by Penny Alley
“What the hell,” the woman said, sliding into a defensive posture next to Karly.
“What are you doing?” Karly asked.
“Like I’m going to let a chelovak have all the fun,” she shot back, with a lift of her chin and a narrowing of her eyes. “I never could stand this bitch anyway. I’m Maya.”
“Karly,” Karly returned, hunkering down beside her. On the opposite side of that rope fence, it had taken four men to prevent Colton from coming to her rescue. There wasn’t a single space to be seen anywhere among the other spectators. Whole families had assembled to watch her skirmish with the Deacon’s ill-mannered daughter, and just enough time had passed now that Karly’s initial flush of anger had faded and common sense was striving hard to regain control. The only reason she wasn’t trying to think of a way to back out of this was that smugly hostile smile the blonde was wearing.
“Is that a C or a K?” Maya whispered with a funny half-panting laugh. “I want to make sure I spell it right for your obituary.”
In spite of what was coming, Karly smiled. “K. And thanks. Now I really am sorry I hit you.”
With a warrior’s yell, the blonde suddenly charged and all her friends came with her. It was five against two, but it may as well have been against one for all the attention they paid to Maya. Karly had no idea what she thought she was going to prove, but they hit her hard enough to take her straight to the ground—planting a knee in her ribs, smashing her face into the dirt until she could taste blood in her mouth. They stayed on top of her, pinning her under a mighty weight of hands and knees, ripping at her hair in the subsequent struggle to keep her head in the grass while, above her, the Deacon’s blonde daughter unzipped her pants, squatted down right there in front of the entire fair, and pissed on Karly’s back.
“You’re my bitch now,” she cooed, the cruel mirth dancing feral in her silken voice.
All the hands released Karly at the same time. Fury and humiliation helped her get up, and it was an ugly jeering cheer that ripped through the crowd when she stripped off her soiled shirt. She’d have taken her pants off too, but they weren’t as wet and didn’t smell as strongly of urine as her top did. And she still had some tattered shreds of pride left.
“Go, chelovak,” the blonde told her, waving dismissively as she turned away. “While you can still walk.”
Karly threw her urine-soaked shirt, hitting the blonde dead in the back of the head. She barely waited for her opponent to rip the shirt off her back before she charged. Dimly, she was aware of Maya laughing. It was still five against two, and she’d only just started her attack when the blonde snapped back around. The two women collided and although Karly had the advantage of momentum, the blonde still knocked her down, flat on her back this time. With three of her four friends landing quickly on top of Karly to help hold her down, she crawled up Karly’s frame, growling and drawing up a mouthful of snot to spit. Karly jerked up her knee, slamming with all the force she could muster and nailing a direct hit between the blonde’s splayed legs.
The force she’d used would have crippled a man, but the Deacon’s daughter, while hurt, was only stunned long enough for Karly to shove out from under her. She elbowed one woman in the neck and Maya knocked the other two off, pulling Karly free of the pile.
The blonde came up off the ground with teeth gritted and her eyes holding nothing but fury. “I am going to kill you,” she hissed.
Karly smirked. “You can try, anyway.”
“I think you must be insane,” Maya said, when Karly lined up alongside her for the next charge. “You do realize they were only playing with you before, yes?”
From the look on the blonde’s darkly seething face, playing wasn’t what they would be doing now. She erupted with another warrior’s bellow as she and her crew charged, and Karly knew a split second of exhilaration right before the bone-jarring impact knocked her flat on her back. She felt the punches then, the kicks and slaps, and then everything exploded into pain.
* * * * *
Mama Margo took Karly’s hand, turning it palm up and slapped a huge steak into it. The entire time she’d been at the cutting board, mercilessly tenderizing it with a mallet, rolling it in herbs and buttermilk and more herbs before beating it all over again, she hadn’t said a word. She didn’t say anything now, either. She just gave Karly a bemused look, her lined mouth curling at the corners, but there was a world of censure drifting through those aged eyes. Karly had never felt so scolded in all her life.
Herb-dotted buttermilk dripped between her fingers as Mama Margo pushed her hand and steak both up to her blackened eye. The left one now. Her lip was split in two places and she was hosting a world of bruises in hundreds of dully aching places that ran the gauntlet of her body from head to toes. Nothing was broken. At least, she was familiar enough with what past broken bones felt like that she didn’t think anything was now. She knew she’d been lucky. That, and she had a sneaking suspicion that, in spite of her obvious anger, the Deacon’s blonde daughter and her friends hadn’t had a chance to pummel her too long before the savage arrival of one very big, very black and very pissed-off wolf.
Snapping and snarling, Puppy launched himself into the fight like a massive, four-legged, pointy-eared and sharp-toothed knight to the rescue. His attack sent the blonde and her malicious friends scattering, though they didn’t go far.
“She’s chelovak!” the Deacon’s daughter snapped, as if Puppy would even care. He stood over her, head down, hackles up, every breath he took a seething in- and exhaling growl. Karly had never seen an animal look, act or sound more vicious. That he didn’t actually bite anyone only went to prove how truly gentle he was, despite his wolfish half. As she’d lain dazed and bleeding in the grass, fighting to keep her eyes open and focused, all Karly could do was reach up and twine her fingers in the soft fur of his neck ruff. She might have blacked out a little then, because the next thing she knew, suddenly there were snarling, snapping wolves all around her.
Who let the dogs out, her brain tried to sing. It was all she could do not to get stepped on as two grey wolves dashed in to nip at Puppy’s tail and flanks. Fighting to stay on top of her, covering as much of her prone body as he could, Puppy snapped back. A wolf grabbed her shoe, jerking hard as if to pull her out from under him, but Karly was instantly released when Puppy turned on him. But turning gave the two wolves at his back an opportunity for attack and they took it, snapping at his flanks all over again.
Karly tried to get up, to protect him from the teeth coming at them from every side, and suddenly it seemed the whole field exploded in growling, barking, and aggressive wolves. Two more, a grey and tan, charged through the hostile pack that surrounded them. They tore into the wolves nipping after Puppy, sinking teeth into fur and sending half the pack scrambling to break away. But, they didn’t flee very far. When they returned, they did so with reinforcements of their own.
Her head spinning, Karly tried to get up again but it was almost impossible with three wolves now standing on top of her, shielding her from the encroachment of hostile animals. She’d been too dazed back then to be scared, that had come later, only minutes later really, when she saw Margo walking through the thick of all that snapping and snarling, delivering cuffs and kicks, and one round-house slap to the muzzle of the blond wolf who dashed in to snatch at Karly’s shoe again, tugging and jerking to wrest her out from under her protectors. Mama Margo knocked that wolf belly-to-the-ground.
“Best behavior,” she shouted down at the grudgingly cowering wolf. When she turned sharp yellow eyes on the rest of the massive pack, they all fell silent. Many began slinking away. “I meant it when I said it, and I mean it still! Get off with ya! All of you!”
By the time she’d reached Karly’s side, Karly was feeling sick to her stomach. Her head wouldn’t stop spinning. She reached for a helping hand, except Mama Margo did not extend one.
“Get up,” she’d said instead, though not unkindly. “Follow me. Do it under your own powe
r, or they’ll never respect you.”
She probably meant the townspeople, but all Karly could see around her were wolves. Then again, her eyes weren’t focusing well. At that point, it had been all that she could do just to get her feet under her and her legs solid enough to keep her steady. If Puppy hadn’t been right there, nuzzling her hip and offering his back for balance, she never would have made it more than a few steps.
Eventually the dizziness passed though, and when it did, Karly found herself being escorted through the parking lot and back down the road to Colton’s truck by dozens of—dare she say, friendly?—wolves. Of course, those wolves were followed the entire way by dozens and dozens, a veritable ocean of stalking and snarling unfriendly ones.
She had no idea where Colton had gone. The thick crowd that had been jeering and cheering just minutes ago had dispersed with the arrival of the wolves. At first, Karly thought she might have to walk all the way back to the fairground to find him, but each time she’d tried to turn around, Mama Margo had caught her arm and kept her moving. In the end, a car pulled up beside them.
“Get in,” McQueen said, leaning across the seat to shove the passenger door open.
“I have to wait for Colton.”
“You have to get home, right now,” Mama Margo corrected, frowning at Puppy and then at her. “I’m sure he’ll be by when he can.”
Her legs were so watery and her head was starting to pound. She wanted to turn around and walk back to the fairgrounds. The problem was, even if there hadn’t been so many vicious wolves skulking in cautious circles just beyond Mama Margo, Puppy and those two wolves who’d decided for no apparent reason to be her protectors, she physically didn’t think she could.
“Get in,” McQueen snapped again.
Unsure if she could keep walking, Karly started to, but Puppy muscled his way in first. He climbed onto the front seat, yellow eyes locked on the driver, growling the whole way.
“Mutts in back,” McQueen said, unimpressed.
Puppy not only sat between them on the front seat the entire way home, but he sat facing McQueen, his lupine stare fixed and unblinking. He didn’t stop growling once.
“I’m sorry about that,” Karly mumbled, feeling each of her teeth to make sure they were all still there and solid in her gums. Her lips felt thick. It made talking feel every bit as funny as it had after one of her husband’s attacks.
McQueen just drove, taking those unpaved roads slowly and trying to jostle her as little as possible when avoiding certain potholes became impossible. It was kind of sweet, actually. At that moment, it had been difficult for her to remember why she’d ever found him or his brothers to be such frightening individuals.
“Your breath stinks,” McQueen eventually said.
Karly didn’t for a second think he was talking to her, but she slung a companionable arm around Puppy’s bristling shoulders and said, “I’m sorry about that too.”
McQueen slid her a glance, but didn’t speak again until they’d passed the ramshackle homes he shared with his brothers and was almost to her driveway. “You’ve got balls,” he finally offered. “I like that in a woman.”
She’d probably been punched one too many times in the head, but for some reason, Karly found that too funny not to laugh. The act of smiling made the cuts in her lips split and bleed all over again and laughing hurt her jaw, but she couldn’t help it. She hugged her side and tried to protect her aching mouth, or at the very least, not to bleed all over McQueen’s car, until her giggles turned to groans and then to panting breaths that were just one errant giggle away from becoming laughter all over again. “Thanks.”
Eying her sideways, McQueen snorted once himself, but he didn’t say anything more until after he’d dropped her off at her porch. Mama Margo arrived just as McQueen was helping her up the steps. The adrenaline was starting to wear off now, and all her lumps, bumps and bruises were beginning to make themselves felt.
“Don’t come back to the field,” he told her, by way of goodbye.
If she could have walked, Karly’s instinct was to make her way immediately right back up to the Ridge. To strut her stuff, so to speak, and show that even as resoundingly bested as she’d just been, she was not beaten.
Several hours had passed since then. Now, sitting in her kitchen with a piece of herb-encrusted meat on her face and buttermilk dripping down her chin, in spite of feeling just a little bit foolish for how she’d behaved, mostly what Karly felt was empowered. She’d never stood up for herself like that before. She hadn’t won that fight, not by any means, but she was so proud of herself for being in it, that she felt good. No, better than good. Despite the pain, she felt great.
“Well,” Mama Margo asked, cleaning up what little mess she’d made in the preparation of her black-eye poultice. “What have you learned, then?”
“I don’t know.” Smiling still hurt like hell, but Karly couldn’t help it. “Do you think I taught her anything?”
“Do you mean like, crazy isn’t as easy to spot as black eyes and blonde hair?”
“I’m definitely going back up there tomorrow,” Karly said, laughing all over again when Mama Margo barked hard amusement toward the kitchen ceiling.
Puppy groaned.
“Poor Puppy,” Karly cooed, groaning now herself as she eased off the kitchen chair to sit on the floor beside him. She stroked his big head. “I’m making you work too hard, aren’t I?”
He didn’t look at her. She tried to make amends with scritches behind his alert ears and even bent to drop a kiss on top of his head.
Glancing from one to the other, Margo seemed to soften just a bit. It might have been a trick of the day’s fading sunlight though, because once she’d gathered her supplies to go, she was once again every bit the hardened deep-country woman Karly had come to know.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said gruffly, gesturing to the meat in Karly’s hand.
“Until what?” Karly wanted to get up and follow Margo to the front door. At the very least, that would have been good manners. But she just didn’t have the strength to get up off the floor, and Mama Margo didn’t seem inclined to wait for an escort.
“Until dinner,” the old woman called back over her shoulder on her way out the front door. “Steak’s damned expensive and it doesn’t do shit for black eyes. Eat it!”
CHAPTER TEN
That night, Karly dreamt that she was stiff and sore, dozing in and out of sleep in her bed while a spring storm raged outside. Lightning flashed and thunder rattled the windows, but it wasn’t Puppy lying beside her, keeping the nightmares at bay. It was Colton, and that’s how she knew it was a dream. He was naked, wearing only a flickering halo of blue-white lightning coming in through the open window curtains and the brand-new collar she’d had to buy for Puppy, because no matter how hard she looked, she just couldn’t find the old one. It had probably got hung up in the woods somewhere, snagged on a branch during his early morning wandering sessions. Or on his mad-dash run to rescue her on the field. How Puppy always seemed to know when she was in trouble, she just didn’t know.
Karly looked at Colton, and he, at her; for the longest moment, simply looking at one another. For the first time in a very long time, Karly wasn’t afraid. Not even when he raised his hand to touch her face, the feather-light caress of his fingertips brushing stray wisps of hair back from her bruised cheeks.
It felt so real—the realest dream she’d ever had, but that’s all it was. And dreams had a way of letting a girl do things she never would have had the courage to otherwise do.
Her hand didn’t even tremble when Karly touched him back, the hard angle of his cheek, the strong line of his jaw, down to his chin, up to his lips. He felt so warm. Soft in some places, and hard as rock in others. She lost the fight against an involuntary shiver when his hand moved to her shoulder, caressed down her side, settling at the small of her back where the tips of his fingers began to trace imaginary circles on her skin. When he leaned in to her, Karly didn’t e
ven try to pull away. His lips provoked the sweetest of surrenders. She opened to him almost from the very start, and when he shifted, she rolled with him, welcoming the comfortable weight as he eased himself to lie on top of her.
His hands touched her everywhere, traced her everywhere. They followed all the lines of her, his kissing mouth never far behind as if he hungered to taste every inch of her—her neck, her shoulder, her waist. His tongue dipped, flicking twice at her navel before moving lower still. He took her underwear off with his teeth. No one had ever done that to her before, and just when he had her squirming and panting on the sheets, he shifted his direction, following the caress of his hands all the way down the outer line of her legs and all the way back up along the inner sloping curves. The soft pressure of his fingers coaxed her to open to him, until his hands were right there on the inner heat of her thighs, framing the liquid pulse of heat that was her sex.
“Oh my God!” she gasped when he fastened on her, grinding against the mattress, grabbing her pillow and her hair, pulling at both as she writhed to the suckling, lashing motions of his consuming mouth.
She was still married.
It wasn’t cheating if it was a dream.
And she was getting divorced anyway, so who the hell cared about Dan?
Karly moaned, undulating up into the pressure of his hot mouth, riding the sweeping lash of his restless tongue while the coils of pleasure rolled and tightened inside her. She arched, catching her breath, her belly tensing, her legs trembling.
“Oh my God!” she cried, and every taut nerve in her body erupted with a release so intense it was almost pain.
He forced her to ride the storm, one rippling, hip-bucking wave after another, until her gasps escalated into cries and suddenly he was climbing her, burning a path of suckling kisses into her as he rose—trailing up her stomach, to the stiffened peaks of each begging nipple, eventually conquering as far as her oh-so tender mouth—to drink her shrill gasp when she felt the solid heat of his erection settle directly against her wanton sex. He was not in her, but he thrust as if he were, dragging back and forth along her folds, letting her feel the length and hardness of him.