Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance Page 3

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren't in such a hurry to break out of Animal Sphere,” she replied. “I was in more of a panic than you were. I kinda got the feeling you actually liked it there.”

  “It was just interesting,” I said. “It was a learning experience.”

  She limped over to grab the magazine. Her left ankle was still swollen from the Cliburn brothers' attack.

  “You almost died in there,” Marianne said.

  Brandy didn't want to overthink it. She had experienced a couple of nightmares about it this week, but last night she finally slept peacefully.

  “Hugh was out to get me no matter where I was,” Brandy said.

  “Where are they now?”

  “As far as I know, they are still at the theme park.”

  Brandy had lost her job, as she had guessed probably would happen. Most employers don't take to well to no-shows even when there was an emergency, and she was an employee-at-will. A coworker had been fired when she had to miss a week of work because her toddler was in the hospital. The employer showed no mercy after two days. Brandy’s situation also was sort of an emergency, but she had no way of explaining it to her employer even if the employer was more reasonable. She didn't have much saved up in the bank, so she would need another job soon.

  She had enough money for tequila shots, though!

  She and Marianne headed off to the Sons-of-Guns Bar & Grill for the evening. Sons-of-Guns prided itself on serving the best barbecue within 20 square miles and also had a special menu featuring game meat, like venison, duck and caribou.

  The creepiest item on the hunting menu, of course, was fried gator bites. So many restaurants around served alligator that there was no escaping it, so they just tried not to watch when someone nearby ordered it.

  A rival bar called McAlister's was the only place around that didn't have alligator on the menu. That was operated by ex-convict Ray McAlister, fellow gator shifter and the man whom Marianne originally wanted to enlist to break Brandy out of Animal Sphere.

  Brandy couldn't totally avoid Ray, who had been sweet on her since high school, but she just couldn't deal with him tonight.

  McAlister's was a haven for gator shifters and had a canal out back that led to a river that led straight to the Glades. Ray also had opened up what technically was a separate business next door – a private “health” club. If you knew the password and paid a club membership fee, you had private access to the canal through the back. You also had access to either the male or female locker room where you could keep a change of clothes and take a shower after you returned from wherever you had slithered and swum off to.

  Ray's health club offered the only guaranteed private shifting area in the county. He also had put in a sauna and spa for his female patrons, and he hired two specially trained shifter masseuses for them. Lady shifters could exfoliate here in style and get heavier duty treatment from the masseuse.

  The whole thing was a weird setup, if you think about it, but Ray was raking in the cash. Brandy never understood why the bar and health club was never enough for him – why he had to keep breaking the law. Ray was a bookie. The good old fashioned kind. He didn't get his hands dirty with anything else anymore, or so he said.

  Ray used to be a car thief, until he served 5 years. Then he ran a chop shop and got seven years. He went in at 18, got out at 23, and went back in at 25. He'd been out for two years.

  While Brandy and Marianne were lying low at Sons-of-Guns, the late-night news eventually came on, and Brandy was the top story. At the bar, some guy whooped.

  “C'mon now! I'll go hunt that bitch down for $25,000!”

  This brought a round of laughs.

  “He doesn't want you to kill her, Ed,” someone said. “He wants you to trap her. Do you really know how to wrestle a gator without getting hurt?”

  What if this were all true? What if there were a bunch of fools out there right now looking forher?

  “You better not shift for awhile,” Marianne said.

  Brandy decided that the two of them should do one final shot of tequila. They licked the skin between their thumb and forefinger, sprinkled some sea salt on the area and licked it again. Tossing back the tequila, Marianne sucked on a lime before breathing in, so she could avoid the overwhelming taste of the tequila.

  Brandy liked the taste of tequila. She wasn't so quick to grab a lime wedge. Instead, a moment after, she squeezed the lime into a glass of ice water. She was hatching a plan in her head. She needed a job, and Jake McEvans apparently felt he needed HER.

  Chapter 6

  In the end, Marianne ended up dragging Brandy over to McAlister's after midnight, despite the fact that Brandy was avoiding Ray. Marianne had the hots for Ray's brother Kyle, who was guaranteed to be there tonight. The bar technically was Ray's, but Kyle held the liquor license. Ray was disqualified from doing so, being an ex-con.

  McAlister's was a real feel-good place and a local watering hole for shifters. This was a multi-generational hangout, so on Sundays you could bring the kids in for brunch. There was always an Early Bird Special, no matter what time of day, for retired shifters. Ray had a license that technically set last call at 2 a.m., but the health club next door was open 24 hours.

  Kyle was standing at the door, all six-feet-of-him, when the two women arrived.

  “Hey, Kyle,” Marianne practically giggled.

  Kyle was lanky and ruddy, with a shock brown hair that couldn't make up its mind about a hairstyle. Kyle was good people, Honest Abe when compared with his brother. He was a good looking kid, and Brandy was wondering if he would ever be smart enough to make a move on her best friend, who clearly had been drooling after him since forever.

  “No cover for shifters tonight,” he said.

  “There's never a cover,” Brandy said.

  “Oh yeah, forgot,” he grinned. “Just playin' with you.”

  Marianne tried to linger, but Brandy pushed her through the door.

  When the two women walked in, the bar was its usual honky tonk, fun-lovin' self. Young men played pool out back, and another set shot darts in a corner. Country and Western music played on a digital jukebox. The place had an amazing sound system, and on Friday and Saturday nights there was live music. Kyle's brother booked the bands for Ray, and he also handled security, overseeing the bouncers.

  Brandy and Marianne got a booth and –God help them both since they'd been drinking all night –a couple of beers. Ray was behind the bar, tall as his brother, but wider through the shoulders. The same ruddy complexion and the same color hair, only Ray's was curly. If she didn't know what he was about, any woman would find him attractive.

  It was no surprise that, despite the full house, Ray immediately realized that Brandy was onsite. He brought their beers over personally.

  “Here comes trouble,” Marianne said.

  “Whatever,” Brandy said.

  Ray came up to the table, set down two frosty beers and then stood back, eyeing Brandy like she was candy.

  “Somebody around here reportedly is the most wanted woman – ehem, gator – this side of Interstate 95.”

  “Ha ha, Ray,” Brandy said.

  “You know, $25,000 cash is a LOTTA money, Cream Puff.”

  “Leave her alone, Ray,” Marianne said. “She got into a brawl with the Cliburn brothers and had to escape for her life.”

  “The Cliburn brothers?” Ray asked. “Is she serious?”

  Brandy stuck out her left leg to show Ray the bandage around her ankle.

  “I'm drinking to kill the pain,” she said.

  Ray lost the attitude for a second and genuinely looked concerned.

  “This ain't no joke, girl,” he said. “Those guys don't play. I told you not to go after Hugh like that.”

  “I had no choice,” she said.

  “Yeah, you did,” Ray said. “Just like your brother did. I know you don't want to hear this. And I know those guys are evil. But your brother, in the end, was responsibl
e for his own actions. No one made him overdose other than himself.”

  This was a sore spot. Ray was taking some risk here confronting Brandy like this. Marianne knew he was genuinely concerned for her, though, and he was trying to give her a – albeit painful – reality check.

  Brandy's cheeks flushed with liquor and anger, but she kept her mouth shut. She was not in the mood to go rounds with Ray McAlister.

  Marianne tried to distract them by changing the subject.

  “Who’s the old guy with Mr. and Mrs. Thomason?”

  Mr. Jim Thomason ran a local branch of a national bank, and he and his wife were NOT shifters. Clearly, neither was this guy.

  “He's a real estate guy,” Ray said. “He's in town with the intent on buying up every short sale he can find. My guess is, he's buying out bad mortgages from Thomason's bank.

  One of the bar's attractions for non-shifting locals with bad habits was the fact that you could still smoke in McAlister's. Case-in-point: The Thomasons – chain-smoking away across the room. Ray continually fixed the books to erase any income from the sale of food that would represent more than 10 percent of his income, and thus eliminate his right for a pass on the state smoking ban.

  How regular folks mixed with shifters without ever figuring out what was right in front of their face was beyond Brandy. Then again, no shifting ever occurred in the bar, and non-shifters were not allowed membership to the health club. Ray would always brush someone off saying that the club already was at maximum capacity.

  Ray was eyeballing Brandy now with his usual rapacity. She had slept with him once, when he got out of prison thefirsttime. Okay, fine, she'll admit it – then she slept with him again when he got out thesecondtime. But that was it,two times. She had fun, but she did NOT want to grow old with this man.

  “What could I do with $25,000?” Ray wondered allowed.

  “You don't need $25,000,” Brandy scoffed. “You're not short on cash by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “No, you're right,” he agreed. Then he turned his attention to Marianne.

  “I've been meaning to talk to you,” he said. “My cousin's got a problem. She got herself knocked up.”

  If he was talking to Marianne about this, that meant his cousin got herself pregnant during her shift.

  “It's not mating season,” Marianne said. “What the hell happened?”

  “She and her boyfriend got drunk and high and then decided to go for a swim. She was on the Pill, so she thought there wouldn't be any risk.”

  “What is she, daft? Human birth control pills don't work for alligators!” Marianne exclaimed.

  This was one thing that any smart female gator shifter feared – that she would get knocked up during her shift. That meant life would never be the same again. It's the difference between having the national average of two children per household versus 20-40.

  If a shifter gets herself in trouble like this, Marianne was the woman she wanted to see. Not because she would help a woman get rid of them – no – but she would help a woman deal with them. Marianne ran a daycare center for shifter hatchlings. No woman could take care of 20+ children every day without help.

  Here are some things to consider:

  If a shifter spends timein vitroas a human, then his or her first shift into alligator form doesn't occur until puberty. That leaves plenty of time for a mother to prepare her child for the shifter lifestyle. If a shifter ishatched, however, then he lives his first two or three years as an alligator. His first shift into human form doesn't happen until he’s a toddler, if he manages to survive his first few years. So the hatched shifter has no idea that he’s a human at all until that age, which gives a whole new meaning to “The Terrible Twos.” Shifter hatchlings are cute as hell but they are bratty and mischievous beyond anything most human mothers can imagine.

  Now also consider the fact that female gators lay 20-50 fertilized eggs at a time. Shifter hatchlings are tougher than regular hatchlings, so they have a 75 percent survival rate up through maturity. For normal gators, there is only a 10 percent survival rate up through maturity.

  A number of shifters in the county had political connections, so Marianne was able to obtain a special license under the Gator Rescue statute that allowed her to keep gators onsite up until they were about 4 feet long. That meant they were sub-adults and had not yet reached maturity and could not yet procreate. She was supposed to release the gators into the wild before then, as far as the state of Florida was concerned.

  This gave her a bit of a challenge, since she needed real gators to release. So, she kept some normal hatchlings onsite at all times, being VERY careful not to mix them up with the shifter hatchlings, and so then she had some real alligators to set free for state inspectors to see.

  All the “children” would be shifting into human form for the first time when they should be at the late stage of being toddlers, and this was a bit traumatic. If this type of shifter – what the community called “Hatchers”– got past the physical trauma of becoming human at such a young age, then they had to assimilate and play catch up – learning to walk and talk and all that.

  Because of this late start in life, many Hatchers were not exactly what one would call well-adjusted, nor were they the smartest people on the planet. They were still smarter than regular gators, though.

  Mainstream shifters were all those who are born human. Being born human and experiencing a shift during adolescence also was challenging, but there was more time to prepare, and one's child was more mentally ready for the event. Once these children were around 10 years old, his or her parents would shift and take them out swimming with them in the Glades, so they could start to get used to reptilian life.

  Marianne took the name and phone number of Ray's cousin. She would initiate contact, because she knew how stressful and embarrassing these circumstances could be. His sister's boyfriend was guaranteed to walk away from the situation.

  When shifters married and mated as humans, the fathers usually stuck around.

  If they mated during a shift, then they behaved like typical male gators. They swam away.

  It was instinct. It was shitty, but it was biology. Blame it on Madame LaBelle.

  Chapter 7

  Brandy exfoliated herself the next morning, per usual, while feeling horribly hungover.

  She brushed and brushed until her body brush almost lost all its bristles. Sometimes after a night of drinking, she got really dehydrated, which did not help her perpetual state of reptilian eczema.

  She took a quick shower, rubbed herself with coconut oil, and popped a couple of ibuprofen. She couldn't even think of eating breakfast right now. She had a plan, and she needed to pull herself together.

  An hour later, her stomach felt less queasy and she decided she could scramble herself up some eggs. Then she made herself presentable and took a trip back to Animal Sphere.

  She drove this time. She also brought her resume, which really wasn't much, but it showed she had taken biology classes at the local community college and that she had worked at Marianne's Gator Rescue non-profit. That should be worth something. She was hoping to get a job that would involve doing a little more than shoveling gator shit.

  Also, she had to see McEvans again. Even though he had no idea about gator shifters, her time with him had been the best two weeks of her life (aside from the Cliburn ambush, of course). And clearly he missed her, too, given the sizable reward he was offering for her return, although he wouldn't recognize her in human form. She hadn't worked out all the details yet, but she felt that at the very least they could have a good working relationship, and it was time she start pursuing her dreams of becoming a herpetologist (sans herpes).

  She decided she would first buy a ticket and watch his live gator wrestling show, to get the audience's perspective. When she saw McEvans again, he was clipping on a cordless microphone to the lapel of his shirt and welcoming everyone to Animal Sphere. As she sat there in the bleachers, Brandy knew there was no
way she could want just a working relationship with him.

  Brandy was hopelessly in love, and she had been since the day he found her in Miami, but she would take what she could get if that meant she could convince him to give her a job.

  McEvans was stunning to behold on stage. As he stood before the audience, he looked like he had returned fresh from an African Safari or had just flown in from the Australian Outback.

  His smile was slightly crooked in a devilish way, but with straight white teeth that gleamed just enough to be clean, not bleached. The buttons of his khaki shirt threatened to pop under the strain of what had to be a pair of fantastic pectorals and overworked abs. His shoulders were broad, his forearms indicative of a physically active job, and his glutes and thighs were positively strong enough to hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

  Brandy especially approved of McEvan's calves, which were well-muscled – not spindly like she saw on a lot of men who didn't know how to work out for real at the gym. Brandy had come to believe – with good reason and experience – that a man's calves said a lot about the rest of the man.

  Brandy started fanning herself with the Animal Sphere brochure that she held in her left hand. It wasn't because of the Florida heat.

  Meanwhile, the alligator that McEvans was trying to deal with was not being cooperative. She could see why McEvans missed her.

  Brandy had managed to get a seat in the front row, since she was there alone, and there's always some straggler seat with a good view if you're alone or if you are in a group that is willing to split up. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rachel. There was no mistaking her. She, too, was watching the show. Brandy decided to take a chance on something.

  She slipped out of her seat and headed over to Rachel.

  “I've got a tip on Shirley,” she told her, “but I don't need the reward.”

  So after the show, Rachel introduced Brandy to McEvans.

  He was not in a good mood. Brandy could understand why. A dumb gator in theory is easier for a gator wrestler to dominate, but let's face it, all serious gator wrestlers like a good challenge. Brandy/Shirley had been the right mix of challenge and stage partner – something he would never have experienced before.