Page 23 of Devil's Haunting
I could watch my man work for hours. Happily. Very fucking happily.
Having seen enough, I slip back out of the ballroom. Well, former ballroom. I have no use for such a room in my house. I won’t be inviting the better half of polite New Orleans society into my home for balls. No, thank you.
The ballroom will become a family room, even though the thought of a formal living room makes me uncomfortable. I think that I’ll make it into a playroom one day. That could work, considering how close it is to the kitchen, which is going to be huge when everything is done. That will be framed out soon, but I can already see it in my mind. I’m so looking forward to when I can make a meal there.
As I step into the solarium, which will remain my studio with some modifications once this renovation is done, I don’t hesitate to pull out a fresh canvas. It takes me a moment to get my pallet set up, but once I do, I focus on my man’s back and the strength of each of his movements while working.
As I start to block out my painting, my mind wanders to all the time I’ve spent with Tripp. I’ve been in relationships before and spent far less time with the man I was with and hated every second of it. I would feel suffocated and like I had no freedom.
This is so completely different considering we’re practically on top of each other all the time and yet I feel a sense of freedom. The last thing I feel is stifled when it is exactly how I should feel, logically at least.
I’m lost in my painting and don’t notice anyone else in the room with me. At least not until a hard chest presses against my back.
Tripp’s husky voice brushes against the shell of my ear, “Are you painting me, my little Mischief-maker?”
I jump about a foot off the stool I’m sitting on, but I don’t fall on my ass because Tripp is there to catch me and hold me steady. Not only do I hear the low rumble of the chuckle coming from him, but I feel it as well.
As I breathe through my heart racing and try to calm down from the adrenaline jumpstart, the sound of the lock clicking into place fills the quiet room. Our eyebrows pull together at the same time as we turn to look at each other in confusion. Then we turn and look toward the door.
The lock is now definitely flipped which makes no fucking sense considering we’re on the other side of the room and are the only two people here.
“What the fuck just happened?” I mutter the question as I stand up from my stool and put my pallet down.
Tripp and I stride toward the door side by side. When we reach it, we find out what we already knew—the door is locked.
“I didn’t lock it when I walked in,” Tripp assures me while still sounding baffled about the door being locked in the first place.
Since the door locks from inside the room, which is where we are, he reaches for the lock and tries to turn it. It doesn’t budge. Then he tries the knob. It doesn’t either, which isn’t a surprise.
Unable to help myself, I reach for the lock and try to turn it. “It’s stuck?” I dumbly ask out loud.
“I don’t think it’s stuck,” Tripp’s voice is unsure.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Is that my voice? It’s gone up an octave and is on the edge of shrill.
“Don’t worry,” he tries to soothe me, “we’ll get out of here.”
When he steps away from me, he starts running his hands over the wall as if looking for something. I find myself following his lead even though I have no idea what I’m feeling around for.
Some kind of switch? A button? I don’t think there is anything that’ll flip the lock open.
“I swear if this is you, Desiree, playing some kind of trick on us, I’m going to be pissed. I’ll try every ghost busting suggestion I can find online to get rid of you,” I threaten under my breath.
Tripp snorts out a laugh from the other side of the room which means I wasn’t as quiet with my threat as I thought I was. Oh well, as long as Desiree hears me.
Her and her Voodoo curse can shove it. The fact that she made Blanche’s life hell because she was petty pisses me off. She was the mistress. I don’t think the daughter she had with Phillip should have been shunned or anything, but she knew society at the time wouldn’t have allowed her to be with him. She knew it and she still chose to get involved with him.
“Uh,” Tripp’s sound of confusion has me turning toward him, “what the fuck is this?”
He’s pulled a piece of wall aside to expose a small cubby. I close the distance between us and peer inside of the hole in much the same way Tripp is. We glance at each other before looking back inside the cubby.
I had no fucking idea it was even there, and I’ve been spending a lot of time in this room. How did I miss it?
“It looks like a book,” Tripp murmurs.
I swallow hard, unsure if I really want to know while being very aware that I can’t avoid finding out and reach in to grabit. I pull out a leatherbound journal, black and smaller than Blanche’s.
When I open the cover, I find an inscription on the inside along with a signature. Marilyn Celia Landry.
