“Like goes unto like,” his mother had once told him when he'd asked why his parents did not marry.
Regardless of any empathy from Grace, Luc refused to hope. Nearly one hundred years as a specter had beaten most of the hope out of him. “I haven’t the heart for it,” he confessed.
She gazed at him steadily for long moments.
He could feel the regret and sorrow flooding her. Luc understood—she knew the same kind of loss he felt. Beneath the empathy lay something else, something earthier.
He’d seen lambent desire in other women’s eyes. Would Grace kiss him?
She leaned toward him, but turned her head to whisper in his ear.
“Maybe you will. Someday.”
He buried his face in her rich auburn hair, hugging her, for her empathy, for her understanding, for the hope she wished to give him. Luc couldn’t accept it. Hope paved the road to sorrow and tears, but she didn’t know that. She hadn’t lived a cursed life.
Not too much later, they said good night, wishing each other pleasant dreams.
He couldn’t really sleep. Daily rest wasn’t necessary for ephemeral beings, which included him. Even on nights—like this one—when the moon was full and he was completely corporeal, sleep—true solid sleep—was impossible. The conversation with Grace had filled his mind with memories best forgotten. It’d take most of the night and a good amount of whiskey to exorcise them. Grace was safe enough with the dogs and his cat—the disloyal little fiend.
Chapter Eleven
December 06, 1912 Full Moon.
The dock at Sweet Dreams, Mal Chance Bayou
Luc waited in the shadows while Grace strolled to the dock. She’d warned him off, twice. Yet at their third encounter, she’d actually invited him to sit with her. She now called him by name and permitted him to call her Grace. Possibly she was beginning to trust him. Or if not trust, at least be easy in his company.
That ease worked in both directions. The two times he’d whispered warnings on the breeze, he experienced very little increase in the pain of living in two worlds at one time. He’d whispered, attempting to lessen the fear and despair that dragged at her soul. Still he had to admire her. She rarely gave in to those stifling emotions, instead displaying a false but icy bravado to anyone. That is except for someone like himself who had the ability to look beneath outward appearances.
After the kitchen fire, he’d watched her succumb to the fright and anguish at her core. His inability to help her, comfort her, distressed him. He would’ve done much to prevent her nightmares and woe. However, that ability was not part of his cursed repertoire. Luc could cause illusions, but he couldn’t manipulate memories or thoughts already in progress.
Although he regretted each time his actions had upset Grace, he had a sense she would forgive him, despite her fears. Empathy with her emotions had driven him deep into the memory of a conversation with his brother. So deep had been his preoccupation with the past he hadn’t noticed the intruders approaching. Who had sent them?
His prime suspect would be the boss spoken of by Davy and Billy. That was the man endangering Grace’s life. “The boss” sought the means to control a cursed pirate. Luc wanted—needed—to destroy that boss before he caused a full-blown disaster. Given what DeLille had told Grace, the chance was very high that Guidry was that boss. He waited, impatient for the full moon to rise above the trees. He was free and alive the minute the sun set on such a night, but he preferred to wait for full dark. The risk of moving into astream of fading sunlight and disappearing in an instant was too great, especially when other folk were around to see him vanish.
Finally, the purple of dusk faded to black. The only ambient light remaining was the gleam of the full moon on the bayou, and the warmth of lamps inside the house. Staying within the tree line, Luc walked to a point parallel with the front of the house. Then he stepped from the trees and aimed toward the dock where Grace sat, lantern by her side. The dogs were nowhere in sight.
She’d braced her hands behind her and was looking up at the sky. He joined her, sitting on the opposite edge of the dock.
“What do you plan to do with this place?” He might’ve been watching her, learning her, for weeks, but she was still wary, even after last night’s conversation. Tonight, he planned to keep the topic to her andSweet Dreams.
Grace made a slow survey of the scene, from one side to the other. “I expect to live here the rest of my life, so I’m restoring the house. The grounds will have to wait until I’m ready to hire employees.”
“Why wait?” The croak of frogs seemed to echo his question.
She sighed. “For the same reason I threatened to shoot you when we first met.”
“Really? You had a reason other than being frightened by a stranger?” He couldn’t help the smile he flashed.
“I wasn’t frightened,” she boasted.
Liar. You were terrified. You did an excellent job of hiding it. I might never have known the truth, were I not who I am.
“If you say so,” he drawled, so she would hear his doubt.
“You cannot possibly know what I was feeling at the time,” The protest came like the screech of an owl whose nest was threatened.
I could.
