Wagner was a good sport. Charlie hadn't expected him to help her mop the floor, but he'd rolled up his trouser legs, slipped off his shoes and socks, and grabbed a mop.

Now that he'd finally told her the truth, she wasn't sure what to do with him.

He rung out the mop, went outside to hang it over the fence out back, and came back inside.

"Mopping's taken care of." He looked around. "What's next?"

"Honestly, I don't know." She studied him, and then what he'd meant sunk in. "Nothing here. We're finished. We need to go out the back door, but I was thinking about what to do with you."

"I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to do with you." His smile practically dripped s.e.x. He clamped his lips together.

"Come on, say it. Don't hold it back."

He unclamped his lips and said on one long breath, "They say the tongue is the strongest muscle, wanna fight?"

"There he is. You haven't said anything slimy in over thirty minutes. I was beginning to wonder." She unhooked her dress from her shoulder. She'd had fun tonight-well, the second half of the evening had been fun.

He rolled down his trousers and slipped on his shoes minus the socks, which he shoved in a trouser pocket. "Do I get to argue my case before you pa.s.s judgment?"

"No, I learned a long time ago to never argue with an attorney. Y'all like to play Twister with the truth." She waited for him to open the door, and then she stepped into the alley. "I liked you better when you were an ax murderer."

"I can go back to that." He looked around dramatically. "Now where did I leave that darn ax?"

"Maybe you should get a new one? So far your personal hygiene has been more than adequate, but I'd hate to see that ax under a blue light." She shivered. "Germs."

"More than adequate?" He was all offended male ego. "I'll have you know I'm wearing brand-new lavender-free aftershave." He leaned over. "Smell me. I smell fantastic."

She had no choice but to sniff. "Not bad. I like it."

He did smell fantastic, and she enjoyed spending time with him. She should kick him to the curb for lying to her about being a contractor, but the truth was, she didn't want to. He made her laugh, and that hadn't happened in a very long time. "What other skeletons do you have hidden in your closet?"

"You should be prepared. I have some really terrible things in my past." His nose wrinkled at the thought of such unpleasantness.

She took a deep breath and nodded. "I can handle it. Go for it."

"It all started with my little brother, Sawyer. Before him, I was a good little boy." Wagner was all seriousness. "When my mother brought him home from the hospital, I tried to return him, but they wouldn't take him back. Then I put him in the dryer-"

Charlie gasped.

"What? I didn't turn it on. I was five. I thought it was a portal to another universe, one that wanted their screaming baby back." He scratched his chin. "Then there was the time in second grade I stole all of the red Sharpie markers out of Mrs. Jessup's desk."

"Only the red ones?" She unlocked the car using her key fob.

"I needed them to draw fake chicken pox on myself so I could go home. The newest Nintendo console was out and it wasn't going to play itself." He opened the car door for her, waited for her to slide in and buckle up, and then closed it. "When I was seven, I got a Buck knife for my birthday and I decided to test the sharpness by stabbing the sofa cushions."

"When I was seven, I got a dollhouse. I wish I'd known you then. I'd totally have let you stab it." She hadn't thought of that stupid house in a while. Her father had bought it for her. He lived with her-he should have known she didn't want a stupid dollhouse.

He looked her up and down. "What do you have against dollhouses?"

"Nothing in particular. It's just, that year I wanted something else..." How had this become about her?

"What did you want?"

"My mother back." The words were out before her brain had time to stop them.

"I know how that feels. My dad left a little over a year after Sawyer was born." He sounded like he knew exactly how she felt.

"Is that why you don't like your brother?" She knew what it felt like to love a family member but to not like them very much.

He opened his mouth and then closed it. "I've never thought of it that way. It's not that I don't like Sawyer, it's just, well... I mean, I do love him..." It sounded like he'd just realized he didn't like his brother.

"It's okay to not like your family. It doesn't mean you don't love them." If only she could stop beating herself up and feeling guilty for not liking her father. The worst part was she wasn't sure he liked or loved her.

"How did your mother die?" It wasn't a pity question. He really wanted to know.

"Brain aneurysm. She had a headache and took a nap. She never woke up." Charlie might have only been six, but she remembered it very clearly. She and her mother were supposed to go to a gallery opening, only Charlie hadn't wanted to go. She'd screamed and thrown a huge fit because she'd wanted to have a tea party. She'd given her mother a headache, so Mommy went to take a nap. Charlie had snuck into the bed and snuggled up next to her. They'd slept for hours until Charlie couldn't wake her up. Logically, she knew she wasn't responsible for her mother's death, but the six-year-old girl inside of her knew that she was.

"It wasn't your fault." The words were solemn and quiet and true.

How had he known what she was thinking? She knew for a fact that her face hadn't shown it, because she'd learned to never show her true feelings to anyone but Lucky, Betts, and Mama Cherie.

"I know." But she knew she didn't sound convincing.

"When your number's up, your number's up." There was no pity in his voice, only comfort and conviction.

"You sound like Mama Cherie." Five minutes after meeting Mama, she'd wished that Mama would legally adopt her.

"Is it me or is she a little crazy?" He smiled when he said it, but there was wariness in his eyes. He was probably remembering Lorena Bobbitt.

"No, she's a lot crazy." But she was the family Charlie chose and not the one she'd been born into.

"I'm pretty sure she ran my fingerprints using my gla.s.s from the bar."

Charlie rubbed her hands together. "I can't wait to see what she finds out."

"Here I am pouring out my life story to you and it's still not enough. I haven't even gotten to the good parts yet. There's the story where I tried to sell my brother for beer money or the time I ate a million pigs-in-a-blanket at my cousin's wedding and threw up all over the bride."

"That's nasty." She pulled up to the driveway that led to the back of the Duplantis House. "Once, I ate so many Peanut M&M's that I threw up all over my father's shoes. He wasn't happy." And it should have cured her of her need for chocolate, but it hadn't.

Wagner's eyes locked onto the main house. "Am I crazy or is there a light on inside the house."

She glanced behind her as she put the car into park.

"I thought it was supposed to be empty." He got out of the car and watched the house as he opened her door for her. "Think it's a squatter or some kids?"

"Probably neither." She leaned against the trunk and watched the light. "The house is haunted."

"Come on, that's ridiculous. Tell me you don't believe in ghosts." His tone was all yeah-right.

"I'm from New Orleans, of course I believe in ghosts. New Orleans is the most haunted city in the US." She kept her eyes on the light on the top floor. "You can laugh, but I've seen the Civil War soldiers and heard the cannon fire at the Beauregard-Keyes House. And I've seen and heard Ada, a teenaged girl from the 1840s, brush past a man in front of me at the Le Pavillon Hotel and turn back and say, "Pardon me, I am... very lost."

"That's nuts." He shook his head like he just couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"Do you believe people have souls?" This was one argument he wasn't going to win.

He looked like he was weighing it in his mind. "Yes, I guess. I believe in an afterlife so, yes, I believe everyone has a soul."

"Then why is it hard to believe that sometimes those souls choose to stay with us rather than go to the afterlife? Maybe they don't know they're dead or they aren't ready to give up being alive or aren't ready to leave their loved ones behind." Sometimes she would walk into a room and smell her mother's perfume. Since it was discontinued decades ago, she liked to think that her mother was still with her or at least came to visit once in a while.

His eyes went all squinty like he was searching for an argument against it but couldn't find one that he was happy with so he finally shrugged. "Kind of makes sense." He nodded toward the house. "Wonder who that is."

"It's Angelique Babette Duplantis." Charlie pointed to the light in the attic. "She's pacing the attic, waiting for her father, Jacques, to let her out. He found out about her plan to elope with the son of a riverboat captain. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy about the match or the fact that she was pregnant, so he locked her in the attic."

"Sounds like a heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Wagner headed toward the house like he wanted to save her, but he must have realized it was too late. He stopped and turned back to Charlie. "What happened to her?"

"No one knows. Her father challenged the would-be suitor to a duel. Apparently both were pretty good shots, because they killed each other. No one knows what happened to Angelique, but she was found dead the next morning by the cook. Some say she died of a broken heart, but others think she fell trying to climb out a window and broke her neck. She's one of the reasons I think souls sometimes don't know they're dead. Why would anyone choose to spend eternity pacing in a hot attic?" Charlie had often thought that there must be a better way for Angelique to spend her time.

"How do you know all of this?" He snapped his fingers. "Parish historical society, I forgot."

"Well, yes, and Angelique is family. Her brother Raimond was my great-great-great-grandfather." Charlie had loved it when her mother had told her stories about her ancestors. Either her father didn't know or he just didn't care about anyone who came before him-or after, for that matter.

"So this is sort of your family house." He seemed amazed by the connection.

"Yes, I guess, or, well, one of them. When you descend from three of the original settlers, that means that someone from your family has lived in most of the buildings in this city." She pointed in the general direction of the Garden District. "I live in my paternal grandmother's house."

"I'd love to see it." He held his hands up. "Not trying to invite myself over for the night, just saying that I bet it's impressive."

"My house is impressive." That was actually the perfect word for it. Impressive and repressive and oppressive. "It's a Greek Revival that is most definitely impressive."

"I can't wait to see it." He watched her out of the corner of his eye. "Tomorrow?"

She put her hand over her heart and said in her most exaggerated Southern voice, "Why, kind sir, are you asking if you may call upon me at my home tomorrow?"

"I am." His whole body relaxed. "You really should kick me to the curb for lying to you."

"I'm in politics. If I kicked everyone to the curb for lying to me, I'd be alone twenty-four seven." She yawned. It was probably all of ten o'clock. "I should go home and get my beauty sleep." She yawned again.

He clamped his lips together and nodded.

"Come on, spill it." She motioned for him to just spit it out.

"I could tuck you in." He shook his head. "Night, night, sleep tight, I only bite if you want me to... I don't know why but you bring out my inner slimeball."

She hunched her shoulders. "It's growing on me."

"That's good because it's embarra.s.sing the h.e.l.l out of me." He stepped closer and brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

d.a.m.n if her heart didn't go all pitter-pat.

"At least I know for sure that Jerome didn't hire you to romance me to death, because no offense, you kind of suck at it." Now who was saying the wrong thing at the wrong time?

"How's this for romance?" He cupped her face and slowly lowered his mouth to hers.

The kiss was slow and sensual. He started with her lips and worshipped them with his. He wasn't in a hurry. It was like he wanted to savor the first taste of her. She opened her mouth, wanting more, but he took his sweet time. Lazily, his tongue explored the inside of her mouth as he pulled her into him. Heat sizzled through her. The urge to crawl up him and wrap her legs around his waist and ride him like a prized pony was almost too great to ignore, but ladies didn't do things like that, especially outside for all the world to see.

Reluctantly, she stepped back.

"Wow." He looked as dazed as she felt.

"Wow is right." She fanned herself. It wasn't ladylike, but it was a heck of a lot better than crawling up him like a stripper working the pole.

"d.a.m.n, I barely remember my own name." His face scrunched up in horror. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes and it was charming." She leaned up on her tippy-toes to kiss him again and then thought better of it. "I should go."

"Yes, you should, or we both know you're going to end up flat on your back on the gra.s.s." His smile was downright wicked.

"Don't be ridiculous, I'd be on top." She returned the wicked smile, opened her own car door, and slid behind the wheel. He might only be in New Orleans for a short time, but she was going to enjoy the h.e.l.l out of him.

Chapter 7.