Hoofin’ It: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) Read online

  Chapter Three

  Sally accepted my presence in her stall readily enough, although I suspected my ability to drive away a seven foot tall predator was involved. Explaining to an alpaca my father wouldn’t eat her was useless, but I tried anyway.

  It didn’t take long to figure out she viewed me as a provider of food and a living pillow for her amusement. Since serving an alpaca as a bed beat keeping my parents’ company for the evening, I dealt with it. In reality, I didn’t mind sharing a stall with an animal. When I’d been a kid, we’d all taken turns when Hopper was close to dropping a foal. Skunk’s days as a stallion were long over, but he didn’t seem to mind life as a gelding.

  Instead of coddling a pregnant mare, I had a lap full of alpaca, and she seemed to enjoy attention almost as much as Dad when he was a wolf, which I found amusing. It didn’t take long for Sally to settle down, and it didn’t take long for the wear and tear of driving to catch up with me.

  My mother’s chuckles and the whinnying of two hungry horses woke me. During the night, Sally had decided to use my lap as a pillow and curled up beside me. I was grateful she hadn’t decided to sleep on top of me again.

  “Did you need us to show you where your room is, Shane? You could have slept in the house.”

  “I thought I’d give you two some privacy.”

  “Don’t be such a baby. I had your father fix the walls last winter. I got tired of freezing my ass off, so he insulated them properly. They’re not quite soundproof but close enough.”

  Miracles really could happen. “Did Dad’s fur grow back?”

  “Somewhat. He’s sulking.”

  I laughed. “Serves him right for scaring my alpaca.”

  “Sally.”

  “You do realize she’s my alpaca, right?”

  “For now. And you’re naming her Sally.”

  Scratching Sally behind her ears woke her, and she lifted her head, blinked, and snorted, regarding my mother with an expression of utter disapproval. “I don’t think Sally agrees. Anyway, I might keep her.”

  “In your apartment in Chicago.”

  Without decent pay and with my experience and education dedicated to serving in a police force, I’d have a hard time surviving in Chicago, with or without a furry roommate. Moving was on my list of things to do.

  My vacation to New York City had been to escape from reality for a while—and to see if I liked the coastal city. I hadn’t.

  A night in a barn smelling of horses and hay suited me more than the bustle of city streets and looming skyscrapers. Lincoln, Nebraska had its flaws, but it had plenty of unclaimed land on its borders.

  I sighed. “Since I don’t have two mil for an eye, I’ll be looking for work outside of Chicago. I’ll pick a place I can bring my fluffy friend. If you’re nice to me, I’ll even let you have the fleece whenever I need to shear her. If calling her Sally will make you happy, fine, but she’s my alpaca. If you want one, get your own.”

  “But we already built her this nice stall and everything.”

  “A stall you can put your alpacas in should you get them. You can’t have her.”

  “But you told me you wanted help finding her a home. I found her a home—with me!”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “You’re cruel.”

  “Says the woman who wanted my eyeball in a jar on her desk.”

  “Admit it, you laughed.”

  I had, right when I had needed to the most. The doctors had mitigated the scarring, leaving me with a thin line trailing from my scalp, over my eye, and halfway to my chin. Using a little magic, the surgeons had aged the injury enough it appeared a white line rather than a red welt. The scar would never fully fade, but while they hadn’t been able to save my eye, they’d spared me from additional disfigurement.

  In reality, my eye was in a jar somewhere—just not on her desk. For a hundred dollars, the surgical team had preserved it and put it in a medical vault in case I managed to scrounge up the two million required to create a functional replacement. While any eye would do, having the original meant I’d get the best eye possible.

  Two million dollars wouldn’t just buy me an eye; it’d be an eye with superior vision and potential extra abilities. Some people developed the ability to use their new eye as a magnifying glass or a telescope. Others gained limited abilities to see in the dark.

  “It is funny in a sick, demented sort of way,” I conceded.

  “You’re seriously going to keep her?”

  “That’s my current plan. She’s terrified of Dad. It’d be cruel to leave her here for his amusement.”

  “He’s not going to like that.”

  I worked my way from beneath Sally, hopped to my feet, and stretched. “That’s his problem. Every time he scares my alpaca, I’m going to club him unconscious and shear off his fur. If you encourage him to frighten her, I’ll sell the fur to the highest bidder.”

  “I’m not sure that’s legal.”

  “By scaring my alpaca, he is consenting to being sheared. Animal fur no longer belongs to the animal once it’s been sheared off.” I smirked. “I suggest he behave himself around my alpaca and earn her trust properly.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed. “How much do you think you can get for werewolf fur?”

  “Not enough for whatever you’re thinking.”

  She pointed at my right eye. “We could take turns forcing him to shift, shear him once his coat grows back, and repeat. I bet we could shear him once a day. If we get more for it as yarn, I can do the spinning if you’ll do the carding.”

  Where had I gone wrong in my life to deserve my mother? I gaped at her. “That’s awful even for you, Mom.”

  “So, how much can we get for werewolf yarn?”

  “God help me. I don’t know, Mom. Go look it up on the internet. He’s your werewolf. You shear him for his fur and sell it.”

  “Your concern for my fur is charming,” Dad growled from the doorway. “Are you two seriously discussing shearing me again? Was the first time not bad enough?”

  “We could sell your fur to pay for Shane’s new eye, darling. We’ll make a fortune off you. Your coat grew in so soft.”

  Dad stepped into the barn dressed in his uniform and dropped a kiss on my mother’s cheek. “I’m afraid to ask. I need to head to work. Colin called in sick, so I offered to fill in for him. Try not to burn the house down while I’m gone.”

  “My shift starts in two hours. Patrol?”

  “Patrol.”

  “Try not to get shot today. It’s annoying.” Mom sighed and shook her head. “Shane, try not to burn the house down while we’re gone.”

  “Since when have I ever burned the house down? Why do you think I’m going to start burning houses down?”

  “You’re related to your father, that’s why. You should have seen what he did to my old shed.”

  I regarded my father with a frown. “Dad’s the ‘rip it into tiny chunks and tear metal apart’ type, not the ‘burn it down’ type. He probably just smashed the corner, ripped the siding off, stomped on it a while, and finished tearing it down the next day after he cooled off.”

  When my father refused to look me in the eye, I knew I’d hit my mark. I smiled at my mother. “You probably burned what he didn’t tear apart the next day so you could roast marshmallows.”

  “We have an awful son,” my mother grumbled.

  “We sure do.”

  “Just take Mom to work with you, Dad. I’ll take care of the horses and handle whatever disaster Mom left in the kitchen this time. Someone has to be a reasonable adult here.”

  “And I suppose you think that someone is you?”

  “Mom wants to shear you once a day until she raises two million dollars. You’ll probably let her try. So yes, I do think I’m the only reasonable adult here.”

  “You started it, son. Just you remember that.”

  I smiled my best smile. “No, Dad. You started it by scaring my alpaca. You could have left her alone. If yo
u had, Mom wouldn’t have discovered you’re a walking fur factory. Go to work and take her with you. I have chores to do.”

  “You’re right, Patsy. We do have an awful son.”

  Laughing at my parents wasn’t nice, but it spurred them into hitting the road so I could enjoy some peace and quiet.

  Why was there a half-cooked pancake on the kitchen ceiling? I scratched my head, wondering how I’d get it scraped off, why it was still up there, and if pancake batter would leave a stain. Did alpacas like half-cooked pancakes? I regarded Sally with a thoughtful frown.

  She chewed cud, watching me with wide eyes.

  Since my alpaca wasn’t going to be showering me with wisdom anytime soon, I sighed, grabbed a chair and a spatula, and went to work restoring the kitchen to a habitable space. Several scrapes later, the pancake splattered to the floor. I scowled at the new mess. “Fuck.”

  Sally’s ears pricked forward, and she approached the ruins of my mother’s cooking, sniffing it.

  “It’s probably poisonous.”

  My warning went unheeded. Before I could do more than sigh, Sally gobbled down the pancake. Both her ears turned back, and she regarded me with undisguised loathing.

  “I tried to warn you.”

  While she still wore a halter, I’d unclipped her lead line, giving her the freedom to roam around the house. Instead of exploring, she kept close, observing as I scrubbed the ceiling from my precarious perch. Everything went well until I loaded the dishwasher and turned it on. The dishwasher proved as frightening a foe as my father, and Sally bolted for the doorway, her head tossed back and her eyes white rimmed.

  “It’s just the dishwasher, Sally. It’s not going to hurt you.”

  The machine whirred, which was more than the miniature devil llama could handle. She bolted for the living room, collided with the couch, and scrambled onto it. With a rough application of teeth, Sally snatched my mother’s favorite crocheted blanket and hid beneath it.

  “Are alpacas just funny looking dogs?” I crossed my arms over my chest, deliberating if I wanted to rescue my mother’s blanket. After a few moments of thought, I decided against saving it.

  Making a new one would keep her busy—maybe long enough for Dad to keep his fur for at least a few extra hours. I should have felt bad for catalyzing one of my mother’s harebrained schemes, but if she wanted to try to raise two million using Dad’s fur, that was his problem.

  If Dad really wanted to stop her, he could. Then again, he was a werewolf. Werewolves tolerated a lot from their mates. I considered myself blessed I hadn’t started sprouting a fur coat when I’d hit puberty. Since I hadn’t contracted lycanthropy then, I wouldn’t, which had given me an edge in law enforcement.

  I could handle interactions with enraged werewolves without running any risk of becoming one. Mom would one day, and her infection levels were monitored daily for evidence of her first transformation. I sighed.

  In her way, Mom was probably trying to come to terms with my mortality. She wouldn’t be dying anytime soon, at least not of natural causes. Once the lycanthropy virus became fully active and she underwent her first transformation, she’d exchange some of her humanity for a lengthened lifespan.

  In a few hundred years, she’d start showing signs of old age, and I’d just be a dim memory among many.

  Sally stuck her head out from beneath the blanket and snorted.

  Grabbing her lead line, I clipped it to her halter. “Come on, girl. Why don’t we take a stroll? If I stay cooped up here, I’ll become as crazy as my parents.”

  I wasn’t sure if she understood me or if she knew the lead line meant we were going somewhere, but she got off the couch willingly and stood still while I folded Mom’s blanket and returned it to its proper place. Within ten minutes, I’d locked the house, released Hopper and Skunk so they could enjoy the morning in the pasture, and grabbed the keys for the van. The rental place was two miles away, which would make for a decent walk home. If I needed a vehicle, I’d steal Dad’s car from the garage.

  I’m sure he’d appreciate me packing Sally in his Corvette and taking her for a ride. One day, I might understand why most folks in the area had a Corvette of some sort hidden away in their garage or barn. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t.

  As expected, the rental place charged an extra fee for cleaning Sally’s fleece out of their van. I got most of my deposit back when the vehicle passed inspection since there was no evidence of despoiling by an adorable alpaca. Bringing Sally had earned me points with the young woman at the counter, although I ended up staying an extra half hour.

  “You’re popular,” I informed Sally.

  Sally rubbed her head against me and stared at me with big dark eyes, which earned her another round of petting from me. In the few years I’d been living in Chicago, new faces had appeared in town, although I still recognized many others.

  Old Harold, who ran the tiny gas station across the street, ambushed me before I’d even left the rental place’s parking lot. “Hot damn, boy, you’re going to end up as big as your daddy at the rate you’re growin’. Didn’t you learn you’re supposed to stop adding inches after puberty?”

  Good Old Harold. He was almost as bad as Mom about opening his mouth and saying exactly what was on his mind. “I’m still six inches shy on my toes, old man.”

  “Didn’t hear you were comin’ back to town.”

  “I rescued an alpaca and needed a place to keep her for a bit. I volunteered my parents’ place. So, I’m in town for a while until I find a place to board her in the future.” I glanced in the direction of Old Harold’s gas station. “How’s business been?”

  “Better than normal. Lotsa folks comin’ round these parts nowadays. They’re done developin’ along the way. Lotsa strangers come livin’ ‘ere now. Where’s your old man? Didn’t he bring his truck on down to give you a lift back to the house?”

  “They’re working. It’s a nice day, so we’re hoofin’ it back to the house. Sally needs the exercise, too.”

  “Sally’s a whatsit now?”

  “Alpaca.”

  “A whatsit?”

  I sighed. “Miniature llama.”

  “She spit?”

  “If you corner her or piss her off she will.”

  “She bite?”

  “Maybe.”

  Instead of heeding my warning he could become Sally’s chew toy, Old Harold dug his fingers into her fleece and gave her a good rubbing. His eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be, she’s right soft.”

  I kept a close eye on Sally, taking hold of her halter in case she got any ideas. “Mom’s already laid claim to her fleece, but maybe you can talk her out of some yarn for the missus if you’re lucky.”

  “The missus don’t be needin’ any more yarn,” the old man grumbled.

  Laughing, I bobbed my head in agreement with the sentiment. “They get a little unreasonable about their yarn, don’t they?”

  “Don’t they ever. You sure you don’t need a lift over to the house, son?”

  “Thanks, but I’m sure. We could both use the exercise.”

  Old Harold gave a nod, his eyes locked on my scar. “That healed up right nice. You done did us all proud, you know.”

  The last thing I wanted to talk about was the car accident, but I bucked up, fixed a grim smile in place, and flicked the old man a salute, the one response I could make without insulting him. It was as much an acceptance of his compliment as a signal I’d rather not talk about it.

  “Gonna get one of them ones that look like real eyeballs? I hear they’re squishy, just like the real deal.”

  “We’ll see.”

  With a grin that bordered on the demented, he leaned towards me. “Did you put it in a jar?”

  Why did everyone want to know if I had my eye in a jar? “I didn’t keep it.”

  “Why not?”

  Uncertain of how to respond, I stared at him. Sally pawed at the ground and snorted, giving me a perfect excuse to escape Old Harold’s interest.
“Just didn’t. Had other problems to deal with at the time. Anyway, I need to be getting Sally home so I can feed her and bring Hopper and Skunk in from the pasture. You have yourself a good day.”

  “You, too. Don’t be a stranger!”

  I refrained from sighing my relief until the old man had crossed the street. “All right, Sally. I hope you don’t mind a bit of a hike, because you don’t get to hitch a lift in the back of the van this time, girl. You might be cute, but you have to earn your keep, and that means walking home with me.”

  My alpaca flicked an ear at me and followed without complaint. I gave her some extra line so she could sniff and explore anything of interest along the side of the road. In some ways, she reminded me of a really tall dog with a lot of fur, as she found every single rock and bush fascinating.

  Plastic bags scared her almost as much as my mother’s dishwasher, and I laughed at her antics. After manhandling Hopper and Skunk most my life, her hundred and ten pounds wasn’t much of a challenge, although I had to work to keep her from running away. Laughing, I hauled her in and stroked her neck and back until she calmed.

  “Silly Sally. The plastic bag isn’t going to eat you. You’re as bad as Skunk. He thinks the tractor’s sole purpose is for murdering all equine kind. Only time we can bring it out is when he’s in his stall where it can’t get him.”

  Sally didn’t seem very impressed, but at least she spit on the bag instead of on me. Green goop dripped off her chin, and she stared at me in undisguised horror, smacking her lips as though questioning her actions. Her ears drooped sideways, and she made a pathetic little moan.

  “That’s not the brightest thing you’ve done today, fuzzy.” I rubbed her ears and led her away from the dangerous bag. A better man would’ve picked up the litter, but I drew the line at dipping my hands in alpaca spit to spare the environment from a bit of plastic.

  Since I was guiding her away from the evil bag, she was happy to go, pulling on her lead in her eagerness to escape the threat. It’d been a long time since I’d laughed so hard. Sally enjoyed bouncing around, chomping on tall grasses and examining everything with the curiosity of a newborn.