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kid.”
    “Great,” she said, wondering about the implications of that afterthought. “After you move the truck, wait until dark and come in by way of the alley and the back door.”She took a key off a hook by the pantry door and gave it to him. “I suppose I’ll have to leave the porch light on for you.”
    “I would appreciate that,” Gerry said dryly.
    Immediately, she regretted her irritable tone. She couldn’t expect him to know about the excellent night vision bestowed by her vampire gene. “Keep all the curtains closed, and don’t look outside with a light behind you.”
    He raised his brows incredulously, but all he said was “Okay.”
    She bit her lip. He wasn’t taking her seriously enough. “
Please
be careful.”
    “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
    Typical, stubborn, patronizing male, but in this instance she could hardly blame him. Mentally, she threw up her hands. “I’ll buy more shingles before I go to the club,” she said. “And I’ll order plywood for delivery tomorrow.”
    “Let me take care of the supplies,” Gerry said, and when she went for her pocketbook to write him a check, he added, “You can pay for them later.”
    He was making it all very easy. Sure, he was nice, but there was nice and then there was ridiculous. What was his ulterior motive? Oh, come
on
, she told herself. He was just horny. Like any virile, sweet-blooded guy, he hadn’t given up hope of getting her into bed.
    She needed to steer his thoughts in another direction. She couldn’t handle two guys obsessing over her at once. “If you’re not busy tonight, you might want to go through Arthur’s bedroom. He said there’s more Mardi Gras stuff in there. He planned to give it to the museum, along with any personal papers that seemed relevant. I’m a history buff, so we talked about it a lot.” Not as much as she wanted, but deep down, Arthur hadbeen a private sort of guy. Like, for example, when she’d asked him about the Mardi Gras celebrations of 1941, the last before the hiatus during the war. She knew he’d been to a particular ball—the curator at the museum had found his name on a list of attendees and prodded her to ask him about it—but Arthur had immediately clammed up, so she’d respected his privacy and let it be.
    Gerry was watching her, a smile hovering at the edges of his mouth. He had a humorous mouth, with lips that promised fun and games in bed. They weren’t the lips of an uptight guy.
    But now more than ever, she shouldn’t let herself think about kissing him.
    She did anyway. Their eyes met, and those lips twitched as if her mind was transparent.
    Damn. She wrenched her thoughts back to Arthur’s belongings. “There may be mementos of your mother.” That should get Gerry’s mind off sex. “And letters and so on. You may prefer to have another family member go through them, but . . .”
    “But?”
    She took a breath. “I don’t like having to say this, but he didn’t want any of his personal stuff to go to April and June. I think he hated them.”
    “Yes.” Gerry sounded indifferent. “He did.”
    She had to ask. “Do you know why?”
    “Nope.” Gerry drained his coffee. “I learned not to bring up that subject when I was still a kid.”
    Don’t you care?
She did—way too much, considering it was none of her business, or at least not really, but she was nosy by nature and not about to change. “He knew histime was short, and he was trying to go through everything before he died. But he didn’t get it all done, and . . .”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Gerry said. She could see he didn’t want to discuss this. At all, just like Arthur.
    Which made her more curious than ever about Arthur’s past.
    And now Gerry was looking at
her
mouth.
    She shooed him out the door and fled for the safety of the Pie Club.
    * * *
    Gerry ran through various scenarios while he bought the roofing materials and worked out at a dojo with his friend, at whose house he parked