Forbidden Entchantment

by Nina Bruhns

  “She’s fine. Just that new-fangled alarm system Tyler installed before sailing off into the sunset,” Jeremy grumbled good-naturedly. “What the heck, it’s a nice day for a ride on a fire truck.”

  Sully glanced at Elizabeth. She looked worried, too. “Feel like taking a drive out there?”

  She nodded. “The Corvette’s parked at the Pirate’s Rest.”

  One of these days he really would have to learn how to drive it himself. Meanwhile, he was glad she could. The alarm was probably just being oversensitive, as the guys had said, but he had a queasy feeling in his stomach about this. He’d had that queasy feeling many a time in the past.

  And he never ignored it.

  All looked peaceful as they drove up to Rose Cottage about fifteen minutes later. No sign of smoke, thank God.

  Elizabeth drove slowly, taking in the enormous beauty of the estate. She still couldn’t get over how gorgeous the Southern sea islands were. Spanish moss hung from huge, stately oaks, swaying gently in the soft breeze, along with the fronds of the palmettos that clustered between. The scent of jasmine filled the air, spiced with a tang of sea salt and the sticky marsh ooze the locals called pluff mud—the unique smell of the Lowcountry that she’d grown to love after only a few days. So much richer and more verdant than the stark pine and cold ocean smells of her northern home.

  As the tires crunched up the oyster shell path to the beautiful plantation home, a pair of bluebirds flew out from the trees bordering a meadow on one side of the track, making their distinctive call.

  Beside her, Sully scanned the whole area, looking for signs of anything amiss. “Nothing out of place,” he said, but she could tell he was still tense.

  When Mrs. Yates appeared on the front porch, smiled and waved, they both relaxed a little.

  “We heard about your excitement,” Sully said when they’d gotten out of the car and walked up the steps. He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Came to make sure you’re really okay.”

  “Oh, heavens,” she said, laughing. “You didn’t have to do that. Just another of Captain Tyr—that is, Captain Tyler’s fancy gadgets. You just have to look at it wrong to set the darn thing off. Most annoying.”

  “I’m happy to hear it wasn’t a real emergency,” he said, offering his arm to escort her inside and beckoning Elizabeth to follow. Then to her shock, he said, “Mrs. Yates, Elizabeth knows about me and Tyree, so you don’t have to guard your words around her anymore.”

  The older woman’s brows shot up in surpri se. “Indeed, Captain? Well. That’s very interesting. You must join me for some tea and tell me how that happened.” She looked from him to Elizabeth, who followed behind feeling vaguely unnerved. “I can’t imagine you’ve had an easy time accepting any of this, my dear.”

  “No,” she agreed. “And I’m still not sure I have.”

  Mrs. Yates chuckled and Sully looked wounded. “That’s not what you said last night.”

  She felt her face go red, but Mrs. Yates rescued her. “I imagine some things are far more believable in the quiet arms of the night than faced in the bright light of daytime.”

  Sully smiled as she patted his hand and headed for the tea kettle. “That was very poetical, Mrs. Yates. And undoubtedly true.”

  A cool breeze rustled the lace curtains on the kitchen windows, making delicate shadows waltz across the pastel yellow walls and glass-front cabinets. It was a lovely kitchen. Suddenly it struck Elizabeth that she’d like to have just such a cozy kitchen someday, when she married. She glanced at Sully, and was pierced by a poignant sadness. Too bad if she ever did marry, it wouldn’t be to this amazing man.

  “Did the captain tell you who he was?” Mrs. Yates asked, handing her the cups to set out, “Or did you guess?”

  Elizabeth snapped out of her wishful thinking. “A little of both, I guess. I knew about Sully’s amnesia and him waking up from his coma thinking he was…well, who he is. And he seemed to know everything about Sullivan Fouquet. Then there’s his Cajun accent. Oh, and finding the gold coins. That was pretty convincing.”

  “Coins?” Mrs. Yates asked.

  “Hidden in my old town house,” Sully said. “I had a secret cache even Tyree didn’t know about.”

  “Goodness!” Mrs. Yates chuckled. “They must be worth a pretty penny by now.”

  “We got there just in time,” Elizabeth said. “Later that day the building burned down.”

  Suddenly there was a crash, like a glass jar falling from a shelf and shattering.

  Sully whipped around and listened intently.

  “The pantry!” Mrs. Yates whispered.

  “Did the firefighters check the whole house before they left?”

  “Yes, indeed. At least, I thought…”

  A soft crunch came from the same direction, as though someone had stepped on the broken glass.

  “Call Jake,” Sully whispered over his shoulder, but Elizabeth was already reaching for her cell phone. “Does Tyree keep any weapons in the house?”

  “I—I don’t think so,” Mrs. Yates said, her voice wobbling slightly. “He doesn’t approve of them.”

  Another crunch sounded.

  “Do you even know how to use a modern gun?” Elizabeth whispered worriedly.

  Sully gave her a quelling scowl. “Take Mrs. Yates and go out the back door. Get to the boathouse and stay there. Now!”

  She hesitated, but he made a shooing motion and Mrs. Yates looked like she was about to expire on the spot. “Please be careful,” she whispered to Sully, holding his eyes for a moment, then she put her arm around the older woman’s shoulders and quietly led her out the back door.

  As they hurried down the old brick path toward the dock and the boathouse, she dialed 911 and asked the operator to put her through to the Magnolia Cove Fire Department.

  Jake wasn’t there. But a man named Swift answered and said they’d be at Rose Cottage in five minutes.

  Elizabeth and Mrs. Yates reached the boathouse, and after checking to be sure they were alone, she urged Mrs. Yates inside. It was cool and dark and smelled of motor oil and fish. As Elizabeth was swinging the door closed behind them, she noticed a small motorboat bobbing on the water, tied up at the dock next to the boathouse.

  “Is that yours?” she asked Mrs. Yates.

  “Why, no, I don’t think so.” She peeped out at it between the weathered wood doors. “No, I’ve never seen that boat before.”

  Proof that someone was here who didn’t belong. Wesley Peel? But what would he want at Rose Cottage? The painting in the hall? Sully?

  She hesitated for only a second. “Stay here,” she told Mrs. Yates, then ran out onto the dock. When she got to the boat, she jumped down onto the back, next to where the motor had been tipped up out of the water. Squinting at the workings, she poked around and found what looked like a fuel line.

  Just as she yanked it from the motor, the quiet morning was ripped apart by a loud bang.

  Her heart stopped, then jumped to her throat as she realized the sound had come from the house.

  She spun around. Another bang split the air.

  Someone was shooting!

  Chapter 14

  S ully dove to the floor and rolled through the nearest door, scrambling to find a piece of furniture to hide behind.

  “I know who you are!” Wesley Peel shouted as he burst from the pantry and gave chase. “I know what you are!”

  That made one of them. Sully scanned the cozy front salon where he’d landed. A fireplace, a sofa and a three soft, stuffed chairs that looked like they wouldn’t stop a determined dog, much less a bullet. Merde. He scooted behind one of the chairs. The sofa was too exposed, facing the fireplace. His knee started to burn and he grimaced.

  “Give me what I want, Fouquet!” Peel screeched as he rounded the door. He cackled wildly. “I’ll be your loyal servant…”

  Dieu. The man was insane.

  From his hiding place, Sully examined the room, looking for potential weapons. Two end tables. Sever
al potted plants. Brass fireplace implements. That was good. One looked sharp with a hook, like a small harpoon. A few vases scattered on the mantel. Then his eye snagged on what was mounted above it. The crossed sabers. His and Tyree’s old weapons; he’d noticed them there on his first visit. Slowly a smile creased his face.

  “Surrender, Fouquet! Or I’ll kill the old lady and your pretty friend! I know where they’re hiding!”

  Touch them and you’re dead, mon ami. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his awkwardly held leg, Sully reached up on to the windowsill behind the chair and hefted one of the clay-potted plants into his hand. He threw it to the opposite side of the room, where it crashed into bits.

  Peel swung and fired madly, pumping bullets into an empty chair. As stuffing flew everywhere, Sully grabbed the brass harpoon from the hearth and rolled in front of the sofa.

  Peel slowly turned in a circle, growling, “Give me what I need, Fouquet, and I’ll let the women live.”

  Sully debated whether he should let him live. Lying on the floor, he could look under the sofa and see Peel’s feet as he searched the room for him. That would have to do for now. Grasping the heavy brass poker, Sully aimed at Peel’s ankle and sent it sailing.

  Direct hit.

  Peel yowled and bent to grab his bloody limb. Meanwhile Sully jumped up and yanked the sabers from their wall mounting. Tyree’s slid into his left hand and his own sword hilt glided into his right palm, reassuring and familiar in its weight and girth.

  “Devil!” Peel screamed. “Voudou demon! I want you to curse me, not kill me!”

  “Then what good would killing me do? You’re a madman, Peel!”

  Apparently beyond reason, the other man staggered to his feet and raised the gun. “Shut up!” Instinctively Sully lifted Tyree’s sword in a protective stance just as the trigger jerked. Sparks flew in a blinding flash and the flat of the saber slapped viciously against Sully’s chest.

  Someone screamed. A woman. Elizabeth!

  Knocked momentarily breathless by the blow, Sully could only watch, helpless, as Peel swung to see her in the hall behind him. Instantly Peel grabbed her around the neck, pointing the barrel of the gun at her temple as he turned back, using her as a shield.

  Sully let the tips of the sabers drop to the floor. “Hurt her and I’ll curse you to the eternal fires of hell,” he gritted out, seething with fury over the terror in Elizabeth’s eyes. He wanted to smash the man’s face in. He wanted to slice him to ribbons. He gripped his sword hilt, ready to do just that if Peel made one move to hurt her.

  “What do you want from me, Peel?”

  “Same as you have,” the man said, his voice high with fanatical excitement. “Eternal life!”

  Sully barked a laugh. “Is that what you think?”

  “You’re Sullivan Fouquet, aren’t you? You said so in all the newspapers. And Sullivan Fouquet died two hundred years ago! But you came back to life.”

  “I’m Andre Sullivan, the fire chief. You know that, Peel. I was injured back then. On pain meds and delirious. Now let Elizabeth go before you do something you’ll regret.”

  “I just shot you!” he yelled. “And you didn’t die! It’s voudou, I tell you! You’re immortal!”

  Sully glanced down at the thin, saber-curved line of blood bisecting his chest where it had kicked back at him. “The sword deflected the bullet. No voudou involved.” But possibly a miracle. He prayed for one more.

  “Don’t lie to me! I need to know the secret! I’ve said the words over and over, but nothing happens!” He pushed his gun harder into Elizabeth’s temple. “Tell me!”

  Inwardly boiling with rage, Sully forced himself not to move an inch. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Besides, I thought this was about money. About saving your family business.”

  For a second, the man’s eyes lost their dangerous, glossy wildness. “It was. In the beginning. But now I—”

  “The painting,” Sully interrupted Peel’s rising voice. “The one from the Moon and Palmetto. You took that to lead you to the treasure. The island in the background, that’s where it’s buried! What you’ve been looking for all along. Why stop now?”

  Elizabeth squirmed, and Peel tightened his grip on her neck. “Hold still!” The crazed look returned to his eyes. “No! It’s too late. Finding that painting was taking too long! Then I learned about your voudou from the journals. And I thought, what good are riches if you die before spending them?”

  “Peel—”

  “Curse me to eternal life and I’ll let her go!” he said shrilly. The man was completely around the bend.

  Enough of this. Time to act. Sully tightened his fingers around the hilts of the sabers. Elizabeth caught the slight movement and met his eyes. He gave an imperceptible nod.

  “I need a lock of your hair,” he told Peel levelly. “For the spell to work.”

  Peel frowned. “You’re lying. There was nothing about hair in the curse you put on Tyree St. James.”

  “That curse was not for eternal life.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  Sully shrugged. “Bon. Then let the woman go. We’re done here.” He started boldly walking toward the front door. Getting closer.

  Peel dropped his jaw and his guard, and the gun dipped just long enough for Sully to make his move. He whipped around and lunged, Tyree’s saber slicing through the air to knock the gun from Peel’s hand and send it clattering into the hall. At the same time Elizabeth lifted her foot and slammed her heel into his injured ankle. He howled and lost his grip on her. She collapsed to the floor, giving Sully’s saber full access to Peel’s neck.

  In a twinkling, he had backed the man up against the wall, the tip of his sword pushing into the base of Peel’s throat. He barely restrained himself from running the man through.

  “Move and you are dead,” he ground out. “Lizzie, are you all right?”

  “I’m good,” she answered shakily from where she sat on the floor, arms banded around her middle. “Your men should be here any—”

  The front door burst open and Jake ran in. “Andre!” He took one look at the scene and came to a screeching halt. “Everyone okay here?”

  Peel’s Adam’s apple bobbed under Sully’s saber tip, his wide eyes appealing desperately to Jake. “Don’t you see it’s Sullivan Fouquet!” he squeaked hysterically. “He’s a devil! Cursed! He promised me eternal life!”

  Jake’s eyebrows flicked. “Sure he did.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “But first we’d better make sure you’re safe from him, being a devil and all.”

  Sully eased up and let him cuff the bastard. As soon as Peel was secured, Sully set the swords aside and dropped down at Elizabeth’s side, tugging her trembling body into a fierce embrace. “Where’s Mrs. Yates?”

  “B-boathouse,” she stuttered.

  Jake nodded. “I’ll get her.” Then he pushed Peel down the hall and out the front door.

  Sully turned to Elizabeth, buried his face in her hair. “I wanted to kill him,” he confessed intently, holding her close, hating how her heartbeat raced and her hands shook as she clung to him. “I wanted to draw and quarter the bastard and throw the pieces to the sharks for what he did to you.”

  Her body gave a long shudder, then calmed. “I may have let you,” she murmured. “Except I felt so sorry for the man. He obviously needs help.” She pulled back. “Thank you for rescuing me.” She smiled gamely. “My hero.”

  He pulled her back for another hug. “I don’t know what I would have done if he’d hurt you.”

  She pulled in a breath, then let it out. “He wouldn’t have. You were pretty handy with those swords.”

  “One of the few advantages of being two centuries behind the times.” She smiled and he gave her a kiss, needing the reassurance that she really was all right, knowing her touch would tell him the truth. “You were very brave, mon amour.”

  The front door opened again and Mrs. Yates walked in accompanied by Jeremy Swift and another
Magnolia Cove firefighter.

  “Oh, dear! Such excitement!” Mrs. Yates rushed over to them and fluttered about as Sully helped Elizabeth to her feet, then gave them both hugs, inquiring about their ordeal and herding everyone, including the firemen, into the kitchen for the tea she’d never had a chance to make earlier.

  Sully didn’t let Elizabeth go even once, gathering her onto his lap when they sat down at the table, using the somewhat plausible excuse of there not being enough chairs to go around. The men didn’t even crack grins—well, much anyway. They were learning.

  She didn’t protest, burrowing up against his chest and sipping her tea quietly as the conversation swirled around her. A feeling of overwhelming protectiveness swept over Sully as he held her there in his arms. He would do anything to keep her safe from harm. Anything. He would not have wanted to go on if Peel had—

  Mais, non. He wasn’t going to borrow despair. He’d stopped Peel, and the arsonist would soon be behind bars. He’d never bother either of them again.

  “Let’s go home,” he said to Elizabeth after the big red fire engine had driven away from Rose Cottage and he’d made sure Mrs. Yates would be all right alone.

  Again that word, home, crept under his skin as he bussed Mrs. Yates on the cheek and told her to lock up after them. He took a backward glance at the plantation house as Elizabeth pointed the Corvette down the oyster shell path toward the village.

  How lucky Tyree was. How nice it would be to have a place such as this to come home to at night, a loyal friend like Mrs. Yates to make sure all ran smoothly and a wife like Clara to share his life and his bed.

  Non. A wife like Elizabeth.

  Wife…

  Did he really love her that much? Enough to marry her and spend the rest of this new, precious life with her?

  Before when he’d asked her to stay in Magnolia Cove with him, he hadn’t meant it like that. Hadn’t intended to make things permanent. At least not until he was sure of his feelings. But now…was he sure?