by Shaye Marlow
“Thea,” he said.
And I knew. I went limp against the tree, my eyes burning with tears even as the lightness of relief made me giddy.
J.D. It was J.D.
And then he swept off his mask, and it really was him. Here, now, his blond hair sparkling, the sharp planes of his darling face, those singular blue eyes.
He was the most welcome sight of my life. If I’d been free to do so, I would’ve thrown myself into his arms.
“Thea,” he said again, stepping close as he reached for my gag.
Behind him, the other Bigfoot shook the Canadian, who flopped like a rag doll. His bottle of maple syrup lay on the ground next to him, bleeding into the grass.
I strained toward my rescuer, my love, and spat out the handkerchief just as soon as I was able. “I thought you’d left,” I said. I wanted to kiss him, wanted him to kiss me, but he ducked out of sight instead.
“J.D.? J.D.!” My voice went high and cracked.
“I’m here,” he said, leaning around the tree. He touched my cheek with a big, dark, hairy-backed hand. “It’s okay. I’m here, and I won’t leave you. I’m just untying these ropes.”
I leaned into his touch, and really wanted to say something sassy to break the tension. But, the best I could do was a nod. He was here. J.D. had come for me! The relief I felt was vast.
I spent the next couple minutes watching the second Bigfoot with my tormenters. He dealt in fear and pain like he’d been born to it, letting them think they’d escaped, letting them crawl away just to drag them back and hurt them some more.
It had to be Pierre. After seeing him fight in the coffee shop, I couldn’t imagine anyone as precise and devastating—anyone who wasn’t currently tugging on my ropes, that is.
Pierre finally abandoned the thoroughly-beaten duo to tackle Shane, that charismatic ass who’d led these people to this insanity, as he tried to sneak away. I savored his cries of pain.
My ropes finally fell away, and J.D. was there before I could fall on my face. Instead of trying to stand, I wrapped my arms around him, and buried my face in his furry chest. I drew in a deep breath, first detecting the rubbery smell of the suit—but under it was pure, amazing, wonderful J.D.
“I thought you’d left,” I murmured again, overwhelmed by my relief, my happiness at seeing him again.
“I was going to,” he admitted, his hand sliding up my back. “But Mitzi came and got us. Told us what had happened. Jesus, Thea… Are you okay?” he murmured into my hair.
Shuddering, I nodded. “I am now.”
His hand paused at my shoulder, and came away sticky. “And what is this on you?”
I laughed, glad I was still capable of doing so. “Honey, and maple syrup.”
His confused expression was darling. Overcome by the sheer joy of witnessing it, I pulled his face down and kissed him.
“Thank you,” I mumbled between kisses. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Thea… I’ll always come for you,” he said, kissing me back just as fervently, holding me tight. “I’m so sorry I let this happen.”
Some switch in me flipped, and I’d never been more happy to be alive. I climbed him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and my legs around his thick, furry waist. Fire sizzled through my veins as I pressed against him.
It was as I was threading my fingers into the ample, luxurious hair on his back that it occurred to me to ask: “Why are you wearing a Bigfoot suit?”
“Wreck and I,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth, my chin, “were trying not to be identified.” He moved on to my neck, lapping and sucking at the sticky sweetness. The caress was very similar to what Rope Fetish had tried, and yet it was vastly different.
“But,” I gasped, “where did you get the suits?”
“His brothers had them,” Pierre said, appearing at our side. His French accent sounded comical coming from Bigfoot. “Sorry to interrupt, but two things: The Bigfoot hunters are starting to regroup, and the locals are here, and they are restless.”
J.D. let me slide to my feet. “What do you mean?”
“Someone spotted two Bigfoot boating by, and called… everyone, I guess. The whole neighborhood is on the beach, and I explained the suits belong to your brothers, and now they have the two of them cornered and are working up to a lynching. We should probably go,” he added.
“Dammit.” J.D.’s gentle touch was at odds with the irritation in his voice as he threaded his fingers through mine. As he led me toward the beach, we stepped over sprawled and groaning Bigfoot hunters.
“If you will excuse me a moment,” Pierre murmured, and then took off running to the left, toward a straggler crouching in the brush. The guy was snapping pictures right up until the rogue Bigfoot snatched the camera from him. The guy’s pleading cries crescendoed with the sound of crunching plastic.
And then, J.D. and I were stepping down onto the beach.
J.D.
It was as Wreck’d said: The locals—who were armed to the teeth, it should be noted—were quickly becoming an angry mob. They had Zack and Rory cornered against a cut-bank, and were reminding them just exactly what kind of damages they’d suffered since the Bigfoot hunters had come to their neck of the woods.
Their anger, their accusations were entirely deserved. What my brothers had done made no sense. It’d been the height of stupidity. They had punishment coming to them; they’d totally asked for it.
Zack and Rory seemed to have even given up denying it. “It was all in good fun!” Rory insisted, making me wince. “We didn’t hurt anybody.”
“Bullshit!” rang out over the jumble of arguments. The crowd looked to be on the verge of violence, with Helly and Suzy—the latter waving her tiny fist—right up front.
I surveyed the scene, thinking about whether I wanted to get involved. The answer was no, and yet… I couldn’t bring myself to leave my brothers to the locals’ tender mercies. They were ’ohana, and ’ohana means…
Goddammit. Sighing, I turned to Thea. “Could you wait here?” I asked. Her eyes were big. “Or better yet, would you like to get in the boat?”
She nodded as her fingers slid from mine. “Go save your brothers.”
“Guys,” I called, trying to get the crowd’s attention as I approached. “People!” I’d hollered it, but they were yelling, too.
Grimly, I began elbowing my way into the press. For some reason—it was certainly not his fight—Wreck followed.
Angry voices surrounded me. “—harassed my guests!” “—bit my dog—” “—stupidest thing I’ve ever—” “Line ’em up and shoot ’em!”
“Hey now,” I said, managing to wedge myself in front of my idiot kin. I held up my hands. “Nobody will be shooting anybody.” And dammit, wouldn’t you know it? The locals still weren’t listening to me.
A piercing whistle made my ears ring. When I glanced over, Wreck still had his fingers between his lips. But, the crowd was still shouting.
A gunshot cut through the increasing hum of angry, armed Alaskans. I patted myself down, then glanced at Zack and Rory, looking for blood. Finally, I followed the direction of the turned heads.
Ed was standing in the back, gun up, glowering. Beside him, Gary stood with an equally forbidding expression and a rifle. And behind them, a line of fishing guides loomed, arms crossed, dark and serious.
Everybody froze. I could have heard a pin drop in the silence.
Slowly, disapprovingly, Ed shook his head.
Into the hush, Suzy sighed. “God, honey, I love it when you do that.” She was already halfway through the crowd, and closed the rest of the distance to snuggle against his side, beaming a smile up at him.
Ed glanced down at her. “You’re undermining my authority right now. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes dear,” she said.
“They deserve punishment!” someone cried. The clamor picked up again, the locals yelling about trespassing, littering Bigfoot-buggerers.
“I know you want my bro
thers’ heads,” I said, speaking over them.
“Their balls!” someone yelled.
“And other, more sensitive bits,” I allowed. “But this is not the time, or the place! We just kicked the wasp’s nest up there, and a lot of those Bigfoot hunters are armed, and—” I hated to lie “—potentially dangerous.”
“Those Bigfoot hunters wouldn’t be here, if not for them!” a woman yelled.
I was honestly surprised at how many locals had come out of the woodwork, and on such short notice. I’d never even seen most of these people.
“That is true,” I admitted. “And they’ll be punished,” I said over the clamor. “But… later. Now, let us through. We need to get off this beach.”
Nobody moved.
“Look, you can have them later,” I said, exasperated. “But we just assaulted a bunch of crazy dudes, rescuing Thea, and a few of them have guns, and a lot of them have lawyers, and we need to flee the scene, if you know what I mean.” If there was one thing Alaskans understood, it was avoiding the long arm of the law.
“They’ll be punished?” someone asked. It was the first hint of hesitation I’d heard, and I hoped it meant the locals were calming down.
“Who decides the punishment?” asked someone else. “Are they gonna give us our stuff back? They wrecked my boat!”
“Yeah!” And it was back on, the decibel level rising as people shook their fists and yelled about the shit my brothers’d caused.
Another gunshot rang out.
“They will be punished,” I announced, just as soon as I was able. “They’ll come back home with me, now—so you’ll know exactly where to find them—and you all reconvene somewhere, and decide what you want to do to them—short of death,” I added, when Helly opened her mouth. She pouted.
“Also,” I said, “make a list of things they broke. If they can import Jeeps and grills and rockets, and have their place professionally carpeted with AstroTurf, they can compensate you. And they will,” I said, fixing Rory with a look when he started to object.
“And what about our suffering?” someone demanded. “How are they gonna compensate us for that?”
“That, you’ll just have to take out of their hides,” I replied.
The crowd grumbled.
“I just wanna know why,” someone said. “What reason could they have possibly had to do something so stupid?”
“Yeah. Why’d they do it?” asked a grizzled guy up front.
I glanced back at my brothers, and raised a brow.
Rory cleared his throat, clasped his hands, and somehow managed to look like a thirty-year-old choir boy. At some point during the confrontation, he’d even smoothed his hair. “I don’t know if y’all were aware,” he said, “but our baby brother has been very down the past couple months. Very down, not at all like himself. He would barely eat, was peeing in a gallon jug rather than get up off the couch…”
I gave him a subtle death-glare and a firm head-shake.
“We were worried about him,” Zack said. “And it wasn’t just the broken collarbone. He’d lost a fight, his belt, and his honor, all in one fell swoop. He threw a fight—or at least, he tried—hell, he might beat himself up for failing at that, too—” Zack stopped when I transferred the glare.
“So, what we’re trying to say,” Rory continued, “is that he was depressed, and it was partly because he’d had his ass handed to him, by this man,” he said, indicating Wreck. “We knew he needed to confront the past, face what he’d done, and we knew this man was the key.” He paused for effect, but it just made the natives more restless.
“We also knew this man was a Bigfoot fanatic,” Rory said, letting that shoe drop.
“Hey,” Wreck protested.
I stared at Rory, stared at both of them. I thought… I might vomit.
The crowd was silent for several seconds.
“You’re telling us,” the grizzled guy said, “you ran around in Bigfoot costumes to help your brother?”
“That’s precisely,” Rory said, enunciating crisply, “what I’m saying. And it worked!” he crowed. “He’s been up and around, bathing, working out, fighting again!” He beamed proudly at me.
“Awwww,” Suzy said.
Oh. My. God. I wanted to kill him. No—hug him. No—kill him. No… Arrrgh! Family is so frustrating!
I croaked my next words. “We’re leaving now.” Show’s over. “Retribution will be at their place, at a time of your choosing.”
I looked meaningfully at those in front, the locals immediately in our way. And, miracle of miracles, one shuffled to the right, and the other shuffled to the left. And the ones beyond them did the same, and suddenly they’d cleared a path to the boat, where Thea sat, smiling.
The locals were letting us go… for now.
I grabbed each of my brothers by the arm, and dragged them to freedom.
Chapter Twenty-Six
J.D.
First order of business was to get cleaned up. I managed to convince Thea to stay—we had some talking to do, and those Bigfoot hunters were still out there, and she didn’t actually have a shower—and bundled her into my brothers’ bathroom with a pair of my sweats and a T-shirt.
Several minutes later, when she stepped back out, I realized a couple things: 1) She looked amazing in black, 2) My GAMER t-shirt looked a lot better draped across her full, unbound breasts than it ever had over mine, and 3) She was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. She was all damp and warm and rumpled, my sweats baggy on her and rolled at both waist and ankles.
I was speechless, staring as she squeezed the last water out of the ends of her hair with a towel. She was equally silent, but probably because she didn’t know where to begin.
The facts seemed to loom between us—or maybe that was my luggage, stacked near the door. Just a day ago, I’d said goodbye, and not even that well. We lived in different states and she disliked my fighting, and a relationship between us seemed all but impossible.
Except… I wanted it to work. And, maybe she did, too.
“Join me on the couch?” I asked.
She nodded, and I directed her to the least-stained cushion, and took the seat beside her. Her hands were clasped in her lap, her head bowed. She seemed sorrowful, almost as if she was letting me go all over again, and… I didn’t like it.
I didn’t know what to say, how to start. This is what came out: “Play Minecraft with me?”
That got a small smile, no matter how fleeting. “Sure.”
I freed my PS4 from my carry-on, and connected and booted it up with the speed of long practice. Then I handed her a controller, and started a new game. The cursor blinked on ‘Name’. Picking out each letter, I typed in ‘Thea + J.D.’.
She made a small sound most closely resembling a sob, and I itched to reach over and tug her into my arms.
Our characters landed on their feet, and the world built itself around us, unexplored, a land of possibilities. “Lead on,” I told her.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“Whatever you want. Whatever it is, I’m content just to do it with you.”
She glanced at me, hesitated, but then started to run.
I followed as she crossed a prairie and a river, and headed toward the biggest mountain in sight. I’d relaxed onto the couch, and had almost forgotten about the tension when she finally spoke.
“You have a plane ticket.”
“Had,” I said. “I missed my flight. And I bought it back when I still thought you were married,” I explained. “My brothers were being dicks, and I figured the last thing I needed was to deal with their bullshit.”
“I don’t like how you beat on them. Hurt them,” she said. We’d reached the mountain, and she was jumping, trying to find her way up it.
“It doesn’t usually go that far. Can I tell you what they did?”
After a pause, she nodded.
“They snared my ankles, hung me from a tree—”
Her character stopped dead. Thea turned
to stare at me, eyes big, mouth open in an ‘O’.
“—and they jerked my shoulder. All the way up.”
She winced, her breath hissing as she glanced at it. “Is it…?”
I lifted my arm, showing her my new range of motion. “It hurt like hell. Still hurts. But it seems to’ve helped. Reaching forward’s still a bit difficult…”
She reached for me, sympathy in her eyes. Call me a guy, but I didn’t want sympathy to be the reason she reached for me.
I turned more fully toward her, and got to the point. “Let me ask you again what I asked back in the coffee shop, before everything went to shit: Do you want me to stay?”
She took a sharp breath. “I don’t want to ruin what you have, your career. Your life.”
“Forget all that,” I said. “Don’t worry about my career. And as far as I’m concerned, my life would be infinitely better with you in it. So… Do you want me to stay? Do you… want me?” I asked, simplifying the question.
Her eyes were luminous. “I cried,” she said, “when I thought you’d gone. When I thought I’d never see you again.”
I waited, watching her as she looked down, and two tears splashed onto her lap. I hated that I’d caused her such pain.
She took a deep breath, gathering herself. “If it were up to me, I’d see you every day. Every morning, and every night,” she said, her voice breaking.
My heart was full to bursting. I opened my mouth to speak, but she continued before I could.
“But, I don’t think we want the same things.”
“What are you talking about? Hey.” I put a gentle knuckle under her chin, lifted. She looked so sad, it broke my heart.
“I thought you’d gone,” she said, two more tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I didn’t. I won’t,” I said. “I’m right here. Right where I want to be.”
She grasped my arm. “Your brothers made it sound like I was just a goal. Just a number. Practically a pity fuck,” she said, her face twisting.
My first impulse: I was going to beat the shit out of those two ASAP, and interrogate them to find out what, exactly, they’d said to screw everything up this badly. But that wasn’t important right now, and Thea wouldn’t appreciate my violent intentions.