The Isle Of Sin And Shadows - Keri Lake Page 0,108

back another sip of his drink. “She’s not my housekeeper. Never was. She’s pas tout la. The crazy maman of the swamp. Not the first time she’s been caught creeping around here.”

“Well, that’s … disturbing. I’ll have to remember to keep the doors locked.” With the noodles rinsed, I shift back to the shrimp bubbling away in the pan.

“She’s harmless, but yes, I don’t need her rummaging through my things.”

“Afraid she might find your room of damned souls?”

“Keep it up, smartass, and I’ll be adding yours to the collection.”

Smiling at that, I pile the noodles and shrimp onto one of his fancy black dishes, and when I twist around, the food slides across the surface, nearly spilling onto the floor. “Voila! Dinner is served.” I sprinkle some parsley over the dish and hand it off to him.

Staring down at it, he rubs his jaw like he’s not certain he should try it. “What do you call this?”

“How do you say shrimp in Valir again?”

“Chevrette.” Damn the sexy roll of his tongue when he says the word.

“Chevrette ... du … ange. Pasta.”

With a cock of his brow, he accepts the fork I pass to him and stabs one of the shrimp, staring at it a moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m looking for speckles of spat wine.”

Frowning, I shovel two shrimp in one go into my mouth, and at the first twinge of a burn, I twist around to the sink to spit it out. A flare of agony beats across my tongue, but it’s too late. The seasoning has practically embedded itself in my tastebuds. Waving a hand over my tongue fails to cool the excruciating singe, and I flip on the faucet for the cool water that runs over the scorched bit of flesh. “Too spicy,” I say, letting the dribble of water catch in the basin. When I get it together, I turn to find Thierry eating the shrimp, as if the spice doesn’t bother him, at all. “What the hell is wrong with you? That’s like eating raw flames.”

“Maybe I should’ve grabbed some baby food for you on the way home.” He lifts his fork in the air. “C’est bon,” he says in the accent that is as ridiculously hot as the food, before taking his next bite.

“I can practically hear the hiss of little shrimp souls crackling inside your mouth right now.” Twirling my fork into the unseasoned pasta, I take a bite of bland noodles.

An uncomfortable quiet lingers between us, his eyes studying me again, as his jaw slowly works the food with his chewing. What is it about this guy, and these ordinarily benign acts, like eating, that somehow feel like foreplay? “Why are you here?” he finally asks.

Inwardly groaning, I roll my eyes. “We’re doing this again?”

“Let me rephrase. What brought you to Louisiana?”

Shrugging, I pick my fork through the overdone pasta and sigh. “Just wanted to visit my birthplace, is all.”

“One doesn’t camp out in an abandoned house for a week without a penny to their name, just to visit the haunted house they remember from childhood.”

“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the real reason.”

“Try me.”

Fork tapping against my plate, I take a moment to study whether, or not, he’s the kind of person who’d find me utterly ridiculous. The answer is yes, of course, but that’s really nothing new. I’ve dealt with that reaction my whole life. What is new, is the annoying fact that I don’t want to be weird in his eyes. “A ghost visited me.”

“Say what now?”

“A ghost came to me a couple nights before I left Michigan. It was a woman, that I’m guessing, may have been my mother.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. My mother died when I was born. Which, I guess, makes me a murderer, in a way.” A chuckle dies in my throat. “Just … felt like it could be her. Sometimes, I catch feelings from certain things. Like this music? Nina Simone? It fills me with an inexplicable kind of warmth … like … when you’re a child and you think back on warm sunny days of play. Only, I don’t have too many memories like that. And nobody else I know listened to Nina, so I’m just guessing it came from my mother.” Keeping my eyes glued to my plate avoids having to watch his face morph to that all-too-familiar frown to which I’ve grown accustomed. The telling reaction of someone who’s trying to mentally calculate my level of crazy. “Anyway, my mother … or