Naked Tails

by Eden Winters

  I don’t want to sell the house.

  You need to sell the house.

  Seth argued back and forth with himself. What did he need with a huge four-bedroom place in the middle of nowhere? He stalked from room to room; each one would easily accommodate his entire apartment back in Chicago. He liked roaming from room to room. He liked seeing reminders of his family on every shelf. He liked actually owning instead of renting. But what the hell will I do with it all?

  In a rare bit of good fortune, Seth had found enough signal to operate his phone in the attic. However, his traitorous media sites were now filled with pictures of Michael’s wedding attire, venue, choices for flower arrangements, etcetera. He trudged back downstairs, abandoning his phone on a nightstand. He should be cataloging his aunt’s heirlooms, or even making arrangements to prepare the house for sale with a real realtor who wouldn’t try to rip him off. It didn’t hurt to keep his options open, did it? He did none of those things. Instead, he ventured back up to the attic, surfing the internet via his iPhone for possible freelance photo ops in the area.

  A hospital in a neighboring town had posted an ad for someone to photograph newborns. But they were probably looking for someone who’d stick around. Photographers were needed for a dance recital in Atlanta. Oh, for yesterday. He hated when job sites didn’t update promptly. Another ad drew his attention: Wildlife photographers needed. Wildlife? Seth was quite certain he’d find plenty of deer and foxes locally, if memory served. Armed with his trusty Nikon and a 400mm lens, he set off to spy on Mother Nature.

  The pond yielded several candid frog shots, and he took a few frames of a ring of stones near a towering pin oak. Laid out in a semicircle around the tree, the gleaming chunks of quartz appeared to have been purposefully arranged. But by whom? Had there once been an old homestead out here?

  He drew back in fear when a bundle of gray and brown fur wobbled by. His arm pulsed at the memory of a mouthful of sharp teeth sinking into his flesh. Instead of attacking, this possum appeared mildly curious. The creature approached, twitching its nose in the air. Seth snapped a picture. The animal turned its head, holding the position, as if to say, “Take my good side.” Seth snapped, then the creature moved. Was the damned thing posing? He’d just wrapped up a series of candid shots with the possum lounging on a rock when out of the grass came two more. They froze momentarily before dashing over to the third, chittering wildly. The two newcomers inclined their heads, displaying mouthfuls of sharp teeth, but didn’t come closer or hiss. Seth, considering the situation reasonably safe, snapped a shot. The trio preened, vamping to put runway models to shame.

  In a decided diva moment, one shoved the others out of the way, fighting its way to the center of Seth’s camera lens. Another elbowed back. Possums had elbows? Soon the shoving escalated into a free-for-all of ear biting, growling, and tail-tugging.

  Throughout the melee Seth stood, squatted, and even crawled on his belly to get the perfect shot. An angry, “Boys!” penetrated the snarling and claw scrabbling. The three possums froze. One spat out a mouthful of fur.

  A woman tramped through the weeds, stopping when she saw Seth. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were out here.” She self-consciously patted errant strands of hair back in place. “I’m Kelly Johnson, your neighbor. I met you at the store the other day. You haven’t seen my boys by any chance, have you? I’m afraid they like to sneak down here to the pond and catch crawfish.”

  From the corner of his eye, Seth observed three furry forms creeping toward a blackberry bush. The woman followed his line of sight. “There you are, you scoundrels. You better march yourselves right back up to the house and finish your chores. Now! Wait until your father comes home and gives you a piece of his mind!”

  Three heads bowed, three tails dragged the ground, and three apparently trained possums trooped up the path and over the hill. “Sorry ’bout that, jack, but what can I do? Joeys will be joeys.” She shrugged and traipsed off after the critters, leaving Seth bewildered, disbelieving, and with a collection of wildlife shots the likes of which he’d never seen before.

  What the hell just happened?

  He’d made it halfway to the house before the woman’s words hit him like a ton of bricks. “Wait a minute! Did she call them her boys?”

  Chapter 12

  Seth had no sooner made it to the house to research possum behavior when the unmistakable sound of tires on gravel rumbled up the driveway, sounding unusually loud—as did the birds twittering from the magnolia tree, and nearly everything else. He flinched, and though the truck was a ways off, he stepped back from the drive, placing an oak tree between himself and the approaching vehicle.

  A shiny white BMW X5 pulled to a stop. The man inside stared into the SUV’s rearview mirror, adjusting his tie. Could this man be from Aunt Irene’s attorney’s office? Please, God, let it not be another realtor. Instead of a briefcase, the man stepped down with a box of chocolates in one hand and flowers in the other. “Mr. McDaniel?” he asked, showing a mouthful of choppers, not unlike the three recent possums. He stood at least six foot two, with sandy-blond hair and mustache, both neatly trimmed. The kind of “out of my price range” cologne Seth sniffed at perfume counters drifted toward him on a light breeze.

  “You’re not a realtor, are you?” Seth hesitated to ask. He’d forgotten junk food at the grocery store, and the chocolates made his mouth water.

  “Oh, hell no!”

  Good. Seth relaxed a bit. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. McDaniel. This here’s a social call.”

  The stranger’s well-groomed appearance and expensive clothes hinted at money, with enough age on him for a few permanent crinkles at the eyes. He took a step forward, holding the flowers and candy in front of him. Those truffles hadn’t come cheap, and neither had the long-stemmed red roses. “I’m Junior Timmerman, and I thought I’d come introduce myself, seeing as how I knew your aunt. Went to school with your daddy too, but he was a few grades ahead of me. How ’bout we go inside, set a spell. Get better acquainted.”

  Back home in Chicago, none of Seth’s acquaintances dared show up out of the blue without calling first, but he figured unannounced visits might be a Southern thing, like leaving your doors unlocked, although Seth never did. Hadn’t the guy at the Feed and Seed mentioned an Uncle Junior?

  “Well, the air-conditioning isn’t the greatest, but sure, come on in.” What could it hurt? The guy seemed harmless enough—thus far.

  Junior traipsed along behind Seth, and Seth swore he felt the man attempting to stare holes through his back.

  “How long you planning on staying, Mr. McDaniel?”

  “Not long. Long enough to get the house fixed up and on the market before I head back home to Chicago.” No need to let strangers in on his internal struggle over whether to leave or stay. Besides, the man might know an honest realtor, or a local with an eye on the place.

  “You’re leaving?” Junior sounded truly disappointed. “But you just got here. If you gave it a chance, you’d find Possum Kingdom to be a nice area to settle down in.”

  “I remember it fondly from my childhood, but I grew up in Chicago. That’s my home now. Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Timmerman?”

  “Oh, please, call me Junior. Why don’t I step into the kitchen with you, find some water for these flowers?” Junior made himself at home, sidestepping Seth to enter the kitchen and making a beeline for the far cabinets, depositing the chocolates on the counter on his way. He opened a door and extracted a vase, apparently acquainted with where Irene kept things. Seth’s anxiety clicked down a notch, taking Junior’s familiarity with Aunt Irene’s kitchen as further proof of the guy’s harmlessness, though Seth remained a bit on guard. Michael had always accused him of having “trust issues.” Seth didn’t have trust issues; he just didn’t trust anyone.

  “Sweet tea, Coke, or would you care for a beer?” Seth bent into the refrigerator, shaking the tea pitcher to check for fulln
ess. He might have been displaced from the South at a young age, but he’d still learned to appreciate a tall glass of sweet tea.

  “Water will be fine, straight from the tap. Irene’s well has some of the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted.” Junior filled the vase, added the flowers, and then placed them in the center of the kitchen table. “They don’t have well water up there in Chicago, do they, Mr. McDaniel?”

  It seemed ridiculous for a man dressed in a suit, an older man dressed in a suit, no less, to call Seth “Mister” while insisting on being called “Junior.”

  “Call me Seth.”

  “All right, Seth.” A predatory grin crossed the man’s face, and Seth suddenly understood how a T-bone steak must feel right after being doused with A.1. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

  Quicker than the eye could follow, Seth found himself pressed up against the refrigerator door, a leering man staring down at him. “We are, without a doubt, the two most powerful men in town.”

  Seth gulped, forcing out a strangled, “We… we are?”

  Junior nodded, his nose mere inches from Seth’s. “Without a doubt.”

  Unable to come up with anything more intelligent to say, Seth replied, “Imagine that.”

  “Now, surely your aunt’s attorney made you aware of how much you inherited, didn’t he?”

  “I haven’t gone over the records thoroughly yet. She left some bonds, a couple of accounts, this farmhouse, and a few acres that con men keep trying to finagle me out of.”

  “Farmhouse? A few acres? Boy, your aunt owned half of Possum Kingdom! This house sits on over two hundred acres of good farmland. It’s been in your family for generations. I don’t understand how you could dream of selling and living elsewhere, especially not now given your changed circumstances.”

  “What changed circumstances?”

  Junior plopped a hand on the refrigerator door, and seeing an advantage, Seth ducked beneath and scurried to the far side of the kitchen, keeping the table between them. He glowered at Junior through a dozen rosebuds.

  “No need to play coy, Mr.… Seth.” The grin came back. “Now, if we combine our forces, we’ll be unstoppable. I have hundreds of plans for this town, and with your backing, together we can put Possum Kingdom on the map.”

  “What are you doing? Running for some kind of office?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I reckon you might say I am.”

  “What do you want me to do? Post flyers? Stuff envelopes?”

  A chuckle emerged from Junior’s barrel chest. “Oh, a sense of humor. I like that in a man. No, I’ve got something more practical in mind. There’s only one person standing in the way of what I want to do for this town, but if you side with me, the good doctor won’t present much of a problem.”

  The good doctor? “Dustin? What’s Dustin got to do with this?”

  “Everything.” Junior approached slowly, palms up in an “I’m harmless” posture. “He goes with the status quo. Doesn’t have any use for progress, much like your aunt, God rest her soul. While it’s understandable that a lady of advanced years would resist change, Dr. Livingston is a young man and should make better use of the opportunities at his fingertips.”

  Seth nearly growled. He wasn’t too sure where he and Dustin stood right now, what with Dustin’s sudden evasiveness, but he didn’t much care for this man talking about his lover/friend/fuck buddy/or whatever the hell Dusty was in such a manner.

  Junior continued raising Seth’s hackles. “Consider the advances we’ve made in the last thirty years. Cell phones….”

  “Can’t get a signal out here.”

  “Satellite TV.”

  “Got rabbit ears.”

  “Internet.”

  “I go to the library to check e-mails. You’re not naming a thing I can’t live without.”

  Junior darted around the table, hemming Seth up against the sink. “You’re a nice-looking fella, stuck out here by your lonesome. Whaddya do for company, hmmm? Not only will we rule the whole county, I’ll have you throwing rocks at any other man.” Before Seth could execute an escape, Junior descended, taking advantage of a surprised gasp to slither his tongue into Seth’s open mouth.

  Too stunned to react, it took a few rounds of tongue-on-tongue action before Seth pushed Junior away. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Now, there’s no need to play hard to get. We’re both grown men. And deep down inside, we want the same thing.”

  “For you to get the fuck out of my house?”

  Junior gave Seth a rueful smile. “I imagine it’s a bit overwhelming right now, too much happening too fast. But once you’ve had time to think things over, you’ll agree that I’m the best man for the job. I’ll make this town what it should be. No outsiders! I’ll get the government to recognize our unique status, maybe even build a casino and make every last one of us rich. You’ve certainly got enough land to build on.”

  Anger flashed through Seth, lighting a fire that boiled his blood. “Mr. Timmerman, you’ve overstepped your bounds and I’d like you to leave.” Having already seen how fast the man could move, the only safe place for Timmerman was a few counties over.

  “All right, all right.” Junior splayed his hands, managing to project a superior air even in a submissive posture. “Give it some time and give me a call. I’m in the phone book. I’ll see myself out.”

  Seth didn’t stop trembling until the whine of the BMW’s engine faded to nothing. He took a deep breath, hanging on to the counter lest his quivering knees suddenly fail. “What the fuck was that all about, and what’s it got to do with Dustin?”

  Not only did Seth lock his door before turning in for the night, he slept with Great-great-grandpa’s sword.

  The next morning a panel van pulled up bright and early, two guys in coveralls hopping out. “Where do you want the satellite dish, Mr. McDaniel?” one asked.

  “Satellite dish? I didn’t order satellite.”

  “Says right here, bought and paid for a year’s subscription, including the special channels.” The guy winked. “Even the X-rated ones.”

  “A year? I’m not gonna be here a year.”

  The man scratched his balding head. “Well, somebody paid for it, might as well enjoy it.”

  An hour later, the men left, leaving behind a listing of Seth’s lovely new premium channels and a converter box to allow the ancient TV to take advantage of them. His laptop sat on his aunt’s rolltop desk, catching up on several weeks’ worth of updates via his new high-speed Internet connection. No doubt lingered in his mind as to who’d paid for the luxury, but why? Nobody coughed up a year’s satellite service to buy a vote, did they?

  He pulled out his cell phone, planning to head to the attic, hoping to avoid having to stretch across the buffet to make a call from his aunt’s oddly placed landline, when he noticed the device showing a full signal. What the fuck? Had Timmerman miraculously installed a cell phone tower near the farm for Seth? Maybe his phone had latched onto his computer modem. Seth wasn’t the type to worry about how things worked; he simply grinned when he noticed those five beautiful bars.

  Although he’d received mounds of official lawyer-speak letters the day after he’d gotten the phone call about his aunt’s passing (requiring a good bit of web surfing to decipher), and understood the basics of his inheritance, some details needed clarifying. Also, a personal letter from the lawyer requested a face to face meeting, “as time permits.” The last thing he needed was someone else who’d known the McDaniels forever pointing out how Seth didn’t deserve Irene for a relative, but he’d put off the inevitable long enough.

  His first phone call was to his aunt’s attorney, his second to her stockbroker. His third was to the president of the First National Bank of Possum Kingdom. He sat down hard on the old settee, trying to grasp all he’d been told. Even if only a fraction of what they’d said held true, he was now rich as all fuck, and he needed to pay a visit to the lawyer.

  Chapter 13

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nbsp; Seth preyed on Dustin’s mind. A woman with brown hair, a man with similar eyes or the same height—they all brought back memories of Seth and the nights Dustin had spent with him. He remembered Irene’s room, years ago, when he’d found Seth crying. His own heart had broken. How he hated Seth’s grandmother for tearing them apart, and for throwing away the arrowhead that he’d hoped might bring Seth back.

  If not for that woman, would they have grown up inseparable, as they’d been as kids, or would they have drifted, moving on to other interests, other friends? Picturing them lying on their bellies in Irene’s room, spilling secrets beneath a quilt draped over the backs of two chairs, Dustin found it hard to believe anything other than physical separation could have kept them apart.

  For the past two nights, passel duties had occupied Dustin’s time. Yet foremost in his mind was concern over what Seth must think about his absence. Things would be so much easier if Seth knew the whole story. Then there’d be no need for secrets, no need for hiding.

  As temporary leader of the passel, the duty fell on Dustin’s shoulders, but he didn’t want to have to be the one to tell Seth that heading back to Chicago wasn’t wise. And Dustin certainly wasn’t looking forward to the expression on Seth’s face when he learned that from here on out, he might be spending every full moon with a ragtag group of shape-shifters.

  On a positive note, for a guy used to not having any family, a “family reunion” held every full moon might hold some appeal. Dream on!

  In Dustin’s lifetime, only a handful of new members had joined the passel accidentally, and a few made a hard transition. Would Seth blame poor Tiffany?