When Love Came to Town
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When he didn’t speak, she lifted her head a notch. “Do you pray, Mr. Love?”
“Call me Mick,” he said, all of a sudden too hot and uncomfortable to be reasonable. “Does it matter if I do or don’t? I’ll still get the job done.”
Her smile made him edgy and immediately put him on alert. “Yes, it matters. Aunt Hilda will have you out in the garden in a heartbeat, reciting the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ if she finds out you don’t pray.”
“Oh, I see.” He laughed, relieved to see that she had a sense of humor right along with her sense of piety. “So you pray to impress your aunt?”
“No, I pray to remain close to God,” Lorna explained, slowly and in that voice that poured like soft rain over Mick’s nerve endings. “We have a tradition here at Bayou le Jardin. We take our troubles to the garden. And there we walk and talk with God. It’s based on my aunt’s favorite hymn.”
Okay, so he’d just stumbled on a praying, hymn-singing, petite redhead with eyes that looked like green pastures. But Mick couldn’t help being cynical. “Well, that’s nice, but what did God tell you to do about these broken limbs and destroyed property?”
She smiled at him then, and brought his heart hammering to his feet. “He told me He’d send you.”
Floored, dazed, winded, Mick couldn’t think of a snappy reply. Until he remembered he’d saved her butt from that limb. That gave him some much-needed confidence.
Glancing up at the gaping open space where the limb had once hung, he said, “And just in the nick of time, I do believe.”
Lorna only smiled and stared. “That remains to be seen, but yes, I guess you did come to my rescue back there.”
“And don’t you forget it,” he retorted, glad to be back on a human level of understanding. All this business about walking and talking with God made him jumpy.
“Oh, I won’t.” She marched ahead of him around the corner, her faded navy tennis shoes and frayed jeans making a nice melody of sounds as she walked.
The nice melody ended on the next beat, however, when she groaned and whirled to glare up at Mick. “Just what in blazes are your men doing to my beautiful gardens, Mr. Love?”
“Lorna’s out there pitching a fit,” her older sister Lacey said as she watched from the open dining room doors. “Think I should go play referee?”
Hilda Dorsette reached for her silver-etched walking cane, then slowly made her way to the French doors leading out onto the flat stone gallery. Without a word, she watched as her great-niece went nose to nose with the handsome man named Mick Love. Then she chuckled. “Good thing he’s wearing that hard hat. He’ll need protection from Lorna. She sets such high store in those live oaks.”
Lacey shrugged, her floral sundress rippling as she moved away from the window. “He’ll need more than a hard hat if he damages those gardens. I’ll be right there with Lorna, fighting him.”
Hilda gave Lacey a fierce stare. “The man came here to do a job, dear. The gardens are already damaged beyond repair from the storm. What more can he possibly do? He’s trying to clear things up.”
Lacey heard her sister’s raised voice coming through loud and clear from the many open doors and windows. “But you know Lorna thinks she has to be the one in charge. She’s obviously upset because his crew with all that big equipment has just about mashed what little garden we have left.”
“The garden will grow again,” Hilda replied. “It always does.”
Lacey turned back from checking the urn of strong coffee Hilda had suggested they brew for the workers and few remaining guests. “Lorna needs to get in here and see to breakfast. They’ll all be hungry.”
“Rosie Lee has breakfast well under control,” Hilda reminded her over her shoulder. Even as she said the words, they could hear dishes rattling in the large industrial-sized kitchen located off the main dining room. “Lacey, calm down. We’re all going to make it through this.”
“I’m calm,” Lacey retorted, then rubbed her forehead to ward off the headache clamoring for attention. “I’m calm, Aunt Hilda.”
But she knew in her heart that she wasn’t calm. How could any of them be calm after surviving the intensity of that storm? No wonder Lorna was taking out her anger on the very man who’d come to help them. It was Lorna’s way of dealing with the situation, of finding some sort of control over the chaos. Because they both knew only too well that, in the end, they had no control over either joy or tragedy.
When her baby sister’s heated words turned from English to French, however, Lacey knew it was time to take the matter into her own hands. “I’m going out there,” she told Hilda as she brushed past her. “I’ll drag her in here by her hair if I have to.”
Hilda stood leaning on her cane, her chuckle echoing after Lacey. “Maybe our Lorna has finally met her match.”
Lacey didn’t find that so amusing, but it would serve Lorna right if this Mick Love brought her down a peg or two. Lorna loved to boss people around, and she loved being the center of attention. Lacey was used to reining in her firebrand little sister, and, truth be told, she was getting mighty tired of it. How their brother Lucas could just take off and paddle away in his pirogue, heading out into the swamps and leaving Lacey to cover things, was beyond her. But then, she was the oldest and used to handling things.
“Lorna, we can hear you all the way to the river,” she said now as she made her way through branches and bramble.
Lorna turned to find her big sister standing with her hands on her hips, that disapproving look on her lovely face. Lacey, looking so cool and collected in her sundress and upswept hair, only added to Lorna’s aggravation. “Well, I don’t care who can hear me. This man and his big machines! Look what they’re doing to the garden, Lacey. Je voudrais—”
Mick held up a hand. “Don’t start that French again. If I’m being told off, I’d like it in plain English, please.”