by Nora Roberts
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 though
t 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 Chihuly. 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—” 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 b
y?”
“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.
12
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.