Wilder (Birds of a Feather Book 1)

by Lena North

  When he started making tea, I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off immediately.

  “I get that you want to be alone, but that’s just bull-shit,” he said calmly, turned to me and added just as calmly, “I’m not a big fan of bull-shit, Wilder.”

  “But –”

  “Shut up.”

  “I –”

  “Shut up.”

  “God! You’re just like Hawker,” I shouted.

  “Yeah?” he said, and the way he said it I suspected he took it as a compliment.

  “This is not a good thing, Mac,” I snapped.

  “Of course it is,” he said patiently, and kept speaking before I could protest. “You don’t know the man, and right now you hurt. But Wilder, I’ve been around Hawker all my life, and he’s the most solid man I know.”

  I stared at him as he calmly put two steaming mugs of tea on the table and sat down.

  “You want my take on what happened before?” he asked.

  I sat down, without a word. Did I want to hear what he had to say? He didn’t give me a chance to say anything, he just kept talking.

  “No one is happy that Willy died, you get that, right?”

  I knew he was right, but I didn’t confirm this because I was still pissed at the wording they’d used. He grinned knowingly at me.

  “You get that,” he concluded. “Hawker has also spent fucking forever wanting to have you with him here in Norton. You get that too, right?”

  “Humpf,” I said, knowing well that this was a ridiculous reply.

  “Exactly,” he said. “So then you get that, regardless of the grief over Willy, people will be happy for Hawker.” He held my gaze, and added softly, “In particular, his best friend?”

  “But, Mac, that’s exactly it,” I whined. “I had the shittiest father you can imagine, and the one person who could have fixed that did absolutely nothing.”

  He started speaking, but I talked over him.

  “And the couple who was like an aunt and uncle to me, who showed me what good parents were actually like? They did nothing either. Worse, they hid what they knew and snuck off in secret to go here.”

  I looked steadily at him, hoping that he’d understand the feeling of betrayal, even through his obvious admiration for Hawker.

  “Any of them strike you as people who do mean shit for no reason at all?”

  “No,” I muttered.

  “Right. So you should probably calm down and listen to what they have to say?” he said, putting it as a question when in reality it wasn’t.

  I started to realize that I’d probably overreacted, but the hurt was still there.

  “Maybe,” I conceded, but added, “Some other time, though. I didn’t like to feel so alone.”

  His green eyes softened, and when they did, it felt like I drowned in them. I’d ignored how beautiful he was, or had tried at least, but when he gave me that tender look I couldn’t stop my mouth from forming a small smile.

  “Babe, being alone isn’t the same thing as being lonely,” he said. Then he cocked his head a little to the side. “You think what you’re facing is hard? Try having no one, bet you'd find that a whole lot harder. There’s a lot of people who want nothing more than including you in their family. All you have to do is let them.”

  The way he said that made me think that he was talking from experience, and I didn’t want to pry, but I also wanted to know. Curiosity won.

  “You have no one?” I asked.

  “My parents were killed in a car crash when I was just a kid, Wilder. I was raised by my uncle and his family after that. They did their duty,” he replied.

  I could hear that this was not a topic he enjoyed and a sudden dislike for this uncle of his that I hadn't even met washed over me.

  “Sucks,” I said gently.

  “You do not want to talk about this anymore,” he said, and I blinked.

  His voice had suddenly changed into a smooth, sweet murmur. It felt like honey slid through my veins, my insides got warm and tingly, and I felt how my mouth started to form the word okay.

  “How the hell do you do that?” I gasped instead.

  “Amazing,” was his weird reply.

  “What?”

  “All my life. Everyone. And then there’s you,” he continued.

  “Mac,” I snapped.

  “I don’t know how I do it, and I don’t know how it works. Don’t use it much, but when I want to… People just seem to agree with me. You don’t.”

  “Weird,” I said because really? What else was there to say?

  I also knew what it felt like to be different, mostly because of my eyes but partly because of how I never knew how to back down. I didn’t want Mac to feel bad, though, so I used words my grandfather had said to me as I grew up.

  “Being weird just means that you’re unique. Being unique means you’re special and if you’re not, then you’re common. I know what I’d rather be.”

  I got that soft look again then, and my belly made a flip.

  “Willy said that,” he murmured.

  “Did you know him?”

  “Met him, yeah. Knew him? Not really,” he replied, hesitated, but went on, “None of them were here a lot, Wilder. Willy came in each week to see Hawker, but he usually left the morning after. I don’t think I’ve seen Rider and his woman here more than two, maybe three, times. All three of them have family here. And still, they stayed away, for you.”

  I did not understand at all. What had kept Hawker from seeing me? And why had they stayed away again? Mac must have seen my confusion because he suddenly started chuckling.

  “I’m messing it all up, aren’t I? Well, it’s Hawker's story to tell and he will when the time is right.”

  “Okay,” I said but the dismay I felt must have been clearly visible on my face because Mac started laughing. He had a dimple on his left cheek.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Mickey’s voice came from the door, and I jumped because I’d been busy staring at Mac. Then suddenly a bird screeched loudly, right outside, and Mickey jerked around, hunching his shoulders as if he was afraid of getting attacked.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  “Come in and close the door, Mickey,” Mac said calmly.

  He had stopped laughing, though. There was an odd tension in his posture, and his eyes seemed to be focused on the door.

  “I should get going,” he said abruptly and got to his feet. “Walk me out?” he asked Mickey and kept moving without waiting for a reply.

  “Mac,” I called out when he had almost reached the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. Then I asked, “How long will I have to keep the cast?”

  “It really was just a tiny hairline fracture so if you were a cow I’d take it off after a week or two,” he said. “Ask Doc, though. He might have other ideas.”

  Mickey burst out laughing when Mac almost called me a cow, and I realized that he might not have known about his parents visiting Norton, but he had known that Mac was a Vet.

  I decided that we would bring out the whiskey and argue about that as soon as he got back inside.

  Chapter Seven

  Jiminella

  I sat on the front porch to the sprawling farm house that was the center of Double H. Mickey and I had left Norton early the morning after my first meeting with my new family. It was cowardly and a little bit childish, we both knew that, but neither of us wanted to deal with any of them until we’d cooled off a little. Mickey had left a note on my kitchen table, letting whoever read it know that we’d be at Double H and that they should stay away. Then we got into his car and left.

  In my hands, I held a cup of blackcurrant tea, and I’d made it in my own cup, the special one that no one else ever used. It was perfectly ridiculous, big and pink with purple swirls and a handle painted in silver, but Gramps had given it to me for no reason at all, and I
loved it. I’d fought more than usual with my parents that week, and a couple of the girls in school had added to my grief by calling me a boy, which was an unforgivable insult to a girl at the age of twelve. I hadn’t shared any of it with my grandfather because I hadn’t wanted him to make another call to my parents. That always made his face weirdly gray, and it scared me. I also hadn’t wanted him to think that I missed something because I didn’t. But also, I did. With Willy, it was all about martial arts, dirt bikes, and outdoorsy activities, and I loved that. I didn’t want him to know that I sometimes dreamed of having something that was girly, like cute shoes or maybe a pink clip for my hair.

  I’d slipped away and walked around in the forest for a long time, cursing and kicking at tree trunks, trying to get rid of my anger the only way I knew how. Finally, I sunk down in the high grass on a meadow where butterflies fluttered around the flowers and a few birds circled in the sky. I lay back and watched the blue skies above, thinking about my life, and finally, calming down. Then I’d whispered to myself that I was stupid and that I should forget about being a silly girl. A soft wind had swept through the grass then, and it felt as if it swept away the remaining anger. I knew Willy couldn’t have known about my tantrum, but maybe he guessed because the next weekend he brought me tea in the cute pink tea cup.

  I smiled at the memory as I sat there, leaning against the wall. I missed my grandfather, but the memories of him came easier, and the sharp pangs of grief had dulled into a soft ache.

  I also smiled because I’d gotten an email from Mac. It hadn’t been long, but I thought it had been very sweet, asking me if I was okay and letting me know that he’d talked to both Hawker and Rider, and they would stay in Norton for a few days. He ended it by telling me to call if I needed anything, although he didn’t leave his number so maybe that was just him being polite.

  “Hey,” Mickey said as he stepped out on the porch with a cup of what smelled like coffee.

  He’d not gone to his parents’ home when we got to Double H. Instead, he’d stayed with me in the main house, although I hadn't seen much of him. He’d been busy reading, and so had I.

  In the car, I’d told him about the stories I’d found, and asked him if he could take a look at them. He’d been reluctant, but agreed when he saw that it was important to me. After only a couple of pages, he’d raised his head and looked at me with a grin and then we’d continued reading through the day and long into the night.

  “How much have you read?” I asked.

  “All of it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yeah. They weren’t difficult to read, and I wanted to get to the end,” he said.

  “I wonder who wrote it. Do you think it was Gramps?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, could be. It doesn’t look like Willy's handwriting, though, and the paper seems strange too. Maybe you could ask Mary to do some kind of test to see what kind of material it is?”

  I nodded. Yes, this was a good idea. My friend Mary was in her last year of college, just like me, but unlike me who majored in engineering, she studied art with a focus to become a conservator. She would know how to test the paper, or she’d know someone who could do it.

  “Good thinking. I’m going down to Prosper later today. I’ll have to report back to school, and thought I’d pass by the house to get my things as well.”

  “You want me to come and help?” he asked, and that was nice of him.

  It was unlikely that Paolo would be in the house during the day, but he could be, and it never ended well when the two of them to met.

  “Nah. Either I go myself, or I’ll ask one of the girls to come,” I replied.

  My girlfriends hated my ex-father just as much as Mickey did, but they usually hid it better.

  I went to the school office first, to let them know I’d be back in class the next day and to set up appointments with my teachers to get assignments to make up for the time I’d missed. After that, I’d moved over to the art section of our university. It was located in a small building right next to our huge library, but I knew that it would be locked because the art majors unanimously, and ridiculously, insisted that they weren’t students. They were “artistes,” and they couldn’t be disturbed. I’d called Mary on my way to the city, so she was already waiting by the door, though I knew she was busy with a big restoration project so I just handed her an envelope with the small piece of paper that I’d cut off from the manuscript. She grinned and disappeared back into the building with a loud shout, “I’ll let you know when I know, Wilder! And I might be at the house later, but that depends on the…”

  She kept talking, but she also kept walking, so I didn’t hear what her presence in my former home was dependent upon. It didn’t matter, though. She’d either join me there or she wouldn’t, that’s how Mary was, you never quite knew.

  It felt weird to walk into the house I’d spent the school weeks in as I grew up. It had never been home, but it had felt familiar, and now it didn’t. My other girlfriend, Jinx, was ditching class to come with me, and I was grateful that she did. Her name wasn’t Jinx, of course. No one in their right mind would name their daughter that.

  Her real name was Jiminella Nixée Sweetwater, which sounded like a joke but unfortunately wasn’t.

  Her parents were wonderful, but also unbelievably odd. Since Jinx moved into her own tiny condo, they lived in a caravan. They also claimed they could talk to animals, knew when the world would end, and followed their own laws which they, when challenged, declared were ancient but still valid.

  Jinx and I had met on the first day of engineering classes and struck up a friendship immediately. Opposed to me – Jinx was brilliant. She started at university at the age of fourteen, going for a medical degree but once she had one, she didn’t go into practice as everyone expected. Instead, she shifted focus and started studying various topics, before ending up next to me in an engineering class. Jinx truly got the formulas and theories, but what she excelled in, and enjoyed the most, was what she called practical engineering. She had several patents approved already and had been shrewd enough to license them strategically, so they gave her a very nice income, and would for a very long time.

  “Wilder!”

  I was on my way up the stairs to my room when I heard Paolo Fratinelli call out to me. I turned slowly, wondering what it would feel like to look at him.

  I felt nothing. This was a surprise, and relief, because all my life there had been a wave of sadness washing over me when I’d seen how he looked at me with either disinterest or worse, dislike. Now he was just some man that I didn’t have to care about anymore.

  “Ah, the shitgibbon,” Jinx said from the entrance.

  She’d been to the car to get a few bags I’d brought to pack my things in, and she entered the hallway full of confidence, as usual. She’d never liked Paolo, and I had told her what Mickey called the man in the lawyer’s office.

  “Jiminella,” Paolo said and inclined his head, but he didn’t respond to her insult. Then he turned to me. “Wilder, I was so concerned when I heard about your incident. Are you healing properly?”

  He sounded completely sincere when he said two whole sentences to me for the first time in my life, lawyer induced conversation excluded.

  “Wh –” I started because it was totally surreal to see his face.

  He looked like he cared.

  “I’m sorry, Wilder,” he interrupted. “I behaved badly when we last met, and I have been eager to apologize ever since. My grief… Your mother…” he trailed off, murmuring the last words as he stopped one step down from me, so we were almost eye to eye.

  “You’ve been a reminder of what your mother did, and it’s been hard for me. I haven’t handled that very well,” he said.

  I blinked. He smiled gently and cocked his head a little to the side.

  “I’ve had time to think, and with Caroline gone… You are a part of her. Maybe we can find a way to be family still? I onl
y ever wanted what’s best for you, Wilder. You have to know that,” he said, holding my gaze and still smiling.

  I didn’t know what to say. Really? Family? What a complete jackass this man was. I had no clue why he wanted to be a family with me all of a sudden, and I did not care. What I wanted to do was kick him in the gonads, and I was about to do that, at least verbally, when Jinx exploded.

  “You are such an asshat! What in the hell is wrong with you, asking her something like that? Huh? Did the sun fry your brain into a raisin? Did you lean too close to the mirror, so you smacked your head? Did you accidentally spray hairspray in your nose? Did –”

  “Jinx,” I interrupted.

  When Jinx started shouting at Paolo, he bent his head down, giving us a picture of pathetic grief and defeat. He held one hand to his forehead, and then he turned away from us. Unfortunately, he had a wide silver bracelet on the arm right in front of his face, and it was shiny. He wore that bracelet a lot, and it looked beyond ridiculous.

  I saw a reflection of his eyes in that bracelet, though. It was only a fleeting moment and then he closed his eyes in apparent sadness, but I didn’t miss that shrewd glance. For some reason, he wanted me to trust him, to befriend him.

  Okay, I thought. I’ll play along. For now.

  “Paolo,” I murmured, and put my hand gently on his shoulder. “It is hard for me too. I miss her too.”

  Jinx made a huffing sound, but I ignored her.

  “I’m sure we can find a way. Maybe we can have coffee or dinner? We could talk a little, and then we see?” I asked.

  “Thank you, Wilder,” he said hoarsely, and if I hadn’t seen his eyes before I would have believed his sincerity. “Did you meet that man?” he asked quietly, and I knew he meant my father.

  “Yes,” I replied. “But, I don’t understand, how did Mother meet someone like that?” I asked, and added, “He was quite awful, and used really bad language, all the time.”

  When I sensed that Jinx was moving I quickly added with as much disgust as I could muster in my voice, “And he looked horrible. He had tattoos. All over.”