Free Bayou Nights by Julie Mulhern

ghost?”
    “Just a man,” said Christine. “Mr. Drake, you may put me down now.”
    Drake ignored her request.
    “Is that the ruckus I heard out front?” asked Marigold.
    “The ghost pushed the man down the stairs,” explained Christine. Another lie. The ghost had lifted a grown man off the floor, kept him hanging in the air until his eyes bugged with fear, then dropped him twenty feet. All as easily as if he was tossing a pebble.
    Marigold crossed herself. “He ain’t never hurt no one before.”
    “I doubt he will again,” Drake assured her. “He was protecting Chris—Miss Lambert.”
    Josie Arlington burst into the kitchen, took one furious look at him, and said, “What. Did. You. Do?”
    Christine wriggled as is if she wanted him to release her. Not likely. He tightened his hold. “A man accosted Miss Lambert.”
    Josie waved away such a trifle with the tips of her fingers. “So you threw him down the stairs.”
    “I punched him in the jaw. Major Haywood threw him down the stairs.” Off the stairs was more accurate, but now wasn’t the time to split hairs.
    “And who, pray tell, is Major Haywood?”
    “Your ghost.”
    Josie’s ruddy cheeks blanched. “Get out!” She lifted her hand and pointed to the door leading to the alley. “Now.”
    “Miss Arlington…Josie—”
    Josie cut off whatever Christine intended to say with a shake of her finger. “That ghost ain’t never made any real trouble. Not until tonight. You two are here for fifteen minutes and all hell breaks loose. Get out.”
    Christine struggled against his hold. “Put me down.”
    He set her on her feet and ignored the empty feeling in his arms.
    Together they walked out the back door into the stinking alley. The door slammed behind them.
    “I think you just lost a customer.”
    “She never bought that much anyway. I’d like to go home.”
    “No.”
    “No?” Her brows rose.
    “No. You’ve been attacked there once already.”
    She squared her shoulder and scowled up at him. “Then where are we going?”
    We? Drake scowled back. Damn it, that plural pronoun made his lips long to curl into a smile. “I have no idea.”
    He walked—slowly—toward the street.
    She followed him. What choice did she have?

Chapter Five
    Drake held out his arm as if he expected her to take it. Not likely. The man had been behaving like a…like a man.
    Christine ignored the proffered arm and limped toward the lights of Canal Street.
    “Where are you going?” he asked.
    She hadn’t the slightest idea, but the alley smelled disgusting and Josie might yet appear with a shotgun. She kept walking.
    He caught up within seconds and somehow managed to insert his arm beneath hers. “Until we figure out who or what is attacking you, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
    She’d asked for help locating her father, not a bodyguard. Christine slit her eyes. “And if I don’t want you around?”
    “Learn to live with it.” His voice sounded deadly serious.
    Christine sighed her frustration. A sigh was more dignified than stomping her feet like a fractious toddler. Besides, she doubted she could effectively stomp with her ankle throbbing the way it was. If only she had something to throw at his pompous, over-bearing, interfering, disapproving head.
    They exited the alley and Christine drew a deep breath of air into her lungs. “I want to go home.”
    “I already told you no.”
    “I heard you, Mr. Drake, but you don’t decide what I do.”
    He glanced at her. “Zombie.”
    She didn’t need reminding. The zombie had been rather frightening but she’d managed.
    “The possessed mob,” he added.
    That too had been frightening, but she’d escaped with only a twisted ankle. “I want—”
    “No. We’ll get you a room at my hotel.”
    She stopped on the banquette and stared up at him. Was he mad? Her dress was in tatters, her hat askew, her hair a disaster, and all that running had made her glow. As a result she suspected she smelled less