Raisonne Curse (9 page)

“Don’t trust me to make it right, do you?”

“Oh I do. I just want onions in mine.” She grinned and let her shirt ride up as she bent to grab an onion.

His groan was everything she hoped to hear.

Pryor moved the iron lawn furniture away from the scaffolding to be safe. The whining noise it made around Elita made him feel extra cautious. He set the table and chairs down away from the side of the house with the black char marks. He didn’t want Elita to spend what looked like the most incredible breakfast ever seeing the remains of the spell room.

She would know that his family lost a lot of work, of course, because she’d seen it before the fire. But the constant reminder this morning wasn’t something he wanted for her.

Fuck, what he wanted for her was pretty much everything right then. He watched her walk toward him, still wearing only his shirt and felt his heart skip a beat. Unfortunately, part of that came from the absolute fear that she’d crawled inside there and made a permanent place for herself. The morning sun shined in her still-damp hair; the shirt rode up her shapely thighs as she sat on the cushion he’d shoved onto the black iron chair for her. He was bending to look up that shirt before he caught himself and snapped back to his feet.

He was acting like a horny teenager.

The small smile playing about her mouth let him know she’d caught his near-slip. But then he thought of the way she’d bent to get that onion in his kitchen and was once again fighting the hard-on he seemed to live with since he’d met her.

“Where are you going?” she asked as she scanned the small table. “We brought everything out, didn’t we?” She stood as if to help him get something else. “I should really grab some shorts out of my car too.”

Pryor shook his head. “Please don’t. Your attire is a major part of the ambiance here.” He pointed toward the house. “I’m just grabbing my phone in case one of my brothers calls. Normally I wouldn’t let anything interrupt a breakfast like this, but I’m concerned. It’s felt like something has been trying to keep them from getting here.”

She sat abruptly, a frown pulling down lips reddened from all the attention he’d been giving them. “Do you think it’s something to do with the Rousalard curse? You did say you guys have worked or, er, unworked his hexes before.”

“We have. But something about this one—yours—feels very different. It feels bigger.” He offered her a reassuring smile. “Let me run and grab the phone so we can tuck into this food. I have a feeling I’m going to want to keep you forever after trying that crème brûlée.”

He abruptly turned and jogged back to the kitchen, cursing under his breath. What the hell was wrong with him? Saying something like that? He’d totally screwed up by giving in to his need for her. Had screwed everything up. His brothers would get here, take one look at him with her and know.

When they’d sworn to stop the suffering with their generation, when they’d made their pact, they’d decided the only way it would work is if they never spent more than a night or two with a woman and if one happened to really get to them, to not ever, ever, take it past one night.

He’d only slept with Elita the one night, but he shouldn’t have let it get that far because he’d known instantly she could be a problem for him and one night had done more than proved it.

He grabbed his phone, saw there were no calls from his brothers and jogged back to the table. Elita sat with her face lifted to the sun, a small smile on that gorgeous mouth of hers—one that made him want to kiss and nibble. They were the most luscious set of lips on a woman he’d ever seen. He stood by the table and shook his head at her.

“What?” she asked, tugging the shirt down on her thighs. It just rode back up.

“You look pretty out here in the sun with the honeysuckle bushes behind you.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Well, you certainly don’t have to try and charm me into bed anymore.”

“Was just being honest.”

She handed him a square spatula. “Come on. Let’s eat.

He sat, dished up both his breakfast surprise and her toast. His first bite of the crème brûlée made him close his eyes. “You have a gift. A real gift. You should do this for a living.”

“I want to. I wanted to take all the recipes I’ve learned from Ma’man up north and open a restaurant. Haven’t been able to save enough to really get close to that goal.” She frowned, pushed her food around on her plate. “I end up paying for a lot of the accidents, as you can imagine. I don’t think I’ll be going back though. This place gets under the skin, doesn’t it?”

“I couldn’t leave.” He literally couldn’t. He could be away a week, maybe two, but he and his brothers were tied to this section of swamp like strings on a puppet. And whatever took them over at night after hex work directed their bodies, moved their limbs, took over their lives.

Wyatt swore up and down they died in the water each night.

Mercer couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that. Once, he’d set up a camera, hoping they’d be able to figure out what happened. All any of them could ever remember was the pain. The pain that ripped and shredded and held them prisoner for hours on end. Nothing else ever came through those memories.

And seeing what happened to them on that video had scared Pryor like nothing on earth ever had.

Elita shifted on her chair. “This really is better once it soaks all night and of course, with the liqueur.” She winked and took another bite before her humor disappeared. “You’ll have to give me lists of what you had in that room so I can start replacing everything. I also want the bill for the repairs.”

He set his fork down. “That wasn’t your fault.”

She nodded. “It really was.” She leaned forward, her—or rather, his—shirt riding up and trying to pull his attention away from her words. “This is the sort of thing that sent me running here. If you hadn’t come in when you did and pulled that table off me, I would have burned in there. Whatever Rousalard did is getting worse. I think it grew stronger when he died—which doesn’t make any sort of sense.”

“Would be nice if they worked that way.” Pryor could tell she wasn’t going to let up about the spell room. He looked toward the water, an idea taking shape. Accident prone or not, he’d love to be out on the water with this woman today. “Tell you what. My brothers aren’t getting here until tonight. Why don’t you go out on the water with me and help gather up some things.”

“Gather up what things?”

He shrugged. “A lot of the jars in there were filled with plants right out of the swamp. There’s an entire world of spell makings under our feet and in that water. An entire world of medicine, for that matter.”

“I’d love to do that!”

He started laughing. “You say that now, but wait until we stop at the LaBarre place for some bastard cedar seeds.”

She frowned. “You sure you want to go there? Ma’man calls them devil boys.”

“I don’t know about boys since they’re older than me.”

She squinted. “And how old is that, by the way?”

“Thirty-one.” He winked. “I know, I look younger.”

“You actually do, which is pretty unusual for someone who spends so much time outdoors.”

“I’ve got a thing against burning, so I use sunscreen. Plus, it’ll keep me prettier longer.”

She snickered. “That you most definitely are, Pryor Bernaux.” She stood and started gathering the plates. “Let’s get this stuff cleaned up and then I’ll go help gather weeds.”

“Did I say anything about weeds?”

“You didn’t have to.” She laughed as she walked toward the house.

Pryor watched the sway of her hips and decided it was time for him to buy some shorter shirts.

He pulled out his phone and called Mercer. “How close are you?” he growled into the phone as soon as his brother answered.

“We should be there tonight.” Voices created a noisy background that almost drowned out Mercer’s heavy sigh. “We ran into a few problems on the road.”

“Damn.”

“Pryor, you aren’t working any magic, are you? We’ve worked Rousalard curses before. Wyatt is still paying for one of those.”

“I haven’t had a choice. It’s worse than I thought.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All the supplies are gone. The spell room burned.”

The silence on the other end was long.

“Say that again.” Mercer’s tone was low and hard.

Pryor didn’t bother to repeat himself. He knew he didn’t have to because his brother just needed a moment to absorb that. Generations of Bernaux had gathered the items needed for spells. It would take a long time to replace even a quarter of the supplies. And the one thing he needed the most to help Elita had been too damaged to salvage.

“What happened?” he heard Wyatt ask in the background. Mercer told him and Pryor winced, knowing Wyatt would take it pretty hard since he’d spent a lot of his childhood helping Mamere collect those herbs. Plus, the oil lamp collection had been his.

“Mercer, I have to go out to one of the old trees today. Get a tupelo root.”

“Did you use today?”

It was how they’d always referred to spell work when talking to each other. A sort of private joke.

“Pryor?” Mercer sometimes took on that oldest brother tone he’d used a lot after their father and uncles died. It usually made Pryor laugh, but he knew what he was risking. He also knew he had no choice.

“No, I haven’t, but I am going to the LaBarre’s and you know how that goes.”

“Bargain with something else.”

“You know that doesn’t fly. Not with them.”

“Take the money out of the jar. All of it.”

Pryor placed a palm on his suddenly churning gut. “That’s a lot of cash for some seeds.”

“It’s better than you having to work a hex and not getting back in time. But just in case, leave now. There should be enough time before dark.” Mercer was quiet again.

Pryor watched as Elita walked toward him, the smile on her pretty face making him feel like he could risk anything. Sunshine turned her hair into fire. Moochon ran up to her and she knelt to stroke his head and rub his ears. He could swear he saw the dog’s eyes roll back from here. Even his dog was caught in her spell.

“Pryor?”

“Yeah,” he said, distracted as she stood, came to him and picked up another dish. She carried it toward the house. He should really be helping her.

“Pryor,” Mercer nearly yelled, obviously exasperated with Pryor’s inattention.

His brother wouldn’t have been able to talk right watching this scenery either. “What?”

“Don’t do any more work on the Raisonne woman.” He paused, cleared his throat. “There are things you don’t know about our family and theirs.”

That zapped all Pryor’s attention immediately. “What sort of things?”

Mercer’s sigh was loud and his voice grew hushed. “Things I have no business telling you about over the phone. Just listen to me for once. No more spell work. That woman’s curse is more deadly than you know.”

Mercer hung up and Pryor stared at his phone in disbelief. He immediately redialed, then cursed when his brother didn’t answer.

What the hell? How did his brother get off leaving him hanging after saying something like that?

C
hapter Nine

Elita walked down the Bernaux pier. They were running late because she’d insisted on slathering him with sunscreen and he, in turn, decided he had to return the favor and lots of touching and kisses later, she was rethinking his idea to spend the day outdoors. Bed sounded like a better spot to her.

She knew the kisses had partially been to take her mind off the spell room. It wasn’t completely destroyed, but two walls would need to be redone. All the shelves had come down—all their contents broken or burned. Fire hadn’t caused them to come down, hadn’t caused the table to fall on her.

She’d shivered, standing in that room, remembering the feel of the smudge man trying to absorb her or something. Remembered that she’d breathed him in and tasted his unctuous residue on her tongue.

The side of the room with the sink and head wash chair hadn’t been touched, and the washer and dryer were fine too.

It was like something wanted just the spell supplies destroyed.

The guilt over it was tearing her up. That was, when Pryor wasn’t distracting her with kisses that were deep and hot and made her feel like a puddle of desire and need.

She looked at him, walking beside her, tall and rugged and kind in a way that pushed all her buttons. “So, what sort of things are we looking for?”

“Honeysuckle, mugwort, different roots. We’re looking for tupelo root especially.”

“You have those on your property.” She pointed to one near the pier. “Why do we need to go anywhere to get one of those?”

“We need to get it from one of the oldest trees. After the two big cuts, there aren’t as many old ones left. They’re protected now, but a root cutting is okay. The one I want is a ways out.” He helped her onto the airboat and handed her a noise-reducing headset.

She nodded, settled in one of the front seats, and put the headset on. From experience she knew to wear them for most of the trip. Between the motor when they’d hit full speed and the wind sweeping by, riding in airboats was noisy as hell.

Pryor started the boat, the motor high-pitched as they took off. Patches of green water hyacinth dotted the surface of the water, then stretched out like fields in the middle of the swamp. Spanish moss draped the tree limbs in every direction, which was good. Ma’man always said the air was worth breathing if the moss liked it.

“So, how long have the Raisonnes lived here?”

She glanced back at Pryor as his voice came through the headset.

“Long time. The first ones showed up in the mid eighteen hundreds. Yours?”

“The Bernaux have been here forever, though my father told me it was more than likely in the early seventeen hundreds. Our home was built near the end of that century.” He steered with one hand, pointed with the other. “See the trees?”

Elita turned, expecting a stand of old tupelos, but instead saw trees that should have been on land, dead now.

“There are so many more than there used to be. Breaks my heart,” Pryor said. “So much land disappearing so fast.”

“I feel for the shrimpers.” Water splashed up on Elita and she wiped her cheeks. With the land disappearing, the marsh grasses were going too, and that was where the shrimp lived. She watched the hyacinth and thought about Tooter arguing with one of the other fishermen at Ma’man’s the other night. Tooter hated the invasive flower, but the other guy—Terrell had been his name—had sworn up and down they got five times as many crawfish now than they used to.

Of course, they’d both been drunk off their asses when the argument started. Half of the words they hurled at each other had barely been coherent. But hilarious too.

As Pryor steered them along a long, straight swathe of water, Elita took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of a summer-boiling swamp, and wondered again what she was going to do here besides live with Ma’man until she had enough money saved up for a place. With the repairs of that spell room, she’d be completely tapped out.

Her shoulders slumped and Pryor must have picked up on her mood because he put his hand on her thigh and squeezed gently.

“So, what is it you do, Elita? I know you can cook like a dream, but what else?”

“You mean when I’m not showing up uninvited at a strange man’s house to ask for help with a curse?” She turned to wink, but the wind picked that moment to pull half her hair out of the ponytail and it whipped about her head.

“I’m not so strange.”

She fought to pull her hair back, grinning. “Yeah, you kind of are.”

He smiled back.

“I like to read, like to garden. I have pretty simple tastes. Honestly, I mostly cook,” she admitted. “I love our food here, the mix of Creole and Cajun, that we’ve blended ingredients from all these cultures into some of the best dishes.” She held her hair so she could face him. “I love how important food is to the people here and I’d planned to take that affection for spicy meals and even spicier conversation north, but like I said, I won’t be leaving this time.” It was time to stop running.

“Tell me about your cousins.”

“Ava and Audrey? Ava is the youngest of us and usually lives here but she took off somewhere—probably to paint. That’s what she does. She’s got this way of looking at the world, like she sees it in a way the rest of us can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her work, it’s different. Different and so beautiful, it’ll make you stand and stare forever. But her colors are always off like she doesn’t see the same things we do. She’s also tiny. Slim and perfect. She can eat anything she wants and never gets any bigger.”

Elita hoped she didn’t sound like she was jealous. Yeah, for a time, she had been. When they’d been young, she wanted to be small like Ava, but she’d grown to like herself just the way she was. She liked to eat and worked off enough of it because she was on her feet long, long hours each day.

“Where’d you go?” Pryor broke into her thoughts.

“Just thinking about Ava and her sister. Audrey is a hoot. She’s got a mouth on her that gets her in trouble, even with Ma’man and that old woman’s mouth puts the shrimpers to shame. Plus, you don’t ever want to mess with her or anyone in her family. There used to be this old guy who lived near Ma’man.” Elita shuddered. “He was this nasty old man who liked to trip us, pretend to catch us, then feel us up. The last time he did it, he scared Ava pretty badly and I told Audrey I was going to tell Ma’man, but she said she’d already taken care of it. I don’t know what she told him, but whatever it was—that combined with the poison—did the trick.”

Pryor’s head whipped toward her. “Poison? He died?”

Chuckling, Elita shook her head. “Oh no, but after he got all that sweet flag out of his system, he probably wished he had. It worked. He didn’t bother us after that.”

“Sweet flag is on our list today. We use it in commanding oil. It’s good stuff.”

“Yeah, as long as you don’t ingest it the way he did.”

His laughter was loud that time. “Sounds like Audrey is one to keep an eye on. Though that guy deserved it.”

“Actually, she’s crazy sweet. Unless you mess with her or someone she loves.” Elita pulled more hair out of her face. The wind helped with the heat, but it was drying out her mouth, so she reached down to grab water out of their cooler. She took a long drink and held it up so Pryor could see. “Want one?”

That sexy crease slashed in his cheek as he winked, took her bottle and drank out of it before handing it back. “You sound like you’re close to them. I’m surprised you left and stayed gone as long as you did.”

She shrugged and looked away because now, the idea of running away from the curse seemed stupid. “Audrey took off too. Think I told you already, but she’s chasing down some guy she read about on the Internet.”

“So Ava is the one who stays and keeps an eye on your grandmother?”

A flash of guilt hit Elita and she knew he hadn’t meant for his question to make her feel that way. But she did. “Ma’man Raisonne is kind of a, how should I put this, a handful. Just getting her to keep her clothes on is a challenge. Woman thinks everyone should be allowed to be naked if they want.”

Pryor, one hand on the steering stick and the other still on her leg, threw his head back. Deep laughter spilled from his mouth again.

She grinned, suddenly wanting Pryor to meet her Ma’man more than anything.

Pryor choked off the laughter, steered the boat around a low-hanging tree limb and grinned at her. “I think I’d like her. Naked is good.”

“Then you’ll love Ma’man. If you ever go to her house, she’ll show you the
Ladies of the Bayou Nights
. The woman doesn’t have a book in her house but she has a box full of that awful calendar she posed naked for in the sixties.”

Pryor laughed even harder this time. “She sounds precious. Why do you call her that, by the way?”

“What, mother instead of grandmother? Everyone calls her that. She’s like the official mom down there. I’m surprised you’ve never stopped for food.”

“I’ve heard about her étouffée, actually. Heard there’s none like it anywhere.” He got this look. This really, really cute look that she knew could be the sort to get him anything he wanted. “You know how to make it?”

“I do, though she doesn’t know it. She thinks it’s her last secret recipe.” She frowned. “I was making that for you yesterday. Before the fire.” She remembered the mudbugs in the cooler and winced. There wasn’t much worse than the odor of rotten crawfish. She might not ever open that thing again.

Pryor patted her leg as he slowed the boat, steering it into a sort of nook filled with lots of low-hanging limbs and roots jutting out of the water. A cottonmouth basked in the sun on one of those limbs and she pointed. He nodded to let her know he’d seen it. “There’s a nice tangle of mugwort back in here.”

“Isn’t that stuff illegal now?”

He shrugged. “Not supposed to grow it for human consumption. Weeds don’t count.” He jumped off the boat. “This won’t take long so you can wait here if you want.”

“You do know that you can order most anything on the internet these days, right?” she called out as he thrashed through the thicket. She looked up to find a huge water turkey sitting on a stump and staring hard at her. She’d always thought the birds were pretty with their black and white feathers, their long, yellow, pointy beaks.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he yelled back. He scared an armadillo that come running her direction, then swerved fast to disappear in the underbrush.

Elita wiped at the sweat trickling down her thighs. “This is fun?” she muttered. “Wait until later when the mosquitoes come out.” At night, the carnivorous bugs made everything miserable while out on the water. Something splashed the water next to the boat and she leaned over in time to see a snake catching its fish dinner.

She did end up having a good time. Pryor knew the best places to find the plants on his list and that damned sexy grin when he pointed at a patch of sweet flag made her climb into his lap for a hot, sweaty kiss. She didn’t stay there because they would have fused together—and not in a good way. They spent hours collecting plants and storing them in a cooler he’d brought along. It went a long way to making her feel better. A little. She wouldn’t feel that much better until she got a renovation crew in there to fix those walls.

They went through a few shallow areas that made the boat bump up, then hit a part of the swamp with long, winding curves before Pryor slowed the boat into a narrow inlet with tons of trees on the sides. Sunlight fought to get through, streams of light occasionally blinding her.

“Brace yourself. That’s the LaBarre pier comin’ up.”

She held up her hand to block the next blast of sun and squinted ahead. “Are those deer antlers being used as hand rails?” Elita asked. “Did they not think that removing the pointy parts was a good idea?”

“They don’t like company and do everything they can to deter folks. They’re always worried about theft.” He pulled closer to the pointy dock. “Don’t trip and fall.”

“I don’t even want to step foot on that pier. I can spot rotted boards from here.”

“Wait until you see the rest of their property.”

Junkyard was the only description Elita could come up with, her mouth falling open as she took in the amount of
things
on the property. Cars in various stages of disassembly, barrels and animals. Real, stuffed animals that stared with beady, empty glass eyes.

“They’re taxidermists?”

Pryor nodded. “Among other things.”

She couldn’t stop looking around. “What did you say you could get here? Bastard seeds?”

Breath from his laugh brushed over the back of her neck as he leaned close. “West Indian Elm but some call the trees bastard cedars. They have some on their property. But uh, don’t say anything about any other plants you might recognize.”

She picked up on what he meant fast. “Out in plain sight? Really?”

“Not usually, but you never know with them. They have to make their money somehow. Neither have jobs that I know of. And um, don’t mention the gnomes either. They’re a little sensitive about them. Also, their family speaks predominantly French. With a twist.”

“So many rules,” she muttered as she turned a circle, trying to take it all in. Yes, there were gnomes. What had to be thousands of them in all shapes, sizes and colors—but mostly red. Why would anyone collect so many? But then, she’d never truly understood why anyone collected anything they didn’t actually use. What was the point of having all kinds of knickknacks you had to dust anyway? Not that anything here was dusted. Outside like this.

She turned and yelped when she came face to face with the yellow glass eyes of a stuffed egret mounted on a tall stump. Its spread wings and height on the wood made it seem as if it would swoop down any second and bite off her nose.

She was afraid to move for fear she’d knock something over and break it.

“Oh good,” Pryor murmured. “It’s the friendly brother. There are two and a sister. We can only hope the sister isn’t anywhere around. She’s scary.”

“Aborde pas icitte!”

She saw the rifle first. “He’s the friendly one?” Elita asked as her mouth fell open. She’d been expecting old and grizzled because of the unbelievable clutter. And the French. What she got was a romance cover model—if he had hair everywhere. Seriously, the man had a pelt on his bare chest, on his chin and the bare legs under his jean shorts probably had to be combed. His face was freaking gorgeous with these big, sleep-slanted, midnight blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and the black hair on his head waved all over like he’d just gotten out of bed.