by Ever Coming
I rushed into the house and saw her, still bare and ready for me, lying on that old couch, making it look brand new.
“You can speak to me.” There was no question in my voice. I knew she could.
“Apparently, I can. You bit me.” She pointed to her shoulder. Speckles of blood marred her skin, but my mark was there. She was mine, for everyone to know.
“And you bit me. I didn’t expect that, I mean I hoped, but figured it would take time before you were ready.”
I put our dinner and her clothes on the nearest flat surface.
“I’ve got a lot more things you won’t expect. Wanna see?”
Tansy was going to wear me out in the best way possible.
***
“What kind of monster have you let in here?” Justice was staring at my truck with the others around him like there was a bloody accident in front of them and they just couldn’t look away.
“It’s grotesque.” That was probably the biggest word I’d ever heard Lazare say.
“Where did she get the idea that it was okay? Did you tell her this kind of behavior was okay? I mean, we are a crew of rowdy, misbehaving, manly beasts. We are a damned motley crew. Just look at it.”
The target of their absolute disgust was a pair of pink fuzzy dice hanging from my rearview mirror. Even from outside the truck, I smelled the strawberry-like scent coming off them. Tansy must’ve thought my truck stank. It probably did.
“It’s just pair of dice. Grow up, boys.” Tansy came up behind me and rounded her arms around my waist, splaying her hands across my stomach.
“I see we have a new crew member. Welcome, Tansy.”
Everyone turned around, not knowing yet what Callum was referring to. I hadn’t seen what she was wearing this morning; all I knew was I left her panting and naked in the shower. She must’ve been wearing something that showed her shoulder. Good girl. Let them all see it.
“We’re not really crew. We are just here in the same fucking vicinity. That’s it.” Loic was a little stoic this morning.
Justice cleared his throat. “I call bullshit. We take care of each other. We are here together. We are crew, and she’s one of us.”
My new bond was strong with Tansy since the marking and mating. The strength of her pride and honor in what Justice said was thick in the air.
“Thank you. Anybody want breakfast?”
Lazare poked Loic in the ribs. “I knew I liked her.”
I smiled and patted her hands on my stomach. It didn’t matter to me if the mix of renegades liked her or not. She was my mate regardless.
But it sure as hell helped a lot.
“Nice mark,” I said after turning around to place a soft kiss on her bite. It would still be tender as she wouldn’t heal as fast as us.
“Thanks. This amazing man gave it to me. I’m fucking- in love with him.”
I gasped. “You said fuck. What happened to my sweet-mouthed woman?”
She shrugged. “I’ve heard that you like my dirty mouth better. Anyway, it makes me fit in around here.”
I kissed her nose and pulled her toward the house where my crew was already banging pots and pans around.
“They are making a ruckus.”
“You fit with me, Mate.”
I fit with you.
Tansy
“King-nuts,” I announced as I walked into the station.
Janis beamed, and I swore she drooled just the tiniest of bits. “Your man ain’t here, but I’d be happy to divest you of those balls of heaven in your hand.”
“Well stinks. I thought he’d be ready for lunch. He on a call?” I knew where he was and that he’d be back soon, but I needed the cover. I wanted some alone time with Bruno’s dead guy. The more I thought about our interactions, the more I realized something was off about him.
Bruno was an asshat. He might even be a killer, but the ghost seemed to want me away from him more than to get back at him, and that just didn’t feel right. Shouldn’t he be wanting justice? Maybe I watched too many movies.
“Yeah. He should be back soon, though. You can wait, iffin’ you want. Some kids at the high school got into a brawl, and he needed to scare the tar out of ’em is all.”
“I’ll just leave these by the coffeepot, then.” I winked at her before placing them by the half-drained pot of sludge. How they drank that stuff when it was cheap enough to get a decent pot with decent beans was beyond me. I shuddered at the thought of pouring myself a cup and grabbed a pop, or, as they called it, Coke from the mini-fridge, dropping a buck in the jar.
“Hot damn, woman, were those really for all of us?” Janis poured herself a cup of said sludge as I popped my top and took a long swig before nodding my head in reply. “Etienne is a lucky man.”
She grabbed a king-nut, and I moseyed over to the seats in the waiting area, hoping Bruno was in, bringing his ghost with him. It didn’t take long for him to appear.
“You’re here.” I held up my pop to cover my moving lips as I spoke. I probably looked like I was kissing the can but whatever, it was better than looking like I had an imaginary friend. Good. “After that night, I haven’t seen you, and I want to help you.” And pump him for information, but something in my gut said to tread lightly.
“Tansy,” Bruno’s voice snapped, and even I could feel the power in it. Maybe it was because I’d been practically living with a bunch of shifters, or maybe he was that powerful. Either which way, it left me frozen. “My office. Etienne is going to be here in five, so please hurry it up.” It was a command, and my damn body felt compelled to obey. What the heck? Had the boys been holding back on me? Was I always at their mercy?
“Janis, please send Eti in when he gets here.” His voice was still stern, but the power seemed to be gone. Jerkhead was doing it on purpose.
“Yes, chief.” She smiled, going back to her confection.
“Are you coming?” He quirked an eyebrow, his cockiness looking downright awful on him.
I followed him into his office, and he took his seat as I shut the door, which I knew better than to do, but it was almost like it wasn’t my choice. Etienne and I needed to have a talk about shifter powers, it would seem. I took the seat closest to the door, my self-preservation still intact. Not that I was scared. Not as much as I was that night, anyways. Maybe it was because Etienne was on his way, or maybe because I knew I had a crew, or not crew as the case might be, of badass shifters on my side. Whatever the case may be, I felt safe—safe-ish.
“I was right about you.” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes never leaving mine, his ghost nowhere in sight.
“That I’m a good baker?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with all this, but I wasn’t going to give him any ammunition.
“No. That you can talk to the dead.”
I shook my head slightly. This could not be happening.
“I heard you slip up with Marie a couple of times, but I assumed you were in mourning, but then that day you came here you looked so scared. I just knew.”
“I’m not going to tell people about you murdering him.” The words came out unbidden.
“Little liar.”
I swallowed. Of course he knew I was lying. Stupid shifter traits.
“You already have, haven’t you?”
“He warned me away from you.” I wasn’t going to answer him. There was no point. He knew.
“That’s why you wouldn’t let me in.” He rubbed his hands on his beard, talking almost to himself.
“Yes?”
“It’s not like that. He...he won’t leave and I can’t take it anymore.” Bruno never met my eyes as he spit out the words. He knew he was being haunted. In my experience, people rarely, if ever did. And it couldn’t be a shifter thing because Etienne would’ve mentioned it if he felt the haunting, we’d talked about it enough.
“Then why did you kill him?” I slapped a hand over my mouth, expecting his rage to come. Instead he slumped down, almost as if in defeat. “Who is he, anyway?”
<
br /> “I didn’t kill him.” I wasn’t a shifter, but I could hear his sincerity. He hadn’t killed the guy. What in the world?
“He thinks otherwise.” I wasn’t accusing Bruno of lying, just stating the fact. The dead dude blamed Bruno. If he didn’t, his haunting of him made no sense.
“I own up to my kills.” Because he was a killer. Of course he was.
“What the fuck, Bruno?” Etienne came in like a freaking bull. He was livid. I held out my hand to him, and he took it. I needed more information, not a bloodbath, and I could feel Etienne’s gator—he wanted blood.
“Quit scaring my woman before I fucking bleed you.”
Etienne, I want to hear him out, I pleaded in my mind. We’d gotten better at this over the past couple of weeks, but it still didn’t always work on my first attempts.
He’s a piece of shit. Etienne wasn’t wrong. But he was a piece of shit in some kind of trouble; trouble I might be able to aid in.
Agreed, but I think maybe he needs our help. My help.
“My mate says to listen, so make it quick.” Good mate. Trusting mate. Mine. “There are king-nuts out there with my name on them.”
Bruno looked between us a few times, probably trying to figure out if I was gonna sock Etienne for putting words in my mouth, or maybe figuring out we were communicating. After a solid thirty seconds, he finally opened his mouth to reply.
“The ghost—I didn’t kill him.” Bruno went straight into his story, his voice not as strong as it had been. “He was drunk and hit the tree I threw, but I didn’t kill him.”
Drunk driving. Of freckin’ course. That would explain his extra weirdness—I mean for a dead guy. Death is a weirdness unto itself.
And Bruno threw a tree. A tree.
“I remember that.” Etienne cut off my thoughts, which in this case was good because all I could envision was a bear the size of King Kong throwing cars at me because I couldn’t get rid of the ghost.
“You were a fucking kid.” Etienne took the seat behind me. Something about Bruno’s confession changed the entire atmosphere of the room, the air feeling different.
“I got into a fight with my bear when I first started shifting. He took over and took his temper out on the trees.”
“How big is your bear? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” And I didn’t want to know. “So, he’s been with you the entire time.”
“No wonder you’re such an asshole.”
“Not helping, Mate,” I scolded. He might be right, but this was so not the time.
“I don’t know how to help you. He doesn’t really talk to me, more at me.”
“I need him gone.” Bruno was so raw in those four words. I still didn’t like the guy. He was a prick. But I vowed to myself then and there I would help him. No one should have to deal with that.
“I’ll talk to Meemaw.” Maybe she had a clue because I sure as sin didn’t.
Etienne
I didn’t know what I was more surprised about, the fact Justice and Lazare were working together and had actually completed a project, or the fact they’d made something for my mate.
Still, I had to roast them.
“What the hell is all this?”
Every single one of them put their hands in the air like they were under arrest. Sometimes, it paid to have the cop voice.
“We were just...I mean it was Callum’s idea...aw, hell, let’s just take a sledgehammer to it. She’s not gonna like it anyway.”
Loic, always the downer. “She’s actually gonna love it. Thank you.”
Justice puffed up. “We didn’t do it for you, buttmunch. We did it for Tansy. We like her, and she’s like a dandelion in the trash heap or some shit.”
Tansy was the dandelion and Shotgun Row was the trash heap.
He was actually dead-on.
“Okay…then. Need some help?”
“Yeah. The pit is done, but we need to finish the shelves and the picnic table.”
I looked at my watch. “She will be here in an hour. Better rush.”
I took off my shirt and grabbed a hammer. My mate deserved this. She’d come into this crew like a hurricane. It was like the air was different when she was here. She cooked for us almost every night, which she did because she loved the boys.
Even I had changed.
“She likes yellow, right? Shit. I didn’t know what color to pick. I suck at this girly shit.”
Lazare held a set of yellow-handled grilling tools up with a matching apron and grilling gloves.
“Like sunshine. Nice.”
I was serious, but he flipped me off anyway.
An hour later, we heard the truck coming down the road. “Pull the tarp down!”
We covered up the work and stood in a military-style line, waiting for her.
She threw the truck into park and then sat there for a while. Just staring at us.
Something wrong?
Y’all are freaking me out. It’s like the Coonass version of Magic Mike in front of me. What is going on?
Just get out, and I’m the only one who gets compared to Magic Mike from now on.
Noted.
“What’s going on, boys?” She got out of the car slowly and didn’t kill the engine. Left her purse in there, too.
“The crew has a surprise for you.”
Her eyes widened, but not in the “oh, what a lovely surprise” way. More like the “They killed someone and now they expect me to help them bury the body” way.
“Oh? What is it?”
“Take a look.”
Justice, with one yank, pulled the tarp off. We all stared at our project, mostly in awe. It was probably the first thing we’d pulled off together.
“This is for me?”
We all nodded collectively.
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Fuck! We screwed the pooch on this one, boys. Take it down. Tansy, we’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
My girl wiped a tear from her face. “You’ll do no such thing. This is great, boys. Really. I’ve always wanted an outdoor kitchen. And it’s hotter than the devil’s butthole in Etienne’s kitchen, so this works. Thanks, crew.”
She cut the engine on the truck and walked toward us.
Then Tansy, the woman I never saw coming, did something that took my breath away—again.
One by one, she thanked each of the crew and either kissed their cheeks or hugged them and kissed their foreheads.
They all melted, as much as assholes can melt.
Somehow this little spitfire had united us.
And made me whole again.
“You didn’t do this just so I would cook all the time, did you?” She laughed. She circled her arms around my neck and buried her face in my bare chest.
“Yep. You figured us out.”
An hour later, she’d used that new outdoor kitchen to conjure up a feast of chicken, sausage, and potato salad.
“I should eat more chicken.” Justice held up a leg to the light like it was a diamond.
“There’s no chicken in the swamp, dipshit. Swamp rabbit’s good, though.”
Tansy turned up her nose a little at swamp rabbit.
“You would make some fine boudin, cher. Put you in between two king-nuts and have you for breakfast.”
Tansy put down her fork. “Are you eating or narrating a porn? Give the sausage a break and just eat.”
All movement at the table stopped. Everyone cracked up at once.
“What? He’s talking to that sausage like he’s paying it by the hour. Don’t look at me like that. I know what’s up.”
“Here I thought she was sweet and nice,” Justice said, shaking his head.
“Naughty and nice.” She winked from the seat next to me. It was too far away with all of this sausage talk, so I reached over and pulled her onto my lap.
“Oh, no. You two aren’t gonna start making goo goo noises and feeding each other, are you? I’m gonna vomit.”
“Nope,” Tansy said, but I knew that look i
n her eye. “He’s gonna feed me his sausage later.”
“I think she’s dirtier than us. And that’s saying a lot,” Loic quipped, but never stopped chewing.
“You done?” I asked later when she hadn’t touched her plate in a while.
“Yeah, I’m pretty tired. Got up at four to get the bakery open. Gina was a little under the weather.”
“Okay, boys,” I addressed the lot. “I’m taking this female to bed. Clean up?”
They all nodded and gave their thanks.
I took her hand and led her to the house. I already had a list of things that needed to be worked on now that my mate was under its roof. Tansy stopped, jerking me to a halt with her.
“I love you, boys. All of you. Thanks for making me crew.”
Her words were sleepy and sloppy, but she got a nod from each of them. She belonged here with us.
“Come on, sleepyhead.” I picked her up, carrying her the rest of the way. After I tucked her into the bed, she once again reached for my shirt, tugging me down with her.
“I’m not too tired.”
Tansy
“You are tired, and you need to get up before anyone should.” He removed my shoes one by one. “Let’s get you ready for bed.”
He was right. I was tired. Exhausted, even. Gina had been under the weather all week, so I’d been putting in extra time at the bakery and still trying to stay up and hang with the guys or have quality alone time with Etienne, usually managing to do both. That left little time for sleep. Not that I was complaining. Life was good.
“Fine, but you’re coming with me because—because I said so.” I patted the bed beside me, my argument skills woefully depleted thanks to exhaustion.
“Works for me, love.” He bent down to kiss my cheek before pulling the shirt off his back and handing it to me. “Works for me.”
Sitting up, I changed into his shirt, inhaling his scent deeply. He loved me bathed in his scent, and I loved being surrounded by him, so it worked well. Had anyone told me I’d look forward to wearing my significant’s dirty clothes, I’d have thought them insane, but I did.
