Framed Shadows: Shadows Landing #6, Kathleen Brooks [great novels of all time TXT] 📗

back until she could cover his eyes with her hands. Bubba gave a couple of shakes, and began to settle down.

Letting out a deep breath, Tinsley finally looked up. Bubba had gotten within a foot of Paxton. Bubba’s mouth was still open on a hiss, but Tinsley wasn’t strong enough to close it.

“Step around here and lie on his tail,” she instructed Paxton calmly.

Paxton hugged the wall as she scooted away from Bubba. He finally took a breath when he was beside Bubba. “You want me to do what?”

“A gator’s tail can do a tremendous amount of damage. In case you haven’t noticed, Bubba is over twelve feet long and probably a good eight hundred pounds. I’m not that tall and not that heavy. If he hits me with his tail, I’ll go flying and end up with more than a few broken bones. So I want you to lie on his tail and hug it. Got it?”

“This is insane,” Paxton muttered as he got into position. In one move, he had Bubba’s tail wrapped in a tight hug. Paxton’s head was pressed at the base of the huge tail while his legs wrapped around the tip. “Um, Tins?”

“What?” Tinsley asked as she kept a tight grip on Bubba.

“My head is really close . . . I mean, do alligators fart?”

“They’ve been known to let ’er rip a time or two,” a deep country voice called out in amusement. “Miss Tinsley, you got a nice hold on ol’ Bubba there.”

“Just like you taught me, Gator,” Tinsley called out.

“Why did you answer the alligator?” Paxton asked.

“Not Bubba, me. I’m Gator,” Gator explained to Paxton. “Was that you screamin’ like a girl a second ago? We thought it might be Miss Tinsley, but she’s no wimp when it comes to Bubba.”

Tinsley pressed her face onto Bubba’s back and tried to smother her laugh in his scales.

Paxton cleared his throat. “We?”

“Yeah, if you open up your eyes you’ll see everyone’s here,” Gator told him.

“I can feel you laughing through the alligator, Tinsley,” Paxton said through clenched teeth. Tinsley lost it then. Tears—alligator tears at that—ran down her cheeks as she laughed and laughed.

“That ain’t right, Miss Tinsley,” she heard Skeeter’s deep country twang saying from beside her. “It ain’t his fault he screams like a girl. Some men are delicate. You’ll hurt his feelings if you keep on laughin’ like that.”

Of course, that only made Tinsley laugh harder. She even heard Paxton smother a laugh from Bubba’s tail. She bet no one had ever called Paxton delicate before.

“Skeeter’s right, Miss T.” A small face appeared in front of her as Turtle pushed Bubba’s mouth closed and Skeeter wrapped it up so Bubba couldn’t bite them. “It hurt my feelin’s something fierce when people laughed at my pecker being bitten by a snapping turtle. But your cousin did a right good job sewing it up. I think he even gave me an extra inch. Wanna see?”

A snort from Paxton drew their attention as Tinsley tried to hide the tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. “Don’t you worry none, sir,” Turtle said to Paxton. “I won’t laugh at you for screaming like a girl. I mean, I didn’t scream like a girl when I had a snapping turtle latched onto my pecker. But some men just ain’t as tough, ya know?”

Tinsley couldn’t see him but she could imagine what Paxton looked like as she heard him choking on his laughter right now. A lesser man would defend his scream and tease Turtle, but Paxton didn’t. Instead he cleared his throat, literally pushing down his laughter.

“That’s very brave of you. I believe I would have reached teen-girl-at-a-boy-band-concert-level scream if a snapping turtle latched onto my, um, pecker.”

“Well, let’s get this done so he don’t have Bubba snapping off his pecker,” Gator said in his booming voice. “Turtle, you got his mouth wrapped up?”

“I sure do.”

“Skeeter, you get the rag over his eyes so Miss T can get up.”

Tinsley waited until the rag was secure and then Gator reached down and literally plucked her off Bubba as Skeeter and Turtle knelt down on each side and pressed down on the creature to keep him still.

Gator placed Tinsley on the ground and she got her first look at the scene. The whole town was crowded into her small courtyard. Miss Ruby and Miss Winnie had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. Harper and Karri were hanging onto each other and doubled over with laughter. Then there was Paxton. Bless his heart, he had a death grip on Bubba’s tail and his face was dangerously close to Bubba’s butt.

“Gator, this is Paxton. Paxton, this is Gator. Just do what he says, okay?” Tinsley told him.

“You do this often?” Paxton asked as Gator stepped up next to him.

“Yup. Now I want you to sit up and straddle the lower end of Bubba’s tail. Can you do that?” Gator asked.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Paxton shimmied down the tail and then sat up. Gator was instantly down on the ground with the thick base of Bubba’s tail wrapped in his arms.

“We could use some help liftin’ him,” Gator called out. Granger and Kord instantly stepped forward to help.

“We got a call about a girl screaming like she was being stabbed,” Granger said with a smirk.

Granger and Kord moved to Bubba’s middle. Then Paxton shifted off the tail and all together they lifted. Tinsley and the crowd moved out of the way as Bubba was carried to Gator’s pickup truck.

“I’ll just take him back home. Don’t hesitate to scream if you need me,” Gator said with a little snicker before driving off with Turtle and Skeeter holding Bubba down.

“I take it you haven’t been around alligators much,” Granger said to Paxton as Harper and Karri gave up their fight and burst out laughing.

“Not too many gators on Peachtree Street unless the University of Florida is in town. That was wild, though. Do you all know how to do that? Just jump