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

Nope.

Raynah turned away from Timber’s cabin for the third time and marched toward her own cabin. She was not falling down this rabbit hole.

“Are you okay?” Cash asked as she passed his home.

Raynah yelped, startled. “Yes! I’m fine!”

“Okay, your overreaction says you aren’t fine, ya psycho.”

“I was going to talk to Timber, but now I don’t want to. It’s no big deal.”

The railing of Cash’s porch creaked as he locked his arms against it. “Are you having girl problems?”

“What, like my period? I’m pregnant, Cash.”

“I don’t know how all of that stuff works.”

She kept walking. Just a few more yards and she would be to her front porch. When she started climbing the stairs, Cash landed gracefully right in front of her and tucked big white snowy owl wings back behind himself.

“Holy crap! You can make your wings sprout out of your human body?” she yelled.

“I was the coolest kid at college parties with that trick. I used to tell hot chicks I was an angel,” he told her as he followed her to her front door.

“I don’t know what’s more shocking,” she grumbled. “Your angel wings, or the fact that you went to college.”

“It was community college.”

“Bye-bye now,” she said, pushing her front door closed.

He caught it and pushed it back open. “I’m bored, and curious, and now I need to know what you are freaking out about.”

“Cash—”

“Come on! This place is so boring. Everyone is trying to be so well-behaved and not get into trouble, and everyone is so fucking polite, and every day is the same thing. Please, Raynah. Entertain me. I need gossip or drama or something! ”

She huffed a sigh and considered if she even wanted to deal with Cash-the-Hot-Chick-Tricker.

“Please,” he uttered again, desperation in his eyes.

With an eye roll, Raynah allowed the door to be pushed open and stood in her entryway, arms crossed. “You can’t come in because I want to kill everyone who gets close to my nest.”

Cash disappeared in a blur and reappeared with a snow-covered lawn chair. He used his enormous white wings to brush it off. “Do you like that?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Stop being creepy,” she grumbled. “Your charms don’t work on me. I’ve heard you say too many stupid things.”

He sank down onto the newly-cleaned chair and draped his wings on either side of it. Indeed, he did kind of look angelic. His feathers were all white with tiny black specks.

“Bestow upon me what troubles your heart, my spicy little frog pond.” And just like that, the angelic-ness just poof —went away.

“If I was a guy, and I was on social media, what pages would I be on?” she grumbled.

Cash’s eyebrows arched high. “You mean if you had a penis?”

“Forget it,” she snapped, moving to close the door.

“No, I’m being serious. I don’t get it. Can you repeat the question?”

“What’re the popular social media sites now? My old phone is long gone and I couldn’t remember how to get onto my old pages even if I wanted to.”

“You want social media?”

“Kind of.” To see if she could track down Garret’s pages.

“You need an email. Do you have one of those?”

Raynah shrugged. “I’m still learning how to use this dang thing.” She handed Cash her phone, and he searched the home screen. “I don’t see any, but hold please.” He poked around for a minute and then said, “Done.”

“You set up an email?”

“Yep?”

“What’s it called?”

“Raynah Big Teets sixty-nine at Yahoo-dot-com.”

“Cash!”

He snickered and dodged her swat.

“Why would you use that name? I can’t use that!”

“Who will know it? No one but the social media sites, and they don’t care.”

“How do I change it?” she asked, poking around the welcome email aimlessly.

“You can’t, now give it back. I’ll get you the two main social media pages set up. Give me five minutes of silence please.”

“I don’t want you setting them up under some dumb name,” she muttered, snatching the phone from him.

It was on a welcome screen for setup. She leaned against the open doorframe and typed in the information it needed, including raynahbigteets69 at Yahoo. Cash was so flipping annoying. She looked up to tell him that, but he was taking a piss off the side of her porch, his wings spread wide. She scrunched up her face in disgust. Delinquent.

“How do I search for someone on here?” she asked.

Cash turned his profile, and she could see his dick.

“Cash! Why?” she complained, shielding her eyes.

“Oh come on. This is not the first time you have seen a three-pound dick. A footlong. An elephant trun—oof!” He took a snowball in the face, and Raynah laughed as she dusted snow off her hands.

“Are you searching for dudes?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Dudes from your old life? Because I have advice for that. I advise against it.”

“It’s none of your business,” she murmured, clicking around on her empty page. “It won’t let me do anything until I post a profile picture.”

“Let me take it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll sneak a dick pic and post it, and I’ll be banned from the site forever and ever. You aren’t ruining this for me.”

“Is the dude someone you are interested in?” he asked. “An old flame, perhaps?”

She sighed heavily and ignored him. Lifting the phone up, she aimed the front-facing camera function at herself and smiled. At least she thought she smiled, but on review of the selfie, she was definitely grimacing. And also her face was swollen from the water she was retaining, and her cheeks were blotchy, and her hair wasn’t right, and everything was on fire.

“Forget this,” she said, deleting the picture. “This is stupid.” She made her way inside, but Cash said, “Let me take the picture.”

“No.”

“Come on,” he said, catching the closing door again. “I promise I’ll take a good one.”

“There are no good ones. I’m shaped like a bowling ball. I don’t even remember what my feet look like, every inch of my body is aching, and I feel like my body will never belong to me again.”

“Whoa there, crazy-pants. I don’t know much about pregnancy, but I’m pretty sure this is all temporary. That little parasite has to exit your hoo-hah eventually. Trust me. I’m an—”

“If you say angel, I will kill you.”

He stopped talking, bless that man, and likely it was from the truth even she could hear in her voice. She hoped that after the baby got here, her moodiness would steady out.

He took her phone from her hand and guided her to the railing, then told her, “Lean your arms on it. Good. Now cross them. Relax your hands. Good.” He held up the camera and took a picture, but then approached and pulled her hair from behind her shoulders. “One with no smile. Great. And one looking at the trees over there. Big smile…okay, but smile with your eyes. Why do you still look mad?”

“I’m not mad! I’m still traumatized by you pissing off my porch. I can see the yellow snow.”

“Do you want to pee on top of it? Are you being territorial?” Cash gasped. “Are we flirting?”

“What? No! Hear the truth in my voice when I say I would rather get into a car wreck than date you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Okay, you passed the test. We can remain in the friendzone.”

“I’m going inside, give me my phone.”

“I already posted the best one.”

She took the phone from him and looked at the picture he’d posted. Raynah scoffed. “It’s just a picture of my big ass. When did you even take a picture from this angle?”

“You almost said angel.”

Raynah lost her mind and screamed as long and as loud as she could. “Thanks for nothing, you dick-weevil!” And then she stormed into her house and slammed the front door.

“You’re welcome,” Cash called from outside.

Her shoulders pressed against the door, Raynah closed her eyes and took three steadying breaths. She couldn’t wait until she could Change again. Snowy owl probably tasted delicious.

She opened her eyes and scanned her cabin. It felt cold and unfamiliar, just like it always did when she entered the space. She hated this place, except for one small corner upstairs.

Raynah puffed air out of her cheeks as she sat at the kitchen table chair that was always pulled out. She scrolled through the pictures Cash had just taken, picked one that she looked the least-bad in, and posted that one. Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out how to delete the picture of her backside as she was walking across the porch. Unsavory, but on the other hand, who would even see this account? It wasn’t like she was a big sharer.

There was a magnifying glass icon down at the bottom. She poked it, and then typed Garret’s name into the search bar. She thankfully knew his last name from when Reed and Wreck had talked about him a few weeks ago. The name Hoffman had burrowed into her little brain and refused to leave.

An account popped up called Easy_There_Garret, but the profile picture was a guy snowboarding and completely covered up in cold weather gear, so she couldn’t tell if it was him. When she poked the account, a slew of pictures popped up, including the snowboarding one, which was dated two years ago. It was the last post.

Raynah scrolled down and stopped on a group of guys at a bar, all holding beers. Two were smiling, one was in the middle of talking to the camera-person, and the one on the very right was slightly familiar. The bar was dark, so the lighting of the picture was rough, but the eye shape and hair color looked like Garret’s. He wasn’t smiling at all, and was clean-shaven. He wore a T-shirt, and one of his arms was completely tatted up with a full sleeve of ink. He was tan, as if he’d spent a lot of time outside. She squinted and tried to put his face and leaner physique with the Garret she’d talked to, but couldn’t quite do it.

She scrolled down, and there were more snowboarding pictures with what looked like a big group of friends. She stopped on a picture of the man with a little bit of facial scruff, sitting in front of a fireplace, his arm thrown over a pretty blonde’s shoulders. That smile. She knew that smile. She’d seen it in Murdoch’s today while he’d been talking to her. This was him, but his eyes were darker, more of a stormy blue than the glowing teal of his animal.

This was him, but the photo was taken when he’d been human. She would bet her boots on it.

Hey. A text came through from an unknown number, and she felt completely busted. Raynah yelped and dropped the phone. “Fuuudgey scrotum,” she muttered under her breath, trying to practice not cussing for when the baby arrived. Good grief, she couldn’t even bend at the waist to retrieve the dang phone from her hardwood floor.

She picked it up after some graceless scrambling, and sat back in the chair once more to open the text thread.

This is Garret.

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! He must’ve seen her scrolling his page, and it linked their phones or something technologically-advanced like that!

I hope you don’t mind me texting. I got your number off the baby shower invitation.

“Ooooh,” she said aloud in a shaky voice. She had listed her number for RSVPs. Maybe he hadn’t figured out she was scrolling his page.

Is this you? he messaged. A picture came through, and her heart leapt into her throat as she scanned the screenshot of her page and the atrocious first ill-angled picture of her round rump that Cash had posted.

Might as well own it. She screenshotted his page and sent it to him. Maybe. Is this you? Send.

Ha. It was, once upon a time. I don’t recognize that dude these days.

You still have the same eye shape and smile. Send.

Wait, you found my page. So you were looking me up?

I’m a curious little crocodile. What can I say? Send.

Ha. Okay, well, do you have any questions about what you found?

Who’s the blonde with the perky tits? Send.

It took a minute for him to reply. That would be my ex.

Raynah narrowed her eyes and began typing. I am feeling…something. I would hate on her, but she looks perfect. She’s actually super gorgeous. Send. So your type is supermodels. Nice.

She cheated on me twice that I know of, and is on her second marriage in three years. I forgot I had that picture still on there. Hold please.

Hold onto what? But before she could hit the send button, he texted her.

Go look at the page now.

A smile stretched her lips as she opened his page again and noticed he had removed the picture with the beauty pageant queen. Soooo…she isn’t your current girlfriend? Send.

God no. We dated years ago. I have zero girlfriends. I can barely keep from Changing on a good day. I can’t take care of a woman. I can bearly control my own life. Get it? Bearly? Bear? Because I’m a bear?

Okay, now her smile was getting really big. He was kinda funny.

Look, I’m texting you for a reason.

Curious Croc asks why are you texting me, Beauty Pageant Boning Bear. Send.

New nickname submission: Badass Bear.

Mmm, veto. Big Ballsack Bear.

Oh fuck. My laugh just sounded so stupid. I’m pretty sure Sasha heard me from her house. Um, also veto? Look, the reason I texted…I felt bad after you left. I don’t want you to think I don’t want to go to the baby shower. I mean, I’ve never been to a baby shower…can I call you? I’m shitty at texting. My fingers are big and my phone is small.

She read his text, then hit the call button.

“Hello?” he answered in the deepest, growliest, sexiest voice that existed on this planet. Good gah, her hormones were running rampant!

“Um, hi, hello. It’s me.” She cleared her throat. “It’s Raynah.”

A deep chuckle vibrated right through the cell phone and settled in her chest. “I guessed it was you. I wanted to tell you that I would like to go to the shower. I have no idea what you even do at them, but I just can’t put my animal in the middle of Wreck’s territory. I just wanted to say that again so you knew it wasn’t you.”

“I’m happy you clarified. That actually makes me feel…better.”

“Great. So how is five o’clock tomorrow?”

“W-what?”

“I already got a present for the kid. I can give it to you after I get off work.”

“Wait, what? You didn’t have to get a present. That’s not why I invited you at all. I just thought you could hang out and meet everyone again. You know, put the trauma-night behind us all.”

“Right. I would like to never revisit that night, or talk about it ever again with anyone. Can you meet in town?”

“Five o’clock? I’m working until seven.”

“Working where?”

“The dollar store. I stock it. Actually, tomorrow is my first day as a cashier. Our main cashier will be out for a doctor’s appointment, so I’m getting thrown into it. I wasn’t supposed to train on the cash registers until I come back after I have the baby, but they needed extra help. And I really need the job.”

“Is it the old Dollar Supply on Forpe Street?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“I can drop it by there after I get out of work if you’re okay with that. If you can’t talk, I can just put it in your truck.”

“Um…” Her cheeks were hot with pleasure. She was going to see him tomorrow. At a specific time. And he’d gotten a present for her baby. She didn’t know why, but something about that made her feel so happy.

She was no charity case, and couldn’t even recall the last time she’d accepted any help gracefully, but she wanted this present, and it wasn’t even for her! She wanted to know what he’d gotten the baby.

“I would offer to meet you later, but I have plans with my brother, and I didn’t want you driving back up to Wreck’s territory too late.”

“Your brother is local?”

“Yeah, he moved to Darby with me.”

“Okay, now I’m fully invested in this story. Do tell. Do we like your brother? Is he a pain in the ass? Is he controlling? Give me the scoop.”

“Yes, we like him. Yes, he is a pain in the ass. No, he isn’t controlling. He just cares. Kind of. In his own way.”

“Where did you live before?” she asked curiously.

“Uuuuh…” He cleared his throat, and across the line she could hear a scratching sound, like he was running his hand down his facial scruff or something.

“You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“It’s really okay. I have almost no social skills anymore. I’m probably drilling you. Just so you know though, that’s not my intention. To me it’s just conversation, but to you it’s probably just a barrage of questions. Ha.” Her cheeks were heating up again. “You can ask me any questions you want. Or not. We can get off the phone. Ha.”

“You’re nervous,” he murmured.

“What? Me? I don’t get nervous. It’s getting late—”

“That Farrah chick did a number on me.”

The admission came out of nowhere, and the words got all stuck in her throat. “Farrah? The Komodo dragon?”

“Yeah. It was so damn nice to talk to someone, and she got into my head quick. Sent me pictures. Did the good morning texts. She was pretty in the pictures.”

“What kind of pictures did she send you?”

“All the kinds.” His voice was careful.

Shhhit. She’d definitely sent him nudes. Raynah hated that. She dropped her gaze to the floor and blew out a sigh. “You liked her?”

“I did. I thought I did. I liked the version of her she wanted me to know.”

“She was using you.”

“Oh, I know that now. I have no question about what kind of person she was. I saw her going after you and Sasha. I wasn’t trying to kill her when we fought, but she killed me. She didn’t care. Her venom, or whatever it was she bit me with, it was brutal, and she really didn’t care. I looked her up afterward. She looked drugged-out and bitter. I don’t even know where she got the pictures she sent to me. I don’t even know if they were pictures of her, or ones she stole from someone else. I liked someone who didn’t exist, and now it’s kind of hard to trust myself, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“And here you are, all pretty and this perfect package—”

“Perfect package?” She snorted. “Hold please.” She pulled up the camera function on her phone and took a selfie. She couldn’t muster a smile. Her lips were pursed, her hair was a mess, the curve of her belly looked so large, and she was sitting splay-legged on the only chair she’d ever sat on in this house. She sent it before she could change her mind. “Open up the picture.”

After a few seconds, he chuckled. “That’s my new favorite picture.”

“Liar. I’m a mess. I’m newly out of prison, pregnant as hell, don’t even really know the father, don’t know how to be normal anymore because I’ve spent the last two years in Cold Foot Prison, and a year before that in another jail waiting for my trial. I’m not even supposed to be in Darby. I was an accidental rescue. I don’t deserve this enormous house, or to be a part of a Crew. I’m at my low—” She swallowed the sob that threatened to crawl up the back of her throat. Softer, she admitted, “I’m at my lowest.”

“Keep going,” he murmured.

“I am going to be a terrible mom. Fuck.” She set the phone down and buried her head against her forearms on the table. “Can I call you back?” she asked, gutted.

“Put me on speaker.”

She shook her head against her forearms, tears staining the table. “I need to go.”

“Don’t hang up,” he told her. “Please don’t hang up.”

Raynah rested her cheek against the cool wood of the fancy table, wrapped her arms around her belly, and stared at the fireplace. It was one of those nice ones with a flip-switch and fake flames that put out heat. The glass still had the sticker on it. She’d never used it.

A couple of minutes drifted by as she really absorbed what she’d just admitted out loud for the first time. She would be a terrible mother. She’d heard the truth in her own voice as she’d said that out loud. She believed it.

Garret was silent on the other end. Perhaps he’d hung up. She understood if he had. She was a lot. She was too much. Raynah hit speaker phone, and told him, “I’m sorry Farrah used you.”

“Nice subject change.”

She huffed a thick laugh and pushed off the table, sat back in the chair. “My point in telling you a fraction of the shitstorm that is my life—what you see is what you get with me. I do understand you being wary. You should be, in my opinion. Not everyone has good intentions. I’m fine with waiting on conversations until you are okay with them. There’s no rush on my end. I’m just kind of relieved to be talking to someone outside of my Crew.”

“You don’t like your Crew?”

“It’s not that. They’re not bad. I just have this feeling that I don’t belong lately. I wasn’t supposed to get out of Cold Foot Prison. That part replays in my head a lot. I don’t feel the same way about this place that they do.”

“You feel alone?”

Clever man. “Yeah. The last few weeks especially, I feel really alone.”

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, but then he told her, “I get that. Look, I’m sorry you gotta pay for Farrah’s bullshit. Horse crap. Gah, I like to cuss, I’m sorry. You’re a lady and I shouldn’t talk to you like that.”

“Fuck, fuck, dick shit burpy-farts coochie cock-splash ballsack.”

His chuckle was deep, and dragged a smile from her lips.

“Genitalia.”

“Okay, I got it,” he said around a laugh.

“I’m not a lady. I’m a menace.”

“You can be both.” He huffed a sigh. “I would probably feel better faster if we talked sometimes in person.”

“The phone-relationship traumatized you?”

“A little.”

“Just so you know, if Farrah was still alive, I would eat her for you.”

He snorted. “The truth in your voice is terrifying. You are a menace.”

“A lady-menace,” she corrected him primly. “A lenace.”

Her phone vibrated, and he told her, “Go look at the picture.”

“If it’s an unsolicited dick pic—”

“Raynah! It’s not!”

“Aw, beans. I was going to say it’s unnecessary because I saw your dick when you were dead that night. You know, before Wreck brought you back to life? Even when you were a corpse, it was huge,” she muttered, opening the photo.

He cleared his throat and told her, “Thank you? I think?”

The picture was a selfie of him sitting in a chair, pushing his stomach out, legs splayed. He wore the same expression she’d had in the picture she’d sent him. Raynah tossed her head back and laughed. “I’m going to make that my lock screen.”

“Fair. I’ll make yours my lock screen too. I’m doing that right now. Tell me when yours is done.”

Oh gosh, he was fun. They were really doing this. It took her a couple minutes and some guidance from him to change the wallpaper from the screen the phone had come with to the silly picture of him. She took a screenshot and sent it to him, and at almost the same time, she received a screenshot from him of her picture on his phone. He’d drawn a word in the upper left corner. Lenace .

Her shoulders shook with her quiet laughter. Okay, he was really fun.

“I’ll talk about my brother and everything I’m protective over sometime,” he told her, his voice growing serious. “I’m just fighting some pretty big instincts from some tough lessons, and you have to pay a little bit for Farrah’s bullshit. I’m sorry for it.”

“Don’t be. It’s very understandable. My offer stands. If you have questions, ask them. Maybe that will make you feel better about talking. Hey, nice TV dinner on the table,” she said, studying the selfie he’d sent.

“Thanks, it’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes night. I’ll probably heat up four more of them before I’m satisfied.”

“Yeah, that’s actually not taking very good care of your animal.”

“What?”

“You’re a big, badass grizzly bear, Garret. You should be feeding him actual meat. Not whatever meat-mixture that is. Go check the ingredients. Steaks will keep you the most sated.”

“How do you know so much about bear shifters?”

“Polar bears in my Crew, remember? Timber and Sasha are pretty new too, like you. They’re having to focus on their diets a lot right now to keep as steady as possible. Sasha is already back to working at the hospital in a stressful environment. Hunting helps, too. When you Change, hunt and eat your prey.”

“Oh. Okay.” He hesitated. “Anything else?”

“Sleep is important.”

“Yeah, about that. I actually moved here, where it’s freezing, because my brother and I thought I would be hibernating half the year.”

“What?”

“I woke up like this. I didn’t know any shifters, and neither did my brother. The information online is a crapshoot and it is hard to tell what is real or not, but I knew I was a grizzly. My brother had to fill my hide with buckshot the first time he saw me Change. I tried to maul him. Grizzlies hibernate in the wild.”

“So you thought you would be asleep half the year?”

“I didn’t know. We moved here so I could be in the right temperature. Dylan helped me dig out a den up in the mountains and everything, just in case.”

This was so sad. How terrifying it must have been to figure all this out on his own.

“Who Turned you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember being bitten or attacked or anything. I have no scars from a bite. I woke up in the back of a dead-end alley, and I knew something was wrong.” He made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Anyway—good meat, good sleep, hunting.”

“Yeah. Good habits will make the animal steadier. Especially if he understands you are doing that for him.”

Over the phone, she could hear him swallow audibly. “Thank you.” There was a depth to his appreciation that tugged at her heart.

“You’re welcome. Go eat some real meat.”

He chuckled, and God, she loved the sound of it.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Five o’clock,” she said softly, double-checking.

“Five o’clock.”

“Bye, Garret.”

“Hey, Raynah?”

“Yeah?”

“You lied earlier.”

She frowned, and prickled. “About what?”

“You’re going to be a great mom.”

And there was truth to his voice. He believed it when he uttered those words. She blew out a slow breath. “Are we friends?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re friends.”

“Good.”

And that was that. They hung up, and she sat there staring at the picture of him on her lock screen until it faded to black.

Friends. She was having trouble bonding to people here, but he didn’t feel so scary to open up to.

His honesty about Farrah made him more interesting to her. More understandable. She’d been tricked by men before too, and she could imagine how he felt right now.

The more she was learning about that handsome grizzly shifter, the more she wanted to know.