Chapter Ten

Marshall sat on the porch with Jeremy later that evening, as the last golden rays of dusk evaporated to the purple of twilight. They sucked on beers as they watched the activity going on at the bunny farm.

Gus and the Bunnyguards were out rescuing rabbits again. They came and went in twos, raking in another haul of animals with startling efficiency. They’d go out again at dawn and repeat the process. They’d keep going until they were confident every last rabbit had been rescued.

“It’s weird sitting here like this, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Marshall nodded.

“I can’t get used to being able to do it. Keep looking over my shoulder for the cops.”

Marshall grunted non-commitally. He didn’t want to talk about his grandfather or their fucked-up history with this place. He’d spent all week trying not to think about it, immersing himself in the work of Hitchkin, to separate himself from the emotion of Hitchkin.

Tonight, he just wanted to sit and enjoy the island with his brother, like they should have always been able to do. Like they’d done for those glorious few days when they’d been kids before it had all gone pear-shaped.

There was a sudden commotion at the clearing, some running and shouting and calls of, “Catch it!” before Gus called out, “Got it!” holding up what Marshall presumed to be an escapee bunny in her hands.

He smiled to himself. Of course she’d caught it. The woman was formidable. “So…there’s nothing going on with the two of you?”

Marshall turned his head to find his brother staring at him with that speculative expression on his face again. “No.”

“Hmmm.” Jeremy took a sip of his beer. “I thought you and her might have—”

“Nope.” Marshall cut his brother off before he could go any further. Nothing was going to happen on Hitchkin, so what was the point in letting himself go there?

“Dude… There’s enough chemistry between the two of you to power Denver.”

Marshall shrugged. “I know.” He could feel it humming between them even now over this distance.

“You know?” Jeremy frowned. “So…?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Well, it did, but he’d signed on the dotted line and damned if he was going to break first.

Which would make that kiss he was going to claim all the sweeter.

“Since when did you ever pass up an opportunity with a gorgeous woman? I know she’s not one of those agreeable chicks you seem to like so much, but hellz, bro…she’s awesome. And you have the moves.”

“Look, we made a…pact. Not to explore any kind of a…physical thing while we’re on the island.”

Jeremy almost did a double take. If it’d been happening to anyone else but him, Marshall would have found the move hysterical. “Why on earth would you do that? Did you fall and hit your head? Have you had a stroke?”

Marshall smiled grimly. “You can go without sex for a month, Jeremy, with no ill effects. You should try it some time.”

Unlike Jeremy, Marshall had gone for periods of time without getting any. Sure, he’d become more intimately acquainted with his right hand during those times than he’d ever wanted to be, but he hadn’t suffered any permanent damage.

His brother shuddered. “Look, man, pacts are made to be broken. After all, what happens on the island stays on the island, right?”

“And what about contracts?”

Jeremy’s beer was halfway to his mouth when it paused. “What does that mean?”

“We signed a no-kissing, no-sex contract.”

The beer lowered. “Oh my God. You have had a stroke.” He held up two fingers. “How many?” he asked, waggling them in front of Marshall’s face.

Marshall batted them away. “It’s nothing, don’t worry. It’s written on a napkin, for fuck’s sake.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s on a sheet of toilet paper, Marshall. As long as it’s legible and you both signed it, it’s a valid written contract.”

“Now you’re just being melodramatic.”

“Where is it? I want to see it or a copy of it, so I can review it.”

“So you can spot a loophole?” Although, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. With this tension crackling between him and Gus, maybe she was looking for a loophole too? “It’s like two sentences.”

“A copy?”

“There isn’t a copy. Gus has it somewhere.”

Jeremy sat forward and looked over his shoulder. “You didn’t get a copy?”

Marshall laughed at the absurdity of it all. “No, bro, I didn’t think to get it in duplicate.”

“Dude…” Jeremy shook his head. “Have I taught you nothing?” He took a swig of his beer. “Okay. Here’s what you gotta do. You’ve got to get it back from her and tear it up.”

“I’m not tearing it up, Jeremy. There are plenty of women out there who want to sleep with me. I don’t need to resort to underhanded tactics to convince someone who’s determined not to, to take the leap.”

Plus, he had a date with her mouth in a little over three weeks. He could wait.

“That’s bullshit. A blind man could see she’s hot for you. That you’re hot for each other.”

Marshall couldn’t deny his brother’s assessment. He caught Gus looking at him sometimes like she was thinking the filthiest thoughts. But, thanks to the contract and whatever other reasons she had going on, she was keeping her body on a tight leash, and he had to respect that.

Opening his mouth to tell his brother that some people could ignore their urges and that he should chillax, the woman in question took form and shape out of the ever encroaching night, heading in their direction, with Thumper in her arms.

His mouth snapped shut. Christ, she was mesmerizing. He’d loved her in that skirt the day they met in court, but the utterly sexy way she wore her thick socks rolled down over top of her sturdy work boots was just as captivating.

There was something about the way she moved that had him hooked. Maybe it was those long shapely legs—Marshall could almost feel them wrapped around his hips—but he suspected it was more to do with the confidence of her gait.

“Tear it up,” Jeremy whispered out the side of his mouth as her foot stepped on the first stair.

Like their momma taught them, they both stood as she got to the stop of the stairs. “Everything okay?” Marshall asked.

“Fine.” She passed them briskly, heading into the cabin. When she realized they were following her inside, she said, “I’m going to keep Thumper in here with the others.”

There was a sick bay set up at one end of the living room for rabbits that needed some kind of minor treatment. Currently there were two inpatients. Zebedee, who had a mucky eye. And Carol, who had an infected paw. They were sitting quietly in their cages as Gus opened the top hatch of a bigger cage.

Leaning over, she eased Thumper inside. Putting down his beer, Marshall grabbed some hay from a big sealed tub and passed it to Gus. “Is he sick?”

“No.” She shredded the hay and spread it around the bottom of the cage. “The other rabbits are picking on him.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “Animals can tell difference, too. They’d probably ostracized him in the wild and aren’t taking kindly to having him back with them again.”

Marshall crouched to inspect Thumper. “The other rabbits are like five times smaller than him. He could just…sit on them.”

Jeremy laughed somewhere behind them as Gus said, “He’s a lover not a fighter.”

“Yeah.” Marshall petted the bunny’s head through the wire. “I hear you, dude.” He heard her soft snort but carried on petting Thumper. “Don’t worry, man, I’ve seen what you’re packing down there and it is impressive. Some sexy little doe’s going to go gaga for that, and you’ll have lots of babies together.”

“Ah, no.” Gus stood, grabbing a plastic bowl they were using for water, and headed to the sink. Marshall stood and watched her progress. “No little bunnies for Thumper. He will be getting neutered along with all the other bucks from Hitchkin, remember?”

Jeremy winced. “Please, must you say that word out loud?”

She smiled sweetly at his brother as she filled up the bowl and headed back to the cage. “Would you prefer castrated?” Another shudder. “Desexed?”

“How about we just whisper the operation?”

She laughed. “Guys are so sensitive about testicles.” Heading back to the cage, she opened the top again, lowered the bowl, settled it amongst the hay, and shut the lid.

“Only when it comes to chopping them off,” Jeremy said in his best appealing-to-the-jury voice.

“Altered rabbits are healthier and live longer,” Gus explained patiently. “And they’re a lot calmer without all that testosterone making them cranky and aggressive. It’s a very safe, very quick operation. I can do one in ten minutes.”

Jeremy stared at her. “You perform castrations? In ten minutes?”

Marshall saw his brother’s Adam’s apple contract from across the room. He was pretty sure Jeremy’s balls had contracted, too. His certainly had.

She smiled at him. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

If there was an edge to her voice it might have gotten a bit lost on Marshall contemplating how skilled Gus was with a scalpel.

“I’ve lost count of the number of rabbits—both male and female—I’ve desexed. It’s probably about sixty percent of my job with the ABL. I can do it in my sleep, with one hand tied behind my back.”

“Well…that’s an unusual talent.” Jeremy looked a little green around the gills as he drained half his beer.

She smiled at him again before heading back to the sink to wash her hands. “Gotta get back,” she said as she spun around to face them, drying her hands on some paper towels. “No rest for the wicked.”

She winced a little, obviously annoyed at the use of that phrase again. Marshall wasn’t. It was fast becoming his favorite as it took him right back to the beach that day.

You’ve been wicked, Augusta?

They watched her leave, and Jeremy expelled a breath. “So…the woman’s handy with a scalpel.” He drained the remainder of his beer.

Marshall nodded. “That shouldn’t be a turn on, right?”

“Dude…” Jeremy shook his head and laughed. “You signed a contract with a woman who’s trained in surgical castration. She can remove a pair of balls in ten minutes. Your nuts should have shrunk to the size of currants at that tidbit of information, not be flooding with happy juice.” He went to the fridge, extracted two beers, and tossed one to Marshall. “I think I need some air after that conversation.”

They headed outside again, resuming their seats, staring across the clearing. The solar lights that were strung around each side had flickered on, and they watched the activity without talking until it started to break up about ten minutes later.

The Bunnyguards scattered, heading for their beach as they finished up for the night. Paula stopped at the porch.

“You ready?” she asked Jeremy.

He grinned and held up his half-empty beer. “Be there soon.”

“Cool.” She nodded. “I’ll be in the lake.”

“Okay. Give me five.”

“Naked.”

Jeremy’s grin broadened. “In that case, I’ll be there in two.”

Paula laughed, and they watched as she practically skipped off. Before Marshall could comment, two of the female Bunnyguards—Lucy and Eliza—mounted the stairs, laughing and holding hands. Jeremy and Marshall stood as they reached the top.

“Is it okay if we take a shower?” Eliza asked. They each had a towel slung over their shoulders.

Marshall was pretty sure Eliza meant together. “Of course,” he said, indicating they should go ahead.

Mostly people bathed in the lake, but the cabin shower was open to anyone who wanted to use it. The island was supplied via pipes from the mainland, so water wasn’t an issue.

“Thanks.” They smiled and headed toward the door, disappearing inside but not before Lucy dropped a kiss on Eliza’s shoulder.

Marshall blinked and turned to look at his brother. “Is everybody on this island fucking but me?”

The humans were hornier than the goddamn rabbits.

Jeremy laughed. “Yep. Just you. And Gus.” Then he mimicked tearing up the contract.

Marshall ignored his brother. “Don’t you have a Bunnyguard to debauch?”

“I do.” He drained his beer. “Have a good night on the couch, bro.”

Flipping him the bird, Marshall sat again. Jeremy took off with a laugh, leaving Marshall to contemplate the night and the butterscotch-blonde in the distance, still working away. A woman who could not only tie his balls in knots but cut them off as well.

Competence. Efficiency. Multitasking.

So damn sexy.

…

Gus wasn’t sure how she came to be sitting around a bonfire on the beach with Jeremy and Marshall the next night. One moment she was agreeing to hot chocolate and s’mores with Jeremy, because he was a hard man to say no to when he turned on the charm, and because s’mores. The next, Marshall was sitting on the log opposite hers, his strong, sexy features enhanced by the leap of flames between them.

She wasn’t sure how she came to be laughing so hard, either. But the brothers had an easy kind of relationship. They obviously liked each other and got along well. They loved to smack-talk each other and tell outlandish stories from their youth.

She found their reminiscing about Hitchkin particularly fascinating. They spoke about it with such whimsy and affection it was difficult to correlate to Marshall’s driving need to destroy it all.

The brothers were so alike—tall and broad, dark-haired and confident. And yet there were elemental differences between them. Jeremy was slick and polished and charming, every inch the city lawyer. Marshall was…raw. Rough around the edges. At home in boots and a hard hat.

He didn’t pretend he was anything other than a guy who’d dropped out of school at fifteen to work construction. There were no airs or graces. He wasn’t an ignorant slob by any means, but what you saw was what you got.

Prior to meeting the Dyson brothers, she would’ve taken a polished man any day. She may have had a thing for rough hands, but, in practice, they hadn’t been the kind of guys Gus had dated. Rick had been a sales rep, the guy before him had been a computer tech.

But boy howdy…Jeremy Dyson didn’t do a single thing for her.

Sure, he was gorgeous and funny and, despite his easy, ladies-man facade, she’d seen him in court and had no doubt he could be terrifying. But she was sitting next to him eating s’mores, on a log, on a beach, in front of a bonfire and she felt…nothing.

His brother, on the other hand…

She was sitting opposite him while he licked sticky marshmallow from his lips and chocolate from his fingers. There was a roaring fire between them. Yet she wanted to crawl through the flames, straddle his lap, and kiss him until they toppled backward. Kiss the marshmallow off his mouth. Let him kiss the marshmallow off hers.

Even as her heart and her head rejected any kind of romantic entanglement, her body craved his touch.

It would be a relief to be back home in Chicago when this was done. Far away from Marshall and this place with its weird bunny juju pulsing all around, infecting not just the rabbits but the humans, too.

Because it had to be the island, right? For damn sure, that’s what Gus was blaming.

“So. The rabbits are almost all rescued now?” Jeremy asked.

Gus dragged her brain back to the conversation, turning her head to look at the younger Dyson brother. “Yep, couple more days and we should have them all and then the real work of re-homing begins.”

Jeremy whistled. “You’ve been very efficient. Judge Williamson will be pleased.”

She shrugged. “Thank you. It’s what we do.”

“Maybe I’ll stay on a bit longer.” He glanced across the fire at Marshall. So did Gus. “What’d you reckon, bro?”

Marshall snorted. “And do what? Distract the workers?”

Jeremy laughed. “I can help.”

“How?”

“I reckon I could be put to all kinds of use, don’t you think, Gus?” He gently bumped his shoulder against hers, and Gus glanced at him. His eyes were smiling and the firelight accentuated the brackets at either side of his mouth. “I think maybe you need someone like me.”

Gus laughed. “Is that a fact?”

Jeremy Dyson was flirting with her. She was pretty sure it was just to annoy Marshall, which appeared to be working if his sudden scowl was any indication. Gus was surprisingly okay with that at the moment.

“She’s not into someone like you,” Marshall decreed from his side of the fire.

Gus blinked at the outrageously possessive statement. Just because he’d kissed her and somehow managed to cause amnesia about how gutted she’d been over Rick’s cheating, it didn’t mean he knew her.

Jeremy didn’t seem remotely fazed as he smiled at his brother and said, “How do you know?”

He held up his hands, palms facing them. “Because you have soft hands.”

He shifted his gaze to meet Gus’s, and she blushed a little. Beside her, Jeremy inspected his hands, and she said, “There’s nothing wrong with soft hands.”

One dark eyebrow winged upward. With the firelight glowing on his face, it made him look arrogantly devilish. Gus dropped her gaze at the expression in his eyes, calling her on her lie, her cheeks warming up just thinking about how his rough fingers had felt on her arm the other night.

How she’d dreamed about them on every inch of her body.

“Besides,” Marshall continued, “Gus doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s into guys that change their women as frequently as their underwear.”

No, Gus was definitely not into manwhores, but she wasn’t into possessive dicks, either, which was exactly how Marshall was behaving. For absolutely no earthly reason.

“Jeremy…” She tutted him lightly. Possibly a little flirtatiously. “Are you breaking hearts?”

“No, ma’am.” Jeremy drawled his denial, and Gus laughed at his big ’ol grin. “I’m always upfront about my expectations. Women know I’m out for a good time. Not a long time. Breaking hearts is more Marshall’s wheelhouse. Just ask his three ex-fiancées.”

Gus blinked, her lips parting in shock. Marshall had three ex-fiancées? Three? He’d said he’d had a few serious relationships, but she hadn’t thought he’d meant that serious. She stared at him across the fire. “You’ve been engaged three times?”

Good Lord. The man was a serial monogamist. And that was way worse than a manwhore. As Jeremy said, everyone knew where they stood with him, but Marshall? A guy who was clearly okay with the concept of commitment but lousy at follow-through? Those men fucked women up. And she wasn’t going to let another man do a number on her head.

She was already fucked up enough. One more reason to stay the hell away from Marshall Dyson.

Marshall shot his brother a dirty look. “Thanks for that, bro.”

Jeremy grinned. “You’re welcome. And, on that note, Paula’s waiting for me.” He stood. “Good night, Gus.”

“Night,” she said, totally distracted.

“Night, bro.”

“Get fucked, Jeremy.”

Jeremy laughed. “That’s the plan, dude.”