Authors Note: Ok, so I grew bored with my other fic and deleted it. It was in a fit of creativity. After much drama and midterms in my life I have decided that I needed to expurge into my writing, since I can't afford a shrink. What's more therapeutic then writing? Anywho, this will be a Hoot fic, I had to return to the Universe of Hoot. Plus I just bought the 3-disc edition of "Black Hawk Down" and have been marveling at the extra features. So enjoy and review.

1.

Louisiana smelled funny.

I wasn't thinking it to be rude or obnoxious, but, it definitely smelled. It wasn't pleasant. It smelled like ass. Like a swamp, a paper factory, or something. It was weird. Plus, I had gone to sleep in South Carolina under the assumption that my new husband would stop when he got tired. I woke up to something that smelled just plain wrong and to someone who looked like they'd walked off the set of "Deliverance" tapping on my window.

Where the hell was my husband?

I looked around the truck and saw nothing but luggage and bare feet.

The man continued to knock. While I got my bearings. There was a map on the dashboard opened up to Louisiana and five empty bottles of Pepsi on the floor.

He'd pulled an all-nighter on me.

The knocking did not cease. Nor did the fact I was sitting up register with the man. Who had maybe three teeth in his mouth. Which for a normal woman probably would have freaked them out. Nope, not me. I opened the door of the truck where I had been so comfortably sleeping only to be assaulted with that smell and the 100 plus degree summer heat.

"What is your problem," I screeched, hoping my hair looked somewhat ok. I hopped down onto the dusty ground and landed in something sticky. But it was on my shoe so I didn't care.

Mr. Deliverance was speaking to me in English, I was almost positive of it, yet, I couldn't understand a word from his chapped lips. He seemed to be friendly which I took as a good sign. While he spoke to me I adjusted my shorts, made sure the girls were tucked into my shirt, and looked around. Hoot had stopped in the bayou.

He was a dead man.

The man had stopped speaking and was smiling. A good thing? Since my husband was MIA I told the man, with a smile, "Ok."

Hoping I had not promised to be his love-monkey for the afternoon.

The man looked at me funny and cocked his head.

Shit, had he been speaking English? I was pretty sure he had been. Then a little bell caught my attention. We both turned to look at the dilapidated structure that was the gas station, where my husband of two weeks was standing, looking impatient. "Baby, you hungry?"

Food.

The man spoke irritated to my husband and pointed to me. Oh how I wanted to break that finger off. But, with my luck he'd be the Sheriff of wherever we were.

My husband nodded, "She's like that. Y'know women."

Oh good God.

I pounded on the window of the truck to wake our stowaway up, and then I scurried across the dirt parking lot to my husband. Who stood in the doorway of a door less door and waited for me. Looking yummy as always in jeans and stubble. "Mornin," he smiled.

Irritated I smacked his chest and hissed, "I thought you were stopping sometime last night."

His girth took up the doorway, thus blocking the entrance. Probably intentionally. Just to irritate me. A smile curled onto his face, "I wasn't tired."

Of course he wasn't.

To further irritate me he reached out and ran his fingers through my hair. Being all-wonderful like always.

"What's that smell," I demanded of him.

He moved sideways and pointed behind him, through the shop. Which had food and Voodoo supplies, and a fishing area, dirt floors and a picturesque view of the swamp in the back. There was apparently no wall, just an open back deck. He kissed my temple, "You hungry?"

I had learned my lesson.

Hoot definition of food was considerably different then my definition of food.

"Hungry for what? What are you going to feed me? I'm not eating any animal by-products or anything I cannot identify."

With a snicker that was completely Hoot he took my hand and drew me into the gas station. Which smelled like ass. Past fishes and boar heads mounted on the warped wooden walls. Past shelves lined with ammunition and jars of chicken feet. I had thought our last discussion on acceptable places to take me had been effective: obviously not.

He led me to a counter with a cash register.

There was a woman three times my size wearing a moomoo at the register. Her nails were three inches long and painted fire engine red. She gave Hoot a smile that if I wasn't sure she could stab me and kill me with those nails, I would have given her a nasty look. Like Hoot, she had the Southern Accent down. She greeted him as if I wasn't even there, "Mornin sugar, you hungry?"

She obviously didn't see me attached to his side. Or him look down at me and inquire, "You like Fried Oreo Pie?"

That sounded edible.

"Is it fattening?"

He laughed and told Claws, "Two pieces of Fried Oreo Pie and some Gator Tail, an some hot sauce an a jug a sweet tea."

We were going to need Tums, I could see it now.

Feeling the need to stamp out my territory. Obviously the wedding band on his finger was not enough, I shoved my hand in his front pocket, gaining his complete attention in the process. I looked up into those amazing brown eyes, "Do we have Tums in the truck?"

He gave me a puzzled look.

"For Randy and me," I added.

Speaking of the devil, with the little bell sounding, Randy stumbled into the shop. T-shirt in hand, no shoes, and rubbing his near baldhead sleepily, "Hoot, I think something died in the truck."

Claws glanced up and admired the sleepy and just as muscled Randy, as he moseyed our way.

"The whole state smells like that," I told Randy.

Hoot goosed me, which made me jump and look upwards at him. "Does not," he argued. When Randy came to a stop behind us he told his friend, "I ordered you breakfast. Eugene put gas in the truck?"

So Eugene was Mr. Deliverance.

Randy's eyebrows narrowed, "The little man with no teeth?"

"Be nice, that's my cousin."

Oh dear God, I buried my face against Hoot's muscled shoulder and prayed our future children would be normal.