Bride of Glass (Brides of the Hunt Book 2)

by Jeanette Lynn

  When Joanie had first started dressing that way I’d assumed it was to annoy her father, but soon realized it was just simply Joanie.

  Peeking over at me, judging my reaction as she kept her sandaled feet right where they were, propped up on a sofa cushion, she smiled approvingly when I let it be. “I could go with you, you know,” she said after a moment, fiddling with a jelly strap along her ankle.

  Like hell. This vacation was for me, and me alone. I needed a break from- From- Hah! From everyone and everything.

  I loved Joanie, dearly, don’t get me wrong—she’s my girl, the cousin of my heart, and I loved her, faults and all, just as she does me—but a gal’s got to have a breather every now and then.

  Joanie didn’t do space, which required a certain lack of finesse when dealing with her, on my part—an unhindered amount of callousness—which makes it a bit easier for me to assert myself with her—something I’ve never quite understood about myself or our relationship, but it worked. Her presence in my life was not an option, it was a requirement—I didn’t know what I’d do without that woman. No, I knew—Joanie’s my sidekick—the pea in my pod—my sci fi/monster movie geek out pal to her romance digging movie buddy—I’d be lost.

  Normally, I wouldn’t mind Joanie weaseling her way in on my trip—heck, I’d have insisted she come, hinted like hell, and maybe even outright begged—but this time was different.

  “I could just go pick up a few things… be back before you can say-”

  “No.” Picking up my bags, I motioned for her to grab her shit and do the same.

  Big brown eyes flicking towards me, long, blue mascara dusted lashes fluttering, she grunted and looked away. If I didn’t know better I’d think she was hurt by my rebuff, but Joanie was tougher than that. Takes a big set of balls to dress like a walking tie-dyed masterpiece, and somehow manage, in her own freaky way, to pull it off. She was a walking Mardi Gras advert, a fifty one flavors in one outfit.

  Settling back against my ratty old blue couch, she flicked a bright pink and glow in the dark hearts covered, manicured nail at me. “I’ll lock up when I’m done. Just leave me a key, eh?”

  Lips pursed, I ducked her claws, almost taking one in the eye as I bent to pick up a candy bar wrapper I knew I hadn’t left there.

  “Eh? Que? Uhm, no.” Picking up her enormous purse, I tossed it in her lap, the candy wrapper with it.

  As she squawked hysterically about her precious purse, her baby, Maurice—I’ll never understand why she names her stupid purses—I jacked the remote, turning to chuck it behind the fridge.

  “Damn. No cable, no leftovers, no nothing. All work and no play makes Joanie a boring girl.” Lips pulling into a mock-pout, her jellies slapping the carpet to hop up, she puffed up like a ruffled hen.

  Uh-huh. Yup, I thought. Walk faster, chickie. I got somewhere to be. Ignoring anything that came out of her mouth after that, I followed my dramatic family member out, grinning as she muttered unflattering things about my person and my poor people skills, my lack of color in that drab sweatshirt and those icky, plain pants, under her breath.

  “You know,” she said, whipping around, giant keyring choked out by gaudy keychains jangling from her hand as she flung it about, eyeing me skeptically, “if you were half as ballsy with other people as you are with me, you’d be just fine. None of this clam-in-a-shell shit everyone else gets. You really need to get out there. Seriously, just trust me, I’m telling you…”

  She just didn’t get it, and I was tired of trying to explain. I knew she meant well, but it didn’t change anything.

  I was comfortable with Joanie. I trusted Joanie. Joanie’s family. Joanie doesn’t judge—much—and not in the same sense others would. And she’d certainly never shun me for simply being myself, though teasing and eye rolling were a given, which took all the awkwardness away.

  There are no social bull crap barriers to muck through with us, pc, socially acceptable or not expectations hanging over our heads. Can’t say this, don’t do that—‘oh, you’re an asshole because you like this’, or because you don’t—‘I can’t believe you do that’, or don’t—just two people being who they are, two human beings tumbling around this giant rock smothered in agua, shooting the shit, just doing what we do best, breathing and talking and crap, that’s it, no need to impress or pretend. I can just... be. Be me. Flaws, bullshit, and all.

  “Well, if I was half as ballsy with everyone else as I am with you, I can only assume,” I paused and smirked, “I’d probably grow a penis to match those suckers, and walk around funny trying to cart them,” I quipped dryly.

  And what would I need a boyfriend for when I could find a way to actually go screw myself? At that thought I started laughing.

  Joanie blinked at me, then blinked again, shaking her head sadly. “And that,” her finger shook in my face disappointedly, the Mr. Darcy’s Main Chick and Rellians Do It Better resin bangles we’d made during one of our more productive crafting periods jingling and jangling as they clanked together, moving with her left wrist, “is what I’m talking about, honey.”

  Curvy hips swishing as she sashayed away, the loud print of her surprisingly black and white patterned giraffe skirt screaming I eat Bon-bons and watch soaps, muttering something about saying screw it and just buying me those starter cats already, she took off, a cloud of hairspray, shimmering lip gloss, and cheap insults in her wake.

  “I love you, you know!” I called after her.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she muttered, waving me off, but then turned and blew me a kiss at the last moment.

  Grinning, I laughed, making her snort as I made a big deal out of pretending to catch it.

  “There’s something wrong with you!” she shouted, eyes darting about worriedly for a split second, suddenly embarrassed when the lady down the street stopped dead in her tracks, scratching at her short fluff of light brown hair, and started staring. “Okay, you can stop now, ya freak!” Mortified, Joanie shook her head sadly, her professionally dyed, jet black and powder puff blue, shoulder length locks slapping her cheeks wildly.

  Emboldened, I kept it up. She deserved it, in my opinion. Teach her to mooch my food, put her feet on my furniture... Bahahaha!

  “Rosie... enough. For the love of- Enough! Alright already! If I promise to lay off gettin’ ya laid, will ya quit?!” With Joanie, sex was always the answer. What couldn’t a wild one night stand or destined to burn love affair cure for the woman, according to her, I wondered, amused.

  Lips pursed in an overdone, smacking smooch, I paused, tapping my lip. Expression smoothing out, insides churning at her not so nice but truthful admission about my general lacking in the whoopie department, though I didn’t let on, her fat mouth spilling my business to all within the street, I smiled prettily. I had to admit, embarrassment aside, who knew it could be that easy to get her going? Heck, I should embarrass her big butt more often. Maybe she’d start keeping that big ol’ gab-trap of hers shut. “Yes?”

  Joanie slumped in relief, crossing herself. “Mary mother of... I can’t. I just can’t.” Glancing towards the sky, she mumbled something I couldn’t make out, sighing heavily, smiling ruefully as she turned back to me. “I think I need a drink. Or a swift kick in the pants... You know, if I owned any pants.”

  “You need Jesus,” I tossed out there, mimicking her father’s brusque, mocking voice.

  Joanie burst out in a loud, chortling snort. “Maybe,” she quipped, then snorted some more. “Or a gallon of holy water. Joanie needs some major fixin’ or she might burst into flames if she dared step foot into that buildin’ after all this time.”

  “Joanie needs to quit referring to herself in the third person, or Rosie might agree,” I got out on a giggle.

  “Joanie doesn’t-” Joanie stopped and her head jerked. Finding our audience had yet to leave, standing there gaping at us like we were lunatics, Joanie’s eyes narrowed, lips pursed, and she gave the old bat the stare down. Joans glowered at her, her gaze unwavering, unti
l, bathrobe flapping in the cool morning air as her quarry bowed down to the master, we were blessedly alone.

  Huzzah, I thought victoriously, and maybe I said it aloud. With a little victory dance that had Mr. Shuman across the way, who’d just popped up from his crouch by his azaleas—or as we all really know, from not so stealthily trying to spy on the neighborhood goings ons—shaking his head, I shimmied down the drive.

  Unlocking and opening my car door, I deposited my bags in the backseat. Rolling my hips to an imaginary beat, humming a bit under my breath, well aware one of the worst neighborhood busybodies was watching and not caring one iota, I walked back up the walkway and locked my front door, then the security screen, twisting and turning back down the drive. Then, wiggling that rump of mine back to my car, I hopped into my little grey four banger.

  “You’re your own cockblock,” I heard Joanie call out as she started the engine on her little sporty yet dated red coupe, the top down. She was playing like she just couldn’t hurry the hell up and try to pretend she wasn’t coming from my house fast enough. “What woman, with that big a butt and such a tiny waist, has no rhythm at all?” Joanie’s head shook sadly for what felt like the billionth time, her lips pursing in a grimace as she glanced down and gave her thicker middle a rueful but loving squeeze. “I mean... it’s in her blood. Well, it should be... She’s, like, a genetic anomaly. Her parents can dance like no one’s business. It’s so sad… Such a waste,” she told her tummy.

  Laughing, a grin on my face as I backed out, with a quick wave in her direction I cranked up the tunes on my crappy, beat up radio. I couldn’t sing for squat either, but I wasn’t that mean, and therefore refrained from bursting her poor eardrums.

  Humming along, I cruised down the street, turning, my fingers drumming along the steering wheel.

  “Sure you don’t want company?” Joanie pulled up alongside me at the first light, studying me curiously.

  For all her I don’t give a crap, deep down, Joanie was a worrier. It was one of the many things I loved about that woman—when I wasn’t contemplating how crazy, in your face, overloud, sex driven, my way or the highway, she had a tendency to be, that is.

  Flicking out my oversized sunglasses and stuffing them on my face, smacking them against the bridge of my nose as she grimaced at their appearance, I waggled my brows. Aviators are cool, I don’t care what she says. “Yup. I’m sure.” Honking my horn as my light turned green, I took off for my snow-cation for one with a lighter heart and a song in my head.

  Lourdes was probably right. Why waste my time fooling myself with Mr. Wrong, when Mr. Right could be just around the corner? Who knew what life had in store for me.

  I sang along after that, belting out whatever was on the radio as I drove along. This vacation will be the best one I’ve ever been on, I told myself.

  “Probably the first and only,” I murmured on a snort.

  CHAPTER 3

  Snow crunched under my tires, the engine overloud in the silence as I examined the drive up ahead. I was tired and hungry, not quite sure which one beat out the other as my car slowly trudged along.

  “Ah-hah. It’s this one.” Squinting, I pulled into the U shaped gravel drive, a quick but pleased half-smile flashing across my face, that pinkish blush of pleasure tugging at my already rosy cheeks.

  I’d had the heater going full blast since I’d filled the tank up that last time an hour back, and my flushed cheeks were taking the brunt of it. A small price to pay to stay warm, I’d say.

  “I’m here,” I whispered excitedly, cutting the engine as soon as I threw it in park. I was like a little kid, I couldn’t get outta this car fast enough. A tiny, internal squee started to build inside of me, my lips tugging up until my face hurt, I was so amped up.

  Tossing a quick text to Joanie to let her know I’d made it alive, I shoved my cell in my purse and reached around towards the back seat for my bags. Tugging the cumbersome bundles through the middle to the front, I righted myself, pulled the door handle, kicked my door open, and promptly tumbled out.

  Flopping onto the cold ground on my hands and knees, my eyes lit up at the sight of all the snow blanketing me.

  “I’m surrounded,” I whispered softly. Nothing was going to get me down right now. Nothing.

  Fingers sinking into a pile of that glorious, white, fluffy stuff, I curled them into fists, cupping handfuls.

  “It’s beautiful.” The grin that split my face was nothing short of delighted. This is perfect.

  Scrambling to my feet, dusting my hands off on my pants, I hefted my bags and slammed my car door shut, trudging my way up the walk. It was hard to see, it was so dark, but I didn’t mind. Dumping my things on the small wraparound front porch, I dug through my pockets for the key.

  After a few fumbling tries, I managed to get the key out and into the keyhole, and turn it, and finally get the blasted thing unlocked. Turning the knob, the door opened with a rusty creak.

  “Right,” I said aloud, as if speaking to myself, “not ominous or creepy at all.” Fingers curling around the door jamb to slip inside, creeping along the wall, I felt around just inside. Grasping for a switch, the lights came on with a snick, and once more I found myself grinning, ecstatic.

  Creep factor dimmed down to nil the second the lights popped on. “Sweet digs,” I murmured, in awe.

  The place was small, sure, a single family cabin, open floor plan, oversized fireplace, a nook of a kitchen, but it was cozy, with sweet rustic accents. Once I settled in and got a fire going it would be nice and warm, comfortable. Easy-peasy. Nothing to it. With that idea in mind, I set to work.

  ˜˙˜*˜˙˜

  “I’m never snow-cation-ing again,” I grumbled through chattering teeth, trudging thigh deep through the snow, headed to the side of the house where Lourdes had assured me, right before the storm took out the phone line, there was a wood pile. No, should be a wood pile, she’d said. Right over… there. Uhm, I think.

  Rounding the corner, shivering my britches off, thankful the giant snow piles I was trying to shuffle through tapered off until they were just below mid-calf, I cried out in relief, spotting a thick tarp with fat chunks of wood sticking out. Working my way over to it, I gripped the edge of the faded blue, crunchy in my hands, crumbling and weather beaten material and shucked it back, groaning in disappointed anguish as three fat, but measly to my mind, lumps of wood stared back at me.

  Flopping back on my ass, slumping down in the snow, I threw my head back and howled. Pounding the snow piled up high on either side of me, sending it tumbling into my lap and all around me, a giant dent where my ass had mashed that cold white, wet stuff to nothing, I had myself a right fit.

  “Are you kidding me?!” I shouted to the heavens. I just wanted a little vacation, was that so much to ask? Yes, it felt like the answer was.

  Lolling about like a moron in the snow as the urge to cry overtook me, I tugged the ugly blue and fluorescent orange hand-me-down beanie Joanie’d given me down farther on my fat head. The tassels dangling down the sides slapped at my face as the wind picked up, but I wasn’t really paying attention as I scanned the pretty forest landscape for a nice, sharp ax.

  “If I’d known I was going to play Paul Bunyan and Miss Fix-It,” I grumbled gruffly, rolling to my feet and dusting myself off, “I’d have shut myself up at home and simply stayed put.”

  ˜˙˜*˜˙˜

  It took much longer than I’d thought to chop wood. Granted, my lack of experience and know-how didn’t help any, or these jelly arms, but I’d given it the old college try.

  “If only the water heater or the water worked,” I muttered petulantly, trying to warm my blistered hands by the fire, “then maybe I could have had a bath, or flushed the toilet!”

  The lights chose that moment to flicker on and off one too many times, and I cursed soundly. Hopping up, I tossed the flannel blanket in my lap to the floor and began to pace the room angrily.

  “Are you shitting me?!” I was trying to tough i
t out, I really was, but if it wasn’t one thing it was another.

  Lourdes and Gordon had promised they’d have someone sent out for repairs as soon as they could, during our single, rather short and abrupt conversation, but that all depended on the roads and the weather. Which also meant I was stuck here in the meantime.

  Glancing out the window, the peaceful serenity of the beautiful winter landscape before me, I suddenly really wanted to be a part of it.

  “But it’s all crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.” Holding out my fingers, still a bit numb from the bite of the cold, blistered and bruised from trying to figure out how to hold that stupid, blasted ax—something I’d never thought my inept bum would ever have to do—they were proof enough.

  Am I ever going to do anything good on this vacation? It’s barely started and already it sucks donkey balls.

  Lips pursed, my brown eyes slid to the window again. I have mittens, they aren’t that damp, and it’s still light out... I mean, technically, I could build a snowman. Childhood memories of building them with Joanie flitted through my mind. Then, those few times we’d crafted them as adults. It had become kind of a within-the-vicinity-of-snow tradition. You can’t be a part of a snow storm without a snowman.

  I could already hear Joanie bitching at me, in her typical Joanie fashion, about me wasting yet another wonderful opportunity and blah, blah, blah.

  “Alright, so I had to chop some wood. So stuff isn’t working. I’ve got this. I can do this. The weather will clear, a repair person will come. It’ll all work out in the end.” My false bravado was doing worlds for that denial I was attempting to wrap myself up in. “Until then, though… This is my vacation after all, isn’t it? About time I did something, small as it may be, even minutely fun.”

  A small smile played at my lips and I started for the kitchen, snagging my coat on the way. Yes, I think it’s time I build a snowman. “And I’m going to need a coffee the size of my butt to get me going to actually do it.”