by Shannon West
“Shit, Hawke, you and your damn bad feelings,” Spencer said. “Trouble is they’re almost always right. I’ve talked to Travis till I’m blue in the face, and I still don’t feel good about what he may do. He’s spoiled rotten. Mama has a lot to answer to for the way she babied that one. I swear, sometimes I don’t believe he’s got a brain cell in that head of his. I know we weren’t that bad.”
Hawke looked at him and smiled. “We were pretty bad, but I like to think that we had more judgment than this bunch does, including your little brother. They just don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. We can’t have anything happen that would draw attention to us up here. As far as anyone knows, there have been no mountain lions spotted in this area in more than eighty years, and we need to keep it that way. We sure as hell don’t need hunters or sightseers, or heaven forbid, some kind of PETA people prowling around up here.”
“I agree, and I’ve explained that to Travis several times. He says that he understands, but you never know what any of them will do when they feel the shift for the first time. Don’t you remember how it was?”
“Who in the hell emptied this pitcher of tea and just left it here on the counter?” The loud, strident voice interrupted their conversation and made Spencer wince and stare down at his hamburger intently. Since Spencer had just sat back down with their tea refills, Hawke strongly suspected he was the culprit. He glanced up to meet Marie’s gimlet eye. He, too, quickly addressed his plate. She slammed the pitcher down on the counter and stalked off, muttering evil-sounding imprecations under her breath and casting murderous glances back at their table.
Hawke decided not to look directly at her in the hope she’d give up and take the damn pitcher to the kitchen herself. “Sure, I remember, Spencer. That’s why I’m worried.” They ate their meal in silence for a while, until finally Hawke gave a deep sigh, shoving back from the table. “I guess I’d better get back to the office and make sure everything is taken care of before tonight.” He finished up the last delicious bite of the pork tenderloin and got to his feet. “See you later. Come by if you get a chance.”
He waved, took both checks off the table, and dropped some money down for a tip. He looked up and caught Marie’s gaze on him, and dropped down another bill, giving her what he’d been told was his most charming smile. She raised her upper lip at him in a snarl, and he ducked his head and got out of there, heading toward his office.
When Hawke walked in, he saw his deputy had returned.
“Anything going on, Bart?”
“Nope. Everything seems peaceful, Sheriff.”
Hawke sighed in relief. Barton McClain was one of four deputies in the small county, and usually manned the office and the radio while the other three boys were out on patrol around the county. Today, he’d been doing double duty while one of the other deputies was on vacation. Bart was young, not much over twenty-five, Hawke figured, and was mated to one of the females of the pride.
He was a quiet boy and a little broody, with what seemed to be a permanent frown on his handsome young face. Hawke didn’t blame him a bit. If he was married to Melinda, he’d have dashed his own brains out on the nearest rock, despite how pretty she was. She’d been through many human boyfriends before she met Barton, and he’d been the only one she’d been able to corral into marriage.
Hawke and Melinda had grown up together too, but she had one of the nastiest tempers it had ever been his misfortune to run across. She made Marie look like Mother Teresa. Hawke got a little shiver down his spine just thinking about it and nodded at the young man. He always tried to be kind to Barton, knowing what he had to put up with at home.
“Okay, Barton. Go on and get yourself some lunch. I’ll be here all afternoon in my office.”
“Okay,” McClain said. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Take your time,” the sheriff said with a yawn he couldn’t quite suppress. “I’ll call if I need you.”
As the deputy walked out, Hawke was already falling into the chair behind his desk. Damnation, he was tired. He hadn’t been sleeping well, worrying about what was coming up, he guessed. And, then there were those damn crazy dreams. They had started about a week ago—recurring dreams about some young guy he’d never even seen before.
Hawke leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk. It was warm and quiet in the office, and the pork tenderloin was sitting heavy on his stomach. He rubbed it absently, closed his eyes and before he knew it, he was drifting off, slipping down into a half-asleep state.
The beautiful boy strutted into his office then and came to perch on the side of his desk, naked as the day he was born. Hawke looked up at him lazily, wondering if the boy shaved his chest or was it just naturally that smooth. Usually, he liked a little hair on a guy’s chest, but he’d make an exception for this one. He realized even in his dream that he’d never met the boy before, but it was the same one who’d been haunting his dreams every night.
His face was smooth too, with fair white skin. He looked a little like that TV guy, Charlie Hunnam, but with no beard and almost too pretty for his own good. He had blond hair that fell down around his face—way too damn long, but it suited him somehow. And damn, what a body the boy had. He was lean but had a nicely defined chest and shoulders. His cock was a good size, not so big as to be intimidating to another man, but a nice handful at the same time. Hawke reached out now and hefted it in his hand, gently stroking the head with his thumb. As the boy smiled down at him, perched there on the side of his desk, Hawke knew he was dreaming, but he had no desire to wake up. He was enjoying this view way too much.
The boy leaned over and put his hands on Hawke’s chest, smiling at him with those even white teeth. He slipped his hands under his shirt and ran his thumbs over Hawke’s nipples. In the nature of dreams, Hawke had somehow opened his shirt to allow this to happen. He leaned back to give him room to work and the boy slid his hands down a little farther. Hawke gave some thought to unbuttoning his pants so the young man would have easy access to his cock, which was at attention, interested to see what would happen next.
The boy eased his fine ass off the desk and straddled Hawke in his chair, arranging himself sweetly in Hawke’s lap. He ground his ass against Hawke’s rigid cock, and looked up at him from beneath all that blond hair. Another kiss fell on Hawke’s lips and the boy’s teeth caught gently at his lower lip, tugging at it.
Hawke reached up and caught the back of his neck and pulled the boy’s head down to him taking his mouth hard, forcing his tongue between those sensual, full lips. The blond groaned and gave himself up to the kiss, one hand sliding down between them as he pressed his hand against the growing bulge in Hawke’s pants. The hand seemed to burn right through the thin cloth.
Not breaking the kiss, his hands unbuttoned the pants at last and freed Hawke’s cock, which sprang up out of its confinement. His hands closed around the thick shaft, slowly stroking it.
“Fuck me,” the boy leaned over and whispered against Hawke’s lips, then growled with approval at his moan. Hawke put his hands in those blond curls, drawing him in nice and close so he could...
The phone rang, jerking Hawke awake. He literally cursed out loud, as he realized he had his hand inside his damn pants. This is how he’d been waking up every night since these damn dreams started, like he was some fucking teenager. And now, on top of everything else he had to worry about, he was fucking hornier than he had ever been in his life.
Dry washing his face with his hands, he reached for the phone, but it stopped ringing just as he got to it. Cursing, he got up and looked in the outer office to make sure his deputy hadn’t sneaked back in yet while he was asleep. He hadn’t, thank God for small favors. That could have been awkward if he walked in and checked Hawke’s office while he’d had his hand in his pants. He sat back down, pulled out some old warrants and willed himself to focus on them so that his cock would maybe behave itself. God, he felt like he was losing his mind.
****
Jason Miller, or Jace to his friends, hated his desk job, but he needed it right now because the hours were good and the pay was steady, giving him an opportunity to study and save money. He much preferred being outside working with his hands, but the hours here afforded him the time to study and attend night classes. There was also a regular paycheck, unaffected by rain or bad weather. His old construction job could provide neither regular hours nor a regular paycheck.
Some days he worked until way after dark. Of course, at twenty-four, he should already be through college, but when his parents threw him out of the house when he was seventeen, he didn’t have much choice but to quit school.
That was the year Jace told his parents he was gay. His father completely lost his mind and after railing at him for a full day, stubbornly refused to even speak to him for a solid two weeks after that until Jace finally was asked to vacate the premises.
His mother didn’t have much to say about any of it, but went along with his father, just like always. She did speak to him in those final two weeks, at least, a little bit. Mostly things like pass the salt or go to bed or it’s time to get up—and mostly with tight lips and a disapproving wrinkle in the little space between her eyes. One day he found his suitcase packed and sitting on the front steps when he came home from school. There was a note on top that said he’d be welcome to come back when and if “he’d put all this foolishness behind him.”
Tough love, he supposed they called it. Whatever you wanted to call it, he found himself staying with friends for a while and then finally living on the streets and staying in shelters. He eventually got a job at a music store in the mall and saved enough money to get a tiny garage apartment. It paid barely enough money to make the rent, but he’d made it with the aid of way too many Ramen noodles. He couldn’t even look at them now.
It had been seven years since he left home and there had been no contact with his parents since he left. Probably never would be.
In the beginning he’d self-medicated some, when he could afford it or his friends were feeling generous, and he still drank a bit when he was feeling overwhelmed or the stress got too bad. It could have easily escalated, but he’d met too many tweakers on the street with their rotten teeth and their hollowed-out eyes.
The thing about tweakers was that he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for them. There was an old joke that the difference between a crackhead and a tweaker was that the crackhead would steal your shit and bounce—the tweaker will steal your shit and then help you look for it.
Meth in the south was so cheap and so pervasive it seemed like everybody on the street was on it. And some people did so much of it, that even when they quit, they were still damaged to the point that they were pretty much ruined for life.
Jace had vowed back then that he would stay off the stuff, no matter how bad things got, and keep working his way out of the gutter and he’d done just that. After a couple of years, he’d found a job doing construction work and liked it, mostly because the money was good, and his boss was cool with who he was, so long, he’d said, as he didn’t “flaunt it.” Jace was never sure what straight people meant by that, since he didn’t exactly go around dressed like Lady Gaga, but he’d agreed to keep it under control and mind his own business. He just wished his boss would do the same.
He soon found out that his real love was the landscaping he was sometimes called upon to do. It was a hard, dirty job, but he loved the feel of the warm earth in his hands, and seeing the young shrubs take root to soften the lines of the buildings they were working on. He began saving his money for college and thought about a degree in horticulture. Knowing that he would have to take a job with more normal hours when he started school, he had saved money to help defray his living expenses, as well. He didn’t need a lot of money, anyway. He had certainly lived on a whole lot less than what he had now.
So he found a new job, and because of it, he was sitting inside all day going over census forms and entering the information in the computer. He thought it was boring, but he was able to leave every day at five o’clock, and that was just what he needed right now. As a matter of fact, it was about that time, so he started putting the paperwork away and shutting down his computer.
Jace looked up and saw his supervisor walking toward him. “Jace, are you on still on your summer break from school?”
“Well, it is summer break, for like another few days or so. I think school starts up the first week of September, but I’m actually taking the next semester off to save money for the spring session.”
“Well, good. That works out. I need you to go to the area around Huntsville to see if you can get some information from some people over there. It’s a little town in the hills called Blackwater Falls and apparently, this is an on-going problem. They haven’t sent their census forms back in yet, and I’ve been told that it’s been like this before. Last census, somebody had to go out and canvas the area by the fall of the year to get the information. I’d like to get a little head start on it this go-round. Anyway, that’s what I need you to do. Just keep up with your expenses.”
Road trip. Fuck, yeah. At least, it would get him away from this desk for a while. “Sure, Mr. Jenkins. When do I need to leave?”
“Could you go as soon as tomorrow? Come by in the morning and I’ll have an expense form ready for you.” He started to turn away but then turned back and looked down at him. “Oh, and Jace. Uh, perhaps you might want to tone down the…uh…you know, the hair. Just a bit. That part of the country…well, let’s just say they’re a bit more conservative than we are here in the city.”
Tone down the hair? Did that mean cut it? Jace could feel his face burning a little. Okay, so maybe he needed a haircut—it had probably been a while. His hair was extra curly and did tend to get a little out of control, especially when it was humid, which, let’s face it, was pretty much all the time in Alabama. He shrugged—so he’d pull it back in a ponytail or something. He didn’t have time for a haircut before he left—or the money, for that matter. He’d need what he had for gas and a cheap motel.
Despite the money worries, he had a feeling of expectation, as if something good was about to happen. It wasn’t much to get excited about, really, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling. Lord, how pathetic had his life become that he’d be this excited over a few days away from the office? One thing was for sure, he hadn’t had a feeling of anticipation like this for anything in so long, he couldn’t remember.
Chapter Two
Jace got up and shuffled into the bathroom to take a shower. He wondered if he should tell his landlady that he’d be gone for a few days and ask her to pick up his mail. He didn’t have any parents or a boyfriend to do it. No really close friends either, not even a pet. Was that as sad as he thought? Probably. Nothing to love and no one to love him, only the occasional nameless fuck when the need arose, such as now, come to think of it.
His dick obviously was, rising up to fill his hand as he soaped it. It would be nice to wake up next to somebody for a change, but he’d learned early on never to trust anybody or get too close to them. Because of that, he found himself completely alone. Still, he couldn’t say he was particularly unhappy. His life was what he had made it since his parents turned their backs on him and, all in all, he was content with it. He didn’t have anyone to answer to, and he liked it that way. He’d learned the hard way that loving someone made you vulnerable and that keeping to yourself meant not allowing anyone to hurt you. He didn’t need anybody anyway. He leaned back against the shower wall, his hand moving faster as he took care of himself.
He got dressed afterward, packed a bag and got on the road. He didn’t know how much to take because he didn’t know how long he’d be gone. He had some forty-five people to get records on and that could take as little as a couple of days or as long as a week, depending on how cooperative the folks in Blackwater Falls were. Since he didn’t have an extensive wardrobe anyway, in the end he just dumped all his clean cloth
es from his drawers into his suitcase and zipped it up.
After Jace finished packing, he carried his suitcase out to his truck. It was an older model Ford F-150 with high mileage, but he had taken care of it in the year since he’d bought it from the used car lot, and it was in decent shape. He didn’t think it would give him any problems on the trip, even though he had noticed a little skip in the engine this past week. He had planned on having it checked out this weekend when he got paid, but maybe he’d even be back by then. At any rate, he wasn’t too concerned about driving it on the trip.
After going by the office to pick up the forms, he was finally on the road. He had a folder with the names of the people he was to contact lying on the seat beside him. That was the only information he had, however. No addresses and no directions, so he figured that he would just stop by the local sheriff’s office and get that information. That way, the sheriff would know who he was and why he was the area so there shouldn’t be any trouble. Sometimes, in these small backwoods towns, people were standoffish and suspicious, and he definitely didn’t want to get shot at.
Jace planned on getting a hotel in Huntsville, the only bastion of civilization around there, as far as he knew. He thought about his boss’s admonition to tone the hair down and wondered too about his little silver ring he’d put back in his eyebrow this morning. He’d soon find out, he thought, his blue eyes glinting mischievously back at him in the rear-view mirror.
Jace liked causing trouble his mama always said. The thought of her started up the familiar ache in his chest again and he decided not to think about it. Instead he wanted to enjoy this little road trip. Hell, maybe he might even meet somebody to have a little fun with once he had located the people on his list. Yeah, like that would happen in the probably uber-straight little town. Well, maybe in the larger city of Huntsville.
