Hallowed ground, p.1
Hallowed Ground, page 1
hallowed ground
A GUARDIANS NOVEL
BOOK THREE
HOPE ANIKA
Copyright © 2021 by Hope McKenzie
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
PIECES OF EIGHT
PIECES OF EIGHT
Also by Hope Anika
About the Author
one
“Help!”
Ellie Broussard did her best to ignore that desperate cry.
Her world was isolated and quiet, peaceful but for the dark, internal chaos that plagued her, and that was how she preferred to keep it.
“Bleedin’ hell, help!”
It wasn’t that she didn’t care—well.
Yes, it was.
The planet turned around her, spinning through space at a whopping one thousand miles an hour, but she stood nice and still, and frankly, she didn’t give a damn what happened out on the turning top.
“Mick! I’m comin’, son!”
Son.
The word stabbed through her.
Somebody’s son was in danger!
But she didn’t care. She didn’t want to get involved.
Children died.
That’s simply how it was.
It wasn’t her problem—
Merde!
She jumped down the rickety wooden steps of her back porch, jogged through the overgrown lawn and around the thumb of wetland that skirted her property to the shore of Lake Poisson, where she could see someone in the water, floundering wildly. They’d been foolish enough to walk the long, rotten length of old man Guidry’s dock and had fallen through.
“Help!” The cry turned to a scream of piercing terror. “Help me!”
Panic bolted through her, and she began to run.
In her peripheral vision, a shadow streaked in the same direction, but dark thoughts twisted through her—dusk, the gators would be hungry, waiting!—and she sped up, her heart a wild, frightened hammer.
The dock wobbled beneath her, but she knew to stick to the right side, where the wood was a little less rotten, and she sprinted along that line until she reached the end of the platform. Then she dove in.
The water was cool, thick, and heavy; the lifeblood of the bayou. Fear flooded through her when she surfaced and spotted a boy’s floating, motionless form, and as she swam swiftly toward him, she prayed.
Something she’d not done for as long as she could remember.
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name—
—it felt like an eternity. Was she getting closer? She had to be getting closer—
—thy kingdom come; thy will be done—
—he had to be close, he hadn’t been that far out—
—on earth, as it is in heaven —
There!
Her hands snagged his t-shirt, and she rolled him over, surprised by his size. A teenager with hair as bright as a new copper penny, and heavy, even in the water. She wrapped one arm around his chest and began to swim back toward shore with the other.
Blood roared in her head; her lungs fought for breath; the muscles in her arms and legs burned. She swept her gaze around them as she swam, hoping nothing gazed back, aware that gators were just one of the many creatures in the bayou that could ruin a fine evening.
But nothing impeded them as she neared shore. Mud sucked at her feet when the water grew shallow, and she struggled, staggering beneath the dead weight of the boy until she smacked into something hot, hard, and unmoving.
“Mick!” rasped a voice just above her ear, and the boy was plucked from her arms by a tall, broad man who lifted the teenager as easily as he would a wet kitten.
Then he put a hard arm around her waist and lifted her out of the muck as well.
Fire jolted through Ellie at the contact, and her entire body went taut.
How long had it been since anyone touched her?
A decade.
Longer.
As soon as they stepped onto the shore, she jerked away. The man—whose head was covered in rich, dark auburn hair so she thought he must be the father—was setting the unconscious boy down in the thick grass that edged the water, his hands so gentle that for a moment, her heart squeezed painfully.
“Fuck,” he snarled, and his terror licked at her nerves like an open flame.
She knew that terror intimately.
He pushed on the boy’s stomach.
“C’mon, Mick,” he whispered, “not you, too.”
Ellie fell to her knees. She clasped her hands together and told him, “Tilt his head back and breathe for him,” and then began CPR.
For all his size, the boy’s chest was thin; he felt fragile beneath her hands, and emotion welled from the dark place to press painfully against her ribs.
Grief and fear; adrenaline spearing through her like a drug.
Don’t want to feel this.
None of it; not ever again.
But there was nothing she could do to stop it. Death was laughing at her.
Again.
“Non,” she told it furiously.
One, two, three, four—
“Breathe, goddamn it!” The man tilted the boy’s head back and breathed into his mouth.
Five, six, seven, eight—
Another desperate breath. She kept counting. Beneath her hands, the boy’s sternum seemed to bend.
Tears burned her eyes, unexpected and hot. Slipped from their corners, slid down her cheeks. Sweat misted her skin. Her heart beat like a heavy, angry drum.
Nine, ten, eleven—
Another breath.
“No,” the man whispered, and the break in his voice made her work harder.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen—
A violent cough erupted from the boy; water fountained from his mouth, and Ellie rolled him swiftly over onto his side. She whacked him on the back a few times, relief a hot, thick, knee-bending slide through her.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the man muttered, and he cupped the boy’s face, bending low to look in his eyes as they fluttered open. “You with me, Mick?”
Another harsh cough. Then, roughly, “Aye, Da. I’m with you.”
And Ellie realized abruptly that they were foreigners, their words heavy with an accent she couldn’t pinpoint. Ireland? Scotland?
Somewhere far beyond the bayous of Louisiana.
Strangers.
She pulled her hands away and scooted back. Wiped away those silly, useless tears. The man looked up at her then, and the deep, brilliant green of his gaze seemed to freeze her in place for a moment.
He was beautiful. Strong, classic bone structure with winged brows and a firm, wide mouth she stared at for a heartbeat too long. Tattoos curled up his neck to lick at his temples, something tribal in design, and a narrow, brutal scar halved his face, slicing from the tip of his left eyebrow down to the right corner of his mouth.
Awareness flashed through her, as unwelcome and foreign as the man who caused it.
“Thank you, lass,” he said, his gaze burning like green fire.
Ellie only nodded brusquely and pushed to her feet. “You should take him to the ER, make sure his lungs are clear. There’s a whole universe of life in that water.”
Then she turned to walk away.
“Wait,” the man said sharply, and she halted.
Her jeans and t-shirt clung like a second skin; rivulets of water slid from her hair to trace the length of her spine. The last of the sun’s rays had all but disappeared, and it wouldn’t be long before it was full dark.
“You should go,” she told him without turning. “The gators will be out soon.”
“You’re just goin’ to stroll away?” Disbelief underscored his accent, which was lyrical against the earthy symphony of the swamp.
The cicadas. The nutria. The birds warning that night had begun its descent.
She did turn then. “There’s nothing more I can do. He should go to the hospital.”
“I don’t need no bleedin’ white coat!” the boy protested, coughing some more. He glowered at her, and Ellie saw that his eyes were the same shade as his father’s, like glinting, sunlit emeralds.
“You do if you don’t want pneumonia,” she told him. “Nut up, little man.”
Then she turned away again.
“Stop right there, woman!” the man ordered, and there was an authority in his tone that said he was used to being minded.
But Ellie didn ’t mind anyone. Never had, never would.
She started walking again.
“Goddamn it,” he swore.
“I’m okay, Da,” the boy—Mick—said.
“Goddamn it,” he said again, softer, and Ellie could feel his gaze burning a hole between her shoulder blades.
The urge to look back was so strong, she nearly did.
Foolish foreigners, treating the swamp as if it was inert, as if the life teeming within it would welcome their intrusion or forgive their ignorance.
People had died for less.
“You’re goin’ to make me hunt you down,” the man warned after her.
A threat that made an unexpected shiver move through her, which made her angry, because nothing touched her.
Nothing.
Not words; certainly not threats. To feel fear, you had to have something to lose.
And Ellie…Ellie had nothing.
“You take care, now,” she tossed over her shoulder. “And if you want that boy to grow into a man, you’d best teach him how to swim. The swamp don’t suffer couyon.”
“I was told southerners were hospitable!” the man yelled, sounding annoyed.
“I’m not a southerner,” she yelled back. “I’m a Cajun. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”
She rounded the corner and disappeared.
two
As a general rule, Sean McDougal didn’t brood.
Not that he hadn’t had his moments. When the love of his life had been taken from him; when his brother had turned up dead at the hands of a genocidal Russian mobster and his asshole girlfriend. But Sean wasn’t—in general—the moody sort. He was an easygoing man who appreciated the simple things and didn’t let life get too bloody complicated.
Life was meant to be lived, not autopsied.
So it was extra annoying to find himself ruminating at length over his ice-cold Guinness. It was hotter than Hades in this dank green hell; he should have been savoring every moment of his chilled beverage.
Instead, his head was filled with thoughts of her. The bonny, ebony-haired lass that had dragged his son back from death’s door.
And then strode away as if it was nothing.
He wasn’t certain if he was angry with her, or with himself. It had been a long time since any woman had stirred him as she had, and he was none too grateful for the reminder.
Which was bad enough. But worse was her.
Walking away from him.
Deriding him for not teaching his boy to swim.
Mocking him.
Him!
“Jaysus, just let it go,” he told himself and sipped his beer.
Because he had work to do.
He wasn’t in The Watering Hole, a dark, run-down bar in the middle of the Louisiana bayou, because he was thirsty. He was looking for a man. A man who made his living fencing only the rarest and most highly sought after stolen goods.
A dive bar in the middle of a swamp was not a place Sean would have expected to find such a man. In his experience, most high-end fences preferred far more luxurious surroundings. But Del Ray Comeaux had returned to the small parish of his birth to bury his mother.
And because Sean was in the market for several rare and highly sought after stolen goods, he’d followed.
Sean’s business was finding things. Big things; little things. Mostly stolen things. Whatever someone might be seeking. He had an intricate network of contacts that spanned the globe, and there was very little he could not secure. He was reputed to be honest, discreet, and effective.
He tried hard to live up to that standing, and if a few heads got broken in the process of locating what had gone missing, ah, well, c’est la vie, as they said in these parts. Everyone needed to let off a little steam now and then, and the ilk he dealt with begged for it more often than not.
He looked forward to discovering if Del Ray Comeaux would be the same.
According to Sean’s contact, Del Ray had spent every evening for the last week drowning his grief in The Watering Hole. With any luck, this night would be no different.
Because they had business to discuss.
Sean had left Mick behind at La Maison Sol, the sprawling, moss-eaten former plantation turned boardinghouse at which they were currently lodged. Gothic and graceful and surreal, the property was painted in history and surrounded by towering oaks and the living, breathing jungle that was the bayou.
Fortunately, the place also came equipped with streaming TV and some of the best food Sean had ever eaten, food Mick and Sean’s employee Bane were currently enjoying while Sean trolled for Del Ray Comeaux and tried not to think about the woman who had—for reasons he had no interest in uncovering—managed to upend in less than fifteen minutes the lassitude he’d so carefully cultivated for years.
Staring down her nose at him, her eyes as dark and roiling as the clouds that gathered over the coastal sea of his cold, northern home.
And well-filled with secrets, he thought. She’d been a walking, talking No Trespassing sign.
The kind of sign Sean often—as proven by Mick’s unfortunate swim during their ill-fated fishing expedition—ignored.
But he didn’t take it personally. Because as she’d kneeled over his boy, a flare of grief had flashed like a naked, hungry blade across the woman’s face, fresh and vivid and raw, no matter its age.
Something to which Sean could relate.
So perhaps that was all he was feeling. Empathy. A recognition that she, too, had suffered. Because Sean knew suffering intimately, and those who bore similar scars often knew one another.
Yes. That was it.
Takes one to know one.
Which meant he could put her away, and maybe someday he would take her back out and examine her. From a distance.
When it was safe.
Because something about her had made a spark he’d thought long-doused flicker within him, one he had no desire to feed into flame.
He was done with that. His Gilly, Mick’s mam and the wife he’d adored, had been taken by cancer, and he knew there would never be another for him.
It doesn’t come twice, he’d told his brother’s former CIA partner, Rafe.
And he’d meant it.
Oh, he supposed he could find a nice woman, someone who would be good for Mick and put a ring on her finger. He could play the role. But his heart wouldn’t be in it, and that wouldn’t be fair. Besides, Mick would know it was all bunk, and Sean didn’t lie to his son.
Ever.
“Can I get you another one?” The bartender appeared in front of him, blonde and pretty, with a deep golden tan and a friendly smile. She wore a cheap plastic nametag that said Jolie. A local, by the sound of her.
And to think people gave him grief about his accent.
“Aye,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Y’all here on business?” she asked as she opened and served him a fresh beer.
The mirror behind her was scarred and filmy with cigarette smoke, lined with old, dusty bourbon bottles. The Watering Hole had seen better days. Scarred countertops and stools that were uneven and hard; bare wooden floors and matching walls. Tables with chipped paint and two pool tables that appeared ready to collapse at any moment.
“Somethin’ like that,” Sean told her.
“Got it,” she said and smiled again.
“You from around here?”
“Born and bred,” she said proudly.
They were a noble lot, he reflected. No matter the extremity of the inequality he’d seen, from ornate, multi-million-dollar historical homes to shanties barely standing.
“Had me a spot of trouble yesterday,” he said, the words escaping without permission. “One of your locals helped me out, but flew away before I could thank her.”
Jolie’s brows rose.
“Maybe you know her,” he continued, in spite of himself.
Because bloody hell.
“I know everybody,” Jolie said wryly. “What’d she look like?”
