Midnight Bayou

slid back down, dragged a pillow over his face. “How’d you know I was dying?”
    “Effie called.”
    “When’s Remy’s funeral?”
    “Fortunately, he’s marrying a woman with a great deal of tolerance, understanding and humor. How many titty bars did y’all hit last night?”
    “All of them. All the titty bars in all the land.”
    “I suppose that explains why you have a pasty on your cheek.”
    “I do not.” But when he groped under the pillow, he felt the tassel. “Oh God. Have some mercy and just kill me.”
    “Well, all right, honey.” She applied just enough pressure to the pillow to have him flapping his hands and shoving up.
    His face was flushed, his bloodshot eyes just a little wild. “That wasn’t funny.”
    “You had to see it from this side.” And she laughed. He still wore his clothes, the wrinkled, liquor-spotted shirt half in, half out of his jeans. Another pasty peeked out of the shirt pocket. This one was pink and silver. His eyes were narrowed to a pained squint.
    “You’re going to feel better in a bit—not good but better. You get a shower and some food, on top of that potion I poured into you, you’ll get the feeling back in your extremities in two, maybe three hours.”
    Someone had shaved the fur off his tongue, hediscovered. He wasn’t sure it was an improvement. “What was in that stuff you gave me?”
    “You don’t want to know, but I laced it with four aspirin, so don’t take any more for a while. I’m going to fix you a nice light omelette and some toast.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you look so pitiful.” She started to kiss him, then jerked back, waving a hand between them. “Christ Jesus, do something about that breath, cher , before you kill someone with it.”
    “Who asked you?”
    “And make that a long shower. You smell like the barroom floor.” She pushed to her feet. “How come nobody’s around here today?”
    “In anticipation of a hangover, I let it be known that anyone who came around this house before three in the afternoon would be executed without trial.”
    She checked her watch. “Looks like you got a few hours yet.”
    “If I have to get out of this bed, I’m getting a gun. I’ll feel bad about killing you, but I’ll do it.”
    “I’ll be in the kitchen.” She cocked a brow. “Bring your gun, cher , and we’ll see if you remember how to use it.”
    “Is that a euphemism?” he called after her, then immediately regretted raising his voice. Holding his head to keep it in place, he eased creakily out of bed.
    She chuckled all the way downstairs. Laughed harder when she heard a door slam. Bet he’s sorry he did that, she thought, then stopped, looked back when she heard another two slams.
    Ah well . . . she supposed he couldn’t threaten ghosts with a gun.
    “Make all the racket you want,” she said as she headed back toward the kitchen. “You don’t worry me any.”
    The library doors shook as she passed them. She ignored them. If a surly, smelly man didn’t chase her off, a mean-tempered ghost wouldn’t.
    He’d looked so damn cute, she thought as she hunted up the coffee beans. All pale and male and cross. And with that silly pasty plastered on his cheek.
    Men just lost half their IQ when they had a look at a naked woman. Put a pack of them together with women willing to strip to music, and they had the common sense of a clump of broccoli.
    She ground the beans, set coffee to brew. She was mixing eggs in a bowl when it occurred to her that it was the first time in her life she’d made breakfast for a man she hadn’t slept with the night before.
    Wasn’t that an odd thing?
    Odder still that she was humming in the kitchen of an annoyed, smelly, hungover man who’d snapped at her.
    Out of character, Lena. Just what’s going on here?
    She’d been so intrigued by Effie’s cheerful amusement over Remy’s condition. And here she was, feeling the same thing over Declan’s.
    She peered out the window at the garden that had been wild and abandoned only months before. It bloomed now, beautifully, with new sprigs, fresh green spearing out.
    She’d gone and done it after all. Gone and let him sneak into her, right through the locks and bolts.
    She was in love with him. And oh God, she didn’t want to be—as much for his sake as for her own.
    He’d blown the dust off those young dreams she’d so rigidly put away. The ones colored with love and hope and trust. They were so shiny now that they were staring her in