Page 3 of Cold Foot Komodo

Mortified, she forced herself to stand and drag the heavy box from the snow to her chest. Legs bent and unsteady, she made her way clumsily into the house. Clearly this was the box with her cast-iron skillets, pots, and glass pans in it. She’d gotten it to the truck with the use of a dolly.

Her grip was slipping badly by the time she made it past the doorway. The giant stooped and caught the box before it hit the ground.

“I had it,” she mumbled.

“Okay,” he said in a dead voice as he toted it to the kitchen.

She cleared her throat and looked around the small, connected living and kitchen space. It was really dated, right down to the rusted light fixture, the stained laminate flooring, and the neon-blue carpet. The brick fireplace had soot stains on it all the way up to the leaky ceiling. It smelled weird in here—soggy, almost, with a hint of smoke.

The guy came to stand beside her, his focus on the fireplace. He made the entire room feel heavy. Was he a shifter? He must be, if he was in Wreck’s Crew. “Looks like the last tenant didn’t know much about the flue. That, or it’s clogged.” He knelt and looked up into the chimney.

“Do you know much about…flues?” she asked. She sure didn’t.

He pulled on a chain in the fireplace and backed up quick, before a cloud of soot fell into the fireplace.

He muttered a soft curse, then stood back and took a picture of the fireplace with his phone.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Negotiating,” he said simply, and then disappeared out the front door again.

Happy to avoid another weird crossing-of-paths with that one, she meandered into the hallway to check out the rest of the house. The sub-flooring under the laminate was soft in some places, probably rotted, and the bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. First errand would be a trip to the store to pick up cleaning supplies.

“Is that all you got?” the man asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the bathroom.

She startled hard. “Oh, um…” She swallowed hard and really looked into his eyes for the first time. His eyes were different colors. One was brown, and one was blue, but that wasn’t the strangest part. His pupils were an elongated shape, not perfectly circular. She stood there frozen.

He had his hands resting on either side of the doorframe, but pushed off of it and dropped his gaze, breaking the spell. “You’ll get used to them.”

“Your eyes?” she murmured.

It was his turn to clear his throat. “Sure. Is that all you have, or is there a moving truck heading here?”

“Oh. No, that’s all I brought. The rest is in a storage unit outside of Laramie. I don’t know if I’m staying yet.”

“Timber thinks you’re staying.”

She huffed a small laugh and hung her head. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, tacking myself onto Timber’s life. She’s doing good.”

He was watching her, she could tell. She could feel his gaze like a blanket. “Being new ain’t easy. You’ll find your way just fine. Timber’s got a good squad, and she’s been talking them up about you.”

“Shifters?” she asked, daring to lift her gaze to his.

The man nodded once. “There are no humans in the Crew. You have to get used to us.”

She pursed her lips against a smile. “I haven’t spent a lot of time around you people yet.”

His face was handsome, with chiseled features. His hair was dark under that beanie, and his eyebrows animated over his bi-colored eyes. He had two-day scruff on his jaw, and a muscular neck that said he probably had a great physique under his jacket. Intoxicating man…if he wasn’t a shifter. “Well, us people are trying to pick our way through this life just like you are. If it makes you feel better, we’re all new around here. What do you want me to start unpacking?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. Really.” She let off a nervous laugh and shook her head. “Don’t need you unpacking my pads. Ha.”

His lips stayed thin and void of a smile. He told her, “I’ll start in the kitchen.”

She followed him into the hallway. “Um, I don’t know you. No offense, but I don’t want you unpacking my personal things.”

He turned, canted his head, and nodded. “Can you pull the order off of me then?”

“How…how do I do that?”

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