“Are you pushing?” he called.
“I’m pushing!”
The raccoon came loose like a cork out of a bottle. It freed itself from Luc’s grip, climbed up his arm, over his head and down his back, clawing and hissing and basically scaring the bejeezus out of Luc before breaking free and running wildly for the nearest tree branch.
Luc’s arms windmilled as he tried to regain his balance, but it was hopeless. He fell backward and rolled off the roof, landing with a thunk on the ground.
The fall knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t think he’d broken anything. He lay there, trying to suck air into his lungs as Loretta came crashing out the back door with the plunger still in her hands.
“Luc! What happened? What was that noise?” She looked up at the roof, expecting to see him, and when she didn’t, she glanced all around, finally spotting him lying on the grass.
Her face crumpled into an expression of horror. “Luc!” She was at his side in an instant. “Are you hurt? What am I saying? You fell off the roof. Of course you’re hurt.”
He opened his mouth to reassure her, but he still wasn’t breathing normally, and all that came out was a croak.
She cupped his face in her hands. “Don’t try to move. I’ll call Doc Landry. He’ll know what to do.” She started to get up, but he grasped her hand before she could escape.
“I’m…okay. Just had…the wind…knocked out of me. Give me…a minute.”
“Are you sure?”
He liked having her worry over him. He liked it a lot, so much that he considered milking this accident for all it was worth. But no, he couldn’t do that. That was the old Luc, the one who wasn’t above manipulating people for his own selfish interests. He’d made a solemn vow not to live like that anymore, to be honest-well, as honest as he could be-with everyone he dealt with.
So he forced himself to push up onto his elbows, then his hands. “I’m fine, Loretta. I’ll have a few bruises and I’ll probably be stiff and sore, but that’s all.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure. I’m just thankful you have a one-story house.”
Still, she helped him to his feet and brushed the leaves and grass off his shirt.
“Oh, you’re bleeding.” She indicated a place on his arm where the raccoon’s claws had dug in during its panicked escape. He probably had a few more claw marks on his head. “Did the raccoon do that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where is it?” She looked around warily.
“Halfway to Mississippi by now. That was one terrified animal.”
“Well, it’s no wonder, after I almost lit its tail on fire. Come on inside. I’ll patch you up and fix you lunch. It’s the least I can do for you after you nearly killed yourself.”
“Don’t you have bread to bake?”
“I always have bread to bake.”
Loretta made him take off his shirt so she could treat a grazed area on his back, where he must have scraped against the rain gutter on his way over the edge of the roof.
As she dabbed antibiotic cream all over his body, the minor pain ebbed and a pleasant tingling took its place. Oh, yeah, he could get used to this. It had been a long time since anyone had cared this much about his welfare, and it felt damn nice.
Nice enough to make him want to rethink the rolling-stone lifestyle he’d enjoyed for most of his adult life.
As she ministered to a nasty gouge near the small of his back, her hand lingered, and Luc tensed. He knew exactly what had snagged her attention-a small, round, slightly puckered scar that could only be one thing. If she asked about it, he would have to tell her the truth. Lying about having a girlfriend had been bad enough.
But she said nothing, and after a moment she continued her first aid.
Relaxing slightly, Luc entertained Loretta by describing his close encounter with nature, playing it up for laughs until she had tears streaming down her face. “It’s not really that funny,” she insisted. “You could have been killed. Next time anything like this comes up, I’m calling in a professional, I don’t care how much it costs.”
LORETTA HAD known Luc was handsome, that he had a good build, but she’d had no idea until she’d seen him shirtless what a gorgeous specimen he truly was. All the hard work he’d done renovating the cottage had given him a hard set of muscles and a golden tan. When he stretched forward so she could put a bandage on his scraped back, she saw a narrow strip of paler flesh peeking out from his jeans, which made her wonder if he wore underwear.
What did they call it when you went without? Going commando?
Her face heated, and she chastised herself for letting her thoughts wander in that direction. She was taking advantage of Luc’s injury to run her hands all over his smooth, muscled back, forgetting that he belonged to another woman.
“There, I think that should do it,” she said briskly. “You can put your shirt back on.” She’d done everything but run her fingers through the light dusting of gold hair that grew in a diamond shape between his nipples.
Argh! She was doing it again.
“Let me just get the fire started again, and I’ll find something for lunch.”
He put his shirt back on, much to her disappointment. “You don’t have to feed me-”
“No, I insist.” She wasn’t quite ready to let him escape. It was so novel, having a man in her home. It had been just her and Zara for so long.
She found she was nervous as Luc watched her start the fire, using straw and matches and small, dried branches.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to soak the logs with lighter fluid?” he asked.
“Oh, heavens, no. This is artisanal bread, remember. I have to do things the way they did hundreds of years ago. I don’t want any of that chemical residue in my oven.”
She was pleased when the fire caught right away. It had taken her a long time to learn the proper technique.
“How about grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch? It’s not very fancy, but I always crave it when the weather starts to turn cool.” It wasn’t exactly sweater weather yet, but at least the hot, muggy days were giving way to pleasantly cool weather, and a few of the leaves had started to turn. They didn’t get much in the way of fall foliage in Indigo, but their autumn had its own charms.
“That sounds great. What can I do to help?”
She appreciated that Luc wasn’t like most men she knew, incompetent in the kitchen. Well, that wasn’t completely true. A lot of the Cajun men knew how to cook up a mess of crawdads or barbecue a hunk of meat. But Luc actually cooked a full breakfast for his B and B guests on an almost daily basis, and he sometimes provided lunch or dinner, too.
“Where did you learn to cook?” she asked. “Did your mother teach you?”
Luc hadn’t been very forthcoming about his past, usually tossing off flip answers when she asked him anything to do with his family. But she guessed after the raccoon incident, his guard was down, because this time he answered her honestly.
“My mother couldn’t cook at all. She worked in a casino-long, long hours-and she always ate free at work. I had to fend for myself, and I decided if I didn’t want to live on peanut butter sandwiches, I’d better learn my way around a stove.”
“So you’re self-taught?”
“No, not entirely. I’ve worked in hotels all my life, sometimes in the kitchen. I learned a lot by watching some really good chefs.”
“Hmm, maybe it’s in your blood, what with your cousin Melanie being a chef, too. Was it your mother or your father who was a Robichaux? Oh, that’s a silly question,” she said before he could answer. “Since your last name is Carter, it must be your mother.”
“No, actually, my father was Celeste Robichaux’s son. My mother’s name was Carter. She took it back and changed mine, too, after she divorced.”
“Oh.”
