Elli (A Second Chance Novel Book 1) Read online

  Elli ran her hand over the soft wool of her favorite powder blue suit. She had selected it to give Ben Bienvenu a first impression of her being a woman of confidence, professionalism, and competence. It was four years old, but the color, a few shades lighter than her eyes, still looked as rich as the day she purchased it at Neiman Marcus. Would he even see it today? Would she be able to initiate her plan to earn his trust and persuade him that she had a profitable solution to their impasse?

  Blast. How long did a parade occupy someone’s time in Cane, Louisiana?

  Elli flipped down the visor and looked into the mirror. Her makeup, which she had applied with a light hand at the gas station down the road, was still good. Her eyes might look a bit brighter with annoyance and her cheeks rosier with frustration, but she didn’t think she appeared as anxious as she felt. She snapped the visor up, not bothering to check her unruly, short, caramel curls. Her hair no longer held the importance her once long, flowing, blond, wavy tresses had.

  “Ready to find a way in, Donna?” The furry mass of cuteness blinked her perfect, coal-black pooch eyes and yawned. Elli smoothed her skirt and took in a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m coming around to get you. Stay and be good for ten seconds. No tinkling.” She knew only one of the three requests would be met. The dog was not going anywhere.

  Elli stepped out of her car onto the edge of where the crushed rock and oyster shell drive met dark Louisiana mud. Her Christian Louboutins sank into the ground. “Perfect,” she groaned, looking down where she should have seen the Louboutins’ red soles. She guessed the soft earth, the color of dark chocolate, was what you got when you built a road a few yards from what the estate maps called a bayou. It was the size of one of the small channels around Balboa Island near Newport Beach. Regardless of what you called it, the result of its ebb and flow was acres of healthy sugarcane, she noted, looking across the bayou at the straight rows of knee-high swaying cane. The land lease for the cane fields was a profitable perk for Sugar Mill Plantation, one she would make note of in the sales brochure she planned to send to prospective buyers.

  Elli hobbled to the passenger side of her car to get Donna, who was doing her usual kangaroo imitation. Whenever left alone in the car for two seconds, Donna bounced up and down on the seat as if it was a trampoline. “Can you not be so demanding this one time? I’m struggling here.” Elli thought about her comfy running shoes in the trunk. She was ruining a great pair of Laboutins for a man who happily walked in doggie poop.

  She opened the door and Donna stopped jumping, lifting her high-class snout. That’s what she got for renting a dog that looked like a little girl’s toy with one of those cute commercial names like My Lil’ Petty. She’d been bred for childless couples with deep pockets or for women who wanted to carry her in a matching Gucci bag. Blaine had dressed this particular model in a fuchsia leather and rhinestone collar to coordinate with the trim on her zebra-patterned kennel.

  “Don’t get all better-than-thou on me, you little snob. You may be pretty, but you pee like a stray mutt in a dirty alley.” Elli lifted the overly excited Donna from the car seat and was promptly rewarded with a pale yellow spot shaped like the state of Idaho on the front of her tailored skirt.

  “Of course, you did…” she gasped but her voice was drowned by the blast of an air horn and the whooping of a dozen men. It startled Elli so much she dropped Donna back onto the car seat, causing the princess puppy to begin yapping like a cocaine-addicted auctioneer.

  “Happy Mardi Gras!” someone shouted as a decapitated school bus of chaos plowed down the drive toward her. The roof-less old bus was painted in stripes of royal purple, kelly green, and metallic gold. Fat letters proclaiming it The Party Express spread across its side. Ten speakers positioned for maximum coverage blasted “Iko, Iko” at higher decibels than the gospel music in her car. Donna was having no part of this rowdy group. She took off, heading away from the bus and straight for the canal.

  “No,” Elli shouted, seeing the image of a huge alligator mouth thrashing toward mockingbirds—scratch that—toward Donna! Elli took off after her. “Stop. No. Heel.” She managed only four long strides into the field before her shoes were sucked into the Louisiana mud hiding beneath the tall green grass. Her feet jerked out of the shoes and managed a few more steps until they got sucked into the wet pudding earth as well. She fell facedown. Elli heard a splash, then a doggie yipe. “Donna!”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I’ve never seen a dog that can’t swim,” a deep, masculine voice drawled from somewhere above and behind her. Elli gave no thought to how high her skirt slid up her legs or the fact that her tiny scrap of lace panty might be exposed. Donna was going to be eaten by an alligator!

  A flash of neon orange leaped over her as she tried to get up. She watched as the back of a tall man with shoulder-length black hair, wearing a satin, neon-orange costume trimmed in black sequins, raced into the water. An oversized black, red, and white-lighted pirate ship hat flew off his head as he reached for Donna. It bobbed like an amusement park ride with its lights twinkling in the wake created by both man and dog. She heard him shout something in the direction of the alligator on the bank, and her heart stopped.

  “Watch out for the alligator,” she screamed, knowing it was seconds too late and unnecessary. The man obviously saw it. Still, she warned him again. “Alligator.”

  Elli got up and raced on bare feet to the bayou’s edge, watching as the alligator swam away. It gave her little comfort. The vicious creature was still too close and might return. Elli turned toward Donna who was wet, wide-eyed, and safe in the man’s arms. In fact, Donna looked better than safe. If Elli wasn’t mistaken, the silly dog was looking all dopey-eyed at her human rescuer. Oddly, Elli understood why. He was a fine specimen of male human. She supposed even a dog would appreciate his dark, rugged, man’s man features set against dreamy eyes the color of the emerald sugarcane. He was a beauty, and Donna was appreciating his rescue with smooth, happy licks to his large hands.

  “This your dog?” the super gorgeous man asked.

  “What? Uh. Yes.” Elli’s heart seemed to skip when all that male energy was directed at her. She looked away, hoping to reengage her brain, then spotted the twinkling hat. “Your pirate ship is sinking in the canal.”

  He looked at her a moment, then cocked his head in the confused way she’d seen Donna do when she discussed her plans for the Sugar Mill Plantation. “It’s a bayou.”

  “Whatever.” She needed distance from the alligator, the murky water, and the neon pirate. They were sucking all the dense, humid air and she needed to breathe. She turned to walk back to her car and plowed into an army of neon-orange-clad men lined up as if ready to charge into some amusement park battle. Most had the same silly, lighted pirate’s hat, except for one man who had a lighted hard hat with cans of beer on both sides and clear tubing extending from it. The ends of the tubes were positioned near his mouth. “Convenient.”

  “I think so.” He laughed and took a big sip.

  “Hey, lady,” the deep voice behind her rumbled with annoyance. “Your dog.”

  Elli turned and saw his lifted brows and crooked I’m-not-so-happy grin. “Can you hold her until I get a towel?” She looked down at her skirt with the Idaho-shaped piddle stain, mud, and grass smears around it and sighed. “What’s the point?,” she muttered in a defeated tone and walked back to the good-looking pirate man standing on the bayou edge and took Donna from him, holding her away from her body at arm’s length. The dog whined and began to tinkle.

  “Hey, your dog’s leaking,” one of the pirates shouted, to the hooting laughter of the others.

  The jabs and laughter continued until the man with the giant beer-can hat walked up to Elli and scratched Donna under her chin. Donna kicked her hind legs with excitement. “You’re a cute thing,” he said, sliding his finger under the fuchsia and rhinestone Prada collar. “This, however, is way over the top.”

  “That said by a man wearing neon-orange satin
clothes and a six-pack on his head,” Elli countered.

  “Hey, it’s not a six-pack. It’s two tall forties.” The men laughed. “Besides, men are supposed to look like this during Mardi Gras. Never should a dog look like a nursery rhyme in drag.” He turned to Donna’s rescuer. “Tell her. Real dogs should have drool dripping from their mouths and hunters walking alongside them.”

  “Mais yeah, Ben,” another man shouted in a heavy Cajun accent. “Tell her, a real dawg should fetch a beer from da fridge while da ball game is on. Dat way nobody has to get off da recliner.”

  Elli’s head snapped around to the man they were addressing. She noticed that he had a sexy little scar bisecting his lopsided grin. Ben. Ben Bienvenu? Her partner? Donna’s hero. Alligator eliminator.

  “A real dog,” another man in neon shouted as he swayed a bit drunkenly. “A real dog should be able to protect your woman and lick his…”

  “Whoa, I think she’s got the picture,” Ben said interrupting the rowdy group, all of whom, Elli now realized, were well on their way to having hangovers. The only man seemingly sober was her new partner.

  She whirled around to face him, Donna still projecting out from her arms. “So, you are Ben Bienvenu.”

  He bowed at the waist and waved the dripping pirate hat he’d just retrieved from the bayou. “At your service.” He winked, and she noticed another thin scar in the crease of his smiling eyes, causing an unwelcome fluttering in her midsection. Nerves, she reasoned, as his cronies howled and offered a few R-rated suggestions on what kind of services he could render. No doubt about it, his at your service comment was intended more for them than her. The way his eyes crinkled and mouth smirked in boyish humor made that clear. Her odd reaction to him wasn’t worth a second thought. It had just been the result of her encounter with the alligator, Donna’s near demise, and all that neon.

  “Well,” Elli said on an exhale, not exactly sure how to introduce herself to her partner. This was not the first impression she’d spent days planning. She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin.

  “Uh-oh.” The man with the beer cans strapped to his head frowned.

  “Mr. Bienvenu.” Elli tucked Donna into the crook of her arm, wiped her free hand on her skirt, and extended it to Ben. “I’m Elli Morenelli, I own the Sugar Mill Plantation with you.”

  Ben Bienvenu shook her hand but looked at the man with the beer cans strapped to his head. His once emerald eyes darkened to the color of army fatigues. Beer man ignored Ben and with a smile, extended his hand to Elli.

  “Hi, Elli. I’m Beau Bienvenu, Ben’s attorney. We spoke on the phone a few times. Welcome to Cane, Louisiana.”

  * * * *

  The midmorning sun was drying the dew-dampened land of Sugar Mill Plantation just as it had days, years, and centuries before the Bienvenues settled there. It seemed the same, but Ben knew it was different. The humid air felt different against his skin, as did the dark soil beneath his feet. Elli Morenelli arriving on the plantation did that. She disrupted the rhythm of the air and the land. She was here to change what had been there for over two hundred years. Ben didn’t want change.

  Ben stood next to his truck as he watched Beau drive his sleek, clean, black 520 BMW into the driveway behind the main house. As his cousin got out of the car, Ben climbed into his truck, with his ever present companion, Lucky, a black lab, bull terrier and God knows what else mix. It was an odd looking animal, that mostly looked like a lab but with shorter legs and tail. It was a rescue.

  “If you want to talk to me, get in my truck.” He started the engine. It was Lucky’s signal to lie down on the seat next to Ben where he remained until the engine was turned off. “But I’d think twice about doing it,” he growled. “I am not a happy man, Beauregard. Not a happy man at all. And I lay most of the blame for that on you. Your job was to prevent her from showing up to claim her half of my property. Instead, you invited her to spend the night in one of the slave quarter bunks. Here. On my property!”

  “Good morning to you, too.” Beau opened the passenger door and climbed into the old, dusty, work truck. His voice was hoarse from a night of excessive parade partying. The rest of him, besides a little red spidering in his eyes, didn’t show any signs of the hangover that Ben knew Beau had to be suffering. He never understood how Beau managed to always look so fresh and put together. He was like his car. Expensive. High-maintenance. Good-looking. It hadn’t always been that way for him. Uncle Ronald found him and his brother, Jack, while responding to a spousal abuse call at a rusty, leaky trailer down the bayou. It wasn’t the spousal abuse of the boys’ parents that needed the Sheriff’s attention. That day he rescued the boys from a life of neglect and hardship and eventually adopted them.

  Ben shook his head. “I was really hoping you’d feel like crap this morning, pretty boy.” He gunned the engine, jerking Beau into his seat.

  “Nope. I’m fresh as a new-sprung daisy.” He slipped on his three-hundred-dollar sunglasses and buckled the seat belt. “Now you, cousin, look like the bottom of a chum bucket. And you weren’t the one who drank adult beverages until your knees turned to gumbo. Go figure. Was it the little lady that kept you up last night?”

  Ben could deny that Elli Morenelli’s arrival had robbed him of his sleep, but Beau would know the truth. No one knew him better than his cousin and best friend. There wasn’t a childhood memory that didn’t include Beau. So he ignored both the question and the fancy Mercedes they had just passed that was parked in front of the slave house where Elli Morenelli had spent the night.

  “She’s probably on California time and still asleep.” Beau said, straining to look back at her car. He loved fast, expensive vehicles. “She’ll be looking for you when she wakes. I’m sure you know that. As your attorney, I advise you not to take such an adversarial position with her. You attract more bees with sugar than vinegar.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Give me a break. The only thing you got right in that saying is the bee part. The woman stings my ass.” He opened the gate with his remote.

  Beau shook his head and petted Lucky on the head. “I know you don’t want her here. I know you don’t want her to own fifty percent of Sugar Mill and thirty percent of the kennel. The facts are that she is here, and she does have ownership of both. Deal with it.”

  Ben sneered. “I damn well don’t want to deal with the woman, just like I didn’t want to have to deal with her aunt after my father died. I can’t believe he let his pecker ruin my life. I’m sure we can find a judge who’d agree that just because her aunt screwed my daddy for eleven years, she doesn’t have the right to steal what’s been in my family for two hundred years.”

  “Sorry, cuz, you know that’s not true. You’re getting all emotional here. It’s not like you. Think.” Beau waited until Ben nodded for him to continue. “We lost when we challenged Rosa’s right to inherit when your dad died. Without that being overturned, Rosa has every right to give her property to whomever she wants.”

  Ben gripped the steering wheel tighter. He didn’t bother trying to hide his anger from his voice. “I know. I know. It’s all legal. But it’s still bullshit.”

  “Yep. But as unorthodox as the terms of her will are, it’s within the confines of the law.” Beau strummed his fingers on the dash. “You do have options, you know? It involves negotiating. Maybe some compromise. All within your capacity, big guy. You’re a charming fellow.” Beau folded his arms over his chest. “Well, you have the potential to be charming. I’m told you are reasonably good-looking.” He looked at Ben. “I’m told women like that long hair, messy jeans, and hiking boots look. Me, I think you need a haircut and some khakis.”

  Ben glanced at the crazy man sitting next to him. Had he made a mistake hiring him as his attorney? “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about making use of your wiles. Make her like you…”

  “Like me? As in sliding between the sheets with her? Are you crazy?”

  Beau sighed. “No, you
dummy. Make her like you as in a ‘you can trust me’ sort of way. You know, make a good, professional impression on Elli.”

  “That said by my attorney who was shitfaced and wearing tall forties on his head when he introduced himself to her.”

  “Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?” Beau smiled.

  “You’re fired.”

  Beau started laughing. “Come on, Ben. Charming Miss Morenelli isn’t a hardship. She’s damn nice to look at with her tight, hot body and her sexy, Sophia Loren meets Isabella Rossellini face. You’ve got to admit, she’s got all the right features from her ancestors without that long nose her Aunt Rosa had.”

  “That long nose didn’t stop my daddy from falling into bed with the woman and keeping her there for eleven years,” Ben muttered. Not that he was even considering seducing the alluring Miss Morenelli. He thought about her big, light blue eyes, prettier than any Husky pup he’d seen. Her short, café au lait hair was every bit as creamy colored as his first dog, a stray he named Molly. He thought he’d never see that exact combination of tan, blond, and brown caught in the sunlight like he had the morning of his sixth birthday when he found Molly running through the cane fields. To him, the dog looked as if she was surrounded by a halo and was an answer to his prayers. Elli’s hair caught the sun that same way; only she wasn’t an answer to his prayers, not by any stretch of the imagination.

  “She’s tall like Rosa,” he said, ready to change the subject and not wanting to discuss her features in as much detail as he recalled them. “Speaking of Rosa, I don’t think she’d have left Basil, Rosemary, and Tutti to Elli if she knew how her niece treated her dog. Did you see the way she held her?”

  “You don’t have a say in the matter,” Beau reminded him. “She inherited her aunt’s dogs. I’ve got the legal documents that say so.”

  “I’ll see to it that she gets the three dogs.” Ben turned into the parking lot of the Vacherie Parish animal shelter.