Snakes Among Sweet Flowers (7 page)

“What?”

“Who told you Tom was a boy?” Grant started to smile and it got bigger and bigger.

“What? Well, of course he is. Look at him.” Cam sputtered. “He’s big… and manly.”

“He’s also pregnant,” the vet announced with a smirk.

Cam dropped into the chair and stared off into space. “Fuck.” For a moment, he felt responsible. Not like he’d got the cat pregnant, for God’s sake, but maybe if he’d known she was a girl, he could have kept her safe or something. He was a fucking idiot.

Grant patted him on the shoulder in compassion. “Okay, we are going to run some tests. Make sure she doesn’t have feline leukemia and worms, generally make sure she’s healthy. Then we’ll give her a treatment for fleas. You sit here and come up with a girl’s name for your cat.” Grant laughed as he turned away and started pulling open cabinet doors.

“My cat,” Cam mumbled to himself. “Leukemia sounds serious.”

“It’s like AIDS for cats, so yeah, pretty serious. And highly contagious too, to other cats, that is. So if she doesn’t have it, you should keep her indoors to make sure she’s safe.”

Cam huffed but didn’t answer. This visit to the vet was getting more involved by the minute.

While his back was to Cam, Grant said, “I like your tattoos. How far do they go?”

That got Cam’s attention, and he grinned slyly. “How far you willing to look for ’em?”

Grant turned and walked back to the table, where the cat still lay, appearing unconcerned with the entire process. “I’ve always been known to give a quite thorough exam.” He gave a mischievous glance to Cam, then added, “Come help me hold her while I draw blood.”

Cam stood and positioned himself beside the doctor, gently taking hold of the animal and again spotting the wedding band on Dr. Moore’s hand. He nodded toward it. “What’s with the ring, doc?”

“Well, it’s what you wear when you’re married… and have two kids.” When Cam raised a brow, he added, “Mrs. Moore is quite content and it keeps the neighbors from asking questions.” Cam didn’t reply, not sure what to say to that. Thankfully, Grant changed the subject. “You bought the old place over on Sullivan?”

Cam nodded and tightened his grip slightly as the cat began struggling a bit. “I still have a ton of work to do. The yardwork alone could take me a month or more.”

“You should hire a couple of the local kids to help. It’s cheap labor and most of them are excited to have something to do. Now Tommasina isn’t going to like me much, but I have to get a fecal sample too.”

Cam cringed at the thought, but then was caught by something else the doctor had said. “Tommasina, huh?”

“Yeah, you didn’t tell me what you decided to call her, so I went with that.” Grant grinned.

“I like it,” Cam announced with a nod of finality. “Tommasina it is.”

While waiting on the results of the tests, Grant stayed in the room and chatted with Cam. Cam found himself learning more about the residents of Hog Mountain than he ever wanted to know.

“I guess you know everyone in the town, having grown up here and all,” Cam commented, not sure what else to say at that point.

“Oh yeah, all the dirt. I’ve either fucked ’em or someone close who knew their secrets.” Grant waggled his brows.

“Wait.” That got Cam’s attention. “You fucked someone in this town?”

“Well, I fuck both male and female, but if you’re asking if there are other gays around Hog Mountain, the answer is yes.”

“You people have perfected the art of suburban camouflage for sure. I would never have guessed anyone around here was gay.” Cam wasn’t convinced he liked this kind of gossip, not for moral reasons so much, but because it was a double-edged sword and he had secrets he didn’t want spread all over.

Grant smirked. “How about our own Jackson Rhodes?”

Cam coughed and slapped his chest. “No way!”

“Way. But he’s so far in the closet, he knows what people in China are getting for Christmas. We used to hook up from time to time, until I got married and he decided fucking a married man was against his morals.” Grant rolled his eyes.

Cam grew quiet, giving thought to that revelation. Officer Rhodes was gay….

After the results came back from all the tests, Grant scooped up Tommasina and placed her back in the carrier, then turned to Cam and said, “She seems pretty healthy. All you’ll need is a litter box and she should make a fine house pet.”

“
Litter
box?” Cam was taken aback.

Grant chuckled. “Where did you think she was going to go to the bathroom?”

Okay, yeah, that makes sense
, Cam decided, but this was turning out to be a lot of trouble.

“And a bag of litter. You can get both of those over at Gordon’s.”

As Cam took the carrier from Grant, Grant leaned in and spoke low. “So, how ’bout I come around on Tuesday and check on Tommasina, her being pregnant and all.”

Cam’s brows rose and he grinned. “That would be right neighborly, doc. How about around seven in the evening?”

Grant returned a bright smile. “I look forward to it.”

ANOTHER VISIT
to Gordon’s Market later, and Cam was on the way home again. Too lazy to even make a sandwich at home, he had grabbed a sub sandwich at the deli counter and was already eating it as he drove.

The first fat drops of rain hit the windshield as he was pulling into the driveway, and he hurried to get the carrier and his other purchases in the house before the bottom dropped out. Then with the soothing sound of a downpour on the tin roof of the porch, Cam set up the litter box in the downstairs bathroom, a food and water bowl in the kitchen, then let Tommasina out of her cage. He was a bit worried that he should be doing something special for the pregnant cat but couldn’t think of anything in particular to be done.

It took no time before the cat went off exploring her new home and Cam plopped down on the couch with the rest of his sub and a big glass of iced tea to consider the fact that Officer Rhodes was gay.

JACKSON PULLED
the last table into place in the basement room of the Hog Mountain First Baptist Church, where in less than an hour, the first of the congregation would begin gathering to share breakfast before Sunday morning services.

“What else you need me to do, Momma?” He and his parents had always been the first in the doors and the last to leave each week, unlocking the building, getting coffee started, and making sure hymnals were in place and the attendance card racks were filled. Even as an adult living on his own, he still made sure to meet his parents and help them with the tasks.

Mrs. Pamela Rhodes came out of the kitchen area, which was attached to the banquet hall. She surveyed the setup, her dress covered with a white apron, and then gave her son a sweet smile. “You could reconsider taking Jenny Miller to the Optimist Club’s Sadie Hawkins dance. Daddy said he’d give you the time off.”

“Why are you so all-fired convinced of a sudden I need to go out with Jenny?” Jackson had been lucky in the past years that his momma hadn’t pushed him to date. That seemed to have changed for some reason. Jenny Miller had popped the question a week before about the dance, but he had told her he didn’t think he’d be able to make it. Obviously her invitation and the answer he’d given had already made the rounds back to his mother.

“Jackson Lee Rhodes, when was the last time you took a girl out? You need a little pleasure in your life. All you do is work.” It looked like his momma was going to hold onto this like a dog to its bone. Jackson knew his mom just worried about him being alone, but he really didn’t need her to start trying to fix him up with dates.

“Pamela, leave the boy be. He’s old enough to decide who he wants to take out and when,” his dad cut in from where he stood by the door to the large room. As if to be sure the conversation was over, he turned to Jackson and asked, “Did you hear Ida Evans lost her wallet yesterday? And she’d just cashed her social security check and Charles’s too.”

Jackson frowned. “Any ideas where she might have lost it?” Charles and Ida had never liked banks. They had a savings account at the local bank, but preferred to keep cash and use money orders for their regular expenses. While most everyone in town knew that, he couldn’t imagine anyone stealing from them.

“She paid for groceries at Gordon’s and had it then. It was gone from her purse when she got home. Gordon had the bag boys search the lot and the store. I went through her car myself and helped her look around the house.” He shook his head.

“She can’t remember anything different, somewhere else she might have stopped?” Jackson felt heartsick over the loss. The couple didn’t have a lot to live on at the best of times.

“No. They had help loading the groceries and she tipped a dollar. That’s the last she remembers of seeing the wallet.”

“Was Barry bagging or Sean?” Jackson couldn’t help pushing the subject. He wanted desperately to find the one clue that could turn this all around for the two.

“It wasn’t them. Ida said Mr. Sanders helped Charles out to the car and then loaded up her groceries. The mechanic who bought the old service station south of town. Didn’t you drop by there recently?”

Jackson felt his blood pressure go up at just the mention of the name. “Camden Sanders. Yeah, I met him…. Might need to meet him again right soon.” Jackson scowled.

THE DAY
had dawned nice and cool thanks to the previous night’s rain, and Cam decided to go ahead with his plan to work on the yard even though the ground was wet. He placed a note on the door to the garage, letting anyone that stopped by know he was out back if needed, then got busy transporting old tires, engine parts, and empty oil drums from behind the shop to the street.

When he’d first headed outside for the day, he’d tried to convince Tommasina she should stay inside, but the cat was having none of it and now lounged on the porch, watching him slave away from her spot in the shade. He’d brought her food and water out in case she got a hankering, but so far she seemed far more interested in lying under one of the rocking chairs and flipping her tail back and forth. He wondered if that meant something in cat language.

Cam would never have expected before moving to Hog Mountain that his daily life would come down to something so mundane as an activity like this one. In fact, this was his first experience in living alone. He’d lived at home until his first trip to the Fulton County Jail on charges of shoplifting. That’s where he’d met Harold, and at the time, he’d felt the meeting was advantageous, since his mother had tossed him out on his ear when she learned of his arrest. Harold had taken him in, letting him sleep on the couch of an apartment already housing four other people. Harold had seemed so worldly to Cam, and it hadn’t taken long before he’d had a pretty mean crush on the guy.

One night, a few months after he’d taken up living in Harold’s living room, Cam had wakened to find Harold leaning over him and pulling back the ratty blanket that covered him. Harold wasn’t what anyone would call classically good-looking. He had one milky eye, caused from an accident when he was a kid, which definitely gave him the creepy factor. But somehow, when added to the sharp lines of his face, gloriously long dark hair, and lips that truthfully belonged on a girl, he made it work for him.

Cam had looked up into Harold’s face and was mesmerized, felt fortunate to have the seductively charming man’s full attention. Harold was completely nude and unashamed of the fact that there were others in the small apartment who might see him. All the tattoos on his firm chest looked more like the drawings of a psychopathic preschooler, or maybe the machinations of a shattered mind. They added to his creepiness, but still something drew people to Harold.

And Cam wanted him. Had wanted him since Harold had bailed him out of jail and brought him home. Their first meeting of lips was not what Cam expected, however; “brutal” was a good description. Cam could feel the hardness of Harold’s teeth through the kiss, threatening to bruise or even break the tender skin. Cam grunted and tried to pull away.

As Cam was crushed under Harold’s weight, powerful hands squeezing and holding him down, Harold chewed at Cam’s bottom lip, ripping an involuntary cry from him.

“Not so rough.” Cam squirmed and attempted to express to Harold what he needed, but Harold only boxed his ear and bit harder. Then Cam’s legs were twisted to the side and held so that his hole was exposed and just that quick, Harold’s cock was there. Cam panicked at the insanity sparking in Harold’s eyes and fought harder to get out from under his heavy weight.

“No,” Cam said firmly. This wasn’t going anything like he had envisioned. It was as if Harold was raping him, but how could that be? Cam wanted this, didn’t he? But they needed to use condoms! He had no idea if Harold was safe or had any diseases.

“No!” He yelled this time, hoping it would halt this whole crazy mess, but Harold grabbed his balls and twisted. Then he grinned at Cam, the expression soaked through with evil, and shoved his hips forward.

At first, Cam didn’t think Harold would get inside. Cam was fairly new to anal sex, and he’d had no preparation at all, no lubricant either. But Harold wasn’t giving up. He pushed harder, even though that kind of pressure on his cock had to hurt him as much as it was hurting Cam.

Cam screamed as he was filled to bursting. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Scream for me, baby,” Harold murmured as he immediately started pumping. “Tell everyone how good I’m fucking you.” Between terror-filled screams, Cam realized no one in the apartment was coming to see what the noise was about. This must be a common occurrence and they were simply glad it wasn’t them this time.

The next morning, Cam had barely been able to walk, yet Harold had joked and laughed with him like they were best friends or lovers. Something about the attention had Cam making excuses for Harold’s behavior and kept him from leaving the tiny apartment, but Cam never forgot the evilness he’d seen that night. And he’d made a trip to the free clinic to be sure he hadn’t caught anything.