Swamp Kings 2 (Bayou Bishops #20)

CHAPTER THREE

Beth stood in front of the group, fidgeting with the edges of her worn-out notes, trying to steady her nerves. She hadn’t expected this kind of turnout. Fifty couples—some she recognized and others brand new, packed the room. All eyes were now on her, most of them curious, some cautious, and then there were the skeptics who thought the classes were downright ridiculous when the world was crumbling around them. At least, that’s what she’d heard through the swamp vine. But… no big deal. She’d tweaked her opening just for them.

Deep breath.

Beth tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, glancing back at Bishop, getting a sexy wink of support and a discreet, full-body eye-rape. Nice. Bishop butterflies on top of frayed nerves. Lord, he made her feel even sexier while pregnant. He loved when she showed off their baby, so she wore a clinging, innocent-pink sweater and maternity jeans with heels. It earned her the kind of compliment she loved most from him. Mon fucking Dieu, you’re begging for it.

“Hi, everyone,” she finally called out, silencing the murmurs. “First, I want to thank you all for being here. I know this may seem like the most useless kind of class to hold in times of crisis, but I’m here to convince you that the exact opposite is true.”

She bravely glanced around the room then dove right into the fray. “I think all of us agree that our family is everything. You work hard every day to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, smiles on their faces. Laughter in their hearts?” She nodded with them in agreement.

“Many of the men here are both fathers and husbands. We have fishermen, trappers, hunters, builders. Iron smiths, mechanics. And we appreciate each and every one of you,” she added, smiling at them before returning to her point. “So, all of these jobs I mentioned... they require two very important things.” She held up her thumb. “A special set of tools.” She put up her index finger. “And a special set of skills to use those tools.”

She forced herself to make eye contact with the sea of faces. “Both of those must be acquired—the tools and the knowledge—to do any job. The same is true for the job of being a mother and father. A husband and wife. We’re all born with the tools for those jobs, but not necessarily the skills to use them.”

She forced herself to release the podium and walk around it. “Raise your hand if you would bring your vehicle to a mechanic who doesn’t have the right tools for the job. Or maybe he has the right tools but never learned how to use them?” She looked all around the room. “Nobody? What about hiring a builder to build your house who doesn’t have the right tools or skills to use them?” She nodded in agreement at the looks on their faces. “Of course nobody would. Nor would anybody have a major surgery performed by an individual who didn’t have the right tools and knowledge.”

Hurricane coughed out, “Patches.”

Everybody laughed while Patches nodded with a grin. “Keep using those grave digging skills, brother.”

“Okay,” Beth called out, smiling. “So, the point is, all jobs require tools and the skills to use them. A mother doesn’t automatically know every reason her baby cries, she just knows something is wrong and must figure out what it is. Yes, she’s born with the tools to do the job but not all the skills to use those tools. More times than not, this comes with trial and error, or wisdom gained in books or passed down by family. And often, that wisdom is pure ignorance on repeat. Now, here’s a question,” she said, walking before the class. “Where does the husband and wife fit into these scenarios? The two responsible for bringing children into the world and taking care of them?” She paused and searched their mildly curious faces.

“Does the marriage take care of itself?” she wondered.

“Heck no,” Tegan muttered.

“No? We don't come equipped with the tools and the skills to use all of them? Pretty sure we do, and that’s why everybody married here in the swamp are the happiest people on the planet. They’ve got amazing relationships and never fight. Husband gets everything he wants and needs from his perfect little wife and that perfect little wife gets everything she could possibly want and need from her perfect husband.” She raised her hand and brows, smiling. “Raise your hand if that’s the biggest load of bullshit you ever heard.”

All laughed, agreeing wholeheartedly.

“Oh wait, I see we have a couple newlyweds with a perfect marriage,” she called, pointing to several who didn’t raise their hand.

“And are you really raising your hand or you just demonstrating?” Juliette challenged with a laugh.

“Oh I’m definitely raising my hand.” She glanced back at Bishop, finding him standing with his arms crossed. She tossed her thumb at him, grinning at the couples. “Either I’m perfect or he doesn’t want to embarrass me.”

“She’s a thousand percent perfect,” he assured, getting the men’s laughs.

“I’m raising my hand for both of us,” Beth called over the fun, nodding. “No relationship is perfect.”

She glanced back when the men laughed again, finding Bishop shaking his head.

“Ignore him,” Beth assured. “Yes, we have an amazing marriage. Yes, I think he’s an amazing man. And yes, he thinks I’m an amazing woman. But neither of us were always this amazing, we learned relationship skills. I have years of study on the topic, and he has years of experience. We’ve both learned skills. You catch my stress on the learned?”

At seeing they understood, she went on. “So, yes, we come with the tools to be a husband and wife, but we do not come with the skills. And why is that? Because being a husband and wife requires a very special skill-set. Becoming one.”

She let that sink in for a moment. “Becoming one is the ultimate three legged race. And how is a three-legged race won?” she asked all of them then answering, “By knowing our partner so well we can anticipate their every move. How do we learn this?” She looked at all of them. “Anybody have any ideas how we get to know our partners?”

“Ask questions,” Tegan called.

“You can observe,” Cat added.

“Ask questions, observe, very good, what else?” Beth asked.

“Talk,” Cherie called out.

“Sounds like communication is a key way of learning one another?” Beth asked, getting affirmative murmurs. “Now let’s talk about how many modes of learning there are.” She went through the five. “See, feel, hear, taste, smell. These are all learning tools we’re born with. Does it require skill to use them? Yes, it does,” she assured. “I can watch Bishop all day, hear him talk, feel him, taste him, smell him and yes, all those things provide me with information but what do I do with it? I have the data, now what? How do I use it? Well, let’s circle back to why we went about getting data to begin with, what was our goal?”

“Becoming one,” Phelony said, from the back.

“Yes! And why are we becoming one? What’s the point?”

“To beat everybody’s ass in the three-legged race,” Hurricane yelled, bringing laughs.

“Okay,” she called between giggles, raising both hands. “We definitely want to win but this race isn’t against others, it’s against something else. Who wants to try that one? Who or what are we racing against?”

She pointed to Seer when he raised his hand.

“Life,” he said.

“Yes! We’re racing against life and all it throws at us. And what are we racing for?” She glanced quickly all around.

“Our families?” sweet Claire dared.

“Yes!” Beth cried, happy. “Our families. Each other. We’re running this race against the struggles of life and we’re racing for each other. We’re fighting the good fight, we’re racing the good race. And because we race for each other, we’re also racing for?” She looked around and pointed. “Hand at the back.”

“For God. ”

Beth struggled to see who it was. “I’m sorry, would you mind standing?”

She did and Beth recognized her. “Butterfly. Thank you, can you repeat your answer, so everybody hears it loud and clear?”

“We’re racin’ for the good Lord,” she said boldly. “When we love each other, we love Him, that’s how it works, it ain’t rocket science.”

“Amen,” Seer said, getting a full round of the same while Beth found herself suddenly way too emotional.

She returned to the podium and looked down at her notes only to watch them all blur together as her breaths shuddered in and out. “Sorry,” she gasped, wiping her face when tears fell. “I wasn’t… for some reason that sucker-punched me.” She struggled to look out at the faces, finding them all locked on her in worry and wonder. She held up her stack of papers to them and set them back down. “It’s the strangest thing,” she began, her words tight and shaking. “I worked… weeks on preparing this outline and… haven’t followed a single thing on it.”

She looked out at them. “I may have heard that a lot of the men thought this class wasn’t important given the situation in the world and I… well, I get it,” she said, pushing up the volume in her voice. “I understand. But… after speaking to a certain spiritual swamp advisor, he confirmed everything I’d been feeling.” She shook her head when more tears fell and she wiped them. Bishop’s arm suddenly went around her, and she gasped on the rush of emotions. “I just wanted to… impart to everybody, somehow, that… the marriage… is the foundation of every family. A foundation set by God Himself. And within it exists the most... profound power,” she gasped, wiping another gush of tears, drawing strength from Bishop's strong arm around her still. “And when we protect that foundation, when we… nourish it and treat it as the sacred ground that it is, then… we are undefeatable. Because we have fulfilled something so profoundly simple, that the wise laugh at it. Something so profoundly easy, the strong pass right over it.”

She forced her gaze at the audience, steadying her breaths. “This love sustains everything. The world, us, the universe.” She nodded her lowered head. “Love makes us undefeatable.” She looked up at all of them. “With love, we are unstoppable. We are untouchable. Because when we become one with each other, we become one with God. And as our good Seer likes to say... ‘If God is for us… what power, what evil, what enemy would dare be against us?’”

“Hallelujah,” Butterfly yelled.

“Amen and amen,” Seer followed, along with the rest of the room while Bishop pulled her into a tight hug.

“Amen, baby,” he whispered in her ear. “That was fucking beautiful.”

“I'm so far off script,” she wept, hugging him back.

“No, no, no,” he soothed, kissing her lips. “You're right on it.”

“How long have I taken?” she whispered.

“You have plenty of time to finish. It’s just the nuts and bolts left. You ready to give them their workbooks?” he asked at her ear now. “I need to feel like I had at least a little hand in this brilliance.”

She laughed, shoving him lightly. “ You’re the whole reason I’m brilliant,” she said on a fat sob.

“Mon Dieu,” he murmured, pulling her into his chest. “You’re gutting me, angel. And I fucking treasure that death.”

“Oh God, you’re not helping,” she gasped on a laugh, wiping her eyes. “Go deliver the nuts and bolts while I use the bathroom.”

Beth shot out for the hall when her hormones and emotions converged for a big public ugly cry. Like hell was she letting that happen.

****

“I really like her,” Mary whispered, concerned for the Belle Eveque as she left the room and her husband started passing out workbooks.

“Hmm,” was all he said, seeming very distracted.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, glancing around then at him, finding his eyes right on her. They were still as terrifying as the first time they’d devoured her. Maybe more terrifying. Before, she suspected the worst in them and now she knew for a fact her suspicions were correct. His gaze was a heart, mind and soul eater. A vortex of darkness that strangled the lies out of you, stripped you to the bare bone, forced you to be things you never dared imagine.

With the Belle Eveque’s return to the class, she turned her focus away from Kult’s seeking hot stare. “Now, no matter how long you’ve been married,” she announced at the front. “Whether it’s been a day, a year, or twenty—what you have together is something that cannot be replicated. Two unique fingerprints converging into a third unique fingerprint. I want to teach you how to hold onto that, no matter what’s going on in your life, or in the world. We’re all facing this new reality together, and we may not have direct control of that storm,” she said, pointing to the outside world, “but in your marriage, between you and your partner, the power of control belongs solely to both of you.”

Mary leaned in closer to look at the book they were sharing, the smell of that amazing soap Kult used reaching her. Moss and hints of cypress wood. It reminded her of the forest after a rain, clean yet grounded in the bayou. There was a trace of something fresh, like crushed leaves, but with a darker undertone, as if the soap had been steeped in the very roots of the swamp itself. If his sexual essence were a soap, that scent was it.

“Turn to the table of contents please,” Beth said, holding up the workbook titled ‘Building Unbreakable Bonds’. “This workbook is structured to build on the basics and tackle the deeper challenges of marriage. I’ll quickly walk you through the topics before we dive into the first chapter.”

Mary read along, fascinated and excited by everything that had been said so far while dying to know what Kult was thinking. Did he still think it was all silly and unnecessary? Who else had thought that? Surely several for it to make it through the swamp vine. What a cute term.

“Chapter one,” Beth began. “ Foundations and Emotional Awareness . This chapter focuses on how you and your partner understand and connect emotionally. Chapter two is Communication & Conflict . Here, we’ll work on how to handle communication breakdowns and resolve conflicts in a way that strengthens your relationship.”

Mary really wanted to learn that one.

“Chapter three— Physical Affection and Intimacy . This will guide you through ways to connect or reconnect physically, and show affection in ways that feel authentic to both of you.”

She mentally marked that one too.

“Chapter four— Facing Crisis Together . This chapter prepares couples to work as a team during stressful times, emphasizing that you are stronger together, no matter what comes your way. Now, I’m not expecting you to memorize everything, this is a guide for the next few weeks, maybe even months. Maybe even years,” she stressed. “For today, I want to focus on chapter one. So, let’s go through the first few pages together. ”

Mary glanced at Kult with only her eyeballs, finding his gaze on the page. But was his mind? A classic Kult mystery. Seemed like it was all she had. Mystery after mystery after cryptic mystery.

“Exercise one: Identifying Your Love Languages. In this exercise, you’re going to answer a few questions to determine your love language and that of your partner. Once you’ve identified your languages, take some time to reflect on how well you’ve been speaking them to each other. The five love languages help us understand how we give and receive love. They are: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch.” She looked around the room. “It’s easy to assume we know our partner’s love language, but more times than not, we’re wrong.”

Mary peeked over at Kult when he shifted in his seat. Was he bored? Frustrated? Annoyed?

“For instance,” Beth continued, “I was showing Bishop love in my own love language, not his. I was giving him words of affirmation because I thought that was the most important, but what he really wanted was physical touch.”

“You don’t say,” the man named Seer chuckled along with the rest of them. Even Kult gave a single laugh, making her wonder. It was clearly an inside male joke or rule. All men wanted physical touch? That was surely Kult’s love language. “Is that your love language too?” she decided to ask while wondering what hers was.

“I think the exercise requires you to figure that out.”

Her gaze moved up to the instructions for a re-read. Of course he was right. She considered him again, and what his love language might be.

“It’s sex,” he offered.

“That was my guess,” she whispered.

“And yours is multilingual.”

Multilingual. “What do you mean?”

“You speak all five.”

She wanted to deny it but was sure he was right since he knew her better than she knew herself. “Then... that makes it easy.”

His low laugh tickled her tummy. “Or so much more complicated. Lots of work.”

She sensed he was joking but that didn’t stop the worry about being too much trouble for him. She didn’t need all five languages but yes, she would absolutely love all five coming from him .

“And maybe you have other love languages you’re not aware of,” she whispered.

He put his forearms on the table, angling his gaze at her. “Mary.”

She looked at him, getting immediately trapped in his hot stare. “What?” she barely said. “There’s nothing wrong with not knowing all the languages, not everybody learns them or experiences them. And how would you know if you don’t love it if you’ve never tried it?”

“As you reflect on your relationship,” the Belle Eveque explained, “I want you to talk with your spouse about your love language. Try practicing it this week and see what changes.”

“See?” Mary whispered to him. “It’s not written in stone. Things can change and evolve.”

He leaned in till his face was right next to hers. “As long as you don’t try and evolve my obsession with fucking you, I’m open to try anything,” he said only for her ears, his gaze lowering to her mouth, sending her pulse through her entire body.

“Alright,” Beth announced. “Let’s take ten minutes to complete this exercise. If you need help or clarification, just holler.”

“Words of affirmation,” Mary whispered. “ And quality time. Those are two languages I think should be added to your obsession if you were to experience them. These are good for you. For us.”

His grin slowly filled his sexy mouth. “Words of affirmation? Go for it. Do your worst.”

Worst? “Why not my best?”

His laugh shot out and she snuck a worried glance around then got his mouth planted right on hers. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”

“I’m not contrary,” she whispered, shame heating her cheeks from his public antics. She got back to the assignment, thinking of words of affirmation. What sort did he need? How would she figure that out? She could start with the obvious things. “You’re a great father,” she whispered, getting his smiling face back in her immediate air space. “And… the strongest person I’ve ever met.” She realized that was too vague and added quietly. “The… superhero kind of strong.” Why was he laughing at everything? “I’m serious,” she said, trying not to look around.

“Let’s leave,” he whispered to her, sliding his fingers along her cheek. “I need to express my greatest love language. Maybe in the woods. And can I change it to supervillain? ”

Her pulse raged as her mind conjured up him fucking her in the woods. “Supervillain? No,” she said. “You’re not. Not to me.”

“Now, as you work through this at home,” Belle Eveque said, “I’d like you to complete chapter one and bring back your reflections. The idea is to explore this together, privately. You’ll also find a few more exercises about shared strengths and weaknesses. This will help you both appreciate what each of you brings to the table and where you can support each other.”