Leopard 05 - Savage Nature

done that and he liked to eat every once in a while.”
    “She was tendin’ bar when she was thirteen,” Pauline sniffed. “And runnin’ the family store. It wasn’ right.”
    “So you all told me—and mon pere. ” Saria’s laughter spilled out. “Not that it did you much good. Even Father Gallagher was upset about the bar.”
    “Thirteen.” Drake was shocked. “How is that possible? There must be a drinking age.”
    “Of course, there is,” Pauline said. “The bar is out in the swamp. No tourists or police.”
    “I thought you had brothers.” Drake was outraged on Saria’s behalf. He couldn’t imagine a young girl surrounded by drunk men. Her absent brothers had a lot to answer for. He might just teach them a lesson himself.
    Saria shrugged. “They were gone most of the time. And I grew up around the various men who were regulars at the bar. They looked out for me.”
    Pauline gave a dramatic sniff. “No one looked out for you. You didn’ like somethin’ you just disappeared into the swamp and no one could get you out.”
    Drake raised his eyebrow. The accents were getting thicker as the women grew more animated. “You really were a wild child.”
    “I didn’t like anyone tellin’ me what to do.” Saria made it a statement of fact, without apology.
    “Oh, she worked, that one did,” Pauline said. “She did all the cookin’ and cleanin’ in that house. She was a little thing, barely able to stand up to the stove.”
    “I used a stool,” Saria explained.
    Pauline gave another sniff. “And she did the fishin’ and trappin’ as well.”
    “You make it sound terrible, Pauline. I loved my life. It was my house and my swamp, my world. And it still is.”
    “See?” Pauline appealed to Drake. “She’s always been like this. It never mattered what anyone said to her, she did what she wanted. We all got together to try to talk to her pere, but he wouldn’t listen. Told us to mind our own business.”
    Saria blew her a kiss. “I appreciated it.”
    “Is that why every single one of the women who tried to intervene ended up with a baby alligator after they interceded on your behalf?” Pauline demanded. “She snuck into their homes and left them all a present—a very pointed present. I received one as well.”
    Saria threw back her head and laughed. Drake had the sudden vision of a precocious child with gleaming white-gold hair, mischievous and running wild. He found her more fascinating than ever. His Saria had to have a backbone of steel if she was standing up to an entire community at such an early age.
    “Did you really sneak into houses . . .”
    “ Eight houses,” Pauline pointed out. “All in one night and no one caught her.”
    Drake shook his head, unable to keep from laughing. “You broke into eight homes and left each one a baby alligator?”
    Pauline nodded, beginning to laugh at the memory. “She’s very inventive, this one. She tied a bow around the necks of the alligators with a little rolled-up note, like a scroll, and left one in each bathroom, either in the tub or shower. All women of the church and very proper.”
    “I’ll bet that went over well.”
    “Mind you,” Pauline added, “these were town women. They lived on the river, but they weren’t like those of us in the swamp. Can you imagine the ruckus those ladies made findin’ gators in their fancy bathrooms? I think everyone heard the screams up and down the Mississippi.”
    Saria burst out laughing again and Pauline, shaking her head, joined with her.
    “What did the note say?” Drake asked.
    “Wait, I still have mine,” Pauline jumped up so fast the chair wavered for a moment.
    Drake steadied the chair while Pauline left the room to retrieve the note.
    “Remind me not to get you upset with me,” Drake whispered. “You believe in revenge.”
    “Good thing to know about me,” Saria said. “I don’ like people pushin’ me into anything, even ma famille. I had to be an adult and no one was goin’ to come into my home and tell me what I could or couldn’t do.”
    “We were tryin’ to give you a childhood,” Pauline pointed out as she plunked the note down on the table in front of Drake.
    “I know that now, Miss Pauline,” Saria said. “That’s why I said I appreciated the intervention. Later, when my temper cooled, I sorted it out and realized it was done because you all cared. I left an apology at each house a few weeks later.”
    Drake glanced down at the note expecting to