Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Valentina
Apparently I’m so far out in the sticks Heaven doesn’t have a gun range.
Sounds a bit more like hell if you ask me.
Deuce assures me there’s a very safe clearing out by Jasper Lake where all the locals go to shoot.
I’d be concerned about the redneck nature of just shooting out in a field somewhere, but Deuce is almost as bougie as I am, so if he says it’s fine, I’m going to trust him.
I know, I’m shocked too.
He invited his friends Silas and Rhett, which suits me just fine.
I like to kick the asses of men in areas they think they have buttoned up so the more the merrier.
The two boys are already there when Deuce and I pull up in his Mercedes.
It has a light coating of dust and grime on it.
I watch the way Deuce’s lip curls when he sees how dirty his precious car’s gotten on the drive up to the clearing. I roll my eyes.
“I have some protective headphones for you, baby,” Deuce says, coming around the car to help me out.
“Oh good. These guns are just so loud,” I drawl in a sweet-Southern-belle tone that makes him lift an eyebrow. I can play my part. For now.
The men get set up, several handguns and one shotgun between them.
They hang paper targets on the structure across the clearing that’s obviously been made just for this activity.
I’m relieved to see them all use proper safety when handling the weapons.
Maybe I’ve judged them too harshly based on where they live.
And besides, below their hats, neither of Deuce’s friends have a neck that’s anything but lightly tanned.
They take turns, emptying each weapon and comparing targets.
They’re all pretty good shots, but if I had to rank them, Silas is the worst. When he misses the mark, he chuckles, which then makes the next shot unsteady too.
Rhett’s pretty good. I can tell he grew up shooting on the regular.
But Deuce is even better, both in accuracy and speed, which provides quite a bit of relief considering he could be an asset if it came down to it.
“Ohh, great job, honeybear!” I squeal from the car where I’ve been leaning against the hood.
I see Deuce’s spine stiffen.
The boys slap each other’s backs and boast about their shooting ability like men exaggerating the size of the fish they caught. It’s enough to make me want to puke.
“Mind if I try, fellas?”
All three heads spin in my direction. I saunter over and pick up the handgun Deuce brought, taking up a spot over by the last intact target.
The grip is a little larger than I’d prefer for my hand size, but totally manageable.
Silas hands me the clip, already refilled.
I thank him and slide it in with a decisive click. I look right, then left.
“Could y’all give me some room?”
Silas and Rhett immediately step back. Deuce just gives me a look that says to watch myself.
I glare right back. My thumb flips the safety off and I take up a wider stance.
Despite the floral dress, I wore flats today, just to get some practice in.
Normally I wear stilettos, so my aim might be a bit off.
I take one long breath in and then release it.
Everything fades into the background and it’s just me and a woman’s best defense.
With a gun in my hand I’m every bit as powerful as any man out there, a feeling that gives me enormous pleasure.
I squeeze the trigger…center mass, center mass, head.
I repeat that rhythm until I’m out of bullets and there’s only two perfect holes burned into the paper.
I slap the gun down on the makeshift table, barrel pointed down range, and step back.
I pull off the headphones and shake out my hair.
A squirrel or a bird somewhere close by in the brush moves around, but otherwise, there’s dead silence.
Remembering I’m not here alone, I look over at Deuce. He’s got his eyebrows drawn together staring at my target, arms crossed over his well-dressed chest. He looks hot in a dark gray suit vest, standing on a gun range. Silas clears his throat, a lopsided grin stretching across his handsome face.
“Remind me not to piss you off, Landry,” he drawls, breaking the tension.
Rhett chuckles. “I should have you give Mary London lessons. She downright refuses to try the shotgun but I have a feeling you’d be good with that weapon too.”
“You’d be right,” I answer before I can think it through. Before I can slide back into being Landry, all giggles and easy-breezy femininity.
Deuce unfurls his arms and puts his hands on my shoulders. He’s lost the fierce look and is back to wagging his eyebrows over a smirky grin. The man knows how to flirt, I’ll give him that. “I’m a little bit afraid of you, baby. That kind of competence is hotter than hell.”
“Okay!” Silas barks out with a laugh. “That’s our cue to leave, Rhett. Let’s give these two lovebirds some alone time.”
The two guys take their weapons and head for the truck they came in together. Deuce and I try to get them to stay, but they say they can’t. Wives, kids, and work duties are calling. When they’re nothing but a dust cloud, I turn back to Deuce.
“Let’s do one more round. Two targets. We’ll shoot at the same time.”
He scoffs. “Why? So you can win and lord it over me?”
I lean into his chest and wonder if he does pushups every day to get his pectoral muscles that large and firm. “I’ll shoot leftie.”
He snorts. “That’s even worse.”
I laugh and push off of him. “Come on, scaredy-cat. Just one round and then we’ll go. Think of it as practice under pressure.”
“Fine,” he sighs. “You reload, I’ll go hang the targets.” He starts to walk down the range, but twists to glare at me over his shoulder. “Don’t you dare shoot me in the back, woman.”
I stick my tongue out at him and get busy loading the magazines.
He’s wrong about that urge for violence.
I don’t want to shoot the man—today—but I do find myself sneaking glances at his ass in those suit pants.
Goodness gracious, he must tailor them to perfection to hug the firm curve of his ass like that.
He was always handsome and cocky, one of the reasons I slept with him when I was a naive seventeen-year-old, but he’s added a fully developed physique to his arsenal since then.
Layer on the doting-son act the other day and he’s more lethal than I am with this fully loaded gun in hand.
“Alright, let’s get this humiliation over with,” he grumbles, coming back around the table to grab the larger of the two handguns.
I grin, already having a fabulous time. “We’ll shoot each round together. Alternating center mass and head.”
“I’ll count it out. On three.” Deuce waits until I’ve taken up my stance next to him, gun ready in my left hand. “One, two, three.”
We both fire and then check our own shot plus the other person’s. “Pretty close!”
“One, two, three.”
We both fire again, a head shot this time, and Deuce crows when my shot is a bit high and to the left. He keeps counting it out and we keep shooting. By the time we’re done, he slaps his gun down and turns to me, that smirk thicker than I’ve ever seen it.
“I gotcha on the head shots, V.”
I put my gun down and lift my nose in the air. Yes, my head shots were not dead center. “Do you though?” I point to my target.
He looks at me in confusion and then looks at my target again. “Motherfucker,” he spits quietly.
My laugh rings out, scaring a bird out of the tree off to our left.
“I gotta piss,” he mumbles, turning toward the two porta-potties you couldn’t pay me to step foot into. “Winner has to clean up.”
I’m still laughing. “Poor loser!”
My target has one burnt hole in the center of the body and six holes in the head. Two eyes and one smiling mouth. I made a smiley face with my head shots.
I get busy cleaning up our weapons and putting them back in their cases. I’m just about to put them in the car when I hear a hiss that lifts the hair on the back of my neck. I turn slowly, scanning the scene for the threat.
There.
A snake on top of one of the porta-potties.
Without needing to look, I pull out one of the handguns and reload it.
The snake is frozen hanging down from the roof of the porta-potty like it’s been lying there in the pile of leaves for awhile.
It’s got the classic dark brown hourglass-shaped crossbands. Fuckity fuck. It’s a copperhead.
Think, Valentina! Is that the porta-potty Deuce went into?
Copperheads won’t mess with you if you leave them alone. But if Deuce swings that door open now, he’ll whack the snake in the head and it’ll surely strike back.
“Deuce?” I call out, gun down but at the ready. I inch forward, brain whirling with what I should do. I’m not great reading wildlife. People? Sure. But snakes out in the country?
“What?” he calls back.
“There’s a copperhead on top of the porta-potty!” I say it urgently but quietly, not wanting to startle the slithering fella.
“Relax, V. There’s no cops out here. Besides, shooting on this land is fine. It’s owned by Silas’s dad,” he hollers back.
“No. A copperhead,” I say with better enunciation.
“What? I can’t hear you,” he calls back.
I look to the heavens for some goddamn patience while not taking my eye off that snake. I don’t want to shoot the poor thing, but if Deuce comes out, it’ll attack him.
I decide to shoot in the air and see if it’ll just slither away, crisis averted. I keep the gun away from my ear and angle it upward. I squeeze the trigger, the sound louder in the peaceful summer morning than I anticipated.
Deuce lets out a yell that sounds like a little girl, the porta-potty jiggling back and forth.
“What the fuck, Valentina?” he shouts, clearly flailing in the small space.
Sadly, the snake isn’t as bothered by the shot as Deuce is. He just slithers further down in front of the door.
“Fuck,” I hiss. I have no choice. I have to shoot it.
I can’t shoot right at the dang thing or it’ll hit Deuce too.
I walk slowly to the side while Deuce continues to holler at me.
I probably have mere seconds before Deuce flies out that door and gets hit by a copperhead in the face.
I lift the gun and squeeze off three rounds, not hitting the snake, but getting close enough he drops to the ground and slithers off into the brush in the opposite direction.
The porta-potty door flies open and Deuce comes out in a dramatic tuck and roll, his poor suit taking the brunt of the exit. He flips on the ground, getting as low as possible, his hands over his head. Honestly, that shit looked professional. He could be FBI with that tuck and roll.
“What the fuck?” he screams.
I throw back my head and laugh so hard I swear to God I pull a rib muscle. Deuce whips his head left and right, then army crawls across the dirt to my side where he grabs the gun out of my hand and throws it away from us.
“What the actual fuck, V? Are you trying to kill me?”
Deuce is standing now, his suit covered in dirt and grime.
His pants aren’t buttoned and half his shirt tail is untucked.
There’s even a streak of something liquid across his cheek that I don’t want to investigate.
He’s pissed, hands gripping my shoulders to give me a not-so-gentle shake. And still, I can’t stop laughing.
“It…was…a snake!” I say, so breathless it’s hard to get the words out. “About…to bite…you.”
Deuce’s mouth is hanging open as he tries to make sense of my garbled explanation. He finally releases me and heads over to collect the gun out of the dirt and dry leaves.
“Why the fuck were you shooting the porta-potty, then?”
I double over with another round of laughter at his indignant tone while he says porta-potty. Not even pissed-off Deuce in a suit can make the words porta-potty proper.
He clears the gun and pockets the remaining bullets like he’s still concerned I’ll shoot him. “I’d be so fucking pissed if you shot me in the shitter, Valentina.”
That takes me out. My ass lands in the dirt. I’m hysterical with laughter at this point. Tears sting my eyes. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard.
“Seriously. I’d never forgive you. I’d haunt you from the grave.”
Goddamn, he’s still talking! He waits me out though, which is good because it takes a solid ten minutes for me to collect myself. I wipe my eyes and take several long breaths, a decisive wheeze audible in my inhales.
“I wasn’t shooting at you, Deuce,” I finally say. “I was shooting at the copperhead that was on the roof of the porta-potty, ready to strike as you exited. I saved your goddamn life.”
Deuce scoffs, though his eyes go wide. He ambles over to the porta-potty and points at a bullet hole I didn’t see until now. “You just made a smiley face on that target, but you couldn’t hit the damn snake?”
I shrug, averting my eyes from the bullet hole that’s way too close to where Deuce must have been. Damn. I can’t believe I missed the snake either. “I guess not.”
Deuce throws his arms down, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.”
I get to my feet and dust off my backside. This dress needs to run through the washing machine before I can wear it into town. Same with Deuce’s suit, though I doubt it’ll ever be the same, which is such a shame.
“Well, the good news is that I trust your shooting now. You’re pretty good.”
Deuce gives me a look even dirtier than his suit. “Well, now I don’t trust yours!”
He opens his door angrily. I grab the gun cases and throw them in the back seat, feeling a touch guilty. Though, honestly, in my line of work, if no one ends up dead, that’s a pretty good outcome. “Calm down.”
“Don’t. Tell me. To calm. Down,” he thunders as I get in the car.
Seeing the wild look in his eyes just has me breaking down into another round of giggles that lasts until we pull up to his house to change clothes.