No Fox to Give Read online

  3

  Somebody needed to call the queen of Themyscira, because one of her Amazons had escaped the island. The tallest chick Dean ever had the good fortune to see, outside of a women’s basketball game, stood on the adjacent house’s porch. She wore her white-blonde hair twisted high on her head, but a few face-framing strands escaped to kiss her high cheek bones. Her legs were long and elegant, exposed by the tiny shorts barely covering her hips. On another woman, they’d be acceptable in public; on this lady’s mile-long legs, they were just shy of indecent.

  Looking at her brought two urgent thoughts to mind. First, he wondered if her alabaster skin could withstand the sun for more than five minutes. Secondly, how would it feel to have those pink lips wrapped around his cock?

  An awkward moment passed until he realized he was definitely putting out those creepy vibes that women complained about on social media posts. He willed his head to turn away from her after a friendly smile, but an insidious voice whispered from his subconscious, When are you ever going to see a woman this outrageously beautiful again?

  Ugh. Didn’t mean he had to stare at her, though.

  He stole a second glance. Mysterious Neighbor Woman raised her chin and squared her shoulders, an unspoken dare in her unflinching stare. Her mouth flattened in disdain, but something electric sizzled between them, like a spark through jumper cables. He still couldn’t force himself to stop looking.

  Apparently, neither could she. Her mutual stare was one-part invitation, one-part incredulity, and he couldn’t decide if he should stride over to introduce himself or promptly pretend she didn’t exist. Every aspect of Mystery Beauty’s statuesque appearance checked all the right boxes on his mental score card. And his vision, damn his shifter vision, picked out that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her tank top. Her nipples pebbled beneath the thin cotton, sending mixed signals that didn’t match her unamused mouth.

  So, she liked what she saw too. His cock tightened happily in response. He and his dick both appreciated a challenge.

  “Yeah,” Pete said, intruding on the moment. “That’s Martin’s niece, so try not to do anything to get yourself an unexpected appointment with an old dude who owns a backhoe and a thousand acres of land between here and Centerville. We’d never find your body.”

  Dean broke eye contact with her to pin his brother beneath an incredulous stare. “No faith in me?”

  “You’re forgetting I know you, Christopher.”

  Dean grimaced. “Can you not?”

  “It’s your name.”

  “It’s also that useless fuckwit’s name.”

  “He’s our father.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that he’s an abusive prick,” Dean growled back. He refocused his attention back on the porch of the neighboring home but the beauty was gone. The screen door swung shut behind her. Shit.

  Since Dean didn’t bring much from his apartment in Dallas, it took literal minutes to unload his belongings. Then they explored the hellhole he’d moved into. He missed his apartment and sighed at the wreck in front of him.

  “This is the best you could do? The best the government could do?”

  “Nope,” Pete said cheerfully. “It’s what I was willing to do since your dick got you into this mess. I never said you’d be put up at the Ritz. You’re safe, you’ll be fed, and you’re far, far away from Danny Carlisle, in a place where none of his boys will look for you. Be grateful.”

  “Be grateful? This place is falling apart.” Dean applied pressure to the laminate tile near the utility room for emphasis. The soft spot dipped beneath his weight.

  “Gross exaggeration.”

  “You’d have to pay me to stay here if I wasn’t hiding from the leader of a drug cartel. Is there an infestation too? Am I gonna wake up covered in bedbugs and roaches?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, but uh, he did mention something about a recurring ant problem. Do yourself a favor and keep all food items in the fridge.”

  “Nice.”

  Shaking his head, Dean walked his brother back outside to the truck and couldn’t help but feel the niggling fingers of ingratitude tugging on his heart. He really did feel like an asshole despite the inglorious digs he’d call home until Danny Carlisle was hauled into custody. The problem was, nothing guaranteed they’d find the bastard any time soon, and it was still a matter of Dean’s testimony against the word of Sarabeth’s killer if they didn’t find more evidence.

  “Hey, look—”

  “No need to thank me,” Pete cut him off. “Shit’s scary, bro. I get it. You just keep safe here. Remember, I’m only a phone call away.”

  “Three hundred miles away.” Dean crossed his arms against his chest. “And I’m not afraid, especially not of Danny Carlisle.”

  Pete looked up at him. “I am. I’m afraid for you because you’re a cocky, arrogant bastard. I’m not just saying this because you’re the only witness we have willing to go on the stand so far. I’m saying it because I love you. You’re my brother, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Pete, I’ll be fine. I may be a shifter, but I know I’m not bulletproof. I know how to disappear in a jam.”

  His brother blew out a long breath and dropped his head forward. “Just…don’t blow your cover. Be safe, man. We’ll have people checking on you intermittently. I’ll call when I can.”

  They hugged, and then the only person to ever care about him from the Callahan family drove away down the dusty dirt road.

  * * *

  The rest of the place wasn’t so bad, aside from a couple holes in the walls, a perpetually running toilet, the leak beneath the kitchen sink, and stopped-up shower. Most of it was shit Dean could fix in a weekend, and since he was temporarily out of work, he had all the time in the world to make repairs. He had ample money for that, as well as a stipend from the protection fund, to finance his appreciative gesture for his new, but hopefully temporary, landlord.

  Fuck, he couldn’t wait to return to civilization.

  Of the owner’s furnishings, little remained—only a sad little sofa in the living room. It was clean but ancient and dusty, and there was a dark water stain in the corner of the living room ceiling, indicative of a roofing leak he’d also have to repair. Dean made note of this, then trekked outside to take stock of his surroundings.

  To the right, there was a vacant ranch house with a For Sale sign in the yard. Beside that, a manufactured home on cinder blocks that couldn’t have been there too long. Or maybe the owner couldn’t afford skirting just yet. He made no assumptions. Then there were yards and yards of vacant green field and waist-high grass before the next house farther down the road. On the left, he spied his neighbor’s quiet little cottage.

  Dean trudged through calf-high grass to the back of the house, pausing to check out the shed along the way. Inside, he found all of the tools needed to occupy a few afternoons and make the place presentable. He also found a kayak and fishing supplies.

  Not a bad idea…

  Farther out in the backyard, he reached the property edge and eased down a grassy shoreline. Swan Lake curved around behind almost every home on the street, and continued to the other side of the small community. Far across the water in the distance, he saw boats gently swaying on the tranquil surface, tethered to the individual docks of other homes. Martin had a speedboat that had seen better days. Most of the damage appeared cosmetic, minor enough that Dean considered undertaking the additional repairs to pass the time.

  The longer he gazed at the serene lake, the less irritable he felt over his plight. Not bad. The place was gorgeous, and there was a peaceful quality to the atmosphere of Swan Lake. A group of female mallards floated on the water, paddling by happily quacking. He grinned at the dull brown ducks and stood there watching them until a graceful swan came by, moving closer and closer until it became apparent she was checking out the stranger.

  “I live here now,” he said to her, almost expecting a response. It was almost impossible to tell shifter
s apart from true animals at a distance. He had to be close enough to smell the human on their fur, or in this case, mingling with their feathers.

  “You’re probably a shifter come to check me out. That’s cool. Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Dean, I live here now, and I’m not really worth spying on. So, if that’s what you came to do, you can paddle on along elsewhere. Otherwise, come back as a human and introduce yourself.”

  The swan jerked her long neck away and quickly paddled off.

  Dean grinned. Figured. Southern women loved sticking their noses into the business of others, a stereotype rarely disproven.

  The air was clean and clear without the stink of city industry. If he really focused on the good side, he had a few weeks’ vacation. His business would be waiting for him. His clients would happily await his return.

  “I can do this,” he said to no one, speaking to the still lake. “Snooping swans or not, this is fine. I needed a vacation anyway, right? Free room and board. It’s like renting a cabin at the lake without the expenses.” He told himself a few more times that the opportunity would fucking rock if he wasn’t hiding from a drug lord and his gang of killers.

  And to begin his lovely break from society, the first thing he could do was make his vacation home a little more bearable.

  4

  Maddie stirred at the roar of a lawnmower. Then the rumble faded, and for a while, she drifted in and out of sleep, drowsing only for the noise to come steadily closer, and closer, until it seemed the lawnmower was right outside her window.

  Ugh. Maybe it was. Maybe Uncle Martin was fed up with how shitty her yard looked and he’d sent one of his many sons to cut the grass. Maddie had no energy to do it herself, nor did she have time when she’d been practically living in her pottery studio. Aside from bathroom visits and the occasional meal, ceramics had become her life.

  Opening her eyes, she blinked at a judgmental message from Netflix. “Are you still watching Supernatural?”

  Instead of hitting the continue button, she rose from the couch and checked out the window view of her front yard, wondering which cousin she’d have to cuss out for not texting ahead first.

  Then she stared.

  And stared some more, all thoughts of swearing up a storm vanishing from her mind when she saw the magnificent body pushing her uncle’s mower over the unruly yard. She’d already thought so when he arrived, but this proved her new neighbor had to be the most breathtaking, beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  And for some reason he was mowing her yard, moving up and down the grass in tidy, even rows while sweat glistened on his muscular back and his calves flexed with every step.

  Because he was the hottest man she’d ever have the honor of seeing on her quiet little street, Maddie was obligated to spend the next five minutes gawking at him from the window and wondering if she’d actually awakened at all.

  What was his name? He hadn’t introduced himself to her yet—a strike against him—but she’d also been a recluse in her studio for the past two days since his arrival and been an equally poor neighbor while all others on the street stopped by with casserole dishes, peach cobblers, and greetings. Swans couldn’t help themselves. It was just in their nature to feel out interlopers in their territory.

  From what she’d witnessed, some of the visitors seemed genuine enough, and others were clear attempts to get into the guy’s pants. As Maddie hadn’t wanted to be one of those women gossiped about in church on Sunday, she’d avoided his stoop and pretended he wasn’t there.

  Hard as fuck to pretend he wasn’t there now though, when he was shirtless in her front yard. According to the tea spilled by her best friend, Eleanor, he was Dean McAvoy, a thirty-two-year-old carpenter. Also single.

  “Not fair,” Maddie groaned.

  Oblivious to her, Dean passed by to the other side of her driveway. Hours in the sun had toasted his glorious body to a sinfully attractive golden-bronze. His broad shoulders and sculpted chest tapered down to a trim waist defined by the most flawless set of abs she’d ever seen in her life. A set of muscular indents vanished beneath a lowriding pair of athletic shorts. Maddie envied those blue shorts, because they were plastered to the part of him she wanted to squeeze and grope the most. The man had a gorgeous ass.

  The phone rang. Somehow, she didn’t spook out of her skin and through the window. She snatched the cell off the table from its spot beside her warming iced tea. Ellie and Emma smiled up at her from the contact screen.

  Maddie hit the green accept button. “Hey.”

  “You do know our ridiculously hot neighbor is mowing the lawn, right?”

  “Girl, I’ve been hiding in my window watching this spectacle for at least five minutes since I realized he was over here.”

  “Oh shit. So, you didn’t ask him to do it?”

  “I didn’t. I’ve been knocked out on the couch since…” She glanced at the television and guessed how many episodes had passed. “At least two hours.”

  “Maybe if you slept at night, you wouldn’t miss out on most of the daylight hours,” Ellie chided playfully.

  “Easy for you to say when you’re up before dawn every morning.”

  “Don’t have a choice when you run a bakery. People want their fresh bagels and doughnuts at zero-dark-thirty. Go out there and reel that fish in.”

  “I don’t even know the man and you’re trying to send me out there to…what? For all we know, Martin called him and asked if he’d do it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn’t matter what his motivation is for doing it when he has a chest that looks like that.”

  Maddie sighed. Was she surprised? No. Was she irritated? Yes.

  For longer than Maddie could remember, Eleanor had been the bad influence in her life. They’d gone on frequent adventures as girls, shared family vacations, jumped off diving boards too tall for them, and ridden the scariest rollercoasters together. During their college years, if there’d been a frat party to attend, Ellie dragged her to it. She booked tickets to go skydiving and coerced Maddie to join her. They flew to Jamaica together and spent a week learning to surf with hot guys.

  Eventually, Eleanor grew up, married a wonderful man, and had a gorgeous daughter. Maddie had even been the maid of honor, envying her friend as much as she loved her on that day for finally taking what she wanted and building the life she deserved away from Swan Lake. Even if it took them out of state far, far away, and their only communication over the years became rare visits, video chats, and phone calls.

  Then two years ago, that wonderful man died in a completely avoidable, senseless loss of life because a drunk driver decided to speed north down a southbound interstate at two in the morning. Her mate, the love of her life, was gone, and for a long while Maddie wondered if heartbreak would take her friend away, too.

  It didn’t, but that had been a battle of its own. It took almost a year to convince Eleanor to pull up roots, sell her marital home, and come live safe and secure Crisis again.

  “Maybe you should go out there and say hello to him,” Maddie suggested slyly. “Take him some sweet tea and biscuits or something.”

  Eleanor snickered. “First of all, if I was going to woo a man, I’d bake him pecan pie and serve him a cold glass of peach sweet tea. Biscuits are for breakfast, require sausage and homemade gravy, and will only be made after he’s earned them with a long night of fucking.”

  Maddie laughed harder. “Fine. Do that. Let’s take this as a sign that the universe is telling you that your body is overdue for a generous dose of Vitamin D.”

  The laughter quieted. Wishing she could take the insensitive comment back, Maddie bit her lower lip. “Hey, I’m—”

  “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

  “You weren’t pushing me any more than I pushed you. Ugh, okay. Let’s cut this off before it gets awkward and shit. I’m sorry. I know you’re…” Still mourning the loss of your one true love.

  “A pitiful and lonely widow who doesn’t know how to mo
ve on with her life?” Ellie probed.

  “I would never try to push you to move on before you’re ready. There’s no time limit on grief, Ellie.”

  “I know.”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “I have to go.”

  Shit. “Ellie—”

  “I’m not hanging up because I’m pissed. I’m leaving because it’s time to pick Emma up from daycare and Mrs. Johnson gave me a lecture the last time I was five minutes late.”

  “Oh! Sorry! Talk to you later then. Love you, chick.”

  “Love you.”

  Unable to see him anymore from the living room windows, Maddie tossed the phone on the sofa and moved to her bedroom. From there, she saw him around the side of her house, maneuvering the push mower with care past the border of her herb garden.

  He paused and swiped a muscular forearm across his perspiring brow. He checked his phone, swiping his thumb across the display a few times. Something made him smile—sweet baby Jesus the man had a beautiful smile—down at the screen.

  All the more reason to find out why the hell he was mowing her yard. If he expected payment, he could shove that fancy motorcycle up his ass.

  Maddie slipped into her sandals and stepped outside. The mower had just stopped, and her bare-chested Adonis stood with his back to her, mopping his face with a gym towel.

  Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought his ears twitched before he turned to face her.

  There were two things she wanted most at that moment. The first involved dragging him to the shower where she’d soap and wash him down inch by sculpted inch. The second fantasy involved shoving him into bed, threading her fingers through his dark hair, and riding him until she forgot how to breathe.

  “You normally help yourself to other people’s yards uninvited?” she asked instead of doing either of those things, because she needed to chase him the hell away from her property before inviting him for rough and sweaty sex in the front yard.