She shrugged. “I suggest you go to the bank and put it in an account immediately and get a cashier’s check for Mr. Saunders. Otherwise, that money will be stolen just like your last payment.”
The captain sucked in his breath and peered around them, lowering his voice because sound traveled on the waterway. “I told you to stay away from Saunders, Flame. He hurts people on the river. I told you before, I would find a better way to get the money.”
She winked at him. “There is no better way. I’m good at what I do, Capitaine. He’s been ripping you and your friends off for years. It was time someone taught him how it feels. Don’t worry. No one saw me.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she couldn’t see Gator ratting her out. Whatever his agenda was, he would carry it out himself, not bring in Saunders. “I didn’t get caught and he’d never suspect me even if he sees us together eventually. I look too sweet and innocent.”
Burrell Gaudet shook his head. Flame looked anything but sweet and innocent. She looked a seductress, sultry and sinful, all curves and satin skin. Her mouth alone could provide a lifetime of fantasies. More than anything-the way she looked, the way she moved-it was her voice that turned heads. Sultry and velvet, pouring over a man’s body until he remembered nothing else but that he was all man. Even at his age he wasn’t entirely immune to her charm.
He closed his eyes briefly on the thought. He was an old man, but she had a way of moving, of talking, even smiling that was sheer come-on. The strange part was, now that he’d gotten to know her, she wasn’t that way at all. She looked pure temptation, wild and untamed, made for the long slow nights on the bayou, but he hadn’t seen her take up with anyone. He didn’t know what was wrong with the boys in the parish, but if they didn’t stand up when they saw her, he rated them fools.
“I told you not to be getting into trouble on my account, Flame. I won’t have it.”
“I did it for the fun of it, Monsieur le Capitaine, no other reason. I like to stir the pot every now and then and see what floats to the surface.”
“Sometime, cher, it be best to leave the sludge on the bottom of the river.” Burrell looked down at his gnarled hands. There wasn’t much left to him in the way of pleasure. He sat on the houseboat and listened to the music of the bayou, smoked his pipe, and played boure with his friends while telling old stories. The days of taking a ship up and down the Mississippi were long gone.
Flame had brought joy back into his life. Their meeting had been accidental. A young thief had stolen his wallet and his old knees wouldn’t hold up to chasing the punk down. She had come out of nowhere, slamming a booted foot into the stomach of the fleeing pickpocket, taking the thief down in seconds and returning his property. They’d gone to the Café Du Monde and over beignets and cafe au lait he’d offered her a place to stay on his houseboat. He owned a small island, no more than swamp, mostly unusable, but it was his and it was going to stay that way. Unfortunately he’d purchased the land from Kurt Saunders and the man was determined to get the island back.
“Kurt Saunders has made a good living out of selling property and then taking it back when the balloon payment mysteriously disappears. We all know he steals the money, we just don’ know how to catch him at it. I was warned not to buy from him, but I wanted my own land cher, and I couldn’t resist. He isn’t going to take kindly to havin’ the tables turned on him.”
“I saw the money, Burrell, you had the entire payment. And I followed them straight back to Saunders’s private mansion in the Garden District. No wonder he lives like a king. He steals from everyone.”
“Should have kept the money in a bank. Thas why he sells to the river rats. He knows we don’ trust the banks. I’m not the first he’s swindled. ‘Course none of us knew for certain it was him doin’ the stealin’. We suspected, but none of us could prove it.”
“I told you before not to keep your money in the mattress with all that moss.” Flame rubbed his head affectionately. “Some modern technology is really a good thing. And you don’t fool me, Burrell. You had to be an educated man to captain a ship all those years on the Mississippi.”
“I was born and raised here, little missy, and I choose to fit in with my neighbors. It’s the life I love, the one I want to finish out my days living.”
She grinned at him, unrepentant and pressing her point. “If you’re going to keep large amounts of money on your houseboat and you deal with sleazebags like Saunders, you should at least have some security on board. I can figure something out for you if you’d like.”
“No security system on my houseboat is going to keep the likes of Saunders and his men from takin’ what they want here on the river. You know that, girl.”
Her smile widened until she was smirking. “Maybe not. But then he just got a good dose of his own medicine, now didn’t he? He’d never suspect you, not in a million years. He’ll just think his men missed one of your stashes and he’ll be mad as hell at them, but he won’t be able to do a thing about it.”
He took a long slow draw of his pipe, regarding her laughing face. The laughter never quite reached her eyes. There was something there, a hint of sorrow, a splash of wariness, whatever it was, that look was as addicting as the sultry heat of her voice. “Kurt Saunders is a mean man, Flame. If he ever comes to suspect that you stole his money-”
“Your money,” she emphasized. “I stole your money back.” A faint grin crept over her face. “Of course, I grabbed everything in the safe and there might be a bit more than he took from you. Quite a bit more, but I have a few expenses of my own. And he had several disks in one of the briefcases, but no papers, nothing that should make him too upset. It was mostly cash and a lot of cash at that.”
“Loss of money will make him upset,” he pointed out. “I should have known when you said you were thinking about taking the money back, that you’d do it. You shouldn’t have, cher, but I’m going to take it to the bank and explain I’ve been holding it in my mattress all these years. Now that you’ve retrieved it, I might as well use it.”
“I thought you’d see it my way.”
“You can never tell anyone, Flame. Not ever. He’ll come after you,” the captain cautioned.
She shrugged. “Who would I tell? I’m not into bragging, Capitaine, just getting a little justice once in a while. Throw a bit of moss in the bag and mix it up a bit so it looks and smells authentic.” She glanced at her watch. “I told Thibodeaux I’d be at his club tonight to do a little singing.”