I want to hold tight to my memories and think of Louisiana and New Orleans as I knew it-which is how I depicted the area in this book. When I make mention of the hurricane damage, I emphasize the resilient spirit of Louisianans, and the rebuilding. I hope that by the time you read this book, my predictions are reality.
Sincerely,
Kara Lennox
CHAPTER ONE
THE SUN WASN’T UP YET, but Luc Carter had been out of bed for an hour. His bed-and-breakfast guests, a bird-watching couple from Washington, D.C., were planning an early-morning trip up the Bayou Teche to try to spot an ivory-billed woodpecker, and Luc had promised them a full-course breakfast at 7:00 a.m.
He didn’t mind getting up early. He liked the quiet hours before his guests were awake-before anyone in the whole town of Indigo, Louisiana, was awake, except maybe for Loretta.
Loretta. He had to stop thinking about her. But how could he stop thinking about her when he saw her almost every morning? Loretta Castille baked the most delicious breads and muffins in all of Louisiana, and she brought them fresh each day to La Petite Maison B and B. Some guests claimed the breads were what brought them back to Indigo again and again.
He checked the frittata in the oven, then returned to squeezing oranges for fresh juice. Coffee with chicory perked on the stove, sending a delectable scent throughout the two-hundred-year-old Creole cottage he’d spent the last year restoring with his own hands.
As he mixed fresh strawberries and walnuts into a bowl of yogurt, he kept his eye on the front window.
Loretta would be arriving any minute with her bountiful basket. How sad that the high point of his day usually occurred before breakfast.