Of Mice and Men

      “Eeeeeee! Dropping her purse with a thud, Dakota screamed and then shouted, “Get off get off, get off!”  While dancing in a circle she slapped at the spider web she had walked into upon entering the musty cabin.  “Eeee!” With another squeal she tugged at the cobwebs sticking to her hair and then frantically brushed at her arms.  “Oh… oh!”  Feeling itchy, she wiggled and squiggled, imagining there were baby spiders crawling all over her body.

      “Okay, okay, settle down,” Dakota scolded herself while taking shallow breaths.  “Oh-kaaaa…” After a moment her rapid heartbeat calmed a bit but then felt a tickling sensation as if something were crawling between her shoulder blades. “Oh! God!”  Wincing, she reached behind her back and slid her hand up her shirt but the tiny tickling persisted just out of her reach.  “Grrr…” she grumbled, arched her spine and tilted back her shoulders in a move that would have made Cirque de Soleil proud but then in desperation tugged her T-shirt over her head.  She slapped at her back with the sleeve and sure enough flung a big black spider into the air.  “I knew it!  Okay, now where did you go?”  With a shudder, she squinted down at the hardwood floor. 

      With the curtains drawn the room was in semi-darkness with the only real light slicing in through the open front door.  “Aha, there you are!”  Nervously twisting the T-shirt in her fists, Dakota crept forward with the intention of smashing the spider beneath her flip-flop.  She even went as far as to raise her foot but then stood there balanced on one leg looking as if she were doing a karate pose.  Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard and glared at the spider but imagined the emanate pop and squish and her foot remained poised in mid-air.  “You can do this,” she whispered fiercely but could not bring herself to perform the deed. 

      Dakota concentrated hard, dug deep for her killer instinct.  “Okay here goes nothing,” she murmured, gritted her teeth and was about to end the life of the spider…

      “Are you okay?” A deep voice from out of nowhere questioned.

      Jarred from her task, Dakota’s head whipped up and she let out a startled, “Eeeee!”  She dropped her shirt, lost her balance and smashed the spider with an audible splat.  Her eyes widened at the tall figure standing in the open doorway blocking out most of the waning sunlight. “Oh, God ewe!”  She kicked off the flip-flop soiled with spider guts and blinked up at the giant man standing in the shadows.  Well he wasn’t a giant, maybe six two or three but to Dakota’s five-foot four… and that’s on a big hair day, he seemed huge and sort of… looming.  His dark hair reached nearly to his shoulders and equally dark stubble shaded his square unyielding jaw.  A black T-shirt stretched across a well-defined chest and seemed to test the limit of the short sleeves revealing bulging biceps.  Faded jeans ripped at the knees hugged muscled thighs.

        “What made you scream?”

        “Um…” Dakota inhaled a calming breath and was beginning to think she was in over-reacting, fight or flight mode when she noticed, oh dear lord, he had an ax by his side!  “I uh…” With a gasp, she started backing away thinking it had been a while since she had come home to Pine Hollow Lake and perhaps things had… changed.

      “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised in a deep voice that sounded a little bit insulted. 

      I just be that’s what all the ax murderers say, Dakota thought while wondering if she could scurry past him and run for the hills.  She suddenly felt as if she had stumbled into a B horror flick and she was Sarah Michelle Gellar. “I know karate,” she bluffed hoping he had mistaken her one-legged pose and screams for some martial arts moves.  Fat chance, but it was worth a try.  “So just back off!”  Dakota quickly removed her other flip-flop and held it up over her head as if were a samurai sword. 

      Yeah, right, even though it did kill the spider rather handily the flimsy rubber wouldn’t do much damage to the dude in the doorway.  Still, knowing it was all in the attitude Dakota wielded her weapon with all the fearlessness she could muster… which unfortunately, wasn’t much so she narrowed her eyes and added in a low and lethal tone, “I’m serious.”

      “Are you now?”

      “Yes,” she said in a whisper of warning and waved the flip-flop so hard that the fake daisy adornment fluttered to the floor and landed near his feet as if she had just thrown down the gauntlet.  Not good.  “So just back off,” she decided to add. 

      After a brief moment of silence the dude in the doorway laughed making Dakota feel as silly as she must look.  Well, at least his laughter didn’t sound sinister, more like a rusty rumble as if he hadn’t laughed in a long while and needed to be oiled like the Tin Man.  His laughter somehow eased Dakota’s fear but then she became a little miffed at his amusement.  She was trying to come up with something haughty to say when she suddenly remembered that she was standing there in her skimpy lace demi-bra with the little lock and key charm dangling between the pink cups.  With her low-rise jeans hugging her hips she realized she was giving him quite an eyeful.  With as much dignity as she could muster, which was none at all, she scrambled over to her T-shirt and hastily tugged it over her head.

      “Okay,” Dakota said with her hands on her hips, “just who do you think you are busting into this cabin without so much as a knock?”  She asked this in a snooty tone since now that she had come to her senses she was pretty much convinced that he wasn’t a backwoods crazy killer.  When her shirt felt funny she realized she had tugged it on backwards and hoped he didn’t notice.

      He scratched the side of his chin.  “Well, the fact that you screamed several times had something to do with it.  Pardon me for asking but just why did you scream and why were you half-dressed?”

      Dakota lifted her chin a notch.  “If you must know I was attacked by a spider.”

      “Attacked?” he asked dryly.

      She narrowed her eyes at the amused inflection in his voice once again.  “Yes,” she answered primly and then further explained, “I walked straight into a huge cobweb and the spider…” she paused to demonstrate the hugeness by opening her arms in a circle, “crawled beneath my shirt.”

      “So that’s why you were half naked?”  He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his wide chest.

      “I wasn’t half naaaa-ked!” she sputtered but felt heat creep into her cheeks.  After nine years in L.A. her southern drawl suddenly returned with a vengeance. “And I have, you know,” she widened her eyes and put a hand to her chest “aracnaphelia.” 

      “You mean arachnophobia?”

      “Whichever one means that spiders scare the ever living daylights out of you.”  She waved a hand in the air wishing he would come out of the shadows so she could get a better look at his face.  Maybe it was because she had been so used to metrosexual men but for some reason his rough around the edges appearance was making her female hormones kick into high gear.  Feeling a little self-conscious at her wayward thoughts she averted her gaze and looked around. “This place needs a good scrubbing.” 

      “Well, this isn’t a Holiday Inn.  Look, I’m not sure where you were heading but you must have made a wrong turn.  You’re at Willow Creek Marina and Fishing Camp.  This particular cabin belongs to Charley Dunn, the owner’s father.  The owner lives in L.A. and hasn’t been here in years,” he explained but then suddenly stood up straight.  “Wait, who are you?” he asked bluntly even though Dakota could tell he had just put two and two together.

      “Dakota Dunn, Charley and Rita Mae Dunn’s daughter.”  While angling her head to the side she peered at him more closely wishing the lighting in the room were brighter.  “Are you Trace Coleman?”  She had seen pictures of the ex-bull-riding star and the man standing before her did not look like former hot shot PBR champion, but then she remembered her father telling her Trace had been forced from the dangerous sport due to serious injuries.

      “Yes,” he answered tightly.

      Embarrassed at her incredulous tone Dakota forced a smile.  “Well, it’s nice to meet you.  My father tells me you do a bang up job running the marina.”  She took a couple of steps closer to him and was about to offer her hand but to her amazement he didn’t make any move to enter the room or to welcome her there. 

      “So are you just checking up on things?  Passing though?”  Any hint of amusement or friendliness was suddenly gone replaced with a distinct you-don’t-belong-here attitude.

      “No, I’m moving in.” Dakota answered a bit stiffly.  “I need some peace and quiet for a change,” she added leaving out the fact that this marina was the only thing left in the world that she owned and she had nowhere else to go unless she headed to Florida and lived with her parents… no thank you.

      “Oh.”  He seemed annoyed.  “But it is temporary, though, right?”

      Dakota shrugged since she didn’t really know the answer to his question.  She certainly hoped so since living in a fishing camp cabin was a far cry from her house in L.A. but didn’t think it was necessary to explain to Trace Coleman that her bubblegum pop days were long gone or that her record label had released her several years ago.