Chapter Seven

“Hey. How’s your first day?”

“Fine,” Marshall said into the phone, watching Gus from the porch as she delegated with military-like precision. She’d been going all day, getting things set up exactly how she wanted, and all with a smile and a thank you.

She was a dictator. The polite, sexy kind that used manners and charisma to bend people to her will. It was sexy as hell.

“It must be happy hour there soon?”

“We’re at Hitchkin, bro. Not Margaritaville.”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “A couple of fruity cocktails and some music… The view’s pretty good.”

Marshall watched as Gus leaned over and a chunk of her hair slipped from her updo to brush against her neck and cleavage. It was the most innocuous occurrence, but it was enough to get his blood pounding. “You have no idea.”

There was a long pause. “You’re going to hit on her, aren’t you?”

“Nope.” Marshall thought about confessing to the transgression he’d already committed, but he didn’t kiss and tell. “Can’t.”

Not for four weeks anyway.

“Can’t? Did your dick fall off?”

Marshall laughed. Given the way it was stirring at the moment, that was a categorical no. Although if he got a hard-on every time Gus leaned over in the next four weeks, it was entirely possible it could strangulate and meet just such a calamitous ending.

“It’s complicated. I’ll tell you another time.”

He couldn’t imagine Jeremy ever agreeing or signing a no-sex, no-kissing contract. Not without inserting some kind of loophole, anyway.

“Oh, God. What did you do?”

Marshall laughed again. “Relax, Jeremy. It’s fine.”

Thankfully, his brother dropped it. “So…how is it? Being there?”

“The usual.”

The only thing good about being here was knowing how much his grandfather would have hated it. Although Gus being here was also pretty fucking good.

“Maybe those bunnies are part of some kind of grand universal plan to get you to make peace with the island?” Jeremy didn’t say and the past—he didn’t need to. It was implied. “In a couple of months, it’s not going to be the place it is now, the place of our childhood, so the timing’s perfect.”

Marshall’s non-committal reply took the form of a grunt. He was fine with not being fine with this place. He didn’t need to make peace with it or the past. He needed to erase the fucker. Then he needed to reshape it.

“I’m worried about you being there next Monday.”

Next Monday was the anniversary of their mother’s death. “You think it matters where we are?”

“I think…Hitchkin holds particularly horrid memories.” That was true. And maybe it wasn’t the best place to spend a day that was often painfully reflective. But there’d be plenty of activity and people to occupy his brain.

“I’ll be fine.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was heavy, but when Jeremy eventually spoke again, he’d moved on. “Did the volunteers arrive today?”

Marshall released a long, slow breath. “Yes, the Bunnyguards arrived first thing.”

“The Bunnyguards?” Jeremy’s laughter reverberating down the line felt good after the serious turn their conversation had taken. “Where’d they come from?”

“They’re a mixed bunch. Mainly wildlife carers, Humane Society volunteers, and veterinary students on summer break. Gus apparently put out the call, and they got a full roster in three days.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-four, all up. Eighteen women and six men.”

Jeremy’s laughter cut out. “Wait. You’re on an island with eighteen women?”

Marshall grinned at the sudden spark of interest in his brother’s voice. “Yep.”

“What kind of women?”

“The female kind.”

“Dude. Don’t hold out on me here. Spill.”

“Jesus, man, how old are you?”

“I said spill.”

“There are a couple of women who are probably in their thirties, but most of them look to be in their early twenties.”

“Are they single?”

Marshall thought back to the encouraging smiles he’d received. He’d assumed those women were single, but who really knew? Maybe these mass bunny rescues were more of a what-happens-on-the-island-stays-on-the-island kind of thing? “I didn’t poll their relationship status.”

“Fuck me, dude, what the hell is wrong with you? Any hotties?”

“You do know that judging women by their degree of hotness makes you a total dick, right?”

“Of course. It’s utterly reprehensible. Guys like that are total jerks. So, are there?”

Marshall rolled his eyes. “Yeah…I guess.” The truth was, he’d only really had eyes for Gus.

“Where are they all sleeping?”

“In tents.”

“As in separately in one-man tents or…are they sharing?”

“What? You think they’re all going to get naked and have pillow fights every night?”

“Hey. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Christ, dude. When did you become such a pervert?”

Jeremy grunted. “When did you lodge a stick up your ass?” A voice in the background obviously speaking to Jeremy came closer and he said, “Hang on.”

The line went silent for a beat or two except for some distant muffled talking and then Jeremy was back on the line. “I’ll be there, Saturday. I’ll stay till Tuesday morning.”

Marshall blinked. “What? Seriously?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t you have criminals to put away?”

“I can get away for a few days.”

Marshall snorted. “Since when?

“My PA moved some things around for me.”

“Jeremy…” Marshall sighed. “I’m going to be fine on Monday.”

“I know, I know. Maybe I need to make peace with the island, too.”

“Yeah. Right.”

The wonderful thing about Jeremy, and what had made him the perfect defense attorney, was that he’d always been pragmatic. Also, as the younger brother, Marshall had protected him from a lot of the harsher realities surrounding their formative years.

Sure, Jeremy knew about them now. Sure, they’d made him angry and helped him understand Marshall’s driving need to delete their grandfather from history. But hearsay gave people a degree of separation.

The kind of separation that Marshall struggled to find.

He didn’t resent Jeremy for it—he was glad his brother wasn’t touched directly by the kind of bitterness that churned just beneath his own surface. But he sure as shit wasn’t buying in to some psychological decompression crap.

He did, however, buy into Jeremy worrying about him. And his brother’s indiscriminate horniness.

“More like you’re running out of women in Chicago who’ll touch you with a barge pole, and a population of single isolated females seems like a good bet.”

“You make me sound so…mercenary.”

“I call it as I see it.”

“You wound me, man. I’m just a single guy looking for some love while trying to work out my grandpappy issues.”

“You’re such a dickhead.”

Jeremy laughed, clearly unabashed. “See you Saturday.”

“You come here, Gus will give you a job.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.”

Marshall knew Jeremy worked long hours at a thankless job. That he dealt with murderers and scumbags and the worst kind of human beings because he passionately believed that all people deserved a rigorous defense. Marshall admired the hell out of him for it. But he’d never had a manual job in his life.

“You’ll have to sleep on the floor. I have the couch. Gus has the bed.”

More laughter. “It’s okay… Reckon I’ll find a place to sleep.”

Marshall shook his head. He had absolutely no doubt that his brother would charm his way into someone’s tent in a heartbeat. But none of these women looked like fools. If anyone was going to be used, he suspected it was probably his brother.

Not that Jeremy cared how he got laid. He was an equal-opportunity egotist in that regard. “I’m going now,” Marshall said.

“See you Saturday,” Jeremy said and hung up.

Sure…Marshall would believe that when he saw it. How many times had his brother canceled plans over the years? Crime didn’t stop just because Jeremy Dyson wanted to spend a weekend in a tent doing debauched things with a willing Bunnyguard. The nature of his job involved matters that cropped up without notice.

Jeremy would cancel for sure. The Bunnyguards were safe from his slick, defense-attorney charm.

…

Gus did not want to team up with Marshall for the census. Spending two nights with him already had been more than enough. But being an amateur made him inefficient, and it was therefore best to buddy him with the most experienced person who could pick up his slack.

Which just happened to be her.

Also, given how many of the women on this island had slid him the side-eye, she thought it best to claim him before some kind of bidding war started.

The man’s ego did not need any further inflation.

The Bunnyguards were here to work. So was he. She wasn’t going to sit by and watch him turn Hitchkin into his personal harem. The very thought made her skin itch. Sure, his agreement was not to kiss her, not to have sex with her—there was nothing about anyone else—but if she wasn’t getting any, then he could go without, too. It was only four freaking weeks.

He wanted to get laid? He could go back to Denver.

“Okay, are we all set?” Two dozen heads nodded in the purple light. “Everyone has a flashlight, an electronic tracker, their maps, and know which segments they’re covering?”

More nodding of heads.

“For those of you covering the sectors with nests, please make sure you expose only enough of the nest to get an accurate count of the kits and please put the covering back exactly as you found it. But also be on the lookout for other nests. I might have missed the odd one or two, so make a note on the map if you do find a previously unmarked one.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“Be careful out there. It’ll be dark in an hour, so watch where you’re putting your feet. We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

The ABL had insurance for these kinds of activities, but Gus didn’t want anyone injured on her watch. Not to mention the logistics of having to do a medical evacuation from the island in the middle of the night.

“You all have my cell number. It’s on silent, so text me if you have any questions or concerns. Now…” She held up her tracker, which was very similar to a stopwatch. Twelve more—one per couple—were thrust aloft. “Ready? On three. One… Two… Three.” Gus pushed the start button, as did everyone else. “Let’s go count some bunnies!”

There were a few whoops and cheers and everyone dispersed, trudging off, two by two, into the soft blanket of twilight.

“So…we just walk around our allocated grid section and count the bunnies we see?” Marshall asked.

Gus nodded as they headed out behind the cabin to their section of the grid. “That’s right.”

She was excruciatingly aware of him following behind. He was wearing cargo shorts again and a T-shirt that fit snug around his biceps, and she kept getting whiffs of a fragrance that was sweet and earthy all at once. His hair was still a little damp from his dip in the lake an hour ago.

Gus, who’d been hot and sticky, had desperately wanted to join him, but she’d settled for a shower instead. If she wanted to stick to their napkin contract, she was going to have to avoid situations where he was nearly naked.

“Because they should be out and about now finding food?”

“Yep.”

“And that’s why we’re doing this at night?”

“Yes. Night counts are the most accurate. During the day they tend to stick mostly to their burrows, so we need to do this when they’re most active.”

“Won’t we scare away a lot of rabbits tromping around?”

“That’s why we don’t tromp, and we don’t talk. We have to be quiet, and often times we just have to wait for a while, wait for activity. It’s not a fast process.”

Maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to concentrate on the job at hand if he wasn’t talking with that low, sexy voice that had whispered to her in her sleep every night since they’d met.

“How do we know we’re not counting the same rabbit twice? I mean, what if we count a rabbit and then it hops away and someone else counts it in their grid?”

“We don’t know, essentially.”

Gus stopped, because the explanation was lengthy, and she didn’t still want to be talking when they reached their section. He paused, too, his scent wrapping around her in the warm cloak of night. She wanted to sniff him—all over if necessary—to find its source.

“That’s why we have these trackers.” She opened her palm to show him. “Each tracker has been loaded with each couple’s grid coordinates, and every time a rabbit is spotted, as well as it being entered manually on the count sheet, the marker button is activated. The time and exact location of the hit is recorded and the information is stored.”

“It works on GPS?”

“Yes.” Gus nodded. “In the morning, all the written data is entered into a specifically designed rabbit census computer program, and the data from the trackers is also downloaded. The program crunches the figures, taking into account the information on the hits and drawing on the database it already has access to regarding rabbit movement patterns. It eliminates any counts that are likely doubles or triples, et cetera, and spits out a number.”

His brow crinkled. “How accurate is it?”

“I’ve used it in two other censuses, and it was ten out on one and six out on another.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“It’s better than other methods.”

A slight breeze ruffled his hair and it wasn’t dark enough yet to ignore the fact he hadn’t shaved since he’d arrived here. Absently, Gus wondered what it’d be like to have those whiskers scraping against her skin and shivered despite the warmth of the night.

Her nipples tightened. Crap. Get your shit together, Augusta. “C’mon then,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

He nodded and indicated with his hand for her to precede him. “Ladies first.”

Gus headed in the direction of their sector, but she didn’t feel much like a lady, especially not with the heat from his gaze burning a hole in the ass of her shorts.

She felt like a woman. And not one in control of her urges.

…

Dawn was breaking as Marshall stood at the water’s edge, next to Gus, his eyes bleary from lack of sleep. They’d just completed their section, ending up at the beach. The weather had cooled as the night had progressed, but the wooded areas were still warm, and he sucked in fresh air. About twenty feet away, a row of tents stood empty, waiting for their owners to claim them.

He was almost tempted to strip off his clothes and dive in, wash away some of the weariness, but he didn’t want to spoil this moment as he stood elbow to elbow with her, watching the glow of dawn light the eastern sky.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

He turned his head and inspected her profile. From the shell of her ear to the rail of her cheekbone, from the elegant slope of her nose to her pointy chin, she was beautiful.

She was perfect.

“Yes,” he said.

She glanced at him and their gazes locked, and she smiled. “That was an awesome night.”

Marshall laughed. He could think of about a dozen ways it could have been more awesome, but the happy little glint in her eyes was infectious. In fact, it stole his breath and he suddenly didn’t feel tired at all. A woman who could easily be at home on a different kind of beach, being photographed for the cover of Sports Illustrated, but instead got off on tramping through a forest all night, counting rabbits?

Who knew that was such a turn on?

His palm tingled with the urge to feel the slide of hers. They were close, after all, and he felt like they’d connected out there amid the trees. They might have only whispered to each other from time to time, but he’d seen her in her natural habitat, and she’d been glorious.

Serious and studious. Focused. Intelligent. Committed.

Before he could think better of it, he stretched out his pinky to touch hers, but her cell screen glowed with another incoming text—one of many she’d received over the course of the night—and she grasped it with both hands as she read.

The screen illuminated her face as her smile grew bigger. “That’s the last one done.”

“Congratulations,” he said, which earned him another huge smile.

“Hang on, I’ll just send out a group text, asking everyone to bring me their data by midday.” Her thumbs flew over the keypad, and when they stopped, her lips moved as she re-read what she’d written before hitting the send button. The swooshing noise as the text was sent seemed loud in the hush of the beach.

“So…” She put her phone in her back pocket. “Did you have fun?”

Marshall quirked an eyebrow upward. Her blue-gray eyes were lively considering she’d been up all night. “Was I supposed to?”

She laughed. “Of course.”

“I guess your version of fun and my version differ a little, but yeah… I’m surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did.”

For an activity where all his clothes had stayed on, he’d had a good time. He suspected that was the company.

“And you learned a whole bunch of new skills.”

Marshall laughed. “Absolutely. Next time I can’t sleep”—probably because he’d be thinking about her—“I can count rabbits instead of sheep.”

“See,” she said, and her voice was all low and full of laughter and teasing, and it stroked over Marshall like soft, fluffy bunny fur. “The rabbit census, a gift that keeps giving.”

“Lucky me.” He smiled and didn’t say anything for a beat or two, then asked, “So…why rabbits?”

Her brow crinkled as the first rays of sunlight slanted across her face, glowing in her eyes and lighting up strands of her butterscotch locks. “What do you mean?”

What did he mean? It was clear she lived and breathed rabbits.

The way she’d so carefully looked into nests tonight, cooing to the kits and murmuring to bunnies that had been startled and froze to statues in the beam from his flashlight had been most endearing. She’d occasionally also whispered stats to him or rabbit facts as they’d worked, which had been so damn cute.

“Did you always have your heart set on working with rabbits, or did that just evolve?”

“Oh, right.” Her self-deprecating smile did funny things to Marshall’s pulse. “I hadn’t planned on it. I did a placement with the ABL in the final year of my degree, which I really enjoyed, but I actually got a job initially in a large-animal practice.”

That little V was back between her brows. “You didn’t like it?”

“It was okay, but I quickly realized it wasn’t for me, and I missed Chicago, so I got a job at a suburban vet practice, which I loved. While I was there, a little girl brought in a really sick pet bunny, which I just couldn’t diagnose. So I contacted one of the vets at the ABL, and we figured it out. The bunny got better and they offered me a job and…I’ve never looked back.”

“It seems like you’re a bit of an expert, if that paper is anything to go by?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been with the ABL for almost eight years. Seen a lot of rabbits.”

Marshall was about to admonish her for her modesty, but he was interrupted by a peal of laughter as two people—one of the guys with a man-bun and one of the female wildlife carers—burst onto the beach.

She was slightly ahead, but he caught her, flipped her around, causing more laughter, which was then abruptly cut off as they kissed passionately, half walking, half stumbling backward, presumably to a tent. They were completely and utterly unaware that he and Gus were on the beach.

Temporarily stunned at the interruption, neither of them moved as the couple tried to disrobe each other and navigate to their tent while making out at the same time.

“I thought you said this wasn’t Sex Island?” Marshall whispered. Both shirts hit the sand almost simultaneously, galvanizing him into action. “Okay, let’s go,” he murmured low in her ear, “before we start seeing and hearing things we can never unsee and unhear.”

“Hell yes,” she agreed. As unobtrusively as they could, they turned away and headed for the cabin and their depressingly separate beds.