she had been waking up with the wrong man.
Dana felt an arm snake around her waist, pulling her across the bed until her back pressed against a solid, muscular chest. Her whole body tingled.
"Hey,”he said, burying his face into her hair.
"Hey, yourself."
Jack stretched languidly beside her. "God, I feel good."
Dana linked her hand in his and pulled it up to her face, cupping her cheek with his strong fingers. She kissed his palm. "Me, too."
"Why haven't we done this before now?"
"Beats me."
Trailing kisses down her spine, Jack paused. "Do you hear that?"
"Mmmhmm."
"What is that?"
"It sounds like-"
"Good morning, Good morning!" Tap, tap, tap.
If anyone had imagined that the fear and excitement of earlier would have kept Grace in bed past 6 a.m. to catch up on her beauty sleep, they would have been wrong. This time, however, only Rose bothered to emerge from her room.
"Grace, shut the hell up!" Rose shouted.
"Good morning to you and you and you and you!" Blowing kisses to an imaginary audience, Grace tapped her way down the stairs and out of sight.
*****
It was some time later before Dana and Jack made an appearance at breakfast, Jack playfully chasing her into the room. Seeing the broad smiles on their faces, Rose exchanged a telling glance with Henry. "Well,”she said, taking a sip of her coffee, "like Mama used to say, looks like somebody's been getting their pain eased."
If there had been a hole in front of her, Dana would have gladly dived in headfirst and dragged Jack in behind her. But it took more than a little teasing to dim her grin.
Mark, however, was immediately concerned. "Were you hurt, Miss Dana?"
Henry coughed and cleared his throat. "I'll explain it to you later, son."
"Oh. Must be about sex," Mark said. Henry coughed and sputtered some more. Mark gave him an irritated look. "Well, I'm not ten, you know."
Her cheeks flaming, Dana buried her face into Jack's shirt. "Please, Lord, just take me now."
"I just love French toast,”announced Grace, waving the bite speared on the end of her fork, gallantly attempting to change the subject.
Oscar was only too happy to oblige her. "It's Lost Bread."
"Excuse me?"
"Mrs. Babineaux calls it Lost Bread or pain perdu."
Grace eyed her plate suspiciously. "It looks like French toast to me."
In addition to the warm platters of Lost Bread, which were indeed crisp-crusted deep-fried pieces of bread similar to French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar and nutmeg, breakfast, once again lavishly laid out.
Noah, who had been piling his plate high with banana fritters when his sister and his friend had walked into the room, continued to lurk next to the sideboard, adding far too much apple butter to his plate while he waited for them to approach. He knew they looked happy, but what did that really mean? Looking everywhere but at them, he found himself unaccustomedly at a loss for words. "Um, you guys all right?"
Dana looked at Jack, who simply nodded. Grabbing a couple of beignets and a cup of coffee, he gestured towards the kitchen. "Come on, pal, let's eat out back this morning." Leading Noah out of the dining room, Jack looked at her and smiled reassuringly. This wasn't the first man-to-man talk Noah would have with Jack and probably not the last. Jack was a whole lot better at it than Dana had ever been.
Taking her plate and settling at the table, Dana watched Rose brush crumbs off of Henry's t-shirt with a distinctly territorial gesture. She hid a smile. Apparently, it wasn't only her and Jack that had been infected by the romance of this place.
"I was telling Henry all about our little run in with the world of voodoo last night."
Looking vastly disappointed at having missed it, Mark added, "Miss Grace said she was scared to death. How come you weren't scared, Miss Dana?"
"I'm just not scared of chickens, I guess,”she said with a laugh.
"Aren't you scared of nothin'?"
"Anything,”Henry corrected automatically, not even looking up from his plate.
"Oh, sure. If it had been a spider, say, I would have been tearing down the walls." She shuddered. "I can't imagine a more horrible feeling than a spider's web on my skin. If I accidentally run into a cobweb, I totally freak out."
"Grandpa once had a kid in his class that used to throw spiders on all the girls. Is that what happened to you?"
Dana was surprised. Ignoring Mark's question, she asked one of her own. "You're a schoolteacher?"
"Retired. Fifth grade. Wasn't very good at it I'm afraid. I'd try