Chapter 8
Stories on the Bayou
Rocco
My wife was quiet, staring out the window, as I drove the SUV to Eva and Gabriel’s home along the bayou.
Guido and his wife, Lourdes Maria Goretti, were speaking in hushed tones in the back seat.
My wife grinned when she heard Lourdes mention that she did not particularly care for the size of the bugs on the bayou.
Lourdes had gone to war with them each time she visited Eva and Gabriel.
These solider-sized insects seemed bigger to her than hummingbirds.
Lourdes could deal with the mutant rats on the subway in New York, but she could not deal with “biting crawlies” with wings.
Lourdes waved a hand. “I’ll see if Scarlett has a bottle of bug spray when we get there.”
“No problem, Lou!” My wife dug in her sizable purse and pulled out a bottle.
“I’m from the city. I don’t do the size of the bayou bugs either.
I went on a field trip to Bayou Teche once.
It was for Louisiana history in the eighth grade.
My Nonno was one of the chaperones. He didn’t like them either.
And I’m pretty sure he taught a bunch of kids how to curse in Italian that day.
” She gave a quick laugh. “Yeah, we’re going to stink, but it’ll be worth it. ”
“I love when a woman comes prepared!” Lourdes said, as serious as if she were taking an oath.
My wife turned around, and they slapped hands.
Guido grinned at me through the mirror. The men all seemed to accept my wife, accepted her for the queen she was. Bene. I did not have to decapitate any of them and bring the severed head to her on a silver platter.
Guido’s eyes turned serious when mine did.
Perhaps he was not thinking the exact same thought, but his thoughts were following mine to a certain degree: Francesco Fausti and his hunger to become the next leader of the Fausti family.
The letters we found in my wife’s grandmother’s belongings would perhaps start a war between his faction of the family and mine.
Francesco had made a public display for my wife, while she was still my intended, on our private island in the Mediterranean.
To the Fausti family, this place was considered neutral ground.
No blood was allowed to be shed on it. One droplet of his, after I stuck a knife to his throat, and my life would have been over.
My back straightened even further, my grip on the wheel became even tighter, and my heart pumped faster, a rush of pride surging through my veins at the thought of bloodshed in her honor.
My wife was anxious about the letters, but I was ready to prove to my family that the challenge my great-uncles had started over my wife’s great-aunt was going to end with my wife and I.
If Francesco wanted a war with me.
I welcomed it.
I would end him.
My wife glanced at me from the side of her eye.
I lifted her hand to my mouth, and the cadence of her pulse thrummed as if she was a bird preparing for the hunter.
It often shocked me how connected we were.
I was not accustomed to a woman knowing me as well as she did.
I could not hide from her, and without a doubt, she could not hide from me. She knew my thoughts.
A surge of pride, or perhaps love, rushed through my chest once more, even more powerful than the thought of bloodshed, when I thought of this woman knowing me as well as she did already. If I moved, she moved, and when she moved, I moved. It was as if we were two bodies working as one.
My wife cleared her throat and asked Lourdes how long it had been since the last time she and Guido had visited Eva and Gabriel in St. Martinville.
My wife and Lourdes discussed this until I turned the SUV into the driveway of the Roberts’ home.
Numerous cars were parked in front, and I found a spot next to Brando and Scarlett’s vehicle.
My brother gave me a nod when I stepped out, and I gave him a nod in return.
He was removing all the food Scarlett had cooked to bring to the party.
He grinned at me when I began doing the same. My wife had cooked enough for an army.
Scarlett grabbed Amora by the arms. “Ari! I had no idea you were cooking all of this!” Scarlett gave me a sly look from the side of her eye. It was almost stern.
My wife caught it. “What?” She looked between us.
I held my hands up, then grabbed for a platter of food.
Scarlett shrugged. “Rocco should’ve warned you that Eva would have tons of food.”
My wife eyed all the things Scarlett made and then looked her in the eye. “You brought a ton too!”
Scarlett exploded with laughter. “Yeah, but…I have issues.”
My brother laughed, all raspy and low, and pulling his wife in, kissed her cheek. “Only with teeth brushing, baby.”
I grinned. “My wife could not be stopped.”
She squeezed my arm, a look passing between the two of us. She had stopped cooking once I entered the kitchen, and we made love until it was time for her to get dressed for this occasion.
Lourdes slapped at her arm. “Hand over that spray, girl!” She held her palm out to Amora. “They love my blood and are about to carry me off already.”
The air smelled of repellent as we walked through the humid heat to the back of the house.
The entire lawn was filled with people. Music, laughter, and conversation all mixed, along with the scents of spices floating in the air.
Greetings were done, and once I delivered the last platter of my wife’s food, I took a slice of her famous focaccia bread and watched as a few of the women enveloped her in welcome.
It hit me repeatedly, as strong as fate’s punch…
she is mine. No matter how many times my eyes found her, the feeling of her would not ever grow old.
When she walked into a room, my breath would catch forevermore.
She was created for me, and for the first time in my entire life, I understood how it felt to be the luckiest man in the world.
I was finally fulfilling my surname’s meanings.
Luck. Auspicious. Favorable.
My wife turned to face me, and only a few steps existed between her body and mine.
Our eyes held, and she ran her hands up and down her arms, although summer lingered in the air and she was standing in a pool of bright sunlight.
Perhaps my eyes beckoned her to me, because without a word, she began taking steps in my direction.
My eyes devoured her—so full of life; so full of light.
She wore a sleeveless purple top, cutoff shorts, and gold thongs on her feet. Her long, thick, wavy brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail that fell to her lower back. Her eyes were covered in sunglasses, but behind their dark exterior, I knew all the secrets her hazel eyes kept.
All of mine.
This woman, this woman made a ruler out of a king.
She was my secret keeper.
My heart keeper.
I no longer carried the entire weight of being the next in line to rule the Fausti family. With her beside me, I was made whole.
“Hi, my love,” she whispered when she was close enough. “Enjoying the food?”
“Yours will be the only food I eat.” I leaned down and kissed her slowly, softly, reverently, returning all the love I tasted in her manna.
Her eyes closed, and after she composed herself, a slight smile spread across her face. “Is that why you didn’t stop me from cooking?”
I touched her chin and grinned. “This, and all the flavors tasted even better on your skin.”
She said nothing as I took her hand, leading her toward a few wooden boats anchored close to the bank.
I had learned that “pirogues” was the proper term for them.
Eva waved us off after I helped my wife out of her thongs and into a pair of purple boots with her name on them.
She sat a wide hat on her head as I pushed away from shore and toward the deeper parts of Bayou Teche.
She smiled at me, as bright as the sun. “Eva thought of everything.” She tapped the boots and the hat.
“You admire her.”
She nodded. “When I was younger…she guided me. She noticed that I was…different, like her, I mean. Her gift, as she calls it, is similar to mine. It was nice to have someone who understood.”
“The same as the sister of my heart.”
“Yeah, it seems like this gift is not so uncommon.” She fiddled with the fishing poles resting against the wood. “Or...maybe it’s that we’re all drawn to each other. I never thought about it that way before.”
“Perhaps it is the same as my family, but also different. What I mean by this is that we all belong to the family, were designed to be a part of it. Instead of us having to find each other, we were born to each other. Whereas your gift attracts one to another.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “That’s something I can believe.”
“You were designed for me, Vita Mia.”
“That’s something I believed the moment I saw you. That’s something I’ll believe in for the rest of my life.”
I barely got the one word out. “Bene.”
She smiled at me again. “Have you done this before? Fish the bayou, I mean?”
One nod. “This will be my first time with a partner.”
“This will be my first time at all.”
My smile and hers came slow. Then she began to laugh, the musical sound echoing through the cypress trees, capturing a piece of it for always. I wanted to live in those trees when I died, only to be close to the sound of it.
“I didn’t know fishing was a two-person deal, but…let’s do this.” She held her hand up and I set mine against hers, wrapping my fingers around her entire small hand. A hand that was so powerful in my life, if she requested my beating heart for a debt owed, I would open my chest and offer it to her.