by Renee George
Even though the tub was small, the bath had been deliciously fine. Water warm enough to redden my skin, and I’d added a touch of lavender for the mother of all headaches forming behind my left eye. I’d resisted the urge to put on my most comfortable pajamas since Ruth was coming over, and instead settled for a pair of tan low-rise knit trousers, an emerald-green tank top, and a pair of strappy sandals the same color as the shirt.
The bell rang at the door downstairs. “I’ll be right down,” I called to Ruth. I checked my hair in a small mirror I’d mounted next to the door (I liked to give myself one last glance over before leaving anywhere). I noticed it was a little frizzy in the Missouri humidity and the color was a bit duller than I like, but it still looked nicely coiffed.
I skipped down the steps to the restaurant area. I nearly missed the last one when I saw who was waiting for me. It wasn’t Ruth.
Babel stood in the center of the room looked haggard and worse for wear. There was bruising around his left eye, and his lower lip was split and swollen.
Queasiness fell over me, but my panic overrode my usual squeamish nature. Like the head cheerleader fretting over the quarterback, I ran to him. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“I’m fine.” He turned his head when I tried to touch his cheek. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“Looks more like gang warfare.” I dropped my hand. I couldn’t blame him for pulling away. My heart was at war with my head. I didn’t want to be with a player, someone who could jump from one woman’s bed to the next, but I wanted Babel. I settled on a truce for the moment. “Are you part of the Sharks or the Jets?”
Babel crooked a smile. I melted a little. And yay, he wasn’t too young for the reference. “Which do you belong to?”
“The Jets, definitely.”
His eyes lowered onto me in a penetrating gaze. “Then me too.”
He was adorable, and hot, and sweet, and funny, and I didn’t want to like him so much. Every time I was around him, I became the magnet to his steel. I will not flirt with him. “You say the nicest things.” Ack! I flirted.
Without warning to him or myself, I let adrenaline and raw need launch me into his arms. Our mouths met with crushing sweetness. I felt the heat from his bruised lips. I knew it was wrong, even as slid my tongue along his front teeth and he opened his mouth for me. His hands kneaded my back, up and down from my shoulders to the base of my spine. Whenever a guilty reminder that he was with Sheila, or at least she thought so, tried to make its way to the surface, I beat that sucker down with a mallet.
His fingers laced into my hair. He pulled my head back a little and gazed down at me.
“You make me want so much, Sunny,” Babel murmured.
I knew the feeling all too well. Drawing my palm over his bruises, I sighed. Sheila was a lunatic and a bitch, but if I allowed myself to act without thought to who it might hurt, was I any better than her?
He nodded toward the apartment and wiggled his eyebrows. “So, upstairs.”
“Babel…” My words were cut off by the tinkling of the doorbell. Shit, I’d forgotten about Ruth.
Again, it wasn’t Ruth.
Chapter 11
The man standing in my restaurant looked wild and savage, if you didn’t count the civilized blue jeans and gray one-pocket T-shirt. It was obvious someone else besides him did his laundry. His hair was long, black, and unkempt.
He had a scraggly beard with too many days’ growth that crept up the sides of his cheeks, and his amber pupils were just a tad more yellow than his corneas. Even from across the room, I could smell whiskey oozing from his pores. His lips pulled back in an ugly snarl.
This was it. This was the hour of my demise. Death had come for a visit and it seemed he was really pissed. At me. Ack.
“Not open yet,” I said in a pleasant voice, trying to hide the strain in my vocal cords. Babel moved in front of me. The pose he took reminded me of Wolverine getting ready for battle.
“Stay out of this, Trimmel.” The man’s voice was gruff from too many cigarettes or drinks, I wasn’t sure which, but it had the effect of making me quiver to the bone.
“Go home, Brady.”
Brady? Why did the name sound familiar?
The man stalked farther into the restaurant. He pointed a shaky finger at me. “I want you to leave my boy alone.”
Boy, boy? I checked my mental inventory, trying to figure out exactly what boy he could be talking about. The only person I’d spent any amount of time with had been Babel. Surely this wasn’t his father. “I think you have the wrong girl.”
He walked closer, making me take a step back. I tasted my heart in my mouth. Thank heaven’s Babel was there. I’d have been freaking out big time if I’d been alone.
He pointed again. “If Jolon comes back around, you just send him on his way.”
Babel spoke up again. “You don’t mean what you’re saying, Brady. Go home.”
Jolon? Who the heck? Oh, Jo Jo. “I don’t know what you think I…”
The wild man cut me off. “You don’t pay a seventeen-year-old fifty dollars for unloading a few boxes, gal. So whatever you paid him for, it’s not happening again. Are we clear?”
I don’t know which offended me more, his insinuation that I’d paid his seventeen-year-old son for sex, or the fact that he’d think I’d need to pay for sex.
I loved being angry. It drowned out the fear. “Now you just wait one minute!” I snapped, advancing on him. To my surprise, he backed away. “Maybe I overpaid for a little help, but I in no way defiled your child. I resent the implication, Mister…whatever the hell your name is!”
Stunned, he supplied the information. “Brady Corman.”
“Mr. Corman. You have a lot of nerve coming into my establishment and accusing me of stuff.” I poked Brady in the chest. His bloodshot eyes went wide. “And while the people around here haven’t been super friendly, no one has been so rude!” I poked him again.
He raised his hands, open palm, as if to surrender. “Calm down, missy.”
“Don’t you missy me.” I wanted to slap him hard enough his mother would feel it in her womb. “You picked the wrong damn woman on the wrong damn day to mess with.”
He stumbled back in retreat and tripped. I stared, stunned, at the collapsed man on the floor. Suddenly, he didn’t look so dangerous. He looked…Broken. I took a deep breath and counted to three. I held my hand out to him, and he eyed me warily. Finally, he nodded and grasped my palm in his. The world went fuzzy. Again.
“Rose Ann,” the well-dressed man in a blue suit said. His ebony-black hair was shortly cropped, his face clean shaven, but the golden eyes were unmistakable. I was seeing a past Brady Corman.
A perky blonde in a simple but beautiful blue sundress came bounding out of the back room. “Oh, you look so handsome.” She beamed at him.
“I’m nervous as hell,” he replied.
She whacked him on the ass, and he feigned surprise.
“They are going to love you,” she said fiercely. “Just like I do.”
Brady nearly pulled me over getting off the floor. The vision had ended, and once again I had no idea what it meant. I couldn’t get over the contrast. How had that clean-cut man in my vision turned into the recluse before me?
“Rose Ann,” I whispered.
Brady Corman’s eyes grew haunted, his mouth grim. He released my hand then headed toward the door. He turned back before leaving. “What do you know of my wife?”
“She loved you,” I said, perplexed. My response seemed to stun him for a moment. He opened his mouth a little as if to say something more, but closed it just as quickly and fled the shop.
“Wait!” Babel called to Brady. He gave me a look that sent my adrenaline-filled body into a twitter. “I have to go after him. At least to warn Jo Jo of his state.”
“Go.” I didn’t know what Babel thought Brady would do, but I didn’t want to be the cause of suffering for t
he kid.
Ruth scooted through the door right after, a look of sheer astonishment on her face. “Was that Brady I seen light out of here?” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen that man in town in a coon’s age.”
“You know him?”
“Well, of course, hon. Anyone who’s lived in Peculiar for any amount of time would. He used to be the mayor.”
Now it was my turn to be astonished. “That man used to be mayor?”
“Oh, yes.” Her face lit up at the prospect of being able to confide in me. “It’s sad, really. His story that is. I feel even worse for Jo Jo. The boy hasn’t had an easy time of it, let me tell you.”
“Really.” I had a feeling she was going to tell me whether I wanted to hear it or not. Luckily, I wanted to hear all about it.
“It’s a doozy of a tale. Brady Corman seemed to have it all. Good looks, good marriage, or so we all thought. He was well-respected in town. He’s my age, you know. My husband and him used to run around together when they were teenagers.” Her voice grew quieter for a just-between-us-girls moment. “I had the biggest crush on him for the longest time when I was young.”
I smiled at that. From the vision, seeing Brady in his prime, I could totally see Ruth finding him unabashedly handsome. “Never dated him?”
“Oh, no.” She sounded scandalized, but she looked delighted. “He only had eyes for Rose, even then.” She sobered. “Poor man.”
“Do you know what happened?” Even though I’d heard she’d run off, I wanted to hear Ruth’s version of Rose Ann’s story.
“No one knows for sure, but the gossip is she ran off with a lover and never came back. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe.”
I could tell Ruth was a believer, but she didn’t want to sound unfair. “Wow. That’s a tough pill to swallow.” And hard to imagine, from what I’d seen in the vision. She had definitely been a woman deeply in love with her man.
“You’re telling me.” Ruth pulled up a stool at the counter and sat down. “Brady just never recovered. I’m afraid to the point of neglect in every other part of his life. His work, his house, his son…” She tsked.
“I can’t imagine,” I said for lack of anything more appropriate.
“I felt so bad for Brady. Rose Ann just went off like she was going to work one day and never came back.” Ruth pursed her lips. “She’d been working as Neville’s legal assistant in Lake Ozarks for several years. If she was running around on Brady, that’s where she would have met the guy.”
“The mayor’s a lawyer?” That explained a lot about his slick personality.
“Yes. He’s a nice man though.”
“You don’t think Rose Ann and him…” I let the question linger.
“No, no. Nothing like that. Rose Ann went off while Neville’s wife was dying. I’ve never seen a man so devoted.”
“Dying? Was she human?”
“Lands, no. Maggie was a coyote, like him, but she had a cancer some of our kind are prone to get.”
For a second I was stunned. I’d never even considered the idea the therianthropes or lycanthropes could get sick. I’d somehow built into my mind they were more like the supernatural creatures of the movies.
“I thought you guys were—” Immortal monsters? How could I phrase that in a way that wouldn’t be offensive?
Ruth smiled wistfully as if she knew what was on my mind. “We aren’t like regular folk, in that we live a little longer. But we don’t live on forever, nothing much does. We can get sick and die just like everyone else.”
“But you’re stronger, faster, and can heal most things quicker, right?”
“Girl, you make us sound like comic book heroes.” She laughed. “But you’re mostly right.”
“So, silver bullets? That’s not true?”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it’d kill us just as dead as hot lead if it hit the right spot.”
Another myth busted.
I brought the conversation back around to Rose Ann Corman. I can’t explain why, but I knew she was somehow important. “So, not Neville then.” Neville being a widower made me feel more kindly toward him, and it made me feel a little judgmental. I’d assumed he’d had it all, money, power, friends, and good looks.
“No, he wouldn’t have.” Her voice took on a note of conspiracy. “Not then, anyhow.”
Whoa-ho. At least I hadn’t been completely wrong about the mayor. He might not have been strutting his stuff back then, but he was a total playa now.
“Really?”
“Heck, yah.” She grinned. “I don’t want to be uncharitable, but about a year after his wife died, Neville started to really cat around, if you know what I mean. I don’t think he’ll ever settle down again.”
“And Brady?”
“Ed tried to help him out, but Brady just withdrew into himself. If it weren’t for Jo Jo, I don’t think anyone around here would give him much thought anymore.”
“Jeez, that’s really sad.” My heart ached for Jo Jo, and Brady and Neville to some degree. They’d all lost so much.
“Yes it is. I thought him and Ed would always be friends,” Ruth said, gazing directly into my eyes. “But, friendships are like a garden. If you don’t work at cultivating them, and keeping the weeds down, they eventually die out.”
I grinned. The analogy had been succinct, if a little cliché. “Then how about we get to planting our own little garden?” Placing my hand over hers, I added, “I’ll get the tea on.”
“Great idea,” she said brightly. “So, tell me about yourself, Sunny. I only really know what Chavvie told me. I’m interested.”
It was nice of Ruth to ask, whether she was genuinely interested or not. So, I told her all about growing up in a hippie commune, the lying, cheating ex-boyfriend, and how Chav had been there for me through the worst of it. Some of the stuff she’d told me made me a little more wary of the small-town culture. I was used to living in an anonymous world. I mean, sure, rumors could start in a small circle of friends in San Diego, but to have a whole town know your business fifteen minutes before you did was awesome and awful all at the same time. Ruth seemed to know just about everything about everyone. Although, it made me wonder, how come nobody seemed to have a clue about where Chavvah was?
Neville Lutjen had been mayor for eight years, since the year after Brady Corman had fallen apart. They were both coyotes, she revealed. Her and Ed were deer, which nearly surprised me as much as Sheriff Taylor being a raccoon. Delbert and Elbert Johnson were opossums. Sheila Murphy was a coyote, which duh, I could have guessed. Becky from Beck-E’s Bakery was the only bird in town, a red-tailed hawk.
If I had to be an animal, a hawk wasn’t a bad way to go, though my feelings for Babel probably put me more in the cougar territory.
The very large and boisterous Blondina, owner of Blonde Bear Cafe, and her three boys and daughter were none other than black bears. I’d be checking her roots the next time I went in for salad.
We’d nearly talked about all the town people I’d met and a few I hadn’t met.
“What about Billy Bob? He is a whole series of contradictions. How can a doctor with concrete knowledge of science be a spiritual leader as well?”
“Oh, Doctor Smith. He’s something else, hon.” She raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Mighty fine-looking man.”
I had to agree. “There is no shortage of hotties in this place.” I couldn’t help but think of Babel. Tall, broad, and a sensuous mouth he certainly knew how to use. His wild, thick hair drove me crazy as well. My mouth watered as a mental image of him naked played in my mind. “My lord, you guys know how to grow them right.”
Ruth laughed. “The doc is such a nice man.”
“Oh, yes. The doctor.” My train of thought had definitely jumped the track.
“Very solitary, mind you. But you know, he delivered all of my babies. He’s got a great bedside manner.” She sighed for effect. “Oh, if I were a single woman.
” Then she laughed again.
“Well, I am a single woman, but I plan to stay that way for a while. I’m not into the whole ex-man-to-the-next-man thing.” Although it had been two years, and a new man would be less “rebound” and more “new game”. Either way, I didn’t want another relationship.
“What about Babe?”
I choked on a sip of tea and landed myself into a coughing fit. “What about him?”
“Well, I just thought you two…Maybe I got it wrong.”
“You thought wrong.” Not really. “There’s nothing between us.” Except for the mondo chemistry. I’d been around really good-looking men before, but never had I felt so connected to any of them, so it wasn’t just his great body or pretty blue eyes. It couldn’t be. Possibly I was feeling transference. I was putting my affection for Chavvah on to Babel. Though, I’d never wanted to lick Chavvah from toe to top. Hmm.
My body craved Babel in a way that made me feel like a bulimic in a grocery store. Maybe I was having a mid-life crisis and just reacting to attention from a young man. I wouldn’t be the first woman to have these desires. Hell, I probably wouldn’t be the first woman in town to have these particular fantasies about Babel.
I refilled the kettle and put it back on the stove. “Why do you ask?”
“Honey,” Ruth said. “Call it a gut feeling.”
Jeezus, I thought I was the psychic, but Ruth had intuition in spades over me. I shook my head. Babel was a passing fling, nothing more, and less and less fling-ish as time progressed.
“I’m not interested in him,” I lied again. “Besides, he’s planning on moving back to the city, and I think he was seeing someone already before I got here.”
Ruth’s mouth formed a perfect little “o.” Her mouth turned down at the corners only slightly in disappointed. “A girlfriend?”
“No, not really. Oh hell, I don’t know.” I didn’t want to get into it. Thinking about Babel with that really awful woman made my stomach churn. I clenched my fist as I thought about ripping her hair out at the roots. I didn’t want to be the other woman, but it was hard to feel sorry for the cow. Or coyote. Whatever.
