Batiste Read online

  Batiste understood why he’d received that stern admonition. He was only fifteen but already getting a reputation for being a heartbreaker. And Just’s father wasn’t interested in the complications of having his little heartbreaker’s dick cause problems with the princess of their sister club.

  Batiste had laughed and shook his head. His father had laughed, too. “Go find somethin’ easier.”

  Now, as his eyes ran up and down Angelique’s petite body, he could not believe what the passage of time could do. He’d seen a lot of women. Fucked a lot of women. None had Angie’s mystique. That magical something that drew him in like a magnet. She was simply beyond compare.

  “Why are you looking at me that way, boy?”

  Batiste didn’t answer and didn’t smile with his mouth. The answering, taunting smile, was all in his eyes. It was a message. She got it. And he knew she got it when she looked away, color rising to her cheeks. “So you be causin’ trouble? That why your père sent you to me?”

  She swung her eyes back to him and gaped at the implied accusation as the color of her blush changed to the flush of anger. “That’s what you think? You weren’t told why I’m here?” Of course he knew, but he was enjoying the sparks flying from her blue eyes. So much so that he smirked. At that she made a sound that could only be described as disgust. “I’m here…” She waved her hand as if to indicate that she’d rather be anywhere else, “…because I’m the biker bullshit victim of the day. My life has been interrupted and is on hold because of couillon games.”

  “Games?” Batiste’s smirk was gone. “Threatening our women is no game.”

  “Now, see? That’s the problem right there. That thing you just said about our women. That is bullshit.”

  “Is it now?” The smirk had returned. “What was it that was so important? What’s been interrupted?”

  When she’d swung to face him, her eyes had caught on the way the straps of his black tank draped over his clavicle, which was prominent, cut and sexy in a mesmerizing sort of way. After glancing down, he said, “Gumbo on my shirt?”

  She jerked her attention up to his face, blushing for having been caught ogling. “It’s just the cliché of wearing a wife beater.”

  He barked out a laugh. “This no wife beater, cher. Wife beaters are white. Not black.” He threw her off guard with the flirty suggestion of a sexy smile. “I doan need to beat a woman to keep her in line. That’s what this is for.” He grabbed his crotch in a way that she would have found vulgar and vile in the most repulsive way had anyone else done it. But oddly, it wasn’t disgusting on Batiste.

  Interesting.

  “Doan believe that horseshit. That boy couldn’t keep a crawfish string in line.”

  As Batiste said, “Jesus Christ. Not now,” Angie looked over to see a flashy redhead storming in like she owned the place.

  The woman wore a tight striped knit top, tighter capris, outrageously huge loop earrings, and had Lucille Ball- red curls to offset pale blue eyes. “Who this?” She indicated Angie. “New club whore?”

  Batiste’s face and tone of voice both went hard as stone. “Angelique. This is my ex, Job.”

  The woman laughed. “So I be the devil now?”

  “Yes,” said Batiste. “We call ourselves Devils, but you’re the real thing.” He glanced toward Angie. “Rou’s daughter.”

  The woman slid a toothy, predatory smile toward Angie. “A real life princess, hmmm? Just like Disney?” Angie couldn’t think of a single response worth making. So she said nothing. “My name isn’t Job. It’s Cachet.”

  “What you want?” Batiste’s demand sounded intentionally abrupt and to the point.

  Cachet sidled closer to him. “You think we could talk?” Her gaze flitted quickly to Angie and back. “Alone?”

  Apparently she hadn’t realized that coquettish behavior had worn thin with Batiste about the time he was old enough to understand that there was more to love than big round tits and a white smile.

  “No,” Batiste said in a tone that left no doubt he wasn’t glad to see her. “Say what you want or get out.”

  Cachet’s smile fell. “It’s been, um... hard, Just.”

  “I told you before. No. More. Money. You’re makin’ a mockery of yourself and that is a hard thing to do. Doan make me banish you.”

  “I just need…”

  “Out.”

  Batiste nodded to a couple of guys who were leaning against the bar. They immediately walked over and, each taking an elbow, escorted Cachet out.

  After they could no longer hear her shouting obscenities at Batiste, Angie said, “Well, that was awkward.”

  “You think?” he said in the most sarcastic tone. Clearly Cachet had put Batiste in a foul humor.

  “So you got married?” Batiste’s eyes slid toward Angie with a stony look like it was her fault. “And divorced? You’re Catholic.”

  He shrugged a well-muscled right shoulder. “Turns out marryin’ the devil doan count.”

  Batiste stared at Angelique like he was daring her to say the wrong thing, but she surprised him by laughing. Laughing in that infectious way that he’d all but forgotten. Except in dreams. He surprised her by joining in with a half-embarrassed chuckle of his own.

  “Catholic or not, I woan marry again and you’ve just met the reason why. That vampire masqueradin’ as my ex.” Batiste changed the subject without segue and behaved like they hadn’t just been interrupted by a snit-throwing former wife. “Who knows you’re here?”

  “My family. You.” Her eyes slid from side to side. ”Your people and my dad’s people, I guess.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Keep it like that.”

  “I’m not new to the life, Batiste. I’m a biker brat just like you.”

  His eyes ran over her suggestively while he smiled in a way that made her uncomfortable and made her want to preen at the same time. Confusing.

  “Not just like me.” He turned to Rooster. “Bring them dogs over here.”

  Rooster opened the screen door and called two big German Shepherds inside. They gave Angie a thorough looking over, but kept their ears pricked and made no sound.

  “This is Belle and Beau. They gonna help see you’re okay. You like dogs?”

  “I like dogs.”

  “Well, you can pet them. They woan hurt you. Got them from a crazy old bastard who works for SSMC over in Austin. They cost a fortune. Worth every penny.”

  “They won’t hurt me, but they would hurt somebody who meant me harm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s that work?”

  He shrugged and gave her a crooked boyish grin. “Smarter than us in some ways.” The dogs demonstrated how much they welcomed his affection, turning in circles as a way of asking for more.

  After Saycie showed Angelique to the room that would be hers until Rou said she was free to go, she took a shower and changed into shorts and a thin tee. It was mid-May and, in her estimation, too late for open air. At that time of year she liked her air conditioning to be cold.

  When she emerged into the main room, Batiste was talking to some of the club members over maps laid out on one of the picnic-style tables.

  “Make you a deal,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ll pay the bill if you turn on the air conditioning.”

  Without looking up Batiste said, “We like it like this.”

  “You have to be lying,” she said. “Nobody could like it like this.”

  Batiste swung his head toward her and pinned her with a look. “We. Do.”

  “Why?”

  “For one, we can hear what’s goin’ on outside.” Well, it was hard to argue that. “You’ll get used to it.”

  She huffed lightly and turned to go find the kitchen, flip flops slapping against the concrete floor that had been stained to look like stone. The rest of the building had old worn and distressed wood floors but they’d designed the main room for dancing and it was hard to find fault with
that. Remnants of a French heritage. French like their fun.

  Batiste and four club members watched her walk away. When he turned back and realized that the others had been admiring the twitch of her derriere in retreat, his anger rose.

  “You keep your eyes to yourselves,” he told them.

  It was a tone that had them exchanging WTF looks.

  Angelique sat in the kitchen and ate a baloney sandwich while Saycie chattered nonstop. “It’s good to have someone to talk to,” she said.

  “I wish I could say it’s good to be here, Saycie, but I like New Orleans, I like my job, and I like my air conditioning.”

  “Well,” Saycie said. “You doan like gettin’ taken by those men.”

  “Well, you got me there.”

  Saycie chuckled. “Maybe you can think ‘bout this as a kinda vacation. What did you say you do for a livin’?”

  “I didn’t say. I work at the Cajun cultural center.”

  “What that?”

  “It’s a place where we educate tourists who are interested about Cajun history and heritage. I’m a storyteller.”

  “You get paid money to tell stories?”

  “Yeah.” Angie realized it must sound crazy to someone like Saycie who’d probably never been a tourist or seen a culture very different from her own. “I mean I tell folktales. Well, I do other stuff, but that’s the best part of the job.”

  Saycie stopped what she was doing and sat down, wiping her temples with the hem of her apron. “I never heard such a thing. Tell me one.”

  “Okay.” Angie sniffed as she seemed to be deciding what story to tell. “I know. You’ll like this one. This happened a long time ago.

  “There was a girl named Marie whose family made a marriage for her. Her père got a young horse and ten chickens.”

  “Seems fair.”

  “Right?” Angelique nodded cheerfully. She didn’t normally have people chime in when she told stories, but she didn’t usually tell stories to other Cajuns either. “When the day came that she met the groom she was thrilled because he was so young and handsome. She thought she’d hit the jackpot. So she got in his buggy and left with him. After they’d traveled for a time she looked over and noticed that he wasn’t nearly as handsome as she’d first thought.

  “By the time they got to his house and he lit a candle, she saw that he was ugly as the devil. He said there was no point in trying to escape and that, if she tried, he’d catch up to her and beat her to death. He’d already had ten other wives and that’s what happened to them.”

  “Lord have mercy.”

  “Exactly! Whenever poor Marie thought about trying to get away, those words made her ears bleed and she was afraid. But living with the devil is the worst thing imaginable. Worse even than death. So finally she decided she was going to run.

  “She gathered all her clothes up and arranged them in the bed to look like she was there sleeping. Then she crawled out the window and ran like the devil was after her, which she knew he soon would be.

  “And sure enough, after she’d been running for a while, she heard a roar and knew he’d discovered that she wasn’t in the bed. He was after her.”

  Saycie put her hand over her heart. “I can’t stand it. You tell me right now.” Wagging a finger at Angie she said, “Does she get away?”

  Angie grinned and continued. “She could hear him getting closer and closer. Then she came to the swamp and there was an alligator on the bank. Marie said, ‘Please help me. The devil is after me. Will you take me to the other side?’ The gator looked her over, took pity on her, and took her to the other side. Because nobody likes the devil. Not even gators.

  “Quick as you could turn around the devil showed up at the swamp. He saw that Marie was already at the other side. So he says to an even bigger gator, ‘Take me across this water here so I can fetch my wife.’

  “The gator looked him over and said, ‘okay’. So the devil climbed on the gator’s back just as he slid into the water. Then the gator took the devil to the bottom and left him there. ‘Cause everybody knows the devil can’t swim.”

  “Oh, thank heaven,” Saycie said.

  “Then when Marie was old people asked why she never got married. She said, ‘I did. I was married to the devil himself. And once you’ve been married to one devil, there’s no need to go looking for another one’.”

  Saycie laughed at that until Angie laughed with her.

  “That’s a good job you got, Angelique. And you’re good at it. I know me some women who’d say that same thing about lookin’ for another devil. And not so long ago neither.”

  “You one of them, Saycie?”

  “I might know a thing or two ‘bout bad doin’s.”

  “You gonna say more about that?”

  “I’m gonna get started on those pies we’re havin’ for dinner.”

  Batiste had been standing around the corner eavesdropping and had heard most of the story. He silently agreed that Angelique was good at telling stories, even if he, too, had never heard of that being a job.

  “Thanks for lunch. What do prisoners usually do for fun around here?”

  Saycie shook her head. “You’re lookin’ at this wrong, girl. You’re lucky to be here.”

  Angie laughed. “Where’s the TV?”

  “There’s no TV here, sugar.”

  After a lengthy pause, Angelique said, “Are you really serious?”

  With a nod, Saycie said, “You doan remember being here when you were younger?”

  “I do. I guess I was interested in other things.”

  “Well, maybe you can be interested in other things again?” Saycie offered.

  Batiste heard the chair scrape on the old wood floor and made his retreat in a hurry so as not to be discovered listening.

  Angie walked back into the main room thinking that she had a phone and, more importantly, a surface laptop. As long as there was power, she could still do what she wanted to do. The place looked and felt deserted. But when she decided to take a look around outside, she found out that looks can be deceiving. In seconds two dogs and three guys were there; Lazare, a prospect named Coon, and Pickup, who seemed to be close to Batiste. He said, “Sorry. We’re gonna ask you to stay inside when the prez ain’t here.”

  The fact that he was a contemporary made the order seem a little less threatening somehow.

  “So I really am a prisoner?”

  “No ma’am.” He gave her a charming smile that she imagined worked really well with women. “You’re treasure that’s been deposited in our bank for safekeepin’.”

  She stepped back in with a departing glare and let the screen door slam for punctuation. She retreated to her room and decided Saycie was right. She should use the time in some way that would leave her feeling renewed and ready to face whatever other poop life might throw at her.

  Just as it was getting dark, Angelique heard a knock at her door. It was Scar, a Devil who’d been part of the club all her life. He was the older generation and probably knew Batiste’s father well. It wasn’t hard to figure out how he’d gotten the name. He had an ugly raised scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. It had probably never even had stitches, whatever had happened. Just Band-aids.

  She had the brief thought that it would be awful to be named, defined, by an injury.

  “Supper’s up. Thought you might like to eat.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She followed Scar into the main room. The windows were still open to the screens, but canvas shades had been lowered for privacy just so the occupants would feel less vulnerable by the lights being on. They were in a remote area, deep inside private land, but having lights on inside a building when everything around is darkness is both unnatural and unnerving, especially for people who have every reason to be concerned with defense.

  The large main room had a crude bar at one end and a few picnic tables. She remembered that colored lights were hung, long strings draped from end to end when the clubs had family ge
t-togethers. She’d thought it was magical.

  And Batiste. He’d been the cutest boy. Cute, funny, adventurous, and fun. Easy to be with in a way no one else had ever been before or since.

  She was having a hard time finding that in the large, in charge, and menacing version of himself as fully grown president of the Devils, Lafayette Original. But there was no denying that, even with the hard-as-diamond edges, he was so beautiful it made her heart hurt to look at him.

  A seraph fallen to earth.

  There were a few club members sitting at tables, eating. They looked up when she entered.

  Batiste was nowhere to be seen.

  “You’re welcome to sit and eat,” Rooster said.

  “Um, thank you. I’m just gonna grab something.”

  She headed toward the kitchen.

  “What’s the matter?” Saycie asked.

  “Nothing. I just thought maybe I’d eat in here?”

  “Sure you can. Sit right there.”

  Angie sat and Saycie put a plate in front of her.

  “Do you stay here, Saycie?”

  “Here at the camp?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes. I have a room right over there.” She pointed to a hallway off the back of the kitchen. “It’s nice. These bikers are good to me.”

  “I see why. You could be head chef at the Monteleone. This is incredible.”

  Saycie smiled. “Glad you like it, sugar. Save room for pie.”

  Belle and Beau came trotting into the kitchen and looked at Saycie expectantly.

  “Where’d you two come from? You’re late for supper.” They wagged their tails and looked at Saycie intently like they could will her into setting food out. She put canned food into big dishes as the dogs looked on. “Back in a minute. These animals eat outside.”

  When Angie went back to her room she took a couple of bottled waters so she wouldn’t have to go hunting in the night.

  Batiste hadn’t returned from whatever biker intrigue was occupying his time.

  She supposed she was fortunate to have a room with an adjoining three-quarter bath. She took a shower and towel dried her hair, but left it damp. She’d sleep cooler that way. Around eleven she turned off the lights, crawled on top of the cotton sheets and lay still, listening to the night sounds of the swamp. After a few minutes a light rain added its voice to the lullaby of crickets, cicadas, and frogs and she felt herself drifting.