Etienne (The Shifters of Shotgun Row Book 1)

by Ever Coming

  My gator threw a wave of anger at me. He wanted to make sure I was the last male she was ever with.

  “Everything?” I asked her with the spoon hovering over all the food she’d prepared.

  “Yes, please.” Her response was tinged with a bit of the bashfulness reddening her already-blushed cheeks.

  “I like a woman who can eat.”

  A movement of her eyebrows told me she wasn’t quite sure about me yet. “It’s true. Our kind... I mean I eat a lot. It’s nice to have some company.”

  “I’ve been told I need to lose weight, but I just don’t care. I’m happy with this body. I’d rather have curves than starve myself.”

  I handed her the plate, heaping just like mine was. It felt right to feed this female—to take care of her. My gator was practically smiling in the background of my consciousness.

  “Curves are good. Your curves are especially delicious.”

  Tansy looked genuinely shocked. I kind of loved to shock her.

  “Thank you.” She stuttered over the words before proceeding to eat her fill. Everything she made was heavenly. I had meant what I said. I wish she would feed me every night.

  And I would provide the dessert.

  “Oh!” she said after emptying her plate. “I forgot there is banana pudding. I hope you like it.”

  The woman was practically carving a road directly into my heart.

  “It’s my favorite, actually. It’s hard to find good banana pudding these days. Is it Marie’s recipe?”

  “Well”—she got up to get an enormous glass dish from the refrigerator—“I love my Meemaw’s banana pudding, but I made some improvements.” Out of nowhere, she turned her head abruptly to the left. “I mean subtle changes, not improvements.”

  It always felt like her head was in two places.

  The jealous bastard inside me wanted all of her attention focused on us.

  Mate. Need her.

  “I’m sure whatever you did is great. Thanks again for this meal.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I chuckled. “Why is it you look so damned surprised every time I say something nice? Do I come off as that big of a bastard?”

  I probably did. Before Tansy, it was something I actually prided myself on.

  “No, not at all. I expected it, to be honest. You’re this big mutha of a man and yet, I find you sincere.”

  “I am sincere about you, Tansy.”

  Something in her demeanor instantly changed. I could feel the betrayal and almost anger that slipped into my nose and felt like the burn of jalapenos.

  Tansy

  My fingers traced my lips as the memory of the evening before washed over me once again. The evening that concluded with a heart-stopping, steal-your-breath-away, never-want-it-to-end kind of kiss. The evening I botched up the very last moment.

  Everything was beyond perfect. Etienne was a gentleman but held onto his gruffness. He wasn’t playing the part of a gentleman, he was just being Etienne with a side of extra politeness. Darn it was smexy.

  And then she came.

  I was good and done with the ghosts of this flippin’ town. The woman I assumed died in a car accident given her mutilated face, arms, and partial legs, meandered in long enough to startle me, and that was the beginning of the end. She was gone before he even left, but by then he had probably moved on to someone who didn’t turn stiff as a board mid-kiss for zero reason whatsoever. At least zero to the person not seeing the dead chick.

  So, like a sane person, after finishing the morning baking, I made my way to town to see a different dead chick. Or, more precisely, a dead child. I felt called to her, to help her any way I could, and now that I had a bug-eating roommate, I had a built-in excuse to head on over.

  “Another early day off.” It was Bruno the Creepy, as I now called him in my head. I needed to start taking a car instead of walking. First, I ran into a gator and now Bruno. Not sure which was worse. Only a few doors from where I needed to be, too.

  “I start my day before the sun, Officer.” Why I felt the need to justify myself to him was beyond me. Something about him thinking me lazy had me on edge. Meemaw never said anything bad about him, but she also didn’t say anything kind the time I mentioned him. Maybe it was time to bring him up again.

  “Any king-nuts left today?” He took the remaining steps between us. Not. Okay. Creeper.

  I instinctively took another step toward my destination, glad it was daylight. Shouldn’t I feel safe with the police, not like I was walking in the wrong part of a big city, alone, at three am?

  “I didn’t check before I left, Officer.” I figured using his formal title might keep him at bay, but he took my speaking to him at all as an excuse to once again invade my space, walking beside me close enough his hand brushed my thigh more than once. “I imagine not. They are the most popular item.”

  Only one more storefront to pass, and I’d be at my destination. If he followed me in there, I knew my spider senses were correct. If not, I could blame it on the ghost I saw with him the other day. Twice. How sad was it I sent a prayer up it was a feckin’ ghost.

  “I guess I will have to stop by, tomorrow morning, early.” His hand accidentally brushed my ass as he turned to look behind him at nothing at all. Jerkhead. “Hopefully, I will see you there.”

  Ewww. I so hoped not.

  Over Bruno’s shoulder, just as I reached the door, I spied his ghost, who began shaking his head furiously once he noticed me eyeing him. He appeared to be mouthing, “Nope. Nope. Nope.” And popping the Ps just loud enough for me to hear them. Not that I needed his advice, but if the dead dude following you was warning people away, there was a good chance they had a reason.

  “I tend to be baking then, but the girls up front can hook ya up with a king-nut.” I reached for the door handle, thankful to finally be getting away from Bruno. “This is me. I need some food for my gator.”

  I opened the door before meeting the ghost’s eyes and saying, “I’ll talk to you later.” Before closing the door behind me. I hoped I managed to send the ghost the desired message without encouraging Bruno. The last thing I wanted to do was garner even more of his attention.

  “You’re back. How’s Curtis?” Star called from behind the counter.

  “He’s doing well. I need to stock up on some more bugs for the guy. He eats a ton.”

  I tried to be nonchalant as I looked around the store for her sister, but failed miserably as I tripped over a pile of dog toys.

  “Sorry, I’ll pick it up.” I ducked down, piling the stuffed bones back into the basket. Just as I was about to put the last one in, the largest spider known to mankind caught the corner of my vision. As any rational human being would do, I let out a bloodcurdling scream as I got as far away from that terror as possible. Where was a blowtorch when ya needed one?

  “You okay?” Star called to me as she came running, probably under the assumption someone was stabbing me. I wasn’t even sure if that was better or worse than having that monstrosity near me again.

  “There’s a spider the size of—get the feckin’ sledgehammer or something.”

  She bent down far too close to that thing for her own safety, and there was no way on this planet I was gonna go rescue her and become dead, too. “That thing’s ginormous.”

  “It’s just a Carolina wolf spider.” She leisurely strolled back to the counter, coming back with a shoe box. Was she crazy? She needed a weapon far greater than any shoe.

  “We are in Louisiana. That thing’s probably an alien.” My back was pressed against the wall, needing to be as far from that thing as possible.

  The door swung open, and Bruno came barreling in Because the afternoon had been going so well—of course he did.

  “What’s going on? I heard a scream.” Which was such a stupid butt lie or partial lie at least. If he had come for the scream he’d have come in minutes ago. Jerk.

  Star stood tall. “Bruno, we’re so glad you’re here. Can you please tak
e care of that spider for us?” She was playing him, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. She reached in her pocket, pulled out a tissue, and held it out to him as if it were the weapon of choice.

  “Sure, ladies.” He snagged the tissue before squatting down where she was pointing. It was a full three seconds before he was up, mumbling something about not wanting to ruin the critter’s habitat before faking a call from his office and skedaddling the heck outta there.

  The door hadn’t even latched before Star and I were cracking up as she scooped the spider into the box. “Serves him right,” she scoffed as she taped the box shut.

  “What are you gonna do with it?” Death by fire sounded most effective to me.

  “Hardly. My buddy Hydrus over there loves spiders best of all.”

  Hardly what? She couldn’t have known... But then again, I shouldn’t talk to dead people so…

  She pointed to one of the reptile cages. “He already ate, though, so this big fella is for tomorrow.”

  All the ewwwwwwws.

  Etienne

  I wasn’t supposed to kiss Tansy the night before. My gator thought I had a lot more business with Tansy to attend to, but he would just have to wait.

  There was something serious going on with that girl. She was always preoccupied like how you were having a conversation while a fly was buzzing around your head. No matter how hard you tried to pay attention, you had to look at the fly.

  There was definitely a fly around Tansy.

  Also, there was something wrong with me. I didn’t know how to deal with this beautiful woman. I knew how to deal with other women, and they knew what they were getting into when they were with me. They didn’t call the next day, and I certainly didn’t call them.

  But my long-legged, red-lipped beauty... I wanted to do more than call her. I wanted to wake up next to her in the morning and see her disheveled from the long night of me pleasing her. I wanted to raid the fridge at midnight and feed her leftovers. The last thing I wanted to see at night was her.

  Something told me she was tough enough to handle the truth of who I was. She would probably be freaked out, but that was part of the process. Could she handle the rest of who I was? My friends and shifter brothers were all kinds of beings, and the fact they turned into other beasts wasn’t the most animalistic part of them.

  My brothers were testosterone-fueled monsters whether they were shifted or not.

  “These aren’t right. Do them again.”

  A slam of paperwork on my desk snapped me out of my daydreaming and back into reality.

  “In ten years, I’ve never had a report returned. Did you even look at them?”

  Bruno clearly hadn’t had enough coffee this morning.

  “I looked, and they are shit. Not enough detail. Half the shit isn’t even filled out. Look at the one on top.”

  The report on the top of the stack was when Mrs. Thibodeaux thought her purse was stolen and called 911, only to find out she’d put it in the freezer and forgotten about it. She was ninety-three.

  “She lost her purse. I didn’t know that required a detailed report.”

  “Well, it does. So get it done. I don’t want to see you leave this desk before this shit is finished.”

  Bruno had a stick up his ass the size of a cypress tree this morning.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  I proceeded to write a report detailing all the places I’d looked in Mrs. Thibodeaux’s house for the purse, including her rabbit cage that contained no more rabbits because she’d killed them all and eaten them. I knew that because there were bones in the freezer where I found the purse.

  I made the damned report eight pages long before I was done.

  By the time I was done, my legs were itching to move. My gator was demanding more and more that I shift and swim lately. It was the only thing that quelled his growing restlessness.

  Walking out of the station, I saw Tansy coming from the pet store again. Bruno was across the street, staring her down. She probably didn’t even notice. As she walked, he followed, and neither my gator nor I was pleased at the sight. What was he after?

  It better not be Tansy. He might be a bear, but even bears could fit in my mouth.

  Tansy

  The fecker was following me. I could sense him. Not him, really, but his darn ghost. Here I was, carrying a box of creepy-crawly yucks Star thought would feed my lizard in gourmet style, and I managed to not see her twin, which was a majority of the reason I went and instead saw Bruno’s ghost who gave me the willies.

  When he came up beside me, keeping step, I knew Bruno was close. How I missed that, that time at the diner was beside me.

  “What do you want?” It was a question of huge depth even in its simplicity. If I was going to help him, which, from the looks of things, I had to, I needed to know why he was there and how to make his loose ends less loose.

  “Stay away from the bear,” was all he said before dissipating. Brilliant. More bear garbage. He didn’t look as if he’d been mauled by a bear. Not that all ghosts looked like they did when they passed, but if his means of demise was why he was there, then he should look the part I would think. There needed to be a stinkin’ handbook for people who saw and talked to the dead.

  “Hey, Tansy.” His voice wrapped around me like a hug. Etienne. How had I not seen him comin’? Oh yeah, because there was a dead guy warning me about bears and a creeper nearby. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. Can I carry that for you?”

  I turned to face him fully and politely decline because there was no way I was going to hand the beautiful man beside me a box full of bugs. Sure, he wasn’t going to freak out like Creeper McCreepy did, but etiquette would say it wasn’t the best way to win a man. Not that I wanted to win him. Except I kinda really did.

  “It’s bugs,” I announced, lamer than lame, just as my eyes caught Bruno in the corner of my eye, as he marched over. I so did not need this.

  “You are lugging around bugs.” He quirked his eyebrow, not hiding the tension he felt as his boss marched over, now with more intensity. What was his damage, aside from being haunted, which might be it in its entirety. Being haunted full-time had to suck monkey toes.

  “For my gator.” I loved to call my lizard a gator; his reaction never failed to amuse me. His eyes always darkened slightly, and then lighten up almost instantly as humor filled them. It made no sense, but who cared because it was worth a see every time. I was going to miss it when it no longer had the same impact.

  Darn lilibugs, I needed to stop thinking about him as more than just a friend or a date or whatever he was. My heart couldn’t take getting stomped on again.

  “Finish fixing up your shoddy work.” Bruno caught up with us, pretending to ignore me as he pooped on his employee. There was no way Etienne slacked on his work. I didn’t know him well, but I knew he took his work seriously.

  “Excuse me, Officer, but Etienne is meeting me to go help me with some security planning at the bakery, and I need to get these bugs home first.” I held the box out to him as exhibit A because fudge him. He can’t come over and be a jerkhead like that. Not when I already knew Etienne was supposed to be off early for the day. Not that I was stalkerish or anything. “My gator likes spiders,” I taunted, hoping he thought that monstrosity of a spider was sitting in the box. Not that I’d ever allow that, but he didn’t need to know that tidbit.

  “The file is on your desk,” Etienne added before taking the box in some kind of unspoken pissing match. Did he sense Bruno’s fear of the eight-legged?

  “Don’t let it happen again,” he spouted before heading in the opposite direction, the echo of his ghost chuckling filling my ears.

  So, he was there even when I couldn’t see him. Interesting. And powerful. Far too powerful for my liking.

  “Your boss is a meanie-head loser-face,” I affirmed, holding out my hands to regain my box o’ bugs. “Thanks for holding my bugs. I can take them now.”

  “My boss
is an asshole, and I am happy to carry them to your house before we head to the bakery for our meeting.”

  He started in the direction of my place, effectively ending the conversation. Looked like I was going to have a security meeting. Surely he knew I was just thwarting his boss and there were no actual security concerns in this tiny town. Oh well. More Etienne time for me. Not that I wanted that.

  Except I so completely did.

  I scurried after him, taking the hand he held behind himself, presumably for me. There. That was what I needed. My hand in his because, despite all my internal protests, there was no place I’d rather be than by his side, and that was flippin’ terrifying.

  Etienne

  Thank the Creator she got the point of me foolishly holding my hand behind my back like a shithead teenager. It was mostly for Bruno, who I was sure still had his eyes on us from a distance. His surveillance, the smell of him questioning me and Tansy, hung in the air like a slimy blanket over my consciousness. He was trying to get to Tansy in some way or another.

  Tonight had to be the night. We’d shared a kiss before, but Bruno needed a clear and concise message about this woman.

  It was too late for me.

  Tansy was mine, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it. More and more, I didn’t want to.

  “You really need security at the bakery or just you trying to cover my ass? Marie never seemed to have any trouble.”

  She could cover my ass all she wanted, and I’d be more than happy to reciprocate.

  “No. I just don’t like that guy. He seems like an overbearing...jerkface.”

  “Overbearing is correct in more ways than you know.” I chuckled at her accidental pun accentuating the word “bear.”

  She stopped in her tracks, hands on her hips and something brewing beneath the surface.