Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(18)

“Yep. Which makes this my office that I’m leasing to the state that I’m leasing part of back to myself.” Maryse paused for a moment, the absurdity of that business transaction just hitting her.

“So you’re leasing from yourself,” Luc said, “and you’d like me to respect your privacy. Is that about right?”

Maryse blinked, surprised Luc had caught on to everything that fast. “Yes.”

Luc nodded. “I have no problem with that. Sorry, I never meant to make you uncomfortable. I guess I’m just used to dealing with a different kind of woman.” He extended his hand. “Truce?”

Maryse hesitated for a moment, then rose from her seat and placed her hand in his, trying to ignore her body’s response to his strong hand clasped around hers. She released his hand and stuck her own in her jeans pocket, silently willing the tingling to stop.

Luc smiled and exited her lab, closing the door behind him.

Maryse stared at the closed door for a moment, then sat on her desk. What was it with that man? No matter how hard she tried to stay angry at him, he always managed to diffuse the situation and leave her wondering how he would look naked. Luc LeJeune was definitely a walking hazard to her mental and emotional health. Just when she thought he was a complete and utter cad, he managed to turn the tables on her by saying something unexpected, and an apology had been the absolute last thing she had expected.

I’m used to dealing with a different kind of woman.

Yeah, Maryse would just bet he was. The sexy, self-confident kind of woman that Maryse would like to be but didn’t have a clue where to start. And given her current situation, it didn’t look like she was going to find time to research it anytime soon.

In addition to everything else she had on her mind, Luc’s comment about his uncle had left her a bit unsettled. If his uncle was really as highly placed with the state as he claimed, Luc might still be able to make trouble for her if he thought she wasn’t doing her job.

She’d just have to be careful—make sure she didn’t let her personal research and the small matter of Helena Henry get in the way of her job any more than it already had, at least during work hours. Which meant the first item on her list was figuring out a way to avoid the ghost during working hours anyway. If the will reading had been any indication, anything involving Helena was bound to be trouble.

Maryse shook her head as her mind roamed back over the events of the morning. What a fiasco. Then, with a start, she remembered where she’d seen that other group of plants and groaned.

Directly across the bayou from Helena Henry’s house.


Luc heard the lab door slam behind him and turned in his chair. Instead of the aggravation he’d expected, Maryse had that look of intent concentration mixed with excitement that you get when you have a great idea but are still trying to work out the details. She didn’t even acknowledge him as she pulled on her rubber boots and hustled out of the office without so much as a wave or a backwards glance.

Luc sighed. So much for his powers of sexual attraction. He’d gotten women in bed with less than a handshake and an apology before, but Maryse Robicheaux was a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, with the day she’d had, Luc couldn’t blame her too much for being distracted. She’d gone from a wrecked truck to inheriting a game preserve, and, technically, it wasn’t even quitting time.

Still, he’d thought they’d moved beyond suspicious. But if the scene in her lab was any indication, Maryse’s defense system was back in full force. But why? Was it really because he’d had her truck towed, or was it something else entirely? Granted, he sometimes had trouble remembering all that women’s independence stuff. Not that he didn’t like strong women—hell, he’d been raised by the strongest of women, his grandmother. But he was also Choctaw, and it was ingrained into them from a young age to take care of their responsibilities—especially to their women.

She’s not your woman.

Okay, so he knew it was true, at least in the real sense of the sentiment. But until the DEQ was satisfied that his work in Mudbug was done, Luc felt responsible for Maryse, and if she was in some kind of trouble, then he felt obligated to help. In fact, if Maryse was the informant he sought, then it was his job to help. All kinds of trouble could be headed her way if the chemical company got wind that someone was airing dirty secrets to the DEQ.

He studied the locked lab door. That notebook…he hadn’t gotten a good look at the page, but he’d seen enough to know that it wasn’t filled with regular writing. Those symbols were chemicals equations, but high school chemistry was such a distant memory he’d never be able to scratch the surface of what exactly she had written, not even with all day to consider it. But he’d be willing to bet his department had someone who could decipher whatever Maryse had been so quick to hide.

He rose from his chair and studied the lock for a moment. It was one of the best, but not completely unbeatable. Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial.

“Wilson,” his boss answered on the first ring.

“It’s LeJeune. I need a set of B&E tools down here. Something that can get past a pretty high-tech padlock.”

“What’s wrong, LeJeune—the woman wearing a chastity belt?”

Luc counted to three, then replied. “Hilarious. She’s renting office space from the state that she’s turned into some sort of chemistry lab. I need to get in there and see what she’s working on.”