Page 15 of Squatch Out!

CHAPTER TWELVE

SEAN

E xcept for the sound of wood splintering and the rushing blood in my ears, the room is quiet. Then I notice Olivia’s soft breathing followed by Owen swearing.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Slowly, I swing my legs around so I’m sitting upright. My weight crushed the springs, so my knees are now at the same level as my armpits, and my hands are awkwardly resting on my thighs. I keep my gaze on the floor so I can’t see the fear I’m certain is burned into Olivia’s face.

Why does this keep happening? I’ve never had trouble controlling my shift before. What is it about Olivia that makes me squatch out every time I get close to her?

My nose twitches, and I expect to be hit with the bitter tang of her fear… but there is none. My brows knit, and when I look up, I’m not sure what surprises me more, the curious and unafraid expression on her face, or the fact that she’s smiling.

“This definitely explains some things,” she says with a breathy laugh before she glances over at Owen. “Um, so, if you’re brothers, can you do this too?”

There is a long pause. “Yeah,” Owen admits. “It’s sort of a family thing.”

She turns her wide eyes back at me. “Are there a lot of you in your family?”

“Just the two of us around here,” Owen answers for us. “The gene is passed down through our father’s line, so we have some cousins up and down the coast who have also inherited it.”

“But,” her shapely brows drop low over her eyes, “but there are so many sightings. Not just here, but all around the world.”

“Ours isn’t the only family who carries the gene,” Owen says into his mug as he takes a sip.

Olivia leans back into the couch, her coffee forgotten in her lap, as she considers this. I can practically see her mind working on questions, debating what to ask first.

“So, is this,” she waves between Owen and me, “an ‘ if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’ situation?”

Owen laughs. Probably harder than I’ve seen him laugh in a long time. Watching this woman break my overly serious brother out of his shell… I get the strangest sense that she belongs here, in our world.

But with me, because she’s mine.

“No, it’s not that kind of situation,” Owen assures her. “But we do have to ask for secrecy. You can imagine what might happen if any of this got out.”

The color in her cheeks fades, and her expression turns serious.

“Yeah. I understand.” She looks back at me and stays quiet for a long time before she nods, like she’s come to a decision.

“I promise not to ever tell anyone about any of this.” Then the corner of her lips turns down.

“But what am I going to tell the guys? They might buy my story once, but they saw you twice… I’m not sure I’ll be able to lie my way out of that. ”

Pinned under her concerned gaze, I’m captivated.

Not just by her beauty, although I can’t ignore the way my body reacts to hers.

It’s more than just attraction. The way she’s accepting this…

she’s like a puzzle piece I didn’t realize was missing, and I want to find out where her piece fits with mine.

Except, I remind myself, she’s just another tourist with no plans to stick around. For my own wellbeing, I need to slam the door shut on whatever this longing is, because it’s only going to hurt more when she leaves.

“I’m mostly worried about your friend Darren,” Owen says with a sigh.

Olivia scrunches her nose up. “He’s not really a friend,” she admits.

“I just met him two days ago, and he’s mostly kept to himself.

” She scrunches up her nose as she looks from Owen to me.

“To be honest, there’s something he said the first night I met him that I haven’t been able to forget.

He told us that a bigfoot killed his brother. ”

A tremble runs through my body when her eyes flick to mine.

“That–that doesn’t really happen, right?” she asks, her tone turning hopeful. “I mean, you’d never…”

She trails off when Owen and I share a knowing glance.

“Uh. Well…” Owen sets his mug aside and leans forward.

“Despite our abilities, we are human, and humans can be provoked to make bad decisions. Humans can also do bad things without being provoked. We do our best to police our kind, to keep things like that from happening, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t. But it’s very rare.”

The way she deflates at his answer sends a rush of irritation through me. I don’t want her to think Owen and I could ever hurt her, or her friends. Suddenly, the itching is back, and it intensifies until my skin is quivering under my fur.

The change is so fast, I almost don’t notice at first. The look on Olivia’s face and the way her soft brown eyes suddenly spring wide is what makes me look down to see that I’m me again.

At least my shift didn’t shred the sweats I’m wearing this time. Although, it stretched the already too big material, so it fits even looser around my hips and legs. I let out a low grumble when I think about how my next paycheck is going to go toward replacing clothes, doors, and keys.

“What’s it like when that happens?” Olivia’s eyes are bright with curiosity as she leans forward with her knuckles tucked under her chin.

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” I say honestly. I’m not sure how else to explain it. “One minute, I’m a squatch; the next I’m not.”

“But how?”

I open my mouth, but then turn to Owen for help. He’s much better at these types of things than I am.

“The way our dad explained it to us when we were kids was that it’s similar to metamorphosis. Kind of like how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Only much faster, and we can go back and forth.”

Olivia nods, but her brows stay tightly knit.

“That’s the closest scientific explanation,” I add, “but the easiest way to understand is to believe there is real magic in this world, and this is an example of it.”

Understanding lights up her face.

Owen pushes himself up in his chair. “Sean, before you woke up, Olivia was telling me that she needs to get back to camp.” He takes her empty mug and turns a hard look at me. “And when you get my truck, I have a list of things we need from town.”

I’m surprised he’s offering to let me make the weekly trip into town since that’s usually his thing, so he can go stare at his girl or whatever he does.

Owen has been panting after Jenny ever since she moved here and took over the general store.

I’ve long suspected there is something going on between them, but I have no idea what’s keeping them from sealing whatever the deal is.

“Right,” I grit out. “I gotta steal more of your clothes though.”

“Just try not to shred them this time. And fill the tank before you head back! If you’re going to keep stealing my truck, at least put gas in it when you’re done.”

By the time I finish getting dressed, Owen has two travel mugs filled with steaming coffee waiting for me, and Olivia is nibbling on a bagel slathered in thick cream cheese.

I do a double take when I see she’s wrapped in one of his thick flannel shirts, and my skin prickles at seeing her in my brother’s clothing.

She should be wrapped in my clothes, not my brother’s.

A low growl slips past my throat before I can swallow it down.

When Olivia gives me a wary look, I remind myself that she was only in a t-shirt and jeans when I took her from her tent.

It shouldn’t matter whose flannel she’s wearing, as long as she’s warm.

Our eyes meet for a moment, and she quickly looks down at the bagel she’s holding.

Damnit! I open my mouth to explain to her that I’m not angry, least of all at her, just as Owen strides into the room with a handwritten list for me. “If you can’t find everything, just give the list to Jenny, and she can?—”

I snatch the folded piece of paper. “I know how to fucking shop.”

With a long sigh, I reach around Olivia and open the door. “Ready to go?” I try to lighten my tone, but she keeps her head down when she nods and strides past me and down the steps.

As the house falls away behind us, she hands me one of the travel mugs and then produces a second bagel.

“Thank you.” I try to catch her eye, but she won’t look at me.

Fuck! I really screwed up.

A thick, tense silence envelops us while we walk, and I scramble to think of what to say to her.

It will take about an hour to reach the trailhead, and the last thing I want is to spend the whole thing in silence.

I’d give anything to know what she’s thinking, so I can better tailor what I want to say to her.

But things like this are never that easy.

“Olivia, I’m sor–” I begin to apologize at the same time she asks, “Can you tell me about your kind? About bigfoots?”

The thought of telling her even more about my kind, and then watching her walk away twists my guts. But she already knows most of it anyway, so she might as well know it all. Besides, I’d rather she have the correct information, rather than making up her own assumptions.

“Well, for one thing, we don’t call ourselves bigfoots. Or bigfeet or any other kind of big…” I try to keep my words lighthearted, but she ducks her head again.

“Sorry, is it sasquatch, then?”

“That’s closer.” I can’t stop staring at her while we walk.

I wish she would look up at me. My fingers twitch, wanting to curl my much larger hand around hers.

“We’re known as sasqu’ets throughout most of North America.

It’s a Salish word that means hairy man.

Of course, different tribes and cultures have their own names and variations. Mostly we just call ourselves squatch.”

“And where do they—do you—come from?” Her voice is soft, and when she finally looks up at me, her expression is filled with curiosity.