Midnight Bayou

the difference between a wren and a sparrow, how to avoid a copperhead nest by its cucumber whiff, how to drop a line and pull up a catfish for supper.
    It was the home of her blood, as the Quarter had become the home of her ambition. She didn’t come back to it only when her grandmother was feeling blue, but when she herself was.
    She caught a glimpse of the knobby snout of an alligator sliding by. It was, she thought, what was under the surface that could take you down, one quick, ugly snap, if you weren’t alert and didn’t keep your wits about you.
    There was a great deal under the surface of Declan Fitzgerald. She’d have preferred if he’d been some spoiled, rich trust-fund baby out on a lark. She could’ve enjoyed him, and dismissed him when they were both bored.
    It was a great deal more difficult to dismiss what you respected. She admired his strength, his purpose, his humor. As a friend, he would give her a great deal of pleasure.
    As a lover, he worried the hell out of her.
    He wanted too much. She could already feel himsucking her in. And it scared her, scared her that she didn’t seem able to stop the process.
    Toying with the key around her neck, she started back toward the bayou house. It would run its course, she told herself. Things always did.
    She pasted on a smile as she neared the house and saw her grandmother, shaded by an old straw hat, fussing in her kitchen garden.
    “I smell bread baking,” Lena called out.
    “Brown bread. Got a loaf in there you can take home with you.”
    Odette straightened, pressed a hand lightly to the small of her back. “Got an extra you could take on by the Hall for that boy. He doesn’t eat right.”
    “He’s healthy enough.”
    “Healthy enough to want a bite outta you.” She bent back to her work, her sturdy work boots planted firm. “He try to take one this morning? You’ve got that look about you.”
    Lena walked over, dropped down on the step beside the garden patch. “What look is that?”
    “The look a woman gets when a man’s had his hands on her and didn’t finish the job.”
    “I know how to finish the job myself, if that’s the only problem.”
    With a snorting laugh, Odette broke off a sprig of rosemary. She pinched at its needle leaves, waved it under her nose for the simple pleasure of its scent. “Why scratch an itch if someone’ll scratch it for you? I may be close to looking seventy in the eye, but I know when I see a man who’s willing and able.”
    “Sex doesn’t run my life, Grandmama.”
    “No, but it sure would make it more enjoyable.” She straightened again. “You’re not Lilibeth, ’t poulette. ”
    The use of the childhood endearment—little chicken—made Lena smile. “I know it.”
    “Not being her doesn’t mean you have to be alone if you find somebody who lights the right spark in you.”
    She took the rosemary Odette offered, brushed it against her cheek. “I don’t think he’s looking for a spark. I think he’s looking for a whole damn bonfire.” She leaned back on her elbows, shook back her hair. “I’ve lived this long without getting burned, and I’m going to keep right on.”
    “It always was right or left for you. Couldn’t drive you to middle ground with a whip. You’re my baby, even if you are a grown woman, so I’ll say this: Nothing wrong with a woman walking alone, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Being afraid she might trip, that’s a wrong one.”
    “What happens if I let myself fall for him?” Lena demanded. “Then he has enough of swamp water and trots on back to Boston? Or he just has his fill of dancing with me and finds himself another partner?”
    Odette pushed her hat back on the crown of her head, and her face was alive with exasperation. “What happens if it rains a flood and washes us into the Mississippi? Pity sakes, Lena, you can’t think that way. It’ll dry you up.”
    “I was doing fine before he came along, and I’ll do fine after he goes.” Feeling sulky, she reached down to pet Rufus when he butted his head against her knee. “That house over there, Grandmama, that house he’s so set on bringing back, it’s a symbol of what happens when two people don’t belong in the same place. I’m her blood, and I know.”
    “You don’t know.” Odette tipped back Lena’s chin. “If they hadn’t loved, if Abby Rouse and Lucian Manet hadn’t loved and made a child together, you and I wouldn’t be here.”
    “If they’d been meant, she