She turned to run.
His hand reached out to touch her arm. “You know, Remy’s offer stands. I could shadow you for a while. I can help head off things like what happened tonight.”
His fingers, though barely touching her skin, sent sparks throughout her body. Sparks that lit a fire deep in her core.
“Cody is an annoyance I can handle,” she said. I can’t seem to handle what you’re doing to me. “I’m fine. So far, I haven’t received any more messages. And I’m not sure what you could do that would help that problem anyway. My grandmother is the only one who has a shot at it.”
Simon frowned. “Your grandmother is a bodyguard?”
Holly laughed. “No. Of course not. She’s our resident Voodoo Queen, and possibly the only person who can break whatever curse is following me.”
Simon stepped back, his eyebrows rising up his forehead. “Wait...what?”
“I’m cursed,” she said, bracing herself for yet another Voodoo non-believer. “Every time something bad has happened, I find a message. Either written in the sand, on the bark of a tree or the latest…on my mirror in the bathroom of my apartment in Atlanta.”
“And you think it’s Voodoo?”
“Yes. More specifically, a Voodoo curse.” She shook her head. “I can see you don’t believe in magic. That’s okay. I don’t need you to. I’ll work with my grandmother, Madam Gautier, to get through this. In the meantime, it’s best to stay away from me. The curse seems to take people I care for most.” She frowned, realizing what she’d just implicated. “Not that I care the most about you, but you never know...collateral damage and all.”
Okay, now she was just blathering and sounding more and more idiotic. “I have to go.” Before I talk myself into another corner.
She ducked her head and marched past Simon and out into the barroom where her friends were waiting.
“Oooo, look at you,” Gisele said. “I knew you’d kill that dress.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Ouida Mae seconded.
“And it brings out the green in your eyes,” Joyce Ashcraft added.
“Thank you.” Holly sank into the chair beside Gisele, glad to get off her feet if only for a few minutes. Hyper-aware of a certain man, her peripheral vision found him settling in at the table with the other members of his team, his gaze on the ladies at her table.
Yeah, fifteen minutes tops, and she was out of there. She didn’t need a bodyguard. Not one who stirred her blood so thoroughly. The last thing she needed was to get involved with someone. Her curse might be his death sentence. She refused to let that happen.
“Are you sure you should be seen with me?” she whispered to Gisele. “It might’ve been better if I’d stayed in Atlanta. I don’t want any more of my family or friends to die because I was selfish and came back home.”
Gisele laid her hand over Holly’s. “Don’t borrow trouble. Besides, I’m not convinced you’re cursed.”
Holly stared at her cousin. “I would’ve expected you, of all people, to be more open to the possibility.”
“Normally, I am,” Gisele said. “It’s just that your situation seems different. I’m not getting a magic vibe.”
“The message on my mirror appeared only when I had a hot shower, and it steamed the glass. It disappeared when the steam dried.”
“That could be explained,” Gisele said.
“My apartment door was locked. There was no sign of forced entry.”
“The perp is good at picking locks.” Gisele smiled. “What else ya got?”
“The messages I found in the sand near my folks’ boathouse. There were no footprints around it.”
“That can be explained as well,” Gisele said. “They could have dragged a branch across the sand to hide them. But stop worrying about that for now. We have a job to do.” She leaned close. “Joyce is our high school principal; it’s her birthday, and she hasn’t been laid since her divorce six years ago.”
“What are we supposed to do about that? Pay some man to take her to bed?” Holly studied Joyce as she tapped her toe to the beat of the music, her gaze on the couples dancing. The woman was oblivious to her friends’ proposed machinations, which was just as well.
Holly would have hated the idea of her cousin and friends setting her up with a male prostitute.
“No, no, no.” Gisele shook her head. “She needs a little romance in her life. There has to be an available man who’ll treat her right. Someone who isn’t intimidated by a powerful, take-charge woman.”
