Elli (A Second Chance Novel Book 1) Read online

“Ready to work in the cane fields?” Ben asked, getting up to kiss her hello.

  She shook her head and waved her hand. “Mais non. Dis is cuz da movie is set on a Georgia farm. Dis is farm clothes.”

  Ben slapped his forehead. “Yes, of course. That is the official uniform of Georgians. I should’ve known as soon as you walked through the door. Pardon.” Tante Izzy smiled.

  “Hello, Tante Izzy,” Elli said with a big smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get through the security guards at the gate? They have instructions not to let anyone enter without my clearance.”

  “Dem guards?” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I gave dem some pain perdu. Dey were good and happy ’bout it, too. After dat, I just drove right in.”

  Elli laughed. “I bet they were. Do you have any for me?” Elli looked at Ben. “Us?”

  Tante Izzy looked at Elli a moment, then at Ben. “Comment ça, ‘us’?”

  “There is no ‘us,’” Ben told his aunt in a tone that said the subject was closed. He looked at Elli. “Doesn’t look like your security is too efficient. I really don’t give a damn about it, other than I want them to keep all those Texian movie people away from my dogs, my kennel, and me. I have work to do. Don’t make me regret agreeing to let this movie thing come to Sugar Mill. I’m already mostly there.”

  “Mais, youz sound like a man with cock-a-burs caught between his toes.” She looked at Elli. “When youz are goin’ to stop dancin’ round each other and do what’s goin’ to be done anyway?”

  Ben walked to Tante Izzy and kissed her on top of her head. “Mind your own business.” He walked to a coffeepot on a small cart near his desk.

  “All da Bienvenues are my business. I’m da oldest, so dat makes me da matriarch.”

  “I thought that made you queen,” Ben teased.

  “I waz queen before I waz da oldest. I waz born dat way.”

  Elli laughed and looked at Ben, who was smiling. He glanced at her and something nice and friendly passed between them. Ben’s eyes didn’t look hostile, angry, or resigned. He looked at her like a man who liked the woman he saw. Elli’s heart began to thud. If Tante Izzy hadn’t been around, she would have kissed him soundly on his beautiful mouth and thanked him for it. The pressure of dealing with a man who hated her was very difficult. This was much better.

  “Mon dieu. Youz two are circlin’ the truth like buzzards spottin’ road kill.” Tante Izzy rolled her eyes and Ben frowned. Elli looked at her feet. “I’m goin’ to a Traiteur and get some love juice to make youz stop fightin’ what youz want.”

  “Traiteur?” Elli said, massacring the Cajun word by putting the accent on the beginning instead of at the end of the word.

  “Witch doctor,” Ben clarified.

  “No. She’s a Cajun healer.” Tante Izzy looked at Elli. “Don’t listen to him. Traiteurs are holy peoples. She gots rid of my coup de soleil ’bout four years ago.”

  “She had sunstroke,” Ben translated for Elli.

  “And she healed Ruby of da scars on her back from la mal anglais.”

  Elli looked at Ben waiting for the translation. “The shingles.”

  Elli nodded. “Impressive.” She stood and walked to the door. She had a full day ahead, and she didn’t have time for this interesting but useless conversation. “Thank you for your interest in Ben and me. We don’t need a tray-tour. We aren’t circling anything like buzzards. We are just trying to find a way to deal with an impossible will…Ben’s and the one Rosa left us.”

  Tante Izzy snorted. “I’m no fool, but it sounds like youz are.”

  Elli turned to Ben and shrugged. He shrugged back at her. “I’ve got to get back to the film crew before they decide to paint something else pink. Call me if Joey wants to hang out with me again.” She turned to Tante Izzy. “You can come with me now if you want. I’ll drive my car. Leave your truck here.”

  “You’z so bossy sometime,” Tante Izzy complained. “I don’t know if I want to get you da love potion.”

  “Good. I don’t want it.”

  * * * *

  The day was fading, with only about forty-five minutes of daylight left when Ben, Joey and Lucky got out of the truck down the road from the plantation. There were two young men who wouldn’t let them drive any closer, but Ben kept his annoyance over that to himself. Joey was bright-eyed and excited at seeing the cameramen perched twenty feet in the air behind huge cameras on narrow bucket lifts. It looked like they were filming something along the front side of the plantation house.

  Instead of going into the kitchen through the rear entrance, Joey convinced Ben to walk around to the front to see what was going on there. As they got closer to the lifts, a young, college-age girl in pigtails, stringy jean shorts and UCLA sweatshirt raced toward them. She had her finger over her mouth. “We’re filming talent on the upper balcony,” she said, her voice low but not quite a whisper. “It’s just for some cutaways, no audio. Still, the director likes things quiet so the talent can hear his directions.”

  Ben nodded, not really interested in what she was explaining. He just wanted to get inside his house and fix something to eat. He supposed if he was being honest, there was something exciting about having all of this commotion on the plantation and having a few megawatt stars there. That kind of excitement, he figured, would wear off in about twenty minutes. Maybe, a little longer for Joey, who was especially interested in the cameramen.

  “You see how the camera on the right is following the man actor and the one on the left is following the girl actress?” Joey whispered to his father. Ben nodded, looking where his son was pointing. “The third camera must be getting both of them. It’s cool how they are all crowded up there and they don’t film the other cameraman. They know how to stay out of each other’s way, huh?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Ben told his son, meaning it. He had little interest in the making of a movie, but it was clear that Joey did.

  Joey remained quiet, at Ben’s side, but continued craning his neck to get a look at what was happening. Ben scanned the couple of dozen or so people scattered around the front lawn and spotted his cousin Rachel. He wasn’t surprised to see her standing in her Saturday night best near one of the crew members. He was surprised to see that she was writing on a yellow tablet, as if she was his secretary taking dictation. Elli was responsible for that, no doubt.

  “Look, there she is,” Joey said, smiling. “There’s Elli.” He pointed to where she was taking a drink from a bottle of water under a tent. He ran toward her, and Ben was surprised his son was more interested in Elli than the moviemaking business. He probably had a crush on her. Ben supposed he didn’t blame him, with the way she smiled at him all the time and the way she boosted his confidence by asking him for advice about her stubborn dogs. When Ben and Lucky reached his son, he was chattering away with Elli. Chattering. How crazy was that? Joey never chattered. He was quiet. Not much of a talker. Who was this child? Joey’s enthusiasm even make Lucky excited. He wagged his tail and looked up at Joey with her tongue hanging to the side of mouth.

  “And Coon, the Newfie with the raccoon face, tugged on Jenny’s tail so hard he began to drag her backward,” Joey said, laughing. “Jenny didn’t try to stop him either. She just let him pull her backward until they both were in the bayou. Can you believe it?”

  “Jenny is so nonconfrontational,” Elli laughed. “And she probably wanted to be in the water anyway. I know now that’s because, as you taught me, she is part Lab.”

  “Labrador retrievers love the water as much as Newfies.” Joey reached for a doughnut on the table, and before Ben could stop him, Elli grabbed his hand, gently moved him away, and walked to an ice chest, opening it.

  “Are you thirsty? We have water and juice in here.” She grabbed a bottle of water and offered it to Ben as Joey dug in the ice chest.

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  Joey took a grape juice box and stabbed the straw into the top as he spoke. “And, oh, did you hear about Doe?
”

  “No. What about Doe?” Elli looked at Ben. “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine,” Ben said. “Doug’s got a little gash in his thigh, though.”

  “Doe bit him,” Joey said, jumping up and down. “Grandpa said he just walked into his yard where she was penned, and she rushed up to him and bit him.”

  “Oh no.” Elli looked at Ben again. “Doe’s mischievous and awfully noisy with her funny howling, but she wouldn’t harm a flea.”

  “Doug would differ,” Ben said, although he had been surprised to hear she had bit Doug.

  “Is he okay? Did the bite break the skin?” Elli asked and Ben was bothered by her concern for his father-in-law. The cozy scene in his office still didn’t set well with him.

  “Yeah, she broke the skin, but it wasn’t deep. He’s fine. Getting bitten is a professional hazard.” Ben took a long sip of his water. Elli’s eyes remained on his mouth a long time, and Ben’s body responded immediately. Damn but the woman’s eyes were easy to read.

  Elli reached up and gently touched the two tiny scars bisecting his upper lip. “Is that what happened to your lips? Were you bitten?” She dropped her hand as if just realizing she was breaking the covert rule they established.

  “That was when he was a little boy,” Joey interjected. Ben mussed his son’s hair. “Younger than me. Tell her how the wild swamp dogs attacked you in the woods on the other side of the bayou and how you had to fight them off with a piece of dead wood.” Joey looked at Elli. “He was hurt and bleeding and had to spend the night in the woods, not knowing if the dogs would come back. They bit him like ten times. Tante Izzy thinks the Lutins kept the dogs away, even though they usually just cause trouble and don’t help anyone.”

  “Lutins,” Ben said, his voice even, “are the mischievous spirits of babies who have died before they were baptized.”

  Elli seemed to not have heard him. Her eyes didn’t dance with humor at hearing supernatural babies protected him in the swamp. Her eyes were gentle and looking right into his. “You must have been frightened,” she said in a voice so soft, it felt like a whisper intended only for him to hear.

  “I was a child. Yeah, I was scared. I managed to find my way out in the morning.” He tossed the empty water bottle into the recycling box. “My mom and dad hadn’t realized I was missing. My mom was…unaware. My father wasn’t home. It was Tante Izzy who actually found me on the back porch around lunchtime. She took me to the Traiteur to get stitched.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and her three words sent a rush of heat through him. He knew, deep in that place where you know things, that she really meant it and cared. He was beginning to think she might understand what it was like to be young, frightened, and alone. Before he said something stupid or acted on that odd feeling, they were interrupted.

  “Elli,” the girl with the pigtails began. “They are ready to shoot Izzy’s scene with Sam. She asked me to make sure you were there to watch. She’s coming out of makeup now.”

  Ben began to laugh. “I knew she’d get in the movie, and with the star, no less.”

  “Yeah, but did you know that she has a current SAG card?” Elli laughed when he just stared at her like a deer caught in the headlights. “It seems she has had one since she was an extra in the 1958 Elvis Presley movie, King Creole.” Ben shook his head. “It is quite a story. You might want to hear it someday when you have time. A lot of time.”

  “Elvis Presley?” Ben laughed. “Figures.” He looked to where the director was standing near a camera. “I’m surprised Rachel didn’t talk you into being in the movie, too.”

  Elli smiled. “Actually, Rachel has a very important job. She’s now the local location liaison. She showed up at just the right time to help the location director and scene director find some things they need locally.”

  “Well, Rachel knows just about everything there is to know about Cane.”

  “Look, there’s Tante Izzy with Sam,” Elli said as they walked toward the bayou where the scene was to be filmed. “She’s playing his grandmother.” Elli smiled. “She hands him a glass of lemonade while he’s sitting on the wharf. He’s just returned from war.”

  “She makes the best lemonade,” Joey announced. “It’s the really yellow kind.”

  Ben, Elli, Joey and Lucky stopped to stand behind the cameras set up near the wharf. One camera was out of the shot of the other two, on the other side of the bayou and to the left. Another camera, Joey pointed out, was on a track so it could move around the actors. A fourth was stationary and closest to the wharf.

  “You’ve got to appreciate her tenacity,” Ben said, looking at the woman who was more mother to him than his own mother was. She walked to the wharf, wearing a modest, old-fashioned, pale yellow, cotton dress. She had a white apron tied around what normally was a skinny waist. Today, she looked plumper.

  “She looks fat,” Joey said, loud enough for Tante Izzy to hear, and she gave him a narrow-eyed look.

  “Dis here is a costume, young man,” Tante Izzy said. “Youz best know the difference. I’z got the figure of a thirty-year-old.” She then turned toward the megastar, Sam Cooper, with sweet, twinkling eyes. Ben heard her tell him that she had the same body as his last supermodel girlfriend, only in petite size. Elli heard her say it, too, and covered her laughter with her hand, turning away from Tante Izzy, trying not to offend her.

  “She’s something.” Elli smiled as they settled a little distance away from the filming, near a huge oak tree. There, they could still see the action but be out of the way. “Was my Aunt Rosa like her? Funny, eccentric, endearing.”

  Ben leaned against the centuries-old oak planted by the first Bienvenu to settle in Louisiana after the journey from France. Joey sat with Lucky on the ground a few feet away, closer to the action. He was engrossed in what each crew member was doing.

  “That’s a tough one,” Ben began, with a slight nod. “I’m not sure I can give you a fair assessment of your aunt. I’m still ticked off at what she did. Maybe there was a time I would’ve said she was fun and loyal and smart. She did me a favor by encouraging me to start the kennel business.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Rosa was devoted to my father, that’s for sure. It wasn’t easy for her to be labeled as my dad’s mistress, especially when my mother was so good at playing the victim. Rosa didn’t seem to let it bother her. She was a confident woman, happy with her role as the fallen woman. I think the bottom line was that Rosa did what Rosa wanted. She wasn’t conventional and she wanted the life she had here.”

  “I’m unclear as to why Rosa lived on the plantation and not your mother. It seems odd since she was still married to your father.”

  “It’s a twisted tale, Elli.” He wasn’t comfortable with exposing his parents’ broken lives, despite the fact that all of Cane knew it.

  “I could get Rachel to tell me.” She smiled. “She likes to talk about family…and astrology. I’m not certain which she finds more interesting.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “She will not, however, talk about you, Ben. Why is that?”

  “She knows she’ll be tortured if she breaks her oath of silence.” He grinned, but Elli just stared at him with a tight, serious expression. The woman acted fearless around him, yet, right now, he thought he saw a hint of fear in her eyes.

  “Unlike her mother,” Elli continued, looking away, “Rachel has restraint. I guess that’s why she works as a nine-one-one operator. She hears a lot of personal things about a lot of people.” Elli paused, and Ben got the feeling she was waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she continued. “I know Tante Izzy would tell me about your history if I asked. I’d rather hear your version.”

  Ben ran his hand through his hair again. “I don’t think it’s any of your business, but it’s not a secret.” He exhaled. “My mother married my father for his money, prominence, and family name. When she got all of what she thought she wanted, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. A fancier car, bigger jewelry, a higher s
ocial position. She was obsessed with it to the point that she forgot about everything else in her life, including her husband and only child. The plantation home was drafty and old, and she wanted new and shiny. My dad built her a fancy mansion near the country club she was so fond of. He used this plantation as a retreat house for him and, for a long time, me. We moved out when I was twelve, so I was a teenager when we’d come here to hunt and fish and have what he liked to call testosterone weekends. I loved it. I felt like a big man. Even though my mom was getting everything she thought she wanted, she started to drink…a lot. My dad, miserable, lonely, and unable to satisfy his wife, turned to another woman. Was it right? Hell no. Why in the hell they didn’t divorce beats me. I think it was because my mom didn’t want to give up on the dream. I think divorce seemed too much trouble for my father. I guess being Catholic when divorce was taboo for their generation played into it, too. One thing led to another, and soon, Rosa was living on the plantation. She encouraged me to open the kennel on the property. I did. My father seemed the happiest I’d ever seen him and my mother seemed…well, relieved.” He nodded. “She preferred to be left alone, to be a quiet drunk and the richest woman in three parishes. We all learned to not talk about the dysfunction stuff and just move on.”

  “That’s so sad. You were lost in the void between your parents’ self-centered lives. That was unfair to you.” Elli touched his hand, but he pulled away. He didn’t want her pity or empathy. He sat on the ground and she sat next to him.

  “Greed, lack of discipline, and selfishness are not in short supply in this world,” Ben said, his voice was even but the intensity of his eyes matched the power of his words. “You have to stay focused on what’s important to you and work to get it; otherwise, you’ll get sucked up by the bad stuff.”

  “I think we share the same philosophy, despite having completely opposite upbringings. I think we just have to do what Will Smith said in Hitch—‘Begin each day like it was on purpose.’ That way, we don’t forget and we don’t fail.”

  Ben could see she wanted to say more. She probably wanted to tell him something personal about herself to make her point, but he didn’t want to hear it. He already knew too much about her. He didn’t need to know anything more. Especially if it was something that would make him like her a little bit more. He already liked her too much. He liked her and he hated her. He didn’t need to have either feeling as far as he was concerned. They had been strangers a week ago, and they would be strangers again. They didn’t need a relationship other than the physical one they captured in private hours. Elli had a natural charm, and his family seemed to really like her. Joey was crazy about her. Hell, he knew why she was such a successful producer. He’d be damned if she used her skills to tug at his emotions to try to manipulate him.