by T. S. Joyce
Holt turned to her. “Thank you. That was really quick thinking.”
“You really love Bart, don’t you?” she murmured.
Holt looked down at the little baby and ran his hand down his two-day scruff, then scratched his jawline. “He’s just a gator.” But he was staring with this look in his eye. Affection swam there.
She approached Holt slow and slipped her hands around his waist, rested her cheek on his chest. “You’re just a gator too, right? I like you just fine. It’s okay to admit something is special.”
Holt’s tensed body softened, and he rested a hand on her lower back, squeezed her to him gently. “I like all gators. I understand them way better than people.”
And it hit her—how hard it must be for a man like Holt. How hard it must be to walk between both worlds of human and animal, not fitting in completely with either one.
When he patted his hand on her butt, she flinched in shock. Whoa, she liked that.
“Where did you learn all that about baby alligators?” he asked.
“I Googled gator facts,” she said primly. “I’m dating a gator, so the least I could do was Google stuff about you.”
Holt snorted. “You’re dating me now?”
“Yep!” she chirped. “Also, I like when you pat my butt. Do that more. Since my happiness is important to you now.” She stared up at him, the bright sunlight above him making the edges of his ball cap and cheeks blurry. “Spankings make me happy.”
He chuckled, the deep, sexy sound bubbling up from deep in his throat. God, she loved that sound. “Can we take a selfie with Bart, the baby we’ll never have?”
“Oh, my God, Bre. That’s not something to joke about.”
“Well, why not? That’s our reality. At some point we should move from the hurt stage to the joking stage. I want a family picture. Come on, pull our baby out.”
“You’re the weirdest human I’ve ever met,” he muttered, pulling Bart back out of his glass aquarium. “And I’ve met some really weird ones.”
Bre pulled out her phone, hit the selfie mode, and snuggled closer to him. As Holt pulled Bart to his chest, his little needle teeth a little too close to her face for comfort, she muttered, “Keep me safe.” And then she clicked the camera button.
But Holt had moved. He was looking down at her in the picture. Bre looked up at him to get onto him for ruining their super awesome weird family picture, but his bright gold reptilian eyes were full of something she’d never seen before. They were soft with deep emotion. “I will keep you safe,” he rumbled in a voice that wasn’t entirely human.
Without looking at the phone, she clicked the picture button again because she wanted to keep this moment forever.
And before she could change her mind, she lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. This kiss was a quick one.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“A reward for being sweet. You treat me well,” she murmured, her cheeks catching heat.
And then because she wanted to be like him and have a cool walking-away-from-an-explosion moment, she released him from the side hug and walked away. But tripped and pitched forward, then caught herself, all the while ignoring his laughter behind her.
“Your ass sure looks good in them shorts, Hollywood.”
He was still laughing quietly, though, and she didn’t want him to see how bad she was blushing, so she sashayed her hips a little more as she made her way to the boat.
She couldn’t help smiling to herself as she sprayed sunscreen on her pasty white legs.
She’d never liked a man like this. She’d never been interested in anyone like this. She’d never been around someone who made her feel so alive.
Day one, she hadn’t belonged in this swamp at all in any way. But by day five, she was feeling right at home.
Her phone vibrated with a message from her boss at the station.
Tell me you’re not going native, Hayne.
Whooo, he’d called her by her last name. He was mad! Brian must’ve called him.
She smiled, turned off her phone, and shoved it back in her pocket. She was definitely going to get fired, but okay.
Right here, right now, she was picking the left path.
Chapter Nine
“Now the biggest myth in Caddo Lake is that it is Texas’s only natural lake,” Holt said, turning the boat slowly in the murky water. “It’s not the only one, and at this point in its lifespan, it’s not even considered a natural lake. The twenty-four-thousand acre swamp actually had—”
“Can we go back to the myth part?” Darren, the girls’ dad asked from his comfy spot under the canopy of the boat. His arms were draped over the back of the boat, one ankle crossed over his knee, brand new Crocodile Dundee-style hat pulled low over his eyes. “At the hotel, when the concierge told us this is a must-visit spot and the best swamp tour in these parts, I asked him why, what made your tour so special. And he said to ask you about the Lachlan Legend.”
Bre had relaxed over the last hour, getting lost in the way Holt spoke, how he formed words with the slight bayou accent he had that came out more when he told stories of growing up around Caddo Lake. But Darren’s question made her sit up straight.
She witnessed the exact moment Holt’s eyes flashed a little brighter before he dragged his attention back to the muddy water. He was propped up by the wheel, one hand on it as he expertly guided the boat down the winding maze of small water paths, but he faced the tourists, only looking behind him at where the boat was going every thirty seconds or so, like he knew this swamp better than the back of his hand.
He had a loop of rope at his hip, which he undid from its leather tie, unfurled it in a smooth motion, and slapped it on the water like a whip. Slap, slap, slap. “The Lachlan Legend is something the townsfolk made up to make this swamp a little more interesting to tourists.”
“Of course, you would say that. Your last name is Lachlan, right?” Darren said with a grin, pointing to an old weathered sign on the side of the bench seat that read Lachlan Swamp Tours. “Nobody wants a legend about them.”
“I would,” Mariah said, lifting her gaze from her cellphone and raising her hand.
Slap. Slap. Holt was staring at the water with narrowed eyes, and after the third slap, he pulled a white chicken egg from a carton on the bench seat next to him, and held it in the air. “Legend has it,” Holt said in a gruff voice, his eyes still on the murky water, “that witches used to live in these swamps. And the townspeople say there was one who was more powerful than all. Raina Lachlan. They say she practiced dark magic deep in the bayous of Louisiana, and then she brought it here. Tainted Caddo lake and all the waterways. They say she controlled the animals in these parts. In particular”—he ghosted Bre a glance—“the alligators. The big ones. They say anyone who dared to go that deep into her part of the swamp and bother her would disappear and never be heard from again.” Slap. Slap. “They say she would bring in the gatahs, and there were no bodies left to find when they were done chomping on their bones. But same as all legends, things have been added over the years, and nothing was ever proven. Raina Lachlan was investigated every time someone came up missing in these swamps, but never arrested. But then again,” he said with a shrug and a glance back at Darren. “People ’round here believe in curses. No one wanted to arrest a witch.”
There was the flicker of a smile that flashed across Holt’s face as a massive alligator catapulted from the water, right for Darren, who was still relaxed with his arms draped on the rail of the pontoon boat.
Bre froze in terror while Mariah and her sister screamed, but Holt had already reacted. He stood over the rail, grabbed the gaping wide mouth full of razor teeth, clamped the mouth closed, held on as the gator thrashed once violently, and then made a shushing sound until the animal went still, just dangling there on the outside of the boat, shoulders and head out of the water.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” Mariah was chanting. Darren had jumped clear over to the other
side of the boat and was holding his chest, staring in shock at the huge alligator apparently enjoying some gentle affection from Holt, who laid a little kiss on the tip of the monster’s scaly nose.
“The Lachlan Legend is just that,” Holt said softly. “A legend.” And then with a grin and a wink at Bre, he turned to Darren. “No one can control alligators.”
One hand clamping the gator’s enormous jaws closed, Holt tossed the egg into the water, and then gently released the gator back into the swamp. The humongous reptile made a massive wave as it flicked its powerful tail and turned for the egg that was sinking slowly into the murky depths. The entire boat rocked with the turbulence the creature caused in the water.
Holt turned and smiled brightly, hit the gas, and turned the boat toward the next channel. “That’s a ten-footer I’ve named Sorry Charlie.” Holt was talking in his tour-boat voice again like everyone on board hadn’t almost been eaten alive by a monster alligator. Like it was just another day at work.
Bre’s heart was somewhere back there with Sorry Charlie, and she was about ninety-four percent sure she would never catch her breath again.
“Why…?” Mariah huffed a nervous laugh. “Why do you call him Sorry Charlie?”
“Because anyone who meets Charlie in the water would probably be sorry. He’s king of this part of the swamp. All the little gatahs close to the shore that I point out from here on are most likely his.”
As they settled back into easy banter about the swamp and wildlife and houseboats they passed, Bre’s heartbeat did eventually settle down. The family settled, too, and were invigorated by the tour after they started seeing alligators. They seemed delighted at the adventure and adrenaline rush of almost being eaten and surviving Sorry Charlie. Holt had their full attention. Even Mariah put her phone down to listen to the next hour of history and legends of Caddo lake.
And Bre got real quiet and absorbed it all. She felt a deeper connection with this place and the people and culture and animals here by the time Holt pulled the boat back into his little docking area outside of the shop.
Watching him today had taught her something big about Holt. He’d said over and over that he didn’t love like other people. He’d told her twice he didn’t love anything or anyone at all, but that wasn’t true.
He loved his swamp.
And if he could love something, it gave her hope that maybe someday he could love someone, too.
Chapter Ten
The shop was only half a mile walk from the house. The walk home after the tours was so beautiful. Not in the traditional sense, and she hadn’t thought the woods here were pretty at all the first few days. But with each passing hour in Uncertain, Bre fell more in love with the low-hanging branches, Spanish Moss, gnarled roots, and the way the sunlight filtered through the branches and freckled up the forest floor. She loved the sound of the crickets and cicadas and frogs, and if she left now, thought she would miss them. In the evenings, the swamp song was the loudest.
“You’re always happy after work,” she pointed out.
Holt gave an absent smile as he looked down at the blade of grass he was folding over and between in his fingertips. “Good tour days mean I can pay bills.”
Bre rolled her eyes. “Act like everything is practical all you want. You are happy about more than just paying bills.” She nudged him in the shoulder. “You like your job.”
Holt offered his hand, and she took it as she climbed over a bundle of roots that jutted up from the ground. “I don’t like talking…”
Oh, here it was again—the shutdown.
“But when I can teach people about this place, it’s not so bad.”
“Social butterfly,” she accused him, pulling her hand away from his.
Only he caught her at the last second by the fingertips and held on. His hands were so big and strong. An overwhelming sensation of security washed over her.
“You’re definitely the first person who has ever accused me of that.”
The rumble of thunder sounded, shaking the ground beneath her feet. Bre startled and hunched over, but he gripped her hand tighter and pulled her along.
“It’s gonna open up on us,” he said, eyeing the dark storm clouds roiling above them. “I could tell by the way the gators were acting at the end of the tour.”
Lightning struck in the distance, and he began to jog. She wanted to care about this storm, really she did, but Holt was holding her hand. Voluntarily. Without grimacing or barfing. This was awesome.
The first few hefty drops splashed against her skin, and she ran faster as the sprinkles turned to sheets of rain in seconds. Bre’s sneakers bogged deeper into the mud with each step, slowing them down.
Holt laughed and turned to her, bent slightly, and hoisted her over his shoulder with such ease and speed she gasped.
“Quit your wigglin’, woman,” he said, smacking her soundly on the ass. “I’ll get us somewhere dry.”
It was pointless trying to turn to see where they were going. Holt was at a steady jog, bouncing her like she was sitting in the saddle of a three-legged pony, her hair was dripping with rainwater, the ends smacking her in the face, and sunscreen was running into her eyes.
All the movies that made rain scenes look romantic were a pack of lies and trickery. There was nothing sexy about soggy denim and rapid blinking.
“In—the—movies,” she punched out between bounces, “the hero—would’ve—taken his shirt off—given it to the heroine—so her hair didn’t get wet.”
“Ha!” Holt belted out. His laugh echoed. “Hollywood, I ain’t no hero, and you for damn sure ain’t a heroine.”
Bre scoffed and slapped him on his steely left butt cheek. It hurt her hand. “Am so! I—came in and—saved you from a life—of misery and loneliness. I’m—heroine as fuck!”
She turned just in time to get smacked in the face with a low-hanging Weeping Willow branch. She squawked. Like a bird. Like a specific bird. Like that seagull off Little Mermaid trying to sing. Flailing her arms, she fought off the attacking branches and then yelped as he lurched her back onto her feet. At least he steadied her before she went flying backward.
She bought herself time to recover by wiping the wet hair that had glued itself to her forehead out of the way.
Now Holt was smiling really annoyingly, hands on his hips, eyebrow arched like he was enjoying the show. If she was a movie, she would be a tragedy.
“Here, let me.” He pushed her hands out of the way.
“Say something sweet,” she said, smiling up at him.
“You look like a drowned rat.”
She frowned but closed her eyes to enjoy his petting better. “In my head, I’m going to change all the mean things you say to something nice. So thank you, Holt, for calling me a swan.”
“Roadkill swan.”
Bre growled. It was a pitiful human sound, but Holt looked intimidated enough. She was feeling all smug about her badassery when he pulled out his soaking wet phone from his back pocket and muttered a curse. The screen was black, and he tried and failed to turn it back on.
“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured, pulling hers out of her back pocket, too. Her phone turned on immediately, but right as she sighed in relief, the lock-screen flickered and then turned black, too.
Was it a little too dramatic to fall to her knees in the mud under the swinging branches of a weeping willow and keen a mourning song for her dead iPhone? Maybe, so she pouted out her bottom lip instead and tried not to panic. “It’s Armageddon. I don’t have any technology.”
“You have a computer in the guesthouse,” Holt deadpanned. “I saw it.”
“All my pictures were on my phone.”
“Is it backed up to the cloud?”
“What is happening here? You’re supposed to be the negative one,” she teased.
“Well…” His bright green-gold eyes turned serious as he slipped his hands to her waist.
“Well, what?”
“Well, I don’t like when your ey
es go all sad like that. I want to stop it. Whatever you’re feeling, I want to make it less. I want to fix it.”
Okay, hang those romantic movies. They didn’t have anything on Holt.
“You do,” she admitted in a whisper. “You do fix it.”
He searched her eyes, a frown furrowing his dark brows, so she tried to explain further.
“Do you know what my favorite time of day is?”
Holt shook his head.
“It’s on our walk home from work. For half a mile, or ten minutes—twelve if I can drag it out and slow us down—I get to talk to you, walk with you out here in your woods, and see how content you are after a tour.”
“My territory.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Your territory. I like when your eyes aren’t sad, too.” She shrugged and looked around at their little weeping willow world. It felt like no one existed outside of the shadows and shelter these branches created. “I look forward to it all day. It’s becoming a part of my routine. We walk, and you loosen up more and more. Then you come with me all the way to the guesthouse door, and I always think you’re going to kiss me before you go back to the big house. You don’t, but in my head, you at least think about it.”
“I do think about it.”
Heat was creeping up her cheeks, but it wasn’t from a blush. It was from happiness. “Then you tell me dinner is at five, and I close the door. I lean my back against it and think about all the stories you told me on our walk, about your childhood, your struggles, and even though I don’t want you to struggle, I’m relieved you share your memories with me. Because it makes me feel closer to you. I like it.”
Holt shook his head. “I’m doing this all wrong then. It was supposed to be simpler. I just needed a friend for my animal to protect. A companion.”
“But you aren’t just an animal, Holt. You’re a man, too.” When she dragged her fingertips up his arms, gooseflesh raised where she touched him.
