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“Am I really what?”
“From Missouri?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Yeah.” A bird squawked off to their right, making them both jump. “Gotta ask you, why’d you pick this island of all the damned islands? Ten Thousand Islands and you pick this one.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Are you serious? Can’t you feel it? The place gives me the creeps. What horrible thing hasn’t happened here? Only you would pick a haunted damned island to hide out on.”
“You don’t really believe the island is haunted,” she said, scoffing at such foolishness.
He glanced around uneasily. “Bad things have happened here, darlin’. Maybe you can’t sense it, but I can. And you know what they say about places like this….”
“No,” she said, telling herself he was just trying to scare her. “What do they say?”
“Bad things will happen again. Evil attracts evil. It’s a known fact.”
He wasn’t serious. The next thing she knew he’d be out burying a jar behind the villa. “You’re a strange guy, Landry.”
He turned to look at her and grinned. “You don’t know the half of it.”
And that’s what worried her.
* * *
LANDRY SLOWED at they reached the rear of the villa. He could hear voices and music playing. His stomach growled as he caught the scent of barbecue.
“Looks like we made it back just in time,” he said over his shoulder.
Odell looked up in surprise as Landry came through the archway into the courtyard. Odell and Henri were sitting together in a pair of old metal lawn chairs outside his apartment. There was a bottle of wine on a small table between them, two mismatched plastic glasses and a deck of cards.
“Nice pool,” Landry whispered to Willa.
Her gaze went to the dark water, then Odell. He had turned and was watching them with interest. Too much interest.
Clearly the two of them had interrupted something because Henri looked surprised to see them and maybe a little suspicious. Landry had seen the redhead and the devil child arrive this morning by boat. Thanks to Willa, he now had their names. If only he could have easily found out what they were doing on the island.
But he was more interested in Odell. Everything about the man worried him. Especially Odell’s obvious interest in Willa.
“I made it,” Landry said cheerfully, and put his arm around Willa, pulling her close. She nudged him.
“Look who surprised me,” she said, as if trying to match his cheerfulness. She looked scared and war, y as well, of her villa mates.
“You go swimming?” Odell asked, lifting a brow as he took in their wet clothing.
Landry grinned and pulled Willa closer. “I was so glad to see her I didn’t even give her a chance to take off her clothes.” He chuckled and let his gaze move appreciatively over her. That at least he didn’t have to pretend. She had a great body and wet clothing left nothing to the imagination. “We really should get out of these clothes, darlin’.”
Henri laughed. “My kind of man.”
Odell turned his attention back to the redhead.
As Landry led Willa past the two, he saw that they had been playing poker. Strip poker from the little they were both wearing—and the pile of clothing beside the table.
Odell was down to his shorts. Henri was wearing a string bikini.
As Willa and Landry passed them, Landry took a good look at the full swell of Henri’s breasts in the tiny bikini top.
Willa elbowed him even harder this time and smiled as he rewarded her with a satisfyingly painful grunt. She slipped out from under his arm and ran up the stairs ahead of him. At the top, she turned to look back and caught him admiring her butt. She glared at him.
