Bayou Beauty (Butterfly Bayou, Band 4) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lexi Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of over seventy titles. She lives in North Texas with her family and two of the most adorable rescue dogs ever. She's a big-city girl who married a small-town boy and loves visiting his hometown. Except when the bears show up on the porch.

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chapter one

Papillon, Louisiana

Sylvie Martine sat in the small conference room and reflected on her life choices. It was barely noon, but it had already been a long day.

"He had no right to do what he did," Leonard Denmore said, anger in his tone. "That was my friend he evicted. And with no cause."

Justin Hardy's eyes narrowed. "I had plenty of cause. Let's talk about your friend trashing my property. Have you even read the lease you signed?"

"I signed that for your daddy, who would never, ever have forcibly evicted a good friend," Leonard retorted.

They continued on, but the world had sort of faded into the background because she had bigger problems, and they all had to do with the upcoming wedding of her best friend's brother. Seraphina Jefferys was one of her two best friends in the world. Her younger brother, Zep, was getting married in less than two months, and Sylvie didn't have a dress or a date. How many weddings had she been to since she graduated from college? Seven. She'd been to seven weddings. She'd been a bridesmaid four times. She hadn't even come close to putting on a wedding dress, hadn't gotten a hint of an engagement ring. And Zep Guidry . . . Papillon's player, never-kiss-the-same-girl-twice . . . was getting married.

Sylvie was facing down thirty. All her friends were married and having babies and building their families and she . . . she was stuck.

"You still have to do things right," Leonard insisted. "There are protocols for eviction. I should have been able to hire an attorney."

"Like you have money for an attorney," Justin replied with a huff. "You can barely pay your rent. You're lucky I'm not trying to evict you."

People were starting to notice. If she'd stayed in DC, she would be just one more ambitious woman trying to make her way in the world. No one would question her single status. In fact, they would consider her young to think about settling down. Here in Papillon, she was practically an old maid.

Which shouldn't matter. But it did.

Sometimes she wondered if she should run. Pack a bag, catch a plane, and disappear. Her momma would worry, but she could send her a postcard every now and then, letting her know she was all right and sane.

"How am I supposed to present a raccoon with an eviction notice? It can't read," Justin replied. "I would love to see you get that raccoon a lawyer. That would go over great with the judge. Although, who knows, maybe you people have raccoon court. It wouldn't shock me."

Sane was important. Sane would be nice. Sane was hard to find here in Papillon. Somewhere outside this little bayou town, there was a whole world where mayors were respected figures who were far more likely to deal with the press than to be forced to handle a conflict between a landlord and a tenant over a raccoon.

Come home, they'd said. Take over the mayor's office. It'll be easy, they'd all told her. It's mostly ceremonial.

No one had talked to the citizens of Papillon about that, and it wasn't like any of them would Google the word mayor and learn what a mayor's actual duties were. They kind of treated her like a queen on a throne dispensing justice. But without any power at all. No crown for Sylvie.

Just endless meetings with citizens who all thought their problem needed to be solved immediately, but with absolutely no logical solutions at hand.

She'd taken to having this biweekly meeting where citizens could bring concerns to the mayor's office. They only had city council meetings every six weeks, so she'd thought it would be great to have listening meetings with the citizenry. She'd envisioned herself truly communicating with the citizens and coming up with innovative plans to help out her hometown. At the time she'd been ready to show them all what she could bring to the table by having big conversations.

Nope. It was mostly complaints. She'd once listened to an entire group of protesters upset over Dixie's Café changing their pancake recipe.

She'd gone to Tulane for this.

"Leonard, you have to see that you can't keep a raccoon as a pet," she began.

Leonard was eighty-three and stubborn as the day was long. He'd also lost his wife of fifty-two years six months before. Sylvie felt a deep well of compassion for the man.

"Brian is not a pet," Leonard corrected. "He's a friend."

"He's a potential source of rabies." Justin owned the fourplex where Leonard lived. He also lived in one of the units. He'd recently inherited the property from his father and moved to Papillon to take over running the business. His father had been in the community for years, but Justin had rarely visited and didn't seem to be fitting in. "I'm honestly not sure it doesn't have rabies now. It threw grapes at me. And they were half eaten. I was perfectly in my rights to have it removed."

"He was defending his home," Leonard insisted.

"It's my property. I own it. His home should be in the woods," Justin shot back.

She'd thought she'd get to hear about real problems-things like how the parish still hadn't fully recovered from the last hurricane, and shouldn't city hall do something about that? Nope. She got to hear about raccoons and how Otis was scaring the tourists. Otis was the town's most famous alligator. Her town had a pet alligator. Should it be so surprising that Leonard wanted his raccoon friend treated fairly?

She'd been home too long.

"But I don't want him gone." Leonard sat back with a lost look on his face. "Did you already kill him?"

Sylvie sighed because if there was one thing she'd learned from being the mayor of Papillon, it was that no matter how silly the problem seemed, it meant something to someone. Wasn't that what her mother had tried to teach her? Her mother ran the local beauty salon, and it was a universally acknowledged truth that half a beautician's job was to listen.

Leonard was lonely. He didn't have family around him. It wasn't the mayor's job to take care of him, but it was Sylvie's. She was more than a mayor. She was human, and that meant taking care of someone in need.

That was one lesson she hadn't learned from Tulane. Papillon had taught her that.

"I didn't kill it." Justin was frowning as though realizing the situation was more serious than he'd thought before. "I called animal services."

Well, that told her one thing. "Zep Guidry wouldn't put down an animal unless it was extremely sick or dangerous. We can call him and have a talk about how he's going to deal with the . . . with your friend."

If she'd done one right thing since taking this job, it was to put her best friend's brother to work. A few months before, she'd taken the advice of Deputy Roxie King and allowed a new department to be formed with Zep at the head. It had cut down on the sheriff's department having to deal with animal calls. Zep had proven to be an excellent public servant, and the folks around town trusted him.

Leonard's eyes suddenly had some fire back in them. "Yeah, Zep's always been a good fellow. He wouldn't up and murder an innocent animal. Not like this guy." He stood. "I'll go down and talk to him about getting Brian somewhere safe." He frowned Justin's way. "Since his own home ain't safe for him anymore."

Leonard strode out of the room.

Justin turned to Sylvie, a look of complete shock on his face. "What was I supposed to do? I asked him to get rid of the raccoon five times. It's not sanitary. And it's nocturnal. The other neighbors were complaining about the noises it made at night. I didn't rush in and pull it from his arms like I was taking someone's baby."

"His wife died before you took over the complex. He's lonely and he's stubborn. I'll call down and let Zep know he's got a visitor on the way," Sylvie...