Second Chance

The sun wasn't up yet, but Luc Carter had been out of bed for an hour. His bed-and-breakfast guests, a bird-watching couple from Washington, D.C., were planning an early-morning trip up the Bayou Teche to try to spot an ivory-billed woodpecker, and Luc had promised them a full-course breakfast at 7:00 a.m. He didn't mind getting up early. He liked the quiet hours before his guests were awake--before anyone in the whole town of Indigo, Louisiana, was awake, except maybe for Loretta. Loretta. He had to stop thinking about her. But how could he stop thinking about her when he saw her almost every morning? Loretta Castille baked the most delicious breads and muffins in all of Louisiana, and she brought them fresh each day to La Petite Maison B and B. Some guests claimed the breads were what brought them back to Indigo again and again. He checked the frittata in the oven, then returned to squeezing oranges for fresh juice. Coffee with chicory perked on the stove, sending a delectable scent throughout the two-hundred-year-old Creole cottage he'd spent the last year restoring with his own hands. As he mixed fresh strawberries and walnuts into a bowl of yogurt, he kept his eye on the front window. Loretta would be arriving any minute with her bountiful basket. How sad that the high point of his day usually occurred before breakfast. As the sky began to glow pink, then orange, the familiarchug-chugof Loretta's old Volvo station wagon carried through the screen door. On time, as usual. She was never late for a delivery. Loretta worked day and night to make a go of her baking business. It was hard to maintain any business in a small town like Indigo, but people managed. Luc passed through the screen door and went out to the porch to greet Loretta. She was always in a hurry, with a long list of customers from St. Martinville to New Iberia awaiting her breads, and she appreciated not having to hunt him down. The station wagon pulled to a stop, and before Loretta could even cut the engine, the passenger door opened and a red-headed, four-foot bundle of energy burst out of the car and straight for him. The child-- Loretta's nine-year-old daughter, Zara--looked as if she were going to run straight into him. But she skidded to a stop a few feet shy of Luc, as if she'd suddenly remembered that she wasn't the type of child to go around hugging people. And she wasn't. "Hi." "Hi, yourself, gorgeous." She was beautiful, with a mischievous, pixie face, thick, wavy red hair and warm hazel eyes that would break a lot of hearts one day. She looked heart-stoppingly like her mother. "you're up awful early for a Saturday morning." "I wanted to see the bird-watchers. Mama says you have bird-watchers all the way from Washington staying with you." Zara was the most curious child Luc had ever encountered. Not that he'd known many children, other than his little cousin, Rosie, in New Orleans. "The bird-watchers aren't up yet," Luc told Zara. "But you're not missing much. They look just like ordinary people, I promise." Luc watched Loretta emerge from her car with a cheery wave. She looked fantastic, as always, in a pair of tight, faded jeans and a gauzy blue shirt, her spiky red hair sticking out every which way, as if she hadn't combed it since rolling out of bed. He liked that look, though he didn't care to speculate on why. Dangerous territory, thinking about Loretta and bed. "Is anyone else staying with you?, Zara asked, peeking past him to the doorway, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of some exotic guest. "Uh-huh. Two more couples, one from Shreveport and one from Houston." "Are they interesting?" "The couple from Shreveport are pretty fun. Newlyweds." Luc lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But the ones from Houston--snooty. Nothing's good enough for them. I had to get them a different kind oLennox, Kara is the author of 'Second Chance ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373389483 and ISBN 0373389485.