Page 32 of Beau
A moment later, his mother returned to the kitchen. “Robbie’s daughter said you can rent by the month for the cost of sortin’ t’rough his things and gettin' dem donated.” She grinned. “If you need help, I can send Jacque, Genevieve and Elise over.”
Aurelie smiled at Beau’s mother. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll do what I can, but I might not be there long.”
“Thank you, Maman,” Beau said. “We’ll be sure to leave it clean.”
His mother’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ll be staying dere, too?”
“I assume it has more than one bedroom?” Beau asked.
She nodded. “What about your room at da boarding house?”
“It’ll keep. It’s just until Aurelie can have some renovations done to her house in Bayou Miste.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Is dere anything else you want to tell me?”
He stiffened. “No, Maman.”
“Ha!” Elise said. “Which translates to, Not with big ears listenin’ in.”
Beau cocked an eyebrow at his little sister. “When did you get to be such a smart Alec?”
“Maman said I take after you,” she said with a smirk.
Beau grinned, glad he’d come to breakfast at home. They had a safe house.
Now to get Aurelie there and start figuring out who was after her.
CHAPTER 7
Despite the instability of her current situation, Aurelie enjoyed breakfast with the Boyette family.
The conversations were lively, ranging from gossip about neighbors in Bayou Mambaloa to the pros and cons of airboats versus pirogues for navigating the bayou’s channels. They even discussed the best bait to use fishing off the coast of Louisiana. Aurelie was surprised by how much Beau’s mother had to contribute to the conversation about fishing bait.
She learned why soon enough.
Helen smiled across the table at Aurelie. “Are we boring you with talk about fishing?”
“Not at all,” Aurelie said.
“Good,” Helen said. “Before we had children, I helped Louis on da fishing boat. We went out every day from early in da morning until late in da evening, fishing for shrimp during da shrimp season and everything else in da off-season. Sometimes, we would charter da boat out to wealthy fishermen.”
“Maman’s fishing days weren’t over when she had children,” Beau said. “There were many times she would pack us all up, along with a lunch, and go out and help my father for the day. She wanted us to understand what our father did.”
“Most of my children have not shown an interest in carryin’ on deir father’s business,” Helen said. “Except Pierre. He’s out now with Louis. I wouldn’t let him join his father on da fishing boat until he got a useful college degree. But he loves fishing and being outdoors. Fortunately, he chose a degree in financial management, which he uses for himself and day trading. He isn’t totally reliant on da fishing industry for his income.”
“Yeah, Pierre is a lot like me,” Beau said. “He doesn’t like sitting in an office all day long any more dan I do.”
Helen smiled at her son. “Dat’s why Beau joined da army.”
“But there are many occupations in the army that require sitting behind a desk,” Aurelie said.
“My test scores gave me the option to choose a desk job in the army, but that’s not what I wanted,” Beau said. “I went into the infantry and then applied for Ranger school immediately.”
“Rangers are the ones who parachute in?” Aurelie asked.
Beau smiled. “Sometimes. On many occasions, we dropped in by repelling from helicopters. Or we drove into hostile situations in armored personnel carriers. Another option was to go in on foot.”
“Army versus civilian life must be so different,” Aurelie said.