“You are so full of shit, your eyes are brown,” Zach declared.
“Doubtful, since I drink a glass of prune juice every day.”
Over the noise of them arguing, the oddest sound started and grew louder. A whirring, whistling, then an object flashed by. The shoe caught Joe in the face.
Joe reeled, and Zach laughed. “Looks like Nonna is pissed at you.”
Whir. Wing. Whack.
Zach recoiled. “Nonna!” He held a hand to his gut. “Where’s the love?”
“What love? You’re strangers to me. Ungrateful brats who never visit,” a woman declared as she stepped out of the woods. She was short. So very short. With steely gray, coiled hair, and a pink tracksuit that glittered. No shoes.
“You can’t blame me for not visiting. You’ve been gone since Christmas on that cruise. You got back like what? Three days ago?” Joe declared.
“Three days of no love,” she argued as she neared.
Neffi chose that moment to exit the car with her tail held high. The moment she saw Nonna, she hissed.
Nonna grinned. “What a good boy, bringing me fresh meat.”
“Don’t you dare eat my cat!” Zach reached for Neffi, who swiped and drew blood.
“For hurting my grandbaby, I’ll make you into mittens, too,” Nonna declared.
Joe threw himself in front. “Over my dead body.”
“It should be enough to feed the gang for crib night.” Nonna eyed him, and Fluffy wondered if she planned to serve him raw or cooked. With his puffy middle, Joe would be crunchy.
“You eat people’s faces?” Fluffy asked, her voice low and guttural.
“Whenever I get a chance,” Nonna boasted.
Fluffy rubbed her hands together. “Yum. Do you have salt or ketchup?” Her two new favorite things.
Nonna cocked her head. “Who do you want to eat, child?”
“You. Then him.” She pointed to the fellow watching from the hammock.
“Fluffy, what did I say about eating people?” Zach admonished.
She pouted. “Nonna said I could.”
Nonna snuffled. “Who is this crazy girl? I like her. Come with me. I’ll give you something better than an old wrinkly face.”
“Bacon?” she asked, following the little old lady’s quick pace.
“You like bacon?”
She nodded. “And hamburgers. And fries.”
Nonna laughed. “Well then, how about bacon and pancakes, with home fries and juice? Maybe a few eggs. Some toast. You like jam?”
“Yes!” Fluffy followed her stomach and the woman who promised to fill it.
Chapter Eleven
“I swear that girl would get in the van if you offered her candy,” Joe declared, watching Fluffy go off with Nonna.
“She would.” No denying that she lacked a certain self-preservation, which made Zach wonder how she’d survived.
“You planning to mate her?”
“What?” Zach halted rather than follow his father up the porch steps. “No. Of course, not.”
“I’ve seen how you eye her,” his dad teased.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A lie, because he did. Zach stared at her all the time when he thought she wasn’t looking. His father had caught him, and they both knew it wasn’t Zach’s usual style.
“She’d make a good breeder. Wide hips.”
“Dad!” He whisper-yelled his name. “You can’t say shit like that. It’s wrong.”
“Why is it wrong? It’s a compliment. She’s got some fine hips, made for popping out babies. Pretty face. Little rough around the edges, but then again, so are you.”
Zach rubbed a hand over his face. “Dad, I am not making her my mate. She’s a job.”
“A job?” His dad snorted. “Okay. You keep telling yourself that, boy.”
Dad went inside, but Zach paused a moment longer. His dad was wrong. So many levels of wrong. He never intended to settle down. And kids? Other people had kids. He had his cat—who’d followed his father inside.
Was Neffi telling him something, as well?
Still… The thought of it—him and Fluffy?
Nope. And not just because of the species thing. She lacked a maturity he liked in his women. It would be taking advantage of her, and he wasn’t that kind of guy.
He entered the compound and headed for the kitchen. While there was a dining area, many of the residents preferred to prepare their own meals.
He knew he’d find Nonna there, and she had a few friends, chipping in to make food, which meant instant rivalry. Who had the tastiest eggs? Scrambled, poached, served with a béarnaise sauce? Bacon, ham, or sausage? Grits and home fries.
So much delicious shit started coming out of that kitchen, but Zach was only allowed a few bites before Nonna grabbed him by the ear and marched him off.
“Can’t I eat first?” he complained.
“No. I want to know what you did to that girl. She acts like she’s been living in a basement. Eats as if she’s never seen food.” Nonna peered back at the kitchen where Fluffs went to town, demolishing the pile of food.
He rubbed his earlobe and glared. “She acts like that ‘cause I found her in a hidden volcano system in the Arctic.”
Nonna blinked a few times. “Found her? And then what? Adopted her like a pet?” She smacked him.
“No, she adopted me. Kind of. She stowed aboard my chopper, so I asked Hayder to send someone. But they told me to protect her, and then we got kidnapped, and Dad’s house was set on fire, so we ended up here. Which is probably putting you in danger. We should go.”
“Did you just call us weak and old?”
“Never.”
“It’s a smart thing you showed up here. That child was obviously starving.”
“I swear, I fed her. She’s a bottomless pit.”
“She is rather ravenous. I’ve never heard of her kind asking for bacon.”
“What do you mean, her kind? You know what she is?”
“Yes, although it’s been a while since I ran into one. They’re shy and don’t come out of the mountains often.”
“Mountains as in the Rockies.”
Nonna nodded. “Her people laid claim to them a long time ago.”
“How is this the first I’ve heard of bigfoot being real?”
“First off, that term is derogatory.”
“Fine, then. Yeti.”
“They prefer Sas’qets.”
“Sasquatch.”
“That is the more common term, yes.”
“They’re a myth.”
“Because they’re good at hiding in plain sight. It’s said you can look right at one and never know.”
Having seen her camouflage, he understood. “But you knew what she was.”
“Only because she’s not trying to hide. Her scent is unique when taken out of the woods.”
It was. “Where in the Rockies do they live?”
“Everywhere. I’m not aware that they own any one town or neighborhood. They prefer to blend in and live scattered throughout.”
“I wonder if she remembers her home, and that’s why she’s getting me to drive to them,” he mused aloud.