Goes down easy: Roped into romance Page 5

  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 bath
room. 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.”

  He stopped breathing, waiting, certain that any moment she’d drop her hand. She’d back away. She’d give him a hard shove toward the door and out of her life. But she didn’t do any of the above.

  Instead, she stepped closer, stroked her fingers close to his ear and said, “Listen.”

  He couldn’t hear a thing but his own labored breathing and the rolling-thunder beat of his heart. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Are you sure?” This time she whispered, ran her fingertips over the shell of his ear. “Be very quiet. Close your eyes.”

  He did both. He stood still. He was aware of nothing but Perry in the kitchen.

  Her fingers were cool, her wrist warm where it grazed his cheek. Her hand smelled like lemony dish soap, but he caught a hint of her spicy scent beneath.

  “Do you hear her now, Jack? Do you hear her singing? Pining for the lover who done her wrong?”

  Ah. Her. The ghost. He opened his eyes, saw nothing but Perry, heard only her whisper’s echo. “I hear an occasional car on the street outside. I hear your bracelets. I hear both of us having trouble breathing.”

  Her hand drifted down his neck to his shoulder. “I think you’re imagining things.”

  “And you’re not?”

  She shook her head, squeezed his biceps, his forearm, finally his fingers as she laced them through hers. “C’mon. I’ll prove it to you.”

  He didn’t put up any fight at all as she tugged him out of the kitchen and through the beaded curtain. The streetlight from the corner shone through the store’s front windows, glittering off the jewels and crystals scattered around the room.

  It was an eerie sight, a magical and otherworldly sensation, surrounded as they were by darkness while vibrant colors flashed and sparked with no reason or rhyme.

  Perry had stopped when he’d stopped. She stood now, watching him take in the fairy tale of colors and shapes, squeezing his hand when he shook his head.

  “See what happens when you open your mind, Jack? Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Her voice was beautiful, and he couldn’t help but turn toward her when she spoke. The room’s kaleidoscope of colors swirled in her eyes, but that didn’t stop him from bursting her bubble. “It’s refracted light, Perry. Not bluebirds flying over a rainbow.”

  She smacked his shoulder teasingly with her free hand, leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t you get tired of digging through the barrel for the bad apple?”

  He brought her flush to his body. “What I get tired of is people not buying into the truth because they don’t like what they see.”

  And the truth right now was that the threat to Della wasn’t the threat on either of their minds.

  He saw the mirror of his thoughts in Perry’s eyes, the absolute honesty of this uneasy attraction weighing heavy between them.

  Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her eyes, already large and dark, drank him in. She wet her lips, drawing his gaze to her mouth.

  “Jack?”

  “Perry?”

  “Do you hear it now?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The truth.”

  “Is that what you call it?” he asked, hearing nothing but the rush of blood to his head.

  She leaned in, brushed her lips to his. “I can hear it. Doesn’t that mean that it’s true?”

  He slid their joined hands to the small of her back and pressed her body closer. She was soft and pliable, molding herself to him, fitting him like his favorite pair of worn jeans.

  “Yeah, sure.” He breathed the words against her mouth, not even certain what it was either one of them was saying. He was too full of feeling to think. “It’s the truth.”

  She tightened her fingers laced with his, placed her other hand on his chest where his heart was working on a chain gang. “Well, good. There may be hope for you after all, now that you’ve come around to my way of thinking.”

  He had? When had that happened? he wondered, threading his fingers into her hair. “How so?”

  Her hand rose higher, her fingertips pressing into the tendons of his neck, her lips nipping at the corner of his. “I can tell you. Or you can kiss me.”

  As if that was even a choice.

  He canted his head to the side where she waited and covered her mouth with his. It was a soft kiss, lips teasing and rubbing. A light nuzzling pressure. Her optimism working to loosen his pessimism while all he cared about was her taste.

  She tasted good. She tasted sweet. When he nudged her lips with his tongue, she opened to let him have her. And then she kissed him back, pulling her hand from his and lacing her fingers at his nape.

  She held him there tightly, sliding her tongue into his mouth to curl around his, massaging his neck with her thumbs, moving into his body…

  NO ONE WOULD KNOW if she kissed him.

  No one would need find out. If she slipped up behind him while he sat there tuning his sax and planted her lips on his neck. Just to let him know she was around. Just to make sure he understood how often he played in her mind.

  She’d been waiting, wanting a quiet moment, a private moment. The sort that came only when the club had closed down for the night, when the crowd had come and long gone. When everyone else in the band had packed it in, and Blind Billy had nothing more on his mind than wiping down the bar and counting up the night’s take.

  Her skirt swished against the velvet curtain as she stepped back onto the stage. The lights were out. Drake didn’t need them for what he was doing, making sure his instrument was in fine working order, a necessity after the way he’d treated his baby tonight. She could still feel that mournful wail raising goose bumps all over her skin.

  His head was down when she reached him, bent forward as he fondled the instrument. She could smell him. The smoke and the sweat, the bite of gin. The shiver that hit her took a whole lot of effort to suppress. She leaned down, blew against the shell of his ear, let her lips linger there at the base of his skull for no more than the length of a breath.

  He straightened slowly and turned, and then gave her the smoky smile she’d wanted to feel forever. And she swore her heart forgot how to beat when he s
aid, “Sweet Sugar Babin. Kissin’ on me like that. What in the world would your husband say?”

  5

  JACK GROWLED, and it wasn’t a very nice sound. It was the sound of his impatience, his frustration, his inability to be polite and still tell her to take off her clothes.

  The kiss that had started out as a simple connection no longer was. It was about complications and how far they were going to go.

  He made his first effort at finding out by bunching the material of her skirt into his fist at her hip. But she was wearing a hell of a lot of fabric and his hand was only so big. He wasn’t getting anywhere and hated to stop.

  Perry put him out of his misery with a sound that was half chuckle and half sigh before wiggling against him until he dropped her skirt. When he started to remind her that he had come around to her way of thinking after all, she pressed a finger to his lips and shushed him.

  “This is the best part.”

  Or so he’d been on his way to find out before her skirt got in the way. She turned around then, tucked her head underneath his chin and snuggled her back to his front. And because it seemed like what he was meant to do, he wrapped his arms around her waist and held her.

  It was seconds later when he was settling in to test the waters, when his focus along with his blood had begun the slow return trip to his head, when he realized exactly how perfectly her body fit his that he heard it. The singing. The low smoky voice lamenting love gone wrong.

  That was her reason for bringing him here. It wasn’t about showing him the shop at night or wanting to jump his bones. A trick, that’s what it was. Another lame attempt to convince him the stairwell was haunted. To get him to…come around to her way of thinking.

  Hell on freakin’ wheels. A part of him raged at the deception. She could have brought him out here and told him to listen without the hot and heavy act. Thing was, he would swear on the closest voodoo priest that she hadn’t been acting.

  But then all his pondering over the ins and outs came to a screeching halt. Because he wasn’t just hearing the ghost. He was seeing her.