He sniffed a laugh, his eyes twinkling. “It’s‘Je Suis Tout PourToi’.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked, almost afraid of theanswer.
Jacques licked his lips and appeared to try to tame his smile. Two bright spots of color rose on his cheeks. “It meansI am all for you.It’s also known as the Cajun WeddingSong.”
“Oh, my God!” Rainey groaned, reaching for the discarded pillow. She pulled it over her face as mortification coursed through her. “He heardus?”
Even with the pillow over her face, she knew Jacques could make out herquestion.
“Well, I don’t think he heardeverything,”he hedged, tugging her closer. Rainey felt the length of his naked body against hers, and she covered her overheating face with her hands, even though she still hid under thepillow.
She groaned. “I’ll die if he heardanything.”
Pulling the pillow off her head, Jacques chuckled. “He probably just heard us come in last night. His bedroom is downstairs on the other side of the house.” He peeled her hands away from her face before pressing a kiss to each cheek. “Besides, my love, you wereveryquiet.”
Rainey gave him a squinty stare. “What aboutyou?”
Jacques shrugged. “I was quiet enough. He is pushing eighty, after all. And, baby,” Jacques said, tipping his head toward the door and the blaring Cajun song, “just listen to that accordion. He’s at ground zero with that thing every day. That’s got to cause some hearingloss.”
She couldn’t help her laugh, even though her cheeks blushed scarlet, and she didn’t know if she’d ever been more embarrassed. Smiling, Jacques leaned in and kissed the tip of hernose.
“C’mon. Let’s get dressed and head down. I promise, he’ll love you. It’s impossible not to loveyou.”
The heat scalding her face seemed to pour down her whole body. He’d told her he loved her countless times during the night — a night that had lasted into the wee hours of the morning — and whenever he had, Rainey’s heart had executed a triple Salchow and stuck the landing everytime.
But now as the organ settled in its rightful place, she could only heave a sigh of dread. Why had she thought she could spend the night with Jacques and face his grandfather in themorning?
“Please don’t make me,” she pleaded, making her voice sound like a whinytween.
Jacques laughed at her efforts, but he shook his head and pushed himself up in thebed.
The sight of his bare chest lifted her spirits, but Rainey still didn’t want to go through with facing his grandfather. She tucked the edges of the sheet under her arms and got ready to beg, but before she could, Jacques lowered his chin, and his eyes, softening, methers.
“I know you don’t want to, but please come down,” he said, his voice gentle, but even in the gentleness, she heard how much he wanted this. “Right now, he’s all the family I’vegot.”
His words speared her heart, and Rainey bolted up in bed, shedding her mortification. “Right. Of course.” If meeting his grandfather made Jacques happy, then she wasn’t about to deny him that. Taking the sheet with her, she slipped out of bed and picked up her clothes strewn around the room to the sound of a new Cajunwaltz.
Grinning, Jacques sat in the middle of the bed with the bedspread pooled in his lap. “May I just say how amazing you look wrapped in mysheet?”
She tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach his grin caused. “Inyoursheet? No other sheet would look as good?” sheteased.
Jacques pursed his lips as if considering. “There’s no denying you’d look great inanybed sheet, but I think it’s fair to say you look best inmine.”
Rainey shimmied on her panties while trying to maintain some modicum of modesty. Even after two nights with him, dressing in front of an audience was far out of her comfortzone.
“You’re beautiful,” he said softly, as though reading her mind. Of course, his compliment only served to make her more self-conscious. She turned her back to him to slip on her bra, but she glanced at him over her shoulder and shook her hips in time to his grandfather’s accordion as shedid.
“C’mon. Get dressed. Let’s go face themusic.”
Jacques held her hand in his firm grip as they crept out of his bedroom, Archie at their heels, the sound of his grandfather’s voice and accordion magnified by the structural megaphone the stairway provided. It wasdeafening.
It was alsohilarious.
And old man with white hair and tan coveralls stood at the foot of the stairs, his body arched back and swaying to the rhythm as he belted out lyrics in French she couldn’t possibly understand. His eyes were closed, and he frowned in concentration, but his bellowing mouth was wide with a smile ofjoy.
Rainey had to press a knuckle to her mouth to keep from giggling. Jacques’s grandfather wasadorable.
A half-dozen steps from the bottom, Jacques’s foot caused the stair to creak, and his grandfather’s eyes flew open. They fell on her immediately, and though he didn’t miss a beat in his song, his smilewidened.