Midnight Bayou

wouldn’t have died the way she did. She wouldn’t be a ghost in that house.”
    “Oh chère .” Both the exasperation and all the affectioncolored Odette’s voice. “It isn’t Abby Rouse who haunts that place.”
    “Who, then?”
    “I expect that’s what that boy’s there to find out. Might be you’re here to help him.”
    She gave a sniff of the air. “Bread’s done,” she said an instant before the oven buzzer sounded. “You want to take a loaf over to the Hall?”
    Lena set her jaw. “No.”
    “All right, then.” Odette walked up the steps, opened the back door. “Maybe I’ll take him one myself.” Her eyes were dancing when she glanced over her shoulder. “And could be I’ll steal him right out from under your nose.”
    D eclan had every door and window on the first level open. Ry Cooder blasted out of his stereo with his lunging rhythm and blues. Working to the beat, Declan spread the first thin coat of varnish on the newly sanded floor of the parlor.
    Everything ached. Every muscle and bone in his body sang with the same ferocity as Ry Cooder. He’d thought the sheer physical strain of the sanding would have worked off his temper. Now he was hoping the necessary focus and strain of the varnishing would do the job.
    The rosy dawn hadn’t lived up to its promise.
    The woman pushed his buttons, he thought. And she knew it. One night she’d wrapped herself all over him in bed, and the next she won’t give him more than some conversation on the phone.
    Snaps out in temper one minute, melts down to sexy teasing the next. Trying to turn the night they’d spent together into the classic one-night stand.
    Fuck that.
    “Aw, cher , what you wanna get all het up about?” he muttered. “You haven’t seen het up, baby. But you’re going to before this is done.”
    “You look to be in the middle of a mad.”
    He spun around, slopping varnish. Then nearly went down to his knees when he saw Odette smiling at him from the doorway.
    “I didn’t hear you come in.”
    “Not surprising.” With the privilege of age, she leaned down and turned down the volume on his portable stereo as Cooder switched pace, lamenting falling teardrops. “Like Cooder myself, but not that loud. Brought you by a loaf of the brown bread I baked this morning. You go on and finish what you’re doing. I’ll put it back in the kitchen for you.”
    “Just give me a minute.”
    “You don’t have to stop on my account, cher .”
    “No. Please. Five minutes. There’s . . . something, I forget what, to drink in the fridge. Why don’t you go on back, help yourself?”
    “I believe I will. It’s a bit close out already, and not even March. You take your time.”
    When he’d finished up enough to join her, Odette was standing in front of his kitchen display cabinet, studying the contents.
    “My mama had an old waffle iron just like this. And I still got a cherry seeder like the one you got in here. What do they call these dishes here? I can’t remember.”
    “Fiestaware.”
    “That’s it. Always sounds like a party. You pay money for these old Mason jars, cher ?”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    She clucked her tongue at the wonder of it. “There’s no accounting for things. Damn if they don’t look pretty, though. You come look through my shed sometime, see ifthere’s anything in there you want.” She turned now, nodded at the room. “This is fine, Declan. You did fine.”
    “It’ll come together when the counters are in and I finish the panels for the appliances.”
    “It’s fine,” she said again. “And the parlor where you’re working, it’s as lovely as it can be.”
    “I’ve already bought some of the furniture for it. A little ahead of myself. Would you like to sit down, Miss Odette?”
    “For a minute or two. I’ve got something from the house you might like to have, maybe put on the mantel in the parlor or one of the other rooms.”
    She took a seat at the table he’d moved in, and pulled an old brown leather frame from a bag. “It’s a photograph, a portrait, of Abigail Rouse.”
    Declan took it and gazed down on the woman who haunted his dreams. It might have been Lena, he thought, but there was too much softness, too much yet unformed in this face. Her cheeks were rounder, her long-lidded eyes too gullible, and far too shy.
    So young, he mused. And innocent despite the grown-up walking dress with its high, fur-trimmed collar, despite the jaunty angle of the velvet toque with its