Two Crazy, One Wild Read online

  My warm-and-fuzzies were reaching a crescendo when a streak of light brown flew past my elbow. The music died mid-note, accompanied by a furious puff of feathers.

  I got a mental snapshot of a little brown weasel with his needle-like teeth sunk into my bird, before the pair arced toward the ground. The bird didn’t go quietly, or at least Ernie made it seem that way as he exuberantly subdued and otherwise shredded him.

  I’d been having a perfect Disney princess moment, and then… I leaned out the window to see Ernie standing triumphantly over the crumpled body, my songbird’s detached head clutched in his tiny paws. He glared up at me as he gnawed on it, his neck and white chest stained with blood.

  “Oh look! Ernie got another one,” Zack said.

  Ernie’s head whipped around at the sound. Then he gathered up the rest of the bird and ran around the building.

  I was walking toward the front door when Ernie finished worming his way through a hole in the screen. He ran into the kitchen, still clutching his prize. I peered around the counter just in time to see his stubby tail whip into the crack between the cabinet and the fridge. Following, I peered into the crack, then stood a moment listening.

  A bottle clinked, in the fridge. I yanked the refrigerator door open. And there in the middle of the top shelf, crouched between the relish and a jug of milk, was what I felt sure was Ernie. The reason for my confusion: A half-dozen just slightly smaller versions crouched around him, feasting on my little musical buddy. And as the door opened, a half-dozen heads whipped around, and a half-dozen sets of needle-like teeth bared in ferocious, bloody warning.

  I slammed the fridge door closed, and just stood for a few moments, replaying what I’d seen. The fuck…

  I pushed the screen door open and yelled for the brothers.

  “What’s up?” Zack asked, pausing on the porch. Pausing, because I was still blocking the doorway, ogling his chest.

  I led the way to the fridge. “You saw Ernie kill the bird. Well, when I was coming out of my room, I saw him dash behind the fridge, and I just happened to look inside, and…” I waved my hand at it.

  Zack opened the fridge, and a myriad of hisses let me know the ermine were still in residence. Rory screamed, and Zack slammed the door shut. “But… but there’s only supposed to be one Ernie,” Zack said.

  Rory nodded vigorously. “That was seven Ernies.”

  “Well, if you noticed, the others were slightly smaller…”

  Zack blanched. “You think Ernie had babies?”

  “Not recently. Those guys have to be at least a month old. But yeah, I think Ernie had babies, and then, within the last couple hours, she moved the family into your fridge.”

  “She?” Rory squeaked.

  “Moved in? You can’t assume she’s moved in,” Zack argued. “She might just be passing through.”

  I snorted. “There’s hundreds of dollars’ worth of freshly-stocked food in that fridge. She’s staying for the long haul. Plus, you must have a hole in your fridge, which means the nice, fresh food in there isn’t going to stay nice and fresh.”

  “We can still save the food,” Rory insisted. “We could, I dunno, get a fishing net and catch them, or a fog horn to scare them off. Or—I know—freeze them out.”

  “Or you could carbon monoxide the little buggers, just pipe it in through their hole, but your fridge’d still be fucked.”

  “We’re not killing them,” Zack said.

  “Wait,” said Rory, squinting at me. “You think they made a hole? I don’t believe it. I think you put them in the fridge to fuck with us. Maybe a little payback for that bump on your head, hmm?”

  Ignoring him, Zack said, “Well, let’s find the hole. Maybe we can patch it.” He gripped the front of the fridge, and started to work it back and forth, pulling it away from the wall. Inside, the ermine were going nuts.

  Outside, my girly parts were doing the same. I side-stepped to get a better view of his bunching pecs.

  Once the fridge was standing in the middle of the kitchen in all of its grimy-sided glory, I could clearly see that they hadn’t gone in through the side.

  “My side’s clear,” Rory said from the other, irritating me. I didn’t want to find out my mind worked similarly to his.

  Zack wedged his way behind the fridge and hunkered down.

  I peered over the counter. “I’d be careful down there. They could come boiling out at any moment.” He waved a hand dismissively and as he continued his inspection, I stared down at his hair, thinking it was the lightest I’d ever seen on an adult. He braced his hand on the counter under my nose to lean lower, flashing me a large word scrawled in black ink along his forearm. The font was flowery, and the word was…

  “Your arm says Jessica.”

  Zack made a triumphant sound. “Found it! Down near the bottom, between these two pipes.”

  “Well, whoop-de-do,” Rory snarked. “Zack found the hole—a miracle in itself.”

  “Yep. It was a little lower than I’d expected,” Zack said, glancing up at me. “We could patch it.”

  “Yeah? How?” Rory asked. “They’d probably eat right through duct tape.”

  “I recommend a new fridge,” I said. “Even if you address the ermine problem, you’ve still got a hole. And if you were to somehow get them out and patch the hole, they’d probably just make another.”

  “It’s an old fridge, anyway,” Rory said. “Came with the place.”

  “There ya go. Replace it with one made of a bit thicker metal—if you can afford it, after my twenty thou.”

  “It’s not the cost that’s the problem,” Zack said. Vaulting out from behind the fridge, he picked up the phone. He dialed, listened as it rang and rang and rang, then dialed again, and again.

  On the third call, someone answered. A feminine voice shrilled loud enough for all of us to hear.

  “Suzy, I just wanted to offer you some business,” Zack said.

  It sounded like Suzy offered him some angry reaming.

  “We need to have a fridge hauled,” he said, wedging it into the ‘conversation’. “We’d pay extra.”

  The woman yelled at him some more.

  “I told you I was sorry about that. Can’t we move on?”

  I winced.

  The woman hung up.

  Zack looked at his phone. “Yeah, Suzy’s not gonna haul a fridge for us.”

  “A fridge won’t fit in my plane,” I said. “At least, not a full-sized one, and definitely not upright.”

  “We could boat one out,” Rory said.

  We all looked at one another.

  “Or just leave it hooked up,” said Zack. “Spend a little more on electricity ’cuz of the hole, and sorta eat around the family of ermine.”

  “I’m not sticking my hand in there,” I said.

  Rory’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Zack looked irritated.

  “We’ve still got the stuff in the freezer. And canned and dried goods?” I looked at Zack.

  He crossed the kitchen and opened a tall cabinet in the corner.

  I followed, brushing by to snag a Cup-a-Soup. When I turned, I found that I’d snagged Zack’s attention as well. His bare chest was so close I could’ve leaned in and flicked his nipple with my tongue. He seemed to radiate warmth, and it was a neat illusion that the heat might’ve come from Ghost Rider’s flames. He shifted slightly, boxing me in, and suddenly he was doing that sexy looming thing.

  The striations in his irises were bright and jagged, making them look lit from within by lightning. His stubble and the near-white hair on his head glinted in the light coming through the window. My hand twitched upward, wanting to rub my fingers along his jaw.

  While Rory wrestled the fridge back into place, Zack’s gaze moved down to my lips. His intensity made my breath come short, my nipples tighten. My thoughts became frantic, and then scattered entirely as his hand came up to my arm. He started to lean in.

  Rory’s face popped up over Zack’s shoulder, and I jumped back. “So,
” I said, mentally scrambling. “How about another couple hours of flight time this afternoon?”

  Zack straightened back up, frowning.

  “I need him,” Rory said. “We’re really close to having a prototype of the long-range catapult we’re working on.” He reached around me and grabbed a summer sausage and a bag of nachos. He intentionally crowded me, flicked my nose, and then jumped away when I tried to kick him.

  Laughing, Rory dragged his handsome brother out the door.

  It was a day for holes. I was digging one. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t Rory’s grave.

  While the brothers had gone back to their catapults, I’d gone back to the yard. And normally, the hole-digging wouldn’t have been such an event, except that my shovel kept clanging into rock. One really big friggin’ rock.

  I’d been at it for fifteen minutes, chipping away at the gravelly soil, finding the edges of that rock. I muttered to myself as I dug my shovel in, and as I pried at the stubborn thing. The rock’s edges were rounded, and my shovel kept slipping. When it finally moved a bit, I crowed with triumph, and pried with renewed vigor. A couple minutes later, I had the rock shoved to one side of the hole. That wasn’t saying much, because the rock practically was the size of the hole.

  But from there, I was able to get my shovel under it, to use as a lever. Feeling victorious, I put my weight on the end. The shovel creaked, and the rock barely budged.

  Well, maybe I just wasn’t pushing hard enough. I readjusted, then jumped on the end of the shovel.

  Crack. The wooden haft broke, and dumped me onto the ground.

  “Damn it!” I growled, then threw the handle away. Kneeling at the edge of the hole, I grabbed the rock, and strained until I felt my back pop.

  I was sitting next to that hole, glaring at that rock, when my dad called. I knew it was him because I’d set his ringtone to an evil laugh. As it cackled again, I regretted that choice. On the third ring, I pulled out my phone, and because I didn’t feel like tempting fate, answered.

  “What do you have for me?” he barked.

  Because I didn’t want to be on the phone with him, I answered just as abruptly, though I did make sure to mention frivolous and hopefully-irritating things like the cum-rag-filled trash cans and the pet ermine. George actually seemed somewhat interested in the broken fridge, and given a moment, I thought I knew why: An army marches on its stomach.

  “Enough about their cabin,” he said. “What have you learned about them?”

  “Zack has a ‘Jessica’ tattoo,” I offered, knowing that tidbit was harmless.

  “No, no. I’m sure you’ve slept with at least one of them by now. What have they said? What have you learned?”

  I sat there with my jaw hanging open for a full five seconds. Then I lowered the phone from my ear, and stabbed ‘End’, having the urge to throw the phone across the yard while I was at it.

  With disquiet bubbling in my innards, I stared down at that rock. It seemed like a metaphor for my life. I was the rock, and I was stuck in a fucking hole.

  Zack spoke from behind me. “There’s gotta be something really interesting in that hole.”

  My eyes were burning, so I chose not to look up at him. “There’s not.”

  “Okay…” He came into my peripheral vision and dropped down on his haunches next to me. “There’s a rock.”

  I hiccupped a laugh. “Yeah.” I shook my head and waved a hand. “I thought you were working on catapults.”

  “Decided to come see what you were up to,” Zack said. “Did you… put the rock in the hole?”

  I rolled my eyes around to look at him. “I’m trying to get the rock out of the hole. I’ve just spent the last half hour—”

  Zack reached into the hole, gripped the rock, and lifted it out. He paused. “Anywhere in particular you want it?”

  I covered my eyes, torn between crying and laughing.

  “Frances?”

  Pull it together, girl. “Um, yeah. You could just—just set it there. Thank you.”

  His bare, browned forearms flexed as he set the rock aside. His eyes were bluer than cornflowers as he grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  He gazed at me for a few moments, and I could do nothing but gaze back. Had I mentioned how broad his shoulders were? How crazily bright his hair was? He looked perfect kneeling in the dirt, his capable hands resting on his knees.

  “Guess they’re probably missing you,” I said, seeing him glance back toward the shop.

  His smile crinkled the skin around his eyes. “Nah. I’m a bit of a third wheel in there. Don’t understand even half of what they’re talking about. Do you need some help out here?”

  I pushed to my feet. “I’d love some help.” Then I just stood there, smiling at him, until I remembered I was supposed to give him something to help me with.

  I have plenty of things that hunk of man could help me with. I shoved the thought away, mentally slapping my own wrist. I was not going to lust after the man my dad had just told me to interrogate, in bed. I wasn’t!

  …And if I did sleep with him, I wouldn’t be using my mouth to ask questions.

  Gah! You were planting a crab apple, I reminded myself.

  Zack followed me around the shop and scooped the tree up before I could do something silly like pick up one side of the pot—which is what I’d intended. “Back to the hole?”

  “Please. I need to find another shovel.”

  He moved the potted tree over to one hand, and used the other to point to a jumble of tools leaning up against the side of the shop. “Oughta be one in there.”

  I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his body. His arms were all corded muscle, his pecs flexing as he adjusted his grip on the pot. I took in the rear view as he walked by. Strong neck, wide shoulders, narrow waist. Ass that I couldn’t see real well in those jeans, but which was guaranteed to be as astounding as the rest of him.

  He moved with a slight limp, I realized. I’d thought it was just a swagger, but no. He had a hitch in his step, favored his left leg.

  Returning to the hole, I pushed some dirt back in. “You don’t want to bury the tree too deep,” I explained, “because that could lead to bark rot. And the loosened soil is good for the roots.”

  Zack’s eyes were on me as I set the shovel aside. “You know about this stuff, huh?”

  “A little,” I said, stepping toward him.

  “Where’d you learn?” He spun the tree horizontal so the pot was pointed at me.

  “It was my aunt.” The pot turned out to be a more flexible sort of plastic, and just wanted to fold under my fingers as I tugged at it. “She came to stay with us for a few years after my mom… well.” I glanced up at him and then quickly away. I changed my grip on the pot, awkwardly squeezing the bottom, trying to break the roots loose.

  “Your mom?” Zack prompted.

  “Died. She died.” I tried tugging on the pot again, but the rim kept collapsing. I’d started to curse it when Zack lifted it away from me.

  One-handing it again, he lifted the tree up, hooked his finger in the hole in the bottom, and dragged the pot off. I pointed at the hole, and he bent down and set the root ball in the center.

  And I—because I’d never been great at impulse control—caught him by the ears on his way back up, and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. Maybe I lingered a little longer than intended, noticing some things. His lips were firm, and the stubble on his jaw felt like rough velvet, sending a cascade of tingles up my arm. He smelled like sawdust and clean cotton, and when he straightened, I had to stretch up on tip-toe.

  He touched my waist and I jumped, then took the opportunity to pull away.

  Zack was frowning. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” He looked so damned cute when he was concerned, that I helped his hands back to my waist. “I’m just ticklish. Just… don’t touch me lightly, okay?” I leaned in, drawn like a moth to a flame. Just a kiss, I told myself, quashing the little voice that said I had no self-control.
>
  “Um…”

  “Just touch me like you would anything else. Like that tree, or that rock.”

  He tightened his hands on my waist. Then, seeing me smile, he lifted me off my feet.

  I gasped, hanging onto his shoulders as our faces came level. The blue of his eyes darkened as he gazed at my face. My mouth.

  I went for him at the same time he tugged me in. Our bodies crashed together, mouths hot and seeking. I curled my arms around his neck, slid my fingers through the prickly nubs of his hair as I angled my head, opening for him. His arms banded around my waist, thick and strong, and his chest was hard against my breasts, his erection prodding.

  Our lips and tongues tangled without foreplay. He tasted like beer, which totally worked for me. My legs wrapped around his waist. His hands gripped my ass, grinding me against him as he nipped at me in the most perfect fucking way…

  “Zack!”

  Our mouths jarred apart, and I rested my forehead against his. My heart was thundering in the cradle of his arms, his breath tightening the wet skin of my lips. My lips, which throbbed in time to the ache between my legs.

  What the hell’d just happened? Something explosive, something the scope and depth of which I’d never experienced. Even now, all I wanted was to drag Zack’s mouth back to mine.

  “Hey, we need your help in here,” Rory called. “We’re trying to lift something.”

  If I hadn’t been so turned on—yes, from a single kiss—I might’ve laughed.

  Zack made a grumbling sound, and let me slide to my feet. And when I say I slid down his front, I mean my nipples dragged, and the hard bulge in the front of his pants rubbed its way up to my belly.

  He steadied me when I swayed, and then his strong and callused hand slid gently to my neck. From there, he cupped my face. He was staring down into my eyes, and then his mouth swooped down and—

  “Zack!”

  “Fuck,” Zack muttered.

  I smiled.

  “I’ll come back,” he promised. He pulled away slowly. With a last squeeze of my shoulder, he was hurrying toward the shop.

  I stared after him, and caught Rory giving me a black look from the doorway. His scowl darkened just before he slammed the door, shutting me out.