Page 26 of Landry

He’d asked if anyone else had left the bar and grill at the same time as Camille. They’d been so busy, no one could make a definitive call.

Landry had left the Crawdad Hole with more insight on the woman he was supposed to protect than on the people he needed to protect her from. He’d gone to the auto shop to talk with Todd Sneider. He didn’t know Camille as well as the others, but he’d enjoyed dancing with her so much he'd asked her out.

Landry was surprised at the tightening in his own chest at that news.

Todd had laughed. “She turned me down, but in such a nice way, I couldn’t be mad or disappointed. She’s a class act.”

When Landry had asked how long he’d stayed at the Crawdad Hole, Todd had said he’d stayed until they’d closed after midnight.

After Landry left the auto shop, he’d had to pass Broussards Country Store on the way back to his digs. Without giving it much thought, he’d pulled in, bought a six-pack of beer and all the ingredients he needed for gumbo, thinking he would make it when he got back to his place at the Brotherhood Protectors boarding house.

Shelby Taylor had stopped by Broussards to grab diapers for Jean-Luc and stopped to talk with Landry as he was checking. She’d asked if he was cooking for Camille.

He wasn’t due to be at her house until around sunset. In the back of his mind, he’d been wishing it were earlier. When Shelby had asked him if he was going to cook for Camille, he’d answered, “Maybe.” Though he hadn’t planned on it, the idea took root quickly.

Shelby grinned. “She’s not much of a beer drinker, but she likes white wine—Sauvignon Blanc, to be exact.” Alan Broussard had found the brand she preferred and added it to his total.

Instead of going back to the boarding house to make his solitary dinner, he’d checked his watch, noting it wouldn’t be long before Camille closed up shop and walked home. If he hurried, he could walk with her and then convince her to let him cook dinner for her and Ava.

It had gone according to his half-baked plan until he’d held her hand walking back from the water’s edge.

Taking Camille’s hand had not been part of any plan in his book. After he’d done it, the aftereffects resonated deep inside, refusing to dissipate.

The more he’d learned about Camille that day, the more he wanted to know. He kept telling himself he needed all the information to help him better protect her.

That was only half true. He wanted to keep her safe, but he also couldn’t forget what he’d felt when she’d popped that piece of chocolate into his mouth, touching his lip in the process. He’d wondered if it was just a fluke.

Having her help him cook, had made it abundantly clear that her effect on him wasn’t a fluke. Every time they’d bumped into each other in the small kitchen, a jolt of electric awareness had shot through him. Walking back from the bayou with her, it had felt completely natural and inevitable to take her hand and hold it all the way to the house.

Landry drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had to get a grip. Camille was his assignment, his mission, not his next sexual conquest. She wasn’t the one-night stand kind of woman he gravitated toward, convinced he never wanted to marry or have children. He refused to subject a kid to the only kind of parenting he’d known. His greatest fear was turning into a cold, emotionless man like his father. He couldn’t wish that on any child.

He'd learned that money didn’t buy happiness. He doubted his father had ever been happy. His mother was only happy drinking with her friends at their private resort on the French Riviera, a place she’d never taken him, claiming children weren’t welcome.

Landry pushed his memories to the back of his mind and circled the little cottage with its wide porches on the front and the back. He studied the windows and doors from the outside. A window on the far side of the house had a trellis attached to the wall beside it. Bright purple morning glory vines twisted in and around the wooden slats, rising all the way up to the eaves where they wrapped around the gutters.

He made a note to himself to come back another time and trim the vines to keep them from clogging the gutters. The ground below the trellis was covered in thick St. Augustine grass. If someone had been standing there, they wouldn’t have left footprints.

The window itself was a little over five feet off the ground. It was possible for a man to peer inside. It would take more effort for him to climb through, but it was possible if the window was open and the man was tall and strong enough to pull himself up over the windowsill.

Landry gripped the trellis and shook it, testing its sturdiness. He wouldn’t trust his weight on the decorative latticework. A grown man would likely rip the screws out of the wall that anchored it to the house.

His eyes narrowed. The weight of a grown man would be too much for the trellis to bear. However, a ten-year-old boy, depending on his size, could climb the trellis and slip through an open window fairly easily, without tearing it from the exterior wall.

Camille might consider removing the trellis. He’d ask her about it later.

Landry continued around the outside of the house and arrived at the front porch.

Camille poked her head out the door. “Ava is clean, hair and teeth brushed, and she’s waiting in her bed with her favorite book. You can still back out. I can tell her you had to leave.”

He climbed the stairs, shaking his head. “I said I’d read to her. That’s what I’m going to do. Unless you don’t want me to.”

Camille held up her hands. “I didn’t mean to imply that. It’s just that I don’t expect you to cater to her if you don’t really want to.”

He touched her cheek. “You worry too much. Ava’s a good kid and fun to be around. I look forward to reading her a story. I just hope I don’t disappoint her.” He dropped his hand.

“You won’t disappoint.” Camille’s hand rose to cover the spot he’d just touched. “She loves the attention.”

“Then lead the way.” He held the door for her. “I have a story to read.”

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