Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance Read online

  This felt likedeja vu, but what McEvans DIDN'T have this time was a gun.

  What he had instead was a machete, hanging off a hook on a nearby post. McEvans kept it around as an all-purpose weapon.

  Right now, this looked like an even fight, so McEvans considered just letting it run its course. After a minute or two, however, 'Shirley' looked like maybe she wasn't doing so well.

  Hugh Cliburn had some moves of his own, and Brandy had underestimated him.

  “Fucking bitch!” Hugh roared at her through the water spray as they flipped and charged at each other.

  The truth of the matter was that Brandy relied quite a bit on general intimidation and rarely, if ever, had to tough it out in such a rough and tumble fight as she had with the Cliburns. She usually had the matter settled in less than two minutes. With Hugh, however, she was equally matched in terms of the level of vengeance in their respective hearts. Hugh's desire to survive, in addition to his anger over the death of two brothers, pushed his adrenaline past its normal sociopathic levels.

  What happened next was something Brandy would never forget and would tell her grandchildren about.

  McEvans unsheathed his machete and dove straight into the swamp with it. His lean mass was just as muscled as a gator, and fortunately he was a very good swimmer. McEvans could hold his breath for three minutes underwater.

  When Brandy realized there was a human in the swamp, she broke away from Hugh. She had McEvans in her sights underwater now, and so did Hugh. She was horrified at what might happen to him, but she didn't quite know what to do.

  McEvans had been in dangerous situations before. He was among the few people who could claim to have survived the bite of the deadly black mamba snake in sub-Saharan Africa. He had dodged guerrilla bullets while on Safari in Rwanda and poison darts while unintentionally trespassing on tribal lands in the deep Amazon. He and a small camera crew were even lost at sea for 14 days in the South Pacific without food or water.

  The closest he had come to a bare-knuckle fight with an animal before, though, was facing down a grizzly in Montana. But he had never before actually been in the position of needing to rescue someone ELSE. Just himself. And he had never unintentionally forgot about his own safety like this for someone else.

  Once he was in the water and in the thick of it, McEvans realized that he might actually get himself killed this time. But there was no time for second guessing himself.

  He was having a hard time seeing underwater, because swamp water is not exactly the clearest. There was no mistaking the size difference between the two alligators, however. Hugh sized McEvans up, but before actually going in for the kill, McEvans dove beneath Hugh. He shot straight back up and plunged the machete into Hugh's thick underbelly, dragging the blade straight through the length of his torso, literally splitting his gut.

  The pain put Hugh into shock, so he didn't quite get that the blood he now saw now billowing in red watery clouds all around him was his own. But he felt a surge of anger that he turned back on Brandy, instead of going after McEvans.

  Brandy was so stunned at seeing McEvans destroy Hugh, that she was completely caught off guard when Hugh made one last attempt on her life.

  All Hugh managed to do, however, was go at her left leg again, but that was enough to set into motion the inevitable. The pain was so bad that Brandy shifted back into human form before she could get out of the water. When she dragged herself past the waters edge, she turned back to see McEvans staring at HER while standing knee deep in bloody water, machete still in-hand.

  Brandy's eyes darted around, but she couldn't see Hugh at all. He must also have shifted by now, and Animal Sphere couldn't handle the publicity of having a dead body in the alligator pit.

  “Brandy – what the hell?! Were you swimming in there?” McEvans demanded to know.

  Brandy nodded. She was on real thin ice here with this one. He had saved her life for the second time, and Brandy couldn't conceivably think of any sane explanation as to why she was swimming in the gator pit naked in the dark, other than making up more cockamamie half-truths and stories about her childhood.

  “I think you saved Shirley's life,” she said. “I saw all of it.”

  “I didn't even see you!” he yelled at her.“That was goddamn dangerous! I don’t care if you want to go swimming with gators on your own time at home, but you will NOT do it here when are alone in the gator pit!”

  “I'm not the one who went looking for a fight,” Brandy lied.

  McEvans felt weird about something – and it wasn't just the fact that his employee was sitting naked in front of him, not even looking shy about it.

  “Would you please go get me a towel?” she asked.“I'm starting to get chilly here and don’t want to put my clothes on when I’m still wet.”

  McEvans looked down, dropped his machete to the sand, and walked off.

  When he was safely out of sight, Brandy knew she had only a few minutes and a small window of opportunity to take care of business. She shifted again, dove underwater, and immediately found Hugh.

  Hugh Cliburn was in human form, sunken deadweight at the other end of the swamp. He had bled out. She devoured him and then floated to the water's surface. She scanned the whole area and saw no sight of McEvans yet. Brandy crawled back out of the water. She immediately shifted back, then turned around in the sand and realized she had seriously miscalculated.

  McEvans had, indeed, returned with a towel at precisely the right or wrong moment, depending on how Brandy's grandchildren would interpret the story years later.

  The two of them stared at each other in the dark.

  McEvans had seen a lot of strange things in strange lands, but he had never seen THIS.

  What WAS this?he asked himself. He had heard stories, though, from witch doctors mostly, spinning tales around campfires. They told tales of powerful human beings who could transform themselves into animal form at will – harnessing all the characteristics of that animal.

  Brandy knew she had just made a huge mistake. Fear gripped her in the gut.

  “Please tell me I didn't just see what I think I saw,” McEvans said. His voice was shaky.

  “What do you think you just saw?” Brandy asked him gingerly.

  McEvans swallowed hard. He realized he had stopped breathing because of the shock, and he finally remembered to inhale.

  “I think I just saw something that is not humanly possible,” he said.

  Brandy felt too weak for the moment to stand up. McEvans tossed her a towel and remembered his manners, averting his eyes while she got dressed. Brandy twisted her hair to squeeze out the water, like McEvans had seen her do before.

  “It's possible,” she whispered.

  McEvans nodded, already starting to accept what the implications here were. It would have been an entirely different scenario if he had seen this that night he drank ayahuasca in Peru. But tonight he was completely sober and definitely not high. He held his hand out to her. She reached for him, and he pulled her up to her feet.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, looking her over while trying not to seem like a lech. “Did he hurt you at all?”

  “My left ankle again,” she said.

  “Again,” McEvans repeated. “Right. That's right – that's why you were wearing that bandage...”

  His voice trailed off. And McEvans then realized something that brought him some relief. He let out a nervous laugh.

  Brandy thought this was odd.

  “What the heck are you laughing at exactly?”

  McEvans was laughing hard now, but then he pulled it together.

  “Do you know what this means?” he asked her.

  “Yes, believe me I do. I've been living this way my whole life. But what do YOU think this means?”

  “It means I'm not crazy,” McEvans said, sounding truly relieved now. “I'm not crazy at all. If you're 'Shirley,' and 'Shirley' is really you, then – well, then – “

  “Then what?”

  “Th
en this,” he said.

  McEvans pulled Brandy to him, and his lips met hers, warm and soft. Her eyes flashed in surprise and at first she didn't respond, feeling confused. He pulled back a little, and his hand went to her cheek.

  “Do you know how I've been feeling – between her and you – and well – just YOU,” McEvans said. “Having to explain to everyone why I'm so obsessed with a reptile. And why for the first time in years I feel like the only person who understands me is an intern?”

  He kissed her again and this time, Brandy let herself melt into him, her towel almost slipping completely away.

  “Do you know why I let you keep me cooped up in here for two whole weeks after you caught me in Miami?” she whispered. “I lost my job because I stayed put here with you.”

  McEvans held her in the dark for a very long time, finally somehow feeling completely at peace with himself – for the first time in awhile. Then he realized he had a problem on his hands. He couldn't let things go any farther between him and Brandy right now.

  “I need to end things with Rachel before we can figure things out between us.”

  Brandy nodded.

  It was too late to go home that night, so McEvans and Brandy slept in his office. He let her have the couch, while he slept on the floor. They both woke up before sunrise – with enough time to clean up and not look suspicious to the rest of the staff.

  What Brandy didn't have a chance to do, however, was to call Marianne and Jenny to tell them that they didn't need to come pick 'Shirley' up that morning. When they arrived, both she and McEvans met them out in the parking lot. Brandy made McEvans swear that he would not let on that he now knew she was a shifter.

  “Shirley will be staying a little while longer,” Brandy told them, “I'm really sorry that I didn't call you. She was injured last night in a bit of a scuffle, and we want to keep an eye on her.

  Marianne looked down at Brandy's freshly bandaged left ankle with concern.

  Jenny, however, was eyeballing McEvans. She seemed distracted.

  “What's that around your neck?” Jenny asked him.

  McEvans reached up and touched a small pouch that sat at the base of his neck, fixed in place with a rope necklace. Now that Brandy thought about it, she had noticed that he started wearing it a couple of weeks ago.

  “Who gave that to you?” Jenny pressed him.

  “My girlfriend did,” he said.

  “Do you know what that's for?” She was starting to cross-examine him now.

  “She said it's for good luck.”

  “Likemojo?”

  “Yeah, that's what she called it.”

  “It's not quite that,” Jenny said. “She put a love spell on you. Have you two been having trouble in your relationship lately?”

  “Jenny, really” Brandy said. “This is starting to get a little awkward.”

  While Brandy said this, however, she was starting to understand what Jenny was getting at with the love spell. It would explain McEvan's shift in moods and his recent headaches. When love spells are cast in order to save a relationship that's heading for a breakup – that means the person casting the spell is trying to challenge his or her partner's free will. The results are rarely positive.

  “What's your girlfriend's name?” Jenny asked.

  “Rachel,” McEvans said.

  “Rachel what?”

  “Rachel LaBelle.”

  Chapter 19

  “This isn't what I call love, Rachel!”

  McEvans was yelling now. After Jenny had tipped him off to the likelihood of the fact that Rachel had been working him magickally, he immediately went over to Rachel's place to confront her. The level of anger he felt over this was overwhelming – and he now doubted the validity of the whole relationship since Day One.

  “How could I ever trust you again after you pulled that on me!”he shouted.

  Rachel was crying. She didn't understand how her mother could always successfully work a man with Hoodoo, but she never could. It had worked for Rachel when it came to ensuring her career as a model, and it always helped with money in general. But when it came to romantic liaisons, Rachel simply didn't have the same magickal touch that her mother did when it came to controlling a man.

  “Please, Jake,” Rachel begged. “I only did it for US – we needed to get back to the way things were when we first met. And that – that – alligator was coming between us! You were obsessed with it – and with your job – past the point of what was reasonable!”

  Whatever it was she had done to him had made him feel sick and miserable and out of sorts for two weeks. It was creepy – and it was unfair. If McEvans was obsessed with Shirley – and, also Brandy – well that wasn't the result of manipulation. Whatever was between him and Brandy was genuine, albeit crazy.

  “I'm sorry, Rachel,” Jake said. “This hasn't been working for a long time now. You and I both know it.”

  After Jake left, Rachel called her mother. She was rarely sympathetic, but her mother always knew what to do.

  While Rachel consulted with her mother, Jenny was back in Escala plotting. She had played it cool after discovering that Rachel was a LaBelle, but both Marianne and Brandy knew for real now that events could be set in motion that would change all their lives.

  Brandy was worried. She felt bad enough that Jake had broken up with Rachel for her, although she didn't feel THAT bad since Brandy knew now that Rachel was not entirely innocent here. Rachel had probably been working Jake since the beginning, using a little hex here and there to keep their relationship on the track she wanted. But whatever it was that Jenny and her cohorts were cooking up to break the Alligator Curse might very well put Rachel in danger.

  That was not something that she was comfortable with at all.

  As far as Brandy could see, Rachel had only managed to launch a half-assed love spell that didn't really work and only caused some migraine headaches. It was a far cry from that all the way to something as powerful as Madame Eve LaBelle's creation of a whole new reptilian species.

  As Ray always had suspected, the Powells of Alabama were behind this whole operation. Jenny made a few calls when she got back to Brandy's. Within 24-hours, two scary looking men showed up in a Jeep. They were bounty hunters from Louisiana – also shifters, and well-armed. They also were Cliburns, which just added to the edginess that Brandy felt. The Cliburn family was well known to live their lives on both sides of the law – but they never were ACTUALLYthe Law. They were either criminals on one side, or private investigators and bounty hunters on the other, with everyone bending the rules as they saw fit. Also, most Cliburns tended to be Hatchers which meant they were all a little off-balance.

  No doubt these two fellas were supportive of the mission to reverse the curse, but their muscle was being well-paid for by the Powells. Jenny and the two bounty hunters took over Brandy's kitchen to come up with a plan of action.

  Brandy couldn't kick them out – Jenny was kin and family loyalty put her in a real bind here – but she was now worried both for Rachel and herself. As much as her opinion of Rachel had taken a big dip (combined with the fact that Jake now knew who she really was and had kissed her) she didn't want Rachel to gethurt. Also, Brandy realized just how much it was vital to her current overall status to be – and to remain – a gator shifter.

  “Do you even know what you're going to do with her once you kidnap her or whatever?” Brandy demanded.

  Jenny looked at the two beefy Cliburns seated at the kitchen table. They were cleaning their guns.

  “We're not going to do anything rash,” her cousin told her.

  “We'll scare her a little bit,” added Cliburn #1 – a redhead with a thick beard. “Ideally, she'll agree to do whatever it takes to lift the curse.”

  “That can't be simple,” Brandy said.

  “No – it won't be,” Jenny said. “It's not a little love spell after all.”

  “You all know that most of us don't want you to do this,” Brandy said – more for th
e benefit of the bounty hunters than Jenny, who had poo-pooed this notion repeatedly. “We've made our peace with it. Being gator shifters is the only life we know, and we've built our whole existence around this.”

  “What part of 'curse' don't you understand?” said the redhead.

  “But we've figured it out,” Brandy said. “What makes you think being a plain-old human is going to make life any better. It's NOT.”

  “You know what I'd like to do?” said Cliburn #2, the dark-haired bounty hunter. “I'd like to have a White Christmas. And I'd like to learn how to ski. But I can't – you know why? Because we'recoldblooded. We go into a coma at 42 degrees and we die when the temperatures dips below 30 degrees. We can’t even travel north of the Carolinas in the summer!”

  “Do you know what it's like to be a sexually frustrated alligator?” the redhead said. “No, you don't – because you'refemale, and you get to call the shots if you know what you're doing. And we Cliburns aren't very good at self-control, so guess who has the largest extended and most dysfunctional family out of all the gator shifters?”

  Brandy couldn't argue with that last point. From the point of view of a Cliburn experiencing a moment of sanity (which seemed to be the case here), she understood where they were coming from.

  “You've got it made, Big Lady,” the redhead continued. “You're a primo shifter – you can get any male shifter you want, and clearly you're no fool. Sure, you've made it work for you. But I can't say the same for my own kin. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.”

  Brandy and her cousin looked at each other. She decided to try one last point.

  “Jenny,” she said, “Do you really think the Powells care about any of us? They're using you. They're rich as hell and powerful and they look down on the rest of us, and sure – I can see that being shifters puts them at risk in the public eye. But seriously, Jenny, this is going to traumatize most of the other families. We don't know how NOT to be shifters.”

  “Well it's time to learn,” Jenny said. “Now, if you're not on our side, it's time for you to leave. You better NOT warn your boss or his girlfriend what's happening either.”