Free Sweetheart Reunion by Lenora Worth

”
    Alma’s heart did that funny thing again. “I do feel as if I’m being stalked.”
    “But in a good way because he’s not dangerous,” Callie said, grinning.
    “Maybe not to you,” Alma replied, turning around to gather more napkins and utensils. “But he could hurt me again. I can’t let him do that. And I can’t let my daddy get involved either.”
    “Too late,” Callie said. “They just walked out the door together.”

Chapter Seven
    J ulien followed Alma’s father out onto the sidewalk. A playful early morning breeze teased the bright red geraniums planted in two clay pots on each side of the double front doors. Alma liked to keep an inviting entryway.
    Mr. Blanchard pushed past the pretty flowers then pulled Julien up close against the brick wall between the café and Callie’s lush nursery and garden store. “Wanna tell me what you’re up to, Julien? ’Cause, me, I’m thinking it’s not so much about boats and alligators as it is about messing with me and my second-born daughter. Am I right?”
    The man didn’t waste words.
    “Yes, sir.” Julien looked around to make sure his brother was still preoccupied with sweet Mollie. And that no one else was within listening distance. A set of tinkling wind chimes hanging in Callie’s garden played a melody in the wind. “I did want you to see my boats…I mean, if you’re interested…but I’d like to inform you that I aim to work things out with Alma. And I want to make peace with you while I’m at it.”
    Ramon put a beefy hand to his ear. “Come again, son?”
    “I want to win back Alma.”
    There, he’d said it. Julien knew it to be true, but how on earth would he ever get past the stone wall of Ramon Blanchard?
    Or the stubborn silence of Alma Marie Blanchard?
    Or even his own crusty doubts?
    Ramon’s burly black scowl didn’t scare Julien nearly as much as Alma’s solid wall of resistance. But he needed her daddy to believe in him again. To really believe in him. Just another part of the revelation that had shadowed him all week.
    “You want to fix things with my little Alma?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And how you gonna do dat? It’s been a few years now and dis is the first I’ve heard of such nonsense.”
    “It took me a while to figure things out, sir.”
    Ramon Blanchard stared over at Julien, his dark eyes as steely and aged as a rusty anchor. “Did you figure out that if you hurt her again I will not only go for a long boat ride into a deep bayou with you, but also I will most assuredly feed you to the alligators myself?”
    “Hadn’t figured on that, but now that you mention it—”
    “I am not playing around here, son,” Mr. Blanchard said, his smile stuck in one position for all to see. “My family has been through too much pain over the past few years. And my Alma, she takes things to heart. You only get one chance with her and I’m pretty sure you used yours up when you broke her heart before. I can’t let you do that to her again just ’cause you all of a sudden have a hankering to make things right.”
    “I don’t plan to break her heart,” Julien replied, his tone low and even. “I never planned to break her heart back then, either.” He shrugged, lowered his head. “I got scared back then.” He glanced up at Ramon, shocking himself with that admission. “Have you ever wanted something so badly that it just tore you up to think about it? About not having it, about having it and losing it, about messing things up?”
    Ramon gave him a slanted look, his aged eyes going dark. “I’ve loved and lost, but you know that. I know all about pain and regret and heartache. No need to talk in riddles to me. But you did mess up. You’d better mean it this time, is all I can say.”
    With that, he turned and barreled up the street, a big, beefy cut of a man with a heart that had been shattered by a piercing grief.
    Julien vowed he would not add to that grief.
    He turned to go back inside and found Alma staring