Midnight Bayou

Manet Hall February 2002

From his gallery, Declan watched the day come to life. Dawn was a rosy blush on the eastern sky, with hints of mauve, like sleepy bruises, just beneath. The air was warming. He could feel the rise of it almost every day. It wasn't yet March, but winter was bowing out.

The gardens that a month before had been a sorrowful wreck, showed hints of their former grandeur. Strangling vines, invasive weeds, deadwood and broken bricks had been hauled away, revealing foot by foot the wandering paths, the shrubs, even the bulbs and plants that had been too stubborn to die away.

An old iron arbor was wild with what the Franks told him was wisteria, and there was an island of massive azaleas that showed the beginning of hopeful buds.

He had magnolia, crape myrtle, camellia, jasmine. He'd written down everything he could remember the Franks reeled off in their lazy voices. When he'd described the vine he imagined on the corner columns, they'd told him what he wanted was morning glory.

He liked the sound of it. Mornings here were full of glory.

He thought his body was adjusting to the five or six hours of disturbed sleep a night he was able to snatch. Or maybe it was just nervous energy that was fueling him.

Something was pushing him, driving him step by step through the transformation of the house that was his. Yet somehow, not only his.

If it was Abigail hovering, she was a damn fickle female. There were times he felt utterly comfortable, totally at peace. And others when cold fear prickled the back of his neck. Times when he felt in his gut he was being watched.

Stalked.

Well, that was a woman for you, he thought as he sipped his morning coffee. All smiles one minute, and slaps the next.

Even as he thought it, he saw Lena and the big black dog step out of the trees.

He didn't think twice, but set his coffee aside and started for the gallery steps.

She'd seen him long before he'd seen her. From the shelter of the trees and morning mists, she'd stood, idly rubbing Rufus's head, and had studied the house. Studied him.

What was it about the place and the man that pulled at her so? she wondered. There were any number of great old houses here, along the River Road, on toward Baton Rouge.

God knew there were any number of good-looking men, if a woman was in the market for one.

But it was this house that had always snagged her interest and imagination. Now it seemed it was this man, jogging down the thick stone stairs in a ratty shirt, rattier jeans, his face rough with the night's beard, who had managed to do the same.

She didn't like to want. It got in the way of things. And when that want involved a man, well, it was just bound to mess up your life.

She'd built her life brick by goddamn brick. And she liked it, just as it was. A man, no matter how amiable he was, would, at best, alter the design. At worst, he'd send those bricks tumbling down to ruin.

She'd kept away from him since the night she'd taken him into her bed. Just to prove she could.

But she had a smile ready for him now, a slow, cat-at-the-mouse-hole smile, and stood her ground as the dog raced over, tearing through the ground fog, to meet him.

Rufus leaped, slopped his tongue over Declan's face, then collapsed, belly up, for a rub.

It was, Lena knew, Rufus's way of showing unconditional love.

Charms dogs, too, she thought as Declan crouched down to rub and wrestle. The man had entirely too much appeal for anybody's good.

Especially hers.

"Rufus!" she called out, bringing the dog to his feet in a flurry of muscle and limbs that nearly put Declan on his ass. And laughing, she tossed the ball she carried high in the air, nipped it handily on its fall. Rufus charged her, a blur of black fur and enthusiasm. She hurled the ball over the pond. Rufus sailed up, over the water, and nabbed the ball with his teeth seconds before his massive splash.

"The Bo Sox could use you two." As the dog paddled his way to shore, Declan strode up, cupped his hands under Lena's elbows, and lifted her off her feet. He had an instant to see her blink in surprise before he covered her mouth with his, and took her under.

She gripped his shirt, not for balance, though her feet were dangling several inches off the ground. But because he was under it, all that muscle and heat and man.

She heard the dog bark, three deep throaty rumbles, then the water he shook off himself drenched her. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had steamed off her skin.

"Morning," Declan said and dropped her back on her feet. "Where y'at?”

"Woo." She had to give him credit for both greetings, and pushed a hand through her hair. "Where y'at?" she responded, then reached up and rubbed a hand over his rough cheek. "Need a shave, cher.”

"If I'd known you'd come walking my way this morning, I'd have taken care of that.”

"I wasn't walking your way." She picked up the ball Rufus had dropped at her feet and sent it, and the dog, flying again. "Just playing with my grandmama's dog.”

"Is she all right? You said you stayed over with her when she wasn't feeling well.”

"She gets the blues sometimes, is all." And damn it, damn it, his instant and genuine concern touched her. "Missing her Pete. She was seventeen when they got married, and fifty-eight when he died. More'n forty years is a long time to mesh lives.”

"Would she like it if I went by later?”

"She likes your company." Because Rufus was thumping his tail impatiently, she winged the ball again.

"You said she has a sister. Any other family?”

"Two sisters, a brother, all still living.”

"Children?”

Her face shut down. "I'm all she's got there. You been into town for any of the partying?”

Off limits, he decided. He let it go, for the moment. "Not yet. I figured I'd go in tonight. Are you working?”

"Nothing but work till Ash Wednesday. People do like to drink before Lent comes.”

"Late hours for you. You look a little tired.”

"I don't much care for being up this early, but Grandmama, she's an early bird. She's up, everybody's up." She lifted her arms high, stretched. "You're an early bird yourself, aren't you, cher?”

"These days. Why don't you come back to the house with me, have some coffee, see what I've been doing with my time since I haven't been able to spend any with you.”

"I've been busy.”

"So you said.”

Her brows knit, forming a long, shallow line of annoyance between them. "I say what I mean.”

"I didn't say different. But I'm making you edgy. I don't mind that, Lena." He reached out to tug on her hair, amused and delighted to see temper darken her face. "But I would mind if you think I'd settle for one night with you.”

"I sleep with you if I want, when I want.”

"And I'd mind," he continued mildly, though the hand that gripped her arm before she could spin away was very firm. "I'd mind a great deal if you think all I want is to get you in the sheets.”

"Men don't touch me unless I tell them they can touch me." She shoved at his hand.

"You've never dealt with me before, have you?" There was steel in his fingers, in his tone. "Just simmer down. Picking a fight isn't going to shake me loose, either. You wanted to keep your distance this week, okay. I'm a patient man, Lena, but I'm not a doormat. Don't think you're going to walk over me on your way out the door.”

Anger, she realized, wasn't the way to handle him. She had no doubt she could scrape away at that control and stir him up into a good shouting match of a fight. It would be interesting, even entertaining. But she had a fifty-fifty chance of losing it.

She didn't care for the odds.

Instead, she stroked a hand over his cheek. "Aw now, cher." Her voice was liquid silk. "What you getting so het up about? You got me irritable, that's all. I'm not at my best so early in the day, and here you being all tough and surly. I don't mean to hurt your feelings.”

She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.

"What do you mean to do, Angelina?”

There was something about the way he used her whole name that put her back up. A kind of warning. "Now, Declan honey, I like you. I truly do. And the other night, why, you just about swept me off my feet. We had ourselves a real good time, too, didn't we? But you don't want to be making more out of it than it was.”

"What was it?”

She lifted her shoulders. "A very satisfying interlude, for both of us. Why don't we leave it at that and be friends again?”

"We could. Or, we could try it this way.”

He yanked her to him, dragged her up to her toes. And plundered her mouth. No patience this time, no reason, no dreamy mating of lips. It was a branding, and they both knew it.

Rufus gave a warning growl as she struggled. Even when the growl turned to a snarl, Declan ignored it. He fisted a hand in her hair, pulled her head back, and took them both deeper. Temper, hurt and hunger all stormed inside him and flavored the kiss.

She couldn't resist it. Not when the punch of emotions slammed into her system, liberating needs she'd hoped to lock down. On a muffled oath, she wrapped her arms around his neck and met the ferocity of the kiss.

With a whine, Rufus settled down to chew at the ball.

"We're not done with each other." Declan ran proprietary hands down her arms.

"Maybe not.”

"I'll come in tonight, take you home after you close. Wednesday, after things quiet down, I'd like you to come out here. We'll have dinner.”

She managed to smile. "You cooking?”

He grinned, touched his lips to her brow. "I'll surprise you.”

"You usually do," she retorted when he walked away.

She was irritated with herself. Not just for losing a battle, but for cowardice. It was cowardice that had pushed her to start the fight in the first place.

She trudged through the marsh while Rufus raced into the trees, through the thick green undergrowth in hopes of scaring up a rabbit or a squirrel.

She stopped at the curve of what had been known as far back as memory stretched as Bayou Rouse. This mysterious place with its slow-moving, shadowy water, its cypress bones and thick scents, was as much her world as the crooked streets and lively pace of the Quarter.

She'd run in this world as a child, learned the difference between a wren and a sparrow, how to avoid a copperhead nest by its cucumber whiff, how to drop a line and pull up a catfish for supper.

It was the home of her blood, as the Quarter had become the home of her ambition. She didn't come back to it only when her grandmother was feeling blue, but when she herself was.

She caught a glimpse of the knobby snout of an alligator sliding by. It was, she thought, what was under the surface that could take you down, one quick, ugly snap, if you weren't alert and didn't keep your wits about you.

There was a great deal under the surface of Declan Fitzgerald. She'd have preferred if he'd been some spoiled, rich trust-fund baby out on a lark. She could've enjoyed him, and dismissed him when they were both bored.

It was a great deal more difficult to dismiss what you respected. She admired his strength, his purpose, his humor. As a friend, he would give her a great deal of pleasure.

As a lover, he worried the hell out of her.

He wanted too much. She could already feel him sucking her in. And it scared her, scared her that she didn't seem able to stop the process.

Toying with the key around her neck, she started back toward the bayou house. It would run its course, she told herself. Things always did.

She pasted on a smile as she neared the house and saw her grandmother, shaded by an old straw hat, fussing in her kitchen garden.

"I smell bread baking," Lena called out.

"Brown bread. Got a loaf in there you can take home with you.”

Odette straightened, pressed a hand lightly to the small of her back. "Got an extra you could take on by the Hall for that boy. He doesn't eat right.”

"He's healthy enough.”

"Healthy enough to want a bite outta you." She bent back to her work, her sturdy work boots planted firm. "He try to take one this morning? You've got that look about you.”

Lena walked over, dropped down on the step beside the garden patch. "What look is that?”

"The look a woman gets when a man's had his hands on her and didn't finish the job.”

"I know how to finish the job myself, if that's the only problem.”

With a snorting laugh, Odette broke off a sprig of rosemary. She pinched at its needle leaves, waved it under her nose for the simple pleasure of its scent. "Why scratch an itch if someone'll scratch it for you? I may be close to looking seventy in the eye, but I know when I see a man who's willing and able.”

"Sex doesn't run my life, Grandmama.”

"No, but it sure would make it more enjoyable." She straightened again. "You're not Lilibeth, 't poulette.”

The use of the childhood endearment-little chicken –made Lena smile. "I know it.”

"Not being her doesn't mean you have to be alone if you find somebody who lights the right spark in you.”

She took the rosemary Odette offered, brushed it against her cheek. "I don't think he's looking for a spark. I think he's looking for a whole damn bonfire." She leaned back on her elbows, shook back her hair. "I've lived this long without getting burned, and I'm going to keep right on.”

"It always was right or left for you. Couldn't drive you to middle ground with a whip. You're my baby, even if you are a grown woman, so I'll say this: Nothing wrong with a woman walking alone, as long as it's for the right reasons. Being afraid she might trip, that's a wrong one.”

"What happens if I let myself fall for him?" Lena demanded. "Then he has enough of swamp water and trots on back to Boston? Or he just has his fill of dancing with me and finds himself another partner?”

Odette pushed her hat back on the crown of her head, and her face was alive with exasperation. "What happens if it rains a flood and washes us into the Mississippi? Pity sakes, Lena, you can't think that way. It'll dry you up.”

"I was doing fine before he came along, and I'll do fine after he goes." Feeling sulky, she reached down to pet Rufus when he butted his head against her knee. "That house over there, Grandmama, that house he's so set on bringing back, it's a symbol of what happens when two people don't belong in the same place. I'm her blood, and I know.”

"You don't know." Odette tipped back Lena's chin. "If they hadn't loved, if Abby Rouse and Lucian Manet hadn't loved and made a child together, you and I wouldn't be here.”

"If they'd been meant, she wouldn't have died the way she did. She wouldn't be a ghost in that house.”

"Oh chhre." Both the exasperation and all the affection colored 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.”

Declan 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 if there'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 saucy feathers.

This was a girl, he reflected, where Lena was a woman.

"She was lovely," Declan said. "Lovely and young. It breaks your heart.”

"My grandmama thought she was 'round about eighteen when this was taken. Couldn't've been more, as she never saw her nineteenth birthday.”

As she spoke, a door slammed upstairs, as if in temper. Odette merely glanced toward the ceiling. "Sounds like your ghost's got mad on, too.”

"That just started happening today. Plumber's kid shot out of here like a bullet a couple hours ago.”

"You don't look like you're going anywhere.”

"No." He sat across from her as another door slammed, and looked back down at Abigail Rouse Manet's shy, hopeful smile. "I'm not going anywhere.”

There was a madness about Mardi Gras. The music, the masks, the mayhem all crashing together into a desperate sort of celebration managed to create a tone that was both gleefully innocent and rawly sexual. He doubted the majority of the tourists who flocked here for the event understood or cared about the purpose of it. That rush to gorge on pleasures before the forty days of fasting.

Wanting a taste of it himself, Declan opted to wander through the crowds, even snagged some beads when they were tossed in a glitter of cheap gold from one of the galleries. His ears rang with the blare of brass, the wild laughter.

He decided the sight of naked breasts, which a couple of coeds flashed as they followed tradition and jerked up their shirts, would be less alarming after a couple of drinks.

As would being grabbed by a total stranger and being treated to a tonsil-diving kiss. The tongue currently invading his mouth transferred the silly sweetness of many hurricanes and happily drunken lust onto his.

"Thanks," he managed when he freed himself.

"Come on back here," the masked female shouted. "Laizzez les bon temps rouler!”

He didn't want to let the good times roll when it involved strange tongues plunged into his mouth, and escaped into the teeming crowds.

Maybe he was getting old, he thought-or maybe it was just the Boston bedrock– but he wanted to get someplace where he could sit back and observe the party rather than being mobbed by it.

The doors to Et Trois were flung open, so the noise from within poured out and tangled with the noise of the streets. He had to weave his way through the revelers on the sidewalk, those packed inside, and squeeze his way to a standing spot at the bar.

The place was full of smoke, music and the slap of feet on wood as dancers shoehorned together on the dance floor. Onstage, a fiddler streamed out such hot licks, Declan wouldn't have been surprised to see the bow burst into flame.

Lena was pulling a draft with one hand, pouring a shot of bourbon with the other. The two other bartenders were equally busy, and from what he could see, she had four waitresses working the tables.

He spotted his crawfish grinning from their spot on the shelf behind the bar and was ridiculously pleased.

"Beer and a bump," she said and slid the glasses into waiting hands. When she spotted Declan, she held up a finger, then served three more customers as she worked her way down to him.

"What's your pleasure, handsome?”

"You are. You're packed," he added. "In here and out on the sidewalk.”

"Banquette," she corrected. "We call them banquettes 'round here." She'd pulled her hair back, wound purple and gold beads through it. The little silver key dangled against skin dewed with perspiration. "I can give you a drink, cher, but I don't have time to talk right now.”

"Can I give you a hand?”

She pushed at her hair. "With what?”

"Whatever.”

Someone elbowed in, shouted out a request for a tequila sunrise and a Dixie draft.

Lena reached back for the bottle, shifted to pull the draft. "You know how to bus tables, college boy?”

"I can figure it out.”

"Redheaded waitress? She's Marcella." She nodded in the general direction of mayhem. "Tell her you're hired. She'll show you what to do.”

By midnight, he figured he'd carted about a half a ton of empties into the kitchen, and dumped the equivalent of Mount Rainier in cigarette butts.

He'd had his ass pinched, rubbed, ogled. What was it with women and the male behind? Someone ought to do a study on it.

He'd lost track of the propositions, and didn't care to think about the enormous woman who'd hauled him into her lap.

It had been like being smothered by a three-hundred– pound pillow soaked in whiskey.

By two, he was beyond amazement at the human body's capacity for vice, and had revised any previous perception of the skill and endurance required in food– service occupations.

He made sixty-three dollars and eighty-five cents in tips, and vowed to burn his clothes at the first opportunity.

The place was still rolling at three, and he decided Lena hadn't been avoiding him. Or if she had, she'd had a reasonable excuse for it.

"What time do you close?" he asked when he carted another load toward the kitchen.

"When people go away." She poured bottled beer into the plastic to-go cups, handed them off.

"Do they ever?"

She smiled, but it was quick and distracted as she scanned the crowd. "Not so much during Mardi Gras. Why don't you go on home, cher? We're going to be another hour or more in here.”

"I stick.”

He carried the empties into the kitchen and came back in time to see a trio of very drunk men– boys really, he noted-hitting on Lena and hitting hard.

She was handling them, but they weren't taking the hint.

"If y'all want to last till Fat Tuesday, you gotta pace yourself a bit." She set to-go cups under the taps. "Y'all aren't driving now, are you?”

"Hell no." One, wearing a University of Michigan T-shirt under an avalanche of beads, leaned in. Way in. "We've got a place right over on Royal. Why don't you come back there with me, baby? Get naked, take a spin in the Jacuzzi.”

"Now, that's real tempting, cher, but I've got my hands full.”

"I'll give you a handful," he said and, grabbing his own crotch, had his two companions howling and hooting.

Declan stepped forward, ran a proprietary hand over Lena's shoulder. "You're hitting on my woman." He felt her stiffen under his hand, saw the surly challenge in the Michigan boy's eyes.

Under other circumstances, Declan thought as he sized the kid up-six-one, a toned one-ninety –he might be the type to make his bed every morning, he might visit old ladies in nursing homes. He might rescue small puppies. But right now, the boy was drunk, horny and stupid.

To prove it, Michigan bared his teeth. "Why don't you just fuck off? Or maybe you want to take it outside, where I can kick your ass.”

Declan's voice dripped with bonhomie. "Now, why would I want to go outside and fight about it, when all you're doing here is admiring my taste? Spectacular, isn't she? You didn't try to hit on her, I'd have to figure you're too drunk to see.”

"I see just fine, fuckface.”

"Exactly. Why don't I buy you and your pals a drink? Honey, put those drafts on my tab.”

Declan leaned conversationally on the bar, nodded toward the T-shirt. "Spring break? What's your major?”

Baffled and boozy, Michigan blinked at him. "Whatzit to ya?”

"Just curious." Declan slid a bowl of pretzels closer, took one. "I've got a cousin teaching there, English department. Eileen Brennan. Maybe you know her.”

"Professor Brennan's your cousin?" The surly tone had turned to surprised fellowship. "She damn near flunked me last semester.”

"She's tough, always scares the hell out of me. If you run into her, tell her Dec said hi. Here's your beer.”

It was past four when Lena let them into her apartment over the bar. "Pretty smooth with those college jerks, cher. Smooth enough I won't give you grief for the `my woman` comment.”

"You are my woman, you just haven't figured it out yet. Besides, they were easy. My cousin Eileen has a rep at the U of M. Odds were pretty good he'd heard of her.”

"Some men would've flexed their muscles." She set her keys aside. "Gone on outside and rolled around in the street to prove who had the biggest dick." Weary, she reached up to tug the beads loose as she studied him. "I guess it's the lawyer in you, so you just talk yourself out of a confrontation.”

"Kid was maybe twenty-two.”

"Twenty-one last January. I carded them.”

"I don't fight with kids. Plus, I really hate having bare knuckles rammed into my face. It seriously hurts." He tipped her chin up. She looked exhausted. "Had a long one, didn't you?”

"Going to be a long time till Wednesday. I appreciate the help, sugar. You pulled your weight.”

More than, she thought. The man had slid right into the rhythm of her place and worked. Charmed her customers, tolerated the grab-hands, and avoided a potentially ugly situation by using his wit instead of his ego.

The longer she knew him, she reflected, the more there was to know.

She tugged an envelope out of her back pocket.

"What's this?”

"Your pay.”

"Jesus, Lena, I don't want your money.”

"You work, I pay. I don't take free rides." She pushed the envelope into his hands. "Off the books, though. I don't want to do the paperwork.”

"Okay, fine." He stuffed it into his own pocket. He'd just buy her something with it.

"Now, I guess I'd better give you a really good tip." She wound her arms around his neck, slithered her body up his. Eyes open, she nibbled on his lip, inching her way into a kiss.

His hands ran down her sides, hooked under her hips, then hitched them up until her legs wrapped around his waist. "You need to get off your feet.”

"Mmm. God, yes.”

He nuzzled her neck, her ear, worked his way back to her mouth as he carried her into the bedroom. "Know what I'm going to do?”

Lust was a low simmer under the bright glory of being off her aching feet. "I think I have a pretty good notion.”

He laid her on the bed, could almost feel her sigh of relief at being horizontal. He pried off one of her shoes. "I'm going to give you something women long for." He tossed the shoe aside, then climbing onto the bed, removed the other.

Weary or not, her face went wicked. "A sale at Saks?”

"Better." He skimmed a finger over her arch. "A foot rub.”

"A what?”

Smiling, he flexed her foot, rubbed her toes, and saw her eyes go blurrier yet with pleasure.

"Mmmm. Declan, you do have a good pair of hands.”

"Relax and enjoy. The Fitzgerald Reflexology Treatment is world famous. We also offer the full-body massage.”

"I bet you do.”

The worst of the aches began to evaporate. When he worked his way up to her calves, overworked muscles quivered with the combination of pain and pleasure.

"Do you take any time off after Mardi Gras?”

She'd been drifting, and struggled to focus at the sound of his voice. "I take Ash Wednesday off.”

"Boy, what a slacker." He tapped a careless kiss to her knee. "Here, let's get your clothes off.”

He unbuttoned her jeans. She lifted her hips, gave a lazy stretch. He doubted she realized her voice was husky, her words slurring. "What else you got in mind to rub, cher?”

He indulged himself by cupping her breasts, enjoyed her easy response, the way she combed her fingers through his hair, met his lips. He tugged her shirt up and away, snapped open the front catch of her bra. Kissed his way down to her breasts while she arched back to offer.

Then he flipped her onto her stomach. She jerked, groaned, then all but melted when he kneaded her neck. "Just as I thought," he announced. "Carry most of your tension here. Me, too.”

"Oh. God." If she'd had a single wish at that moment, it would've been that he keep doing what he was doing for a full week. "You could make a good living out of this.”

"It's always been my fall-back career. You've got yourself some serious knots here. Doctor Dec's going to fix you up.”

"I just love playing doctor.”

She waited for him to change the tone, for his hands to become demanding. He was a sweetheart, she thought sleepily. But he was a man.

She'd just take herself a little catnap, and let him wake her up.

The next thing she knew, the sun was beating through her windows. A groggy glance at her bedside clock showed her it was twenty after ten. Morning? she thought blearily. How did it get to be morning?

And she was tucked into bed as tidily as if her grandmother had done the job. Tucked in alone.

She rolled over on her back, stretched, yawned. And realized with a kind of mild shock that nothing ached. Not her neck, not her feet, not her back.

Doctor Dec, she mused, had done a very thorough job. And was probably at home sulking because she hadn't paid his fee. Hard to blame him, when he'd been such a sweetie pie, and she'd done nothing but lie there like a corpse.

Have to make it up to him, she told herself, and crawled out of bed to put coffee on before she hit the shower.

She walked into the kitchen, stared at the full coffeepot on her counter, and the note propped in front of it. Frowning, she picked up the note, switched the pot back to warm as she read.

Had to go. Counter guys coming this morning. Didn't know when you'd surface, so I was afraid to leave the pot on. But it's fresh as of seven-ten a.m., that is, if you end up sleeping 'round the clock. By the way, you look pretty when you sleep.

I'll give you a call later.

Declan.

"Aren't you the strangest thing," she muttered as she tapped the note against her palm. "Aren't you just a puzzlement.”

She needed to stop into the bar to check on her lunch shift, to check on supplies. Then, needing her curiosity satisfied, she drove out to Manet Hall.

The door was open. She imagined he was one of the few who'd lived here who would leave that impressive front door open to whoever might wander in. Country living or no, someone should put a bug in his ear about a security system.

She could hear the racket of workmen from the back of the house, but took her time getting there.

The parlor grabbed her attention. She crouched down, touched her fingers to the glossy floors, and found them hard and dry, and, stepping in, just looked.

He took care, was all she could think. He took care of what was his. Paid attention to details and made them matter. Color, and wood, the elegant fireplace, the gleam of the windows, which she imagined he'd washed personally.

Just as she imagined he would furnish this room personally-and with care and attention to detail.

She'd never known a man to take so much …

bother, she supposed, with anything. Or anyone. And maybe, she was forced to admit, she'd spent too much time with the wrong kind of man.

"What do you think?”

She turned and, framed by the windows, by the light, looked at him as he stood in the doorway. "I think this house is lucky to have you. I think you see it as it should be, and you'll work to make it come to life again.”

"That's nice." He crossed to her. "That's very nice. You look rested.”

"A man's not supposed to tell a woman she looks rested. He's supposed to tell her she looks gorgeous.”

"I've never seen you look otherwise. Today you look rested on top of it.”

"You are the smoothie." She wandered away, toward the fireplace. She trailed a palm over the mantel, stopped when she came to the brown leather frame holding the photograph of a young woman. "Abigail," she whispered, and the ache went into her. Went deep.

"Miss Odette gave it to me. You look like her, a little.”

"No, I never looked as innocent as this.”

Compelled, Lena traced a fingertip over the young, hopeful face.

She'd seen the photograph before, had even studied it, point by point, during a period in her life when she'd found the story, the mystery of it, romantic. During a period when she herself had been young enough to see romance in tragedy.

"It's odd," Lena said, "seeing her here. Seeing part of me here.”

"She belongs here. So do you.”

She shook that off, and the sorrow those dark, clear eyes coated over her heart. Turning, she gave Declan a long, considering look. Work clothes, she thought, tool belt, a night's stubble. It was getting harder and harder to picture him wearing a pin-striped suit and carrying a fancy leather briefcase.

It was getting harder and harder to picture her life without him in it.

"Why did you leave my place this morning?”

"Didn't you see the note? Counter guys." He jerked a thumb back toward the kitchen. "I had to beg and pay extra to get them to schedule me for a Saturday morning. I had to be here.”

"That's not what I meant. You didn't come into the city, work-what was it, about six hours busing tables?-and give me a foot rub because you didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night. You came in for sex, cher, and you left without it. Why is that?”

He could feel his temper prick holes in his easy mood. "You're a piece of work, Lena. You've got a real talent for turning something simple into the complicated.”

"That's because things are rarely as simple as they look.”

"Okay, let's clear it up. I came into the city because I wanted to see you. I bused tables because I wanted to help you. I rubbed your feet because I figured you'd been on them about twelve hours straight. Then I let you sleep because you needed to sleep. Hasn't anyone ever done you a favor?”

"Men don't, as a rule, unless they're looking for one in return. What're you looking for, Declan?”

He gave himself a moment, waiting for the first lash of anger to pass. "You know, that's insulting. If you're worried about your pay-for-work ethic, I can spare about twenty minutes now. We can go up, have sex, even the score. Otherwise, I've got a lot to do.”

"I didn't mean to insult you." But she saw, quite clearly, she had. "I just don't understand you. The men I've known, on an intimate level, would have been irritated by what didn't happen between us this morning. I expected you to be, and I wouldn't have blamed you. I would've understood that.”

"It's harder for you to understand that I could care about you enough to put sex on the back burner so you could get a few hours' sleep?”

"Yes.”

"Maybe that's not insulting. Maybe that's just sad." He saw the color deepen in her cheeks as the words hit her. Embarrassed color, he realized. "Everything doesn't boil down to sex for me. It helps things percolate, but it's not all that's in the pot.”

"I like knowing where I stand. If you don't know where you stand, you can't decide if that's where you want to be, or which direction you'd like to go from there.”

"And I'm fucking up your compass.”

"You could say that.”

"Good. I'm a pretty agreeable guy, Lena, but I'm not going to be lumped in with others you've dealt with. In fact, you won't deal with me at all. We'll deal with each other.”

"Because that's the way you want it.”

"Because that's the way it is." His tone was flat, final. "Nothing between us is like, or going to be like, anything either of us has had before. You may need some time to get used to that.”

"Is this how you get your way?" she demanded. "By listing off the rules in that annoyingly reasonable tone.”

"Facts, not rules," he corrected in what he imagined she would consider that annoyingly reasonable tone. "And it's only annoying because you'd be more confident having a fight. We've already eaten into the twenty minutes we could've earmarked for sex. Good sex, or a good fight, take time. I'm going to have to take a rain check on both.”

She stared at him, tried to formulate any number of withering remarks. Then just gave up and laughed. "Well, when you cash in your rain checks, let's do the fight first. Then we can have make-up sex. That's like a bonus.”

"Works for me. Do you have to get right back, or have you got a few minutes? I could use a hand hauling in and unrolling the rug I've got for in here. I was going to snag one of the counter guys, but with what I'm paying them, I'd as soon they stick with the counters.”

"Pinching pennies now? And you with all those big tubs of money.”

"You don't keep big tubs of money if you let yourself get hosed. Besides, this way I'd get to keep you here and look at you a little while longer.”

"That's clever." And the fact was, she wanted to stay, wanted to be with him. "All right, I'll help you with your rug before I go. Where is it?”

"Next parlor." He gestured to the connecting doors. "I've got most of what I've bought so far stuffed in here. I'm working in the library next, so I can clean out what goes in the front parlor and in there before I start on this one.”

Lena moved to the pocket doors he opened, then just goggled. Aladdin's cave, she thought, outfitted by a very rich madman with very eclectic taste. Tables, sofas, carpets, lamps, and what her grandmother would call doodads were spread everywhere.

"God Almighty, Declan, when did you get all this?"

"A little here, a little there. I tell myself no, but I don't listen. Anyway"– he began to pick his way through the narrow aisles his purchases formed-"it's a big house. It needs lots of … stuff. I thought about sticking with the era when the house was originally built. Then I decided I'd get bored. I like to mix things up.”

She spotted a brass hippo on what she tagged as a Hepplewhite side table. "Mission accomplished.”

"Look at this lamp." He ran his fingers over the shade of a Tiffany that exploded with gem colors. "I've got a weakness for lamps.”

"Cher, looking 'round here, I'd say you've got a weakness for every damn thing.”

"I sure have one for you. Here's the rug." He patted the long, rolled carpet leaning against the wall. "I think we can drag it, snake it through. I should've put it closer to the door, but I wasn't sure where I was going to use it when I bought it. Now I am.”

Between them, they managed to slide it to the floor, then with Declan walking bent over and backward, they wove it around the islands of furniture. He had to stop once to move a sofa, again to shove a table aside.

"You know," Lena said as they both went down on their knees, panting a little, in the parlor, "in a couple months you're going to be rolling this up again. Nobody leaves rugs down through the summer around here. Too damn hot.”

"I'll worry about that in June.”

She sat back on her heels, patted his cheek. "Cher, you're going to start thinking summer before April's over. Okay." She pushed up her sleeves, put her palms on the roll. "Ready?”

On their hands and knees, they bumped along, pushing the carpet, revealing the pattern. She could catch only glimpses of the colors and texture, but it was enough to see why he wanted it here.

The greens of leaves were soft, like the walls, and blended with faded pink cabbage roses against a deeper green background. Once it was unrolled, she got to her feet to study the effect while he fussed with squaring it up.

"You bought yourself a rose garden, Declan. I can almost smell them."

"Great, huh? Really works in here. I'm going to use the two American Empire sofas, and I think the Biedermeier table. Start with those, then see." He looked up at the ceiling medallion. "I saw this great chandelier-blown glass, very Dale Chuhuly. I should've bought it.”

"Why don't we see how your sofas do first?”

"Hmm? Oh, they're heavy, I'll get Remy to give me a hand with them later. He's supposed to come by.”

"I'm here now.”

"I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

She merely shot him a look and started back into his makeshift storeroom.

They'd just set the second one in place, she'd only stepped back to ponder the arrangement, when she heard the baby crying.

She glanced over at Declan, but he seemed lost in thought.

"Did one of your counter men bring a baby with him?" she asked, and Declan closed his eyes, sank down on the sofa.

"You hear it? Nobody else hears it. The doors slamming, yeah. And water running when there's nobody in the room to turn on the taps. But nobody hears the baby.”

A chill whipped up her back, had her glancing uneasily toward the hallway. "Where is it?”

"The nursery, mostly. Sometimes in the bedroom on the second floor. Abigail's room. But usually the nursery. It stops when I get to the door. Remy's been here twice when it started. He didn't hear it. But you do.”

"I have to see. I can't stand hearing a baby crying that way." She walked into the foyer, started up the stairs. And it stopped.

For an instant, it seemed the whole house hushed. Then she heard the clamor from the kitchen, the stream of music from a radio, the hum of men's voices as they worked.

"That's so strange." She stood on the staircase, one hand on the banister. And her heart thumping. "I was thinking, I wanted to pick up the baby. People say you need to let babies cry, but I don't know why they should. I was thinking that, and she stopped crying.”

"It's weird, isn't it, that you were thinking about picking up your great-great-grandmother? It's Marie Rose," he said when Lena turned on the stairs to look down at him. "I'm sure of it. Maybe you can hear her because you're blood. I guess I can because I own the house. I have a call in to the previous owners. I wanted to ask them, but they haven't gotten back to me.”

"They may not tell you.”

"Well, they can't tell me if I don't ask. Does it scare you?”

She looked up the stairs again and asked herself the same question. "I guess it should, but no, it doesn't. It's fascinating. I think-was She broke off as a door slammed upstairs. "Well, no baby did that." So saying, she ran upstairs.

"Lena." But she was already rounding the curve to the landing and gave him no choice but to bolt after her.

Marching down the hall, she flung doors open. As she reached Abigail's room, the cold swept in. The shock of it had her breath huffing out. Mesmerized by the vapor it caused, she wrapped her arms tightly over her chest.

"This isn't like the baby," she whispered.

"No. It's angry." When he laid his hands on her shoulders to warm her, to draw her away, the door slammed in their faces.

She 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 long enough 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.

Rain 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 books, made her think of the room as reverently as she did church.

Now, with Lucian closeted with his father in the study going over the business of land and crops, and the rain drumming against the windows, she could indulge herself in a quiet afternoon of reading.

She wasn't quite accustomed to the time to do as she pleased and so slipped into the room as if it were a guilty pleasure. She no longer had linens to fold, tables to dust, dishes to carry.

She was no longer a servant in this place, but a wife.

Wife. She hugged the word to her. It was still so new, so shiny. As the life growing inside her was new. So new, she had yet to tell Lucian.

Her curse was late, and it was never late. She'd awakened ill three days running. But she would wait, another week. To speak of it too soon might make it untrue.

And oh, she wanted a child. How she wanted to give Lucian a child. She laid a hand on her belly as she wandered along the shelves and imagined the beautiful son or daughter she would bring into the world.

And perhaps, just perhaps, a child would soften Lucian's mother. Perhaps a child would bring joy into the house as the hope for one brought joy to her heart.

She selected Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The title, she thought, spoke to her. Manet Hall had so much of both. She bit her lip as she flipped through the pages. She was a slow, painstaking reader, but Lucian said that only meant she savored the words.

Stumbled over them, she thought, but she was getting better. Pleased with herself, she turned and saw Julian slouched in one of the wine-colored chairs, a snifter in his hand, a bottle by his elbow.

Watching her.

He frightened her. Repulsed her. But she reminded herself she was no longer a servant. She was his brother's wife, and should try to be friends.

"Hello, Julian. I didn't see you.”

He lifted the bottle, poured more brandy into his glass. "That book," he said, then drank deep, "has words of more than one syllable.”

"I can read." Her spine went arrow-straight. "I like to read.”

"What else do you like, chhre?”

Her fingers tightened on the book when he rose, then relaxed again when he strolled to the fireplace, rested a boot on the hearth, an elbow on the mantel.

"I'm learning to ride. Lucian's teaching me. I'm not very good yet, but I like it." Oh, she wanted to be friends with him. The house deserved warmth and laughter, and love.

He laughed, and she heard the brandy in it. "I bet you ride. I bet you ride a man into a sweat. You may work those innocent eyes on my brother-he's always been a fool. But I know what you are, and what you're after.”

"I'm your brother's wife." There had to be a way to take the first step beyond this hate. For Lucian, for the child growing inside her, she took it, and walked toward Julian. "I only want him to be happy. I make him happy. You're his blood, Julian. His twin. It isn't right that we should be at odds this way. I want to try to be your sister. Your friend.”

He knocked back the rest of the brandy. "Want to be my friend, do you?”

"Yes, for Lucian's sake, we should-was "How friendly are you?" He lunged toward her, grabbed her breasts painfully.

The shock of it froze her. The insult flashed through the shock with a burning heat. Her hand cracked across his cheek with enough force to send him staggering back.

"Bastard! Animal! Put your hands on me again, I'll kill you. I'm Lucian's. I'm your brother's wife.”

"My brother's whore!" he shouted as she ran for the door. "Cajun slut, I'll see you dead before you take what's mine by rights.”

Raging, he shoved away from the mantel. The heavy silver candlestick tumbled off, smashed against the edge of the tile, snapped off the corner.

Declan hadn't moved. When he came back to himself he was still sitting on the hearth, his back to the snapping fire. The rain was still beating on the ground, streaming down the windows.

As it had been, he thought, during the … vision? Fugue? Hallucination?

He pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes, where the headache speared like a spike into his skull.

Maybe he didn't have ghosts, he thought. Maybe he had a goddamn fucking brain tumor. It would make more sense. Anything would make more sense.

Slamming doors, cold spots, even sleepwalking were by-products of the house he could live with. But he'd seen those people, inside his head. Heard them there– the words, the tone. More, much more disturbing, he'd felt them.

His legs were weak, nearly gave way under him as he got to his feet. He had to grip the mantel, his fingers vising on so that he wondered the marble didn't snap.

If something was wrong with him, physically, mentally, he had to deal with it. Fitzgeralds didn't bury their heads in the sand when things got tough.

Figuring he was as steady as he was going to get, he went into the kitchen to hunt up aspirin. Which, he decided as he shook out four, was going to be like trying to piss out a forest fire. But he gulped them down, then ran the cold glass over his forehead.

He'd fly up to Boston and see his uncle. His mother's baby brother was a cardiologist, but he'd know the right neurosurgeon. A couple of days, some tests, and he'd know if he was crazy, haunted or dying.

He started to reach for his phone, then stopped and shook his head. Crazy, he thought, just got one more point. If he went to Uncle Mick, word of his potential medical problems would run through the family like an airborne virus.

Besides, what was he running back to Boston for? New Orleans had doctors. He'd get the name of Remy's. He could tell his friend he just wanted to get a doctor, a dentist and so on in the area. That was logical.

He'd get himself a physical, then ask the doctor to recommend a specialist. Simple, straightforward and efficient.

If ghosts couldn't drive him out of Manet Hall, damn if a brain tumor would.

As he set the glass down, a door slammed on the second floor. He simply glanced up at the ceiling and smiled grimly.

"Yeah, well, I'm in a pretty crappy mood myself.”

By Wednesday, he had a handle on things again. Maybe it was the anticipation of seeing Lena that lifted his spirits-in combination with the work he'd managed to get done on those last days before Lent. He had an appointment with Remy's doctor the following week and, having taken that step, was able to put most of the concern about the state of his brain aside.

There had been no more fugues. At least, he thought, none he was aware of.

The rain had finally moved on to plague Florida, and had left him with the first tender trumpets of daffodils scattered along one of his garden paths.

The morning weather report had detailed a ten-inch snowfall in Boston.

He immediately called his mother to rub it in.

Sunshine and the tease of spring had him switching gears earlier than he'd intended. He postponed work on the library and set up outdoors to reinforce the second-floor gallery, to replace damaged boards.

He listened to Ray Charles, and felt healthy as a horse. He was going to have the Franks do most of the early planting, he decided. He just didn't have time. But next year, he'd do his own. Or as much as he could manage.

Next spring, he'd sit out here on the gallery on Sunday mornings, eating beignets, drinking cafi au lait-with Lena. Long, lazy Sundays, looking out over the lawns, the gardens. And a few years down the road, looking out at the kids in the yards, in the gardens.

He wanted a family of his own, and it was good to know it. He'd never had that need inside him before, the need to hold onto the now and look to tomorrow at the same time.

So he knew it was right, what he felt for her. What he planned for them. He'd help her in the bar if she needed it, but he'd have his own work.

He turned his hands over, studied the palms, the calluses he'd built. The little nicks and scars he looked on as personal medals of valor.

He'd use them, his back and his imagination, to transform other houses. People in the parish would think of Declan Fitzgerald when they needed a contractor.

You should've seen that old house before he got ahold of it, they'd say. You need the job done, you just call Dec. He'll fix you up.

The idea made him grin as he ripped out the next rotten board.

By four, he'd finished the long front sweep of the gallery floor and stretched out on it, belly down, to take a break. He fell asleep with B. B. King pleading with Lucille.

And was sleeping still when he rose and walked down the shaky, sagging curve of stairs to the front lawn.

The grass was thick under his feet, and the heat of the sun poured over his face, beat down on his head despite the hat he wore as protection.

The others were inside, but he'd wanted to look at the pond, at the lilies. He'd wanted to sit in the shade of the willow that danced over the water, and read.

He liked the music of the birds, and didn't mind the heat so much. The heat was honest. The air inside the Hall was cold and false.

It was heartbreaking to watch the house he loved rotting away from bitterness.

He stopped at the edge of the pond, looking down at the green plates of the pads, the creamy white lilies that graced them. He watched a dragonfly whiz by, the sun glinting off the wings so it was an iridescent blur. He heard the plop of a frog and the call of a cardinal.

When he heard his name, he turned. And smiled as his beloved crossed the velvet lawn toward him. As long as they were together, he thought, as long as they loved, the Hall would stand.

"Declan. Declan.”

Alarmed, Lena gripped his arms and shook. She'd seen him coming down those treacherous stairs as she'd driven down his lane, and how he'd walked toward the pond in an awkward, hesitant gait so unlike his usual easy stride.

His eyes were open but glazed in a way that made her think he was looking through her and seeing something– someone-else.

"Declan." She kept her voice firm, and her hands, as she took his face in them. "Look at me now. Hear me? It's Lena.”

"Let's sit under the willow where no one can see us.”

There was no willow, only the rotted stump of one. Fear tickled the back of her throat, but she swallowed it. Going with instinct, she rose up on her toes and laid her lips warmly on his.

His response was slow, dreamy, a kind of sliding to her. Against her. Into her. So she knew the instant he snapped back by the way his body stiffened. He started to sway, but she held on.

"Steady now, cher. You just hang onto me till you get your legs under you.”

"Sorry. Need to sit." He dropped straight down on the grass, laid his brow on his knees. "Whoa.”

"You're okay now. You're fine now." She knelt beside him, brushing at his hair and murmuring in Cajun-her language of comfort. "Just get your breath back.”

"What the hell's wrong with me? I was on the gallery. I was working on the gallery.”

"Is that the last thing you remember?”

He looked up now, over the pond. "I don't know how I got out here.”

"You walked down the stairs, the ones on the right of the house. I thought you were going to go straight through them." Her heart still hitched when she thought of how unsteady they were. "They don't look safe, Declan. You ought to block them off.”

"Yeah." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Lock myself in a padded room while I'm at it.”

"You're not crazy.”

"I'm sleepwalking-in the daylight now. I'm hallucinating. I'm hearing voices. That doesn't sound sane to me.”

"That's just the Yankee talking. Down here that doesn't even come up to eccentric. Why, my great-aunt Sissy has whole conversations with her husband, Joe, and he's been dead for twelve years come September. Nobody thinks she's crazy.”

"What do they talk about?”

"Oh, family business, current events, the weather. Politics. Great-Uncle Joe dearly loved complaining about the government. Feeling better now, cher?”

"I don't know. What did I do? What did you see me do?”

"You just came down the stairs and walked across the grass toward the pond. You weren't walking like you, so I knew something was wrong.”

"What do you mean?”

"You've got a smooth, lanky kind of gait, and you weren't moving like that. Then you stopped at the pond.”

She didn't tell him she'd had one shocked moment when she'd been sure he meant to walk straight into the water.

"I kept calling you. And finally you turned around and smiled at me." Her stomach muscles tightened as she remembered. "But not at me. I don't think you were seeing me. And you said you wanted to sit under the willow, where no one could see us.”

"There's no willow here.”

"Well." She pointed toward the stump. "There was, once. Seems like you're having dreams where maybe you can see things that happened before. That's a kind of gift, Declan.”

"Where do I return it?" He shook his head. "I don't know, because I can't remember once I wake up. But I'm starting to think I should tie myself to the bedpost at night.”

"I can take care of that for you tonight.”

"You trying to cheer me up with bondage fantasies?”

"How'd I do?”

"Pretty good." He let out a breath, then frowned at the smudge on her forehead. "You've got some soot or something," he began, and she tipped her head back before he could rub at it.

"Those are my holy ashes.”

"Oh, right." His brain had definitely gone on holiday. "Ash Wednesday. I not only don't know where I am, but when I am.”

She couldn't bear to watch him sink into the dark again, and kept her voice brisk, just a little lofty. "I take it you didn't get to church today, on this holy day of obligation.”

He winced. "You sound like my mother. I forgot. Sort of.”

She arched an eyebrow. "Seems to me you could use all the blessings you can get." So saying, she rubbed her thumb on the print of ash on her forehead, then rubbed it on his. It made him smile.

"That's probably sacrilegious, but thanks. What time is it?" He looked at his watch and swore. "I have to get this sucker into the shop. It keeps stopping on me. I know it's past noon, and it sure isn't midnight.”

"It's about five. You did say to come early.”

"Yeah, I did. Why don't we go sit out back and have some wine?”

She watched him closely for the first few minutes, but he appeared to be steady again as he selected a wine. Got some lovely old stemware out of his new cupboards.

He'd frightened her, Lena could admit, and badly. She'd been certain he'd intended to walk into the water, to drown himself among the lily pads just as Lucian Manet had done.

And with the realization, a whole new realm of possibilities opened in her mind. "Declan …”

"I got steaks and I got a grill," he said as he poured the wine. He needed to focus on ordinary things-to steep himself in the here and now. "All real men can grill steaks. If you tell me you don't eat red meat, we're going to have to go for the frozen pizza.”

"If I eat meat, why should I care what color it is? Let's go out and sit. I've got an idea I want to run by you.”

They walked to the two wooden crates he was using for chairs and sat.

"What if it's not ghosts. Or not only ghosts?" she asked him.

"Oh, that's a cheering thought. What else have I got? Vampires? Werewolves? Maybe some flesh-eating zombies. I'm going to sleep much better now, thanks.”

"What do you think about reincarnation?”

"Past lives? Recycling souls?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know.”

"It always seemed efficient to me-and fair, too. Everybody deserves more than one chance, don't you think? Maybe you're remembering things that happened here because you lived here before. Maybe you're Lucian, come back after all these years for his Abigail.”

"That's a romantic notion. I'll be Lucian if you'll be Abby.”

"You don't get to choose. And if you're going to make fun of the idea, I won't say another word about it.”

"Okay, don't get testy." He sipped his wine, brooded into space. "So your theory is I'm here, and these things are happening because I lived a past life, as Lucian Manet.”

"It's no more far-fetched than the place being haunted, which you swallowed easy enough. It would explain why you bought this place, needed it. Why you're working so hard to restore its beauty. How you saw the furniture in his bedroom upstairs.”

"Reincarnation," he repeated. "Sounds better than a brain tumor.”

"What?”

He shook his head, drank again. "Nothing.”

"You're thinking you got a tumor in your brain? That's nonsense, Declan." Her voice was sharper than she'd intended, so she continued more gently. "That's just nonsense, cher. There's not a thing wrong with your head or any other part of you.”

"Of course not. I was just thinking out loud.”

But she saw it on his face and, rising, slid onto his lap, straddling him. "You're really worried you've got something inside your head making you see things, do things?”

"I'm not worried. I'm just … Look, I'm going to have some tests, eliminate the possibility.”

"You're not sick, cher." She touched her lips to his cheek, then the other. There'd never been another man who'd so consistently, so effortlessly, nudged out her tender side. "I guarantee it. But if having some fancy doctor tell you the same thing settles your mind, that's fine.”

"Don't mention this to Remy." He took her hand until she eased back to meet his eyes. "He's got the wedding coming up. That's enough for him to think about right now.”

"So, you're planning on going to have brain tests all by yourself? That's not the way we do things around here, cher. You don't want Remy to know, all right. But you tell me when this is set up for, and I'll go with you.”

"Lena, I'm a big boy.”

"You're not going by yourself. So I go with you, or I tell Remy and we gang up on you.”

"Okay. I'll let you know when it's scheduled and you can hold my hand. In the meantime, I'm going to put my money on your reincarnation theory. It's weird, but it's a lot less messy than brain surgery.”

"They say Lucian Manet was a handsome man, like a young golden god." She trailed her fingers through Declan's disordered hair. It was a dark blond, she mused, thick, lush, and she bet it would streak up sexily with the summer sun. "I think you've improved on him this time around.”

"Oh yeah?" He hooked his arms around her waist. "Tell me more.”

"I never much cared for the golden-god type. Usually too pretty for my taste." She cocked her head, eased forward to kiss him. "You suit my taste, cher.”

He brought her closer and, sitting on the wooden crate, rested his chin on her shoulder as he looked out over the gallery railings. "I love you, Lena.”

"If you're trying to sweet-talk me into bed before you feed me-was He drew her back, and the grin faded from her face as she saw his. "I love you," he repeated. "I never understood what that meant before, and I didn't think I could.”

He held her in place when she tried to scramble up and away. "You need to settle down now," she told him.

"Yeah, I do-but I don't think you mean it the same way. I need to settle down, right here, with you. I don't care if it's the first time or the fiftieth time we've gone around. You're what I've been waiting for.”

"Declan, you're making more out of this than you should." Her voice wanted to shake. God knew, her stomach already was. "We went out to dinner. We went to bed. We've seen each other a handful of times.”

"It only took one look at you.”

His eyes were so deep, she thought, so clear. Like the surface of a lake at twilight. "You don't even know me.”

He pulled her back a second time, reminding her that there was steel in him, and an edge to it. "You're wrong. I know you're smart, and you're strong. Enough to carve out your own place from almost nothing. I know you pay your debts. I know you're loyal and you're loving. I know somebody hurt you, and it wouldn't take much to knock the scab off. And I know I'm scaring you right now because you don't think you're ready to hear what I'm saying to you.”

The beat of her heart was painful, like the strike of a fist on a raw wound. "I'm not looking for love, Declan. I'm sorry.”

"Neither was I, but there you go. We don't have to rush it. I wasn't going to say anything to you yet but … I needed to.”

"Cher, people, they fall in and out of love all the time. It's just a dazzle of chemicals.”

"He really hurt you.”

Frustrated, she pushed away, and this time he let her go. "You're wrong. There's no man, no ghost of some lover who broke my heart. I look like a clichi to you?”

"You look like everything to me.”

"Mon Dieu." The man made her throat fill up, then snap shut. Deliberately she fought back the sensation and spoke clearly. "I like you, Declan, and I enjoy your company. I want you in bed. If that's not enough for you, I walk now and save us both a lot of trouble and disappointment.”

"Do you always get so pissed off when somebody tells you he loves you?”

No one ever had, she nearly said. No one ever had who meant it. "I don't like being pushed, and when I am, I make a point of not going in that direction.”

"I have to admire that." His grin was easy as he got to his feet. "I like you, too, Lena. And I enjoy your company, want you in bed. That's enough for now. Are you hungry? I think I'll heat up the grill.”

If it was a trick, Lena thought, or some sort of strategy to keep her off balance, it was well done.

She just couldn't quite puzzle the man out, and his seamless shift of moods was a surefire way to push her to keep trying.

He cooked like a man who didn't trust himself in an actual kitchen. Jacketed potatoes on the grill, the steaks. And he sweet-talked her into making the salad.

He didn't say another word about love.

He asked her about work, how her business had done during the two days of rain. He put on music, kept it low, and talked through the kitchen door as the grill smoked and she chopped vegetables.

They might have been casual friends, or the most comfortable of lovers.

They ate in his pretty kitchen, by candlelight. Even the house behaved. Despite it-or perhaps because of it-she stayed on edge throughout the meal.

He took a bakery cake out of the fridge. Lena took one look, sighed. "I can't.”

"We can save it for later.”

"I can't for forty days. I gave up chocolate for Lent. I've got a powerful taste for chocolate.”

"Oh." He stuck it back in. "I've probably got something else.”

"What'd you give up?”

"Wearing women's underwear. It's tough, but I think I can hold out till Easter.”

"You talk like that, I'm going to take my ashes back." He was making her itchy, she thought. The best way to solve that was to make him itch more. She stepped behind him as he searched his refrigerator, then wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her body to his. "You need to give something up, cher, something you've got a powerful taste for.”

"It sure as hell isn't going to be you.”

He let her spin him around, shove him back against the refrigerator.

Oh, he knew her, he thought as she used her lips to set off explosions in his bloodstream. He knew she was using sex to keep one step ahead of him. One step back from him.

If she didn't realize he could love her as much as he wanted her, it was up to him to show her.

"In your bed, you said." Her mouth was reckless, restless as it raced over his face. "In your bed.”

She pulled him toward the doorway. He nearly pulled her back, toward the kitchen stairs, but decided it might be interesting to take the long way around.

He pushed her against the wall in the hallway, assaulted her throat with his teeth. "We'll get there.”

He reached down, yanked her shirt up, over her head, threw it aside. Wrapped together, they did a quick vertical roll along the wall, and finally stopped with their positions reversed. With impatient hands she pulled his shirt open so that buttons danced along the floor.

They fought with clothes on their way to the steps. Shoes landed with thumps. Her bra fluttered over the banister, his jeans plopped on the third step.

They were breathless before they reached the landing.

His hands were rough, a workingman's hands now that thrilled as they streaked over her. Her skin came alive.

"Hurry." She sank her teeth into his shoulder as need raged through her, a firestorm of violent heat that burned away all caution. "God, hurry.”

He nearly took her where they stood, but he wanted her under him. Bucking, arching.

With his mouth savaging hers, he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her two inches off the floor. Something raw and primitive stabbed through him at the knowledge that there was no choice now. No choice for either of them but to mate.

Shadows cloaked them as they moved toward the bedroom.

Cold from doorways seeped out, made her shiver.

"Declan.”

"This is us. This is ours." As he spoke, his voice a snarl, as he held her, his grip like iron, the cold curled back.

They fell on his bed, a tangle of limbs and urgency. When he plunged into her, her nails dug into his back. Pleasure, dark and desperate, drenched her, the feral glory of it drove her up so that she twined herself around him and matched the furious pace.

No control, nor the desire for it. Only the wild thirst to take and take and take. And with it, the gnawing hunger to give.

She clung to him, riding through the storm of sensation, sprinting up and up toward that jagged brink again.

Dimly, she heard a clock begin to strike in deep, heavy bongs. On the twelfth, she shattered with him.

When he started to shift away, she tightened her grip. "Mmm. Don't move yet.”

"I'm too heavy for you." He rubbed his lips at the curve of her throat.

"I like it. I like this." Lazily, she angled her head so he could work his way up to her jaw.

Her body felt used and bruised and wonderfully loose. "Even better than chocolate cake.”

He laughed and rolled over, taking her with him so she sprawled over his chest. "There, now I don't have to worry about crushing you.”

"A gentleman to the last." Content, she settled in. "I've always liked a clock that chimes the hours," she said. "But you need to set it. It's not midnight yet.”

"I know.”

"Sounded like a big, old grandfather clock. Where'd you put it? In the parlor.”

"No." He stroked a hand over her hair, down her back. "I don't have a clock that chimes.”

"Cher, you absolutely ring my bells, but I heard a clock chime twelve.”

"Yeah, so did I. But I don't have a clock.”

She lifted her head, let out a slow breath. "Oh. Well then. Does it scare you?”

"No.”

"Then it doesn't scare me, either," she said, and laid her head back over his heart.

The best way, in Declan's opinion, to break through the obstacles and opposition to any goal, was not to ram headfirst against them and risk a skull fracture, but to chip away at them. Gradually, reasonably. Relentlessly. Whether it was a lawsuit, a sporting event or a love affair, it was imperative to keep the end in sight in order to select the correct means.

He found out which Mass Lena and her grandmother attended, and at which church. Research was essential in any strategy.

When he slipped into the pew beside them on Sunday morning, he got a long speculative look from Lena, and a conspirator's wink from Odette.

He figured God would understand and appreciate the ploy, and not hold it against him for using Sunday Mass as a means to his end.

But he wouldn't mention the brainstorm to his mother. She was, in Declan's experience, a lot less flexible than the Almighty.

Aiming the leading edge of his charm toward Odette, he talked them into brunch afterward, and got another cool stare from Lena when he gave his name to the hostess. He'd already made reservations for three.

"Sure of yourself, aren't you, cher?”

His eyes were the innocent gray of a former altar boy. "Just prepared.”

"You ain't no Boy Scout, sugar," she told him.

"Your granddaughter's very cynical," Declan responded as he offered his arm to Odette.

"What she is, is smart." Odette patted a hand on his and had her bracelets jangling. "A woman's got to be about smooth-talking, handsome men. Man who comes into church so he can spend a Sunday morning with a woman, he's pretty smart, too.”

"I thought I'd come in and pray for a while.”

"What'd you pray for?”

"That you'd run away with me to Borneo.”

With a laugh, Odette slipped into the chair Declan held out for her. "Aren't you the one.”

"Yeah." He looked directly at Lena. "I'm going to be the one.”

They settled in with mimosas and the first round from the expansive buffet. While a jazz quartet played Dixieland, Declan told them about the progress on the house.

"I'm going to stick with the outside work as long as the weather holds. Tibald's still dealing with the plastering, and I'm trying to line up a painter for the exterior. I don't want to do that myself. The guy I had paint the parlor came in to take a look at the library, but he left sort of abruptly.”

Declan's expression was rueful as he sipped his mimosa. "I don't think he's coming back. Tile man, either. He got one bath half done when he packed it in.”

"I can do some asking around for you," Odette offered.

"I'd appreciate it. But I think I'm going to have to start looking outside the parish or try my hand at some of this stuff myself. Things are getting a little lively at the Hall.”

"Grown men running off because a couple of doors slam." Lena curled her lips into a sneer. "Ought to have more spine.”

"It's a little more than that now. Clocks bonging where there aren't any clocks to bong, music playing in empty rooms. When the painter was there, the pocket doors in the library kept opening and closing. Then there was the screaming.”

"What screaming?”

"Tile guy." Declan smiled wanly. "Said he heard somebody come in the bedroom door, thought it was me. He's talking away, setting the tiles, listening to what he assumed was me moving around in there. Since I wasn't answering whatever questions he had, he got up, walked in. Nobody there. From what I could get out of him when he was semi-coherent, the bathroom door slammed behind him, the logs caught fire in the fireplace. Then he claims he felt somebody put a hand on his shoulder. I had to peel him off the ceiling when I got up there.”

"What do you think about it?" Odette asked.

"A couple of things. Seems to me the more the work progresses on the house, the more overt and volatile the … paranormal activity, we'll call it. Especially, well, when I veer off from the original scheme.”

Lena scooped up a forkful of grits-a particular southern culinary custom Declan had yet to get his tastebuds around. "What do you mean?”

"For example, the plasterwork. The areas where that is going on, things are pretty settled. I'm restoring them, replicating. But in places where I've made changes-bathroom setup, tiles-things get really interesting. It's like whatever's in the house gets royally ticked that we're not sticking with the original plan.”

"Something to think about," Odette commented.

"I have been. I figure Josephine Manet." Even here, with Dixieland bright in the air and champagne fizzing, the name coated his belly with dread. "Mistress of the Hall. You only have to look at her photographs to see that was a woman who didn't like to be crossed. Now, I come along and put my fingerprints all over what's hers.”

"You resolved to living with her?" Odette asked, and watched his jaw firm.

"I'm resolved to living in the Hall, and doing it my way. She wants to kick up a fuss about it, that's her problem.”

Lena sat back. "What do you figure, Grandmama? Brave or stubborn?”

"Oh, he's some of both. It's a good mix.”

"Thanks, but I don't know how brave it is. It's my house now, and that's that. Still, I think you can't blame a man who doesn't have any more than his time and labor invested for taking a hike. Anyway, Miss Odette, what do you think? Am I tangling with Josephine?”

"I think you've got two opposing forces in that house. The one that brought you there, the one that wants you to go away. It's going to come down to who's strongest.”

She opened her Sunday purse, took out a small muslin bag. "I made this up for you.”

"What is it?”

"Oh, a little kitchen magic. You just keep that in your pocket. May not help, but it can't hurt." She picked up her glass again, smiled at it. "Imagine, drinking champagne for breakfast.”

"Come with me to Borneo, you can bathe in it.”

"Cher, I drink enough of this, I may take you up on it.”

"I'll get us another round.”

He was so sweet with her, Lena thought. Flirting with her grandmother until there was a flush of pleasure on Odette's cheeks throughout the long, lazy meal. He troubled himself for people, she mused. Took the time, made the effort to find out what they might enjoy, then saw to it.

He was attentive, clever, sexy, rich, tough-minded and kind.

And he said he was in love with her.

She believed she understood him well enough to be sure he wouldn't have said it unless he meant it. That's what unnerved her.

For added to those other qualities was a wide streak of honesty. And sheer stubborn grit.

He could make her fall in love with him. She was already halfway there and sliding fast. Every time she tried to dig her heels in, she lost her balance again. The tumble was as worrisome as it was thrilling.

But what would happen when she hit? Once she dropped all the way, there'd be no climbing back out. That was something she understood about herself. Relationships were easy when they didn't matter, or mattered only for the moment.

When they mattered forever, they changed everything.

Things had changed already, she admitted. It had started with that yearning for him inside her. And now with the comfort and challenge she felt when she was with him. With being able to imagine feeling it day after day, year after year.

He'd want promises she was afraid to give.

Not afraid, she corrected, irritated with herself. Reluctant to give. Unwilling to give.

Then she watched him lean over and kiss her grandmother's cheek and was afraid– there was no point in pretending otherwise-that she'd end up giving him anything he asked for.

He courted her. It seemed a particularly appealing southern word to Declan, bringing images of moonlight and porch swings, tart lemonade and country dances.

Throughout March, two things occupied his mind, his time and his plans. Lena and the house.

He celebrated the clear results of his neurological tests by taking the day off to antique. Spring had jump-started the flowers and had pedestrians strolling in shirtsleeves. The carriage horses the tourists loved prancing with bright clip– clops of hooves on pavement.

Summer would drop her heavy hand soon enough, and turn the air to molasses. The thought of it reminded him he had to have the air-conditioning upgraded, and maybe reconsider installing paddle fans in some of the rooms.

He bought with his usual surrender to impulse, brightening the day of several shopkeepers before he stopped in a place called, simply, Yesterday.

It was a hodgepodge of statuary, lamps, vintage accessories and jewelry, with three curtained booths on the side where patrons could buy a tarot card reading.

It was the ring that caught his eye first. The blood-red ruby and ice-white diamond formed two halves of an interlocking heart on a platinum band.

The minute he held it in his hand, he knew he wanted it for Lena. Maybe it was foolish to buy an engagement ring at this point in their relationship. And it was reckless to snatch at something before he'd looked at other options.

But this was the one he wanted to put on her finger. And he decided if a man could buy a house on a whim, he could sure as hell buy a ring.

"I'll take it.”

"It's beautiful," said the shopkeeper.

"She's a lucky woman.”

"I'm working on convincing her of that.”

"I have some lovely earrings that would complement this. Is ruby her birthstone?" the clerk asked as she showed him a pair of earrings with a dangle of ruby hearts and diamonds.

"I don't know." But he'd gotten her birthday from Odette to make sure he didn't miss it. "July?”

"Then it is. Lucky guess.”

"No kidding." It gave him a little tingle as he looked back at the ring. Some things were meant, he told himself. He lifted one of the earrings. He could already see them on her-just as he imagined the clerk could see Impulse Buyer stamped on his forehead.

He leaned on the counter and began to pit Yankee bargaining skills against southern horse-trading.

He figured they'd come to fair terms when her smile was still in place but much less brilliant.

"Will that be all for you today?”

"Yeah, I've got to get going. I'm already-was He broke off when he glanced at his watch and saw it had stopped at twelve again.

"You know, I could use a watch-a pocket watch. Mine's been acting up, and I'm doing a lot of carpentry right now. Probably smashed this one a few times on the job.”

"I've got some wonderful old pocket watches and chains. They're so much more imaginative than the new ones.”

She led him over to another display cabinet, pulled out a drawer and set it on the counter.

"Watches like this tell more than time," she began. "They tell a story. This one-was "No." The edges of his vision dimmed like smoke. The chatter of voices from other customers faded into a hum. Part of him remained aware enough to know he was sliding away from himself. Even as he tried to stop it, to pull back, he watched his own hand reach out, pick up a gold watch and its loop of chain.

The voice of the shopkeeper hovered around the rim of his consciousness. It was another voice that stabbed through, clear as a bell. Female, young, excited.

For my husband, for his birthday. He broke his. I want to give him something special. This one is so handsome. Can you engrave it?

And he already knew what he would find, exactly what he would find, before he turned the watch over to read the back.

To Lucian from his Abby.

To mark our time together.

April 4, 1899

"Mr. Fitzgerald? Mr. Fitzgerald, are you all right? Would you like some water? You're awfully pale.”

"What?”

"Can I get you some water? Would you like to sit down?”

"No." He closed his hand tightly over the watch, but the sensation was already fading. "No, thanks. I'm okay. I'll take this, too.”

More than a little shaken, he headed to Remy's office. He thought some time in the sensible business district, in the rational atmosphere of law, might help settle him down.

More, he wanted a few minutes with a friend who might think he was crazy, but would love him anyway.

"If you'd told me you were coming by," Remy began as he closed his office door, "I'd've scooted some stuff around so we could maybe have lunch.”

"I didn't expect to head over this way today.”

"Been shopping again." Remy nodded at the bag Declan carried. "Boy, aren't you having anything sent down from Boston?”

"As a matter of fact, I've got some stuff coming down next week. Books mostly," Declan said as he wandered the office. His gaze skimmed over the law books, the fat files, the memos. All of it, the debris of the lawyer, seemed very distant to him now.

"A few pieces I had in my study up there that should work in the library.”

He picked up a brass paperweight, set it down. Slipped a hand into his pocket, jiggled change.

"You going to tell me what's on your mind, or just pace until you dig a trench in my carpet?" With his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up, Remy kicked back in his chair and began to swish a bright green Slinky from palm to palm. "You're wearing me out.”

"I've told you some of the things t've been happening.”

"Got a firsthand account of them myself when I dropped in on Saturday. I'd still feel better if you told me that piano music we heard was from some radio you forgot to turn off.”

"I guess I'll have to get a piano for the ladies' parlor, since that seems to be the spot. I like to play anyway, when I remember to sit down at one.”

Remy shifted the Slinky to vertical, let the colorful spiral drip into itself. "So, you came by to tell me you're in the market for a piano?”

"I bought a watch today.”

"And you want to show it off? Want me to call in my assistant, some of the law clerks?”

"It was Lucian Manet's watch.”

"No shit?" The Slinky, sloshed into a whole, was tossed aside. "How do you know? Where'd you get ahold of it?”

"Little shop in the Quarter." He drew out the box, set it on Remy's desk. "Take a look at it."

Obliging, Remy took off the lid. "Elegant, if you want something you're going to have to dig out whenever you want to know what time it is. Heavy," he added when he picked it up.

"You don't … feel anything from it?”

"Feel anything?”

"Look on the back, Remy.”

"Names and dates are right," Remy concluded. "Hell of a stroke of luck, you stumbling on this.”

"Luck? I don't think so. I go into a shop, buy Lena a ring, then-was "Whoa, whoa, whoa, just back up there a minute. A ring?”

"I told you I was going to marry her." Declan shrugged. "I found the ring. It doesn't hurt to have it ahead of schedule. But that's not the point.”

"Pretty damn big point, if you ask me. She know you're up to this?”

"I told her how I felt, what I wanted. I'm letting her stew on it awhile. Can we get back to the watch?”

"Et la! You always were mule-headed. Go ahead.”

"I walk into that shop, decide I need a watch because mine's acting up. I decide I need a pocket watch even though I've never used one, never thought about using one. Then, I see that one, and I know. I know it was his, I know she bought it for him for his birthday. I know what it says on the back before I read it. Exactly what it says. Because I heard it in my head.”

"I don't know what to think about that." Remy raked his fingers through his hair. "Isn't there something about how some people touch an object and get images from it? Its history or whatever?”

"It's called psychometry. I've been doing a lot of reading up on paranormal science in my spare time," Declan explained when Remy frowned at him. "But I've never had anything like that happen before. Lena's got a theory. That this is a reincarnation deal.”

Remy pursed his lips, set the watch back in its box. "I guess I'd be more inclined to put some stock in that rather than the psycho whatever.”

"If it is, then the house, now this watch, are triggering past-life memories. Pretty weird.”

"The whole thing's been weird since the get-go, cher.”

"Here's the kicker. If I accept that I was Lucian, then I know Lena was Abigail. What I don't know is if I'm supposed to bring her into the house, to make things right from before. Or if I'm supposed to keep her away from it, and resolve the cycle that way.”

In the Vieux Carre, where Lena prepared to leave her apartment for the bar and the afternoon shift, she opened the door and stepped into another cycle. An old one.

"Baby!" Lilibeth Simone threw open her arms.

Sluggish with shock, Lena was unable to move back before they wrapped around her like chains. Trapped, she was assaulted with impressions. Too much perfume that didn't quite cover the smell of stale smoke, the bony form honed down by years of hard living. Sticky layers of hairspray over curls dyed black as pitch.

And through it all seeped her own dark dread.

"I went downstairs first, and that handsome young man behind the bar said you were still up here. Why, I'm so glad to catch you!" The voice was a bright bubble that bounced and jerked in the air. "Let me just look at you! I swear, I swear you just get prettier every time I see you. Sweetie pie, I just have to sit down a minute and catch my breath. I'm just so excited to see you, I can hardly stand it.”

She talked too fast, Lena noted, walked too fast on the spiked backless heels she'd paired with hot-pink and skin-tight capris. Those were warnings that she'd taken a hit of her current drug of choice very recently.

"Look what you've done with this place!" Lilibeth dropped into a chair and dumped a floral suitcase beside her. She clapped her hands like a child so the plastic bracelets on her bony wrists banged together. "Why, I just love it. Suits you, baby. It sure does suit you.”

She'd been pretty once, Lena thought as she studied her mother. She'd seen pictures. But all that prettiness had been carved down, diamond-hard, to canny.

At forty-four, Lilibeth's face showed all the wear from too much liquor, too many pills and far too many men.

Deliberately, Lena left the door open and remained standing just inside it. The sound of traffic, the scent of the bakery across the street, kept her grounded. "What do you want?”

"Why, to see you, of course." Lilibeth let out a trill of laughter that scraped over Lena's brain like nails on a blackboard. "What a thing to ask. I got such a yen to see you, baby. I said to myself, My Lena's busy, but we've just got to have a little time together. So I got myself on a bus, and here I am. You just have to sit on down here, honey, and tell me everything you've been up to.”

Disgust rolled through her, and Lena clung to it. Better disgust than the despair that crept along just under it. "I have work.”

"Oh now, you can take a little while for your own mama. After all, you own the place. I'm just so proud of my baby, all grown up and running your own business.

"Doing so well for yourself, too," she continued as she looked around the room.

Lena caught the look, and the cunning in it. It tightened her chest, and stiffened her spine. "I told you the last time it was the last time. You won't get any money from me again.”

"Why do you want to hurt my feelings like that?" Lilibeth widened her eyes as they filled with tears. "I just want to spend a few days with my little girl.”

"I'm not a little girl," Lena said dully. "Yours in particular.”

"Don't be mean, honey, after I've come all this way just to see you again. I know I haven't been a good mama to you, darling, but I'm going to make it up.”

She jumped up, pressing a hand to her heart. The nail on the pinkie of her right hand was very long, slightly curved.

Coke nail, Lena realized without shock or regret. Now she knew Lilibeth's current drug of choice.

"I made some mistakes, I know I did, honey." Lilibeth's voice rang with apology, with regret. "You gotta understand, I was just so young when you came along.”

"You've used that one up.”

Lilibeth dug into her shiny red purse, pulled out a tattered tissue. "Why you wanna be so hard on your mama, baby girl? Why you wanna hurt my heart?”

"You don't have a heart. And you're not my mama.”

"Carried you inside me for nine months, didn't I?" Sorrow became temper as if a switch had been flicked. Lilibeth's voice rose, shrilled. "Nine months of being sick and fat and stuck back that damn bayou. Lay there in pain for hours giving birth to you.”

"And left me within a week. An alley cat spends more time with its litter than you did with me.”

"I was sixteen.”

It was that, the sad fact of it, that had caused Lena to make room, time and time again, in her heart. Until her heart had simply calcified from the blows. "You haven't been sixteen in quite a while. Neither have I. I'm not going to waste time arguing about it. I have to work, and you have to go.”

"But, baby." Panicked, Lilibeth shifted, back to the teary, choked voice. "You've got to give me a chance to make things right. I'm going to get me a job. I can work for you awhile, won't that be fun? I'll just stay here with you for a couple weeks till I find a place of my own. We'll have such a fine time. Just like girlfriends.”

"No, you won't work for me, and no, you can't stay here. I made that mistake four years ago, and when I caught you turning tricks up here, you stole from me and took off again. I don't repeat myself.”

"I was sick back then. I'm clean now, honey, I swear I am. You can't just turn me out." She held out her hands, palms up, in a gesture of pleading. "I'm flat broke. Billy, he took almost everything I had and ran off.”

Lena could only assume Billy was the latest in the string of users, losers and abusers Lilibeth gravitated to. "You're high right now. Do you think I'm blind or just stupid?”

"I'm not! I just took a little something because I was so nervous about seeing you. I knew you'd be mad at me." Tears spilled out, tracking bits of mascara down her cheeks. "You just have to give me a chance to make it up to you, Lena honey. I've changed.”

"You've used that one up, too." Resigned, Lena walked to her purse, counted out fifty dollars. "Here." She stuffed it into Lilibeth's hand. "Take this, get on a bus and ride it as far away as this takes you. Don't come back here again. There's no place for you here.”

"You can't be so mean to me, baby. You can't be so cold.”

"Yes, I can." She picked up the suitcase, carried it over to the door and set it outside. "It's in the blood. Take the fifty. It's all you're going to get. And get out, or I swear to God, I'll throw you out.”

Lilibeth marched to the door. The money had already disappeared into her purse. She stopped, gave Lena one last glittering look. "I never wanted you.”

"Then we're even. I never wanted you, either." She shut the door in her mother's face. Then flipped the locks, sat down on the floor. And cried in absolute silence.

She was certain she'd smoothed away the edges by the time she drove out to Manet Hall that evening. She'd nearly canceled the dinner plans she had with Declan, but that would have given her mother too much importance.

That would have acknowledged the grief that had slashed its way into her heart despite the locks.

She needed to put her mind to other things, and would never manage it if she stayed at home, brooding. She'd get through the night, hour by hour, and in the morning Lilibeth would be gone. From her life, and from her mind.

The house looked different, she thought. Little changes that somehow made it seem more real. It was good to look at it, to focus on it, and to contemplate that some things could change for the better. With the right vision.

Over the years, she'd come to think of Manet Hall as a kind of dream place, burrowed in the past. More than that, she decided. Of the past.

Now, with new unpainted boards checkerboarded with the old, peeling white, with some windows gleaming and others coated with dust, it was a work in progress.

Declan was bringing it back to life.

Though the front gardens were a bit straggled, a bit lost, there were flowers blooming. And he'd plopped a huge clay pot full of begonias on the gallery.

He'd have planted them himself, she thought as she walked toward the door. He was a man who liked his hands in things. Especially when he considered them his.

She wondered if he thought of her as one of his works in progress. Probably. She couldn't quite decide if the idea amused or irritated her.

She strolled in. She figured that when two people had slept with each other a time or two, formalities were superfluous.

She smelled the lilies first, the good, strong scent bringing the garden indoors. He'd bought a lovely old table, a couple of straight-back chairs and, she saw with a grin, an enormous ceramic cow for the foyer.

Some would call it foolish, others charming, she supposed, but no one would call the entrance to the old hall sterile any longer.

"Declan?" She wandered in and out of the parlor, noting the few new additions. She circled into the library and found herself crossing to the mantel and the heavy candlesticks standing on it.

Why did her fingers tremble? she wondered as she reached out to touch. Why did those old tarnished candlesticks look so strangely familiar?

There was nothing special about them, really. Expensive perhaps, but too ornate for her taste. And yet … her fingers brushed down each of them, lightly. And yet they looked right here, so right she could imagine the slim white tapers they were waiting to hold once more; she could smell the melting wax.

Shivering, she stepped back and walked out of the room.

She kept calling his name as she started up the stairs. When she reached the first landing, the hidden door in the wall opened. She and Declan choked back simultaneous screams.

With a gasping laugh, she clutched at her heart and stared at him. He had cobwebs in his hair, dirt smeared on his cheek and hands. The flashlight he carried bobbled.

"Lord, cher, next time just shoot me and get it over with.”

"Same goes." He blew out a breath, dragged at his hair and the cobwebs lacing it. "You scared five years off me.”

"Well, I called out a couple times, then decided I'd just hunt you up." She peered over his shoulder. "What've you got here, secret passages?”

"No, servants' access. There are doors on every level, so I thought I'd take a look. It's kind of cool, but a real mess." He looked down at his filthy hands. "Why don't you go fix yourself a drink or something? I'll clean up.”

"I might be persuaded to fix us both a drink. What're you in the mood for?”

"Could use a beer." But he was studying her face now that he'd recovered from the jolt. "What's wrong, Lena?”

"Nothing, other than you frightening the wits out of me.”

"You're upset. I can see it.”

She tried a suggestive smile. "Maybe I'm sulking 'cause you don't bother to kiss me hello.”

"Maybe you don't trust me enough yet, and figure all I'm looking for with you is a good time." He used one knuckle to lift her chin, stared into her eyes until hers began to sting. "You're wrong. I love you." He waited a beat, then nodded when she didn't respond. "I'll be down in a minute.”

She started down the steps, then stopped, speaking without looking back. "Declan, I don't think you're looking for a good time, but I don't know as I have what it is you are looking for.”

"Angelina. You're what I've looked for all my life.”

He didn't press. If she needed to pretend she wasn't upset and skittish, he'd give her room. They took a walk through the rear gardens as dusk crept in.

"This place. All these years, people come, people go. Mostly they go. And here you are, doing more in a few months than anyone's done since before I can remember.”

She turned to study the house. Oh, it still needed work. Wood and paint. New shutters here and there. But it no longer seemed … dead, she realized. It hadn't just been abandoned, it had been dead until he'd come.

"You're bringing it back to life. It's more than the money and the work.”

"Could you live here?”

Her eyes, startled, even panicked, whipped back to his. But his gaze stayed calm and level. "I have my own place.”

"That's not what I asked. I asked if you could. If you could be comfortable here, or if the idea of sharing the place with … ghosts or memories, whatever you'd call it, would bother you.”

"If it bothered me I wouldn't have come over tonight so you could feed me. Which reminds me, what are you feeding me, cher?”

"I'm going to try my hand at grilling tuna." He pulled his pocket watch out. "In a bit," he said after checking the time.

She was mesmerized by the watch in his hand. Her stomach jittered as it had done when she'd seen the candlesticks. "Where did you get that?”

"I found it at a shop today." Alerted by her tone, fascinated by it, he held the watch out. "Look familiar?”

"You just don't see many men using that type of watch anymore.”

"I knew it was mine as soon as I saw it. I think you bought it for me," he said, and her head jerked up. "A long time ago." He turned the watch over so she could read the inscription on the back.

"Lucian's." Because her instinct was to curl her fingers into her palms, she made herself reach out and touch the engraving. "Very strange. Strange indeed, Declan. You think I was Abigail?”

"Yeah, I do.”

She shook her head. "Don't you think that's a little too neat and tidy-and self-serving?”

"Murder, despair, suicide, a century of wandering souls?" He shrugged and slipped the watch back in his pocket. "Not very tidy, if you ask me. But I think, Lena, that maybe love is patient enough to wait until its time comes around again.”

"God, you are so … appealing. And it's irritating that I have to be the sensible one around here. I like being with you, Declan.”

She toyed with the key on her neck chain as she spoke. A habit, he thought, she was probably unaware of.

"I like your company, I like your looks. And I like making love with you. That's all I have right now.”

He took her into his arms. "I'll take it.”

Lena rolled over, slid along one pillow to the other. She heard singing-a deep, male voice in a dreamy refrain. And sighing, she ran her hand over the sheets.

He wasn't beside her in bed, but his warmth was.

Opening her eyes, she blinked against the misty sunlight. She hadn't meant to stay the night. But with Declan, her intentions often twisted around to meet his wishes. More, somehow his wishes circled until they ended up being hers as well.

Clever man, she mused, yawning as she burrowed into the pillow. He rarely seemed to push, never appeared to be unreasonable. And always got his way.

Damned if she didn't admire him for it.

Even now, though she'd have preferred waking in her own bed, she was glad she'd stayed. Her mood had been heavy, and a bit prickly, when she'd arrived. Seeing her mother usually had that effect on her. For a few hours, she'd forgotten about it, and had just enjoyed being with him.

That was enough-and would have to be enough for both of them for as long as it lasted. Seeing Lilibeth was a stark reminder of the promises Lena had made to herself.

To succeed, on her own terms. To live, precisely how she chose to live. And never, never to place her hopes, her needs, her wants in the hands of another.

Declan would move along sooner or later. Everyone did. But she cared more this time, and would make a genuine effort to be and to remain friends.

So, she would be very, very careful not to fall in love with him. Very careful not to hurt him while he believed he loved her.

Her brow creased. She did hear singing. In the shower, she realized, Declan's voice over the drum of water.

"Long years have passed, child-I've never wed, true to my lost love, though she is dead.”

An odd tune for a man to belt out in the shower, she thought, and found herself singing the refrain with him in her mind. After the ball is over, after the break of morn.

Puzzled-where had those lyrics come from?-she rose and went to the bathroom door. She knew the tune, but more, she knew the words. The sad story of lack of faith, of death, melded to the romantic melody.

And her heart was pounding. She felt the pulse of it jump in her throat.

Dancing in the moonlight with the house a white beacon against the night. A girl in faded muslin, and the young man in elegant black tie. The smell of lilacs. Heavy and sweet.

The air's thick with flowers. So thick it's hard to breathe. So thick it makes you dizzy as you spin around and around through the garden, along the bricks with the music playing.

Dizzy, dizzy from the dance. Dizzy, dizzy from the fall into love.

She swayed, reaching out to brace a hand against the door. But it opened, and steam poured out as she fell forward.

"Whoa!" Declan caught her, scooped her off her feet. Still wet from the shower, his hair dripping onto her face, he carried her back to bed.

"I'm okay. I just … lost my balance.”

"Baby, you're white as a sheet." He brushed her hair back, rubbed her chilled hand between both of his. "What happened?”

"Nothing." Torn between confusion and embarrassment, she nudged him back to sit up. "I got up too fast, is all. Then I lost my balance when I reached for the door and you opened it. I'm fine, cher. Ga va. It's just a little early for me to be up and around.”

"I'll get you some water.”

"Sweetheart, don't fuss. Simones aren't swooning sorts." She ran a finger over his chin. It was all fading away now, the song, the scent of lilacs, the giddy sense of reeling. "Though that handsome face of yours does take my breath away. You leave any hot water for me?”

"Probably not." He eased down to sit beside her. "I've got to replace that water heater. If you give it a half hour, it should come through for another shower.”

"Mmm. Now what could I do with a half hour?" Laughing, she pulled him into bed.

Now that, Lena decided, was a much better way to start the day. She lingered over her first cup of coffee at the little table Declan had set up on the gallery outside his bedroom. As his breakfast pickings were slim at best, she'd settled on a bowl of Frosted Flakes and had watched him load his down with sugar.

"Cher, why don't you just have yourself a big old candy bar for breakfast.”

"Don't have one.”

He grinned over at her, and damn it, he did take her breath away.

"You've got yourself a nice spot here," she told him. "Good morning– contemplation sort of spot.”

"It'll be better when I get some of the boards replaced and it's painted. Needs more stuff, too." He glanced around. "Pots, you know, flowers and things. A glider or a swing.”

She spooned up some cereal. "You're just a homebody, aren't you, cher?”

"Looks like." And it delighted him. "Who'd've thought?”

"And what does the homebody have planned for today?”

"I want to finish the first section of the exterior stairs. If the weather holds through the weekend, I'll have a good start on the front of the house. I've got guys coming in to start on the other bathrooms. Got some more shopping to do. Want to come with me?”

"I've never seen a man so crazy to shop." It was tempting to give in to the charming image of hunting with him for treasures. And to have some part in selecting pieces for the house.

And wouldn't that go toward forging another link in making them a couple instead of two people just enjoying the moment?

So she shook her head and denied herself the pleasure. "Unless this shopping involves looking at shoes or earrings, you're on your own, sugar.”

"I could probably fit that in, between hunting up drawer pulls and hardware. In fact … hang on a minute.”

He rose and went inside while Lena stretched back and, cupping her mug in both hands, looked out over the gardens to the pond.

She'd distracted him, she thought. Or at least he was pretending to be distracted from what had happened that morning. She'd damn near fainted, and that would've been a first.

Something in the house, she mused, was affecting her, just as it did Declan. One side pulling her in, another pushing her out, but she was determined to stand firm.

Was it possible he was right after all? Could it be so perfectly neat? He had been Lucian in a past life, and she his doomed Abigail?

Had they danced in the moonlight to that old, sad song?

If it were true, what did it mean to them now, in this life?

Her face was clear of worry when he stepped out again. And put a small box on the table beside her bowl.

"Cher, you keep picking up presents like this, what're you going to do when my birthday rolls around?”

"I'll think of something.”

"Well, I don't think you're going to top my salt and pepper shakers, but …" She opened the box, expecting to see some cute and foolish pin or silly earrings. Then just stared down at the pair of ruby and diamond hearts.

"They caught my eye.”

"You-you can't give me something like this." For the first time since he'd known her, she stuttered. "You can't just-just give me earrings like these. These are real stones. Do you think I'm too stupid to recognize real diamonds?”

"No." Interesting, he thought, that she'd jump from fluster into temper at the gift of diamonds. "I thought they'd look good on you.”

"I don't care how rich you are." She snapped the lid back down on the sparkle of blood and ice. "I don't care how much money you've got stuffed away in your portfolios and your bank accounts. I don't want you buying me expensive jewelry. If I want diamonds and rubies, then alors, I'll buy them for myself. I'm not sleeping with you for baubles and profit.”

"Well, these were a big hit." He tipped back in his chair to meet her furious eyes, as she'd leaped to her feet as she'd shouted at him. "So, they'd be okay with you if they were glass? Let me get the ground rules clear. If I see something I'd like to get for you, it has to be, what, under a hundred? One– fifty? Give me a ballpark.”

"I don't need you to buy me things.”

"Lena, if you needed me to buy you things, I'd buy you groceries, for Christ's sake. These were pretty, they made me think of you. And look at this." He picked up the box, ran his free hand around it. "No strings attached.”

"Something costs as much as a decent secondhand car's got strings, cher.”

"Wrong. Money's relative. I have a lot of it, so deal. You don't want them, fine." He shrugged, picked up his coffee. "I'll give them to someone else.”

Her eyes went to slits. "Oh, will you?”

"They appear to upset your moral balance, but there's no point in them going to waste.”

"You're trying to make me sound like an idiot.”

"No, you're acting like an idiot. I'm just playing my part in your little drama. I'd like you to have them, but not if you're going to think they're payment for services rendered. That's just as insulting to me as it is to you, Lena," he said when her mouth dropped open. "Your telling me you don't want payment for sex is telling me I'm willing to buy it from you. They're just goddamn rocks.”

"They're beautiful rocks." Damn, damn, damn! Why did the man constantly throw her off balance?

And wasn't it just like him, just exactly like him, to sit there, calmly watching her flash and burn?

She took a deep, steadying breath while he looked at her with both patience and amusement. "I was rude, and I overreacted. I'm not used to men handing me diamonds and rubies over bowls of cereal.”

"Okay. Want me to wait and give them to you over a nice steak dinner?”

She gave a weak laugh, dragged her hair back. "You're entirely too good for me.”

"What the hell does that mean?" he demanded.

But she shook her head, then picked up the box. She studied the earrings against their bed of velvet for a long moment before taking them out, putting them on.

"How do they look?”

"Perfect.”

She leaned down, kissed him. "Thank you. They just scared me a little, but I'm getting over it pretty quick now.”

"Good.”

"I'm going to have to wear my hair back with them. Show them off. Damn it," she said as she ran for the door. "I have to see." She stopped at the mirror, held her hair back with one hand. "Oh God! They're fabulous. I've never had anything so lovely in my life. You're a sweet man, Declan. A hardheaded, crazy, sweet man.”

"When you marry me," he said from the doorway, "I'll give you diamonds for breakfast once a week.”

"Stop that.”

"Okay, but keep it in mind.”

"I've got to get on. I want to stop by and see my grandmama before I head back.”

"Give me a ride over? I've got something for her.”

Her eyes, when they tracked to his in the glass, were indulgent and just a little frustrated. "You bought her another present.”

"Don't start on me," he warned, and stepped back out to gather up the bowls.

"Why do you have to buy things all the time, cher?”

She knew him now, and the little ripple movement of his shoulders told her he was annoyed and uncomfortable. So she softened the question by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"I've got money," he said. "And I like stuff. You trade money for stuff, which is more fun and interesting than having a bunch of green paper in your wallet.”

"I don't know. Me, I like that green paper just fine. But …" She fingered the diamonds at her ears. "I could grow mighty fond of these pretty rocks. Go on, get whatever you've gone and bought for Grandmama. Bound to brighten her day, whatever it is, 'cause it's from you.”

"You think?”

"She's sweet on you.”

"I like that." He turned, wrapped his arms around Lena's waist. "How about you? You sweet on me?”

A long line of warmth flowed down her spine, nearly made her sigh. "You make it hard not to be.”

"Good." He touched his lips to hers, then eased away. "I like that even better.”

He carried a little gift bag out to her car. It struck her as odd and charming that he would think of things like that. Not just a present, a token he could so easily afford, but the presentation of it. Pretty bags or bows, ribbons or wrappings most men-or men she'd known-would never bother with.

Any woman she knew would call Declan Fitzgerald one hell of a catch. And he wanted her.

"I'm going to ask you a question," she began as she started the car.

"True or false? Multiple choice?”

"I guess it's more the essay type.”

He settled back, stretched out his legs as best he could as she started down the drive. He'd always aced his tests. "Shoot.”

"How come with all those fine ladies up in Boston, and all the good-looking women here 'round New Orleans, you zeroed in on me?”

"Not one of them ever made my heart stop, or sprint like a racehorse at the starting gun. But you do. Not one of them ever made me see myself ten years, twenty years down the road, reaching out to take her hand. But you do, Lena. And what I want most in the world is to hold onto you.”

She didn't look at him, didn't dare, as everything inside her seemed to fill up so she knew one glance at his face would have it all spilling out. Warm and sweet and conquered.

"That's a good answer," she managed.

"It's a true one." He took one of her tensed hands off the wheel, kissed it. "God's truth.”

"I think it is. I don't know what to do about it, Declan. You're the first man who's ever made me worry about what to do. I've got powerful feelings for you. I'd rather I didn't.”

"Here's what I think. We should elope to Vegas, then you won't have anything to worry about.”

"Oh, I'm sure the Boston Fitzgeralds would just be thrilled hearing you've eloped to Vegas with a Cajun bar owner from the bayou. That'd set them up right and tight.”

"It'd give them something to talk about for the next decade or two. My mother would like you," he said, almost to himself. "And she's no easy mark. She'd like that you're your own woman and don't take any crap off anyone. Run your own business, look after your grandmother. She'd respect that, and she'd like that. Then she'd love you because I do. My father would take one look at you and be your slave.”

She laughed at that and it loosened some of the tightness in her chest. "Are all the Fitzgerald men so easy?"

"We're not easy. We just have exceptional taste.”

She pulled up in front of Odette's house, and finally turned to look at him. "Any of them coming down for Remy and Effie's wedding?”

"My parents are.”

"We'll see what we see, won't we?”

She hopped out, headed to the door ahead of him. "Grandmama!" She bumped the door open and strolled in. "I brought you a handsome gentleman caller.”

Odette came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a red checked cloth. The smells of fresh coffee and baking followed her. She was, as always, decked out in layers of jewelry and sturdy boots. But there was a strain around her eyes and mouth even Declan spotted instantly.

"A gentleman caller's always welcome. Bibi," she replied and kissed Lena's cheek.

"What's wrong?”

"Baked me some brown bread this morning," Odette said, evading Lena's question. "Y'all come back to the kitchen." She wrapped an arm around Lena's waist to nudge her along. "What you got in the pretty bag, cher?”

"Just a little something I thought you'd like." In the kitchen, Declan set it on the table. "Smells fabulous in here. Maybe I ought to learn how to bake bread.”

Odette smiled as he'd hoped she would, but the tension in the air didn't lessen. "Could be I'll teach you a thing or two. Kneading dough's good therapy. Takes your mind off your troubles, gives you thinking time.”

She took the small wrapped box out of the gift bag, turned it in her hand, then tugged the ribbon free. "Lena, you don't nail this boy down, I may just snatch him for myself." When she opened the box, her face softened.

The trinket box fit into the palm of her hand. It was heart-shaped and hand– painted with a couple in old-fashioned formal dress sitting on a garden bench. When she lifted the lid, it played a tune.

"I've been hearing that song in my head for weeks," Declan told her. "So when I saw this, I figured I'd better buy it.”

"`After the Ball,`" Odette told him.

"It's an old waltz. Sad and sweet." She looked up at him. "Maybe you got a nice widowed uncle you could send my way.”

"Well, there's Uncle Dennis, but he's homely as a billy goat.”

"He's got half your heart, I'll take him.”

"Isn't this a pretty picture?”

At the voice, Lena went stiff as if someone had pressed a gun to her head and cocked the hammer. Declan saw the look pass between her and her grandmother. Apologetic on Odette's part, shocked on Lena's.

Then they turned.

Lilibeth slumped against the doorjamb. She wore a short red robe, loosely belted. Her hair was a tumble around her shoulders, and her face already made up for the day with her eyes darkly lined, her lips slick and red as her robe.

"And who might this be?" She lifted one hand, languidly pushed back her hair as she sent Declan a slow, feline smile.

"What's she doing here?" Lena demanded. "What the hell is she doing in this house?”

"It's my house as much as yours," Lilibeth shot back. "Some of us have more respect for blood kin than others.”

"I told you to get on a bus and go.”

"I don't take orders from my own daughter." Lilibeth pushed off the jamb, sauntered to the stove. "This here coffee fresh, Mama?”

"How could you?" Lena demanded of Odette. "How could you take her in again?”

"Lena." All Odette could do was take her hand. "She's my child.”

"I'm your child." The bitter fury poured out and left its horrid taste on her tongue. "You're just going to let her come back, stay until she's sucked you dry again, until she and whatever junkie she hooks up with this time steal you blind? It's cocaine now. Can't you see it on her? And that doesn't come free.”

"I told you I'm clean." Lilibeth slapped a mug on the counter.

"You're a liar. You've always been a liar.”

Lilibeth surged forward. Even as Lena threw out her chin to take the blow, Declan stepped between them. "Think again." He said it quietly, but the heat in his voice pumped into the kitchen.

"You lay a hand on her, Lilibeth, one hand on her, and I'll put you out." Odette stepped to the stove, poured the coffee herself with hands not quite steady. "I mean that.”

"She's got no call to speak to me that way." Lilibeth let her lips quiver. "And in front of a stranger.”

"Declan Fitzgerald. I'm a friend of Lena's, and Miss Odette's. I'll get that coffee, Miss Odette. You sit down now.”

"This is family business, Declan." Lena kept her furious eyes on her mother's face. She would think of the embarrassment later. Right now it was only a dull pinch through the cushion of anger. "You should go.”

"In a minute." He poured coffee, brought a cup to Odette. Crouched so their faces were level. "I'm Irish," he told her. "Both sides. Nobody puts on a family fight like the Irish. You only have to call me if you need me.”

He squeezed her hand, then straightened. "Same goes," he said to Lena.

"I'm not staying. I'll drive you back." She had to breathe deeply, to brace for the pain her own words would cause. "Grandmama, I love you with all my heart. But as long as she's in the house, I won't be. I'm sorry this hurts you, but I can't do this again. Let me know when she's gone. And you." She turned to Lilibeth. "You hurt her again, you take one dollar from her or bring any of the scum you like to run with in this house, I'll hunt you down. I swear to God I will, wherever you go. And I'll take it out of your skin this time.”

"Lena baby!" Lilibeth rushed down the narrow hall as Lena strode to the door. "I've changed, honey. I want to make it all up to you. Give me a chance to-was Outside, Lena whirled. "You've had your last chance with me. Don't you come near me. Don't you come near my place. You're dead to me, you hear?”

She slammed the car door, ground the engine to life, then sped off, spewing up a thin cloud of smoke that obscured her mother and the house where she'd grown up.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" Lena punched the gas. "I bet your family would just love a load of Lilibeth Simone. Whore, junkie, thief and liar.”

"You can't blame your grandmother for this, Lena.”

"I don't blame her. I don't." The tears were rushing up from her throat. She felt the burn. "But I won't be a part of it. I won't." She slammed the brakes in front of the Hall. "I need to go now." But she lowered her brow to the wheel. "Go on, get out. Va t'en.”

"No. I'm not going away." Others had, he realized now. And that's where the hurt came from. "Do you want to talk about this out here, or inside?”

"I'm not going to talk about it anywhere.”

"Yes, you are. Pick your spot.”

"I told you all you need to know. My mother's a whore and a junkie. If she can't earn enough to feed her various habits on her back, she steals. She'd as soon lie as look at you.”

"She doesn't live around here.”

"I don't know where she lives. No place for long. She came to my place yesterday. Stoned, and full of lies and her usual talk about new starts and being friends. Thought I'd let her move in with me again. Never again," she said and leaned her head back on the car seat. "I gave her fifty dollars for bus fare. Should've known better. Likely it's already gone up her nose.”

"Let's take a walk.”

"This isn't something you walk off or kiss better, Declan. I need to get back.”

"You're not driving into town when you're still churned up. Let's walk.”

To ensure she didn't just drive away when he got out, he took the keys out of the ignition, pocketed them. Then he climbed out, walked around the car. Opening her door, he held out a hand.

She couldn't drum up the energy to argue. But instead of taking his hand, she slid out of the car and dipped hers in her pockets.

They'd walk, she figured. They'd talk. And then, it would be over.

She imagined he thought his gardens-that new blossoming, the tender fragrances– –would soothe her. He would want to comfort. He was built that way. More, he'd want to know so he could find solutions.

When it came to Lilibeth, there were no solutions.

"Family can suck, can't it?"

Her gaze whipped to his-dark and fierce, and sheened with damp. "She's not my family.”

"I get that. But it's a family situation. We're always having situations in my family. Probably because there are so many of us.”

"Not having enough canapis at a cocktail party, or having two aunts show up in the same fancy dress isn't a situation.”

He debated whether to let the insult pass. She was, after all, raw and prickly. But he couldn't quite swallow it. "You figure having money negates personal problems? Takes the sting out of hurts, buries tragedies? That's pretty shallow, Lena.”

"I'm a shallow gal. Comes through the blood.”

"That's bullshit, but you're entitled to feel sorry for yourself after almost taking a slap in the face. Money didn't make my cousin Angie feel much better when her husband got her and his mistress pregnant the same month. It didn't help my aunt when her daughter died in a car wreck on her eighteenth birthday. Life can fuck you over, whatever your income bracket.”

She stopped, ordered herself to calm down. "I apologize. She tends to put me in a mood that's not fit for company.”

"I'm not company." Before she could evade, he cupped her face in his hands. "I love you.”

"Stop it, Declan.”

"I can't.”

"I'm no good for you. No good for anybody, and I don't want to be.”

"That's the key, isn't it?”

"Yeah.”

He reached down, lifted the key she wore around her neck. "It wasn't a man, but a woman who broke your heart. Now you want to lock it up, close it off so you won't accept love when it's offered. Won't let yourself give it back. Safer that way. If you don't love, it doesn't matter if someone walks away. That makes you a coward.”

"So what if it does?" She shoved his hand aside. "It's my life. I live it the way I want, and I get along fine. You're a romantic, cher. Under all that Yankee sense, that expensive education, you're a dreamer. I don't put stock in dreams. What is, that's what counts. One of these days you're going to wake up and find yourself in this big, old house in the middle of nowhere, wondering what the hell you were thinking. And you'll hightail it back to Boston, go back to lawyering, marry some classy woman named Alexandra, and have a couple pretty children.”

"You forgot the pair of golden retrievers," he said mildly.

"Oh." She threw up her hands. "Merde!”

"Couldn't agree more. First, the only woman I know named Alexandra has teeth like a horse. She sort of scares me. Second, and more important, what I'm going to do, Angelina, is live out my life in this big, old house, with you. I'm going to raise a family with you, right here. Golden retrievers are optional.”

"You saying it, over and over, isn't going to make it so.”

Now he grinned, white and wide. "Bet?”

There was something about him when he was like this, she realized. Something potent and just a little frightening when he wore that sheen of affability over a core of concrete stubbornness.

"I'm going to work. You just stay away from me for a while, you hear? I'm too irritated to deal with you.”

He let her walk away. It was enough, for now, that her anger with him had dried up those tears that had glimmered in her eyes.