Reaper

by Lena North

  “I’ve met her already,” I said and moved toward the stables. “She’s not here to see me, she here to see –”

  “I know,” he interrupted and the way his voice had changed made me stop. “Annie, I don’t…” He scowled, dropped a quiet f-bomb, and restarted, “I really don’t want to deal with neither Snow nor the genius.”

  “Okay,” I said immediately. “Five minutes. Then I’ll leave, and call you from the stables. If you need to get away, just say something urgent came up, get on your bike and leave for a while.”

  He was silent for a split second and then he relaxed.

  “Thanks,” he muttered as he started shuffling me toward the porch where the three girls were watching us.

  I nodded at Wilder, said hello to Snow, and turned to Jiminella Nixée Sweetwater. Our eyes met and I murmured, “Hey, I’m Annie.”

  “Jinx,” she said.

  Her voice had a lower pitch than I expected, and her eyes were softer than they’d appeared on the images I’d seen on the net. Seeing her in real life was different from how I’d thought it would be, but I kept my face expressionless and smiled in a way I hoped she’d find uninteresting.

  Then they turned to Olly and smiled. Hugs were exchanged and cheerful greetings murmured into his ear. Mac walked out to join us, and I wasn't pushed backward precisely but that's how it felt. They were his family, and I wasn’t, which I knew. It still hurt a little.

  “I’ll go and check on the brown horse,” I murmured, and added, “It was nice meeting you.”

  Snow murmured something which sounded like goodbye, but I heard Jinx mutter, “The brown horse?”

  It had been a silly excuse, so it wasn't surprising she thought I was an idiot, but it still stung. I watched them from the barn, and after a while, I pulled out my phone and called him. He answered with a curt, “Give me half an hour,” and hung up again.

  They had a huge fight right in front of the house, where anyone could hear them, and I watched from the window until Olly looked like he’d start hurting them. The three girls kept talking and his eyes darkened in a way I didn’t like, so I picked my phone up again and called him.

  “The hell?” he grunted.

  “Walk away before you do something you’ll regret,” I said and hung up.

  He walked away from the group immediately, and his face was hard and angry when he got up on his bike. I remained in the window, watching Wilder punch the side of the house a few times and Snow dry her cheeks. Jinx stood like a statue, following Olly with her eyes as he roared down the road toward Prosper. She looked so sad I took a step toward the door, not sure what I meant to do. Then Snow put an arm around her shoulders and they walked inside. I knew it had been better for them all that Olly left for a while, and hoped he would drive carefully.

  I woke up from the sounds of someone punching something. I hadn’t heard the bike but it could only be Olly, so I got out of bed and went downstairs.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “You don’t want to be around me right now,” he snarled.

  He’d taken off his tee, which was the only resemblance to what I’d imagined that afternoon. My cheesy fantasies had included me lifting the biggest barbells easily and him telling me I was beautiful, and I knew either had been unrealistic. I’d thought we would laugh together, though.

  “What’s wrong, Olly?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t start up with that again,” I said and added when he turned to glare at me, “Please.”

  He made a frustrated sound and I wondered what the hell the girls had said to make him so angry. I had decided long ago that sending my small flying friends out so I could see when they were on missions was okay. It would help me help them, and it was for his safety. Spying on their everyday life or listen in on private conversations would be abusing what was given to me by chance, so I didn’t, although at that moment I wished I had. He was hurting and I couldn't help.

  “My ma died, and Da is messed up about it, and I’m messed up about it, and they want me to sit and fucking talk and talk about it,” he roared suddenly.

  “Olly…”

  My whisper went unheard because he stalked over to a table at the side and started pouring water into a plastic cup. I walked slowly toward him, struggling to hold back tears. His sadness and anger were swirling in the room, palpable even to me who was far from an empath.

  “Well, don’t,” I said when I reached him.

  He grunted something, emptied the plastic cup, and muttered, “It isn’t that easy.”

  “It’s exactly that easy,” I protested. “They mourn their way and you have to do it your way. Just tell them, they’ll get it.”

  He swung around, stretching his arm out in a frustrated gesture. It almost hit me in the face, and the only reason it didn't was that I ducked.

  “Hell,” he ground out.

  “See,” I said calmly. “Told you I can fight. Totally.”

  His brows went up but his surprise changed into a scowl.

  “I almost hit you,” he snarled.

  “A swipe isn't a hit, so it doesn't count, everyone knows that,” I informed him. “And almost doesn't count either.”

  When his mouth opened a little, I repeated, “I totally know how to fight.”

  He was silent for a while and since I had no clue what went on in that thick head of his, I was too.

  “What you know is how to fight with a six-year-old,” he said finally.

  “Nuh-huh.”

  “You ducked.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Babe,” he muttered. “I don’t duck.”

  “That’s because you’re bigger than a mountain,” I shared. “Which means you don’t have to, but I’m more like a glob of cheesecake.”

  He turned around but not quick enough to hide how his eyes had softened.

  “Cheesecake?” he asked and filled up the cup with more water.

  “Moist,” I said.

  He made a throaty sound and I should probably have used the word soft instead, but I didn’t stop to think. He seemed less angry and my hands moved of their own accord, sliding up the sides of his torso.

  “You’re hard,” I shared.

  “What?”

  Oh.

  The mood suddenly changed in a way I hadn't expected and I felt warmth wash through me. He was half naked and gorgeous, and it hit me that what I’d said could very well be misinterpreted as me making a pass at him. Subconsciously, perhaps I had done just that.

  When he didn't move, I started to pull back but then I saw the hand holding the small, white plastic cup. It shook slightly and he held on to it so hard the edges were bending inward. He wasn't completely unaffected and I decided to take a leap into the unknown.

  “You’re very sweaty,” I breathed.

  The hand twitched again, and I leaned forward. When he didn’t move and remained silent, I stretched my tongue out and let it slide up his spine, following black trails made by a very talented tattoo artist.

  “Annie,” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you coming on to me?”

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  I wasn’t sure how he felt about having my tongue doing another swipe up his back and I might be on the verge of destroying things between us but right then, I didn’t care.

  “Is it working?” I asked and heard to my surprise how my voice was lower and huskier.

  “Yeah,” he said immediately and his voice had changed too.

  I squealed when he picked me off the floor as if I weighed next to nothing and started walking toward his loft, moving so quickly we were several steps up the stairs before I realized where he was taking me. He didn’t stop until we were next to his bed, and I thought he’d just throw me on it like some caveman but he didn’t. He put me down on my feet and caught my face in his big hands. His thumbs slid over my cheekbones as he leaned down to kiss me, gently.
I put my hands on his hips, got up on my toes and made the kiss turn a lot less gentle.

  Our mouths were still pressed together when we sank down on the bed, and all I could think of was how good his strong back felt under my hands. After a long while, he pulled me up to sit on the edge if the bed while he pulled off my tee. He was in front of me, and there was a moment when it felt as if he hesitated but our eyes met, and whatever he saw in mine made him smile softly. Slowly his hands moved downward, bringing his shorts with them. I followed them with my eyes and watched his feet as he stepped out of his clothes. When he kicked them to the side, I raised my head.

  Then I stared.

  “Babe,” he snorted after a few seconds. “I know I’m a big guy, but it’s not that out of the ordinary.”

  I jerked and my eyes flew to his face. Then they moved down again to look at the part of him he was referring to, and he was right, he was a big guy. I hadn’t stared at his genitals, though. In the crease where the top of his leg met the hip, he had another black tattoo.

  A dragonfly.

  “Annie,” he murmured. “You’ve seen one before, right?”

  Seen one? Oh.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ve seen penises hundreds of times.”

  He had started to lean down toward me but froze and his head turned slightly so he could look at me. Then he grinned, and said, “Okay,” as he pushed me backward into the bed.

  I realized he'd wanted to know if I was a virgin, which I wasn't, and I'd just told him I slept with hundreds of guys, which I in no way had.

  “Olly,” I started, but further explanations were stopped by his laughing mouth on mine.

  “I get it, babe. Your brothers,” he said when we finally broke the kiss.

  “Yes. Mostly when we were kids, though.”

  “Okay,” he said and I felt a strong hand slide down my ribs.

  “I’m an idiot,” I told him.

  “Sometimes,” he agreed, but added, “Works for me, though.”

  He was partially on top of me and ground his hips slowly against my side. Our eyes met and he wiggled his brows a little.

  Oh, yeah. My stupidity totally worked for him.

  Humor slowly showed in his eyes again, and he murmured, “You’re very sweaty? Really, babe?”

  “Um.”

  “Is that your best line?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any lines,” I protested.

  He raised his head to look at me.

  “I guess you don’t,” he said, finally.

  Then he kissed me.

  Chapter Four

  Affair

  I was having a secret affair.

  The thought made me giggle a little, and I wondered if it was called an affair when neither of the parties was actually involved with someone else. Maybe it was just a… I didn’t know what else to call it except crude words that weren’t even remotely close to describing what we had.

  I’d thought I knew what love was, and in many ways, I had known, but then we’d become friends, and I loved him more. And then we became lovers and I couldn’t find words for what I felt. I would have to tell him who I was, eventually, and I would, but I kept pushing it forward. It was cowardly of me, but I was so happy and wanted to hold on to that feeling just a little bit longer.

  “Sleepy?” he murmured next to me.

  We were in one of the pastures at the far end of the ranch. Andy had sent me there and I’d taken one of the dirt bikes up the mountain, enjoying the ride and the scenery. It was autumn but the weather was still warm, and it was a fantastic day. Olly waited for me halfway to my destination, on another bike and with lunch in a bag strapped to it.

  “A little,” I said which was true.

  The night before I hadn’t gotten back to my own side of the barn until it was so late it was almost morning. Olly didn't agree with my request that we kept our involvement secret and grumbled about me being silly. He gave in, though, and when I went back to my own place, he always went with me, using a flashlight to make sure I, “Got home alright.” It was sweet, although completely unnecessary since we were living in the same house.

  “Thanks for bringing lunch,” I whispered.

  “Ma used to do stuff like this, all the time,” he replied.

  I forced myself to keep breathing evenly and turned slowly.

  “Yeah?” I said, hoping he would continue talking about her.

  The others from Norton and the rest of his extended family were constantly chasing him to talk about what had happened, and I thought they were so incredibly stupid. The more they pushed, the deeper he dug in and refused, and I didn’t understand why they couldn’t see that. Snow and Jinx’ visit had been the last straw, and the huge fight they’d had in front of everyone ended in an impasse where they didn’t talk to each other at all. Now he’d brought his ma up himself, though.

  Our gazes held, and slowly he relaxed.

  “It hurts to talk about her,” he confessed.

  “Of course, it does.”

  “I miss her,” he murmured and closed his eyes.

  “What was her name?” I asked.

  When he opened his eyes again they were so full of pain that my own suddenly burned with tears, but he’d started talking and I pushed gently, hoping he’d be ready for it.

  “I don’t know what you’re feeling. My parents are alive, Olly, so I can’t know what it’s like and I dread the day when I have to feel what you feel right now,” I said. Then I sighed, and went on, “But I lost my best friend a few years ago and I know what it felt like, so I know what grief is. And it’s not the same but –”

  I cut myself off, remembering the feeling of helplessness and how afraid I’d been. My friend had been shot, and I’d feared I would be too. I’d been hiding since.

  “It hurts,” he said.

  “What was her name?” I asked again.

  He didn't say anything at all and kept looking at me with wide, pain-filled eyes.

  “They say a person dies three times,” I whispered. “The time of her death, when you put her to ground, and when people stop saying her name. You can’t change the first parts but you have the power to keep a bit of her alive, Olly.”

  “Byrd Anna Maria Harper,” he said quietly and closed his eyes. “Most people called her Bee. My father called her Bebe when he thought no one heard, but to me, she was just Ma.”

  “Was she funny?”

  His brows went up but his face softened, and I slid my hand gently over his cheek.

  “Yeah,” he said. “How did you know?”

  “You are,” I told him.

  “Not really.”

  “I think so.”

  He chuckled and shifted until he was on his side. Then he told me about his mother, and how she'd had this theory that if you laughed at least once every day you would get fewer wrinkles and live longer. His father was a school teacher and had argued that there wasn't any scientific evidence to support her theory, but she'd insisted, and made sure he and his taciturn father laughed every day. Sometimes it had been silly jokes or practical ones, and sometimes she'd made them dance in the kitchen after dinner, doing the funky chicken until they howled with laughter. I'd known things about her in the same way I did about all of them, but I realized I hadn’t known her at all, just as I hadn’t known all of Olly, not for real, until I came to Double H.

  We laughed as he told me about that part of her, and when he was done, he leaned over me.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “You’re totally welcome,” I replied and he smiled like I knew he would.

  His hand suddenly trailed up my side, in under both my jacket and long-sleeved tee, and the way his fingertips slid slowly over my ribs made me shiver a little.

  “Um,” I said, knowing well what he was up to.

  “Exactly,” he murmured against my neck as he moved his mouth up until he breathed softly into my ear. “You’re gonna be naked in a
minute, Annie. Okay?”

  “What if someone comes?”

  “I’ll know.”

  Oh. His bird was out there somewhere and he would tell. I hadn’t seen the big, black vulture but it would be close to where Olly was, of course.

  “Okay,” I whispered and when he slowly pulled my clothes off, I helped him.

  A lot later, he kissed me gently and got up on his bike. I stood in the meadow, watching until he’d disappeared down the path. Then I sat down and wiped a few tears away from my cheeks, feeling silly for crying but unable to stop the emotions swirling inside me when I thought about the two big, strong men and how they had depended on a tiny woman in so many ways.

  “Hello,” a voice said. “How do you do?”

  I looked around the empty meadow and it took me a while to recognize the feeling. Someone was speaking inside my head but it didn’t sound like my dragonflies at all. The voice had been polite, and strange.

  “Who are you?” I asked out loud.

  “Bird,” the voice said and then a familiar, black vulture swept across the meadow right in front of me. “You are the girl from the mountains.”

  My mouth fell open and I gasped. Olly’s bird sat there with his head cocked a little to the side. And he was speaking inside my head.

  “You’re Olly’s friend,” I whispered.

  “Always. And you are his friend too. Perhaps always too?”

  “Of –”

  “You help him. I like you.”

  “But –”

  “He was angry with everyone and now he isn’t angry at all. I suspect all the naked is helping.”

  “What?”

  “Or else it’s the ridiculous things you do on a frequent basis. Or how –”

  “Can you shut up for a second?”

  He did but I could have sworn I heard soft laughter in my head. Who could have guessed Olly’s bird was such a prattle-box?

  “How can you talk to me?”

  “I wanted to.”

  “What?”

  “All people can hear animals if they open up their minds wide enough and if the animal decides to talk.

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. It’s about choices, and your mind is wide open so I choose to talk to you.”