I'll Stand Bayou: Magic and Mayhem Universe: Hoodoo and Bayou Series, #4

By Kathy Love

Note to self: Never warm a Cup-a-Soup using magic when it's just as easy to use a microwave.  

 

Violet Jourdain is in trouble. She made a bad choice when preparing her lunch, and now she is in hot water with Baba Yaga herself. Her punishment? Two weeks of no magic and a forced vacation to rest, relax, and get her head on straight. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Except Violet is a workaholic Healing Witch, who has no idea how to take a break. Not that she can relax even if she tries. Why? Because she's staying in an apparently haunted cottage in the middle of the Louisiana bayou.

 

Add to that, her familiar, a proper British housecat, is suddenly acting like a rude, creepy lecher. She also has a supposed ghost leaving her menacing, but possibly, helpful messages. And her only neighbor is her sister's brother-in-law, who happens to talk to himself—or maybe dead people—but is still the most attractive man she's ever met. Yeah, things are definitely not relaxing.

 

Oh well, peace and quiet isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathy Love
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215995730

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Rougarous really like to party. Isn’t this like the fifth celebration in like four months? Iris said, frowning at the centerpiece she just finished.

The mass of flowers and greenery pretty much looked as if she’d just ripped a fistful of weeds from the edge of the bayou and crammed them into a vase. It was not good. But she shrugged, seeming satisfied with her work, then glanced out the window.

I suspected her interest in the view outside was partly to blame for her less-than-adept floral arranging. Not that she was great at anything crafty even without distractions. Iris was a Green Witch, which sounded as if flower arrangement would be right up her alley. Both she and my mother were Green Witches. They grew beautiful gardens and could make herbal spells and potions for any purpose. They also had a great fondness for their herbs wrapped in rolling paper and smoked, but floral decorating. Not so much.

My middle sister’s favorite hobby was men. She’d been boy-crazy since she became obsessed with her first boy band. And it was men that captured her attention now. A group of Rougarou men milled around outside, setting up the tents and tables on the lawn for the Rougarous’ fall harvest festival.

It’s the sixth, Mally corrected. Rougarous have even more celebrations than witches. Which I didn’t think was possible. Mally, my baby sister, sighed and frustratedly jabbed a dianthus into the center of her arrangement. She wasn’t overly crafty either, although decidedly better than Iris. Her arrangement at least looked like she tried.

I guess that’s all part of being a princess, I teased, adjusting a long frond of swamp grass that poked, what I considered artistically, out of the middle of my centerpiece. I stepped back, assessing my work. Not bad.

Our sister, who avoided every party she could in her normal witchy life, now has to host gala events for her people, Iris added, curtsying, then waving like a royal monarch.

Mally rolled her eyes. She was still self-conscious about her position as princess even though she’d been married to the Prince of the Rougarous for almost a year.

Instead of acknowledging Iris’s comment any further, Mally assessed all our handiwork. She sighed, I think I should just call a florist.

I frowned. Well, I thought mine had looked decent anyway. Apparently not. I started to raise a hand to magically adjust my work, then stopped. My magic was on lockdown, at least until I heard back from Baba Yaga, the head of all the witches, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to risk getting in more trouble over a floral arrangement. 

Not only did you land a prince, Iris said, glancing over her shoulder at Mally, but you got the best looking of the brothers to boot.

Mally didn’t need any further prompting to join Iris and admire her husband out the window. I fiddled again with the piece of swamp grass in my arrangement before going to join my sisters at the window. 

Ogling men was really the last thing on my mind. I had even recently broken off my pseudo-relationship with Jared, the warlock I had been dating casually for the past year.

Truthfully, I’d always been so busy with my career as a pediatric doctor that seeing Jared a couple times a month had been even more commitment than I really wanted. So, breaking things off had actually been a relief.

Of course, now I had a lot more time to go on dates. Maybe I jumped the gun on ending things with Jared. Although, if I was being honest with myself, our chemistry had been lukewarm at best, and I had too much on my mind right now to think about dating. Anyone.

Still, I focused on the men as they worked. Watching them was more appealing than thinking about my job. Or my lack of one at the moment. Or the ban on my magic. Or what Baba Yaga might do the next time I saw her.

All of the Dubois brothers worked in the muggy, late afternoon, Louisiana heat alongside the other men in the rougarou pack. As if he knew Mally was watching, Etienne paused mid-swing and lowered the large mallet he was using to secure the spikes that held the tent in place. Slowly, he stripped off his shirt.

Iris let out a low whistle. Can we say Chippendale moment, ladies.

Mally elbowed her. Stop checking out my husband.

You know I’m only looking, Iris assured her. 

We all knew that was true. Iris loved and respected us both too much to ever let a man come between us.

Plus, Iris added, your prince only has eyes for you.

Also, true. Mally and Etienne were so besotted with each other, it was a little nauseating. Okay, maybe I was a tad bitter that I seemed to stink at relationships.

My gaze moved from Etienne to watch Marcel and Guy, Etienne’s brothers, who were working on another of the large canopy tents. Guy, the youngest brother called out something to Marcel. Guy’s eyes twinkled teasingly, and a lopsided smile curved his lips. 

It was clear whatever he’d said was meant as a joke, but Marcel glowered back. As far as I could tell, that was Marcel’s one and only expression. But his grouchy reaction didn’t seem to faze Guy, who laughed, wicked amusement clear on his handsome features. 

I looked away from those two to locate Etienne’s other brother, Tristan. I didn’t know this brother well. He had been missing when Mally and Etienne first got together. Abducted and taken hostage by Etienne’s completely insane first wife. 

I never let myself blindly buy into the crazy, first wife narrative. I knew there were always two sides to every story. But in this case, to say she was crazy was truly understating the truth. Tasmin was so bonkers, in fact, she had also kidnapped Mally and tried to feed her to an alligator. Baba Yaga threw the witches’ spell book at her, and she was indefinitely locked up in the witch pokey. And hopefully getting some serious counseling.

I focused on Tristan, watching him closely. I would never admit this to my sisters, but I found him oddly fascinating. The few times I had met him, I found myself just watching him. Mainly, because he was so odd. I guess.

He stood away from the others, appearing almost as if he had no idea what he was doing there. He held one of the heavy mallets easily in his hands, even though he was leaner than his other brothers, but he made no move to pound in any of the stakes poking out of the green lawn. Instead, he just stood there, glancing around himself, almost warily. As if seeing something that no one else could see.

Is there a wasp or something flying around Tristan, Iris asked, noticing his weird behavior, too.

Maybe, Mally said, although I could hear the doubt in her voice. He kind of acts spaced out all the time. Ever since he had the demon that Tasmin put in him cast out.

That whole experience had to have been very traumatic. I said sympathetically. The poor guy probably had PTSD or something.

"Yeah, held hostage by that lunatic and being possessed by a demon. That’s bound to mess you up."  Iris shook her head.

Mally sighed. I’ve talked to Sue several times about him. She knows a lot about possession, and she assures me that he will get better.

Again, I heard doubt in her voice. Sue was the strange, old Bayou Witch, who lived alone way out in the middle of the swamp. Well, she did have the company