“We don’t have to stay,” Ezekiel reminded, his tone noncommittal. “We can turn around and get the hell out of here if that makes you feel any better.”

“She asked me to come home,” Wyatt said. “She doesn’t ever ask for much. She said she needed help, and my other brothers are out of the country at the moment. I had leave comin’ and knew I had to face her sooner or later. It’s been a while, but the bayou still feels like home.”

Malichai looked around him slowly. “It feels like a hunting ground to me.”

The Fontenot home was old, even for the bayou, but kept in very good shape. Iron gates and a large fence kept the property private with its own pier off the river. Nonny’s hunting dogs had set up a cry when the airboat had first arrived, but Wyatt had sent them a quick, silent command and they’d ceased baying immediately.

There were two large buildings, the house and a garage. The garage had double pull-down doors and a single, smaller entrance, all locked with padlocks. The house was two stories, with a balcony and a wraparound deck.

“This is nice, Wyatt,” Malichai said. “A sweet setup.”

“It started out as a frame house, very traditional,” Wyatt said. “One and a half stories, with a galerie raised on pillars to keep it from the soggy ground. We’ve got good frontage on the bayou, which allowed us good access to the waterways. We have plenty of woods to hunt, and we harvested trees to help build this. We have fields for growin’, and Grand-mere had the touch when it came to plantin’. We did all right.” There was pride in his voice. “We built the house, my brothers and me, for Nonny.”

“It’s amazing, Wyatt. What a place to grow up in,” Malichai said. He glanced at his brother. “We could have done some damage here.”

“We’d have been able to eat once in a while,” Ezekiel said, with another slow look around him. “You wouldn’t need much more than this place.”

“There’s always plenty to eat here,” Wyatt assured and stepped back, waving them forward. “Seriously, with four big boys to feed, Nonny was trappin’ and huntin’ and fishin’ every day. She wanted us all in school to get an education. Then she had a heart attack and Raoul – Gator, we call him here in the bayou – he snuck away from school and helped out with supplyin’ us with food. ’Course when the rest of us did it, Gator beat the crap out of us.” Wyatt laughed at the memory.

“We know about beating the crap out of people,” Malichai said, “That’s usually how we got our food.”

Ezekiel nodded. “We got real good at it.”

“Grand-mere is in her eighties with a bad heart. Don’ go makin’ her cut down a switch to use on either of you,” Wyatt warned, half teasing, but more serious. “Because she would if you don’ mind your manners.”

Ezekiel glanced uneasily toward the house. “Wyatt, we’ve never had a family. It’s always been the three of us. Malichai, Mordichai, and me. We’re not exactly civilized. Are you certain you want to bring us into your home?”

“I’m certain. Nonny will be happy for the company. There’s no other place to just relax and rest. The moment she knows you both were wounded, expect to be spoiled. She cracks the whip when we need it, but she’s always been the glue that holds our family together. You’re going to love her.”

Ezekiel took a long slow look around. “Mordichai would love it here. He’s hanging with Joe, making sure he pulls through, then he plans to join us. This is his kind of place.”

“Damn straight, it is,” Malichai agreed.

“Wyatt. Boy, come on in and stop swappin’ lies out there. There’s been a couple of gators gettin’ all frisky lately on the lawn. I wouldn’ want you to run into them. And the Rougarou has been a visitin’ folks up and down these parts lately. Wouldn’t want you or your friends to be caught out in the open.” Grand-mere’s voice cut through the night. Clear. Crisp. Welcoming.

Wyatt smiled for the first time. Just the sound of her voice settled the knots in his gut. “You’re smokin’ that pipe again, Nonny. I thought the doc told you to stop.”

What the hell is Rougarou? Malichai asked, using telepathic communication.

Local legend mainly used to scare the crap out of wayward boys to keep them out of the swamps and bayous at night, Wyatt answered with a quick grin. Not that the tactic was particularly successful.

“Doc’s not even wet behin’ the ears yet, Wyatt,” his grandmother said. “I ben smokin’ this pipe nigh onto seventy years now. I’m not about to quit now.”

She was sitting in an old sturdy, hand-carved rocking chair on the verandah, pipe in one hand and a shotgun close to the other. Wyatt frowned when he saw the gun. He took the pier in several long strides, covered the circular drive and the lawn in a few leaps and landed on the porch in a crouch beside his grandmother.

She was very small and fragile looking, the shotgun nearly as big as she was, but her hands were rock steady. She wore her silver white hair braided and looped in a bun at the back of her head. Her skin was thin and pale, but her eyes were clear and just as steady as her hands.

“What the hell’s goin’ on, Nonny? Did someone threaten’ you?”

She took the pipe from her mouth. “Greet me properly, boy. I been a missin’ you for a long while now.”

“I’m sorry. You worried me holdin’ that shotgun so close.” He leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks. “You smell like home. Spicy pipe tobacco, gumbo and fresh-baked bread. I’m never home until I get close to you, Nonny.”