Julien leaned close to Alma. “You are as sweet as cotton candy.”
“Shh,” she said in a hiss of breath.
“Would you like to be in charge, Julien?” Frances asked, clearly upset that he was making mischief while she had the floor. “We need someone to organize cotton candy, popcorn and funnel cakes.”
Julien gave Alma another breathtaking smile. “I’d be glad to handle that, Miss Frances. What do I need to do?”
Reverend Guidry raised a hand. “We have all the equipment at the church. Just line up your volunteers and we can order the needed supplies. All the proceeds from those endeavors go back to the church for the youth fund.”
Alma finally found her voice. “You can get some of the youth to help you with manning the booths. But remind them the festival starts early and lasts until well into the night. They can’t leave their booths during their assigned times to work.”
“That sounds easy enough,” Julien said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Youths to work. Long hours. Order supplies. Got it.”
“You might want to take notes,” Frances suggested.
Papa frowned. “Are you sure you can handle this, Julien? You know how young people can be so wishy-washy.”
“Got it,” Julien replied, holding a finger to his temple, his confidence overwhelming in the face of Ramon Blanchard’s scorn and doubt. “I have a very good memory.” He gave Alma a long, appraising glance when he said that.
Alma heard her papa’s huff of disgust then endured another warm blush. She was going to strangle Julien LeBlanc. She didn’t know why he’d suddenly decided to become her shadow. But she did know she needed to stop him right now.
After a few more uncomfortable minutes, Frances called the meeting adjourned. Alma got up and grabbed her papers and her purse to make a beeline for the door.
“Hey, wait up,” Julien called, catching up with her, his hand on the door so she could pass. Or not pass.
“I have to get back to the café,” she said, not daring to stop and let him have it right here with such a captivated audience hanging on their every word.
“I’ll walk you, then.”
“I know the way.”
“Of course you know the way. But I’d still like to escort you, as a courtesy.”
Alma waited until they’d made it past the church parking lot, then she stopped and turned to him. “What do you think you’re doing, Julien?”
He looked around then pointed a finger to his chest. “Me? I’m walking you to work. Kind of romantic, don’t you think?”
“Why aren’t you at work?”
“I was, before the sun came up. I stopped in to have a late breakfast and you…were missing.”
“So you tracked me down and embarrassed me yet again?”
She started up, trotting off at a fast pace, but felt his hand warm on her arm. “I don’t want to embarrass you, catin.”
“Then what do you call this?”
Julien leaned close, his dark eyes holding hers. “I call this making up for lost time. I’m yours, Alma. And I believe it’s time we both get used to that idea.”
Alma’s shock caused her to gasp. “Mine? You were never mine. And I’ll never be yours. You might have considered that before you decided to launch an attack on me.”
“I’m not attacking, darlin’,” he said on a sultry whisper. “I’m wooing. Yes, that’s what I’m doing. I want to make you mine.”
“Well, good luck with that.” She pulled away and started toward the café, her heartbeat pounding right along with her espadrilles.
She refused to even hope that Julien LeBlanc might actually be serious. How many times had she seen him sweet-talking other women? Too many to count. She might have fallen for that ploy in high school, but she was a grown woman now.
And she had two very good reasons to keep her distance from Julien. One, he’d broken her heart. And two, she carried a high risk of getting a disease that could kill her the way it had killed her mother and destroyed her sister’s life. Breast cancer wasn’t pretty. The odds didn’t look good. And the odds of Julien being able to deal with breast cancer didn’t look good either.
“Stop this nonsense,” she said, even while, in her battered heart, hope bloomed as brightly as Callie’s flowers.
“I’m just getting started, Alma,” Julien called after her.
“I mean it.”
Alma kept on walking. But her heart shouted loud and clear in its bumpy little chamber. And its plea echoed inside her head until she’d made it into the café and shut the door.
Prove it, Julien. Please prove it.
Chapter Four
He set out to prove himself to Alma.
He began with flowers, straight from her sister’s sweet nursery. The Blanchard girls loved flowers.
“What do you suggest?” Julien asked Callie two days later, after he’d tried talking to Alma.
Too busy to talk, that one.
But not too busy to stop and smell the roses.
“For Alma?” Callie shot him a level look, as if she might be comparing him to a bug on a leaf. “Why? Did somebody die? Or did you make her mad again?”
“She’s always mad and no, nobody died. I just want to send her some flowers is all.”
Callie smiled, but her sparkling eyes held a hint of doubt. “Hmm. She’ll be even madder now—mostly with me if I sell you an arrangement.”
“Do you want my business or not?” Julien asked, figuring like everyone around here, Callie couldn’t afford to turn him away.
“I do need business. It’s a slow morning.” She shook her head when he touched a finger to some fat red roses. “You don’t want to send her those. Too predictable for my sister.”
Frustration singed through him. “Then what do I need to send?”
“She has a thing for Louisiana irises. Alma likes things that just kind of spring up.” The look Callie gave him indicated he might be the exception to that.
“Then irises it is,” Julien replied, thinking, in spite of Callie’s questioning look, that he could spring up right along with the plants.
“I have a pretty one just about to bud in a nice pot,” Callie said. “She can put it on the front porch for now and then plant it later, maybe in Grand-mère’s backyard.”
