His fingers drummed against the tabletop. She climbed out of her chair and onto his thigh, circling the arm attached to the drumming fingers around her. His body was hard and warm. It was like a haven.
“This was a little over five years ago,” he said. “My two brothers and parents were still living in Australia. My team and I had received a mission in Sudan but were holed up in Yemen for a short time. Something in my gut didn’t feel right, so I called my family using our only sat phone.”
Tayler gasped. He’d said he’d lost everyone.
“The man…he killed your family?” she asked.
“An eye for an eye…it was the last thing I heard before the shots rang out.”
“And did you get revenge?”
He glanced down at her. “I found him. Covered his home in blood.”
“But it didn’t help the pain.”
“No.”
“And that pain, over the years, has been increasing. When you say that you go dark, you mean that the pain is at its worst.”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Why did I tell you all of that?”
“I don’t know. My charm and witty sense of humor makes you comfortable with me?”
His faint smile grew more noticeable and she wondered if the organ in her chest understood that it was not a racehorse.
“My mum would have like you,” he said. “My whole family would’ve, but especially my mother. My father would’ve probably ended up serenading you after hittin’ the piss like he was at a buck’s party. Try to guess what that one means.”
She took a moment to figure out more of his Aussie-speak, convinced that she probably would have figured out nuddy had it not been for the fact that he’d been half-naked at the time.
“Let’s see, drinking beer like he was at a bachelor party?” she asked.
“Not bad.”
He kissed her temple and pulled her closer. She wondered if he even realized he’d done it.
“I like being in your arms,” she confessed.
“Is it amazing?”
“It’s more than amazing.”
She tilted her head and his lips were immediately on hers. It would be impossible to continue kissing this man and being in his arms without wanting to go one step further. He was human. He knew loss…great loss at that. It was that loss that had changed him even though she could see a bit of what she assumed he was like, before everything had happened, whenever he was like this with her. A person could be carrying several decades worth of life history filled with all sorts of ups and downs by the time they stumbled into someone else’s life. It was unfair to rule them out for their shortcomings without knowing their past. It was something that she didn’t think Anya would ever be able to understand.
He started to pull away, and she flicked the corner of his mouth with her tongue. His body told her how much he wanted her and she’d already given him the opening. Why didn’t he just take it? Then take it again a few times throughout the night? Maybe again in the morning?
He pulled away, and she buried her disappointment by snuggling into his chest. It was still early enough in the evening where the sky hadn’t yet gone dark, but the light was beginning to get low. The minute the stars came out, as long as they remained right where they were, it would be a perfect evening.
“Ever go crab-hunting, Tayler?” he suddenly asked.
“Crab hunting? In B-more? No, I can’t say that I have.”
He patted her thigh and she reluctantly eased from his lap. Ares’ head perked up and he fell in step next to Gage’s legs. The pair disappeared down around the side of the house, and when they reappeared, Gage was holding a flashlight in one hand and a plastic bucket in the next.
“I used to go crab-hunting all the time as a rug rat,” he said, motioning for her to join him down on the grass. “It’s a good night to try.”
She followed him to the water’s edge. He removed his shoes but didn’t bother rolling up his jeans as he waded into the water. She took her time with the folds on hers until they came up just under her knee, then slipped out of her shoes and followed him. Although summer was slowly creeping around the corner, the water was surprisingly warm. Ares ran along the shore, more caught up in the waves than whatever it was she and Gage were doing.
Gage walked toward a section of sandstone colored rocks that had breached the lake’s surface. Tayler continued to follow, but her eyes cautiously darted along the lake’s surface. She’d never gone crab hunting for a reason: she liked her crabs brought to her dead and frozen.
He squatted, reached behind a rock, and came up with a tiny, dark brown creature barely larger than the tip of his pinky. “He’s not exactly what I’d call dinner food, but you get the idea, right?” he asked.
It was though someone had lassoed her throat. “You’re expecting me to touch one of those things?”
“He’s harmless, love.”
The oversized pincers told her something different.
He released their small friend and pushed another rock to the side while his long fingers stretched beneath it. The crab he pulled out this time was a bit larger, but an appetizer at best.
“What do you think?” He carefully examined it. “A bit bigger, right?”
Something brushed her heel and she swallowed a yelp. “Uh, Gage, have you ever seen the movie Lake Placid?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“It’s got Betty White in it. It’s about a monster crocodile in a lake in Maine that eats people?”
“A croc in Maine?” His accent grew thicker with each crab he pulled. When he turned around a third time, he was holding a medium-sized softshell. Its body was a deep mix of green, brown, and grey and its legs were a bright blue ending in a pair of red claws. “Ah, here we go. What about this bloke? He’s good for a boil, right?”
She couldn’t speak. He was standing there holding a crab in his hands while it was still moving.
“Gage, let me be completely honest,” she said, her heel now hypersensitive to hidden underwater creatures. “The only crabs I’m comfortable touching are ones that have either been fried or drizzled in garlic butter.”
He faked a horrified gasp, and his eyes fell to the crab. “Sorry about that, mate. She didn’t mean it.”
She laughed, and he handed her the bucket. “Well then, I’ll catch and you hold the pail. Fair?”
“Fair.”
He continued to search and popped up with a few more good-size ones with the same soft shells and blue legs, which he then aimlessly plopped into the bucket. Tayler trailed him and pretended that she didn’t want to pass out each time something solid touched her bare foot.
A flash of blue caught her eye, and she looked down into the bucket.
“Gage?”
“Yeah, love?”
“Gage…Gage one of them is climbing out!”
“No, Tayler, don’t drop the —”
She screamed and her hands opened. Gage reached out to grab the handle before the bucket crashed into the water and released their catch. He watched her scream and swat around her head—as though crabs could suddenly fly—until she reached the safety of the shore.
He shook his head and a deep, whole laugh rose up through him like the reanimation of a dormant volcano. It had felt like an eternity since he’d last laughed, but the fact that she was the reason had made it worth all the while.
“Stop laughing at me,” she half-laughed, half-whined.
“It’s plastic, love. They can’t climb out. There’s no grip.”
“Ever heard of crabs in a bucket?” she argued. “He was using the backs of his brothers to find his way out.”
“I think you mean crabs in a barrel, Tayler.”
“You get what I’m talking about, don’t you, Ares?” She spun around. “Ares?”
Gage’s eyes automatically darted down the shoreline as far as he could see with the diminishing amount of sunlight. Ares was nowhere to be found along the shore, and he hadn’t even noticed when the pup�
��s excited barks had vanished.
“Ares?” Tayler called out. “Where are you, boy?”
He crossed over to where she was standing and handed her the bucket. “Tayler, go inside—now. Lock the doors.”
“You don’t think—”
The look he gave her cut the sentence in half and Tayler quickly made her way to the back door. He kept his eyes on her until the door closed, then he made his way down the shoreline.
Tayler hurried through the house whistling and calling Ares’ name to see if he’d slipped inside, but the familiar sound of the pads of his feet slapping against the hardwood never came.
He wasn’t the type of dog to wander off. Something had drawn him away, and she was beginning to think that it was the same thing that had put him on edge that morning they’d run into Gage. That smell. That characteristically human scent. She’d assumed that it had belonged to a frightened or anxious person, but the same process happened in the body when a person was eager, excited, or even ready to prey.
Her phone rang and she dashed to it, praying that it was Gage saying that he’d found Ares. Instead, there was a thud and the sound of rustling leaves. In the background, she heard Gage’s voice as he called out Ares’ name and whistled. Then she heard the pained whimpering of the puppy she’d adopted when he was barely six-weeks old.
She darted for the landline and dialed Gage’s number. His phone chimed upstairs. From what she could hear, Gage wasn’t that far away from wherever Ares was located, but she had no idea how badly Ares was hurt. He could die before Gage reached him.
Gage is going to kill me for this.
She grabbed a flashlight and a knife from the kitchen, pulled on a pair of sneakers, and headed out the back door on the trail of Gage’s footsteps.
-8-
The lines of orange that had streaked across the sky were now gone, and the moonlight glaring down onto the shore barely offered enough illumination to make out Gage’s footprints. The massive trees casted looming shadows into the large body of water to her left, their depths seemingly endless.
The trail of Gage’s footsteps ended at the entrance to the brush. Leaves coated the ground. The path ahead was dreary, reminiscent of a scene from a Stephen King novel. However, in the midst of it all, Ares was wounded.
Steeling her nerves, Tayler stepped into the thicket of trees. In the distance, she could hear the echo of Gage’s voice riding on the coattails of the wind. She thought about calling out to him, but if he found out that she’d left the house, his focus would then switch to her instead of finding Ares.
She waited until the sound of his voice no longer carried in her direction before beginning a call of her own. “Ares! Here boy! Where are you?”
She stopped then, turning her head in every direction to try to pick up on even the smallest chirp of Ares’ agony. His cry had come through so clearly on the phone that if he was close, she would hear him, or at least see a silver outline from the moonlight reflecting off of his black fur. She didn’t want to fear the worst, but he’d sounded mortally wounded through the speaker. She equally didn’t want to think about why she’d been able to hear his pain through a speakerphone. The sadist had not only known her number, but had deliberately called her so that she could hear the faint descent of Ares’ health into the clutches of death. She’d be damned if her dog died while she bit her nails in the comfort of her home.
“Ares? Ares, baby, where are you?”
Still nothing.
“Ares? Speak, boy.” She clicked her tongue. “Speak for Momma.”
A faint bark loud enough to automatically swing her head in the direction it came from floated through the air. She picked up her pace through the trees, gripping the handle of the ceramic kitchen blade that she’d taken from the house.
Another muffled bark resounded, this time followed by a pained whimper similar to what she’d heard on the phone. Then, she saw him—his powerful body was peeking from between a dense area of shrubs and tucked beneath a fallen log. He seemed to be leaning against the trunk for support, his head bobbing up and down as though it took a surge of effort to keep it elevated. He was on his stomach but his front paws were tucked in almost if being cradled. His nose moved in their direction intermittently as though licking at a wound.
Tayler hurried over and dropped to her knees in front of him. Both paws were bleeding profusely and his left paw was bent at an unnatural angle. There was an open cut on his side, splotches of red around the rim of his mouth, and one of his ears was split.
“It’s okay, boy,” she soothed, quickly searching his body to find the best way to safely pick him up. “I’ve got you.”
His ear twitched at the sound of her voice, and she swallowed tears at the sight of him. He didn’t deserve this. He’d been the seventh pup in a litter of eight, and they met before she knew that there’d been anything missing in her life.
Jody and Wilhelmina Watson’s five year-old daughter, Peyton, had been one of her first patients ever since her move to North Carolina from Louisiana. The couple were dog breeders, specifically breeders of purebred Rottweilers, and had been throwing a party to celebrate Peyton’s graduation from preschool as well as her two year leukemia-free anniversary.
The minute Tayler stepped into the house, Ares had run over and sat at her feet. He’d remained at her feet even as she walked around to the point where she’d nearly stepped on him dozens of times. If anyone tried to get near her, he barked with the force of a six week-old pup—cute and nowhere near dangerous. At the end of the day, it had been impossible to leave the house without adopting him, and they’d been a pair ever since. Potty-training him, bottle-feeding him when he was sick, and cuddling with him made him more like family than a pet. It physically hurt to see him in this condition.
She dropped the flashlight and stuck the knife into her back pocket before squatting and fitting her hands beneath his body. As she felt his body begin to lift from the ground, the familiar stench of sweat invaded her nostrils.
An arm suddenly closed around her neck. Ares’ body fell with a thud. Automatically, her fingers curled around a hairy forearm, but the hold was secure. Ares’ crying resumed as he tried to push up on his injured legs toward her, but they folded beneath him. The pressure crushing her windpipe increased, and the effects of oxygen deprivation began seeping up to her brain.
She dropped her hands, reached into her back pocket, and brought the blade across the arm threatening to cut off her air supply. A loud curse slapped through the sky, and the person released his hold, taking a few steps back. She turned and came face-to-face with a large, masculine body. A pure white volto mask covered his face and the blackness of the night obscured his dark clothing, giving the appearance of a floating head. The hand she’d cut dangled at his side and he made no attempt to nurture his wound. The wound didn’t spurt, which meant she’d missed the artery she was gunning for.
The man suddenly turned and took off milliseconds before a round of bullets whizzed by right where his temple had been. They barreled through the trees until they lost momentum, chased by the sound of the shots exploding into the air. The silence that followed was almost too loud with the spot in front of her now vacant.
“Can you lift him?” Gage asked, scanning the woods. She shook her head, her vocal chords disabled.
“Here,” he held out his hand for the knife, “let me have that. I’ll pick him up. We need to get him to an emergency vet.”
She did as instructed.
Ares was in Gage’s arms moments later as they rushed toward the car. She slid behind the steering wheel, her fingers anxiously gripping the leather. In Gage’s lap, Ares whimpers grew softer. Her pup was dying, and as she drove, it was the only thing she could think about. He’d gone after her dog with the intent to kill. Next time, it would be her.
*****
Gage paced the length of the waiting area at the emergency veterinary hospital while Tayler sat quietly in one of the plastic chairs. Her grey eyes were dark, h
er brown skin pallid. They were both covered in Ares’ blood. With each glance at her, his anxiety spiked. It was the second time that she could have died under his watch, and he was beginning to wonder about his purpose in her life if he’d failed to do the single thing he’d sworn that he would do. Then again, if she’d just kept her ass in the house…
“Mr. Gage. Dr. D.”
Sheriff Townley ambled into the waiting area wearing a blue baseball cap, light colored jeans, and faded UNC sweater. His badge was pinned to the outside of the sweater, and he was carrying a crate filled with two coffee cups. He sat the crate down on the table next to Tayler’s chair, but she barely registered it.
“Doc, you okay?” he asked, his tone calm and even.
There wasn’t a flicker of movement in her eyes with the exception of an occasional blink. She hadn’t even shifted once in the uncomfortable chair in the last hour. Gage wanted to try to comfort her as best as he knew how, but he was still upset with her. Each time he thought about how close she’d come to dying, something caustic was released into his blood.
Townley glanced up at him. “She okay?”
“I don’t know,” he growled.
“There’s blood all over her shirt and arms.”
“None of it’s hers. I checked.”
And checked. And double-checked. The lucky son of a bitch would have still been rotting away in the middle of the woods if the man hadn’t chosen that particular moment to run. The moment he’d seen the man’s frame standing across from Tayler poised to attack, everything went blank. His adrenaline had surged, and relief would have only come in the form of a bullet lodged in a skull. It was probably why he was still so on edge; that particular desire hadn’t been fulfilled.
“How is Ares?” Townley asked.
“In surgery.”
Tayler’s eyes flickered at the mentioning of Ares’ name, but seconds later, she fell back into her trance.
“I’m going to need a statement from her,” Townley persisted.
“Does it look like she can talk right now? And I think you should be apologizing to her first. If it weren’t for you and your twisted, backward fucks who wouldn’t know shit from roses if it was shoved in their faces, maybe this would have already been handled.”
Angels & Assassins: BWWM Romance Page 9
