Page 84 of With Spite

My heart gave an unsteady pound as she darted out the door then down the stairs.

In my preoccupation with letting her go, Benz was halfway down the stairs with her.

Luckily, the door slammed closed before the escape artist could make it outside, too.

She yowled in displeasure.

I tucked my dick back into my pants, then left the door open and cleaned up.

By the time I made it back to the door, Benz was back, glaring at the large door downstairs.

“Come on,” I said as I peeled the wrapper on the cupcake. “In you go.”

She haughtily turned around and stomped back inside, her tiny little feet sounding like tiny drums as she went to her food bowl and stared at me with contempt.

“Fine, I’ll feed you some wet food. But don’t get used to the whole damn can.”

She yowled at me as I gave her the rest of the can.

Then went to the window and stared outside until it was time for me to leave.

Hours later, I was still tasting the cupcake on my damn lips when Bernice’s brother showed.

“My meat done?” he asked.

I looked at the backlog of carcasses still hanging in the meat locker and said, “Does it look done? By the way, you massacred the back strap.”

Creed shrugged. “I was in a hurry. Birdee said it smelled like a slaughterhouse.”

“Uh-huh,” I grumbled, thinking about how I’d spent my Saturday, and wishing I could rewind to it.

Despite doing what I love, it was still a damn job.

And I still had to deal with bullshit customers.

Though Creed wasn’t one of them.

“Anyway, if I did anything wrong, it was your fault. You taught me everything I know,” he joked.

That I had.

All of the Dixie Wardens had experience with hunting and fishing.

And all of them had helped me out when I was first getting established here, trying to catch up from a backlog of work that my late grandfather had left behind for me to take care of on my own.

Though I’d been doing the butchering thing since I was young.

I’d taken meat classes in high school and had furthered my education in college by taking several courses to certify me as well as a culinary education from a college in Texas.

My grandfather on my father’s side hadn’t had all that.

He’d just been a glorified butcher who was baptized in the Depression, forced to make his way with nothing.

He’d been the most sought-after in five hundred square miles, and sometimes even further if it traveled through the right word of mouth.

“I guess you’re right,” I said, spying the box in his hands. “What are you doing with that?”

He held up the box. “Bernice said that she was headed here to help you during lunch. I wanted to drop off her birthday gift.”