He pulled back and smirked, just a little. “Like that.”
Nothing witty popped into my head.
“Have I actually made you speechless?”
I nodded. “It’s possible.”
Teddy let out an indignant chitter from the kitchen chair.
“Does that mean he’s happy?” Hollis asked.
“No. God, no. He’s furious. He’s jealous," I said, pressing my forehead against Hollis's for a second before pulling back.
“Great. I already have a rival.”
I went to check on my skunk, who was staring at us with the deep, wounded offense of an animal who considered himself the primary relationship in this kitchen.
"He'll come around. He likes you. He just doesn't like sharing me." I scooped Teddy up, and he settled against my shoulder with a put-upon sigh. "Besides, he's got other admirers to worry about. Maggie says the skunk detective clip from this morning already has forty thousand views. Somebody in the comments called him the Hercule Poirot of the Garden District."
"He'd probably prefer Sherlock."
"He'd prefer top billing over both of us, honestly." I carried him to the window, Hollis's hand finding the small of my back in a way that felt new and completely unremarkable at the same time, like we'd been doing it for years and were only now catching up to the fact.
Outside, the rain had softened to something closer to mist, and the last of the magnolia blossoms were coming down slow and unhurried onto the wet grass. The grandfather clock chimed in the front hall, on its own schedule.
“Maggie says I have a lot of haunted B&B competition.”
“Your house isn’t haunted.” He grinned. “It’s cursed.”
I rolled my eyes. “How do we spin that for more bookings? ‘We’ve got ghosts’ can become ‘Get cursed in New Orleans.’”
“Doesn’t have a ring to it.”
Midnight House would be full of new guests by next weekend, new stories, new small catastrophes that had nothing to do with dead socialites or falsified provenance or silver straws. There would be another case eventually. There always was, in a house like this one, in a city like this one.
But tonight there was just the rain, and the petals, and Teddy grumbling contentedly against my shoulder.
And Hollis Broussard standing in my kitchen without a single excuse left to be there, which, after a year of watching him invent new ones weekly, felt like its own small, quiet miracle.
"Coffee's getting cold," I said.
"Make more," he said, and didn't move from where he was standing, close enough that I had to laugh.
So I did.
Epilogue
Maggie showed up on my porch on Thursday with two coffees, and a laptop bag.
"Okay," she said, dropping into the wicker chair like she owned it, which, at this point, she basically did. "I spent the morning getting up to speed and reading the Times-Picayune online comment section. Belle Rêve update. You want it in order or do you want the headline first?"
"Headline first."
"'Historic Society Board Resigns Amid Provenance Scandal.'" She handed me my coffee like a peace offering. "All seven of them. Gone. Even the ones who probably didn't know anything, which, I don't know, feels a little unfair, but also, maybe that's what you sign up for when you agree to be a figurehead."
Hollis came out of the kitchen with his own mug, already dressed for his shift, and leaned against the porch rail. "State investigators showed up at the manor Tuesday. Two of them, from the Attorney General's office. They've frozen the preservation grant, the whole thing, pending review."
"Isn’t that half a million dollars?" I asked.
