Beastly Desires

Chapter One

Colette came to stand beside her father, placing a hand on his back. "Did I mention it had legs for days and too many freckles to count across its smug face?"

She felt his deep chuckle beneath her hand and smiled.

"Gregorie is in love with you dearest. You can't bury love as much as you can bury a tree. It'll just sprout a new one."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "He made me drop my paint brushes in the mud and didn't even bother helping to pick them up before embracing me."

Her father straightened at the mention and seriousness crept into his scraggily eye brows. Those watery eyes softened a little as he accessed his daughter. "Would an occasional embrace be such a bad thing every once in a while?"

Colette's lips tightened. Her father wanted her to marry. At least marry in love or in a mutual agreement, he only wanted her to be happy and well taken care of. He minded Gregorie and could somehow see past the haughty male swagger he spewed every time he was around her. It's not that Colette didn't think him to be...unpleasing, at least not in outward appearance.

Gregorie was built like a tree. Tall and slender. He towered over her by a near foot. His slender frame was cladded in equally slender muscles that kept him from being generalized as skinny. His skin was pearly and covered in freckles that clustered like rain drops across his cheekbones and nose. His hair was a ruddy color which he kept tied back in a low ponytail. Its ends cascading down his back in wild ringlets. There was once a day Colette may have thought twining her fingers through them tempting, but it was easily dismissed by a smug, male gaze. Those dirt brown eyes stared down a straight nose and beneath them a pair of full lips and a dimpled chin. Any woman would bite their lip to keep from pressing a finger to that perfect chin. Colette thought a fist to it would be better.

As if her father could read the thought that crossed her mind she twisted her smirk into an innocent smile. "I wish he would embrace me in other ways. For instance, my paintings. He said a child could do them? How am I not supposed to find that insulting?" She huffed, setting down her sullied paint brushes on the cluttered table.

Her father stroked her hair, pulling the loose tendrils behind her ear. "Sometimes a man doesn't have the right words to say when in love." He gave her a reassuring smile before limping across the tiny threshold into what would be considered the living area. It only hosted a deep purple, velvet, plush sitting chair, worn deeply in the middle, its bottom sagged, almost touching the dirt floor. Beside it a large fireplace and a matching, sagging mantle. Fire licked beneath its deep grin, a pot already broiling atop it. She watched her aged father fuss with the pot, resting his hand on his good leg. The light of the fire danced across his wooden leg, like it would catch fire instantly.

Her father worked as a tinker of sorts, fixing odd things, small or large. The town they lived in came to him to when something didn't turn, clink or throttle. His mind carried the knowledge of his craft from his father and his father, and his father, all the way down the line of Moreau men. His hands were big but steady, gentle and full of focused precision. Though having been crippled at a very young age, it never stopped him from pursuing his career, from marrying, to have children- a child. It wasn't until just last year his crippled-ness started to wear on him. The unseen wounds flared up now and then, causing immense pain and restless, fevered nights. Some nights Colette sat beside her fever ridden father in his chair, clutching his hand and praying to God not to let him slip into a sleep of eternity.

"Let me." Colette hustled over to her father, taking the wooden ladle from his hand and guiding him into the velvet chair. He sank into the worn cushions and let out a deep sigh.

Colette stirred the stew her father whipped up in their little iron pot. Its aroma filled her nostrils and aching stomach. She grabbed a clay bowl and ladled the stew into it, plucking a small wooden spoon from the work table and depositing the meal into her fathers open hands. He sat the bowl in his lap and clutched Colette's hands into his own. His eyes bore down into her, worry, sympathy and love shown beneath their glassy surface. His voice was a soft rumble. "Colette. Your are my only daughter. My- my only child. I want you to be happy. To be taken care of. To be loved."

Colette felt the weight of his words like stones on her chest. She crouched before her father, kneeling at his feet. His hands held hers tightly as if he was afraid they might not again. She braced herself for the words he choose next.

"I will not be around for the rest of your life. Please. Do not use me as an excuse for forgoing your happiness." He sighed and it was heavy and full of guilt.

Tears rimmed Colette's eyes and she dared not to wipe them away. "Father, please. I am happy and content with us. This."

She motioned to the small cottage they called home. It had no separate bedroom. Just a large bed pushed against the farthest wall. A small table beside it and a disintegrating rug beneath it. A large chest rested at the foot of the bed. All of their belongings, personal items, clothing was in that chest. All that they had and held dear to them filled it. Her fathers tools and her own painting supplies lined the conjoining wall, crammed into a slanted book shelf. Her easel- two pieces of wood and a long stick nailed across it, leaned against the wall, the painting she started on last night, big and hideous rested atop it. Behind her was a short counter and a wash basin filled most of the surface space with kitchenware shoved in the corner. Yes, it was crowded. Cramped. But it was home. It was warm, comfortable, filled with both their passions and it was where her mother had died.

She pressed her forehead against his knuckles. "I love you father. Is that not enough to fill me with happiness?" She trembled as he pulled her chin up.

"Beautiful Colette. There are some happiness that I cannot give you. Only a partner. A man whom you'll share your life with can. That happiness is all that I desire for you-"

"And you think Gregorie is the man for that?"

Her father grimaced at her remark, his eyes full of empathy. "Love can make you look past the unpleasant things. Find kindness beneath hard steal. Do not be so cold when love comes baring itself to you. Be open minded my darling." He cupped her cheek and Colette bowed her head into his embrace.

She did not desire the happiness a man could bring her. She never thought of what her life might be as a wife, as a homemaker, as a mother. She only wanted to paint and help her father. She only wanted to fill the gapping hole her mother had left. Though her father did not ask her to fill that role, she felt responsible in some way to do so. To prolong her fathers life and fill it with joy and happiness. But if her fathers happiness was to see her happy, how could she refuse?