I wrestled with how I wanted you guys to meet my newest hero, but I finally decided that you should meet him the way Lilah, the heroine meets him. Hope you enjoy :) Rex turned the picture around in his hand, studying the image in the dingy, fading light of his cell. His little girl’s dark blue eyes stared up at him, her ears stuck out from the side of her head. They were almost buried in her shaggy, wavy, brown hair that always reminded him of her mother, but they stuck out just enough that everyone they passed when they were together had to remark on how cute they were. He grunted a laugh and smiled. Even sitting on an old, wooden, jailhouse bench, looking at her grin made him feel warm from head to toe. In the back of his mind, the vague thought that one of the guards would be coming for him any second flashed. Not for any important reason – Jamesburg’s only court was held at night, owing to the judge’s... aversion to the sun. It had been almost four years since Rex had walked around here, and about five since he swore he wouldn’t go back. But then, when his dad, the old alpha of the Lee bear clan, had started going a little nuts, there wasn’t much choice but to head back to the family homestead and try to help. And anyway, he thought, as he looked at the picture in his hand, Leena would be happier here anyway. Without her mother to watch her, she needed something. Needed someone. Especially when Rex was away. The last time he’d gone was on a year-long deployment, and when he came back, the fact that he and his daughter were alone in the world hit him square in the chest. He decided right then and there that he wasn’t going to wallow. He wasn’t going to let his anger at the world ruin him. If nothing else, he was going to stay strong for his little girl, even if that meant spending the rest of his life without a mate; without someone to hold his hand or to curl up with at night. He hated thinking that way, but he couldn’t imagine a world where he could have both, and his little cub, she was the most important thing. He looked out of his cell, down the hallway where he could barely make out the clock in the main office of the Jamesburg county lockup. Half-past eight. Down the hall, three cells removed, Davis Edgewood was still roaring and banging around and screeching every so often. How long can he manage that until he knocks himself out? Rex turned Leena’s picture over again. “Love You Daddy,” was written on the back in her sloppily earnest six year-old handwriting. Between this picture and the dog tags he kept meaning to take off but just couldn’t bring himself to remove, he felt strangely secure, oddly at peace. The door creaked down the way from his cell. I really shouldn’t have dragged that Edgewood asshole down the road. I should’ve stopped before I threw him into that dumpster for sure. He rubbed his temples, running the tip of a finger around the tattoos circling his eyes that marked him as a bear in the Lee clan. No, he thought, no I did exactly what I had to do. Either him or his brother would have done something really stupid. The Edgewoods were the cause of all the problems at home. If they weren’t turning over Papa Lee’s stills, they were sugaring truck gas tanks, or dumping concrete all over crops. And then, when Davis Edgewood said something about his little girl... well, Rex was normally calm, cool, almost hauntingly so. But, thinly veiled threats about his cub? That was a sore spot you really didn’t want to stick your finger in. Davis Edgewood learned that the hard way. Then again, he’d gotten thrown in the can just the same as Davis. Rex let the corner of his lip curl in another smile and he slid the picture back in his wallet. The guy who booked him in and put him in his cell let him keep all his things. It was a tacit sort of apology for putting him in there in the first place, Rex thought. As apologies go, it was a pretty good one. Down the way, by the entrance to the jail, the door creaked and a sliver of dying sunlight crept through. The days were getting longer – a lot longer. Either that or the clock he’d been looking at for the last six hours was wrong. “All right,” Rex said to himself, under his breath. “Let’s get this over with. I’m ready for a ticket or some community service or—” As he watched the person who walked in, he couldn’t believe, couldn’t imagine she was here to take him to the judge. Suddenly, as he watched her adjust the blue and purple bandana she used to hold her tan and black hair back, Rex forgot all those things about never having another mate. Something about the way she moved, the way she walked... he couldn’t get enough. She was wearing these thick, horn-rimmed black glasses that didn’t exactly fit her face, and as she started down the hallway, he thought maybe he saw each of her eyes glint a slightly different color. Falling down the side of her head, cascading about three inches past the bandana, was a shock of white. Rex had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t something attached to the bandana, but no – it was part of her hair, a part that was either dyed white, or had turned that way on its own. He’d never seen anything like that before. Then again, he’d never seen anyone like this before. “You need anything?” she asked, coming up to the bars and putting her small hands on them. “Water? Food? Cooper told me you weren’t the problem prisoner tonight.” You, he thought. I want you, he wanted to say. “I’m kinda hungry,” is what actually came out. “Jail food is... not really the best for bears.”
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 23:15:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015