It took another half-hour before he got closer to the Valentine Bridge and his hands started to sweat. He didn’t need this. Sebastian wiped the perspiration off on his jeans, before clutching his steering wheel again. He’d hated crossing this bridge every fucking time since his father’s death, but to do it in a storm was a whole new dimension of hell.
Sebastian squinted as the old lift bridge started to come into focus. Even through the pouring rain, he could make out the towers on the north side of the bridge. It’d been on a night like this that his dad’s BMW Z8 had missed the entrance to the bridge and sailed into Bayou Lafourche. They’d tried to keep Sebastian from reading the newspaper article about Sebastian Durand the Third, but the little shit Andy Beaumont had brought it into school for him to read. The words sailed over were burned into Sebastian’s brain. So were the pictures of his dad’s car being pulled out of the bayou.
Down to a snail’s pace, Sebastian started over the tiny bridge, remembering the hundreds of times he’d ridden with his father in his prized sports car as a boy. Now thinking back on those times from a man’s point of view, he knew damn good and well that his father was a good driver. Scratch that, an excellent driver. There wasn’t a chance in fucking hell that he wouldn’t have made it onto the bridge no matter how bad of a storm he’d been in.
For the thousandth time, Sebastian wondered if his father had been drinking or had been high that night. There’d been no mention of it in the papers, and of course, nobody was going to tell an eight-year-old kid that his father had been messed up when he’d crashed his car. After both of his parents were dead, his life at the Durand family home became a misery. It was a life that he’d longed to escape.
Sebastian forced himself to concentrate on the here and now, looking at the bridge in his rearview mirror. At most, he would be at the family home in an hour. He started to count in his head, a coping mechanism from his childhood. Something that would soothe him and remind him that time would eventually pass.
Sebastian snorted out a laugh, imagining what his teammates Gideon Smith or Keegan Harris would say to him if they saw his panties in such a twist. He needed to get his shit together. He wasn’t a kid anymore, nor was he the eighteen-year-old teenager who’d stormed out of Lafourche twelve years ago.
Just like that, the tension bled out of his body, and he hadn’t even needed bourbon. Then, as if the weather caught onto his mood, the rain started to let up. Not a lot, but enough so that he could see a little bit better.
“Shit.”
Sebastian grinned when he saw the green neon sign of Jimmy’s Po-Boys off to his right. Trust Jimmy to be open in the middle of a hurricane. That meant the power was still on in their little town, unless Jimmy was running his restaurant off of a generator, which was possible. He wondered if a generator had been installed at the Durand residence. After so many hurricanes you’d think that would’ve been an investment they could’ve made. Of course, the only money that Sebastian Lazar Durand the Second ever wanted to spend was on something that would win him an election.
Before leaving Virginia, Sebastian had done an internet search to see what the old man was up to. He didn’t know why he was surprised to find out he’d moved from his position as a state representative to the president of the state senate and was now campaigning for lieutenant governor. Actually, he was surprised; he would’ve thought by now that his grandfather would be gunning for the Governor’s mansion. Then again, maybe he realized that at seventy-four, he was too old for the job.
Sebastian blasted the car’s air conditioner as he drove the last ten miles to hell. He tensed as he took the turn off of the highway onto the farm road. He sighed as he passed the sugarcane fields on his left and wondered if the devastation of Hurricane Helen was going to make any of the farmers go under. Finally, he could see the turn-off to the Durand farm up ahead. He knew the dirt road was going to be a muddy mess; thank God there had been an SUV to rent instead of some damned sedan.
After twenty minutes on the muddy drive, he finally spotted the house that had been built in nineteen-ten. There was only one car parked in front—a current-year Cadillac of course—the old man’s tastes hadn’t changed in the slightest. Sebastian pulled in near the side of the house. He ran up the stairs to the front door, thankful for the covered porch; at least he had a little bit of coverage while he hit the doorbell and pounded on the thick wood, hoping that his Grandpère would hear one or the other. After three minutes of nobody answering, he tried the doorknob and found the door unlocked. Hell, he should’ve tried that from the get-go.
Walking into the foyer after so much time was mind-boggling, and as soon as that scent of lemon hit him, Sebastian knew that Ophelia had to still be working for the family. She’d always insisted on using lemon oil when cleaning the maple floors. He wandered into the foyer and peeked into the drawing-room off to the right. It was empty of people, but the grand piano was still there. God only knew why his grandfather kept it, since the only person who had ever played it had been his grandmother, and she’d died forty years ago.
“Hello,” he shouted up the grand staircase. Nobody answered, but somebody must belong to the Cadillac. Then there was the fact that the house was lit up like a Christmas tree. His grandfather was too cheap to have all these lights on if the house was empty. Sebastian shouted again and still didn’t get an answer. He wasn’t going to check out the kitchen because he couldn’t imagine that Ophelia would be here cooking or cleaning during a hurricane; she had her own family to take care of. The old man was probably huddled away in his study trying to take over the state of Louisiana. Sebastian sauntered down the hall behind the staircase and knocked on the study door. No answer. He pushed it open.
“Daddy, what are you doing home? Aren’t you supposed to be at the capitol?” It had been so long since Sebastian had been home that it took a minute to decipher the drunken, Creole accent. But he finally understood what had been said.
Uncle Armand shoved himself up from the leather couch and tried to stand up straight, but he was missing the mark. He was drunker than a skunk.
“I’m not your daddy,” Sebastian responded easily.
Armand squinted then fell back onto the couch, kicking over the half-full glass that had been on the carpet beside the couch. The man didn’t even notice the mess he’d made.
“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
“Grandpère invited me for a visit. I would have thought a man who gets the senior discount at the movies wouldn’t call his father Daddy, or still be living with him for that matter.”
Armand squinted again, obviously trying to get Sebastian into focus. “Is that you, Bastian?”
God how he hated that name. Since joining the Navy he’d either been Sebastian or occasionally Seb. Never, ever Bastian. Of course, a couple of his teammates had found out his middle name and made one attempt to call him Lazar, but after a well-placed punch, that had immediately stopped.
“The name is Sebastian, Uncle.”
“Does Daddy know you’re coming?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. No point in explaining himself again, it was a lost cause.
“How long is the old man expected to be at the state capitol?” Sebastian asked.