A Haunting Desire Read online

  “And?”

  “And I met him in the cemetery.” No need to tell Hattie she’d met him a second time at the police station.

  “I never heard of him. Is he local?”

  “No. He’s a Yankee, here on business.”

  The housekeeper snorted again.

  “What?” Trula snapped.

  Hattie scowled and shook her head. “Figures.”

  “What?”

  “This is the first time you’ve ever gussied up for a man. It figures he’s one who won’t be hanging round for long.”

  “Oh?”

  “You won’t let anybody near you except for a stranger who’s fixin’ to leave.”

  Hattie was wrong. She had no intention of letting Zeke Barnes anywhere near her. “You worry too much, Hattie.”

  The older woman’s scowling face softened, or maybe it was just a trick of the light. No matter. With a grudging shift of her weight and a gentle tsk, the housekeeper slid the pocket doors open and allowed the flock of chattering girls to return. “You behave yourself, chére, you hear?”

  Chére. Hattie only called her that when she was worried. Hattie shouldn’t worry, Trula had everything under control.

  …

  A jazz band chased notes up and down the scale and liquor flowed freely. Beautiful girls giggled at bawdy jokes and indecent suggestions. Those same girls lit cigars and pretended enjoyment when male hands wandered. They leaned forward to display the tops of their creamy breasts and smiled as if they were living a dream.

  The windows stood open to allow a breeze, and the night’s sounds floated in from the outside. Newsboys hawked the latest paper or copies of the Blue Book. The cicadas droned and a drunk sang the chorus of a popular tune.

  As the evening wore on, the light breeze lost its battle with the cigar smoke and whiskey fumes. Any fresh air that wafted into the parlors was quickly corrupted.

  Trula knew the moment he arrived. There was a frisson in the air, a tingle of possibility. He looked better than anyone had a right to. His evening clothes fit him perfectly, showing off the lean length of his legs and the width of his shoulders. He reminded her of a trip to Florence. She’d stood in front of Michelangelo’s David, the perfect man sculpted in marble, and her pulse had quickened. A perfect man in flesh and blood was a hundred times more compelling. Not that her attraction made a whit of difference. There could be no possibility of passion with the handsome Yankee. The risks were too great.

  Jerome Payne, a novelist set on drowning his talent in a river of bourbon, demanded her attention. His publisher imposed cruel deadlines, didn’t understand the creative temperament, and believed he was a dancing monkey who could perform on demand. Trula made sympathetic noises and listened for Zeke’s voice.

  She heard Hattie greet him and then his answering laughter.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Payne. I believe Hattie needs me,” she murmured. The writer’s eyes were already so blurred with liquor he probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone.

  Trula’s feet carried her toward Zeke Barnes. Her mouth was as dry as cotton. Was her plan fatally flawed? With each step, she reminded herself to be cool, aloof, superior. How? The man was a living, breathing paean to male perfection. She stood in front of him and muttered, “Mr. Barnes, welcome.”

  Hattie’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Trula silently cursed. The housekeeper’s surprised expression told her better than words that she’d missed the mark. She should have waited for him to come to her. Too late now.

  Zeke Barnes bent over her hand as if she were a lady. Then he ruined it. His lips lingered too long against her skin, their touch too intimate. She didn’t need reminding that he thought her a whore. She suppressed a sigh. His assumption she’d happily climb into his bed or welcome him into hers was to be expected. Scads of men made similar errors in judgment. The lust flickering in his eyes was a welcome reminder that he was no different from any of the other men who circled her and her girls, wolves seeking certain prey.

  Trula drew the tip of her finger across the top of her breast and the flicker of lust in his eyes burst into flames. Just as expected. It was too easy. He was too easy. Nothing special. She need only repeat that a few thousand times and she’d be convinced. “What did you come for, Mr. Barnes?”

  Hattie’s jaw snapped closed with an audible click.

  Diddy passed through the foyer on his way from one parlor to the other. The boy practically staggered beneath the weight of a full tray of Champagne glasses. Trula helped herself to a flute of the sparkling wine. She needed something wet to assuage the sudden dryness in her throat. She sipped. “I assumed you’d be at Mahogany Hall catching a killer.”

  “I spent my afternoon there.” His eyes swept over her. “Tonight, I want to spend with you.”

  Her heart stuttered out of rhythm. Nothing special. Nothing special.

  The housekeeper harrumphed.

  “Hattie, would you please check the bars and make sure they’re fully stocked?”

  “Did that an hour ago,” Hattie muttered.

  “That was before Mr. Payne set himself the task of drinking us clean out of bourbon.”

  Hattie treated her to a second harrumph and a cautionary scowl before disappearing into the parlor to do what she’d asked.

  Trula’s stomach fluttered. She studied the delicate glass in her hand, watched the golden bubbles rise to the surface and pop. She raised her eyes to his. Nothing special. Just another man. It was amazing the way she could lie to herself. “May I introduce you to one of my girls?”

  He lifted an ironic eyebrow. “I just said I want to spend the evening with you.”

  “Quite impossible, Mr. Barnes.” She raised her glass and took a sip.

  He fixed his gaze on her lips.

  And to think she’d been certain his gaze would never wander above her décolletage. It would be easier to reject him if he focused only on her breasts.

  “Why is that impossible?”

  “My job is to run the house, not service customers.”

  “And I’m a customer?”

  She widened her eyes and tilted her chin to the side. “Aren’t you? Why else would you be here? This is a whorehouse.”

  “I hoped you might consider me a friend.” The ghost of a grin touched his mouth.

  “A friend, Mr. Barnes?”

  “I’d like to be your friend, Miss Boudreaux.”

  He didn’t mean that. For men, friendship with women meant limbs tangled together, twined in white linen sheets. Zeke Barnes was no different.

  Nothing special.

  Who was she deceiving? Not herself. He was special and this was a mistake. Her visceral reactions to him in the cemetery and the police station should have served as warnings. The man was dangerous. And not just because he looked stronger and more capable than any man who’d ever darkened her door. No. It was more than his body. He teased and charmed and…damn him, he intrigued her. She stiffened her shoulders. “As I said, I’m not available.”

  “You won’t be my friend?” His lips quirked.

  “I have plenty of friends.” She lied.

  His gaze travelled from her face to her breasts to her hips and back. Heat bloomed on her skin.

  Damn him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. There are bars in both parlors. Please help yourself to a drink…and entertainment.”

  “I believe you’ve just put me in my place.” He sounded half-amused.

  “I believe you had it coming.”

  He raised an eyebrow, bowed, then strolled into the parlor.

  Gilcie lost no time in sidling toward him, her eyes alight with interest. Trula set her champagne glass down. The fizz had gone out of her evening. She’d made a mistake. Two, really. Obviously she should never have allowed him entrance to the house. Her second error was allowing him to stay. Every single one of the girls would try to seduce him. One would succeed.

  An hour later, Trula wished fervently she’d rectified at least one of her mistakes.
While she chatted with customers, he flirted outrageously with May and Ginger and Adele and Babette. He bent over their hands, kissing them as if he were meeting European royalty. He leaned down so the girls could whisper in his ear. They breathed in his enticing scent. She hoped they choked on it. Something foreign and angry burned through her when Adele brushed the untamable lock of hair off his forehead.

  His laugh, deep and smoky, swirled through Trula’s stomach.

  “I travel, Miss Adele. I don’t have a home.” For a half-second, the emptiness of such a life sounded in his voice. Trula shook her head—there was no way she heard such a thing from half a room away. She’d imagined the gut-wrenching loneliness in his tone.

  Trula didn’t hear Adele’s murmured question. Only Zeke’s answer. “Everywhere…Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Charleston, Savannah, Boston, Kansas City, and Denver.”

  Trula strained to hear Adele’s response. “So many places? Don’t you get tired of traveling?”

  “I go where my work takes me.” It would soon take him away from New Orleans. She should remember that. As soon as Zeke Barnes found the murderer, he’d be gone. Even if she wanted an attachment, and she didn’t, he’d leave. That’s what men did.

  For the remainder of the evening, she set herself the impossible task of ignoring him. Every time his eyes caught hers, she read a torrid question in their depths. And each time she offered him her back. The answer had to be no.

  Around her, the girls batted their lashes with extra vigor, the tips of their pink tongues wet their welcoming lips more often than usual, their laughter sparkled as brightly as the crystal chandeliers, and they flirted with determined ardor. It was all for Zeke Barnes’ benefit. She gritted her teeth. Soon he’d follow a pair of swinging hips up the front stairs.

  Except, he didn’t.

  Shortly after three in the morning, the parlors stood empty. The girls entertained upstairs, and the musicians had packed their instruments and moved on to Tom Anderson’s bar for a late-night drink. Poor Diddy was almost asleep on his young feet.

  “Go to bed,” she told him.

  The boy raised a questioning brow at the man who lounged in a buttery leather club chair, his long legs stretched out onto the carpet. A glass of scotch dangled carelessly from his long, tapered fingers. Zeke Barnes had made himself perfectly at home.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured Diddy. “You go on to bed.”

  With a doubtful nod and an enormous yawn, the boy exited the parlor.

  “You’re still here, Mr. Barnes.” Apparently he meant to continue plaguing her. He showed no sign of leaving. She wanted him gone, yet she was glad he’d stayed. Her lips pursed. She was annoyed and wasn’t precisely sure with whom.

  “You keep late hours, Miss Boudreaux.”

  She wandered about the room, too bothered by him to be still. Instead, she collected empty glasses and lined them up on the narrow table used for the bar.

  “Nothing to say?” Zeke’s voice mocked her.

  “It’s early. On the weekends, we stay busy ‘til dawn.”

  “Well then, I imagine you still have plenty of energy.” His eyes skimmed her body, lingering on her breasts. Her body tightened beneath his gaze and she silently cursed its betrayal.

  She yawned bigger than Diddy. “It’s a shame there’s nothing worth staying up for.”

  He chuckled, a low sound from deep in his throat. Again her perfidious body responded. Heat pooled, tempting her to abandon the tenets that protected her. Worse, the accursed man raised an eyebrow and smiled as if he could detect her body’s yearnings from the comfort of his chair.

  “Who are you and why are you here?” she asked. Real emotion colored her voice. Well, why not? His mere presence had bedeviled her all night. And now his eyes stripped the dress clean off of her. How dare he disturb her well-ordered existence? She had responsibilities. She didn’t need the distraction of a man who would leave her. She scanned the room. There were no more glasses for her to gather, so instead she collected ashtrays.

  “I work for the government. I’m investigating the murders.” He’d deliberately misunderstood. “I think you know something about them.”

  She paused, an ashtray filled with the soggy ends of Cuban cigars clutched in her hand. Could she hurl the dirty crystal fast enough to hit him with it? At the very least, a few cigar butts might mar the pristine whiteness of his shirt. She set the dirty ashtray down on a table with a resounding thunk. “I already told you, I don’t.”

  He shook his head and a lock of his hair fell across his forehead. With a careless gesture, he brushed it aside. Trula arranged the dirty ashtrays in a neat line so she didn’t have to look at him.

  ”I’d also like to know you better.”

  Trula took a slow breath. “You seem to ignore answers you don’t like. I’m not available.”

  “Ever?” Disbelief lurked in the gravel of his voice. That gravel—it was the sound of lust—dark and tempting and forbidden. Her heart leapt for her throat.

  She squared her shoulders and stared straight into his eyes. “Never.”

  His gaze slid from her face to her exposed shoulders to her barely covered breasts to the satin that molded her belly and legs. “As I said earlier, it strikes me as a terrible waste.”

  Trula wanted to slap him. Or kiss him. No, slap him. She definitely wanted to slap him.

  He deserved it.

  Just because his lips were perfect and his shoulders were broad didn’t mean she wanted to kiss him. She’d turned down countless men, many of them more handsome than Zeke Barnes, without a second thought. She most definitely did not want to kiss him. “Why is someone who works for the U.S. government investigating murders in New Orleans?”

  “You want to discuss my work?” His blue eyes glittered. “I’d much rather discuss yours.”

  “It appears we’re both destined for disappointment.”

  He crossed his ankle over his knee and offered her a cryptic grin. “Why were you at Marie Leveau’s tomb?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I asked first.”

  “And I already answered. I left the rum.” She pushed a straight back chair under a card table and smoothed its baize cloth. She refused look at him.

  “But why?”

  Trula shrugged. “It was a gift.”

  “For a dead woman?” Doubting. Superior. Arrogant. She could detect it all in his voice.

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” His dropped jaw gave her a moment’s satisfaction. He hadn’t expected a madam to quote Shakespeare.

  “Hamlet?”

  She offered him a sugared smile. “The fifth scene. I’m done answering your questions, Mr. Barnes. You answer one of mine.”

  “Someone with some influence requested additional support for the murder investigation. That request put me on a train from Washington.”

  “Who?”

  He stared at her, his lips a thin line, then his broad shoulders lifted and dropped. “I don’t know, a politician probably. You truly believe in voodoo?”

  “If you don’t, why were you at Marie’s crypt?”

  “I was looking for someone with answers.” He took a slow sip of scotch. “You probably scared them away.”

  “Undoubtedly. People find me terrifying.” She laced her voice with sarcasm.

  One of his eyebrows rose. “Not the word I would choose.”

  Damnable man. The plaintive notes of a saxophone wafted through the open window. The sound, so full of pain and longing, pulled at her heart. She blinked and turned away so the Yankee who’d invaded her house wouldn’t see the music touched her.

  She knew better than to turn her back on a man; nine times out of ten it led to trouble.

  His hands closed on her bare shoulders. His touch was gentle. Somehow it reminded her of laughter in a flower filled garden, running through the cool patter of English rain, and treacle tart. Memories of a home best for
gotten.

  “Dance with me.” His voice was whiskey rough.

  A smart woman would send him on his way. Of course, a smart woman would never have let him in. For once, being smart held no allure. She wanted Zeke’s arms around her.

  The hands on her shoulders turned her. Then he took her in his arms—muscle and bone, tender strength, and the scent of something as wild and lonely as the saxophone. “Dance with me.”

  How could she refuse?

  They swayed slowly to the mournful tune that drifted through the window. She tried to maintain a distance between their bodies, but a cool breeze from the river meandered past the sill and wrapped itself around them. She surrendered to his warmth.

  Their bodies moved together, caught in the musician’s spell. Time, past wounds, and all the things she ought to do floated away like magnolia petals loosed by a sudden change in the wind. Trula gave herself up to the shimmering magic of a perfect moment.

  One of Zeke’s hands cupped the back of her neck while his fingers explored the tendrils of her hair. The other hand rested at the small of her back, holding her close. Her breasts, her belly, the fronts of her legs—they all melted against the lean length of his body. She’d worry about the folly of her surrender later. Now she savored every second of closeness.

  The saxophone hit a crescendo and its last lingering notes hung in the night air like mist.

  “Dazzling,” he whispered against her ear. “Alluring. Enticing. Fascinating.”

  “What?”

  “The words I would use to describe you.”

  The saxophone fell silent but Zeke didn’t let her go. The hand on her lower back rubbed slow circles. The fingers in her hair angled her head. He was going to kiss her. He couldn’t. Her body stiffened, her shoulders straightened, and the hands that had rested on his shoulders slid to his chest, ready to push him away.

  “Don’t.” He spoke to her intention. And then his tongue tasted the skin on her neck and she forgot what her intentions were.

  He grazed a finger along the length of her collarbone. “Did I mention beautiful?”

  No man had ever touched her like that. The mix of gentleness and strength did odd things to her. Seemingly without effort he weakened her knees, sent her heart racing, and destroyed her willpower.