Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #1)(6)

Except that the office wasn’t empty.

A man sat at her desk, his back to the door. A man she’d never seen before. A man with a lot of nerve, since he was trying to log in to her computer.

Apparently, the hacking effort had him totally engrossed because he didn’t seem to hear her come in. Maryse pulled the door shut with a bang and got a small satisfaction out of making him jump. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my office?” she asked.

The man turned around in the chair, and Maryse felt her breath catch in her throat. He was gorgeous. Long black hair pulled into a ponytail, dark eyes, and skin with that deep brown coloring that implied Creole or Native American. He smiled at her, and she blinked. Even his teeth were perfect.

He rose from the chair and extended his hand. “I’m Luc LeJeune.”

Maryse stared at him a moment more, then shook his hand. “And you’re doing exactly what in my office, trying to break into my computer?”

Luc glanced back at the computer, then looked back at her. “Oh, that. Well, you see, I’m a zoologist for the state. I’m going to be working here with you for a while…maybe a couple of months, and this is the only computer in the office I could find.”

Maryse’s head whirled. “Working here? There’s barely room for me.” Technically, there were two offices, but one was her lab, and by God, she wasn’t giving it up. “There’s only one bathroom.”

Luc smiled again. “I don’t mind sharing as long as you leave the seat up.”

Good looking and funny too. God help her. “This is not going to work,” Maryse said. “There is one desk in here, one computer. There’s no way we will both fit.”

Luc shrugged. “Guess we’re going to have to. I have a job to do, and this is where the state sent me. Based on the time you showed up here today, I assume you spend most working hours in the bayou. Either that or you’re really not a morning person.”

Maryse bristled. “I’m fine in the morning, Mr. LeJeune. This morning I was attending a funeral for my mother-in-law. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Luc glanced at her bare left hand. “You’re married? That’s a shame. This assignment was starting to look interesting.”

“No, I’m not married. Well, technically, I’m married, but not really.”

Luc looked at her in obvious amusement. “You’re not really technically married? I’m fascinated. What’s the story?”

She paused for a moment, deciding on an answer. “I’m getting a divorce.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Maryse sighed. “Look, Mr. LeJeune, I don’t really care to discuss my personal life with you, I don’t care to share my office with you, and I sure as hell don’t care to leave the seat up on the toilet. Now, if you don’t mind removing yourself from my desk, what I do care to do is use my computer so that I can manage a bit of work today before the daylight is gone.”

Luc slid the chair to the side and grinned, aggravating her even more. “All yours.”

Maryse pulled a metal chair up to the computer since the rude zoologist apparently had no intention of giving up her comfortable leather chair. First thing tomorrow morning, she was calling the state about this. There was no way she was going to have that man snooping around her research, using her computer, looking over her shoulder.

Like he was doing now.

Luc LeJeune had rolled his chair back toward her and now the arm of her leather chair was almost touching the arm of the cheap metal thing she currently sat on. In the cool, air-conditioned office, she could feel the heat from his body as he shifted toward her, his arm and shoulders not even an inch from hers.

She lifted her arm away from his warmth and leaned forward in her chair and slightly to the side in order to block his view of the keyboard. Then she tapped in her password. The screen flickered, and she opened her mailbox and started scanning for the picture she needed. Leaning back again in her chair, she clicked to open the e-mail she’d been searching for.

“So who was your mother-in-law?” Luc asked. She could feel his breath on her neck.

Silently willing her hormones into submission, she frowned. “Ex-mother-in-law. And why would you want to know? You’re not from Mudbug.”

Luc shrugged. “My grandparents used to live on the bayou in the next town. They have friends in Mudbug. I figure your mother-in-law might have been someone they knew.”

“Ex-mother-in-law, and her name was Helena Henry.”

Luc let out a laugh. “You’re the one who married Hank Henry? Wow, that sucks. No wonder you’re not technically married. Hank’s been gone for, what, a year now?”

Maryse gritted her teeth and worked to control her voice. “Two years actually, but I’m sure that’s about to change.”

Luc studied her for a moment, then frowned. “So the wicked witch is dead. Ought to make things interesting.”

Maryse clicked on the picture she was looking for and sent it to print. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “She was filthy rich, right? Always interesting when someone with that much money dies.”

Damn. His words brought her right back around to Hank’s likely reappearance and Helena’s definitive one. She grabbed the printout from the printer and was about to shut down the computer when the office phone rang. She reached for it, but Luc got there first, sliding the headset just out of her grasp.