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“He’s not really wanting to marry, and we’re all wagering he’ll take forever and a day to get around to it. Says he wants to give them all a fair amount of time so he’s intending on courting them, indefinitely is my hunch.”
Good lord. “Well, he could bond with one of them.” A sawing set up in her guts as she imagined it.
“I think he might be a virgin,” she whispered. “Not all of The Twelve are, some had sexy time before they took the vow. But Patches…” She shook her head and Tegan bit the pressing questions on her tongue. “He’s different.”
“How so?” she couldn’t help.
“Like you said…old fashioned. “Did you know he became a doctor to please his Grand Pier?”
“Grand Pier?”
“His paw-paw. Grandfather?”
“Oh. Right.”
She went back to smiling at the air. “His daddy is a sonofabitch to him, but his Grand Pier treats him like swamp royalty. An heir to some throne.”
A mix of emotions twirled about in her. “Glad he’s got his Grand Pier,” she said.
“He visits him every day,” she said affectionately. “Drives ten miles into the reeds and gives him a run-down of his day, Mah-Mah told me.”
“Was his Grand…Pier a doctor?”
She shook her head. “Nope. But his father was,” she said with severity. “He’s all he talks about. I don’t know what happened between Grand Pier and his son, but it skipped a generation, whatever it was. I’m glad Patches has him, I just hate how his dad is to him though.”
The idea of his dad being mean to him set fire to the acid in Tegan’s stomach. “That’s awful.” Her daddy wasn’t perfect but there was never a doubt of his love. Andhisfather was about the same. She was told her momma was an angel. She got to know her through Gammy’s stories, and she cherished those with every fiber of her being.
“Well…I hope he finds the right girl,” Tegan said. “He’s… quiet.”
“Dr. Broody, I call him.”
“Why?” she wondered.
“Always so serious.” She leaned in and whispered. “I can get you on that list still.”
Tegan shook her head. “I’m not from here.”
She smiled and slowly withdrew. “If you were, you’d let me put you on the list?”
She flustered about at that one, getting Juliette’s laugh.
“You like him, just admit it.”
“What’s not to like?”
“Amen to that. You got a boyfriend?”
“No thank you, I do not.”
“Same,” she muttered, her face going sour. “I had one then I found him talking to a fuckin’ whore down the bayou.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I hate men. Most of them. Not all are bad, I just haven’t had the pleasure of meeting one that wasn’t all about…”
“Sex. Patches isn’t like that.”
“Well, I can sure see that.”
Her laugh erupted again. “And you wish he was,” she knowingly accused.
