“Sure. You’re actually going to stay up with me?” he asked, knowing that she never voluntarily gave up sleep before a workday. She’d been telling the truth earlier; ninth-graders would make mincemeat of a tired teacher.

“I may read a few of them with you. Gotta admit, I’m curious to know what’s in these letters.” She grabbed one of the boxes as Dax lifted the other. “So you think there’s something in here that will help you figure out how Celeste can stay longer?”

“I know that there’s something in this attic that will help, and I’m thinking it may also be in these letters.”

“Did you learn anything from Ryan?”

“Yeah,” he said, motioning for her to start on ahead of him. “I learned that Celeste’s situation is nothing at all like his was. He controlled when he came, where he went, how long he stayed, everything. She has no control, none at all. And there are other things that are different about her too, not just different from Ryan’s situation, but different from every ghost I’ve seen.”

He followed her out of the attic and used their time navigating the ladder and then the two flights of stairs leading to the kitchen to once more run over all of the differences he’d noticed-Celeste’s exhaustion, her lack of control over when she came and went, the fact that she didn’t glow as brightly as other spirits and her eyes weren’t black.

Dax decided not to enlighten Nan that Celeste also had the ability to touch him, and to do way more than that. She’d brought him to orgasm with her mouth, in her mouth. He hardened again, merely at the memory.

He placed his box on the table and immediately sat down behind it, so there was no way Nan could notice the bulge pressing against his jeans. She had no need to know those details, and Dax certainly had no desire to share them with his cousin.

He cleared his throat. “Ryan suspects that she glows brighter when she gets closer to the other side.”

She placed her box across from his. “But every time our ghosts visit, they’re already glowing, and the brightness doesn’t increase as they get closer to crossing, or it hasn’t with any of mine. What about yours?”

“No, never.”

“And their eyes are always jet black, right from the moment I get them,” she said.

“Mine too. That’s what I don’t understand about Celeste. Something’s different, and unless I figure it out in time, I’m afraid she’ll cross completely, and I won’t be able to stop it.”

“And you think these letters hold the answer for what’s going on with her?” she asked, lifting a handful from her box.

“Hell, I hope so.” He gave her a tired smile. “So, you up to reading, oh, a couple of hundred letters?”

She sighed, then put the letters back on top of the stack. “You know, I thought that I’d help you get started on them,” she said, peeking at the clock on the microwave. “But I’ve got to get up in two hours. As much as I want to find proof that people were in this house back then, I do have a class to teach in the morning. And you have to work too, don’t you?”

He did. In fact, tomorrow he had to cover his biggest route, visiting doctors in the majority of southeastern Louisiana. Typically, he loved his job. He made decent money, though currently most of it went toward repairs on the plantation, and he got a company-paid car-a BMW, no less-but it did involve a lot of driving and long hours, and generally required he get a full night’s sleep before a day of work. “Yeah, I do. But I think I’ll go ahead and start on some of these first, then I’ll sleep. Unlike your teaching job, I don’t really have a time I have to get started.”

However, the later he started, the later he’d have to work, and in the back of his mind, he was hoping to see Celeste tomorrow night. Then again, his grandmother’s note had said she’d need more than a day of rest before she could return again. Maybe he should work an extra-long day, in case she showed up later in the week, and he decided to take a day off.

Nanette yawned. “Tell you what. You look some of them over tonight and then mark the spot you get to. I’ll pick up tomorrow afternoon. With the parent-teacher conferences out of the way, I should be home right after school’s out, so that should give me plenty of time to see what we’ve got.”

“Deal. And I can’t help but think that what we need is in here,” he said, indicating the boxes filled with letters.

“I hope so, because it’d be really good to put Charles Roussel in his place. I’ve been dreaming of the day when I can tell him that he has no control over whether the Vicknair plantation stays or goes.” She smiled, apparently envisioning the scene with the cocky parish president. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Grandma Adeline has given us a way to save the house.”

“Maybe she has.” And maybe, just maybe, she’d given him a way to get back the woman he loved. One thing was for sure: if he got her back, he wasn’t going to waste a minute. He prayed their next time together wouldn’t be their last, but if it was, then he wanted to make sure he gave her every pleasure a woman could get from a man, and that each and every pleasure was as potent, as overwhelming, as what she’d so selflessly given him tonight-powerful enough for her to remember for eternity.

8

TWO HOURS LATER, Dax was on his second pot of coffee and still poring over the box of letters when Nanette entered the kitchen.

“You didn’t sleep,” she said, stating the obvious as she filled a mug with coffee, then walked over and topped off his cup.

“Nope.” Dax peered into the remaining box of letters on the floor beside him; he’d been reading them as quickly as he could and still was only halfway done. It’d taken time to view them, because in most cases they’d been in their original envelopes, and both the envelope and the papers within were weathered and fragile. On top of that, the writing was fairly faint, though it could have just seemed that way because Dax’s eyes were so tired.

Nanette sat across from him and surveyed the two piles of paper taking over the majority of the kitchen table. “Okay. Tell me what you found.”

“These aren’t dated and don’t have any references to historical events that would date them, per se.” He pointed to the larger stack on his right. Then he indicated the eight letters and envelopes on his left, the ones that she’d be most interested in. “But these-these are a different story entirely. It seems our great-great-great-great-grandfather-and I’m assuming I’ve got the number of greats right-not only fought in the Civil War, but also took the time to write his wife and tell her about it.”

Nanette’s green eyes practically gleamed. “And his wife was…”

“Right here,” Dax said, glad that he was able to give her what she wanted, even if he hadn’t found anything to help him with Celeste. “She stayed at home, at the plantation.”

“No way! We can prove it? With those?” She reached for the small stack and pulled them toward her, protectively. “Dax, that’s incredible!”

“Yeah, and I’m betting there are more in here that I haven’t even gotten to yet, but these eight are all dated between April and May 1862, during the battles at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, where the North was trying to get control of New Orleans and that portion of the Mississippi River. Pretty interesting stuff, really.”

Dax had also found it interesting that John-Paul Vicknair had managed to write his wife daily throughout the ongoing battle, a sign, in Dax’s mind, that all Vicknair men were singularly focused when it came to the women they loved. He’d bet John-Paul had been as determined to write that letter every day as Dax was determined to have Celeste with him, every day.

Nanette read the first letter, nodding as she scanned the page, then flipped it over. Then she read the second, and the third, and so on, while Dax worked on finishing yet another cup of coffee. It’d been a long night, and he did have to go to work soon. He knew that he’d never finish all those letters before he had to go. But he’d made a good dent, and he’d found what Nanette was looking for, so the effort hadn’t been totally wasted, even if he’d yet to find anything that hinted as to why Celeste couldn’t get back to him.