LITMIR.BIZ

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blew her north, so that’s why I’m here. I stopped by the house and cleared it with your mother before coming out.” She paused a moment and then cleared her throat. “She didn’t tell me you were home.”

      No, his mother wouldn’t, would she? Picou had suggested this very area for setting a few baits for the gators. Not coincidental at all. “Who knows? She’s been distracted lately with my sister and all.”

      “Yeah, I heard about Della. Amazing that y’all found her,” Renny said, pushing her hair back from her face. The Louisiana heat had her flushed and tendrils of hair stuck to the curve of her cheek—something that made her undeniably attractive in a mussed-up, natural way. In a way that made him want to peel that white-drape crap off her and find out how her curves had filled out over the past eleven years.

      “Yeah, that’s the main reason I’m home,” he said, wondering why he was giving her all the details about his twin sister, his job, what he was doing on his own family’s property. Seemed natural to reveal his thoughts to Renny—just like in the past. He resisted the urge to scratch his neck. Mosquitos. Forgot how viscous they could be in South Louisiana.

      “I’ve got to—”

      “I need to talk—”

      They both spoke at once before snapping their mouths closed. Pink bloomed on Renny’s cheeks as she shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, sorry.”

      “No, I want to ask if maybe we can get together and talk? We have some things we need to work out, and I don’t think this is the best place.” He slapped another mosquito.

      She shook her head. “Look, the past is the past. We don’t have anything more to say to each other. We were young and stupid and—”

      “Hey,” Nate called from behind him. “Where’d you go? That was a big son of a gun, and I needed you to man the pole. Too late now. That gator sunk in the bayou like a stone.”

      Darby didn’t turn toward his brother, but he could hear him getting closer. He couldn’t take his eyes off his wife. Okay, not his wife, but, still, his wife. It had been so long and she looked as good as a piece of pecan pie and a cup of chicory coffee—the epitome of all things Southern and Louisianan. He hadn’t expected to feel anything for her. He’d thought his feelings toward her childlike and gone in the wind like the world he’d left behind. But like a shadow, his past clung to him refusing to allow him to forget who he was, where he’d come from, and the girl he’d once loved.

      Why was that so?

      He didn’t want to feel anything for Renny. Or for this flooded field he stood in. Or the creaky boards squeaking beneath his feet as he climbed the stairs in the house in which he’d been raised.

      He had to be done with Renny and Bayou Bridge. He had a new life waiting for him, and if all went as planned with Shelby and the job at her father’s firm, it was a given the sophisticated blonde would one day wear his great-aunt Felicia’s yellow diamond.

      He just had to deal with the women of his past before that could happen, and unfortunately, both Della and Renny were like a backlash in his fishing reel. Not easy to untangle.

      “Oh, hey, Renny,” Nate said, halting beside him. “What’re you doing out here? And what’re you wearing?”

      “A costume.”

      “Early for Halloween, isn’t it?” Nate cracked. Darby glanced at his brother, who’d grown a hunting beard like so many guys did when mid-September rolled around. Nate’s eyes crinkled and Darby almost didn’t recognize the former sheriff’s detective who’d nearly ground his nose off in an effort to solve cases. His wife, Annie, and son, Pax, had softened him, given him laugh lines and a lightness in his step.

      Renny finally smiled and Darby felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. Good Lord. Obviously this was about more than the past. He had to dash a crazy impulse to grab Renny by the shoulders and kiss her. This wasn’t good. He was no longer a horny, devil-take-it guy with no responsibilities and a flask of Crown in his back pocket.

      “Required when we’re approaching our cranes. Don’t want them to trust humans, so I go around playing Casper.” Renny shrugged with another guarded smile.

      “Mom told me we had a crane on the property. She was pretty excited about it because the crane is a family symbol to her. She wanted to try and get a picture.” Nate’s gaze searched the tree line behind Renny. “Thought I saw it take off over there.”

      She turned around. “Yeah, she’s likely in another tree. I need to a get a visual on her and then I’ll go. I doubt she’ll stick around too much longer because her natural habitat is the grasslands below here. But who knows, maybe the whooper likes the way your crawfish taste.”

      “Mmm, crawfish. Haven’t had those in years,” Darby said as the thought of five pounds of the fire-red mudbugs accompanying a bottle of locally brewed beer made his mouth literally water. Wasn’t the season, but surely he could find some at the Crawfish Palace over in Henderson. But what would slake the old desire welling inside him for Renny?

      Maybe a well-placed knee when he told her they were married? “Hey, Ren, I’ll give you a call, okay?”

      “No.”

      Nate made a whirring sound before balling his hands and flinging them apart. “Crash and burn.”

      “Shut up, Nate. Not a date. Just some stuff Renny and I need to clear up.”

      Renny shook her head, and he thought he glimpsed some flash of hurt. Or maybe it was regret. Something. “I don’t think there’s anything to catch up on, and I have plans this weekend with some friends, so...”

      He could tell she was lying. He always could. Not a conniving, lying bone in Renny’s hot body, and speaking of which, wasn’t she burning up in all that white draping? She should take her costume off and show him what the good Lord had bestowed on her while he’d been doing push-ups in the mud and studying jurisprudence. “I get you may not want to spend any time with me, but there really is something we have to talk about. Like a must.”

      A wrinkle settled between Renny’s dark eyebrows and he decided he didn’t like that wrinkle much. She was too beautiful to scowl. “Okay. Fine. Your mother has my information including my cell number. Call me and we’ll find a time to talk about whatever you’re so hell-bent on saying to me. But right now I have to go.”

      She turned and started toward the place where the bird had disappeared, and that’s when Darby noticed her limp. Rolling with a small lurch. Jesus.

      “She limps,” he whispered under his breath.

      Nate’s gaze jetted to his. “Yeah, the wreck nearly killed her, remember?”

      He shook his head. “No. I knew she broke her leg, but I didn’t know much about it. Her mother wouldn’t even let me see her and then when—” No sense in bringing up what had happened after the accident with his father. “You know, doesn’t matter anymore. I didn’t know Renny had been affected to such a degree.”

      His eyes landed on the back of the slim woman moving through the grasses in her big, ugly white boots that came to her knees. The white drape covered the rest, but there was no disguising the pronounced limp. Something jabbed at his insides. Not pity because he could never pity anything as uniquely beautiful as Renny, but something sharp and bitter. Regret. Shame. Guilt. Something. Because he’d done that to her. He’d broken the girl he’d loved. And that stung. Even if no one had allowed him to make it right all those years ago.

      Of course Renny hadn’t wanted him or his apology. That much had been made absolutely clear that damp May afternoon when he stood waiting for her in the obscene raucousness of Jackson Square and accepted there would be no more Darby and Renny.

      “Come on. Let’s set out bait. Annie said if I bring that slop in my bucket back to the house, I could sleep on the couch, and I like my bed.” Nate headed for the ATV and the rotting chicken he had been marinating in his back shed for the

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