“Your father was a friend of his. I think Leonard’s watching everyone around him getting older and feeling it himself.” And didn’t she understand how that felt. “If you have more trouble with him, give me a call. My mom was friends with his wife. She might know a better way to deal with him.”

“But I’ve got a contract,” Justin insisted. “I don’t understand why I should go through a bunch of hoops for one old man.”

“Because at the end of the day this isn’t a big city where you won’t have to face him or all the people who know him. If you wanted that, you should have stayed in Lafayette and hired a property manager. He’s not merely your tenant. He’s your neighbor, and that means you can’t simply be the boss. Your father wasn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I’m rapidly learning my dad was a lot more patient than I gave him credit for.” Justin stood and gathered his paperwork. He’d come prepared for a fight, while Leonard had shown up with a mug of coffee and a Bible. “It’s weird. I thought I’d come down here, look around, and then sell the place. I ended up staying for a week, going through my dad’s things, and now it’s been six months and I’m living my father’s life. With raccoons. I might not be cut out for this.”

She didn’t like the idea of him selling. Most of the property in Papillon was owned by the people who lived there. The landlords tended to be local. Even the only apartment complex in the parish was run by the Darois family.

She glanced up, and as though merely thinking the name could conjure the man, there was Rene Darois, walking by the windows of the conference room. He wore a suit, but then he usually did. All the other men in town were fairly casual, but not Rene. He had to own twenty of those suckers, and every single one was a whole mood.

It wasn’t that he wore the suit—it was the way he wore it. Like it was some kind of suit of sexy armor he donned each morning before he went out to walk among his people like the kindly king he’d become.

She wished she didn’t remember what it felt like to kiss that man. All these years later and she could still feel the warmth of his touch, the way he’d explored her lips like he wanted to remember how she tasted forever.

“I’m trying but I feel like I’m failing,” Justin was complaining. “I’m trying to be professional.”