Living Wilder

by Leigh Tudor

  “I turn fourteen next week,” Ally replied, her eyes glancing at the younger sister who appeared just as shy as Ally, standing behind and to the side of the she-devil. And what was that sound? Was the younger one humming?

  “What a coincidence,” Loren said, “Cara is also fourteen. Maybe you can show her around school sometime. Show her the ropes.”

  His mind took a twisted turn, imagining her arms tied to her sides. Under his control.

  Before he could think to soften his tone, he piped up with, “Ally’s pretty busy at school. She’s taking advanced courses and has very little extra time.” A small elbow from Ally found his side, and just as quickly, the smile on the spectacular demon in front of him wavered, the glint in her eye turning into a shard of glass.

  “Where do you go to school, Ally?” the demon asked, undaunted.

  “Wilder High School.”

  Emmy Lou added, “The middle school and the high school are in the same building. We’re trying to raise money to give the middle schoolers their own location. You can imagine the things they must see walking around all those high school students in the hallways.”

  The other sister, Mercy, appeared confused. “What things?”

  Alec watched the sisters look at Emmy Lou like they seriously couldn’t imagine.

  “Well, you know, things middle schoolers shouldn’t see.”

  “Like what?” Mercy asked. And she looked dead serious, despite rudely popping her gum.

  The demon distraction finally appeared to recognize that Ms. Emmy Lou would rather chew glass than talk about the shit high schoolers got into in the hallways at school.

  She chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse us. We were home-schooled.”

  He barely registered her words; he couldn’t help but notice how her lips were tinged a soft red. His eyes narrowed, thinking she must have feasted on a small deer on the way to church.

  She continued, “I’m afraid we’re not well-versed at what goes on in middle or high school, but Cara here will be signing up for classes tomorrow and it sure would be nice if she knew someone.” She turned toward Ally again. “What grade are you in?”

  Before Ally could answer, Alec stopped the conversation short. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got to get back to the house. It was nice meeting you.” Once again, he grabbed Ally’s hand to distance her from the coven.

  Unexpectedly, Loren reached out again to shake his hand “Nice meeting you, Alec.” Dark brown eyes pinned him down as if daring him not to reciprocate. For Ally’s sake and considering he was being scrutinized by the pastor’s wife, he reached out. But this time her grip softened, her middle finger running seductively through his palm as they disengaged.

  His hand fucking tingled, which made him mad.

  And then even more so when it reached his dick.

  Fuucckk. How’d she make a handshake seem so filthy?

  Loren was livid. Her body literally trembled with rage from that man’s unbelievable rudeness toward Cara, not to mention Mercy.

  The nerve of that backward-ass Neanderthal.

  There were so many ways to incapacitate a man and she visualized Farmer Ted’s demise in every one of them.

  With the midsummer heat and the blood coursing through her veins, all she could think about was how badly she needed to spar. Had she been at the Center, she’d have a number of muscle-bound morons to work over. But she’d doubt the men of Wilder would be willing to spar and Mercy was no longer an option according to Cara.

  Sparring with Alec would deliver the epitome of satisfaction; there were few combat partners in her past who rivaled his size and taking this tree trunk of a man down would be a total turn on.

  She opened the driver’s door as Mercy and Cara got in on the other side. She leaned down. “Give me a minute, I forgot to get Alec’s phone number.”

  “I don’t think he wants—”

  Before Mercy could finish, Loren dropped the keys on the seat and made her way through a number of pickup trucks and practical vehicles, until she caught sight of him and his ridiculously large Ford F-450.

  She eyed Alec shaking hands with two other men, which must have delayed him from pursuing an escape route.

  She waved at Ally and the teenager waved back, just as Alec hoisted his sister into the truck’s passenger’s seat, avoiding any further pleasantries.

  Loren’s wide smile masked the pent-up anger that she was about to explode on his fine, sculpted ass.

  She stalked his progress as he shut the passenger door and made his way around to the driver’s side.

  She stepped in his path. “Who do you think you are?”

  He kept walking past her as if she wasn’t even there.

  She stood straight at the direct insult. No fucking way.

  She glared at his impossibly large shoulders and then to otherworldly glutes. “Seriously, what crawled up your ass and made a cozy home in your sphincter?”

  Hesitation.

  And then he turned on her, stalking her direction. She started, as crystal-blue eyes glared down at her.

  For a moment, she considered moving into combat stance.

  “Those are quite a number of anal references, Ms. Ingalls. You trying to tell me something?”

  “That’s a ridiculously large truck, Mr. Wilder. You trying to compensate for something?”

  His stoic demeanor appeared unruffled, but at the very least, she had his attention.

  “Nice, quite the lady.”

  “You don’t know me, or my sisters, for that matter. How dare you treat them as if they were beneath you.”

  “Is that all you came to say?”

  “No,” she hissed, her voice low, shaking her head. So close she could smell his minty breath, spicy cologne and heightened testosterone levels. “You are not a nice person.” She poked his shoulder and then, entranced at the amount of muscle, poked one outrageously built pec and wondered if he flipped tractor tires as a pastime.

  She caught his sardonic glare and regrouped.

  “And the next time you see my sisters, you had better treat them with respect because if you don’t, I’m going to tear off one of your limbs and shove it up your tight ass.”

  He was a blank screen. Nothing she said or did seemed to jog any emotion or expression.

  “And yes, that was another anal reference but let me make myself perfectly clear when I say you are not welcome to enter any orifice in my body.”

  “Are we done here? As much as I’d like to stay and continue this highly inappropriate dialogue in the church parking lot, I have work to do.”

  “Just one last thing,” she said, stepping back and bringing her voice back to a perky pitch as she smoothed her skirt and pasted a smile on her face. She was going to force herself and him to be neighborly.

  Even if it killed her.

  “Seeing how we’re neighbors, we’d like to invite you and Ally to the house for dinner next week. What night works best for you?”

  Stepping up on his running board, he opened the driver-side door to his monster truck. “Well, that would depend on the weather.”

  “Is that a farming thing? Specific weather conditions for planting crops, herding cattle, violating sheep?”

  “No, ma’am, that’s a hell thing. Because it would have to be freezing over before I’d allow my sister to step foot in your house.”

  Chewing her lip, she looked up and smiled. “So, that’s a maybe then?”

  He ignored her as he swung into the seat, started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot with the expected amount of temperance and reserve considering his cool demeanor during their previous discussion.

  Undaunted, she whispered to herself. “Well, that went well.”

  Chapter Six

  “There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”

  —Pythagoras

  Ionian Greek philosopher who sought to interpret the entire physical world in terms of numbers

  *
* *

  Despite the earlier episode with her condescending neighbor, Loren could hardly contain herself as they pulled into their gravel driveway. She skipped up to the front door, and smiled at the form tacked to the front door. She remained calm as she pulled it from the peeling paint.

  “Eviction notice?” Mercy asked with a tinge of hope.

  She shook her head. “Bill of Sale.”

  She opened the door and smiled at what stood in the middle of the front room.

  Both Mercy and Cara froze just inside the doorway.

  She had expected Cara to squeal or twirl around while humming in pure unadulterated joy. Instead, Cara stood perfectly still, her hand clutching her chest as if she was experiencing some sort of epiphany. And then she took a couple of steps, that same hand reaching out and reverently touching the baby grand piano before her.

  Mercy seemed equally speechless but for different reasons. “Um, how did you manage that?”

  “It’s fine,” Loren assured her, reading into what she wasn’t asking. “Private sale. Paid cash. Extra to have it professionally tuned by the owner and delivered on a Sunday.”

  Cara continued to run her fingers along the sides of the black lacquer piano. And then she turned to Loren. “Is she ours?”

  “No,” Loren answered, “she’s yours.”

  “But it’s not even my birthday or Christmas.”

  Loren held her fingers to her mouth, trying to keep it together.

  Cara continued to stare, and then Loren finally took her by the shoulders to guide her to the piano bench. “Well, what are you going to play for us?”

  Placing her hands on the keys and closing her eyes, Loren felt like weeping at the visceral response that emanated from every pore of her sister’s small body. The simple act of feathering the keys manifesting itself as nothing short of a bodily glow.

  And then she began to play. Loren was no musical prodigy, math was her thing, but she instantly recognized Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She and Mercy watched in awe as their sister literally became the music she played, her body moving and swaying and delighting in the masterpiece.

  “That ought to keep her occupied and out of our hair for a while,” Mercy commented, just as enthralled by Cara’s music as Loren. “Wanna snort a line of coke?”

  “This coming from someone who won’t even take a Tylenol.”

  “I have it on good authority that the kids are always up to shenanigans when the parents, or in our case, a pint-sized Attila the Hun, is otherwise occupied.”

  “It’s just not the same unless there’s a male stripper’s ass involved.”

  The irony that they had never tried drugs or stepped foot in a strip club wasn’t lost on either one of them. They spoke euphemistically based on their vast experience with Netflix and On Demand while working outside of the Center while on assignments.

  “Just look at her,” Loren said, her heart full of joy.

  Mercy said with a bump to the shoulder. “You did good.”

  “Oh, we’re not done yet.”

  Most sisters could easily conjure memories involving stolen makeup, disagreements on the better boy band or fist fights over confiscated clothing. One of Mercy’s earlier memories of Loren, or Ava at the time, was her deep-seated, near-obsessive need to protect her sisters.

  During one of her first combat training sessions, Mara had taken a size-fifteen boot to the teeth by an overzealous trainer who must have been beaten as a child. Before she could even lift her head to wipe off the offending blood, Ava’s protective instincts went into overdrive. Taking full advantage of her trainer’s momentary distraction, she rammed her knee into his groin and finished him off with an uppercut to the jaw.

  The trainer, who made The Rock appear malnourished, reported the incident to the doctor, who retaliated by giving the sadistic prick permission to take his training with Ava up a notch. After the next day’s training, Ava walked away with a bloody nose, two fractured ribs, and a dislocated shoulder.

  Ava was sixteen at the time, Mara fourteen.

  Mara learned that whenever she fell short of her studies or trainings, the doctor ensured that it was Ava who bore the brunt of her failings. After watching her sister constantly suffering on her behalf, Mara mastered the moves so that Ava didn’t have to intervene.

  The doctor was a manipulating bastard. He knew full well that she and her sisters would stop at nothing to protect one another, and he made sure they were tested at every turn.

  Five years later, Mara was in the process of lifting a priceless Matisse from a trust fund drug addict who’d inherited more money than brain cells from dear old Dad.

  Their instructions were to replace the original with the near-mirror image she’d spent months perfecting from the HD photos Ava had shot clandestinely months before.

  Forty-two attempts later, she could hardly discern between the two after pulling the original and setting it on the floor next to her copy.

  “Someone’s coming,” Ava hissed, standing at the door of junior’s bedroom.

  Mara grabbed one of the paintings and slapped it on the wall. She followed Ava to the balcony, closing the doors just as junior and one of his ladies of the evening stumbled into the room and started to tear each other’s clothes off.

  “Where’s the painting?” Ava whispered with wide eyes.

  Mara pointed toward the room they’d just exited.

  “You left it?”

  “I couldn’t tell them apart. I panicked.”

  Ava lifted her eyes to the star-speckled Miami sky. She took a deep breath. “We’ll have to wait them out.”

  Grunts and moans came from inside the room and just as quickly, Ava crammed iPhone earplugs into Mara’s ears. She scrolled through her playlist choosing one of Charlotte’s personal compositions. She smiled at the memory of her sister searching for something transcendent and uplifting while two drugged-up degenerates went at it on the other side of the sliding glass doors.

  Less than five minutes later, Mara grabbed at her ears as Ava yanked out the earbuds, indicating it was go time. She watched over Ava’s shoulder as she slowly reopened the balcony door. Mara tiptoed to the wall as Ava kept an eye over the chalk-nosed, naked bodies.

  Mara turned, giving a thumbs-up to Ava, confirming the painting on the wall was, in fact, the copy.

  Only by holding them next to each other, with the lights from junior’s fish tank spanning the length of one wall, could she see the differing textures.

  Not a bad reproduction of the image, but she had failed at mastering some of Matisse’s more idiosyncratic brushstrokes. Well, good to know.

  Eight hours later they were back at the Center, handing over the masterpiece to the doctor. And as he strode purposely toward his office with the priceless piece of art under one arm and his phone to his ear, Mara wondered if the money generated from her work would go toward more experiments that had created her gift.

  The doctor, good ole’ stepdad, was nothing more than a mad fucking scientist.

  With Cara in an alternate melodic universe, Loren navigated Mercy past the kitchen toward the sunroom. She too sucked in a breath at what was before her.

  After cleaning the glass windows, sprinkling the concrete floors with rugs and placing a futon in one corner with bright, colorful pillows, Mercy had been entranced by the natural light that poured into the room, and had even thought about the sunroom as the perfect location in which to paint.

  She now stared at the large table holding a brilliant assortment of Windsor & Newton Oils, handmade brushes with Japanese script and dozens of different-sized canvases against the far wall.

  Her fingers itched while eyeing the seductive paints. Oh, how she wanted to dip her forefinger in the spicy richness of the cadmium red. As she sifted through more tubes, her body pined at the thought of swimming in the coastal waters of the cerulean blue.

  She picked up a brush and ran her fingers across the feathery feel of the sable bristles. Closing her eyes at the singular to
uch, she felt her heart clench with longing. Longing that she kept immersed, locked down, compartmentalized.

  Art was emotion, emoting. Reaching into the sanctity of your solar plexus and dredging up feelings so deeply seated that it would make your chest ache with both the beauty and darkness of it.

  Mercy placed the priceless brush on the table.

  What Loren didn’t know, was that for Mercy, those feelings came at a price.

  Ironic how something that brought her such joy, could also bring her such excruciating pain.

  Chapter Seven

  “If you don’t work on important problems, it’s not likely that you’ll do important work.”

  —Richard Hamming

  American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer engineering and telecommunications

  * * *

  “It’s official,” Loren said, wiping the sweat from the corner of her eye with her work gloves. “Wilder’s Hardware Store is my favorite place on earth.”

  Mercy took a long gulp of her root beer and shook her head. “Dollar Store. As in, everything in it costs a single dol-lar.”

  Loren thought about that and the fact that her sister had managed to spend two hundred dollars on their first visit.

  “I get why we need all the kitchen stuff, and the plastic bins for organization, and the various-sized glass vases and the year’s supply of off-brand toothpaste, but tell me again why we need the Mylar balloons?”

  Mercy looked at her as if the question were utterly ridiculous. “Because they only cost a dol-lar.”

  Loren smiled while taking in the fruits of their labor. She couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction at what a few plants and wood chips did for the front of the house.

  After driving through the quaint town of Wilder, both Loren and Mercy had further confirmed their home was an embarrassment compared to the beautifully maintained homes along Main Street. They’d known it was a shithole upon arrival, but after seeing how other people maintained their properties, they were inspired to up their game.