told you about the voodoo curse.”
“Yes.”
“This is part of it. I have to stay here at Belle Vista. I have to cultivate these plants, so I’ll have a continual supply of the leaves, because I have to make a tea from them and drink it every day.”
“Or what?” Morgan asked.
“Or I’ll die,” he said in a flat voice. “If you want to call that being addicted, you can. But I’m the only person I know who needs this stuff. Well, my father and my grandfather did.”
She felt her throat clog, but she managed to say, “You’ve tried to do without it?”
“Yes. For a day and a half. I got very sick. You don’t want to hear the details.”
“Maybe I do.”
He looked up, apparently realizing that it was almost dark. Alarm streaked across his face. “I have to go.”
Anger surged inside her. “You always have to go! Just when the conversation is getting interesting. Or maybe I should say—dangerous.”
“You can think about it any way you want,” he muttered, then turned and walked away. “It’s getting dark. And I have to leave. Like I told you before, that’s not exactly my choice.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t just say something like that and disappear.”
“Watch me.”
“Come back here!” she shouted, anger and frustration and fear warring inside hr. “You can’t just walk away from me now.”
He ignored her, shouldering his way through the wild rose canes.
As she watched him stride into the bayou, her anger and frustration bubbled up. Scrambling to her feet, she hurried after him—deeper into the swamp where she’d told herself she didn’t want to go.
When he started running, she shouted after him. “You damn coward.”
He didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he ducked through a tangle of underbrush.
Some part of her knew she should just give up. Why the hell was she pursuing this man who obviously didn’t want anything to do with her. Or maybe she should put it differently—a man who was perfectly comfortable getting into a big e-mail correspondence with a woman who attracted him but who couldn’t deal with her in person.
Still, she kept floundering after him, mud splattering up as she crossed a marshy area.
“Go back!” he shouted, running faster, as he sped through the swamp. She was about to give up when her foot sank through the ground into a hole that hadn’t been there moments before, and she made a strangled sound as she went down.
Chapter Fifteen
“Morgan!”
She sprawled on the ground, trying to catch her breath, hearing his footsteps reversing their course.
He came down beside her, gathering her to himself, holding her tightly as he looked at her leg and ankle. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He helped her to her feet. “See if you can walk. Put some weight on it.”
She did, and the ankle hurt, but not too badly.
“Can you make it to the house?” he asked.
She half turned, seeing how far she’d come. “I don’t know.”
He moved away from her, took a knife out of his pocket and cut a small branch, which he stripped down to a smooth pole. “Use this.”
“You’re not going to help me back inside?”
He looked torn. “I can’t.”
She had been through so much in the short time she’d been at Belle Vista. Somehow his refusal was the last straw.
“If you go off into the swamp now, I’m leaving tomorrow,” she heard herself say.
His face turned stark. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that all along. If that’s the way it has to be—then leave and stop torturing both of us.”
She raised her chin. I’m torturing both of us. All you have to do is help me walk—and while you’re at it, tell me what the hell is really going on here.”
He made a frustrated sound. “I told you, because of the curse, I have to spend the night in the bayou.”
“Or what?”
“Stay around here, and you’ll find out,” he grated and took a step back.
She tangled her fingers in his shirt. “Andre, please trust me. Start by telling me how you got out of the handcuffs.”
Pain suffused his features. “If you’re still here in the morning—I’ll tell you everything.” Then he detached her fingers from his shirt and walked into the gathering dark.
For long moments she stared at the spot where Andre had disappeared into the darkness. Then she realized that she could be in serious trouble. Heart in her throat, she looked back the way she’d come and was relieved to see the lights of the house shining in the darkness. But still, she