Goes Down Easy

They were deep and dark, more black than brown, and they were sucking him down in a hurry. They were eyes he could drown in, dangerous and dazzling, which his experience told him meant deceptive as well.

“In that case, all I can tell you is that she sees flashes,” she said, the smile fading. “Bits and pieces of clothing. Or a location. The last time she helped Book, she saw chickens.”

O-kay. “Doesn’t sound like a lot of help.”

“Oh, but it was,” she insisted, crossing one leg over the other. “The chickens she saw are only raised at two area farms. The police were able to close in quicker with that one bit of information added to what they already had.”

Interesting. And legit enough that he could easily check it out. But he still wasn’t buying the ghost. “Close in quicker on what?” When she hesitated, he prodded her with, “What was the case?”

She hopped down from the stool, turned to the counter and began to straighten the chains on a display of jeweled silver pendants. “It was infanticide, and it was ugly. If you want details, you’re going to have to check newspaper archives.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Fine. Just don’t say a word about it to Della. She doesn’t need to relive any of that.”

The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. “I won’t. I promise. Pinky swear and everything.”

Her hands stilled on the pendants, and it took a minute for her to respond. When she did, it was to turn slowly and face him, to wrap her arms around her middle, to take him in from head to toe—twice—and say, “I’m not so sure I want to make a pinky swear with you.”

“Why not?” He pulled his hands from his pockets, hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, drawing her gaze.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “With that hands-on thing you have going, I’m not sure you can keep it to just a pinky.”

She believed in ghosts and psychics and whatever the hell rune stones were, but the idea of holding his hand was too much for her? He took one step forward, offered her his little finger without saying a word.

He could tell by her hiss of breath that she was as bothered by his dare as by the thought of making physical contact, yet he was certain that what bothered her most of all was the quirk in her makeup that wouldn’t let her walk away.

Thing was, it got to him, too—her hesitation, her unease—but in a way he’d bet cold hard cash was the polar opposite of hers. Even more so, however, he was caught off guard by her eyes and her mouth, and the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had looked him over with such intensity.

She took a step toward him and lifted her hand, pinky extended. An inch and no more separated their fingers. At least an inch of actual, measurable space. What couldn’t be measured was everything else keeping them apart. The unspoken words and the private thoughts and the truth of this step they were taking.

Then, before he could say anything or form another thought or even define what this particular truth was, she hooked him, her finger grabbing his and pulling tight. He grabbed harder, holding her there even when she gave a half-hearted tug for freedom.

“See?” She glared. “I knew you couldn’t keep up your end of the bargain.”

“Remind me again of the terms,” he said, close enough to see the spattering of freckles on her nose that she’d powdered away.

Close enough to smell the herbs in her shampoo, the coffee she’d had in the kitchen, her skin. “I’ve totally forgotten what—”

A loud crash came from the rear of the building—breaking glass, a thud—followed by Della’s sharp cry, the detective’s sharper curse and the whack of a door bouncing open on its hinges.

Perry nearly took off Jack’s arm as she jerked her hand free from his and ran through the beaded curtain toward the kitchen.

He was right behind, and he heard her gasp when she stopped. He also came close to mowing her down. His hands on her shoulders steadied them both as they stared at the scene that had her shaking.

The back door stood wide open, the window shattered, shards of glass scattered across the floor. Detective Franklin was nowhere to be seen, while Della was in the process of boosting herself up onto the counter beside the sink to rinse blood from her foot.

“Oh, my God, Della.” Perry rushed forward, broken glass crunching beneath her ankle boots. “What happened? Where’s Book? Are you all right?”

“There. On the floor.” Her hand shaking, Della pointed to the kitchen table. Jack saw what appeared to be a brick wrapped in newspaper. “Book said to leave it. He ran out to look for suspects.”

“Why would anyone throw a brick through our window?” Perry’s voice vibrated with anger and righteous concern. “Let me look at your foot.”

Della turned on the water, sucking in a breath. “I jumped to dodge the brick, lost my balance and misstepped. I’ll be fine. But I’m quite sure when Book unwraps it from the newspaper, we’ll find this morning’s headline inside.”

“Someone is taking the story seriously,” Jack said, feeling powerless when he was used to being in charge. “Where’s your broom?”

“The closet next to the pantry,” Perry said, waving him in that direction. “This is going to need stitches.”

“Book said not to touch anything,” Della insisted, though that didn’t stop Jack.

“He can sweep up the glass,” Book replied, coming back in through the door and snapping open his handkerchief. “I want to bag the brick and the paper in case we luck out and pick up any trace.”

Trace? On something as innocuous as a broken window? Jack wondered how deeply the detective thought this case ran. Or if his attention was also personal.

“You think someone involved in the kidnapping is trying to keep Della out of the picture?” Perry asked, pulling a first aid kit from the drawer next to the sink.

“At the very least,” Book said, dropping the brick into the paper bag Jack handed him from the pantry and turning to Della. “A patrol car’s on the way. The officers will interview for witnesses. I want to get this bag to the lab, and the sooner I get it there—”

“Go, Book. Do what you need to do,” Della said, grimacing as Perry wrapped her foot in gauze. “Perry can take me to the clinic to get this taken care of.”

“Let me lock up the shop,” Perry said, hurriedly heading that way. “Kachina is scheduled to come in today at two. We’ll just close up until then.”

“Kachina?” Jack asked.

“One of my employees,” Della said, holding her injured foot in her lap as she waited for her niece to return.

Detective Franklin crossed the room, wrapped his arm around her and helped her down. “I’ll have one of the officers stay here until you get back.”

“No need,” Jack said. This he could do. “I’ll stay and get started on prepping to replace the glass.”

“Jack, you don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t,” he said, cutting Della off. “I want to.”

“This way he’ll have a legitimate excuse to snoop,” Perry said, walking back into the kitchen, keys jangling in one hand. She stared at him, daring his denial.

He didn’t give her one. All he said was, “The only thing I’ll be snooping for is the toolbox. Which I remember you telling me was on the pantry floor.”

“Listen, Jack. How about measuring to replace the whole door?” the detective asked after a telling pause. “The hinges and knob are shot. The wood is warped, and the whole thing is barely hanging on the frame.”

“Not a problem.” Jack swept the glass into a dustpan, dumping it into the trash. Perry was right, even while she was wrong. The repairs would give him a reason to hang around, which would give Della—hopefully—incentive to talk. “I’ll pick up what I need when everyone’s back.”

“Jack, I can’t ask you to do that,” Della protested as both Book and Perry helped her to the door.

“You’re not asking me to do anything.” He stored the broom in the closet, pulled out the canister vacuum to give the floor a thorough once-over, raising his hand in an answering farewell to Book’s nod of thanks.

Then he turned his attention to Perry, who had lingered behind. “I won’t leave the kitchen while you’re gone. I won’t answer the phone. I won’t snoop in cabinets. I won’t touch a thing but the door.”

He laughed to himself at the suspicious look with which she left him. But she truly had nothing to worry about. Getting the door replaced before nightfall would take all of his time. Besides, he’d much rather get the goods he needed directly from the women involved.

Especially the wild-haired gypsy.

HAVING SETTLED DELLA INTO her room’s chintz-covered chaise lounge with a pot of tea, a romance novel and a pillow beneath her foot, Perry headed back to the kitchen to check on Jack’s progress.

Three hours after leaving, she and her aunt had arrived home from the clinic—Della with eighteen stitches across the ball of her foot—to find him anxious to hit the hardware store. Giving him directions to the store she used, Della sent Jack on his way with her credit card, then called the manager to tell him to expect him.

Jack’s having arrived in New Orleans driving an SUV meant Perry hadn’t needed to find a truck to borrow, or wait to have the store deliver the new door—not to mention the fact that his being in the right place at the right time meant no exorbitant bill for emergency labor.

Jack Montgomery was turning out to be handy to have around, and she wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Her father had been the only man she’d ever had in her life, and she’d lost him when she was ten. She’d come here to live with her aunt after her parents’ death, and Della had ignored her childish whining and constant pleas to send her to public school.

Instead, her aunt had honored her parents’ wishes, and Perry had spent the next eight years attending an all-girls private academy. After graduation, she’d taken a few courses at Loyola University, but never felt as if she and higher education made a good fit.

Hardly a revelation, considering the instruction she’d received from Della. Growing up under her tutelage was like sitting and learning at a master’s feet—the main drawback being the social isolation and the lack of opportunities to mingle with men.

Stepping from the stairwell into the shop, Perry found herself puttering behind the counter instead of returning to the kitchen—a classic case of avoiding the man she’d left there. At least she was honest in not trying to fool herself that it was anything else.

She hated her obvious attraction to Jack because she wasn’t sure what to do next. The men she had dated while attending university classes—boys, really, weren’t they?—had given her a rather lopsided look at the opposite sex. Dating for them had been about how far they could get her to go.

With her aunt being a veritable French Quarter legend, Perry had earned the status of trophy lay once her name had become known. Even more humiliating had been finding out that because she wasn’t laying anyone, she was ranked number one on the campus virgin watch.

And that was funny because she’d lost her virginity the summer before her freshman year to the only good man she’d ever known. Gary had not seen her as anyone but who she was. He’d loved her. He’d made love to her. He’d taught her about herself, things she could never have learned from her aunt because they were all about her enjoyment of sharing her life—and her body—with a man.

They’d spent a wonderful six months together—the best she’d even known. But then a job offer had taken Gary, who’d been eight years older, to Seattle. They were at different places in their lives, he’d told her. Devastated, she’d risen to the occasion with a surprising maturity, reminding him of her obligation to Della keeping her in New Orleans and wishing him all the best while her heart crumbled.

Allowing herself to dwell on what might have been with Gary, or later, on the bets being made behind her back, had been a waste of time. University had been the same, and so she’d moved on. For ten years now, she’d managed Sugar Blues, a full circle that brought her back to a life spent in the company of women—not such a bad thing, she supposed. Della didn’t seem to have suffered for living her life alone.

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.”

4

JACK 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.”