In Shining Whatever (Three Magic Words Trilogy #2)(52)

There was a red lantern sitting on the kitchen table surrounded by three mismatched wooden chairs and a rusty metal chair that folded. Matches were in an old coffee can that had been painted yellow with the word MATCHES in big black letters on the side. He struck one against the bottom of his boot and lit the lantern.

He carried it around the rest of the house. It wasn't something he'd want to live in for a lifetime or even for a month, but it would keep the wind and rain off until Bubba came back. As soon as that big bruiser of a Cajun got him back to roads and highways, Hart intended to bust him right in the nose for this stunt. He didn't care if it was Maw Maw's idea. Bubba was big enough and mean enough to say no to that withered-up little granny.

The living room was small and sported a few old wooden chairs with the paint long since peeled off in layers. A deck of playing cards lay in the middle of a small folding table pushed up in one corner. Two chairs matching the oddball one in the kitchen were pushed up under it.

In the second room he found a bed with sheets, two pillows, and a quilt folded neatly on the end. The thought that he didn't have to sleep on the rough wood floors made him sigh. The second thought, that he had only the clothing on his back, made him mad all over again.

He dropped all his sweaty things on the floor and went back to the kitchen, where he found a washcloth in one of the cabinets and washed his face and arms. Feeling a bit less grimy, he went back to the bedroom, opened the windows to let the night breezes in, and made the bed. Then he stretched out on the bed and pulled the sheet up to his waist.

His grandfather always said things looked much better in the morning. Hart hoped he was right. He shut his eyes and fell into a deep sleep born of physical and mental exhaustion.

Kate roused up slightly when they reached Minnette's house. She remembered hearing Claud's laughter at her feeble attempts to get into the house, and thinking that surely she was coming down with the flu and it was making her light-headed.

"Your refrigerator is making a loud noise," she mumbled when Minnette laid her on the bed and covered her with a blanket.

Claud just laughed louder.

"Where's Minnette?" Kate asked.

"Don't worry, chere," said Claud. "She's tired and gone to bed. You just sleep. Tomorrow will look much better."

"I'm sick," she muttered.

"Not as bad as you might think. Shut your eyes and rest. It's been a long night."

She tried to open her eyes. She heard a nutria in the distance and could smell the swamp. Minnette lived in New Iberia, in town. Kate wondered why she could hear the sounds of the swamp at night.

Sometime later, she felt strong arms picking her up and carrying her to another room. For a minute she thought it was Hart, but he had probably already caught a red-eye flight back to Dallas and was home in his bed.

That story Maw Maw told about him going fishing with Bubba Boudreaux was a "save face" tale. She didn't want everyone at the party to think that Kate couldn't keep a man around for twenty-four hours without running him off with her sharp tongue.

She had fitful dreams after someone laid her down on a bed. She and Hart were fishing on the bayou, and she could hear the night sounds of the swamp. A cool breeze blew over her face, bringing with it the faint odor of his shaving lotion. Sometime later she felt the warmth of the sun as it streamed into Minnette's spare bedroom through the window.

Expecting to be aching with the flu, she opened one eye barely a slit and got ready for the pain when the sunlight hit. When it didn't do anything, she ventured the other one, only to see a rough wooden wall in front of her. Minnette's spare room looked like a creation out of a Martha Stewart home, with silk wisteria garland draped over the four-poster bed and around the mirror on the antique vanity. The walls had been papered in a trailing-ivy pattern; there was no way she was at Minnette's place, not with weathered wood boards covering the wall across the room from the bed.

She blinked several times. Maybe she was still dreaming. The only time in her life she'd awakened to a wall like that was back when she was about seventeen and her father insisted they go fishing way out in the swamp. It was where Maw Maw grew up with all her brothers and sisters, out on a little island. She remembered waking up and wondering where she was that day too.

Shutting her eyes tightly and trying desperately to remember how she would have gotten in a swamp shack, she slowly touched her forehead. She wasn't dreaming. It was real. But she could not remember how she got to the fishing shack. Had she and Bubba Boudreax gone fishing?

She was trying to figure it out, when someone on the other side of the bed flopped over, threw a bare arm over her, and snored loudly in her ear. She screamed and jumped up so fast she got a head rush, slipped on the rag rug, and landed square on her fanny on the bare floor.

The first thing she did was check to see how many clothes she was wearing. She sighed in relief when she saw that she still wore the sundress she'd had on the night before. Her shoes were sitting by the door beside two duffel bags. She recognized one as hers, the other as Hart Ducaine's.

She crawled across the floor and peeked over the edge of the bed to find Hart staring at her through wide eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He blinked a dozen times. "I got left here by Bubba last night. He said Maw Maw made him do it. He said he'd come back and get me in a few days. Why are you here?"