Home > Filthy Cowboy(3)

Filthy Cowboy(3)
Author: Liza Street

Shaking his head and still wearing that look of amusement, Jase returned to the ring of tires. There, Jase’s mate, Blythe, stood waiting with a mason jar of Noah’s moonshine in her hand and sparkles in her eyes. Her love for Jase shone true.

Stetson spit blood to the frozen ground, rubbed the blood off one of his cracked knuckles. It had been a good fight, pure. No anger in it, other than the short moment where he’d needed to remind his jaguar side that they were okay.

The two brothers, Dallas and Weston, rushed into the ring. Big, blocky builds. Just like bears. They laughed at first, treating the fight as a game. Then Dallas—or maybe it was Weston—landed a good hit on the other’s face, and the laughter ended.

Stetson leaned back on his heels, caught the eye of Noah Ephraimson. A crate of mason jars sat at Noah’s feet, each one full of clear liquid.

Noah nodded and reached into the crate, pulled out a jar. “Loser’s consolation?”

“Thanks,” Stetson said, accepting the drink. The alcohol was harsh on his throat, but he was used to it. The sting against his cut lip was less pleasant, but it would fade soon as he healed.

“Are you going to fight again tonight?” Noah asked.

Stetson shook his head.

“Back to your books, huh?” Noah ran a hand over his blond hair, recently cropped close to his skull. His ice-gray eyes were inquisitive.

“Maybe.” Stetson took another gulp of moonshine, lifted the jar toward Noah in a salute. “Thanks again.”

Leaving the comforting lights of the fighting ring, Stetson made his way toward his den—an old blue van, rusting along the sides, but in good enough shape to keep out the damp. He didn’t need much space, just enough for the few books he kept, and a bed. A small room for a toilet and sink off to the side, framed by two old ladders and hard plastic siding. Not much insulation to be found here. Thankfully, being cold wasn’t an issue because he was a shifter.

It was a far cry from his old ranch in Colorado, but now he wouldn’t change it for anything. Too many memories in Colorado.

When he reached the van, moonshine in his hand, he stopped short. A man stood by the door—a man who used to be a Junkyard shifter but had gotten out of this place. He had light brown hair that looked darker in the night, and green eyes that flashed reflected light from the edge of the fighting ring behind Stetson.

“Grant,” Stetson said.

“Hey,” Grant said, lifting a hand. “Is that Ephraimson’s moonshine?”

“Sure is. Want some?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Grant took the proffered jar.

Stetson waited. Grant hadn’t returned to the Junkyard since getting out last spring. Yeah, he’d come around, but he always stayed at the periphery, never entering the Junkyard proper. It was only a few months ago the shifters had learned that the people who got out were able come and go over the magical boundary wall as they pleased. To see Grant on the inside, though, was a new development.

Stetson’s inner jaguar raised its fur. He didn’t like new developments.

After handing back the moonshine, Grant said, “I heard something. A guy named Jamal Kingston got in touch with me on the shifter forum message boards. You know him?”

Stetson froze. Fuck. Fuck. Jamal Kingston. It was a name he hadn’t spoken since March. The last face from his home he’d seen before coming to the Junkyard. “What’d he want?”

“He had a message for you. I don’t know if I should say sorry for your loss, or what. He asked me to tell you that Golena and Major are dead.”

A savage pleasure ripped through Stetson. Golena and Major had been a part of the trafficking ring. Their deaths were nothing but an improvement to the planet, as far as Stetson was concerned.

Grant was watching him carefully, but Stetson was careful not to show any emotion. Stetson was fucking good at schooling his features. He’d had to be, after so long undercover.

“Thanks for the message,” Stetson said.

“You need to talk about anything?” Grant asked.

“Nope.”

“Succinct as always,” Grant said with a chuckle. “Okay, man. You know where to find me if you need something.”

“I do. Appreciate it.”

Grant pushed off of the edge of the van and walked away. Stetson stood in place for a long moment, waiting for the clarity that came with solitude.

Instead of clarity, his mind’s eye showed him Golena’s grinning face as he’d taunted a young woman. Then he saw Major’s lithe jaguar form—spotted, unlike Stetson’s completely black fur—stalking another woman. Major had set her free and told her to run. He’d made a game of the woman’s terror.

They were images Stetson couldn’t forget, no matter how much he tried. Moonshine wasn’t enough. Fighting only brought it to the forefront of his mind. The only hope he had was of losing himself in words, words, words.

Stepping into the van, he picked up a book at random. A piece of pale blue paper fell from the pages. He sighed, shoulders easing. Dew. He didn’t need a book, he needed her letters. It was her words that soothed his beast.

He sniffed the paper. Clover. Mint. Her scent. It was all he knew about her—her scent and her first name. Safer this way. He wouldn’t tell her his name. He felt bad about that. He’d love to see the way her careful cursive formed the whole of it.

This note was among the first of their correspondence, dated in May.

S—

Thank you for your letter. It sounds like your friend, J, is a good one, and I’m glad you have someone like that in your life.

I very much enjoyed Louise Glück’s Meadowlands. You’re right—it’s a fascinating callback to The Odyssey. My recommendation for you is Brenda Hillman’s Bright Existence, if you’ve already read everything of Glück’s. I’m taking the liberty of adding it to your book delivery this week, but of course I won’t be offended if you don’t read it.

You might be wondering what I thought of the poem you enclosed. It took my breath away, S. Please send more.

Yours,

Dew

 

 

Stetson breathed in again, opening his mouth slightly to pull in more of her fading scent. There it was again. Clover. Just a touch of mint. Dew. And that word, before her name. Yours.

Fuck right, she was his.

No. That was his jaguar side thinking. His human side refused. She couldn’t be his, no matter how much he wanted her.

He wondered what she thought of his last poem. He should be careful and hold himself back, but he’d been sending more and more of his heart and his yearning to this woman. The taste, the scent of rounded nights / The curve of thighs… What the hell had he been thinking, sending that to her? It was too much, too obvious that he wanted her.

Still, she didn’t have to know he was a shifter prisoner, sentenced to live out the rest of his days in a junkyard. She didn’t even know his name. Neither of them knew what the other looked like. She could have brown eyes, or green. Maybe pale blue like her notepaper. For all he knew, she was seventy years old—and that wouldn’t change his feelings at all. Her soul was evanescent and shone through every word she wrote to him.

Poetry. Letters. A deep friendship based on words.

That’s all this was, all it could ever be.

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