Page 45 of Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass

Louise sat next to him at the kitchen table and raised her glass to click with his. After they’d both taken a sip of their bubbly drinks, she said, “So, Mister Mysterious, what’re we celebrating?”

He took one of her hands in his and kissed the knuckles. “I have the most amazing news.”

She waited for him to tell her that he’d accepted Dr. Clovis’s offer.

“I’ve been offered a residency in heart surgery at Chicago General, one of the best teaching hospitals in the United States…maybe in the whole world.”

She blinked several times, not sure she had heard right. It was totally not what she’d expected. “Chicago?” she asked. For some reason, a picture flashed into her head, one that had appeared in the Times-Picayune last winter showing something like three feet of snow in the “Windy City.” A blizzard, it had been, which apparently wasn’t unusual for that part of the country. To a bayou girl who’d at best seen snow flurries, that scenario boggled the mind.

“Are you serious? Chicago? Heart surgery? I don’t understand.”

He squeezed her hand and said, “Honey, this is a dream come true.”

Your dream. She pulled her hand away and fiddled with the St. Jude placemat sitting on the table before her.

“I know I haven’t talked about it, but it’s a specialty I’ve been thinking about for a long time. The human heart is such a remarkable organ.”

Tell me about it. Mine is beginning to develop a few cracks as you speak.

“This is a field that’s expected to explode in the next few years. They’re already talking about open-heart surgery where they hook a damaged heart up to a bypass machine while they operate. Hell, some people think there will be heart transplants someday. Imagine! And I would be in on the ground floor of all this medical magic.” He beamed at her, expecting her to understand, to approve of his decision.

“I can see how excited you are, but, Justin, why haven’t you mentioned it to me before?” Why have you led me on to believe you might be a doctor here on the bayou one day?

“I don’t have the money to pay for that kind of specialty myself, and the opportunities for scholarships in this field are slim and highly competitive. But miracle of miracles, I’ve been offered a full-ride scholarship, including living expenses.”

Um, that isn’t exactly what We consider miracles up here, St. Jude said in her head. And believe me, I know miracles. Raising the dead, curing the lame, parting the Red Sea. Now, those were miracles!

Honestly, the saint appeared at the most inopportune times, bless his heart. She hadn’t heard from him in days, and now when all her hopes were going down the drain... Hopeless.

Bite thy tongue, girl, said the patron saint of hopeless cases.

Did I wait too long? Is it too late for a miracle?

“What did you say about miracles?” Justin asked.

“Nothing,” she said, adding a Shhh! to her inner voice. Looking directly at Justin, she said, “That still doesn’t explain why you never mentioned your interest in a heart specialty to me. We’re not talking about the world. I’m the person you supposedly love. There should be no secrets, not even little ones, and this is a biggie.” At the back of her mind, she felt a tiny twinge of guilt. Hadn’t she been keeping a big secret from him?

“I didn’t want to jinx my chances. And, besides, like I said, my chances were so remote.”

He isn’t taking Dr. Clovis’s offer. For some reason, that thought kept hammering in her head. Apparently, the reality of it hadn’t fully registered yet. “But Chicago? How long will you be there?

“At least three years.”

She groaned. She couldn’t help herself.

“But, honey, it’s not how long I’ll be there. How long we’ll be there.”

“What?”

“Marry me, Louise. Marry me and come to Chicago with me. Please.”

She was in shock. Yes, this was what she’d wanted, what she’d been fantasizing about for weeks…to have Justin propose, but never had she expected it to come like this. In her fantasies, the proposal led to the two of them working together here on the bayou.

Sensing she was dismayed by his less-than-charming approach, Justin dropped to one knee and took both of her hands in his. “Louise Rivard, would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”

Justin flinched, taken aback. Was he really so clueless that he expected her to jump at the chances of marrying him no matter what? Realizing that he needed to do some damage control, he quickly said, “I love you, Louise, and I know you love me, too.”