The Bourbon Thief(65)

“So you can get home with White Dog’s help?” Levi asked.

“Through the woods and over the river. That’s that. You sleep well, man. That’s my house. Take care of it.”

“Your house? I thought Nash left the island to Tamara.”

“He left her the island. He left me the house. But you keep it. I don’t want it.”

“You mean it? We’ll pay you for it.”

“You come work for me at the cooperage and that’ll pay for it. Truth is, I couldn’t sleep in that place if you paid me. Too many ghosts around here.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“You will if you stay on this island long enough. You’ll believe anything.”

And with that, Bowen gave him a drunken sort of salute and started off down the dirt way. He and White Dog, and they hadn’t made it ten feet before Levi called after him.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Levi said when Bowen turned around.

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Sorry about Nash. Sorry I’m in your house with my wife, and you’re not in it anymore.”

“Go home,” Bowen said. “Go home to your wife.”

“One more question.”

Bowen glared at him.

“Stop asking questions,” Bowen said. “You’re not going to like the answers you get one of these days.”

“Did you love him?” Levi asked. “Nash, I mean.”

Bowen narrowed his eyes at him. “Why do you care?”

“Because he was my half brother, and I never got to love him. His wife didn’t love him. His father didn’t love him. I hope somebody did.”

“I loved him,” Bowen said. “Wish I hadn’t, but I did. The Maddox family is cursed, they say, and I believe it. And once you touch one, get inside one, the curse is in you, too. Someday you’re gonna wish you hadn’t married into that family, breeze.”

“I was born into it. If it’s cursed, I’m cursed.”

“You’re cursed.”

“You’re drunk.”

“It keeps the curse away,” Bowen said. “It keeps it all away.”

Bowen started off down the dark road again and in ten steps he’d turned invisible, nothing left of him but the sound of his whistling as he walked away, White Dog at his side.

Levi adjusted the wick on his lantern and headed back to his house. He didn’t blame Bowen for thinking the Maddox family was cursed, but Levi couldn’t believe a superstition like that. Curses weren’t real. Curses were voodoo. Any bad luck the Maddox family had, they’d brought upon themselves. Eric Maddox had run off and joined the army during a war instead of going to college or signing up in the National Guard like most of the other fortunate sons did. Nash had killed himself when he probably ought to have killed his father—their father. And Tamara...she wasn’t a Maddox by blood. If there was a curse, she was immune. And Levi had grown up outside the family, away from George Maddox’s influence. No, he and Tamara would be fine.

As he mounted the front porch to the house, Levi allowed himself one smile as he took off his dirty boots to leave on the front porch. Bride Island. Julien St. Croix. Louisa. Little dead Philip. Jesus, Bowen almost had him there. But that was a good story. Almost good enough to make Levi believe this island was cursed and the family was cursed and everything the Maddoxes touched was cursed.

He wasn’t cursed. Bowen just wanted to scare him. But Levi wasn’t scared. In fact, Levi was home. Right here on this island, he was home. And not a curse to be seen.

The Forest of Eden, that’s what this island was. His Eden. And his Eve was waiting for him in bed right this second.

Levi opened the front door and found Tamara standing in the living room.

“Levi, don’t move,” Tamara said, holding a gun in her hand aimed right at him.





22

“Tamara...” Levi’s blood went cold and still as ice.

“It’s right at your feet,” Tamara said. “Don’t move.”

Levi looked down. Curled on the floor, frozen in a tight coil, was a copperhead snake. If Levi put his foot out, he could have touched the head of it with his toe.

“Back away, Levi,” Tamara said. “Real slow.”

“I can’t.” The door had shut behind him. He’d have to step over or around the snake to get the door back opened. The snake was looking right at him and Levi’s heart was pounding from his throat to his guts. He knew if he moved, even one muscle, that beast would spring forward and clamp down on his leg or on his bare foot, and he had no idea where the hell the nearest hospital was, but it wasn’t nearly near enough.

“I can’t shoot it with you right there,” she said. “I might hit you.”

Or if she missed, the snake would strike, scared by the sound.

Levi had left the lantern on the porch, too. Otherwise, he would have dropped it on the snake. All he could do was stand there and sweat and count his heartbeats in his ears.

“It’s moving.” Tamara lowered the gun and aimed at the snake.

It was moving, but not in any direction Levi wanted it to move. Its head was lifting, eyes still trained on him.

Levi’s feet were riveted to the ground. He was five seconds away from hyperventilating. He tried to focus on Tamara standing there in her little baby-doll nightgown holding a pistol he didn’t know they had. But all he could see was six feet of copperhead snake sliding his way.