My UnTrue Love (A Kinda Fairytale #7)

Chapter Eight

Deals are struck where three roads meet,

When thieves sneak from their homes,

As crafty hearts urge them to seek,

The things that aren’t their own.

Lyrics from the folk song “Crossroads Coyote”

“Lookit that, boys. Some rich boy’s favorite sex-kitten is loose in our yard.”

Bill didn’t bother to turn around. There was no point in knocking Stew Slewfoot on his misogynist ass, because the women working on the railroad liked delivering those beatings themselves. They were powerful and his crew had the combined IQ of a dead iguana, so it wasn’t much of a fight between the two factions.

Bill never could stand a bully, though, especially when they took aim at a woman. It reminded him of his pa. That was why he’d also developed the quiet and indirect habit of compiling reams of documentation on the crew’s many assorted fuck ups. Bill was real talented with gathering information. It was no trouble a’tall to assemble their safety violations, drunken antics, fights, abuse, environmental damages, and embezzlement into a spreadsheet with cross-referenced photos and lists of witnesses.

It was the least he could do to support women.

“That there is the prettiest pair of tits in the whole wide world.” Stew continued loudly. “I ain’t lyin.’”

He was lying. Bill knew for a fact this woman’s breasts weren’t the prettiest in the world. That pair belonged to his own woman, who was unpacking back at home. He’d been mentally gloating about his new roommate all morning.

Clementine lived with him!

Coyotes did a lot of plotting. When they plotted hard enough, they tended to come out on top, because they were crafty sons of bitches. But every once in a while, a plot was such a runaway success that even a crafty son of a bitch like Bill was impressed by his own craftiness.

Clementine lived with him.

Bill had been scheming towards that goal for months. He’d even made sure his apartment was big enough to share. He hadn’t expected to get her out of Johnny’s place and into his own this fast, though. Clementine had fallen right into his grasp, like a ripe peach from a tree. Like she somehow thought the whole thing was her own idea.

Clementine lived with him.

He’d laid the railroad track along the desolate side of the mountain, barely feeling the scorching heat, while his mind was fully occupied with his accomplishment. Now that work was wrapping up, he already had the rest of his day planned. He was going to go home, and shower, and the bathroom was going to smell like whatever blueberry-flapjack scented soap she used, and he was going to rub it all over his aching body, and think about Clem.

That was literally all he wanted to do for at least an hour. Maybe two.

“I always had a yen for blondes.” Wolly Doodle was an anthropomorphized grasshopper who spent most of his time sitting around, picking his teeth with carpet tacks. For some reason, that had qualified him to be promoted to foreman of the crew. “All five of my wives were blondes.”

“Me? I love a girl a fella can grab onto in bed.” Malcolm, his even more useless brother, gave a crude gesture with two of his four hands, illustrating his point.

The others laughed in appreciation for his wit.

It occurred to Bill --not for the first time-- that imbeciles shouldn’t be in charge of mass transportation systems. If his spreadsheet meticulously documenting their imbecilic, often illegal behavior somehow got mass-emailed to the women of the railroad…? And if the women then had the ammunition to get the imbeciles fired…? Well, it was nothing but Bill’s civic duty.

“Hey!” A male voice bellowed from farther down the line, near the dynamite storage shack. “Somebody’s tied a satyr to the railroad tracks!”

Oh yeah. Bill had half-forgotten about Dusty. The Kitchen’s loudmouth employee couldn’t treat women with respect, either. It was pert near an epidemic in Red River Valley.

“Is the satyr alive?” Someone else shouted.

“Hard to tell under all the fire ants.”

Bill tsk ed. Desert fire ants were hellacious beasts. Sometimes they even went rabid. (Bill paid close attention to rabid things. It was a bit of a hobby.) Poor ol’ Dusty. That satyr was probably real sorry he’d upset Clem with his wolf-whistles and unwanted advances, right about now.

If only Bill could deal with Johnny so easily.

Sadly, Clem still had a bit of fondness for John, so no truly catastrophic misfortune could befall him. Yet. Bill was a patient soul. He’d bide his time stirring up some less flesh-eating hardships for Johnny and just wait for that fella to sink himself.

Since the shower was still a ways off, Bill stuck his head under the stream of the portable pump, scrubbing the dirt off his neck. The water was ice cold, which gave him something to focus on besides sexist idiots.

Bill wished he had a better job, but he didn’t, so he did this one the best he could. More and more, he thought how nice it would be to just create music all day. Strum his guitar and listen to those notes in his head. Maybe even make some songs out of them.

That was impractical fancy, though. He had to hold down steady employment. Bill wasn’t working on the railroad to just pass the time away. He did it because the pay was good. Making sure that his stolen-mate stayed stolen was Bill’s one and only drive. He planned to show Clementine that he could be reliable and take care of her.

“Bill!”

His head snapped up, water droplets arching out from his wet hair. He whipped around, his eyes falling on Clem. She was headed his way, looking like a shimmering mirage in the barren landscape.

She wore a long gingham skirt, big hoop earrings, and a girly pink camisole. The shirt clung to her bouncing curves in ways that proved the existence of God. The strap of her oversized bag was looped around her body, crossing straight between her breasts like a ribbon on a birthday gift.

Well, shit.

Bill licked a drop of water from his top lip, his eyes transfixed. Stew thought too small. Everything about that girl was the prettiest thing in the whole wide world. Every single bit of her.

“There you are!” Clem shouted, seeing she had his attention. “Gosh, you can’t believe how hard it was to get up here. Especially in these shoes.” She shook her head, and her blonde curls swayed like they’d been styled by silk sheets and fantasies. “Gravel pathways do not mix well with Herring Box sandals.”

The other men stopped their jawing and looked Bill’s way, disgust filling their faces. None of them had a va-va-voom vixen. None of them ever would. And Bill wasn’t supposed to have her either.

Most single men in Red River Valley were paranoid that their True Love had already been coyote-snatched. Never occurred to the bastards that making chauvinistic remarks, and drinking with the boys every night, and not cleaning their damn clothes kept most women away, with no help from coyotes. Nope. They blamed Bill and his entire species for their miserable sex lives.

“Your thieving kind can’t get away with taking our females.” Stew bit off, right on cue. The tune of bigotry got repetitive as hell, so the words were always predictable. “It ain’t right.”

There was a general murmur of bitter agreement. The situation was deteriorating. The assembled railroad workers grew enraged at the possibility that they’d been destined for a True Love like Clementine, except Bill had poached her. Their amorphous resentment could so easily spill over onto his Clem. They might forget they were cowardly clowns and decide to do something violent.

Bill very nearly shifted into coyote-form, just that fast.

It was actually hard not to transform and attack any threats to his stolen-mate. That was unusual. Not the desire to kill all his idiot coworkers. Wanting them dead was normal and natural. It happened all the time, for all sorts of reasons. But the desire to shift was strange.

For the majority of shifters-species, there was some kind of struggle between their human and animal halves. The animal’s instincts could easily feel trapped in the human body. The human’s mind could get overwhelmed by the animal’s primal desires. But coyotes lived much more balanced existences. At least Bill did. Mostly, the animal-half of Bill was content to be watchful and unobtrusive.

Or maybe it was his human-side that hung back.

The two halves of his self were so similar sometimes he wasn’t sure which was in control. There was no internal conflict, because they were the same creature. The animal and human Bill thought in identical ways. He rarely shifted, because the coyote never felt trapped inside of him. The predatory parts of Bill were always engaged.

Only violence called his animal to transform into a beast of claws and teeth. Violence he was eager to inflict on anyone who came near Clem.

He resisted full transformation, but his eyes flashed an inhuman, glowing blue, as he pinned Stew with a feral look. “Are you willing to fight me to take her? Because I’m willing to fight you to keep her.” His smile was a homicidal taunt. “All or nothin’.”

Stew’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t move forward.

Neither did anyone else.

The artsy types who frequented the music scene had mostly just heard the rumors about coyotes’ strength. Men like Johnny felt safe in their prejudice, because they lived in a sheltered world. The rough-and-ready elements of Red River Valley were the ones who’d seen what coyotes could do in a fight, firsthand.

No matter how deep their hatred, the street-smart men of the railroad didn’t cross that final line with Bill. They knew better.

Wolly spat out his carpet tack. “If you leave with that girl, don’t bother coming back. You hear? I’m not going to stand here and let some dirty coyote upset the natural balance of…”

Bill started walking, snagging his shirt from the back of the pump.

“Whoever you stole her from, I hope he skins you alive.” Wolly called after him, still sitting on the railroad track. Lazy ass. “And you’re fired!”

Bill didn’t bother to respond to the well wishes. He was already headed towards Clementine. She was oblivious to the drama, grinning and shading her eyes from the bright sun. He intercepted her, not letting her get too close to the posse of morons.

Clem came to a stop directly in front of him, beaming like they’d been separated for weeks. He loved her smile. He had no clue how she could look like pure innocence and dirty, sinful sex at the same time, but she somehow managed.

Inside of him, the desire to shift quieted, the coyote soothed by her presence.

“Hi!” She said cheerily. “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but…”

Bill cut her off, keeping his body between her and the angry men. “You shouldn’t be here, Clem.”

Her warm smile disappeared. Its loss was like someone destroying every perfect thing in the universe. “I’m sorry. I…” She faltered. “I just wanted to see you, not get you in trouble.”

He shrugged on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. They had to get outta there fast. Beating the ever-living-fuck out of a half-dozen men wouldn’t convince her that he was a gentle artist.

“I can handle it.” He assured her, keeping a side-eye on his irate ex-coworkers. They still weren’t moving, but he never underestimated the stupidity of imbeciles in packs.

“Oh.” Clementine’s attention flickered down to his damp chest, her gaze lingering on the strip of bare skin revealed by the unfastened edges of his shirt. Then, she quickly looked away again, towards the side of the mountain. Her cheeks flushed pink. “You know… I can just go, if you’re too busy to talk.” She took a step backwards. Away from him.

Any step away from Bill was her going in the wrong direction.

“I’m never too busy to talk to you.” He promised. “That’s not what I’m…”

She cut him off. “No, it’s okay. Really. I’ll see you at home.” Green eyes returned to his unbuttoned shirt for another intriguing fraction of time. Then, she turned on her designer-sandal-ed heel and went scampering back down the mountain, nervously tucking a lock of her extraordinary hair behind her ear.

Bill wasn’t as dumb as he looked. His stolen-mate had sought him out, wearing a much tighter outfit than she usually wore, and blushing when she looked at his half-naked chest.

She wasn’t going anyplace without him.

“Hang on.” Bill chased after her, because he’d always chase after her. She was his future. The gravel path crunched under his feet, as he left the railroad for the last time. “I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to.” She winced and looked down at her feet, like she’d just stubbed her toe.

She really should not have worn sandals. Did she not own boots? “I can carry you if…”

“No!” She interrupted in something like horror. “The only thing that could make this more humiliating is if you realized how much I weigh.”

Maybe Bill was as dumb as he looked, because he was confounded. “What?”

She shot him a wary glance. “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.”

Yeah, he’d screwed this all up somehow. He could tell. “Friends?”

She pointed towards his former coworkers. “That bearded man and those two grasshoppers and those other guys you were talking to.”

Bill’s brows soared. “We’re not friends, darlin’.” He pulled her arm down, before one of those dipshits decided she was waving at them and headed over. “That’s Wolly Doodle and his thinking-impaired brother, Malcolm. The bearded jackass is Stew Slewfoot. They all hate me.”

“No one could ever hate you.”

“A lot of folks somehow find a way.”

Now she looked confounded. “I have noticed that people react strangely to you sometimes. Why is that?”

Fuck. He didn’t like reminding her he was a coyote, because it somehow never occurred to her that she should be bigoted against his kind. Bringing it up might remind her.

“I’m just a mite different than the other fellas.” Why were they even talking about this? …And why did she have to come up here, when it was so dangerous? “Did you put sunblock on? You should always wear sunblock.” He lifted a palm to shield her skin a bit, helplessly trying to protect her from the unrelenting rays. “The heat in this place is…”

Clementine cut him off. “I should talk to those men. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding. I’m your manager. I can fix it.”

“No, you shouldn’t talk to those men. Ever.”

“But if I could meet them and explain how great you are…”

“I’d prefer not to introduce you to the guys who want me dead. Wolly just fired me.”

Her lips parted in outrage. “You were fired? ”

“Yep. Circles back to the hating me thing.”

He wasn’t holding a grudge about getting fired or his general unpopularity. ‘Corse not. Bill was a forgiving soul. …But he sure was holding a grudge that they’d crawled their eyes all over his stolen-mate. Bill didn’t appreciate that.

“Firing you isn’t fair. You’ll have to complaint to someone.”

“I’ll be sending an email, just as soon as I get home. Don’t you worry.” Nobody on that crew would have a job, come morning.

Clementine glanced over her shoulder, her brow furrowing. For the first time, she seemed to process the men’s hostile faces and aggressive body language. “This is because they’re jealous of you.” She deduced with a sage nod.

He guided her around some jagged stones. He was buying her boots today . “Of course, they’re all jealous of me. You’re on my arm and look how gorgeous you are.”

She rolled her eyes, like she thought he was teasing. “I’ve only been here ninety seconds, smart guy. I can’t be the reason you were fired.”

Bill suppressed a snort of amusement. It was impressive work for a minute and a half, but there he was: Unemployed. “I can get another job.” And he’d have to do it quick, since he’d prepaid three months of rent to make sure Clem wouldn’t go broke. “Here.” He had a bottle of water on him and he handed it to her, not wanting her to dehydrate.

She took it from him and drank. “You already have another job. You’re a musician. Even the Lone Prairie is an improvement on this awful place, given how they dislike you.”

“They hate me here.” He corrected. “Not dislike.”

Green eyes went wide, as she suddenly got it. “Of course they do. Oh, I completely understand, now.” She made a tsk sound of regret and sorrow. “It’s just wrong . You can’t help what you are.”

Bill stifled a flinch. “No, I can’t.” In that second, he wished he could. He’d be something else for her, if he had the option. Anything else. Someone she could be proud of.

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you, trying to fit in with normal people.” Her face was full of sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

A familiar rush of humiliation and shame heated his neck. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to being hated.” He accepted the water bottle back from her, drinking from it himself simply because her lips had been on it. The taste of her comforted him.

Clem gave his arm a consoling squeeze. “I’m sure to someone as sensitive as you, it does feel like hatred.”

“Because everybody hates me. Why are we dwellin’ on this?”

“They don’t hate you.” She insisted patiently. “It’s jealousy that makes them act so mean. And it’s going to get worse, until it gets better.”

Bill squinted at her, back to being confounded again. Nobody got cured of being a coyote. “It’s not ever gonna get better for me.”

“No, it will . Once your musical career is established, things will change. You’ll be around other artists, who aren’t so threatened by your poetic nature, and your incredible talent, and how handsome you are.”

Bill blinked and stopped walking.

Clem automatically stopped too. “Some people are just born stars, Bill. Other folks sense that. Don’t worry. We’ll find you someplace where you aren’t resented for being so much more special than ordinary men.” She was awash with pity for his sad plight of being too damn wonderful. “You’ll be able to forge much deeper connections. I promise.”

Bill realized that they were having two completely different conversations and hers was better. Brighter. Everything about Clem was always better and brighter. His mouth began to curve.

“You’ll find some people you can truly connect with, very soon. Clementine vowed. “Your career will take off quickly, once you get a real shot on stage. I know it.”

He stared down at her, the-heart-coyotes-didn’t-have doing some weird summersaults in his chest.

“Bill? She prompted, after a long moment when he didn’t have a word to say.

“I already found her.” He cleared his throat, because his voice was suddenly hoarse. “The person I truly connect with. I already found you .”

“I feel that way, too.” Her smile was tremulous. “It’s hard for me to fit in with other people, you know. I’m plenty outgoing, but not everyone wants to befriend a muse. We’re stereotyped as easy and insignificant,” she hesitated for a beat, “and ditzy.”

Fucking Johnny. Killing that fucker and burying his carcass in the fucking badlands was a lifegoal for Bill.

He didn’t realize he’d muttered at least part of that obscenity-filled threat out loud until he saw Clementine’s gaze widen. Damnation, it was easy to drop his guard around her. Too easy, maybe. It was gonna land him in trouble, since most every thought in his head --human and coyote-- was Bad.

“Oh Bill, you can’t fight Johnny? What if you were hurt?”

He was insulted. “You think I can’t whoop that boy?” Johnny was physically larger than Bill’s human form, but he was just a big lump of nothing to the coyote.

“I think your hands are made for guitar-playing, not punching people. You could break a finger! Johnny’s not worth the risk. You two don’t work together anymore, so you have no reason for conflict.”

“We do have a reason for conflict. You .” He leaned down, so they were eye-to-eye. (She really should be wearing a hat to shade her face.) “You’re not ditzy. Johnny is threatened by you, because you surpass him in every possible way. Deep down he knows it and it scares him.”

“Jealousy, huh? Is that why I got fired, too?” She thought he was playfully giving her own advice back to her.

Except he wasn’t.

Johnny was jealous. That was just fact. It had been a strategic mistake to start packing up Clementine’s underwear while that asshole was in the vicinity. Bill had been shocked to stumble across all the silky lingerie that he’d been fantasizing about for months. Clem favored colorful patterns and feminine lace. That was real nice to know. His initial reaction had been one of possessive satisfaction.

Then, he’d recalled Johnny’s presence, and he hadn’t been nearly so pleased.

Johnny was just beginning to understand that he’d lost his happily ever after. The man had felt threatened when Bill flirted the tiniest bit with a nobody-special like Rosalee. No telling what he’d do to keep someone as important as Clementine. He’d for damn sure use sex, if he thought it would help him hang onto her.

Johnny seemed to be the only man that Clem had ever been seriously involved with, so odds were high that she found him attractive. If Johnny pursued her romantically, it might rekindle her desire for the prick.

That just wasn’t gonna work for Bill.

“We should both steer clear of Johnny.” He started walking again, wanting her inside where it was cool and safe. “He don’t act near as nice as he used to.”

“I’ve noticed that, as well.” Clementine agreed, impressed with Bill’s perception. “It probably makes me a bad friend… But I don’t think I like Johnny much, anymore.”

“My fondness for him is at a low point, too.”

“I expected more from Johnny. I really did. He should be happy for you going out on your own, but he’s not. It’s like he believes you’re stealing from him or something.”

Bill lifted a shoulder. “I am stealing from him.” He never lied to Clem. Never lied to anyone, if he could help it. Most times, the truth did the job just fine.

“No, you deserve your place in the spotlight, Bill. It’s not your fault that no one else’s talent can quite match up. You didn’t take anything from Johnny. It was always yours.”

“I took you from him. Sooner or later, he’ll come sniffing around, wanting you to go back to The Yellow Roses.”

Clem didn’t seem convinced. “I’m not leaving you.” She promised anyway, as if sensing he needed reassurance. She always could read him like a book. “I am your manager.”

“Exclusively.” Bill stressed. He wanted all of her attention, all of the time. If Clem wasn’t looking at him, he didn’t exist.

He didn’t need her attention. He didn’t need anything. He just wanted her attention. It was a constant craving in his blood.

“Exclusively.” She agreed in a humoring tone. “In fact, that is why I came up here.”

“Came up here in sandals .” He muttered, keeping an eye out for scorpions. They tended to be nocturnal, but he was taking no chances. “You know better, Clementine.”

She pretended not to hear his complaint. “I have something that might inspire your music. I found it while I was unpacking and I wanted you to have it.” She reached into her pretty patchwork bag and came out with a journal-sized book. “This was my father’s. He wrote songs. None of them ever sold, but…” She shrugged and handed it to him. “Maybe his work will help you.”

Bill flipped through the hand-written volume, a frown creasing his brow. It was a notepad. A place where an artist had scribbled ideas to himself and worked on unfinished projects. “You certain your pa would want me to look at this?”

“He died with his music unpublished. He’d want someone else to bring it to life.” She sounded very sure. “I’ve always hoped that I could hear it played, one day.”

“So why didn’t you give it to Johnny?”

“I don’t know. I guess…” She shrugged self-consciously. “I guess, I didn’t trust him to understand how much it means to me. Not like you will.”

Bill stared at her.

Clementine blushed again. “Anyway,” reaching over, she flipped towards the front of the book and found the messiest page, “this is his best one. It’s all jumbled, but it’s got the most ka-pow! I can tell.”

Bill read the title scrawled along the top margin.

“My Own True Love.”

Beneath it, lyrics and uneven rows of musical notes covered the paper, half of them crossed out and written again. He looked them over, trying to make sense of the fragments of tune. It was hard to focus on anything but that damn name.

“Coyotes are cursed not to have True Loves.” He muttered.

People thought Bill’s kind were thieves, but really coyotes had been the ones robbed. They were the ones who could never find their destined mates. They were the ones left forsaken and howling at the lonely moon.

“Lots of people aren’t cursed and still never find their True Loves. They can be happy together. My parents weren’t True Loves, but they still chose each other.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s always confused me why my father picked that title for the song.”

“It’s about longing.” Bill murmured, listening to the scattered chords in his head.

“Maybe Dad wrote it as a dreamy young man. Or maybe it was about a woman he loved, before my mother. Or maybe the lyrics just appeared in his imagination one day, and he thought they’d sell. I suppose we’ll never exactly know.” She gave a bittersweet smile. “No matter how much we love someone, there are always mysteries inside of them. That’s where the greatest art lives: In those shared mysteries between us.”

Bill ran a thumb over the chaotic page of smudged words. ...And he felt a tug. The same tug he’d felt when he saw Clementine for the first time. The sensation that something big would happen --something that would alter his steady, predictable future-- if he went forward.

“What exactly do you want me to do here, Clem?”

“Whatever you like. That book belongs to me and I’m giving it to you.”

He cast her a suspicious look, not fooled by the innocent words. “I don’t know how to write songs.”

“No one knows how to do anything, until they learn.”

“I’m not the right person to…”

“You’re the only person.” She interrupted. “That song is yours now. Even if it stays unplayed forever, it’s yours. I think it’s been waiting for you.”

Shit.

Bill exhaled a frustrated breath. “I’m gonna make an idiot of myself, if I try to write music.”

“You might.” Clem didn’t sound very worried about that probability. “But so what?”

“I don’t like putting myself out there, knowing I’ll fail. It makes me feel…” He trailed off.

“Vulnerable?”

“No, I never feel vulnerable.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t believe him. “Well, nobody is expecting you to write a gold record on your very first try. It’s just for practice. Working on it will give you a starting point to release the music that’s playing in your head.”

The whole idea seemed impossible. Bill wasn’t an artist. He had no clue how to even begin. He scraped a hand through his drying hair. “What if I can’t do this?”

“Then, you can’t do it, and you move on to a new project. Failure is a part of the creative process.” Clementine shrugged, like it was no big deal. “But Bill…?” She met his gaze, and her eyes were filled with encouragement. “What if you can do it?”