How It's Supposed to Be

by T. S. Joyce

  Aux showed her how to hold Willamena and she only got pecked twice more. Chicken kisses didn’t hurt if she had a jacket on. There were six eggs in a nesting box on the wall, and she got to collect them! Aux was good about only rolling his eyes two times when she was jumping up and down celebrating with an egg in each hand. And he did good at not insulting her when she told each of the chickens how good they were at laying eggs. They cleaned out the waterer and after she spread fresh hay across the coop, he let her give them a handful of grain. She was completely normal and squatted down to spread the grain in a circle around her so she could pretend she was the queen of the chickens.

  Next were the pig pens. Some had two pigs in them, and some had mommas with little babies. Some were white, and some were black, and some were white and black spotted.

  “Do you breed them?” she asked.

  He nodded. “The piglets go for $200 apiece. This breed is too small to be good for meat, but there are a lot of farms in these parts and people go nuts for the pet pigs. It’s a good supplemental income. I get a salary for clearing the roads, but it’s nice to get some extra cash when the babies are ready at eight weeks.”

  “They’re so so so cute,” she murmured, leaning over a stall gate where one of the mommas had a ton of babies running around playing. They were all polka dotted! “I like that little one!” she said, pointing to one in the corner by itself.

  “That one’s a runt. I’m not sure if he’ll make it yet. He gets bullied at feeding time. He’ll probably be dead by morning.”

  “What?” she asked, horrified. “No, he’s amazing. He can’t die.”

  “It’s survival of the fittest, Gwen. I let nature take its course on this stuff. I don’t raise weak pigs.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of mercy?” she asked. “You could save him. Just because he’s weak as a baby doesn’t mean he’ll always be that way. Can I hold him?”

  Aux frowned thoughtfully at the little critter, then shrugged up a shoulder. “If you want. Five minutes and then we get back to cleaning the pens.”

  “Five minutes and I’ll be the best pig pen cleaner in the world. I swear.”

  Aux grinned. “Go on and catch him then.”

  “Me?”

  Aux opened the gate just wide enough for her to get in, then lifted his phone when she was inside. “Your five minutes starts now.” He poked a stopwatch function on his phone screen and oh crap, her snuggle time was counting down.

  “Okay, catch a pig. It’s no big deal. The one I want is lethargic, and slow, and—Aaaah!” she screamed as the mom jumped up and joined her piglets’ chaos. She was at least eighty pounds of lightning speed. “Is she going to eat me?” Gwen screeched.

  Aux was laughing.

  Stupid boy.

  She ducked out of the momma pig’s way and aimed for the piglet in the back corner who was trotting along the back wall now. “Come here, Samson!”

  “Samson?” Aux asked.

  “That’s my pet pig’s new name!” she called, keeping her focus on the little runner. For a half-dead thing, the little fucker was fast.

  She lunged, missed him, and got knocked in the leg by the momma. It felt as if she’d been hit with a bowling ball. She went down hard to the soundtrack of Aux’s laughter. Grrrrr.

  She scrambled up, rolled up the sleeves on his oversize jacket, and trapped the little pig in the corner. She scooped him up and high-kneed it out of the pen, avoiding all the other babies and the spastic mother.

  “Awwwwww,” she crooned as she brought the baby piggy into the warmth of her jacket. He struggled and squealed an ear-piercing noise, but that was okay. “I would be scared too, but look, I’m Gwen and I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, maybe a fly. Or lots of flies. They’re gross. But you aren’t a fly! You’re much cuter than a fly. Look at your wittle nose!”

  He settled down after a minute and Aux disappeared into the front of the barn. She made a shushing noise and rocked back and forth as Samson laid there frozen in her arms. He couldn’t weigh more than a couple pounds. How could anything be this cute?

  Aux returned with a little bottle and had her sit on a rocking chair he dragged up. Then he showed her how to bottle feed the little guy, who was truly hungry.

  Aux didn’t say anything while she was feeding the baby, just watched her with those unsettling silver eyes. She was getting more used to the color now.

  “Is my time up?” she asked, feeling like it was getting close.

  “You can have a few more minutes with him. I’ll show you how to make the bottles if you want to feed him later.”

  “You do know what mercy means,” she crooned to Aux as she stared down at the little pig. “Why else would you have bottles? You care more than you let on.”

  “Mmm,” he rumbled.

  “Can I have him?” she asked brightly.

  “You already have a chicken. The pigs are to sell, they aren’t pets. If you keep him alive, you can have the money I make on him. How ‘bout that?”

  It wasn’t nearly as good as keeping him, but she had a secret plan to pester and bother Aux until he sighed, gave in, and said Samson was hers until she left. She could be very annoying when she wanted to be.

  They spent the next two hours cleaning pig pens. It was gross, but kept her mind busy as she got more comfortable being around the animals.

  She thought they were done for the day after that, but nope! Aux took her out in the freezing cold and gave her an hour-long lesson in the art of chainsawing. She didn’t know if that was even a word.

  Gwen adjusted her safety glasses and finished another cut on one of the burn pile branches, then laughed like a psychopath as she lifted the chainsaw into the air in triumph.

  “All right, ya nut,” he said. “Cut that pallet up safely, and we can move on.”

  “Move on to what?” she asked excitedly.

  “You’ll see.”

  Exhilaration bubbled up in her chest and she handed him the chainsaw just like he’d taught her, by the handle with the blade facing away from both of them. Then she dragged the pallet out of the pile.

  When the blade got stuck, she had a moment of panic and tried to yank it back, but Aux was there in an instant. He had been ten feet away watching her, and then in a blur he was right there, his gloved hand over hers. She released the lever in a rush and stood there frozen, her face inches from Aux’s.

  His eyes were intense, swirling with that strange silver color as he studied her face.

  His shoulders heaved with his breath, and inside her chest, Gwen’s heart was beating a hundred miles a minute. She looked at his lips. What would it feel like to kiss such a gruff man?

  Snowflakes were hitting their faces, and for a moment the whole world stood still.

  Gwen leaned in slightly, and her movement broke the spell. Aux leaned back and turned the side of his face to her. “Let go of the chainsaw. I’ll get it out.”

  Feeling the sting of rejection, she did as he asked and gave him space. She backpedaled a few yards and then wrung her hands. She was wearing a pair of his huge gloves and one of them fell off into the snow with her motion. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized. To the glove? Good grief, she was a mess around this man.

  Aux made quick, professional work of the pallet, then left abruptly with his chainsaw in hand. He disappeared into the snow in the direction of the barn.

  She’d messed up with a closed-off man by trying to kiss him. Dumb. They were having a good day. He had been open with not being interested in her and now she’d made him leave.

  She made everyone leave.

  Aux reappeared through the haze of the snow storm and handed her something. He’d taken off his glove, and in the palm of his bare hand were two pain killers. “For your face. If it’s hurting,” he said in his gravelly voice.

  He held a bottled water in his other hand, the lid already removed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he said, his eyes
on the snow.

  When her fingertips brushed his skin as she took the pain killers from his palm, he jerked his eyes to hers. As she took her medicine, he stepped back and rubbed his palm over and over where she’d touched him. She’d mostly seen curiosity, anger, and annoyance in his eyes, but in this moment, she saw something different.

  She saw uncertainty.

  Chapter Four

  She didn’t know.

  Aux jogged down the snow-covered porch stairs with the blankets in his hand.

  Gwen didn’t know.

  She didn’t know how huge that touch of her skin against his had been. She couldn’t. She was human. Touch didn’t mean as much to humans. But for a shifter like him?

  Touch changed a monster’s life.

  He wasn’t supposed to do this. He wasn’t supposed to talk to her, or get to know her, or teach her, or touch her. He wasn’t supposed to let her get to know him. He wasn’t supposed to allow her to like him, but when she laughed, or complimented him, it felt so good to his dead insides. Like a high he’d never known existed.

  He wasn’t supposed to do this on pain of death, but that small touch of her fingertip made it seem worth it.

  His skin still tingled where she’d touched him.

  Never in his life had he allowed a human to do that. Shifters only, and that had just been to keep the bear steady. Or as steady as he could. Shifter females couldn’t procreate. They were safe. He had a job to do. He and his brothers—the last three of their kind.

  Their job was to die off and end the bear shifter line.

  Human females could bear shifter sons. They could be Turned.

  They would extend the line.

  Humans were untouchable.

  Those were the rules.

  “I’ve seen these before!” Gwen exclaimed from where she stood in the bed of the side-by-side.

  She had her legs splayed and was holding onto the roof of it, like he was going to let her ride there. Humans died too easy. She needed to be buckled in and keep all her arms in legs inside the vehicle and he was going to go like three fuckin’ miles an hour.

  The pretty creature still had the price tag hanging off her new snow boots. He’d wanted to yank it off a few times today, but he’d resisted. It was actually pretty cute and now he had turned it into a game. How long would it take Gwen to check herself in a reflection somewhere and notice the tag? So far, she’d kept her mind on the present. Even her phone had stayed in her back pocket all day. She hadn’t pulled it out once, not even to check the time.

  He wasn’t trying to put tests on her, but if he were, she would’ve passed a few big ones already.

  Hard worker. Check. She hadn’t complained once today, and he hadn’t gone easy on her.

  Zest for life that was so damn contagious. Check. She was currently bouncing and testing the shocks of his side-by-side as he wiped snow off the seats.

  Resilience. Check. Her story of her choosing herself earlier had touched his cold heart.

  Vanity? She passed that one too. Oh, the woman was a fuckin’ stunner. A sight to see. Curves in all the right places, tall, with long brunette hair she’d piled up in this adorable messy bun. Those pretty green eyes that could stop a man’s heart. A monster’s, too. The bruising and bandages on her face were easy to look past for a man like him. He was always healing something. She hadn’t fussed over the bruises or talked about them, though.

  Toughness? She had to be hurting, but she didn’t act like it.

  And her heart was clearly kind. The way she’d looked at her pig while she’d fed it had done something strange to his innards. He hadn’t been able to look away from her. The graceful arch of her neck as she’d looked down at the critter. The flyaway strands of hair that had come undone from her hair band and framed her face. The curve of her lips as she smiled.

  That shit was good for a man’s soul.

  Danger, danger, danger.

  The woman was carving out a hole. When she left, she would leave the damage too, and he would be left to feel that void. To ignore it while it ate him alive. To try and fill the hole with work and distractions, and fail, because when the sun set each night, he would feel the emptiness again.

  That’s how it worked for shifters who got too interested in a woman.

  He’d fucked up so bad by bringing her here.

  “Get on in before I change my mind,” he told her.

  “We are going on a snow ride!” she yelled. Her volume often hurt his ears, but explaining that she needed to use her inside voice would only make the excitable woman louder.

  She hopped over the bed of the side-by-side, and on reflex he turned and caught her before she broke an ankle or a leg or exploded her liver or whatever else could happen to these fragile creatures. He settled her on her feet and she went scrambling into the driver’s side. Sitting behind the wheel, she asked, “Can I drive?”

  Good God, it was going to be a full-time job keeping her alive. “You just got into a car wreck yesterday.”

  “But not a side-by-side wreck. I’ve never wrecked one of these.”

  “Because you’ve never driven one of them.”

  She pouted her bottom lip out and made her gorgeous eyes really big like a puppy dog’s. He tried to remain stern, but lost the battle in three seconds flat. “Fine. You can drive in low gear. It tops out at about fifteen miles an hour in low, and is even slower in the deep snow.”

  “That sounds boring, but okay! If that is the rule, I will mind the rule. Probably.”

  He swallowed his chuckle because the headstrong woman didn’t need any encouragement. He made his way around the side-by-side and sat in the passenger’s seat.

  Gwen was already buckled and poking every button on his rig.

  He gave her a quick lesson. After she’d turned it on and put it into gear, he shoved one of the blankets over her lap so she didn’t keel over from hypothermia or something, and off they went.

  He guided her through the trees because he had this trail memorized, buried in snow or not. For the next hour, she got to see his property and the territory line of the bear, but she didn’t know that last part. Nor would she ever meet the bear.

  She blabbed on about her life and he clung to every word like sap on a pine tree. He would remember every story she told him about her life until the day he died. Which would probably be very soon because above them, the crows were still circling.

  He wasn’t the only one who knew about their warnings.

  Every shifter around these parts knew about their warnings.

  His options were to keep Gwen locked away inside and hope the crows went away—which they wouldn’t—or enjoy the day with her and ignore the assholes flying above them.

  Either way, hell was coming for him.

  Chapter Five

  Today had been the best day ever. Sure, her hands were blistered from raking hay out of the pens earlier, and her arms and legs would be sore for a week, and her face felt like someone had spiked a volleyball into it, but she’d spent the last two hours riding all over the mountains in a real-life side-by-side with Aux.

  And now, he’d said yes to lighting the burn pile tonight!

  The sun was setting as she dragged a pair of rocking chairs all the way from the barn to sit beside the bonfire he was building. Currently, he was pouring lighter fluid onto it, and she was cracking a pair of beers open. In ten minutes, they’d gotten the chairs set up and the beers stuck in the snow to keep them frosty. Music was playing on a Bluetooth speaker and a cooler was filled with snacks, not including Cheez-Its because she’d checked and he really didn’t have any. Mostly he had different flavors of beef jerky and smoked salmon, but whatever. He was a bachelor and could enjoy whatever diet of straight meat he wanted to. At least he had Coors in stock, and that was her third favorite beer.

  “Ready?” Aux asked, tossing the empty lighter fluid can to the side.

  Gwen grinned at him, holding both of their beers from where she sat well away from the fire in her
rocking chair. “Ready!”

  Aux struck a match, tossed it onto the pile, and lit up the evening sky.

  He stood there, striking such a handsome profile, staring into the flames with this faraway look on his face. At least he’d stopped wearing the mask. His beard was down to his chest. Now, she’d never been a fan of beards before, but he sure did wear it well. He was out here in the freezing weather and snow in a long-sleeved gray shirt with three buttons undone at the neck. The shirt hugged his physique, allowing her to see his abs and the curve of his strong shoulders. His neck was thick and his legs powerful. He was the most masculine creature she’d ever laid eyes on.

  “I can feel you watching me, stalker,” he said in that gritty voice.

  “You’re different than most people, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe I’m not a person at all.” He slid a silver-eyed look to her and her heart thumped oddly in her chest. In the firelight his features looked sharp, and his eyes otherworldly. He looked more animal than man.

  Something really was different about him.

  Aux strode for her and sank deep into the rocking chair she’d dragged out here for him. He stretched one knee out and took the beer she offered him, checking the sky as he took a long swig.

  Gwen followed his line of sight, but the sun had almost set and it was still snowing. All she could see was a glimpse of some birds flying above them. “Are they vultures?” she asked.

  “People in town call them crows.”

  “Oh. I know what those are.”

  “Not these. No one understands what these are. They’ve been circling this place since yesterday, and for what? Don’t they get hungry? Don’t they get tired? They’re little shit-starters is what they are. Do you know how I found you yesterday?”

  “How?”

  He pointed up. “The crows told me where you were. They’re circling you for some reason. They think you’re important.”