Valentine's Cat-tastrophe
By G.G. Royale
Bonus Prolgue: An Old Acquaintance
Monday, December 9
Glory
Living through winter on a sailboat in an alpine lake sucks. Like, really sucks.
Luckily the space is small enough to heat easily, and one of my neighbors lets me run an extension cord to the dock from their cabin, but jeez, if I wake up one more morning with frost on the inside of my portholes, I’m going to throw a fit.
By about nine thirty, though, the sun has cleared the hills, and the beams are beating down on the bow of my boat. This is the perfect location to get warm. I sip my café au lait and watch the water.
Yesterday was a good day at the roadhouse, with two California-based NFL teams going head-to-head. Lots of people came up from the valley to enjoy the mountain air and the camaraderie of watching their favorite team with other fans.
Most of them tipped well too.
And today, I will descend into Fresno with my newest potential friend, Loni.
We haven’t had a chance to talk really since she saw me get stabbed and spontaneously heal at the roadhouse last week. I ran into her by chance the other day, and since then, one of the other residents of our small town has explained more about our peculiarities to her.
I’m anxious though.
I hear an electric motor from a vehicle behind me and turn. A large green SUV is pulling into a parking spot near the boat launch. It has to be Loni.
I stand and wave as she climbs out of the driver’s seat. She’s polished like only an executive from NYC can be. I don’t envy that glam, but it suits her well, and I do admire her, based on what I’ve heard.
I dump my cooling coffee into the lake, put my mug in the small galley sink, then head back to the deck. I don’t bother extending an invitation to Loni to come aboard; the quarters are too tight, and we’re headed to more interesting places anyway.
“Morning, Miss Sunshine,” I say as I hop from the port side to the tiny dock my little boat calls her mooring.
“Morning, Glory.” Loni smiles, like she gets the joke the greeting and my name create. “Ready to head into town?”
“Yup.”
We walk over to her SUV, and I can’t help but admire that too. It cost a pretty penny, I’m sure, and has all the bells and whistles.
I open the door, which doesn’t squeak or grind, and slide onto the pristine leather seat. Loni gets in the driver’s seat.
“This is nice,” I tell her.
“I treated myself. I never owned a car in the city.”
“Well, you need one around here.” My old beater Jeep, hell to drive into town but necessary when I need supplies for the roadhouse that my vendor won’t deliver, is parked nearby.
She starts the car, so quiet I can hardly believe it, pulls out of her spot, and heads back to the highway.
“So,” she says as she drives down the twisty mountain road, her gaze never leaving the pavement. “Tell me the story of how you ended up living on that little sailboat in Lupine Lake.”
I told her I’d share the story today. I don’t start right away, though, but take a few moments to get my thoughts right. Telling it wrong might put a pall over our day.
“Well, I was twenty. Back in 2005, I lived in a tiny town on the bayou in Louisiana with a lot of my extended family…”
We were all rougarou, a particular type of werewolf, prowling through sugarcane fields and marshes by night, trawling for shrimp or farming oysters during the day. Not many bothered us, and we didn’t bother many. Worst time for my family, before Hurricane Katrina, had been during the Trapper War in the 1920s, when some of the conflict between Judge Perez and the Islenos came a little too close to home. But I digress…
Before the hurricane, my grandpa and I ran the little corner store/saloon that was the primary spot to get news, have a drink, or play some cards. I was about to head back to college that summer when Hurricane Katrina started making the news. The weatherman out of New Orleans went from telling us to “wait and see” to “get the fuck out” in hardly any time at all.
So we made a flotilla of the boats and ran them out to sea. Prayed we’d stay together, save our investments and our way of life.
But the storm was worse than anyone expected.
And that little sailboat and me… We ended up separated from everyone else.
I tried to find my way back to my home, but the hurricane had fundamentally changed the surface of the bayou, and the old canals we used to follow were gone. Others were blocked by downed cypress, fallen bridges, and even houses that had washed into the water.
The Coast Guard eventually found me and towed me to a suitable dock. I stayed there, not sure what to do next. My home was gone. My college closed for the foreseeable future, dorms flooded, and everything was lost there too. I slept on the boat. I ate on the boat. I tried to track down anyone from home, but I couldn’t find my family.
Then, the people around started getting a little suspicious. They started to see I was different. Without the support of my community, without a place to be myself, I started to go a little stir crazy, which wasn’t good for no one.
About that time, I woke up one morning to see this old woman, wearing furs in the hot, humid early fall.
Vera.
She told me to come with her, that she had a home for me where I’d be welcome. Where I could be myself.
And I told her, under no uncertain terms, that I was not leaving this boat; it saved my life.
So she produced a trailer and an old Jeep to tow it and told me where to go.
“And here I still am.” I haven’t looked Loni in the face. I wonder what she’s thinking. Out the window, oak trees have replaced the pines as we’ve descended in elevation. Cows graze in green fields.
“And you… You never found any of your family?”
I chuckle. “A few cousins here and there, but not my grandpa. We’re a tough breed, but not tough enough to take on a bitch like Katrina.”
“And your town was destroyed?”
“Never to be seen again.”
An awkward silence falls between us, and I don’t blame Loni. This is a lot to take in when we’ve only just met and are trying to form a friendship.
“You got any stories like that?” I prompt, knowing she doesn’t. And, as I hope, she laughs.
“One time, my younger brother…much younger…broke my Discman.” She fades off at the end, telling me she doesn’t even want to finish the sentence.
I laugh too, to make her feel better.
“I think lunch today is going to absolutely need cocktails,” she says eventually.
I hum in agreement.
We drive in silence that isn’t exactly companionable, but it’s not awkward now either. I pretend to check a few items at the restaurant supply on my phone so she doesn’t have to try to talk to me.
We run my errand first at the supply store, then do some Christmas shopping.
Loni assures me she’s found just the spot for lunch, and I’m floored when we pull up to one of the nicest places in Fresno. She does her research. It has won several diners’ choice awards throughout the years, and there’s talk of a Michelin star in its future.
The host shows us to our table, and as we cross the dining room, something pings in me, that sort of preternatural sense that tells me to be on the lookout. I scan the room. Hovering over the scents of fine food, drink, and perfumed diners is something else, something I recognize from a long time ago.
At the bar across the dining room, a man with a furrowed brow is watching me.
Do I know him?
The hostess sits me facing away from the bar, but the unease does not dissipate.
Loni’s head is buried in the drinks menu, and she’s chatting about the interesting cocktail options, but I’m being rude, barely paying attention.
I can still feel that gaze burning into the back of my neck, and my hackles are going up. I feel my wolf almost clawing to get out.
Then I hear footsteps. I can feel him getting closer.
I watch as Loni looks up, past my shoulder, and smiles. “Hello?” she says.
I turn.
Antoine Livaudais.
He’s all tan and rugged, with silver shooting through his blond hair and crinkles around his bright blue eyes. He’s filling out his gray suit to perfection, and I don’t know what to say about the way he is looking at me.
“Well, little Glory Guidry, as I live and breathe.” The sound of his voice is home and holds all the familiarity of Spanish moss in the cypress trees.
I stand, my knees wobbly. I can’t figure out what to say. Other than those few cousins over the years, I’ve never seen anyone from home.
“Do you know each other?” Loni sounds posh and welcoming but opens the floor to end my tongue-tied idiocy.
“Tony used to live near me, growing up.”
He started working in the oil fields right out of high school and was in Texas when Katrina hit. Five years older than me, he wasn’t exactly a friend, but I knew who he was and vice versa.
Now, looking at him, I would very much like to get to know him again.
“Can I hug you?” he asks. “It didn’t even—”
Without waiting for an answer, he wraps his arms around me, and I’m enveloped in his scent, his warmth.
Oh god.
I reach up and hold his shoulders, feel the strength of them. Afraid of making it awkward, I let go and extricate myself.
“You still in oil?” I ask, finally getting my brain back on track.
“Alternative energy now,” he says.
And the very expensive watch on his wrist tells me it’s working out for him. I also notice the lack of a ring on his left hand.
“Up from Bakersfield for a meeting,” he continues.
“Would you like to join us?” Loni motions to one of the two empty chairs at the table.
“I’m actually waiting on a client now”—he looks back at me with those Paul Newman eyes—“but I’d love to catch up sometime.” He reaches into his breast pocket and, classy and old-school as fuck, takes out a business card.
He hands it to me. “Call me. Please. Any time.” I can see in his gaze that same hunger for home I have, the need to reconnect still strong after twenty years.
“I will.”
He smiles again, nods at Loni, and then walks back to the bar.
I collapse into my chair, clutching the card.
“Holy fuck,” Loni mouths at me across the table.
And all I can do is nod. Holy fuck indeed.
I feel as if my world has just shifted on its axis.
And maybe Antoine Livaudais is my new north.
Download Valentine’s Cat-tastrophe: Lupine Meadow Book Two from your favorite ebook retailer.
And read Howliday Homecoming: Lupine Meadow Book One first!
Comments
Post a Comment