18. Wes Osprey
Wes Osprey
Crane Water Tours operates out of a weathered dock at the end of a shell road.
The sign is hand-painted in bright-blue letters, sun-faded at the edges and framed by strings of plastic flamingos wearing tiny heart necklaces for festival season. Two airboats sit tied beneath a tin-roof shelter, their metal fans caged and gleaming behind wide flat decks.
The air smells like gasoline, river mud, old rope, and the fried shrimp basket somebody is eating in the office with zero respect for investigative urgency.
Scarlet steps out of my truck before I can open the door for her.
My alpha objects with a low growl before I can stop it.
She glances back over her shoulder. “Was that directed at me?”
“No.”
“Liar.” Her skirt catches in the swamp breeze, bright fabric brushing her calves. The velvet top from earlier clings closer in the humidity, outlining curves my hands already know.
I know how her body opens beneath patient touch, how her scent turns rich when she comes, and how quickly she reaches for humor afterward to keep tenderness from seeing too much.
There is an ache beneath Scarlet’s sharp tongue, a grief pretending to be humor because softness is too dangerous.
I want to teach her that softness doesn’t have to come at a cost.
Loose hair whips across her cheek as she looks toward the docks, her green eyes sharpening with a familiarity I don’t share. She belongs out here with the water, and wild green corridors missing from official maps. She stands in the sun like a woman this town can wound but never uproot.
My instincts want her close enough to touch, want me wrapped around her and her kept safe. But I keep my hands to myself because wild beauty isn’t meant to be caged.
A man steps out of the office wearing board shorts, a faded Crane Water Tours shirt, and the effortless grin of someone who has never been properly afraid of anything in his life.
Blond curls fall across his forehead. His skin is sun-browned, his expression is open, and his attention moves straight to Scarlet.
“Scarlet Sage,” he says, delighted. “Alive, armed with a badass attitude, and finally accepting my superior transportation services.”
Scarlet folds her arms. “Ollie Crane.”
“That sounded almost fond.”
“It wasn’t.”
He presses a hand to his chest. “Devastating.” Ollie looks at me. “You must be the scary investigator.”
“I’m the one paying attention.”
“Nice. The swamp punishes daydreamers.”
Scarlet gestures toward him. “He owns the boats. Don’t encourage his personality.”
Ollie’s grin widens. “Too late. I came preassembled.”
I don’t need to like him to use his boat. I also don’t need to turn a local man’s harmless attention into a territorial performance Scarlet wouldn’t stand for. That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy his face.
He leads us toward the larger airboat, boots thudding against the sun-warmed boards. “Pepper said east marsh in the old flood channel, looking for possible contamination. She also said if I flirted too much, you’d throw me overboard.”
“She was being generous,” Scarlet says.
I step onto the boat first and offer her my hand.
She places her palm in mine. Warm skin slides against my grip, and her honeyed-sage scent rises through the gasoline and muddy water. My alpha settles the instant I close my hand around hers.
Scarlet steps aboard but doesn’t release me.
Ollie clears his throat from the pilot seat. “I provide life jackets, but apparently hand-holding is also available.”
Scarlet looks at him. “Start the boat, Crane.”
“Bossy looks good on you.”
She squeezes my hand before letting go.
The engine coughs, roars, and settles into a vibrating growl that travels up through the deck and into my legs.
Scarlet sits beside me on the narrow bench, close enough that her skirt brushes my thigh when the boat pulls away from the dock.
Water sprays over the bow as we leave Crane’s weathered dock behind.
The shell-road businesses disappear first, then the last edges of town, giving way to black-water channels, tangled roots, and sunlight broken into gold pieces across the surface.
The air changes out here. It’s full of things that have been growing without permission for a long time.
Scarlet leans forward. “Take the left cut after the leaning cypress.”
Ollie tilts his head. “That route’s shallow.”
“Not after last night’s storm.”
He glances back. “You been sneaking out here without me?”
“I lived here before you discovered cargo shorts.”
“Cruel history lesson.”
The boat is turned hard, into a narrower channel.
Scarlet’s shoulder hits mine. My hand goes automatically to her waist to steady her. Her palm lands against my chest while my fingers spread over the velvet covering her side. Heat moves between us.
The engine’s vibration travels through the bench and into the point where her thigh presses against mine. Her breath catches, and honey warms through her scent.
I look down at her. “You good?” My voice comes out rougher than I want it to.
Scarlet looks at the water ahead. “I’m always good.”
Her fingers tighten around the edge of the bench as she says it and I know it’s a lie she believes.
My thumb moves once along her waist before I make myself release her. She stays pressed against my side for another breath.
Then the channel straightens, and she sits back.
The route narrows further. Branches claw at the air above us while the engine’s roar bounces off the trees until the swamp seems full of mechanical thunder. I force my attention onto the work.
“We’re looking for signs of repeated access,” I tell her. “Disturbed banks. Residue along the waterline.”
She glances at me. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Not like this.”
“But close.”
“Close enough to know waste can leave a trail, even when the operation moves.”
Her fingers tighten around the bench’s edge.
Ollie slows the boat as we enter a shaded pocket, where cypress roots rise through the water like knuckled hands.
The air cools beneath the trees, heavy with mud, algae, and flowers blooming somewhere beyond sight.
Branches lace overhead until light reaches the water in broken amber pieces.
The swamp presses close enough to feel like a tunnel.
Scarlet’s breathing becomes too careful beside me.
“Scarlet?”
“I know this place.” The words sound farther away than she is.
Ollie eases the boat toward a half-sunken dock hidden beneath vines. “This isn’t on my tour map.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Scarlet says.
I scan the dock. Fresh scrapes mark the wood where a boat must have rubbed against the pilings. Reeds near the bank are cut low, clean rather than broken by weather. Then I see the water. A faint iridescent sheen gathers near the dock’s shadow, rainbow-thin over black.
“There.”
Scarlet turns too fast. Her green eyes lock on mine, bright and wrong. “You think I brought you here on purpose.”
The words cut through the engine noise.
Ollie looks back.
I turn toward her without touching. “No.”
“You asked how I knew the route.”
“I asked because you know the swamp.”
Her face drains of color. “That’s what they all say at first. You think I’m behind this, that I’m the one breaking bonds.”
The fear in her voice doesn’t match what I said.
Her reaction looks too much like the distortion I’ve seen in GatorX cases.
I have seen that wild look in motel rooms and hospital bays.
GatorX victims turn reassurance into accusation and care into threat when the drug corrupts what passes through an established bond.
But Scarlet isn’t bonded. There is no bite bond between us for GatorX to scramble that way. Which means either I’m looking at ordinary fear that looks like GatorX distortion, or whatever is happening here reaches farther than we already understand.
I lower my voice. “Listen to me. I’m not accusing you.”
Her gaze moves to my hands, then my face, then the water. “That’s what Tom did. He brought the file and waited for me to make it worse.”
“I’m not Tom.”
“You’re an investigator.”
“Yes.”
“You saw my grandmother’s note.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re looking at me like evidence.”
That lands closer than I want it to. I have been looking. At the way she reacts before she speaks. At the knowledge she carries. At the swamp responding to her presence in ways I don’t understand.
I’ve also been looking at her mouth. Her body.
The places my hands have touched and the places they haven’t yet.
I haven’t been neutral about Scarlet Sage since I scented her in the bakery.
I’m not going to insult her by pretending otherwise.
“I’m looking at you because you’re scared,” I say.
“And because I want you. Neither one makes you guilty.”
Her breath catches. The air between us thickens despite the shade.
Ollie kills the engine.
The sudden silence leaves only water lapping against metal, insects humming in the leaves, and Scarlet’s uneven breathing.
I hold out my hand, palm up. “I won’t grab you or make you stay on this boat if you want off. No moving closer unless you ask.”
Her scent trembles through the humid air.
My alpha hates the distance.
Scarlet swallows. “You sound like you practiced that.”
“I learned from watching people get hurt when nobody gave them choices.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and I watch her fight with what she knows. Fear pulls her one way, recognition pulls her the other, the two of them visible in the tightness around her mouth and the grip of her hands against the bench.
Then she puts her hand in mine. Carefully. As if she is deciding with every inch.
Her fingers curl against my palm, and warmth spreads through me from the point of contact. Her body shudders once, barely visible. Then her breathing eases and her scent warms enough that every instinct I have digs deep into restraint.
She keeps holding my hand even while fear remains sharp in her scent. Whatever she’s fighting, I’m not doing much better.
“That’s it,” I say. “Stay with what’s real.”
Her laugh comes out shaky. “That sounds very official.”
“I can make it technical if you want.”
“Please don’t.”
Ollie, to his credit, keeps his mouth shut.
She shifts closer until our knees touch. “I need more than your hand,” she says.
Every thought in my head stops. I look at her face. “Tell me.”
“Closer.” Scarlet turns toward me and climbs partly across the narrow bench, one knee pressing between my thighs. I catch her hips before the boat can tilt her backward.
Her arms circle my shoulders. Then she kisses me.
This kiss isn’t careful. Her mouth opens over mine with fear, anger, and need wound together so tightly, I can’t separate one from the others.
I pull her against my chest, one hand firm at her waist and the other sliding into her hair. Her body settles over my thigh.
The engine heat and damp air disappear beneath cedar, honey, and the soft sound she makes when I kiss her deeper.
She rocks once against me, and pleasure moves through her scent. My hand tightens at her hip.
“Scarlet.”
“I know where we are.”
“You’re sure?”
“I need you.” She grips my hair and kisses me again.
That answers that.
I drag my mouth down her throat, stopping before the place a bite would go. My cheek brushes her skin instead, and I lay my scent over her pulse. She purrs. The vibration travels straight through my chest.
Scarlet rolls her hips again, slower this time, using the pressure of my thigh. Her breath breaks against my ear. I keep my hands at her waist.
“Use me,” I tell her.
She shudders. The next movement is harder. Her fingers dig into my shoulders while she grinds against my thigh, chasing relief with no room left for embarrassment. I kiss her until her breathing turns ragged. Her scent opens warm and slick-sweet through the shaded air.
Then a branch cracks beyond the cypress stand.
Scarlet freezes against me.
I turn toward the sound, keeping one arm around her while I scan the trees. Nothing moves.
Ollie’s easy expression disappears.
Scarlet’s hand closes in my shirt.
We aren’t alone.