Starfire (Peaches Monroe #3)(29)
Author: Mimi Strong

If you happen upon a giant, hairy beast in the local forests, don’t stop for photos. Run for your life. Not even lumberjacks would survive an encounter. Forest Folk regenerate body parts instantly, so even if you have an ax and chop off their terrifying arms, they’ll grow new ones and use the old ones to beat you to death. Or so the local legends go.

What were we talking about again? Oh, right. Phantom Bog.

Some people say it’s named after the ghosts that float up at dusk and go to their night jobs, making the floors of old houses squeak extra loud.

Speaking of scary things…

GRRRR.

A growl pierced the calm of the car as we drove through the woods. In the back seat was Cujo, the retired police dog who was living out his golden years with Adrian’s family.

“I forgot he was back there,” I said, fanning my face with both hands, which we all know is the best method for making your heart slow down to its normal resting speed.

“We can’t go hiking without protection,” Adrian said. “The Forest Folk will gobble our toes.”

“They only eat your toes if you’re naughty.”

Adrian turned and raised his golden eyebrows, his cool blue eyes wordlessly reminding me of our session dry-humping at the skating rink, and then the oral showdown in my kitchen.

Were those things actually naughty, though? We were both consenting adults, being honest with each other, and any minute now I was going to casually let him know I might be dating another man soon—my husband.

Cujo growled again, and I hunched down guiltily in my seat. The dog was totally onto me, sensing my guilt.

Cujo and I had a “meet cute” story in which he thought I was a perp running through the forest, and I thought he was a mutant cannibal sasquatch, and he took me down like a bag of chips at a stoner party. We’d tried to make friends since that, but I could see in his big, brown eyes that if I so much as darted sideways quickly to avoid a bee, he’d gleefully make me eat dirt. Even there in the car, he was staring me down. I should have given him some of my burger, even though Adrian had a “no people food” rule.

Adrian pulled the car over to the side of the dirt road, and we rolled bumpily to a stop near the trees. To the left and right of us were some ruts in the ground, from other vehicles, but other than that, the spot didn’t look any different from anywhere else along the road. If this was the condition of the parking lot, I had some concerns about the hiking trail.

Adrian turned off the ignition and let Cujo out of the car. The dog bounded off into the woods, wagging his tail like a puppy. When he wasn’t biting the fleshy part of your ass, Cujo was a cute German Shepherd, and not nearly as terrifying as his namesake, the rabid St. Bernard in the Stephen King book and movie.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked Adrian. “I don’t see any signage.”

Adrian propped his long running-shoe-clad foot up on a rock and leaned forward. “Stretch your calves and hammies. The bog is about a half hour’s walk in there. The terrain’s mostly flat, but a stretch now will help prevent injuries if you stumble.”

“Hammies?” I stretched up and then leaned forward to stretch my hamstrings. “Do you really say hammies or is that just for my benefit?”

“I say hammies. This is the real me, Peaches. For better or for worse, I genuinely thought walking to a bog to see a rare orchid was a good date idea. I don’t have a bunch of money to buy a cabin or a float plane, but I’ll never lie to you, not even if it’s to tell you what you want to hear.”

“Back it up. Dalton bought a float plane? An actual airplane?”

“Yes, and he probably did it to impress you. Meanwhile, I take you to the woods to get eaten by mosquitos. Kind of a self-sabotage move now that I think about it.”

“Forget about him, because I’m having fun doing this, and we’re going to get some sweet orchid photos for our moms.”

He let out a low chuckle. “Fair enough. I’ll shut up about my insecurities.”

“Dude, you’re dating two of the hottest girls in town, plus you’re f**king sexy as hell. In LA, I had to pose in my underwear with this blond dude who was about your height, but not nearly as cute.”

“You really think I’m cute?” He grinned at me, his gorgeous smile only making the question more ridiculous.

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

I rested my foot on the rock next to Adrian’s and stretched my calves, facing him. At least I’d worn stretchy jeans that day, which would be fine for the walk. An hour’s walk sounded just fine to me. Walks are fun. When people say hike, I always imagine myself dangling from the side of a mountain, like a ripe plum about to plummet from a tree.

When we were done stretching, Adrian grabbed a backpack from the car. In the bag was bottled water, two extra jackets made of polar fleece, and some emergency supplies. I left my purse in the car, tucked under the front seat.

Adrian scooped my hand into his, and we started off into the woods, following some hand-lettered arrow signs nailed to trees. As we moved deeper into the woods, where the summer evening’s sunshine didn’t reach, the name Phantom Bog became more ominous.

Along the walk, we talked about the upcoming move for the bookstore, and all the things that needed to be done. Adrian had a neat idea to put a sliding door in between the new location and the coffee shop next door, so that some of their seating would spill over into the bookstore and bring a happy buzz to the space. We’d have to put up signs reminding people to purchase the magazines before taking them into the coffee area, but it would probably boost sales enough to be worth the annoyance of a few people treating the place like a community center.*

*Not that I have any issues with people coming in for a browse, but some folks seem genuinely clueless about how business works and think that the mere presence of breathing human bodies within a space generates revenue to pay the rent and electricity. No, sir, and no, ma’am. The first rule of retail is that the money goes into the register. I’d love to get revenue for the shop some other way, such as presence of bodies, so that our main objective could be creating happiness and promoting literacy, but until that funding comes through, they should just pay for their damn copy of Vanity Fair before they get biscotti crumbs between the pages.**

**Elderly ladies who copy the recipes out of cookbooks (Yes, this happens.) are still fine by me. I’m not a monster.

~

Still holding hands, Adrian and I stepped out into a clearing in the trees. Before us, some tattered orange ribbon stretched between posts in the ground, marking off an area the size of a high school track field.