Jeanie London - Going All Out

Tally deserved to spend her share of the money on reaching for her goals and starting a new life with her handsome fiancé. And even more importantly, Bree deserved the head hostess job. She was detail-oriented and worked well with the other VIP hostesses. She knew the ins and outs of the Big Easy better than anyone on the staff. She’d been at Toujacques longer, too.

Except for Lana. And the thought of working for that self-absorbed, ass-kissing former Vegas showgirl made Bree toss restlessly under the covers.

Plumping her pillow, she tried to find a more comfortable position. On her side, and her knees squeezed together and ached. On her back, and her legs extended and her knees ached. Lying on her stomach wasn’t even a consideration.

Finally settling in an awkward place somewhere between her back and side, she tried to convince herself that Toujacques’ big boys would be fair enough to promote the woman most qualified for the job.

She was most qualified. No question.

Everyone knew it. Everyone also knew Lana would feel she deserved the job because she’d been there longer. She’d torture the entire staff if passed over. Everyone knew that, too, which meant Bree’s future boiled down to whether or not the managers wanted to deal with Lana’s tantrums.

Unfortunately Bree understood. Time didn’t exist in the around-the-clock world of big money and high rollers. The casino stayed open 24/7, an active and exciting life but a demanding one. So the absolute last thing Bree needed to do was give the big boys any grief or aggravation.

Jude Robicheaux was always grief and aggravation.

If Lana caught wind of Bree’s former connection to the smooth-talking Cajun con man, she’d have a field day making sure everyone from the French Quarter to Bayou Teche knew about Bree’s not-so-stellar past. After turning her life around and establishing herself in a solid career, Bree could kiss any hope of job advancement goodbye.

Management would be announcing the promotion after their quarterly meeting next week. Why couldn’t Jude have waited one more stupid week before coming back to town?

And what was she going to do now that he had?

Bree had no answers, and with a sigh she turned restlessly again, debating whether or not to get out of bed and tackle alterations on her dress. Or scrub the bathroom, which seriously needed it.

She was only torturing herself by lying here. Sleep wasn’t in the cards tonight. She needed to distract herself. Or talk. Not so long ago, she’d have come home, plopped down on Tally’s bed and spilled her guts.

Now there was a man in bed with her sister.

Bree was thrilled with Christien. Really. Tally was head over heels, and Bree couldn’t have picked a more perfect man. She wanted Tally to be happy, even if her sister had gotten so caught up in the spirit of the treasure hunt that she was taking the whole ghost legend thing seriously. Even if all the time she spent in bed with her new fiancé or at the Blue Note meant Bree didn’t get to see her nearly enough anymore.

Right now Bree needed to hear her sister laugh as if everything was a joke, because it all felt big. Too big. Bree had worked her butt off to put Jude Robicheaux behind her. She was independent now and making something of her life.

Her sister would agree. She’d praise Bree for how hard she’d worked to be considered for this promotion, for how she’d started at Toujacques as a cocktail waitress and worked her way up through the ranks.

She’d remind Bree about how long they’d dreamed of moving into a real home that wasn’t some tiny apartment in a dumpy complex or a prefab rental in a bad section of town.

To Bree and Tally a real home had meant Court du Chaud. Their connection to the swashbuckling Captain Dampier had been the only thing to make them feel special in an existence that often felt weighted with problems and responsibilities. And when they’d finally gotten their shot at owning their own home, it had all felt magical, special.

Tally would tell Bree not to let anything take that feeling away, not to let anyone smack her down again.

She knew Tally was right, but as Bree sat up in bed and stared at the wall that had been skillfully designed to match the old, she wished she could actually hear Tally say it.

WITH HIS EYES TIGHTLY shut, Captain Gabriel Dampier moved through the wall of the bedroom that had once been his in life. After spending nearly two hundred years haunting his former quarters in Court du Chaud, he had witnessed many who’d inhabited these rooms and had no wish to intrude on anyone’s privacy.

Especially this chit’s. She was directly descended from him, and the very idea of chancing across her in a state of dishabille or, heaven forbid, engaged in some intimate activity smacked far too close to perversion for comfort. As much as he wanted Breanne to fall wildly and hopelessly in love, he had already established guidelines for proper behavior with her twin. He would adhere to those rules now.

Neither death nor the passing of generations apparently tempered the familial bond running through his bloodline. He was Breanne’s many-times-removed grand-père. While he might not have behaved appropriately paternally in life—or even been aware he’d sired offspring—he was correcting the oversight in death.

After listening closely for any sounds of movement, Gabriel peered narrowly through half-closed lids to find his beautiful descendent lying restlessly across the bed.

He sighed, relieved, and opened his eyes.

“You are a fool.” A familiar voice startled him.

“Eternal damnation,” he snapped much louder than he had intended, a rebellion against the invisible barrier between the living world and his own. “Must you plague me at every turn?”

“Yes.”

An unnecessary reply to a question he well knew the answer to. This crone had been tormenting him ever since the fateful night he’d been gunned down on his ship. He’d awakened to find himself dead and her his only companion in the afterlife.

Talk about cursed!

Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw her ghostly form emerge through the wall, a shawl pulled tightly around her stooped shoulders, a pleased expression on her withered face.

The sum of his life obviously equaled a dismal failure to have earned this woman as an eternal reward.

“Go away. I have no wish to deal with you tonight.”

She laughed, a grim sound that would have raised the hairs on his neck had life still pulsed through his veins. “You should have thought of that before you involved yourself with my granddaughter and spawned a bloodline that we share. I’m surprised you have not yet figured out that death is not about what you wish.”

That much he knew. “You shall not ruin my mood, belle grand-mère. Not when the end is finally within my grasp. Breanne has met a man who sparks her interest. She is all that is standing between me and my eternal peace. I can break your damn curse once and for all.”

“Still so proud, pirate.”

“I am no pirate.” The words fell from his lips mindlessly, a habit from long ago.

But even as his denial faded to silence, he could see a smile split her shriveled cheeks until she reminded him of an apple left too long in the sun.

“Then go about your business. I will not disturb you. I would only savor the joy of watching you fail.”

“Fail? This chit’s twin lies in the arms of her new fiancé. Tallis has placed her love for him above her ambition. The curse you placed on our descendents—”

“You I cursed, pirate. Our descendents I blessed to never know the heartache you heaped upon my beautiful granddaughter.”

Curses. Blessings. A matter of opinion. Gabriel’s only consolation was that by cursing him, this vengeful old grand-mère had cursed herself to share in his fate. Not much of a consolation when he’d had to actually listen to her for two hundred years, of course.