Bartered Bride Romance Collection (8 page)

J
osée cut her loaves of bread at the serving table and felt like her heart had been cut into slices as well. She closed her eyes, trying to forget the sight of Edouard with Celine under the tree. Josée was the one who had hoped to find her husband outside for a moment.

If Mama LeBlanc or Jeanne had noticed her expression, she could not tell. She managed her brightest smile while the women served the meal. She could not bear to look at Edouard. Nor could she stop glancing at Celine. Josée wanted to cross the distance between them and rip the woman’s hair out. However, such an act would displease le bon Dieu. Celine would pay the price in her own way, and Josée would not pay with her own bitterness.

She had not known loving someone would cause her to want to behave in such a way. Her heart swelled as she at last let herself look at Edouard, already seated between Josef and Simon Landry. One of them said something, and Edouard appeared to chuckle.

Josée clamped her lips together. He was having fun, and she was here only taking up space. Her stomach complained, but she did not think she could eat. Neither could she breathe after the room had filled with villagers. The air felt thick after the many dances throughout the evening.

She leaned over and whispered to Jeanne. “I’m going outside.”

“Why? The rain comes.”

Josée reached for her shawl and put it around her shoulders. “I do not feel well, and the fresh air should help me.” She reached for a nearby lantern.

“I’ll get Edouard if you want.”

“No!” Josée touched Jeanne’s arm with her free hand. “I do not want to speak with him right now.” She did not want to continue the conversation they’d had earlier. Not until they were back in the cabin, anyway.

“Are you sure?” Jeanne’s forehead wrinkled.

Josée nodded. “I … I’m not very happy with him tonight.” She slipped through the crowd and paused at the doorway. Edouard looked toward the serving tables. When he turned back to face Josef, he wore a frown. Josée stepped into the night. If anyone saw her, maybe they would think she was headed for the outhouse. She covered her hair with the shawl and inhaled, the air thick with the promise of rain. The falling rain would mask her tears très bien.

When Josée crossed the yard where the animals stood hitched, a clap of thunder made her jump, but she continued walking. The teams of horses and mules pulled on their leads and one nearly trampled Josée’s foot.

“Whoa.” She patted the mule’s neck and quickened her steps.

Raindrops hit the muddy road that wound to the edge of La Manque and eventually crossed Breaux’s Bridge. Josée pictured the LeBlanc cabin, waiting for her. When she made it to the cabin, she would build a fire and start the coffee and wrap herself up in their big blanket. She would have her cry, write down more recipes in Capucine’s journal, and wait for Edouard.

Another boom shook the ground, and Josée started to run. The lantern in her hand made wild arcs of light in the darkness. Yet she was not going back to the common house. She could not. She would make it home, even though the rain would soak her through.

Breaux’s Bridge lay ahead of her, outside the circle of lantern light. The cold wet surface, slick with mud from the crossing wagons, would be hard to tread. Josée leaned into a fresh gust of wind and winced at the stinging rain. She took a few hesitant steps onto the bridge, her feet slipping on the mud. The overflowing bayou roared below her.

A rumble from behind made Josée stop and grab the thin railing. Hoofbeats on mud and the rattle of a wagon. Josée skittered like one of the LeBlanc’s young foals trying to stand. She hit her knees, and the lantern rolled away from her reach.

Josée squinted back in the dark. “
Arret
—wait, I’m on the bridge!”

The wagon did not slow. It hugged the bridge’s rail. Josée knew she could not make it to the other side of the bridge without being struck. She scrambled to the edge and squatted near the railing. Rain soaked her hair and ran down her neck. Somehow her shawl had slipped from her shoulders.

Lightning flashed. The team of horses barreled onto the bridge. Their reins dangled, without a driver on the wagon seat. Josée reached up to grip the railing. The wooden planks shook as if a giant hand jerked the bridge. Her feet slid out from under her. Her fingers lost their hold.

She fell into empty space, and the roaring water rushed up at her.

A crack of thunder shook the common house. Edouard glanced to the serving table where the women were packing up the food. Where was Josée?

He should have turned and left the moment he had seen Celine under that tree. Now he was faced with waiting until his wife’s anger cooled enough for her to listen to him. He knew a tirade would come, one that he did not deserve completely.

Like a thunderclap, the realization that she loved him jolted him to the core.

“Ed–dee, we are leaving.” Papa put on his hat. “The storm is going to be bad—Simon Breaux’s team already ran out of here like their tails were on fire.”

“Oui, I must find Josée.” Edouard began to search the room. No one had seen her.

Then Jeanne offered, “She told me she was goin’ outside. She was unwell.”

Edouard moved through the crowd leaving the building. He didn’t ask why she did not come to him. He would have taken her home had she not felt well. Women, as mysterious as the dark bayou. And he knew the bayou much better.

Wind yanked at his shirt, and the pelting rain stung his freshly shaven cheeks. He borrowed a lantern and searched the grounds. After most of the families of La Manque had left the common house, he could see Josée was not among any of the wagons nor under any of the cypress. He also found the outhouse empty. Papa, Jacques, and Josef Landry joined the search.

Simon Breaux returned with his team. “I caught these rascals on the other side of the Teche and found this on the bridge. Whose are these?”

He held up a lantern and a muddy shawl.

Edouard felt his stomach drop into his feet.

Josée surfaced, flailing her arms in the darkness. The cold of the bayou water, fed by fresh rain, sucked the breath from her lungs. As the current dragged her along, Josée felt as if an unseen force had her in its grip. She could not see the banks, the trees, or worse, anything in the water with her. Closing her eyes made no difference. The darkness remained unchanged. She tried to find the bottom with her feet, but her skirt twisted around her legs like a funeral shroud. Her efforts at kicking were futile. She fought down panic yet screamed.

A flicker of light from the bridge gave her hope. “Help me! Please!”

The light grew smaller as the bayou pulled on her, along with the shrinking hope that she might be heard as she fought against the current. The beating rain numbed her head and shoulders above the water. Her teeth chattered.

Wind howled through the trees and carried a hint of an old song.
“Watch
, petite enfants,
for the teche of the bayou. He will come to find you if you don’t watch out.”

The stories told around the fire when she was a child hissed in Josée’s ears.
Please let the gators stay in their warm hideaways deep underwater, and let the teche sleep through the rains
. The natives considered the teche sacred, but Josée shuddered at the slithering way they moved and their narrow eyes.

Something hard bumped against her, and Josée screamed again. She reached out, unsure if it was friend or foe. The something turned out to be a chunk of wood not much larger than the top of her footstool. She clung to it and leaned her cheek on its solid surface and floated to give her legs and arms a rest.

The glow from a cabin’s window pierced the inky night. Josée let go of the wood so she could kick through the water toward the light. An undercurrent tugged at her dress again, and she ended up farther away from the light, probably back in the center of the bayou. She shouted for help again. No one came to the window. If she could get close enough to grab one of the knobby knees of the cypress or a hanging frond of moss, she might be able to pull herself out.

After she passed the lighted cabin, the darkness swallowed her up once more.

Mon Père, please help me!

With the twists and turns of the bayou, she hoped to find a place to get her footing, but in the shallows, she did not know if she would disturb a sleeping gator. If she were attacked, no one would know where she was.

Just like no one knew where she was now.

Then Josée slammed into something so large and solid it rattled the teeth in her head. She screamed.

Edouard hugged the shawl to his chest, and a deep moan came from his throat. He thought he was beyond such pain, but this was worse than coming home and learning of Celine’s betrayal and of feeling like an outcast for leaving the seclusion of their bayou world.

“We must find her.” He looked at Papa, who was helping Mama into the wagon. “She should not have left on her own.”

After a thorough search of the grounds, he guessed that Josée had begun to walk home. He helped Papa get the family loaded onto the wagon.

Jeanne shed many tears. “I should have come to find you when she did not come back.”

Edouard hugged his sister. “You did not know. Do not worry yourself.”

Papa urged the horses as fast as they could safely move on such muddy roads. Edouard wanted to beg him to drive faster. Papa slowed the horses to a halt on the bridge and lifted the lantern to show where Simon had found the shawl.

Edouard inhaled so fast his chest hurt. “It looks like—”

“Someone might have slipped from the bridge.” Papa shook his head.

He could hear Mama praying, “Notre Père qui est aux cieux! Be with our Josée. Deliver her from evil.”

Papa turned to face him. “Your Josée is a smart girl and strong. We will go home and start searching for her by foot along the bayou. We will stop at every cabin and tell them to listen for someone and search for her.”

“Or,” Jeanne spoke up, “maybe she made it home.”

Edouard did not tell his sister he knew she was wrong. The one time he had walked Josée home after the wedding, she had not liked it, and it would have been worse for her in the dark. He would not rest until he found her and spent the rest of his life telling her how much she meant to him.

They reached the LeBlanc house at last, and Edouard leaped from the wagon before it stopped moving. Yet even from here, he could see no light in the cabin window.

“My son.” Mama touched his shoulder. “We will find her. We must believe.”

“I do not know why I should. Le bon Dieu has taken from me once again my joy.”

“You cannot make Josée your joy. Ah, she is joyful, but she is just a woman.” Mama ran her hand on his hair, a gesture which used to comfort him when he was a bébé. “Even if you have her safely in your home, you know she will disappoint you at times, and you her.”

Edouard nodded at that. Mama had probably been talking to Papa. Fresh memories of Edouard and Josée’s silly fight from the day before swam through his head.

“Trying to make her your joy is like trying to catch a fish with your hands. The harder you grasp, the more it struggles to get away.”