Page 21 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)

“I think so,” Eva said. “I’ve never met any of his partners. I get the sense that he really wants to live his life on his own.”

“A lone wolf,” Valerie said.

“Something like that,” Eva said.

“Don’t you want to change him?” Alyssa asked.

But Eva found that she genuinely didn’t want to change Jean-Paul.

She adored his quiet persona, his reflective attitude, and the fact that he could spend twelve hours or more in his studio without speaking to a living soul.

She also loved his cats and dogs, his pack of them, who seemed just as independent as he was.

They’d left them food and water when they’d come to Naxos, but Eva had the sense that they didn’t really need it.

“He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” Eva finished. “I never want him to be different from that. I don’t want him to become more of the same.”

“Girl, you need to make something happen before you leave Greece,” Valerie said. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

Eva shrugged. “Sometimes I think the most beautiful romances in the world involve two people who never make a move. It all exists in the mind, you know?” She tapped her temple.

Alyssa, Winona, and Valerie glanced at one another with a mix of confusion and something else, something like annoyance. Did they think she was naive? Probably.

But before Eva could say anything to try to fix the mood, someone rang the gate.

“There he is!” Winona threw her hands up.

Eva was stricken. “You didn’t invite Jean-Paul, did you?”

“What? No. We don’t know him,” Alyssa said, rolling her eyes. “He seems boring anyway. No offense.”

Winona skipped her way from the pool to the gate, eager to welcome whoever it was.

That was when she called out his name. “Nico! Is that you, doll?”

Eva’s blood ran cold. She listened intently to hear that, sure enough, it was the Nico she knew calling back.

“Hey, baby! Open the door, huh?”

“Did you bring our stuff?” Winona asked sweetly, toying with him.

“I got it all here,” Nico said.

Eva was on her feet, trying not to make a big show. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Alyssa pointed a lazy finger toward the back door. “Down the hall and to your left.” She didn’t even look at her. “Hurry back. Nico’s fun.” She said it like Nico was much more fun than Eva was, which was probably true.

Eva hurried to the house just as the gate began to open, bringing Nico into the backyard.

Her heart was pounding. What “stuff” had Nico brought for them?

And how had they met? She knew that Nico disappeared for days, if not weeks at a time.

He said he did odd jobs, here and there.

But she was getting the hint that something more was at play here.

Why had she been so naive?

She took a moment to feel relief that she hadn’t driven Jean-Paul’s truck out to the villa. Nico would have recognized it immediately.

Eva waited in the shadows of the hallway, watching as Nico approached with a black suitcase. He bounced along jovially, as though meeting beautiful women like Alyssa, Winona, and Valerie was all in a night’s work for him.

“There he is! Our favorite Greek,” Alyssa said.

“My favorite Americans!” Nico said. “Tell me. How did you spend your day today? More drinking by the pool? More wasting your precious lives?”

“We aren’t wasting anything, Nico,” Valerie said. “This is the good life!”

The bartender approached with a drink for Nico. In Greek, Nico had a brief conversation with the bartender, and then his face transformed for an instant.

“What did you guys talk about?” Alyssa asked.

“He said there’s another girl here. Another American girl,” Nico said.

Eva thought she was going to throw up with fear.

“It’s just this lame girl we met today downtown,” Valerie said. “I don’t even think she does drugs.”

“No way,” Winona agreed. “Actually, we should finish this up before she comes back outside. I wouldn’t be surprised if she called the cops.”

“Right? I get weird vibes from her,” Valerie said. “I’m sorry we invited her.”

Nico’s eyes glinted. “Don’t be so cruel to your countrymen. Maybe she knows how to hang out. You don’t know.”

Alyssa shrugged. “Come on, Nico. Give us the goods.”

“Give me the cash.” Nico wore a sinister smile.

Eva’s heart pounded in her throat. All she wanted in the world was to get out of there, to run down the road and disappear in the darkness. She wondered if she could make her way through the house and out another door, a door that didn’t force her through that gate.

The last thing she wanted to do was wait around and see what happened next.

But now, as she waited in the shadows, she stewed in resentment, for herself and her naivety.

Also for Nico and his funny attitude and his easy way of manipulation.

He’d wanted her to believe that he was falling in love with her, and maybe because of loneliness, she’d let herself kiss him.

She’d cut it off after that, thankfully.

But it still felt terrible, knowing she’d spent a romantic day with a drug dealer—a drug dealer who did “a little of this, a little of that” around Paros and Naxos.

For the first time in a while, Eva felt a wave of homesickness.

Then again, she knew that things like this happened on Martha’s Vineyard, too. Nowhere was safe from people like Nico.

And it’s not like Finn was in the right when he stole from me , she remembered.

When the American girls and Nico started to do the drugs he’d brought, Eva realized she needed to get out of there.

On shaking legs, she explored the massive villa, pointing herself in the direction of the road.

After ten minutes or more, she finally discovered a door that seemed to lead outside and dropped into the darkness.

There, she listened as Nico and the three Americans cackled and talked too fast, apparently having forgotten all about her.

But Eva didn’t want to take any chances. Down the road, she fled until she reached a small gas station, where she bought a bottle of water and called a cab to take her back to the hotel. She’d narrowly escaped something terrible.