Page 32 of She's Like the Wind

She didn’t want me. She wanted the fantasy—rough hands, dirty mouth, blue-collar. A good story to tell her friends or to forget as soon as it was over.

The problem was that I used to want that, too. But not anymore. Not since Naomi.

Not since I learned what it felt like to be known.

“You worked on this house? Oh, I wish I could’ve gotten a peek inside. You know, a vampire used to live there?”

“Baby, you know vampires don’t really exist.” I wrapped an arm around her as we walked past 1039 Royal Street, known to be owned by Jacques St. Germain, the notorious vampire who inspired Anne Rice’s Lestat.

Back in the early 1900s, a man calling himself Jacques St. Germain moved into that grand white house on Royal Street—handsome, refined, accent so French it made women swoon right into his arms. He threw lavish parties, served wine no one could identify, and was never seen eating a single bite. Said he just didn’t have the taste for food.

Rumor had it he was a descendant of Comte de St. Germain, the 18th-century alchemist who claimed to be immortal. Some folks whispered he was the same man—never aged, never died, just changed cities every hundred years or so.

The story took a darker turn when one of his party guests—a woman—was found bloodied and hysterical, having jumped from his second-story balcony. She swore he’d bitten her. Drank from her. That he had eyes like fire.

When the police arrived, St. Germain was gone. Disappeared. Left behind a bloodstained table and a wineglass full of something red that wasn’t merlot.

The house has been sold and resold a dozen times since.

“You know, on certain nights, you can see a figure in the upstairs window—tall, still, watching?” she insisted.

“That’s probably the new owner,” I teased.

“Did you check out the wine cellar? Did you find any interesting wine?”

“You want me to make up a story, baby?”

“Yes, please.”

I laughed, kissing the side of her head.

Barb, short for Barbara, lawyer extraordinaire, was no Naomi. She didn’t have her sense of humor, her class, her humility….

Stop thinking about Naomi. Focus on the woman in front of you, Gage.

I tried. Ireallydid.

I drank the funky wine she ordered, which wasn’t to my taste. If I wanted to drink something that tastedlike beer, I’d fucking drink beer. I liked my wine classical—normal—not this new-age natural shit.

I nodded along as she trashed her coworkers and gushed about some lawsuit she’d won.

I kept picturing Naomi—barefoot in her shop, twisting ribbon through a corset, her mouth quirking with amusement as she listened more than she spoke.

Naomi wouldn’t have spent dinner talking about herself. She’d have asked about the building. The restaurant. The exposed beams, the tile choice, the history of the damn space.

She’d have cared.

This woman didn’t give a shit what I thought aboutanything.

She thoughtrestorationmeant I flipped houses and made good money doing it. She’d mentioned it a couple of times—probably because she knew where I lived. In Uptown, on that sliver near Audubon where the houses had wraparound porches, original gas lanterns, and a whole lot of inherited money behind iron gates.

She thought the zip code meant something. Thought I was one of those guys who wore work boots by day and Rolexes by night.

She didn’t know the half of it.

I didn’t own a damn Rolex, and the only reason I could afford the place was that I’d restored it myself, every inch of it—reclaimed cypress floors, hand-stripped moldings, and original plaster medallions brought back from the brink.

“How old is this place?” Naomi had walked around, touching the walls, seeing everything, the first time I brought her to my place. A two-story Greek Revival off Magazine Street, tucked beneath a canopy of oaks and partially hidden by a tangle of jasmine vines that bloomed like crazy every spring.