She wasn’t going to be played for a fool. “Well, I’m not about to listen to the man. And I’ll certainly tell you if he tries to contact me.”
“You won’t meet with him,” he said, each word a grave command.
It would be great if she could simply close her office door to anyone she didn’t want to see. There were days when that was the dream. Unfortunately, she had a job to do. “I can’t agree to that. He’s a constituent, and one of my promises was to have an open-door policy.”
“You don’t meet with every constituent who asks.”
“Of course I don’t. There’s not enough time in the day.”
“Then there’s no reason for you to meet with him. Gertie can put him off. She’s good at that,” he said as he put the car in park. Her own car was still at his office because he’d wanted to drive.
“Like I said, I’ll let you know if he tries to contact me.” She slid out of the passenger seat. He was starting to irritate her because she was fairly certain if she tried to tell him what he could or couldn’t do at his job, this discussion would go an entirely different way.
“I thought you wanted to help me with this problem. I seem to remember you saying that me keeping you out of my family issues was one of the reasons you couldn’t trust me,” he argued. “Now that I brought you into it, you’re fighting me again.”
“No, I am explaining to you that I won’t let your family keep me from doing my job. And this isn’t making me part of the solution. This is you trying to control the situation again, and that’s not going to work. If you truly believe Charles could physically harm me, we could talk about that, but I’m not going to let you control who I see in a day, no matter how that makes you feel. That’s how this is going to work.”
He got out on the other side. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m pushing you because I know he’s going to try something.”
“You’ll have to trust me to handle it. This won’t be the only time I have to deal with your family.”
He moved in, staring down at her. “I wish we were still out there. Just the two of us.”
“No, honey, you don’t, because I needed the caffeine,” she replied with a smile. “I’m so much happier caffeinated.”
Before he could answer, the door opened and her mother was rushing outside, Delphine hard on her heels.
“My baby!” Her mother wrapped her up in strong arms, the equally strong smell of sage surrounding her.
Well, she should have known there would be sage involved. “We’re fine. It was a long night, but we made it through.”
Her mom leaned back. “What happened? Oh, baby, I’m going to have to fix that hair.”
Naturally her momma went there. “I couldn’t put it up last night. I’ll drop by the salon later, but Armie’s coming to pick me up in an hour. He’s worried about a couple of the outlying families, and I want to see if the improvements we’ve made to the public areas held up.”
“Momma Marcelle, I’m sorry if you were worried. It’s entirely my fault,” Rene said in his smoothest tones.
“It was my idea to go to the butterfly island,” Sylvie pointed out. “We should have checked the weather, but that system came up fast. Rene found us shelter and took care of me all night.”
“Yes, I heard you had to sleep on one of the uninhabited islands.” Her mother looked her over as though checking to make sure she was truly all right.
“You couldn’t make it to a better place?” Delphine shook her head. “I hope you felt the spirits of your ancestors guiding you, because we worked some serious spells last night.”
“We could absolutely feel the love,” Rene replied, offering Delphine his arm. “Is my mother all right? I’m grateful you came out here. I’m sure she was comforted by your presence.”
Delphine explained that they’d come over the night before to make sure Cricket was doing well. They walked toward the house. Sylvie started to follow, but her mother held her hand.
Her mother was shaking her head. “That is not ‘I stayed out in the open wilderness’ hair.”
“I took a shower at Guidry’s.”
Her mother continued like she hadn’t said a thing. “That is ‘I rolled around on a bed for a long time’ hair.”
Sylvie touched her head. “It is not. My hair is perfectly respectable.”
Her mother’s arms crossed over her chest in that way that let Sylvie know she was in for a hearty lecture. “I thought you were going to wait. I know you did not sleep with Rene on the ground. I raised you far better than that. You would not look so relaxed if you spent the night huddled under a tree. You got some sleep. Good sleep. Sleep-on-a-man sleep. And Rene wouldn’t have that possessive look in his eyes if he’d huddled under a tree all night.”