This seemed to work. Five minutes later, a line of people broke, and the women in his path watched as he walked toward me.
Standing so fast that my head spun, I ran to him, almost knocking him over with longing. “Where have you been?” I said accusingly. “I—I—”
“Baby,” he said, letting me hang on like a monkey. “Those oysters didn’t agree with my stomach.”
This made me loosen my hold. “Oh.” I looked up at him. “Are you sick?” I went to touch his face, to feel his head, but he stopped me. Then I felt it—the truth. “Why are you lying to me?”
“I don’t lie. You know that’s one thing I never fucking do.” He watched me for a moment or two. “If I tell you something, you have to give me your word that you won’t worry.”
“Depends on what it is,” I answered, hesitant.
“I don’t want you to worry. We’re about to leave the island. And I have something special planned for tomorrow.”
“All right.” I swallowed the unease down. “Tell me.”
“You said that you felt someone breathing down your neck. Today I noticed that some of the sand close to theburewas clumped—”
“So?”
“So, someone who had been in the water walked on shore. It wasn’t you and it wasn’t me.”
“And it wasn’t any of Captain O’Malley’s people, or Aunt Lola and Uncle Tito. We didn’t go in the water, and no one came to see us.”
“Clever girl,” he said, nodding.
“But why—why haven’t I felt it again?”
“It could be nothing. I can’t prove it. I felt it like you did. And I’ve been wearing you out. We’re up before the sun and we’re up most of the night. When you do sleep, you sleep hard. Island life agrees with you.”
Since he mentioned it…as far back as I could remember, I’d had an issue with sleep. It came to me in drifts, no matter how tired my body was. Ever since our arrival on the private island, I had been sleeping like the dead. Once the drift caught, I rode it out.
“You went back to Mystical Island without me!” I said, realizing what I had missed. “You went to check—alone!” I hit him hard in the chest.
“It didn’t take long. The rest of the time.” He shrugged. “Bad oysters.”
I threw my hands over my face, crying and muttering unintelligible things.
“Don’t cry, baby. We’re safe. I didn’t find anything obvious, but I still want you to stay close to me.”
“Stay close to you!” I said loud and clear, enough for him to hear. “How can I when you leave mebehind!”
“If I give you my word that I won’t do it again, will you stop crying?”
“Perhaps!”
“How about if I make you a special drink? And vow not to leave you again?”
“What?”
“It’s something I never showed you before, something I can do. Now seems like the right time.” He wiggled his eyebrows when I looked at him through the opening in my fingers.
Damn him and my curiosity!“All right,” I said, my voice hoarse from crying, although I hadn’t been crying hard. “Show me.”
Once we arrived back at thebure, he went straight to the bar in the kitchen. The place felt wide-open, somehow more exposed than before. Brando didn’t seem worried, so I tried to take comfort, knowing that if he felt someone was close, he wouldn’t be this nonchalant.
He was animated as he took his spot behind the bar, pointing to a stool in front for me to take. I hopped on, smiling as he hummed to himself, placing four cups and a few bottles filled with varieties of alcohol on the counter.
“A blender.” He looked around.
