Gift of Wonder

She pushed at her unruly golden hair. “Maybe that’s because I’m the person living right across the water. Maybe because I like things the way they are—nice and quiet and private.”

“But…you had neighbors before.” He pointed to the remains of a small cottage around the curve in the bayou. He knew she’d had neighbors. He’d fully researched her former neighbors while trying to find his relatives. “Don’t you want neighbors again?”

She looked at him then glanced around. “I don’t know. Where we’re standing has always been kind of empty and overgrown, but I got used to it that way. I think someone lived over here long ago, but that family moved away before I was even born.”

“Did your families get along?”

She put her hands on her hips, probably wondering what kind of question that was for a developer to be asking. “Not always, but we managed. Some of our past neighbors haven’t been exactly friendly, according to my older sister. It’s kinda pleasant out here now. Or it was until today.”

“You can’t be serious?”

She shook her head and finally smiled. “I’m just messing with you on that account. Yes, I miss all of the old neighbors—the ones I remember from around the bend here. A lot. But…I’m not so sure I want a whole new community right across from my house. And I’m really not sure about you and why you want to build here. Can’t you find work up in Shreveport?”

“Yes, I have plenty of work. And my employees are working around the clock on several different projects, including this one. We’re solid.”

“Uh-huh. So solid you dropped everything to rush down here and measure land right across from my home.”

“It wouldn’t be directly across from you,” he said. “I see this as a good investment, an economic prospect that will create jobs and housing. But it shouldn’t interfere with your property at all—I was actually measuring right here for a park, maybe. A small park with a swing and benches and a walking trail leading to the homes. But I do plan on buying up the land next to yours. The actual community would be around the curve in the bayou.”

“But what about this land we’re standing on? How are you gonna buy it and build a park on it? Like I said, the people who lived here moved away a long time ago. And since then, this land has turned into part of the swamp.”

Jonah gave her the barest of answers. “They sold it to someone else when they left. I had one of my brokers track down that owner and we made him an offer. He seemed glad to be rid of it.”

“Yes, I imagine he is at that. I never knew who bought it from the Mayeaux. Whoever it was didn’t bother to mow it or keep it clean. Somebody did finally come and take away what was left of the old house after the hurricane.”

Jonah tried not to flinch. She’d just verified what he needed to know. The Mayeaux family had lived right here on this land at one time. But he’d bought it from someone else. And now it was his. Kind of ironic and all the more proof that he was meant to be here. “I’ll keep it clean, I can promise you that. It’s gonna look a lot better once we get this subdivision up.”

“That’s good. It tends to draw snakes and other creepy things.” She turned to leave. “Now go on back to the Bayou Belle Inn and put some calamine lotion on those bug bites.”

Jonah’s relief was instant but he hid it behind trying to win her over. He would have thought she’d be the first one in line behind him on this project. “Hey, wait. Don’t you want to hear more?”

“I think I’ve heard enough. You’re going to come in and rebuild this community. That’s good for everyone, I’d think.”

She wasn’t as excited as he’d hoped. “I’ll be right here for the duration, if you have any questions. And I’ll keep tabs on things long after we’re finished, of course. This project means—”

She whirled then, her eyes bright with misgivings. “What does it mean—for you? I know what it will mean to the people of this town and I truly hope you succeed, because we need a little hope around here.”

Seeing her doubt and a bit of sadness in her eyes, Jonah followed her across the arched bridge. “But you don’t believe I can do it, do you?”

She stopped, turned to face him. Her eyes had lost some of their fire. Now she looked gloomy, her whole body going still and quiet. “After the hurricane, things were bad around here. We were mostly cut off from the rest of the world. But we weren’t cut off from the scams. Some of our neighbors got taken advantage of, big-time.” She looked out over the old oak trees lining her side of the bank. “A lot of us got our feelings hurt. We trusted too quickly, because we were still reeling from all that had happened. So excuse me if I don’t exactly believe in a pretty boy with big promises of a grand scheme.”

He let that settle for a few seconds, then said, “First, I don’t do scams. I’m a legitimate businessman and I’m good at what I do—and your entire town council has checked and rechecked my credentials. Second, I’d never take advantage of anyone. I believe in solid investments, but I also believe in being efficient, economical and energy conscious. And third, do you really think I’m a ‘pretty boy’?”

She gave him a look that would have made an alligator grit his teeth and go back underwater. “I’ve seen your kind before, hotshot. And yes, I’m learning to question everything and everybody these days. So while I wish you the best, I’m not convinced.” With that she took off walking across the rickety old bridge, her arms swinging, her hair bouncing. “Nice talking to you. See you at the next town hall meeting. I’ll be there with my tape recorder.”

Jonah swallowed, took a breath then called, “Hey, you never did answer my question. Do you think I’m—”

She held up a hand but kept walking. “You don’t want to know what I think about you right now, trust me.”

Trust her? He wanted to laugh out loud. But he didn’t dare. Before he could trust her, he’d probably have to work double time just to get her to trust him. He couldn’t have her writing a scathing article about his plans. That wouldn’t work at all. Because she might dig too deep and find out the whole story behind his sudden, impulsive need to build on this ground. The Bryson sisters obviously carried a lot of weight in this town. He’d need their support, or his hopes and dreams could sink in the water.

But how was he supposed to win her over when he couldn’t even begin to explain why he’d taken a leave of absence from his own firm to come down here to personally supervise this project? How did a man explain to a complete stranger that he needed to know about this land and this town because he might have roots here?

He stared at her until she reached the steps leading to the second-story porch of the big, square white house, then shouted, “Can’t we sit down and discuss this a little more?”

“See you at the meeting,” she replied. Then she turned and waved to him before disappearing with a flounce through the screen door.

It swung wide and banged out a warning as it fell back against the door frame. A loud warning.

“Are you coming down for dinner?”

Alice heard the hidden question in her sister’s demand: Are you coming down to tell me everything and I mean everything because I watched the whole thing through the window and I’m dying to know.

She wasn’t in the mood to talk. But she was in the mood for biscuits and leftover pot roast. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

Going to the tall windows of her cozy kitchen-and-den combination on the top left side of the house, she checked to make sure he was gone. When she didn’t see him in the growing dusk, she passed a hand over her hair then headed down the steps from her private apartment to the front door of the house.

The stairs leading down from the second floor made it easy for Alice to scoot down for meals with her sister and brother-in-law. But she tried to give them their privacy, so she didn’t make this a habit.

Except for Sundays. Sundays would always be family day at Rosette House. And tonight, as the sun sank in a swirl of pink and gold across the bayou and the frogs and cicadas started singing out in the swamp, she needed to be with family. Why was dusk always such a lonely time of day?

Putting thoughts of Jonah Sheridan out of her mind, Alice admired the bright orange pumpkins and lush yellow-and-red mums Lorene had arranged on a fresh bale of hay by the door. Her sister and Jay had remodeled what used to be considered the basement into a beautiful country kitchen and a huge hearth room, complete with the original fireplace and chimney. There was a breakfast nook in the kitchen and a formal dining room and tiny powder room across the wide hall on the other side of the house. Today, the tall French doors were thrown open to the late-autumn breezes flowing through the cross-ventilated rooms.

When Alice came through the double French doors into the breakfast room, the smell of fresh biscuits and pot roast wafted out to greet her and made her think of her parents. She could almost hear her mother’s gentle laughter, could see her daddy’s twinkling blue eyes. How she missed them.

But she had Lorene and Jay and soon they’d all have a baby to spoil. “Want me to pour the tea?” she said by way of a greeting.

“Sure,” Lorene said, glancing up as if to gauge Alice’s mood. “Have you been working?”

“No. Just folding some clothes and checking e-mail, nothing special.”

Jay looked from his wife to Alice, his dark brown eyes questioning. He knew they had their own kind of language, or at least he accused them of that very thing. A language full of feminine undertones and hushed whispers, he’d say. Alice pitied the poor man. He always squinted whenever they got going with the small talk that meant big talk later. Jay wanted to understand but he never would, really. Her brother-in-law was more comfortable out on a tractor, farming the land, than he was trying to figure out women. So now, in typical, quiet Jay fashion, he just sat and listened until they’d talked all around the subject not yet mentioned.

Then he said, “Let’s say grace and get to that pot roast.”

Lorene giggled like a schoolgirl. Alice smiled and grabbed their hands. And stewed about Jonah Sheridan while Jay said a lovely blessing. When she opened her eyes, her shrewd sister was staring at her. “Okay, start talking, Alice. What did you find out from our mysterious visitor?”

Jonah was stewing away over a cup of coffee in the tiny diner on the bottom floor of the Bayou Belle Inn. He was beginning to doubt his own sanity. Why had he come here? Oh, yeah. He wanted to build a new community on Bayou Rosette and he wanted to find out about the family who’d lived across from Rosette House. Two lofty notions, but he was willing to work on both—one to keep him busy and the other to finally find some closure in his life. If a certain curly-haired blonde with a hefty attitude didn’t get in his way. Or discover the truth before he ever broke ground.

“Why you look so glum, mon ami?”

Jonah looked up to find the proprietor of the Belle staring at him with a hangdog expression. Jimmy Germain had a gray beard and a little bit of gray hair to match on the back of his round head. He was short and husky and laughed with a robust belly bounce. His wife, Paulette, was also short and wide and very friendly. They made a good team and they cooked some good food.

So why wasn’t Jonah eating his crawfish po’boy?

“I went out to look at Rosette House today,” he explained. He had to be very careful what he said since the rumors were already flying fast and furious.

“Did the girls give you a tour of the old place?”

Jonah’s moroseness lifted at that question. “They give tours?”

“If you ask real nice, sure.”

“Oh, well, then I guess I won’t be invited in for a tour. I met one of the Bryson sisters today.”

Jimmy’s grin widened and the belly bounce began as he chuckled so hard his ruddy complexion beamed scarlet. “I’m guessing it wasn’t sweet Lorene.”

“No…it was the other sister. Alice.”

“Oo-wee! She’s a firecracker, for sure.”

“You can say that again,” Jonah replied, grabbing a crispy fried crawfish tail off his sandwich. He popped the spicy tidbit in his mouth and chewed. “What’s her story, anyway? I mean, I know she’s single and she works at the Bayou Buzz and all that. But…is there something else I need to know?”

Jimmy leaned close. “That, my friend, would require about three hours of my valuable time.”

Jonah ate another crawfish. “I got nowhere to go. Talk to me.”

Jimmy’s eyes shifted as he put his beefy elbows on the mahogany counter. “Alice, she has trust issues with men.”

“You don’t say.”

Jimmy nodded. “Right after the storm when things were so bad around here, she fell for a contractor who was passing through. He took on work—remodeling and such—and he also took off with some of our hard-earned money in the process. Never finished the work.” He shook his head. “And the worst of it—Alice believed in him, thought he’d come to help us. But he was just a greedy man who’d come to take advantage of us. He took advantage of Alice’s good graces, too. He had her up to the altar, ready to marry him, probably just so he could get his hands on her inheritance. But she got wind of his shenanigans and questioned him minutes before the wedding. He denied all of it, then he blamed her for not believing in him. He left, just like that. On to the next town, I reckon. Left that pretty little bride heartbroken and humiliated. She’s not over that yet. Might not ever be over it.”

Jonah pushed the rest of his sandwich away. Alice had said as much. She’d said they’d all been taken advantage of. That some of them had been hurt.

And she was the one who’d been hurt the most, from the way she’d acted today. And no wonder. A jilted bride. Jilted by a man who’d offered her hope while he swindled everyone in town. Just as Jonah had offered her hope today with all his big plans.

“It’s worse than I thought,” he said, staring into his cold coffee. “She must think I’m like that. But I’m not. Not at all. I could never leave my bride at the altar.” Especially if she sparkled with life the way Alice did, part fire and part flowers.

Jimmy patted his meaty hand on the counter, his words full of sympathy. “Yep. A woman scorned. It ain’t good, that’s for sure.”

Jonah paid Jimmy and bid him good-night. Then he walked out and stared down the long main street of Bayou Rosette. And he wondered what was going through Alice Bryson’s mind right now.

Was she thinking about him? Or was she thinking up ways to stop him before he ever got started, just to prove a point about some idiot who’d done her wrong? And why did he care, anyway? He’d get the job done. He’d build his community. He wanted to do this. Had to do it, for more reasons than he could explain or even justify to himself. But he’d never factored in that the woman who’d inadvertently caused him to come down here on this crazy whim might also turn out to be the very one who’d put a crimp in his plans. Maybe he should just go back to Shreveport.

You’re not a quitter, he told himself. You’ve dealt with much worse than a jilted blonde with an ax to grind. And he’d always done things on his own terms, even though Aunt Nancy had urged him to turn to God for guidance.

But Jonah didn’t need God’s help on this. He just needed Alice Bryson to play nice and let him do his job. And he hoped while he was here he could find the truth at last. He wasn’t concerned so much about Alice. He’d get around her and build his new community, one way or another. But he was concerned about those questions he’d had all his life. What if he didn’t like the answers?

Maybe that was why he was so worried he hadn’t been able to finish eating the best crawfish po’boy he’d ever tasted.

Alice Bryson was just one person. One very forceful person. He’d worked for months on clearing the way for approval so he could get the whole town in on this renovation. He’d make them believe he could do this. He had to. Because he needed to do this. He’d come on this quest, this journey, to fulfill his creative need to build things, but the main reason he was here was to fill that empty place deep inside his soul.

He didn’t exactly want to call it a “God moment,” as some of his friends back home might say, but it sure had seemed that way when he’d stumbled across Alice’s intriguing story. He had to help Bayou Rosette. Because he was pretty sure he came from the Mayeaux family and that this was the place where his biological mother had been born and raised, right across the bayou from Rosette House.

And somehow, while he was here he had to find out why that same mother had abandoned him and never looked back.

Chapter Three

“I don’t understand why you were so rude to the man.”

Shoving her floral tote bag and her purse into her yellow vintage Volkswagen, Alice closed her eyes and counted to ten to drown out her sister’s voice. How could she explain to Lorene that Jonah Sheridan reminded her of all she’d lost? She’d placed her heart in a stranger’s hand once before and look where that had gotten her. Jilted and tossed aside, left embarrassed and bitter.

“Alice, are you listening to me?”

Alice turned at the door of her car. “I hear you loud and clear, Lorene, and I’ve tried to tell you how I feel. The man has this lofty plan. It just sounds too good to be true to me. And I wasn’t rude. I just didn’t get all giddy when he went on and on about building a new community across from us.”

“Not right across,” Lorene reminded her. “I think a park would be wonderful across the bridge. “I could take the baby for walks over there.”

Alice shook her head. “I knew better than to tell you anything. You can’t go spreading that around. Everything he told me was off the record.”

“I understand,” Lorene said, holding the water hose out to send a spray over her geraniums and mums. “I won’t say a word. But I’m sure the whole town is speculating about what he wants to do, since I’ve had phone calls all day about it.”

“And that’s just it,” Alice replied, getting in the tiny convertible. “It’s all speculation and I’m tired of speculators and curiosity seekers and people thinking they can just come in and take over and make things better again. They can’t make it better and we both know that.”

Lorene dropped her hose and came to stand by the car. “Alice, you need to work on your negative attitude. You’ve got to look at the bright side. Our house was spared. We’re okay. And everybody in this town did what they could to help each other. What’s wrong with someone else coming to help, too? We need some new ideas around here, or we’ll keep on suffering. I just don’t see what’s wrong with that. And even though you went through the worst before, this is different. It’s a little bit of hope. Real hope.”

“I’m fresh out of hope,” Alice countered, wondering how Lorene would feel if Jay had left her high and dry at the altar. But then, Jay Hobert was not that kind of man. He had integrity and he loved Lorene. Cranking the car, she waited for it to sputter to life then looked up into Lorene’s disappointed face. “I’m sorry, Lo. I should be more like you, but I can’t see the bright side of this.”

Lorene leaned in close, as close as her growing stomach would let her. “Honey, he read your story. That means your words made a difference to someone, and this particular someone isn’t a fly-by-night drifter out to do us in. Didn’t you write that story so people would remember Bayou Rosette and all that our ancestors did to make this a good town, and to make people more aware that we’re still alive and kicking around here?”

Alice looked out over the garden, remembering her parents sitting in the old swing, smiling and giggling. The yard was becoming dormant now, shutting down for fall and winter. She wished she could just shrink away and hibernate, too. Why was she being so stubborn about this? “Yes, I did write about our history to attract visitors. I just wanted people to see us, to notice us.”

Lorene rested her hand on her stomach. “Well, somebody did. And I say more power to the man.”

“Power—that’s what scares me,” Alice replied. Then she patted her sister’s hand. “I’ve got to get to work. I’m sure Dotty will be all over this like a duck on a june bug. I might not like the man, but if anyone gets this story, it’s gonna be me. I have to convince Dotty of that.”

“You’ll do it justice, I know,” Lorene said. “You’re always fair. Just try to have an open mind, okay?”

“Okay, all right,” Alice said as she shifted into Reverse and backed the car out of the driveway. “I’ll behave, I promise.”

Lorene didn’t look so sure. Alice had given her sister plenty of reason to doubt over the years since their parents had died in a car wreck out on the interstate. Alice had been thirteen, Lorene eighteen, when it had happened. They had clung together and refused to leave their home even though friends and relatives from around the state had offered them shelter. Lorene had finished high school, but instead of going to Tulane as she’d always dreamed, she had taken classes at a nearby community college so she could stay with Alice. Then she had worked it out so that a retired aunt could come and help out with Alice while Lorene worked at night at a local restaurant. Somehow, between the modest inheritance their parents had left and their combined work money, they’d managed to hang on to their house and land—even through a major storm and even through Alice’s devastation after Ned Jackson’s lies.

So much sacrifice. Lorene had worked at night to make extra money, just so they could keep Rosette House and so Alice could get the degree at Tulane that Lorene never had the chance to pursue. Between her scholarships and her own job, Alice had managed to get through college, but she came home the minute she graduated, armed with a journalism degree and a restless spirit. She didn’t want to be anywhere else, she reminded herself now. She owed her sister so much. Maybe she could try to change her attitude, for Lorene’s sake, at least. And to remind herself that she’d come home hoping to make changes, hoping to create her own niche here in the place she loved.

What if Jonah Sheridan could help her do that? Would that be so wrong? Alice didn’t have the same strong convictions as her sister. She prayed, same as Lorene, but she wasn’t so sure her requests were always as pure as her sister’s. But in spite of her doubts and her cynical nature, Alice still held out hope, too. She didn’t like to admit that, but if she looked closely she knew she’d find a little glimmer of hope somewhere deep inside her bruised heart. How else could she have written that story only months after Ned had broken her heart? She wasn’t so sure she was ready to nurture that hope, though.

“We need to follow up on this, Alice,” Dotty Tillman said later that morning. “You need to follow up on this. So why are you sitting here?”

Alice lifted an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I stalk the man, Dotty?”

Dotty stuck her pen into the thick auburn-colored bundle of wiry hair surrounding her café-au-lait face, then looked down through her pink bifocals. “Isn’t that what a good reporter does?”

Alice was suddenly having doubts regarding her abilities to remain neutral about Jonah Sheridan. “But…by the time our story comes out next month, he might be long gone anyway.”

Dotty again looked through her bifocals, a hand moving in the air. “Okay, kid, what’s really going on? You come in here and tell me about this Jonah Sheridan person and how he’s out to rebuild practically the whole town, but you don’t have that enthusiasm I like in a reporter. In fact, you seem downright depressed about this scoop. Spill it, Alice.”

Alice sank back in her chair then glanced out the front window of the tiny cottage where the Bayou Buzz offices were located on Bayou Drive. Everything around here seemed to have the word bayou in it, one way or another. Maybe because all the people around here had bayou blood running through their veins. She could see the Bayou Belle Inn across the square.