by T. S. Joyce
“Fridge is working. We need to get it clean quick, though. The milk is getting warm.” He stopped and looked critically at me. “On second thought, let me do this and you eat something. I can see every one of your ribs through your shirt.”
The rows of grocery bags were enough to overwhelm me. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you saved my life. Don’t be stubborn. It’s part of the debt. Just eat.”
He had turned when he was talking, and I could see the red, angry scars the bear had made across his neck. He had them on his arms, as well, but the one on his neck was what held me. It tapered and disappeared under his shirt, and I wanted to see more. I took a step forward and reached my hand out to touch it. Caleb stood frozen, his face an unreadable mask, and I let my hand fall back to my side.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He sighed, and his face took on a hard and distant look. “Do yours?”
“Not until I see them in the mirror,” I said honestly. He’d tried to hurt me by bringing up my scars, but I understood the instinct to use that kind of weapon. I searched for anything to ease his pain. “It gets better with time.”
“That’s hard to believe,” he said, turning back to the fridge to wipe it down. “It’s all anybody looks at anymore.”
His internal struggle was so thick, it settled like a mist on my skin. Did he blame me, too? Did he think he looked that way because of me, like that Becca girl did?
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?” he asked in a gruff voice.
Four freshly killed fish had been dropped on my doorstep over the past month, and last I checked, that mangy old dog of mine wouldn’t have ever bothered sharing his food with me. “Did you bring me the fish?”
His eyes narrowed, as if I was crazy. “What fish?”
“Oh. Never mind.” Embarrassed, I dropped my gaze to his work boots until he went back to cleaning and released me from his impossibly blue gaze.
I rifled through a plastic bag, vowing to take the first thing that was edible and leave him to his work. A box of mixed berry granola bars caught my attention, and I opened it as fast as I could. My hands trembled, and my legs felt wobbly enough to knock my knees together.
“You want one?” I hadn’t meant to whisper, but it was all that came out.
He stopped what he was doing and swiveled his head to me. “What’s wrong?” he asked through a look of confusion.
I wouldn’t risk speaking, so I shook my head and stared at the box of treasures I held clutched to my chest. Nothing was wrong—except that Caleb was marred because of me, and now he was in my kitchen paying back some stupid debt he didn’t owe, and now I’d somehow pissed him off again. And he felt so big in my tiny home that it was hard to breathe. Strong and in control, he worked without trying to be quiet, and his strength seeped out of him when he shut drawers, set cans down, or closed the fridge. He was overwhelming. And beautiful. But mostly overwhelming.
I skittered back into my room, but I could feel his gaze follow me until the door clicked closed behind me. How could I explain what was wrong with me when my feelings were just a mass of confusion not even I was equipped to interpret?
One granola bar package sat on the bed beside me, and I guiltily ate a second. I wished I could eat up every single thing Caleb had brought, but I wasn’t a dog. I knew about rationing. If I was careful, this food could last me two months. I peeked out the door to watch Caleb. He was putting cold things into the fridge with swift and confident accuracy. I shut the door again and sat on my bed like a coward, clutching onto the box of leftover granola bars as if it would get the wise idea to try and run away.
I didn’t know this Caleb. He was strong, quick, overpowering and intimidating. He was a tornado, as beautiful as he was terrifying. This house had only known the weak and ravaged Caleb born of injury and pain.
A light knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts. Caleb opened it slowly and peered in. “Can we talk?”
He sat on the bed beside me before I figured out my answer. He was so close I was breathless, as if a bowling ball sat on top my chest. I stood and scurried into the small bathroom. He could talk all he wanted to, but I didn’t have to listen from three inches away.
Caleb seemed undeterred. “I need your permission to widen a gate so I can get my truck up here. It’s going to be the only way I can get the supplies I need up to the house.”
“Like what supplies?” I asked around the foam created by my toothbrush.
“Like, lumber for one. Half this place is rotted and not fit to be living in.”
I spat frothy mint into the sink. “That sounds expensive.”
“Speaking of, that generator out back is working for now, but it won’t last forever. You need electricity up here, Mira. You can’t go through the winter with no heat. Is it as important to you as it was to your uncle to live off the grid?”
I frowned at my reflection. It was nice not answering to anyone or paying the bills, but my bones still ached when I thought about the end of the last chilly winter without that generator.
I spat again and rinsed my mouth. “No. That isn’t important to me, but I don’t have the money to pay an electrician.”
“My older brother, Brian, will be out here first thing in the morning to tap you into a power line. I can’t imagine it will take too much to heat this little house. Your fireplace works?”
I finished rinsing my face and gave him a thumbs up outside of the bathroom with one hand while I dried my face with the other.
“Good. A couple more space heaters, and you should be doing all right.”
My head was whirling. Where would I get all of this magic money? I couldn’t even afford food.
I had pulled my hair into a messy bun at the back of my head to dry my face. It felt good to have the weight off my neck, and I returned to my bedroom in the same fashion. I took a seat in the chair by the bed to avoid overly close contact with Caleb again. That felt too dangerous.
He stared, and in an astonished tone said, “You look different with your hair back.”
“I’m sure you do, too,” I countered, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. His hair was shoulder-length and long enough. He could almost get his hair into a stub of one, at least.
Caleb cleared his throat. “Anyway, doing all of this stuff is great and all, but you need a way to make a living. I don’t have any stake in this, and you can ignore my suggestions, but I bet you could put a pump jack up here and find some oil. You are in prime oil country after all. You could make your land pay you.”
I was startled. That was something I’d never in my life thought about, though I know a lot of people in town made money in some form from the oil industry.
“How do you know they would find oil on my land?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know if they will, but I… Look, don’t freak out but I bought old Eli’s place just west of your property line several months back.”
I sat up straighter. “How could you buy his place so long ago? He just died last month.” By my bullet, but I didn’t like to dwell on stuff like that. The nightmares were enough.
Caleb sighed and leveled me a look that said he wished he could tell me everything that had ever been. “He went missing last year, and his place was already in default a couple years before that. I picked the land up cheap because nobody in town wanted to touch a property they said was haunted.”
“Is it?” I asked.
“It is now.” He said it quick but looked like he immediately regretted it.
I pushed before he shut down completely on me. “Do you think that’s why he did it?”
“Who?”
“Eli Emmerson. Do you think he turned you because you own his land?”
“Like revenge?” he asked with a slight frown.
And that’s all I needed to know. I couldn’t help the triumphant look that stretched my face. That had been a test, and Caleb McCreedy had failed. “You’re a bear shifter too now, aren�
��t you?”
“Mira,” he warned.
“Who am I going to tell?” I made a show of looking around. “These walls don’t share my secrets, Caleb. You still human or not?”
His expression darkened, and he looked away, staring out the window like the woods outside were the most interesting sight on the planet. Fine. If he wasn’t going to talk, he could listen.
“Eli’s sons were killed by poachers. He told me and Uncle Brady about it. People in town think they just up and left for a different life somewhere, but they got shot up when they were running as bears out in the woods one night. Eli wasn’t right after that. Even Uncle Brady called him crazy, and you’ve probably heard about how unstable he was. When you have a lunatic calling you a lunatic, you’re a damned lunatic. And that’s where Eli was headed. Maybe he felt like turning bear for good, or maybe you all go full bear when you get old and sick like he was. I don’t know. But if he knew you were the new owner of his land, the land that has passed to the sons in his family for generations, maybe he wanted to punish you.”
“It’s not a punishment, Mira.” Caleb had said it as softly as he possibly could. “I don’t think he saw it like that. He bled me slow. Killing me would’ve been a punishment. That crazy old shifter thought he was giving me a gift.”
“How do you know?”
Resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head and ran his hands through his hair roughly. “Because I think about it all the damned time, Mira. The way he tortured me…” Caleb swallowed hard. “The way he did it makes me think he was deliberately trying to turn me, not kill me. He had no sons left. He picked me to keep the monster alive.”
“Do you think it’s a gift?”
He jerked his head up, and I gasped at the gold-rimmed, inhuman eyes that met mine. An empty smile crooked his lips. “No, Mira. Seeing you fear me isn’t a gift. Knowing what the town would do to me if they found out what I am isn’t a gift. Eli Emmerson’s last act on this earth was to curse me.” He stood and gripped the knob on my bedroom door. He kept his eyes cast away from me to hide the unnatural color. “I put jacks up on my land and they are already paying. It won’t be a permanent solution if it is one at all. You are going to have to find a job so you can live.”
“I am living,” I said defensively.
“Mira,” he said, squeezing his eyes tightly closed. When he looked at me again, they were blue again. “This isn’t living.”
He reached into his pocket, then handed me a piece of crumpled paper. I read over it and tried to hide the disappointment from my face.
Don’s Butcher Shop
May’s Florist
Soft Time Linens
Library
Pizzeria
“I’ve already applied to all of these places,” I said quietly. “Except for the butcher shop. The sign on his door said now hiring but when I tried, Mr. Don said he didn’t have any openings.” The rest of them had said different variations of the same thing. I’d be bad for business.
Caleb stared at me for a long time, then shook his head like I’d said something unbelievable. “Before we do anything to your place, we need to have the title squared away for you to give me permission to do the electric and open the gate wider. Is the deed in your name?”
“Uncle Brady’s will put it in my name when I turned eighteen. I have to sign some paperwork with Mr. Burns before it’s all official, though.”
“Okay, get dressed,” he said. “We need to go into town and get that taken care of before anything else.”
“Right now?” I asked. Usually, I mentally prepared myself for a couple of days before a trip to Main Street.
“Yes, right now,” he clipped out. “As soon as the clinic okays me, I’m going back to work on the rig. That gives us roughly two weeks to get this place in shape.”
“Okay,” I whispered, wanting badly not to disappoint him. “I’m ready.”
“You’re ready?” he asked incredulously.
I pulled the rubber band out of my hair and my dark locks slid back in front of my face. “I don’t have anything else to wear,” I admitted. I could feel my cheeks burning with the admission, but I stood my ground and stared his glorious eyes down.
His gaze faltered first, sliding down to rest on the ring of scars around my neck. His expression was unreadable, but he’d seen them before, so I didn’t cover them up. He already knew I was damaged goods.
“Come here,” he demanded quietly.
Part of me wanted to buckle against such a direct command, but a bigger part of me reveled in the sound of the deep authority in his voice. Caleb McCreedy was a capable man, and though I’d never admit it out loud, I trusted him.
I followed him into the kitchen where he began searching the plastic bags. I opened the fridge to see what it looked like to have a full icebox. It was a scene from a dream. Except…
“Caleb?”
“Hmm?” he asked distractedly.
“Why did you buy all of these tiny cartons of milk? It would have been cheaper to buy a gallon.”
“Here it is,” he said, ignoring my question.
A green cotton shirt flew through the air, and I snatched it with my left hand. I unfolded it and drew the soft fabric up against my chest. The color was pretty. Did he think about me when he bought the garment?
“My sister picked it out,” he said, looking at me with an unreadable, empty expression.
I wasn’t disappointed because I wasn’t surprised.
Caleb wasn’t here because he found me interesting or pretty. He was here to pay a debt.
Right now, I was learning a valuable lesson about the stubborn streak of an honorable man.
Chapter Seven
Caleb
I didn’t know why I told Mira my sister had picked out the shirt for her. I had spent an hour at Beall’s trying to figure out which shirt to get. I’d never cared about women’s fashion before, but I was torn between getting something nice for her and getting something she would accept. If I thought I had an icicle’s chance in hell of buying her more clothes and her actually letting me, I’d have done it and not thought twice. She had an empty closet going into a relentless winter. She had a need, and I wanted to fill it. Like with the fish I couldn’t help dropping at her door every time I changed. My instincts were only getting stronger, and thinking about taking care of Mira kept my animal side under control. Eli hadn’t had anyone to balance him out, no one to keep him accountable or give him a job that kept his animal focused. That’s why the old man had snapped, and I was going to do everything in my power to deter that fate for myself. And right now, taking care of Mira’s needs was what was keeping me sane.
As astonishing as my lie was about my sister picking out the shirt, it had given me an idea. Not a complete one, just the beginnings of a niggling at the edge of my brain that said I could do something about something. I’d have to explore it more later when Mira wasn’t sitting in the cab of my truck, fiddling with the radio.
An oldies station blared out the second chorus of “Eight Days a Week,” and she leaned back in the passenger’s seat with a sigh. She looked small and frail, cowering on the corner of the bench seat of my truck. Even with her choice in music, she still seemed uncomfortable and trapped. Like a raccoon in a cage. It was probably me making her feel uncomfortable. People in town had started acting differently around me, too. More wary. I blamed it on the bear residing under my skin. I rolled down the windows and hoped it would help.
We parked in front of Sam Burns’s office near the end of Main Street. “I’ll wait out here,” I told her as she escaped the truck and shut the door gingerly behind her.
Mira turned and placed her hands gently over the window opening. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
I opened my mouth to tell her she didn’t have to worry about being gentle with my ride. It was only a work truck, but she turned and scampered into Burns’s office before I could get a word out. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. If she wasn’t comfortable wi
th something, she wouldn’t want to risk leaving any evidence she had ever been there. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.
Two older ladies sat in rocking chairs outside of the handmade furniture shop beside the lawyer’s office. I gave them a two-fingered wave out the window. “How are you doing today, ladies?”
“Caleb McCreedy. Lands alive, is that you?” Mrs. Brendel asked. She used to teach me in Sunday school when I was little.
The chair creaked rhythmically beneath her as she rocked, and the motion lulled me to relax despite my earlier tension.
“Yes ma’am, in town for some errands.”
The other woman looked back to the door of Mr. Burns’s office. I recognized her, too, but couldn’t put a name to her face. “Is my eyesight failing or was that Mira Fletcher I just saw get out of your truck?” the woman asked.
I groaned internally. “Yes ma’am,” was all I said.
“Hmph,” the women said in unison.
After a moment of staring at the door Mira had disappeared into, the quieter one said, “Caleb McCreedy, you be careful with that one. You are a prominent figure in this town.”
How was I supposed to respond to that? I wanted to tell her my father was the prominent member in town. I was just a member. But most of all, I wanted the tell her to advise me again after she’d had an actual conversation with Mira. Instead, I said, “Y’all have a nice day,” then rolled up my window to deter any more unsolicited life advice. And so we sat, an awkward trio of semi-strangers watching the same door for the same unsuspecting girl to appear. I couldn’t help but notice when the women’s heads tipped together like a little pyramid of gossip as they whispered. For some reason, it really bothered me.
Maybe I was going crazy. A month and a half ago, I wouldn’t have given another thought to some old ladies gossiping about Mira Fletcher. Everybody did it. So what? There wasn’t much to talk about in a small town, bar the goings on of its residents, and Mira was the most interesting person to talk about. Maybe that was because people had been so creative with the stories they put out there about her over the years, or maybe because of the known truths about her sordid past that accompanied the rumors, but I was beginning to think that mostly it was because no one knew a single real thing about her. The unknown scared people. It conjured gossip. Maybe it was as simple as that for the townspeople, but it had consequences for Mira.