He wanted that, he realized. What Wyatt had. What Trap had. What Ezekiel had. He even needed it. Sooner rather than later. He knew he grew colder every day in spite of having the little triplets following him around, asking him to do bird calls for them and teach them to track animals in the swamp.
He loved the triplets’ company and sometimes sought the little girls out when he was feeling particularly shadowed. Nonny always seemed to notice. Once she’d gestured at him with her pipe while she was rocking away on the porch and told him he needed a good woman. He hadn’t replied, but at the time, he’d thought a good woman wouldn’t have him. A woman like him, one dark enough to accept him, would only drag him down further and he couldn’t afford that. He was looking for just the opposite of him. He was searching for a woman who made his world light up when she smiled.
He excused himself and went out to the porch to look at the night. He loved nights in the swamp. The sounds of the insects, the slide of alligators through mud to get to the water. The bellows of the bull alligators. The plopping of snakes as they fell from low-hung cypress branches into the water. The swamp seemed laid-back when it was really teeming with life. It was a long way from the city where he’d been born and raised.
He was surprised that Joe had taken to the place. Joe was much more civilized than Gino. Gino was primitive and a little savage, and Joe was charming, sophisticated and easygoing. Joe seemed to love the swamp so much he didn’t want to leave. Like Gino, he spent hours a day exploring when they had the time. The team had bought up as much land around the Fontenot home and between Wyatt’s home and Trap’s as possible. There was one tract of land they couldn’t get, a prime piece they’d offered far more for than it was worth, but so far the owner hadn’t bitten. Joe was obsessed with that piece of land.
He liked birds. Who knew? Big bad Joe Spagnola liked birds. The tract of land was home to quite a few. He went there often with his binoculars and watched them. Gino knew, because when Joe went into the swamp, he followed. He was used to protecting his foster brother, and having the man traipse around in a dangerous area didn’t have Gino quitting his bodyguard ways any time soon.
“You got somethin’ on your mind, Gino?” Nonny asked as she pushed open the screen and slid out onto the porch, pipe in hand.
“A few things,” he admitted. He’d come to know Wyatt’s grandmother, and he was fairly certain the Fontenot boys had gotten psychic gifts from her. It was useless to try to hide things from her.
She was small now, looking frail, with her silver-spun hair and her thin body, but she worked all day, never shirking, even when they all tried to anticipate what she might need or want. She slipped into her favorite rocking chair and regarded him over her unlit pipe.
“You’re a much better man than you think. And you’re deserving of happiness just like all the rest of them.” She announced it as if by her decreeing it, that made him a good man.
She made him smile. He turned toward her, leaning his back to the porch post. “How do you know I’m a good man, Nonny, when I don’t know it?”
“I see more than most people. I see you struggle, but you don’t quite understand that sometimes, in this world, someone like you is needed. You go with a clear conscious and you find your woman. She needs you and your strength. We’re not all made the same. Cayenne is all warrior. Bellisia can be a warrior but isn’t thrilled with it, where Cayenne feeds off it. Killin’ makes Pepper sick. She still will stand up and do what’s needed, but it does sicken her. Does that make her weaker? Or does it make her the strongest of all of us? I don’t rightly know. But I do know there is a woman needing you.”
“My brand of loving wouldn’t be easy for anyone, Nonny, let alone the kind of woman I want.”
“It’s need that matters, Gino. Find the kind of woman you need. Wanting can fool you.”
He nodded because he knew she was right. He’d thought a lot about women and what would be right for him. He wasn’t ever going to be easy, and the last thing he needed was a woman who would spend her life opposing him at every turn. He wasn’t a man who liked a fighter as so many of his brethren did. He needed someone who would soothe him, quiet the dark demon when it began to emerge. A fighter wouldn’t do that for him, and any union with the wrong woman wouldn’t end well.
“My family has money, Nonny. So much. You have no idea how much money. I haven’t touched a penny of it, although I offered it to the others to help with purchasing land for us. Or to buy weapons to keep the little ones safe. I mostly forget about the money, until I meet a woman. In the last few years, I haven’t met one who hasn’t already known about the money and deliberately set out to meet me with one idea in mind.”
She laughed softly and lit her pipe. The scent was soothing and somehow fit with the swamp. “There are good women in this world, Gino. Hardworking, caring women who prefer to be partners with a man.”
“Don’t want a fuckin’ partner, Nonny,” he said before he thought. He ducked his head. “Sorry for the language, ma’am.”
“I raised my own boy and then four grandsons. Language never bothered me none but it was fun to make them think so. A partner can be many things. I worked alongside my husband because there was need and I’m that kind of woman. Cayenne will fight beside her man. Your woman will find her place with you and whatever that is, it is a partnership with each of you having your role. You just need to make her feel loved and cared for. Communication is important, not just in the bedroom, but mostly out of it. You have that, you’ll have no problems.”
He wished she was right. He hoped she was right. He was damned tired of being alone. “I think it’s your swamp, Nonny. It’s cast some kind of spell on all of us.”
She looked around her, out over the water and into the thick trees and foliage. Her rocker creaked softly, adding to the symphony of the insects and frogs. “It is beautiful here. I spent my days here, Gino, and never longed for another place. I love the beauty of it. The mystery. The wildlife. Most of all, the people. There are good people here.”
He let himself grin at her, teasing her a little. “I suspect you loved the lazy bayou at night with your sweetheart.”
She flashed him an answering grin, looking a little mischievous. “You wouldn’t be wrong. My man made my life good right up until the day he passed.”
“I’m happy for you. I’d like to think my father did the same for my mother. Believe me, having gone without a woman of my own so long, I’d know to look after her if I found her.” He broke off abruptly when Draden joined them. It was one thing to talk like this to a woman in her eighties in the cover of darkness, but not in front of one of his fellow GhostWalkers. Likely, he’d never hear the end of it.
“Draden,” Nonny greeted. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “If I didn’t run so much I’d be putting on all kinds of weight. Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“Growin’ up here, in the old days, we didn’t have much. Hunted, fished, crabbed, even shot alligators for food. Had to cook for my brothers and sisters. I was the youngest by a good few years and they were all workin’ tryin’ to help so I was home tendin’ to the food and house.”
She’d worked hard all her life. As far as Gino could see, she was still working. But she was happy. She was a woman who wouldn’t have looked at a man’s bank account to judge his worth. She looked at whether or not he would take care of his family. Working hard, bringing passion to his woman. Those were the attributes she looked for in a man.