by Shaye Marlow
I smiled up at him, trying to disguise my helpless attraction. “This way,” I said, and then led the way across the lawn.
He quickly caught up and settled in to walk beside me. “So… how’s your morning been?”
“Good. Busy. Yours?”
J.D. gave me that left-shouldered shrug. “Couldn’t say yet. I just got out of bed.”
And there it went: my imagination, straight into the gutter. I pictured that blond hair mussed, those muscles relaxed. Those blue eyes, drowsy. Those pants, gone…
“Huh,” I managed.
We rounded the main building, and approached the wood shed. “She should be around here,” I said.
“So, where are you from?” J.D. asked.
“Oregon. I’m up for the summer.”
He nodded, glancing over at me. “That where your husband is?” he asked.
Fuck, I thought, looking at my ring. I often forgot I was wearing it. “No,” I started, and then the cat emerged from the wood shed, with six kittens bounding along after.
“Hey, there,” J.D. said softly, lowering himself to his haunches. “You’re a pretty one, huh? Here, I think you might’ve lost this.” He opened his hands against the ground, and the kitten tumbled forth and romped over to its mother.
I watched J.D., thinking he was damn sweet. Oh, but it got better: In a veritable stampede of cuteness, the kittens rushed forward. J.D. laughed as they crowded around his legs. “Hey, guys,” he said, reaching down both hands to pet their tiny heads.
I felt something warm blossoming in my chest, and ruthlessly quashed it. This attraction was unprofessional, what with him sorta being my patient. Plus, I didn’t do casual relationships. And I lived in Oregon, and though I hadn’t asked him, he, most likely, did not. And then, of course, there was the ring. Couldn’t forget about the ring.
“Sorry guys, I have an appointment with the pretty lady,” he finally said, detaching two climbers from his pantlegs.
Right. I was supposed to work on his shoulder. I was supposed to touch him.
My mind was racing as we walked back to my little coffee shack. It wasn’t that I was afraid to be alone with him—wait, scratch that, I totally was. The man was built like a male stripper. If he busted a move, I’d straight up faint. And if I was closed in a small space with him for any length of time, with that spicy, edible scent, I seriously thought I might lick him.
“How about here?” I suggested, indicating the little bistro table out front. From that spot, we could see down to the dock, where the guides were cleaning fish, chucking bloody strands out into the glittering river for the shrieking gulls. In the other direction, the main lodge dominated the top of the rise. “The sun’ll keep the mosquitos off while we soak up a little vitamin D.”
He sat, and I put my hands on him before I could psych myself out about it. His skin was warm, and if I was going to be fair, I could say his right shoulder and arm weren’t quite as big as his left. He’d lost muscle tone, for sure. But that shoulder and arm were still more well-developed than most of the shoulders and arms of my acquaintance. If I was going to be fair, he was a pleasure to work on, here, there, or anywhere.
As I massaged his muscles, warming them, I wondered what he did for a living. It had to be something physical. He was an athlete, or had been. This morning, though, I didn’t feel like poking that wound.
“What are you up to today?” I asked, determined to keep the conversation light even as I deepened the pressure.
“I’m helping my brothers put a Brute Kit on an off-road Jeep,” he said with a soft groan.
I hoped he didn’t notice how the sound made my nipples harden. “Yeah? I’ve never been off-roading, myself. Are you taking the Jeep out around here?”
“I’m assuming. It’s more their project than mine. You sound interested,” he noted.
“I think it sounds like fun, getting out, exploring a little. I haven’t been out much since I got here.”
“Not even on your days off?” he asked.
I snorted. “What days off? I work till the season’s over. I get afternoons and evenings, and that’s it.”
“Wow. That sounds brutal.”
“Some days, it really is,” I agreed. “The days I’m not busy are the worst.”
“How has business been? You’ve been open, what? A couple weeks?”
“A couple days shy of a month, and business is picking up. It’s been mostly the guests here at the Chalets, and Suzy, but I get new faces in every day.” I helped him extend his shoulder to its limit, slowly, gently working on his range of motion.
“Would you like to go?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“When we get the Jeep done, would you like to go off-roading with us? My brothers are kind of crazy, but if you can get past that, they’re a lot of fun.”
I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that. If it’s after work. I get off at one.”
“Really? What time do you get in?”
“Five a.m.”
“Ouch.”
“Ah, it’s okay. I’m a morning person.”
His stare was incredulous.
I grinned.
And his gaze changed. Darkened. Dipped to my mouth.
Oh, shit. He wanted me too.
J.D.
I’d thought Thea was pretty in the dim interior of the bar. I thought she was beautiful in her coffee shop. But outside, in the sunlight? She took my breath away.
The sun picked up the red in her hair, glittering and shining, and caught in her eyes, revealing them to be a clear, warm brown. Those freckles were like cinnamon sugar on the creamy icing of her skin.
The sun also flashed off her ring.
Beyond it, someone was walking down the hill toward us. He wasn’t dressed as a fisherman, but more as if he were on safari. A confident, moneyed explorer.
But it wasn’t his clothing—not even that ridiculous scarf—that made me do a double-take. It was his swagger, and the way he held himself. His stature, the dark hair. And as he came closer, as I blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating… it was his face.
“Son-of-a—”
“What a coïncidence,” he said as he strode the last few feet.
I erupted out of my chair, steadied Thea, then turned to face him.
He stepped close, crowding me. I held my ground, glad I had a couple inches on him as he looked me over with brown eyes that held none of the beauty and grace of Thea’s.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice harsh.
“I could ask the same of you,” he said, his French accent thick. His gaze flicked to Thea, became appreciative.
“I’m visiting family,” I said, moving between them, giving him a warning look.
He ignored the warning. “Mademoiselle, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I am Pierre,” he said, extending his hand.
Thea sidestepped, not letting me intercede. She put her hand in his. “Thea,” she said.
“Thea,” the man I knew as Wreck murmured. And of course he couldn’t just shake and be done with it. No, he had to lift her graceful hand to his lips, and kiss the back of it. Lingeringly.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, gently extricating herself.
“A pleasure,” he purred. Fucking purred. If it weren’t against the rules of polite society, if Thea hadn’t been watching, I would’ve kicked him.
He finally returned his attention to me. “I’m staying here.”
Well, that was a coincidence. “Fishing?” I asked. Or could he possibly have come all this way just to rub it in?
“No, actually.”
“Then…?”
“Bigfoot,” he said, wearing a faint smile.
I was lost.
“You’re here because of the sighting?” Thea asked.
“Oui, mademoiselle,” Wreck said. “I am investigating the sightings.”
“Sightings? I’d only heard of the one.” She sounded excited.
Wreck was looking at her
with renewed interest. “I would love to discuss them with you, but I am already late,” he said, nodding toward the dock. “Perhaps at a later date?”
“Well, I’m here every morning, if you’d like to drop by. Please do,” Thea added.
Wreck’s eyes were full of triumph. “I surely will. Mademoiselle,” he said, inclining his head. “Jesse,” he murmured.
Thea and I watched him stride down to the dock. “How do you know each other?” she asked.
“We’re… coworkers,” I said with a grimace. No, it wasn’t the truth—definitely not the whole truth, so help me god—but it was close enough. I did ‘work’ with him occasionally. And on him, if I could catch the bastard.
“That’s so awesome, that he’s here for Bigfoot.” She was still watching Wreck, as he shook hands with a man in one of the boats. The guy was huge—had to be one of the twins.
“You believe in Bigfoot?”
She finally shifted her attention from the man who’d wrecked my career. “I’m… open to the possibility.”
My expression had her laughing.
“What,” she said, “you think we’ve seen and discovered everything there is to see and discover on planet Earth? They’re finding new species every day.”
“Yeah, but those are little things in wild places, like frogs in the Amazon. You really think there could be a Bigfoot—a critter as big as a bear—in a place as populated as the United States, when nobody’s gotten a decent photo, or shot one of the things, ever?”
“There have been lots of sightings, recordings, footprint casts.”
“There have been lots of hoaxes,” I countered.
She was gazing up at me, and I didn’t like that look in her eyes. She’d found out about my shoulder—that I was broken, that I’d lost—and she hadn’t batted an eye. But doubt Bigfoot, and she looked… disappointed.
Not that it mattered what she thought of me, I reminded myself. She was married. I wondered if Wreck had seen the ring. Wondered if he’d care.
“You been doing the exercises I showed you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Keep doing them. And I’ll see you again tomorrow, okay?” She was already moving away, following a fisherman into her little coffee shop.
Minecraft is fun. I’d decided that back when it first came out, and it still held true today. Zombies needed killing, bookshelves building, and sheep shearing.
It was fun, and it was busy-work. If you wanted to take your mind off something, forget about the real world for a few hours, it was just the ticket.
By the time I got back to my brothers’, I didn’t much feel like working on the Jeep. So, I’d nuked myself a couple taquitos, and then begun reestablishing my relationship with the couch.
Instead of helping my jerk brothers with their Brute, I was going to sit here, and I was going to take over the village I’d just found. I was going to make the villagers make more villagers and provide me with enchanted items, and then go looking for a mesa for my new house. That was the order of business. That was why I was chopping down trees. Because to make baby villagers, I needed doors. And then I’d need to gather some dirt, till it and plant wheat. I’d need iron for a bucket, and—
POW! The loud, unexpected noise made me jump.
The image on the screen paused. Connection lost. Network error, a pop-up said.
I stared at it for a moment before realizing that the noise and internet loss must be connected. And, that had sounded like a gunshot…
Setting the controller aside, I strode to the door and stuck my head out.
Zack was standing fifteen feet away with a shotgun, looking up at the roof. Pretty much, Zack plus shotgun equaled disaster. And, from the sound of it, that disaster had already occurred.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“There was a squirrel,” he said blandly.
He was so full of crap, it was coming out his ears. I walked a few feet from the cabin so that I could turn and assess the damage.
Oh my god. The dish. He’d shot the satellite internet dish, dead-center. With buckshot.
And there wasn’t a squirrel in sight, dead or otherwise.
“You did this on purpose,” I realized. My effing brother had sabotaged the internet. On purpose.
He shrugged.
I narrowed my eyes. “You know what your problem is?”
“Nope,” he said, expression smug.
“Your problem is, you miscalculated. I can play perfectly well without internet,” I said, already starting for the steps back inside. “So, suck it!” I yelled out before slamming the door.
I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking, coming here to recover. My brothers were a pair of menaces, and the older I got—the more mature I got—the more I realized what a couple of children they were. It was exhausting, trying to understand them. And trying to keep up with them? Nigh-on impossible.
I was so damn glad I’d bought that ticket.
I heard the door open as I settled back on the couch. I decided, then and there, that if Zack tried to strong-arm me further, there’d be hell to pay. If he turned off the TV again, if he tried to pry my controller away—
POW!!! The blast was even louder this time, a concussive force that made my ears ring.
And, the TV explode. The backlight flickered out, little bits of plastic skittered across the coffee table, and a waft of blue smoke rose from the wreckage.
I jumped to my feet. “Are you insane?” Not waiting for his answer, I vaulted the couch and ripped the shotgun out of his hands. I was so incredibly tempted to shoot him with it, but at the last moment, I flung it across the room instead. Then, seeing that his expression had only gotten smugger, I regretted I hadn’t beaten him with it first.
I’d landed a spinning kick to his ribs almost before I knew I was going to.
Zack caught my foot against his side and yanked, bringing me to the floor.
I grunted as I hit. “You son of a bitch,” I growled, and kicked his feet out from under him.
Zack, the scrappy bastard, hung onto my leg, and it was a helluva struggle getting it back. “She’s your mom, too,” Zack grunted, fending off my flurry of blows.
“Don’t talk about my mom!”
With one great heave, he threw me off. I rolled away, popped up just a second before he did, and jumped on him. My momentum slammed us into a wall. The sheetrock broke, raining white dust down on us.
I was on his back, my arm wrapped around his neck, cutting off his air as he clawed at my arm. “How does it feel?” I hissed into his ear. I clung to his back like a monkey as he stumbled across the room. I wanted to punish him for the TV, the internet, my recent loss, and the fact that Thea was married. I had a feeling watching him turn blue would cheer me up.
It was just starting to work, when he rammed me back into a cabinet corner. I lost my grip with a cry. He threw a punch, but it went wide and glanced off my shoulder. My good shoulder, thank god. I stumbled back.
“Look at you. The great MMA champ can’t even fend off his brother,” he taunted.
With a war cry, I charged back in. We fought for another several minutes, rolling and tussling, slamming each other into the fridge and cabinets, knocking things to the floor. We shattered dishes, crushed a chair—to be more precise, I broke it over him—and we put large holes in the walls in three more places.
We punched entirely through into the bathroom there toward the end, and I had the satisfaction of trying that move where you shove someone’s head into the toilet, then slam the seat on it. Sadly, the seat broke—Zack’s hard head did not.
I was fairly certain I’d broken one of my fingers on that head, and I felt blood trickling down the side of my face. But, miraculously, I was starting to feel better.
We were stumbling around like a couple drunks, tired and beaten. Where had my stamina gone? This was pathetic.
I still really wanted to mess up his smug, stupid face, though, so I aimed a punch at it. I hit him in th
e jaw, only afterward remembering about the finger. “Ah!” I hissed with pain, trying to shake it out.
The blow was weak, and barely made him stagger. But he was swaying with exhaustion, too, and sheened with sweat. “You about done?” he asked.
“I can’t believe you shot the TV,” I panted, cradling my fist.
“We’re trying to help you, you dweeb.”
“What do you mean, help me? How does shooting the TV help me?”
“You’ve been on that couch, wasting away, for over a week. It needs to stop,” Zack said.
“But, you said that wasn’t the reason you…” I trailed off, staring at my brother, realizing what he was saying actually sorta made sense. They’d been trying to help me. Even my crazy, oblivious brothers had recognized that I had a problem, and they were trying to help me. Misguidedly, but hey—it was the only way they knew how.
“So… you gonna come help with the Jeep?” Zack asked.
“Fine,” I growled. It’d take my mind off things, if nothing else. God knows I no longer had a TV to help do that.
Chapter Four
THEA
“I’d like a black tea with honey, please,” said the man at my counter.
“Sure thing.” I dropped a tea bag in a cup, and was filling it with hot water when several more customers walked in. It was a cluster of men, with more coming in behind. They were all talking excitedly. A few words jumped out: ‘Bigfoot’, ‘Sasquatch’, ‘sightings’.
I handed the man his tea.
He cleared his throat. “With honey,” he reminded me.
“Oh, right.” I swiped it off the shelf, took the lid off his drink, and started drizzling in the sweetness.
“More,” he said. “More.” The lights shone off his bald head as he watched the level of his tea rise with a feverish gaze. “That’s good,” he finally said. He edged aside, sliding his overfull tea along with him as he stirred it with a stick.
I gave him change, then looked up at the next man in line. “What can I get for you?”
My next customer was tall, with longish dark hair swept back from a widow’s peak. “Coffee,” he said. “Black.” His voice was deep and would have been pleasant, except his tone was a little patronizing. As I made him his drink, he ignored me in favor of listening to his buddy chatter.
