Lady Killer (Confessions of a Chick Magnet Book 5)

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by Jenny Gardiner


  She was bedraggled. Her hair looked like a coat of fur from a runaway collie that had been lost for months, matted and tangled and sticking up all over the place. He didn’t envy her that first encounter with a hairbrush when she got home.

  Her forehead sported a slice and crusted blood that had dried into her hair. Her pants would be almost funny if it wasn’t so sad to fathom what she’d gone through: huge splotches of purple stained either side of her crotch and where the side pockets of her cargo pants were—no doubt remnants of her huckleberry collecting; and her knees were earth-blackened. Her lips were swollen from dehydration and sun exposure; her fingers were stained blue from berries, and what looked like a combination of tearstains and vomit were smeared across her gaunt face. She even had some crazy Tarzan-devised contraption involving vines looping up her ankle. Man, she looked rough.

  All of a sudden, she glanced over at him as they were preparing to transfer her to the waiting ambulance.

  “Oink?” she said, in a raspy voice, knitting her brows as she looked at him.

  “Huh?” Elliott cocked his head, confused.

  “Oink,” she repeated.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what you’re saying to me. It sounds like you’re saying what a pig says.”

  She squinted and shook her head in a “no duh” way. “Of course, I am. Aren’t you Oink’s new dad?”

  His eyes widened. Oink’s new dad? Not hardly. “How do you know about the pig?”

  She pointed at herself. “I’m me.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, you are you.” He wondered if the woman had suffered some sort of head injury, what with that gnarly gash on her head.

  “No!” she wasn’t able to raise her voice much but she seemed agitated. “You adopted Oink from me!”

  Elliott’s jaw dropped as he started to process what she was saying to him. She was the same damned woman who lied to him about the pig? This ding-dong who meandered off into the wilderness as if she was picking wildflowers in a meadow? In an instant, all the empathy he’d mustered up for her seemed to fizzle away. This woman—what was her name again? Coco something or other?—was nothing but trouble.

  He wanted nothing more than to unload the pig on her once and for all, but that wasn’t an option. Instead, he shook his head and turned and walked away.

  Chapter Seven

  COCO was starting to feel like a new woman. After several days in the hospital, she’d returned home for some TLC from her parents for a few more days until she was stir-crazy enough to insist she’d be fine on her own and promised she’d not go off on any wilderness treks for the foreseeable future.

  All she wanted was to feel normal again, and being home like that was making her feel like a damned shut-in. The gash on her forehead wasn’t so bad once it got cleaned up. It had been too late for the doctors to stitch it; she figured the resulting scar would be her badge of survival. Ish. The doctors had put her in a walking boot for the sprain, which was an inconvenience but better than having to deal with crutches, so she would manage.

  Coco had made plans to meet Emma for drinks at Harry’s—only a week or so after their original planned get-together. She entered the building and grabbed the elevator to the rooftop. There would be no climbing three flights of steps in her condition. As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she spotted Emma who rushed to hug her.

  “You are a sight for sore eyes,” Emma said, sizing her friend up.

  “Dude, we saw each other when I was in the hospital. And at my folks’ place.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not gonna lie—you looked like shit in a suitcase, and I was worried for your welfare. You’d lost too much weight and your eyes were sunken and, I mean you looked fierce and not in a good way. Today you’re starting to look human again.

  “Glad to know I was looking inhuman before.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re back among the living. Let’s drink!”

  They sat down and ordered beers and nachos, but not without the waitress asking for her autograph.

  “What is up with people treating me like I’m a reality show celebrity or something because I got lost in the woods and then was found?”

  Emma tucked her curly brown hair back behind her ear. “Right? We are in a weird culture. Any sort of fame gives you street cred. Maybe you need to land a book deal and make a fortune.”

  Coco rolled her eyes. “More like I could write a report for teacher: ‘What I learned on my summer vacation.’ Starting with ‘Stay on the trails. Bring your damned phone because even if it doesn’t have service, it has a GPS tracker. Don’t give your water to strangers even if you think it’s a nice thing to do. Bring rain gear. And a tent. And a house. And a toilet.’”

  They both started laughing. “And don’t take rides from strangers.”

  “Honey, that was precisely what I did need!”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But I had to throw in the one Momily I could come up with for good measure.” She took a swig of her beer. “So, you’re feeling good?”

  Coco nodded. “When you think you’re going to die because no one can find you, pretty much every day is the perfect day once you’ve been saved. I feel great. Tippy insisted I stay away from work for two weeks, but I’m starting back on Monday, and I’ll be ready to. I’m kind of bored.”

  “Might as well enjoy the R and R while you can.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been indulging in Netflix and lounging on my sofa. That is when I’m not curled up beneath my goose down comforter on my comfortable Tuft & Needle mattress relishing every moment of warmth and security. I think I could stay in bed and never leave it again.”

  “Newfound appreciation for the simple comforts.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “So… I know you’re not planning on hiking anytime soon…”

  Coco shook her head. “I know I’ve got to get back up on that horse sometime soon, but for now my ankle is an easy excuse not to do that. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid to. But I know I can’t be a weenie about this. Besides—this is where I grew up. I’ve been in those mountains my whole life. I screwed up, made strategic errors, learned important lessons from it, but I can’t run scared forever. Can I?” She winced.

  The waitress delivered their nachos and a few people stopped by to welcome Coco back to civilization. She felt super weird being the object of all this attention.

  “So, have you talked to your rescuers since they saved you?”

  Coco pursed her lips. “Honestly it’s been kind of weird. I mean, I’m super grateful for what they did, but I’m also so embarrassed, I almost don’t want to face them. They must think I’m such a horrible person for having wasted all of their time.”

  “Oh, honey.” Emma laid her hand on top of her friend’s. “You shouldn’t be ashamed at all. People get lost in the woods all the time. Experienced mountaineers, even. You know that guy who disappeared last year? He left his dog in the car and went out for what seemed to be a short hike and was never seen again. He knew what he was doing! But things happen that are beyond our control sometimes, and if anyone understands that, it would be people who have dedicated their lives to rescuing people!”

  Coco heaved a sigh and sipped her beer. “I dunno. Ya’ think?”

  “I don’t think. I know. And I have an idea.” Emma pulled out her phone and typed in something. “Look. I knew I’d seen something about a fundraising event for the rescue squad—it’s next Saturday night. There’s going to be food and drinks and even a silent auction. What say you go to this thing—I’ll join you as moral support.”

  Coco scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but there’s something else.”

  Her friend arched her eyebrow. “Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  “You see, the day I disappeared, remember that pig situation?”

  Emma nodded. “You got that back, right?”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t. I was going to call the next day, and, well, you know what happe
ned then.”

  “Oh my God. So that guy was stuck with that pig that is going to grow into a monstrosity?”

  Coco threw a chip at her. “It’s a cute little piglet.”

  “For now.”

  “Why didn’t he just take it back to the clinic?”

  Coco shrugged. “Hell if I know. I mean, I have a theory.”

  “Oh Lord. Can’t wait to hear that.”

  “Well, it’s kind of why I’m particularly embarrassed.”

  “Do tell.” Emma scooped up some nachos and crunched down on them.

  “So I had a bazillion voice messages from him on my cell phone. They got progressively nastier, starting with the first night and continuing all week. Until I was found.”

  “He didn’t know you were the missing hiker?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve seen the posters still hanging in places in town—I guess my mom gave them a fairly outdated picture of me. For one thing, it was old. For another, I had brown hair back then—before I went blond and straightened it. And the other thing is I looked pretty damned amazing in that picture—it was at a film premiere and I had my hair and makeup professionally done and my hair was in an updo. In other words, I looked nothing like me.”

  “So the you we know and love—slovenly, sweaty from being fresh from a run, no makeup—was the you he met at the animal rescue clinic?”

  She nodded. “To make matters worse, I gather that he worked as a rescue volunteer all week, and probably never had a chance to return Oink. So first off I unload a dud pet on him, then because of my irresponsibility he couldn’t even bring it back and was stuck caring for it, and to add insult to injury, he was stuck spending his week helping to find me, not knowing it was me, mind you. So, when I was brought down off the mountain, a whole bunch of the volunteers were there at the ambulance cheering my safe return—”

  “Kind of them.”

  “Amazing. They all gave up their busy days and nights for me!”

  “Which is why we’re going to this thing.”

  Coco held up a finger. “Not so fast,” she said with a sigh. “So, I wasn’t exactly at my best that day. If you thought ‘slovenly me’ was bad, I was more like dire straits Barbie at that point. Not like I had a mirror—thank God—but I saw the pictures that were in the paper the next day. I know you saw them too. I looked like something the cat coughed up.”

  “And… you’re not going to the fundraiser for the people who saved you because you looked like shit?”

  Coco’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh God, no! That’s not why!” She motioned to the waitress for a refill.

  “Then what is the deal?”

  “Well, he was there waiting. With Oink tucked all snugly in the crook of his arm. It looked so adorable, by the way.”

  “Yeah, so he was there.”

  “And I said something. About Oink. And he was confused because he didn’t know it was me. He thought I was hallucinating probably.”

  “I guess it wasn’t the prime time for him to hand it off to you?”

  “Not so much. But worse still was once he started putting the pieces of the puzzle together, he gave me this super dirty look and turned and walked away. No words, no nothing.”

  The waitress brought their beers and they both took a fat swig at the same time.

  “Wow,” Emma said. “That doesn’t bode so well.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Well did you try to call him back? You said he left all sorts of voice messages in your mailbox.”

  “Yes! I called him like ten times. I was super polite and apologetic and, I mean, what else could I do? I still don’t know who he is or where he is and I mentioned to Tippy that the guy might be bringing the pig back—I even offered to take it myself when I left messages for him to get him off the hook. But so far, no pig, no guy—I don’t even know his name—and that’s why I am too much of a wuss to go to that fundraiser.”

  Emma sat for a moment before speaking. “I have a plan.”

  Her friend rolled her eyes. “Last time I followed a great plan of yours, I ended up in jail for stealing a goat.”

  Emma waved her hand. “First off, it wasn’t a goat. It was a ram. And it was the school mascot for our sworn enemy school in college.”

  “Whatever. It was some sort of cloven-hoofed ungulate. But I ended up in jail overnight on a hard, concrete floor with about fifty women in various states of inebriation and had to pay a five-hundred-dollar fine.”

  Her friend laughed. “Besides that, have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “Given the opportunity, I trust you would do so without batting an eye.”

  “Have faith, grasshopper.”

  Coco blanched. “Don’t ever say that word again in my company.”

  “Faith?”

  Her friend frowned. “No. the icky insect name.”

  “Not following what you’re saying.”

  “Because I didn’t want to die. I ate a grasshopper. It was the worst experience of my life.”

  Emma started laughing. “Oh, honey, your virgin cricket ingestion? Sounds hideous!”

  “I don’t know if it was a cricket or a grasshopper. Just something icky and, well, icky. And it was worse than hideous. I couldn’t even get it down. I started dry-heaving and I very well might have been in a pool of my own puke when they found me in my weakened state.”

  “Okay, so no more swarming, crop-destroying insect references, but know that my plan is gonna set it all straight.”

  Chapter Eight

  ELLIOTT was feeling guilty. He’d kind of started to enjoy the darned pig. Which was crazy because he was not keeping a pig.

  He’d met up for drinks a few days after the rescue with Joe Walton, an older local man who was a fellow volunteer he’d befriended.

  “You got a girlfriend?” the man had asked.

  Elliott shook his head. “And I’m not looking, either. My last girlfriend ditched me for the guy she swore was merely a good friend, and that was after she’d reassured me about a thousand times over the course of a year. They’re married now.”

  Joe grabbed a handful of popcorn at the bar. “You know you have to get back on the horse.”

  Elliott laughed at the metaphor. “Trust me, the riding part, I’m all for, it’s the relationship thing that holds no appeal.”

  Joe laughed. “Well, that too. And it requires no hand-holding or double dates. Just go out and pick someone up. Don’t you have an app for that? I hear that people your age are using something called Tinder for one-night stands.”

  Elliott laughed. “Yeah, the hookup app. Only I kind of feel squeamish about using that in such a small town. Plus I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. Strange as it seems, it would almost be easier to pick up a woman the old-fashioned way.”

  “You mean get drunk at a bar and fuck her in the bathroom?”

  Elliott’s eyes opened wide. “You mean you did that back in the day?”

  Joe held up his hands. “I’m not that old! I’ve still got kids in high school.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest you were old.”

  “Besides, I know as well as you do a man’s got needs.”

  Elliott frowned. “And yeah, those needs are decidedly not being met. I haven’t been laid in so long I can’t even remember the last time.”

  “A nice-looking fellow like you?” He looked around the bar. “And no prospects in all of Bristol?”

  Elliott shrugged. “Well, I had high hopes for a brief period.” He reached for his beer and gulped a swig down.

  “Why didn’t you go for it?”

  “Well, you know that pig I was bringing in to the rescue headquarters?”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah. Everyone kept rubbing its head for good luck when they showed up for a shift.”

  “Yep. Well, turns out I’d gotten that for my mom at the animal clinic the day that girl disappeared.” He reached for some popcorn. “I planned to give it to my mom to cheer her up—she’s recently widowed. I wen
t for a cat, but the girl working there talked me into that damned little teacup pig.”

  “Did she tell you it was going to grow into a full-blown three-hundred-pound hog?”

  Elliott choked on the popcorn and his new friend patted him on the back to help clear his breathing passageway. “Is that true? My mom claimed the same thing. But it’s a miniature pig.”

  Joe nodded. “Miniature now. But not forever. Don’t you know that little things grow up? And baby pigs become big pigs. Didn’t your parents teach you about the birds and the bees?”

  “Of course, they did, but they neglected the bit about the piglets and hogs.”

  “You were saying about the girl with the piglet?”

  “Well, this makes things even worse. First, she pawned off the damned pig on me. And my mom about birthed a cow when I showed up with it. She said after spending her life on a farm, the last thing she wanted to deal with was a farm animal.”

  Joe nodded. “Can’t say that I blame her.”

  “The girl scribbled down her phone number and said if my mom didn’t want it to call her. Which I did. And then she never returned my calls. The rescue operation unfolded and I didn’t even have time to get back to that place Second Chances to return the pig during regular business hours.”

  “Which is why you brought that thing in with you.”

  He nodded. “And I kind of took a liking to it. I’d given half a mind to hanging on to her. But now I can’t keep a pig that’s going to weigh that much!”

  “Good chance there are better places for her than in a single-family home, that’s for sure. But what’s this got to do with finding yourself a hookup?”

  Elliott shrugged. “The girl who pawned off the pig was kind of cute,” he said. “Blond, hair pulled back in a ponytail. No makeup—which is a plus to me. I hate when women have their faces all caked with cosmetics. She seemed kind of fun and charming and had a smokin’ body. When she gave me her number, I thought maybe she’d want me to call and we could have drinks or something.”

 

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