“Something to unhex the hex?” One cynical brow shot north. “Yeah, we can grind the toenails of a goat and mix them with pig’s blood and drink it under a full moon. That’ll save us.”
She didn’t even smile. “But, Gabe. What if it’s Rafe?”
For a scant second, his olive skin paled, but then he closed his eyes like he didn’t even want to acknowledge the possibility. “Rafe is going to be fine. He’s going to be a ring bearer wearing a cast, that’s all.” He added some pressure on her arm. “And you are going to be the most beautiful, sexy, relaxed, happy, madly in love bride who ever graced Barefoot Bay.”
God, she hoped so. “I’m still going to talk to her.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, saying nothing.
“I won’t mock,” he said. “Much.”
“Gabe, I can’t joke about a life. It could be Rafe. It could be one of us. It could be—”
“The stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever discussed.”
“Then stay here and I’ll talk to Poppy.”
“No, I promise. No scoffing at superstitions.”
“Thank you. Keep your snide comments to yourself and I won’t make you drink pig’s blood and goat nails. Much.”
Poppy turned when they approached, her eyes still damp and a sheen of perspiration on her broad forehead.
“How is Rafe?” Poppy asked.
“Surrounded by loved ones who’ve managed to break every rule or bribe every nurse to stay with him,” Lila said.
“He’s going to be fine,” Gabe added, making Lila wonder if he thought saying that often enough made it true.
Poppy didn’t reply, but lifted her brows, her sturdy features registering doubt.
“Isn’t he?” Lila asked softly.
“Miss Lila,” she said. “You know I put all my trust and faith in our Lord and Savior, but…” She put her head down and pressed her forehead with her fingers as if her very thoughts hurt. “I love that boy so much,” she whispered, her voice husky. “I love him like he is my own child.”
Lila took her hand between both of hers, squeezing. “Well, he is my own child, so you can imagine what I’m going through.”
Midnight-black eyes met Lila’s as Poppy nodded. “And that is why I called my aunt Dondrea. She…practices.”
Lila swallowed.
“I take it you don’t mean piano,” Gabe said.
“She is an Obeah sorceress.”
“Jesus,” Gabe huffed, earning a sharp, heated look from Poppy.
“Mister Gabriel,” she hissed in warning at the curse she hated the most.
“Sorry, Popcorn, but a sorceress?”
Poppy stared at him, pain stamped on every feature. “I pray for Dondrea every day. I pray for her soul, because she has not accepted Christ but continues her…her darkness. But still, I called her.”
Lila knew that call was a testament to how much Poppy loved Rafe.
“Please,” Lila said, shooting a look at Gabe, willing him to just go along with whatever Poppy said.
Poppy took a slow inhale before she spoke. “I was right about the river of blood. When you have such a dream, when blood flows more than a trickle in a dream and you touch it, there is a…a curse.” She whispered the word as though it caused her agony. “There is a lot of bloodletting and poison in Obeah, and when someone dreams of flowing blood, like a river, it means that, somewhere, in the spirit world, much blood has been shed. Someone on earth has to pay the price.”
Gabe grunted softly with genuine disgust.
“Why me?” Lila asked. “Why did I dream this?”
Poppy shook her head. “The spirits do what the spirits do. They choose a target and have no reason.”
“Capricious bastards,” Gabe murmured.
“Just listen,” Lila said.
“I can’t abide by this crap,” he ground out. “It’s preposterous.”
Poppy pinned him with a look. “I agree, Mister Gabriel. With my whole heart and my whole soul, I despise this. I’m afraid of it. It stinks of sin.”
“Then let’s go back and entertain our kid with his broken arm and—”
“But Dondrea says the victim is the first person the dreamer sees when she wakes.”
She let that kick them both in the gut.
“And that person, if the curse is not reversed, will die that day. That very day.”
Neither Gabe nor Lila spoke for three or four heartbeats.
“Then it’s Rafe,” Lila said. “If this is even remotely possible, the first person I saw was Rafe.” She looked at Gabe who, for the first time all day, actually looked stricken.
“I knew I should have stayed with you last night,” he growled.
“Then you believe her?”
“No, I wouldn’t have let you dream.” Gabe looked over his shoulder as a burst of laughter came from the room where his siblings and cousins were gathered around his son. Lila could practically see Gabe fold. He was a man who treasured his family above all else and loved his son with his entire being. “What does this witchy aunt of yours recommend?” he finally asked, sounding disgusted with himself for even posing the question.
“A counter to the curse,” Poppy said. “You must find something organic that has been lost, but not by the dreamer or the cursed one. Lost by someone else. So the rings will not work.”
“Organic?” Lila asked. “Something alive, so it could be a plant or a…an herb.” She turned to Gabe. “Has Nino lost any spices lately?”
He just shook his head with a blank look, as if he couldn’t bear to respond to this craziness. Yes, it was crazy. But if there was even one shred of truth to it? Couldn’t he see they couldn’t take that risk?
“All she said was something organic,” Poppy said. “And then, you must take something that would shatter if you dropped it from your hand, climb to the height of Indigo Hill, and let it fall…without breaking it.”
Lila pressed her hand on her chest at the impossibility of that. “Where’s Indigo Hill?”
“In the Jamaican Blue Mountains,” Poppy replied.
“What else?” Gabe asked in an achingly tight voice. “Pins in dolls? A little bubbling witch’s brew? Maybe you have a sword I can stick in a stone.”
Poppy totally disregarded him. “Then you must take the person who was first seen after the dream, along with the person who had the dream, and fully drench them together in a water that flows. A river, stream, or waterfall.”
“How can we do all that?” Lila asked. “How do we find something we don’t even know was lost? Get to a mountain? And…well, I guess Rafe and I could take a dip in the gulf.”
Poppy nodded. “It flows.”
“Okay, okay, let’s do this,” Gabe said, fully in his get shit done mode now. “I have a plan. First, let’s hit the beach and find a fish that’s almost dead. Then we’ll walk on a shell but not break it. Stick you and Rafe in the water. Done, done, and done. Anything else?”
“The fish is not lost,” Poppy said simply. “And stepping on a shell is not dropping something from two thousand feet in the air.”
Gabe barely stifled a groan. “Oh, those evil spirits are so demanding.”
“Gabe,” Lila chided. “I’m really worried. This is like a wild riddle that can’t be solved.”
“I don’t believe a riddle that can’t be solved exists,” he said simply. “I just told you our son couldn’t be better protected. Between Vivi, Lang, Zach, Marc, and the rest of the Guardian Angelinos, nothing is going to happen to that kid. My parents are at a villa, and they’ll all take him there. Nino will cook. Poppy will maintain order. No one will take their eyes off him. And you and I will…”
“Find something we don’t know is missing.” She hated to put a pin in his optimistic balloon, but how were they going to do that? A fresh bout of tears threatened, but she refused to give in. Not today, not on her wedding day.
“All before sunset,” Poppy added.
Oh G
od. The tears burned.
“Where is my nephew, and who broke his arm?” They turned at the sound of Francesca Rossi barreling into the hospital waiting area.
“Hey, Chess.” Gabe reached to embrace his sister. Not far behind her was her husband, Mal Harris, a former spy Lila had known just about as long as she’d known Gabe. A tiny, dark-haired girl clung to Mal’s hand and kept her big brown eyes on Chessie. Gabrielita, the child they’d found in Cuba while searching for Rafe, was now officially the adopted daughter of Chessie and Mal. They’d rushed their own wedding and pressured the CIA and basically moved a mountain to get “Lita” home from the orphanage.
“Sorry we’re late,” Chessie said. “We took Lita up to La Dolce Vita, that petting zoo place by the stadium? Then we couldn’t get out because they shut down every road out of there.”
“Why?” Lila asked.
“One of the goats got away, and God forbid cars have precedence over an escapee goat. Cars with important aunts who have to see their nephew.” She turned to the room where Rafe was. “Though I see the rest of my family wasn’t blocked by traffic. Hey, Vivi!”
Chessie slipped away, and Mal followed, scooping their daughter into his arms to keep up with his wife. All the while, Lila stood stone-still, processing this new information.
A lost goat.
She gave Poppy a questioning look, and the other woman nodded once but held a finger to her lips as if there was yet another rule in the irrational world of curse-breaking. Secrecy.
Lila shifted her attention to Gabe, who was following the exchange.
“I knew there’d be a fucking goat involved,” he murmured.
Chapter Four
By the time they were out of the hospital parking lot, Gabe had formulated a plan. “If this goat is anywhere in Barefoot Bay, Luke will know,” he said. Luke McBain owned McBain Security, the company that provided protection and security services to the high-profile guests of Casa Blanca Resort & Spa and farmed out bodyguards on local jobs. More important, Luke provided the “cover” for Gabe’s privatized witness protection business. “And I trust him.”
“You heard Poppy,” Lila said.
“Oh, that’s right. Mission Black Magic is classified. Only prescreened witch doctors are cleared.”
“Stop it.”
“I will not stop anything. But, look, Luke knows the nature of what we do requires secrecy, Lila, so he’s always cool, as long as no one at Casa Blanca could be harmed. If someone arrives here under one name and leaves with another, he doesn’t ask questions. If I need one of his bodyguards to pretend to be married to a woman we have here under protection, he not only provides the guy, he makes sure there’s backup protection.”
“And if you tell him we have to be the ones to find the missing goat?” she asked, a hint of a smile in her voice.
“Uhhh…the goat ate state secrets and we need to get that thing to shit them out.”
She laughed a little, the first time in hours, a stark reminder that this was their wedding day. “State secrets, Gabe? We’re not spies anymore.”
“Blondie,” he said, putting his hand over hers. “We’re not going to let anything happen to him. You have the Gabriel Rossi Promise. I never fail.”
She inhaled, closing her eyes on a noisy sigh to let the air out.
“I mean it. I will die before he does.”
“I don’t want either one of you to die, Gabe,” she shot back. “After all those years apart, all the agony I endured, all the puzzle pieces we had to put together, we have happiness in our clutches only to let some curse steal it?”
“You know what the real curse is?” he asked. “Believing it.”
Her jaw dropped. “If you tell me we’re not—”
“We are. We are going to do each and every thing we have to do to make you feel better, but you need to understand why I’m doing them.”
“To save Rafe?”
“Because I love you, Lila.” He tapped the brakes and stopped behind a car, taking her hand to his lips. “I would do anything to spare you anxiety and make you happy, and if this does that, I’m all over it. One more proof of my undying love before you change your last name…for the last time.”
“You don’t have to prove anything,” she whispered. “And all this does is remind me that we are not in control.”
“Maybe we’re not, but neither is some stupid Jamaican voodoo priestess.” He let go of her hand and picked up his phone. “Now, let’s call Luke and tell him we need goat shit, stat.” He tapped the screen, thumbing his way to Luke McBain, and winked as he put the phone on speaker and handed it to Lila to hold. “Trust me, okay?”
“I do.”
“Hey, there you are, Gabe.” Luke’s voice filled the car. “We heard Rafe had an accident. Everything okay?”
“Broke his arm falling out of a tree.”
“Oh man.” Luke’s sympathy was real, along with a chuckle. “He’s a handful, that kid.”
Gabe grinned. Rafe was way more than a handful; he was the single-wildest child in the entire Rossi family tree. “He knows how to find trouble, that’s for sure.”
“And on your wedding day,” Luke added.
“Yeah, but he’ll be okay and will carry those rings…well, maybe not. Rafe lost the rings.” Gabe threw a look at Lila. “Our kid is bad,” he mouthed, as if they hadn’t figured that out yet.
“He lost them?” Luke choked.
Lila leaned closer to the phone. “And we heard there’s a goat loose in Barefoot Bay. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s possible that goat might have eaten our rings.”
Gabe gave her a look and quick thumbs-up for great thinking. Rings beat state secrets any day.
“Not surprised,” Luke said. “That son of a bitch has had me going crazy today since he escaped from his pen at that goat farm. We’ll get him, but it could be dangerous.”
“A goat?” Gabe snorted. “How freaking dangerous can it be?”
“He’s not one of the cute little pygmies. It’s a male, and apparently, none of the female goats have been in heat for weeks.”
Gabe and Lila shared a look. “So we got a horny buck on the run. Where is he?”
“He was last seen near the cul de sac on the west side of the resort, right by our office, heading into the farmette. We got the family who lives there out and blocked off access roads, so now I’m trying to round up some of my guys to go in.”
“Don’t call any of your men. I’ll get him for you.”
Luke was silent for a second. “On your wedding day, Gabe?”
“It’s important, Luke,” he said, seriously enough that Luke might surmise there was more to this than rings. Like state secrets. Or voodoo curses.
“Well, if you want…”
“I want. I’m headed up to the resort right now. I’ll take the back east road toward the cul de sac, so let me through when I get there. I have Lila with me, but I’ll go onto the farm and…” He shot her a look. “Lasso him?”
Lila bit her lip, but Luke laughed outright. “Something tells me you never caught a pissed-off, sex-deprived, probably hungry as hell goat while you were gallivanting around the world for the CIA, Gabe.”
“No, but I brought in a few pissed-off, sex-deprived, asshole terrorists. How bad can a goat be?”
Again, there was a long silence, then, “Meet me at the south entrance to the farmette, Gabe. I’ll have some rope for you.”
“Rope. Right. Good. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” When he ended the call, he gave the phone right back to her. “Google everything you can about catching a goat.”
Chapter Five
Lila clicked through the website she’d found the most helpful, reading off her phone as they navigated their way through the expanse of the farmette. “You remember the rules, right, Gabe? Do not hesitate, do not let go, do not get in front of the horns, and…oh, what was the other one?”
“Proper footwear.” He stuck out his flip-flop. “Fail.”
“No. It was do
not show fear.”
“Trust me, there is no fear.” Gabe marched ahead of Lila, a braided rope in one hand and a bucket of grain in the other, moving as fast and with as much purpose as a man in flip-flops and shorts could.
“You probably should have taken Luke up on his offer to wear his boots,” Lila said, glancing at her phone again. “It did say good shoes are important to catch a wild goat.”
She saw his shoulders heave with a heavy sigh. “Animals love me,” he assured her. “That sucker will come right to me, I’ll tie this around his neck, and we’ll lead him out. Assuming Luke’s right and he headed into the storage shed.”
Tessa Browning, the woman who ran the farmette for the resort, had reported seeing the goat bolt into a large storage shed. Her husband, the resort’s top chef, was at the kitchen working on the huge wedding menu, so she’d taken her three children to the McBain Security offices. They’d been diligently working on a school project when Gabe and Lila arrived.
Lila had eyed the craft supplies and sweet faces of Tessa’s eight-year-old twins—so well behaved, she thought enviously—and the youngest little girl, who was just over two.
Tessa had been the one to provide the grain and instructions on where to find the shed, then Lila and Gabe set off on the very last activity either one of them expected on their wedding day.
While they walked, a text came in from Chessie saying that Rafe had been released from the hospital, and the entire Rossi and Angelino crew, plus offspring, would be at the Bay Laurel villa where Gabe’s parents were staying. At Lila’s strict instructions, Chessie swore that Rafe would not be alone or unsupervised for one second.
Lila used the excuse of how quickly he’d climbed the tree to explain her überprotectiveness, but when the family business was security, no one questioned safety. Plus, they all knew how quickly things could go south with that kid.
“There’s the shed,” Gabe said as they rounded a long row of citrus trees and worked through a wide field of root vegetables. “Looks like it’s open.”
“I hope he’s still in there.” Lila looked around the expansive acreage that offered the resort guests authentic farm-to-table dining.