“THANK GOD money talks—to Roy Crenshaw, anyway.” Ciel returned the telephone to her mother and blotted her damp forehead with the back of her shaky hand. “The Press gets a temporary reprieve. Not to mention my job.”
“Cause for celebration.” Marie beamed. “Let’s break out that nice Chablis Tee-Ta gave me for Christmas, to go with Jack’s fish.”
Jack ducked his head to avoid a hanging fern. “Don’t go to that trouble, Mrs. Landry, I can’t—”
“No trouble at all,” she said airily, bustling back toward the kitchen. “And call me Marie.”
“Your mother listens as well as you do,” Jack muttered.
“She’s just happy I’m not out on my ear, but I guess you wouldn’t understand.”
Jack gave Ciel an exasperated glance. “Look, no one wants you to lose your job, but a UFO Moonlight Madness promotion just encourages more craziness. All the kooks and crackpots in the state have landed on my doorstep as it is. I can’t get a damn thing done.”
For all that he radiated so much masculine charisma she could hardly breathe, he deserved to be taken down a notch or two. “And craziness is in the eye of the beholder. There’s a mysterious footprint in the rice field, or at least there was until it rained. Who’s not to say we’ve had visitors from outer space? This could be another Roswell incident for all you know!”
“Which was never corroborated.” Jack’s lean features went stony with annoyance. “As a scientist, I don’t believe the little speck of dust we’re sitting on warrants that kind of interest from a superior intelligence, even if one exists, which, in my humble opinion, is extremely unlikely.”
“Don’t you believe in possibilities?”
“I’d rather stick to the facts.”
“You’re a hard case, Professor. But let me tell you, some pretty odd things are happening around here.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “Sally Jessup’s burglars. Three of Sam Holly’s cows keeled over dead without a mark on them. Hazel Plinton’s two-hundred-year-old oak lost every single leaf in one afternoon. And then there’re those teenagers who spotted floating lights out on Cemetery Road and—”
“I get the picture.” He looked at Aunt Tee-Ta’s alien detector sitting on the wicker coffee table, then back pointedly at Ciel. “Can I help it if this town has more lunatics per capita than any asylum?”
She perched her hands on her hips and tilted her chin in challenge. “Scoff if you must, but this is not a normal Whiskey Bay summer. I mean, what if we have been visited by extraterrestrials and they’re manipulating our thoughts somehow, making everyone act out of the ordinary?”
“It’s the damn heat, that’s all.”
“Ah, but what if the aliens just want us to think it’s the heat so we won’t get suspicious? Of course, a superior species could be manipulating the heat, too.”
“Are you aware of how nuts that sounds?”
“I’ve made a running list of unexplained phenomena and odd human behavior, and it’s getting impressively long.” She prodded him, watching with great interest the rising flush staining his tanned cheeks. “Where’s your scientific curiosity? You could at least take a look at that rice field.”
“Uh, I already did,” he admitted, then held up a hand at her expectant expression. “And found nothing that couldn’t be explained by natural phenomena. Probably some weird bacteria or something.”
“Cool!” she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
“The explanation may be as simple as deer grazing in that field, Ciel.”
“Oh, yeah,” she drawled, “and Bambi just happened to chomp a perfect circle in the middle of it. And how many monkeys typing how many millennia before they chanced to write the Bible?”
“I have no doubt there’s a reasonable explanation, but get this straight, it wasn’t a flying saucer.”
“Yeah? Well, I’d like to prove you wrong, just to knock that smug look off your face, Professor.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
Her smile was lofty. “An investigative reporter investigates. I’ll find out the truth if it kills me. And then I’m going to shove the truth I discover straight down your skeptical throat.”
“Just remember the laws of nature don’t lie. Not like a certain reporter who made a promise then ratted on me to the news media.”
Ciel gasped. “I did not!”
“Then why were two television types breathing down my neck, assuming NASA sent me to investigate this ridiculous business?”
She shook her head. “I swear, Jack, I never said a word. It had to be Mama’s doing.”
He threw up his hands. “Oh, swell, blame your own mother!”
“I told you she has the best early-warning system in the nation, didn’t I? And she said she talked with René’s mom. You can bet she got everything down to whether you wear boxers or briefs under your space suit.”
“You aren’t serious?”
“As a heart attack.” She glared at him. “Sorry to inform you, Jack, but if it’s gone out on Mama’s grapevine, then everybody in Whiskey Bay knows exactly who you are. Those TV people probably were the very last to get the scoop.”
He groaned. “Good God.”
She gave in to the impulse to goad him. “And folks will surely say if NASA is sending in a top man like you, then there must really be something going on with the flying saucer thing.”
Aggravation made his tone as rough as gravel. “Nothing is going on.”
“What’s it hurt if folks learn about your being with NASA, anyway?”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “I’ve got my professional reputation to consider. Now, thanks to you, I’m associated with Whiskey Bay’s lunatic fringe.”
“I’ve never met anyone so paranoid and mistrustful!” She swallowed a sudden knot of emotion, and her words were tight. “I did not break my promise, you, you…!”
Throwing herself into Marie’s rocker, she stared at the television screen and fought back tears.
“Oh, hell.” Jack dropped to his haunches in front of her, frowning at her averted face. “You’re not crying, are you?”
“Of course not.” Her voice was suspiciously watery. “That might imply I care what you think. Which I certainly do not.”
Resting his hands on the rocker’s arms, he heaved an exasperated sigh. “Maybe I did jump to conclusions…”
“Jump? You leaped that tall building with a single bound, rocket man.”
“If I’ve misjudged you, I apologize.”
“If?” Eyes swimming, Ciel glared at him. “Why don’t you just go home and cuddle up with your raccoons and microscopes, Professor? And while you’re at it, you can…”
Jack leaned forward, bottling up whatever else she might have said with the electric pressure of his mouth over hers.
Shock mingled with pleasure to chase every thought from Ciel’s brain, leaving only a flood of sensation. The warmth of his lips. The unique flavor of his mouth. The scent of him—slightly salty and with a tang of piney after-shave—filling her nostrils.
When the raspy tip of his tongue pressed insistently against the seam of her lips, she shivered uncontrollably, opening for his invasion without conscious volition, surrendering to the thrill of his tender possession. Somehow, his hands were in her hair, holding her still, even though she hadn’t moved, and his tongue twined with hers in wicked ways.
Nothing could have prepared her for his skillful wooing, the subtleties of his lips mastering hers, leaving her breathless and trembling. The attraction she’d felt from their first encounter had done nothing to forewarn her of his power, and she knew that whatever else he accused her of, he was many times more dangerous to her peace of mind than she could ever be to his. And that knowledge made her tremble anew.
Jack raised his head, his lips still brushing hers, the tip of his tongue testing the sensitive corners of her mouth. He dragged her fingertips down to examine her delicate jawbone, and his voice was a rumble of masculine hunger.
“Didn’t I tell you that mouth of yours would get you in trouble?”
“What?” Dazed, dizzy, she could hardly lift her eyelids, but then the sense of what he’d said, what he’d done, slammed through her. She was appalled; her eyes flew open wide and she jerked to her feet, nearly tipping Jack over.
“Whoa, there.” Scrambling to his feet, he reached for her again.
Totally unnerved, not only by the man but by the potency of her own response, Ciel snatched the alien detector from the coffee table, flipped on switches and pointed it at Jack like a weapon. “Back off, flyboy!”
“Now, Ciel…”
“I’m onto your tactics, Dr. Cooper,” she hissed, furious. The gizmo in her hands beeped in protest and the dials leaped into the red zones. “You’re just like all men, thinking you can run roughshod over a woman’s feelings and then simply kiss it better. Well, forget it! Now, get out.”
“Or what? You’ll zap me with your ray gun?”
His expression told her how ludicrous she looked, but she was too rattled to back off. “If it was good enough for Princess Leia…”
“Fine.” The muscle in his jaw jerked. “If that’s the way you want it, I’m out of here.”
“Fine. Give my regards to your raccoons.”
With a last glance that might have held an element of regret—or worse, vast relief, Ciel couldn’t be certain-Jack stormed out the rear door and vanished into the backyard gloom. Shaken, Ciel plopped down again in the wicker rocker and tossed the detector aside.
Marie poked her head out of the kitchen. “That wasn’t Jack I heard leaving, was it? And supper’s almost ready! Why’d you let him go, chere?”
“Ah, he had a pressing engagement with a jar of pond scum.”
Marie made a clucking sound, shaking her head. “Scientists. Who can figure them?”
Not me. Ciel swallowed and clasped one of the crystal pendants in her palm, praying it was also a charm against foolish lovesickness. It was abundantly clear that the last thing she needed in her life was a wary, suspicious man like Jack Cooper, someone who was only going to be around for a short time anyway, and whose stuck-in-themud, too-conventional attitude meant he’d never be able to cut loose and enjoy life to its fullest. Not without help, anyhow.
Ciel stifled a little moan of distress. Logic and clear thinking and knowing what it took to avoid trouble were all well and good, but those qualities had never been her strong suit. If she was smart, she’d concentrate on her investigation and try to forget that a certain man’s kisses were out of this world.
She sighed. Proving the existence of alien visitors suddenly seemed a whole lot easier than that.
“HOLD STILL, Tiny. I’m trying to focus.”
“Hurry up, Ciel. These things make me nervous.”
Ciel peered through the camera’s viewfinder at Tiny Herbert’s impressive bulk, now dwarfed by a foreboding twelve-foot high wall of tangled, undulating plant life creeping out of the woods into Tiny’s cultivated fields. Anything that intimidated a man of Tiny’s size and strength was worth paying attention to.
“Me, too,” she muttered, tripping the shutter button. “It’s right out of Day of the Triffids. Okay, all done.”
Biceps bulging under his cotton T-shirt, Tiny pulled his baseball cap back on his mahogany curls and stepped gratefully away from the towering mass of twisted tendrils and sinisterly succulent fronds. “Just like Jack and the Beanstalk, huh?”
Ciel flipped open her notebook. “Appeared overnight, you say?”
“Practically. Lauren noticed it first.”
“You sure you didn’t accidentally dump an extra load of fertilizer around here?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What is it, anyway? Got any idea?”
“Looked it up in my old college ag books. Best I can figure, it’s got to be first cousin to one of those trap plants. Look at the teeth on that blossom, will you?”
“Teeth?” Ciel’s eyes got wide. “Trap?”
“You know, it catches bugs and dissolves ‘em with acid.”
“A Venus flytrap?”
“Yes.” Tiny cast a worried glance at the vegetation and a shudder rippled his bronzed hide. “Only, this one’s a man-eater.”
“GET YER JAMBALAYA right here!”
“Horace, get that Popsicle out of your sister’s ear!”
“Sister Inez, the All-Seeing. Palm readings discounted to five bucks!”
Wide-eyed, Ciel muttered, “Holy cow jumped over the moon!”
In search of a front-page picture for next week’s Press, she clutched her camera and pressed through the crush of Saturday-afternoon curiosity seekers moving up and down the tent city mushrooming on the grassy shoulders of Ballard Road. In the steamy August heat, her jeans and striped shirt clung to her damp skin. The scents of grilled onions and cotton candy drifted from concessionaires in wheeled trailers with pop-out countertops. Young mothers pushing strollers vied with tourists in Bermuda shorts and sandals for elbow room.
“Hey, honey!” An enterprising huckster in one of the many canvas-roofed crafts booths lining the congested road hoisted a T-shirt with a logo that read I Survived the Invasion of Whiskey Bay. “Better get one now. They’re going fast!”
Ciel laughed and shook her head. “Not today, thanks.”
The man held up a handmade quilt and a fistful of alligator belts. “Then take hubby something. For you, twenty percent off!”
Ciel waved him away, then dodged a Greyhound bus with New Orleans plates edging its way through the bumper-to-bumper traffic. With a hydraulic hiss, the bus disgorged an energetic tour guide keeping up a steady flow of description in a language Ciel couldn’t begin to identify and several dozen Asian travelers carrying video cameras. They stampeded for the observation point, a lookout over the flat expanse of terraced rice fields marked by multicolored gas station pennants strung up on cane fishing poles.
“Don’t enter there, sister!” A bearded man in a white clerical robe grabbed Ciel’s arm. He wore a placard that said Repent, The End Is Near. “It’s the devil’s work! Sing with me now, ‘We shall gather at the river-r-r…’“
“Sorry, I can’t carry a tune in a tin bucket,” Ciel said, pulling free. Farther up the road, she caught sight of Deputy Cleveland Henderson directing traffic. “Excuse me, Reverend. Hey, Cleveland! How’s it going?”
The deputy waved an ancient, rusty tanker truck with a Prejean Oil logo on its side through an almost toonarrow gap in the traffic. As it sped off in a cloud of dust toward the company’s isolated work yard a few miles down the road, the harried officer flashed Ciel a big grin. “It’s a zoo!”
“I’ll say.” Dumbfounded by the carnival-like tumult—Mardi Gras, the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one—Ciel felt guilt prick her conscience. No wonder Jack Cooper was ticked off. All this furor for the sake of a little flattened rice field!
“Listen, Cleveland, did the sheriff ever hear back about those lab reports?”
“Yeah, but nothing conclusive. And now, what with that rain and all this trampling around…” The deputy shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know what caused that thing out there.”
The reporter in Ciel couldn’t settle for that, but before she could say so, a horn bleated at her heels. Startled, Ciel scrambled sideways to avoid the fender of a latemodel Cadillac. The driver was Emile Nabors, looking as bad tempered as ever despite windows rolled up to contain the car’s air-conditioning.
“I hope you’re satisfied!” he shouted through the glass.
Irritated, Ciel cupped her ear with her palm and made her expression blank. “Can’t hear you, Emile.”
Punching a power button, he rolled the window down on the passenger side, and the car exhaled a rush of cool air into Ciel’s heated face. “I said I hope you’re satisfied with this fine mess you’ve made!”
“Oh, you flatterer, Emile!” She giggled demurely, a picture of fetching modesty. “Why, Mr. Nabors, I’d never presume to take all the credit for this wonderful event.”
“Wonderful? We’ve practically got a riot on our hands! Do you have any idea what all this police overtime is costing the town?”
Ciel stifled a sigh. There were always those who saw the glass as half empty instead of half full. In Ciel’s estimation, however, Emile’s irritation over the UFO furor was out of proportion to any real problem.
“Count your blessings, Mayor,” she advised, her lips twisting with mischief. “What you’ve got here is Whiskey Bay’s First Annual Impromptu UFO Festival.”
“That’s a ridiculous notion,” he spluttered.
“Is it? Look at all these people having fun. I must say that it’s certainly more organized and better attended than anything we’ve ever had before, especially that Fruit Fest idea of yours a couple of years ago.” Ciel grinned at him, loving the way his ears were turning red. “I ask you, who wants to celebrate plums and peaches? Nobody, that’s who.”
Emile punched the window button and set his car in motion again, sending Ciel a final glare that was pure venom. “There’s just no reasoning with you, you—”
Thankfully, the closing glass muffled his insult.
Her mouth compressed with anger, Ciel took a quick picture, thinking Emile’s profile would look perfect on the post office’s Most Wanted board. “Same to you, Emile. Can I quote you on that?”
Slinging her camera over her arm, Ciel waved good bye to Cleveland, then trudged up the track, dodging college students in cutoffs and grandmothers with parasols. She finally reached a card table surrounded by ice chests from which two adolescent budding entrepreneurs were selling cups of green liquid their hand-lettered sign identified as Alien Blood.
“Hey, boys. How’s business?”
Kyle looked up from making change and dipping ice. “Great! The little kids love this stuff.”
“Yeah, we’re making a mint,” Tony agreed, pouring the concoction from a gallon milk jug into a line of waiting cups. “Wanna try some? On the house for relatives.”
“Thanks.” Ciel thirstily downed a cup. “Um, good. Tastes like lemonade.”
“You’re not supposed to tell,” Kyle protested. “Anyway, it’s the secret ingredient that’s important. Show her, Tony.”
Tony held up a small plastic vial of green food coloring. “The only beverage with its own special effects. Gives the customers an alien tongue.”
“What!” Ciel stared at the cup she held in mock horror. “You hoodlums, why didn’t you warn me? Is my tongue green?”
Kyle nodded, grinning. “Emerald.”
“No, more like kelly,” Tony hazarded.
“Not the fashion statement I wanted to make today,” Ciel groaned. “Too late now, I suppose.”
“Hey, Ciel, you know what to do with a green alien, don’t ya?” Kyle asked.
“No, what?”
He smirked. “Wait until it gets ripe.”
“A candidate for ‘Star Search’ you’re not,” she declared. “Anyway, Mama wants to know if you fellows need anything. More ice? How about some—”
“Look, here he goes again.” Tony pointed to a tan van coming up the road.
“Think he’ll make it this time?” Kyle asked.
“Nah.”
Ciel frowned at the familiar vehicle. “That’s Jack-er, Dr. Cooper.”
“Yeah, did you know he used to be a real space shuttle astronaut?”
“After that TV news report the other night, I suppose everyone does,” Ciel said, sighing.
“I’ll say! Watch this.” Kyle pointed as several onlookers shouted and waved at the van attempting to reach the lane leading down to the bayou camp house. “Last time he tried to get to Uncle Etienne’s place he had to sign about a zillion autographs before they’d let him through.”
“Oh, boy.”
Sure enough, a crowd of admirers blocked Jack’s progress, filling up the road in front of the van while they snapped photos, rapped on the van’s windshield and held out napkins and check stubs for his signature. Jack leaned out the window, scribbling madly, doing his best to be accommodating while still inching forward—the only choice under the circumstances—but even from this distance Ciel could see his pained expression.
Another twinge of guilt lodged under her breastbone. While she wouldn’t take full responsibility for his plight, she would admit that she might have stirred things up just a tad.
“Mama says close up shop by sundown, boys.” Inspecting the gauntlet of excited tourists, Ciel squared her shoulders. “I’d better go rescue Jack.”
“He’s an astronaut,” Kyle protested. “Nerves of steel. Plenty of guts. Guys like that don’t need rescuing!”
“That’s what you and he both think.” Humming a few bars of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” Ciel set off.
When she reached the bottleneck, she pulled her press pass from her wallet and waded through the mass of humanity crowding Jack’s van. “Okay, break it up. Let me through. Official press business!”
The crowd parted momentarily, and Ciel hopped onto the van’s front bumper.
Jack leaned out of the window. “Ciel, what the hell—”
“Shut up and drive, Professor.” She motioned forward. “Wagons, ho!”
The crowd laughed good-naturedly and stepped aside, and Jack bounced the van up the road, turned into the lane and finally pulled up in front of the camp. Ciel scrambled off the bumper, breathless. “Were you trying to shake me loose from my fillings?”
“Sorry.” Grim-mouthed, he killed the engine, grabbed a plastic grocery bag from behind the seat and got out of the van. “But when you’re breaking orbit, it’s throttles at full or you’re liable not to make it at all.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “That bad, huh?”
“You can see for yourself.”
And indeed she could.
Remnants of orange plastic tape that he’d tried to use to indicate parking areas hung in tatters between cypress trees. The No Trespassing signs were universally ignored. Up and down the lane, people were tailgating off their pickup trucks, picnic baskets open, charcoal burning in their hibachis, lawn chairs out. Families lounged on blankets; teenage girls in bikinis sunned themselves on beach towels; and behind the camp a bevy of fisherman lined the pier.
“They’re like rabbits,” Jack muttered. “I turn my head and they multiply.”
“At least everyone seems friendly,” Ciel offered.
“Yeah, friendly enough to count my bathroom as their own and bring me jars of pickled okra and borrow cups of sugar I need for my experiments, for God’s sake!” He scowled. “I’m thinking of getting a Doberman.”
“Jack! You wouldn’t!”
“Don’t push me, lady. Something with teeth is mighty appealing at the moment.” With Ciel on his heels, he stomped up the porch and into the kitchen cluttered with beakers of green foamy goo and pieces of scientific equipment.
“Well, just stay inside and don’t answer the door,” she suggested reasonably.
“Tried it. First they drove me crazy knocking, then they starved me out” Opening the sack, he unloaded a package of chocolate cupcakes, half a dozen individual bags of pretzels and pistachio nuts, a six-pack of imported beer and a gripper bag with three red pickled eggs.
“Starved? You mean you’re out of supplies and that’s all the groceries you got?” She eyed his purchases with disdain. “Don’t you scientific types know anything about nutrition?”
Jack’s mouth formed a sour curl. “There wasn’t much of a selection at Barney’s 7-Eleven, and since I was already beginning to draw a crowd, I was lucky to get this!”
Ciel inspected him. Circles lay under his eyes, and a day’s growth of beard shadowed his lean jaw. His wellworn jeans and threadbare T-shirt looked like the last things out of a suitcase, but what they did for his male physique sent her libido into overdrive. His dark hair fell over his forehead in a fashion that made her fingers itch to smooth it back. Altogether, it was a sexy and appealingly vulnerable package of strung-out, exasperated, bone-tired masculinity.
And he was utterly irresistible, especially for a girl who suddenly couldn’t remember why he’d made her angry their last meeting, but had no trouble at all remembering the man’s passionate kisses.
Ciel bit her tingling lips, feeling guiltier than ever. “You do look a bit ragged.”
“Try wiped out. I’ll have to go back to Houston if this keeps up, but I’ve got some things cooking that shouldn’t be moved, and I’ve lost enough time already…” Popping the flip top, he swigged the beer and reached for an egg. “Hell, I’m never going to make my deadline.”
“Oh, no, don’t say that!” Contrition clogged her throat. Unable to help herself, she reached out to touch his strong forearm in comfort. His tanned skin was seductively warm, the fine dark hairs silky. “I can’t bear to think of that happening.”
“I’m having to work at night to get anything done, but it’s impossible to sleep during the day. Of course, I couldn’t sleep at night anyway because the raccoons like to tap dance on the verandas and there’s some sort of swamp gas on the bayou that keeps flickering like a flashlight.”
Ciel’s attention sharpened. “Or like Tinkerbell?”
“Well, I guess…” He reached for a second egg. “Jack, that sounds just like Sally Jessup’s case,” she said excitedly. “This is great! You’re both having the same kind of close encounter! Hey, I wonder if Uncle Etienne ever noticed anything like this. We could go see him and—”
He scowled as a soft drumming began at the back door. “This isn’t an episode of ‘The Outer Limits,’ so don’t start that nonsense again! This is where we got off track last time.”
“Okay. Okay. Aren’t you going to answer the door? Someone’s there.”
“Again. Yeah, I know.” He stalked to the door, swung it open and barked, “What?”
The back porch was empty. Frowning, Jack peered up and down the veranda, scanned the backyard, then shrugged. “Third time that’s happened. Must be that some plumbing in the attic sets up sympathetic vibrations in the door facings.”
“Must there be a logical explanation for everything with you?” she demanded in exasperation. Jeez, the man had a Dead Zone where his imagination should be! “Isn’t it conceivable—”
“Not for one minute do I think I’m having visitors from Zork.” Jack raised one eyebrow. “But I do have a question for you, Ciel.”
Trepidation that he was going to take her to task for her part in his troubles made her wary. “What’s that?”
“Why is your mouth green?”
She blinked. “Uh, alien blood.”
He snorted in disgust. “Never a straight answer when a joke will do, right?”
“No, really.” She clutched his arm. “It’s from Kyle’s green lemonade. And yours is red. Your mouth, that is.”
His gaze dropped to her lips, and the air crackled with a sudden surge of sexual heat.
“Interesting condition,” he murmured. “Wonder what we should do about it.”
Ciel’s tongue darted out, slicking her lips with moisture, her words a husky whisper. “It’ll rub off after a while.”
“Maybe we should experiment with accelerating the process.” Cupping her chin, he lifted her mouth to his and rubbed his lips lightly over hers, sending shivers down every extremity. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”
With a sigh, Ciel slid her arms around his neck. “Maybe we should try harder.”
He obliged, pulling her to him and taking her mouth completely. The stubble on his cheeks rasped her sensitive skin, underscoring their essential and exciting differences. His mobile tongue bewitched her senses, teasing and exploring and sending her reeling. Lost in pleasure, Ciel could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the rhythm a shuddering counterpoint to another, more intrusive, noise.
Reluctantly, Jack raised his head. “Hell, it’s the front door now.” Releasing her, he dragged a hand through his hair, his expression rueful. “Sorry, the story of my life these days.”
For the first time, Ciel truly understood his frustration, for it matched her own. And she did feel just a teensyweensy bit responsible for his predicament. Inspiration dawned, and she beamed up at him.
“Jack, I’ve got a great idea!”
“Oh, yeah?” Instant wariness narrowed his eyes.
“You need a quiet place to work, right? There’s a room over our garage I use as an office. The wiring shorts out occasionally, but other than that, it’s fully equipped, quiet. You can come and go as you please, check things over here when you have to, hole up there and work to your heart’s content without any interruptions. Do you want it?”
For a moment he looked tempted, then shook his head. “Uh, that’s probably not a good idea.”
Because you just kissed me senseless? Ciel wondered. Was he so wary of entanglements he’d risk his own project? Well, she couldn’t allow such mule-headed stubbornness!
“Look, I guarantee no one will bother you. You’ll get tons of work done. Besides, what other choice do you have?”
“Hello?” a voice called from outside. The knocking came louder and more persistent than ever. “Anybody home? Junior’s done set the portable toilet afire and we need a water hose!”
Jack rolled his eyes to heaven. “All right, Ciel. You’ve got a deal. Anything has to be better than this!”