Page 14 of Landry (Bayou Brotherhood Protectors #7)

Camille moved Ava to arm’s length. “Sweetie, how did the window get open?”

Fat tears rolled out of Ava’s eyes. “I had to let Billy Ray in. He was hungry, and he’s sick.

I told him to stay, that you would help him.

When I went to get you, he got scared, locked the door and said he was leaving and wouldn’t come back.

I gave him Fuzzy to keep him company. When he left through the window, he fell.

” Ava flung her arms around Camille’s neck.

“Mama, is Billy Ray going to be all right?”

“I think the cracking sound we heard was the trellis breaking,” Landry said from where he leaned out the window. “I saw someone duck into the shadows, heading for the bayou.”

“Mama,” Ava leaned back and cupped her hands around Camille’s face. “We have to find him and bring him home.”

“Find him where, honey?” Camille drew Ava back to her and stroked the back of her hair.

“In the bayou.” Ava pushed back again. “Billy Ray lives in the bayou.”

“Honey, the bayou is a big place with lots of marshes, tributaries, twists and turns.” Camille tucked a lock of her daughter’s hair behind her ear. “How can we find him if we don’t know where to look?”

“He said he lives in an old gator fishing hut.” Ava shimmied out of Camille’s arms, sat on the floor, slid her feet into her tennis shoes and stood. “We have to go. Now. He needs us.”

All this time, Camille had convinced herself Billy Ray was an imaginary friend. Imaginary friends didn’t break trellises.

For the past few weeks, Ava had talked about having a friend who came through her window. She’d been telling the truth.

A shiver ran the length of Camille’s spine. What if this friend had had malicious intentions?

“Mama, please,” Ava begged. “We have to find Billy Ray.”

Camille looked over the top of Ava’s head to where Landry stood by the window.

“I think I see a boat moving through the water,” Landry said. “It’s not a motorboat. Possibly a pirogue. I can see the silhouette of someone using a paddle to propel it forward.”

Ava took her mother’s hand. “Come on. We have to hurry.”

Camille rose. “Can we catch up with him if we take the skiff?”

“Maybe.” Landry glanced back at her. “If the motor starts and we get down there in a hurry.”

Ava was halfway to the door, dragging her mother with her.

“You two should stay here. I can go,” Landry said, abandoning the window.

“Billy Ray only talks to me,” Ava said.

Camille let her daughter lead her by the hand as they left her bedroom, not convinced they should set off on a wild goose chase through the bayou in the dark. However, her daughter’s genuine concern was hard to ignore.

Landry followed Ava and Camille down the hall toward the kitchen. “Do you have life jackets?”

“Hanging on a hook on the back porch,” Camille said as she grabbed a flashlight from its charger mounted on the wall beside the refrigerator.

As they passed through the back door, Camille switched on the porch light, twisted the lock on the doorhandle and pulled it closed.

Landry frowned. “Do you have the key?”

She nodded. “I have a spare key hidden close by.” After locking herself out twice and relying on her landlord to drive over from Thibodeaux, she’d placed the spare key under a paving stone and set a potted plant on top of it.

She was the only person who knew where that key was and doubted anyone would think to look under the stone. Under the pot, maybe. Not under both.

Landry grabbed the life jackets from the hook. “Go,” he said. “We’ll put them on once we get to the boat.”

Starlight shone down brightly enough that they didn’t need the flashlight. Camille and Ava ran down to the wooden dock with Landry close behind.

Landry handed a life jacket to Camille, then quickly slipped the child-sized one over Ava’s shoulders and cinched the buckle around her middle.

Camille’s heart warmed at Landry’s concern for her daughter’s safety.

Landry dropped into the boat and reached up for Ava.

She went to him willingly, trusting that he’d be there to catch her.

Once she was settled on the bench in front of him, he held out his hand to Camille.

Like Ava, she trusted him to guide her safely into the boat. Not having known him for long, she should have been surprised at how naturally she trusted him with her life and Ava’s.

Her gut told her he was an honorable man who wouldn’t lie, steal or cheat. But then, she’d blindly believed in Richard, completely na?ve to the crimes he’d been committing under her nose.

As she settled on the bench across from Landry, she told herself Landry was not Richard.

Remy Montagne would not have hired him on with the Brotherhood Protectors if he didn’t have full faith in his loyalty and integrity.

Camille had heard Shelby say more than once that Remy trusted each of his men with his life and with the lives of those he loved, including Shelby and their baby, Jean-Luc.

After several attempts to pull-start the little outboard motor, Landry succeeded. The engine chugged to life, belching smoke before it settled into a reassuring rumble.

Camille turned on the bench to face forward as Landry untied the line from the dock and headed out into the bayou, navigating by starlight as much as possible.

“Do you know your way around the bayou?” Camille asked.

Landry shrugged, “Not as well as Shelby and Remy, but I have an idea of where we need to check first.”

“Oh, yeah?” Camille glanced over her shoulder at the man at the helm, his blond hair tinted indigo blue by the starlight. Her heart skipped several beats.

Damn. She could fall in love with a guy like Landry.

Camille sucked in a breath. She had to get those kinds of thoughts out of her head. The truest love was the love she felt for her daughter. She’d do anything for her. Anything else was temporary until the other person bailed, finding relationships too hard.

Landry steered the skiff through the bayou. “A couple of months back, I went out with a guy who does personalized fishing charters, a J.D. LaDue, to have him teach me how and where to fish in the bayou.”

Camille snorted softly. “J.D. likes Rocky Road fudge and my candied pecans. Sometimes, he trades fresh fish for candy.” She shrugged. “He’s a wheeler-dealer, but basically harmless and often helpful.”

“I got that impression. He tried to sell me a fishing vacation off the grid. He took me by the place. Said it looked worse on the outside than the inside. I couldn’t imagine the inside looking better.

The place needed work. A lot of work. When I told Remy about J.D.

’s proposal, he laughed so hard, he pulled a muscle. ”

“What was so funny?”

“When Remy first came back to the bayou, he bought into J.D.’s vacation destination, only to discover it was a shack in the bayou with no running water and no electricity.

The last hurricane ripped off half the roof.

J.D. hadn’t replaced it. As far as anyone knows, J.D.

hasn’t rented it out to anyone since Remy rode out a storm in it. ”

“You think Billy Ray paddled all the way out to J.D.’s shack?” Camille asked.

“Maybe,” Landry replied behind her.. “He had a head start.”

“We have to find Billy Ray,” Ava urged. “He needs us.”

“Do his parents know he’s wandering around at night in the bayou?” Landry asked.

“He doesn’t have a mommy or daddy,” Ava said. “He’s all alone, except for me. I’m his only friend. But now, he has Fuzzy, too.”

Camille shook her head. Kids didn’t just live alone in the bayou. It was infested with alligators and drug runners.

After what felt like hours but was likely only thirty minutes, Camille was second-guessing their trek into the bayou. She should have told Ava they couldn’t go until morning. Then they could have rented a boat from Marceau’s Marina and actually had a better chance of seeing what was out there.

“You know, it’s hard enough finding your way around the bayou during the day,” she said. “Do you think we should head back and try again in the morning?”

“No!” Ava cried. “We have to find Billy Ray.”

“But we’ve been out for a while now and haven’t seen any sign of him or this shack,” Camille argued. “We should head back.”

The little skiff pushed past a tree branch hanging low over the water and rounded a bend.

“This is it,” Landry said softly and aimed the bow of the skiff toward a weathered dock.

Camille turned on her flashlight and pointed it at a small, sad shack standing at the end of the dock, with sagging eaves, shuttered windows and twisted sheets of corrugated tin haphazardly covering the roof.

A fading sign, painted in blue letters, hung at an angle over the door proclaiming the structure as the Later Gator Fishing Hut.

Camille blinked. “This is the vacation destination J.D. tried to sell you?”

Landry chuckled and ran the side of the skiff up against the dock. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I can understand your hesitation and Remy’s laughter.” She shook her head. “And you think this might be where Billy Ray is staying?”

“He said he was staying in an old gator hut,” Ava said with a shrug.

Landry looped a line over one of the posts on the dock and secured the skiff.

Camille shined the light on the weathered boards. Some of them had worn through in places, leaving gaps large enough a foot could fall through them.

“You and Ava should stay in the boat while I check out the place.”

Camille shot him a glance over her shoulder and shook her head. “We’re going in.”

For a moment, Landry’s brow furrowed. Then he shrugged. “Okay. Let me get out first. I’m not sure how sturdy the dock is.”

Landry stood, rocking the little boat.

Camille held onto the side of the skiff with one hand and Ava with the other, again questioning her sanity for bringing her daughter out in the bayou at night.

Grabbing a nearby post, Landry pulled himself up onto the dock. The movement rocked the skiff again.

He grabbed the line and steadied the little boat. When it stopped bobbing, he held out his hands. “Can you hand Ava up to me?”