A Feral Darkness (27 page)

      
No wonder she hadn't gone into the church. This wasn't a conversation she could have there.

      
The last time she'd muttered at this spring, an unexpected wave of...
something
had washed through her, practically taking her off her feet. This time, she half-hoped for some similar response, but there was nothing, so she sat a few more moments, then leaned forward to brush away the several dull-rusty leaves that had settled in the spring area since the last time she'd visited.
Nothing
.

      
Well, she supposed if a being of power got too predictable, people would start taking it for granted. Couldn't have that.

      
Druid gave a sharp bark, jolting Brenna from her thoughts—and then another, sounding like less of a statement and more of a warning. Brenna twisted around to scan the pasture. Her property, her special place. She didn't know why it felt like it had somehow become a community meeting hall.

      
Rob Parker, heading for the footbridge. She'd rather he stayed on the other side of the creek. But he didn't, and Druid moved out to stand, as best he could while tied, between the two humans.

      
His own human came down the hill with rifle in one hand, the sweatshirt in the other, suddenly realizing she'd worn one of her older, tighter T-shirts, the pink one with the bold flowers across the front and the tear and flap right about over her belly-button.

      
And the other human, of a size with Brenna and in the same jeans and T-shirt, but bulkier, more muscled. Male. With his cigarette burning at the corner of his mouth, and his strides loose and casual as if Brenna weren't watching his every step, and as if the Cardigan's low growl hadn't become a constant grumble.

      
Brenna loosed the leash and then without thinking—something she'd never have consciously opted to do—she unhooked the snap and let Druid go free. So he could get away if he needed to, she realized, and then couldn't find a way to make the impulse make much sense.
Too much time spent letting your mind empty itself into that spring
.

      
"Haven't seen you for a bit," Parker said.

      
"It's my busy season," Brenna said, opting for distantly cordial.

      
"Never seen you at
all
with your hair down."

      
So that's the only language he could speak. Probably thought he could get away with anything, if he threw the right combination of attractive grins—and they
were
—and offhand charm in her direction. She could speak that language, too. She could even say
no
in it. She held her hair out from her side and let the thick handful of hair slide from her grasp bit by bit. "Then take a look. Be a while before it happens again, I'd say." Making a point.
It's not for you
.

      
He pretty much ignored her unspoken meaning, but mused onward. "I didn't know it would draw me up here like this."

      
She gave him a sharp look. "What, my
hair
?" she said, letting her hand fall abruptly back to her side.

      
He snorted, shook his head; his eyes were on the hill. "This area. Toby spoke of it, in his letters from boot camp. I swear, it's half the reason he went AWOL. And Gary never would come join me in Marysville, making Hondas for damn fine wages. Had to stay here, he said. Just had to. I understand, now... Now that it's my turn. Poor Toby never had a chance to figure it out, and Gary barely got it. But me, I understand."

      
"Can't say as
I
do," Brenna said, letting her hands fall to the flare of her hips. "Or how you think this kind of thing works—you come on to my place anytime you want, but don't seem to think that sort of neighborly treatment goes both ways."

      
He jerked his head away from the hillside and looked at her, looked close. Her and the gun and her hair and the expression on her face. "
It was you
back a couple of days ago, that Clay scared off my folks' old place."

      
And Brenna finally put the timing together, realizing just when Parker and his two boy pals had first found themselves this spring. The year her father died. The year it took days to repair the damaged fences, stomp down the gouged turf, remove the pitiful rabbit from the skewer on which it had died...she'd even washed down the area, carting buckets to sluice down what she'd considered the defiled area. "
It was you
," she said, "
you
, back years ago, who tore this place up like a battleground."

      
"Ah," he said, looking caught but not concerned, and ducking his head in a calculated way. "I was younger then. Wilder. Boys will be boys and all that."

      
"That's a miserable excuse," Brenna said, biting off the words.

      
"It is. But it's the only one I've got." He looked right at her, the gold glinting in his mustache, his mouth just touching a smile at either side, an expression he no doubt counted on to charm women.

      
It might have, had she met him in the street. Had she not started to see beneath those effective mannerisms. "It makes me think twice about having you on my land. Especially after the treatment I got from your friend."

      
"Didn't make a good impression, huh? He's zealous. I tell him, 'Let me know who comes around,' and he twists it into, 'Don't let anyone come around.' It's so run down, is all. Once we get the place fixed up, there'll be something there worth your time to see." And he smiled again, dropping the cigarette to his side and flicking it with his ring finger, dropping ash.

      
Brenna was not charmed. But she wasn't as angry any more, and for that she supposed she'd have to count herself as successfully manipulated. Besides, it was evident enough that he didn't intend to let himself be drawn into an argument. "No," she said, "he didn't make a good impression. So you blame it on him that I'm giving you the boot, just like he gave me. When you're ready for the casual attitude about property lines to go both ways, you let me know." She nodded behind him.
Time to go back where you came from
.

      
His dismay seemed real enough. "Brenna, honey, let's talk about this—"

      
Brenna, honey?
She dropped the fists from her hips and picked up the rifle that had been leaning against her leg. Not with purpose; she kept it pointed well at the ground. But it made its point. "Women hate that, Rob. That
honey
stuff. They
really
hate that. Keep it in mind the next time you want to get your way."

      
He gave her a hard look through the gathering twilight. "Real ballbreaker, aren't you?" Druid barked sharply, skittering sideways, and then trotted off toward the house in a purposeful way, hesitating once to look at Brenna and then making up his mind for good. He'd have triggered if he'd been on a leash, she realized—a quick thought that didn't distract her from Parker's expression, or the way he said, "I've got other means to get my way." He let that sink in a moment, exhaling slow smoke through his nose, and added, "If I want to," leaving her to take the implication that if she was smart, she'd stay on his good side. Keep him feeling benevolent about her.

      
Brenna didn't feel particularly smart. "Whatever," she said, as unimpressed as she could be, wondering if he could spot her heart beating right through the tight T-shirt. Not likely, not in this light. "But right now, you're leaving."

      
He shrugged elaborately, flicked the cigarette again. Waited just long enough so Brenna wondered if he would go at all, if he was so willing to scorn her authority on her own land. To her face, anyway, because she was certain he'd be back when he thought he could get away with it. She forced herself to stand still, to look unconcerned.

      
Not to shift her grip on the rifle the way her hand itched to do.

      
After a moment, he flicked his cigarette to the ground and toed it down flat. And left, sauntering off with as much assurance as he'd had when he arrived.

      
Brenna waited until he was out of sight. Sam had warned her, that day at Emily's, to stay clear of Parker. Now she knew why.

      
Or maybe not precisely
why
, but at least the flavor of it. The specifics were as much a mystery as anything else in her life right now. She didn't know what Parker was up to at the barn, and she didn't know what he'd meant by
other means
. He could get what he wanted from her simply by coming around when she wasn't here. What was the point of threatening beyond that point?

      
Because he could.

      
Brenna climbed the hill and sat under the oak until the sun was down and only the barest hint of twilight remained. Watching the pasture—and wondering if Parker would be so bold as to come back that very night.

      
Wondering, too, what drew him to the spring so strongly in the first place. It wasn't
his
dog buried under those stones. Wasn't
his
family's land, the place where he'd grown up and the very hills where he'd found his first stray, trained his first dog, felt the first stirrings of an innate ability to interact with dogs on their own level. Those were all her claims to this spot.

      
All Parker had was one wild night of carousing, destruction, and a nostalgic memory of two dead friends.

      
Didn't seem like that was enough.

      
She stood, wiping off the seat of her jeans with a hand that was still sore and stiffening up from the day's work. She gave it the sweatshirt to hold and carried the rifle in the other, double-checking that the safety was on for her walk in the new-moon darkness.

      
Not that she didn't know where she was going, or had any concern for getting there. She knew this land day
or
night, and as nights went, this one wasn't as black as some. She was more worried about Druid than about her navigation. Unlike Sunny, he wasn't used to roaming the property on his own, or even hanging around the house. She didn't even know if he had a good sense of direction. Some dogs that hadn't been out on their own didn't, and he'd already proven he was perfectly capable of losing his way. So it was Druid that her eyes strained to find as she returned to the house—some glimpse of his white muzzle and blaze or the waving white tip of his tail and four sturdy, well-boned legs flashing along in his trot.

      
What she found, as she slipped through the barn gate and rounded the corner of the barn to the driveway, was the pale hulk of Masera's SUV sitting in her driveway.

      
She stopped short, rapidly cycling through reactions. From
shit!
and annoyance through sudden, overwhelming fatigue and straight through to a resigned place where she didn't really care why he was there or what he wanted. She was ready for a bowl of popcorn and a few chapters of her book followed by plenty of sleep before another day of grooming.