Page 124 of The Cajun Doctor

“But what, dearie?”

“I need help.”

“Ta get Daniel?”

“How did you know?”

Tante Lulu laughed. “I may be old, but I ain’t blind.”

“Can I come over to tell you what I’m thinking?”

“I’ll put the coffee on and the cake’s already in the oven.”

Nothing soothes a woman like shopping . . . at the local porn shop . . .

Charmaine was with Louise when Samantha’s phone call came.

Louise explained the situation to Charmaine.

“I swear, that Daniel is two times a fool, worse even than Tee-John when he was fallin’ in love with Celine,” Charmaine said. “Do you think Samantha would mind if I stay? I have a few things to tell her that might help.”

“Stay, and if she’s uncomfortable, ya can leave.”

They had just made a cake together . . . a new one for Louise. Orange Marmalade cake, according to a recipe Louise had found in a series of books about a preacher in some town called Mitford. With a few modifications, if the cake turned out as good as it smelled, Louise might very well have a new specialty, Cajun Orange Marmalade Cake, as good as her Peachy Praline Cobbler Cake. A woman was never too old to learn something new.

Samantha arrived an hour later, just as they were icing the four-tiered cake and decorating it with little mandarin oranges.

Louise reached up and gave Samantha a hug. And she really did need to reach because Samantha was tall for a woman. But then, Louise was small, compared to anyone.

Samantha greeted Charmaine warmly, too, and she only revealed with a sudden widening of her eyes how she felt about Charmaine’s attire today. An off-the-shoulder blouse, Daisy Duke short shorts, and high-heeled wedgie sandals. Her hair was swept up on top of her head and she wore that new lipstick featured in her salons, “Rose Satin.”

Louise asked, “Do ya mind if Charmaine stays? She might have an opinion or two ta help.”

Samantha hesitated, but then she said, “Sure.”

“I assume this is about that pighead, prideful Daniel?” Charmaine said right off. “All the LeDeux men are the same, bless their Cajun hearts.”

Samantha laughed, then nodded.

“Tell us what the problem is, ’zackly,” Louise encouraged.

She did, and Louise tried to bite her tongue about the sex outside of marriage. She wasn’t a prude, but she still didn’t like women offering themselves up without a ring. A little hanky panky would be fine, but the whole shebang? Uh-uh! She was of the old school about men. Why should they buy the cow when they got the milk for free? So to speak.

“Honey, ya need ta understand Daniel’s history. It wasn’t a woman that made him so walled up, though there have been plenty, I’m sure. Workin’ with sick young’uns saps the life out of any doctor, but one as sensitive as Daniel . . . well, after his favorite patient died, a little boy, followed by his mother, he jist broke down. Not like a nervous breakdown, which shows on the outside. He kept his grief all inside.”

Samantha’s jaw dropped. “How do you know all that?”

“I bin talkin’ ta his aunt Mel on the phone. An’ I gotta tell ya, Daniel’s sit-ye-ay-shun is jist lak my nephew Remy’s, before he met his Rachel,” Louise said. “Remy was burned in Desert Storm when he was flyin’ planes fer the Air Force. ’Cause he was scarred all along one side of his body and ’cause he became sterile, he dint think any woman would ever want him. Kept himself shielded up, jist like Daniel.”

Charmaine was nodding.

“Back ta Daniel. We gotta find a way ta shake the boy out of safety nets. How ’bout we stage one of the LeDeux Cajun Village People acts? Mebbe all the females in the family could be dressed in sexy nurse outfits, and you could shimmy out on ta the stage, and—”

“No, I don’t think that would work. For me or for Daniel.” Samantha blushed and said, “I have something else in mind.” She went on to explain something about sexual fantasies. “I have an idea. It probably won’t work. I might not have the nerve to even give it a try.”

Louise, who had been bustling about the kitchen, cleaning up from the cake baking, plopped down on one of the chairs at her kitchen table. She and Charmaine stared at Samantha with interest.

“Go on,” Charmaine encouraged.