Chapter 15

I’m convinced that the stupid chip in debit cards was sent to this Earth to make my life a living hell.

-Jessie’s secret thoughts

Jessie

“Can you please, please, please, please take Achilles to my place on your way to work?” Ellen pleaded. “I forgot that I have a client I have to meet at her house at seven fifteen. Please, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

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.