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“All right, already. I’ll consider it one day.”
They both knew it was a lie. Payton avoided anything that made it appear he’d deliberately distance himself from the pack. He would not be like his father.
As they hiked the small trail from the field and into the woods, Payton unwound, soothed by the unique beauty of the bayou. Thanks to the shade from a canopy of trees, the temperature cooled considerably.
“It’s way different than out west, but it’s pretty amazing here,” Payton commented. “Has a spooky feel with all that Spanish moss and those gnarled cypress trees.”
“It’s different, all right. Wait ’til you see what I found close by.”
Curious, Payton followed. A few twists and turns later, Russell stopped. “This is it.”
Feathers and ribbons hung from low-lying branches in about a twelve-foot-wide diameter that was bordered by seashells. The sandy soil was raked clean with precisely placed crystals sparkling in the ground like unearthed treasure. In the center was a pile of rocks and timber for a fire.
Payton stepped inside the circle, feeling as if he was violating sacred land. He touched a faded ribbon and inspected the hanging artifacts. “Dream catchers,” he said, remembering the miniature one Tallulah had worn.
“I know that,” Russell scoffed. “But what are they doing out here in the middle of the woods? It’s weird. And kinda creepy.”
Strange, yes. But the feel of the area was peaceful, if a bit melancholy.
“Beats me what the purpose of this place could be.”
He walked around the edge of the circle, examining the crystal grids and the dozens of hanging dream catchers. A bright red ribbon caught his eye. It had not yet faded like the others, and the turkey feather fastened beside the ribbon looked new. Payton held it, turning it in different directions. A small patch of beadwork on the back, only a couple of inches long, read For Bo, Love Always, Tallulah.
His breath caught. Who was Bo? His palm fisted over the beaded message. His Tallulah was in love. Jealousy, then shock, washed through him. Tallulah wasn’t his anything. He dropped his hand to his side and looked at the area with new eyes. Was this some lovers’ tryst, far from prying eyes? If so, why the secrecy? Why the elaborate decorations?
“Hey, found something,” Russell called. “Come here and check out this carving.”
Payton strode to where Russell stood by a massive oak, fingers tracing a primitive message—RIP Bohpoli.
Bohpoli—Bo?
Of course. This wasn’t a secret meeting place for lovers. It was a shrine to a dead lover.
“What’s a Bohpoli?” Russell asked.
“I suspect it’s a person’s name. That person must have died here. You know, like you see crosses by the side of roads, marking where loved ones died in a car accident.”
“Makes sense. But the survivors have gone a little over the top, don’t you think?”
Payton took in the meticulous care and attention, at the various states of decline in the dream catchers’ ribbons and feathers. Tallulah had loved long, and loved deeply. Underneath that prickly exterior was a highly sensitive woman. One that maddened and intrigued him all at once.
“Over the top?” Payton said, aware of a loneliness he didn’t know existed until that moment. “Maybe. But it would be damn nice to have someone love you like that.”
“Amen, brother. Amen.”
* * *
Annie served everyone salad and dinner began.
Tallulah’s normally reticent brother and Payton seemed to be getting along famously, chitchatting about motorcycles and places to see while in Bayou La Siryna—which weren’t many unless you were into nature sights. Tallulah didn’t see how a lumberjack could possibly appreciate natural settings.
“The wildlife sanctuary is open on Saturdays,” Tombi said, helping himself to more salad.
“I don’t think Payton’s interested in wildlife.” She smiled sweetly. “Considering how he’s part of a team destroying their habitat every day.”
“Disturbing the snakes and skeeters and possums? ’Cause that’s all I’ve observed down here so far.”
“We have deer and gators and yellowhammers...” She stopped at the grin on his face. Yep, she’d taken his bait and run with it. She laid down her fork. “It really doesn’t bother you to cut down trees for a living?”
“Tallulah,” Annie admonished gently.
Tombi shot her a warning look. “Payton’s a guest in our house.”
“It’s okay.” Payton set down his glass of tea. “I’ll admit it bothers me a little. But it’s honest, tax-paying work and I’m not ashamed of my job.”
“At least you didn’t make the excuse that if you didn’t do it someone else would,” she muttered.
“Well, there is that.”
“Chulah spoke to Hank today,” Tombi interrupted, taking the heat off Payton. “Hank said if the developers offered him a good deal on the land, he would take it. Can’t blame a man for doing what he needs to with his own land.”
“Don’t you care about our woods? This could start a bad precedent.”
“Hank and Sashy have two children starting college in a few years,” Annie said quietly. “There’s two sides to every story.”
“I still don’t like it,” she insisted.
Annie stood and began collecting plates. “Hope you like pot roast and potatoes,” she said to Payton.
“Love it.”
Tallulah stood as well and gathered up her and Payton’s plates, then followed Annie into the kitchen.
“Might want to go a little easier on your date,” Annie said offhandedly.
“He’s not my...oh, okay. I’ll give him a pass for the evening. But I’m still going to protest what they’re doing.”
Annie pulled the roast out of the oven and set it on the counter. “Maybe that won’t be needed. I think all we have to do is send April over to sweet-talk Sashy. Chulah’s wife will convince her the deal is bad.”
“That’s actually a great idea,” Annie agreed. “Sashy can get her husband to come around. All we need to do is ask April to wield her magic.”
“Magic?” Payton stood in the doorway.
Tallulah and Annie exchanged a secret smile.
“So to speak,” Annie said.
“What are you doing in here?” Tallulah asked bluntly. Was he trying to sneak up on them?
“Came to see if you needed any help.”
Annie handed him a pair of kitchen gloves. “You can carry in this casserole dish if you’d like.”
The sight of the tall, handsome lumberjack wearing kitchen gloves made Tallulah want to giggle. No, take that back. It was adorable. Melt-your-heart kind of cute. She grabbed the basket of rolls and followed him back to the dining room.
The rest of dinner proceeded smoothly and they left the cabin after another hour or so of après-dinner drinks and talking.
The warm glow on the drive home wasn’t just from partaking of Tombi’s excellent whiskey. The blond giant driving beside her had much to do with her good humor. She glanced at him, suddenly shy. “Glad we could set aside our differences for the evening.”
He laid a hand on her left thigh. “I have high hopes for us.”
She eyed his hand suspiciously. If Payton had high hopes about sleeping with her on a first date, he could think again.
At her cabin, he hurried to open her car door and escorted her to the front door.
The awkward moment had arrived. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
He leaned an arm against the door and stared at her, his gray eyes so dark that the glints of blue in them were the subtle hue of an oiled, polished handgun. “Better not,” he said gruffly. “You’re much too tempting.”
“I am?” Her voice was a whisper in the breeze.
“Very much so. First dates, I don’t believe in anything more physical than a kiss.”
She laughed.
“I’m serious.”
Tallulah cocked her head to the side and studied his face. Yes, he meant what he’d said. She found it oddly endearing. Old-fashioned, chivalrous and sexy as all get-out. She stuck out a hand. “If you’d like we can just shake hands and call it a night.”
“Not on your life.”
He bent down and claimed her mouth, his tongue dancing with hers until she felt weak-kneed and fevered, never wanting it to end.
He drew back and then rested his forehead on hers. “I better go, Lulu.”
“Okay,” she agreed, still in a haze. She inserted the key into the lock opened the door and then swiftly turned back to him. “What did you call me?
“Lulu. Tallulah is a mouthful.”
She frowned. “I don’t like it. It sounds...undignified.”
“It’s adorable. It suits you.”
“Humph.” She shut the door and went to the window, watching as Payton drove off. The man could make her go from joy to irritation in two seconds. And passion? It always seemed to shimmer between them like a promise.
* * *
He began his slow descent to a night of freedom—no small feat considering that it was under the noses of over a dozen pack members. Even sleeping, their heightened senses were sensitive to noise. Ever so slowly, he climbed out of bed and padded barefoot out of the bedroom, down the hall and stairs and through the den. At the back door he paused for several minutes, ears alert for the slightest stirring of movement.
They would never understand.
The blood thirst churned his gut and would not be sated, no matter how hard he tried.
Satisfied that the rest of the pack was still asleep, he turned the doorknob with painstaking carefulness. He briefly considered shifting and using the doggie door, but it had an annoying flap that was surprisingly noisy. Carefully, he slipped into the dark cover of night. Even then, he had to exercise extreme caution. He scurried to the hedges at the side of the house and shape-shifted. Bone and sinew twisted and transformed skin to fur. Two legs multiplied to four and his large paws padded on the soil. Belly close to the ground, he crept to the middle of the cotton field, just in case someone had wakened and chanced to look out a window.
His heart beat more rapidly, pulsing with the conflicting emotions of excitement and revulsion. And then he was free—racing into the woods, tongue panting, senses alive with the smell and sounds of the night.
It’ll be okay. I’ll find some small animal again. I can control the blood hunger.
Alabama was a new start. Never again would he kill a human. It was too dangerous for him and for the whole pack. If they ever caught on to his secret, his life would be over. From here on out, he’d content his bloodlust by feasting on small animals.
And so, once more, he was on the hunt.
He sniffed and tracked a scent, only to bungle the catch, as several hares took off when he came within a few feet of them. A lone wolf on the prowl was not the natural way of the hunt. They were pack animals for a reason, working together with patience and intelligence to track prey and target the weakest animal in a group.
He’d been outside for a good while now. Every minute he was out alone, he risked the others realizing his secret. But he couldn’t go back without something to ease the stomach cramps caused by a lack of blood and flesh. He continued hunting, close to the cotton field, reduced to rumbling his snout through leaves to rouse field mice.
Not how he’d imagined his future. But to admit to the pack that he’d been infected by the fever was unthinkable. They’d haul him away to that so-called rehabilitation compound in the barren desert, although—to his knowledge—no wolf had ever been cured. It would be a fenced-in existence with constant surveillance. A werewolf prison where all were condemned to the equivalent of a life-without-parole sentence.
He’d rather die.
Like a dog with a prize buried bone, he circled around to the outdoor memorial decorated with dream catchers. The feathers and ribbons fluttered like agitated ghosts. Just as well the bitch wasn’t present. His chest still smarted from the rocks she’d flung. He’d been lucky not to suffer a serious injury.
A rustling emerged at the edge of the field, to his left. His ears twitched and his belly rumbled. This sounded like a large, clumsy animal. His mouth salivated at the faint whiff of human.
Torture—like a glass of cold water waved in front of a man dying of thirst. He hesitated. No harm in going to take a look. It could be one of the other pack members had also violated the new rule of no roaming alone in the woods. He crept toward the noise and the smell.
A gray-haired man with a long beard tossed dried corn kernels from a burlap sack. A hunter illegally enticing deer.
He didn’t think. He didn’t plan.
One moment he was an observer, and the next, he was flying down the field and taking a running leap at the old man. Teeth ripped into flesh, tearing open the jugular vein at the man’s neck. Warm blood oozed down his throat as he greedily swallowed it. He was dizzy with elation and the hunger in his belly ceased its relentless gnaw.
It was done.
He sat back on his haunches, full and content. Until he observed the dead man, broken and bleeding, his knapsack of corn spilled into the soil like gold nuggets.
Not again. What have I done?
He whimpered and backed away. When this body was discovered, the questions and accusations would begin anew. Disgust roiled in his gut. He hated himself, hated what he had become.
He slunk back to the farmhouse and briefly considered confessing to the pack. That was one way out of this hell his life had become over the last three years.
But shame and fear overcame good intentions. He couldn’t live like a caged animal.
There would be no repeat offense, he vowed. Somehow, he would learn to control the lust for human blood.
Chapter 4 (#uc0b8ef2a-0bb7-5199-8460-a997e0596782)
