LITMIR.BIZ

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and café with two apartments above it, one of which Samie Machin called home. The cottage Bill leased stood in a sizeable enclosed garden behind the building.

      “Afternoon, Ellie,” Spike said. “You met Vivian Patin and her pit bull, Boa?”

      Ellie stopped and seemed edgy before she held her hand out to Boa who turned her back. “You’re out at Rosebank,” Ellie said to Vivian. “I love that house. Your uncle Guy was a lovely man.”

      Vivian nodded and shaded her eyes to see Ellie better.

      “I did a few book searches for him and took stuff out there when I got it in. A really kind, good man. He knew so much about so many things—particularly antiques. But he’d dealt in them for years when he was younger. He used to call me up and tell me he’d cleaned out some books and I could have them. That usually meant he’d decided to part with one or two of the thousands he had. And then I had to hang on to them for a while to make sure he didn’t change his mind.” She clucked her tongue. “You don’t need me to tell you about your own uncle.”

      “I loved him,” Vivian said. “When I was a kid, coming to Rosebank was like getting into Aladdin’s cave. He gave me the run of the house. ‘Take an apple with you,’ he always said when I took off around the place after breakfast. It’s huge, did you realize that?”

      “Oh, I surely did…Well, will you listen to me, forgetting myself.” She held out a hand. “Ellie Byron. Hungry Eyes at the other end of the square belongs to me. Books and gifts, mostly books—new and used. And the iced tea is always free. There’s a little café, too. That’s not free.” She smiled and laughter in her eyes transformed her serious expression.

      “My kind of place,” Vivian said, liking this woman but wishing she could be alone with Spike again. “You weren’t always there, though.”

      “About two years now,” Ellie said. “The place used to be Connie and Lorna’s Eye For Books. For the first year I managed the shop, then Connie and Lorna moved to Rayne to open a Mardi Gras costume business. That’s when I bought them out.”

      “I’ll visit you,” Vivian promised.

      The afternoon felt airless but there was enough of a cross current to move Ellie’s short brown curls. When she smiled she looked even younger than she probably was. A pretty woman with a voluptuous body under the loose gauze dress she wore. Ellie’s bright blue eyes were the only jarring note. Beautiful, faintly upswept eyes—too old in their depths and wistful even when she laughed.

      She cleared her throat and fidgeted. “You’re having a hard time,” she said. “I can only imagine what you’ve been through with your father’s death and now this thing that happened at Rosebank. I’m very sorry.”

      Vivian glanced briefly at Spike. “Thank you, you’re kind.”

      “See you at the shop one day, then,” Ellie said. She hovered as if she had more to say, but then she walked on. “Good to meet you. Bye, Spike.”

      Spike and Vivian said, “Bye,” in unison and as soon as Ellie was out of earshot, Spike told Vivian, “We need to talk but not here.”

      “Where?” she asked, her heart pounding in her throat.

      “Do you have your own car or did Madge—”

      “I brought my own. It’s parked near your station. Madge said that’s where smart people park because it’s safe.”

      He didn’t comment on that. “Leave it there. Walk to my car with me. If we go to the office someone will hear about it and some folks will come to the wrong conclusions.”

      “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” she asked him. “Or afraid of guilt by association?”

      He held her arm and helped her to her feet. The way he looked at her made Vivian squirm and his hard fingers ground the bones in her forearm.

      “What is it with you?” he said. “Are you trying to goad me? I’m afraid of very little, and you don’t qualify at all. And embarrassed to be seen with you? Hell, I’m not wasting my breath on that. Common sense is never a bad idea though, cher. Toussaint, birthplace of gossip. And that’s about the way it is, so for your sake I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Like I’m questioning you officially.”

      “The inevitable?”

      “Almost inevitable. Some could already be linking our names. If they get serious about it because we give them reasons, that will not be a good thing. Walk.”

      Spike handed Vivian her basket and swept Boa under his arm. She figured a dog attack wouldn’t be long in coming and could be ugly—and when Spike Devol blamed Boa for biting him, Vivian would tell him she had witnesses to the fact that he’d been warned the animal could be hostile.

      A man’s firm hand at her waist felt better than it ought to. This man’s hand felt fantastic.

      They walked down one side of the town square—which had a triangle of grass decorated with painted gnomes, stone animals and plastic flamingoes at its center. Santa and his sleigh were kept permanently ready to be illuminated for the holidays.

      By the time they reached Spike’s official Ford, Vivian could see her van in the distance.

      Spike opened the passenger door for her and closed it once she was inside. Her ducked head, the way she frowned through the windshield made him look around expecting to see something or someone nasty. Not a thing. He checked her out again and shook his head. Boa had wriggled around until she could rest her head on his shoulder and he figured the boss wasn’t believing what she was seeing.

      “Daddy! Daddy!”

      Wendy’s voice surprised him and he swung toward the buildings. She ran down the steps of the gaudy Majestic Hotel and leaped into his free arm. “Hey, sweets, where’s your gramps?” he said and barely stopped himself from asking who was taking care of business.

      “He’s talkin’ to Mr. Hibbs. He let me sit on the steps as long as I ran back inside if anyone came. I saw Wally, too. He said I was a baby. He’s eleven, you know. But he let me see Nolan. Oh, Daddy, you bought us a dog. You said you wouldn’t, but you did.”

      Spike’s daughter bubbled and smiled, and scratched between Boa’s ears with small, slightly grubby fingers.

      The subject had to be changed until he could think of the best way to get out of the dog thing. “You couldn’t have seen Nolan,” he told her. “Nolan went to tarantula heaven.”

      “This is Nolan two. That doesn’t mean he’s Nolan, too, just that he’s another Nolan. He’s got cute legs. They’re all fuzzy.”

      Spike kissed her nose, hugged her tight, and thought as he so often did that he was one lucky man.

      Inside the car Vivian watched with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. And she felt like a complete outsider. The little girl had to be Wendy. Pretty small for five, Vivian thought, not that she was an expert. Straight, tow-colored braids stuck out from the sides of her head, and an impishly upturned, freckle-spattered nose balanced a pair of pink glasses with round lenses. Thin arms and legs. Wendy was the kind of waiflike child Vivian invariably had an urge to gather up and care for.

      Spike talked to Wendy as if no one else existed on earth. He sat her comfortably on a forearm and she held on tight with both arms around his neck. Bows at the ends of her pigtails matched the fabric in a blue floral dress she wore tied with a sash around the waist. The dress seemed old-fashioned but well-cared-for and whoever combed her hair had practiced.

      Vivian had passed the Majestic a few times but never really saw it clearly until now. Thea had told her how Doll Hibbs figured the place was all the hotel the area needed.

      Lime green walls and a lilac-colored, gold crosshatched dome on top of a tower at one side made for a lot of visual interest.

      “You’ve got a prisoner in your car, Daddy,” Wendy whispered

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