Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

Damn, but he was falling in love with that woman, and that could be dangerous because she might want more than he was willing to give.

“We have to bring in an arson investigator from New Orleans. He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon, but right now the fire department boys are saying they think it was faulty wiring,” Roxie said as soon as she closed the door. “They think it started in the laundry room, and the place went up fast. Something about old newspapers.”

Lila had been planning to recycle the massive stack of papers Bill had collected but hadn’t gotten around to it. And there was no doubt the place had bad wiring. He’d seen it himself. Still, it was awfully coincidental. “I want to know where Donny Petrie was, and while we’re on it, I want to make sure Momma Petrie was out on her island last night. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“I’ll get right on it. You don’t buy what the fire chief is saying?”

“I don’t know. He’s a good man, but he’s not an arson inspector. I’ll wait until we get that report in. Until then, I want us to keep an eye on Lila.” She’d lost everything. She didn’t have clothes. He was certain her sister was already working on that problem. Lisa had shown up at the site a few minutes after they’d gotten there, throwing her arms around her sister and crying freely.

Lila wouldn’t cry. Not in public. She would wait until they were alone, and even then he would have to make love to her. When he’d stripped down all her walls, she would give in and let the tension out.

Was she planning on moving out to Guidry’s? There was an apartment over the bar. Or she could stay at Lisa and Remy’s home close to town.

He didn’t want that. Was he being a bastard by thinking about using the situation to get her to move in with him? If she did move in, would she get comfortable, maybe so comfortable she forgot the problems they had? Could he convince her to forgo the possibility of having children of her own?

Did he want to do that? The idea of Lila with a baby in her arms was a pleasant one.

The idea of loving that child, of worrying about that child, of potentially losing that child was the thing that made him hesitate.

There was a knock on the door and the very object of his worry opened it.

“Dad, is Lila okay?” Noelle moved into the room, her backpack on her lap. It would include her lunchbox, a couple of books, and her laptop so she could catch up on schoolwork when she wasn’t answering the phone.

Would she be stuck here, working dispatch in a tiny station house for the rest of her life? She’d always been fascinated with chemistry. When she’d been a kid, she’d wanted a chemistry set when other girls her age had asked for Barbie Dolls for Christmas. The fact that she couldn’t walk didn’t disqualify her from working in a lab. But she would need the education to get there.

How would she do that? She couldn’t live in a dorm. His house was equipped to handle her wheelchair and all the problems that came with her lack of mobility. He couldn’t send her out into a world where no one would care.

But wasn’t that the worry every parent had to face?

“She’s fine,” Roxie said. “Lila wasn’t in the house at the time. She was in New Orleans with your father.”

“I didn’t mean physically,” Noelle replied. “She lost her home. I would be devastated.”

“Daley’s a tough one.” Roxie eased around the wheelchair to get to the door. “She’s already back at work. I like her. I would have her watch my back. Boss, I’m going home. I’ll be back for the night shift. Call me if you need anything.”

Noelle turned to him as the door closed. “Seriously, is she okay?”

“As okay as she can be,” he replied. “I need to talk to you about that. She doesn’t have a home. She could go to her sister’s.”

“Or she could stay with us,” his daughter replied quickly.

“You understand that there might be a reason her house burned down.” He wanted to be careful about this. He didn’t want to scare her. “It might be faulty wiring.”

“Or it might be that jerk in the jail cell.” She pointed toward the station house main floor. “Maybe he didn’t do it personally, but he had it done. He wanted to hurt Lila because she helped Carrie get away from him. I’ve heard all sorts of terrible things happened to her out on the islands. Did you know some people think the Petries run drugs?”

He groaned. “Don’t listen to gossip.” Although it might be helpful now. “They’re not blaming Lila for sticking her nose in other people’s business?”