by T. S. Joyce
There was the pond right at the entrance to their property where Dad taught her to fish, and over there was the old dilapidated badminton court where her mom had taught Leah’s unathletic-ass the easiest sport in the world. There was the lane where Dad had taught her to shoot pistols like a Wild West badass, and over there was the tree swing where she’d spent hours of her childhood, swinging back and forth and figuring out life. She still hadn’t figured it out fully though, obviously, because here she was, single as fuck, letting the house she grew up in go to ruin, in the tiny town of Corvallis, the hometown she’d sworn never to settle down in.
Dad’s old work truck stuttered and blew black smoke out of the exhaust in a horrid display of pollution and car-fart, and when it died right there at the mouth of her weed-riddled circle drive, she gripped the wheel and leaned back against the seat, pursing her lips to keep in the string of F-words she wanted to spew off. Today really wasn’t her favorite.
Leah squeezed her eyes closed and wished she was back in Boston where life had made a little more sense. She’d had a little apartment, a job at the coffee shop down the street, a car that she didn’t have to fix every week, and three friends who, for the most part, accepted all her quirks. She’d found her niche there…but then everything had gone wrong here.
Was she really destined to spend her whole life here, alone, kicking this dead horse of a house just because Mom and Dad had loved this place? Was this where she was meant to be? Sticking out like a sore thumb in a town that didn’t understand her?
“I don’t belong here,” she said as something awful and dark and heavy churned in her chest. Was that…sadness?
God, she needed to get a grip.
No one had forced her to be here. She could’ve sold the house right after the funerals. Maybe she still would. Maybe she would follow through on her original plan and fix it up, sell it, and move on. Start over. Begin anew like a little hermit crab, molting. Leah scrunched up her face. Well, that was a grody thought.
With a little growl, she kicked open the door of Dad’s old red and silver Ford Super Duty and began the long walk up the circle drive to the house. Her parents had had so much pride of ownership, and now look what she was doing to the place? Inside, almost all the furniture was covered in cloth to protect them from dust, she kept most of the lights off, and last winter, she hadn’t even done a Christmas tree in the entryway. It was the first year the house hadn’t seen holiday decorations in forty years. She was failing this place. Failing her family legacy. Failing her parents. Failing herself.
Time to find bright sides: Billy probably only insulted her because he accepted her. She’d almost made a friend at the grocery store the other day. She had paid the cable bill this month so she would definitely get to Netflix marathon tonight, and the lawn was mowed.
Wait…
The lawn was mowed.
Locking her legs, Leah came to a skidding halt on the gravel drive.
The grass was cut! As she took it all in, her mouth plopped open wide enough to almost catch a bug. A big one. It was gross and had wings and pinged against her top lip.
Bright side number five—at least something wanted to make out with her.
“My milkshake brings all the bugs to the yard,” she sang under her breath as she followed the trail of grass clippings to the house. As she got closer, the faint sound of a lawnmower engine drowned out the cry of the cicadas.
She followed the noise around the corner of the house and halted in her tracks as she spied one very hot, very tattooed man on a riding lawnmower, finishing up the back acre.
Ethan.
Without a shirt on.
With a bunch of muscles.
With really badass ink.
He was Want to Sleep in the Crease of his Yummy Abs Hot.
“Whaaaaat the hell is happening, and am I dreaming?” she murmured to herself, stumbling toward him on legs that didn’t quite want to work right anymore. Stupid shoes—they were the problem, not her hormones. Oh hang it. If she was being honest, Leah wanted to lay on the lawn, spread her legs, and hope he made-like-a-bee and pollinated her flower.
Gross.
Be normal.
“Hiiiiii!” she called, waving her hands like his biggest fan.
He frowned over at her and finished the line he was cutting, then turned the wheel and headed for her like some hot knight coming to save her on his golden chariot. If his chariot didn’t have horses and was an old green lawnmower with three gears and a habit of coughing out grass clippings every fifteen feet or so.
She was still waving. Stop it.
Plastering a smile, she clamped her hands in front of herself and walked out to meet him. She didn’t even trip one time. Smooth.
“You mowed my lawn,” she pointed out when he was close enough. “I tried to do it last week but the push-mower kept quitting on me. I think the grass was too high.”
“It was. You need to use this one if it ever gets out of control like this,” he rumbled, coming to a stop in front of her.
“I haven’t used it in years. I thought it was broken.”
“I fixed it.”
“My, my, Ethan Blackwood, you sexy devil you. You really are the handyman,” she said in a southern bell accent.
One corner of his lip quirked up. Victory. She’d amused the unsmiling robot crow shifter crazy man.
“I owed you after breaking your window. The disposal and window are fixed, too.”
“Wait…what?”
He shoved his sunglasses up onto his head and holy shit, he’d gotten a haircut. His hair was long on top but shaved short on the sides, and his tar-black eyes gave him an air of danger. His slight smile made him feel a little safer, though, but that fell from his lips the second his gaze flickered down to the bandages on her neck.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. He pointed to her neck. “For that.”
“Oh this,” she said, patting the bandage. “That’s not even from you. I’m covering a hickey from a very attractive man who I invited to my bed chambers last night. Because I have a very busy sexual schedule. At least that’s what I told my boss this morning when she asked about it. She told me to stop talking and refill the ketchup bottles, but I think deep down she was very interested.”
Ethan chuckled. Chuckled! Like…a real life tiny laugh!
He was definitely falling in love with her.
“I like you, too,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Just being open with my feelings. Your emotions are reciprocated.”
Ethan arched an eyebrow. “Lady, I don’t even know what that word means.”
“Google it,” she whispered in her most seductive voice.
“I’m going to get back to mowing the lawn now. I have a job to get to soon.” He narrowed his eyes and canted his head as he studied her. “How was work?”
She perked right back up. He cared about her day! “It was terrible. I made fourteen dollars in tips because it was so slow today and Billy called me a heifer twice.”
Ethan offered her an empty smile. “Well, Billy will be nicer tomorrow.”
“I highly doubt that because Billy is a negative nelly with a chip on his shoul—”
“Trust me. Billy will be on his best behavior.”
“Okie dokie. Can I ride on the back?”
“What?”
“Of the lawnmower?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pretty pleeeease.”
He put it into gear and pulled a wide turn, then started puttering away from her. “Seriously, no,” he called over his shoulder.
“I’ll show you my tits.”
Ethan slammed on the brake. He sat there for a three-count with his back to her and then offered her a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder. “Both nipples?”
“Sure. This face”—she circled her head with one finger—"I can’t do much about, but I have great nipples.”
“I can’t tell i
f you’re fuckin’ with me.”
With a wicked grin, Leah unfastened the last button of her dress that was holding on for dear life, and then pulled the collar down far enough to show her beige, lacy bra. Ethan was staring, and since he was so good at paying attention, she rewarded him by popping her tits out of her bra.
He might have muttered, “Holy fuckin’ fuck,” but she couldn’t be sure.
“Also, just so you know, I’ve never showed a boy my boobs like this, just randomly, so you should feel real special. Didn’t want you thinking I was a floozy or anything.”
Ethan was still staring. “Bounce up and down.”
Hehehehe. Ethan was good at playing. She curved up her lips in a naughty smile and did as he asked. More staring, and now his jaw was to his knees.
But then he yanked his gaze from her and drove away. She sat there totally stunned at the game having ended so abruptly. Okaaaay. Carefully, she re-dressed and watched him drive away on his slow green chariot, wondering what the hell had just gone wrong. Up until he turned the wheel hard and made a slow, wide arch back toward her. He stopped right beside her, inches from her toes, and offered her a hand.
“Yaaay!” she squealed.
“Don’t know why you didn’t ask to ride my Harley. This thing maxes out at four miles an hour. It’s like sittin’ on a fuckin’ sea turtle.”
She hoisted a leg over the back of the seat and wrapped her arms around his middle, preparing for that stomach-clenching four miles per hour. “This is so sexy and fun!”
“Sexy?”
She patted his billion-pack of abs. “You smell like cologne. And is that beard oil I smell too? Flavor—hot lumberjack? And did you get a haircut?” She rubbed his pecks. “And did you manscape?”
“Are you going to talk the entire time?”
“Yes.”
He heaved a sigh as he hit the line of grass he was working on before. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I went to the barbershop in town and got a trim. Figured it was time.”
“I think you look super-hot and not like you’re a crazy person at all anymore. If you ignore your eyes. Which I actually like.”
“You like demon eyes?”
“Apparently.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“What isn’t wrong with me? You want to do pizza tonight and watch a movie? I mean, I can’t afford fancy delivery pizza, but I have a frozen one I got from the grocery store on sale for $1.69 and it’s got stuffed crust.”
“I’ve got a job in town.”
“Oh.” For a moment, she watched the bugs flying up in the tall grass right before the nose of the lawnmower hit them. She rested her cheek on his back. “That’s okay, I figured you would say no, but my motto is that if you don’t ask, you’ll never know if the answer could’ve been yes.”
He mowed for a few minutes before he angled his face so she could see his profile over his shoulder. “I should be done with it by eight.”
“Yes to a frozen pizza date?” she exclaimed.
He hunched his shoulders as if the volume of her voice had hurt his ears. “It’s not a date, lady. You don’t want to date someone like me.”
“Well, everyone else in town is boring—”
“So am I?”
“Mmmmm, except I saw you fight the Alpha of Red Dead Mayhem on television, and I’m pretty sure you’ve never had a boring day in your life.”
His body went rigid under her hands. “I was just gonna fix your house a little, repay you for my mess last night, and be on my way.”
“But pizza. No one can resist pizza, and I don’t care if you have a crow in you or not. Pizza is life.”
Ethan snorted and then went quiet for a bit again. “I wish you wouldn’t have seen that fight.”
“The one on the news?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t exactly a shining moment for me.”
“Why not? You were a badass. That was the craziest fight I’ve ever seen. You and that Alpha were just blasting each other with fists like some professional boxing match. And that was just for funsies. You weren’t even getting paid like pro boxers! You probably would’ve won if that moose didn’t come in there and trample everyone. Punch, punch, punchy punch. You freaked the whole world out with how fast you are in a fight.”
“I’m a mess,” he admitted so softly she almost didn’t hear him over the noise of the lawnmower engine.
She smiled sadly, rested her cheek against his back again, and considered the old house as they passed by it. It was falling apart, just like she was. “Well then…we match.”
Chapter Five
Ethan smiled to himself when he remembered the billion questions Leah had when he’d fixed her truck. That truck was badass. He had an appreciation for old things and the people patient enough to keep them running. She’d said it was her father’s old work truck, but her dad had good taste. He’d put big tires and a lift kit on the truck. There were rust and scratches all down the sides like he’d had some fun off-road. Ethan wouldn’t admit it out loud, but watching her drive that beast was a huge turn-on. Sexy, curvy girl with her foot on the gas of a loud, big-ass truck? She was a mighty big temptation.
At his new job, he tested the garage door opener a few times and called it good. An older customer named Lenny had hung out in the garage for a few minutes when Ethan had begun to install it, but got bored and left, muttering something about how he couldn’t see a damn thing anyhow. His coke-bottle glasses had apparently not helped him much, but just as well. Ethan didn’t have to hide his black eyes from a human with dull senses and blurry vision.
It was hot as Hell in here. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he lugged the ancient broken garage door opener to the garbage bin.
His phone dinged, and for a split second, his heart jumped, thinking it was a text from Leah. But it wasn’t the right noise. That was the notification he’d been paid for the job. Which was good. Money was better than a text from someone he couldn’t keep. He needed to stop being weak, thinking about that girl.
But…
She was fuckin’ cute.
Not like any of the girls he’d hooked up with in the past. She was way different than a Crow Chaser. She didn’t wear Harley logos, shit-kicker leather boots, or sky-high heels. No dark lipstick, no tattoos he’d seen and, hell yeah, he’d been looking. After their lawnmower joyride around the yard, she’d changed into some dark-wash jean shorts that were rolled up short at the cuffs, sneakers, and a plain white V-neck T-shirt that gave him a great view of that incredible cleavage. God, her tits had been perfect. Big and heavy, perfect pink nipples that made him want to rub his beard all over and make them stand up like little nubs. Fuck, he wanted to suck on them until she was moaning his name. She was this steady, happy, wholesome small-town girl, and the devil in him wanted to corrupt her slowly. And now he was smiling even bigger with his wicked imaginings.
Lost in thought, he turned around and came face to face with Lucian.
The ghost looked the same as the day Rike had killed him, the day Lucian had hurt Ethan too much, pulling that murderous Blackwood blood right out of Rike. He had dark silver hair that hung down to his jawline, gray whiskers, black eyes, an empty smile. Ethan didn’t look anything like Mom. He was the spitting image of Lucian. And looking at him now face-to-face was like all the times he’d hated looking at his reflection in the mirror. This was what Ethan would look like if he made it to old age, which he wouldn’t.
Lucian’s face scrunched up with hate, and behind him, the edges of the garage melted away, revealing a forest. Ethan staggered back a step, the present faded away, and the dark forest of his memories appeared. Lucian’s laughter echoed through his mind as Ethan stood among the carnage of the Wulfe Clan. No one was moving. No one was breathing. The grass was wet and red in the moonlight. Ethan wanted to retch at the smell of death and fear.
“Mom, it’s okay.”
At those words, Ethan turned and saw himself as a boy, dragging his mangled body toward Mom, who was lying i
n the yard. She wasn’t moving, and ten yards away, Rike wasn’t moving either. He was just…staring. A tear slipped out of the corner of Rike’s eye as he struggled to breathe.
“Mom? Mom, everything is gonna be okay.”
Ethan remembered the feeling like it was yesterday. The fear that he would reach Mom and find her dead. He knew the outcome, knew she was alive, but that feeling of terror washed through him again.
Up on the porch, Rike’s mate, Bailey, was crying loudly in her mother’s arms. She’d just watched her Clan murdered by Lucian. Watched it. Witnessed it. “It’s all my fault,” she murmured against her mom’s chest. Joanna wasn’t crying, though. Tough woman. She had her chin lifted high and a long knife clutched in her hands. She was staring at Ethan with such hatred.
Why him? He hadn’t done this.
His hands felt weird. Wet. Sticky. Dripping. Ethan looked down at them. They were covered in blood, and his clothes weren’t his. They belonged to Lucian.
Lucian’s laughter echoed on and on, rattling around in his head, making his head hurt.
His throat hurt. It hurt bad. It burned. Ethan reached up and wrapped his hand around it like that would help, but he could feel it. He could feel the laughter.
It was coming from him.
Lucian appeared right in front of him with an evil smile. “You’re me now, boy.”
Ethan closed his eyes, hunched forward, and gripped his hair. He yelled, “No!” as loud as he could, just to stop the laughter.
An awful, chilly wind blasted through his body, and he rocked back on his heels. And when he opened his eyes again, he was back in the garage and Lenny was standing in the open doorway staring at him as though he’d lost his mind.
And he had.
You’re me now, boy.
Chapter Six
