Just Close Enough

Untitled Part 1

1

DRAW ME IN, MY SWEET MEDUSA

ALEXANDER

October

Revenge.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I think I'd like mine hot, hot and bothered.

My car was parked behind a stand of cattails, just beyond the dilapidated-looking barn, so I could admire the muscles in her legs when she put her boot in the stirrup and boosted herself up into the saddle. Her breasts bounced when she landed, taunting me further. Her hair was as flaxen blonde as her horse's mane and it streamed through the breeze behind her as she urged the horse into a gallop. She leaned over the horse's neck and whispered words in the animal's ear. I imagined her lying over me, her silky hair cascading over my bare shoulders as she murmured encouraging words to urge me on.

I'd discovered her while in pursuit of my prey, Billy Buford, the man I was certain would lead me to the whereabouts of my big brother. Whether Kon was dead or alive, the trail went cold in Crossroads.

Day after day, I searched every backwoods shanty and abandoned still in Marshall County, Alabama, but Billy Buford was nowhere to be found. I should admit that I'd come up empty-handed and chalk it up to another dead end. I'd convinced myself that I'd trekked into the armpit of this county so I could locate Billy, but I had been sticking around to keep an eye on her.

I'd met Billy once over a beer with my brother. I thought of him as Billy goat gruff; he was thick through the neck and thick in the head, as well as a bruiser and bully. I couldn't figure out what my brother Kon saw in the guy; before Billy had finished his second beer he was chasing some skank. After he left with her Kon told me Billy was engaged to a beautiful girl - belle of the South - Kon called her. I gave my brother a double take - how could anything that shallow acquire anything of worth?

Dumb luck was the only explanation that made sense because she was the most tantalizing thing I'd come across in Alabama. But I'd never been desperate enough for female companionship that I'd stalked an unsuspecting female. I expelled a heavy breath into the humid air and the rearview mirror fogged up. I chuckled at the thought of her body hovering over mine, telling me what to do. When had I ever needed directions? Especially from a sweet little piece wearing frayed Daisy Dukes.

The binoculars felt slippery in my hands as I pushed them over the leather on the passenger's seat. I had to stop this; I chastised myself as I rearranged myself in my seat. I was obsessing over her as much as what I'd come to this backwoods town for in the first place.

I was here for revenge. Retribution. I'd take it hot or cold, maybe I'd have a serving of each.

My tongue moistened my lips as she faded into the distance. Maybe she was a way to get even with him, even if I couldn't find him. Everything I'd learned of her had shown her to be innocent and unaware of any of the things I wanted recompense for. Her family, on the other hand, well, they might be as guilty as her missing fiancée Billy Buford was. Maybe there was a way I could get just close enough to her to get the information I was looking for.

My head relaxed against the headrest, I closed my eyes and expelled another breath; the stagnant air was getting to me. My phone had no signal so there wasn't a lot that I could do except sit and wait for her to be clear of the road leading out of Pigeon Hollow. There wasn't anyone I wanted to call anyway and I was content, as I often was with my own company.

It would be wrong to involve her in this. I'd give her enough time to take her horse off the main road before I headed back into Crossroads. Any nagging interest to meet her I'd fought off by rationalizing there was no need to find out up close if she was the reason a bright smile danced across the features of people when they spoke of her. I'd been watching her for weeks now, fantasizing . . . lusting after her since the moment I'd first laid eyes on her coming out of Billy Buford's house. She belonged to him and she might be the easiest way to pick up the trail of the bastard I was looking for. Still, something about her cheerful, confident demeanor kept me from approaching her on one of her happy jaunts out to a cotton field just as easily as I avoided meeting her in town.