It’s hot outside, and even hotter between the pages of my new release!

A hidden treasure map sends Remy Broussard back to the bayou, where a grumpy island owner is determined to protect his land—and Remy is determined to uncover its secrets.

Enjoy the first chapter here!

Chapter 1

The morning mist hung low and heavy like a white shroud over the piece of the Louisiana Bayou that Cork Renoir had carved out for himself. Seated in an old lawn chair that some might call tacky and worn out, the tall, sunburned, disillusioned jazz player leaned back and stared broodingly into the shifting mists.

Out here, life was simple—and he knew his enemy. It wasn’t like being on the road, traveling from city to city. In that swamp, everyone he came into contact with had an ulterior motive to get a piece of him in some fashion.

He was burned out.

These peaceful mornings out here on his dock alone, watching the mists burn away beneath the sun’s scorching fingers, were better than any therapist. He could relax and let the spirit of the bayou envelop him as it always did, healing and soothing his tired soul.

As he lifted the steaming mug of ‘bayou mud’ to his lips, a literal cacophony of at least ten humans cruelly being tortured erupted. It shattered the eerie morning stillness and sent birds screeching from the trees in a mass exodus of feather-flapping fiends. Splashes from alligators jumping into the swamp could be heard, and the rustling in the brush told of any critter within the sound of the discordant wailing making a run for their lives.

Cork’s sandaled feet hit the deck as he leaped from the rusted metal chair, sending it crashing backward and sliding off the small dock into the bayou. With a muttered curse and his coffee sliding down his front, he spared it an angry glare, making a mental note that someone was going to go fishing for that chair.

It was his favorite chair.

It had also been his dad’s and his grandfather’s favorite. Someone was going to pay all right—and that someone was drifting out of the mist, bringing the heavy metal racket that modern artists pawned off as music closer to him. That god-awful blare was a poor substitute for the rhythmic and harmonic cadences of jazz.

Cork lifted his shotgun loaded with buckshot and aimed it at the offending CD player, the one whose loudspeakers were screeching out something he sort of recognized as Lamb of God.

“Step aside,” he bellowed at the obviously feminine figure kneeling in front of the CD player. She held a knob in her fingers as if she were puzzled as to how it had come off.

A tall black man with the pole in his hand, whom Cork recognized as Augustus, the local bayou taxi, suddenly sprang into action.

“He’s got a gun,” was the frantic cry as Augustus grabbed the young girl and threw her to the floor. “Duck, Miz. Remy!”

Satisfied they were clear of his target, Cork fired one shot into the middle of the enormous CD player, and the harsh, strident cords ceased instantly, leaving his ears in the blissful silence of the soothing bayou once again. The small aluminum boat bobbed wildly as the two humans on board lifted their heads and peered over the twelve-inch edge, their eyes wide with fright.

As the current brought them into the dock, Cork found himself staring into the most fetching pair of light blue eyes he’d ever seen—eyes that were quickly darkening with anger as the fear that had swamped them slowly receded.

***

Remy Broussard stared up at one of the biggest men she’d ever seen. The man had biceps as big as her thighs. His powerfully muscled legs were not as sunburned as the broad shoulders and bare arms in the white t-shirt, but his face was darkly tanned as if he’d spent many hours in the sun. And he was covered with so much blond hair that with the sun peeking through the mists and backdropping him, he looked like a golden fuzzy bear.

However, the expression on his square-jawed face, adorned with what was probably two weeks’ unshaven beard growth, was anything but warm and fuzzy. In spite of his dangerous demeanor, Remy’s impetuous nature rose to the occasion, and she didn’t stay tongue-tied for long.

“You—you shot my CD player,” she exclaimed furiously. “How dare you shoot my CD player? That thing cost me over two hundred dollars. I bought it specifically because Bluetooth is unreliable out here in the bayou, and now you’ve ruined it, you imitation of a neanderthal. This is going to cost you, just wait and see!”

She scrambled to get to her feet in the moving craft and shot a glare at the cowering Augustus, who was supposed to be her guide and protector.

“Be careful, Miz Remy,” he whispered, his eyes sliding from her back to Cork. “Dat man done look dangerous.” His soft Louisiana accent mirrored his fear.

Of course, the man above them certainly was intimidating with that shotgun in his hand, but Remy figured if he wanted to shoot them, he would have already. As it was, the only casualty in view was her CD player. She’d brought it along, hoping to lure some of the swamp animals closer out of curiosity so she could photograph them. She wondered if she’d been gullible when the shop owner had put a bonus CD into the CD player, promising her all kinds of wonderful wildlife photos because it would lure the animals to her. Or was the shop owner a halfwit? She should have checked the CD out herself.

Somehow, the volume must have been changed when Augustus had loaded it into the boat. When it had blared into raucous life, she’d grabbed the volume knob to turn it down, and it had come off in her hand. She’d been in the process of trying to put it back on to shut off that horrendous racket when Augustus had thrown her to the floor of the skiff. Now her poor CD player lay in pieces at the bottom of the boat, although the CD was unharmed.

 She glared up at the man standing above her, hands on her hips, indignation covering her like a cloak as the boat bobbed against the end of his dock.

He was going to pay for this.

***

Cork reached down with his powerful right arm, covered in so many freckles they blended as one, and lifted the small, impudent figure by the back of her jean shorts.

“Let go of me, how dare you! ” Her strident protest accompanied flailing arms and legs as she scrabbled thin air for something to hold onto until she landed on the dock, sprawling unceremoniously at his feet.

“Oomph,” she grunted when she hit the wooden planks. Quick as a wink, she was on her feet, her riveting eyes spitting lightning bolts as she faced him down, albeit from her diminutive height.

Cork stared belligerently down at the irascible female, his jaw set in his famous ‘bulldog‘ imitation, his sandy hair lifting gently in the early morning breeze. Not that she would know he was likened to a bulldog when he was mad and stubborn.

Soon, the combination of the rising sun and the bayou breezes would burn off the hanging shroud of mist he enjoyed waking up to, thereby revealing the bayou in all its humid glory. And this sassy slip of a woman, with her reddish-chestnut hair hanging down her slender neck and gold hoop earrings, was the cause of his missing his ritual communion with nature.

“I dare what I please in my home,” he growled. “And right now, you are interrupting my previously peaceful morning with that insane imitation of music. The music world should be collectively ashamed to put up with that hideous racket, let alone allow it to be labeled music.”

He leaned down and grabbed the back of her jean shorts again and spun her around. “And furthermore, you caused my favorite chair to land in the bayou. Now, you are going to go get it for me.”

With that, he propelled her off the side of the dock and down into the greenish water that lapped against the pilings, ignoring her screams of outrage. He folded his massive, golden-haired arms and watched as she splashed and sputtered in the water.

“I can’t swim,” she screamed helplessly, trying valiantly to stay on top of the water. The man had caught her completely off guard. What kind of a beast threw a lady into the bayou? She was going to drown any minute now; she’d inhaled water, and her arms were beginning to tire. This is it, she thought. I’m going to die right here at the dock of my great-grandmother’s old voodoo grounds. Now I’ll never find out if there really is a treasure. A sharp command suddenly penetrated the fog of fear that surrounded her.

“Stand up!” Cork rolled his eyes and shook his head at the panicky young woman. She stood up then, her hair hanging in strings about her face, and a piece of moss clinging to her cheek in the breast deep water. She looked fearfully around and tried to hoist herself up on the dock, but he stood in front of her, blocking her progress.

“Get me out of here,” Remy demanded, glaring up at him. He’d succeeded in making her feel like a complete idiot, and now he was keeping her in this disgusting water?  

“Oh no, you don’t. You’re not getting out of there until you get my chair.”

He pointed at a spot next to her, and her anger at this brute of a man increased tenfold. “I don’t see any stupid chair, and I’m not looking for it, either.”

She turned and began to slog through the sucking muddy bottom towards the shore about four yards away. She wasn’t going to put up with this kind of treatment; she didn’t care if he shot her. That is, if an alligator or a swamp moccasin didn’t get her first. He certainly wouldn’t care; she was sure of that.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he drawled, enjoying her unease when she turned to glare at him again. He kept a sharp eye out to make sure there were no gators around—not that they could normally get past his underwater fencing, but he was always aware anyway.

“Why not?”

He blew a sharp whistle, and a huge dog appeared out of the mist and stood staring at her with big dark eyes. “Because Old Joe guards my dock, and no one gets on land that I don’t approve first.” Old Joe must have been half German Shepherd, half God-knows-what, because he was the biggest dog Cork had ever seen. He seemed to have adopted Cork, however, so he fed him regularly and let him stay. No one got near the shore without him hearing the bay of Old Joe resounding across the bayou.

Remy gasped in fright, turning pale at the sight of the monstrous dog. Legend in her family had it that Argonaut still existed, that he had never died. They said his immortality was born of an ancient voodoo ritual performed by her great-grandma Rheims, and that he was there to guard her treasure.

She eyed the dog warily, and then she turned back to Cork, a decided gleam in her eye. For now, she would keep her secret, but soon—soon she would come back and play her great-grandma’s flute for Argonaut. Rheims’s diary said it always soothed the giant beast. “Okay, so where’s this dumb chair?”

“That’s better,” he replied smugly. “Once you return my chair, I’ll let you up.” He pointed once again to the spot where the chair had slid off the dock.

Shading her eyes, Remy peered down into the murky water in front of her. Seeing nothing, she kicked her leg out, feeling for something with her foot. When it finally touched something solid, she took a deep breath and bent her knees, lowering herself into the water and reaching down with her hands. Finding the back of the chair, she grasped hold of it and brought it to the surface. Holding onto it with one hand, she wiped the water from her face and stared doubtfully at it. “Is this what you wanted? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to rescue this piece of junk.”

“Don’t insult my chair,” he ground out, taking it from her. He set the chair on the dock, bent down to grab her hands, and pulled her straight up. Her weight was nothing compared to some of the gators he’d wrestled.

His eyes narrowed as the water sluiced off her body, revealing the rounded contours of her breasts, even the dark aureoles of her nipples through her yellow cotton shirt. At least the cut-off shorts she wore weren’t see-through, but they did outline the contours of her curvy butt cheeks and set off her long, tanned legs.

Muttering a silent oath, he hustled her into the boat that Augustus was holding against the dock. “Now, you can get the hell out of here and quit bothering me,” he said gruffly. He shoved the craft away from his dock and stood up, ignoring the outraged protests from his unwanted visitor. He’d picked up his shotgun and nestled it beneath his arm when he heard her call him.

“Hey, you grump…you’ll be hearing from me.” She shook her fist at him as the boat moved out of reach. “I’ll be back, and in the meantime, kiss my ass!” She turned and dropped her shorts, revealing a lovely, creamy bottom outlined in red briefs.

Cork laughed mirthlessly at her audacity. “If you come back here, I’ll blister that ass until it’s the same color as those panties,” he yelled back.

He turned and headed up the dock, patting Old Joe on the head as he passed him. The dog was stiff as a board and didn’t respond to the caress as he normally would. Cork inspected him, curious as to his reaction. The black animal’s gaze was steady on the spot where the boat had disappeared, his ears cocked intently as he seemed to listen to the departure of the young girl and her guide. He growled when he heard the strident tones of the female drift back through the mist, and Cork nodded in assent.

“I feel like growling too, boy, I’m with you there. That is one noisy, bothersome specimen of the female persuasion.”

Old Joe growled again and fell into step beside Cork. He patted the dog’s head again and chuckled as he turned toward his cabin. “She did have a nice ass, though, not to mention other parts.”

Near the cabin, Cork threw off the t-shirt, picked up an axe, and began to work on the dead tree that had fallen during the last storm. Nothing like a little hard work to keep bitter thoughts at bay…and he had a few.

Mostly, though, he was just plain tired.

Tired of the rat race that had been the music business. As much as he’d loved being a jazz musician, he’d abandoned his dream last year and bought this overrun piece of bayou, intending to retire permanently. He was just beginning to feel that his emotions, which had grown numb to the commercialization of his trade, were finally healing. Here, in the soul-searching isolation of the bayou, Cocoran James Renoir was slowly coming back to life.

Just before noon, he was sitting on the dock once again, enjoying a cold beer, when he heard the sound of a boat making its way into the labyrinth that led to his place. He watched, grinning, as the gray-haired man with powerful arms, so like his own, appeared, handling his boat with all the experience of a life spent shrimping on the bayou.

“Hello, Dad, what brings you over here today?” He took the rope thrown to him and tied it off on the piling as his father nimbly jumped onto the wooden planks.

A lazy grin spread across the features that were not unlike his own, just older. Piercing blue eyes gazed at him as Pierre softly drawled in his southern accent. “Heard you had a visitor this morning.”

“Bad news travels fast,” Cork replied, shaking his head with a grin.

Not much was a secret in the bayou – not between the people anyway. The bayou herself never gave up her secrets, though, and that made her all the more mysterious.

“You know who she is?” Pierre took the proffered beer that his son retrieved from a bent-up cooler of ice and took a long drink. He hitched up another lawn chair next to Cork’s chair and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Nope…don’t know, don’t care.” They sat in companionable silence, each staring into the mysterious, swirling waters of the bayou.

After finishing his first can of beer, Pierre eyed the old chair Cork was sitting in. “I see you managed to steal my favorite chair again.”

Cork grinned. It was a long-standing duel between father and son. The chair went back and forth between the two homes, but neither ever saw the other take it. How it got back and forth, neither one was willing to reveal. He leaned back in the old chair, eyeing his father as it creaked beneath his weight.

“That visitor you mentioned sent it into the bayou this morning, but she was kind enough to retrieve it.”

Pierre took a long swig of his beer and stared skeptically at his son. “Yeah, I heard about how accommodating she was.” A grin twitched at the corner of his lips. “You always were a hellion, Cork.”

“Seemed fair,” Cork replied with a chuckle. His father stared into the green, murky waters again, looking as if his thoughts were a million miles away. Cork knew his dad well enough to know something was on his mind. He also knew he wouldn’t tell him until he was ready.

There was no rushing the folks of the bayou – they did things in their own good time. It was this slow, methodical approach to life that had been sucked out of Cork when he left. The hectic role of life on the road, a different bar or concert hall every night, and women who wanted to rip the shirt off his back had wrung the life right out of him.

It felt good to sit here in the sunshine with nothing more to do than sip a cold beer, enjoy his sparse company, and work on his cabin. He had all the money he would ever need, invested well. He had slowly begun to get his soul back from the dark hell that had claimed it.

“Got something to discuss with you,” Pierre said, reaching for another cold beer. He took his time opening the can and dropping the tab into a tin can on the dock.

“Figured as much.”

After a few more minutes of swamp staring, Pierre finally turned to Cork. “That little gal that was here—she’s Roberta’s granddaughter.”

Cork’s ears perked up with interest. “Do tell. That little slip of a thing? I thought she and Perly lived in Chicago.”

“They did—they do. But Remy is here visiting her grandmother for the summer. She’s never even been in the bayou before, so this is all new to her.”

Pierre looked suddenly uneasy, and Cork knew he wasn’t finished. He waited, a little more impatiently this time. His dad was leading up to something, and he was sure it had to do with his little piece of paradise, but he didn’t know what.

No one had lived on this property since Roberta’s mother had died. Rheims Renquist, bayou voodoo priestess, had owned this land and died on this land. The property had stayed in the family, but no one had dared to live here—that is, until Cork bought it. Before him, no one had wanted to touch it.

When he’d approached Roberta with a request to buy the property, she’d surprisingly agreed. The remoteness had appealed to the inner core of Cork and his need to get away from the mainstream of society. He’d ignored all warnings concerning the land and spent his time clearing the area and building a cabin.

The old hut that Rheims had lived in was back in the woods, away from the cabin, and Cork had left it strictly alone. Not that he believed in black magic, per se, but coming from the bayou himself, he had a healthy respect for those who did. Funny enough, Old Joe had appeared the day after he’d completed his cabin enough to move in.

“It appears that young Remy has found something in Rheims’s old diary; something the rest of the family missed,” Pierre finally offered.

Cork leaned forward to listen, his vivid blue eyes alight with interest. “And what might that be?”

“A treasure map. She told Roberta that Rheims wrote in the diary that she’d cast a spell on her dog, Argonaut. A spell that would make the animal immortal so he could guard her treasure.”

Cork’s eyebrows jumped with skepticism. “That old rumor about treasure being out here has been floating around for years. People have looked all over the place and never found anything.”

“There ain’t never been a dog the spittin’ image of Argonaut hanging around either—until now.” Pierre stared pointedly at the big black dog sleeping in the sun. “Where did he come from?”

As if aware he was being discussed, Old Joe lifted his huge head and stared at Pierre with a disconcerting gaze. When a low growl sounded in the dog’s throat, Cork and his father glanced at each other, and Cork felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up.

“And what about Mad John’s tale?” Pierre went on, still studying the dog who was studying him.

Cork shifted uneasily. “That old ghost story has been floating around for ages, too. Most likely, Mad John had one beer too many when he was treasure hunting.”

“Well, drunk or not, he still swears he saw the ghost of Rheims Renquist out here.” Pierre took out his pipe and a bag of tobacco and tamped some into the end of it. Lighting a match, he puffed on the pipe as he lit it, the scent of cherry-flavored tobacco surrounding them. Then he pinned Cork in his gaze, his eyes the same blue as his son’s. “Anyway, I told Roberta you would keep an eye on Remy while she’s here snooping around the island.”

Cork mentally shifted gears, trying to fill in the gaps between treasure and ghost dogs to babysitting. His father had a disconcerting habit of expecting a person to know what he was winding up to without ever filling in the gaps. “Wait a minute…are you saying this Remy, who would be Rhiems Renquists’ great-granddaughter, wants to treasure hunt on my island?”

Pierre nodded. “Yup.”

Cork expelled a breath of pure exasperation. “No, Dad. She isn’t coming to my land to treasure hunt. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not having my now-peaceful existence disrupted by a sassy, not spanked often enough, little rabble rouser that loves heavy metal music.”

Pierre chuckled and drew a drag on his pipe. “There’s more, son.”

“Don’t tell me it gets worse.” Cork groaned at his father’s grin.

“Roberta is worried because there are rumors floating around now that there really is a treasure and that Remy has come back to claim it. Since she has a map and all. And Old Joe here seems to substantiate that rumor.” He waved his hand towards the dog for emphasis. “And you know what will happen if people believe there might actually be something here.”

“No, enlighten me,” Cork replied sarcastically, envisioning his peaceful summer going up in flames as he spent his time guarding his land and trying to keep shovel-happy treasure hunters from digging it up. He knew full well what greed did to people. This was getting worse by the minute.

“That’s not all,” Pierre said succinctly, ignoring his son’s obvious distress and frustration.

“What now?” Cork yelled the question and ran his hand distractedly through his sun-bleached hair.

“Roberta asked if you would accompany Remy around your land and protect her from any unscrupulous people who might try to take advantage of her, not to mention the dangers of the bayou itself. She is worried for her granddaughter’s safety, her being new to the bayou and all. She doesn’t want anything to happen to her while she’s in her care.”

Cork stared at his father, his frustration complete. “And I’m supposed to do this because Roberta sold me the land, and because she’s your friend, and you want to do her a favor, right?”

His father nodded, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Can I count on you, son?”

“Who’s going to protect me?” Cork muttered, even as he nodded his head in exasperation. He couldn’t turn his father down, though he badly wanted to. “But I’m warning you, and Roberta, too. That mouthy little brat has obviously missed some much-needed spankings, and if she gives me any trouble, I’ll remedy that situation in a heartbeat.”

“Fair enough, I’d say,” Pierre chuckled, standing up. “What’s for lunch? You got anything good?” He sniffed the air appreciatively as the smell of fresh boiling crayfish wafted from the open door of the cabin.

“Your nose still works,” Cork replied dryly, “given the business it’s been into this morning.”

“Ha.” With a hearty slap on his son’s shoulders, the two men headed up the dock.

It was well after 1:00 p.m. when Cork decided to lie down for a nap. His father had helped him devour the pot of crayfish, red from the boiling pot, and then took his leave. The old man had still been chuckling at Cork’s complaints when he climbed in his boat and pushed away from the dock.

It was a lazy afternoon, and a buzzing fly droned above Cork’s head as his eyes drifted slowly closed. He was just slipping into a nice dream where he had a creamy set of red, satin-covered buttocks over his broad lap when a shrill scream pierced the calm afternoon air. With a muttered oath and a sinking feeling in his stomach, he jumped up and grabbed his shotgun…...more

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Happy 4th of July, my friends, and as always,