Her eyes squeezed shut. “Brother Vito? You lucky thing. There’s something about him that’s so . . . sexy. I know he’s a lot older and all, but oh, he could just charm the pants off me. Literally.”
“He is good looking and kind of charming.” I knew what she meant, but he was old enough for the thought of that to completely squick me out. “So, where are the others?”
“In the garden. Just around the bend. I’m not a breakfast person at all, so I was going for a walk.” She touched my arm. “I’ll take you to them.”
I walked alongside her, the scent of freshly baked bread reaching me before the outdoor settings of tables and chairs came into view. People were sitting there, baskets of round bread, cheese and fruit on the tabletops. A couple dozen heads turned my way. Half of them smiled encouragingly. The other half stared blankly.
“Everyone, meet our newest recruit and fellow desperado—Evie,” Poppy announced.
I waved a quick hello.
Poppy took me to a table where two men were sitting together. “I prefer men,” she whispered to me. “No drama llamas.”
A small-framed blonde guy with a goatee reached to shake my hand. He looked maybe twenty-six or -seven. “Hi, I’m Richard. Underneath this manly beard, I’m stashing a fat baby chin and a bitter longing for Las Vegas. Don’t ask me to shave it.”
His words pulled a surprised laugh from me. I seated myself at the table, telling him, “I promise I won’t.”
“Good,” he replied in his curt, American accent. “Because women tend to tell me to do that. They can guess I’m hiding things. Women are evil like that. Eyes like ferrets. All of them.” He cast a meaningful sideways glance at Poppy.
Poppy giggled, sitting beside him. “Okay, I admit it. I told him to ditch the beard. I thought he’d look cuter without it.”
“He’d look shite without that rug on his mug.” The guy next to me turned to shake my hand. “I’m Cormack. As soon as I’m done here, I intend grabbing my prize money, packing up my Scottish skirts and heading off to the Amazon jungle. Going to trek from Columbia to Brazil. Get away from this world for a while. I’ll only stop and lift my skirt should a comely wench cross my path, if she be willin’。” He spoke in a deep Scottish brogue, his intense blue eyes vivid behind a scraggy array of long black hair and wild beard. He was perched on the edge of his seat, like he was ready for anything.
“Good to meet you, Cormack,” I replied. “May you achieve your goals. All while playing the bagpipe.”
“That would be grand.” Cormack gave me a nod of approval, his face softening and changing in that instant. I smiled back, realising then that he wasn’t as old as he’d at first seemed. His facial hair and intensity had thrown me. He was probably no older than twenty. A kid.
“Eat,” Richard instructed, pushing a plate my way.
Suddenly famished, I grabbed two thick pieces of bread from the basket, dropped them onto the plate and buttered them. Then layered on some cheese, olives and tomatoes.
“It’s homemade—the bread,” Richard remarked, pulling a face I couldn’t read. “And the wine. Everything here is home grown and homemade. I feel like I’m at some sort of hippie commune.”
“It’s not a hippie commune, dummie.” Poppy sucked a cherry tomato into her mouth and then lisped as she spoke around it. “Monks grew all that food. Hippies aren’t religious. I wonder what the treatment is going to be? I mean, they talked about challenges. Evie, did Brother Vito tell you anything?”
“Not much,” I answered. “Just that there were six challenges, all held in the inner six rooms.”
A glum look entered her eyes as she chewed and swallowed the tomato. “It’s not fair they’re not preparing us. It’s making me stress, and stress isn’t good for me. I get rashes in places you don’t want to know about.”
Richard shot her a look of feigned disgust.
“How hard can these challenges be? I’m going to smash them. They’ll probably just be truth or dare,” said Cormack, shrugging. “Some shit about laying your inner self bare.”
“Better not be,” said Richard. “Or I’ll lay some inner-self truths on them that’ll straighten their pubes.”
“The challenges are probably all meditation,” mused Poppy, idly using her long, painted-black nails to peel the skin from an olive. “I hate meditation. Makes me remember all the shitty things I’ve done.”