by Nicole Hicks
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Author Bio
Snow’s Heat
Prowling Around
Nicole Hicks
Published: 2011
ISBN: 978-1-936950-32-4
Published by Summerhouse Publishing. Copyright, Nicole Hicks. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Summerhouse Publishing
http://summerhousepublishing.com
Email
[email protected]
Editor
Marisa Chenery
Cover Artist
Mina Carter
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
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To my parents, though they may never read a ‘smut’ book written by their daughter.
You were right, dreams really do come true.
To James who pushed me to remember and reach for my childhood dreams,
without which I wouldn’t have started writing again.
To Mags, Mina, Deena, Christine, Joann, Jenn, JoAnne, and all of my friends;
you walked through the darkness with me and never let me give up!
Lastly, but certainly not least, to the readers a hearty thank you.
Without you, authors would have no reason to write.
Our worlds would turn to dust, withering in our subconscious.
You make us who and what we are.
So, please enjoy!
Chapter One
Why do things never turn out as I expect?
The moonlight tried to filter through the tall pine trees, but failed except in small sporadic streams of light. Darkness enfolded the surrounding area as Bree looked out the door of the run-down cabin. She got to it too late in the day to do more than unpack her van and make sure the electricity was on before the sun completed its cycle. A broken kind of silence surrounded her. If she weren’t running from the memories of what her ex had said, the quiet song of crickets and hum of June bugs would almost be soothing. The weak moonlight could’ve been termed romantic. The night air would have been cool enough to cuddle with someone. But combined with the echoes of the harsh goodbye and feelings of inadequacy, it brought home exactly how alone she was. It wouldn’t take much to turn this romantic setting into one for a horror film. Just add some low-lying fog and scary music in the background. Shaking the dark thoughts from her mind, she turned to reenter the small cabin when the sound of dead branches cracking underfoot spun her back around to look out upon the wilderness once again.
“Who’s there?” she called before shaking her head in self-disgust. If this were a movie, I’d be yelling at the idiot woman to get into the damned house! But instead of following her internal voice of wisdom, she took a hesitant step onto the ground, hoping to catch sight of whatever had made the noise. The muted sounds of her friend’s ringtone, Hello and welcome to the mental health hotline.... If you are obsessive compulsive press one repeatedly, if you are codependent ask someone to press two, if you have multiple personalities please press three, four, five and six…made her stop and pull her phone from her pocket. She shook her head in exasperation as she flipped it open.
“Hey, sweetie, did you make it up there safe?” Her best friend’s voice sounded heartbreakingly soft with concern.
“Yeah,” Bree replied. “Safe and sound. I told you I would be fine—”
“I know you did,” Margie answered. “But you didn’t call when you got there, and with the way you left town, I was worried. Driving when you’re that upset is dangerous.”
“Yeah, well, I had to get out of that fuckin’ house,” Bree snapped before immediately apologizing. “Marge, you didn’t deserve that, it’s just that in our…his house, I feel suffocated and isolated at the same time. You know what it’s like being in a small town. Everyone knows everything, but when they know something is up before the wife does…. Well, it isn’t pleasant.” She ran a hand through her hair and paced.
“I just, I had to get out. To get away from everyone’s prying eyes, and the kids, to get myself put back together a bit. I need to have it together when I tell them their father moved on—they still don’t understand. To be ready for the questions deeper than the ones they’ve asked so far. I’ve tried to be fair when they ask questions, but it is so hard…. It’s been seven months since he told me he wanted a divorce, two months since it was final and I still expect him to walk through the door. To tell me it was a mistake—that he wants me and the kids back…. That the bitch he brought to the house when he came to get the kids meant nothing. I know that isn’t going to happen, and I don’t really want it to, it’s just a small part of me still misses him.”
“I know, sugar,” Margie consoled, “but we both know that’s just wishful thinking.”
“Exactly! And it’s something I need to get over. I know he isn’t coming back and that’s for the best. The kids are happier without the stress of us fighting, they’re doing better in school and my stress level is lower overall. I just have weak moments that overrun my common sense. And each and every time it happens, my heart breaks all over again. When he came to get the kids on our anniversary with that bitch who told the kids “You can call me Mommy”—it was like a knife in the back. I just need to take a step back, to unwind, to—”
“Get laid,” Margie popped off quickly with a light coating of laughter.
Bree chuckled.
“Maybe,” she acknowledged. “But the whole one-night stand thing has never appealed to me. Besides, who would I meet out here? The only breathing things around me are squirrels, birds and crickets!” The sounds she heard just moments before flashed through her mind before she continued. “I know I should move on…maybe you and the gals are right about me needing to meet someone. All I know at this point is he would have to be very forgiving and love me for me. For once I want to be enough for the man who says he loves me.”
“Sabrina Marie Coswell! We both know that wasn’t the reason he left, just a lame attempt at an excuse! He couldn’t handle the stress of a family, even though he was the one who pushed for kids. He was the one who decided hanging with friends was more important than spending time with his wife and kids. He was the one who gave his number out and had women calling or texting him at all hours. That had nothing to do with you…it was all him. He was the one who wanted to sleep with other people and break your vows. Don’t ever blame yourself for his stupidity!” Margie’s voice got shriller the longer she went off about Bree’s ex-husband.
“I know all of that, Margie. It’s just hard to believe it wasn’t me. Anyway, I need to finish unpacking before it gets too dark,
so I’m going to let you go.” Surely whichever deity watched over her would forgive the little white lie. She just needed to get off the phone before she became overwhelmed with emotion, which would send her well-meaning friend further off the deep end. “Thank you for watching the kids and letting me use your place.”
“Of course, hon,” Margie’s voice was once again smooth and soothing, “you be careful out there. And maybe you should go to one of the towns nearby and try your hand at being single again.”
Bree snorted in a mixture of disbelief and amusement. And be the old maid at the bar, not fucking likely!
“All right, Margie, we’ll see. I’ll talk to you and the kiddos soon. Give them kisses from me, will you?”
They said their goodbyes quickly and Bree sat on the porch step, looking out into the trees. She leaned her head against the handrail. Am I a lost cause? Can someone ever love me enough? She sighed, stood, turned and headed back inside.
* * *
He crept through the bushes, keeping an eye on the cabin. That woman was in his territory. She had come out of nowhere, brought all kinds of things out of that ugly beat-up van and seemed to be taking up residence. Residence in his area, his territory, his woods.
He had come out here after he’d left the Army to get away from people. In the quiet of these woods, he came to grips with who and what he was in a way he never could have done while serving his country. In coming to grips with it, he had to relearn everything. Once he had been a sergeant in the Army. He had been deployed with his men, fighting for his country, living a part of his dream. And it was during his time abroad that his whole world changed, changed more than he ever dreamed possible.
* * *
While acting as part of the security team with the medical specialists on a mission, he and his partner had been ordered to check the perimeter of their camp. With the insurgents’ constant attacks, they had to stay vigilant at all times. Sleep was a luxury in times of war, a luxury they could not afford when they had been unable to reach base camp.
As Travis searched the darkness surrounding him and Jack, an eerie feeling came over him. They were being watched. By who, or what, he couldn’t say. But he knew someone was out there.
“Jack,” he whispered urgently.
“Tee, man, do you feel that?”
Jack’s low whispered verification of his own strange feelings heightened his awareness of his surroundings.
“Jack, separate five paces. We’ll be able to cover more that way.”
The mountain range loomed over them in silence. The darkness cloaking them in mystery, camouflaging them, making them nothing more than dark smudges on the horizon. A strange wailing sound raised goose bumps all over his body. But it was the soft thump on the ground that had him turning toward Jack who no longer stood. Who was a thrashing, ghostlike figure silently fighting for his life. As he rushed toward his friend, raising his sidearm, he felt a heavy weight against his back. He heard the tearing of his uniform, pain surging on both sides of his spine and hot fetid breath against his neck. He knew he was in trouble. However, his only thought was reaching his partner. When he fell to the ground, he managed to get a single shot off. Hopefully the rest of the squad would make it in time to help Jack. Feeling the jar of impact as he hit the earth, he sent a prayer upward, “Please, not yet…”
The following weeks were a fevered blur. His one clear memory was of the medical team rushing to his side and feeling a furred body beside his own on the ground. The shouts meant nothing to him as he tried to turn to see if Jack was all right. When he heard the words, “He’s gone,” he stopped fighting. He knew he’d failed his partner.
Jack, who had been his friend since the first time they had stepped out onto this god forsaken place, was gone. Jack, who had a fiancée back home, waiting for his leave, looking forward to their upcoming wedding. Whose parents sent them both care packages to make the time easier in some small way for the men who were so far from home. Jack, who always laughed and told him to lighten up. Who was known as the funny man of the squad. All of that was gone. He let his head fall and the med team do their work. As he closed his eyes, he knew Jack’s death was on him.
* * *
The horrific scene had haunted him throughout his fevered state. He constantly relived those last moments, constantly battling to get to his partner in time…always failing. Always a second too slow, a second too late. Always seeing the thrashing body growing still as Jack lost the battle for his own life.
He had barely seen the walls of the medic ward. He’d hardly noticed the change when they got him to an actual base. By the time he was stateside, he was out of his fevered state, but still not himself. When told he was being given a medical discharge, he’d allowed them to do what they must. He had known he was in no shape to continue out in the field.
In the few months since then, he wandered these woods, trying to understand the nature he’d gained by that attack. He never saw the creature that attacked him. He had read the reports and they said it was a snow leopard. But they weren’t known to be man eaters. So it made no sense. No sense that is until he had his first unmedicated rest. The night terrors brought out a beast in him he didn’t know he possessed. One with sharp teeth and claws. One with green-colored eyes that stared back at him in a pool of water lit only by the moon’s light.
And now, as he came to terms with his alter ego and the body that came with it, a human female stepped into his territory, smelling of sorrow and rage. She raised strange urges in him. Mixed feelings of an urge to protect a female—her—and anger at her audacity to not recognize this area as his. He needed to make her leave. He wasn’t safe to be around. Especially when the sight of her brought out an urge to play cat and mouse and the smell of her made him want to mark her, so no one else would dare touch her. But how could he make her leave when a part of him wanted her to stay?
* * *
Bree poured a glass of wine after she plugged in her iPod player and started a shuffle play of all her music. Yes I definitely deserve this after the way this year has gone! She took a sip of the wine and did a quick dance step before looking around at all the boxes she had unpacked when she arrived. The boxes not only held her clothes and food supplies for her stay here; they also included all the things her ex had left at the house. Things that represented the years of empty promises, of broken promises. Those memories needed to be exhumed, examined and excised from the life she planned to build for herself.
Sighing, she slumped down on the couch before lightly kicking one of the offending boxes. In there were her hopes and dreams turned to ashes with a few harsh words and the closing of the front door. The pictures were of times that seemed happy, but were actually of times of lies and betrayal. And it was those feelings she needed to get rid of, because she had given up enough of herself to that asshat of a man in the ten years they had been together. And it was definitely time to take her life back.
Sliding to the floor, she pulled boxes toward herself and started two piles. Pile ‘one’ were things to put aside for the kids. Pile ‘two,’ however, was all for herself. That second pile would be the beginnings of a huge bonfire. It was her way of burning the past and rising out of those ashes as the fabled phoenix for her rebirth and the beginning of her new life.
Chapter Two
The sun shone brightly in the small cabin at an ungodly hour. Bree covered her eyes with a groan, feeling the bottle of wine she’d drank the night before coming back to haunt her. She pulled her arm away long enough to check the time on her watch before groaning in earnest. Seven thirty-five in the freaking morning! Where were those damn curtains? Or mini blinds? Something to cover those blasted windows and keep out the bright as hell sun and quiet those loud woodpeckers!
Wait…. Woodpeckers? This close to the house?
She pushed up into a sitting position and listened again before groaning louder. Wouldn’t it just figure that some backwoods idiot was up at this hour and thought since they were everyone else s
hould be too? She clambered to her feet before starting for the front door. If this were just a neighborly meet and greet, they would not like the greeting they were about to get! She pulled open the door, fully aware she had bedhead, her breath stank of the wine from the night before and she was pretty sure she still had those annoying sleep marks on her face mere humans got—ones she never saw in the movies. But what stood on her porch was enough to make the woman in her perk up and come to attention before hanging her head in shame at the way she looked, even if he was way younger than she was.
The man on her front porch stood an inch or two above her own five foot eleven inch height and looked about twenty-five. Down girl, he’s at least ten years younger than you. Even in the backwoods they have standards. He was muscular with arms that made her dream of being wrapped securely in them, a closely cropped head of hair that begged to be finger combed and hazel eyes that shone with a world-weary look and intelligence. Intelligence that at this very moment had a sarcastic gleam to match the snarl-like smile on his lips. Realizing she gaped at the stranger, she closed her open jaw, ran a hand through her hair and stood straighter, trying to make it all seem casual and nonchalant. The longer he stared silently at her, the more it got her goat.
“Yes? Can I help you?” she asked with a bit of snark to her tone. When he continued to look at her and say nothing, she continued, “Are you lost? If you are, sorry, but I’m new here so I can’t help you…. Do you need something? Like a phone?” She paused a moment to give him a chance to reply. “Can you speak?”
The silent treatment was a bit much and a bit too much like her ex’s treatment of her before he left.
“Listen, kid, I don’t know what you want at this ungodly hour, but I am not a nice person before my first jolt of caffeine, so if you can’t find your voice box, then could you just come back later?”