Poppy

The rain comes down unrelentingly, hammering the roof of the mansion and lashing at the windows. It sounds like Mother Nature’s working on the Flood 2.0. The water creeping slowly toward the doors, inching over the lawn, only reinforces that belief. We’re going to be cut off even more than we already are. Ironic, really—Gator’s definitely getting his people-free time with a vengeance. If I’m lucky, he’s the kind of survivalist/prepper who has an enormous cache of awesome survival supplies tucked away somewhere because this is so not the kind of weather you hit the Walmart in, and I’ve signed up for isolation—not starvation.

I’ve never been kidnapped before. Okay, so Gator hasn’t exactly kidnapped me, but this whole high-handed, I-demand-you-stay-here thing isn’t normal, either. I should have insisted on going back to Baton Rouge or, given the apocalyptic monsoon lashing the bayou, at least barricaded myself in one of the mansion’s many rooms to wait for a drier, safer opportunity to hightail it back to the mainland. Never mind that the lack of furniture would make any attempts to fortress myself difficult—a girl really should try. Instead I can’t quite banish my memory of Gator’s almost-smile earlier and the heat in his eyes when I came floating/tripping down his staircase.

He definitely has carnal urges when it comes to me. And before you accuse me of having an over-active imagination (which is absolutely true), I checked out the front of his jeans, and he was sporting a very impressive bulge. Apparently, certain important parts of him are very much in proportion to the rest of him. I resisted the urge to touch, but it was harder than I’d expected. I don’t go around assaulting my new acquaintances, but somehow it feels like I’ve known Gator longer than a day.

Gator went out about an hour ago to check on the boat and make some arrangements, while I hid inside. Okay. I actually all but ransacked his place just in case he really was Bluebeard and had a dozen corpse brides stashed in a secret room somewhere. I know he’s a biker and he belongs to a local club that’s notorious for riding on the wrong side of the law, but I found no evidence of murder. I plan to keep on looking, however, until I’m more certain than an IRS auditor combing through a stack of tax returns.

In keeping with that plan, I wander through empty room after empty room, mostly to keep my mind off the crazy bargain I made with Gator and partly for something to do. Gator’s house is gorgeous, and admiring the views, the plasterwork, and the antique crystal doorknobs keeps me busy. I count bathrooms (five), bedrooms (seven), and try to identify the handful of mystery rooms on the ground floor (butler’s pantry? Place to store the bodies? Fuck if I know). It’s crazy to imagine one man with all this space. Presumably that’s why he owns almost no furniture and his kitchen is a Noah’s Ark of two plates, two cups, and two sets of silverware.

I raid his equally minimalist (pathetic) junk food stash for an impromptu picnic lunch around noon. We’re definitely going to starve or be reduced to eating each other if the rain doesn’t let up in the next few hours. Wait. That sounds downright filthy, doesn’t it? It also sounds more than a little intriguing, if I’m being honest. Thank God the man doesn’t possess secret mind-reading abilities. He doesn’t need to know that I’ve passed part of my day mentally estimating the girth of his dick based on that impressive jeans bulge he was sporting earlier.

I meet my Waterloo when I discover the library. Like every self-respecting mansion, Gator’s bayou palace has a library. Unlike the rest of the house, however, it’s emphatically not empty. It’s crammed with books. Every inch of the floor-to-ceiling shelves is occupied with book after glorious book. Some old, some new, but many bearing signs of obvious love and re-reading. There’s a stack of books on the floor beside a beat-up leather armchair, and a veritable Mount Book-lympus on the antique walnut desk. If I have to barricade myself in any room, I’m totally picking this one and not just because there’s a welcome fire in the fireplace. I sink down onto a fainting couch covered in faded raspberry velvet, and it just feels so good. I’ll put my head down for one minute, I think. I’m exhausted and worn out from my night in the blind and then from my run-in with Gator. I’ve walked a gazillion miles all over the house because sitting still feels suspiciously like giving up. I’m going to—I’m not even sure when or how I let go and sleep.

I’m vaguely aware of someone standing over me at some point, and then there’s soft tugging at my ankles as my boots come off. That’s good too. I curl up with a groan, pressing my checks against the velvety surface. This is so, so much better than the cramped, damp interior of my blind. Something soft comes down over my shoulders, and then I’m lost completely.

I wake up hours later. It’s completely dark outside, but the storm still rages. The pink velvet is embarrassingly damp because I’ve drooled all over it. Fuck, I’ve probably snored too and completely given away my not-so-secret hiding place. Since Gator laid down the stay-on-my-island-or-else law, he knows I’m somewhere in this six thousand square foot prison. Only an idiot would be rattling around outside since it definitely sounds like the storm hasn’t let up any. The windowpanes rattle as a hard squall of rain hits the glass.

I’ve slept the day away, I think. The library’s mostly dark now, but someone’s built up the fire in the fireplace because it’s halfway up the chimney and the room is wonderfully warm. I sit up, shoving my hair back from my face. A blanket falls to my lap.

Hold up. I definitely didn’t have a blanket when I settled in for my impromptu nap. And it’s a really nice one, too—a silvery faux fur (okay, I really hope it’s fake and not the real deal) so soft that I can’t help running my fingers through the silky pelt. I look around and immediately discover the source of my new blanket.

Gator’s seated at the desk, head bent over a book. Has he been watching me while I slept? Because while he definitely gets bonus points for owning such a kickass blanket and for his literacy, watching me would be creepy.

As if he senses that I’m awake, he lifts his head and looks at me. If eyes could be wolfish, his are. They almost glow in the dimly lit room. He’s got the strangest eyes—all tawny brown and gold. But there’s an all-too-familiar possessive look in them as he takes me in. I sort of wish I’d skipped the stare-deep-into-his-eyes thing. Eying his shoulders or his book or even his dick (which is totally blocked by the desk) would be so much safer. Nathan was possessive and that did not work out well for me. If I’d avoided Gator’s eyes, I would have had the fun of imagining the chemistry between us. A little flirting. A few harmless touches.

He sets the book down carefully. “Sleeping beauty awakens.”

He thinks I’m beautiful?

“No.” I shake my head before I can stop myself. “She got stuck in that tower for like a hundred years. I’m only here for a week.”

“That so?” he asks.

“You don’t think it’s just a little creepy, you insisting that I move in here for a week? You could have phrased it as a request. Or an invitation.”

“Would you have come?”

I open my mouth. Close it. He’s got a point. I don’t know what I would have done, but moving in with some guy I’d just met wouldn’t have topped my to do list, no. That kind of impulsivity is well out of my comfort zone.

He nods. “Thought so.”

“So you always get what you want?”

He nods again.

This whole situation is so weird. I should never have agreed to come out here to his place, no matter how wet, cold, or tired I was. I blame my lack of critical thinking skills on my corresponding lack of sleep. I should have insisted on heading straight back to Baton Rouge instead of making the detour here. Then I’d be home rather than tucked up on an exotic if musty smelling fainting couch. Alone with Moo instead of a fuckhot guy who’s probably more than a little crazy.

I prefer alone. It’s my new life motto. No more take-charge, bossy men who think they know what’s best for me and what I should want. No more make-overs where I turn myself into someone else’s vision of who I should be. No Nathan 2.0.

Soon as this rain lets up, I’m out of here. This deal that Gator and I have is over. Kaput. Finished. I can’t really hang out here with him for a week. My stomach picks this moment to growl. The hangry sound is loud enough to be heard in the next parish over.

“You hungry?” He shoves to his feet.

“You have room service around here?” A girl can hope. And since right now it feels like my stomach is trying to gnaw through my backbone one vertebra at a time, I’m willing to put my righteous indignation about my kidnapping on hold if he’ll pony up a T-bone and a Diet Pepsi.

“Stay here,” he says.

“I can—” I bolt to my feet.

“Sit,” he snaps, already half out the door.

Sir, yes sir. I should probably protest on principle, but since I don’t actually want to move, I entertain the notion of staying put. I’ve somehow grown a pillow while I’ve been sleeping, to go with my bonus blanket. It’s impossibly pretty and delicate, a patchwork rectangle stitched together from scraps of velvet and lace. It’s yellowed in places, like it’s been here in this mansion for a very, very long time.

I sit until I get bored, and then I get up and wander over to the windows. The bayou’s barely visible thanks to the dark and the storm. Cypress trees lash at the sky and the water. Being out there would be terrifying. Inside’s so much better. Gator’s got a generator, but he prefers the fireplace and candlelight. And not, I think, because he’s some kind of closet romantic. Oh no.

He’s probably a prepper. At the very least, he’s a survivalist.

I imagine doomsday scenarios for the next twenty minutes. When the library door opens once more, I almost jump out of my skin. Putting the desk between me and whatever’s incoming seems prudent, so I do.

“Just me,” Gator says.

Right. Because this island is positively brimming over with people. Still, he looks at me like maybe I was expecting someone else. Unless the Domino’s guy delivers all the way out here in the bayou, I’m good with Gator—especially since he’s carrying a tray that smells downright divine. He shoves the books on the desk over with one arm and sets his load down with the other. Apparently, he’s the room service delivery guy.

“Fish,” he says gruffly.

Okay, so this is way better than room service. Unless I’ve misunderstood the terms of our deal, it appears that I not only get free lodging for the week (I’ve decided to think positively about this whole incarcerated-on-a-private-island deal) and free food. It’s not like I’d thought Gator would starve me, but we hadn’t discussed whether or not this particular prisoner got three squares. Or snacks.

But when my stomach started growling, I hadn’t thought he’d go down to the kitchen in his McMansion and cook me something. Better yet, it looks totally edible. He hands me a plate (white and china—very nice) with something that looks like fried fish on it. Apparently my host (see? More positive thinking!) is the Martha Stewart of the bayou. And he has zero notion of portion control because the plate he sets in front of me is buried in a teetering, delicious, deep-fried mountain of fish.

And on that note… he drops a basket of tiny, doughy pies in front of me. He clearly has my number because the tops are all golden-brown goodness, sprinkled with sugar, and bright red jam oozes out of the edges. Nothing beats a generous protein-and-sugar combination for dinner. I’m sure there’s a diet based on that, or there should be.

“You’re totally a Martha, aren’t you?” I help myself to some silverware. Also nice, by the way, if slightly mismatched. I’m sensing a theme here—everything is antique and came with the house. The fork in my hand appears to date back to the days of General E. Lee and weighs approximately a pound. You could fund days of research with the pieces Gator piles up between us.

“The fuck?” His forehead creases. I seem to leave the man in a permanent state of confusion, but I can’t really feel bad about that. After all, he’s the one who insisted that I stay here. That makes whatever comes out of my mouth entirely his fault.

“All this.” I spear a piece of fish with my fork and toast him with it. “You cook. You plate. Do you also decorate and do bayou arts and crafts?”

His brow lowers. “You’d rather I let you starve?”

I put my fork to work and taste test the goods. Holy moly, the man has hidden skills. The fish is flaky and done to perfection, and if there’s not a single green vegetable in sight, I don’t mind. It’s not like I eat like an adult when I’m home alone, either. So I ignore his question (which has to be purely hypothetical, right?) and eat.

Gator drops down in the big leather chair behind the desk and sets to work on an equally enormous plate of fish. Judging from the equal sizes of our plates, he’s not worried about my having some kind of bird-like appetite, and I’m in absolutely no danger of starving this week unless this is the only meal he plans on feeding me. In which case, I’d be an idiot not to tuck in.

Halfway through Fish Mountain, he reaches beneath the desk and produces a bottle of wine. I’m not exactly Bon Appetit material, but the bottle’s old and dusty looking, which seems promising. He pops the cork, hesitates, and then passes me the bottle.

“No glasses,” he says gruffly.

This is a problem I can totally work around, so I upend the bottle and chug a good inch of red wine. The label’s got same fancy name in French and a really, really curlicue font, so while it tastes just fine to me, it’s probably wasted on me. Pre-Nathan, I was a wine-in-a-box kind of gal, and with-Nathan we drank whatever he selected. So I know precisely bupkiss about fine wines, but this totally works.

We eat and drink in silence, which is a little nervous-making but not bad. Gator focuses on his plate, and I do the same. So he’s not much for small talk. That’s okay. I’m more of a nervous talker myself, but with my mouth full, he’s safe. Still, I wouldn’t mind if he tossed a couple of words into the conversational void. It’s not like we’re on a date, but we’re not supposed to be giving each other the silent treatment, either.

I think.

Dating Gator would be… something. I’m not sure what that something would be, but a host of adjectives suggest themselves. Puke-inducing, for instance. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would knock on my door with flowers in one hand and his heart in the other. Or maybe I’m simply not doing him justice? I try to imagine him on a romantic dinner out, telling stories over a nice bottle of Chianti (I think that’s a bottle thing, right?) someplace with a white tablecloth and really discreet wait service. It’s been so long since I went on a bona fide date, however, that my imagination’s rusty.

“Where do you go?”

And the mute speak…

“Excuse me?”

“You go somewhere,” he says slowly. “In your head.”

“I like to think.” It sounds lame when I say it out loud.

Nathan hated that. He claimed I daydreamed instead of paying attention, and that that explained a lot about me. Specifically, it explained the myriad ways in which I embarrassed him in public and why I’d never make a good faculty wife. Which in turn explained why we had to keep our relationship on the down-low and not let our friends and colleagues know about it. Relationships always seem so much clearer in retrospect. Hundreds of miles and days away from Nathan, it seems perfectly clear to me that he had no business saying that kind of crap to me. Unfortunately, Previous Me bought it hook, line, and sinker.

And the funniest thing is that I actually should have been an ace at the whole small talk and social situations thing. My mom married down (her words, not mine) to a businessman selling advertising. My cousins and friends had debutante balls and showed up regularly in the Chicago society pages. And while I did not, my mother made sure I knew exactly what to do in case I accidentally stumbled into one of those ritzy parties we weren’t invited to. My friends’ care packages were crammed full of popcorn, Oreos, and Twizzlers. Mine had hair masks and face creams. My under-the-bed boxes were Sephora in miniature.

And I like things that smell pretty. But I’m also a huge fan of Twizzlers, sweatpants, and hiding out at home on my couch with my cat. I didn’t want to queen it over a ballroom. She wanted me to be beautiful; I was more interested in coming up with my own masks. I didn’t fit in. No matter how much my mom groomed me to do so, I wasn’t going to take my place in the elite world of the Chicago jet set. Wasn’t going to become first some powerful man’s arm candy and then his wife. To be the wife of a lawyer or a politician or a neurosurgeon. I talk too much for that, and about all the wrong things.

I’m ignoring Gator. Crap.

Gator doesn’t seemed pissed, though. He stretches his feet underneath the table, his boots bumping gently against mine.

“If you wander,” he says, “it makes a man want to come after you. See where you’re at and if there’s room for him.”

Um. Wow. Is he flirting with me? Because if so, he should try smiling or something a little less frowny-faced.

I pull my thoughts back on course. “I’m just thinking. It’s not all that interesting.”

The frown gets deeper. “Think I should be the judge of that.”

“I’m not sharing with the class.” Ever.

Gator opens his mouth and his phone goes off. He’s got the world’s most boring ring tone—just the factory default buzz-buzz-buzz. He looks down at the phone, his face going even more cold and distant, and then back at me.

“Gotta take this. Club business.”

I nod but he’s already stepping out of the room and into the hallway. It’s not like I really want him as my dinner companion. Somehow he sucks up all the air in the room. Or maybe that’s because it’s like having a dinner date with a large iceberg and you’re just waiting for the crash? I amuse myself with Titanic comparisons for a few minutes, but I’m not really in the mood to pretend I’m flying at the prow of a very elegant, very doomed ship—and I’d really rather not dwell on the unhappy ending when everyone ends up freezing to death in the ocean.

Gator still hasn’t come back. Maybe the Breed MC have nefarious plans to take over the world tonight and can’t do without him. Or maybe it’s something way more mundane like the club president can’t remember his log in password or they’ve blown a fuse. I snort. Nope. Whatever business is keeping Gator probably involves felonies and bloodshed, so it’s best for everyone if he keeps his business far, far away from me. I don’t think the club worries about NDAs—they’re more direct about the way they keep people from talking about shit, or so I’ve heard.

Nervous, I hop to my feet and wander over to the open windows. Gator’s library is impressive. The windows are huge, practically two stories high from floor to ceiling. Honestly, they’re kind of like built-in French doors, so after a judicious peek outside to make sure they don’t open onto something unsavory like alligator-infested swamp water (I’m safe—they face onto the verandah), I step out.

The night’s gorgeous in a wild, rough way. Rain still dampens the farthest edges of the verandah, but the storm has almost played itself out, the rain and wind nowhere near as ferocious as it was earlier. I’m barefoot since wearing wet boots didn’t appeal, so there’s no harm, no foul when I pad over to the edge of the porch where the rainwater puddles and look up. The clouds are blowing away now, glimpses of the stars peeking through. And the moon. God, the moon’s gorgeous tonight. Full and bright, it lights up a path through what appears to be a… garden?

Okay. A delicious, chaotic jumble of plants. The garden lights up beneath the moon, all silvery whites and blues. I’m off the verandah and down the path before I can overthink it, wet gravel biting at my bare feet. I’ll make this a quick walk. Just to check out what’s the most beautiful collection of hydrangeas I’ve ever seen. One plant leads to another, and I wander deeper and deeper, imagining who started this garden and what he or she imagined would happen to it. Jasmine fills the air with its heady scent, and moonflowers unfurl big white saucers toward the moonlight. It’s so otherworldly.

Something moves behind me in the shadows.

Something big.

Otherworldly comes crashing back to reality. Funny how one small garden suddenly seems about a million miles away from the house and Gator. The shadow shifts again and an animal whuffs. Does he own dogs? Because that doesn’t sound like a friendly greeting, and he definitely didn’t mention that going outside could kill me. I’m particular about details like that. I back up, trying to figure out if there’s an unseen path back to the house, a handy garden shed, or a tree with a conveniently placed ladder for me to climb.

Nada.

I’m completely, entirely shit out of luck. And isn’t that how my life has gone recently? I back up slowly, trying to convince myself that I’m just overreacting. It’s probably an opossum because this place would be ideal for that cute little omnivore. Worst case, it’s a skunk and all I have to do is hold still. The odds of my nocturnal companion being a toothy, people-eating animal are slim.

Nil, really.

Unless it’s an alligator.

I swore I’d never run again. That I’d stand my ground and push back when life shoved me. I’m so tired of not liking myself because I’m too busy trying to be who the man in my life wants me to be. I don’t know why I spent the last couple of years being a color-by-numbers for Nathan, but I did. And so far, that’s exactly what I’ve done for Gator. He said stay, and I did. Fine. So right now I’ll do something for me.

I run.