To outsiders, south Louisiana might appear to be an impenetrable maze of dirt roads and waterways.
But to Sax it had always been home.
When he’d been trudging through the snow up a steep Afghan mountainside with bad guys blasting away at him and his SEAL teammates, thoughts of Bayou Elysian had kept him putting one boot in front of another.
When he’d spent another six days all alone on those desolate peaks, wounded, half out of his mind, and presumed dead, mouthwatering aromas of the jambalaya and crawfish gumbo he intended to fill up on when he got back to the bayou had kept him battling the Taliban assassins sent to finish him off.
And during that lost time when he’d been held prisoner in an enemy village, memories of sitting out on the screened-in
gallerie
, sweat dripping from an icy bottle of Dixie in his hand, while listening to the rain on the tin roof had kept him sane.
“Pretty ironic, eh, Chère?” he asked his companion. “Ending up back in a place named for where fallen heroes spend the afterlife, me.”
Although everyone in town might have insisted on elevating him onto some gleaming marble pedestal, if there was one thing Sax knew he wasn’t, it was a hero.
Just happy to be along for the boat ride, the wolf-hound mix he’d named Velcro answered with an enthusiastic thumping of her thick black tail.
But, hero or not, after a few frustrating weeks held prisoner again—this time in Bethesda Naval Hospital—like Odysseus, he’d finally made his way home. Physically healthy and, well, mostly sane.
And determined to put war behind him and get on with his life. Which was turning out to be a lot easier said than done. Especially with this weekend’s Welcome Home parade the town council and local VFW chapter had planned.
“Maybe I’ll get to kiss me a beauty queen,” he said, trying to find something positive about the experience he knew would mean a lot to his parents. Which was the only reason he’d agree to go along with a celebration that, if reports were true, and he feared they were, was threatening to outdo Mardi Gras. “That might be cool.”
It had been an age since Sax had kissed any woman. Let alone a current Miss Bayou Elysian, who’d been crowned during a Fat Tuesday he’d unfortunately had to miss. Being that he’d been tied up. Literally.
In full agreement, as always, Velcro woofed; her sharp bark startled a heron, causing it to take to the sky above the gum and cypress trees with a flurry of wide blue wings.
The house he’d grown up in had taken a hit by Ka trina, then given a knockout blow when Rita had come barreling through. When the second hurricane also lev eled Zydeco, his parent’s restaurant and dance hall, Acadia and Lucien Douchett had thrown in the towel and retired. Sort of. Currently they were running a bait shop on the bayou and seemed content with how things had turned out. Mostly, Sax thought, because they were so content with each other.
However, like all Cajuns, they were proud and stubborn. It had taken every ounce of Sax’s considerable powers of persuasion to talk them into accepting the money to build a new house.
Meanwhile, he’d moved into the Douchett family fishing camp, and although he was still toying with the idea, the thought of rebuilding Zydeco was growing more and more appealing. Since there wasn’t much opportunity to go shopping in the places the military sent SEALs, he’d accumulated a nice enough bank account during his years in the Navy.
And God knows there were a lot of people in Bayou Elysian who could use the work. Along with the opportunity to eat themselves a good meal, kick up their heels, and have some fun, which seemed to be in short supply these days.
He was still thinking about that as he pulled up to the floating dock and tied the piroque to a wooden post. The dog, moving damn fast for an animal with only three legs, took off like a shot through the woods, probably after a coon or maybe a nutria. One thing he didn’t have to worry about was her chasing after the gators which could often be found sunning themselves on the front yard, given that she’d lost that front leg in a too-close encounter with an alligator on Bayou Teche.
The camp—a two-bedroom cabin with a
gallerie
and deep sloping tin roof surrounded by ancient oaks, willow, and palmetto trees—had been built on a piece of raised dry ground surrounded by white shells that glistened like pearls in the moonlight.
In the distance, heat lightening flashed, turning the wind-capped waters of the Gulf a shimmering neon green.
Sax was on his way into the cabin when Velcro, who never ventured far away, came racing back with what appeared to be a bleached-out piece of tree limb in her mouth.
She dropped it at his feet and began wiggling her fuzzy black butt, her canine way of letting him know it was now time to play fetch. Having nothing vital to do at the moment, Sax put the bag of groceries down on a wooden table his great-grandfather had built from logs milled on this property and bent to pick it up.
Then paused.
“Hell,” he muttered.
He’d left the Navy and returned to Bayou Elysian fully intending to put death behind him. Only to have feckless fate—and a clingy ninety-five-pound shelter mutt—deposit a human thigh bone on his damn doorstep.