Midnight Bayou

toward the trees.
    “Spirit bottles,” Declan reported, lifting one. He’d seen them hanging outside the shotgun house. “Just how do they work?”
    “It’s an old voodoo trick,” Lena told him. “The clanking sound they make scares the evil spirits away.”
    Testing, he bumped two together. It sounded pleasant enough, he thought, and not particularly scary. “You believe in voodoo?”
    “I believe in that ounce of prevention.” She strolled off, small and curvy, to join her grandmother.
    Voodoo or old glass bottles, he liked the way they looked hanging from his trees. And when he tapped two together again, he liked the sound they made.
    It took nearly an hour to wind their way around the house and into it as there had to be conversations with the landscapers, inquiries about their family, speculation on the weather, discussion of the garden.
    When he finally got them into the kitchen, Odette fisted her hands on her hips and nodded. “That’s a good color, like a nicely baked pastry crust. Most men, they don’t know anything but white. Brings out these good pine floors.”
    “I should have the cabinets ready to install next week.” He gestured toward the dining room. “I’m using pine there, too. With glass fronts.”
    Lips pursed, Odette walked in, ran her hand over a cabinet. “This is nice work, Declan. You got a talent.”
    “Thanks.”
    “And it makes you happy.”
    “It sure does. Would you like to go into the parlor? I’ve got a table in there. We’ll have some tea.” He glanced up as something heavy hit the floor above. “Sorry about the noise.”
    “Work’s rarely a quiet activity. Lena and I will just wander along, if you don’t mind. We’ll find the parlor.”
    “You can’t miss it. It’s the only room with a table.”
    “He’s a very nice young man,” Odette commented as she and Lena walked out of the dining room.
    “He is.”
    “Good-looking, too.”
    “Very.”
    “Got a hot eye for you, chère. ”
    Now Lena laughed. “He does.”
    “What’re you going to do about it?”
    “I’m still thinking. Lord, what a place.” Lena trailed her hands over a wall. “Doorways wide enough to drive a car through. It makes you cry to see how it’s been let go.”
    “Let go? I don’t know. Seems to me it’s just been waiting. Isn’t this just like a man,” she said when they stepped into the parlor. “Living with one table and two chairs. Bet he hasn’t fixed a decent meal for himself since he got here.”
    Lena cocked an eyebrow. “Grandmama, you’re not going to make me feel sorry enough for him to cook his dinner.” Amused, Lena wandered to the window. “It’s beautiful, what you see from here. Imagine what it would’ve been like to stand here when the house was in its glory. Horses coming through the allée, those funny old cars rumbling up the drive.”
    “It’ll be beautiful again. But it needs a woman—just like that boy needs one.”
    Lena toyed with the little key that hung around herneck. “I said I’m still thinking. Chilly in here yet,” she added. “Needs a fire going.”
    “I’ll build one,” Declan told her as he came in with a pitcher of over-steeped tea and plastic cups.

6
    I t was a good hour, Declan thought. And not counting Remy and Effie, his first real company.
    He liked having them there, the female presence in his parlor with the fire he’d built crackling cheerfully and the late afternoon sun fighting through the dust on the windows.
    “I’m going to come back,” Odette told him, “to see your kitchen when it’s finished.”
    “I hope you’ll come back often. I’d be glad to show you the rest of the house.”
    “You go on and show Lena. Me, I’m going to walk on home.”
    “I’ll take you home, Grandmama.”
    “No, you stay awhile.” However casual her tone, there was a sly look in her eye. “I want to walk, then it’ll be time for my nap.” As she started to rise, Declan got up, offered his hand. And made her smile. “You got a pretty manner about you. You come back and see me when you’re not busy. I’ll make you some sauce patate —potato stew—before you get so skinny your clothes fall off your bones.”
    “I got the phones hooked up.” He dug in his pocket for a scrap of paper, found a pencil in his shirt pocket and wrote down the number. “If you need anything, just call.”
    “Yes, indeed, a very pretty way.” She turned her cheek up, inviting his kiss. When he walked her to the door, she