Passion...

She had to be the most passionate woman he knew. At least she used to be and there was no reason to think she still wasn’t. In her senior year of high school, when he’d been stationed in Maryland, she would occasionally take the bus on the weekends to visit her father’s aunt, who lived in the DC area. They’d been able to spend a lot of time together. And then when she’d gone off to college, they’d had those weekends together, as well. It suddenly occurred to him just how well they’d masterminded plans over the years to stay close, refusing to stay apart for too long. Yet all of that had come to a crashing end because of him. He now knew he could never apologize to her enough for destroying what they’d had.

“Aren’t we near Eagle Bend Inlet?”

“Yes,” he said, glancing over at her. “It’s not too far to the west. Just a few bends away.”

She still hadn’t looked at him but was staring in the direction of where the inlet was located. He wondered if she was remembering the night they’d escaped from the storm and stayed there all night together. But then, more important, all those other times they’d returned. The last time had been the night before he left for the marines.

Not wanting to remember the intimate details of any of those times, especially that last one, he thought about the inlet itself. Most locals avoided the small island mainly because you had to travel through the swamps to get to it. Another reason was that over the years there had been numerous stories surrounding the inlet. Of course, most of them were fictitious, although some people thought going to the island for the first time would ultimately be your last time. There were tall tales of alligators larger than most men, bald eagles that could eat you alive and quicksand that could swallow you whole. And he couldn’t forget the tales of the ghosts of several pirates supposedly buried there.

For years treasure hunters had believed some of Jean Lafitte’s hidden bounty was there and they’d fabricated all sorts of lies to keep people off the island. The quicksand that people had claimed was on the island had merely been holes left uncovered by men digging for the pirate’s treasures. After Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana had decided to sell it, and Reid LaCroix had immediately purchased it with the intent of retaining its wildlife state. The first thing he did was forbid anyone from coming on the island, especially the poachers and treasure hunters.

When Kaegan returned to town and had made some profit from the seafood business, one of the first things he’d done was to make Reid an offer for the island. The man hadn’t understood why he would want to buy the inlet, but he knew of Kaegan’s love of the bayou and felt he would preserve the inlet and protect the wildlife there. Few people knew that Kaegan now owned the island.