by Shaye Marlow
Chapter Eleven
ZACK
“I’m going with you,” Frances said.
I paused to look at her, brows raised.
“What,” she said, “you think I’d rather stay here with him?”
We both glanced over at Rory, who was sprawled on the couch in his underwear because one of Ed’s guides had taken Conway fishing. Rory was staring at the TV as if it weren’t broken, and as we watched, he scratched his balls.
“And besides, it’s a bar. It won’t be just you there. There’ll be men. Other men, and of fuckable age.”
I took a deep breath, and just kept myself from slamming her back against the wall, and… and telling her I was fuckable. Showing her… “It’s noon,” I said. “There won’t be anyone there but us.”
She shrugged.
“Whatever. Just get in the boat.”
“Yes!” she said, with a little fist-pump that made one corner of my mouth kick up. But then she ran for her bedroom. “Just let me get…”
“I’m not waiting for you,” I called as I let myself out the door.
She caught up with me before I reached the dock, slightly out of breath, her short dark hair flopping wildly around her head. Wild. That was the perfect word for her.
I headed toward the back of the boat, and with just about perfect choreography, she got us untied while I checked the gas. When I started the outboard, she pushed us off, and jumped in with a little sound of excitement.
She sat facing me, cheeks pink, eyes sparkling, hair whipping around her head, practically dancing from asscheek to asscheek with eagerness. She looked so damn young…
I got us to the bar without incident, and she had to be at least 21, ’cuz I saw the bartender card her before handing her a really tall, girly-looking drink.
“What do you have there?” I asked as I unpacked my paints and brushes onto the table nearest the back wall.
“Sex on the beach,” she said, sliding happily into one of the chairs next to me.
Bringing her had been a bad idea, I thought as my pants tightened.
Besides the guy behind the bar, there was no one to distract her as she watched me mix paints. “Are those oils?” she asked.
“Acrylic.”
“Why?”
“Why acrylic? Because oil paints stink, for starters. And they take forever to dry. Acrylics are easier, cheaper, and can be covered with a layer to make them durable.” Jesus fuck, she was staring at my mouth. Brush and palette in hand, I gave her my back.
It was an Alaskan scene I was painting, complete with birch and spruce, a colorful sweep of fireweed, and a growly brown bear wading into a river full of fish. The river seemed to flow up against the wall from the other side, so that two feet up from the floor was all underwater, with salmon swimming and flashing.
I sat, intent upon fleshing out their silvery hides. Honestly, I was a little relieved when she wandered off. Still, as I painted, I was aware of her movements. I heard peanuts crunch as she ate a couple and exchanged a few quiet words with the bartender. The door to the women’s restroom gave its characteristic squeak, and when she emerged, she crossed to the door to the fight club. Because women were now allowed, and what did I care if she poked around, I ignored her as she disappeared. She was gone for ten or fifteen minutes, and I was kinda starting to wonder if she’d found someone of fuckable age down there, when she reappeared. Not breathing hard, not flushed, not mussed, clothes not askew, she crossed to the pool tables and knocked some balls around.
“There’s a scoreboard with your name on it over the bar,” she said from over my shoulder, making me realize I’d finally lost track of her, and of time.
I grunted. “I know.” Ed had thought it’d be fun, since there were an excess of bears running around and no bag limit, to make a contest out of it. There were categories for both number of bears taken and for size, and—
“You and Rory were at the bottom,” Frances said.
Yeah, I was aware. I couldn’t so much as order a drink without the bartender reminding me of that fact.
Allll the way at the top was the Trebuchet Gang. Maybe they weren’t leading in number taken, but certainly in the size category. Their bear was a whole foot bigger than the next biggest, and it irked me to no damn end.
Rory and I needed to get that monster bear. Our pride was at stake.
“Your fish don’t look real,” Frances added.
“They’re not supposed to.”
“They look kinda cartoony.”
I looked up, and frowned as I realized she held a new drink.
She lifted it in salute. “Screaming orgasm,” she said.
Hell. I tried to let it go, but as my attention turned back to my work, my mouth opened, and words spilled out. “I didn’t hear any screaming.”
“That’s because I didn’t have one. I want one,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to me. She squinted at my fish. “His head’s too small.”
Oh my god. I wanted to knock that drink out of her hand, flatten her to the floor and make her scream. And if it’d been any other time, I would have. But I was working.
“Is Ed paying you for this?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then… why are you painting his wall?”
“You ever play The Sims?” My gamer brother J.D.’s influence, I swear.
She gave me a funny look.
“Anyway, in Sims, characters have little green relationship bars above their heads, and if you feed them or give them back-rubs, that relationship bar fills up, and you can become their friend. You need friends for things like job promotions.”
“So… you’re rubbing Ed’s back?”
“Sorta,” I admitted.
Frances sipped her drink, still watching me. “And is that what was going through your head when you painted my tulips?”
My paintbrush stuttered.
“’Cuz it worked. I walk into my room, see those flowers on the wall, and think nice thoughts about the guy who painted them. And by ‘nice’, I mean thoughts of a sexual nature.”
Unnngh. No, I didn’t just cum in my pants, but I was locked, loaded, and fully prepared to—some other time. When I wasn’t painting.
“Did you know flowers are the sex organs of the plant?” She was following every brushstroke with eyes almost as silver as my fish, and between that and the ‘sex’-bombing she was doing…
She opened her mouth again, and I considered shoving something in it.
Instead, I thrust a brush at her. “You want to help? Here. Put sparkles on the water.”
She paled, glancing up at the wall. “What? But, I—”
“You seemed like you knew something about painting just a minute ago,” I said. “Look, it’s easy. See the ripples on the water? See how the sun’s coming from that direction? Take this white, and just outline the tops of the ripples in the sun’s direction. Like this.” I wrapped my hand around her surprisingly little one—surprising because she had such a strong, fierce personality—and the brush, and we traced a ripple. “And mix it up. You can do dabs, bunches of dots. Sparkles,” I said. And whatever I didn’t like, I’d fix later.
“Sparkles,” she repeated.
“Yep. Go wild.”
Firming her chin and setting down her drink, she cautiously traced another ripple. Two inches of paint later, she looked to me for approval.
It was such a strange expression for her to be pointing my way—and yet so damn satisfying—that I had to grin. “One magnificent ripple down,” I said, waving her back to it. “Only like a thousand more to go.”
Ten minutes later, because I couldn’t seem to catch a break, Dotty walked in.
FRANCES
He was really handsome when he was painting. So incongruous, the badass tattoos rippling across his forearms as he stroked paint onto the wall. His motions were sure and deft, his bicep and shoulder muscles threatening to burst right out of his shirt…
He caught me staring, and smirked.
And then, before I could defend the trajectory of my gaze, Dotty walked in. I got really busy with my ripples as she approached. She stopped behind us, and I found it interesting that Zack also appeared to be in no rush to acknowledge her.
“That fish’s head is too small,” she said.
I snorted a laugh, and Zack shot me a look. Unfortunately, I’d also drawn Dotty’s attention.
“You brought a helper,” she said. Then to me, “Hello, Frances, how are you?” She was the mail lady. Of course I knew her.
“Erm, fine, thank you.”
“What are you doing with Zack?”
“She’s my flight instructor,” Zack answered.
“I hope he’s paying you well,” Dotty said.
“Room, board, and twenty thousand dollars,” Zack said.
“Her own room?”
“Of course.”
“I’m not sure you’ve chosen the right color for the water. It looks almost tropical,” Dotty commented.
Zack finally stopped painting to look up at her. “Why are you here?”
“Ed sent me.”
“Why?”
“He was worried you might burn down his bar. Or make it explode. So, I’m here to supervise.”
“I don’t need supervision,” Zack said. “I’m just painting. Trying to paint.”
“Obviously, you do,” Dotty said. “That fish’s head—”
“I do not,” Zack growled.
“Fine, then. Consider me your chaperone. It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to have screaming orgasms on the floor.”
I picked up my drink and toasted her. “Good eye.”
“Thank you. So. What are we doing?”
“Painting,” Zack said. His mad voice was sexy as hell, his words all short and growly.
Dotty moved over to the table, and starting digging through his paints.
“I am painting. You may watch,” Zack said.
“What? But she’s painting.”
“Frances is just doing what I told her,” Zack said, giving me the sudden urge to quit.
Dotty took whatever loot she’d ganked from the table, and went to the far end of the wall. Zack chose to ignore her, and situated between them, I continued producing sparkles.
I wasn’t sure if he could see what she was up to, and my nature wouldn’t let me keep my mouth shut. “She’s painting,” I said, feeling that thrill of anticipation I always did when I stirred shit up.
Zack leaned back to look. “Dammit, Dotty. What are you doing?”
“Just beautifying the landscape a bit,” she chirped.
Zack scrambled to his feet, and I almost clapped with glee. I abandoned all pretense of painting to watch him confront the old gossip. “What are you—you’re painting flowers?” he demanded.
“They’re African violets,” Dotty said. “Only the most versatile and noble of all houseplants.”
“This is an Alaskan landscape, and it is my mural, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped,” Zack said.
“Alaska is boring. Next, I think I’ll add a couple elves peeping out from the trees. I mean, what’s a forest without elves?”
“I’m telling you,” Zack said in his short, growly voice, “to stop.”
I bit my lip, turned on beyond all reason. If he turned that voice on me, gave me those hard blue eyes and that flexed jaw, and looked like he was about to jump on me… damn.
“Just let me finish this one,” Dotty said. And continued to paint.
Picking up my screaming orgasm, I took a healthy gulp as I rubber-necked.
Zack yanked the brush out of her hand, leaving a streak of pink across the wall. Dotty let out a horrified gasp as he reached in and scrubbed out her flowers with the side of his fist. She turned to him, diminutive and wrinkled, with her white hair bristling, and glared.
“You gonna let him get away with that?” I called.
Her jaw firmed, and the glove she slapped across his face brought his frowning gaze back around. She threw the glove at his feet, then moved in on him until they were toe-to-toe, chin-to-chest. “I demand satisfaction,” she said.
“What?” Zack put his hand over the reddened spot on his cheek, hiding the mark from my avid gaze.
She marched over to the table and swept up the cane she’d left lying there. She pulled it apart, and two-and-a-half feet of polished diamond willow gave way to two-and-a-half feet of sharp, shiny steel, which she brandished, making Zack’s jaw drop. “En garde,” she said. “May the best man win,” she added, shooting a disparaging glance at Zack’s package.
I was suddenly in love. I wanted to take Dotty home with me, and set her on my father. Maybe not on on, but pointed at, for sure. And what a sharp point it was.
Zack looked at me.
“I don’t think he wants to hurt you,” I translated.
“Hurt me? Pshaw.” Dotty spit dangerously close to Zack’s feet, then advanced on him until that sharp point pressed in under his chin and he had to raise his head to keep from being skewered. “My name is Dotty Hindman. You killed my violets. Prepare to die.”
“Did you forget to take your meds?” Zack asked. “Sometimes Rory forgets, and he gets just like this.”
“Choose your weapon,” she said, glaring daggers up at him, as if that sword weren’t enough.
I’d spotted a pair of hockey sticks crossed on the wall, and ran to pull one down. I tossed it to Zack. “You guys should take this outside,” I suggested. “Wouldn’t wanna mess up Ed’s bar.”
“Excellent point, sweetie,” Dotty said. Then to Zack: “I’m gonna give you what you so richly deserve, little boy. Outside,” she ordered, with a sharp twitch of her blade.
Zack pointed the hockey stick at me, his eyes all sexily a-glower. It seemed he might say something, but then he just shook his head. “Fine,” he said to Dotty, following her to the door, “but you’ll explain to Ed why I’m out here completely annihilating a nosy old biddy, when I should be in there finishing his wall.”
“You have no respect,” she said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“How about I show you something you haven’t seen?”
With a whoop, I followed them out.
They picked a nice, empty, grassy patch between the bar and the river. Dotty circled Zack, assessing his form. He lifted his hockey stick, which was about twice as long as her sword.
“I see the force is strong with you,” she observed, brandishing her own weapon, “but it curves slightly to the right.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, old woman,” Zack returned.
“Oh, I dunno,” Dotty said, raking her gaze down him. “I’ve seen every inch of it.”
That, finally, seemed to get to Zack. He rushed in, and their ‘swords’ clattered together.
The clack, clack, clack of their battle brought a couple guys running up from the boats.
Dotty quickly proved to be more than competent. She knocked Zack’s stick aside, and planted a Velcro-fastened shoe on his rear, sending him sprawling. She laughed. “Who’s annihilated now, bitch?”
Zack was back up in a jiffy, and ran at her with a furious yell.
“What’s going on?” one of the guys coming up from the boats—they had the look of fishing guides, the both of them—asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He just went crazy and started attacking her!”
The guys ran in and grabbed Zack from behind, capturing his arms.
“Hey!” Dotty said. “What are you doing?”
“Saving you,” one of the guides grunted.
Hanging off of Zack proved to be very much like sitting on a bucking bull. He managed to shake one off, and Dotty blindsided the other with the flat of her blade. His cry was full of outrage, and then all four of them were going at it.
I went into the bar and asked for a beer.
“What’s going on out there?” the bartender asked.
“I don’t know, but they sure are che
wing up the lawn.”
With a frown, the guy picked up one of those solid wood baseball bats, and headed out the door. I snagged a chair on the way out, and emerged just in time to see him join the fray.
Dotty was cussing like a sailor, damning their hides and claiming to have done shocking things with their mothers. Zack had three guys on his back, trying to drag him down. I watched, getting more than a little turned on as he manhandled his attackers.
Another couple men emerged from the bar, these having the urbane, polished look of tourists. “What’s going on?” one asked.
“Oh, hadn’t you heard? It’s free-for-all Friday. It’s a tradition around here.”
They just stood there, looking from me to the fight.
“You came all the way to Alaska. Do you want the full experience, or not?” I demanded.
They looked at one another. “Well… yeah,” one cautiously agreed.
“Then get in there,” I said, swatting him on the rump, “and embrace our culture.”
And, they did. After the first few joined, the number of brawlers built quickly. People driving by on the river stopped to ‘help’. A little dog jumped out of a boat to run into the melee yapping furiously, so of course his owner had to join.
And then the skies opened up, and rain poured down, and they were brawling in the mud and the blood out front of the bar, and it. Was. Glorious!
Tipping my head back, I laughed with exultation.
Big, strong hands grabbed me by the collar, and ripped me from my chair. “You,” Zack said. He had me up on the barest tips of my toes, his head lowered so he could glare directly into my eyes. “You did this.”
Somebody jumped on him, and I had my weight back. He removed one hand from my collar to elbow them off. His mistake.
I hit him upside the head with my half-full bottle, then ran toward the fight. Someone tried to tackle me, missed, and I tripped over them.
Then I was crawling away on my belly in the mud, still laughing. The little dog found me. It made an improbably vicious sound as it attacked my shoe. At that point, I was having trouble even crawling, I was laughing so hard.