I finished fiddling with the bottles on the table and gave her my full attention. “You knew about that?”
“Mmhmm.” She crossed her legs and pursed her lips. “Well, I didn’t know until I talked to Mama last night.”
“How did your mama know?”
“Well, where the hell you think they got that bone?” she retorted as if I’d missed the obvious. “You think a hyena just dropped dead in Davina’s backyard?” I was living in a town full of root doctors, and Davina had links to her own brand of Ozark magic. I guess the bone could have come from any of them. “Bone like that takes some extra special connections.”
Sea Bass came through the back door and gave me a concerned look. With a few long strides he was at my side, considering me like I was some injured bird that needed gentle handling. “You all right, Katie?” He glanced at Sugar as if she might know the extent of the illness that kept me home for the first time in the history of the shop.
“Jesus. I call in sick for one day and everyone thinks I’m dying, or something tragic is happening.” I shook my head and headed for the autoclave to dump a load of tools inside to be sterilized. “I’m fine, Sea Bass. I just needed a day off.”
When I turned back around, Sugar was chastising me with her eyes while Sea Bass was sweeping the pristine floor. “Now you be nice to that boy,” she said. “Sea Bass is your best friend—after me—so you better start reciprocating before he decides you ain’t worth his love and devotion.” She glanced at him and puckered her lips. “I’d treat you better than that, baby boy.”
“Damn it, Sugar, stop doing that,” he moaned. “It’s embarrassing.”
“All right!” I said, if for nothing more than to get the two of them to cut it out. “I had another dream.”
Sea Bass went still. “You mean—”
“Yeah. I’m expecting someone to walk through that door any minute now with a drawing of the tattoo I saw in my head.” If that happened I had only two choices: apply the tattoo or somehow get that bone inside of the unfortunate host. The former option wasn’t really a choice at all, because the second I finished the tattoo, Legvu would manifest completely and probably kill me before going straight to the bones at the crossroads to unleash all hell. Hence my desire to stay home behind a locked door that probably wouldn’t do a damn bit of good anyway.
Sea Bass threw his hands up. “All right, all right. We’re intelligent people here. Let’s just think this through and come up with a plan.” Sugar and I stared at him, waiting for this miraculous plan to materialize. His head bobbed up and down as the wheels turned in his head. “Well, maybe you’re right,” he finally said. “Maybe the best thing for you to do, boss, is to lay low for a few days.”
“Forget it.” I continued prepping for the day, lacking the luxury of wallowing in fear while I waited for the inevitable. “It doesn’t matter if I stay home for a day or a month. It’ll just wait.” A part of me realized it was better to let it come for me at home. At least there my dragon could come out without an audience, and if it tried to kill me it would definitely meet the beast. But I knew it would wait for me at the shop because that’s where the ink and equipment was. No use trying to get me to apply that tattoo on top of my kitchen counter.
Mouse was listening to the whole exchange, looking nervous and well . . . mousy. “I–I can screen the customers,” she stuttered. “Maybe I can warn you if it comes in so you can slip out the back door.” She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil from her station. “Can you draw the tattoo?”
“Thanks, Mouse, but I’m not going anywhere. If it comes in the shop I’ll think of something.” I glanced around the room, noting the lack of business. “Where is everyone?”
“Uh, Katie,” Sea Bass said. “It’s only 8:40 a.m.”
We weren’t even open yet. The only reason Sugar was inside was because she came in with Mouse. It also explained why Abel was missing. He came in around noon on Saturdays, because of his moonlighting job as a bouncer on Friday and Saturday nights. I needed to sit down and get my head screwed on right. No use putting ink to someone’s skin if I couldn’t even think straight, and I had customers walking through that door in twenty minutes.
The door opened and everyone in the shop jumped. “I’m sorry,” the man apologized as he witnessed our startled looks. We must have scared him with our beady gaze because he turned around to leave.
“Can we help you, hon?” Sugar called out, like she was an employee. “We ain’t open just yet, but don’t go running off.” She glanced at me and muttered something about a possible paying customer, which she was right about. We needed as many as we could get.
He looked at the sign on the door, clearly flipped to the CLOSED side. “I’m sorry. I was just wondering if you know where Hawthorne Automotive is.”
My shoulders slumped. “Two blocks down on the right. Can’t miss it.”
Sugar sized up his bare, skinny arm as he reached for the door to leave. “You know, a big old tattoo would dress up that arm nicely. Attracts them women like flies.”
“Thanks, Sugar.” I rolled my eyes and walked back to the coffee pot for another cup. Then I settled in for a long day.
Jackson knocked on my door shortly after nine p.m. My head rolled around my tight shoulders as I greeted him, crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies. I motioned him in and headed for the kitchen without a word, grabbing a bottle of red wine and two glasses on my way toward the patio. “There’s beer in the fridge if you’re not in the mood for wine.”
“Wine is fine.” He followed me outside and pulled a chair up to mine, bracing my foot on his knee and slipping off my sandal to rub the spot under my toes. “Why are you so tense tonight?” he asked.
As good as it felt I tried to retract my foot, but he gripped my ankle and held it in place with ease. “Doesn’t that gross you out?” I asked. “Rubbing someone’s foot? Who knows where it’s been.”
He smirked and continued with the massage, hitting the sensitive spots like a pro. “How do you know I don’t have a foot fetish?”
“Do you?” I asked wide-eyed. “Because that’s a deal breaker for me.”
He laughed softly, putting my foot back down to reach over and kiss me. “I can assure you the only fetish I practice is good old-fashioned fucking.”
I feigned surprise. “You didn’t really just say that, did you?”
“Why? Does blunt honesty make you uncomfortable?”
No, but the intensity in his gaze made me want to melt into the chair. “I’m fine with honesty,” I replied. “It’s just that there was nothing old-fashioned about what we did the other night.”
“I’m gonna assume that’s a good thing, Miss Bishop?”
I held his stare and nodded my head. “Oh yeah, Mr. Hunter. That’s a very good thing.”
We sat across from each other in silence, letting the heat snake back and forth between us until it gripped me so tight I thought I might fall out of my chair. It would have been easy to cut to the chase and end up in the bedroom, but I really liked Jackson and figured I owned him a little more disclosure about what he was getting into if he chose to tangle with me. He deserved to know what a mess my life was, even more than his.
I shook it off and reached for the bottle of wine. “Look at us. Two people with a perfectly good bottle of wine, and here we are ignoring the poor thing.” I poured us both a glass and kicked off my other sandal before propping my feet up on the table. “Don’t get any ideas,” I warned, glancing at my toes.
He smiled and relaxed into his own chair. “Seriously, Katie. Something has you wound tight tonight. If it’s about the other night—”
“It isn’t,” I insisted before he could continue. I nervously twirled the stem of my wine glass. He picked up on it, and I could sense the tension in me leaching into him. “There are things you don’t know about me, Jackson.”
“And there are things you don’t know about me,” he countered. “It’s called getting to know each other.” He set his gla
ss on the table and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Look, Katie. I’m not the kind of guy who comes back for a glass of wine after a night in the sack, but something tells me you’re not the kind of girl who does that either. I like you.”
I tried to change the subject. “Okay. Let’s get to know each other better. What do you do for a living?” I’d been wondering that since the day he stepped foot into my shop. Not that I cared how much money he made, but it would be comforting to know he didn’t pay his rent with drug money, or with some other sordid source of income that outlaw biker clubs were notoriously for.
“Nothing right now.” Sensing my concern, he added, “Let’s just say I’m financially set for a while.”
It made sense for him to stay under the radar, seeing how he had a band of outlaw shifters looking for him.
“Now quit changing the subject, Katie. Tell me about these things I need to know about you.”
My lungs inflated at the thought of telling him about the sticky details of my parentage and the prognosis of my future, hinged on the success or failure of capturing a couple of rogue spirits before they could manifest into a god of destruction.
“Obviously you have an idea about what I am,” I began.
His brow arched. “An idea?”
I huffed at the absurdity. I’d concealed my true self from Elliot for two and a half years, never once allowing him to see the dragon. But here I was with this new guy, and all it took was a barroom brawl to shove me into the light. Granted, he had his own secrets and a little experience with shifters, but I wasn’t what he thought I was. I wasn’t your average shifter.
“You’re used to something different, Jackson. I don’t sprout soft fur and whiskers. What you saw the other night is just a glimpse before the real beast comes out.”
He looked amused and confused at the same time, as if nothing I said could sway the concrete impression he had of me. With his right hand, he took me by the wrist and ran his thumb over my pulse, examining the pale skin covering the faint blue vein where my blood was beginning to pump faster. “All I see is a beautiful woman with a big heart who likes turtles and red wine, who’s earned friends who would cut my balls off if I hurt you. You bleed just like everyone else. That’s what I see.”
With a sharp jerk, I pulled my wrist away. “I’m a beast!” I blurted out. “Not like the shifters you left in Atlanta.” His amused grin started to fade, and I could tell by the way he sat straighter that he knew I wasn’t fucking with him. “You had sex with a dragon, Jackson, and it was amazing.”
He just sat there staring at me, wordless. When he finally moved, it was to nod his head several times. “Okay, then. I guess if I can weather a relationship with a shifter who turns into a panther, I can handle a dragon.”
“Before you get all comfortable with bedding a dragon, you need to know the risks.” He needed to know what happened to the last man I slept with. I had to assume that if the spirit tried to get to me through Christopher Sullivan, it could try to do the same with Jackson. Even though I was confident it wouldn’t be stupid enough to try that again, I had no right to assume that risk for him.
Before I could say another word, he got up and headed for the patio door. “You got anything stronger to drink?”
“In the cabinet above the stove.”
He came back out with glasses and a bottle of scotch and poured us both a shot. Then he eased back in his chair with his legs spread and his drink dangling in his hand draped between them. “Now, you were telling me about this risk.”
I debated whether it was worth the pain of explaining Legvu and his divided spirits, or if I should just end our fledgling relationship before it went any further. His eyes made the decision for me. Hopelessly smitten with the man sitting in the chair across from me, and considering his own unusual past, I figured he could handle it. If not, he was welcome to move on to someone less complicated.
“There’s this thing after me.”
“Thing?” he repeated with slight amusement in his voice. “What kind of thing?”
“A spirit that likes to take up residence in unsuspecting hosts. Well, there are two of them, actually. I haven’t met the second one yet, but with my luck it’ll show up soon.”
He deadpanned me, clearly not taking me seriously. I couldn’t blame him. But considering what he knew about me already and the fact that he ran with a pack of shifters in his former life, it wasn’t as farfetched as it sounded. In fact, it should have been right up his alley.
His cocky grin went flat when he realized I wasn’t being dramatic. “You’re serious?”
I nodded. Then I dumped the whole sordid story on the table, leaving out the part about killing Christopher Sullivan, because I thought that little detail might be premature. He listened to every word without balking and seemed unfazed by the prospect of getting involved with a mess like me. Or maybe his plan was to finish his drink and walk out that door and never see me again. He didn’t seem like an asshole or a coward, though.
Eventually he stood up and polished off his scotch, setting the empty glass on the table and regarding me with a question on his face. “A friend of mine is having a party tomorrow afternoon. A barbeque. Just good people and good food.”
When he didn’t follow that statement with an invitation, I cocked my head. “Is that an invitation, or are you just gloating about how much fun you’re going to have without me tomorrow?”
20
Jackson made no attempt to get me into bed the night before. Maybe he was a good actor and my story did set him back a bit. I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of being stood up for this barbeque thing, but he showed up at my house at two o’clock sharp. Fortunately, my schedule was pretty open at the shop. Nothing Sea Bass and Mouse couldn’t handle while I took another day off. I promised them both an extra vacation day for covering for me twice in one week.
He hopped on his bike and handed me a helmet. “You sure you don’t want to take my car?” I asked, wondering how we’d get home after a day of food and drink. “I can be the designated driver.”
“I’ll stay sober,” he assured me. “Get on.”
“Sugar’s going to have a coronary,” I muttered, fastening the helmet and climbing on the seat behind him.
“What was that?”
“My friend, Sugar. She’s going to freak when she finds out I’m not at the shop. She worries about me. You met her the first day you came into my shop. You know, the one who gave you the stink eye.”
“You mean the guy in the dress?”
“That’s Sugar.”
He fired up the bike and yelled over the engine. “Better call her when we get there. Let her know that the big bad wolf hasn’t had his way with you.”
I laughed as we pulled away from the house, clinging to his waist and enjoying the small bit of peace that would end the minute the day was up and we got home. We rode for thirty minutes south of Savannah and turned down a dirt road lined with houses about a quarter mile apart. It was the kind of area where you could get a house on ten acres of land and still have a reasonable commute into the city. We took another turn onto a road that served as a long driveway up to a sprawling ranch with a well-manicured yard.
“Wow.” I climbed off the bike and removed my helmet, looking at the yard that edged up to the woods. “Nice spread.”
“Cairo put a lot of work into this place. Build the house himself.”
“Cairo?” I asked, suddenly wishing I knew more about the people I was about to meet.
He surveyed the property like a hawk, and then brought his eyes back around to mine. “He’s like a brother to me. Covered my ass when Kaleb and his crew came sniffing around here.” With my hand swallowed in his, we headed for the side of the house. “Come on. They’re probably out back.”
Before we got to the corner of the house the sound of voices amplified from the backyard. I glanced around but only saw a couple of cars parked in the driveway. As soon as we walked down the hill and rounded the side of t
he house, I saw where everyone else had parked. At the rear of the large backyard was a river with a row of motorcycles parked along its edge. There must have been at least two dozen parked in a neat double row.
“Well shit, man,” someone said as we entered the crowd. “Where the fuck’s your bike?”
“Parked in the wrong place, obviously,” Jackson replied.
The guy gave him a bear hug with the appropriate fist pound on the back. “Ugly as ever,” he said, grinning at Jackson from ear to ear. He was a good bit older than Jackson and had a rusty beard running halfway down his neck, its tip settling just above the neckline of his worn black T-shirt with JUDAS PRIEST written in faded silver letters across the front. He suddenly realized Jackson wasn’t alone and turned to me with an even bigger grin. “Who’s this?”
“This is Katie,” Jackson introduced.
Cairo reached out and pulled me into him as I extended my hand. “We don’t shake fucking hands around here,” he informed me as he crushed me to his chest. Checking himself, he pulled back and quickly apologized. “Pardon my potty mouth, Katie.” With a quick glance at Jackson, he finally gave himself a proper introduction. “I’m Cairo. I own this zoo.”
Zoo pretty much summed it up. I counted at least five dogs lounging around the backyard, and if I wasn’t mistaken, those were llamas fenced in a large corral near a barn on the right side of the property. “Are those llamas?” I was dying to bypass the crowd and make a beeline straight for the charming creatures. But I guess that wasn’t the polite thing to do.
Cairo shook his head and corrected me. “Alpacas. Not as ornery as llamas. Make nice sweaters, too. At least that’s the bullshit my wife used to justify getting the damn things. Haven’t seen any wool collecting yet, though.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said. “Can I go up to them?”
Cairo sober up a little. “Sure. Let me give you a little advice, though. If they pin their ears back and start looking at you funny, you better duck. They may be nicer than llamas, but they can still spit.”
Crossroads of Bones (A Katie Bishop Novel Book 1) Page 18