3. Wombat
Chapter Three
Wombat
My sister, Lemon, sat on the porch as I parked my Indian Dark Horse near the front steps.
Clustered around her were the Red Lab, Reba, a Bernadoodle named Cinnamon, and Jillian’s French Bulldog with the horrific name of Isabella Tortellini.
I’m sure Jilly thought she was being funny naming the poor thing that.
Under Cinnamon, Sweet-ums poked her head out. He was a timid little Papillion with a Napoleon complex as soon as his nearsighted ass figured out you weren’t a stranger. His real name was Reese’s Pieces.
And then there was DA.
Or, as I called him, “Dumb Ass.”
DA was an American Bully with a stupid streak that just wouldn’t quit. He ran right up to my bike, threatening me with his slobbering tongue kisses before I shut the damn thing off. “Chill, Dumb Ass.”
“Hey, Rand-Dum.”
My sister wasn’t being nice this evening, using her nickname for me. I used one of Walt’s lines. “Who shit in your Cheerios?”
She crossed her arms. “You.”
“Bullshit. Who?”
Lemon shook her head. But she dropped a huge clue. “If I tell you, you’re going to get in trouble again. And let me remind you, you’re out on bail right now.”
Like that was a factor. “Lemme guess, Tim the toxic Tinder turd?” Lemon dated him for all of two seconds. But like a bad penny, he kept turning up everywhere since.
She winced. “I’ve got it under control.”
That was a lie. “Say the word. I’ll take care of it.” Permanently.
Her frown told me she wouldn’t to me for help. Maybe I needed to get the club on it? We were light on body count this week. Of course, we’d used up almost a year’s worth last week, so maybe it wasn’t a good time to ask Walt for anything.
“Do me one favor, lose the coat.” She twirled her finger at me on the bike.
“No can do.”
“You’re going to scare off a new customer.”
That’s why she was waiting outside. “Fine.” I took the coat off and turned it inside out before tucking it away into a saddlebag.
We needed the scratch. Pop-pop’s farm ate money faster than Lemon’s rescues did.
If it weren’t for the money coming in from the Destroyers, we’d be homeless. “What’s this new customer do?”
“I don’t know, but she sounded nice.”
“Nice doesn’t pay the bills.”
Lemon snapped her fingers. “Oh, duh. Why didn’t I think of that earlier? We’re broke because you’re an asshole.”
You’d think I’d be used to her smart-ass mouth after twenty-three years. But the first two years she hadn’t been verbal yet. That’s when she was cute. Now she was a—
A car I didn’t recognize crawled up the gravel road.
“Oh good, there she is. Play nice, idiot.”
My sister worried too much about stupid shit.
The BMW rolled to a stop in front of the house. Lemon snapped her fingers and four out of the five dogs sat at attention.
Dumb Ass did what he normally did. Stand by the newcomer’s door with his tail wagging, waiting for a good crotch sniff.
How else was he going to find out if the human was nice or not?
I changed my mind about his intelligence as soon as one long leg stuck out the door.
Dumb Ass was a savant getting his nose right up under that skirt and into that crotch.
My dick hardened, making it a mental struggle to swing my leg over my bike or let the dog get a whiff of heaven before I put a stop to it.
A beautiful Rough Collie crawled into the front seat and poor Honoria Ryder was sandwiched between a doggie drool machine and a fur factory.
That wouldn’t do. I quickly adjusted so walking wouldn’t be painful. Then I whistled. “Dumb Ass! Butt on gravel.”
DA put his balls to the dirt. His tail wagged so hard that little rocks flew into the air. His front paws pranced as Honoria wrangled her dog’s leash.
“Sorry, Molly is excited.”
She was apologizing for her dog being a dog? I held out my hand for the leash. “Let me.”
Her eyes met mine. I knew when the recognition hit. “Random.”
Yeah, that was my name.
“I prefer Wombat, remember?”
She sighed, then rallied. “Apologies. Here.” She gave me the loop of the leash, then quickly introduced Molly to the situation.
That was good dog parenting.
Molly hopped out, and Dumb Ass forgot his manners. I warned him again, “Dumb Ass?”
His butt went down, and he stared at me like I owed him. “I know. She’s pretty, but at least buy her dinner before you go horn dog on her.”
He wouldn’t understand, but his tongue flopped out as if I had the best ideas in the world. Poor Molly, though.
No sooner than she got a load of the trees and the open sky above her, she started shaking. “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. You got friends here. I know you don’t know that right now, but you will. I promise.”
I never made promises I couldn’t keep. Especially not to frightened animals.
Honoria got out of the car. Her suit was wrinkled and covered in Molly’s fur. Her hair had fallen loose from its tight bun, and her makeup was smeared.
“Rough day?”
“Are you Lemon’s brother?”
I nodded.
Her eyes went from my little, but not littlest, sister to me and back.
There was a strong family resemblance, both of us having straw-colored hair with red undertones and freckled skin.
Lemon’s round face made her look cute. Mine made me look like a baby.
I’d gotten shit about it my entire life. Once they got over the name thing.
The name, Random Blessing, wasn’t normal.
Neither was Lemon Summerchild. But it wasn’t our fault our parents were weird.
My oldest sister got the benefit of having a real last name, being Sonnet Calvert.
She was born before my parents found out they could put whatever fool thing they liked on the birth certificate.
Calvert was my Mom’s last name. Dad’s was pronounced, “Koh-burn” but was spelled with the first four letters, c-o-c-k.
There wasn’t any way, shape, or form I’d take that name.
I caught enough shit for two lifetimes with the combo I had.
Besides, I actually liked my last name, Blessing.
It was proof my parents cared about me at one time.
It’s the other part I could do without. The story, often joked about, went like this.
Mom’s dad was angry his daughter had yet another kid with the slacker before they both were twenty.
He’d overheard the ideas being tossed around for Baby Calvert the second and yelled out, “You can’t just give random names to a child.
” Mom and Dad looked at each other and basically said, “WATCH US DO JUST THAT.”
My youngest sister was named Hallelujah Nox. She lived in Oregon with Mom and Dad. No one thought her name was weird there.
I held my free hand out to Honoria. “Nice to see you again.”
Lemon walked up with the dogs in tow, saving me from making small talk with the club’s lawyer. She made animal introductions, skipping me. “… and that’s DA. He’s not as stupid as my brother says he is.”
Oh, yes, he was. Like many male things, he was motivated by two things, food and sex. Thank god I’d gotten him neutered before he became a menace to society. Otherwise, he’d be just like me.
I dug in my pants and pulled out a stick of jerky for DA. I broke off a piece for Molly. She sniffed it but remained in place. Interesting. Definitely a diva like her mom.
I tried a different tactic. “You’re a good girl, Molly.”
Her eyes shot to mine. Her tail thumped once.
I knew it. “Yeah, good girl.” I deliberately made the words come out as a low rumble to see if they riled Honoria.
Her cheeks colored slightly. “I didn’t think she liked low voices.”
I stared into her eyes. “You do.”
Lemon cleared her throat and slapped the back of my head. “I told you to behave.”
“Never.”
“My neighbor tells me you do wildlife rescues.”
I let Lemon take the lead on that because I didn’t like the way Honoria stared at me. Much more of that sultry-eyed hero-worship and I’d forget we had bills to pay and drag Honoria on a tour of the farm. One of those stops was certain to be the barn loft or my garage apartment.
Because I was a sucker for two things. Older women and long legs.
Honoria had both of those characteristics in banging style. And that had me following her like a starving dog while Lemon showed her around the farm.
About halfway through, Honoria’s phone rang. She apologized profusely, claiming she had to take the call. She walked a little distance away.
That gave me an opportunity to talk to my sister. “She’s a lawyer.”
Lemon’s face lit up, then she groaned. “Don’t tell me you know her.”
I nodded. “My lawyer.”
“How in the hell did I get cursed with you?”
I nudged her so she’d keep her volume down.
But there was no need. Honoria’s volume had increased, too.
“We talked about this, Jim. She’s stressed because of the back and forth.”
There was a pause. Whatever “Jim” was saying was old news to her because Honoria practically screamed her frustration aloud. Instead, she shot an aggravated face at the sky before putting the phone back to her ear. “I’ll pay for the damages to the door.”
His reply was almost loud enough to hear. As it was, Honoria leaned away from the phone’s speaker to protect her hearing.
She waited until he wound down. “Then maybe I should have full custody.”
Custody? Damn, Honoria had kids?
Would that be a deal-breaker? My mind went down a rabbit hole no sane, horny, twenty-something’s brain should.
Lemon jabbed me in the ribs to get my attention. She tipped her head toward the barn so we wouldn’t eavesdrop on the conversation.
That wouldn’t fly. I needed to know if she had kids or not.
Didn’t I?
Honoria took a deep breath to calm herself. “I know you’re going through a rough time right now. You need to focus on your…” she swallowed whatever she wanted to say and continued, “…wife. Okay? I won’t push this, but perhaps we could agree on a temporary change?”
A muscle in her jaw twitched as whatever Jim was saying didn’t align with her suggestion.
“Let me call you back.”
Whoever was on the line wasn’t done, and wouldn’t let her exit the conversation gracefully. Her eyes went to the sky. When she refocused on her surroundings, she caught me staring. Her frown deepened. She pointed at the phone and mouthed, “Ex.”
Oh. The asshole. I let Lemon know the skinny. “Her ex is a lawyer, too.”
“You know both of them? Jesus. Why don’t you just move into the courthouse?”
I didn’t know either of them biblically. Although I wouldn’t mind getting to know Honoria like that. “Let me handle this, okay?”
Lemon grimaced. “We need this client. Don’t forget that.”
“Right, right. Money over sanity. You know, I suspect we’re not related.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe one of these dark nights I’ll be one brother less if you get my drift?” Lemon tromped off to wrangle the animals and finish the afternoon’s chores. I hung back at a distance while Honoria finished her call.
She stared at the trees and the buildings after she put her phone away.
“If you need a few more minutes, I’ll…uh…” I pointed a thumb toward the house.
Honoria shook herself. “No, I’m good. I just… I have a question. I know the opening was for a part-time day care for Molly. Lemon said I could bring her on Mondays and the Thursday-Friday set. But—”
I could sense her cold feet coming on. “Any day is fine.” Lemon would kill me if she only agreed to one day a week. “We’re good.”
We weren’t, because Lemon was maxed out, and we couldn’t afford another employee. I’d been trying to be here more often, but the Destroyers kept me running. Thank goodness I wasn’t a prospect. That was one long blur of 24/7 shit jobs.
“Can you take Molly on for the whole week?”
I tried to keep my face from breaking into a grin. Lemon would be stoked. “I think we can make room. Molly’s a sweetheart. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
No sooner than I spoke her name, the dog perked up her ears. That was one thing I loved about collies. They had such expressive ears. You knew exactly what they were tuned into, and how excited they were just by those fuzzy points. I held out my hand. “You definitely are a sweetheart, aren’t you?”
Making a liar out of me, Molly strained her lead and pulled Honoria off balance. I caught her as she fell forward. The leash went slack, and Molly quickly looped a circle around us, practically yanking us both to the ground.
Honoria’s tits were smashed against my chest.
She looked up with her hair falling loose into her eyes. “Can you work on lead training, too?”
As much as I’d love to help her with that, I kind of liked this new problem.
With a little lift, and the agonizing sensation of her body sliding along mine, I got her feet under her again.
“Can I train her to only trip you while you’re with me?”
Something flashed in Honoria’s eyes. It wasn’t anger. “Do you flirt with everyone?”
“No. Only the prettiest women. Trust me.” And to prove she could trust me, I let her go and untangled the leash around our legs. Then whistled to get Molly’s attention. It took a simple point at the ground to make her sit.
“See? She’s completely trainable. Smart dog. I bet she gets that from her owner.” Our eyes met. Honoria’s mouth was slightly open, as if she had been caught in the act of a gasp. She closed it slowly. A sly smile curled on her lips.
“Do you do the training yourself?”
My mind went somewhere that didn’t involve animals. And with those thoughts, I swept my gaze down her sleek body and back. With a cock-eyed grin of my own, I replied, “With the right ladies.”