March 2018 Newsletter
HOT AND BADGERED
Available March 27, 2018!
UNEDITED/UNPROOFED EXCERPT:
Ignoring the excruciating pain in her shoulder, Charlie quickly put her glasses back on before she bent down and, with oven mitts on, pulled the lemon custard pie out of the oven and placed it on the counter to cool.
She smiled at its perfection.
“Bear in the kitchen,” Max said and Charlie turned around expecting to see the Dunn brothers behind her. But no. It was that dog.
“He’s going to eat my pie, isn’t he?” she asked Max.
“If you leave it on that counter, he will.”
Charlie moved the pie to the open window, pretty sure the dog couldn’t lean that far over to reach the pie. But that’s when Max reminded her, “You’re gonna attract bears again.”
“Dammit!”
Holding the pie in her hands, she studied the kitchen.
Max looked up from the newspaper she was weirdly reading. Weirdly, because it was an actual newspaper. Made of actual paper. Charlie had only seen her use her phone the last ten years to read anything. Books. Magazines. Anything.
Charlie didn’t even know where her sister had found a newspaper.
“You could just get rid of the dog,” Max said.
“I’m not killing a dog.”
Max quickly looked up, eyes blinking. “I meant throw him out; not kill him.”
“Awwwww, I’m glad that’s what you meant,” she happily replied.
Max glared at her before going back to the paper. That’s when Stevie walked into the kitchen.
“Who’s killing a dog?” Stevie looked down at Max. “Why are you killing a dog?”
“I’m not—” Max suddenly stopped talking and stared at Stevie. “Were you outside talking to those bears?”
“No.”
“Good. And I’m not killing any—”
“I was inside talking to those bears.”
Max closed her eyes and Charlie asked her baby sister, “What did you say to them?”
“I don’t really remember because I was talking so fast, and you know what happens when I’m off my meds and start talking, I just go and go and go, and I kinda just kept going without really stopping because you know how I get when I’m not on my meds but I’ve panic-shifted. And I may have told them nothing, but then again I may have told them everything I’m really not sure but—”
With pie still in hand, Charlie ran out of the kitchen and returned to the living room to find both bears just standing there . . . staring at each other.
“Pie!” she announced, shoving it under their noses. “Lemon custard. Bet you two like that! Want it? You can have it! Take it!”
Berg gazed at the pie and then her before asking, “So how many people did you kill?”
Charlie cringed. They should have locked Stevie in her room, but she could claw her way out if she was anxious enough.
“It’s not what you think,” she promised.
“So, you didn’t kill a bunch of people?”
“Not like that. Like we went on a murder spree. They were trying to take our sister. And they weren’t afraid to get rid of me and Max to make it happen. What did you want us to do?”
“It’s not what you did, Charlie. I don’t know what you did or why you did it. What I do know is that you’ve probably attracted a new problem to you and your sisters.”
“A new problem? What kind of new problem?”
The two look-alike males simultaneously blew out a breath and looked away from her gaze . . .
“All right, bitches! We have a problem!” she yelled toward the kitchen.
“I thought we killed our problem!” Max yelled back.
“Apparently that wasn’t effective.”
“Is it Stevie’s fault?”
Charlie frowned at Max’s question. “No.”
“So I can’t hit her? Because I feel like hitting her.”
“Don’t hit Stevie!”
Charlie looked back at the two bears and asked, “So what do we do now?’
Berg held up a finger because Dag was on the phone. He grunted a few times and disconnected.
“They’re heading this way,” he said to his brother.
“Who’s heading this way?” Charlie asked, but the bears ignored her.
“Who did they send?” Berg asked Dag.
Dag scowled. “A Smith.”
Berg took an abrupt step back, like he’d been struck. “We have to get them out of here.”