Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series

by Gen Anne Griffin

  “You left because of me?” The shocked hurt in his voice stung her. “I thought you wanted to leave.”

  “No, I wanted the freedom to decide on my own whether I wanted to go to college or no. I would have chosen you, but I wasn’t going to just let you decide for me. There’s a difference.”

  “Jesus Christ, Gracie.” Cal growled at her. She could see disbelief in his eyes. “You weren’t going to leave me, you just wanted the freedom to tell me that yourself?”

  “When you say it like that, it doesn’t make any sense,” she complained.

  “I’m saying it the way you said it to me.”

  “No, you’re not. You still don’t get it.”

  “I get it,” Cal argued. “You wanted to marry me, but you didn’t want me to tell you that you were going to marry me.”

  Gracie opened her mouth to argue with him and then closed it again. She looked down at their still intertwined fingers. “Maybe you do get it,” she conceded.

  “Now that you’ve beaten me upside the head with it,” Cal muttered. “Girls. I swear to God. Why can’t girls just say what they mean?”

  “I don’t even want to hear you talking about girls,” Gracie frowned at him, suddenly remembering that one of the main reasons they were fighting and had been fighting was his girlfriend.

  “Thank God,” he told her. The relief in his voice was unmistakable. “You know, it’s occurred me that if I didn’t break up with you and you didn’t break up with me, then that means we’re still?”

  Gracie jerked upright abruptly and yanked away from him so hard she nearly fell backwards off the bench seat. “It means you’re still dating Jo Beth, and I’m still single.”

  The words stung like a branding iron. Cal caught her waist in one of his big hands and shook his head no. “Seeing you with David hurt too much,” he told her. “I couldn’t deny my feelings for you anymore. I wasn’t over you and don’t think I ever will be. I broke up with Jo Beth. I couldn’t keep leading her on.”

  Gracie barely managed to wrap her mind around the meaning of his words. “You’re single again?” she could barely conceal her grin.

  “No,” Cal shook his head and stroked one of his fingers down her hair. “I reckon I’m yours again.”

  *

  “Where the fuck is my truck?” David glared at Eddie, who was hiding behind a highly irritated Wally Hall. “Your case just got tossed out. I came up here this morning with a goddamned vehicle, and I want it back.”

  Wally turned to Eddie. “Where is the truck?”

  “Baker County. It’s supposed to get doused in Luminol tomorrow morning,” Eddie said quietly. He could almost feel the Sheriff’s anger. Combined with the tongue-lashing Keisha had given him, he felt like an absolute failure right now.

  “Tell me you called the crime lab and canceled that order?” Wally asked, pulling unhappily at his mustache.

  “Yes sir,” Eddie nodded.

  “But my truck is still in Baker County?” David crossed his arms over his chest, clearly enjoying Eddie’s discomfort.

  Eddie nodded again. He was ready to cry.

  “It’s not like you don’t have another truck,” Wally pointed out.

  “That’s not the point,” David replied. “This idiot took my personal vehicle against my wishes, and I want it back.”

  Wally shook his head in irritation. “Just take your wrecker and go get the damned thing,” he told David. “You can send the bill to the department. I’m sure it will be astronomical.”

  “I’m thinking around five grand,” David said flatly.

  Wally glared at him. “Three grand. Max.”

  “Three grand and I get to take Addison’s truck home with me tonight. Baker County impound closed two hours ago and won’t reopen until 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. I need transportation. It’s not like Shiner’s Bayou has a taxi.”

  “You’re pushing it, David.”

  “Your deputy arrested me without just cause. So far he’s cost me an entire day of work, plus however much time it takes me to go up to Baker County and get my goddamned truck back tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Three grand and Addison’s truck. He’s technically off duty until tomorrow night anyway. I’m not prying the keys away from him though. That’s your problem.”

  “It won’t be a problem,” David turned to Eddie. “I reckon that can be your job.”

  Eddie swallowed visibly. “You want me to go get Addison’s keys from him?” he asked disbelievingly.

  David nodded. “This is your fuck up, buddy. Fix it.”

  Eddie looked pleadingly at Wally. The Sheriff ignored him and instead played with a fishing lure that was sitting on the corner of his desk.

  Eddie sighed. “He’s not going to give me his keys.”

  “Who isn’t going to give who keys?” Addison stuck his head in to the doorway of the Sheriff’s private office. He looked over at the Sheriff. “I’m headed off duty, boss. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Uh, your keys, actually.” Eddie stammered at Addison.

  Addy blinked at him. “You want my keys?”

  Eddie nodded, his right eye twitching slightly. David sniggered as Addison glared at Eddie as if he had sprouted a second head.

  “I don’t think so,” Addy informed him. “You ain’t touching my truck.”

  “No, he’s not. I am.” David smirked at Addison and crossed his arms over his chest. “The Sheriff and I have come to an agreement, seeing as my truck is impounded in Baker County.”

  “What kind of agreement?” Addison demanded.

  “He’s getting to bill us an outrageous sum of money to take his wrecker back up to the impound lot in the morning to pick up his truck. He also gets to take your truck home with him tonight, so he won’t be without transportation,” Sheriff Hall informed Addison.

  “What the hell?” Addison glared at David. “I’ve been on the clock for damned near thirty hours straight trying to get this shit straightened out and find out who really killed this guy, so we can clear your name, and this is how you repay me?”

  “I’m still fucking pissed at you for letting it happen in the first place,” David informed him, shaking his head as he took in the dark circles underneath Addy’s eyes and the slump of his shoulders. “Not my fault you’re surviving on Redbulls and black coffee.”

  “No, it’s his fucking fault,” Addison shot a go-to-hell look at Eddie. “My truck?” he demanded again. “I’m losing my truck?”

  “For less than 24 hours,” Wally repeated the details.

  “It’s my truck,” Addison put his hands on the edge of Wally’s desk and stooped down nearly a foot so he could look Eddie squarely in the eyes. “I should wring your scrawny little neck.”

  Eddie took another step backwards and crashed into the wall behind him, knocking down a framed picture of Wally Hall and Cal’s Pappy cutting the ribbon on the new elementary school playground. The glass in the frame shattered when it hit the tile floor and Wally cursed.

  “That’s enough, Addison. David. Y’all two leave now. It’s not like the two of you don’t already share vehicles. You live together, for christsakes. The only reason y’all are making an issue over this is because y’all like pissing people off and being pissed off. Now why don’t the two of you go back home and sort this blasted mess out between yourselves.”

  “I’m kicking him out,” David said flatly. “He can’t live with me anymore. He let me get arrested on bullshit charges.”

  “Dude, there wasn’t anything I could do about it,” Addy glared back at him. “You can’t kick me out anyway’ I don’t technically live with you. I just stay at your place most of the time because I don’t want to wake up Granny Pearl coming in at two in the morning.”

  “Out,” Wally made a shooing gesture at the two of them. “Go away.”

  David snorted back a sarcastic laugh. “First I get drug in here, and now I’m being thrown out. This is bullshit.”

  “How about we negotiate?” Addison
looked over at David. “We’ve still got enough daylight to get a few of the cars down at the shop waiting for repairs finished up. You let me keep my truck, and I’ll spend the rest of tonight and tomorrow working at the shop with you to make up for today.”

  David chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Throw in a bottle of whiskey and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “You’ll have to wait until I get paid for the whiskey.”

  “Oh Jesus, don’t tell me you’re broke again.” David shook his head at Addison and made a tsk-tsking noise. “I was planning on making you pay for dinner.”

  “Make Twitchy Eddie pay for dinner,” Addison said, glaring over at Eddie. He was still hiding behind an increasingly annoyed Wally.

  “Eddie already has to pay a three grand towing bill,” Wally said flatly, ignoring the look of surprise on Eddie’s face. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a $20 bill. Tossing it to Addison, he made another shooing gesture. “There’s your dinner money. I advise you eat cheap. Now get out.”

  Addison and David looked at one another for a moment, shrugged, laughed and headed out the office door.

  Eddie started to follow them out of the room when Wally stopped him. “You know I’m serious about that towing bill, don’t you son?”

  Eddie sighed and nodded. “I figured you were. I’ll write you a check.”

  “Just make it out straight to Breedlove Automotive. It’ll save me the hassle of having to explain it the next time the department gets audited.”

  “I can do that,” Eddie said in a voice that was too worn out to argue.

  “Oh, and if you ever get another warrant without consulting me first, you will be fired. Is that understood?”

  Eddie nodded again. At the rate he was going, he wasn’t going to be officially hired anyways. The thought was depressing, but not nearly as depressing as the thought that he’d screwed up the Jarvis Marquette case so badly the dead man would never see justice.

  *

  It was well after dark by the time Cal pulled the Chevy into David’s driveway. Gracie was only mildly surprised when he pulled a key out of his pocket and let her through the front door of the silent single-wide trailer. The smell of vinegar was still heavy in the air, but it seemed like a million years since she’d last been here. In reality, it had only been a few days.

  She hadn’t let go of Cal’s hand since he’d told her he was hers again. Being back with him felt so right. Gracie leaned against his shoulder as he turned on the ceiling fan lights and frowned down at the coffee table. “Alex said the Sheriff was letting David go,” he told her. “If we wait here long enough, he’ll turn up.”

  Gracie nodded. She was far too exhausted to be half as scared as she felt like she should be. In truth, being with Cal made everything else that had happened lately seem like it had been a bad, bad dream. As long as she was with Cal, she felt safe. “I can’t believe Eddie found the wrong body and David still got accused of murder,” she admitted.

  “Me neither. Shit like that could only happen in Shiner’s Bayou.” Cal sunk down on the couch, pulling Gracie down beside him. She snuggled into him, reveling in how good it felt to be with him when he wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “I’ve missed you so much.” Gracie knew it sounded cliché but she just didn’t care. It was the truth.

  “You have no idea,” he admitted with a smirk. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Well, if the shoe fits,” she teased him. Cal snorted back a laugh and pulled her closer to him. He tangled his thick fingers into her long blonde hair. She loved his touch more than anything else.

  “If you were a nice girlfriend, you might try to make me feel better about myself.”

  “I am a nice girlfriend, but you can still be a real idiot sometimes.” She teased him gently. “You know it’s bad when you even miss arguing with someone.”

  “We’ve always been really good at the arguing,” Cal pointed out. He made no move to release her from his grip as he shifted her into his lap. His eyes met hers and their gaze held. Gracie could see the desire in his eyes as plainly as she could feel the heat from wanting him building in her own body. She readjusted her hips so that she was straddling him on the couch, their lips only centimeters apart.

  “Amongst other things,” Cal whispered, breathing a little bit harder than necessary as Gracie closed the last tiny gap between them and pressed her lips against his. Being kissed by Cal felt like coming home after a storm. Gracie normally held herself back during sex, afraid she’d look like an idiot, but now she practically threw herself into his chest as she pushed against him. His tongue slipped between her lips and flicked against hers. She twisted her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pushed herself further into his lap. He kissed her harder, and she gasped slightly at the force behind it. She buried herself into him and let go of all her emotions.

  Cal groaned as she rubbed against him. Her fingers were in his hair. His hand was up her shirt. She purposely pressed her teeth against his lower lip, pulling and sucking on him as he stroked her nipples through her bra.

  Gracie wanted him so badly that her desire wiped all other thoughts out of her mind. She could feel how hard he was through her jeans, and she wanted nothing more than to have him inside her. His tongue was inside her mouth, teasing and pushing and she lost herself in his kisses until neither one of them could breathe.

  “I love you so much,” Cal said when they broke apart for air. He stroked her cheek with his rough, calloused hand. His eyes were dark with emotion.

  “I love you too,” she whispered in reply. “I need you.”

  He just nodded as he adjusted her so that she was lying across his lap instead of sitting on top of him. He stood up with her in his arms, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him again.

  Without another word, Cal carried her into David’s spare bedroom and laid her down on the bed. He undressed her carefully, but quickly, and the next thing she knew she was naked underneath him, and everything was all right with their world.

  *

  “I still can’t believe he agreed to give you my truck.” Addison grumbled from underneath a Ford Focus with a chronic fluid leak.

  “He wanted me to go away.” David stared down into the engine. After a moment he selected a hose and gave it a tweak. Fluid immediately squirted Addison in the face.

  “What the hell?” Addy jerked the crawler out from underneath the car. “If you’re really that pissed off at me, let’s fight and get it over with already.” He was wiping fluid off of his face with the hem of his t-shirt.

  David frowned. He hadn’t meant to spray Addy in the face. Or had he? He wasn’t entirely sure, which made him think he probably had subconsciously meant to soak his friend in rusty windshield wiper fluid.

  “Sorry,” David muttered as he snagged a fresh hose clamp off the edge of his work bench. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Yeah, and you didn’t mean to drop that damn rotor on my foot earlier either. This shit is getting old.” Addison rubbed the toe of his boot. “I didn’t let you get arrested, okay?”

  “You could have given me a heads up.”

  “I did give you a heads up. You got to come in to the station on your own terms. You got your lawyer, and you got to leave without ever having charges pressed.”

  “I shouldn’t have had to go down there in the first place. Everyone knows I didn’t kill that guy.”

  “It’s Eddie. I told you Eddie was going to be trouble. He’s got it out for you.”

  “Because of Josie Santiago?” David heard the hesitation in his own voice when he said the dead girl’s name.

  “Right.”

  “That’s bullshit.” David tossed the wrench down and leaned against the hood of the little car. “You know, I kind of thought we’d reached the point where everyone had forgotten about Josie. It’s been eight years.”

  “Me too,” Addison sighed and slumped down on the concrete floor, his
back to the car. He tapped a cigarette out of the pack from his pocket. “We need to get rid of Eddie.”

  “Getting rid of Eddie isn’t going to make everyone in Shiner’s Bayou forget about Josie.”

  “It would help,” Addison said. “Eddie is going to accuse you of every murder in Coastal County from now on. You realize that, right?”

  “I’m glad we have a low crime rate,” David grumbled. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I know,” Addison shrugged his shoulders and played with the edge of a brake line. “Why wouldn’t you let Gracie provide an alibi for the time of the murder?” he asked.

  “She doesn’t need to be drug into this kind of mess,” David replied. “She has enough to worry about back at college without adding my lousy reputation into the mix.”

  “Speaking of Gracie’s college,” Addison narrowed his eyes at David as he lit a cigarette. “That was a hell of a stunt y’all pulled this weekend.”

  “Don’t smoke in my shop,” David narrowed his eyes at Addison and made a shoo-ing gesture. “You know I can’t stand the smell.”

  “Quit trying to change the topic,” Addison narrowed his eyes at David. “You don’t want to have this conversation outside, do you?”

  “No,” David glared at Addison. “I don’t want to have this conversation at all.”

  “You’re not really screwing my kid sister.” It was statement, not a question.

  “You’re right,” David admitted after a moment’s hesitation.

  “How long did it take y’all to plan all this?” Addison asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Plan?” David nearly choked on the Coke he’d just taken a swallowed. Addison couldn’t have figured out what had happened yet. He’d been too careful. Besides, the Coastal County Sheriff’s Department had the wrong body.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” David wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. That depended on what part of this epic clusterfuck Addison thought David had planned.

  “Liar,” Addison shook his head and took a long drag off of his cigarette. “The State University police called me yesterday. They wanted to confirm Gracie was with you this weekend. I get the whole alibi thing. I just don’t know how you would have known that you needed an alibi?”