by Jeff Carson
“Okay.”
The Audi’s tires squished on the mud, the engine humming softly as she drove away through the horned headgate his father had built so many years ago.
He stood, breathing her scent coming off his clothes, and when the sound of her car’s engine dissipated and became the ambient sounds of the forest, he turned and walked to the house—his mind on jade-green, squinted eyes.
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading DIRE. I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you did, thank you for taking a few moments to leave a review. As an independent author, exposure is everything, and positive reviews help so much to get that exposure. If you would consider leaving one, I would greatly appreciate it.
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Preview of Signature (David Wolf Book 9)
The creature must have heard them coming because a shrill cry filled the night.
“Oh … did you hear that?” A pair of tiny arms latched onto Wolf’s leg as the plastic bin lurched again.
He bent over and shined the Maglite through the cage of the hockey helmet, illuminating the six-year-old girl’s eyes locked on the trashcan.
She gripped his leg harder and took a step back, trying to pull him with her. For all the fuss Ella Coulter had made, wanting to be his wingman, she was starting to crumble.
“David!” Her mother’s voice came from the house and echoed into the forest beyond the barn.
“It’s okay!” he said.
“Do you know how painful rabies shots are?” Lauren Coulter asked, her shapely silhouette shifting in the kitchen doorway.
He had never had the privilege.
An outbreak of barking came from deep within the house behind Lauren. Jet, Wolf’s adopted German shepherd, had informed them of the current problem and then lost his usefulness. At twelve years old, the dog was normally slow, living out his twilight years comfortably seated or lying down, but when it came to raccoons he became a rabid beast. He was probably clawing a groove into Wolf’s bedroom door right now.
“Mom! I’m okay!” Ella said, releasing her death grip on Wolf’s thigh. She adjusted the mittens, straightened the puffy winter coat, and pointed. “Let’s go. He’s probably scared. You have to get him out.”
He shined the flashlight beyond the downed trashcan. A large raccoon edged closer along the barn’s red exterior wall. The three babies watching from the corner told him one of their siblings was stuck inside. Otherwise, he assumed this mother would have long led her family away.
To keep wildlife out of this particular trashcan—the only one without a heavy-duty bear-proof fastening system like he had on the others—he’d strapped a simple thirty-inch bungee cord from handle to handle across the lid. He’d been lulled into complacency about this bin. Though he’d found it on its side more than once over the years, it had never been opened. Apparently, it was time to invest the $22.50 at Rascal’s for a secure model.
Another shrill cry pierced the silence, this time longer and more desperate, and it drew the mother raccoon closer at a faster clip.
“Stay here.”
Wolf’s tone froze Ella in her tracks, and she stood obediently under her pile of protective clothing.
He’d had enough screwing around. It was three in the morning and he needed sleep if he wanted to function at all tomorrow, so he made straight for the can.
The mother went mean, trotting alongside the wall at full steam now, both of them making for the target without slowing.
I am a man.
He straddled the can, at the same time swiveling it so that the lid pointed at the mother, keeping his flashlight pinned on her shining eyes. The cold wetness of the plastic soaked through the fabric of his pajama pants.
The raccoon bared her teeth now, raising her front claws with each running step.
Shit.
He felt the animal knocking against the bin under him, heard the rustling of plastic bags inside. There was another cry, this time sounding as if Wolf had put it in a headlock.
The mother started screaming—short shrieks that said there was about to be blood.
“Let him out!” Ella shouted.
“David!”
Wolf dropped the flashlight on the dirt and used his left hand to grip the bungee cord that ran over the length of the lid, trying to pry his fingers underneath. It was trivial, mundane movements like these that made him miss his pinkie finger, which had been blown off by a handgun last year. The missing digit reduced his dexterity, slowing his timing just enough to allow the mother raccoon to get too close.
“Stop!” He pointed at the animal.
The mother skidded to a stop, peeling back her lips as she shuffled from side to side.
Pulling the bungee cord, he released his makeshift lock and popped open the lid with his other hand.
A ball of fur darted out, knocking the flashlight along the ground. The light beam twisted and landed on the family of raccoons disappearing into the woods.
“Yay! Ha ha!” Ella jumped up and down. “Ha ha! Did you see that, Mommy?”
“Yeah, I saw that.” Lauren stood with them now, her chest heaving as she retracted her arms back from her daughter.
“Oh, hey.” Ella turned around. “Can I take this off?”
Lauren took the helmet off her daughter and watched Wolf straighten the garbage can against the barn and pick up the flashlight.
Free of her helmet, Ella pulled off Jack’s old mittens and swiveled a glance between the two adults. “That was so cool. David saved him.”
Walking back to the house, Wolf rolled his shoulders and puffed his pectoral muscles, making a show of stretching one side of his neck.
Ella stared in smiling awe while Lauren rolled her eyes.
“See you inside,” Wolf said.
Three hours later, a thin hand grasped Wolf’s shoulder, gently pulling him from his sleep.
“My hero,” Lauren’s warm lips tickled his earlobe. Her hand ran down his side, causing him an involuntary muscle spasm.
He turned, catching her facetious smile. If he had learned one thing about Lauren Coulter in their past year of dating, it was that she relished every moment that she could make Wolf lose even the slightest bit of control, which meant all she had to do to get her fix was to touch him.
Her jade eyes narrowed as she looked at his lips. Without hesitation, she reached around the front of him and went straight for the groin, massaging him through his boxer shorts.
“Good morning,” she said.
Her lips pulled into a perfect-toothed smile, and then relaxed as they gravitated towards his mouth. The smooth skin of her thigh brushed across his legs as she straddled him, and then she was over him, kissing him on the neck as her fingernails tickled at the waistline of his underwear.
He gave another involuntary shudder as she reached inside with an eager, firm grip. With her other hand, she hiked up her T-shirt and sighed. Coupled with her firm, warm body pressing against him, the sounds she made drove him wild.
He pulled up her shirt, revealing her small, golden-skinned breasts, and palmed them both. When he tried to pull off her shirt, she refused to unhand her trophy and they became a tangle of fabric and limbs.
They both l
aughed. Her smile was perfect. Even after a night of sleep, her breath was intoxicating.
The doorknob rattled and the door swung open, banging against the wall. An eighty-pound German shepherd strode in with a six-year-old girl in tow.
Lauren collapsed onto his chest. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi,” Ella said in that conspiratorial tone she used first thing in the morning. She was there to speak to her mother, not to Wolf.
Sticking true to her routine, Ella rounded the bed, her feet pattering on the carpet to the far side where Lauren had been sleeping three or more nights per week, for months now.
Lauren slid her hand out of Wolf’s underwear in the most erotic way possible and bent towards her daughter.
He and Jet met eyes as the girls whispered and giggled. He knew the gist of the conversation well, though he never heard it outright:
“Can I have some milk?”
“Yes, you can get it yourself.”
“Can I take Jet outside?”
“Yes. Be careful.”
Ella left in a run, and Jet left on her heels, a wagging tail thumping the doorjamb on the way out.
“Race?” Lauren asked, straddling him again.
When the kitchen door thumped closed, they began to make love furiously. Lauren had once called their new pastime a race to the finish. Either Ella wins or we win. Who will it be?
Three minutes later, when the hinges of the kitchen door squeaked back open, they were already spent and panting heavily. They always won.
After a quick shower, Wolf changed into work clothes, which consisted of his second-favorite pair of worn Levi’s, a lightweight flannel shirt, and lace-up leather Gore-Tex work boots that had seen more miles than the tires on his SUV.
He went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee from the steaming carafe. A half-eaten bowl of chocolate Cheerios sat on the table, and a cooling piece of toast on the counter. Lauren and Ella stood on the front deck, marveling at something.
Curiosity piqued, he sipped his coffee and walked out the front door to join them.
The valley wall to the west was ablaze with sunshine, the highest peaks veined with tendrils of dirty snow that clung to the shady crevices.
At 7:20 a.m., the sun’s rays had yet to hit the valley floor on his ranch acreage, so the air had more than a nip to it. Mid-August at nine thousand feet could host all sorts of temperatures and weather extremes during the day, but the morning was always cold.
After the overnight rains, the meadow grass was matted down with water, the pines high up near the treeline dusted with snow. Two elk grazed in a thin veil of fog to the south.
Ella stood against the railing, staring in awe at the two beasts. “They’re huge.”
Lauren smiled at the view, sipping her own coffee, then slapped Ella on the back. “Okay, back inside. It’s cold.”
“Do you ever see bears here?” Ella looked at him, her imagination already running wild behind her eyes before he could answer.
“Yes.”
She shot her mom with an I-told-you-so look and stayed put on the railing.
“Let’s go,” Lauren said. “You have to finish your breakfast, and I have to butter my toast.”
“Didn’t I butter your toast earlier this morning?” he asked.
Lauren blinked. “Butter my toast?”
“You did?” Ella asked.
Lauren walked inside, pulling a strand of her strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear. “You’re a dumbass,” she said just for him on the way by.
He watched her hips sway under her flannel pants.
With great reluctance, Ella followed her mother. “I love your house. It’s so much better than our new place in town.”
“Ella,” Lauren said from inside, her tone sharp.
“What?”
He followed them in and shut the door.
“Come on and eat your Cheerios. They’re getting soggy.”
“That’s how I like them.”
He was frozen for a few seconds, watching the gorgeous woman with the tattoo behind her ear and her beautiful daughter do their morning routine in his kitchen.
Finishing a glaze of butter on her toast, Lauren turned, catching him staring. She did the hair thing again, averted her eyes and went red in the face. “Do you want some toast?”
“Sure.”
“Eggs?”
“Sounds great.”
Ella looked up from her cereal. “Do you know what?”
“What?” He sat down.
“I want to be a bear when I die.”
He raised his eyebrows and sipped his coffee, unsure where to begin with a response.
“When you die?” Lauren turned from cracking an egg.
“Yeah. A bear. Do you know why?” She waited for him to answer.
“Why?”
“Because they’re huge and fierce. And they can scare mean raccoons away, and they don’t have to answer to anyone.”
Lauren scrambled the eggs in a bowl. “Where did you learn about coming back as a bear when you die?”
“What? I don’t know.” Ella chomped a spoonful of Cheerios, dropping half of them on her lap. She looked up at her mother, then at Wolf, looking like she was trying to figure out what she’d said wrong.
He winked. “You like bears, huh?”
“Yeah. We saw one on the road last month.”
“I know. You told me about that. That’s so cool.”
“Yep.” She dove back into her Cheerios.
Lauren slid a plate of steaming eggs and toast in front of him, and then kissed him on the temple. “I have to go pee,” she declared and left the kitchen.
Ella dropped her spoon and squinted one eye. “Do bears have mommies and daddies?”
“Yeah.”
“They do?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then why is there only one big bear with the little bears when they’re walking around?”
“That’s the momma bear. She takes care of the cubs.”
“Same thing with the raccoon last night. There was only the momma.”
He nodded.
While Ella thought on this, he heard a sound just outside of the kitchen, and then Lauren’s receding footfalls.
“So … what do the daddies do?”
He shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth, brainstorming for an answer.
“Can daddies change?”
“What?”
“Can, like, you have one dad, and then another dad comes and becomes your dad?”
He gave a non-committal shrug and took a bite of toast. “Yeah. They can.”
“I wish you were my dad.”
“Ella.” Lauren was back at the entryway, her mouth hanging open. “Jesus,” she muttered under her breath as she walked into the kitchen. There was a loud clank as she fumbled something in the sink.
Once again confused, Ella stared at her mother’s back and chewed a mouthful of food.
He stood, walked to the sink, and put a hand on Lauren’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
His phone vibrated in his pocket, which sounded as intrusive as a buzz saw in the awkward silence.
She looked at his pocket and flipped on the faucet. “Better get that.”
The screen told him it was MacLean, which meant something was going on. The sheriff rarely called, preferring to talk through the channels of one of his underlings rather than to Wolf himself.
“Hello?” He moved out of the kitchen into the living room.
“We have a DB,” MacLean said.
He walked out the front door to the porch, letting the information soak into his brain.
“You there?”
He shut the door. “Yeah.”
“I said we have a dead body.”
“Where?”
“Start driving down the river. When you cross the bridge, she’ll be on your right. Next to a shitload of cops.”
CLICK HERE to download Signature (David Wolf
Book 9) and continue the adventure!
David Wolf Series in Order
Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story)– Sign up for the new release newsletter at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive a complimentary copy.
Foreign Deceit (David Wolf Book 1)
The Silversmith (David Wolf Book 2)
Alive and Killing (David Wolf Book 3)
Deadly Conditions (David Wolf Book 4)
Cold Lake (David Wolf Book 5)
Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)
To the Bone (David Wolf Book 7)
Dire (David Wolf Book 8)
Signature (David Wolf Book 9)
Dark Mountain (David Wolf Book 10)
Rain (David Wolf Book 11)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.