“Anything else?”
Gabe’s lips found my neck. His voice tickled. “Stay the hell away from my brother.”
“That’s kind of hard considering where I’m going to work today.”
“My other brother.”
Judson pounded his fist on the cabin door. “Are you waiting for permission to leave? Get your ass in the truck or your ole cuss is comin’ in there to break up the love fest.”
“You didn’t pack any underwear,” I pointed out as Gabe slithered off me and reached for his cowboy hat. There was a book sticking out of the waist of his jeans.
He grinned as he turned and swung the bag over his shoulder. Then he glanced back with a sly twinkle in his eye. “Nothing gets past you.”
* * *
The following morning something thumped outside the cabin. I looked up from my phone and called to Deliah. “Did you hear that?”
She was my first overnight guest. Meggie dropped her off when I got back from working in Lane’s office. Lane showed up to look for his wallet, then took off as soon as I found it for him. I spent the rest of the day helping my father prepare a PowerPoint presentation on oil exploration that made no sense to me whether I read it forward or backward.
“I heard you snoring. Do you mean that?” Deliah said as she appeared in the bedroom doorway and wrapped her sleeping bag around her shoulders.
“I don’t snore. It’s impossible. I didn’t sleep. I waited up all night. Gabe never called.” I waved my phone.
She walked in, bounced herself into the center of the bed, and squashed my legs. She was wearing a Red’s Stomp Box T-shirt from Memphis. “I love your bed. It’s big and cozy.”
I reached out of the sheet, ran my hand over Gabe’s pillow, and wondered if he lost his phone. I was having flashbacks of his previous disappearing acts, but I promised myself I wouldn’t obsess about where he was or what he was doing every moment he was gone. Instead, I closed my eyes and imagined him kissing my forehead good morning.
My eyes opened as Deliah sat up tall and made a face that resembled my sister’s stubborn attempt at eating a lemon. “Grody to the max. You’re a lovesick fool.”
“Grody?”
“Meggie said it yesterday, and your mom laughed so hard she spewed iced tea out through her nose. Then your sister spit her chocolate milk out, and your mom yelled at her, and Emmie started crying. It was hysterical. I thought I’d try it out.” She jiggled the bed. “Get up. I’m hungry. There’s nothing to eat in the kitchen.”
“I’m staying right here until Gabe calls. He probably drove all night to get to Benjamin. Lane’s coming over to fix the generator, and then he might bring me to his office to compile orientation material for some new guy he’s training to take over his job when he goes to work in the tower.”
“Sounds boring. That means you’re going to work there too.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” I said.
“Maybe he’ll bring us real food.”
“If you help me unpack those boxes, I’m sure you’ll find some candy.”
“There’s never any candy at your aunt’s. Your mom cooks better than Meggie, but it’s always healthy stuff. My mom never cooked anything.”
“You must miss her.”
“Sometimes,” she said halfheartedly. “Anyway, thank god your mom talked Meggie into hiring a caterer for Joel’s surprise party. Nobody will die from food poisoning.”
“They’re going ahead with the party? That was my idea.”
“I don’t know how she thinks she’s going to make a surprise happen. It’s his job to know everything.” She sat up and glanced around the room. “I should move in with you guys. There’s no room to breathe over there, even with Josh away at orienteering camp. Plus, your sister gets into my stuff, and she’s highly opinionated for a preschooler.”
“Consider this your summer camp away from home.”
“Some camp,” she responded grimly. “There are no boys here.”
“There’s Travis. He’s coming later to mow part of the field around the cabin.”
“The boy who saw you topless?” She looked down at her shirt. “I’ve got zero chance.”
I moved my back up the headboard. “Did you hear that? It did it again.”
“Hear what?”
“That noise. Gabe saw coyote tracks last week. That’s why you’re staying here, isn’t it? To protect me?”
Deliah dove under her sleeping bag. “Maybe it’s a bear.”
A howl outside the cabin made every muscle in my body tighten. I covered my head with my pillow.
“It’s a wolf!” she cried. “Find Gabe’s gun.”
“It’s locked up. He said he swallowed the key. I’m not shooting anything ever again. Don’t you remember what happened to that flag in Texas?”
“And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow—”
Deliah whipped the sleeping bag into the air. “Caleb! Get out of here!”
I peeked out to find him standing in the doorway wearing his cowboy hat and a smartass smirk. He took a step toward the bed and drew his gaze around the room. “So this is where the magic happens.”
“We’re telling Gabe you’re bothering us,” Deliah whimpered and chucked a pillow at his head.
He tossed the pillow back. “Y’all won’t tell because you need me to snag you some breakfast. There’s not a lick of food in this palace.”
My heart rate started to return to normal. “Caleb, is there something you need?”
“If that’s an offer, I’ll need a minute to compose my list.” He stepped to the bed and seductively ran his hand up a bedpost. “And she’ll have to leave.”
“Have you heard from Gabe?” I asked.
“Nope. Lane sent me to look at the generator.”
“Why isn’t he here?” I balled my hair into a rubber band. Caleb’s eyes were on me as I threw my legs off the bed and stood. I grabbed one of Gabe’s thin flannels to cover up the yellow T-shirt. As I pulled it up my arms, a rush of longing made me smell the collar. “He told me he was coming over.”
Caleb raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, he told me he was Captain America. He’ll be by on the third of never.”
“What did you do to him?”
He angled in and lifted his nose in my face. “I didn’t do anything. He got himself shitfaced on his own damn time.”
“He did not,” I said with question as I stood up to him. “He seemed okay when I talked to him yesterday.”
Caleb swung around the bedpost and flopped onto the bed beside Deliah. “You might wanna rethink your career as a life coach.”
* * *
Shortly after Deliah and I got dressed, we all headed into town to buy groceries.
“Stop the truck,” I told Caleb.
“Why? You two wanna go four-wheeling?” asked Caleb. “Yee-haw.”
I pointed to the pasture where I thought I spotted a figure standing on top of a tractor. It looked as if it was a mile away, but the sun and the depth of the field acted as an illusion. Deliah leaned into the front seat of Caleb’s truck to get a look.
“What the heck is he doing?” she asked.
“That’s Travis,” I said. “He must be cutting across to his house.”
“He musta been on the pot when they were passin’ out brains,” said Caleb. He jerked the truck off the road, and we bounced along until I was holding my head to keep my skull from rattling. Then he parked the truck and jumped down. Deliah crawled over the seat and stretched her arm to open the door.
I moved fast and placed a hand on her wrist. “Don’t,” I said.
“Why?”
“There’s something in the grass. That’s why he’s standing up there.”
Caleb approached Travis with caution. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. He headed back to the truck and set his cowboy hat on the hood, then climbed up the side of the bed and jumped in. A minute later he was on the ground closing the bolt on his long rifle. I would never disclose my
thought out loud, but he made my breath catch with the speed of his skilled hands.
I rolled down my window as the air conditioning dissipated and the late morning sun sizzled above the truck.
“That kid needs to grow a pair. It’s a freaking two-foot prairie rattler,” Caleb said before he made a wide circle around the tractor.
Deliah flipped over the seat. “Does it have stripes? Red next to black is a friend of Jack. That’s what Gabe said.”
“Gabe’s not always right,” I replied.
Travis pointed at the ground, and Caleb stepped closer. When he jumped back seconds later, I grabbed the dashboard. My chest was pounding. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was suck venom out of Caleb’s leg.
“You’re crazy,” Deliah stuck her head out the window and shouted at Caleb. Travis was looking behind his back as if he heard a second snake.
“You would know,” said Caleb.
I couldn’t cover my eyes and my ears at the same time. Two shots went off within seconds of each other.
“Cool,” said Deliah as she jumped down from the cab and left the door open. “Are they venomous?”
“How do you know there aren’t more?” I asked when Caleb approached with one of the snakes hanging from the barrel of his rifle. I scurried to press my back into the driver’s side door. “Get that away from me!”
He dangled the snake above the windshield and grinned while I cowered. Deliah was standing beside Travis as he kicked the second snake into the air with his boot. I watched her study his face curiously.
“Gabe’s my full brother. We’re biological siblings, not like me and Caleb,” I heard her say. She jammed her hands into her back pockets and waited for the boy to speak. He seemed more interested in the snake than the girl.
Caleb stuck his head in the truck window and winked. “Looks like somebody’s been to the boyfriend store.”
I glanced up and caught Travis watching me with Caleb. He looked away and then lifted his gaze bashfully. I offered a small wave. When he approached, I sat up.
“Hi, Avery.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
The farm boy raised his HalRem cap and ran a hand through his moppy blond hair. “Yes, ma’am—um, Avery. I’m perfectly fine. The engine stalled on top of a rattlesnake den. Rattlers and I don’t get along.”
On cue Caleb tossed a dead snake at my door and made Travis jump.
I rolled my eyes as he tried to shake off his blush and wipe perspiration from his lip. “Feel free to ignore him. We all do.”
Deliah kicked off her flip-flops and scaled the tractor like it was a jungle gym. She raised her arms into the sky. “This is incredible. Avery, come up here.”
I pushed open the door and carefully set my cowboy boots in the grass while trying to distinguish rattler noises among crickets. I had been wearing my boots with shorts ever since Gabe told me it was his favorite look.
Caleb stood behind me when I tried to pull myself onto the seat of the tractor. He put his hands on my butt the second I slipped. I recovered and climbed to a safe squat. The farmland went on forever. Each blade of grass glistened with morning dew. I hadn’t been out in the open field since winter.
I stood on the seat and lost my balance when I tried to swat a grasshopper off my knee. Caleb caught me in his arms. He dropped to the ground and took me along with him. The tall grass swallowed us. His hand conveniently slid up the back of my thigh.
I knew what he was doing. He was about to get a knee in his groin if he didn’t stop. “Get off me,” I barked into his ear as he held my waist to his with his other hand.
He rolled over in slow motion and stood up to straighten his snug jeans. Then he lowered the rim of his cowboy hat to shield his face from the sun. “Next time you wanna get fresh—Backwoods Barbie—all ya gotta do is ask.”
Travis arched over me and squinted. My heart began to race when I got wind of the disturbed look on his face.
“I’m not hurt,” I assured him as fear filled my voice.
“That’s not it, ma’am,” he confirmed. He offered me a hand and didn’t take his eyes off the ground by my head.
I rolled over as fast as I could and let his sweaty grip pull me to my feet. “Oh my god!” I shrieked. I covered my mouth and pointed.
Caleb retrieved his rifle in a flash and pushed me aside.
“You don’t need that. It’s already dead,” said Deliah.
Caleb crouched and studied the partially concealed object while aiming the rifle in the grass. He tapped the object as if it was going to come alive and speak to us.
“Is that for real? Shelly is never going to believe this,” Deliah said as she brushed up beside me. “This is the best summer camp of my life.”
“Who is it?” I asked without removing my hand from my mouth. A human skull stuck out of the grass.
Caleb twisted his neck to glare at me with tight hazel eyes. “Why don’t you ask him what his name is?”
When he rolled it over to expose the nose and eye sockets, Deliah grabbed my arm. Travis came to stand by my other side.
“Gabe’s really going to wish he called me back,” I muttered.
“A picture might get the point across,” said Caleb. “Wanna take a selfie with this dude?”
“You know it’s a guy?” Deliah asked.
“Prominent supraorbital ridge.”
Deliah and I gazed at each other.
“We should call the FBI. There could be a serial killer on the loose,” she said.
Caleb leaned the rifle on his leg and shook his head. “Y’all need to chill. There’s no body. This could’ve rolled down from Canada.”
“What if this was a sacred burial ground or an old reservation or something?” I asked as I scanned the infinite pasture. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the skull again.
Caleb swiped his boot in the grass. “If that’s what this is—prime your umbrellas. It’s gonna unleash a shitstorm bigger than Texas.”
“I’ve never heard anything about protected land,” Travis replied. “My granddaddy knows everything about this place. He tells me stories all the time.”
Caleb’s brows knitted together. He was probably wondering if his property would end up under a magnifying glass. The Remington parcels were all connected. “Nobody’s gonna be telling anything to anybody about this one.”
“We should ask Meggie what to do,” Deliah said.
“You do that, Mona Deliah. I’d pay to see you carry that into the farmhouse and set it on the kitchen table.”
I wiped my forehead with the back of my wrist. The exposed skin on my neck and shoulders burned.
“Gabe’s gonna have a cow,” said Deliah. “We should get rid of it.”
“I’ll give a shout to the lieutenant.”
“Gabe won’t like that either,” Deliah said.
I twisted my ponytail around my finger. “Can’t we just tell the police to come get it?”
“Along with a flood of blood thirsty media hounds? I can hear it now—bodiless dude found on HalRem land. Lieutenant’s got an army equipped to handle this kind of trouble. He’ll call in his big guns. He’s got friends on the force.”
“Avery, Troy has a backhoe,” Travis said. “He could come out here and dig around to see if there are any more bodies.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Caleb answered in my place. “This calls for damage control. Not the other way around. Nobody comes back here until my dad takes a look.”
* * *
“We’re going to starve to death,” said Deliah. She sat on the kitchen counter and opened and shut the empty cupboard. We were right back where we started with nothing to eat.
“Maybe that’s what happened to that guy out there. He ate his own body to survive in this place.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that. There’s nothing good to eat in this state. There’s not a single barbeque pit worth my time for a thousand miles,” she said.
I shifted around my boxes from New York. My belongi
ngs were mixed with Gabe’s stuff from Texas, some of his books from Lane’s basement, and our things from the trailer. There was supposed to be a can of ravioli in one of the cartons Meggie dropped off with Deliah.
“Score,” I said as I held up the family-size can like a trophy. “We’ll last another day. There’s enough for Travis too.”
“You can’t ask him to stay,” she replied upset. “We’re having a crisis.”
I continued to search for a spoon and a serving bowl. “I knew you’d like him.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
The light knock on the door ended our banter. Travis stuck his head in, and Deliah vanished to the bathroom before I could invite him in.
“It’s open.”
“Gabe said I’m not to let myself in because of last time. Do you need me to do anything before I head down to the lodge to start washing windows? The yard is mowed.”
I waved him inside with the can opener I found under the ravioli. “Come and eat with us, Travis. I have plastic forks somewhere.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I don’t want to be trouble.”
“My only trouble is this microwave. It shorts out,” I said while he shut the screen door and wiped his boots on the mat. “I was counting on Lane to fix that generator.”
“I can take a quick look at it,” Travis said confidently, yet avoided my eyes. “I’m mechanically inclined.”
“Me too,” Deliah piped up as she returned from the hallway.
Something about her was different. I couldn’t put my finger on it. All I could think about was the skull and how Gabe was going to flip out.
Travis stood at the kitchen sink and glanced out the window as he ate his lunch from a paper plate. Deliah and I sat at the table.
“I’m sure you could fix anything yourself, Avery. I can teach you the basics on the generator,” Travis said as he finished eating.
The way he said my name made me nervous. Deliah took her plate to the sink and made a show of reaching for a Dixie cup. That’s when I figured out what was different about her. From the front she looked normal. When she turned sideways, I almost choked on my pasta. We locked eyes, and she shot me a look that told me to mind my own business.
The Luxury of Being Stubborn (The Stubborn Series Book 4) Page 4