Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance (10 page)

             “
I
told you, I've been around gators my whole life.  Just humor me
on this.”

             
McEvans
took her outside of the swamp area, back to his office and the indoor
kennel facilities.

             
When
he handed her the jawbone, Brandy was relieved.  It was
definitely a large chunk of gator bone. But she also could tell that
the gator who died wasn't Hugh.  And it wasn’t Bob, since
there were no missing teeth.  This was the jaw of a gator that
measured maybe seven feet.  That would be Jesse, the youngest
brother.

             
Well,
this was poetic justice.
It
was not what she had intended, but it was kin for kin, and Jesse was
no innocent.  After all, it was Jesse who had messed up her
ankle.

             “
What
do you see that I don’t?” McEvans asked her.

             
Suddenly,
Brandy felt compelled to do something that would be very, very bad if
anyone knew about it.  Somehow, though, her gut told her it
would be okay to go ahead and do it anyway.

             “
Okay,
I'm going to tell you something that most people don't know,”
Brandy said.  She was about to take a big risk here, but she
owed this man her life.  And she figured that what she was about
to explain to him would NOT betray the shifter community, but it
could save some lives, both human and shifter, assuming that
increasing numbers of sloppy and careless shifters (okay herself
included, she had to admit) kept getting caught by wily trappers.

             “
This
was not your typical gator,” she said. “This is a rare species.”

             
McEvans
looked at her quizzically.  She was making this up as she went. 
Her thinking went something like this:

             
She
wanted to somehow explain that there was a 'mystery' species out
there with a different pattern of behavior than regular alligators,
without giving away any information about the Hoodoo curse and
exposing the seven families.  McEvans would be intrigued. She
could teach him how to deal with shifters, without his
knowing
they
were shifters.

             “
See
how this jawline is pretty oval for the most part, but then his snout
is actually is not rounded, but suddenly becomes triangular?”

             
McEvans
studied the jaw, and then realized she was right.  There was
something about this that didn't match the skeletal structure of the
typical snout of a normal alligator. Actually, upon closer
inspection, it shared some similarities to that of a crocodile.

             “
Now
that I’m looking at this, it looks like some type of alligator-croc
half-breed.  What do you think?” he asked her. “You
understand why I’m asking that, right?”

             
Brandy
did. And suddenly she was relieved.  He had given her an out –
the proposition that somehow alligators and crocodiles had interbred
and created a unique subspecies.  Crocodiles were more
aggressive and could handle salt and brackish water.  And
Florida was the only location in the U.S. that still had a small
population of Crocodiles.

             “
You
might be onto something there,” Brandy encouraged him. “I hadn’t
thought of that. But they still prefer fresh water to salt.”

             “
Their
teeth also are a little sharper like a crocs,” McEvans said. “But
they still are arranged like an alligator.”

             
Brandy
pointed out something else to him.

             “
These
alligators also often have a thin strip of white along the edge of
some of their scales.  It’s very hard to see unless you look
for it up close.  Normal gators also have a lower I.Q. 
This type of gator does not.  They can be as smart as dolphins.
Even though they still rely primarily on reptilian instinct, they
behave differently than other species.  They are more social,
for example.”

             “
How
is it possible that we never even noticed this whole unknown species
out there before?” McEvans was perplexed.  “What do, or
would, you call these gators?”  There were only two alligator
species on the planet, officially: the American Alligator
(
Alligatoridae
Mississippiensis
)
and the Chinese Alligator (
Alligatoridae
Sinensis
).

             “
I
don't call them anything,” she said.
Aside
from Mainstream and Hatchers,
she
thought.  “There aren't too many of them considering the
overall alligator population, but my parents pointed them out to me
when I was a kid. You have to handle them differently.  It's
almost like they have feelings.  You can't get frustrated with
them – you have to reason with them.”

             
Reason
with them?
 
McEvans
looked at her like she was crazy.

             “
Shirley
is one of these gators,” Brandy said. “She has the telltale snout
and personality.”

             
THAT
got to him.  McEvans doubt melted away, because now the theory
made sense based on his own experience.  He had experienced what
it was like to actually interact with one of these gators. 
Shirley truly was different, and he missed her desperately.

             “
How
about between you and me we call them the
Alligatoridae
Shirlensis
,”
McEvans teased Brandy.  He was only half-kidding, though. He was
actually willing to be at least half-serious about this concept.

             
Smart
gator wrestlers and wildlife specialists like McEvans respect an
unexpectedly smart gator.  They like the challenge, and if there
is ever a hint of relational reciprocity, this makes an ethical
wrestler happy.  This is why Evans had felt such a connection
with HER/Shirley.

             
But
many trappers are sadistic, don't care anything for gators and think
they are a nuisance (which, yes, they can be).  When they came
face to with a shifter, the shifter might outwit them, but if not,
the trapper would lose his temper and shoot to kill when it wasn't
appropriate.

             “
This 
actually – this very
strangely
–
really
makes sense,” he said aloud. 

             
Brandy
could see his face soften. It made her feel warm inside that he still
hadn't gotten over her.

             
She
handed him back the jawbone.  Their fingers brushed in passing. 
And he was gazing into her eyes a little more than he should be.

             
It
was McEvans, this time, who felt something.  The contact made
him feel flushed all of a sudden.
 
Brandy's
eyes are amazing – like pools of toffee or butterscotch,
he
thought.
In
fact, they're like Shirley's, actually.
 
That
struck him as odd.  He decided to mention it.

             “
You
know, Shirley's eyes were different, too,” he said. “Most gator's
have olive-colored eyes.  But hers were a golden brown.”

             
Brandy
felt herself blush.  He remembered the color of her eyes.

             “
I've
never noticed that,” she lied, clearing her throat
self-consciously. “About their eyes.  That's a good catch.”

Chapter 11

             
Rachel
waited for her boyfriend, who was now 20 minutes later for dinner.

             
She
sat alone by candlelight at a romantic table-for-two at an upscale
restaurant. This was their two-year anniversary, and he had texted
her to say he was still at work.

             
She
sipped a glass of Pinot Grigio.  She was tempted to order a
bottle, even if she ended up having to drink it alone. Not once had
she ever made McEvans wait for
her
.
And she worked full time, too, as a model.  She was well-known
in the industry, but not so famous yet that the mainstream public
knew her by name.  Her face was recognizable, with her having
done a number of ads and two separate photo-shoots for a popular
lingerie catalogue, but she had yet to do a magazine cover. 
Rachel's agency was working on that and probably she would get the
chance before the end of the year.

             
Rachel
first met McEvans on a photo shoot that she took part in a quirky
fashion spread for a men’s journal featuring men's jackets designed
from exotic leathers.  McEvans guest-modeled as the man wearing
the jackets, with Rachel in tow, as they ran away from the animals
seeking revenge for the hides that Jake was was wearing. 

             
So,
for example, on one page Jake wore a jacket made of ostrich hide.
After the shoot, a graphic designer Photoshopped in a very pissed-off
looking ostrich chasing them and
–
voila!
–
it
was fashion gone wild, quite literally.

             
Then
when Animal Sphere opened a whole new section focused on exotic
butterflies from South America, McEvans tracked her down and invited
her for a candlelight dinner – just the two of them – among the
butterflies.  At first she played hard-to-get.  He was,
after all, a celebrity, and so this was a tricky dance.  And,
given Florida's average age calculating retirees, he was one of
Florida's most eligible bachelors under 40, which was a dwindling
population altogether.  They were compatible, although probably
not actually in love. Rachel didn’t think she had ever truly been
in love.

             
They
were doing fine for the most part until that stupid alligator showed
up.  Rachel was pretty tolerant of his heavy workload and his
travel schedule.  Sometimes he even took her along on trips,
which she easily could do combining work and pleasure.  He was
great to be around – smart, daring, although a little bit of a
control freak.  Not in an abusive kind of way.  He was just
a man who knew what he was doing, and he was in charge of his whole
enterprise.

             
Another
10 minutes went by.  Her cellphone rang.

             “
I'm
sorry, Rachel,” McEvans said.  “This is pretty much
unforgivable, but I've got an emergency on my hands.  I promise
I will make it up to you.

             
He
explained to Rachel that he and his new intern had a lead on Shirley,
and they had to jump on it tonight.  They couldn't afford to
waste any time, he said.

             
Until
McEvans, Rachel had repeated bad luck with men.  She thought
those days were over now, but over the past month her boyfriend had
begun to change.  McEvans had asked Rachel to move in with him,
but instead he had to put that off when he decided to bring Shirley
home with him instead.  That delayed the move, because he wasn't
sure that he had room for them both.  Then Shirley had run away,
and McEvans became despondent.  That hadn't slept together for
three weeks.  This was not a good sign.

             
Rachel
didn't know what to do.  She wasn't half-bad at the art of
short-term seduction, but McEvans wasn't a man who could be so easily
played.  If she tried to gloss over their problems with a hefty
dose of sex as a distraction – assuming she could get him back into
bed – that would make things better for awhile, but what if he
really did find Shirley and bring her back?