.
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