Louisiana Bayou Quotes

Everyone needs someone to balance them out.

Sometimes you sucked it up and did stuff you didn’t like because the people you loved needed you to.

We don’t go hard and fast down here,” Ellie said. “Long and slow and laid-back is more our style.

Juliet laughed. “You all are crazy, you know that?” “Oh, for sure,” he said with a nod. “Does it rub off?” “If you’re lucky.

Well, when we get hot there are a couple of other things we do,” he said. Had he moved closer? Juliet swallowed. “Like what?” “We take clothes off,” he said.

Rugged and wounded. Those were the words that came to mind when she paired that scar with the broody look in his eyes.

If there’s anything you can think of that you might need from a real man with plenty of testosterone, you just let me know.

What If...

He met her gaze intently. "And what if you ruin me for all other women?" She wanted to do that.

Hey, the only person I almost shot was Owen,” Maddie said, giving her boyfriend a huge smile. “And if that does end up happening, he’ll forgive me.” Owen grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. “You’d nurse me back to health?” “I’d make you alligator gumbo out of the fucking lizard that tried to take a bite of you,” she said.

I’ai adore chaque minute.

He let out a breath that seemed resigned. "Cora better have sausage gravy this mornin'," he said. "Sausage gravy will make it all okay?" "Well, sausage gravy never made anything worse.

I’m a little dirty,” he said huskily, running his hand up and down the outside of one of her thighs. “I washed up but should have showered. Didn’t expect this.” “You probably should have expected this.” Her voice sounded a little breathless. “Yeah,” he agreed, his eyes darkening. “I probably should have.” “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m washable.” Images of showers and soap bubbles tripped through her mind and she hoped through his as well. He gave her a little grin. “Good to know. Means I can get you really dirty.” Juliet felt her breathing quicken. She put her hand against his face, over his scar. “I really want that.” Sawyer slid a hand up her back and into her hair. He urged her closer until her lips were nearly against his. “Me, too.

The old man had been tanned by the light of too many beer signs, and it just goes to show that you can’t live on three packs of Chesterfields and a fifth of bourbon a day without starting to drift far too fuckin’ wide in the turns.

Well, honey," Ellie said. "Every single person who's important to me started out as a stranger. Figure I might as well start off nice with new people. There's always time to think they're assholes later.

Juliet laughed. "I am not the first woman to tell you that she finds you attractive." "No," he said, again almost as if he was thinking out loud. "But you're the first to lay it out like that. And the first with the scar." "I'm not," she said, with absolute confidence. "I might be the first to say it, but no, Saywer, other women have found that hot too. I promise you.

She grinned as she started across the carpet toward the bathroom... "I have been dreaming about that shower." "This is going to be the dirtiest shower you've ever had." "It better freaking be," she tossed over her shoulder.

Maybe she should have been grateful for the soft, lingering, slow kisses in the kitchen. Because in that moment, she wasn't sure she was ready for a full-on, take-over-everything-including-her-body-and-heart Sawyer. That was absolutely the best way to describe how he was looking at her right now. She had no time to get ready, though. Sawyer's mouth took hers in a deep, hot kiss. He didn't say a word, gave her no real warning, just sealed his lips over hers and started kissing her as if it was his single goal in life to make her come with just his lips on hers.

Kennedy Landry wasn't really the patiently-wait-on-hold type of woman. Kennedy Landry was, however, the type of woman that made a man want to take what tiny semblance of control he could find and grab onto it like it was a lifeboat in the midst of a hurricane.

Don’t go stargazing with anyone else. You want stars, I’ll give you stars.

You people and your feelings always spilling out all over,” she said. “Yep, we’re real bastards that way. All loving and supportive and excited about shit all the time.

Bennett sucked breath in through his nose. "You're a cruel and wonderful woman." "I'm comfortable with that assessment," [Kennedy] told him.

Oh, honey, this town is full of guys I've dated and broken up with and run into at the gas station and bar on a regular basis. Just because you've seen each other naked is no reason that you can't talk about the weather while standing in the grocery store line.

MiMi says she was tutored by the bayou, by the Mississippi itself. She says that river is the blood meandering through Louisiana’s veins, and it casts a spell on all who love it.

There’s never been a woman that can compare to you, Maddie, and I know there never will be,” he told her sincerely.

I want you to always do everything you're capable of.

I realized that if you never do anything new, you never learn anything. And learning things changes you. Even if those things aren't what you intended to learn. You're never the same after an adventure, Kennedy." She tapped a finger over her heart. "In here you change. And in here you change," she said, tapping her temple that time. "I had to learn some things--make some mistakes--on my own. I thought." She gave a soft laugh."The thing is, once you have Leo Landry in your life, you're never really on your own again.

Memory, Evans-Pritchard reasoned, was an indirect expression of power. The Arenos faced structural amnesia about something else and linked it to a different source of power: the Louisiana Chemical Association, the Society of the Plastics Industry, the Vinyl Institute, Shell Oil, PPG Industries, and their leaders in government. Spokesmen for this source of power drew the popular imagination to the exciting economic fugure. The Arenos felt that their silent bayou, their buried kin, their dead trees were forgotten.

Are you going to sit down?” Ida Belle asked. “Or am I supposed to drive down the bayou with you up there looking like a Jackie Chan hood ornament?

Louisiana summers? I’d have thought you’d be used to the heat.” “You never really get used to it,” Nancy said.

There was something about Madison Allain that had always made him want to fight dragons for her.

He didn’t want to let her go. At all. Ever.

Who built entire towns on swamps anyway? In what scenario did someone say, “Hey, it’s hotter than the devil’s ball sack. Let’s live here!

What can I do?” She took a deep breath and said, “Just hold still.” She put her hand behind his head, leaned in, and kissed him.

Tell me what you want,” he said firmly. “You.

He was fully anticipating her lips being bright red to go with her toenail polish. Damn, he loved red lipstick. But before he could get to those lips, she used them, to say, “Oh, dammit, it’s you.” Owen’s gaze bypassed her mouth to fly to her eyes. Because he’d know that voice anywhere. Madison Allain was home. A day early. Not that an extra day would have helped him prepare. He’d been thinking about her visit for a week and was still as wound tight about it as he’d been when Sawyer had told him that she was coming home. For a month. Owen stood just watching her, fighting back all of the first words that he was tempted to say. Like, “Damn, you’re even more gorgeous than the last time I saw you.” Or, “I haven’t put anyone in the hospital lately.” Or, “I’ve missed you so damned much.” Just for instance. He wiped his hands on his jeans. Okay, he was supposed to be nice to her. That meant treating her like she was one of the tourists who frequented this dock. Polite. Friendly, But not I’ve-known-you-my-whole-life-and-kissed-you-a-whole-bunch friendly. Just mildly hey-how’s-it-goin’ friendly. Nice. Polite. A little friendly—but not too much. He could do that. Though it probably meant not saying things like, “I still remember how your nipples taste.

Kennedy snorted at that..."Sorry. I just...I don't spend a lot of time with people who let rules get in the way of doing the right thing." She grimaced. Maybe she shouldn't be admitting that.

If it was an emergency, you would have hung up and called back. Over and over again. Leaving progressively more and more threatening messages about what you were going to do to me when you did finally get a hold of me,” he told her, signing off on the bottom of the letter he’d just finished and moving it to the side. “I would never do that,” she said. “No?” When she did finally send him reports it was always in folders that were named things like I’m Not Your Fucking Secretary and If You Ask Me to Get You Coffee It Will Definitely Have Turtle Shit In It. “If I really needed your attention, I’d start texting. Photos. Naked photos.” His entire body reacted to that. He cleared his throat. “I would definitely—.” “Of my grandfather.” Bennett paused. Then groaned. He knew her grandfather. Leo Landry was a great guy. Funny, down-to-earth, honest, loyal. And someone that Bennett absolutely did not ever want to see naked. Ever. “You’re an evil woman.” “Remember that.

However, what America does possess in abundance is a legacy of colorful names. A mere sampling: Chocolate Bayou, Dime Box, Ding Dong, and Lick Skillet, Texas; Sweet Gum Head, Louisiana; Whynot, Mississippi; Zzyzx Springs, California; Coldass Creek, Stiffknee Knob, and Rabbit Shuffle, North Carolina; Scratch Ankle, Alabama; Fertile, Minnesota; Climax, Michigan; Intercourse, Pennsylvania; Breakabeen, New York; What Cheer, Iowa; Bear Wallow, Mud Lick, Minnie Mousie, Eighty-Eight, and Bug, Kentucky; Dull, Only, Peeled Chestnut, Defeated, and Nameless, Tennessee; Cozy Corners, Wisconsin; Humptulips, Washington; Hog Heaven, Idaho; Ninety-Six, South Carolina; Potato Neck, Maryland; Why, Arizona; Dead Bastard Peak, Crazy Woman Creek, and the unsurpassable Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming.

The bones said death was comin', and the bones never lied. Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grand pere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across ever day. She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he'd done all those years ago. What he'd brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands. What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five. What had led Eva's brother, Antoine, to drown in the bayou only a half mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind. What stalked Eva now.

Well, are you just going to sit there with your mouths gaping-open or are you able to speak? Why didn’t you announce yourselves prior to crashing ashore, the Fairy Queen scolded. How-Ya-Do’s eyes were even larger than usual as he cowered on Cricket’s shoulder; the both of them speechless, shocked into silence, and Face-to-Face with Magic itself! You scared the spark right out of us, well speak-up for goodness sake before I sic’ The Hummers onto you both, she warned while pointing to the massive army of bees.

Amelia was instantly distracted when she heard one of her favorite songs: What a Wonderful World made famous by Louis Armstrong. The woman singing did the song justice as she sang: I see trees of gree, red roses, too. I see them bloom, for me and you. And I think to myself. What a wonderful world! Before she could blink an eye, Rick pulled her into his arms in a waltz position. He gave her a wink and said flirtatiously, “May I have this dance, my love?” As they danced to the rhythm of the music, Amelia said, “Don’t ever stop flirting with me, no matter how old we get.” “Never!

Owen felt his mouth curve into a grin as he heard the familiar clap, clap, clap behind him. That was one of his favorite sounds—high heels on the wooden dock of the Boys of the Bayou swamp boat tour company. He took his time turning and once he did, he started at the shoes. They were black and showed off bright red toenails. The straps wrapped sexily around trim ankles and led the eye right up to smooth, toned calves. The heels matched the black polka dots on the white skirt that thankfully didn’t start until mid-thigh, and showed off more tanned skin. He straightened from his kneeling position in one of the boats as his eyes kept moving up past the skirt to the bright red belt that accentuated a narrow waist and then to the silky black tank that molded to a pair of perfect breasts. He was fully anticipating her lips being bright red to go with that belt and her toenail polish. God, he loved red lipstick. And high heels. In any color. But before he could get to those lips, she used them, to say, “Oh, dammit, it’s you.” Owen’s gaze bypassed her mouth to fly to her eyes. Because he’d know that voice anywhere. Madison Allain was home. A day early. Not that an extra day would have helped him prepare. He’d been thinking about her visit for a week and was still as wound tight about it as he’d been when Sawyer, his business partner and cousin, had told him that she was coming home. For a month. Owen stood just watching her, fighting back all of the first words that he was tempted to say. Like, “Damn, you’re even more gorgeous than the last time I saw you.” Or, “I haven’t put anyone in the hospital lately.” Or, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.” Just for instance.

We need the past around us for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it provides a sense of direction.

Patient: Where is Carey Street? Miss Ida: "Go stand out in the street and you'll find it.

Despite indications of affection, a strong Anti-Semitic bias remained. In an 1878 campaign speech Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama referred to a candidate as a 'Jew-dog,' and the following year Senator Morgan opposed the appointment of a postmaster in Montgomery because he had been endorsed 'by a parcel of Jews.' In Nashville, Tennessee, in 1878, Christian mothers threatened to withdraw their children from a private school for girls after two Jews had been accepted. The principal yielded to the pressure and rescinded the enrollments. And in a Rome, Georgia, courtroom in 1873, the plaintiff's attorney declared that one cannot accept the word of a Jew 'even under oath.' Louisiana had anti-Semitic demonstrations in the late 1880s. Then, in 1893, farmers in the Bayou state wrecked Jewish stores in a particularly harsh outburst. That same year Mississippi night riders burned Jewish farmhouses, and a Baltimore minister preached: 'Of all the dirty creatures who have befouled this earth, the Jew is the slimiest.

He and his mama run swamp tours back in the bayou.” Roo flicked ashes into the trampled weeds. “Tourists really like that kind of thing, don’t ask me why. He works construction jobs, too. Mows lawns, cuts trees, takes fishermen out in his boat. Stuff like that.” “Quite a résumé.” “And not bad to look at either.” Roo arched an eyebrow. “Or haven’t you noticed?” “I don’t even know him.” “You don’t have to know him to notice.” Miranda hedged. “Well…sure. I guess he’s kind of cute.” “Cute? Kind of? I’d say that’s the understatement of the century.” “Does he have a girlfriend or something?” As Roo flicked her an inquisitive glance, she added quickly, “He keeps calling me Cher.” Clearly amused, Roo shook her head. “It’s not a name, it’s a…” She thought a minute. “It’s like a nickname…like what you call somebody when you like them. Like ‘hey, love’ or ‘hey, honey’ or ‘hey, darlin’. It’s sort of a Cajun thing.” Miranda felt like a total fool. No wonder Etienne had gotten that look on his face when she’d corrected him about her name. “His dad’s side is Cajun,” Roo explained. “That’s where Etienne gets that great accent.” Miranda’s curiosity was now bordering on fascination. She knew very little about Cajuns--only the few facts Aunt Teeta had given her. Something about the original Acadians being expelled from Novia Scotia in the eighteenth century, and how they’d finally ended up settling all over south Louisiana. And how they’d come to be so well known for their hardy French pioneer stock, tight family bonds, strong faith, and the best food this side of heaven. “Before?” Roo went on. “When he walked by? He was talking to you in French. Well…Cajun French, actually.” “He was?” Miranda wanted to let it go, but the temptation was just too great. “What’d he say?” “He said, ‘Let’s get to know each other.’” A hot flush crept up Miranda’s cheeks. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and she was totally flustered. Maybe Roo was making it up, just poking fun at her--after all, she didn’t quite know what to make of Roo. “Oh,” was the only response Miranda could think of.

The electric hum of cicadas, which was a low drone near the road, become an overwhelming vibration in the neck-deep brush that had taken back what was once a long driveway and front yard. By the time I reached the structure, beads of sweat were rolling off my lips and the tip of my nose, and my skin was covered in the slick of Louisiana humidity.

The horses, reluctant and excited from the first, become furious and wild. At the next shoal-personal nastiness being past consideration-we dismount, at knee-deep, to give them a moment's rest, shifting the mule's saddle to the trembling long-legged mare, and turning Mr. Brown loose, to follow as he could. After a breathing-spell we resume our splashed seats and the line of wade. Experience has taught us something, and we are more shrewd in choice of footing, the slopes around large trees being attractively high ground, until, by a stumble on a covered root, a knee is nearly crushed against a cypress trunk. Gullies now commence, cut by the rapid course of waters flowing off before north winds, in which it is good luck to escape instant drowning. Then quag again; the pony bogs; the mare, quivering and unmanageable, jumps sidelong among loose corduroy; and here are two riders standing waist-deep in mud and water between two frantic, plunging-horses, fortunately not beneath them. Nack soon extricates himself, and joins the mule, looking on terrified from behind. Fanny, delirious, believes all her legs broken and strewn about her, and falls, with a whining snort, upon her side. With incessant struggles she makes herself a mud bath, in which, with blood-shot eyes, she furiously rotates, striking, now and then, some stump, against which she rises only to fall upon the other side, or upon her back, until her powers are exhausted, and her head sinks beneath the surface. Mingled with our uppermost sympathy are thoughts of the soaked note-books, and other contents of the saddle-bags, and of the.hundred dollars that drown with her. What of dense soil there was beneath her is now stirred to porridge, and it is a dangerous exploit to approach. But, with joint hands, we length succeed in grappling her bridle, and then in hauling her nostrils above water. She revives only for a new tumult of dizzy pawing, before which we hastily retreat. At a second pause her lariat is secured, and the saddle cut adrift. For a half-hour the alternate resuscitation continues, until we are able to drag the head of the poor beast, half strangled by the rope, as well as the mud and water, toward firmer ground, where she recovers slowly her senses and her footing. Any further attempts at crossing the somewhat "wet" Neches bottoms are, of course, abandoned, and even the return to the ferry is a serious sort of joke. However, we congratulate ourselves that we are leaving, not entering the State.

The hot, soggy breath of the approaching summer was extremely depressing

The forest was dense, and filled with all manner of vines and rank undergrowth; the road was a vague opening, where obstructing trees had been felled, the stumps and rotten trunks remaining. Across actual quags a track of logs and saplings had been laid, but long ago, now rotten and in broken patches. As far as the eye could reach, muddy water, sent back by a south wind from the gulf, extended over the vast flat before us, to a depth of from two to six feet, as per immediate personal measurement. We spurred in. One foot: Two feet, with hard bottom: Belly-deep, hard bottom: Shoulder-deep, soft bottom: Shoulder-deep, with a sucking mire: The same, with a network of roots, in which a part of the legs are entangled, while the rest are plunging. The same, with a middle ground of loose poles; a rotten log, on which we rise dripping, to slip forward next moment, head under, haunches in air. It is evident we have reached one of the spots it would have been better to avoid.

On the morning of September 11, 2014, the thirteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, residents of Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana, began receiving texts stating that a chemical fire was underway and that they should take shelter from toxic fumes. The original messages said to check the website “columbiachemical.com” for information. At around the same time, hundreds of Twitter accounts tweeted that a disaster was unfolding in real time. “A powerful explosion heard from miles away happened at a chemical plant in Centerville, Louisiana #ColumbianChemicals,” someone using the name of Jon Merritt wrote. A search for that same hashtag revealed multiple eyewitness accounts of the explosion and fire. There were photos of flames and videos of surveillance footage from a nearby gas station showing the initial flash of the conflagration; there were images of plumes of black smoke rising skyward over what appeared to be the Louisiana bayou. One Twitter account posted a screenshot of CNN’s landing page, appearing to show that the explosion was now national news and that, to commemorate the 9/11 attacks, ISIS had taken responsibility. It was, according to a flurry of contemporaneous accounts, the latest terrorist attack on the US homeland. But it was all fake. The IRA, in far-off Saint Petersburg, had made it all up—the alerts, the photographs, the eyewitness accounts.III Why did they do it? Perhaps it was just to prove they could and to sow whatever panic that followed. Or maybe they were practicing.

Something snatched onto Crickets’ left leg, and it was rapidly pulling her into the depths away from the wharf. Air-bubbles restricted her view in the pre-stirred water, as she kicked furiously against the high strength of her unknown assailant. Being from Louisiana, Cricket’s first instinct told her she was going down to a certain-death by Alligator!

Rick raised his brow. “Who were you talking to?” “Millie.” “Is she that tall woman you met the other day?” Amelia nodded. “She’s our new client.” “New client?” Rick’s brow rose with disbelief as he sat up straight. “You’re working on our honeymoon? No way! Don’t tell me you were promoting our business.” “Hey! It’s not my fault,” defended Amelia. “She just walked up to me and asked for help. I couldn’t refuse her. She needs us.” “How did she know you were a P.I.?” Amelia pursed her lips tightly to prevent a smile. “Umm… You see… I… Well…

Rick had said the perfect honeymoon was being together.

Amelia? Let’s make sure we set some time aside every day for one another. We shouldn’t bring our work home with us. Okay?” She smiled. “Deal!

Rick smiled as he watched the waves roll toward their feet. He turned to her and said, “Since we’re going to Louisiana, I did some research and learned a few things. Did you know it’s famous for its gumbo and bayous?” Amelia’s eyes brightened. “Really? I’ve seen pictures of a bayou in a magazine. It’s so mysterious looking.” “It’s also the crawdad capital of the world.” “Crawdad? What’s that?” Rick’s eyes widened with surprise. “You don’t know what crawdads are?” She shook her head. “They’re a freshwater crayfish, similar to shrimp… only better.

Louisiana has a larger alligator population than any other state. Just over a million.” “Over a million!” exclaimed Amelia with astonishment.

Rick looked at his watch and gave a nod. “Yup! We have enough time before our next appointment.” “Enough time for what?” asked Amelia. He grinned and began dancing around her and singing in jazz style: “Goin’ down the bayou! Goin’ down the bayou! Goin’ down the bayou! Doodle-ee doodle-ee-doo!” When Rick saw her eyes brighten, he said, I checked out a few bayous at Cross Lake. We’re goin’ down the bayou, sweetie.” Amelia asked with laughter in her voice, “Were you just singing a Disney tune? From the Princess and the Frog?” “Yup! I have many talents.

You married me for my brains? I can’t believe it.” He grinned. “Well, among other things.” “My charming personality?” He chuckled. “Not exactly. You have the nicest looking legs ever.” “What?” “Hey! I can’t help it. I guess I’m just a leg man. Personality comes in second. Brains are third.” “Brains are third?” she said in mock disappointment. “So why did you marry me?” “Hmmm.” Amelia tapped his lips. “Your sweet kisses were the main reason. The rest of you came as a package deal.” “The rest of me?” he said incredulously. “Well, at least I’m a good kisser. I can live with that.

It wasn’t a horror movie, Mama,” said Jody adamantly. “It had zombies, didn’t it?” “Yes, ma’am, but it’s a love story.” Rick laughed. He was amused with the young girl’s defense. “Have you seen it?” asked Jody. “It’s called Warm Bodies.” Rick shook his head. “No, I haven’t. Is it good?” Jody’s eyes brightened. “Oh my gosh! You have to see it…

After a long while, Rick cleared his throat and pulled over to the side of the road. He then turned to her and said, “Amelia sweetie, a lot of problems are caused because of a lack of communication. When you try to guess what the other is thinking, then that’s when you get into trouble. If we communicate, find time for one another, don’t take each other for granted, and even share responsibilities, it will bring us closer.” “Share responsibilities?” He nodded. “Sure. A man who thinks he’s too good to share with the chores needs to reevaluate his relationship with his wife.

He strummed a few chords and then sang: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away. Rick sang one more verse, and when he was done, he winked at Amelia and smiled.

I see you’ve got an unwanted visitor.” He walked to stand beside Doris just as she poked at the gator with the table leg and caused it to hiss and back up again. “Ma’am, would you please not poke the gator anymore? Hissing is his way of telling you he doesn’t much like that.

You don’t like to talk to people, do you? I mean, slamming the door in my face was a clue that was hard to miss. I’m perceptive like that.

How ‘bout you, Jena?” He leaned closer, speaking in an exaggerated whisper. “We could go somewhere private. I know you probably got some scars from being shot, but you can’t see a scar in the dark, right?” The dickwad was offering her a pity fuck in a darkened room?

Jackson shrugged off Gentry’s hand. “You want to worry about drugs in your parish, Agent Broussard, why don’t you check my sister’s bag? Or is it okay for your agents to be racing around with guns while they’re buzzing on painkillers? Is it okay for her to work four months after she tried to slit her wrists with a f**king utility knife?” A chill washed across Jena’s shoulders. Who was this person? The brother she’d known her whole life would never try to throw her under the squad car. “We aren’t talking about your sister, who, by the way, is a skilled law-enforcement agent who took two bullets in the line of duty a few months ago, son.” Gentry’s voice was low, but serious. “We’re talking about you, an unemployed twenty four year old who had almost an ounce of an illegal synthetic drug stashed in his bedroom, not to mention what’s probably still in your system. All we’d need is one simple blood test.” Gentry paused. “We’re talking about jail time, Jackson. Do you understand what kind of trouble you could be in?” Time seemed to stretch into slow motion. Jackson turned like an enraged devil, tightened his fingers around Gentry’s throat, and squeezed. He moved so fast that Gentry wasn’t able to get his hands up to protect himself and was left trying to breathe and pry Jacks’s hands off at the same time. Jackson wasn’t nearly as strong as Gentry, so it had to be the drugs. Jena had heard stories of users having almost superhuman strength. She ran toward them, but Adam got there first. He kicked Jacks’s legs out from beneath him and, by the time her brother hit the floor, Meizel was kneeling on his back, one hand pressing his head against the tile. The handcuffs clicked shut with a loud scrape of metal, and Meizel jerked Jacks to his feet. It was over in a matter of seconds. All four of them stood still for a moment. Until Jacks, his chin bleeding from hitting the floor, began spewing more accusations at Jena, laced with a liberal dose of f-bombs. Then life sped up again. Meizel held one of Jacks’s arms while Gentry held the other. The deputy had started his Miranda by the time they’d gotten Jacks out the front door, shoving him toward the patrol car none too gently.

Since Paul wasn’t a big conversationalist—he was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she’d ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences—Jena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul’s truck to see what she could learn about him. Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry’s. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors. It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit. In her truck and in Gentry’s, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul’s cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared. She leaned over to see how he’d achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place. “Sinclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?” He sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, “I’m psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.” He almost ran off the road. “Why?” “Your scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.” His dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that. She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver’s seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly. But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers thrown in the back, Paul’s backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different things, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner’s tag dangling from the shirt’s top button. Good Lord. She turned back around. “What did you learn?” Paul finally asked. “You’re an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,” she said. “Accent on freak.

There was something about a guy in a uniform most women found irresistible. Ceelie and Sonia had pondered this peculiar phenomenon over late-night glasses of moscato back in Nashville. They'd decided it had to be the belt and all the equipment that dangled from it when the guys walked, which not only was phallic but probably released extra sex pheromones into the air and turned women into nectar-seeking honeybees.

I closed the office, put down the top of my lavender-pink Eldorado Cadillac, and, like Chuck Berry said, motorated down the bayou to Jeanerette, Louisiana, in St. Mary Parish country, where, in a snap of your fingers, you can be back in the fourteenth century. # #

Under a Louisiana drug-forfeiture law, citizens who had their assets seized - and were uncharged - bore the burden of both proving their innocence and having to pay the highest bond in the nation (10 percent of the value of the property or $2500, whichever was greater) to sue for their return. Perversely, the 1989 law insured that forfeited assets were distributed in a manner that invited corruption. Sixty percent of the proceeds went to the law enforcement agency that seized the property, 20 percent to the district attorney, and 20 percent to a state judges' judicial-expense fund.

She looked out the taxi window at the picturesque Creole cottages and brick Spanish Colonial houses on the way back to the bakery. Piper could understand why New Orleans was an attractive location for filming. The culturally rich neighborhoods and diverse locations, from bayou to big city, provided vivid backdrops. There were willing extras of all shapes, sizes, and ethnicities available, as well as state-of-the-art sound stages and plenty of skilled crew members. Piper also knew that Louisiana offered attractive tax incentives to the film industry to bring in business to New Orleans. The city was working hard to earn the moniker "Hollywood of the South.

When you first step from your comfort bubble into a new environment, all the sensory details are acutely apparent: the guttural sound of the toads, what locals call the Ouaouarons (pronounced “wa-wa-rons”), the crooning of some foreign night bird deep in a jungle of pine, palmetto, and cypress, the sweet scent of night-blooming flowers mixing with the loamy, earthen banks of the bayou, Spanish Moss draped like early Halloween decorations on the sagging arms of tree-giants, and the feel of thick, wet air filling your head and chest.

We came to discover a world rich with culture, history, and bayous. This flat swampy territory is riddled with waterways, snaking like veins and arteries between forests filled with crooked cypress trees. Sulphur is home to a Cajun populace, and unlike its more well-known southeastern counterpart, New Orleans, which is predominantly Creole, it was originally settled by Acadians.

That evening I drove down the bayou to attend a meeting of our church-annex committee. The back road to Jeanerette is like a geographical odyssey through Louisiana’s history and the disparities that make it less than real and difficult to categorize. The pastureland is emerald green in spring and summer, dotted with cattle and clumps of oak and gum trees, the early sugar cane waving in the richest alluvial soil in America. At sunset, Bayou Teche is high and dark from the spring rains; the air smells of gardenia and magnolia; and antebellum homes glow among the trees with a soft electrical whiteness that makes one wonder if perhaps the Confederacy should not have won the War Between the States after all.

Long before the white man came to Louisiana, the Indians traveled from the Gulf of Mexico, through the Mississippi Sound, Rigolets Pass, Lake Borgne, and Lake Pontchartrain into Bayou St. John, which the Choctaws called Bayouk Choupic or Shupik (Bayou Mudfish). Five and a half miles after entering the bayou, they got out of their bark canoes and carried them over a time-worn trail to the Michisipy (Great River). The Choctaws called Bayou St. John “Choupithatcha” or “Soupitcatcha,” combination of the Choctaw “supik” (mudfish) and “hacha” (river).

On March 2, 1699, Iberville arrived at the mouth of the river, where there was fresh water and a strong current. The following day, Shrove Tuesday, they began their travels up the river. Finding a bayou twelve miles upstream, they named it in honor of the holiday, Mardi Gras Bayou, and thus was Mardi Gras introduced to the Louisiana territory

Owen gave a low groan and said against her mouth, “Not sure I can do the hold-still thing, Mad.

She was being turned on by watching Owen talk about alligators. She was in so much trouble.

It’s politics. This is Louisiana.” “I remember many situations when I said it was just Vietnam.” Jimmy pulled the cork from a green half-empty bottle of wine. “Here’s to neocolonialism everywhere.” I wasn’t up to his cynicism. I looked at the oaks, the moss lifting in the wind, purple dust rising from a cane field, Bayou Teche glinting in the sun like a Byzantine shield. La Louisiane, the love of my life, the home of Jolie Blon and Evangeline and the Great Whore of Babylon, the place for which I would die, the place for which there was no answer or cure.

Looking into his eyes instead of where she was stepping, she put her foot too far to the edge of the step and as she shifted her weight forward to get onto the boat, her foot slid and she ended up falling into Chase. He caught her—also like some stupid romantic movie—but the bag she was holding whacked him in the leg and he winced. She looked down. It didn’t just hold strands of lights. There was also a big, hard plastic, gold-glitter covered star. With very sharp points. One of which was poking into his leg. Bailey quickly shifted to move the bag away from his leg but that only managed to press her hips into his. And the big, hard shape behind his fly. Her eyes flew to his face. He was looking down at her. His expression held pain, amusement, heat, and exasperation all at once. Impressively. “Sorry I’m poking you,” she said, her voice breathless. “I was going to say the same.” His grin registered before his words did.

You're not actually wise?" Bennett asked, with a shake of his head. He grinned at them. "Damn, I've been bamboozled." "Let's put it this way," Ellie said. "We pay attention and we love everyone who hangs out around here. You put those together and you notice a lot. When you notice a lot, you can come off as pretty insightful.

Leo chuckled. "What we lack in actual know-how, we make up for with pure, very believable, heartfelt bullshit.

I'm very willing to take something in trade," he told her. "In fact, I'm going to insist on it. I did something for you. Now you're going to do something for me." Kennedy lifted a brow. "I have lots of talents, Baxter. You're gonna have to be specific.

Bennett could get shit done. That was sexy as hell.

[Bennett] gave a little growl and put his hands on her ass, pulling her against him. "Get in that fucking shower and let me worship you.

Juliet laughed. "I am not the first woman to tell you that she finds you attractive." "No," he said, again almost as if he was thinking out loud. "But you're the first to lay it out like that. And the first with the scar." "I'm not," she said, with absolute confidence. "I might be the first to say it, but no, Saywer, other women have found that hot too. I promise you.

He met her gaze intently. "And what if you ruin me for all other women?" She wanted to do that.