Page 33 of Xavier

“No,” she said, her voice breathy. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

It might be fine for her, but he was feeling the full effects of Hurricane Lissette storming his libido.

He dropped down from the running board and took his time rounding the front of the truck, adjusting his jeans across his suddenly hard cock.

Yeah, he hadn’t been with a woman for quite some time. But damn. He shouldn’t have had such an immediate reaction to this one. All he’d done was fasten her seatbelt.

He slipped behind the wheel and kept his gaze from drifting sideways toward the woman in the seat beside him.

She shot a look in his direction.

He could see her face out of the corner of his eye.

“You felt it too, didn’t you?” she said softly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied. As he started the engine, he cleared his strangely parched throat and asked, “Where to?”

Lissette sat with her hands in her lap, her lips twitching at the corners. “The cemetery.”

He shifted into reverse and backed out of the parking space, pulling out onto Main Street.

“Uh, it’s the other way,” she said.

“I knew that.” Warmth flooded his cheeks as he pulled into a parking lot to turn around. He shouldn’t be having such lusty thoughts about this woman.

But he had and still was.

Even the thought of tramping over graves didn’t cool the heat in his groin.

Six days. He only had to make it six days.

Chapter 6

“First stop should be the sexton’s cottage,” Lissette said, forcing back her physical reaction to Xavier buckling her seatbelt.

“Sexton?”

“The man who takes care of the cemetery—Old Man Fournier. Some of the tombs are clearly marked. Others, not so much. He’ll know who was buried where and what families they belong to today.”

Before they reached the cemetery, Lissette had Xavier stop near the edge of town at a small cottage with peeling paint and sagging eaves. As Xavier parked his truck, a stooped old man stepped out onto the porch and shielded his eyes.

“Mr. Fournier?” Lissette called out as she climbed down from the truck.

“Dat’s me,” he said. “Who be a callin’?”

“It’s me, Lissette Gautier.” She met Xavier at the foot of the steps leading up to the porch. When the man didn’t recognize her name, she added, “Madame Gautier’s granddaughter.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Come on up. Could I interest you in coffee or iced tea?”

Lissette breathed a sigh of relief that Mr. Fournier hadn’t remembered her for her shady past and trip to the pokey. “Thank you, Mr. Fournier. I’d like a raincheck on that iced tea. We came because you know the layout of the cemetery and who’s buried where.”

The hunched old man shook his head. “Get in line behind de sheriff’s department. Dey were out to the cemetery yesterday after de grave robbers stole all de t’ings.”

“We’d like to make a list of all the folks whose tombs were broken into. Someone needs to notify the families.”

Mr. Fournier’s brow twisted. “Ain’t dat what de sheriff be a doin’?”

Lissette shook her head. “No, Mr. Fournier. No one is letting families know what happened. Madame Gautier and I would like to let them know about what’s happened to their loved ones’ resting places.”