Chapter 2 – Wilder
“Ra-!” she goes to scream, but despite being able to see nothing, my hand clamps over her mouth before she can let loose the four-letter word that begins with R and ends with E. It’s a word that would have someone jumping out of the trailer park shadows with a shotgun.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss, groaning in pain, doing my best to not touch my eyes to relieve the agony that’s ripping through them like a wildfire.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. I thought something was wrong.
I saw you creeping around the back of the bar,” I finally choke out, sputtering and spitting, trying to clear the nasty taste now invading every orifice of my face and doing my best to keep my eyes open to blink out the spray.
The thing they don’t warn you about pepper spray is that it doesn’t just affect the person it's directed at. And with the slightest of winds blowing through town tonight, some of it seems to have gotten in my attacker’s face too.
She wipes her eyes with her dress, revealing some of her upper thigh.
My eyes are burning and blurry, but I still get a glance of her tan, toned legs as I avert my eyes, trying to give her privacy while getting my own vision under control.
“Do you always sneak up on strangers in the dark?” she demands.
“I wasn’t sneaking. The trailer park that's back here isn’t a safe area for a young woman to go alone. I was making sure you were okay. The safety lights are broken on Baxter's.” I point upwards though I still can’t see for shit. "What were you doing?"
She sighs, taking one last swipe at her eyes, and then points down.
“There are kittens back here with no mama,” she explains, spitting some of the spray out of her mouth and onto the ground.
“I heard them crying when I walked outside to my sister's car. I’m worried a wild animal is going to get them or they’ll starve. ”
I cough and spit, trying to clear my lungs as I inwardly groan. The more I blink and dab at the corner of my eyes, the worse I’m making it. At this point, I’m just rubbing the spray in deeper and need to take a different approach fast before I rip a contact.
“I need to rinse my contacts off and wash my eyes. You should too or you're going to make that worse. Come back in the bar with me so we can clean-up and then we’ll figure out what to do about the kittens.”
She hesitates, but finally concedes, following me back around the building and inside the bar.
I guide her into the family-sized bathroom and close the door behind us, removing my contacts first and rinsing them under the water.
I look down at one of the flexible lenses in my hand and realize it’s completely shredded in half.
Great.
I scoop water into my hands and flush my eyes out as much as I can, washing out my nose and ears and scrubbing my short beard and face before running water through my hair and slicking it back and away from my face.
It’ll need washed good if I want to get all this mess out of it tomorrow, but that’ll have to wait for now.
I then step to the side, letting her do the same, and finally attempt to put back in my one good contact while looking over her shoulder in the mirror.
It’s painful, likely scratched as well, or maybe my eye is, but at least I can sort of see out of it now.
I blink hard, letting it settle in place and adjust to the lighting in the bathroom.
The dimly lit bar and darkness outside hadn’t given me a clear view of who had sprayed me earlier, but I see now, it’s the same brunette that I’d noticed among the sea of blondes in the bachelorette party and damn I wish I would have seen her more clearly earlier.
Her eyes are green and sparkling despite being watery, and her brown hair, which had been piled high on her head, has slipped out of the tie and is now cascading down her shoulders in soft waves.
Up close and under the harsh bathroom lighting, she’s beautiful.
Her skin looks as smooth as glass without a blemish in sight and her lips are pink and full shaped like a cupid’s bow.
She smiles at me as she takes me in too, slowly turning around to face me. I wonder what she’s thinking.
“I’m Teagan Keating,” she says, stretching out her hand in greeting.
I hesitate for only a second before grasping her fingers tightly.
They’re small and dainty, but I can feel the slightest callouses on her palm.
Maybe from lifting weights? Or a manual job?
I’m not sure. But I like that she isn’t soft everywhere.
I bet she has some stories, works hard and hasn’t seen a life full of privilege and ease.
There’s something about her that has me curious.
Something that’s drawing me in to know her more.
“Wilder Cameron,” I clear my throat. “Looks like one of my contacts is ripped so my vision isn’t very good but let’s go check out these kittens you found.”
Teagan nods and leads the way out of the bar, back towards where the scene of our attack occurred.
I notice most of the bachelorette party is still at the bar, louder and drunker now but Dalton and Samantha are nowhere in sight.
Rounding the trash receptacle again, I see a tiny cardboard box spilling over with six small, furry kittens—five orange and one a beautiful light grey shade with big, round green eyes that look a hell of a lot like Teagan’s.
“Look,” she gestures to a tiny cardboard sign attached to the side of the box.
I stoop down to see what she’s pointing at. In big bold letters, someone took a marker and had written the words, FREE KITTENS. MOM IS DEAD. Teagan looks up at me with tear filled eyes.
I’ve lived and worked on a ranch my whole twenty-two years of life.
I love animals, appreciate the beauty and simplicity in them, and occasionally work at the rodeo in town to help with tending to the show animals, making sure they are properly warmed up before they go to work in the ring.
The thing I enjoy the most about them is that they don’t talk like humans do, filling empty space with meaningless drivel, and when they do ‘talk,’ it’s with a purpose, to communicate a need or express an emotion.
But I also know that for animals, death is as much a part of life as it is for humans.
The juxtaposition of death and the beauty of life can make living that much sweeter and more meaningful.
But the way Teagan's big green eyes brim with tears as she looks up at me makes me think this might be her first encounter with the circle of life in the animal kingdom. That, or she just really likes cats.
“We can’t just leave them here to die,” she whispers. "They lost their mama."
Of course we can’t leave them here. They’ll surely die if left here over night and being this close to the Lonestar Junction trailer park, they might meet an even more nefarious end if we don’t do something about them.
And though I don’t need another animal to look after, I already knew what I was going to do before the words even left her pretty mouth.
I’ve been through several litters of kittens on the ranch and know that we have the resources to care for them until they are independent, even if I don’t have the time.
“I’ll take them.”
“Where?” she asks, surprise in her voice.
“I live on a ranch nearby. We have a mother cat who just had kittens that might accept them, but even if she doesn’t, I’ve got bottles I can use to hand-feed them until they’re big enough to eat on their own.”
Teagan springs up from her crouch, the sudden movement catching me off guard as I shift back on my heels and stand.
She hesitates for just a second, glancing up at me, the height difference between us feeling a hell of a lot more noticeable now that she’s this close.
And then, without warning, her arms circle my neck, pulling me into a hug so tight it almost knocks the breath right out of me.
Been a while since I’ve been hugged by a woman other than my mom, and it feels good to have her soft frame smashed neatly against mine.
“Thank you,” she whispers, her voice like a soft, warm, silk scarf as it kisses my ear. I’ve never heard such a velvety, sultry voice in my whole life, and I wonder if she sings. Her vocal cords are so smooth.
I hesitantly hug her back then release as she steps away.
“I’m sorry about spraying you with the pepper spray earlier. I guess it blowing back in my eyes was punishment for my quick judgement.”
I chuckle. “I get it. It’s good that you were prepared when you came back here.”
She smiles at me, cocking her head to the side adorably like a curious golden retriever checking out a new friend. “May I help you carry them to your car?”
I nod as I scoop up the box. Teagan takes the lone grey kitten who tries to escape into her arms and rests there as we head back to my waiting truck.
Placing them carefully in the passenger side seat, I flick on the overhead cab light so that I can see them while I’m driving.
With the way they’re meowing and squirming about, I’m afraid I might step on one.
“Thank you again. I owe you one,” she says.
I shrug in response, heading to the driver’s side as she trails behind me closely. It feels like she wants to say something more, but she doesn't. I feel like I should say something more, but I won’t.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she asks finally.
I hesitate in the doorway of my truck, hanging half in and half out, unsure how to respond to that question.
To be frank, I didn’t feel like our encounter necessitated a lot of conversation.
We met, she sprayed me in the face, we rescued the kittens.
It isn’t exactly a situation that requires a lot of discussion.
And though I would like to know more about her, I don’t even know where to begin.
“Sometimes, it feels like people say too much, with half of it not mattering. I like to be sure that when I speak, what I say really matters.”
She stares at me quietly, assessing me, possibly thinking I’ve got some sort of speak impairment I’m trying to hide.
Most of the girls I encounter do mind that I don’t talk much because they want something out of me, maybe a relationship, a profession of love, perhaps to scream their name while I’m deep inside of them but I don't do that, and I don't want that. I usually don’t have anything to say to them. That’s why I haven’t been interested in dating lately, the expectations are too great, and you don’t have to worry about small talk when you just avoid them entirely.
“Okay, well, thank you again, Wilder Cameron.”
I nod, tip my cowboy hat, and slide into the driver’s side of my truck, watching her head back towards the front of the bar and feeling something inside of me that says I should stop her and not be an idiot.
My vision blurs a little, the one good contact I still have in is scratching against my eye and I’m sure it’ll be red and irritated in the morning.
Damn pepper spray.
I rub my eye gently, trying to clear out whatever is still stuck in there but instead, knock the only contact I have out completely causing it to fall onto the floor of my truck.
Well, shit.
I bend down, running my hand across the floorboard to look for it, but I know it’s a lost cause. I can’t see for shit anymore, and the floor of my truck doesn’t have any lighting and is currently crawling with kittens.
The kittens are meowing hysterically now that I’ve woken them up, and they’re starting to climb all over my back and up my arms and legs, probably hungry and ready for milk. Without overthinking things further, I blow out a long breath of air then hop back out of the truck.
“Hey Teagan!” I call out.
Thankfully, she’s still at the door of the bar and from what I can see through the fuzzy blur of my shitty eyesight, it looks like the door is open.
“You ready for me to cash in on that I owe you?”