy eater. My mom says I’m easy to feed. You can give me any old kind of leftovers.”
Uh-huh. Luc had a sneaky suspicion he knew where this conversation was going, but he had no idea how to head it off.
“In fact, I’m not much trouble at all.”
“Except when you get in fights at school,” he reminded her.
“I quit fighting.”
Luc stole a couple of grapes off her plate and munched on them. Had he eaten lunch? He’d been so busy, he couldn’t remember. He stretched and put his hands behind his head, just enjoying this time with Zara. He was curious to see where she’d go next.
“So when are you leaving Indigo?” she asked.
“Not till next spring.” In April, his two-year probation would be over. Another three years staying out of trouble, and his record would be expunged. He’d gotten off easy, considering.
“Why then?”
“Well, by then I’ll have finished all the rebuilding work on La Petite Maison, and it’ll be running smoothly. My grandmother owns this place, see, and she hired me to fix it up and start the B and B. But when the job’s done…” He shrugged.
“You’ll just leave?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Where will you go?”
He hadn’t given it much thought. He never was one to make elaborate plans-and look what had happened the one time he did. “I thought maybe I’d go to Italy.”
Her nose crinkled. “But won’t you miss us?” Zara’s attempt to make it sound like a casual question fell way short.
“Of course I’ll miss you. I’ve made lots of good friends here.”
“So why don’t you stay? Your grandmother would let you keep working here, I bet.”
He wasn’t so sure about that. By forcing him to work here, Celeste was getting her pound of flesh out of him. If she figured out that he actually liked it here, she would probably fire him instantly.