Bayou Baby (Butterfly Bayou 2) - Page 109
Harry was gone? “When did he leave?”
“Not more than ten minutes ago.” The man nodded toward the road. “Looked like he was taking the highway toward New Orleans.”
“Thanks.” She raced back to her car. It was possible she could still catch him if she got him on the phone and asked him to come back.
And that was the minute she realized this time she was the one who’d forgotten her phone. She’d rushed out, eager to see Harry and put things right between them, not bothering to remember that her phone was on the charger and not in her purse.
How had she let that happen? She needed to get to him. If she let him leave, he might not come back, might not let her say all the things she needed to say to him.
She heard the crunch of gravel as a car pulled up beside her. She glanced over and saw a black SUV with white lettering that proclaimed it represented the Papillon Parish Sheriff’s Office. The tinted window lowered and Deputy Roxie King sat in the front seat in her crisply pressed uniform, her eyes behind a pair of mirrored aviators.
“Hey, Sera, you all right?” Roxie asked in her no-nonsense manner. She gestured to the back of her vehicle. “He saw you and made me pull over to check on you. I told him you’re a grown-ass woman who doesn’t need her baby brother making sure she doesn’t hang out at hooker motels, but he can be annoying.”
She looked in the back, and sure enough, Zep was there, his hands in cuffs.
He grinned her way, holding them up. “Don’t worry about this. It’s a thing between us. I think it’s her way of flirting.”
Roxie’s expression didn’t change but Sera could practically feel the woman’s eyes rolling. “He’s got a warrant for unpaid parking tickets.”
“I told you why I can’t pay them,” Zep insisted. “Sera needs a lawyer.”
“No, I don’t. Celeste came by and she’s dropping all legal action,” Sera explained. They still might be the solution to her problem. “I came to find Harry, but he just left. He was on his way out of town. If he leaves, I won’t know where he is, but I can’t go after him because my car broke down. I think I still might be able to catch him. He was on the road toward New Orleans.”
“Come on, Roxie. This is true love on the line,” Zep argued. “You know you can catch him. You can turn the lights on and make this happen. They’ll have to name their first child after you and everything. And I’ll have money to pay those parking tickets.”
The gorgeous deputy’s lips curled up slightly. “Well, I wasn’t doing anything important anyway.”
“Hey, I’m a dangerous criminal.” Her brother was frowning.
“Only to beer bottles and hot wings.” Roxie opened the door and got out, moving to let Sera in the back. “Let’s go find your guy. Hey, you want me to arrest him? I bet he would look good in cuffs.”
Zep’s eyes flared. “I knew that was why you did it. I make these things look good.”
“No,” Sera said, sliding in beside him. Unlike her brother, it was her first time in the back of a parish vehicle. Roxie apparently liked to keep it clean and cozy. “I want to hug him. I want to tell him I love him.”
Roxie got into the driver’s seat and flipped on her siren and lights.
Sera prayed she found him in time.* * ****
Harry stopped his truck and simply stared for a moment.
There was a gator in the middle of the road. A massive gator. He’d been in Papillon for a couple of weeks, and he knew they were in the bayou, but this was his first real look at one on a road, and this bad boy was taking up most of it. He was laid out lengthwise in what looked to be the sunniest part of this particular stretch of road.
Shep barked beside him, his big paws on the dash as though he was ready to go into battle.
If the gator heard all that canine aggression, he didn’t show it. The only movement was a slight shift of his big tail. It seemed to be missing the tip, the powerful thing ending in a stump.
He and the gator had something in common.
He glanced down at his phone. He had a couple of texts that stemmed from yesterday’s bat signal.
Sam would be able to spend a few days next week shoring up the indoor stairs, while his friend Lena was a master painter, and he’d helped out with her mother’s place after it flooded. She’d promised to bring her sister and swore she would work for gumbo. He had called a plaster expert, a roofer, and two sisters who specialized in restoration.
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