Her butt hit the fridge as she looked back and forth between the two men.
“Fuckwit number one and fuckwit number two, back away from the lady before I remove your heads.”
Nevada jerked her gaze to the bearded man from the parking lot, leaning on the other side of the fridge like he’d been there all along. His voice had come out completely calm, but his eyes were an inhuman silver color, and his face was twisted into something terrifying.
“Fuck off, shifter,” the dark-haired one said. “We’re just talking to her.”
Giant Weirdo with a Beardo gave an empty smile and scratched his jaw with his thumbnail. The chuckle that emanated from him was downright scary. It knocked around in her head, and the heaviness wafting from the man clogged Nevada’s lungs. Can’t. Breathe! Oh, this man was a monster, and these humans didn’t have the instincts she did. They should run. She should run. No one should be in the same building with him.
There was a loaded moment, and then the dark-haired man let off a laugh and waved his hand. “This isn’t that serious.” He backed away and jerked his chin at his friend. “See ya around, pretty girl,” he said. His eyes were empty when he cast her a long glance over his shoulder.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered.
“Save your thank yous for someone who wants them. I ain’t nobody’s hero. Those douche-pickles were blocking my path to the bacon. So are you. Vamoose.” The bearded man waved his hand impatiently at her.
She stood there shocked, up until the point where he strode past her, carefully stepping over her sneakers and lifting his hands as though he didn’t want to touch her grotesque skin.
And then he grabbed six packages of bacon, cradled them in his arm like a baby, and strode off toward the checkout counters up front, dried mud trailing behind him from where he stomped it off his dirty boots.
Alrighty then. He was possibly the rudest man she’d ever met. But he’d just saved her, kind of. He was built like a tank. His longer hair up top was shaved into a laid-down mohawk, and tattoos peeked out from under his plaid shirt at the back of his thick neck. He walked with the confident grace of a man who knew his exact place in the world—at the top of the food chain.
Big cat, bear, gorilla, or boar shifter—those were her guesses. Well…probably not boar because it would be weird, him eating copious amounts of bacon. But maybe.
When he disappeared around the corner, she finally, finally dragged in a full breath. Chest heaving, she shopped as fast as possible and left off the last three things on her list just to get out of there. As she checked out, talking to Jimmy wasn’t so bad because she knew him and he was always friendly and understanding if she said something awkward. After she paid in cash, with shaking hands, she bolted from the store. Nevada shoved her basket through the sliding doors and out to the dimly lit parking lot like cart racing was an Olympic sport. But when she got halfway to her car, the hairs lifted on her neck again. It was too quiet, and she felt watched.
She looked around, but the only person she saw was Weirdo with a Beardo sitting in his truck, one row away under the street lamp. His eyes blazed silver, and his lip was split. Red trickled down his beard, staining it, and that wasn’t the only crimson on him. His hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, and his knuckles were all cut and red.
What the heck?
As she pushed the cart faster, his eyes arced across the parking lot, tracking her. This man was certifiable, and downright terrifying. She ripped her gaze away from him. A second longer trapped in it, and she was going to have a full-blown freak-out.
Panicking, she shoved her groceries in the back seat of her Maxima, spilling them everywhere, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to get out of here, lock herself in her apartment, and feel okay again.
She thought about calling the police on the bleeding man in the truck as she backed out of the parking spot, but that’s when movement caught her eye. She slammed on her brakes and lurched to a stop. Right on the other side of her parking space, the two men from inside were lying on the asphalt. The dark-haired one was gripping his stomach, the other was unconscious, and both their faces looked like hamburger.
Mind racing, Nevada tried to make sense of why they were by her car and not their own, two rows over.
She jerked her attention to the rearview mirror, and the bearded man was still there in his truck, eyes locked on hers through the reflective glass. He didn’t look as terrifying though, not now that it was starting to make sense. Those guys had come out to the parking lot and had been waiting by her car. Why? She didn’t even want to think of why. They weren’t here with good intentions, though.
The rude man had taken care of them. Again.
He spat red out of the window and whipped out of his parking spot, then drove like a bat out of hell to the main road. His engine roared as he gassed it away from Essie’s Pantry and disappeared into the night.
He might not want to be considered a hero…but to Nevada?
That wild and infinitely rude man had just done something very heroic.
Chapter Three
He probably didn’t like oatmeal raisin.
He probably didn’t like anything.
Crap. But oatmeal raisin was the best cookies Nevada knew how to bake. She took three steps in the direction of the Foxburg Inn, but then did an about-face and marched back to her Maxima. Maybe she should’ve gotten him a gift card to a coffee shop as a thank you for smashing those predators’ faces in for her last night. Or a handmade thank you card? She knew how to make paper. Crap, crap, crap.
She tried to inhale deeply, but her lungs always froze up on her when she was thinking about going into a building with a lot of people in it. The cookies would be fine. She’d spent all morning making them, and they tasted really good. He would probably like the cookies. Dad always told her the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Not that she was trying to win Weirdo with a Beardo’s heart, but just the same. She’d made the right decision with the cookies.
What if he wasn’t at the inn, though? And how would she track down his room number? She didn’t even know his first name. Maybe he wasn’t staying in town at all. Maybe he’d just been passing through last night and needed to stop for bacon.