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My lips tipped up. “Let me guess. One of my neighbors is part of Gator Bait.”
He rolled his eyes hard. “Aodhan.”
Ahh, the Irishman.
Also, from what I’d been able to learn from around town, Bowie’s dad. Though, I hardly ever saw Danyetta or Aodhan together.
The one time I had, it was with Bowie staring at them from the back window of Danyetta’s car, looking on worriedly.
“Since when?” I wondered. “That seems kind of sudden.”
He snorted. “Actually, it’s not all that sudden. He lived there before he went to the pen. When he got home, he moved back. Easy as that. It just so happened that you obliged my curiosity and moved in right next to him.”
That made me wonder how much Aodhan had seen.
I looked up the road and squinted, wondering if the view I had from my porch was the same from his. If so, I was in the clear. If the man had any binoculars… well, then, I might be in trouble.
It wasn’t like I’d done the deed in the front yard or anything, but I hadn’t really hidden anything I was doing, either. I hadn’t wanted to look suspicious as fuck pulling my car into the barn.
Maybe I should have…
“Oh,” I said. “Well…”
I didn’t know what to say.
Well, I knew what I wanted to say. I didn’t know what I should.
In the end, I stayed silent and held the door open wider for him to come inside.
“Wow,” he said. “Love what you did to the place.”
When he brushed past me, I felt a warm tingle of sensation trickle up my arm where we’d brushed.
I grimaced as I looked around. “The place was in need of some work before I bought it. The family that lived here all grew old and died. I think it was passed down to a person over sixty for the last thirty years. They never had the time or the inclination for this much hard work. Which, apparently, neither do I.”
Wake crossed his arms as he studied the wall of stuffed animals. And not the cute ones you bought from Build-A-Bear. The kind that a taxidermist stuffed that no one ever came for, and that sat in boxes in the back of a closet for two years.
“Is that a stuffed rat?” he asked.
I walked over to the rat under question, picked it up, then showed it to him. “It’s a koozie. For beer.”
His mouth parted slightly as he stared. “Wow.”
“I know,” I snorted. “I think the original owner owned the taxidermist in town. This whole house, as well as the back shed, are just packed to the gills with stuffed animals.”
“Nice,” he said. “Be nice if you could just sell it all in one go, and not have to…”
I held up my hand before he could finish. “I actually sold it today. As of right now, I’m no longer the owner. I’m getting my bedroom crap out today. Tomorrow, I’ll come back for all the other crap that is still in boxes and the little stuff that’s just lying around. But honestly, other than my bedroom, I don’t have that much. I keep most of it in my camper now.”
His eyes gleamed. “How did you sell it that fast?”
I explained Rest, and his eyes filled with mirth by the time I was done.
“That’s funny,” he said. “If I’m thinking of the correct guy, I think he’s been trying to buy Aodhan’s property for a while now.”
“I know,” I admitted. “He wants a house that he doesn’t have to fix up too much to move in. And out here, there aren’t all that many of them, being this close to the Gulf like we are.”
“Agreed,” he said as he moved toward my bedroom. “Bedroom through here?”
I nodded and followed him as he walked to the first empty bag he found and walked to the closet. “Let’s get started.”
Together, we had the entire bedroom packed and loaded into my car, with as many boxes as would fit. By the time I was leaving, I only had enough for a truckload, and nothing more.
“I’ll have one of the guys—”
I interrupted him by saying, “From Gator Bait MC?”
He grumbled something low and dark under his breath before he said, “Yeah, sure.”
“Did you back the RV up?” he asked curiously.
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I’m a girl means I can’t drive a trailer?”
“No,” he said. “Because I watched you back out of your driveway and almost hit the mailbox, makes me wonder if you can back up a trailer.”
He had a point.
“I didn’t do it,” I admitted. “I got your friend Etienne to do it. I’d intended to leave it in the road …” I shrugged. “But Etienne was there dropping something off at your front door, which I put inside on your desk, when I arrived. When he saw me, he offered. And I took him up on his offer.”
