Free The Love Potion by Sandra Hill Page A

like Martha Stewart on a bad-hair day in that picture.”
    “Picture? What picture?”
    “Maybe you could get her over to Charmaine for a makeover.”
    “A makeover? Where do you get these ideas? Sylvie Fontaine is fine just the way she is.”
    “She is?” His aunt smiled, though Luc had no idea why.
    Then, finally, she gave him some answers by holding up the front pages of several newspapers that she’d apparently brought with her. Newspapers that appeared to contain his name and Sylvie’s. It was probably both the Sunday and Monday morning newspapers, he judged, by their bulk. This must be Tante Lulu’s second reason forthe unexpected visit. He blinked several times, but all he could make out in the headlines, from across the room, were the words “Swamp Solicitor,” “Oil,” and “Love Potion.”
    “You didn’t tell me you were a celebrity,” she said. She was adding shrimp and heavy cream and herbs to the whipped eggs, while another frying pan was sizzling with thick Cajun sausages.
    Luc hadn’t even known he had two frying pans. He had Domino’s Pizza on his speed dial, and practically his own parking space at The Ragin’ Cajun Red Hots stand.
    “A regular F. Lee LeDeux, you becomin’, huh? And since when you go sniffin’ round Creole girls? Ain’t there ’nough Cajun girls for you?”
    With a groan, he pressed his forehead against the wall, especially as his aunt’s earlier question sank in. “Sylvie? You’re asking if I ever nailed…I mean, made it with Sylvie Fontaine?” He started to laugh, but stopped when even that slight movement caused tiny explosions of pain inside his head. “Never.”
    “And guess what?” she said. He could hear the excitement in her voice. “You’re gonna be on TV at twelve-thirty…the midday news. Hurry up and turn on the set. Maybe you could call in or somethin’.”
    I’m gonna kill Sylvie. I swear I am .
    “I wonder where I might be able to buy some of those jelly beans,” Tante Lulu commented. “Do you have an in with Sylvie Fontaine?”
    “An ‘in’?” he choked out. “Hardly.”
    He gaped at Tante Lulu for a long moment, wondering why she thought she needed a love potion. But then he’d been surprised that Sylviewould want such a thing, too. Women! Go figure. He’d like to see the guy who’d rely on such a harebrained idea for a chick magnet. Nope, real men sucked in their guts, slapped on the ol’ aftershave and a tight pair of jeans. If they were really dumb, fancy boots and a cowboy hat, too. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Those were the breaks.
    Tante Lulu flipped over the eggs, and winked at him.
    Oh. She must have been kidding .
    Whew! That’s a relief .
    He pressed the fingertips of one hand to his forehead, which was aching rhythmically to some inner drumbeat. This was more than a hangover.
    God, my life is going down the drain . But then he stiffened with determination. If I’m going down the tubes, you’re coming with me Ms. Ice Breaux Chemist .
    Sylvie didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Five
    Luc never got a chance to kick Sylvie’s butt. Her butt had somehow disappeared from the face of the earth…well, at least from Houma, Louisiana.
    After Tante Lulu left, he showered and put on clean clothes for his afternoon appointment at Sylvie’s company to pick up the lab results. Even though he had a long-playing tape on his answering machine, the damn thing had wound itself out during his drinking binge. He must have been really dead to the world. The red light bleeped now that dozens of voice mail messages had been recorded.
    Having read the papers from Sunday and Monday, he wasn’t surprised to have messages from his frantic brother René, as well as newspaper and TV reporters. René, probably thought this publicity was a deliberate ploy on his part…his usual outrageous M.O. Truth be told, his reputation farexceeded his boring life. Luc decided he would find a way to make that misconception work for the benefit