He was really very good at what he did. Her idea to have him renovate the cabin and open a bed-and-breakfast had been smarter than even she’d imagined.
“Loretta’s a peach,” Doc said. “She comes from a good family. It’s true, she made some bad choices in her youth. She couldn’t have picked a worse husband than Jim Patterson. But she grew up and settled down. She’s putting all her energy into her bakery and making a success of it, too. And she’s a good mother.”
“Mother?” Celeste sat up straighter. “You didn’t tell me she had a child.”
“Must’ve slipped my mind. Zara. She’s, oh, about nine now, I think. Smart as a whip and quite a handful. A lot like her mother was at that age.”
“It’s hard for me to picture Luc dating a single mother. It seems so…responsible. Not at all like his father.” She pursed her lips, thinking about her son, Pierre. After the brouhaha in New Orleans and finding out Luc was Pierre’s son, she’d assumed the two had much in common.
But maybe not as much as she’d originally thought.
“Luc is responsible,” Doc assured her. “Maybe his brush with the law made him see the light, but I’d trust him with my life. He adores Zara. He’d make a fine daddy.”
“Hmph. Raising children is no picnic. In fact, I’d say it’s the hardest, most challenging job in the world. I certainly didn’t excel at it.”
“How can you say that? You raised a fine daughter.”
Celeste smiled. “Anne turned out wonderfully. I’ve only recently begun to appreciate what a strong, special woman she is. But not through my doing. She bloomed despite my attempts to control her. But Pierre-he didn’t fare as well.”
“We all do the best we can, Celeste. You have to let that one go.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“We all have.”
“Not you. You married a nice woman who never gave you a bit of trouble. You built a wonderful life for yourself. I married someone I didn’t love because I could control him, and because he could give me the lifestyle I wanted.”
“Water under the bridge, my dear,” Doc soothed her. “Water under the bridge.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LORETTA WASN’T SURE what had changed. She still had a mess on her hands, with too many food vendors and not enough space. She still wasn’t completely happy with her artisanal breads and couldn’t figure out exactly how she would promote her bakery at the festival. But her problems didn’t seem quite so serious now.
She couldn’t believe that an hour of wild sex could make such a huge difference in her life. But after she came home from Luc’s and returned to her baking, everything seemed different. She was relaxed. She felt a sense of peace. She was able to add up columns of numbers with ease, and her formerly unmanageable budget didn’t seem like such a bear.
Even Zara sensed Loretta’s new attitude. “Did anything happen while I was at my fiddle lesson?” she asked innocently.
Loretta tensed. “What do you mean?”
“You just seem happier. You’re not psycho like you were this morning.”
“Zara, it’s not nice to refer to your mother as psycho, even if she is.”
“Sorry. How about whacko?”
“I’m just feeling like I have things under control, now that Luc has promised to help me with my music festival stuff. We’re going to meet tomorrow at Grandma and Granddaddy’s house to work out all the details. Oh, and he’s going to get my crawdads from Bryan at a decent price-he promised.”
“That’s good, because I left the ones I caught at Luc’s.”
Loretta’s serenity lasted only until the following afternoon, when the meeting actually took place, because Luc’s grandmother came with him. She’d invited herself, apparently. The woman was eighty-five years old-she announced this herself almost before introductions were over-yet she was remarkably well-preserved. Although slightly stooped, she was slim and vibrated with energy. She had gorgeous bone structure and clear, smooth skin. She wore her silver hair in a French roll, a jeweled comb adorning it.
Her sharp, darting eyes seemed to miss nothing.
Luc carried in a large box, and they all settled in the living room. Adele Castille fixed them all sweet iced tea and served cookies, and Celeste seemed to appreciate the civility of it. She managed not to get a single crumb on anything.
“Now, then, Luc,” Celeste said, taking control of the meeting, “if you’ll open that box, there are some things I wish to show you all.”
Luc followed directions, and the first thing he pulled out was a sort of presentation album. Celeste laid it on the coffee table and opened it. “I took the liberty of having my interior designer draw up some plans for the booth. Now, don’t worry about the expense. We can borrow a few things from the B and B.”
Loretta almost fainted at the lavish drawing. Celeste wanted to deck out their booth like the Taj Mahal.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, meaning it. “But I’m afraid our space isn’t that big.”
“Then how are we going to display all the pictures?” Celeste nodded at the box.
Luc began pulling photographs and news clippings out of the box-some of them framed, some not. They were a treasure trove of Indigo history, dating back as early as the Civil War. There were even pictures from the old Indigo plantations that had given the town its name, and each was meticulously described and dated.
“My family has always been interested in history,” Celeste explained. “These pictures belonged mostly to my father. Blanchards have been a part of Indigo’s history for hundreds of years. This music festival is the perfect opportunity to highlight that history-and the history of the whole town, of course,” she added.
Loretta marveled at the pictures a few moments longer. She found photos of the B and B-the huge oak trees that surrounded it now had been much smaller-and some of the opera house.
“Hey,” Vincent said, “there’s my grandfather! He captained a mail boat that ran up and down the Bayou Teche way back when.”
Just then, Loretta got a brainstorm. “What if we used this idea for the opera house, instead of our booth? People are going to be touring the building anyway, and there will be some performers there. We could make the second-floor gallery into a temporary museum. And we could give you the credit, Mrs. Robichaux. We could make up a plaque.”
Celeste seemed pleased. “I was thinking of donating these things to the town to start a collection of some sort. I have letters and some other museum-quality artifacts, too.”
Adele clapped her hands together, excited as a child. “That would be wonderful! And so educational for the children.” She was a retired schoolteacher who still volunteered at the school.
“Um, not to be a wet blanket,” Luc said, “but who’s going to make all this happen? Loretta and I have our hands full with coordinating the food.”
“I’ll do it,” Adele said, full of enthusiasm. “I have too much time on my hands, anyway. With your input, of course, Mrs. Robichaux. And we’ll have to get the cooperation of Marjolaine Savoy, who’s coordinating the festival. But she’s also on the committee to resurrect the opera house, so I can’t imagine she’ll object.”
Celeste obviously enjoyed being deferred to. “We can work together. Perhaps we can form our own committee. I’ll bet Michel would enjoy working on this, as well.”
“Who is Michel?” Adele asked.
“I believe you all know him as ‘Doc.’”
Did Celeste’s eyes sparkle just a bit at the mention of the town’s charming doctor? Oh, surely that was just Loretta’s imagination.