In Shining Whatever (Three Magic Words Trilogy #2)(64)

"Bring it out to the porch so we can watch the rain," she said.

He grinned. "So I'm cooking breakfast?"

The layer of cold surrounding her heart melted. "Guess you are.

He carried the food and a couple of bowls out to the table. She picked up a piece of catfish with her fingers and began to eat.

"No grace?" he asked.

"Already told God thank you for this twice. Reckon he knows I'm grateful." She spooned cold beans into a bowl.

"Think they'll come rescue us today?"

Fishing in the rain wasn't his idea of a wonderful morning.

She kept eating. "If we don't fight, they might."

"What is it with this arguing? Did Maw Maw expect us to get over our personalities? We're always going to argue. That doesn't mean we don't care about each other," he said.

Care. There was that word again. It had four letters, just like love, but it just didn't carry the weight that love did.

"You should have been around when Paw Paw was alive. Those two could bring down the house with their arguing." Kate grinned.

"You got a piece of bean right there on your front tooth," he said.

She shut her mouth, ran her tongue around her teeth, and removed it. "They're sticky when they sit all night."

"You were saying about your grandfather?"

"He was a tall, skinny man. Maw Maw was pure Cajun. Still goes back to French when she's really mad. He worked on a sugar plantation and fell in love with her when she was fifteen. Some of the men who worked for him wanted to go to New Iberia to a dance. Maw Maw's parents had come to town for supplies and brought her along. The dance was down near the bayou, so he saw her getting into the boat to go home. He said he fell in love with her that minute. She had long black hair and eyes just as dark, but he didn't know her name, and no one knew a thing about her. He could have been describing any girl in the state." She stopped and ate another piece of fish.

He waited.

"So a year passed. He went every week to the same place and looked for her, and she didn't come back. He almost didn't go that last time but he did, and that's when he found her. She and her father were just tying the boat to the dock when he realized she was the same girl."

"What happened?"

"He followed them to the store, where her father bought supplies and Maw Maw looked at fabric. She says she saw him watching her and put a little extra sashay into her step. I'm not sure how the courting business all went on, but it did. He made a lot of trips down the bayou to her part of the world, and they were married out there under the trees, when the azaleas were in full bloom that next spring. She went with him to the plantation to live in a one-room house. Same one she is in now, only they added another room for the kids"

"And they lived happy ever after?" he asked.

"No, sir! They fought like tigers. Her mother-in-law thought Paw Paw had married beneath himself. Her father told her when she left to be sure, because she wasn't running back home. Besides, if she did, her mother-in-law would win. So after the bloom of the honeymoon passed, and when the first baby was on the way, they had a sitdown. He made some vows, and she made some that night, and from then on they were a united front."

"And then came the happily-ever-after?"

"I didn't say that. Then came a marriage. She says that it was push and shove, but they kept it in the bedroom"

"What did they keep in the bedroom?"

"Their arguments and their making up"

They finished eating and worked together at the cleanup chore. It looked as if it might rain all day, but Kate couldn't sit still in the house that long. She dressed in loose-fitting shorts and T-shirt and flip-flops, and started out the door.

"You were serious about fishing in the rain?"

"It's either that or pace the floor. You stayin' or goin'?"

"I'm goin'," he said.

She nodded and stepped out of the screened porch into the rain, and he followed. They were soaked by the time they reached the old log, but it was a warm spring rain and not a cold winter one.

What if this t'ing with Hart didn't have a history? Maw Maw's voice was inside her head again.

Kate thought about that for a while but couldn't answer the question. No history would mean she'd not have had her heart broken. It would mean that she'd trust Hart because he was a good man from a good family.

When the opportunity comes knockin', invite it in and feed it some jambalaya. If I hadn't, there wouldn't be a Kate.

Kate tried to make sense of that, but nothing worked. Did Maw Maw want her to move back to Texas? In her infinite wisdom, did she see happiness for Kate with Hart? The permanent kind?

Love is a big loaf of LeJeune's bread. Eat it all up by the end of the day, and make a new loaf the next mornin'.

Kate smiled. Maw Maw was a voodoo queen. Finally she made some sense. Kate was ready to go home. She was ready to put the past where it belonged and face the future with a clean slate.

"It's not so bad, being wet, is it?" Hart said.

"Actually feels better than the shower, doesn't it?" she said.

She heard the sound of the boat motor before he did, but she sat still. It might be Bubba or Claud, but then it might just be a shrimper. She'd only just figured out what she wanted to let go of and what she wanted to hang on to. She would have liked to think about it a while longer before she had to go home and actually do it.