Midnight Bayou

the month?”
    Her eyes glittered through the haze of smoke. “That would be cheating. I don’t cheat. Pleasure’s nothing, sugar, unless you got the willpower to hold off until you really appreciate it.”
    She trailed a fingertip over the back of his hand, and for the hell of it, rubbed the side of her foot against his leg under the table. “How are you on willpower?” she asked.
    “We’re going to find out.”
    I t was dusk when he got back to the house. The back of his four-wheel was loaded with treasures he’d hunted up in antique shops. But the best was the kitchen cabinet he’d found, and had begged and bribed to have delivered the next day.
    He carried what he could on the first trip and, when he stepped inside, set everything down in the foyer. He closed the door behind him, then stood very still.
    “Abigail.” He said the name, listened to it echo through the house. And waited.
    But he felt no rush of cold air, no sudden shift in the silence.
    And standing at the base of the grand staircase, he couldn’t explain how he knew he wasn’t alone.

8
    H e woke to a crashing thunderstorm, but at least he woke in his own bed. Lightning slashed outside the windows and burst a nova of light through the room.
    A glance at the bedside clock showed him a minute to midnight. But that had to be wrong, Declan thought. He hadn’t gone to bed until after one. Wondering if the storm had knocked out his power, he turned the switch on the bedside lamp.
    Light speared out, half blinding him.
    “Damn it.” He rubbed his shocked eyes, then grabbed the bottle of water he’d set on the table next to the bed. And rising, went out on the gallery to watch the show.
    It was worth the price of a ticket, he decided. Lashing rain, pitchfork lightning, and a wind that was whipping through the trees in moans and howls. He could hear the excited clanging of the spirit bottles and the fierce jungle war of thunder.
    And the baby crying.
    The water bottle slid out of his fingers, bounced at his feet and soaked them.
    He wasn’t dreaming, he told himself, and reached out to grip the wet baluster. He wasn’t sleepwalking. He was awake, fully aware of his surroundings. And he heard the baby crying.
    He had to order himself to move, but he walked back into the bedroom, dragged on sweats, checked his flashlight. Barefoot, shirtless, he left the security of his room and started toward the third floor.
    He waited for the panic to come—that clutching in the belly, the sudden shortness of breath, the pounding of his heart.
    But it didn’t come this time. The steps were just steps now, the door just a door with a brass knob that needed polishing.
    And the baby wasn’t crying any longer.
    “Come this far,” he grumbled.
    His palms were sweaty, but it was nerves instead of fear. He reached out, turned the knob. The door opened with a whine of hinges.
    There was a low fire in the hearth. Its light, and the light of candles, danced in pretty patterns over walls of pale, pale peach. At the windows were deep blue drapes with lacy under-curtains. The floor was polished like a mirror with two area rugs in a pattern of peaches and blues.
    There was a crib with turned rails, a small iron cot made up with white linen.
    She sat in a rocking chair, a baby at her breast. He could see the baby’s hand on it, white against gold. Her hair was down, spilling over her shoulders, over the arms of the rocker.
    Her lips moved, in song or story he didn’t know. He couldn’t hear. But she stared down at the child as she nursed, and her face was lit with love.
    “You never left her,” Declan said quietly. “You couldn’t have.”
    She looked up, toward the doorway where he stood so that for one heart-stopping second, he thought she’d heard him. Would speak to him. When she smiled, when she held out a hand, he took a step toward her.
    Then his knees went loose as he saw the man cross the room—pass through him like air—and walk to her.
    His hair was golden blond. He was tall and slim of build. He wore some sort of robe in a deep burgundy. When he knelt by the rocker, he stroked a fingertip over the baby’s cheek, then over the tiny fingers that kneaded at the woman’s breast.
    The woman, Abigail, lifted her hand, pressed it over his. And there, surrounded by that soft light, the three of them linked while the baby’s milky mouth suckled and the woman gently rocked.
    “No. You never left them. I’ll find out what they did to you. To all of