[AUTHOR'S NOTE: THANKS TO SUPER BETA READER JDRAGONFIRE29 FOR HELPING ME TACKLE THOSE PESKY GRAMMAR ISSUES.]

Chapter 11 – Day 9

"Newlyweds?"

"Pardon?" Nikita looked at the woman seated to her right. They had rode down to Shreveport, Louisiana for the night and stumbled across a large crawfish broil stretching several blocks long. The entire town seemed to be there to celebrate and there were bands on several stages and lots of beer and a sticky sweet drink called Hurricane passed around.

Long tables were grouped together down the center of the road with buckets of broiled crawfish piled in the middle. People were sucking down the little shrimp like creatures at astronomical rates and tossing the shells in buckets lining the tables. She de-headed another crawfish, pushed her nail right above the tail to push the little bite size morsel out of the shell, and popped it into her mouth. Crawfish had the texture of lobster and the taste of a cross between shrimp and lobster. She had put away a good amount of the stuff already, and her hand was coated with the spice rub it was cooked in.

Nikita grabbed a hand full of napkins and tried to wipe as much of the juice away as she looked inquisitively at one of her many dinner companion. The woman looked pointedly to Michael seated next to her and asked again with a southern drawl: "Are you two newlyweds?"

"Um..no."

"Well, what's the matter with you then? You better snatch him up before the rest of the single gals who's got their eyes on him do."

Nikita turned and looked at Michael, who was conversing in French to an elderly Creole man. He was wearing the green shirt she'd picked out. It accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and made his eyes look even greener than usual. True to the woman's words, there were many sets of eyes on him as several women looked on and giggled amongst themselves.

She looked back at her curious neighbor and replied: "He's not that easy to pin down."

"Cagey is he? Well from the look of him, well worth the chase, am I right?"

She grinned in amusement before nodding emphatically: "Definitely."

"Lucky girl! I'm Barbara by the way. I would shake your hand, but then…" Barbara held up hands coated with the spice rub and shrugged.

"Nikita."

"Where are you from?"

"Australia originally."

Barbara looked again at Michael and replied: "I'm guessing he's not Australian."

"No, he's French."

"Oh-la-la! How long have you been in town?"

"We just got in actually and found the streets blocked off for this. We haven't even checked into a hotel."

"Try Luanne's Bed and Breakfast down the street. The rooms are nice and she makes a mean breakfast."

"Thanks for the tip."

"How do you like the crawfish?"

"It's delicious!"

"We do love crawfish season. How much longer are you going to be in town?"

"Not long, we're playing it by ear."

"Well maybe we'll run into each other again."

She smiled politely: "Maybe."

"I better let you get back to your hot Frenchman then. Don't want to leave an opening for the vultures circling."

Nikita couldn't help laughing in response. She turned her attention back to Michael, who had just concluded his conversation with the old Creole man in rapid fire French. It's always surprising to her how differently Michael sounds when speaking French. Instead of the soft tones with minimal inflection he normally used inside Section, he speaks faster and with more intonation stressing syllables. It also never failed to drive her wild listening to him speaks French.

"How many languages do you speak Michael?"

"A few." He smiled.

"Which ones, Michael?"

"French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Farsi, and Arabic."

"Wow! Is that standard training?"

"Not really." At her quizzical look he supplied: "I have an ear for it."

"Is that why I wasn't taught more than rudimentary German and French?"

"It's hard to pass you off as anything other than English speaking, so your language training wasn't intensive."

She looked at him closely before prodding: "Are you being kind, Michael?"

The corner of his lips turned up as he added: "And also because you were a bad student."

"What!" She sputtered in indignation.

"How hard did you study and work at it?"

"But you said my scores were good."

"They were, in certain areas. In others you were abysmal."

"Like what?"

"It would take too long to list them."

"Michael!" She looked at him with a wounded expression.

He looked back blandly before smiling. She looked at him in wonder and asked in astonishment: "Are you teasing me, Michael."

"Just a little…"

She narrowed her eyes at him and replied: "I'm going to get you for this."

"Oh?" He peeled a crawfish and held it up to her lips as a peace offering. "Forgive me?"

She opened her mouth to accept the tasty morsel and chewed it slowly while looking into his beautiful eyes. It was hard swallowing it down since her mouth got dry all of the sudden. She whispered huskily: "I got a recommendation for where to stay tonight."

Michael stood up abruptly and held out his hand to her: "Shall we?"

She took his proffered hand and stood while eagerly replying: "Definitely."

They walked briskly away from the noise of the crowd, hands still clasped, and their hearts racing.