Bayou Dreaming (Butterfly Bayou 3)

It was so much easier to talk about her. “You always knew you wanted to be a cop, right?”

“I just knew I loved what my grandfather did. It was noble. We had a whole family of cops. It was tradition. For the men. My dad seemed proud at the time, but now I wonder.”

“Have you ever asked him?”

“Do you remember the part about me not being great with my feelings?” She turned his way, her eyes on him now. “And I’m proving it because I didn’t mean to talk about me. Why are you taking a job you don’t want?”

Yeah, this was way harder. But there was expectation in her eyes. She wanted to know, and it wasn’t a polite question. She wanted something real from him. “Because I don’t have anything else to do. I can take over the shop and help my brother out, or I can keep on taking shifts from people who are way better at serving than I am. Not everyone knows what they want to do in life. Not everyone has this grand plan and perfect job for them.”

“But most people have things they’re interested in. You like working with animals.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t actually pay. We’re too small a town to have a dog training school.” He took a deep breath and decided to go all in. “I guess I was kind of lying, though. I wanted to do something like work with the park rangers or with the wildlife department. I was even going to finish my four-year degree. I got into school . . . well, the preliminary part. But it didn’t work out.”

Her eyes had widened. “Are you serious? I didn’t take you for the college type, Guid . . . Zep.”

He so preferred it when she called him by his nickname. His last name put distance between them. “No one did. My mom was shocked when I decided to go to community college. She was even more shocked when I actually finished. Or she would have been if she hadn’t been dealing with the fact that her daughter was pregnant with no insurance and no man in the picture. I didn’t actually make it to graduation.”

She stared at him for a moment. “You didn’t go to college because your sister was pregnant.”

Well, it hadn’t taken her long to figure that out. Her detective skills were in fine working order. “Doctors are expensive. Remy helped out, but he wasn’t around much, and for my mother, having me around was comforting. I was the one who did all the late-night stuff. Why do babies always get sick in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know much about babies.”

“I know way too much about them for a man who isn’t even close to being ready to have one of his own.”

She leaned over, putting her head on his shoulder. “But you want your mom to want you to have kids.”

It was stupid, but there it was. “Yeah. I guess I want to be like my brother and my sister. I want her to see me as something other than a burden.”

“You’re not a burden.” Her arm wound through his and she seemed to settle in. “Have you ever thought about going back? To school, that is. Sera and Luc are good. The restaurant is good. It might be time to give it another go.”

“I think that time is gone. It probably wasn’t a realistic dream in the first place. It kind of was a miracle I survived those two years of community college.”

“Don’t.”

He looked down at her.

Her head was tilted up, a stern expression on her face. “Don’t negate yourself like that. You got through it. Have you ever considered the idea that the reason people don’t take you seriously is that you don’t take yourself seriously?”

He didn’t think about that at all. He was who he was, and it was how it had always been.

Or had it? Had he bought into this version of himself somewhere along the way? Had he allowed himself to be put in a corner, told what his role was, and not even thought about challenging it? “I guess I haven’t.”

She settled back down, and he loved the way she sighed against him. “Well, you should. You’re not such a bad guy. You’re actually pretty solid. And you can find the best gumbo.”

She was relaxed again, and all it had cost him was a little honesty. Maybe his brother had been right and what she needed was for him to open up. Of course there was something else he knew all the girls liked. “I happen to know there’s bread pudding in the fridge.”

“See, I knew there was a reason I liked you.”* * ** * *

Roxie sat across from Zep, pleasantly full from the ridiculously rich bread pudding he’d heated up for them. They’d sat outside for a while, and the whole time she’d thought about what he’d told her. “So when are you taking over the shop?”