by Sable Hunter
Glory stood at the bedside, pulling on a pair of lounge pants she’d discovered in one of his very neat dresser drawers. The legs were impossibly long, each one probably long enough to fit her leg twice. She sat on the bed and rolled them up. While she rolled, she could hear T talking to himself from the other side of the door, but all she could make out was You can’t be carrying on with a girl like that. She cinched the pants as tight around her waist as she padded to the kitchen. Part of her wanted to just run out the front door and straight to the bait shop, before even thanking him for his hospitality.
A girl like that?
“What did he mean?” Glory mulled it over while she sat in the kitchen, debating what to do. T’s place was a palace compared to anywhere she’d ever lived, with the big picture window in the front of the house offering an expansive view of the Bayou Teche right out front. She didn’t have any savings, so salvaging the cabin was out of the question. All she could do was go pick up whatever of her belongings had survived and move into the backroom of the shop. In a few weeks, she could afford a cot. Maybe. It wouldn’t be so bad.
T was taking his time in the washroom. Remembering her clothes, she found the washer and transferred the load to the dryer. The coffeemaker was too big a temptation to pass up, so she put on a pot and in no time, she was sitting with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of fragrant brew. Buford came to greet her, but quickly found a spot in the sun and stretched out on the floor in the kitchen.
“What exactly did he mean, ‘A girl like that’?” Glory couldn’t get it out of her head. So much had happened this morning, enough to make her head spin, but the terse words she’d overheard had stolen the joy and elation she felt from his kiss.
A moment later, T came into the room in a flurry of movement. “Morning,” he said the word from over his shoulder, going to the cupboard to get a mug.
“I already took one out for you.”
T’s favorite mug sat on the countertop with a bowl of sugar and a tiny container of milk beside it. Damn, how did she know which one was his favorite?
“I hope you don’t mind.” Glory shifted in her chair, suddenly feeling awkward. “The caffeine helps me get going.”
T busied himself with preparing a drink. “No. Of course not. Me too. I mean…the coffee. It gets me up in the morning. I mean, it wakes me up. Not ‘gets’ me up.”
Glory, honest to god, spit coffee out of her mouth at T’s fumbling words. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She wiped the table top with her napkin.
“It was morning wood,” T blurted out. “That’s all.”
Glory stifled a laugh. “Okay.”
He turned and looked at her. “What?”
He had on a snug gray t-shirt with a Levi’s logo on it and Glory just indulged her eyes in the bulge of his biceps poking out from under his sleeves. “Nothing.”
“I woke up hours ago and I really had to go, but I didn’t want to wake you up.” He sipped his coffee in an agitated state.
“All right. I’m sorry you had to wait so long, but I appreciate it.”
“That’s what happens to guys. You get an erection to keep from peeing in your sleep.”
“Honestly. You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“It’s like a medical, slash, physiological thing. I can’t control it.”
“Okay.”
T eyed her from behind his mug. The woman drove him crazy. Everything about her made him trip over his words and forget his own name. Why the hell wouldn’t she just leave him alone? This girl was going to be the death of him if she didn’t go away. Far away. Hell, T wasn’t sure if Saturn was far enough away for him to stop wanting her. “I’ll walk the dog and you get dressed. We’ll head on over to your place and see just how bad the damage is.”
“No need,” Glory protested. “You’ve done enough. I don’t think there’s anything to be done, the cabin was totaled.” She dreaded facing the mess and she certainly didn’t relish T feeling sorry her. A girl like that.
“I’m going with you, end of story,” he made his edict, then left to take Buford outside.
When he returned, it was to find Glory huddled at one end of his couch. She’d redressed in the barely-there T-shirt and shorts she’d worn the night before. Buford jumped up beside her and she stroked his furry belly. Pulling a pillow over her face she mumbled. “Do we have to go over there?” She dreaded it so much.
T came to the couch and pushed the pillow aside.
Maybe if she teased him, he’d get mad and let her go alone. It was worth a try. “How about I just stay here? Please, mister? I promise. I don’t eat much and I won’t make a mess.”
He could tell she was joking, but the thought sent a charge through T’s entire being. If he hadn’t been so worried about what he was capable of doing to her, T would’ve sent a dozer over to level Calvin Boudreaux’s old shack right now, but being with Glory wasn’t in his future.
“Ain’t gonna happen, toots.” T reached a big hand down and pulled her up from the couch. She was so light and he was so strong, he propelled her up and to the side, almost causing her to fall again.
Glory yanked her arm way from him. “You don’t have to be so rough,” she said, hoping T wouldn’t notice the sparkle in her eye. She’d kinda enjoyed the feel of his hand on her and all that power he possessed.
“Sorry, sometimes I don’t know my own strength.” See, he’d just proved his own point. He’d almost hurt her, and he hadn’t even been angry.
T was quiet on the way over, leading them through the dense brush, shoving aside fallen branches and limbs as they went. “Up you go,” he said once, placing his hands on her waist without telling her what he was doing, and lifting her up and over the trunk of a large oak that had been felled by the storm. “I’ll have to come back and clear this with a chainsaw later.”
“No need. I probably won’t be coming this way again.”
T tried to ignore the fact that her words made him a bit sad. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be bothering me again. You tend to keep turning up like a bad penny.”
“Find a penny pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck.”
Her singsong teasing made him smile. Glory wasn’t the type of girl a man picked up, she was the kind a man found and kept safe forever.
T came through the clearing to her place first and saw the destruction. “Sacre bleu, cher. I’d say you are officially screwed.”
The storm had been so severe last night that Glory hadn’t exactly stuck around to survey the damage too closely. She’d simply gotten the hell out of Dodge and gone to find sanctuary at T’s as fast as possible. Stepping out from behind his big frame, she viewed the devastation in the harsh light of day. “Dang.” She hoped she had some salvageable clothes left.
T found it odd Glory’s response would be so muted, but he could see the tears welling-up in her eyes. He wanted to pull her close for a hug, but he wouldn’t let himself do so. Walking away from her was going to be hard enough as it was. Buford charged on towards the rubble, circling it with his nose to the ground, as if searching for something. “You must have left some sausage out on the counter,” T quipped.
“I was cleaning crawfish when the storm hit.” Discretely wiping her eyes while he wasn’t looking, she wondered how in the heck she was going to put together those meals for the film crew. As much as she hated to face the truth, she was probably going to have to admit defeat and tell them she couldn’t pull it off. She took a step or two closer. “Looks like everything is destroyed.” The cabin had been in bad shape before, now it was just rubble.
“Yes.” T walked around and surveyed the damage. A huge oak tree had uprooted itself during the storm and buckled the rusted tin roof. “Little lady, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you no longer have a house.”
Glory sighed, she’d finally found a home of her own and it’d been destroyed before she’d really gotten a chance to settle in. Oh well, that’s just how her life always seemed to go.
*
Even after she encouraged T-Rex to go home, he lingered, helping her sift through the rubble to gather whatever she could. She didn’t find her wallet, but at least she was able to recover the medicine that kept her alive, filling her pockets with the various pill bottles after sneaking the two she normally took first thing in the morning. Good thing she could swallow them without water. After things dried up, she’d come back to search for her wallet and whatever else she could salvage.
“What you’ve got here is a sanctuary for snakes and rats. You’d be a damn fool to try to resurrect this thing.” He pushed aside a tree branch and a snake crawled through the remnants of what used to be a window.
Buford kicked up a fuss, barking and jumping around near the snake. “He ain’t botherin’ you none, tough guy.” T came to gather his dog. “Leave him alone.”
The snake was headed toward Glory, who backed up away from it. T-Rex was just about to make a move for it, but it veered right and off toward the water, leaving him with a feeling of relief.
The sight of the snake almost put her off, but she needed to see what she could find. Glory fished around in the rubble and found a few of her clothes marinating in a puddle of muddy water. “Looks like I need to go underwear shopping.” She’d have to visit the Goodwill store pronto.
T’s heart rate skyrocketed. He’d pay good money to be in the changing room when she went.
“I hope the bait shop fared better than this place.”
Her voice sounded so hopeless there was no way T could keep from offering. “Do you want to walk over there and see?”
“Don’t you have to get back for your conference call?”
T glanced at his watch. “I think I have time. Besides, I have my cell with me. Let’s head over and take a look.”
“Okay. I need to open up if it’s still standing.” She needed to make some money if she was going to start over. Glory was still racking her brain over what she was going to do about the food she’d promised to the Swamp Life crew. She needed to raise money, fast. A wave of dizziness washed over her. Glory put her hand to her head and stumbled.
T caught her. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Thanks. Sure, I’m fine. I hung my toe on a rock, I guess.”
He looked back, not seeing one. “We should’ve eaten before we left.”
“I’ll get something later,” she promised, refusing to tell him any of her problems.
The walk to the bait shop took them over some rough terrain. Not hilly or rocky. Boggy and muddy. Glory laughed at Buford’s antics as they forded a small stream, one that T jumped over easily and Glory just barely. The dog just splashed across, showering them both with big water droplets. He also barked at everything – a possum, a nutria rat, an armadillo, and a squirrel. “Better watch it, pup. You’re making enough noise to wake the Rougaroux.”
“The what?” Glory asked, not sure she heard him right.
“Rougaroux, the loup garou, the Cajun werewolf.” T watched her face, her eyes cutting to the left and to the right. “They usually sleep during the day, do their roaming around at night.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Glory knew he had to be. T-Rex was a big, logical he-man. “You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you?”
T shrugged, amused. “You never know. Those stories come from somewhere. Once, on a dark stormy night, something came out of the woods…”
“Yea, me. I came out of the woods.” She playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “I bet I scared you worse than any old boogeyman ever could.”
“Well…both you and the Rougaroux are pretty scary.” He laughed at her expression. Honestly, she was so beautiful she took his breath away.
“Stop it. I don’t need to be lying in my bed worrying about some monster lurking around outside. If something gets after me, I’m running straight to you, so don’t forget that.”
Her words tugged his heartstrings. “You do that, honey. I’ll fight your dragons for you.”
Glory swallowed. She knew he didn’t mean that like it sounded.
Their arrival at the bait shop called a halt to the conversation. “Oh, my goodness. Look.” The front porch of the bait shop was covered with debris. “Great.” Glory huffed.
She kicked a pile of leaves and righted the wrought iron bench that sat at the bottom of the porch steps, while T-Rex walked around the building checking for structural damage. “No, it doesn’t look too bad. The big yellow ‘Calvin’s Bait Shack’ sign on the roof is slightly askew, but aside from that, the place looks to have escaped the storm pretty much intact.”
Glory should’ve been thankful for this, but all she could think about was how she was going to be living here for the foreseeable future. “Oh, heck!” She dug in her pocket and took out another type of pill. Her blood pressure was spiking from the stress.
T busied himself cleaning up the yard. “Something wrong?” he asked when he saw Glory sitting on the porch with her head in her hands.
Glory just looked at him. “Seriously?” She knew she shouldn’t take it out on T, he’d been helpful so far and it certainly wasn’t his fault Calvin’s shack had been destroyed. “I’m sorry. You’ve been wonderful.”
T took a seat beside her on the porch. “What is it?” It hurt his heart to see her this down.
She wiped beads of perspiration from her hairline. The humidity combined with her racing heart made her feel a little sick. “As if things aren’t bad enough, the keys to the shop are buried back in that rubble someplace. The last thing I want to do is traipse back there and slosh around on my hands and knees looking for them.”
T rose from the porch and went to the front door. He looked through the window, then moved past her and around the back without saying a word. Glory just sat in her misery for a minute. She reasoned T had probably gathered Buford and gone home, dumped her like her folks did when they moved off without her.
“You comin’ in or what?”
Glory turned to see T standing in the open front door of Calvin’s Bait Shack. “How’d you do that?”
He gave her a broad smile. “Let’s just say that a couple of my younger years could properly be described as ‘misspent’.”
Glory rose and threw herself against him, wrapping her arms around T’s waist and squeezing as hard as she could. “Thank you for being so kind to me.”
Her gratitude humbled his heart. T just allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of holding her close. If he had one wish, it’d be to change the man inside him, to be worthy of a woman like Glory. He’d give anything to have the right to kiss her pain away.
But he didn’t.
His problems would even further complicate her life. As he cradled her to him, T-Rex promised himself he’d be there for her as much as possible. He’d protect Glory as best he could, all without letting her get too close to him - no matter how much he wanted exactly that more than anything.
*
T paced a hole in the floor of his front room. Buford had been watching him for almost an hour. T would walk back and forth, then sit on the couch and flip through the channels on the TV, before rising and pacing again for a few minutes. No matter if he was at work or home, he’d spent the last twenty-four hours thinking about nothing other than Glory Hudson.
Before he left her the other day, she informed him of her plans to sleep at the bait shop. He’d checked the place out. When he questioned her about her idea, she assured him she’d be fine. “This will really cut down on my commuting time,” she joked.
T didn’t like it; he didn’t like it at all.
Why? He’d broken in easily enough yesterday, there was no telling who else might try to break in on her when she was lying there asleep. Helpless.
Hell!
Last night, just after midnight, T had left a very vexed Buford alone at home and wandered up to check on Glory. The neon ‘Open’ sign out front had been off, but T noticed the light in the back room was on. He stayed there for a full hour after she finally
switched it off, imagining her getting ready for sleep, wondering what she was thinking about.
He was sure anybody walking by would’ve found his presence more than a bit strange. They probably would’ve called the police to come see if he was up to something, but T’s only mission last night was to be there in case someone else decided to bother Glory. He couldn’t sleep from imagining the danger she might be in.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” T said after he fished around in the refrigerator for a few seconds. Buford was staring at him from the couch. “I’m sure she’s fine. I don’t need to be spending my days and nights worrying about her. She’s a grown-ass woman.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have used the word ass, because Glory’s ass had been on his mind a lot lately.
He’d gladly give ten years off his life to kiss her one more time. That brief time when their lips had come together had been one of the most exhilarating moments he’d ever experienced. Their chemistry was undeniable. Their lips melded together as if welded by God himself. T had relived that moment over and over again since it happened.
“Get out of my head, woman!”
He headed towards the door, snatching his keys off the kitchen counter as he went. “What?” He glared at Buford who just watched him go. “I need some night-crawlers.”
It was crazy, but T was actually nervous about seeing her again. They’d spent part of the night in each other’s arms and he’d kissed her, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to say when he saw Glory in person.
As he walked, he began to wonder if she’d found the keys to the bait shop yet, or if Glory had even been back to the pile of scrap that had been her home up until the storm. He decided to swing by on his way and see what he could salvage for her.
The ground was never dry in these parts, but the sopping wet mess left from the storm’s wake had mostly firmed up. When he drew closer, T was shocked to see that some of the debris had been cleared away from the heap left after the cabin’s demise. As he approached, he saw a mound of something on the ground.