by Karen Anders
OKAY, TALLY THOUGHT. Was her imagination playing tricks on her or did she just hear someone call her name? It was a man’s voice, a voice she didn’t recognize.
Tally had only lived in Court du Chaud for a year, but in all that time, she’d neither seen nor heard Captain Dampier’s ghost. Now, in the span of a week, she’d seen him twice and, right now, she was relatively certain that he had been calling her name.
What could have changed the status quo to make him try to contact her? She searched around in the gloom for a few minutes. When nothing happened, she started to feel stupid. She turned and continued up the stairs. Pretty soon people were going to call her eccentric if she were to breathe a word about the ghost or the treasure.
Was she destined to be the court’s crackpot?
Chloe had all but said everyone thought her uncle was crazy, but she knew that Chloe believed in the ghost. It was the treasure everyone thought was a bunch of bunk.
Was she playing into the lure of the treasure to obtain what she’d always wanted? Something to call her own, stability she’d lacked in her childhood? She could easily blame her mother for these feelings.
Poor Linda had always been searching for an easy out and along the way had left a trail of men and tears. Her mother had thrown obstacles in the way of her own happiness and robbed her daughters of the same in her vain search for a quick and easy payoff for some get-rich-quick scheme.
Tally wasn’t much interested in following in her mother’s footsteps when it came to love or money. Surely, she was different. She intended to bring her plans to fruition and she was certain that she was on the right track. She still had a week to find Mark and the treasure map.
Thinking about finding Mark brought her inevitably back to Christien. Fully male, full of himself and so irresistible. She promised herself she would not get caught up in emotions and certainly not fall in love with the sexy rogue, but enjoying his body and his outrageous behavior was something she could quite happily do. Although, she did have to admit he’d been so sweet to her this afternoon. She couldn’t help a small bit of guilt as it slipped in like an unwanted guest.
She hoped Mark wasn’t in any danger. She did care about him.
But she had to find that map.
She had every right.
After all, a ghost wanted her to have it.
And have it she would.
She looked back to the area where she’d seen the captain. “I will succeed,” she said softly, rubbing at the goose bumps that rose along her arms.
She dressed for bed, feeling as if unseen eyes were watching her. She knew she was being silly, but the deep, dark night seemed to press in on her.
She longed suddenly for strong arms around her and a warm, living man telling her in a beautifully accented voice there were no such things as ghosts. Her body ached for touch and closeness, for the simple sound of a man’s easy breathing.
She got into bed and after a few minutes of lying in the inky darkness, she got up and turned on the bathroom light, pulling the door closed until it was a bright sliver in the darkness. Getting back into bed, she closed her eyes, the warm glow of the light comforting.
“THROW ME THE BEADS. Me! Here I am! Throw them to me!” Tally said as she reached out with her hands, but the gaily painted beads slipped through her fingers like brightly colored lights.
She tried to bend down to scoop them from the pavement, but something held on to her, pulling her back, stifling her hope, bringing with it a despair that only made her tug harder. And Captain Dampier’s float moved by, his handsome face slowly replaced by that of a malevolent clown, his cruel expression telling her that, like him, she’d never get what she so richly deserved.
Her alarm clock went off, the lively strains of Mary Chapin Carpenter singing about going to the Twist and Shout for a hurricane party and dancing to a Cajun beat.
Tally sang the refrain, letting the ugly images of her dream fade.
In the bathroom, she took care of her morning ablutions. Back in the bedroom, she pulled open a drawer to get dressed for the day. Heavy knocking at her front door made her wonder who could be here first thing in the morning. She grabbed her robe and went downstairs.
Christien Castille and his brother Jack stood there looking as much alike as she and Bree. Both men were wonderful to see. But more than their physical attributes captured her attention. There were edges to Christien that he made no effort to hide, and there were auras of strength and power surrounding them, as if in any crisis these men could be counted on to take control.
They hadn’t gained that presence by years in law enforcement, Tally knew that instinctively. Something terrible had shaped these men, had left indelible marks on their psyches.
“Hello Christien, Jack. You two are easy to look at first thing in the morning, but why am I looking at you?”
“We’ve come to help you take care of your damaged cypress floor.”
“In through here?” Jack asked, grasping two pieces of cypress wood in his hand. Christien nodded and Christien’s brother—Chloe’s boyfriend—walked into her house.
She grabbed Christien by his shirt front, drawing him down close to her face. “How long did it take you to find those pieces? I’ve been looking since the floor got damaged.”
He grinned and Tally felt as if her insides turned to pure liquid.
“Not long. I have a friend who was renovating. I asked and he said yes.”
“I didn’t expect this kind of help.”
“Help is something you give, not something you ask for.” He looked at her face like a man who was very hungry, his dark eyes warm and filled with the devil’s own mischief. “Besides, I suspect the shock waves from that kiss we shared caused it to fall. Makes me liable for some of the damages.”
“Christien, that’s absurd—”
He put his fingers over her mouth, the heat effectively scorching her body and silencing her.
“Sounded so good to me when I thought it up this morning, I roused my grumpy brother out of bed. Got him away from his sexy girlfriend.”
“All to help me, sugar? How come I’m suspicious?”
“Of me?” he said, his eyes gleaming with amusement.
“Fess up why you’re really here.”
“Ah, Tally, you still don’t know.” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I’m hot for you.”
“I’m hot for you, too.”
He laughed and grabbed her around the waist and brought her hard against him.
This time it was her turn to lean forward. She captured his earlobe and bit down gently, smiling when he gasped. “Sugar, I’m a sure thing.”
“You do feel pretty solid to me.”
At the sound of Jack’s raised voice and a stream of Cajun, Christien grimaced.
“He said something bad?” Tally said.
“Mais yeah.”
Jack appeared at the entrance to the foyer. “Christien, get over here and give me a hand. You’re the one who got me out of bed.”
“See, told you. Grumpy.”
Jack looked at Tally. “He promised me breakfast, too.”
Christien slipped past her, but not before she slapped him on his gorgeous butt. “Then you’ll get it.”
Jack nodded and turned to go. Tally said, “Jack.” He faced her. “Thanks.”
They spent a couple of hours pulling up the damaged board and replacing it. Tally watched them work companionably smiling at how close they were, how well they worked together.
When Christien caught her watching him, he flashed her a grin. Overwhelmed by his generosity her heart turned over in her chest. Who was this man? Surely not the guy she’d thought him to be. So far she had been way off base.
Tally was speechless. “You didn’t have to do this,” she said after she’d fed them both and Jack had left.
“It would have cost you a bundle to get a guy in here to do it. Are you afraid the present comes with strings attached?”
“No. I thought we’
d come to an agreement on that. I don’t like to owe anyone.”
“When it’s a present, owing doesn’t fit into the equation.”
This man was irresistible when it came to just about everything. What could it hurt if she accepted a small gift from him? “Okay. Thanks.”
He nodded. “See. Was that so hard?”
“No,” she laughed in spite of herself. “It wasn’t.” After a moment, she said, “I called Chloe and told her I’d be late. I should get going.”
He nodded again. The gleam in his dark eyes enticed her. He moved closer. “Christien, I have to get to work.”
“I know. Just one little kiss?” That clever, sexy mouth curled up at the corners.
“With you nothing is little.”
The smile deepening, the magnetism pulling harder, he leaned a little closer. “Ain’t that the truth,” he murmured. “Absolutely. Guar-un-teed.”
Tally gave up her hold on her sense of humor and chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re impossible.”
“Oh, no,” he teased, slipping his arms around her once again. “I’m the easy in The Big Easy.”
The innuendo was unmistakable and outrageous. It hit Tally on two levels—one that turned her internal temperature up a notch and one that made her laugh out loud. Christien laughed with her, then their gazes caught, and the two levels of invisible contact met, meshed, pushed together, rising into another plane entirely.
Their laughter drifted away on the sultry air and awareness thickened around them. Tally felt her heart thump a little harder as she watched the rogue’s mask fall away from Christien’s face. He looked intense, but it was a softer look than she had seen there before, and when he smiled, it was a softer smile, a smile that made her breath catch in her throat.
“I like your laugh, chère,” he said, lifting a hand to touch her hair. His fingers slid down her cheek, grazed the corner of her mouth and cupped her chin. Slowly, he tilted her face up as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Excitement burst through Tally—those fireworks again. Her lips softened beneath his and his arms felt so good when they slipped around her. It was true. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. Yet, she couldn’t have found a better candidate for some fun between the sheets. Christien Castille was wild and irreverent and unpredictable. The fire that sparked to life as he tightened his hold on her and eased his tongue into her mouth defied all her arguments.
He broke the kiss to stare into her face. “Think Chloe would miss you for another half hour?”
“I think she’s pretty smart, Christien. She’ll notice.”
“But the question that begs to be asked is will you care?”
“Are you saying I’ll be so besotted with you that I’m willing to lose more money? I’m not so sure you’re worth it.”
With one-hundred-percent-male cockiness, Christien picked up the silky belt to her robe and let it run through his fingers. “Tally, I’m more than worth it. Let me prove it to you.”
He deftly untied her robe before she could utter another word.
“I, uh—” The look in his eye and the way the silk slid through his fingers stripped her of every witty comeback she could think of. The very idea of both silk and those rough and rugged hands of his caressing her skin at the same time left her speechless. Not to mention a bit breathless.
He pushed the robe off her shoulders and it floated down to pool like liquid passion. “You look real good in red, Tally, but I’d bet you’d look even better in nothing, chère,” he breathed, eyes full of mischief…and a few other things.
Things that had her clearing her throat, suddenly desperate for a sip of water. Or him. “I, uh—”
“You know, you’ll need to work on that speech problem you seem to be having.” He stroked her hair, her face. “It won’t be as much fun taking advantage of you if you don’t fight back.”
“You don’t play fair, Christien,” she said, regaining her footing. Something about his gleaming eyes stirred her tongue…and other body parts.
“Can’t afford to. I need the upper hand with you,” he said, quite seriously.
“Oh, Christien, you’ll need to use both hands with me.”
His grin went blistering hot. “Ah, there’s that sharp tongue of yours. I want it now.”
Her pulse spiked. “Really?”
He pressed closer. “Absolutely.”
“Too impatient to wait for a formal invitation?”
“I don’t believe in proper etiquette.”
“Well, isn’t that a nice little coincidence?” she said, “Neither do I.”
He smoothed his hands up her torso, shifting the silk of her nightgown along her ribs, sliding the fabric over her tingling nipples.
He bent over and took one into his mouth.
She jerked at the feel of him, at the wet heat next to her skin. “Christien,” she whispered and then moaned as he slowly moved to her other nipple.
“I think I’m going to get hard every time I look at red silk.”
She stared down at him, then let her eyes drift shut and her head tip back as he went back to tasting raw silk…and naked Tally.
Christien moaned when the phone rang. “I bet that’s Chloe,” Tally murmured.
“Or Mark?”
She quickly sobered at the thought of her brother still missing and The Blue Note going on the block very soon.
She extricated herself from Christien’s embrace and reached for the phone.
Feeling a boatload of regret at the timing of the call, she said, “Hello.”
Static crackled in her ear.
5
IT WASN’T MARK.
Later Christien wondered, as he approached his apartment, whether it was possible to die from boredom. Mostly he’d been doing a number of background checks for a business client. Talking to his former colleague Jim Carter and getting information on Sarah Richardson’s mother’s killer was the only interesting part of his day.
He couldn’t seem to make a difference when he’d been a cop and it still irked him that he’d left the department the way he had, but he wasn’t sorry for decking the guy in the courtroom.
He did regret quitting, but it had been his decision not to return to the force. Jack had said he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, but Christien had felt he could do more good if he became a P.I.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened. He spent most of his time doing research and taking on divorce cases. Finding Mark was as close to police work as he could get.
Now, all Christien wanted was to strip off his clothes, take a shower and then find Tally. He’d rather spend a whole lot of hours trying to get Tally Addison out of her clothes and into his bed, but her brother was missing and that had to take precedence.
Christien had used some of his day to return to Mark’s apartment to see if he could get any kind of clue about where the man might be. He’d discovered a flyer for a band called the Emoticons who were scheduled to play at a club called the Spirit of Fluxus. The club was named after a style of music called Fluxus. The Fluxus movement advocated a shift from aesthetics to ethics in artistic values. It’d be as good as anyplace to start their search for Mark’s whereabouts.
Glancing at his watch, he realized that Tally was going to be at his apartment in half an hour.
As he finished his short, hot shower, a knock sounded at the door and he hastily wrapped a towel around his waist.
He sucked in a breath at the sight of Tally dressed in a stretchy lace skirt, lined in red Lycra that hugged her curves, a black halter and a short red leather jacket.
“You’ll cause quite a stir in that outfit,” she said as she strolled into the apartment with a sexy roll of her hips, her short black boot heels clicking against his old wood floor.
“Nah, I’m not wearing this, too drafty.”
She smiled, her delectable red-painted mouth looking very kissable.
She put her hand up. “Oh, no. Get that look off your face. We have to stay focused on findi
ng my brother.”
He released a harsh exhale. “Am I that transparent?”
“You get this I’m-going-to-ravish-you look in your eye. I have to tell you, it’s very effective.”
It was his turn to smile as he went into his bedroom, leaving the door ajar.
Dropping the towel and grabbing white briefs and a pair of black jeans out of the chest of drawers, he dressed his lower half.
Threading a black belt through the loops of his jeans, he left the bedroom and headed to the adjacent bathroom to dry his hair. Tally had been looking at his wall of family pictures. She moved across the room and sat on his couch.
Her eyes tracked his progress. They caressed his chest, flowing down his body to his groin. Taking in her hungry gaze, he vowed that he would have her beneath him before this night was through, but searching for her brother came first.
He shot her a wicked grin, one she responded to by rolling her eyes and releasing a quick breath.
“You’re put together very nicely, Mr. Castille, but you’re not the sum of your gorgeous parts.” Her gaze deepened, meeting his in a head-on collision. “No matter how much you might want me to think so.”
A little frisson of surprise sizzled up his spine. Did he want this woman to see what was beneath the cocky grin and the devil-may-care attitude he carried around like a cloak to mask the dedicated core inside himself? Only his family really knew who he was. Had he exposed himself to her so she saw something more? She was a complicated woman; a woman who needed her independence, yet at times seemed so vulnerable it hurt his heart. He found that so much more of a turn-on than her physical features. He had no snappy comeback, so he took the coward’s way out and ducked into the bathroom.
Hair dried and pulled back, Christien went into the bedroom to slip a green long-sleeved henley over his head. He then donned socks and a pair of boots.
“Before we go, let me give you an update.” He picked up and opened a notebook, revealing his attempt to keep all his cases organized. He flipped to a tabbed section marked Tally, which contained pages of notes. “I checked to see if your brother booked any international or domestic flights.”