How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things

By

A. Wilding Wells

Copyright 2016 A. Wilding Wells

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, please contact A. Wilding Wells at [email protected].

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Table of Contents

1
- Your Heart

2
- The Future

3
- An Echo

4
- A Needle and Thread

5
- It Makes a Splash

6
- A Splinter

7
- A Wheel

8
- A Thorn

9
- A Fish

10
- A Book

11
- The Full Moon

12
- Time

13
- Darkness

14
- A Secret

15
- A Volcano

16
- Music

17
- Blue

18
- A Kiss

19
- Cards

20
- A Lantern

21
- A Choice

22
- An Iceberg

23
- An Hourglass

24
- A Cipher

25
- Appearance

26
- 1

27
- A Shadow

28
- Stable

29
- Justice

30
- Your Reflection

31
- Mask

32
- A Hole

33
- Electricity

34
- Footsteps

35
- Courage

36
- Gravity

37
- Death

38
- Mountain

39
- A Clock

40
- Nothing

John Keats
, 
Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without yo
u—
I am forgetful of everything but seeing you agai
n—
my Life seems to stop ther
e—
I see no further. You have absorb’dme. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolvin
g—
I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing yo
u…
I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religio
n—
I have shudder’dat i
t—
I shudder no mor
e—
I could be martyr’dfor my Religio
n—
Love is my religio
n—
I could die for tha
t—
I could die for you.” 

Balthazar

If you break me,
I do not stop working.
If you touch me,
I may be snared.
If you lose me,
Nothing will matter.

Your heart

A Tinker Bell of a woman is dragging a bale of hay three times her size down the dust-covered aisle in front of me. Her shoulders drop as she grunts with every burdensome step. A skirt and heels? Odd choice for a feed mill.

I dump two fifty-pound bags of chicken crumbles off my shoulder at the checkout my mate Rowdy is manning. “Will you look at her, more colorful than all the Fourth decorations on Main Street.”

Soda flies out of Rowdy’s nose as he laughs and comes around the register to get a peek at her. “You mean the sister-in-law?” His face lights up.

“Sister-in-law? Dude. Last I recall, you’re not married. Bloody hell, she’s hot. Now that’s a muffin I could finally—”

He elbows me in the arm. “I’d call you blind if I weren’t offending you for the eye patch.” Then he clarifies, “Your sister-in-law. Not mine.”

My body becomes rigid. “My sister-in-law? She’s Lavinia’s kid sister?”

Rowdy thrusts his chest out as he rocks on his toes. “Yup. Matilda Pearl. And…clearly, she’s no kid. I’d put her at twenty-two, maybe three or so.”

“The fuck is she doing here?” Clenching my jaw, I grab my gloves from my back pocket and put them on. “I’m gonna help her. The bale is winning.”

“Don’t bother,” Rowdy says before spitting the remains of a sunflower shell into his hand. “Won’t take it, she’s stubborn as fuck.”

“The hell she won’t,” I mutter under my breath as I approach her. I easily pick the bale up as she glares at me then tries to grab the hay out of my hands. I can’t not laugh.

“I got this.” A flash of temper flickers across her brow.

“Yeah. Evidently so,” I chuckle. “Point out your truck. I’ll throw it in. You can wrestle it out yourself when you get wherever it is you’re going.”

She tilts her head up to my face as a playful grin forms on her mouth. I move closer, drawn into the unreal color of her eyes—violet.

“You British?”

“That’s my Wisconsin accent,” I tease. “I’m not going to stand here all day.”

She tugs an elastic band off her wrist then winds it into the long tangles of her sandy-blond hair, leaving wisps of it dangling across her face. “I’ll deal with it myself,” she huffs, wiping the sweat from her forehead then neck. My gaze follows her hand as it brushes across the tops of her no-wonder-bra-needed breasts.

“Right, then. Here you go.” I drop the bale at her feet and turn.

Rowdy snickers as he shoves a candy bar in his mouth. “Didn’t hear you introduce yourself. She’s your family. You ain’t even gonna say hello?” He chews through a grin.

An uneasiness stirs in my stomach. “I don’t need a damn thing from that family. Certainly not another strong-headed woman. We don’t need to know each other.”

Minutes later, she approaches the steps that lead to the parking lot. Huffing and grunting, she walks backward down them, dragging the bale, until she trips and ends up underneath the hay on the last step. I stride over to her, laughing quietly as she curses while thrashing around with her arms flapping. She bucks and jostles like a trapped animal. She’s pissing and moaning, all right, but not for a second is she asking for help. So I’ll wait for the magic word.

“Sugar lumps. Dammit!” She growls.

I shouldn’t look, but while scratching the back of my neck I lower my gaze. Her skirt is pinned under the bale, showcasing her muscular bare legs and lacy black knickers riding her hip. I study the dip on her upper thigh then follow a long white scar that runs down her leg, stopping before her knee.

A whirl of dust kicks up as my mate Duke pulls into the lot, then parks his veterinarian truck next to my old Ford.

“Hey.” I nod as he strolls over to us. “You happen to get out to the farm to check on Cock’s teat?”

A swirl of smoke rises from his lips as he exhales then tosses his cigarette butt to the ground. “Yep. Just came from there. Little blockage is all.” A smirk forms on his face as he glances to the bale. “Show the boys how to pull. Squeezing causes the problems.” He clears his throat. “That you, Matilda?” He squats down to her side. “You need some help, girl?”

She wiggles her petite foot around. “Hey, Duke. I’m fine. Just spoonin’ a bale.”

“You ready to give me the magic word?” I chuckle, standing over her as Duke climbs the steps.

A bright pink washes over her cheeks. “Please.”

I lift the bale from her straightaway. “Truck?” Looking across the lot at my truck and one other, along with Duke’s vet mobile and Rowdy’s cycle. The only other vehicle—if you could call it that—is something akin to a cherry-red golf-cart-looking thing with wicker seats. An albino, red-haltered mini donkey is in the back seat, along with a case of champagne.

“There.” She points to the impractical—but obviously hers—car. “Just jam it in the passenger’s side. Thank you.”

              “You ever heard of a thing called a trailer?” I ask as I wedge the bale into the car while she stands, not looking the least bit flustered.

              “You mean those things they play before movies?” She kicks her gold glittered heels off before tossing them in the backseat. Every toenail is a different color. This girl is unquestionably not one of those tanning-bed types I see a lot of around here. But she’s not her sister Lavinia either.

Polished. Perfect. Dead.

“Beastly brit.” She laughs under her breath as she flicks her hand as though she’s dismissing me.

“What was that, muffin?” She walks a few limpy steps, then slides into the driver’s seat while I lean on the bale, eyeing her up.

Rowdy saunters down the stairs, scribbling on a pad of paper. “You want to open an account, sweetheart? Or cash?”

“An account, please. I’ll be at the farm for a while,” she says after kissing the donkey’s nose. “Might have it brought out next time. You still deliver?”

“Yup,” he says with a cocky smile. “Nothing’s changed ’round here. We’ll be the same a century from now.” He leans against the hood of her car as he licks his lips and runs a hand along the scruff of his jaw. His eyes stop for a long pause on her breasts before he moves his gaze down then back up again. “You staying on?”

“Mmmhmm.” She looks into her rear view mirror. “I have some family business to attend to since…you know… Did you hear?” Her eyes bounce to his then down to her hands, which are fidgeting inside her purse.

So, she’s the one he’s sent?

He toes the ground as our eyes meet. “I did. I’m real sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks. Well…it’s been a few years now, anyway. We never were close... Not that… Never mind.” She huffs out with an
hmm
sort of sound trailing off at the end. “Her husband is apparently helpless, that’s why my dad sent me.”

Rowdy chokes out a cough. “You don’t say?”

“I’ll be getting my hands plenty dirty out at the farm. Diapers and…god knows what else I’m in for.”

I nod to the donkey, which is now braying. “What’s its name?”

“Aesop”—she purses her lips—“as in fables.”

“Yeah, I know Aesop.” I force a laugh. “Muffin.”

A tiny smile lifts on one side of her mouth as she holds out her hand. “Matilda. It’s Matilda Pearl. Beastly brit.”

I take her hand in mine. “Balthazar. It’s Balthazar Cox. Crab muffin.”

Her doll-faced mouth opens for a few seconds, pulling the side string on my widening smile as she realizes who I am. She sucks in a quick breath as her posture stiffens. “You’re British?”

“I think we cleared that up earlier,” I chuckle. “Stop picking on my Wisconsin accent.”

She laughs with one hand covering her mouth. She really had no idea. Didn’t know I was British? Guess we’ll be learning plenty about each other since she’s here for at least a year, according to her father.

She tips her sunglasses down her nose while gazing at me over the top edge of them. “I’ll see you at home.”

So this is her. This beautiful wisp of a girl?
Violet eyes that storm with challenge. A mouth so dramatic, it looks bruised with color. Curves that make the countryside hills and valleys seem level.
This
is the woman Everit Pearl has sent to live with me? A girl with a donkey named Aesop. “
As in fables.”