Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

Lila shook her head. “You lucked out, Armie. You understand that if she cared about you she shouldn’t have backed off. On the romance stuff, of course. But you needed help. You needed support.”

The passion behind her words warmed him. She seemed ready to do battle with a woman she’d barely met. It was sweet and reinforced some of the things he’d learned about her. She was prickly, but not the kind of woman who folded when times got tough.

“I had support,” he said, wanting to reach out and hold her hand. “My dad had passed by then, but my mom rallied in those early days after the accident. So much of it’s a blur. I had to deal with the fact that my ex-wife died. She didn’t have any family left. I made arrangements for the funeral and handled her house in New Orleans. And there was Noelle. My mom was a rock. I swear she lived to see my baby get better. It’s weird to think about it now because those were terrible days.”

She was the one who reached out, covering his hand with her own. “And they were precious, too.”

Damn. He needed a moment because no one else had understood that. It had been days of mourning and pain, days when he wasn’t sure his daughter would live. And yet his momma had been right there. She’d gotten out of her bed, thrown aside her own grief, and supported him. He’d been certain he would lose her shortly after he’d lost his dad, but she’d lived months beyond the doctors’ estimates, and he knew it was all because she couldn’t leave him alone like that. Only when she was sure her son and grandchild were okay had she rested and joined the love of her life.

He thought his mom would like Lila Daley.

“Why did you come home? Was it your mom?” Lila asked. “You were a detective in New Orleans. It can be hard to leave that kind of adrenaline behind for some people.”

He could imagine it was hard for her. The trauma department she’d worked in was legendary for the work it did. “Yes. My parents’ health declined to the point that they needed assistance. It just so happened that the man who’d held the office for twenty-seven years was retiring. I’d gotten divorced the year before. I didn’t want to be apart from Noelle, but I couldn’t leave my parents alone, either. Papillon is only a couple of hours away from New Orleans, so I moved back and took the job.”

“I can understand that. Not about the parents, though. I never met my father and my mom and I are just beginning to find our way. She wasn’t a good mom. She liked drugs more than she loved any of us. But I would do anything for my siblings. Anything.”

“I figured you picked this place because you wanted to be close to Lisa.” The sisters were awfully different from one another, but it was easy to see they were close.

She shrugged as her hand played with her coffee mug. “Will and Laurel have each other. They also have a big group of friends. I was on the outside of that. It’s my fault I am, but it’s still true. I thought maybe Lisa would need me. I was probably wrong about that. She’s well on her way to finding her own big group of friends and family. I don’t do that well.”

But she wanted to belong somewhere. It was there in the bittersweet tone of her voice, in the wistful way she looked at the families who walked in the door. “I think you’ll find it easier to fit in here than you think. It just takes a little time. Getting that contract from the oil company is a great start. We have a lot of oil rig families who live here. If you take care of the husbands, the wives and kids will follow.”

“Well, it’s not like the company has a lot of choices unless they want to bring in their own. It’s not a big deal. I’m only doing the checkups for their new hires out here, but they pay well.” There was the self-satisfied look of a business owner who knew she’d made the right choice. “That contract alone will help us stay afloat. So how are you going to handle the Mirandas of this town?”

They were back to that? “I can talk to her.”

It would be terribly uncomfortable, but he didn’t like the idea that Miranda had confronted Lila. He definitely didn’t like the idea that she could hurt Lila’s business.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lila proclaimed. “Any way you go you lose. If you’re too soft with her, she thinks there’s still a chance. If you’re too hard, you’re an asshole. It’s the classic rock and a hard place. Do you want to let her know you’re not interested?”