Lycan Contempt

Chapter Four

Georgia sat up in bed. She could hear the soft chirping of birds outside, which told her it was early morning. Lucy stretched at her feet, and she reached down and patted the dog on the head.

“What a strange dream I had, Lucy. It seemed so real.” Her wrists stil tingled from the man’s touch.

Kish’s touch.

But that was impossible. It had to be her mind playing tricks on her. She recaled his voice. It had been deep with a tinge of a rasp and hesitation. True that he had initialy startled her, so entranced by the feel of the snow she’d been, but once he’d spoken, she’d felt instant comfort. And he’d been so big.

She sighed. “My, oh my, was he ever big.”

She’d had to reach up quite a way to find his chest, and it had been wide with hard, muscled shoulders. She’d longed to touch his face, to learn what her mystery dream man had looked like, but he’d abruptly stopped her. But why? Some people simply didn’t like for someone to touch their face.

Maybe he was one of them.

She frowned and remembered how rough the fingers of his right hand on her wrist had felt in comparison to the left. If both were like the right, she would have simply thought them to be caloused or roughened from work, but it was strange that only the right fingers were rough.

She suddenly remembered his scent. She took a deep breath and swore she could stil smel the faint clean masculinity of it. She tensed, though, as she remembered a hint of something else, something she’d never smeled on a human before, something that seemed vaguely familiar. She couldn’t recal the scent no matter how hard she tried, and it irked her because smels and sounds were things she did not often forget.

She shrugged and got out of bed. Lucy jumped up, eager to go to work like any other morning. She patted her on the head. “You get to take it easy this week, girl. I’l need you off and on, but for the most part, I just want you to be a dog for the next few days and enjoy.”

She hugged Lucy before sifting through the drawers to find her favorite jeans and a soft sweater.

Thick socks, underwear, and bra completed the outfit, and she slowly made her way to the bathroom to shower.

“I’l only be a few minutes, Lucy. Then we’l go out, and you can do your business.” She patted Lucy again before shutting the bathroom door.

Twenty minutes later, Georgia was clean, dressed, and ready to go. She put her dirty clothes in her room and attached the harness to Lucy. As she walked through the house, she found it strange that she was up and Henry and Joey weren’t. She was the one who usualy slept in. She smiled as she unlocked the door and gave Lucy the forward command. Maybe the fresh air was going to be a good thing for al of them.

She gave Lucy the command to do her business and stood with her face up to the sky. It was something she did quite often as she enjoyed the feel of clean air on her face. But the enjoyment quickly died when a particular nasty gust of cold made its way up her backside and under the coat she’d puled on as she’d gone out the door but hadn’t bothered to zip.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle. When Lucy was finished, they made there way back inside where the aroma of coffee hit her hard as she came in the door alerting her that Henry and/or Joey was up.

She hung her coat up on the peg beside the door and released Lucy from her harness.

“Morning, sunshine,” Henry said as Georgia went to get a cup of coffee.

“Good morning. Where’s your better half?”

“Oh! I’m so hurt,” he said dramaticaly before chuckling. “He’s in the shower. Should be about done by now. Cups are on the counter.”

“Thank you. The coffee smels wonderful.” She poured a cup took a tentative sip. “I thought the forecast caled for clear skies for the week.”

“It did. Why?”

“I don’t know. The air outside feels heavy, and the wind is picking up and getting colder.” She shivered again at the memory of the cold blast she’d received up her backside.

“I think your superhero senses are shorting out in the fresh air,” Joey said from the living room.

She smiled. “Maybe. I don’t know. I do know I don’t want to be stuck up in here in a snowstorm.”

“Everything wil be fine, Georgia. You’re such a worry wart sometimes,” Joey scoffed.

Joey came into the kitchen where Georgia was leaning against the counter drinking her coffee, poured himself a cup, and Lucy brushed Georgia’s leg as she got comfortable beside her on the floor.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Georgia. Besides, we made a huge list of food and wil be heading for the store shortly. If we do happen to get a little storm, we’l be wel prepared.” Henry proceeded to read her the list.

After Georgia added a few things to it, she turned to place her now-empty cup in the sink to prepare for the trip into town. But as she turned, her elbow caught something on the counter and it crashed to the floor with a loud shatter. To avoid tripping Georgia when she quickly stepped back, Lucy jumped out of the way and promptly yelped.

“Lucy! What’s wrong?”

“Wait, Georgia.” Joey grabbed her arm. “It was my coffee cup. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have set it so close to you without teling you. Let me guide you around the pieces of glass.”

She let Joey help her around the broken pieces of the cup and quickly knelt to the floor in the living area. “Lucy, come.”

Upon examining Lucy, she found a gash on her front right paw pad. “Henry, Joey, does it look too awful bad?”

“No. I think it wil be okay if we clean it good and bandage it. She’l be fine in a couple days,” Henry answered after a few moments.

“I’m so sorry, Georgia.” Joey laid his hand on her shoulder

“It’s okay, Joey. Things happen. You can’t always tiptoe around me.” Georgia patted Lucy’s head. “Can one of you get me a rag, a bowl of water, some soap, and something to wrap her paw in?”

“Sure,” Henry answered.

Twenty minutes later, Georgia had Lucy’s paw cleaned up and wrapped with a bit of help from Henry and Joey.

“Thanks. Why don’t you two go ahead into town?

I’m staying here with Lucy. I don’t want her to be on her foot any more than she has to be for the next couple days, and getting in and out of the car might be hard for her right now.” Georgia got up with the bowl and leftover supplies and headed for the kitchen to clean up.

“One of us can stay, Georgia,” Joey said. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“Me? Psh. I’m blind, not an invalid. I assure you I wil be fine here until you two get back. Don’t worry about me. Besides, I have Lucy if it comes to it.

She’l protect me from the deep, dark woods.” She chuckled as she washed out the bowl before washing her hands in the sink.

“Are you sure? We wil probably be gone for about three hours or so,” Henry asked.

“Go. I’l be fine,” she assured them.

“Okay. We’l hurry though,” Joey said.

“Do not hurry. Take your time and do not speed. I wil not be responsible for a wreck because you two are breaking your necks to get back to me. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Mother,” Joey and Henry said in unison before they al laughed.

“Do you want me to give Lucy some food in a bowl before we take off? I put her bag of food by the front door in the corner,” Henry said.

“If you don’t mind. You can put it next to her water by the fridge. Thank you.”

Ten minutes later, she was ushering the boys out the door. “Get going. I’l see you later.”

“Bye,” they both said at the same time.

She stayed on the porch until the purring of the engine faded off into the distance as they drove away before turning to go back inside.

“They’re wrong, Lucy. We are going to get a bad snowstorm,” she muttered as she made her way to her room.

She fished her MP3 player out of her bag and carried it back to the living room before settling on the couch with a warm throw she found draped over the back. Lucy made her way over to lie down beside the couch. Georgia could tel that Lucy’s gait was off from her injury, but she was confident her companion would be good as new in no time.

“You’l be better soon, girl.” She rubbed Lucy on the head with one hand while she pushed the power button on her player. She then selected an audio book and began listening to the mystery unfold.

Kish had just finished packing the bags of groceries in his truck when the green SUV puled into the lot and parked beside him. Before the occupants stepped out, large snowflakes began dropping from the gray sky in a thick flurry. He frowned at the vehicle. It did not have four-wheel drive, and he didn’t recognize it as belonging to a local.

Must be out-of-towners. I hope to hell they aren’t staying far away . He looked at the thick, white flakes, which in a matter of seconds, had already coated the ground with a light dusting. The two men got out of the SUV as he walked around to the driver side of his truck. They both had medium builds, but one looked to be a bit under six feet with blond hair while the other was taler and dark.

“I hope she’s okay up at Frank’s,” the blond man said.

“She’l be fine. It’s just a little snow,” the darker one answered.

Frank. Who the hell was . . . wait a second.

Kish rubbed at the back of his neck. They must be talking about the house about an hour west of his place. He fired Baby up before snorting.

“Idiots,” he muttered. How could they have left a woman by herself in the middle of nowhere during a snowstorm?

About a third of the way home, he realized that he should have warned the two out-of-towners about the storm because there was no way in hel they were getting back up here without a four-wheel drive today. Baby was even struggling a bit. The wind beat at the sides of the truck, and the snow was nearly too thick to see through. It was going to be a bad one.

Three hours later, Kish was home and had eaten a huge steak, but unease had settled hard in his gut.

Fuck. There goes the evening. After cleaning the kitchen, he knew he couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. He had to check on the woman who’d most likely been stranded by her two briliant boyfriends.

Boyfriends? Could it be? Maybe they’d al come up for an orgy. He laughed at his overactive imagination.

Even Baby was going to be chalenging to drive in this shit. He could get to her in half the time by cutting through the forest in wolf form, but if the woman was in distress, he couldn’t very wel carry her out on his back. He shrugged into his coat and made his way out to the garage. The snow was stil coming down at an alarming rate and was over three feet deep now.

As he fired Baby up, he realized this was one time he was not looking forward to driving her.