“And I have mine. So choose.”
Nice choice. Either tell his brother to fuck off and find his own ride, which would really set a tone. Beat the piss out of him and remind him that he was still the oldest? Or let his brother enjoy his petty revenge?
Doing the right thing really wasn’t any fun.
I came back to make amends, not make things worse. So Caleb rode in the back while Princess got the passenger seat, perched pleased as punch in her basket that hung off straps wrapped around the headrest. When Caleb asked what the heck that was, Constantine replied, “It’s a booster for Princess so she can see out the window.”
My brother’s dog has a car seat. Meanwhile, Caleb didn’t, but at least he had a ride, plus, on the bonus side, he and his brother had not yet come to blows, although it had been close.
I expect before the week is out, we’ll exchange a few punches.
Constantine harbored a lot of anger and resentment. When Caleb had left home, his brother was just finishing high school, and given there were a few years between them, they hadn’t really hung out much. It hadn’t occurred to Caleb that the skinny runt—who’d packed on a good hundred pounds and a few inches since then—would resent his departure so much.
If sitting in the back of Constantine’s truck was part of Caleb’s punishment, then so be it. It wouldn’t be the worst ride Caleb had ever gotten. At least this one didn’t have gritty sand stinging at his eyes or snipers taking potshots.
As a matter of fact, he quite enjoyed the view and humid air until they hit the highway, whereupon Constantine made sure he hit the gas pedal hard. The truck shot forward with a burst of speed. No problem. Caleb leaned against the cab of the truck and crossed his arms. He could handle a little wind.
The rut in the road, however, almost sent him flying out of the bed of the pickup truck. He landed hard on his ass and couldn’t help his irritation.
“Bloody hell, Constantine.” Caleb banged on the window partition on the cab. “Take it fucking easy, would you?”
To which his little brother—who, at two hundred and eighty pounds of mean muscle, outweighed him—replied with an eloquent middle finger.
A laugh shook Caleb, a rusty sound that took him by surprise. It had been a while since he’d found something worth chuckling about. It’s good to be home.
Coming home, to be specific, the prodigal son who’d strutted off to war, brash and full of himself, and now returned, a wounded veteran who—
“Is getting no goddamned respect!” he yelled as his brother plowed the truck through a puddle on the shoulder. On purpose. Little bastard.
He smiled.
The muddy water coating his skin and worn T-shirt couldn’t diminish his contentment. Even out here, still practically in the city, the smells of the swamp surrounded him. Moist and thick, the humidity in the air revived him.
Since his departure from home, Caleb had spent years serving his country overseas in barren wastelands, where the gritty sand got in everything and the heat sucked the moisture from your skin, leaving it tougher than a croc’s hide.
But he’d left the desert behind months ago. Spent some time up north in Alaska, a shifter-friendly town known as Kodiak Point, as a matter of fact. While hiding out there, he’d scrubbed and scrubbed at his skin until he could pretend the stink of smoke and burning flesh didn’t cling to him. Some stains never came out, but they faded to the point where he now felt that he could face the world—scarred in both body and soul. Time to complete his return to the real world and come home, a home that was the same and yet different.
A familiar pink billboard caught his eye. Look at that, Maisy’s gift shop still did business on the edge of the highway. The next familiar ad was for Bayou’s Bite, where a person could eat the best crab cakes in town. They also used to make the best deep-fried shrimp and served the coldest beer. He looked forward to seeing if that was still the case.
What he didn’t enjoy seeing, as they headed toward his hometown, was the appearance of several subdivisions that had popped up along a few miles stretch of the highway. Ugh to progress. Not more cookie-cutter houses and townhomes.
Who the hell would want to live in one of those?
Not the folks from his town, that was for sure.
Welcome to Bitten Point, Florida. A tiny town hugging the Everglades and home to a shifter population that spanned a gamut of species, unlike the city groups that tended to cater to one breed and ran all others out.
Rumor had it, the wolves controlled New York and some other big cities out west while the lions owned Texas and Arizona. As for Montana and Colorado, that was bear country.