Otterly Scorched

by Tara Sivec

  As she leads us into the visitor center, I find out she’s been filling in as Dax’s assistant since he got here a month ago, so she’s able to give us some of the information we need about the missing otters, but not all of it.

  It’s too bad I don’t have the guts to ask her where in the hell Douchebag Dax went. He’s clearly been kidnapped as well, and I guess he cuddles otters for a living now? I’m definitely in The Twilight Zone.

  CHAPTER 4

  Are You on Drugs or Something?

  Dax

  “Don’t say a word,” I mutter when I hear Nanci’s footsteps coming up behind me as I stay bent over my desk, filling out a food order I need from our local seafood distributor.

  “I wasn’t going to say a thing,” she states, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

  I mentally start counting backward from ten while I continue jotting things down on the form with my back to Nanci as the clock hanging on the wall behind my desk ticks by.

  Five, four, three, two…

  “You couldn’t have been just a little bit nicer to everyone today?”

  “You couldn’t have stayed quiet for more than five seconds?” I reply, setting the pen down and turning to face her. I brush my hair back out of my eyes before crossing my arms in front of me, perching on the edge of my desk.

  Nanci is standing a foot away from me, playing with the strand of pearls that’s always around her neck. She’s the only person I know who shows up to volunteer at an animal sanctuary wearing silk blouses, cardigans, business suits, and pearls. Yet somehow, I have never seen a stain on her clothing or one piece of her short, heavily teased red hair out of place on her head.

  “It’s not in my nature to stay quiet for more than five seconds,” she scoffs. “People would think I had fallen ill.”

  Even though the last thing I want to do right now is talk about what happened earlier, I can’t help but smile that Nanci is so predictable. Somewhere in her late sixties—she’s never admitted to another living soul how old she really is, as far as I know—Nanci Newhouse has been like a stand-in mother to me for as long as I can remember. She was my father’s legal assistant from the day he first opened his small law office with just the two of them, to the day he retired after building that two-person office into one of the world’s largest, most successful law firms, with over two-thousand lawyers working for him. Since he was too busy creating an empire to deal with raising a son most days, Nanci was the one who stepped in and made sure I had someone in my corner.

  A nosy, meddling, pain in my ass someone….

  “Did you come in here just to annoy me?”

  Nanci reaches down into her cleavage, pulling out a wrinkled Kleenex and waving it out to me.

  “No. I actually came in here to see if you needed a tissue after all those baby tears you cried to the 9-1-1 dispatcher this morning.”

  “I was in a state of shock,” I defend myself lamely as she continues waving the tissue.

  “You’ve still got a few boohoos left on your cheeks.”

  “You’re hilarious,” I deadpan.

  She shrugs then shoves the tissue back into her cleavage when I don’t reach out to take it.

  “No, you’re the one who’s hilarious.” She chuckles, clutching her hands together under her chin and looking skyward before wailing with a random southern accent, “My babies! Oh, Lord in heaven above, my precious babies! Won’t anyone help me find my babies?”

  “Are you finished?”

  She hiccups dramatically a few times, sniffles, then wipes imaginary tears off her heavily made-up cheeks before looking at me seriously.

  “Okay, now I’m finished.”

  I let out an annoyed grunt, and she sighs at me.

  “All teasing aside, I know you’re on edge, Dax. We all know you’re on edge because of Chris and Lincoln, and since you haven’t been paying attention, we are all just as worried about their safe return as you are. You’ve either been ignoring everyone or snapping at everyone since you got here a month ago, though,” Nanci scolds me. “You took this job, because you needed a change, and you needed to try to figure out how to be happy. Making everyone at The Backyard afraid of you is not going to help you find your happy.”

  “I took this job, because my father dumped a shit-ton of money into it then guilted me into coming back here,” I remind her, dropping my arms down to my sides and clutching the edge of the desk, needing something to stop myself from throwing my fist through a wall, just like every time I talk about my father. “And I didn’t come here to make friends. I came here to do a job. It’s not my fault everyone in this town still thinks of me as the happy-go-lucky douchebag I used to be and they can’t handle that’s not who I am anymore.”

  At least, I didn’t think that’s who I am anymore, until I heard that voice in my ear, and I had to bite down on my fucking tongue to stop myself from letting an Old Dax comment fly out of my mouth.

  “I hate to break it to you, but no matter how hard you try to push it down and bury it, being sweet, and flirtatious, and charming, and a little bit sarcastic is who you are, Dax Trevino,” Nanci lectures me. “You have punished yourself enough for too many years, don’t you think? Sure, a few people got hurt, but no one died. You didn’t die. I believe your good friend Baker back in Chicago reminded you of this, if I’m not mistaken.”

  My friend Baker Matthews definitely got me to pull my head out of my ass and join the land of the living again. After I was discharged from the military hospital, he helped me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and for that I’ll always be grateful. I did ultimately decide to take this job because I needed a change, and not because of a goddamn thing my father guilted me with, no matter how much I like to blame it on him. Nothing was working in Chicago, even more so after the one and only person I opened up to since my accident had to go and fall in love. I like Baker with Ember, but it just made me feel even more lost, alone, and angry.

  I’ve been pissed off and full of regret for so long I don’t even know how to go about finding this happiness Nanci hasn’t shut up about since I moved back home.

  “You know what I find really interesting?” she continues, going back to twiddling with the pearls around her neck.

  “No.” I sigh. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “Aside from your smartass skills still being sharp as a tack, I find it quite interesting that the only person you haven’t snapped or growled at since you got back to town was the sweet young woman I just spent the last hour with.”

  I want to let out a snort of amusement, because the idea of anyone calling the woman she spent the last hour with “sweet” is hilarious, but I lock that shit down. Nanci is like a wild animal. If I show any kind of weakness, she’ll attack.

  Harley is the only secret I’ve ever kept from Nanci. She was the one thing I wanted just for myself—this memory of a moment in time at a bar, with a woman who made me feel like I didn’t need to be a giant asshole forever, doing what I wanted to do instead of what my father ordered. When I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself over the last five years, thoughts of her were the only things that could bring a smile to my face most days. Wondering where she was and who she was currently giving hell to.

  Out of all the goddamn days for me to run into Harley again, it had to be the day when I not only acted like the little bitch she predicted I’d be, but I screamed it. And cried it. And fucking shrieked it.

  “I don’t snap or growl at you,” I remind Nanci.

  “I don’t count, because you have to be good to me or I’ll kick your ass. I’m old, but I’m not dead, and I can still take you. You were, dare I say, nice to Miss Harley Blake.”

  I scoff and shake my head at her. “Take it back. Dax Trevino isn’t nice.”

  And yet, I was. As soon as she called me a dipshit, and I knew the woman who’d taken me down like a linebacker and had my hands cuffed behind me before I even knew what hit me was Harley, all I wanted to do was make up f
or being such a jerk to her all those years ago. You know, after the complete mortification went away.

  Goddamn Harley Blake. How many times did I fantasize about having her straddle me with a pair of handcuffs? It didn’t involve me eating a faceful of dirt after she easily knocked me on my ass though, so that was a fun change in the fantasy.

  “You just want everyone to think Dax Trevino isn’t nice, because you don’t think Dax Trevino deserves to have people like him. I also saw it, you know.”

  She gives me a knowing look as a loud chorus of whistles, chirps, and the clicking of nails on concrete can be heard when a few of the otters come running in through the doggie door that leads from their outdoor habitat and into this building connected to it.

  “Saw what?” I just know I’m going to regret entertaining this line of questioning.

  “The sparkle,” Nanci says with an easy shrug as she moves toward my desk and grabs a handful of treats out of the container I keep next to my computer.

  “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  I watch Nanci walk back over to the dutch door in my office, lean over the top opening, and hand out treats to whichever otter is currently screaming his or her head off on the other side. A door that is cut in half horizontally is a must when your office can be overrun at any time by otters—otherwise known as ferrets on crack—but you still want to be able to look out and check on them when you’re doing paperwork.

  “The sparkle in your eyes, you big dummy,” Nanci says as she turns to face me, brushing her hands together to get the treat crumbs off of them. “I see that sparkle every once in a while when you’re with the otters, and I definitely saw it when you looked at Harley earlier.”

  I narrow my eyes at her, but it doesn’t have the same effect as it does with the other employees here. When they just go running away if I look at them in annoyance, Nanci takes that as a green light to be even more meddlesome.

  “Nice hair,” Nanci says in a low, deep voice, trying to impersonate me again but making me sound like a big idiot. “Looks good on you. I think you’re really pretty, and I’d like to court you, milady.”

  “That is not at all what I said or sound like,” I complain. “Also, it’s not the 1800s. People don’t court.”

  “Well, they should. And you should have flirted with her more. First pretty girl I’ve seen you show any kind of interest in since you’ve been back here, or in years for that matter, and you were just boring. I could see it in your eyes you wanted to say something cute and charming, but you held yourself back.”

  Actually, what I wanted to say was neither cute nor charming, and it probably would have made Harley kick me in the balls while I was still handcuffed.

  “Nice hair. I’d rather see it spread out on my pillow in the morning.”

  Why in the hell my knee-jerk response to hearing Harley’s voice was to suddenly turn back into the old Dax is beyond me. I just know there was something about her that made me want to annoy the hell out of her, just to see her roll those beautiful blue eyes at me. And I screwed it up by being my typical, grumpy self and so short and clipped with her that all I saw on her face was pure fucking confusion. Although the lumberjack beard, extra thirty pounds of muscle, body covered in tattoos, and lack of a recent haircut or expensive hair products was probably just as jarring for her.

  “Look, I know you still have a lot of things to work out with your father, and I know you’re still holding on to a lot of anger. But you’re living your dream because of him, and it’s time for you to be happy in other parts of your life as well,” Nanci reminds me.

  “Oh, you mean the dream I stopped talking about when I was a teenager, because he called me a pussy and told me to man the fuck up and do something he could actually respect with my life?” I ask with a laugh, minus any traces of humor.

  I stopped talking about it, except for that one night at McCallahan’s….

  “It doesn’t matter how you got here. You’re here now. As much as you want to deny it, you are exactly like your father in one important way—I always saw something good in him, just like I’ve always seen it in you.”

  “Good?” I mock with a snort.

  “You can call it guilt all you want, but this is a good thing he did here, and he did it for you. Anonymously, so you could be free to be who you want, without the weight of him on your shoulders. Quit your bitching and start appreciating what you have instead of what you’ve lost,” Nanci finishes her lecture, holding her hand out to me. “Now, give me your phone. I left mine back up at the farmhouse, and I need to check on something.”

  With a sigh, knowing I’m defeated for now, I pull my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and drop it down into her hand. Quickly looking at something she must have written on her palm, she starts typing away on my phone while she continues talking.

  “I know you’re self-conscious about all your scars now, but you covered them up beautifully with all sorts of pretty artwork that I think is a shame to keep hidden. I’ve heard the ladies really like tatted-up hunks these days.” Nanci smiles as she continues typing on my phone, making me roll my eyes even though she’s not looking at me. “You’ve been out of the game for too long, but don’t worry. I’m here to help.”

  “What did you do? In case you’ve forgotten, we have two missing otters I need to worry about right now,” I remind her, pushing away from my desk and standing up when she hands my phone back to me.

  “Don’t insult me. I’m killing two birds with one giant boulder!” Nanci announces happily before her smile quickly falls. “That was a tad darker than I intended, but you catch my drift. You’ll be happy to know I left out a bunch of information about Lincoln and Chris when I was talking to her earlier, so you two will have a lot to discuss in an hour on your date-slash-crime-stopping-meeting. Emphasis on the date part, please and thank you.”

  Nanci gives me a big smile as I look down at the text message she just sent, realizing what she had written on her palm when I carelessly handed over my phone was Harley’s phone number.

  “Oh, dear God,” I mutter, seeing not only what Nanci has typed to her from me, but the little fucking typing bubbles indicating that Harley is presently drafting her response.

  “What’s the problem? I heard you call her sweetheart outside earlier, and you also said something about cinnamon. So, I tied it all together and added a little something extra. It’s cute, what I typed, right?”

  I watch as the little typing bubbles show up, disappear, show up, disappear, and wonder if it’s because Harley has to keep stopping to use the thesaurus so she can find every synonym there is for the word douchebag.

  I don’t think this is going to end well for me. If Claws and Effect is my only hope of finding Lincoln and Chris, I should probably prepare myself to never see them again.

  While Nanci chatters away, still giving me tips about the dating world that I’m tuning out, I wait a few seconds before looking down at my phone again.

  My worry that Harley would refuse to work with me and I’d be fucked and on my own finding Chris and Lincoln is instantly replaced with something I haven’t truly felt in a long time, except when I’m with the otters: Amusement. And maybe even a little spark of happiness. For the first time in a really long time, I try not to keep the old Dax buried so deep as I take up where Nanci left off.

  Dax: Your place or mine in an hour, sweetheart? I’ll bring the cinnamon and otter information. You bring your smile.

  Harley: Listen here, dick tits, are you on drugs or something? I’ve got a serious business to run, and if I’m going to find your otters, I’m not dealing with your meth mood swings.

  Dax: Dick tits?

  Harley: I’m testing it out. Just shut up and answer my question.

  Dax: I am not on drugs. I’d like to tell you someone stole my phone and sent that first message, but I’m assuming you wouldn’t believe me. I really do need your help finding my otters.

  Harley: After today, I don’t kno
w what to believe anymore. Fine. I’ll take your case, but you’re paying me triple, plus a very handsome pain and suffering bonus. And if you ever call me sweetheart again, I will cut your dick off.

  Dax: I just want you to know I am already super impressed with the professionalism I’ve seen from Claws and Effect. Five stars!

  Harley: Eat. Shit.

  Dax: So, I’ll see you at your place in an hour then? Should I bring the shit with me, or will shit be provided? Don’t want to show up unprepared.

  CHAPTER 5

  You Aren’t Gonna Start Crying Again, Are You?

  Harley

  “Davidson!” I shout for the third time, as I search through my dad’s two-story colonial, poking my head in every room and looking for my brother. “I’m going to kick your ass for not putting the boxes of horror away like I called you about an hour ago!”

  Not only did I have to race out of The Backyard after my chat with Nanci and drop Davidson back off here at my dad’s house, so I could rush to the other side of town for the meeting Davidson rescheduled for me. But I had to deal with Dax’s bipolar text messages on top of it and get back here before he showed up.

  Jogging down the upstairs hallway, getting more annoyed with each smack of my ankle boots on the hardwood floor when Davidson doesn’t answer me, I skid to a stop when I think I saw something in the guest bathroom as I ran by. Taking a few steps backward, I look into the open bathroom doorway again, cursing under my breath. Stomping into the room, I cover my eyes with one hand and grab the folded towel on the sink with the other, whipping it as hard as I can in the general direction of the tub. The tub currently filled with a forty-year-old man-child, curled up on his side in the fetal position who’s passed out naked.

  “What in the fuck are you doing?” I shout as soon as the towel flies from my hand, and I spread a few of my fingers open covering my eyes, hoping my aim is as good as I think it is.