I turned my wrist over to glance at my watch.
“You can leave him here,” I told her. “But if I take him, I’ll be a few…”
Ellen interrupted me. “I can’t leave him here. I have to take him to the vet this afternoon, and to do that, I need to be able to get to him. I don’t have keys to your place. And I can’t take a wolf errrrm, I mean husky, to a client’s house.”
I gave her a pointed look.
She blushed profusely.
“I’ll take him, baby,” I told her. “But you better be thinking up something imaginative to make this up to me.”
With a short, hot, wet kiss to her mouth, I stooped down and scooped up the dog, then was out the door the next second.
Lucky for her he was small enough to be zipped up in my big jacket, otherwise she would’ve really had some making up to do.
Rain or shine, cold or hot, I took my bike. The only time I took my truck, lately, was if Linc needed to ride with me, and those times were becoming fewer and further between.
Surprisingly enough, on my way to drop the little wolf pup off at Ellen’s place, he stayed curled up in my jacket, not moving even once to get out or move.
By the time I was dropping him off at her place, I realized I didn’t have a key, and had to leave him in the yard with a huge ass bowl of water, and my snack cake I’d intended to eat on the way to work. I was, unfortunately, late once I’d tracked down the water bowl.
That didn’t much matter, though. My boss would overlook a few minutes of lateness due to me coming in last night when I sure as fuck hadn’t wanted to.
Being the supervisor on the shift sucked balls sometimes.
***
“Yo.”
I flipped the helmet up and looked at Peters. “What?”
“That belong to you?”
I looked in the direction he indicated and found a grin forming on my face.
“Yeah, that’s mine,” I said. “How did you know?”
“Got you written all over it,” he murmured. “That, and she’s glaring a hole in your back.”
I snorted.
“Yeah, she does look pretty goddamned pissed,” I agreed, standing up.
My knees ached like a motherfucker.
“I’ll cover this for you until you get back from…that.”
I flipped him off and he started to chuckle.
“Fuck you,” I told him, pulling the gloves off that made me look like my middle finger was a few inches long.
“I think you’d enjoy fucking her better, to be truthful.”
I sighed, choosing not to answer that statement.
There was no reason to goad him on. He was deplorable enough when he was in a calm mood. Get him riled up and he was much worse.
“Thanks, Peters,” I mumbled as I headed toward Ellen.
She was stomping toward me, her eyes lit with anger, as she hauled ass across the muddy ground.
She didn't even notice when her heels sunk into the mud.
No, she just kept right on truckin’, straight through the mud, sticks, and debris.
“What’s up, Ell…” she interrupted me by throwing out her hand in anger.
“You put Achilles in my yard, and my landlord kicked me out! He made me sign a fucking agreement promising that I would never bring pets into the house! He could sue me!” Ellen bellowed.
I winced.
“Shit, baby. I’m sorry,” I reached for her.
“I have exactly forty-eight hours to get all of my shit out of there, or it’s forfeited to his estate,” she snarled. “All because you took the dog to my house when you were supposed to take him to my office!”
My brows furrowed in confusion.
“You told me to take him to your place.”
Now that she mentioned it, though, I had known that the place Ellen was staying didn’t allow pets of any kind. In fact, that was one of the main reasons I didn’t rent from them because I had an indoor-outdoor cat that liked to do whatever the fuck he wanted. Having a house that didn’t allow pets wasn’t going to work for us.
“No, I told you to take him to my office,” she snapped.
My brows furrowed.
“All I heard was ‘take him to my place’,” I informed her. “How was I supposed to know you meant your office?”
“Maybe because I had him there with me yesterday!” she snapped.
“And if you hadn’t come home with me yesterday, what would you have done?” I questioned her.
She bared her teeth at me.
“I would’ve taken him to my brother’s place,” she answered instantly.
Shit!
“And now I don’t have anywhere to stay!” she wailed.
And that was when the water works started and I felt like a two-inch-tall pile of shit.
“Baby,” I reached for her.
She came willingly, burying her face in my neck, uncaring that I was dirty from a hard day’s work.
She hiccupped and sniffled, turning her face so that she could breathe. “What am I going to do?”
There was only one thing I could do.
“Move into my place until we find you one.”
She stiffened. “I will not do that. No way. Nuh-uh.”
My lips quirked.
“Do you have any better options?” I questioned, letting my dirty hand trail down to cup her ass. “You could always move in with your brother.”
She was wearing a white cream skirt that showed off every inch of her delectable ass and thighs.
“I’ll think of something,” she snapped, her lip curled in disgust.
Then she was walking away from me, and I was left staring at a dirty handprint on the curve of her ass.
“That worked out well.”
I turned to find Peters, as well as every other man that’d been working on the pipeline with me, staring at me with admiration in their eyes.
“Fuck off.”
“What are you going to do about her house?”
What was I going to do? I was going to fucking fix it.
The first call I made was to Linc to pick up some boxes. The next was to my boss.
The third and fourth were to Tommy Tom and Big Papa.
We were going to move her whether she wanted to be moved or not.
Chapter 16
If it weren’t for physics and law enforcement, I’d be unstoppable.
-Every man’s secret thought
Jessie
I knew with the way Tommy Tom looked at me that he realized finally who I was.
I also knew, with certainty, that I should’ve told him a long time ago who I was to his sister. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so betrayed.
I thought I’d have more time, though.
Thought that I’d have more time to get him on my side, to see that I wasn’t who I used to be, before he figured it out.
The fist… I should’ve seen that coming.
The right hook I actually did see coming, but did I stop it? No, I didn’t.
Because I deserved that and more.
I’d been a stupid kid. A stupid, fucked up kid who didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Speaking of legs, mine went out from under me at that moment, just like they always did when I least wanted them to.
I hit my back and saw stars, barely able to keep my head up off the ground in time for it to slam into the ground with the momentum.
“Tommy!” I heard Tommy’s wife, Tally, call out in surprise. “Why are you hitting him?”
I rolled over to my back, barely in time to avoid a kick to the ribs, courtesy of Tommy Tom’s booted foot.
“You motherfucker,” Tommy snarled. “You. Mother. Fucker!”
I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, then went up to my knees only and regarded the man that was going to become my brother-in-law.
“Your sister was kicked out of her rental,” I informed him. “You either h
elp me move her shit into my place,” I coughed, wiping away blood from my lip. “Or you don’t. Either way she’s moving in with me.”
“You gutted her, man,” Tommy kept on.
My eyes closed and I looked away, my tongue darting out and licking the line of blood that was still oozing from my split lip.
“I have a lot of reasons for doing what I did,” I told him. “I was in a bad place. My fuckin’ psycho ex, who is still in the picture might I add, wasn’t and isn’t a nice person. She’s a sneaky bitch who lies, manipulates and steals to get what she wants. And when I walked in on your mother telling Ellen that she wasn’t going to pay for medical school for your sister, like she did for you, I knew that, maybe, it was best if I didn’t stay. Maybe it was best that I go and give her that chance she needed to shine bright without the fucked up cloud of my baggage hanging over her head the whole way.”
“But that didn’t work,” Tommy Tom drawled. “And you expect me to believe that, after all this time, all the shit between you both will be erased now that you’re together again?”
I stood up, ignoring the way my knees creaked in resistance, and stared the man right in the eye.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she’s happy,” I promised him. “If she needs me to shoot my own self in the foot, then I’ll damn well do it just to see her smile.”
“Awww,” Tally cooed. “Tommy, go fucking away. Let’s get her packed up.”
Tally walked around her husband, shoving him in the gut with her shoulder on her way, causing her husband to grunt in annoyance.
All to receive an ‘I’m not going to kill you—not right now but soon’ look from Tommy Tom. The moment I got the clear to proceed, I walked around him and inside, giving him a wide berth as I did.
My jaw was aching, and by tonight, it’d likely be bruised, making it hard to eat. But it’d be worth it. Every single second.
Ellen had a soft spot when it came to her brother, and right now, we needed to work together to get all of her stuff out before the deadline hit us.
Tomorrow, though, when we were done. I knew all bets would be off. He’d hit me with everything he had, and I’d be ready for him.
***
We were three hours into packing Ellen’s house when Ellen finally arrived.
She was staring at the driveway to her house with her mouth hanging wide open.
She had a pitiful amount of five boxes under her arms, and she was staring at the massive stack of boxes ready to be loaded into the boys’ trucks with what amounted to awe.
Big Papa, who was on the phone with someone from his work, was pacing the end of the driveway while he looked around worriedly.
The moment his eyes lit on Ellen, he grinned, waved her past him, and went back to his phone call.
Ellen, on stiff feet, walked toward the group of men who were filling a pickup truck bed full of her things, and came to a halt.
“Jessie…” she breathed. “What the hell?”
I jumped down from the truck and gathered her into me for a quick, hard kiss. “Told you not to worry, babe.”
She blinked.
“You told me not to worry,” she repeated. “Okay.”
The last word was said so sarcastically that I nearly laughed.
“It’ll be okay,” I promised her.
She bit her lip. “I don’t think…”
I pressed another kiss to her lips to silence her. “Go pack your clothes with the boxes you have. We’ll talk once you’re done.”
She bared her teeth at me.
I lifted my hand and dug the tips of my fingers into her ticklish side, causing her to squawk at me. “Ack!”
She dropped her boxes, and I started to laugh.
When I bent down to get them, she pushed my head away with the side of her ass, and then picked them up herself.
The new position put me right in line with her ass cheek, so I did what any sane man would do.
I bit that delectable piece of flesh.
Then took off before she could retaliate.
“Not funny, James!” she called at my retreating back.
I winked at her over my shoulder.
She snarled silently at me and followed the path up the walk to her house. When she disappeared inside, I grabbed another box from the pile and halted suddenly when I came face-to-face with an expressionless Tommy Tom.
“What?” I asked him.
“You act differently around her,” he accused. “Like you’re fucking human.”
I shrugged.
“Doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook.”
I raised a brow at him.
He growled something under his breath, grabbed his own box, and took off.
Before I could follow suit, Ghost appeared out of nowhere with haunted eyes.
“How’s it going, man?”
I hadn’t expected him to answer me. If I were being honest, this was something he never did. I didn’t know if it was due to me being so new or the fact that he didn’t like me, but the man never spoke to me at all. When he did, it was to relay something that somebody else asked him to relay.
“Fucking dandy,” Ghost grumbled. “Found my kid and wife, though.”
My brows shot up to my hairline. “I thought that they moved and you couldn’t find them.”
He picked up two boxes and walked away without answering, leaving me with the question of ‘is that it?’ before I followed behind him.
There was no talking again until well past lunchtime, and by that point my belly was eating the inside lining due to its eagerness to have food filling it.
“Babe,” I yelled at Ellen when she started to pass me.
She glared. “What?”
“Will you order some pizza?” I asked, placing the box on the tailgate of Big Papa’s old Chevy Silverado. “Here’s my wallet. Just try not to spend over two hundred dollars or you might need to use the credit card instead of the bank card.”
Her lips thinned, but she took the wallet without a word and walked away, only looking back once to glance at me to see if I was still standing there watching her go.
I was.
I watched her until I couldn’t watch her anymore. Then continued to watch until she passed by the large picture window in between the kitchen and the dining room.
She paused and looked out, her eyes catching mine, and gave me a tiny smile that told me this wasn’t nearly as bad as it could be. She could be really pissed. She could hate me for inadvertently causing her to get kicked out of her place and practically forcing her to move into mine. She could be doing a lot of things right now, but she was calm, cool, collected and helping us pack.
That was not the way I would think that a woman not keen on moving in with a man would act if she really didn’t want to do what she was doing.
No, she wasn’t upset by this at all.
Not even a little bit.
***
“Dad, do you want me to take her clothes into your room, or the spare bed…” I gave him a look, and Linc started to walk away, heading toward my room with the box that held all of Ellen’s clothes.
“This is the last box,” Big Papa said, setting the cardboard monstrosity down next to the other piled boxes.
I offered him my hand, and he took it.
“I got some news today while we were moving that you’re not going to like.”
I waited for him to explain, and he didn’t leave me in suspense for long.
“Your ex made bail last night.”
My head tilted.
“How did she make bail already?” I grunted, not really surprised that she found a way out.
“Had someone show to pay the big bucks.” Big Papa shook his head. “They let her out of there yesterday. She sat in a jail cell for about three hours before she was allowed to make her one phone call. A man showed up to pick her up; supposedly he looked pretty rough, too.”
&nbs
p; I gritted my teeth.
“Probably her fuckin’ dealer,” I grumbled, dropping his hand. “Maybe even the baby daddy.”
Big Papa shrugged. “Could be. I don’t know. Asked the man on duty if he had any details on the man. He gave me his info he had to fill out to post bail, but every piece of information was forged. License was fake. Pulled the video feed, and the man knew not to look up at the cameras. Never got a clear view of his face. We have nothing but the plate number at this point, which we’re running.”
Fucking figured.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and headed for the door.
“She comes over here again, I suggest you file a restraining order,” he advised. “That way you have something to fall back on when you take this to court.”
“How do you know I’m taking this to court?” I questioned.
He opened the door and stepped through it. “Been a cop for thirty years now, boy. I know this kind of behavior better than you, and you’ve been dealing with it firsthand for going on sixteen years now.”
I grunted.
Big Papa’s smile was wry. “She’ll come around. What you need to be thinking on is what you’ll say to your boy when you tell him that he won’t be seeing her anymore.”
Big Papa’s eyes flashed to somewhere behind me, and I knew that Linc was there. Probably had been for a while.
“See you tomorrow at church.”
Then he was gone, leaving me with my son, who was clearly not very happy with what he’d just overheard.
“Dad…”
I held up my hand. “Tomorrow, after your game, we’ll discuss this. We’re not doing it now. It’s nothing dire. Nothing that’s going to change in between then and now. So please, for the love of all that’s holy, go to bed. Get the rest you need. You’ve got a game tomorrow; I have to get up early and get half a day in of work before I head to the game. And there are fuckin’ boxes to unpack.”
Linc’s lips twitched. “She’s passed out on your bed. I only dropped the box inside the door before I left her.”
“What about Achilles?” I started scanning the room.
He was nowhere to be found.
“Took him out before you got home,” he said. “He’s in my room, sleeping on an old pillow.”
I nodded once. “When you leave tomorrow, let him out and then put him on the couch,” I said. “Good luck tomorrow, boy.”
The Beard Made Me Do It (The Dixie Warden Rejects Book 5) Page 12
