Chapter 5
Five
Underestimate me. That’ll be fun.
—Creed’s secret thoughts
Creed
I tossed the blanket to the back of the couch, once again wrinkling my nose at the smell of overwhelming aftershave, and stood up.
My gaze went to the small house, and I studied it with a critical eye.
There was a whole lot of nothing here.
She had a couch but no coffee table. A television, but no stand to put it on.
She had no decorations on the wall, but several vases on the floor with shriveled flowers in them.
Her kitchen wasn’t much better. She had all the essentials that she needed, like flour and sugar and salt.
But all of them were in their original containers on the kitchen counter.
A very small kitchen counter that was not only holding dishes and cooking wares, but also other things that would normally go into the drawers.
Out of curiosity, I went to the drawers to pull them out to see what was inside, only to find no bottom to the drawers. Just an empty hole where the wood backing should’ve been.
I opened the cabinets next only to find toilet paper, laundry detergent, and hair products?
What the hell?
That had my curiosity running wild, so I headed to the bathroom next to find a pedestal sink and a toilet.
That was it.
The toilet paper was resting on the back of the toilet. There was a red glass cup holding toothpaste and a toothbrush.
And that was it.
She didn’t even have a bathroom mirror, but a small, handheld mirror held up on the wall with a thumbtack.
I used the facilities while I was in there, washed my hands with a bar of soap, then headed outside to my truck so I could get my uniform.
The first thing I saw were the two older males sitting on the porch across the street, practically waiting for the door to Birdee’s place to open.
They quickly got uninterested when they saw it was me coming out of the door.
The younger male who’d been the cause of all the issues yesterday was once again outside working on his car in the overgrown grass and gave me a sneer.
He hadn’t liked hearing me call him a dumbass yesterday.
Which he deserved.
The fucking dumbass.
There were people who should be held back in school, and this kid was definitely one of them. Common sense was not his forte.
I was just at the hood of my truck when the next thing caught my attention.
There was a car about three doors down from Birdee’s with a man sleeping in the front seat.
I frowned as I studied the man in the car, but his face was covered up by a blanket, and you could barely make out what he looked like.
Making a mental note to ask Hux—the Dixie Wardens club member that lived across the street from the man sleeping in his car—I grabbed my shit and headed back inside.
I heard the shower running as I came in, so I slipped into the bedroom and quickly changed into my work clothes.
I was halfway through getting dressed—pants still unbuttoned and shirt halfway buttoned up—when Birdee came in looking deliciously wet.
“Oh, sorry,” she said as she came to a halt inside the door.
“Damn, meant to be done by the time you were through,” I said, seriously impressed with how fast she’d taken a shower. “But you have no living room blinds, so I figured it’d be best to get changed here so I didn’t piss off your neighbors.”
She scoffed. “It’s not like they give me the same courtesy.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I tucked my shirt in then zipped my pants up.
She was looking out the window as I threaded the belt through my pants loop.
“What are your plans for today?” I asked as I finished.
I was curious to know if she actually planned on going to work or not, seeing as she’d had a rough day yesterday.
I was also curious to know how she was going to get there, since her moped would take a little time to get fixed.
I’d already had it towed to the local bike shop that Dixie Wardens MC ran after everything went down yesterday.
“Work,” she said. “Then come home.”
Sounded exciting.
Then again, that was just about all I did, too.
“Do you need a ride?” I asked.
She opened her mouth and then closed it, then started twirling her wet hair around a finger.
“I don’t mind giving you one,” I said. “It’s not like I pay for my own gas anyway.”
Her lips twitched. “When do you need to leave?”
“How long will it take you to get ready?” I countered.
“I could get ready a lot faster if you got out of my room and allowed me to put some clothes on.”
Taking the hint for what it was, I left her and headed back out to the front porch where I opened my work app to see what was on the docket for today.
Something curious caught my eye, so I pulled up Major’s contact—my boss at Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Enforcement office. Major was also the VP of the Dixie Wardens MC Sawtooth, Montana chapter.
When the decision to become a game warden for Montana FWP came up, I’d been hesitant. I knew nothing about Montana.
I did, however, know a lot about animals and hunting.
That was, apparently, all that I needed to know.
Apollo had pretty much built me a former life as a game warden, and I’d gotten certified in Montana as a law enforcement officer all on my own before I’d taken the job that Major had offered me.
I knew my shit now, and Major liked having someone there that could watch his back that he could fully trust.
“Major,” he answered on the second ring.
“Why are you up so early already assigning shit?” I joked.
“That’s what bosses do, bruh. Assign jobs,” he snarked right back.
“Why are you always working?”
My boss chuckled. “Because firearms, alcohol, and five-foot-nothing unstable women are expensive.”
I burst out laughing. “You’re not lying.”
I liked Major’s wife, Sorcha, a lot.
She was a great woman who loved her man a lot.
She also could cook like a dream, and I was constantly awarded with her cooking anytime she stopped by to see her man.
She was kind enough to share with the single men of the office.
“What’s the situation going on with the dead moose?” I asked.
“There’ve been three of them this week,” he said as the door behind me opened and Birdee stepped out in jeans, a thermal, and her hair piled high on the top of her head.
She was makeup-free, and I found it refreshing that she was so uninhibited that she could step out of the house with what most women would consider a “naked” face.
Ready? I mouthed.
She gave a nod and closed the door behind her.
I eyed the lock that she should’ve had a key for, but ultimately decided not to comment on it.
“What manner were they killed?” I asked.
“Arrow,” he answered as I turned to make sure Birdee made it down the steps all right.
She walked slowly, but not warily, and I walked back to my truck and held the passenger door open for her.
She got inside, again slowly, but managed not to look too unbalanced.
I closed the door behind her before rounding the hood, and once again looking at the douchebags across the road.
They flipped me the bird when they caught me staring, and I snorted.
“Did they take any meat off the moose?”
“Nope.” Major sounded disgusted. “Just shot them and left ’em.”
What douchebags.
That meat could’ve fed the entire damn county.
“Which sight is the freshest?” I asked as I got inside the truck and started it up.
The phone automatically connected to Bluetooth, and Major’s reply came over the speaker as he said, “The one in Bear Pass.”
No wonder he’d assigned me to the case. It was in my backyard.
“I’ll head out there once I’ve dropped my passenger off.”
Major grunted out a ‘let me know how it goes’ and hung up.
It was as we were passing the man still asleep in the car that I said, “You know him?”
Birdee looked at where I’d jerked my chin and her face went wired, her entire body tensing like a bowstring pulled back to maximum capacity.
“Who is it?” I asked.
She drew in a deep breath. “That is—was—my stepfather.”
My brows rose. “Why’s your stepfather sleeping in his car in your neighborhood?”
As I asked this, I hit Gentry’s contact on the screen.
I didn’t go any farther than the end of the street before backing into Boone’s—the other member of the Dixie Wardens MC—driveway.
I saw his window blinds twitch—the paranoid bastard—and his front door open seconds later.
“Do you have any idea what time of the morning it is?” Gentry grumbled, sounding grumpy and tired.
“Nearing eight o’clock, which is a pretty normal time for the majority of the United States population,” I pointed out. “I need you to do some drive-bys on Birdee’s neighborhood again. Got a situation.”
“What?” he asked, sounding much more alert now. “Is it the fuckin’ Hubers again? If it is, I don’t have enough patience to deal with them again.”
“Not them,” I said. “Birdee’s stepfather is currently sleeping in a car outside of Hux’s house. I want you to come get him out of here and warn him to stay away.”
He sighed. “That’s something any officer can do,” he pointed out, not coming right out and saying it doesn’t require me to do it because it’s not going to be anything illegal.
Let’s just say that though Gentry was a sheriff’s department deputy, he wasn’t altogether an upstanding kind of guy.
He did have a point, though.
“Can you call them and get them out here fast before he decides that he has somewhere else to be?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “But then I’m going back to bed, so don’t call me back until around noon. I’ll get an update for you when I’m done waking up.”
My lips quirked. “Sounds good.”
When I hung up, I turned to look at Birdee just as Huxley made it to the passenger window.
In his underwear.
I rolled it down and said, “You couldn’t have put some pants on.”
“I was a concerned homeowner,” he lied, his gaze going to Birdee.
His eyes narrowed when he saw the gash on her forehead.
“What happened to your face?” he asked bluntly.
Birdee turned her gaze away from the car her ex-stepfather was sleeping in to the man who was dressed in nothing but a pair of moccasins and underwear.
In thirteen-degree weather, might I add.
“Creed hit me with his truck,” she murmured. “Creed, I have to get to work. If you can’t drive me, I need to start walking.”
Hux’s gaze met mine and his brows rose.
I shook my head and got out of the truck, rounding it to the back tailgate where Hux met me.
Hux was tattooed practically from neck to waist. There wasn’t a single inch of bare skin on his upper torso that didn’t have multicolor ink staining it.
I, luckily, didn’t have any identifying ink on my arms or anything exposed, enabling me to get out of the painful tattoo removal that Gentry had to go through.
“I heard that there was an accident here last night, but I didn’t realize it was you,” he said.
I rubbed at my face with my hands, then explained everything, leading up to just about five minutes ago when I spotted her stepfather.
“I’ll keep an eye on him while you get her to work,” he said. “I’ll call if anything exciting goes down.”
“Thanks,” I murmured as I dragged my tired ass back to the truck.
“Ready to hit the road?” I asked.
Her face was pale as I looked over at her once I put it in drive. “More than.”