by Shaye Marlow
“What?! On fire?” See? I knew she’d understand.
“One of his damn fireworks landed in my blueberry patch, and the woods were burning, and we barely got it out. He could have burned my cabin.” Next door, the repetitive thump thump thump of the well-drilling made me want to tear out my hair. “So I was out until two a.m. putting out the fire, and then I had to be up by 4:30 to go to work, and Suzy, he burnt my blueberries.” I actually felt like crying even now.
“Aww, Hel, I’m sorry. We’ll find you some more blueberries, it’ll be okay.”
“It’s not okay! How am I supposed to write with all this racket?”
She was starting to make some more soothing noises, but I continued: “You know what else he did? I went to bed early that second night, trying to catch up on my sleep after he finished carting all his buddies back to town, and do you know what woke me up at 11 o’clock that night?”
“No…”
“Loud fucking sex. And it went on for hours.” Okay, that might have been a slight exaggeration. The sounds that I’d originally thought came from a dying baby moose reached an earth-shaking climax of yodeling cries ten minutes till midnight. I’d lain there in the dark, torn between rage and a growing lust, wondering what the hell my new neighbor had to be doing to a woman for her to make sounds like that. I’d sure never made sounds like that.
“Reaaally?” Suzy said, and by the way she drew out the word, I knew she was getting ideas. Which made me want to kick something.
I growled into the phone. “And that’s when he’s not muddying the water with his fucking jet ski.” Day three of the Gary Invasion, I’d come home and there’d been a brand new jet ski bobbing at his dock. “I mean, who owns a jet ski?” In these parts? No one. “And where does he think he’s going with it? It’s just this little lake. You’d think he could find something more entertaining to do.”
She laughed. “Well, Helly hon, the noise will die down after a bit. That well’s only a couple-day operation, and I’m sure after he’s got everything he needs, he won’t need to make many more trips.”
“He starts hammering and sawing at six a.m.!” I cried. “Which isn’t a big deal on the days I work, but I really like to sleep a bit past six on my days off!”
I was practically panting with wrath. The same day the jet ski appeared, I’d come back to find a brand new boat—his, I could only imagine, because it was expensive, shiny, new, and damned annoying—parked in my spot. He was invading my quiet, peaceful life, and I didn’t like it. Not at all.
“Deep breaths, Hel. Deep breaths. Okay, you’re not gonna kill him.”
I started to argue, but she cut me off.
“What you are gonna do is go over there and ask him to please hold off on the noise until—what time would be good for you?”
“Nine,” I growled. How could she sound so calm, so reasonable? She wasn’t here, that’s how. She wasn’t here, where it sounded like they were throwing around metal roofing. I rubbed between my eyes, where that damn groove was making another appearance.
“And ask him nicely, Hel. You can’t just go over and start shooting people.”
I can’t? I eyed the shotgun propped next to the door. I’d been fondling it a lot lately.
“You can’t,” she said firmly, as though she’d heard my thought.
I was starting to calm down a little bit—a little bit, mind you—but I wasn’t quite done being mad. “I can’t write like this,” I said.
“Do you have noise-cancelling headphones?”
“No.”
“Damn. Well…play your own music?”
I grumbled a bit, and she laughed.
“You could come visit me. I haven’t seen you in a couple weeks.”
I groaned. “I can’t. I have another deadline coming up. And the reason you haven’t seen me is I’ve been working upriver, for the Bransons.” Suzy lived downstream from me, in a cabin on the river, about ten minutes away by boat. When I was working downriver, I often stopped by on my way home. We’d sit out on her little deck gossiping and eating burgers as we soaked in the evening sunshine and listened to the fine hiss of silt as the river rolled by. She was the only other female resident even close to my age—two years younger, in fact—and the only other woman on the river who’d chosen to live by herself in the Alaskan bush.
“Well… are you coming to the Hindmans’ barbecue?”
“Maybe…” There was still the Ed issue. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to escape my neighbor’s noise, and see my friend. “Yeah, I’ll be at the barbecue,” I said.
“You seem really bothered by your new neighbor,” she said. “What’s his name again?”
I hadn’t told her it in the first place, and I didn’t want to soil my tongue with the Devil’s name, but I finally manned up and spat, “Gary.”
“And Gary has a helicopter, hmmm?”
“Yeah,” I said. Lots of people had small planes, and that was cool; everybody loved a pilot. But owning a helicopter? Instant god-like status. “But he’s a dick.”
“A rich dick, then. And a good-looking one.”
“How do you know that?”
Suzy cackled. “I didn’t. You just told me. So he’s hot? Young? Tall? Gimme.”
I groaned.
“Helly…” she warned, sounding like she was gonna crawl through the phone and rip the info outta me if I didn’t dish.
“He’s a real prick,” I said, prefacing what I was about to let pass through my lips. “But yeah. Six-footish, maybe a couple years older, black hair, green eyes, built.”
“Green eyes?” She moaned. “And he’s living there, not just for the weekend?”
This line of questioning was getting old. I didn’t wanna talk to my neighbor, and I certainly didn’t wanna talk about him. “For the summer, is what he said.”
“God, I would give anything to be in your place, right next door. Do you have any idea how lucky you are?”
“He’s. An. Ass,” I stressed. A loud-ass.
Suzy seemed to mull that over for a moment. “Your brothers are coming to visit, right?”
Ugh. “Yeah.” In exactly thirteen days, I’d be overrun by three crazy blondes who never had the decency to grow up.
“Maybe they’ll kill each other,” Suzy said. “Them and the neighbor.”
Maybe they would. “Maybe they will.” I began to smile. My brothers weren’t actually bad people. They were just rowdy as hell, and I kinda doubted they could be killed short of being staked, having their heads cut off, and their bodies burnt to ash. So, really, I was just hoping they’d kill the neighbor.
“You got a plan for hiding the booze?” she asked.
“I was thinking I’d bury it this time.” In previous years, I’d sunken my stash in the lake, and hidden it in a tree almost a mile away. My brothers had found it both times. And both times, they’d cleaned me out.
She laughed, and then sighed. “Actually, even though they’ll be drinking you out of house and home, I’m glad they’ll be there with you. I’ve been hearing about some break-ins downriver.”
I spun away from the window. “Break-ins?”
“It’s just summer cabins, not a big deal. Just vandals,” she said. “You know we get ‘em every summer. Probably just some idiot out from town for the weekend.”
I didn’t say anything, but I was worried about her. I was thinking maybe she should go stay with her parents at their lodge.
I must have been thinking it pretty hard. She laughed, and then said, “I’ve got a gun. A really big one.” She did. It was a .50-cal. revolver, and it looked ridiculous in her tiny hands. She had one of those builds that made it look like she’d blow away in the wind. But somehow, she made that five pound revolver her bitch. I wasn’t into girls, but even I could admit it was hot as hell to watch her blow holes in things with it. “They try and vandalize my place, I’ll let them know what I think about that,” she continued.
“I’ll come visit you sometime when I’m off,�
� I said. Maybe even when my brothers were here; it would be an excellent excuse to escape them. Plus I wanted to catch up on neighborhood gossip—she always had the best stuff, it was almost like she had eyes in the trees—but I also figured if I was there, that’d be two guns and upward of a dozen bullets the vandals would have to go through. Maybe we could even do some target shooting. Nothing like the sound of gunshots to discourage trespassers.
“Good, you do that. Leave your brothers home,” she said. “But your neighbor…”
“The only way he’d be safe to bring into the house is if he was muzzled and leashed, and you spread some newspaper around beforehand.”
“Okaaaay, kinky, but I think I could get into it. Could he talk through this muzzle?”
“No.”
“Excellent.” I could practically hear her rubbing her hands together.
I wasn’t going to be visiting her with my neighbor, though. That’d be a cold day in hell.
But Suzy was right. This noise couldn’t go on forever.
I just needed to keep my cool, and curb my tendency to get even, at least for now. And in the meantime, if I got the opportunity, I’d ask him—nicely—to quiet the hell down.
I worked another three days, writing as best I could in the evenings, and then I got another day off. The day so far had been relatively quiet. I’d woken up naturally, and hadn’t yet heard hide nor hair of my neighbor. His helicopter sat quiet on his chewed-up lawn. Maybe he was taking the day off, too.
I was sitting at my laptop, once more in front of my big picture window, working on a sex scene. Shower sex. Mmm, everybody likes shower sex. The wet slide of skin on skin, the bubbles sluicing over sinuous curves and bulging muscle, the cool, slick tile pressing against an overheated back. I’d actually never done it, but I’d read about it, and I had one hell of an imagination.
The face and body in my fantasy belonged to my neighbor, but I didn’t let that disturb me too much. He was freaking hot, and I knew, probably better than most, that fantasy was a far cry from reality. Just because I could practically feel his big, strong hand sliding up my thigh didn’t mean I would actually do anything with him. Ever.
My fingers tapped over the keyboard, detailing the way his naked chest would feel pressed against me. The firm bar of his erection. His teeth on my ear, his deep groan as I wrapped my hand around him. The way the hot water beat down on us both, reddening our skin. The mounting urgency dragging our breaths in faster…
I pressed my thighs together as I dove into the steamy scene.
Crack!
I jumped, glancing out the window. The lake was still, and I saw no motion next door. I didn’t know what that sound had been—it had sounded like a gunshot, a sound common enough in these parts—but I wasn’t going to let it distract me. Firming my resolve, I focused back on my screen.
My hero had my heroine pinned to the shower wall, and I quickly made the bathroom handicap-accessible so she had something to rest her ass on. He crowded between her thighs, and she gripped him, dragging him closer. They were staring into each other’s eyes, poised on the precipice of penetration—
Crack!
Holy fuck. I slammed my wrist-splinted fists down on the desk in frustration, glaring out the window past my computer screen. It was gorgeous out, the sun high in the sky dappling everything in light and shadow, a slight breeze giving the scene movement. A loon sat lonely on the lake, gliding quietly across the rippling surface.
Across the way, there was still no movement at the Devil’s hidey-hole.
Crack! Yet another gunshot split the silence, the sound ricocheting off the water. It sounded small-bore, but it was still, unmistakably, a gunshot.
What—the holy hell—was my neighbor up to now?
Another shot.
Knowing I couldn’t write with all that racket, I decided to take care of chores until he quieted the fuck down. I changed the oil on the generator—one of the only mechanical tasks I was capable of, and that only because I’d been shown how about five times—and then started it up for the daily charge. I split some wood, washed some dishes, and even did my laundry and hung my clothes out to dry.
I had grilled cheese for lunch, and as I ate, I tried not to wonder what my neighbor was shooting at. I doubted it was a target; the shots were too sporadic for that. No, I was guessing he was shooting squirrels.
Or, more likely, I thought, gritting my teeth, spruce hens. The chicken-sized birds were game fowl, and they were dumb as rocks. They’d let a person approach to within just a few feet before they scattered. And when they flew away, it was low and slow, and then usually into a nearby tree.
It felt like taking advantage to go out and shoot them. Their meat was gamey and flavored heavily with spruce needles, so I honestly didn’t see the point anyway. And in the spring, their little chicks were so damn cute…
So yeah, the Law of Asshole Behavior said he was probably out shooting my baby spruce hens. The bastard.
Fast forward to dinner time.
The Rich Bastard had been shooting off and on all day. I’d gone back to my laptop mid-afternoon, but the noise kept jerking me out of my headspace, and when I did manage to claw my way back inside, I found out my heroine wanted to rip the hero’s dick off, rather than ride it.
I tried going with it for a few hundred words, having them wrestle around the bathroom with some angry, increasingly violent sex. When the hero lay dead, his back broken over the lip of the tub, blood dribbling from his mouth, I was finally clued in that I needed to step away for a bit.
I was pissed off by this point, and no amount of lavender bubble bath was going to calm me down.
Just a little after the light had gone out of my hero’s green eyes, I realized my dog was missing. This wasn’t like the Lower 48, where dogs are confined to fenced yards or kept on leashes every moment of every day. No, here we just kick the dog out the door, and it comes back when it wants to eat.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I love my dog. And I don’t actually kick her. I keep pretty good tabs on her, and I feed her well. I buy her good dog food and supplement her diet frequently with actual wild salmon—believe me, in Alaska, it overflows our damn freezers.
Mocha loves to spend her days outside, and has been known to disappear for hours on end. Occasionally I hear reports from miles up or down the river—sometimes even across it—that she went visiting.
That said, I hadn’t seen her since sometime before lunch. I’d been out in the yard for fifteen minutes, calling her name.
Coming around to the back of the cabin, still calling my missing mutt, I noticed the clothes were dry. Worried about my dog, but trying not to worry, I started pulling my clothes off the line.
That’s when I noticed the hole in my underwear.
Now, I’m familiar with holes, especially the holes that develop at the seams and along the waistband when you’ve worn a pair of underwear for longer than you probably should have (over the life of the garment, not all in one sitting). This wasn’t like those holes.
“What the…” I reached up, fingering the little hole in the coral-colored cotton. It was about pencil eraser-sized, and for all of three seconds I wondered if spruce beetles could or would put holes in cloth. But the hole penetrated both sides…
And then, realization came.
My neighbor had shot a hole in my underwear. Let me just say that again. My neighbor. Shot a hole. In my underwear. In my coral-colored boy shorts. My favorite pair, actually.
And even more horrifying: My neighbor had been shooting all day. My dog was missing. And she looked a bit like a wolf.
“Oh no. Oh no.” I dropped the basket of clothes I’d had propped on my hip, not caring when the clothes tumbled to the ground, and spun to look out toward my neighbor’s cabin.
Had he shot my dog?
Now, Mocha and I didn’t have the most traditional dog/owner relationship, but I loved that dog. And somewhere deep in her tiny brain, I think she was maybe fond of me too.
With no real memory of my feet moving, I was already halfway down the bank, moving toward his cabin. The beach passed in a flash. I barreled up his lawn, stomped up the steps to his front porch, glanced in through the screen door—and froze.
He was seated on a big leather couch, presenting me with his profile as Fast and Furious revved across the big flat screen on my right. Just beyond him, along the far wall, I spotted the saws that had been plaguing me for the last few days.
And lying next to him on his leather couch? My dog, Mocha, the traitor. She looked supremely comfortable, her head in his lap, her feet dangling off the cushions. Which was all sorts of crazy because she was skittish as hell, she hated men, and she never cuddled. And, she wasn’t allowed on the furniture.
As I stood there, trying to process this new development, Gary the blueberry murderer ate a potato chip, and then fed her one. He fed my healthy dog a potato chip.
But none of that was what really got my attention. No, what really got my attention was the bare expanse of his shoulders and the side view of his beautiful, naked chest. He was slouched on the sofa—slouched!—and his muscles were bulging. He had a Daniel Craig body, all broad-shouldered and ripped and tanned. His fantastic chest was decorated with the perfect amount of dark hair sprinkled down the center and trailing into the waistband of a pair of lounge pants. I say ‘sprinkled’ because he looked downright edible. He was a loud-ass, but I was having the crazy urge to run my tongue down his happy trail.
The thought came as I stood gawking in his doorway: All I’d have to do is put a bag over his head and a gag in his mouth, and I could really enjoy that body.
“Enjoying the show?” Gary asked.
I looked up into his smirk. He wasn’t talking about the movie, I realized. He’d caught me ogling.
“I thought you shot my dog,” I said.
He frowned at me is if I were the evil one. “Why would I do that?” he asked, feeding the dog in question another potato chip.
