My Furry Valentine: "In Between" 1.5 (Peculiar Mysteries) (3 page)

“It was my Great Grandmother Doris’s,” he told me. “And now it’s yours.”

“I’m so happy...” My voice trailed off as my face began to tingle, another tell-tale sign of an incoming vision. “Babe.”

He eased me into the chair, and the world went dark.

I am free. Finally able to love. Finally able to put the past behind me. My secret is safe. We have agreed to live as humans. To not allow our natures to make us beasts. We have created a safe place for when the full moon turns us into animals against our will. A place where I can hide. He loves me.

“Her secret,” I mumbled. My eyesight cleared and once again I was in the living room surrounded by Babel’s family. “Her secret.”

“Are you okay, Sunny?” Babel wrapped his arm around my shoulder. The ring slid off my finger and bounced across the floor.

Aunt Erma Jean, moving faster than a person her age should, plucked the ring mid-roll and stood up.

“This will have to be resized.” She gripped it in her palm. As if suddenly aware she was being watched, the old woman said, “This is my sister’s ring. Losing it would send me to an early grave. I’m sure you don’t want that on your conscience.”

I rubbed my palms together as the private memory tried to resurface. “She really loved the man who gave her the ring.”

“Yes,” Erma Jean agreed. Her eyes narrowed on me. “She really did.” The hostile stare from the elderly therian raised the hackles on the back of my neck. If anyone could stand a little softening that came with human contact, I had a feeling it was Great Aunt Erma Jean.

“Can you tell me about Doris?” I knew from passing conversation that she’d died before he was born. Some kind of accident, but I’d never gotten the full story. “Babe said she died young.”

“Yes,” Erma Jean said. “After Celia was born.” She picked at some lint on her sweater. “She was killed by a rogue werewolf. They are unpredictable creatures. Dangerous and unstable.”

I thought about Billy Bob. While I believed he could be dangerous if he wanted to be, I also believe he was one of the most stable and compassionate people I’d ever met. Even more surprising than the old woman’s werewolf rant was Babe’s lack of protest against such prejudice. Billy Bob was the lone lycan in town, and I’d always assumed Babe’s dislike of the wolf shifter had more to do with a difference in philosophies, but now I wondered if the dislike had deeper roots. It was easy to see that Erma Jean blamed the entire lycanthrope species for her sister’s death.

“I’m sorry. I can tell how painful her loss is for you.” Impulsively, I reached out and touched Erma Jean’s hand.

Two animals hunt side-by-side, one wolf and one coyote, both in harmony. The moon is full, and they embrace their nature. Embrace their love...

Erma Jean snatched her hand away from me.

Had she been in love with a lycanthrope? Had he hurt her? Was that another reason she hated werewolves?

“Sunny,” Babe said, pulling me closer to him.

The vision had been innocuous, harmless, yet I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in the pit of my gut. This sense of foreboding had me twisted in a million knots. “I think I need to lie down for a while.”

“Should I call Doc Smith?” Chavvah asked.

“No,” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. I didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that bringing a lycanthrope into our home now, while Erma Jean remained, was a really bad idea.

Chapter Three

12 days until the wedding...

Peculiar Paw-On smelled
of gun oil, mildew, and rusted pennies. It was six in the evening, and our final stop after a long day of cake tasting at Becky’s Bakery, food selecting for the rehearsal dinner and reception at Blonde Bear Cafe, and a dress and tux fitting at The Formal Invitation, a dress shop across the street from the café and catty-corner to the pawnshop. Sally Michaels, another coyote shifter and the owner of the shop, sold dresses for all kinds of formal occasions. She’d ordered in an off-white shift dress overlaid with antique lace, and it had long sleeves and a hem that hit right above my knee. She’d had to make a few alterations because the half-coyote baby in my belly was growing fast (or maybe it was the half dozen donuts I’d eaten for breakfast).

The pawn store had been open for less than a year. The owner Jeremiah Bowers, who I’d found out, was a weresquirrel, (Don’t laugh. We have several squirrel shifters in Peculiar, including a deputy sheriff, who happens to be a really nice man) wasn’t at the register. I glanced around the shop. Display cases highlighted jewelry, guns, and small electronics. Knick-knacks and memorabilia lined the shelves. Over in the music corner, Delbert and Elbert Johnson, the twins who owned the general store, played with a guitar and a mandolin. Both men wore their standard overalls, their white hair short and their beards unkempt. Except Elbert’s face was a little fuller and he had a small blond freckle at the outer corner of his left eye.

They looked up as Babel and I walked further into the store.

“Hey, Sunny. You ready for the big day?” Delbert said as he patted his rounded stomach and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Are you?” I asked him with mock concern. “I think you’re about due any day now.”

Elbert started laughing so hard he wheezed. “She got you, brother. She got you good.”

Delbert joined in, his laugh turning into a coughing fit. “She sure did.”

The twins were opossum shifters, and they were both in the top ten of my all-time awesome people list. When they passed us on the way out, both men leaned down and I gave them both a peck on the cheeks.

“Should I be jealous?” Babel asked with a smile.

“Definitely.”

He squeezed my hand. Jeremiah Bowers, the new owner of the pawnshop, came out of the back. “Oh. I didn’t know you all were out here. Hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

“Nope,” Babe said. “We just got here.”

Jeremiah, his blond hair short and slicked back, shuffled nervously. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I had that effect on some of the folks in town. While some loved that I might be able to see their past or foretell their future, some of the citizens weren’t keen on me knowing their business. I couldn’t blame them. I certainly wouldn’t want someone dredging up my past. My childhood had been odd, to say the least, especially growing up in a commune.

When Jeremiah finally looked at me, he gaped. “Uh, you should probably start using SPF fifty.”

“What?”

“That’s one hell of a sunburn on your face.”

“Oh. Right. I should’ve used more sunscreen.” I fanned myself. The miracle sponge damage had nearly cleared up, but my face had a shiny pink glow about it. I’d used some foundation, but apparently not enough.

Babel set the ring box on the counter and ignored the current topic of conversation. Smart man. “We need these resized for the fourteenth. Is that doable?”

Jeremiah opened the box. “Wow, that’s some really great craftsmanship.”

Peculiar Paw-On was the closest thing our small town had to a real jewelry store. Jeremiah had put a new setting on Ruth Thompson’s anniversary ring, so I knew he had some experience with adjusting rings. Aunt Erma Jean had insisted we go to a Lake Ozarks jeweler, but people in Peculiar took care of their own.

Jeremiah pulled out what looked like a set of keys from beneath the counter and pushed it across to me. “Ms. Haddock, see which band fits your finger so I can get your size.”

“I’m a seven,” I said. “I’ve always been a seven.” I slid the size seven metal ring down my finger and it stuck on my knuckle. I tried again. Same result. Jeremiah turned around and pretended he was busy with some paperwork. Frustrated, I tried the seven and a half. It was tight. Really tight. I sighed as the eight slipped down easily. Slightly snug, but enough wiggle room to get it on and off. “Well, that sucks,” I said.

“We’d like this sized to an eight,” Babe said.

Damn. If I was an eight, the ring was probably a ten. Great grandma must have had some huge hands.

“You got it, Mayor,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll have it ready by the tenth.”

Babel nodded, and I marveled at how comfortable the title had become for him. He pulled out his wallet.

“No, no.” Jeremiah shook his head. “On me. A wedding gift.”

Babel didn’t argue, so I gratefully accepted the goodwill gesture. I remembered how hard it was to be new in town. Of course, I had the added pressure of being the only human.

As we were leaving, Roger Parks pushed his way through the door. He and Kyle Avery had been Jo Jo Corman’s best friends. Jo Jo, an eighteen-year-old cougar-coyote shifter, had been one of my first connections in Peculiar. He’d worked for Chav and me in our restaurant since we opened our doors in September. Dirty from either farm work or mudding, Roger scowled at me...until he caught the “I’ll rip your eyes out and shove them down your throat look” from Babe.

In his mind, because Jo Jo worked for me, I’d taken him away. I guess it was easier to blame me than accept Jo Jo had moved on from his friends’ immature antics and infantile jokes.

“I have an appointment to see Dolly at Beastly Beauty,” I told Babel.

“You need a ride home later?”

“No. Chavvah will take me.” I felt guilty that Chavvah was managing the business every day without me, but she said it was her wedding present to me. I was grateful for the time off. One of those pre-wedding errands today would be hoo-ha maintenance. Since the pregnancy, I’d let my girly parts go wild. I usually did it myself using depilatory cream, but I wanted my lady-bits to look good for my groom. Besides, I couldn’t reach between my thighs because of my distended belly. So, I’d made an appointment for my first bikini wax.

“Getting your hair done?” Babe asked.

“Of a sort.” I batted my eyelashes.

“Is there something in your eye?”

“No.” I smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m trying to flirt with you, moron.”

He pulled me in close with a sudden quickness that took my breath away. He stared down at me as if he could capture my soul. And why not, he’d already captured my heart. I felt the rigid length of his shaft press against me as he stroked his hand through my hair.

“Looking at you, holding you close to me, knowing I get the share the rest of our lives together...that’s the only flirting I need, Sunshine Haddock.”

Oh Jeezus. My girly bits throbbed.

“I’m getting a bikini wax,” I said, breathless and feeling super warm even in thirty-six-degree weather. “Ho boy.”

Babe raised an eyebrow, a quirk of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep. It’s going to be really awkward though if you don’t ease up on your sexual mojo.”

“I do have mojo,” he agreed. His lips slid over mine, and he poured heat into my mouth, warming me up from the inside out. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

“Me too,” I panted. He let me go and turned me toward the beauty shop. He gave me a tantalizing and decidedly unprofessional (for the mayor) slap my ass as his final farewell.

***
*

Two hours later,
I tried not to cry on the ride home. Chavvah kept shaking her head, but she had the good sense to keep her comments to herself. I thanked all that was good and merciful that my maternity stretch pants were baggy in the crotch.

As I walked into the cabin (by myself, because no way was I inviting Chav in to witness my humiliation), Babel waited for me, stretched out on the couch in nothing but a pair of tented sweatpants. The smile on his face wavered then disappeared.

“How’d it go?”

Without saying a word, I pushed down my pants and underwear and pulled up my shirt. Red welts surrounded my fun bits, where Dolly had poured hot wax and ripped off errant hairs and the top layer of skin. After, she’d plucked out the really stubborn hairs, causing blood to ooze from the traumatized follicles. The pain, if possible, was worse than when I scrubbed my face off.

“Wow, I guess we’re not having sex tonight,” Babe said—the master of understatement. A grin threatened his lips.

I reached down—not an easy feat—and yanked my pants back up. “Laugh and you’ll never have sex again.”

His face immediately sobered. “Duly noted.”

In our bedroom, I stripped down, showered in cool water, and flopped onto the bedspread naked. The only comfortable position was spread eagle with the ceiling fan on full blast. Babe peeked his head in the door, and I threw a pillow, missing him by several feet.

I moved my forearm over my eyes. “Go away.”

Babel climbed next to me in bed. “Do you want to cuddle?”

“I want a time machine so I can go back and tell my idiot self not to get a bikini wax. Ever.”

He stretched next to me and gently brought me into his embrace. He kissed my neck then wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. He was the big comfy spoon to my hot-mess spoon.

“Love you,” he said.

“Love you.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Fate was trying to put the kibosh on my nuptials, but I was determined to stay positive about our wedding. Just because my face had a bad case of road rash, the rings didn’t fit, and my downstairs la-la looked like I’d thrown acid on it, didn’t mean anything. Right?