Page 1 of The Cajun Doctor

Chapter One

The Big C strikes again . . .

The first time Dr. Daniel LeDeux met ten-year-old Deke Watson, Deke asked him what it felt like to have sex. The second time they met, Deke asked what it felt like to die.

Lying back in one of a dozen leather reclining chairs at the Juneau, Alaska Pediatric Medical Center, with a first dose of chemo blasting into his IV, Deke looked like any other pre-adolescent kid, iPod blaring in his ear, baseball cap turned backward on his head, freckles dotting his pug nose, a wide mischievous grin on his face. He was a little on the thin side, having been feeling lousy for a long time and only recently diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. CML.

“Seriously, if I’m gonna die from this crud, I’d like ta know what it’s like ta boink a girl.” He batted his stubby eyelashes at Daniel with fake innocence.

Boink?

Deke was joking, of course. At this stage, he was full of hope for a complete remission, as he should be. No time, or need, for fearing death. As a pediatric oncologist, Daniel had seen hundreds of cases, many of which defied the odds for survival. No need for a miracle here. Unless Deke’s CML morphed into AML, Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, his chances were good. Deke’s question was a blatant guilt trip ploy to get some info Daniel might not otherwise be inclined to share.

While Daniel checked his patient’s pulse and heart rate, he said, “I think those kinds of questions should be put to your dad, don’t you?”

“Sure. If I had one!”

Daniel arched his brows.

“He skipped out when I was five. Cokehead.”

Daniel nodded. Not an unusual story. He recalled now that Deke’s mother, Bethany Watson, a special ed teacher, had been raising him single-handedly for a long time. Dealing with childhood cancer was a kick in the gut for a couple; it was a body blow for one parent to handle alone. He had to admire her bravery.

“If you don’t wanna give me the goodies . . .”

“Goodies?”

“The details about sex,” Deke explained. “You could always just give me a Playboy magazine . . . you know, if you’re too shy to talk about sex. One of the old magazines, not one of the new PG versions.” More batting of eyelashes.

Daniel laughed. “Nice try, kiddo.”

“My buddy Chuck says it feels like every hair on your body is doin’ the hula, and your cock is like a train racing to the finish line.”

Cock? A ten-year-old using that word? Daniel shouldn’t be surprised. Kids today knew things that would have been shocking twenty years ago. Still, he stopped checking the latest white cell count on Deke’s chart to stare at him. “Chuck has had a lot of sex, huh?” Now, that would shock him.

Deke ducked his head sheepishly. “Nah! He’s only ten, too, but he has seen a Playboy magazine. Three of them. The good ones, too. He has older brothers.”

“Wow! A man of experience!” Daniel could remember the time his identical twin, Aaron, now a pilot, had shown him a stash of Playboy magazines he’d hidden under his mattress . . . a cool trade scored with AJ Coddington for five Snicker bars and a Big Blaster water pistol. Come to think of it, they’d been about ten, too . . . more than twenty years ago.

That evening he went to his mother Dr. Claire Doucet’s house for dinner. Already he could hear Barry Manilow crooning through the sound system he and Aaron had given her for a Christmas gift last year. Big mistake, that. Now they got to hear Barry in every room of the house and outdoors on the patio. Their mother and Melanie Yutu, her longtime significant other, best known to them as Aunt Mel, had attended dozens of the crooner’s concerts . . . thought nothing of flying cross-country, one end of the United States to the other, to hear him in person.

Sad to say, he and Aaron knew the words to every Barry Manilow song ever written, and there were lots of them.

But tonight he had something else on his mind. After he sat down at the dining room table, he asked Aaron, who’d also been invited for dinner, “Do you remember those ratty old Playboy magazines you used to hide under your mattress?”

Aaron grinned at him. “No, I don’t think I do. Unless you mean . . . oh, let me see . . . um, Karin Mantrose, May 1992. Turn-ons: Being naked on a fur in front of the fireplace. 36–20–34. Which had nothing whatsoever to do with that Sherpa bath mat I bought from Walmart with my paperboy money. Uh-uh.”

Daniel grinned. “Or DeLane Velasquez, June 1991,” Daniel reminded him.

“Turn-ons: Bubble baths for two,” they both said at the same time, then gave each other high fives.

“How about Patti Ann Jones? Remember that one,” Daniel said.

“How could I forget? Her ideal date was with a brown-eyed, curly-haired male.”

“And our hair was curly in those days. We were sure she was just waiting for us to grow up.” It was amazing what stuck in a young boy’s head, Daniel thought. Hell, a man’s head, too.

“You two are idiots,” his mother said as she placed the big tureen of jambalaya on the table. “Thirty-something adolescents!”