The Pagan Stone

Table of Contents

 

 

 

HOT ICE
SACRED SINS
BRAZEN VIRTUE
SWEET REVENGE
PUBLIC SECRETS
GENUINE LIES
CARNAL INNOCENCE
DIVINE EVIL
HONEST ILLUSIONS
PRIVATE SCANDALS
HIDDEN RICHES
TRUE BETRAYALS
MONTANA SKY
SANCTUARY

HOMEPORT
THE REEF
RIVER’S END
CAROLINA MOON
THE VILLA
MIDNIGHT BAYOU
THREE FATES
BIRTHRIGHT
NORTHERN LIGHTS
BLUE SMOKE
ANGELS FALL
HIGH NOON
TRIBUTE

 

 

 

Born In Trilogy
BORN IN FIRE
BORN IN ICE
BORN IN SHAME

 

Dream Trilogy
DARING TO DREAM
HOLDING THE DREAM
FINDING THE DREAM

 

Chesapeake Bay Saga
SEA SWEPT
RISING TIDES
INNER HARBOR
CHESAPEAKE BLUE

 

Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy
JEWELS OF THE SUN
TEARS OF THE MOON
HEART OF THE SEA

 

Three Sisters Island Trilogy
DANCE UPON THE AIR
HEAVEN AND EARTH
FACE THE FIRE

Key Trilogy
KEY OF LIGHT
KEY OF KNOWLEDGE
KEY OF VALOR

 

In the Garden Trilogy
BLUE DAHLIA
BLACK ROSE
RED LILY

 

Circle Trilogy
MORRIGAN’S CROSS
DANCE OF THE GODS
VALLEY OF SILENCE

 

Sign of Seven Trilogy
BLOOD BROTHERS
THE HOLLOW
THE PAGAN STONE

 

REMEMBER WHEN

 

 

NAKED IN DEATH
GLORY IN DEATH
IMMORTAL IN DEATH
RAPTURE IN DEATH
CEREMONY IN DEATH
VENGEANCE IN DEATH
HOLIDAY IN DEATH
CONSPIRACY IN DEATH
LOYALTY IN DEATH
WITNESS IN DEATH
JUDGMENT IN DEATH
BETRAYAL IN DEATH
SEDUCTION IN DEATH
REUNION IN DEATH
PURITY IN DEATH
PORTRAIT IN DEATH
IMITATION IN DEATH
DIVIDED IN DEATH
VISIONS IN DEATH
SURVIVOR IN DEATH
ORIGIN IN DEATH
MEMORY IN DEATH
BORN IN DEATH
INNOCENT IN DEATH
CREATION IN DEATH
STRANGERS IN DEATH
SALVATION IN DEATH

 

FROM THE HEART
A LITTLE MAGIC
A LITTLE FATE

 

MOON SHADOWS
(with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)

 

ONCE UPON A CASTLE
ONCE UPON A STAR
ONCE UPON A DREAM
ONCE UPON A ROSE
ONCE UPON A KISS
ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT

 

 

SILENT NIGHT
(with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)

 

OUT OF THIS WORLD
(with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)

 

BUMP IN THE NIGHT
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

 

DEAD OF NIGHT
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

 

THREE IN DEATH

 

SUITE 606
(with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)

 

 

 

 

THE OFFICIAL NORA ROBERTS COMPANION
(edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

THE PAGAN STONE

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Jove mass-market edition / December 2008

Copyright © 2008 by Nora Roberts.

 

All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-1-440-65420-6

 

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Where there is no vision, the people perish.

—PROVERBS 29:18

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

Prologue

 

SUN STREAKED PEARLY PINK ACROSS THE SKY, splashed onto blue, blue water that rolled against white sand as Gage Turner walked the beach. He carried his shoes—the tattered laces of the ancient Nikes tied to hang on his shoulder. The hems of his jeans were frayed, and the jeans themselves had long since faded to white at the stress points. The tropical breeze tugged at hair that hadn’t seen a barber in more than three months.

At the moment, he supposed he looked no more kempt than the scattering of beach bums still snoring away on the sand. He’d bunked on beaches a time or two when his luck was down, and knew someone would come along soon to shoo them off before the paying tourists woke for their room-service coffee.

At the moment, despite the need for a shower and a shave, his luck was up. Nicely up. With his night’s winnings hot in his pocket, he considered upgrading his ocean-view room for a suite.

Grab it while you can, he thought, because tomorrow could suck you dry.

Time was already running out: it spilled like that white, sun-kissed sand held in a closed fist. His twenty-fourth birthday was less than three months away, and the dreams crawled back into his head. Blood and death, fire and madness. All of that and Hawkins Hollow seemed a world away from this soft tropical dawn.

But it lived in him.

He unlocked the wide glass door of his room, stepped in, tossed aside his shoes. After flipping on the lights, closing the drapes, he took his winnings from his pocket, gave the bills a careless flip. With the current rate of exchange, he was up about six thousand USD. Not a bad night, not bad at all. In the bathroom, he popped off the bottom of a can of shaving cream, tucked the bills inside the hollow tube.

He protected what was his. He’d learned to do so from childhood, secreting away small treasures so his father couldn’t find and destroy them on a drunken whim. He might’ve flipped off any notion of a college education, but Gage figured he’d learned quite a bit in his not-quite-twenty-four years.

He’d left Hawkins Hollow the summer he’d graduated from high school. Just packed up what was his, stuck out his thumb and booked.

Escaped, Gage thought as he stripped for a shower. There’d been plenty of work—he’d been young, strong, healthy, and not particular. But he’d learned a vital lesson while digging ditches, hauling lumber, and most especially during the months he’d sweated on an offshore rig. He could make more money at cards than he could with his back.

And a gambler didn’t need a home. All he needed was a game.

He stepped into the shower, turned the water hot. It sluiced over tanned skin, lean muscles, through thick black hair in need of a trim. He thought idly about ordering some coffee, some food, then decided he’d catch a few hours’ sleep first. Another advantage of his profession, in Gage’s mind. He came and went as he pleased, ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. He set his own rules, broke them whenever it suited him.

Nobody had any hold over him.

Not true, Gage admitted as he studied the white scar across his wrist. Not altogether true. A man’s friends, his true friends, always had a hold over him. There were no truer friends than Caleb Hawkins and Fox O’Dell.

Blood brothers.

They’d been born the same day, the same year, even—as far as anyone could tell—at the same moment. He couldn’t remember a time when the three of them hadn’t been . . . a unit, he supposed. The middle-class boy, the hippie kid, and the son of an abusive drunk. Probably shouldn’t have had a thing in common, Gage mused as a smile curved his mouth, warmed the green of his eyes. But they’d been family, they’d been brothers long before Cal had cut their wrists with his Boy Scout knife to ritualize the pact.