Welcome to Temptation: A Romantic Comedy (2 page)

Reba’s smile drooped, and her look turned serious. “He probably would have walked away had somebody not attacked his mama and stolen her purse. She fought back and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. It was pretty scary, shook Gator up something fierce. You never know what to expect with a concussion, but I don’t have to tell
you
that.”

“Is she okay?”

“She healed up real good, but let me tell you what —” Reba paused and looked at the ceiling. “Once she was out of danger, Gator went on a manhunt. He headed straight for the pool hall, and when the owner refused to unlock the door—I reckon he knew Gator was out for blood—Gator kicked it in. The owner told Gator that the man who robbed his mama did not know who she was at the time of the robbery, but once he found out he left town. Just picked up in the middle of the night and took off.”

“Smart guy,” Michelle said.

“Yes, indeed. No telling what Gator would have done to him. Gator closed down the pool hall. ‘Course, the owner has friends in high places so he was back in business in a couple of days. But don’t think he don’t know that Gator is watching his every move. Just watching and waiting. Soon as somebody messes up, Gator is going to be on them like white on rice, as my mama used to say.”

Michelle shook her head. Gator Landry was one of the last people she’d have expected to run into after all these years. Of course, it was bound to happen sooner or later in a town the size of Temptation, where almost everybody was related by blood or marriage. “Why do you suppose he’s here?” Michelle asked, watching the man in a bright yellow slicker tie his boat securely to the small pier at the back of Reba’s house, no easy task now that the wind had picked up. Even from a distance she could tell that his chest and shoulders had broadened over the years.

Reba gave a grunt. “He’s gonna try and make me leave, that’s what. But I ain’t budgin’.” Reba threw open the back door and leaned out. “Get in this house, Gator!” she yelled, obviously trying to make herself heard above the wind and rain. “You gonna drown out there in that weather.”

For a moment, the only sound Michelle heard other than the wind was her own heartbeat. She chided herself for the attack of nerves. Heavens, she and Gator had been mere teenagers the last time they’d seen each other. He probably would not remember her.

Gator climbed the steps to the back porch and paused, shrugging out of his rain gear before he joined Reba inside. He gave her a hug, then glanced Michelle’s way. His hair and eyes were still black as crows’ feathers, only she saw the whites of his eyes were bloodshot. His jaw was scruffy and the clothes he wore disheveled, as though he’d slept in them. He turned his gaze back to Reba. Michelle was relieved that he had not recognized her.

“I guess you heard the storm turned on us,” he said, his deep voice seasoned with an accent that was uniquely Cajun. “I have to get you out of here. We’re settin’ up shelters in town.”

“I’m not going, Gator,” Reba said, hitching her chin stubbornly. “You know they won’t let me bring my animals into those shelters, and I refuse to leave them defenseless. Besides, my granddaughter will take care of me.”

Gator glanced Michelle’s way once again, only this time he paused. Their gazes collided. For a moment, they merely stared at each other, and the silence that followed was as deafening as the wind and rain outside. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone almost accusing.

His abrupt manner surprised her. So he did remember her, Michelle told herself, giving none of her own thoughts away in her cool appraisal. The years had been good to him. He was still handsome in a rough-around-the-edges sort of way. Perhaps
striking
was a better word. His nose and mouth were a bit pronounced, an indication of his heritage, but while those same features might appear unsightly on another man’s face, they added character to his.

Michelle suddenly found her voice. “Hello, Gator,” she said. “I thought my grandmother might need me … what with the storm coming and all.”

“You two shouldn’t be here,” he said. “This storm is right on our tails now. I’ve got to get you to safety. Everyone else has already evacuated or sought shelter.”

“That’s what I’ve been preaching since I arrived,” Michelle said. “To no avail,” she added.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Reba said. Gator and Michelle suddenly looked her way, as though they’d forgotten she was in the room. “Besides, I ain’t scared of no storm,” Reba added, crossing her wiry arms over her bosom.

Gator sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his dark hair. Damn, but his head hurt. He probably had the worst hangover of his life. This storm was the last thing he needed. “Now, Reba, don’t put up a fuss,” he said. “When this hurricane hits it’s going to rip this place apart, and you won’t be able to help yourself, much less those animals. Come get in the boat before it fills up with water and sinks.”

“I ain’t goin’, Gator, and that’s final.” Reba marched over to her rocking chair and sat down stiffly. Her look was unyielding.

“Then I’m going to pick you up and haul you out to the boat, chair and all,” he said, his look as ominous as the approaching storm.

Reba gripped the arms of the chair. “And I’ll kick and scream this house down over our heads,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” Gator planted his hands on his hips and glared at the woman.

She fixed him with a stubborn gaze. “Yeah.”

Michelle looked from one to the other. Watching them interact would have been amusing had the circumstances not been so dire. Her grandmother was a tiny figure compared to Gator’s six-foot-plus frame. The khaki-colored shirt he wore strained against his wide chest, upon which a gold sheriff’s badge had been pinned. His faded jeans molded to his thighs and calves like a leather glove. She saw no sign of a gun, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t armed. He was certainly different from the men she worked with, who wore neat slacks and crisp white lab coats.

Reba gave a harrumph. “You wouldn’t shoot an old lady.”

“Don’t count on it,” he said.

“Let her be,” Michelle said.

One pair of black eyes snapped up in surprise as Michelle closed the distance between herself and Gator. She had never forgotten those onyx eyes. They could pierce a stone wall and turn a woman’s knees to gelatin at the same time.

“You can’t force her to go with you,” Michelle said, “and all the threats in the world aren’t going to change her mind.”

Despite his ever-souring mood, Gator looked amused. “Aw, Reba knows I won’t really shoot her,” he said. “I could just give her a good pistol whipping.”

“I’ll stay with her.”

His look turned to disbelief. Michelle Thurston hadn’t lost her spunk, thank goodness, but what she was suggesting was shear lunacy. “
You’re
going to ride out the storm with Reba?” he asked.

“We’ve ridden out more than one storm in this old house.”

“Perhaps you haven’t heard how big this thing is,” Gator replied.

“I’ve been listening to weather reports.”

He looked about. “Well, then, I take it you have all the supplies you need?”

Michelle did not respond. She had not brought supplies because she’d had no intention of staying. She had planned to help her grandmother pack a few things and hit the road. “I was in the process of getting things together when you showed up.” Michelle preferred lying to him than appearing foolish. “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she said. “In the meantime, you’re probably needed in town.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” He did not wait for her to reply. “You know, if I weren’t such a nice guy, I could handcuff the two of you and haul you to jail for not following evacuation orders.”

“Really?” Michelle folded her arms in front of her. “And I could probably call this attorney I know and have you kicked out of office.”

“You would do that for me?” Gator asked, sounding delighted. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”

“Now, now, children,” Reba admonished gently. “Let’s don’t bicker. We’re just tense because of the storm.” She pulled herself out of her rocker. “Come on in the kitchen, Gator, and let me give you something to eat. You look awful. You must’ve had a late night.”

“Don’t go trying to change the subject on me, Reba.” He followed her into the next room. “But I will take a glass of tomato juice if you have it. And a couple of aspirin,” he added.

Michelle stood there dumbfounded. She followed them and watched from the kitchen door as Gator accepted the aspirin and washed it down with a tall glass of tomato juice.

“I don’t believe this,” she said. “You have a hangover. No wonder your eyes are so bloodshot. You look as though you just crawled out of some woman’s bed. Is that a hickey on your neck, for heaven’s sake?”

“Michelle!” Reba said. “That is no way to treat a guest.”

Gator set his empty glass on the kitchen table and faced Michelle, clearly annoyed. “It’s nobody’s business how I spend my Saturday nights. Now, could we stop harping on my personal life and get the hell out of here? I don’t have all day.”

When Reba spoke, she was adamant. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you, Gator: I ain’t going.”

He regarded the older woman for a moment. “If you won’t think about yourself, think about your granddaughter. Are you willing to put her life in danger as well?”

Reba was clearly shaken at the thought. She had obviously been so wrapped up in saving the lives of her pets that she hadn’t considered Michelle
or
herself. Her face crumpled and sudden tears filled her eyes. “Then make her go with you, Gator.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Grand,” Michelle said. “I’m not leaving you.” She took one spindly hand in her own. “We’ll be okay,” she told the woman, sounding a lot braver than she felt; but she had to admit, in all honesty, if the tables were turned and someone told her she would have to leave her pets behind, she wouldn’t have been able to do it either.

Gator looked from one woman to the other. It was obvious Michelle was trying to get rid of him. Impatience and anxiety were written all over her pretty face and magnified in those emerald green eyes. Lord, those eyes! He could see forever when he looked into them. And that hair. It was just as he remembered, yellow with just a hint of red, a color that emphasized her rosy, unblemished complexion. He could still remember how silky it felt against his bare chest. Aw, damn, he thought. That was the last thing he needed to think about.

Gator shoved his thoughts aside. He had to concentrate on protecting them. He was the sheriff, it was his duty. It didn’t matter, at least for the time being, that he didn’t want the job, had
never
wanted the job, for that matter. Until he found somebody capable of taking his place, it was his responsibility.
They
were his responsibility.

Gator muttered a string of four-letter words under his breath as he considered the situation. He finally gave a huge sigh. “Okay, Reba, we’ll do it your way,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any extra plywood lying around? Or is that too much to hope for?”

The abrupt change of subject surprised both women. “I reckon there’s some under the house,” Reba said. “No telling how long it has been under there. Why?”

“I’m going to have to board up these windows,” he said, motioning to the large plate-glass windows that dominated the back of the house, “as well as other larger-sized ones, especially on the first floor. A strong wind could shatter the glass or toss something right through it.” He gave an inward sigh. Nothing like waiting till the damn storm was right on your butt to start taking precautions, he thought as he stepped out onto the porch and pulled on his boots and slicker. He looked at Michelle standing in the doorway. “See if you can find me a hammer and nails.”

“You’re staying?” she said in disbelief, knowing he probably had a long list of things to do in town.

“I’m sure as hell not leaving the two of you out here alone,” he said, already heading toward the back steps.

Michelle watched him go. “I should have known something like this was going to happen,” she said to her grandmother. “Better tell me where the hammer is. I don’t think we’re going to get rid of him.”

Gator found the plywood stacked neatly under the back of the house. He muttered another string of curses when he realized he’d have to crawl a good distance to reach it. He grunted in frustration as he dropped to his belly and shimmied beneath the house toward the stack of plywood. Why had he let them pin that badge to him in the first place, he asked himself, not for the first time. Hadn’t he paid his dues where hard work was concerned? Lord, he’d sweated in those sugar cane fields for ten years before he’d turned a profit. He’d gone without material things, had learned to live on next to nothing, just to put every dime back into the crop. And it had paid off.

He could afford to live anywhere he desired. He no longer had to deny himself life’s simplest pleasures. He would answer to no one, nor try to prove himself. He could give his mother a better life, pay someone to do the chores she was finding increasingly difficult, and if she became ill he could afford any doctor. He could do for her those things that his father, despite his high opinion of himself, could not have done.

Then a bunch of old fools had gone behind his back and elected him sheriff.

Of course, he would keep the job until he found out who’d beat up his mother, just in case the person had not left town and was only laying low for a while. Once he took care of that piece of business, and he
would
take care of it, he’d resign and be done with it.

But first he had to get through this emergency. It was a massive bump in the road he hadn’t expected, but despite being irritated as hell, he had to take care of Reba. Not to mention that granddaughter of hers who obviously thought herself too good for the likes of him. The young lady must have a short memory, he thought. There was a time, when, had he put forth a little more effort, he could have had her right where he wanted. He wondered if Michelle had ever stopped long enough to consider it.

Had he gone after her that night … but he hadn’t. At sixteen, she’d been too fresh and too new, a tiny bud about to bloom. She’d made him think of everything that was good and decent, and at eighteen years old he had nothing to offer. She had more living and more learning to do before someone took that from her, and, although someone surely would, he wouldn’t be that person.