Authors Note:
I think it was Andre who suggested this chapter to me, and I think he was jealous of all the attention his brother was getting. Sometimes younger siblings learn the most about life by being able to observe their older sisters and brothers. I know in my own family the thoughts of my youngest have been greatly influenced by his older sister and brother. I was the same since I had three older sisters and an older brother. Most of my personal views have been formed by them and not always in the way they wanted.
As you all will soon discover, it is not always best to believe in dreams and visions you have at one stage in life. Later on what you saw then may not be the way things would actually go the older you get.
Hugs to all and Happy Birthday America
Darkstone57
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Dani moved around the room and watched as her family and Bull's intermingled. It was interesting to say the least. For one, her family called him Bull, not to be derogatory, but as a term of affection due to his size. Everyone in his family called him Beau unless; you were his grandfather in which case it was Beaumont. The first time she had heard him called that she had giggled and he had shot her a look dark enough to kill. Beau wasn't so bad but she still preferred Bull. So that was what she called him and if people gave her funny looks oh well.
After a week of being in the bayou with him, she was doing pretty well at picking out who was who. The tall slender woman with bright green eyes and all that long black hair was Lydia, Jorge's wife; and the two little girls with their momma's dark looks but Jorge's smile were the twins, Tonya and Tamara. Bella was an almost perfect replica of her mother and her husband Hector was a tall, skinny white guy who had bright red hair and a big smile that never left his face. She had yet to figure out which of their five kids were which because they all looked so damn much alike. All had almost pure white skin, freckles, but their mother's features and tightly wound hair. Personally Dani liked Bella, she was easy to like. Lydia on the other hand was a cast iron bitch who pouted every time she didn't get her way about something. Dani had seen a lot of that in the last week.
Susanna was the quiet one, all too often blending back into the back ground and good at making people forget she was even around. Unlike the twins Morgana and Lucian who refused to be ignored no matter what you did. Even their respective lovers were as alike as the twins and Massie swore that even before they were born they had communicated back and forth in her womb. Even now there were times that they just had to look at each other and a person watching knew they were talking to each other. Andre reminded her of Zach, he could be loving and easy going but at the same time he was someone who did his best to hide his emotions, especially around her. They talked and joked but she was sure at times he was holding back.
Marie, the youngest in the family like her and didn't hide her feelings at all. She didn't like Dani and made it plain that she resented the presence of her brother's chosen lover. She was constantly interrupting them and trying to get Bull's attention when he wasn't with her. Dani tried to understand, Marie had been only four when Bull left home and for him to come back now with a woman who seemed to have replaced his family in his heart would be hard on her. More than once she had seen her complaining to her mother or grandma about something and heard the two older women talk to her in rushed French that didn't sound very nice. What was so funny though was the way she and Dave got along so well.
Rose whined a little and Dani petted her. The dog had found her niche in both the family and their bedroom in the attic. She was perfectly content to run around ignoring the other dogs that had ruled for years and going from this person to that begging for love or food.
Feeling a need for air, Dani took Rose's leash and walked outside. Going down by the docks she looked out over the channel water and then sat on the pier. For the last week the boats had sat as they did now, flags at half-mast while bobbing in the water. All of them seemed to be mourning the loss of Bulls' dad as much as his family did. The other morning she had woke early and watched as a light mist covered the water and it seemed to her that the ships had cried when the mist coated them with its water drops.
A part of her wanted to cry, she felt sympathy for the entire family but so far she hadn't been able to do more than offer what support and help with what she could which wasn't as much as she would like. She was helpless in the kitchen, except for washing dishes and maybe clearing and setting the table, helping straighten up the rooms and doing her and Bulls laundry so no one else had to.
She had no idea why she felt so down today, the funeral had been over since yesterday, and today was just a chance for everyone to have one more gathering before the families went their separate ways. Her own family would be headed back to Oregon in a week until the end of next month. Mike needed to get back to work, and for now it seemed as if Nick and Jessie had faded off the face of the Earth. Uncle Jo-Jo and Ilene had hired a security company to come in and do a full install of their best system, and a patrol officer would be checking on the house in New Orleans every hour. Dave would also be staying on a while and Red would be in and out. She had learned he had no real family of his own outside of an aunt and uncle who tolerated him but he had no real affection for. Well that had changed dramatically, he was an unofficial Lazarus now and that was that.
A familiar voice broke into her thoughts, "why so unhappy little one?"
Dani looked up and saw Bull's uncle Philippe standing beside her. He was a big man like his nephew and she knew he was one of the men who were as powerful in the arcane arts as Maylene. She couldn't call it voodoo, what Maylene and Massie did was not the standard black or white magic you associated with this part of the country. "I have no idea..."
He sat beside her on the dock and shook his head. His dreadlocks shook as well reminding her of snakes moving in the grass. "Oh I think you do, you've come to a new place, been surrounded by new people and new ways of doing things and you feel very out of place. But the truth is the bayou is as much in your blood as New Orleans and this place in Oregon you come from. Did you know that one of the Lazarus men married an ancestor of Beau's many generations ago? His name was Jean Paul and was one of the first of your family to come here from Europe, and that same man was a good friend of the pirate Lafayette?"
"Now that doesn't surprise me, rogues seem to be a staple in my family."
He smiled. "They exist in all families Dani, you and Beau, you are happy with each other?"
"Well, I can't speak for him but I am very happy. I never dreamed I would ever know a man like him in my life and now I can't imagine it without him."
"That is good, because now I must tell you something about him. Something that even his own mother does not know. You realize that Beau is a man with great power. You have seen it, felt it yes?"
"Yes, I only know one other man who can do the things I've seen Bull do. He lives in Arizona, he's an Apache shaman. Shaman or Medicine man, I can never remember which tribes call their spiritual leaders which."
