Page 1 of Cold Foot Croc (Wreck’s Mountains #3)

Garret Hoffman slammed on his brakes and slid to a stop on the ice, barely missing the pedestrian in front of him.

“Hey!” the thirty-something bearded man yelled, slapping the front of Garret’s truck. “Watch where you’re going!”

A low snarl rattled up his throat and his inner bear whispered, Kill him .

Garret shook his head hard. “Stop,” he gritted out, staring at his steering wheel so he wouldn’t see the anger in the man’s eyes and get set off. He held that steering wheel in a stranglehold.

It was his fault , the animal inside of him reasoned. He was the one who ran out of the store and expected everyone to just know he’s going to bolt across the parking lot. He isn’t the center of the universe. Teach him a lesson. Kill him.

Garret held his breath and closed his eyes.

Honk!

He startled and glared at the rearview mirror. Some lady in a car was behind him. She laid on the horn again, but what the hell did she want him to do? Two more people were using the crosswalk in front of the general store now.

Honk!

“Stop!” he roared at her. Oh hell, when had he even opened his door? His hands had been gripping the steering wheel one second, and the next he was hanging out of his open door, glaring at the woman.

“Move!” she screamed. Good gah, she had no survival instincts at all.

“There are people crossing!” he yelled, getting out. “What the fuck do you want me to do?”

“Hit them! They’ll learn to cross faster. I’m in a hurry.”

Forcing himself to get back into his truck, he gritted out, “I hate everyone,” and he meant it. Since the day the monster had been put inside of him, he didn’t feel the same about people.

Now, he paid too much attention. He had to. The hypervigilance was one of the worst parts of being a shifter. He noticed every dirty look, the grit in everyone’s voice…the general unhappiness that hovered over the population like a cloud.

He wanted to yank that woman out of her car, toss the vehicle across the parking lot, and teach her a damn lesson. He probably could, too. Garret was scary-strong now.

Walkway clear, he pushed the accelerator down, but then slammed to a stop as a woman strode out from behind a car and headed into the store. He wasn’t angry this time though. He recognized her.

Raynah of the Cold Foot Crew.

She looked up at him with a distracted expression, gave this cute little smile, and then offered a little wave. Her lips formed the words “Thank you,” as she waddled toward the entrance of Murdoch’s, her cute pregnant belly leading the way.

The woman behind him honked again, but before he lost it, Raynah laughed cooly and lifted her middle finger—not to him, but to the woman behind him.

The laugh that escaped him shocked him. He didn’t laugh as much now.

She made her way inside, and for a second Garret sat there, his heart beating a little faster.

It was the smile, and the wave, and the “thank you” that lightened his mood.

Garret pulled his truck down a row of parking spots and backed in quickly.

Had she recognized him? He hadn’t seen her since the night he’d died.

He’d gone to war with a crazy Komodo dragon in an effort to protect his neighbor, Sasha, and her Crewmate, Raynah. Raynah was a shifter, but couldn’t Change on account of that gorgeous swell of her belly. That’s what he’d learned in a hurry that night. She couldn’t help her friend, and he’d died stepping in.

Garret had died, and Wreck Itall—the only living phoenix shifter and the Alpha of the Cold Foot Crew—had brought him back to life.

Not that he’d felt particularly thankful for that last part. The two weeks that followed Wreck’s green-flame, life-saving superpowers, Garret had been barely able to eat, or sleep, or be in the light. His body and head had hurt so badly. Even now, just remembering that time, an acute pain built behind his eyes. As long as he lived, he didn’t want to cross to the phoenix’s bad side. Garret had thought his Maker was a monster, but Wreck was something else entirely.

That night though…he did remember the moments before he had died. He remembered how fierce and fearless Raynah had been, hand cupped protectively over her belly, giving him orders on how to save Sasha, forming a plan in an instant. No hesitation. She’d led a very-human Sasha into those woods knowing she might not be able to save either of them from that Komodo dragon’s wrath, but she was going to try.

He’d been going through it with the headaches and hadn’t wanted to think about that night much, but now, seeing Raynah in the daylight, his curiosity was definitely piqued.

Why wasn’t her man here with her? She was about to pop. He should be shopping for her, or at least be here, making sure she didn’t need help with anything.

Another growl worked its way up his throat as Garret got out of the truck and shut the door behind himself.

She better have a good dude. He wasn’t with her when the Komodo dragon had attacked them, either. It had to be one of the big brawlers from the Cold Foot Crew. He’d kind of met them in the chaos, but there was trauma around that night. That night was about trying to save lives, and an emergency Turn of Sasha, who would now be a polar bear shifter. He wondered how she was doing with the new animal inside of her.

Was she as fucked up as he was?

If Garret had a pregnant woman, he would be on her like glue this close to having that baby.

She wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

A wave of anger roiled through him at her man, but this was his new normal. He was pissed off most of the time.

God, he missed his old self.

A truck stopped and waited for him to cross the parking lot. He threw up a hand in a polite wave and jogged across. The asphalt was covered in a layer of snow and ice that hadn’t yet been cleared and salted, probably because of the atrocious early-morning hour. His boots had good traction though, so he only slipped a little.

Just past the sliding entry doors, he scanned the store, but didn’t see Raynah. He cast a glance at the carts, but he just needed a few small things, so he passed them by.

His phone vibrated in his back pocket, but it would just be his brother, Dylan, checking in. He would call him back after he left here.

Garret scanned a few aisles, and then spotted her in the clothing section. He skidded to a stop. She was facing him, but her attention was on the rack of kid’s clothes. She was flipping through little baby Carhartt jackets. She picked up a tan one and studied it. Her bright-green eyes glanced to him, and then instantly back to the jacket.

He felt busted, so he linked his hands behind his head and paced away, then back, picked up a pair of socks from an endcap and pretended to be checking the thickness of the wool. He owned like eight hundred pairs of socks. He wasn’t buying these.

He cast his attention to her with a subtle side-eyed look, but she had moved on to a shelf of shoes. She was looking at tiny boots.

Garret moved down the row of socks to get a better view of her. She didn’t recognize him, clearly. Maybe it was his beanie. Had he been wearing one the night he’d met her? He couldn’t remember.

Gah, reaching for those memories made the headache worse.

He shook his head hard, then put the socks back. When he turned, Raynah was standing three inches away from him.

“Shhhit!” he yelped, backing into the rack of socks.

She narrowed her bright, glowing-green eyes. “Are you following me?”

“No. No, absolutely not. Wait. Maybe? I was here already when I saw you. I think we are just here at the same time. Coincidence.”

“I know you, don’t I?” she asked, backing off by a foot. The suspicion left her eyes, and they softened with recognition. “You’re Sasha’s neighbor. You’re the grizzly.”

He cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets. He deepened his voice and told her, “I was in the truck you waved to outside.”

She scrunched up her face. “Then you also witnessed my middle finger.”

He snorted. “I’d just gotten into it with that lady and her honking, so I appreciated that middle finger very much.”

She giggled. “You smell like fur and cologne.”

Garret pursed his lips and wished everything was different. “Not that long ago, it was just cologne. The fur part…well, I’m still adjusting.”

She nodded, staring at him. He wished he knew what she was thinking. Sometimes he blurted out stuff before he could stop himself, so he asked, “What are you thinking?”

A slight frown knitted her light-brown eyebrows and she parted her lips to respond, but nothing came out. She swallowed hard and then tried again. “Why did you ask that?”

Garret shrugged. “Your face is animated. Your eyes say a lot, but I don’t know you yet. I don’t know how to read them.”

Raynah backed off a few more steps and studied him.

Garret gestured to the little jacket in her hands. “Boy or girl?”

She looked confused for a moment before she looked down at the little jacket. “Oh, um, I’m not buying this. I’m just shopping around.”

“It’s cute. You should get it. A little baby in a grown-up jacket would be fuckin’ adorable.”

“Oh, it’s…” She lifted it up and said as she walked back to the rack to put it back, “I already have one for him.”

But it was a lie. He could tell from her tone.

“Listen, I’m sorry for cussing,” he said, following her. “I’m used to being around sailor-mouthed dudes.”

“For your job?”

“Yeah.”

“Your job as a serial killer?” she quipped.

Confused, he stopped walking. “Huh?”

“You know,” she said, putting the jacket back on the rack. “The serial killer with all the chainsaws.”

She was talking about a joke she and Sasha had made the night he’d met her, when she’d seen him working on his chainsaws in his driveway. “Oh. Ha. I don’t…” Garret winced at the pain behind his eyes. “I don’t think about that night much.”

“I’m guessing because of the headaches?”

“Yeah,” he said somberly. “How do you know about that?”

“You aren’t the first person Wreck has saved. Everyone is destroyed for a while after they get all ate up by his green flames,” she said, making her way out of the kid’s section. “Some say it’s worse than his red ones.”

“Oh,” he murmured as he watched her leave. He didn’t want to feel Wreck’s red flames either. Not ever. Maybe he should talk to Dylan about moving away from Darby.

“You can follow me now,” she said, turning with a soft smile on her full lips.

“Okay.” He had been a lot smoother with people when he was a human. Now he was out of practice.

Garret followed her into the women’s clothing section and watched her glance at items and touch fabrics.

He really wanted to ask her where her man was, but before he could blurt it out, she said, “I’m having a boy.”

“Yeah? There was a pecker on the ultrasound?”

She let off a tinkling laugh that filled his chest, and he froze behind a rack, watching the curve of her lips as she made the pretty sound.

“No ultrasound yet. My friend works at the hospital and offered to help me get one, but I just haven’t really wanted it. I already know what I’m having. His dad…well, I heard they only make boys.”

He had to swallow down a growl that made no damn sense in the world. She was being nice and having a normal conversation with him. Why was his bear riled up?

“Are you excited?” he asked. A sad, answering smile took her lips, and he didn’t understand, so he asked, “Why did your smile change when I asked you that?”

Locking those pretty green eyes on him, she said, “You’re strange. You just say whatever you want, don’t you?”

It wasn’t the first time someone had noticed. He nodded as heat crept up his neck. “I think this one would look nice on you,” he said fast, lifting up a fitted sweater dress with a chevron pattern on it. “It’ll hug your belly good.”

She laughed and looked down at her swell. “I’m at the looking-like-a-potato-sack stage.”

“Only if you dress like a potato sack, which you don’t. I saw your curves from the parking lot. You have good curves.” This wasn’t appropriate. The child had a father. Raynah had a man. He didn’t need to be talking to her like this. Complimenting her like this was disrespectful. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait. Why are you here?”

“Because I had to move somewhere with more space to Change. My brother thought it would be good for me to get away from my old hometown. I don’t have good control.”

Raynah cocked her head to the side, and softly, she said, “No, I mean, what did you come into this store for?”

“Oh.” More heat was pushing into his cheeks now. “For chainsaw serial killer stuff.”

She had the prettiest laugh he’d ever heard.

“You should get that dress,” he told her. “It’ll look pretty on you. Have a good day.”

He turned and walked away, but he had to look back. Had to. And when he did, she had moved around to the other side of the rack and was feeling the fabric of the dress. She looked up at him and gave him a little goodbye wave, and it was enough.

It had to be enough.

That woman had a good setup—a spot in the Cold Foot Crew, protection, a man, a baby on the way…she was settled.

For him, he had to be happy with a successful conversation with another person.

He hadn’t had many of those since he’d moved here.

Hell, he hadn’t had many of those since he’d been Turned.

Garret gave a private smile.

Today was the first day he didn’t hate this place.