Midnight Bayou

jumped—she couldn’t help it. And heard the nerves in her own strangled laugh. “Not very hospitable, this ghost of yours.”
    “That’s the first time I’ve seen it.” There was a hard lump at the base of his throat. His heart, Declan thought as he took two steadying breaths. “Whoever it is—was—is seriously pissed off.”
    “It’s Abigail’s room. We Cajuns can have fierce tempers if we’re riled.”
    “It just doesn’t feel like a girl’s anger. Not that pretty young thing in the photograph downstairs.”
    “A lot you know about girls then, cher .”
    “Excuse me, I have a sister, and she can be mean as a scalded cat. I meant it feels more . . . full-blown. More vicious.”
    “Somebody killed me and buried my body in some unmarked grave, I’d be feeling pretty vicious.” Lena made herself reach out, grip the icy knob. “It won’t turn.”
    Declan laid his hand over hers. The cold swept out again; the knob turned easily. And when they opened the door, there was only an empty room, full of sunlight and shadows.
    “It’s a little scary, isn’t it?” But she stepped over the threshold.
    “Yeah, a little bit.”
    “You know what I think, cher ?”
    “What?”
    “I think that anybody who stays in the house alone, night after night, who goes out and buys rugs and tables and lamps for it . . .” She turned around and slid her arms around his waist. “I think a man who does that has big steel balls.”
    “Yeah?” Reading invitation, he lowered his head and kissed her. “I could probably carve out another twenty minutes for that sex now.”
    She laughed and gave him a hard hug. “Sorry, sugar. I’ve got to get on back. Saturday night’s coming on. But if you happened to be in the neighborhood, say, at three, four in the morning, I think I could stay awake longenough to . . .” She cupped her hand between his legs and stroked over denim. “Stay awake long enough to give those big, steel balls a workout.”
    He managed not to whimper, but it was a close call. “Wednesday,” he told her. “When you’re clear.”
    She still had her hand between his legs, could feel the hard line of him. “Wednesday?”
    “When you’re clear.” But he did crush his mouth to hers to give her some taste of what he was feeling. “Come out here. We’ll have dinner. And stay.” He backed her against the wall. Used his teeth on her. “Stay the night. I want you in my bed. Wednesday. Tell me you’ll come out and be with me.”
    “All right.” She wiggled free. Another few minutes of that, she thought, they wouldn’t wait till Wednesday and she’d have him right here on the floor. “I have to get back. I shouldn’t have stayed so long.”
    She looked up and down the hall as she stepped out of the room. “I don’t believe I’ve ever spent the night in a haunted house. What time should I come by?”
    “Early.”
    “I might do that, too. You don’t need to see me to the door, cher .” She sent him a wicked grin. “Walking’s got to be a little bit of a problem for you, shape you’re in just now. You come on into the bar if you change your mind.”
    She laid a fingertip on her lips, kissed it, then pointed it at him like a gun before she walked away.
    It was an apt gesture, Declan thought. There were times a look from her was as lethal as a bullet.
    All he had to do was hold out until Wednesday, then he could get shot again.

12
    R ain moved in Saturday night and camped out like a squatter through the rest of the weekend. It kept Declan inside, and kept him alone. With Blind Lemon Jackson playing on his stereo, he started preliminary work on the library.
    He built a fire as much for cheer as warmth, then found himself sitting on the hearth, running a finger over the chipped tile. Maybe he’d leave it as it was. Not everything should be perfect. Accidents should be accepted, and the character of them absorbed.
    He wanted to bring the house to life again, but did he want to put it back exactly the way it had been? He’d already changed things, and the changes made it his.
    If he had the tile replaced, was he honoring the history of the Hall, or re-creating it?
    It hadn’t been a happy home.
    The thought ran through him like a chill, though his back was to the snapping fire.
    A cold, cold house, full of secrets and anger and envy.
    Death.
    She wanted a book. Reading was a delight to her—a slow and brilliant delight. The sight of the library, with row after row after row of