Page 22 of Cold Foot Croc

“How would I know? I haven’t met her.”

Garret frowned. “You didn’t see my post?”

“Chh, you know I don’t do that shit. Mom called and told me about it. Aunt Shay saw a picture of her somewhere. What if you hurt her, man?” Dylan asked.

“You date people and you don’t hurt them.”

“I’m a man—”

“I’m a man too!” The whip-crack of anger surged through Garret. He stalked Dylan out of the tent, and his brother held his ground until he couldn’t and had to back up pace for pace. “I fought with a female shifter before, and the bear couldn’t end her. He didn’t want to. I won’t hurt Raynah. Take it back, fucker.”

Dylan’s glare was hard. “Is Raynah a shifter too?”

“Yeah, and when she has her baby, she could fuckin’ end me.”

Dylan lifted his chin higher into the air. “She’s a bear?”

“Scarier. Crocodile.”

Dylan’s eyebrows arched high. “She can—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “She can turn into a crocodile?”

“A big one, I’m betting. She ain’t soft either. She was in prison for a while out in Alaska.”

“For what?”

“Killing a man. And eating him.”

“What the fuck?” Dylan barked. “She told you that?”

Garret swallowed the growl that threatened to rattle up his throat. “No. She doesn’t know that I know, as far as I can tell.”

“How did you find out?”

“The internet.”

“Is the baby yours?”

“No.”

“Does it belong to the man she killed?”

“No. That was a long time ago.”

“Dude,” Dylan muttered, pacing away, his hands running through his hair. “That’s a mess. You’re going after a black widow?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means she killed her man!”

“It wasn’t her man.”

“Who was he then?” Dylan barked, his voice echoing off the mountains.

“Her mom got beat up by a boyfriend. Some dude named Harold Price. A police report was filed. They arrested him, but let him go because her mom decided not to press charges. That happened multiple times. There were pictures of what he did to her face online. I found them. The last time he was arrested and released, he disappeared.” God, this felt good to say out loud. He hadn’t known how to admit to Raynah that he knew. He’d wanted to earlier, when he was leaving the dollar store, but didn’t want to ruin the night after he’d just given her the baby-shower presents.

“That doesn’t scare you?” Dylan asked.

Garret frowned and sat down on the log. He rested his forearms over his knees and looked at the fire his brother had built, considering the question. “No. Nothing really scares me anymore.”

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