“Girls, girls, girls. I've got so darned many of them, I lose track," he said with a grin. "If we have any more, we're going to run out of names and have to start numbering them.”

Shelley smiled back. Even though he was a man designed by nature to be father to mobs of rough-and-tumble boys, he was known to be besotted by his flock of dainty blond daughters.

“So who was the guy sneaking around outside?" Bob asked his table-mates.

“Sneaking?" Jane asked.

“Yeah, little scrawny guy. Was looking in the window and leaped away like a deer when he spotted me coming."

“Must of been Lucky Smith," Benson Titus said, coming from the kitchen with an enormous tray of food. He set out a platter of fried chicken, an enormous bowl of mashed potatoes, a giant pitcher of gravy, and two good-sized bowls of green beans on the table. "Start on this," he said, leaving to fetch another tray with the cornbread, butter, coleslaw, and a tossed salad. When he'd distributed the food, he sat down at an empty spot at the table. "Yeah, Lucky Smith is our local hunter thug who saw the light and turned environmental thug. He keeps a close eye on us here. But he's not dangerous, just a nuisance. Lucky grew up in these parts, a real good ol' boy, slaughtering everything he could hook or shoot.

“He got religion about the same time a group of enviro-Nazis started up in the county. Sorry. My wife says I shouldn't use that word, but sometimes it's the only one that fits. Anyhow, Lucky's decided it's his mission in life to keep an eye on the resort.”

Shelley passed Jane the beans and whispered, "Trouble in paradise."

“Makes paradise more interesting," Jane replied.

Three

“So what's this Lucky person do?" Marge Clay- pool said timidly, glancing around and seeming to notice for the first time that two sides of the room were windows with utter darkness beyond them.