CHAPTER FOUR
Kingston
Skipping work managed to put me in the hole today. I figure the loss is somewhere around eight hundred bucks. That’s what the haul would have been if I had made it out on the water, but that didn’t happen. After I spent the night getting the female, and her tragic wheels situated, I made a pit stop at the marina store for some quick necessities.
The farmer’s market was just getting set up and I knew I shouldn’t bother, but I was pulled in by all the damn colors. Once I laid eyes on the fresh strawberries, I couldn’t help myself. I bought up all the fruit I could get my hands on.
Now, I sit in the thick brush and listen to her. I’m soothed by the lulling rhythm of her heavy breathing. She’s still sleeping, and I sneak into the cabin to drop off the food.
I stop to steal a glance at the female. I have no idea who this lost and fearless woman is, but I don’t have to in order to know she doesn’t deserve to be met by the pack.
Her hands are folded and tucked neatly under her pale cheek. Her long, dark lashes flutter and her pink lips part as she stirs and stretches. She looks tiny, even in the small, twin bed. I remember slipping the boots off her itty bitty feet before setting them by the front door.
In and out.
I melt away into the bayou and scout for the perfect location. I grasp a firm branch and scurry up the tall Cypress. I angle myself high in the towering tree to get a 360 degree view of the old shack. I should be able to spot the wolves from here. It’s not like I wouldn’t smell the annoying, little shits coming a mile away.
The heat rises off the muggy swamp as I wait, and I sense the second her breathing changes.
The female is awake.
Just as I had guessed, it doesn’t take her long to venture outside. What I didn’t anticipate?
The way she falls flat on her ass and thuds right onto the ground. Or the cute way she looks around to make sure no one saw the little mishap. I can almost feel the warmth radiating off her bright, flushed cheeks.
I spend the rest of my day tracking her every move. Well, maybe not every move. There were a couple of trips out to a certain bush when I chose to shut down.
The TP was a dead clue to her intentions. And a back seat full of toilet paper had caused me more than a few brain cells last night when I hauled her ride back to the cabin.
Speaking of which, who the hell drives a VW Thing? This chick is seriously wiggling her tight, little ass under what I thought was my impenetrable skin. She’s even managed to needle the Bear.
I want to stay in this spot all day and night and gaze at the secret beauty, but nothing in the bayou is a secret for long. Not from the animals who claim it’s sanctuary.
It’s not a secret that she’s fragile.
It’s not a secret that she doesn’t belong here.
It’s not a secret that she’s a human.
And it’s certainly not a secret that I fuck up everything I touch.
She needs to be gone, and that needs to happen quick.
Birds on the water. One. Two. Three…
*
“Where the fuck have you been?” My baby brother barrels out the screen door and meets me toe to toe in the yard.
“Good to see you too, man.” I ruffle his dark hair as I saunter past him. He shoves my hand away in a huff.
“Get the fuck off me. We had to take the old rust bucket out on the water today because you had the other keys.” Wyatt follows me, and he stays quick on my heels. “Again, where the hell have you been all day?”
“None of your damn business. Get off my ass!”
Fournette, the predictable peacemaker, blocks the archway to the kitchen and holds out two, cold bottles of beer. I snatch the one intended for me and drain half the contents in one swallow. I inhale the bubbling liquid like it’s a fried bird on Turkey day.
I pinch my eyes closed to drown out Wyatt’s bitching and moaning, but all I can think about are those black lashes. And the cute, little freckles that dot her fair skin just under her eyes.
“You ready to talk now?” Fournette asks and leans his stalky frame against the wall.
I shrug my heavy shoulders. The motion reminds me to stretch my tight muscles because my body is still stiff from scouting in the tree. “Ain’t nothing to talk about. I needed the day. No big deal.”
Wyatt elbows past Fournette and storms his way through the kitchen. He opens cabinets just to slam them closed again. “It becomes a big deal when you go all ghost on us, leaving us stuck keeping the business afloat. Remember the business? The one we decided to start together? As equal partners?”
“I haven’t forgotten about shit. Damn, it was one day. Get off my fucking back.”
“Asshole.” Wyatt snags a second brew before kicking his boot against the screen door and pouting on his way out.
I arch my brow and open my arms wide in the air. “What the fuck was that about?”
Fournette snickers and shakes his sandy blond hair. “It was a rough day on the water. He’ll shake it off after a good hunt. Just give him some time to cool off. In the meantime, it probably wouldn’t hurt to get another set of keys to the new boat.”
“Yeah, I guess not.” I chuck the bottle in the trash. “It’s not like I was trying to hoard ‘em or anything. Hell, I don’t even like being the one in charge. I hate having this shit thrown in my face all the damn time.”
“Well, someone had to be made the point man. That fell on you. It’s not always easy to be the baby brother in the Mercier clan.”
“Another thing I had no control over.”
Fournette chuckles. He’s always easy going and mild-mannered. But that doesn’t mean you want to see that beastly, son of a bitch Change. His light, blue eyes are a dead giveaway that he is not a Mercier… or a bear.
“It’ll blow over. Give him some time to cool off.” He pauses to guzzle from the cold bottle. “So?”
“So, what?”
He cocks his head. “Wanna fill me in?”
“On?” I insist on messing with my oldest friend.
“Fuck, you’re not gonna spill, are ya?”
I give my head a firm shake.
“You know, that brother of yours ain’t always wrong. You can be a real asshole sometimes.” He slugs me in the shoulder and follows Wyatt out the back door.
I can’t tell them where I spent my day, or night. I can’t tell them that I saved a girl from being snapped like a Slim Jim by the Laissard pack. And to top it off, I hid her away in the old fishing shack off the canal down by the marina.
Even if I had wanted to tell them, there’s not a shot in hell no. Wyatt would lose his shit while Fournette busts a gut and literally dies from laughter.
The only females in our lives these days are the ones from the bar. The ones used to meet a mutual need. Even that has grown few and far between.
I don’t so much mind the loneliness anymore. Nah, there’s no point in fighting my destiny. I’m destined to be alone and to endure all the agony that it encompasses.
*
I pack up a canvas tool bag and plan to sneak in while the female is sleeping to fix her vehicle. The sooner she gets that little ass back on the road, the better. And I don’t just mean for myself.
After swinging by the u-pull-it junkyard, I pace the small, swampy bank and listen. Sensing. I’m waiting for her to fall into a deep sleep. Knowing that she’s so close does something weird to me.
The man me and the animal me.
Her scent is making me drunk. It’s making my head all fuzzy and shit. I hate the way it leaves me feeling ungrounded, weightless. I haven’t been this out of control of my emotions in years. Four years, three months, and two days to be exact.
I give my body a hard tremor to shake off the painful memories. I imagine I look like a dog wringing the water from his coat. When I think it’s all clear, I use the moon as a spotlight and open the driver’s side door on the death trap she calls a car. This thing needs a whole tune-up. Wires, spark plugs, new filters. The works, but right now, I’m just looking to stop the bleeding, so she can get the hell out of here and back to whatever life she has waiting for her.
I assessed the damage before towing the car back to the fish camp. I had hoped it was just a dead battery. I could easily drive the truck down and jump it off, but I’ve never been one for things being easy.
The lights still work and after a few minutes, I was able to diagnose a bad ignition switch.
I spent over two hours scouring the junkyard this evening, but I finally found something that should work. I’m elbow deep in changing out the annoying bastard when I hear a shrill scream. I scramble out from the driver’s side, where I have my head lodged between the dash and the steering wheel and give the back of my skull a good thwack.
“Get back!” She yells.
Vibrations quake through my chest and my canines push against the skin in my mouth and beg to burst through my gums. My heart pumps extra hard to siphon adrenaline through my veins. I ignore the intense throbbing coming from the knot forming on the back of my head as I crash through the only door to the cabin. I slam right through the screen, ready to shred the Laissard boys. I stand wide-legged and pump my fists. My human chest is heaving.
Confusion balls in my gut as I whip my neck in every direction before settling my gaze on the itty bitty thing bouncing barefoot on the bed. Both of her hands are at her mouth and her eyes are nothing but wide, blue, round saucers.
“Kill it!” She demands.
I follow her wild stare the best I can through the dark room and find nothing. “What? Kill what?”
“That!” She waves her arm through the black and points a single finger at the far corner.
My view is blocked by the wrought iron bed frame, so I step in further and the motion apparently caused the predator to move from its comfort zone. Which only sends the female into a hopping fit. She’s jumping from one foot to the other and her hair fans, bobbing up and down with every move.
I stifle a hard chuckle when I finally spot the gnarly culprit.
“Aw, shit. That’s what’s got you so riled up?”
She plants her hands on her tiny hips and stares me down. “Excuse me? That’s a fucking snake!”
Now the snicker escapes. “Alright. Alright. I’ll take care of it.” Ignoring the deliberate hiss, I hover my boot over its neck and wait. Just like I expected, the slithering little fucker strikes, his bite hitting air as I press my boot down and send his back end flailing until he coils around my arm when I reach down and seize it by the throat.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m releasing it back outside.”
She twists her face all disgusted like. “Are you serious? So it can get back in? Why aren’t you killing it?”
“Because it never did anything to anyone. Probably looking for water or some shit like that.” The snake whips around wildly and bucks my grasp. “Besides, it’s just a youngin.”
The girl hops down off the bed and follows quick on my heels. “Yes, by all means, give it time to grow into a flesh eating monster.”
Now, I throw my head backwards in a fit of full blown belly laughter. “As tasty as you might look, this poor creature isn’t looking for a nibble. Not of you anyway.”
I release the reptile into the shallow water that is overgrown with roots and tall grass and watch it skitter away in relief.
Clapping my hands together, I dust off the dirt. Once I turn to face the woman, I see my remark might have gone a little too far.
“Hey, I didn’t mean nothing by that.” I watch the way she folds her arms across her slim waist and tilts her head, allowing the loose hair to wisp around her beautiful face. “Seriously,” I add, attempting to soften my hard eyes I hope I haven’t scared her away and that pisses me off too.
“Where’d you come from?”
Yeah, guess I didn’t think that far ahead.
“I um…”
She rotates and eyeballs the vehicle with the driver’s side door open.
“Were you…?”
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to steal your ride. I was just trying to…”
“Fix it.” She finishes my sentence. “Why’d you do that?”
I follow her across the clearing.
She dips her head to get a better peek at my handy work. “Wait a minute? How’d you know I was here? How’d you know I was broken down?”
“I may have taken a look at your car when I towed it over from the road.”
“May have?”
I shrug. “Ok, I did check it out. Thought you might want to get back on the road.”
“Well, I appreciate that. What’s the problem?” She gets ready to pull the lever to examine under the hood.
“Actually, it’s inside. It was a bad ignition switch. I already picked one up and was in the middle of changing it out when you screamed bloody murder.”
“Hey, that thing had thirst in its eyes. That bastard was out to eat me.”
“Ok, ok. Well, you’re safe now.”
She twitches her full, heart shaped lips. “Am I?”