Jed's Sweet Revenge Read Free

Sainte-Colbet and felt less alone. Today, worried about Beneba’s dream, she needed to have her parents’ spirits around her.
    Thena tiptoed across old Oriental rugs to her bedside table and deposited her bag of birdseed on the rosewood surface. Work and don’t worry, she scolded herself. She had gardening to do, then some painting, and it was nearly eleven A.M .
    Suddenly she heard the bounding arrival of canine feet on the front porch. A chorus of barking and whining began, and Thena hurried out of her bedroom. Cyrano, Rasputin, and Godiva stood at the door looking back at her anxiously.
    Whenever someone—a misguided group of tourists or hunters thinking to find a refuge from game wardens—slipped onto Sancia Island, the dogs lether know. Today, remembering Beneba’s warning, Thena reacted to their alert with a shiver of dread.
    “I’ll get the shotgun,” she told them.
       Jed swung his gaze from the trail to the forest around him and back again. With all the savvy of an experienced hunter, he stayed aware of every sound and movement. Squirrels scampered up the pine trees, and he tracked their movements as he walked. Amidst the tall pines and ethereal, twisted oaks, the forest floor was nearly clean here. Where sunlight touched it, he saw a hint of grass growing.
    A deer stepped into the sunlight and stopped, watching him without fear. Startled by such unusual behavior, Jed stopped too. They stared at each other for a moment.
    Is every living thing here bewitched except me? Jed wondered. He had his wits about him now that sunlight had erased last night’s shadows from his imagination. Even so, he couldn’t deny a feeling of urgency to find the woman from the beach. She couldn’t be as magical as she’d looked. He’d meet her, put that notion to rest quickly, and get on with the business of telling her she had to leave his island.
    He walked on, edging deeper into the forest. Sharp-leaved palmetto palms brushed against his jeans, and vines as thick as his muscular forearms twined so low from the trees that he could almost reach up and touch them.
    Instinct made him freeze and start to listen a split second before he identified the sound of running hooves and rustling underbrush. Perturbed by the violent speed of the approach, Jed unsnapped the cover on the hip holster that held his small automatic pistol. His hand resting lightly on the gun’s rubber grip, he braced his feet wide apart and waited. Ghost or witch or whatever, he was ready.
    Thena wrapped her legs tighter to Cendrillon asthe mare leapt through the last barrier of underbrush and slid to a stop in the sandy forest path. Her heart hammering, Thena gasped with surprise to find a man standing perfectly still and staring calmly up at her from just beyond the range of Cendrillon’s snorting nose.
    With a quick tug of the rope, Thena backed the mare a good five feet away from the stranger. He never moved and barely seemed to blink. She dropped the rein and slapped the butt of the shotgun snuggly into the crook of her shoulder, then took aim in the general region of his kneecaps.
    “What do you want?” she demanded. The mare quieted, only her head moving to indicate her nervousness. Cyrano, Rasputin, and Godiva flung themselves onto the scene and gathered around Cendrillon’s feet, growling at the man who never took his eyes away from Thena’s.
    “What kind of answer’ll make you put that shotgun down?” he asked after what seemed an eternity. His voice had not the slightest bit of fear in it. It drawled in a slow way that made her think of warm molasses and old western movies. She’d never heard a real person talk this way before.
    “Don’t play with me,” she ordered. Jed lifted one sturdy brown eyebrow. From any other woman, that choice of words would have been suggestive. From her, it sounded innocent and deadly serious, he thought.
    “Well, ma’am, I wouldn’t even give that notion a passin’ thought as long as you got that