by T. S. Joyce
And for some super-dumb reason, he suddenly felt like telling someone about this talk with Holt. And not just any someone. A human who would understand feelings. A girl—Morgan. The girl who had given him a warning about poachers and turned down his money out of pride.
He wanted to test her and give her something real to see if she kept protecting him or hurt him with it instead.
Think of the devil and she shall appear. Before Holt was even out of the parking lot, an old clunker Chevy truck pulled in, and behind the wheel was none other than the girl he’d just been thinkin’ on.
Chapter Four
Eeeeeerk. Morgan’s brakes screeched as she jerked her truck to a stop.
“Yer too far away from the pump,” yelled Jasper, the old swamper who owned the only gas station in town.
Well, duh, but she’d stopped short because the man of her nightmares was standing leaned up against an old silver mustang, lookin’ back at her with as much shock in his face as she currently felt surging through her chest.
Jasper yelled, “Morgan, my ass ain’t puttin’ this beer down to pull a pump to you that won’t reach. Piss or get off the pot!”
“I don’t even know what that means,” she muttered, easing her truck up to the pump. Frowning, she griped through her rolled down window, “Jasper, you don’t have to put down your beer anyways because I don’t need your help.”
“You’re poor.”
Morgan nearly choked on a sip of sprite she was sucking from a straw. “W-what’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s got everything to do with me not trusting you deep swampers to not run off with my gas. Every drop costs me money. It’s gonna cost you money, too.”
“I don’t need to steal your gas!” She was utterly offended and done with all men for the day.
“Jasper, shut the fuck up and let her pump her gas,” Liam yelled.
Oh, jiminy Christmas, he was coming this way. She needed a sink hole to disappear into, quick.
“I changed my mind!” Jasper said to Liam from his lawn chair. “I want that ten dollars now.”
She’d had a crappy shift, got hardly any tips, and she had to go home now and cook for Dad and his dumb friends. Her feet were sore as hell, she’d fallen off a shelf in the freezer when she was trying to get down a bag of French fries, and her leg felt all bruised up. Her hair was a mess, her face was a mess, her life was a mess. And now Hot Liam, the sexy, calm, cool and collected gator-man, got to see her at her worst. Fan-fuckin’-tastic.
She got out of the truck just as Liam reached for the gas pump.
“I don’t need your help, and I swear to God if you try and pay for my gas, I’m gonna skin you gator-style and dump your carcass in the swamp.”
Liam pursed his lips. “Well, no one will ever mistake you for a lady.” He turned the pump handle toward her and muttered, “I was just handing it to you. Wasn’t going to pay for your gas. I learned my lesson in the parking lot of Tacky’s. You don’t need anything from anybody. I won’t step on that delightful little personality trait again.”
“Well…” Morgan frowned. “Good.” Actually, it was good he had listened and, truth be told, that had shocked the hell out of her.
“I don’t need someone to save me,” she mumbled, jamming the nose of the pump into her gas tank. “I can save myself.”
Liam leaned on the side of her truck and canted his head. His sunglasses were back on, but even so, she could see the glowing gold color peeking through the lenses. Terrifying man.
“What happened to you?” he asked softly, studying her.
Morgan gave all her attention to the numbers on the pump, going up way too fast.
“Seriously, what happened?”
With a huffed sigh, she said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What has happened in your life that you don’t need anything from anyone?”
“Nothing’s happened my whole life,” she said without meaning to. This was the part where she was supposed to zip her lips, pump her gas, and drive away from him. He asked direct questions that were none of his business. But then again, he was a stranger with secrets that she could use against him, and it made him safer in a way. She could tell him anything, and he couldn’t hurt her with that information because she could tell the whole town what he was.
She quit pumping the gas right at five dollars because that’s what she could afford after today’s slow shift. It would get her to and from work for another two days. She replaced the nozzle on the pump and turned to him. Then she let him have it. “Nothing’s happened. I’m in the same house I was literally born in, watching the same river out my bedroom window, cooking for the same men, putting off a proposal from the same boy I’ve been puttin’ off since I was eight. I sleep, I eat, I cook, I work, I help my dad pay for his swamper house, and most days I don’t hear myself talk outside of the restaurant. I’ve been invisible since the day I was born.”
“You ain’t invisible to me,” Jasper enlightened her. “I can see you plain as day. You’re holding a five dollar bill.”
“Fuck off, Jasper,” she and Liam said at the same time.
Morgan lowered her voice. “I used to pray for help to get out of my life, and no one ever came to my rescue. Don’t work like that for swamper’s daughters with no futures. So somewhere along the way, I stopped prayin’, and now I will do it on my own.”
“Do what?”
“Stop bein’ invisible.”
Liam’s lips parted, and he stood up straighter. “Me, too,” he rumbled in a gritty voice that should’ve scared her.
“You’re curious why I told Bre to warn you about poachers, right? That’s why you keep talking to me?”
He nodded. “Mostly that.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re bad. I just think you’re trying for the life you want.” She shrugged up one shoulder. “You have a right to it. There. Now you know, and you don’t have to talk to me anymore.”
She handed her five dollar bill to Jasper, then she walked around, climbed in her truck, and turned the key. The engine roared to life.
Liam leaned his elbows onto the open passenger’s side window. God, he was easy to look at in this light with that chiseled jaw and hair that was messed up on top just right. He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, and his lips set in a grim line that made him look like he never smiled. “You ain’t invisible to everyone, Morgan.”
She swallowed hard, lost in those inhuman gold eyes with the long, reptilian pupils. Monster, but his words said he wasn’t as monster as everyone supposed shifters to be.
“Who’s the boy?” he asked low.
“What?”
“The boy you been puttin’ off since age eight. No should mean no. You have a right to the life you want, too, you know. He shouldn’t be pestering you like that. You want me to get him to leave you alone?”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Cal is determined, mister. No one’s gonna put him off.”
There was a low rumble that filled the truck. Sounded like one of those noises from a dinosaur movie. Chills rippled up her forearms, and she gripped the steering wheel harder to keep her hands from shaking. Maybe he was as monster as everyone supposed after all.
“Theeere’s that fear in your eyes,” he murmured in a gravelly voice. His lips turned up into a smile. “Fearless poacher’s daughter. You scared of me?”
“Yes,” she said honestly.
His smile fell. “You don’t have to be. I would never hurt you.”
Shocked, she believed him. He’d said that oath directly to her with a steady voice, lookin’ her right in the eyes. She knew liars. She lived with them and could tell a lie a mile off. This man wasn’t one of those. He clapped his hand on her open window and then stood back, allowing her to leave. “I’ll see you real soon, Morgan.”
He wasn’t a liar. Not a liar at all. So before she drove off, she allowed herself a few more seconds with him. “Do you like what you are, Liam?”
He
shook his head slow.
“You called me a poacher’s daughter. I don’t much like what I am either. Just so you know. You ain’t invisible to everyone either.”
What had possessed her to say that? She watched the surprise flicker across his face, and then she ripped her attention away from him and hit the gas. She couldn’t afford to spend another minute around him. He was stirrin’ up feelings she didn’t understand. Making her feel not-so-alone, and that was crazy. They weren’t the same. He was a terrifying alligator shifter, and she was the daughter of a poacher. And that poacher wanted Liam dead.
This was a tightrope she couldn’t afford to walk. It was burning both ends, and she would never make it to one side or the other.
Handsome monster, watchin’ her leave. She couldn’t take her eyes off him in the rearview mirror. She was supposed to hate him. To want him dead. That’s who she was raised to be, but if Dad ever got ahold of him, she would be very very sad, and she had a feeling that sadness would stretch on for her whole life.
Liam was too interesting for his own good.
Chapter Five
“Where have you been?” Dad asked.
Morgan wasn’t even all the way in the door yet. He’d been sitting at the table with the lights off and startled her. Usually, he was out hunting right now. Cal was sitting next to him, leaned back on the back two legs of the chair, his arms crossed over his chest.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “I was workin’ my Tuesday shift. Just like always.”
He made a show of looking at his watch that hadn’t worked in two years on account of the battery dyin’ and he never replaced it. It was a gift from her mom, though, and he was sentimental about it. “Your shift ended an hour ago.”
She shifted the bag of groceries to her other hip and arched her eyebrows. “I got gas, and I picked up stuff to make dinner tonight. I also peed and washed my hands after my shift and that took an extra five minutes. Couldn’t find a parking spot close at the general store so I had to walk farther and that added an extra minute. Takes a good twenty minutes to drive out here. You want me to detail my whole day?”
Dad stood in a rush and slammed his hand on the table so hard she yelped. “Don’t you sass me, you ungrateful little bitch. Cal got a call today. Guess from who?”
The paper bag of groceries crinkled in her hands as she gripped it tighter. “I…I don’t know,” she whispered.
Cal cocked his head to the side. “Bobby Marks called and said he saw you at Tacky’s talkin’ to someone we wouldn’t approve of. Said you two looked real chummy. Can you guess who he’s talkin’ about?”
“I didn’t talk to him. Liam talked to me.”
“Don’t you fuckin’ call that animal Liam, like he got a right to a name. You throwin’ him any attention is disgusting, and I’m not raising some whore daughter animal fucker—”
“Enough!” she screamed suddenly. Her blood was boiling. Her veins were on fire, and it took everything she had not to throw the bag of groceries at his face.
“You watch how you talk to me,” Dad said, striding for her.
Oh, she was gonna get smacked by the look on his face. His cheeks were red as cherries, and the sweat on his brow was clinging to his long greasy hair. His blue eyes were blazing. He blasted his hand against the door and it slammed closed behind her.
“I give up everything for you, Morg,” he growled. “Your momma left because you were too much.”
Fuck. Her anger melted away like it had never existed at all. It was replaced by that bone-deep pain of her knowing he was right. How many times had her mom been disappointed in her, checked out on her, didn’t want to tuck her in, didn’t want to play with her, didn’t want anything to do with her until the day she’d left. I wasn’t cut out to be a mother. Not to that one. She’d jammed her finger at Morgan with one hand, gripped her suitcase tighter in the other. Frizzy blond hair whipping in the wind as she loaded up their old El Camino. She’d never looked back as she drove away, and afterward, she never called or wrote. Morgan tried not to think about it, but this was what Dad did to bring Morgan back in line. He dug deep into those old hurts and made her feel like she owed him.
A stupid, stupid single tear trickled down her cheek, and she sniffed and wiped it quick on her shoulder. “I’m not an animal fucker,” she gritted out. “I didn’t talk to him on purpose.”
“Are you with us or against us, Morgy?” Cal asked from where he was standing now, arms locked on the table. God, she hated that nickname. Hated the way it sounded on his lips.
Her chest heaved with fear because Dad was still standing way too close, glaring her down. She couldn’t meet his eyes if she tried.
“Well?” Dad growled. “What’ll it be, Morg? You gonna make us question your loyalty? With us…or against us?”
Her bottom lip trembled. She wasn’t ready yet, didn’t have enough saved to escape this place. She had to put her head down and get through a few more months until she could be on her own. Until she could leave all of this behind. Be invisible a little while longer.
She swallowed hard and hugged the groceries to her like a shield. Her voice cracked as she murmured, “With you.”
“Good,” Dad said. “Now, she’s ready. Go on, Cal.”
With a frown, Morgan looked up at Cal, who was closing the distance between them fast.
“You have my blessing,” Dad said. And then he yanked Morgan’s left hand off the bag, and Cal shoved a gold band on her ring finger. She tried to pull away, but Dad had a steel grip on her wrist. It hurt. His eyes flashed with anger when he felt her resist.
Cal didn’t ask her to marry him. He told her, “Now we can finally get this out of the way.”
“But—”
A loud knock on the back door rattled the house, and Dad and Cal made their way to it. Dad didn’t look back even once as he grabbed his rifle off the pegs on the wall and left out the back where his friends were waiting. Cal only paused at the door, hand gripping his gun. “You’ll learn to be happy, Morg. We were meant for this from the time we were kids. No more fightin’ it. Don’t you dare say a word to that shifter again. You’re mine, Morgy. Don’t you forget it.” His cold eyes tightened in the corners just before he walked out and slammed the door behind him.
The bag of food fell from her arm and hit the floor. The weight of that ring felt like a hundred pounds on her hand. Shocked, she stared down at the scuffed-up shackle on her finger. “But…I don’t want to be yours.” Did her wants matter? They never had before, but lately she’d been wanting more for herself than to die in these swamps as a poacher’s wife.
The tears were pourin’ now, like rain drops in that first spring storm. She had no power to stop them.
The boat engine sounded outside, revved and then faded as they went out hunting for the night. Hunting. It wasn’t really hunting, though. They would go kill anything that would feed their bellies or get a penny for hides. Gators were at the top of that list, but it wasn’t legal right now. It wasn’t the season to hunt them. Dad and Cal and their friends saw themselves as better than the law. Rules were made to be broken and all.
The ring was so damn heavy. Her heart was so damn heavy.
They would expect dinner the second they walked back through that door in a few hours, but they could make their own damn food for once.
She left.
Tonight something was breaking inside her. Who cared if she got screamed at or cussed at or smacked for not cooking dinner? Her life was over anyway. Nothing would hurt much anymore from here on. Not when she flipped the switch and turned her emotions off. That’s what she would have to do to get through this.
The ring on her finger wasn’t a ring at all. It was a bullet aimed right for her heart, and she’d never learned to duck.
Tonight, she needed to breathe and wrap her head around everything. Tonight, she wanted to be far away from here.
Morgan didn’t know why she drove where she did. She just got in her Chevy and pushed the gas
pedal until she’d burned through about half of her gas. She ended up somewhere that shocked the hell out of her.
Once upon a time, she’d come out here to the edge of the swamp, on an overgrown trail, hoping to escape her life for a little while, and she’d seen something that had changed everything. She’d seen Liam Change here.
There were tire marks but no other cars but hers, so Morgan pulled a wide loop and backed the truck up to the edge of the water. There wasn’t much swamp grass here, and there were rubs from alligators’ tails. Big ones. If she was lucky, one would lunge out of the water and eat her. She’d rather be gator shit than stay tethered to Cal for the rest of her life.
She left the music on and the headlights on high, got out, pulled the old rusted tailgate down, and hopped up.
From here, she could see exactly how big those slides were from an alligator’s body and tail on the muddy bank. This was the kind of sign Dad looked for when he was doing his illegal hunting. He would see slides on a bank, and set up a couple of bait poles in the big gator’s territory, and check it later. And if he had a gator on the hook, he’d put a bullet through his head and sell it to some shady men a couple towns over.
Were these slides from Liam? A stupid, silly-girl part of her hoped they were. She wouldn’t be so alone then. Two creatures, neither one fitting into the world around them, silently sitting here in the dark together. She wished. She should be terrified, but right now, she didn’t feel much at all. Just this creeping numbness that was replacing the shock and sadness.
She twisted the gold band on her finger, shaking her head at how messed up everything had gotten.
Another country song came on. A classic. It meshed with the frog chorus. In the illumination from the taillights, the bugs were gathering. It was beautiful and peaceful out here, but her home was a cage. This place was her sanctuary and her Hell.
The sound of water rippling made her look up just in time to see the lights of her truck reflected in a gator’s eyes. A big one if the width between them said anything.
It closed its eyes and sank down beneath the gently lapping waves. Morgan waited for chills to ripple up her skin, but she didn’t get scared at such a powerful animal getting so close. She’d seen way too many dead ones in Dad’s boat. Humans were the real monsters.