Red Fox (11 page)

Dex didn’t look amused. “I
know. That’s because he wants to get in your pants.”

I can’t pretend the thought
didn’t intrigue me and pick me up a bit. What I really wanted to
say was “Really?” and pry him for information like a schoolgirl.
But I didn’t.

“
Very funny,” was my
reply.

“
Look, I don’t mean any
disrespect by it. And I know that’s hard to believe coming from me.
I think…I think that contrary to what you may think about me, I, in
the end, actually don’t know much about you. That doesn’t help. I
can see your brain going a mile a minute too. I know you’re
thinking a bunch of different things and that I’m not going to be
on the receiving end of any of those thoughts.”

Another intriguing thought.
Did he want me thinking about him?

“
I need you to talk to me
too,” he finished.

“
I am talking!” I
exclaimed.

“
Not right now. You expect
me to talk, to ask you things but you don’t do the same thing in
return. You’re such a typical female.”

“
Excuse me!” I said,
getting off the bed in a huff, arms crossed, trying to control my
temper.

He smiled lazily. “Don’t
just yell at me. Tell me how you’re
really
feeling.”

Was he just fucking with me
now? I felt myself snarling at him automatically. If he wanted to
be afraid of me, fine. I’d give him something to really be afraid
of.

“
You see!” he said, getting
out of bed and pointing his finger at me. “There you go, your mind
is racing. You’re pissed off as fuck, plotting all these things
you’re going to do to me.”

I would have chalked that
up to paranoia, but he was right.

He walked around the bed
towards me. A jolt of apprehension ran through me and down my
spine. What was he going to do?

He came right up to me in
the same manner that Miguel did but put both of his hands around
the small of my waist. He looked down into my eyes, his face only
inches from mine. I stiffened up awkwardly. Was he going to kiss
me? That’s pretty much what had to happen.

I swallowed hard, my sides
rigid against his warm hands that reached the small of my back. And
I was supposed to be the scary one here. I thought I may just die
of fright.

I tried to keep my eyes
unemotional, my face blank as his languid eyes roamed all over my
faces, making stops at my own eyes, at my cheek, at my lips. The
corner of his mouth teetered, a smile appearing.

“
So,” he said throatily.
“Can you tell me what you’re thinking right now?”

No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t
tell him that I all I wanted him to do was kiss me. I couldn’t tell
him that he if didn’t let go of me in a few seconds, I’d be the one
kissing him. I couldn’t tell him that all I could think about was
how I never wanted anyone so badly in my entire life.

So I didn’t tell him that.
I had to play it cool.

“
I think you have the wrong
idea, Dex,” I said carefully (suddenly worried about my
breath).

He smiled and took his arms
off of me. “Probably. Though I’m just doing what you did to me.
This is what I get for being impulsive…this is me, going with the
flow. You didn’t like that, did you?”

I stared into his eyes
trying figure out if
he
liked it. All I got was
maybe
.

There was a knock at the
door. We both jumped a bit and turned around. Will had opened the
door and was peering in.

“
Hello?”

He saw us by the wall and
quickly looked away. “Oh, I am so sorry. I was calling you and I
didn’t hear anything. So sorry…”

He started to close the
door.

“
Hey, Will,” Dex called
after him. “Don’t worry about it, we were just discussing
something. Come on in.”

Will looked sheepish.
“Sorry. I should have waited. I forget what it’s like to be young
and in love. Supper is ready. We would love it if you’d come down
and join us.”

Dex nodded. “Of course,
we’ll be right there.”

Will nodded, smiling to
himself for thinking he had interrupted some hanky panky, and
closed the door.

Dex looked back at me. The
extra space between us was a relief.

“
I know your deepest, secret
fear,” he spontaneously sang to me in his baritone voice, then
twirled around the bed over to his suitcase and started
unpacking.

I had no idea what just
happened. I stood there for a few seconds, not saying
anything.

Then Dex started to take
off his pants.

“
Uh,” I stammered and
started finding somewhere else in the room to rest my
eyes.

“
Oh come on wifey, I’m just
in my boxers,” I heard him say. That didn’t make it any better.
Still, I had to peek. They were blue with stars on them. “You’ve
caught men with their pants down before, I hope.”

Not the
same
, I thought.

Then his shirt came off. I
finally saw the rest of the tattoo that he had on his upper arm. It
was a large, black fleur de lis. He also had cursive writing
tattooed across his chest, though I couldn’t read it properly. I
was surprised. And a bit turned on (yes, again). I wanted to get a
better look at it, to ask him about it, about both his tattoos. But
his lightly defined abs, were distracting me as well. I blushed
despite myself. I had to get out of there before I said something
stupid.

“
I’ll see you downstairs,”
I said quickly and exited the room. I didn’t want to face Sarah and
the dinner table on my own but it was looking like the better
option.

I gently closed the door on
Dex and cautiously crept through the upper hallway towards the
stairs. I wanted my presence minimized as I examined the hanging
artwork and photos that adorned the walls. I found a lot of framed
scripture, stereotypical phrases and prayers from the Bible, a few
crosses and artwork, as well. Most had a desert theme. There was
nothing native or Navajo at all. I guess they really had turned
their back on their roots. Not that I was one to judge…I just found
it odd. But really, the whole situation was odd.

I paused at the top of the
stairs and took in a deep breath, preparing myself to deal with
dinner with strangers.

“
Come on down already,”
Sarah’s voice echoed from downstairs.

How did she know I was
standing there?

“
I can smell you,” she said
simply. That was kind of gross. Was she a mind reader
too?

I made my way down the
stairs and turned the corner into their rustic dining room. The
table was long, maybe it was supposed to seat a huge farm family,
but luckily she and Will were at opposite ends at the head of the
table and quite a distance from the places she set up for Dex and
I.

“
Sorry,” I said. “I was
waiting for Dex.”

Will gestured to my seat,
nervous but warm. “Please sit down, Perry.”

I smiled and sat down. The
food was already served on the plates. Corn niblets, gravy, chicken
and stuffing. Glad I wasn’t a vegetarian.

“
Dex,” Sarah sniffed. She
was still wearing her frock, poised at the end of the table like
she was putting on a show. “What kind of name is that
anyway?”

“
It’s short for Declan,” I
told her.

She snorted acerbically,
“It is not.”

I didn’t want to argue with
her over his name, so I told her the only thing I knew. “Apparently
his mom didn’t know how to pronounce it properly.”

“
Didn’t know?”

I took my chance to make
her feel bad, as shameless as it was. “Yes, she’s dead.”

The weight of my words made
Will nod sadly but Sarah wouldn’t have any of it.

“
Your mother-in-law is dead?
You lucky thing,” she cackled. “That’s every wife’s
dream.”

“
Sarah!” Will admonished
from the other end. “Have some respect.”

“
Sorry,” she said looking at
me (or not) with a saccharine smile. “I guess I have fantasies
about Mrs. Lancaster going on her merry way.”

OK. This was definitely
getting uncomfortable. Where the hell was Dex? Not that I wanted
him to walk into a conversation about his dead mother but
still.

“
Ignore her,” Will said.
“Dig in.”

I tasted some of the corn.
So far, so good.

“
So how long have you been
doing your show?” Will asked.

“
Oh, we just started,” I
said slowly. I didn’t like talking without Dex, it made me think
our stories were going to get crossed at some point.

“
Oh? What were you two
doing before?”

“
I worked as a cameraman.
Perry still works in advertising,” Dex said, appearing out of the
foyer’s darkness. I wondered how long he had been standing there.
Didn’t matter, I was relieved.

He sat down across from me.
“Sorry, Jenn called.”

My eyes were this close to
popping out of my head. A) the mention of Jenn sent my heart amok
and B) there shouldn’t
be
a Jenn in this scenario, so my reaction had to be
as cool as possible.

I looked at Will. “Jenn’s
our production manager. She’s very uptight about how things get
done.”

Some might say she’s a
skinny-ass bitch, I wanted to add but I restrained
myself.

I didn’t look at Dex in
case that gave anything away but I could tell he was embarrassed by
his slip-up. Pretending to be married was going to be
hard.

Neither Lancaster picked up
on anything being awry though and we were able to eat without much
incident and with a lot of small talk.

In fact, aside from a few
hostile interjections from Sarah, dinner was actually quite
pleasant and by the end I felt a lot more at ease with the
Lancasters and our situation. Well, that was until I heard more
about our situation.

“
It’s really the sheep I am
worried about,” Will said, explaining the hauntings. “In a way, I
can live with the stones being thrown at the windows and the
animals running through the house. I just can’t afford to lose
anymore sheep. We’re struggling enough as it is here. The
government does nothing to help.”

“
Um, animals running through
the house?” I asked.

He shrugged. His weathered,
jowly face looked nonchalant but he couldn’t hide the seriousness
in his tone. “Something running through the house…sometimes it
looks like people, sometimes it looks like animals…I can put up
with it…”

I couldn’t help but chortle
at the absurdity of that. “Yeah but you shouldn’t have
to.”

“
Well, Maximus couldn’t do
anything to help me. If you guys can, I’d be much
obliged.”

“
Oh, like they would help
you,” Sarah abruptly laughed. She had been silent this whole time
except for the occasional disapproving stutter.

I exchanged a look across
the table with Dex.

“
William you are such the
fool,” she continued. “They don’t want to help your problem, they
want to profit from it.”

“
To be fair,” I found
myself saying, “he contacted us.”

“
Because that damn redhead
told him to,” she countered. “You’re just going to rape and pillage
this farm and our lives all for the sake of a little notoriety. You
don’t want to help us and you can’t. You’re nothing but a bunch of
hacks.”

“
So you think you do need
help then,” I said, surprised at my balls.

She paused. My peripheral
vision detected an uncomfortable glance between Will and Dex. The
boys were staying out of it.

“
I think my husband is
losing it. I haven’t seen anything running through the halls. And
no, it’s not because I’m blind. I can detect far more than you ever
could with your eyes. But the sheep having been going missing and
have been killed in, well, gruesome ways and if that isn’t enough
to send a man and his bags packing for greener pastures of the
mind, I don’t know what is.”

And with that she wiped her
lips with her napkin and threw it on the table.

“
Now, if you’ll excuse me,
I’m off to bed. Having people in the house is tiring.”

Will pushed his chair back
and was ready to get up but she whipped her cane up in his
direction. “You stay. You know I’m fully capable. You don’t need to
make a show in front of your guests.”

Will closed his eyes,
muttered something to himself and sat back down as Sarah went
upstairs.

“
Again, sorry,” he said,
fumbling for an explanation. “She just doesn’t deal with new people
very well. And she doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything of the
supernatural variety.”

“
That’s OK,” Dex said
reassuringly. “Most people don’t. Even we have a hard time with
it.”

That was an
understatement.

Will nodded. “Well, I’m
glad then that you are here. I needed some proof that I wasn’t
going crazy.”