kind of shop do you run?” Mick asked, once again amazed at the Dorsette women. Except for Lorna. He wasn’t sure what she did around here, except pray and tell people off in French.
“Antiques,” Lacey explained. “The Antique Garden, to be exact. You passed it when you came in through the gate. It used to be the overseer’s cottage. We get a lot of business during the tourist season.”
“I don’t know a thing about antiques,” Mick said. “I move around way too much to set up housekeeping.”
He didn’t miss the way Lorna’s eyebrows lifted, or the little smirk of disdain on her pert face. He guessed someone as countrified and dour as Miss Lorna Dorsette didn’t cotton to a traveling man too much.
“That’s a shame,” Lacey replied, her skirts swishing as she went about cleaning the table. “I love old things. They keep me rooted and remind me of where I came from.”
Mick didn’t need anything around to remind him of where he’d come from. That’s why he kept on moving. But these lovely ladies didn’t need to hear that particular revelation. He sat silent, well aware that he should just get back to work and forget about trying to impress the Dorsette sisters.
Lacey bid them good morning, and that left…Lorna.
He didn’t have to look at her to know she was impatiently tapping a foot underneath the round wrought-iron table. Too much caffeine, he reasoned. And he couldn’t resist the grin or the sideways look. “Uh…and what do you do? How do you stay occupied?”
Lorna tossed her long flaming hair over her shoulder, still staring daggers after her ethereal sister. “Oh, not much,” she stated as she waved a hand in the air. “I guess you could say I’m the chief cook and bottle washer.”
Another surprise. “But I thought Rosie Lee was the cook. And a mighty fine one, at that.”
Mick had first met the robust Cajun woman when the trucks had rolled up over two hours ago. Apparently, she and her equally robust husband, Tobbie, helped out around the place. While Rosie Lee had introduced Mick to Emily, their teenage daughter and Tobias, or Little Tobbie, the youngest of the six Babineaux children, Big Tobbie immediately began assisting Mick’s crew in setting up. Then Rosie Lee and Emily had given everyone coffee to get them started, while Little Tobbie had badgered Mick with questions about all the big equipment.
“What’s that do?” the black-haired eight-year-old had asked, pointing with a jelly-covered finger to one of the bucket trucks.
“That, my friend, lifts my men up high, so they can get to the trees,” Mick had explained.
“Can I have a ride?”
“Hush up,” Rosie Lee had told her youngest son. “That little imp will drive you crazy, Mr. Love.”
Rosie Lee had jet-black hair which she wore in a long braid down her back, and a jolly personality, which caused her to chuckle over her words. At least she was cheerful and down-to-earth. Rosie Lee had given him extra French toast loaded with fresh strawberries. They had bonded instantly.
But Lorna now only gave him a sweet smile that clearly told him he was way out of his league. “Rosie Lee works for me. And she is a very good cook. She and Tobbie, and their entire family for that matter, have been working for us for more than twenty years now. But I do most of the cooking for our guests, and I run the restaurant out back. It was once the carriage house and stables.” She stopped, took a sip of coffee. “We had to shut it down, though. The storm damaged part of the roof, and we’ve got a major leak in one of the dining rooms.”
Mick turned to squint into the trees. “Just how many places of business do y’all have around here?”
She actually almost smiled. “The house, the restaurant and the antique shop. Oh, and our brother Lucas has his own business on the side.”
“What side would that be?”
She shrugged, causing her hair to move like a golden waterfall at sunset back around her shoulders. “You never know with Lucas. He does a little trapping here, a little singing and saxophone playing there, and a little crop dusting whenever someone calls him, but mostly, he does whatever he pleases, whenever the mood strikes him.”
“A trapping, singing, crop-dusting Cajun?” Mick had to laugh. “I’m getting a good picture of your family, Lorna. You pray and stomp. Lacey smiles and flutters. And you just explained Lucas—he likes to play. And I guess Aunt Hilda is the sensible glue that holds all of you together, huh?”
He’d been teasing, but the serious look in her eyes stopped the joke. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “You hit the nail right on the head, especially about Lacey and Lucas, and even me, I guess—although I don’t always stomp around. Aunt Hilda is the backbone of this family, this entire town. You see, we’ve lived with her since we were children. After…after our parents died, she took us in.”
Mick wasn’t grinning anymore. “That’s tough, about your parents. I didn’t mean to make fun—”
Lorna held up a dainty hand. “It’s all right, really.”
But he could see that darkness in her eyes, a darkness that took them from bright green to a deep rich shade of sad. And he could also see shards of fear and doubt centered there, too, as if it wasn’t really all right at all.
Wanting to say something to replace the foot he’d just extracted from his big mouth, Mick said, “Well, Hilda Dorsette seems like a good woman. And this is certainly a beautiful place.”
“Yes, to both,” Lorna replied, drumming her fingers on the table again. “Which is why I overreacted earlier. I just hate to see any part of Bayou le Jardin destroyed, and I guess I felt helpless. So I took it all out on you and your men. But, hey, we can’t change an act of God, can we.”
“No, Mother Nature doesn’t discriminate.”
“And God always has His reasons, I suppose. Aunt Hilda says we should never question God.”
Mick watched as she jumped up—didn’t even give him a chance to help her out of her chair. Did she resent God, then, for taking her parents? No, she’d said she prayed to Him. But…maybe even though she believed in God, she still had some harsh thoughts holed up in that pretty head of hers. And since she couldn’t take everything out on God, Mick Love would probably come in handy.
He was getting the picture, all right.
And he’d have to tread lightly in order to avoid this cute little woman’s wrath. Or he’d have to flirt with her to take her mind off her troubles.
Either way, his time at Bayou le Jardin surely wouldn’t be boring. Not one little bit.
“We’ve still got a little bit of cleaning up to do in the rear gardens,” Mick told Lorna hours later, as they stood beneath the remaining live oaks in the backyard. “Then tomorrow we can start on that big one by the back gallery. I’m afraid there’s not much to do for that one but cut it down and break up as much of that massive stump as possible. Even your expert landscaper Mr. Hayes agrees with me there.”
Lorna placed her hands on her hips, then looked
