Six

Where in the world was that infernal whistling coming from?

Theo continued to pound nails into the roof, patching places where the rain had once too often entered the little building. He’d been at it most of the morning and intended to keep going until he finished. Once the roof was in place, he could begin work inside the building.

Reaching for another nail from the pouch at his waist, Theo soon let his hands work at the task while his mind roamed. The Lord had been good to heal his papa right quick. Already he hobbled around with his leg bound up, and just yesterday he told Mama he was ready to see to his traps again.

Mama’d had a fit, of course, but soon she’d not be able to keep Papa sitting on the porch when he wanted to be out working. “A man has to work, Nellie,” Theo had heard his papa say that morning. “You take a man’s livelihood away, and he’s got nothing.”

As the screen door closed behind him, Theo heard his mama’s reply, “A man’s always got his family, Gaspard, and don’t you ever forget that, you hear?”

Theo smiled. Nellie and Gaspard Breaux bantered like children in a schoolyard sometimes, but no one who knew them doubted their love. Thirty years of marriage come this fall, and they still held hands.

Thirty years of daily routine, of too little money and too many mouths to feed, and yet they acted like theirs had been the easiest life imaginable. He shook his head.

Papa had come back from the war with a bright future. He’d made his plans to go east to the agricultural and mechanical college in Texas. He meant to build great things that would advance civilization.

Instead, he’d come home to the bayou to say good-bye to his mama and papa and ended up falling for Nellie Boudreaux, the pastor’s daughter who’d unaccountably blossomed into womanhood during his absence.

Nellie’s people were here, family with roots dug down so deep that uprooting them—and Nellie—would be unthinkable.

What in the world did a man have to do to find a woman worth giving up everything he held dear? He once asked his father that very question. His response had been characteristically vague: “I looked at Texas, I looked at Nellie, and I’ll tell you, Son, Nellie looked a whole lot better. And. . .” He paused as if to draw out the moment. Theo remembered watching Papa’s smile broaden then narrow as he pressed his lips into a thin line. Surely the next words out of Papa’s mouth would be words of wisdom.

“And?” Theo had asked, impatient as ever.

“And besides, signs pointed to a cold winter, and it was nigh on the fall.”

Mama had walked up during the middle of that statement and threatened to go after Papa with a rolling pin. Instead, the moment they thought Theo was out of sight, the pair had locked lips like newlyweds.

Theo banged another nail into the roof, then leaned back slightly on the old ladder to admire his handiwork. A neat row of shingles covered the place where a hole the size of a full-grown coon had been.

He thought about his own plans, important things to do that had been set aside for this trip to Latagnier. If he had his way, he planned to do just what he promised his papa all those years ago.

Canada. Yes, wouldn’t that be something? If the pastor hadn’t roped him into this repair job, he’d practically be packing his bags. Instead, he’d bought another month or so in Latagnier, paid for with good intention and plenty of persuasion on the part of the pastor and the elders, chief among them, Joe Trahan.

Again the whistling teased his ears. No bird sang like that, at least none he’d heard in Latagnier. Leaning over, he slammed the hammer atop a nail that hadn’t gone in to his liking.

There, that’s better.

If a man couldn’t be known for the quality of his work, well, what was the purpose of doing a job at all? It got all over him when he was called in to fix something that hadn’t been done right the first time. At least that was not the case here.

“Hello? Monsieur Breaux?”

What in the world? Theo dropped his hammer onto the roof, then managed to grab it before it slid out of his reach. He turned in time to see a woman in a yellow dress emerge from the thicket. As he moved, his feet slipped, and he reached for the roof. Failing to get a grip, he settled for holding on to the only solid thing he could latch onto—the ladder.

With his heart pumping furiously, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he returned his attention to the work he needed to do on the roof. Releasing the ladder with a shaking left hand, he wiped the perspiration from his brow.

He’d narrowly escaped disaster this time, and he still bore the bruises from their last encounter. What was it about the Trahan woman that invited disaster each time they met? If he ignored her, maybe she’d go away, and he could leave at the end of the day without doing himself—mind or body—further damage.

“Do be careful,” she called.

Several choice responses came to mind, but Mama had raised him better than to say any of them. Instead he settled for a brisk nod and a quick, “Sure will.”

Once again the crooked nail caught his attention. Somehow it didn’t look right anymore. He palmed the hammer and adjusted his position on the ladder. If he gave the troublesome nail a couple more hits, it would lie flat against the shingles like the others.

“That doesn’t look safe, sir.”

Theo jammed the hammer into his belt and cast a glance over his shoulder. She’d almost closed the distance between them, and she strolled along with a basket hanging from her elbow. The sight of her caused his mouth to go dry. If he didn’t find her so irritating, he just might find her. . .what?

Attractive? Noonday sun glinted off blue-black hair that hung in a thick braid reaching nearly to her waist. Yes, he did find her quite pretty.

So what?

Pretty girls were a dime a dozen. He’d seen his share and would most likely see a good number more before Jesus called him home. Canada probably had a whole slew of them just waiting for his arrival.

So what if a girl in yellow caught his eye?

He’d be gone in no time, and she’d just be a memory. Whether she was to be a good memory or a bad one remained to be seen.

Clothilde Trahan stood at the bottom of the ladder now, and he had to lean down to see her face. “How about I do my job and you go do yours, whatever that may be, eh?”

“I am doing my job.” She shaded her eyes and squinted up at him. “I’m going to be the teacher here, and this will be my school. As such, I felt I should come see how you were getting along.”

“Your uncle and the pastor agreed to this? To you being the new teacher, that is.”

She dropped her hand and looked away. “They will.”

Theo chuckled. “That’s what I thought. You’re no more the teacher here than I am.”

He whirled back around, using his left hand to steady himself as he stretched to reach the crooked nail once more. Realizing too late that he’d wiped his brow only moments before, he scrambled to keep his damp fingers wrapped around the wooden bar.

In a valiant effort to keep from sliding down the ladder, he dove for the safety of the roof. Had he been a smaller man, this might have been a good move. Unfortunately, he took after his papa’s side of the family.

His last thought before crashing through the roof was that whatever happened, it would all be the Trahan woman’s fault.

❧

Cleo dropped the egg basket and picked up her skirts, hurdling over the fallen ladder to reach the newly repaired porch steps. Throwing open the door, she stepped inside the semidarkness. The room smelled old and musty, and dust threatened to choke her. Obviously the carpenter’s work inside had not yet commenced.

“Monsieur Breaux?”

No answer.

The cabin had been laid out in a rabbit warren of rooms, and she now stood in what remained of the largest of them. Several odd pieces of furniture—a chair here, a small table there—had been stacked into a corner, remnants of her grandmother’s years living in the building.

Ahead she could see threads of light spilling around a door not quite plumb on its hinges. From memory, she knew the area where the carpenter had fallen through would be the small front room on her right. Long ago, the space had served as a formal parlor. In more recent years, it had been the sickroom for Grandmother Trahan.

Making her way carefully around the corner and into the hallway, she stopped short at the scene unfolding before her. A brilliant shaft of light illuminated the shadowed room as if heaven itself had opened up in just one small spot. At the center of the spotlight, surrounded by a fine mist of dust, sat Theophile Breaux.