Chapter 17
Seventeen
I might be laid back, but I can lean forward real quick.
—T-shirt
Creed
“You out of here for the day?” Major asked.
“Not quite,” I said. “I have to stop by the hiking trail off Gunnery. I’m going to put some eyes on the ridge to get a lay of the land.”
We’d decided to put up some cameras along some of the most popular trails that led to the popular hunting spots in hopes of finding who was out there single-handedly destroying our moose population.
I wanted to make sure that the cameras were still working, since I wasn’t getting any feedback from a few of them.
“Call in your location when you get there,” he ordered.
I gave him a chin lift and headed out, my mind once again on Birdee, and what I was going to do once I got done at the trails.
So lost in thought, I arrived at the trailhead with zero memory of taking any of the turns that would lead me there.
After rubbing my eyes furiously for a few seconds, I got out and shouldered on my jacket.
I caught my rifle from the spot between the passenger seat and the console before slinging it over my shoulder.
My bear spray came next, and I started heading down the trail, keeping my eyes on my surroundings.
When I got to the coordinates of where we placed the camera, I called in my location, then took a look around.
The camera was gone, as were any signs of it ever being there.
I called that in, too.
The second camera was gone, too, letting me know that this was probably the right place for the cameras. We just needed to put them in a place where they wouldn’t be seen…or stolen.
I called Major on my way back to my truck using my satellite phone.
“Both of them are gone?” he asked.
“Gone.” I narrowed my eyes at my truck. “Shit.”
“What?”
“There’s a moose currently using my truck mirror as a scratching post.” I sighed as I kept my distance.
“Bummer.” He chuckled. “Let me know when you get out of there safely.”
“Will do.”
Because who the fuck knew how long it’d be before I did.
Moose were stubborn and did what they wanted.
If he didn’t want to leave, I wasn’t going to be able to make him.
And so we sat, for a solid fuckin’ hour, until the moose decided that it had better things to do elsewhere.
By the time I got in my truck, I was fuming mad, because I’d wanted to be over at Birdee’s over an hour ago.
I pulled up to her place and saw an unfamiliar white car with the name “GREAT DANE” on it.
“What is that?” I wondered as I got out and headed to the front door.
My stomach all but sank when I saw the front door was still just as damaged now as when I left it a few days ago.
“Fuck.” I gritted my teeth and knocked.
Guilt swirled in my gut as I stared at the shattered wood. Wood that I’d shattered with a well-placed kick to her front door in a moment of anger. Then I’d just fuckin’ left it there, fully expecting her to fix it herself.
Only…she hadn’t.
Goddammit.
She’d been sleeping in a house that was unsecure for days, and it was my fault.
The curtains flicked, and I saw her glance at me out of the window beside the door.
“Let me in,” I ordered.
She narrowed her eyes, then cracked the window slightly to say, “I can’t. Sorry.”
Even though I expected the brush-off, it still annoyed me that it’d come.
“Why not?” I asked.
I mean, other than the obvious that I’m a huge asshole and know I don’t deserve to come inside?
“Because I have a huge chest of drawers in front of the door, as well as my entire book collection and anything else heavy enough to keep it closed.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Move over,” I ordered, gesturing toward the window.
She shook her head. “Sorry, but no.”
Then she let the window drapes fall back into place, and didn’t answer again when I knocked.
And I did so for a very long time.
Instead of sitting outside her house, though, I decided to give Major a call back.
“What’s up?”
“Tomorrow, do you think you can send your son-in-law over to Birdee Calvert’s place and have him repair a door for me?” I asked.
“He’s busy tomorrow, but Koen just told me he can do it.” Major said. “But why?”
I sighed, then explained to him what had happened to her door.
“You left it broken like that for days?” he asked, sounding disappointed in me.
He couldn’t make me feel any worse, though.
I already felt like the lowest of lows.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s another thing. Do you think you can send one of the prospects that are at the club tonight and have them watch her place?”
Major grunted. “I’ll send Timmy.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I liked Timmy.
He was on the verge of getting his own patch and didn’t complain when he had to do something he didn’t want to.
“Tell him to park at Boone’s place. He can back into Boone’s driveway and keep an eye on Birdee’s front door,” I suggested.
Major said he would, then hung up.
Meanwhile, I stared at the door of Birdee’s house for another solid twenty minutes, hoping that she would take pity on me and let me in, but no such luck.
The window treatment didn’t even flicker, as if she’d written me off.
That only made me angrier.
I didn’t want to be like her stupid fuckin’ dad or sisters.
I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to be someone she trusted. I wanted to be more…
And wasn’t that the kicker?
I wanted more, and that was the first time in my life that I did.
I’d had flings when I was younger before shit went down with my mom and sister. I’d had a few flings since I’d gotten out of prison. But never in my life did I become so obsessed with a girl that she was always on my mind.
The drive home had my mind going a hundred different ways.
When I walked inside, it was to find Bernice on my couch with two blankets wrapped around her and the fire blazing.
“Cold?” I chuckled.
“Freezing,” she confirmed. “You don’t have a heater.”
“I have a heater.” I rolled my eyes. “But the pilot light must’ve gone out. Let me go get it going.”
I came back a few minutes later, changed out of my clothes, then headed back to the living room to ask Bernice what she wanted for dinner.
“I already ate a girl dinner,” she admitted. “I figured you’d be busy tonight.”
I wrinkled my nose. “She wouldn’t let me in.”
Bernice laughed. “Good. You need to work for it. Grovel.”
I ignored her and the way that her words made me feel and said, “What’s girl dinner?”
“To be specific?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“I had eighteen Cool Ranch Doritos. I had a scoop of ranch dip to dip my Doritos in. I had half a pack of blueberries. One stick of cheese. You’re out, by the way.
” She smiled at me, knowing that I liked to have cheese in the lunches I’d packed.
And obviously not giving a shit that she’d eaten the last one.
“Then I rounded out the night with a bowl of Lucky Charms.”
I snorted. “That’s not dinner. That’s just a bunch of snacks. Unhealthy ones at that. You’ll be starving in another hour because all you did was eat a bunch of bullshit carbs that won’t get you anywhere.”
“Be that as it may.” She batted her eyelashes at me. Something she used to do when she knew she’d irritated me. “I still ate. Feel free to find yourself something.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” I muttered.
“What did you end up doing with that coffee this morning if you couldn’t find her?” Bernice asked.
“Tossed it.” I went to the fridge and took a look inside to browse my options. I could have ketchup and some odd-colored noodle-like thing that I was fairly sure used to be chow mein. I could have a sandwich with no cheese. Or I could have lettuce. “I need to go to the store.”
“How about when you do that, you bring back some chocolate chip cookies,” she suggested.
With not very many other options, I left again, heading straight to the grocery store that was right off the main drag.
I would pay twice as much since I was going local, but paying the twenty extra bucks sounded preferable to driving thirty minutes to Walmart. As it was, I’d been driving around all damn day. Driving to Walmart was not going to happen, despite it being the financially sound choice.
I got a bunch of food, making sure to refill my cheese sticks—Tillamook Sharp Cheddar was seriously the best thing ever invented—and headed to the checkout within ten minutes of arriving.
I smiled tightly at the woman who tried to get me to speak to her about the lottery and her chances of winning, and left before she could add anything more to the conversation.
When I got home, Bernice was already in bed, so I ate alone standing up at my kitchen counter.
I stared out over the length of my backyard for a while, wishing that winter in Montana wasn’t quite so debilitating. I’d never given much thought to anyone outside of Alabama before, choosing to focus on the hell that was my life rather than dwell on anyone or anything else.
But now that I lived here, I wondered how native Montanans ever found joy in the winter.
This place was a massive winter wonderland, sure. But that would get old.
Hell, it was already old.
“What are you doing staring out the window like a creeper?”
I looked over my shoulder at my sister. “Wondering how I never thought about anyone or any place other than Alabama and the people that dwelled there. I didn’t care about snow or whomever had to deal with it.
I was just sitting here thinking about how sucky this is.
Right now in Alabama we could be outside playing football on the beach.
The water would be a bit chilly, but there wouldn’t be a thick blanket of snow on the ground with tons of snow on the way. ”
“Stop being a little bitch, Creed.” She deliberately put emphasis on my new moniker. “And how about you start, I don’t know, building a snowman?”
I flipped her off. “But my nose always feels like it’s going to fall off. Even when it was September.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she teased. “And so will I.”
I scowled at her.
“I already let my apartment manager know that I was leaving. I’m flying home tomorrow morning. Your friend Odin said he’d give me a ride to the airport because my flight is leaving at six. He said he has to be somewhere by five, and can give me a ride. I’m on his way.”
I sighed. “You’re sure?”
She winked. “I’m more than sure.”
With that, she pecked me on the cheek and went back to her room just as quietly as she’d arrived.
I took myself to bed, trying not to think about what the future might hold.
Because if I did think about it, a certain curly-haired brunette was front and center, with my baby sister right there beside her.
The next morning, I was up at the crack of dawn because my sister was not a quiet person, my mind spinning a thousand miles an hour, with nobody to blame but myself.
Bernice had left an hour ago after banging around the house for an hour. Odin picked her up in his massive, loud-ass truck that woke the dead.
After they left, I counted the planks of wood on the ceiling, wondering if I brought Birdee coffee…
My phone rang, and I glanced down at it, contemplating whether I should answer it or not.
Since the number was local, I decided to answer it, but only because I sometimes had to do stuff for the club when I was a prospect that required me to answer any and all local phone calls.
“Hello?” I asked I sat up in bed then swung my legs over the side and got up.
The chilly air hit me like a slap in the face.
“Is this Creed Daugherty?”
I paused just inside the door to the bathroom before saying, “This is Creed.”
“This is Nicole Wightman with Great Dane’s. I’m sorry to have to make this phone call, but something happened to Birdee Calvert. She’s on the way to the hospital right now.”
My stomach sank. “What happened?”