Goes down easy: Roped into romance (4 page)

Then again, she had definitely been filled with
joie
de vivre
since Detective Book Franklin had arrived on the scene. Strange, but Perry had always thought Della shied away from relationships because of her gift—not because she hadn’t found a man to hold her interest.

And, of course, that brought Perry’s mind back to Jack. She stopped futzing with the layout of the counter’s incense cones and took a deep breath, forcing her feet to move. She walked into the kitchen to Jack bearing the brunt of the door’s weight on one shoulder.

“Hey, there you are,” he said. “Could you hand me that hammer?”

“Sure,” she answered without thinking, adding, “The claw or the ball pin?”

“Either one’ll work,” he said, taking it from her hand with a wink. “Gotta love a woman who knows her way around tools.”

She ignored the double entendre. “This is a do-it-yourself sort of household.”

“You live here, too, then?”

She shook her head, leaned against the counter nearest the doorway, shivering a bit from the breeze. “I used to. Not anymore. I have a townhouse near Jackson Square.”

“Hmm. I was down there earlier.”
Whack! Whack!
“Ate lunch at a place called Café Eros. Actually, that’s where I picked up the newspaper.”

Did she dare tell him? It wasn’t like she was unlisted or anything. “Actually, that’s where I live. The Court du Chaud. The café sits at the entrance.”

“Small world, huh?”

Too small, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say
anything because as he lifted the old door free, she was caught by the ripple of muscles across his back.

He’d pulled off his hoodie since his return from the store and was now working in his T-shirt and jeans. The heavier garment had covered his upper physique; the white cotton T-shirt covered it in a way that was all about showing it off.

When he reached up, the shirt went with him, baring a strip of skin above his belt. Not more than an inch, maybe only a half, there at the small of his back. It was enough. She forgot to breathe for so long that her lungs burned when she finally filled them.

She was so out of her league.

“I can always leave,” she said, hoping he’d agree.
Please let him agree
. If she stayed even a few minutes longer, it was going to be too long. It was going to be too late. “If you have the place to yourself, you can work without being distracted.”

“I’d rather you stay.”
Whack! Whack!
“I like the way you distract me.”

No, no, no
. After that infamous pinky swear, flirting from this man was one thing she did not need. “If I distract you, it will take you longer to get finished. If I leave you alone, you’ll be done and out of here in no time.”

He turned then, resting the door against the frame. His T-shirt had hiked up in the front as well. The strip of skin bared there was just as sleek and tight as the other, only this one was marked down the center by a line of dark hair.

“Is this about protecting your aunt? Or is there
another reason you want me out of here?” He stepped away from the door, crouched at the toolbox left open on the floor. “It’s obvious you think I’m here to hurt her. Or use her. Which I’m not.”

Perry hopped up to sit on the counter. “You came in guns blazing. Whether or not you meant to hurt her isn’t the point.”

Jack’s mouth twisted. “Bad first impression, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.” She nodded. “So bad.”

“Well,” he said, picking up a paint scraper, discarding an awl. “I’m doing my best here to make amends.”

She remained silent, and that caused him to look up from where he’d been searching through the tools.

His eyes glittered. The shadow of his beard appeared darker from this angle. Dark and sexy, giving him an edgy sense of heat. It was a look that was predatory—not one she’d expect in a handyman.

Then again, that’s not what he was, was it?

“Della is the only family I have. Protecting her is what I do.” And it wasn’t a need to protect based on some misplaced sense of failing to keep her parents safe.

Perry didn’t know what she’d do if she lost Della.

Jack got to his feet. “There’s nothing wrong with being protective. I may be skeptical about ghosts and psychics—”

“Skeptical or disbelieving?”

His expression spoke before he did. “Same thing, isn’t it?”

“And you don’t think that hurts her?” This is what no one seemed to get. Della didn’t spend her time
casually tossing around her visions like discount coupons for anyone interested in what she was selling.

Her visions were who she was. Rejecting her gift equaled rejecting her.

And Perry knew exactly the hurt that caused her aunt, no matter Della’s stiff upper lip.

Jack turned back to the door, knocking loose chips and clumps of decades-old paint. “I’m not a physical threat. Whether or not I buy into what she says she sees—”

“Jack! This isn’t about what she says. It’s about what she sees. Do you not get that? It’s real. The police have been able to use her visions. That’s also real.”

He threw the scraper at the toolbox; it clattered across the kitchen floor, but she doubted he even noticed. He was busy with the old door, picking it up and hefting it outside where she heard it splinter across the courtyard.

She started to jump down from the counter, was stopped when he swung out of the doorway toward her and blocked her with his hands on the counter at her hips.

His chest heaved. His pulse throbbed at his temples. The tendons in his neck stood in sharp relief, and she swore his nostrils flared.

She didn’t know this man at all, yet she didn’t feel the least bit afraid. Only curious as to what her words had set off inside him.

“Listen to me, Perry. There is only one thing here that’s real,” he said, his tone harsh, his words measured. He held her gaze for several long seconds. She didn’t flinch, and he held it still.

But then the tic in his jaw lessened, and the sense of imminent explosion faded away. He dropped his gaze from hers to the charm she wore around her neck. And when he spoke again he did so with a bit of a tremor in his voice.

“The only thing real right now is that I’ve got a door to fix and not much daylight left to do it. So, yeah. You’re right. It’s probably best if I finish up without you around to distract me.”

J
ACK ENDED UP
spending the night in his sleeping bag on Della Brazille’s kitchen floor. Perry had left him alone to finish the door as he’d requested, never breathing another word.

She’d stayed in the shop until closing time—he’d heard her chatting with customers and with the woman he supposed was Kachina—returning to the kitchen around seven to make soup and sandwiches for herself and her aunt.

She’d carried the meal upstairs on a tray, leaving him a sandwich in the refrigerator next to a bowl of soup.

He hadn’t even known they were there, had only found them when he’d decided to scrounge for a bite, and took the offering as a sign that she’d forgiven him for blowing up at her earlier in the day. He certainly hadn’t meant to, and had only exhaustion and frustration to blame.

He owed Perry an apology. He’d deliver it tomorrow, having stayed the night because he couldn’t get the door lock to hold. He’d fought the deadbolt until after midnight, but needed tools neither he nor the
Brazille women had on hand. Detective Franklin had been right about the state of the door, but the building’s brick walls weren’t so shabby.

Besides, the new door needed a coat of paint, and he’d have to check with the owners on that tomorrow. If he ever saw either one of them again. If they even let him stick around to finish the job. If they didn’t decide he was only staying to snoop, and kick him to the curb.

He shouldn’t have gone off on Perry the way he had. Didn’t it just figure that the anger he tried to keep buried would come back to life in a haunted house owned by a psychic? One who used her supposed visions to help the police—and whose niece Jack wouldn’t mind sharing his sleeping bag with.

He couldn’t help it. Ever since that ridiculous pinky swear, all he could think about was her eyes. Okay. Not so much just her eyes. Her mouth was an equally big part of his lust. He wanted to kiss her, but not half as much as he wanted to feel her mouth on his body.

She’d noticed his hands-on habit, commented on it more than once. What she didn’t know—couldn’t know—was how much he ached to have a woman’s hands on him. It had been a long time since he’d spent enough time in bed with a woman to give her the chance to touch him. Usually he was in and out and on his way before he had a chance to think.

He wanted to feel Perry’s hands, her long, strong fingers, her palms, the nails she kept short. But lying here on his back, his head pillowed on his stacked wrists, staring up at the kitchen ceiling with sweat slick on his skin, was not the time or place to be
working himself up. Especially since what he wanted from her went beyond the physical.

Her loyalty to her aunt said a lot about the woman Perry was. He had yet to learn much more, but he liked that particular detail—even if it was a big part of why, as long as he was here, he knew they’d continue to butt heads.

So far, Perry had seemed unwilling to consider that he might have a reason to doubt what she held to be the truth. And since he wasn’t exactly in touch with his feminine side and prone to blurt out his feelings, well, they’d have to figure out how best to come to a meeting of the minds.

Because it had to happen. What he wanted to know was how Della Brazille was connected to Dayton Eckhardt. And he wasn’t leaving until he got the answers he’d come to New Orleans to get.

He had just closed his eyes and was drifting off when he heard the beaded curtain between the shop and the kitchen jangle as someone walked through. Since no one knew he’d made himself at home in the kitchen, he sat up.

And as soon as he saw the dark cloud of Perry’s hair turned to a bright blue-black by the light from the sink’s window, he made himself known. “Perry, don’t freak. I’m camped out by the door.”

The tray of dishes she was carrying didn’t even rattle when she set it on the counter. “I thought you might be. Your SUV’s still outside.”

Why was he not surprised? “You’ve been watching for me to leave?”

“Not for you to leave. Just watching.” She set the plates and bowls in the sink, rinsed and dried the tray.

He thought about getting to his feet, helping out, seeing if he could steer the conversation where he wanted it by showing her that he was as handy when it came to doing dishes as he was with replacing doors.

But then he thought better.

She’d been watching to see if he’d left. She knew that he hadn’t, and yet here she was. Not scared, not running away. He hadn’t forgotten about that pinky swear made behind the counter in Sugar Blues, and was pretty damn sure that was a big part of Perry being here now.

Here in the dark, in the middle of the night, with no one else around to talk her out of anything. And so he stayed where he was and waited to see what she had on her mind. In another minute, she surprised the hell out of him by joining him on the floor.

Resting against a wall of cabinets, she pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them. She was wearing a full skirt again, this one printed with the reds, yellows, oranges and browns of autumn. Gold threads outlining the leaves sparkled where they were spun.

She cleared her throat, breathed deeply. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this except that it’s what I had wanted to tell you before.”

When she paused, he shifted to sit straighter. “I’m listening.”

“I almost think it’s easier to talk to you in the dark,” she said, laughing so softly he strained to hear.

He tried to set her at ease. “I’ve been told I’m hard on the eyes.”

“Then you’ve been lied to,” she replied without hesitation. “You are very…disturbing. You make me forget what I’m trying to say.”

He filed away the ammunition to use later, waited for her to go on.

“Here’s the thing, Jack,” she said, when she finally did. “I’ve lived with Della since I was ten years old. I’ve seen how she suffers because of this gift.”

“Physically?”

She nodded. Her face remained in shadow; he saw the movement in the light through her hair. “Killer migraines that exhaust her for days. And then there’s the worry over the meaning of what she sees. Whether or not a life might be lost if no one can make sense of her visions.”

“Does that actually happen?”

“We have no way of knowing.”

Made sense, he supposed. “If there’s nothing she can do or control, then it seems like a waste to worry.”

“A waste of what?”

He shrugged, uncertain how far beneath the surface the ice in her voice ran. “Her energy? Her time?”

“Della’s not like that. She’s not so…cruel.”

“It’s practical, not cruel.”

Again with the shake of the head. “I knew you wouldn’t get it.”

He wasn’t being hardheaded on purpose. It was just that he didn’t put stock in what he couldn’t see, what he couldn’t touch. “Try me. Start from the beginning.
You said you went to live with Della when you were ten.”

“Yes. After my parents’ death.”

Wow. Not good. “That must’ve been tough, losing them both, being so young.”

She tugged her skirt tighter over her knees. “It was. I was pretty confused for a while. But Della had always been a big part of my life, almost more like my older sister than my father’s younger one.”

“Anyone else in the family…special?”

“You mean psychic?” she asked, when he bobbled the word. “Your true colors are showing, Jack.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide them.” Honest enough. He was who he was and knew quite well where he’d come from, what experiences had made him, which ones he would always regret. “’Course I doubt they’re as bright as that skirt you’re wearing.”

“Don’t try to change the subject.”

Was that what he was doing? “I was just saying—”

“You were not saying. You were totally avoiding having the word psychic come out of your mouth.”

“I believe in what I can see, what I can hear and taste and smell and get my hands on.”

She gave a snort. “Especially that hands part.”

He wasn’t going to deny it. “You grew up exposed to your aunt’s visions. I wouldn’t expect you to do anything but defend her.”

She cocked her head to one side, let go of her knees and straightened out her legs beside his. “And what were you exposed to growing up? What happened to close your mind so completely?”

Life, he wanted to say. Deception and lies and bone-deep betrayal. Instead, he tossed back the top of the sleeping bag. He wanted to see if she would move away without the barrier between her legs and his.

But she stayed where she was, waiting, and he ended up giving her some of what she wanted to know, leaving out what he knew about cruelty. “I was exposed to baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and the United States Marine Corps. And my mind, as far as I can tell, is wide open. Not sure I’d still be here, otherwise.”

Her bracelets jingled softly as she toyed with the fabric of her skirt. “I thought you were here because of the door.”

“I thought you were here to do dishes.”

“They’ll still be there in the morning.”

“So will the door.” And since they were on an honesty roll…“What’s the relationship between your aunt and Dayton Eckhardt?”

That brought her head up. “Why do you think there is one?”

“She’s seeing him.” He shrugged. “Or at least things related to him.”

Perry’s snort told him what she thought of that. “She saw things related to last summer’s killings. That didn’t mean she had a relationship with the psycho.”

Jack still wasn’t buying it. “The headline was designed to put her in the limelight. Why?”

“Unwanted limelight, and how should I know?” She raised her voice. “I had nothing to do with it.”

He pushed harder. “The brick, then. Why would anyone feel the need to warn her off?”

“Maybe because they don’t like her being in the limelight, either.”

More like they didn’t want the kidnapping in the limelight, and the headline gave them the connection to Della. That connection was the key. The big fat who, where, when, how and why. “We’re dealing with two separate elements here.”

“How so?”

“The brick is an obvious warning. What I want to know is, why the headline? Who would benefit from Della’s exposure?”

“A reporter looking for a scoop?”

“But there’s been no hard evidence of Eckhardt crossing into Louisiana. The authorities in Texas are still operating under the assumption that they’ll find him on their side of the state line. Unless…”

“Unless what?” she prodded.

“Unless the reporter knows better.” Jack grabbed for his duffel bag, pulled out a flashlight and the newspaper.

He scanned the story that was nothing but the facts of the case gleaned from the ongoing investigation in Texas, coupled with a larger profile of Eckton Computing’s roots in New Orleans, and the industry buzz about a new software system that would blow competitors away.

“Do you want me to turn on the light?” Perry asked.

He shook his head. “No, this is fine. This reporter, Dawn Taylor. The name ring a bell?”

“Not at all, but I’ll ask Della in the morning.”

Morning. Crap. It was the middle of the night. He’d
been about to head to the
Times-Picayune
offices. He stored the paper, waited to switch off the flashlight. “I’ll go talk to Ms. Taylor before I pick up your paint.”

“Paint?”

“For the door. I’m assuming you’ll want blue?”

She gave him another soft laugh in response. “I’ll have to ask Della about that, too. I don’t live here anymore, remember?”

But she had lived here once with the woman who’d raised her. No wonder she seemed perfectly at home. “Do you stay here often?”

“Not really, though I still have a room upstairs. Lately I’ve been here a lot, but that’s because of Della not feeling well.”

“Guess that puts a strain on the business.”

She laughed at that. “Only because we have to scramble to reschedule her appointments. Trust me. Della’s clients are that loyal. They’ll wait. In the meantime, the shop does a great business, and Kachina has her own fanatical following.”

She paused, and when he didn’t respond, she went on, chuckling beneath her breath. “Welcome to N’Awlins, Jack Montgomery. You’re sleeping on the kitchen floor of a woman who’s a local legend.”

A state of things he would never understand.

“Though you know,” Perry continued, scrambling to her feet, her bracelets tinkling, her skirt sweeping over him and the floor. “There is a single bed you could use. It’s around the corner and down the hall from the bathroom. In the utility room.” She held out her hand. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

He took her hand, not needing the help, just wanting to touch her, and stood. “It’s better that I stay here. The door lacking a lock and all.”

She waved off the offer. “Book has a patrol car making extra rounds, you know.”

“And you know it wouldn’t take a lot of brains to watch and time a break-in,” he said, still holding on to her hand.

She seemed to realize it at the same time, and her fingers stiffened. She pulled free, though with a hint of reluctance, and walked through the dark room to the sink where she washed the dishes she’d left there.

Jack watched her, the unhurried movements of her hands in the running water, the light from the moon spilling through the sink’s window and giving him a better look at the tank top she wore.

The neckline didn’t scoop particularly low, but it didn’t need to. The fabric fit to show the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the strength in her shoulders and her spine.

He moved closer, leaning an elbow on the countertop and watching her, the way her hands slowed when she realized he was there, the way she tried not to smile but ended up giving in as she put the last bowl in the drainer.

“If you wanted to shower or anything while I’m down here, feel free.” She glanced over. “I can wedge a chair beneath the doorknob. Keep out the bad guys.”

“And if someone manages to shove through your wimpy security measures?”

She turned off the water, dried her hands. “The toolbox is still handy. I’ll keep a hammer close by.”

“Hmm.” She was trying too hard to get rid of him. “I smell that bad, do I?”

“No, you just look a little fuzzy,” she said, pressing her palm to his cheek. “Cleaning up might help you sleep better. It always works wonders for me.”