Chapter 6 #3
Gisele straightened, dropped their hands and blinked. “I guess the spirits weren’t communing.” She shrugged. “Whatever. You two will figure it out together. I have to get back to the gift shop before Johnny starts cursing at customers.”
Amelie gave a shaky laugh. “I’m surprised you let that parrot stay in the shop. Doesn’t he offend your customers?”
Gisele chuckled. “Absolutely. I think that’s why they come back. Now, I came for a loaf of your bread, if you’ve had time to make some. Rafael asked for a club sandwich for lunch.”
“I have some.” Amelie rubbed her arms as she moved toward the bread wrapped in cellophane. She handed it to Gisele and stared at the woman. “You know you gave us a prediction, don’t you?”
Gisele’s eyebrows rose. “Did I?”
Amelie and Maurice nodded as one.
“Hmm,” Gisele said with a satisfied nod. “If you say I did, I guess I did.” She tucked the loaf of bread under her arm and handed Amelie a bill to pay.
Amelie pushed the money back at Gisele. “Consider it a peace-offering to the spirit. A request to go easy on us.”
Gisele pursed her lips. “Must’ve been a doozy of a message.”
“You don’t remember any of it?” Maurice remembered every word as if it had been seared into his brain.
“Not a word.” Her brow wrinkled. “Was it bad?”
Amelie rubbed her arms again. “It could be.”
“Definitely creepy,” Maurice added.
“I’m sure that, together, you will come through.” Gisele patted Amelie’s arm. “Be safe, my friend.” With the bread tucked under her arm, she floated out of the bakery, singing something that sounded like abracadabra.
Amelie’s gaze followed her friend out the door. “What do you suppose her words meant?” She turned to Maurice.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Do you remember what she said?”
He nodded and repeated Gisele’s prediction, word for word,
“Spirits be stirrin’,
Dark waters will rise.
Dance once with death
To reach the far side.
Through the dark night,
Let hope be your guide.
Trust your heart, cher—
For love will survive.”
Amelie shook her head, her brow creased. “What spirits?”
His eyebrow rose. “You believe all that Voodoo mumbo jumbo?”
“Whether you believe it or not, being forewarned means we can be forearmed. Think.” Amelie paced behind the counter. “Spirits be stirrin’. Like ghosts?”
When Maurice didn’t respond, Amelie glared at him. “Seriously. I’ve seen results from some of Gisele’s predictions, potions and spells.”
Maurice sighed and chose to participate in the riddle, even if he wasn’t convinced Voodoo was real. “Spirits could be the ghosts of the past.”
Her eyes met his. “Armand, Germaine and Celine Beno?t? Or Nazis?”
“Let’s go with Germaine and Celine Beno?t. They had a lot to lose, leaving their home in Paris.”
“Dark waters will rise.” Amelie chewed on her bottom lip, drawing Maurice’s attention to it, and making him want to kiss it.
He dragged his thoughts back to the riddle. “The bayou is full of dark water. It could rise in a storm.”
“Okay, sounds good,” Amelie said, nodding. “How about dance once with death?”
A heaviness settled in Maurice’s chest. He hadn’t liked this part of the prediction.
He’d danced with death and lost his fiancée in the process.
“Could it be someone will try to kill one of us?” Maurice asked, though he hated even saying the words.
If one of them was targeted, he prayed it would be him, not Amelie.
Or that he’d be able to save her this time.
“Or both?” Amelie suggested. “I know you’ll have my back. I’ll have yours as well.”
Maurice smiled at the image that rose in his mind of Amelie, a Valkyrie with her sword held high to protect her man.
Only he wasn’t her man.
That thought made his smile slip. She deserved a man worthy of her devotion. That wasn’t him.
“We’ll have to keep our eyes open for danger,” she said and touched his arm. “I’m glad I have you for protection.”
He hoped he lived up to her expectations. “Through the dark night, let hope be your guide. Whatever happens could be at night.”
“Maybe…” Amelie tilted her head. “Or it could be evil casting a dark pall on us, versus the literal darkness of night.”
Maurice nodded. “So, we can’t bank on danger occurring at night.”
“Trust your heart, cher—For love will survive,” Amelie said softly. “Whose love? The ghosts’? Armand’s love for his estranged wife? His love for his son?”
Maurice didn’t say it, but the thought sprang to his mind. Amelie.
Amelie would survive.
Another thought followed on the heels of that one. Would he fall in love with her? Would she fall in love with him?
Maurice reminded himself that the prediction was a bunch of voodoo nonsense. He wasn’t going to fall in love with Amelie. She wasn’t going to fall in love with him. Gisele didn’t have to worry that he would break Amelie’s heart.
Amelie scrubbed her hands down her face. “Between Mr. Schulz’s visit and Gisele’s ominous prophecy, I’m a little...” She wrapped her arms around her middle and shook her head.
“Freaked out? Unnerved? Disturbed?”
Her lips twitched and spread into a smile. “Hungry.”
Maurice barked out a laugh, the tension leaving the air. “What time do you close?”
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “In an hour.”
“What say you and I get some dinner at Tante Mimi’s diner?”
She nodded. “I have to prepare tomorrow’s dough and pastries before I leave.
Fortunately, the shop is closed. What I cook in the morning is for delivery to Broussard’s Country Store.
They sell my baked goods on Monday so that I can have the day off.
I can get started on tomorrow’s pastries. I can start that in between customers.”
Maurice glanced toward the front. “I can handle anyone coming in. Go. Do your thing. Just keep that back door locked.”
Rather than leave it up to chance, he followed her into the kitchen in the back and twisted the deadbolt, locking the back door to keep anyone from wandering in who didn’t belong.
He touched her cheek, loving that she was just as beautiful with her hair in a net as she was with it down. Though he could easily imagine it spread out across a pillowcase, her breasts bare, her hazel eyes dark with passion.
His cell phone chirped with an incoming text.
As he stood between the front of the shop and the kitchen, he glanced down at the text.
“It’s Swede. He says he’s identified the painting hanging over the mantel in the Beno?t home.” He looked up and met Amelie’s gaze. “It’s one of the paintings considered lost during WWII.” He paused. “It’s a Monet.”