His words slid over her senses, inciting a shiver. Had he changed gears to distract her from talking about Sarah? Or to distract himself from thoughts of the past?
“I’m glad to hear it.” She was relieved he’d given up trying to protect her from getting involved with him. Not that she expected him to let his guard down overnight. But maybe, with time, they could still have something together. “You haven’t seen the best of Heartache yet.”
“You’re wrong about that.” He reached for her, his fingers brushing her cheek in a soft caress.
It would be easy to get swept away by his touch. To kiss him until they forgot everything else. But she didn’t want to lose this chance to get to know him better, to understand what made him tick.
“Can I ask you a question?” She peered out at the rainstorm again, grateful to be indoors with the scent of dinner cooking in the oven and the warmth of the man next to her.
“That sounds ominous.” His touch fell away from her cheek.
“It’s not. I promise.” She scooted closer to him, letting her forehead fall on his shoulder.
Just that one small point of contact.
“Okay. Shoot.”
“What was it like living in bayou country?” She’d traveled a lot scouring the southeast for antiques and unique items for Last Chance Vintage, but she’d never been south of New Orleans.
More importantly, she wanted to hear him talk about another time in his life—before the trauma of his wife’s death.
“Well…let’s just say I wasn’t lyin’ `bout growing up near gators.” He let loose the full-fledged Cajun drawl, making her smile.
She relaxed, glad they could just be together and enjoy each other.
“Do you have family there?”
“A couple of brothers. And my mom.” His cheek tipped to rest on the top of her head. “They’ll never leave Terrebonne. My brothers drink too much and spend their Friday nights in the dance halls. One is a cop. The other is a net maker, if you can believe there still is such a thing.”
“You’re not close with them?” Why wouldn’t he have moved back to that area after Liv’s death?
God, it was so tough to consider sleeping with him again when every other second something circled back around to thoughts of his dead wife.
“I’ve always been the black sheep. They couldn’t understand why I would ever want to live anywhere that didn’t let me fish off my back porch.” He hesitated. “I guess I had trouble watching a way of life erode right under my feet. Every day, more of the bayou sinks into the sea. Swamps I used to punt through are part of the Gulf now.”
“Is that because the Mississippi doesn’t flood the same way or something like that?” She tried to remember what she’d heard about the state’s changing ecosystem.
“That’s part of it. We don’t get the silt from the floods the way we used to. Stopping the flooding introduced a lot of problems the engineers hadn’t accounted for.” He shook his head. “But there are other issues—the salt water kills the old oaks. There are oil spills and the general havoc wreaked by industry. It’s sad to witness.”
“You should produce a show on that.” She lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Wouldn’t you be in a good position now to help?”
“Television viewers aren’t always receptive to causes. I’d get better ratings filming my brothers’ fights in the dance halls than showing the sad remnants of a fading culture.”
“So make a show calledBayou Brothersand sneak in your message between brawls and gator wrestling.” Shetoyed with his shirt collar and traced the placket down his chest.
“That’s not a bad idea except I was thinking about going back to photography once Sarah starts college.” He lifted his wineglass. “Ifshe goes to college.”
“Really?” Erin saw him with new eyes. “I wasn’t sure how serious Sarah was when she said you gave up photography because her mom wanted you to.”
“Her version of events is overly simplified.” Remy reached behind them to a sofa table where he’d laid his phone. He seemed to search through a few screens while he spoke. “I saw the promise in Liv’s art and wanted to do whatever I could to get it into the right galleries. Plus, I wanted her to concentrate on making the most of her creativity because she’d gone through some rough years raising Sarah alone.”
He turned the phone toward Erin to show her a bright painting of a cypress tree off center on a canvas. The pride on his face was obvious.
“Is that her work?” Erin took the phone to see it better, enjoying the peeks into his life in a way she’d never had with Patrick. She liked knowing what made Remy tick.
“Yes. She did a whole series based on some of my early photographs around Houma.” He slid a finger across the phone screen for her. “You can see more of the paintings and the photos she worked from.”
“Your photos?” she clarified, pausing on the twilight image of the skeleton cypress with no leaves. A casket floated in the water at its base. “This is really powerful.”
