by Shaye Marlow
“I got you wet,” he said, looking down at the way my wet T-shirt stuck to the upper slopes of my breasts.
I could dump his body in the river. I could do it.
He laughed. Then he pushed away from me, set the glass on my table, and collected his shoes from beside my partly-open sliding deck door—that’s how he got in! His gaze drifted to the side and he shot me a sly glance over his shoulder.
I stood there, chest heaving with equal parts shock, arousal, and fury, as I watched him cross the floor in front of me, throw back the deadbolt, and let himself out of my cabin the traditional way.
I cast about, looking for the subject of that sly glance. What had he done, what had he done? Then I saw it. My laptop, centered in front of my big picture window, lay open. I never left it open.
The bastard had been reading my book. And it was open to a sex scene.
Chapt
er Six
In my assessment of people who lived in the woods, I fell under the Loner category.
Thus, I wasn’t much for barbecues. But Suzy was supposed to be there, and I hadn’t seen her in a while. And there’d be free food, and I don’t think I’d ever turned down free food. I’d even eaten what Gary had made me that morning.
The barbecue was an anniversary party for two of our longest-standing residents, a sweet old couple that ran the local post office.
Clearwater Lodge, owned and operated by Suzy’s parents, was hosting the party. It was a neat little operation with eight cabins scattered back in the woods. None of them had indoor plumbing, but there was a central bath house with nice toilet facilities. The main building was a large, two-story chalet with a wrap-around deck that ended less than twenty feet from the river’s edge.
As I approached in my boat, I saw that the party was already well under-way. Several people milled about on the deck and the lawn. Smoke billowed from the gazebo fire pit, and a breeze plucked at checked tablecloths already spread with food.
The lodge had pretty extensive boat parking at their dock, but every slot was full, so I pulled in to the shore alongside three other boats that’d done the same. I threw my anchor up on the beach, and picked my way over the other anchor lines to the steps that led up from the dock.
It was pretty much just at the top of the steps that I realized this hadn’t been a good idea.
My ex-boyfriend slash asshole-extraordinaire stood twenty feet away, bullshitting with his guide buddies. Most fishing guides were viewed by the locals with the deepest suspicion, and in Brett’s case, it was warranted. He was a skeezy, schmoozing, low-life egotist who’d do anything for a buck. We’d been together almost a year, and I had no idea how it had taken me as long as it did to catch on to what a grasping, arrogant, self-centered asshole he was.
We’d broken up six months ago, and I’d managed only to see him from afar, in another boat on the river, since. I didn’t want to see him up close, without an expanse of icy water between us, and I certainly didn’t want to conversate with the fucker.
I turned around, intending to walk back down those steps and motor away. I had a chest freezer full of food—I could find something else to eat.
“Helly!”
I winced. Oh, goddamn. I turned around. “Hey, Ed.” Over his shoulder, I saw that Brett had glanced up at my name, and his shit-brown eyes were on me. Double damn.
“Hey,” Ed said, ending his eager trot in front of me. “How’s the four-wheeler running?”
“Great, thank you,” I said. “I’d really like to pay you for your help. How much—”
“Naaahhh,” he said, waving off my offer. “We’re friends, right? Consider it a favor,” he said with a wink.
I clenched my teeth. He didn’t understand. I didn’t want to owe him a ‘favor’.
He took me by the elbow, and guided me toward his group of buddies. I let him, because I was shamelessly using him as a shield against my ex-boyfriend.
I glanced around for Suzy, but didn’t see her.
“Beer?” Ed asked.
“Please.” I was going to need to be well-liquored to tolerate this evening, I just knew it.
He introduced me to his group of friends—there were two I didn’t know—and then dashed off to get me a drink.
“Helly,” the new friend named Max said. “That’s an unusual name. Is it after the clothing line?”
Helly Hansen was a fancy outerwear brand, and it was a fair question, but I found it funny that a man was asking it. I smiled. “My name’s actually Haley, it’s just my brothers started calling me Helly instead, and it stuck.”
“And do you work at one of the lodges?” he asked.
“I’m a fishing guide,” I said. “I’ve worked for all of the lodges at one time or another.”
Ed’s friends tittered, the locals making their usual subtly sniping comments and jokes about female guides, and women doing men’s work. Sexism in the Alaskan bush is alive and rampant, but my response was tempered by the knowledge that men truly were better at a lot of tasks (not including fishing, of course) necessary for survival in the wilderness. They were quite simply bigger and stronger, and that made a heck of a difference in daily life out here on the ragged edge of civilization. Just try pull-starting a snowmachine sometime, and you’ll see what I mean. So although their comments irritated me, they were nothing I hadn’t heard before.
“Isn’t it bad luck to have a woman on a boat?” asked the other newb whose name I’d already forgotten. Ed’s friends laughed as if he were funny.
Just because I’d heard it before didn’t mean I had to put up with it. “Excuse me,” I said. I turned around, snatched the beer out of Ed’s outstretched hand, and chugged it as I crossed the lawn toward the steps.
“Helly!” Suzy’s high, sweet voice cut through the hubbub.
I turned toward her. She was adorable, as usual, somehow turning a plaid shirt into a fashion statement, a red handkerchief failing to contain her cloud of curly brown hair. She had bright eyes caught somewhere between green and brown, a mischievous smile on an elfin face, and the cutest freckles I’d ever seen.
“Oh thank God,” I said. “Please save me. Ed thinks I owe him something because he fixed my four-wheeler, and his friends are sexist pricks, and Brett’s over there waiting for his opportunity to strike. All I wanted was free food!”
“Aww,” Suzy said, patting my arm. “I’ll protect you from them. Come get a burger with me.”
We wound over to the grills, stopping along the way to congratulate Dotty and Harv. They were an adorable couple, both in their 70s. Dotty asked how my writing was going, and gave me a wink from under her cloud of white hair.
We finally moved on with me shaking my head. I really didn’t understand why I got along so much better with older folk than with the assholes my own age. Maybe I should have been looking for an older man…
Suzy and I went through the burger line, and then settled at the picnic table up on the deck so I could keep an eye on both Brett and Ed.
“So how’s it going with your new neighbor?” she asked.
I almost choked. And then I turned red. It was just yesterday we’d almost had sex in my yard, and then just this morning that he’d made me look like an idiot and dumped a glass of water on my head.
She laughed. “That good, huh? My parents invited him, but I haven’t seen him yet.”
I shot to my feet, ready to abandon my burger and get the hell outta Dodge. Ed and Brett in the same space were one thing. I absolutely knew adding my neighbor to the mix would trigger Armageddon.
“Oh, quit being so melodramatic.” Suzy grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked me back down to my seat. “You can share airspace with your neighbor. I told you, I’ll protect you. Here, have another beer.”
I whimpered, feeling like a trapped animal, and chugged my second beer. About ten minutes after that, I was at the point where everything was a wee bit fuzzy around the edges, and the world was doing a gentle wobble.
Suzy waited until my w
obble stage to ask me again. “So, seriously, how’s it going with the neighbor? Did you take my advice?”
I nodded. “I did ask him to be quiet in the mornings—you would have been proud of me, I was damn polite, but it was wasted on him because—do you know what he did?”
She shook her head, looking entertained. “No idea.”
“The very. Next. Morning. He woke me up again. Six a.m., his damn saw starts up.” My hand clenched into a fist, crushing my red plastic cup.
I must have had a look in my eye, because she said, “Oh, Helly, what did you do?” She knew me so well.
“I woke him up, with my chainsaw. Practically under his window. At four a.m.,” I added with a self-satisfied smirk.
Suzy looked like she didn’t know whether to gasp or laugh. She covered her open, smiling mouth with a dainty hand—why couldn’t my hands be that cute?
“And… I locked myself in his cabin, cut his hammer in half, and stole his saw blade,” I continued.
“Helly!” I’d obviously shocked her, but she recovered fast. She leaned forward, her eyes dancing. “What did he do?” she asked.
“Stole the chain off my saw, started playing loud music when he works, and is even more blatant about having stolen my dog,” I said bitterly.
“What do you mean, he stole your dog?”
“I found her on his couch the other day. She had her head in his lap and he was feeding her junk food. And now, I see her hanging out over there a lot. More than she ever hangs out with me,” I muttered, and I knew I was pouting, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Wait. Mocha likes him? Mocha, your spooky dog, had her head in some guy’s lap?”
“Yeah.” My tipsy mind was going a little wild with the head-in-Gary’s-lap imagery.
I glanced over to see Suzy’s brows had shot to her hairline. Even though I was getting on toward drunk, I had just enough control of myself not to tell her about the orgasm he’d given me. If she found my dog changing sides shocking, I could only imagine how she might react to that news. More importantly, I wasn’t nearly ready to own up to my little transgression.
“You know,” she said finally, “I’ve always thought dogs were good judges of character.”
I scoffed. “By that logic, he’s a better character than me.”
She just looked at me with this irritating little smile on her face.
I went and got another beer.
The neighborhood women found us and sat down, and soon the table was full of talk. I frowned, hearing the break-ins were still going on downriver. And moving up. Whoever the perpetrators were, they were armed. If the cabin they were ‘visiting’ was locked, they were just as likely to shoot it open as they were to break the window.
“But they aren’t really taking anything,” one of the women said. “It’s so odd. Guns, things of value, just left behind.”
“They’re probably just vandals,” Suzy pointed out. “Those miserable people that take joy out of destroying other people’s stuff.”
“Or else they’re looking for something,” someone suggested.
“Has anybody even seen these people? They’ve been here for a couple weeks now; surely someone has seen something suspicious.”
The women all shook their heads. “With all these fishermen in for the summer, there are way too many strange faces. No one stands out.”
“Well, my Mikey has started sleeping with his gun under his pillow. If anyone tries to break into our cabin, they’ll be sorry.”
The conversation drifted on to commiserations about husbands, with Suzy gleefully soaking up details of the latest marital strife.
I finally tuned out entirely. Husbands. Who needs ‘em? Er…people with broken four-wheelers, that’s who.
When all of the females at my table gasped in unison, I looked up. I followed their gazes, and what did I see? You guessed it. My neighbor. The one who’d chased me, tackled me, and made me scare the wildlife.
I drank my third beer as they talked about how good-looking he was, what nice hair he had, what broad shoulders. What big eyes and teeth, more like.
“And he’s got a helicopter!”
“Oooo!” went the group.
Just kill me now.
Conversation moved on from there, and I tried not to think too hard about why I kept watching Gary. He showed no discomfort at all moving around and talking to dozens of people he didn’t know. If I was being objective, I could say he had a nice strong handshake, a lovely smile, and shoulders and biceps that strained at his shirt. He appeared to be quite charming when he wanted to be, and the one or two women who weren’t at our table threw themselves at him.
Make that the women at our table, too. Even the married ones eventually excused themselves to go make his acquaintance.
At one point, Brett slithered his way in through the circle of ladies. I snorted, watching him balefully. I couldn’t hear him, but I could see that ingratiating smile on his face, and I knew exactly what my horrible-human-being ex was up to. He was trying to make a new rich buddy, because God knows, you can never have too many of those.
It was interesting to see that Gary seemed immune. He was friendly enough, but he didn’t seem more interested in talking to Brett than he was anyone else. I wasn’t sure, but toward the end of one of Brett’s little speeches, I thought I caught the faintest hint of irritation on Gary’s face. He finally managed to escape my ex and went to get some food.
I had to stop watching him when he looked up and caught my eye. His lip quirked, and a rush of lust so strong it ought to be illegal blasted through me. Damn him. I had a perfectly nice man pursuing me—one with mechanical skills!—and it was this damn loud-ass piece of work that apparently did it for me. It made absolutely no sense.
Those beers finally caught up with me, and I excused myself to make my way to the restrooms in the bath house. The evening was getting more advanced—I guessed it to be a little after nine p.m.—and the shadows were getting longer.
I’d rounded the corner of the lodge and was tottering along when somebody grabbed me. I had a bare second to recognize Brett’s face before his mouth crashed down on mine. Then he stuck his tongue down my throat.
I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk.
I tried to push him away. “Brett, get off me!” I mumbled, my elocution foiled by his slimy tongue. I almost gagged at the overpowering taste of polish sausage and sauerkraut. When had I ever enjoyed his nasty kisses?
I finally shoved him off me, and staggered back, wiping his spit off my mouth. I glared at him. “What the fuck, Brett?”
“You know you want me, babe,” he said. “Give us another chance. You know how good we are together.”
“Fuck you,” I said. And for the record, we weren’t good together. Not at all. What he wanted was a little fuck-doll cheerleader, and though I was blonde, I had a few more brain cells to rub together than your average sex toy. And I really didn’t want to fill that role for him. Not anymore.
I thought what I’d said was a pretty solid ‘no’, but he swooped in at me again with his mouth open and honing in on mine. He also reached for my breast.
I punched him in the gut, and stepped back so he didn’t head-butt me when he folded over. Then, because I really couldn’t resist, I planted my boot on his shoulder, and shoved him on his ass.
“And another one bites the dust,” a familiar voice said.
I spun around, a motion that made my head swim. When I’d established that I wasn’t gonna fall over, I said, “You!”
“Me,” Gary agreed. He stood before me, looking unperturbed as he eyed my handiwork. Brett was still on the ground, acting like a giant pussy. I hadn’t punched him that hard. I was a girl, for godsakes. One who didn’t work out. A proper cheerleader probably could have hit him harder.
“Where’d you learn your moves?” he asked.
I put my hands on my hips. “I have brothers.”
Gary nodded. “Fair ‘nuff.”
Brett groaned, and we both
watched as he rolled to his feet. His hair was messed up, he had grass stains on his ass, and he looked enraged. “You bitch!” he hissed.
He lunged for me, and I was gonna drop-kick his nutsack, but Gary stopped my ex in his tracks. He didn’t even hit him; he just stepped in, seized his hand in a move that looked deceptively casual but was snake-strike fast, and did…something to it. Brett went up on his toes, and he whooped for air as his eyes bulged.
“Now,” Gary said. “I could break your hand, or you could apologize to the nice lady and walk away.”
“I’m sorry,” Brett squeaked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Gary released him, frowning as the giant pussy douche hurried away. “That was too easy,” he said.
I agreed with his assessment, but my eyes narrowed on him. “Why are you here?” I asked.
“I was invited,” he said. “I was told there was free food.”
I crossed my arms and was trying to invent some reason to yell at him when Ed rounded the corner and saw us.
He jogged over. “Hey, Helly, is this guy bothering you?” Ed asked.
I slapped my hand over my eyes, massaged the ache in my temples, and tried manfully not to scream. My love life was a goddamn circus.
“You okay?” Ed asked. His sticky-sweet concern grated on my nerves.
He’d been hounding me for years, and finally I’d had enough. I rounded on him, and alcohol-lubed words spilled forth. “Ed, I’ve been using you for your mechanical skills. I don’t want you. I’m not interested in you, I’m not attracted to you, and I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t want you to ask me how I am or bring me beers or do me favors. I just want you to leave me alone. Please,” I said, trying to soften what I was just then realizing was a really harsh rejection.
Ed made a sound remarkably like a sob, and then turned and ran away.
God, I was a bitch.
“They’re dropping like flies,” Gary observed. “For his mechanical skills, eh?”
I growled. “I’m fucking out of here.” I turned to storm away, thought better of it, and stormed to the bathroom instead. By the time I let myself out, Gary was gone, and I was just a wee bit calmer. Still leaving, though.