Trouble in Mudbug (16 page)

Helena took in a deep breath, and Maryse could tell that despite her protests, Helena was worried. Great. Just great.

“It’s only six days counting today,” Helena said. “We can come up with a plan.”

“What kind of plan? Maybe locking me in a Kevlar box for a week? Even the bayou has a limited number of hiding places.”

Helena shook her head. “I don’t want you camping in the bayou. In fact, if you could not go into the bayou at all for a while that would probably be better. As long as you’re surrounded by people, it will be much harder to get to you. And you do have a secret weapon.”

Maryse narrowed her eyes. “What secret weapon?”

Helena pointed to herself. “Me. Think about it, Maryse. I can look out for you without anyone suspecting. I can warn you if anything is out of the ordinary.”

Maryse stared at her. “Yeah, because everything else that’s happened this week has been normal. You’re not a weapon, Helena. You’re the angel of death, and I don’t want you anywhere near me. You’ve done quite enough.”

Maryse jumped into her rental and tore out of the parking lot before Helena could fling herself on the trunk or anything else ridiculous the ghost may come up with. Six days. Unbelievable. Not quite a week, and it seemed ages. Suddenly, still being married to Hank seemed like such a simple problem.

She turned onto the gravel road and headed toward the office. She had to get her head on straight. Had to come up with a plan. Maybe she’d just have a heart attack right here and now and save Harold the trouble. A second later, she slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a stop in the middle of the road. The thought that had hit her was so horrible, so awful that she couldn’t even breathe.

If Harold killed her, she might be stuck in limbo like Helena. Even worse, she might be stuck in limbo
with
Helena.

For all eternity.

Six days was looking shorter by the minute.

Luc eased the thin tool into the deadbolt on the door to Maryse’s lab. Since he’d hacked her e-mail and found out about her appointment with Helena’s attorney, he knew she would be late coming in. Unfortunately, the guy bringing him the tools got stuck in a traffic jam in downtown New Orleans, so he was getting started a good hour later than he’d planned.

He leaned in close to the door, listening for the tell-tale click that would let him know he was successful. It took a couple more seconds before he felt the tool give and heard the barely audible sound of the locking mechanism turning. He slipped the tool in his pocket to use inside on the locked drawer where the notebook was stashed, and grabbed a second tiny rod from the black carrying case that housed his breaking and entering tools. He’d need that one to relock the drawer and the door once he was done.

He closed the case and crossed the room to slip it inside his gym bag. If Maryse came back sooner than expected, the last thing he needed was for her to see the tool set and start asking questions. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what the thin blades were for, and Maryse was no dummy. The case secure, he slipped into the lab and worked his magic on the drawer. A minute later, he pulled the notebook from inside and headed out of the lab and straight for the office copy machine.

He flipped page after page, copying as fast as the antiquated machine allowed. The front office window gave him a clear view of the road and the dock, which was good since he was never quite sure what mode of transportation Maryse might use. Either way, he should see her in enough time to get everything back to where it belonged. He hoped.

Ten more pages or so, he thought as he turned the notebook over and over again and prayed that the copier would hold out. He was only a couple of pages from the end when the copier whined to a stop. What now? He studied the copier display screen and groaned. The thing was jammed, and if that display was any indication, it was jammed all over.

He put the notebook on the table behind him and opened the feeder tray. As he pulled a sheet of paper lodged halfway in the feeder, he looked out the window. Shit, shit, shit! There was no mistaking the red rental car turning the corner. And it was coming fast.

Chapter Eight

Luc grabbed the notebook and ran into the lab. He shut the notebook in the drawer, then poked his tool in the lock, hoping it worked its magic. The lock clicked almost immediately and he rushed to the door, repeating the process on the deadbolt. He hurried over to the copier and pulled the documents off the tray and shoved them into his gym bag.

His pulse racing, he glanced out the window just as Maryse pulled to a stop in front of the office. Yanking open the panels of the copier, he prayed that he got the paper removed before she could offer to help. If any of the jammed pieces were partially copied, he was busted, pure and simple. There was no logical way to explain what he was doing with her personal property—or how he had broken into her lab to get it.

He flipped open drawers and panels and yanked the lodged paper from inside, cramming it into his pockets as he went. He was down to the last tray when he heard the office door open. He glanced into the tray at the offending paper and held in a stream of cursing. The paper was jammed in the rollers, crinkled like a Japanese fan, but if you flattened out the folded rows, Maryse’s handwriting still showed on the document clear as day.

“Problems?” Maryse asked as she tossed her keys onto her desk.

Luc rose from the copier and shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary for a machine this old. Just a paper jam.”

Maryse nodded. “It does that all the time. Let me take a look. I’ve gotten to be a real pro at fixing that piece of junk.”

Luc waved one hand, desperate to fend her off. “No, that’s all right. I’ll get it.”

Maryse stared at him a moment. “What’s your problem, LeJeune? Would my fixing the copier somehow be an affront to your manhood?” She walked over to the machine and gave him a shove. “Move out of the way. I don’t want to listen to you banging and cussing over here for the next thirty minutes. There’s a trick to getting paper out of this spot.”

Luc clenched his fists in a panic, searching for something, anything that would stop her from reaching into that panel, but he came up with absolutely nothing. His only hope was that she wouldn’t take a close look at the paper while removing it and he could somehow get it away from her immediately following removal.

Maryse squatted down in front of the copier and looked at the offending paper. “You got it jammed in good. Usually you’ve got to unscrew this top piece to get the paper out, but after I went through that process for about the hundredth time, I got smart and installed a pin to hold it in place. See?” She pointed to a long, thin, metal pin slotted through the panel and into the roller.

Luc glanced at the pin and nodded, certain he hadn’t taken a breath since she’d walked in the door.

“So all I have to do is pull the pin out,” Maryse said and proceeded to remove the pin while holding her hand under the top panel. “And, voila, the tray drops and the paper is easily removed.” She gently worked the paper out of from between the roller and the panel and held it up in front of him, the tell-tale text facing her direction and just below eye level.

All he could think about was keeping her from looking at that paper, and the only way he knew to throw someone like Maryse off track was to give her something bigger to focus on. Before he could change his mind he yanked the sheet of paper from her hand, ignoring the surprised look on her face, and stepped so close to her that he could feel the heat coming off her body.

“Mechanically inclined women really turn me on,” he said and leaned in to kiss her before she knew it was coming and could formulate a retreat.

As his lips touched hers, a spark hit him deep in his center, and the panic he felt began to subside. When she didn’t pull away, he kept his mouth on hers, gently parting her lips for his tongue to enter. He involuntarily pressed into her, his arousal firm against her leg.

The instant other parts of him made contact, Maryse jumped back and stared at him, her face full of surprise and confusion. “What the hell is wrong with you, LeJeune? Are you bucking for a hostile work environment complaint?”

She stared at him, obviously waiting for an answer, but he couldn’t come up with a single excuse that would fly. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I just got carried away.”

She gave him a wary look as she backed away and grabbed her keys from the desk. “Well, don’t let it happen again.” Without so much as a backward glance, she walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

Luc watched as she jumped in her boat and tore down the bayou. As the boat rounded a bend and disappeared, he slumped back against the wall next to the copier. What the hell had he been thinking? Maryse’s threat was very real—behavior like that could get him a legal complaint and completely blow his cover.

He looked down at the piece of paper, still clenched in his hand. At least he’d gotten the paper without her seeing it, and that had been the whole point, right? But as he shoved the papers in a file and headed out of the office to take them to a scientist in New Orleans, he couldn’t help but think he’d gotten way more than he bargained for.

Maryse pushed down the throttle on her boat and grimaced every time the bow beat against the choppy surface of the bayou. At the rate the boat was moving, she could probably have run faster, even with her injuries.

And running is just what you’re doing.

That thought brought her up short, and she eased up on the gas and gritted her teeth as the boat bounced to a slower, less-jarring crawl. She’d gone to the office with the intention of actually getting some work done. Then Luc had pulled his playboy routine, and she’d panicked like a schoolgirl.

Jesus, you’d think she’d never been kissed. She was a married woman, for Christ’s sake. Well, not really married, but married enough that she shouldn’t have been so disturbed by a kiss.

But she was. And that really, really stuck in her craw.

Professional ladies’ men like Luc LeJeune had no business putting the moves on women like her, especially when she wasn’t exactly in her best fighting shape. She cut the gas on the boat and coasted to a stop. Sinking down on her driver’s seat, she looked out over the bayou and took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind of the fog of Luc’s kiss, but her evil brain brought it all back to her in amazing Technicolor.

Luc’s lips, masculine and soft all at the same time, pressed against her own. All she could think of was how those lips would feel other places. When he’d slipped his tongue in her mouth, she’d almost melted on the spot. She couldn’t allow herself thoughts about that tongue going other places. There were just some lines you didn’t cross because you knew there was no returning afterward.

Her skin was still hot from his touch, so she stripped down to her sports bra, hoping the bayou breeze would cool her overstimulated skin. It was unnerving to be as old as she was and have this much loss of self-control. Even Hank hadn’t stirred her up this way, and he’d been a pretty good playboy himself.

Luc LeJeune had all the makings of trouble. More trouble than Hank. More trouble than she needed in this lifetime and certainly more trouble than she needed right now.

Before she could change her mind, she yanked her cell phone from her pocket and pulled out the small slip of paper tucked inside the case. She pressed in the numbers and waited while the phone rang over and over, finally rolling to voice mail.

“Christopher, this is Maryse Robicheaux,” she said when she heard the beep. “If you’re still interested, I’d love to take you up on that offer for dinner. Just give me a call.”

She flipped the phone shut, shoved it in her pocket, and eased her boat up the bayou. She was going to put Luc LeJeune out of her mind, even if she had to throw herself at another man to accomplish it.

Maryse docked her boat at her cabin early that evening in somewhat of a mild panic. Her workday had gone well for the state—she’d finally found that elusive Lady Slipper hybrid they were looking for, but she hadn’t located the plant she needed for her trials. She’d just about been ready to try yet another area of the bayou when Christopher had returned her call. Not only did he want to take her to dinner, but he wanted to take her to dinner that night. At Beau Chené, a first-class restaurant just on the edge of Mudbug.