He glanced at the little gift bag he’d set on the bar. “It’s just a present for someone I’m meeting.”
“You buy gifts for lots of women, Declan?”
“She’s not a woman. I mean, not my woman. I don’t actually have one—it’s just . . . I used to be better at this.”
“Better at what?”
“At hitting on women.”
She laughed—the low, throaty sound of his fantasies.
“Can you take a break? We’ll kick somebody away from a table and you can give me another chance.”
“You’re not doing so bad with the first one. I own the place, so I don’t get breaks.”
“This is your place?”
“That’s right.” She turned as one of the waitresses came to the bar with a tray.
“Wait. Wait.” He reached for her hand again. “I don’t know your name. What’s your name?”
“Angelina,” she said softly. “But they call me Lena, ’cause I ain’t no angel. Cher.” She trailed a finger down his cheek, then stepped away to fill orders.
Declan took a deep, long swallow of beer to wash back the saliva that had pooled in his mouth.
He was trying to work out another approach when Remy slapped him on the back. “We’re going to need us a table, son.”
“View’s better from here.”
Remy followed the direction of Declan’s gaze. “One of the best the city offers. You meet my cousin Lena?”
“Cousin?”
“Fourth cousins, I’m thinking. Might be fifth. Angelina Simone, one of New Orleans’s jewels. And here’s another. Effie Renault. Effie darling, this is my good friend Declan Fitzgerald.”
“Hello, Declan.” She wiggled between him and Remy and kissed Declan’s cheek. “I’m so happy to meet you.”
She had a cloud of blond hair around a pretty, heart-shaped face, and eyes of clear summer blue. Her lips had a deep, Kewpie doll curve and were a rosy pink.
She looked like she should be leading cheers at the local high school.
“You’re too pretty to waste yourself on this guy,” Declan told her. “Why don’t you run away with me instead?”
“When do we leave?”
With a chuckle, Declan slid off the stool and returned her kiss. “Nice job, Remy.”
“Best work I ever did.” Remy pressed his lips to Effie’s hair. “Sit on down there, darling. Place is packed. Bar might be the best we do. You want wine?”
“The house white’ll be fine.”
“Get you a refill there, Declan?”
“I’ll get it. I’m buying.”
“If that’s the case, get my girl here the good chardonnay. I’ll have what you’re having.”
“Look what the cat dragged.” Lena sent Remy a grin. “Hey, Effie. What’s everybody drinking tonight?”
“A glass of chardonnay for the lady. And two more Coronas,” Declan told her. “Then maybe you can call nine-one-one. My heart stops every time I look at you.”
“Your friend’s got himself a smooth way once he gets rolling, Remy.” Lena took a bottle of wine from the cooler.
“Those Harvard girls were putty in his hands.”
“We southern girls are too used to the heat to melt easy.” She poured wine, topped the beers with lime wedges.
“I do know you.” It bounced back in his memory. “I saw you, this morning, playing with your dog. Big black dog, near the pond.”
“Rufus.” It gave her a little jolt to realize he’d watched her. “He’s my grandmama’s dog. That’s her house back the bayou. I go out sometimes and stay with her if she’s feeling poorly. Or just lonely.”
“Come by the Hall next time you’re out. I’ll give you the tour.”
“Just might. I’ve never been inside.” She set a fresh bowl of pretzels on the bar. “Y’all want something from the kitchen?”
“We’ll think about that,” Remy said.
“Just let us know.” She swung around and through the back door.
“You gonna want to mop that drool off your chin, Dec.” Remy squeezed Declan’s shoulder. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t tease him, Remy. A man doesn’t get a little worked up around Lena, he’s got some essential parts missing.”
“You definitely should run away with me,” Declan decided. “But meanwhile. Best wishes.” He nudged the gift bag in front of her.
“You bought me a present? Aren’t you the sweetest thing!” She tore into it with an enthusiasm that made Declan grin. And when she held up the frog, she stopped, stared. Then threw back her head and let out a hooting laugh. “It looks like Remy. Look here, honey, he’s got your smile.”
“I don’t see it.”
“I do. Dec did.” She swiveled on the stool and beamed up into Declan’s face. “I like you. I’m so glad I like you. I love this moron here so much I can hardly stand it, so I’d’ve pretended I liked you even if I didn’t. But I don’t have to pretend.”
“Oh now, don’t start watering up, Effie.” Remy dug out a handkerchief as she sniffled. “She does that when she’s happy. Night I asked her to marry me, she cried so much it took her ten minutes to say yes.”
He pulled her off the stool. “Come on, chère, you dance with me till you dry up again.”
Declan got back on the stool, picked up his beer and watched them circle the floor.
“They look good together,” Lena commented from behind him.
“Yeah. Yeah, they do. Interested in seeing how we look together?”
“You are persistent.” She let out a breath. “What kind of car you going to buy me?”
“Car?”
“You offered to buy me a drink, coffee, a car or a dog. I can buy my own drinks, and I like my own coffee. I got a dog, more or less. A car, too. But I don’t see why I shouldn’t have two cars. What car are you buying me?”
“Your choice.”
“I’ll let you know,” she replied, then moved down the bar once more.
4
He worked solidly for three days. There was little, in Declan’s opinion, more satisfying than tearing something apart. Even putting it back together again didn’t reach into the gut with that same primal zing.
He gutted the kitchen, ripping out the center island, the counters and cabinets. He steamed off wallpaper and yanked up linoleum.
He was left with a shell of plaster and wood, and endless possibilities.
In the evenings he nursed his blisters and strained muscles, and pored through design books.
Every morning, before he started the day, he took his first cup of coffee out on the gallery and hoped for a glimpse of Lena and the big black dog she’d called Rufus.
He contacted workmen and craftsmen, ordered materials, and in a frenzy of enthusiasm, bought a full-sized pickup truck straight off the lot.
The first night he was able to build a fire in the down-river parlor, he toasted the occasion, and himself, with a solitary glass of Merlot.
There’d been no more sleepwalking, but there had been dreams. He could remember only snatches of them upon waking. Music—often the tune had seemed to be lodged in his brain like a tumor. Or raised voices.
Once he’d dreamed of sex, of soft sighs in the dark, of the lazy glide of flesh over flesh, and the need rising up like a warm wave.
He’d woken with his muscles quivering and the scent of lilies just fading from his senses.
Since dreaming about sex seemed to be the best he could manage, he put his energies into the work.
When he did take a break, it was to pay a call, and he went armed with a bouquet of white daisies and a rawhide bone.
The bayou house was a single-story cypress, shotgun style. Tobacco-colored water snaked around it on three sides. A small white boat swayed gently at a sagging dock.
Trees hemmed it in where the water didn’t. The cypress and live oak and pecan. From the limbs hung clear bottles half-filled with water. And nestled into the gnarled roots of a live oak stood a painted statue o
f the Blessed Virgin.
There were purple pansies at her feet.
A little porch faced the dirt drive, and there were more potted flowers on it along with a rocking chair. The shutters were painted a mossy green. The screen door was patched in two places, and through the checkerboard net came the strong, bluesy voice of Ethel Waters.
He heard the deep, warning barks of the dog. Still, Declan wasn’t prepared for the size and speed as Rufus burst out of the door and charged.
“Oh, Jesus,” was all he managed. He had an instant to wonder if he should dive through the window of the pickup or freeze when the black mass the size of a pony skidded to a halt at his feet.
Rufus punctuated those ear-splitting barks with rumbling growls, liquid snarls and a very impressive show of teeth. Since he doubted he could beat the dog off with a bunch of daisies, Declan opted for the friendly approach.
“Hey, really, really big Rufus. How’s it going?”
Rufus sniffed at his boots, up his leg and dead into the crotch.
“Oh man, let’s not get that personal right off.” Thinking of those teeth, Declan decided he’d rather risk his hand than his dick, and reached out slowly to give the massive head a little shove and pat.
Rufus looked up with a pair of sparkling brown eyes, and in one fast, fluid move, reared up on his hind legs and planted his enormous paws on Declan’s shoulders.
He swiped a tongue about the size of the Mississippi over Declan’s face. Braced against the side of the truck, Declan hoped the long, sloppy licks were a greeting and not some sort of tenderizing.
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“Get on down now, Rufus.”
At the mild order from the front doorway, the dog dropped down, sat, thumped his tail.
The woman standing on the porch was younger than Declan had expected. She couldn’t have been far into her sixties. She had the same small build as her granddaughter, the same sharp planes to her face. Her hair was black, liberally streaked with white, and worn in a mass of curls.
She wore a cotton dress that hit her mid-calf with a baggy red sweater over it. Stout brown boots covered her feet with thick red socks drooping over them. He heard the jangle of her bracelets as she fisted her hands on her narrow hips.
“He liked the smell of you, and the sound of you, so he gave you a welcome kiss.”
“If he didn’t like me?”
She smiled, a quick flash that deepened the lines time had etched on her face. “What you think?”
“I think I’m glad I smell friendly. I’m Declan Fitzgerald, Mrs. Simone. I bought Manet Hall.”
“I know who you are. Come on inside and sit for a spell.” She stepped back, opened the rickety screen door.
With the dog plodding along beside him, Declan walked to the porch. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Simone.”
She studied him, a frank and cagey stare out of dark eyes. “You sure are a pretty one, aren’t you?”
“Thanks.” He held out the flowers. “You, too.”
She took the flowers, pursed her lips. “You come courting me, Declan Fitzgerald?”
“Can you cook?”
She laughed, a thick foggy sound, and he fell a little in love. “I got some fresh corn bread, so you can see for yourself.”
She led the way in, down the wire-straight center hall. He caught glimpses of the parlor, of bedrooms—one with an iron crucifix over a simple iron bed—a sewing room, that all managed to be cozily cluttered and pin-neat.
He smelled furniture polish and lavender, then a few steps from the kitchen, caught the country scent of baking.
“Ma’am? I’m thirty-one, financially solvent, and I got a clean bill of health my last physical. I don’t smoke, I usually drink in moderation, and I’m reasonably neat. If you marry me, I’ll treat you like a queen.”
She chuckled and shook her head, then waved to the kitchen table. “Sit yourself down there and stretch those long legs under the table so they don’t trip me up. And since you’re sparking me, you can call me Miss Odette.”
She uncovered a dish on the counter, got plates out of a cupboard. While she cut squares of corn bread, Declan looked out her kitchen door.
The bayou spread, a dream of dark water and cypress knees with the shadowy reflection of trees shimmering on the surface. He saw a bird with bright red wings spear through the air and vanish.
“Wow. How do you get anything done when you could just sit here and look all day?”
“It’s a good spot.” She took a pitcher of dark tea from an old refrigerator that was barely taller than she was. “My family’s been here more’n a hundred-fifty years. My grandpapa, he had him a good still out back that stand of oaks. Revenuers never did find it.”
She set the glass, the plate in front of him. “Manger. Eat. What your grandpapa do?”
“He was a lawyer. Actually, both of them were.”
“Dead now, are they?”
“Retired.”
“You, too, huh?” She got out a fat, pale blue bottle as he took the first bite of corn bread.
“Sort of, from the law anyway. This is wonderful, Miss Odette.”
“I got a hand with baking. I like daisies,” she added as she put them in the bottle she’d filled with water. “They got a cheerful face. You gonna give Rufus that bone you brought along, or make him beg for it?”
As Rufus was currently sitting at his feet with one weighty paw on his thigh, Declan decided he’d begged enough. He pulled the bone out of its bag. The dog took it with a surprisingly delicate bite, wagged his tail from side to side twice, like a whip, then plopped down and began to gnaw.
Odette put the flowers in the center of the table, then sat in the chair next to Declan’s. “What’re you going to do with that big old place, Declan Fitzgerald?”
“All kinds of things. Put it back the way it used to be, as much as I can.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Live there.”
She broke off a corner of her corn bread. She’d already decided she liked the look of him—the untidy hair, the stone-gray eyes in a lean face. And the sound of him—Yankee, but not prim. And his manners were polished but natural and friendly.
Now she wanted to see what he was made of.
“Why?”
“I don’t know that, either, except I’ve wanted to since the first time I saw it.”
“And how’s the Hall feel about you?”
“I don’t think it’s made up its mind. Have you ever been inside?”
“Hmm.” She nodded. “Been some time ago. Lotta house for one young man. You got you a girl back up there in Boston?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Handsome boy like you, past thirty. Not gay, are you?”
“No, ma’am.” He grinned as he lifted his glass of tea. “I like girls. Just haven’t found the right fit yet.”