Goes down easy(9)

“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 bathroom. 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.