My Fox Husband's Brother

Through the crack in the door, a huge white fox tail swept the candle off the table. I swallowed the scream stuck in my throat. My husband was a fox.

Two men stood in that room, and they had the same face. One of them was mine. My simple husband. The one I taught to dress himself. His eyes were clear now.

And the look on his face was the one you save for something you stepped in. "This farm wife got me into her bed back when I didn't know any better. It makes me sick.

Wear my face and keep her quiet. I'm going to the Lane girl." The other one, a whitehaired boy, whipped his tail back and forth.

He couldn't stop grinning. "Leave her to me, big brother. Go on, go find your Miss Lane. Nobody plays dumb better than me.

I'll have her spinning in circles." That night I picked up my blanket and started for the woodshed. A hand caught my wrist. Burning hot. My simple husband lifted his head.

Something moved behind those empty eyes. Something like hope. "Sweetheart. The bed's made.

Come on up." Chapter 1 I stood outside my own door with the cinnamon rolls going cold in my hands, and I could not make myself walk in. Inside, the two of them were still talking.

The whitehaired boy's tail swished so fast it blurred. "Don't worry about a thing, big brother. Nobody plays dumb better than me. She'll never catch on." "Watch this.

Duhhh… duhhh…" The room went quiet for a second.

Then Garrett rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. "I'm not that far gone," he said. "Pull the drool back in." "Run through her habits again.

What she likes, what she doesn't." The boy opened his mouth. Garrett waved him off. "Never mind. Just remember to act stupid. If you're scared of slipping up, be hard on her.

Freeze her out. She's slow. She won't figure it out." Steam was still coming off the paper bag. My eyes started to burn. He was right about that part. I was slow.

Two years married, and I was only now finding out what I'd married. If I hadn't come home early, it would have gone exactly the way he laid it out. His brother wearing his face.

Cold to me. Short with me. And I would never have known. The door swung open. I pressed myself flat against the wall. Footsteps went off down the path.

Inside, the boy kept muttering my habits to himself, over and over, like a boy studying for a test. That was when it hit me.

I gathered up my filthy skirt and cut across the field toward the road out of Bell Hollow. Then I crouched down at the end of it and waited.

Waited long enough for my knees to lock up. Then I heard the footsteps I knew better than my own. I turned around. Our eyes met, and we both froze. "…Mari.

What are you doing out here?" The old woman in front of me frowned a little. Old Mrs. Delaney, from the far end of the road. My hand closed on the paper bag.

Nothing came out of my mouth. Because I had come out here to try one more time. I had a plan, and it was a stupid one.

Garrett would pass the end of the road, and he'd see me standing there with the cinnamon rolls he loved, still warm, and something in him would give, and he would stay.

I didn't know any Lane girl. I only knew I couldn't stand to lose him. Two years married. He'd gone from the man I loved to just family. And you don't hand family back.

I wanted to tell him I didn't care if there was someone else in his heart. I didn't care what he was under that skin.

I would keep on giving him whatever he asked for, even if that meant walking to town for cinnamon rolls before the sun was up.

But I looked at the old woman standing there in front of me, and all of it dried up in my mouth. That's Garrett for you. Careful. Thorough.

So scared of running into me that he'd put on somebody else's body to walk out of town. He had covered every angle before he left me. I slid the bag behind my back.

Then I smiled at him with my eyes running red. "Just resting a minute." Her eyes went to my red ones. Then to the bag behind my back.

Whatever was going on behind that borrowed old face, I saw all of it. Her jaw worked. Her hand came halfway up before it dropped. Chapter 2 "All right. Head on home.

Your husband's waiting on you." The old voice came out rough at the edges. She looked away and started off down the road, out of town.

I sat at the end of that road and ate every last cinnamon roll. They were sweet. So sweet they turned bitter. I kept eating until my stomach hurt. Then I got up and went home.

I pushed the gate open, took one look, and turned right back around. "Sweetheart, where are you going?" That voice again, behind me. I turned my head. It was Garrett's face.

Except Garrett's eyes were deep and dark, and the man holding the broom had eyes like two lit windows. "This is my house?" I couldn't make it add up.

He crinkled his eyes at me. "I cleaned all the chicken mess out of the yard, and I wiped down the porch table and chairs. I fed the hogs and the cow.

Ducks are down at the creek, I'll run them back up tonight." And just like that, it didn't hurt as much. I had to work to keep my mouth flat.

This brother of Garrett's had to be one of the shoemaker's elves.

He looked at my ruined shoes, then at my skirt, and the tips of his ears went red. "Sweetheart, I was headed to the creek to wash clothes anyway. Your skirt's filthy.

Take it off and I'll carry it down with the rest." I could still taste the sugar on my teeth. All of a sudden I was sorry I hadn't saved one roll for this little fox.

His brother had dragged me out of bed before daylight over those rolls. That's how my hem got soaked and black.

And the one who never got a bite of them was the one offering to wash my clothes. I changed and handed the skirt over.

He gathered up the basin and headed for the door. "Sweetheart, what do you use to wash clothes with?" The handsome man turned around in the doorway and blinked at me. "I'm just a dummy…" I'd been staring too long, I guess.

He remembered halfway out the door that he was supposed to be playing dumb, and he asked it about four seconds late.

I looked at the bar of soap already sitting in the basin. "…" What a fine disguise. Male foxes are shameless.

If I hadn't known he was faking, I'd have sworn he was flirting with me. I cleared everything off that table and patted my stomach.

Three years of marriage, and that was the first meal I ever actually enjoyed. The kitchen had always been mine.

It took having somebody else in it to show me what I'd been living like. Garrett was picky.

Even when he was too simple to dress himself, there had to be three meat dishes on the table, every single meal.

So I picked up any odd job going, poor as a church mouse, buying that man his meat. I hauled, I scrubbed, I did whatever nobody else wanted. One condition only.

I had to be let go at noon so I could walk home and cook my husband his noon meal. Winter, high summer, I never missed one.

There were days I got the food on the table and couldn't lift my own fork. Garrett would put a piece of meat in my bowl on those days. I thought that was as happy as a woman got.

Now I watched a man clear the dishes and carry them out to wash, and I finally understood. The lucky one in that marriage was never me. It was Garrett.

Hard to hold a grudge on a full stomach. I was on my way to the woodshed, satisfied, when something caught the back of my dress.

Moonlight on Garrett's face, and that face was flushed all the way up.

But the eyes were bright, and they were soft, and they were waiting on me. "Sweetheart, I already made the bed. Go sit down.

I'll bring the hot water and wash you up." My eyes went wide. No came up in my throat on its own. I turned red having Garrett wash my back. This was his brother.

I didn't even know his name. Chapter 3 I am a decent, respectable married woman. … A fox is a fox.

When my shirt came off my shoulders, I squinted up at the ceiling and gave that some thought. For the record, I did not go looking for this. The fox pulled something on me.

Shifter tricks. No decent woman could be expected to hold out against that. That was what I told myself, anyway. Long pale fingers wrung out the washcloth.

There was one spot on me that was not getting any drier. His face was hotter than mine. On our wedding night, Garrett never once breathed like that. His hand burned.

The cloth didn't stop any of it. "It's not even warm out tonight. You don't have to be so thorough…" He went slow.

The water had gone cool a while back, and still every place that cloth passed went warm on its own, like my skin was doing it without asking me.

I bit down on my lip and turned my face away from his. Then the mirror over the washstand caught my eye, and my chest went tight.

The man half wrapped around me wasn't wearing Garrett's face anymore. This one was younger. Better looking.

So the little fox with all his big plans to seduce me hadn't worked up the nerve to open his eyes. He was scrubbing my back with them squeezed shut, ears red enough to bleed.

That big soft tail behind him moved along with his hand. A sway. Then stiff. Then a shiver right at the tip. "All right. Go rest, sweetheart." He carried the bucket out.

He walked out of there like his arms had forgotten what his legs were doing. By the time he came back I was already under the quilt.

He'd hung it out that morning when the sun was best. The whole bed was warm clear through, and that only made me think about how cold the woodshed had been those last few months.

My eyes started up again. Twice in one day. I didn't know I had that many tears in me for Garrett. The first time was grief. Not wanting to let him go. This time was the other kind.

If he hadn't shipped his brother into my bed, a country woman like me would have gone her whole life without one night like this one. "Sweetheart.

You don't want me lying next to you?" He'd been flat on his back beside me, stiff as a fence post, for a long time. My sniffling finally got him talking. His eyes darted.

Scared he'd given himself away, maybe. "No. I just feel… happy." I let out a breath and scooted his direction. His breathing got heavier. "I… I feel happy too…" A fox is a fox.

All he had to do was lie there and I itched. So I wiped my face, and I put my hand up against his cheek. "I could make you happier. Want to try?" He turned his head.

Those clean bright eyes came around to me, and I itched worse. He never got a chance to answer. I took the breath right out of him. The room went hot. The candle guttered.

My little fox went back to playing dumb, propped over me, fumbling around.

After a while his voice came out small and pitiful, and his ears were about to pop out of his hair. "Sweetheart, I don't know how." "Teach me.

Please." I was ready to laugh at him for staying in character even now. Then the red rimming his eyes, from holding himself back. He wasn't playing.

My little fox had never had so much as a taste.

Chapter 4 Late that night I was too worn out to think straight, and the man over me had clearly forgotten every word his brother told him.

Because a big soft tail was winding around my calf in time with him, and he didn't seem to know he was doing it. I pretended not to notice. My mouth curled up anyway.

Toward morning I worked my way out of his arms. He slept like the dead with a satisfied little smile on him, and he'd slipped back into his own face. Pretty.

Younger and prettier than Garrett. I sat there and stared at him a while. Then at the big white tail he hadn't even bothered to put away.

Garrett must have been in a real hurry to get to that Lane girl. Couldn't spare the time to pick a smarter brother. Thinking about Garrett pulled my mouth flat again.

Something sour went through me. It always does. I dragged the box out from under the bed and read the letters one at a time.

Three years back I was out cutting firewood at the bottom of the hill, and I found a beautiful man. Simple as a child. Stuck to me like a burr.

Once I figured out how much he loved to write, I bought paper and ink at the schoolhouse and taught him his letters. An unmarried girl, and there I was raising something.

How to dress. How to talk. How to hold a pen. The blankness in his eyes cleared a little more every month. He told me my hands were clever. He started writing me poems.

He figured out how to climb into my bed, too. Look at a face like that every day and you'd have fallen for it too. So we had a supper and called ourselves married.

After that he stuck closer than ever. But the smarter he got, the less he asked how my day had gone. The poems came for over two years. Then one day they stopped.

I sat with those letters and watched the handwriting go from crooked and wobbly to smooth and sure. And I watched the pages go from full, both sides, down to four lines. Then three.

I was about to burn them when something moved behind me. I turned.

He was up on his elbows at the head of the bed, wearing Garrett's face, wide awake. "What's my wife doing?" Those bright eyes, right on me. "I thought I'd… burn these." My mouth tugged into something like a smile.

He yawned and looked the papers over. "I'll burn them tomorrow. Cheap paper like that's the fastest thing going for starting a fire." The sour feeling smoothed right out.

He was so serious about it that I almost laughed. Now that is a fox who knows how to run a household. That little fox was the hardest worker I ever met. Man or animal.

For the next two weeks he took over everything. Chickens, hogs, cow, ducks, all the cooking. On top of it he found paid work writing letters and signs for people in town.

Said he was going to provide for me. Provide for this house. Our house. His and mine. I never met a dumber fox. Except the dumb fox had better handwriting than Garrett.

I stared at his page long enough to turn his ears red. "Your writing is beautiful." I meant it. Even Mr.

Ashby from the schoolhouse had come around to buy a piece off him. "Sure it is. Cost me ten wild turkeys to sign up with Master Reynard.

My brother wouldn't part with that many…" The dumb fox paid for the handwriting course and never signed up for the smarts course.

He gave himself away about twice a week, and I never once called him on it. "Cass… i… an." I read the name at the bottom of the page out loud, soft, and his ears shot straight up out of his hair, and both hands flew to cover them, and he ended up with ink all over his hands.

Chapter 5 "Sweetheart, that's nothing, I just write it sometimes—" "Is that a name they gave you? Growing up?" I smiled with my eyes half shut.

He blinked twice, and those eyes got brighter. "Yeah. That's what they called me growing up." My mouth curled.

I pretended not to see the ears that had popped out of his hair again, swinging back and forth. "It's a good name. Cassian.

Better than the one you've got." Garrett landed like a rock dropped on a plank floor. Cassian lifted at the end, the way somebody says a name they like.

His tail nearly came out of him. "You mean it?" That night he kept after me in bed to say it. Again. And again.

The next morning I was up on his back. "How much farther?" His back was broad and warm.

He was the one doing the work, but his breathing stayed even and he talked like we were out for a stroll. "Almost there, sweetheart. Trust me on this.

You have to eat them standing right at the stand or it isn't the same." He'd sold a drawing at market the day before and got three apple fritters for it. Ate one.

Then hurried the other two home to me. By the time he got there, they'd gone soft and cold. So he woke me before daylight to try again.

I didn't know whether to be annoyed or laugh. "I'll get in line. You sit right here, sweetheart." I did not expect the line to be that long.

He went trotting off to the end of it, thrilled, and I sat and watched people go by. "Who's that up front? All those girls around her." Two women behind me were gossiping.

I looked where they were looking. "That's Adelaide Lane, the county judge's daughter. Man with her is her fiancé.

Wedding's soon, I hear, so they're down here buying things." My eyes stopped moving. I hadn't expected to see Garrett again.

I figured he'd wear some other face to go be with his Lane girl. But no. He was still walking around as Garrett. His head started to turn, so I dropped mine.

That look stayed on the top of my head a long while. When it finally lifted off me, my shoulders came down. I was relieved. That surprised me.

Cassian was halfway up the line by then, sticking his head out every so often to check on me, like I might wander off and get lost. I had to laugh at him.

Something went sweet in my chest anyway. The fox Garrett sent me suited me just fine. I had no interest in being claimed back.

All I wanted was for Cassian to get his fritters and stand there eating them with me, brighteyed, and then carry me back down the hill. Garrett saw it differently.

Footsteps I knew stopped in front of me. I looked up into a pair of eyes I knew, set in the face of an old man dressed like a traveling fortuneteller.

You have to hand it to Garrett. He turns into whoever he pleases and never asks anybody first.

The old man he was wearing was asleep in an alley just down the way, and here Garrett stood in front of me, confident as anything. "Miss. Why are you out here alone?

Are you in Camden looking for someone?" Ah. Here to feel me out, I'd bet. Scared his brother had slipped up. Garrett must have figured I'd come to market to hunt him down.

I pointed at Cassian, up there in the line. "I'm not looking for anybody, and I'm not alone. My husband's buying me something to eat." My voice went soft when I looked at Cassian.

It did that on its own. The old man's face dropped like a stone. "You and your husband. Things good between you lately?" My smile was getting hard to hold.

I gave him a nod that meant nothing. "Well enough." Chapter 6 Then I turned to go around him, and a hand closed on my wrist. I looked back, frowning.

Garrett was staring at his own hand like it had moved without him. My face must have gone cold, because he swallowed. "No offense meant.

You were leaving and I got in a hurry…" In a hurry over what? We were two strangers at a market. That's all we were. "Miss, you and your husband make a fine pair.

How does he treat you, day to day?" Still fishing. My patience was about used up. Cassian was coming toward us fast.

I took two steps and met him. "Did you get them?" He'd already gone dark watching me dodge him.

And when I broke away and threw myself at Cassian, I caught the old man's face going past, and the thing underneath shoved up so hard it nearly got loose. "Careful, sweetheart, they're hot