by Reina Torres
Last night… Leon Mercier.
She let out a big sigh. He wouldn’t have let her leave without someone else. So, she knew she didn’t have to worry about it. It had probably been Nora, which is why she was out of her clothes.
Given the chill of the glass, Nora had probably stayed the night and slept on the couch. Blyss wanted to see if she could catch Nora before she left and thank her for bringing her home. It was stupid to drink as much as she did the night before, but it seemed like the stress of the last week had come down harder on her than she’d thought.
Still, that was no excuse for getting so drunk she didn’t remember coming home.
Grabbing a pair of shorts and a loose t-shirt that she would use around the apartment, she pulled them on and stepped out into the main room of her tiny place.
Holy cow.
Owen was at her stove, which was a generous title considering it was one step above a camp stove, just like the tank top he was wearing looked like it was some couture garment that had been tailored to fit his ridiculously gorgeous physique.
Heaven help her.
She reached up a hand and wiped the back of it over her cheek and the corner of her mouth, sure that drool was still glistening on her skin.
Why?
Why was he standing in her apartment?
And why was she wearing a ratty old t-shirt and over-priced boxer shorts.
“Oh my God…”
He turned to look at her. “Morning, Blyss.”
“What… what are you doing here?”
Owen looked down at the stove top for a moment before looking back at her. “Making breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” She blinked at him, sure that he was some kind of daydream, or mirage, and he’d dissolve away in a moment or two. “Where did you find food?”
His shoulders shook with laughter, and heavens… they looked good enough to lick.
“I found the oatmeal in the cupboard and ran out to the store for a few things to add to it.”
Wow. Running. “Like actual running?”
His smile warmed her all over. “I took your car to the store just down the street. The ladies who were working there were really helpful.”
“I bet.” The words and the tight tone that came out of her mouth were almost as embarrassing as she felt standing there in her house clothes. “I mean. They usually just ignore me until I check out.”
He shrugged. “You should take a shower. By the time you’re done. I’ll have breakfast on the table.” As she stood there, he opened a package that had been laid out on the counter.
“Is that… is that bacon?”
He stopped with the pull tab in one hand and the package in the other. “You don’t like bacon?”
“No, oh wow, no. I looooove bacon. Crispy. I love crispy bacon.”
“Then you, Blyss, shall have crispy bacon.”
That was the only nudge she needed to get her moving. Her clothes practically fell off her body as she climbed into the shower and the cold spray of the water when she turned it on didn’t dampen her mood at all. It helped to clear her head. Which is what she needed to remember to wash her hair and use her long scrubby towel to scrub her body with the coconut liquid soap that was her favorite. The towel wasn’t what everyone liked. One of her old roommates had used it once and complained about the feeling it had on her skin. But it made her body feel clean and awake and if Owen was actually in her kitchen, she wanted to be awake for every single second.
It couldn’t have taken her more than five minutes to wash, comb her hair, and leave it drying around her shoulders. Then, she pulled on a dark blouse and some shorts that looked more like clothes than her boxers.
When she paused in the doorway between the two rooms, her heart did a little flip. Owen was still there and there was a mountain of crisp bacon on a plate between two bowls. Curling steam rose from both bowls and the smell of coffee reached her nose.
“That smells incredible.”
He turned with the coffee pot in his hand and gave her a smile. “You look incredible.”
Even though she was sure her face was clean, she couldn’t help the way her hand lifted and touched the corner of her mouth where she’d drooled from earlier. Yes, she was that much of a woman that she worried about things like that.
Well, not really, but apparently around Owen, she worried about those things. About him. And how he saw her.
“Were you the one who brought me home last night?” The possibility made her stomach twist a little inside of her. Had he dealt with her when she’d probably been too drunk to act like a lady?
He gestured at the table. “Have a seat. And yes, I brought you home.”
No matter how good the bacon smelled, she was afraid to get close enough and see disappointment in his eyes.
“How bad was I?”
Owen chuckled and waved off the question. “You were fine. I just couldn’t let you drive.”
“I tried to?”
The thought was horrifying!
“You weren’t in any danger of climbing behind the wheel. We weren’t going to let anything happen to you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and railed at herself internally. Blyss knew in that moment that she really had to get herself together. If she was allowing herself to act out like that, she really didn’t have a handle on what was going on in her head and likely her heart.
“Hey,” she looked up and saw him pointing at a chair, “come and eat.”
Rolling her eyes at his demanding tone she started across the room and was about to sit down when he held the chair back and waited for her.
Wow.
She really hadn’t been ready for that.
Taking in a calming breath, she side-stepped and sat when she felt the chair gently touch the back of her legs. “Thanks.”
Blyss looked into her bowl of oatmeal and then caught Owen’s eye as he sat down beside her at the tiny table. “So, how much of an ass did I make of myself last night?”
He gave her a careful look before he answered. “Why are you asking me that?”
Looking down into the bowl. She picked up her spoon and nudged the contents around. “Those are slow cook oats, which is why I haven’t really used them much. I do the two-minute packets. And you put in blueberries, nuts, and honey. This is a lot of work.”
He chuckled silently and shrugged off her question. “It’s good for you. It’ll help with whatever you’re suffering from after last night. I didn’t think you drank all that much.”
She paused with her spoon a scant inch from her mouth. “I don’t.”
She saw the uptick of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“That explains it.”
She took a bite because she needed to gather her thoughts. It was only when she set the spoon down that she saw the swelling on her knuckles. “What did I do?”
Without thinking, she held her hand out to him and he took it. Blyss tried to ignore how good it felt to have him hold her hand and rub the pad of his thumb along the side of her finger. “When we’re done eating, I’ll put something on your knuckles for the bruises.”
“Owen-”
“You punched a guy who put his hands on you.”
“What?”
He let her hand go gently and she brought it back into her lap.
“One of the guys at the party put his hand on your ass and you slugged him. Even drunk you have great aim and a hell of a right hook.”
“You taught me that in high school.”
He smiled and her heart slammed against her ribs. “I did, didn’t I?” He looked pretty damn proud of himself. “And I bet he’s got a big fat black eye this morning, so you should be proud of yourself.”
She picked up her spoon and asked another question before she tucked the spoonful into her mouth. “Did I do anything else crazy last night?”
“Crazy?”
His voice sounded a little odd, tighter than his normal Cajun purr.
“Yeah, I punched a guy
which isn’t like me, so I’m wondering what else I did. For all I know I tried to make out with someone.”
Owen coughed, or something like it, and he had to pound on his chest. Getting up from her seat she moved to his side to pound on his back with the flat of her palm.
“You okay?”
It took him a few moments to clear his throat and when he did, he waved her back into her seat.
“Maybe,” he cleared his throat, “maybe we could just not talk about last night until we’re done eating.”
That set her back a bit and she picked up her spoon to do just that, but it didn’t stop her mind from wondering exactly what she’d done that made Owen so uncomfortable.
The man didn’t seem to have a bit of shame. In high school he’d whip off his t-shirt for no reason and yes, the girls all swooned over him. When they’d gone to the lake in the summer, and he’d stripped down to a pair of swim trunks, there was at least one woman who ran her jet ski into the dock because she was staring. And Owen? He hadn’t noticed the crazy going on around him.
Or maybe he had.
The man was as beautiful as he was shameless. So, what had she done to make him so nervous?
How bad had she been?
“What happened, Blyss?”
She swallowed the bit of oatmeal in her mouth and picked up a piece of the bacon. “When?” It was perfectly crisp, but she barely tasted it as she waited for his answer.
“Before the party. There was something bothering you, and I think that’s why you drank as much as you did.” He leaned forward on the table and took a sip of his coffee. “I hardly saw you all night, but it seemed like you did your best to avoid me as much as I was trying to see you.”
Wow, what could she say to that? You saw right through me? Boy, am I bad at hiding things?
“It’s just something at work.” There, that should be good enough, right?
“Something about that guy?”
“That… that guy?” It took her a moment. “Lance? No. He’s not involved in this. Look,” she tried to get through to him because as much as she wanted to tell him what was going on inside, she just couldn’t, “there’s something going on and I can’t tell you about it. It’s something we’re helping the sheriff and the Texas Rangers with, but that’s all that I can say.”
He set his coffee mug down. “Are you safe?”
Her cheeks warmed up. It felt good that he cared. “Yeah, of course.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Even she didn’t believe herself, but he let it go.
“You know,” or maybe she didn’t, “I work with the Game Wardens all the time. I’m practically one of you.”
Now she gave him a raised eyebrow that was a shock to him.
“What?” He shrugged and took a big bite of crispy bacon. “It’s true. I’m the one who wades into water and wrestles gators for you.”
“For me?” She laughed and almost choked on something. “You do that for me?”
He shrugged. “Of course, for you. You don’t think I moved to San Antonio to catch gators and snakes for just anyone.”
“Right,” she rolled her eyes again. Owen Mercier did what Owen Mercier wanted. Maybe he’d worked himself through the pretty women in Houston and San Antonio seemed like a better hunting ground. But for her? Sure.
She should be trying to make him admit the truth, but really, his joking only helped to distract her from what she couldn’t tell him.
And that helped. She needed to get this off her back and deal with it, but she couldn’t tell Owen that she was worried about working on the joint taskforce for these drug traffickers. She was having trouble admitting it to herself. So much for taking this job to show that she was strong and independent. Had she been so stressed out the night before that she’d had too much to drink?
“Done?”
She startled at the sound of his voice and looked down at the hand he had on her bowl. It was empty. Had she just eaten the whole bowl and didn’t remember it? She must have been struggling with her thoughts again.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Owen washed the dishes while she sat at the table munching on the left-over bacon. He’d left her alone and her mind paused to think about the night before.
The ache in her knuckles said that he was right. That she’d actually punched a man. That meant that she’d gone more than a little overboard with the alcohol. She probably should have stayed home rather than go out, but even as she thought the words, she realized that it was wrong. If she’d stayed at home her thoughts and worries would have gotten the best of her, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Hey,” Owen sat down on the corner of the table, “I’ve got to get going.”
When she started to stand, he put his hands on her shoulders and held her there in the chair.
“You stay here. I don’t need you to show me out, Mon rêve.”
“But,” she lifted a hand and wound it around his arm, “you drove me home, right?”
He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I called my papa. He’s going to be downstairs in a few minutes. I have to go and feed the animals before they feed on us.”
The ache she felt in her chest hurt like she’d been punched. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“I know,” his half-smile made her cheeks hot and the light in the room made his eyes look like hematite, dark and shining. “I know you trust me, Blyss. And one day we’re going to revisit last night and it will end the way we both wanted it too.”
Owen touched his lips to hers and she could only sit there, as still as a statue, as her body struggled to remember that the world under her feet was still and flat.
Before she came out of her stupor, Owen was gone and the door closed behind him.
Owen had managed to avoid most of his father’s pointed questions. Sure, Leon had given him a strange look when he’d walked out of her apartment building with his button-down shirt in his hands.
Leon didn’t even ask anything too personal, but Owen could only answer him in short, barely there answers. By the time they got back home, Leon let him out of the truck at the gate to the refuge with a knowing look. “You can ignore my questions all you like, son. Just remember you can’t ignore your heart, ma vie.”
He waved as his father drove back to his own house on the grounds, and made his way to the shed where he kept the feed for the alligators they kept on their land. With the few gators that seemed to find their way into residential and business communities, they would normally just pick them up and take them to locations in the wild where they could release them into their own environment.
The more that humans encroached on what was wild, the more that animals and humans would come into conflict. A few of the calls had been a little rough for them, where the first reaction to his methods had been laughter and calls to “Shoot the damn thing!”
Even though his gut reaction was to tell the people to let him do his job, he’d learned from Blyss about how Game Wardens used those opportunities to educate people. So that’s what he’d done. Explained that this land was where these creatures had lived and bred for hundreds of years, if not longer.
Some people understood.
And some just wanted the animal dead.
Some people saw the need to protect animals and the wild, some just wanted them out of the way so they could get their hands on the resources. Most of the folks Owen knew fell into the former category, but the more he worked with the public the more he felt like the scales were tipping to the latter.
That was depressing.
Working with the Game Wardens had its benefits.
He worked quickly. Feeding the animals was something he could do in his sleep and probably would if it didn’t mean he might get something bitten off. Everyone eagerly came for their meals.
These animals had been the ones he couldn’t release out into the
wild, the ones that needed special care, or had been exposed to people too long and would constantly seek them out hoping for a meal.
The animals were too dangerous, and yet they’d become that way because people thought it was fun to ‘feed’ a gator close to where they lived and played.
Never thinking that they were endangering their own loved ones, or themselves. Keeping those gators here ensured that they wouldn’t be killed because they were just doing what came naturally to them. Eating easy prey.
Because that prey would be human.
The final enclosure was the furthest toward the end of the property, and it was surrounded by the fence line he’d had to fix more and more over the last few months. Someone or someones kept sneaking in. It kind of made sense.
Their most famous alligator was kept in this final enclosure. It was the biggest one that they’d made because he was the biggest alligator they’d ever taken in. He’d come all the way from Louisiana with them after the hurricane forced them to relocate to Houston. It had killed him not to stay with the animals, but National Guard had forcibly cleared them from the area.
When he and his father finally got a chance to go back, the only gator that was still on the property was old Boo.
He didn’t open the gate to the area. Boo had a habit of rushing at Owen like a puppy, and didn’t know his own strength.
At twelve feet long and weighing in at almost nine hundred pounds, Boo could easily knock him over and if that happened… Well, there wasn’t a force in the world that could stop his old friend from ripping him to pieces.
So, Owen fed his big boy by tossing fresh chunks of meat to him over the fence.
A quick whistle was all he needed to get his friend’s attention. Bubbles broke the surface of the water and a moment later Boo’s eyes were visible.
Owen lifted the large piece of meat in his hand and waved it back and forth.
The dark, hulking body in the water began to move, surging forward through the plants and other things floating on the surface.
Just as the alligator rushed past the twenty-foot line, Owen tossed the meat into the air. The behemoth lifted out of the water like something you’d find at SeaWorld and snapped his jaws closed around the slab of meat.
