Run To You

and kudzu. Kasper talked about it more than either of his wives or his string of girlfriends.
    “Esterbrook isn’t my house. It’s my home.” Kasper took a drink and looked at Beau over the bottom of the bottle. His brown eyes squinted against the bright afternoon sun, and sawdust and bark chips covered his Cooter Brown’s Tavern T-shirt. “You don’t understand,” he continued after he’d swallowed, “because you were brought up a Navy brat and moved around.”
    The Jungers had moved around, but even if Beau had been raised in one place all his life, he doubted he’d look at the old house with its massive columns and wraparound galleries as anything but a dinosaur around his neck. “All I can say is that it’s lucky for you that you own your own construction company and can afford this money pit.”
    Kasper raised several fingers off his water bottle. “Three,” he said. “Three construction companies. Commercial, new home, and remodel and restoration.” He swatted at an insect buzzing around his head. “You’re right about the money pit part.” Earlier Kasper had shown him around the ten-thousand-square-foot house, parts of it restored while the other parts needed attention. “But worth every cent. Growing up at Esterbrook was amazing. I crawled under acres of kudzu and shot a lot of squirrels around here.” Later, he’d crawled in a ghillie suit and shot enemy combatants. He pointed to an overgrown field behind the house. “Some of the old slave quarters are over there. Just dangerous piles of wood now days, but I crawled all over them as a kid,” he continued, and pointed out lumps and piles of brick here and there that had once been part of the working plantation. He sounded all nostalgic and shit, which might have been embarrassing for the guy if he wasn’t a six-foot-four-inch solid wall of hardened Marine muscle. “Esterbrook survived wars and hurricanes, although we did have some flood damage from Katrina.”
    The sun’s rays cut through the humidity and toasted Beau’s face and bare shoulders, and he upended the bottle over his head while Kasper talked about other restoration projects he’d taken on after the storm. The cold water ran down Beau’s face and shoulder before flowing down his bare back and chest. The icy water raised bumps on his arms. A lot like the shower he’d taken the night before. After he’d watched porn.
    As if he’d read his mind, Kasper said, “Tell me more about this little gal you’re traveling with.”
    She was a virgin. Beau raised his free hand shoulder level. “About this tall. Dark hair. Blue eyes.” He told Kasper about Back Door Betty Night, Ricky De Luca, and Stella’s exfiltration amid the chaos of flashbang. They had a good chuckle over Stella smashing a mobster’s hand in her door, because that was funny shit, and they did have an appropriate sense of humor. Unlike Stella.
    “How old is this gal?”
    “Twenty-eight.”
    Kasper lifted one black brow. “Young.”
    “Too young.”
    “Nah.”
    She was a virgin. How was that possible? She wasn’t ugly or stupid. Although ugly and stupid never stopped some men. The guy in front of him was a perfect example.
    “Pretty?”
    Beau reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. “Yeah.” Beautiful. Beautiful and young. And a virgin. Technically. Although a case could be made that oral sex was sex. Having a man’s penis in a woman’s mouth was as intimate as having it in her vagina. Having her red lips wrapped tight around— Beau stopped that train of thought and where it was leading him, but not before desire tugged at his belly. He looked off in the distance at a paddleboat slowly chugging up the Mississippi River. Tourists crammed the decks, and he picked out a spot of red on the port side. Probably a man’s hat. If he had his scope, he could sight in the lettering, dial in the dope, and decide where to put the crosshairs above center mass.
    “Have you charmed her pants off yet?”
    Beau frowned and tossed the empty bottle back into the cooler. So much for calculating MOS. “No. She’s a buddy’s future sister-in-law.” He’d tried not to charm her pants off. He’d tried to be stone cold. Except for those two times. When he’d kissed her. “It’s not like that.”
    “You’re a man. She’s a woman. It’s always like that.” Kasper reached for the chain saw. “The Quarter is very romantic. Laissez les bon temps rouler ,” rolled off his Cajun tongue just