Deciding it was best to pretend her little hissy fit and groping attempt never happened, Cass glanced back to see him rubbing his chin which was, according to her sore head, where she had clocked him. She sighed. She never did make a good first impression. He gazed at her, his expression thoughtful. Cass rubbed her head and offered a small smile.
“Sorry about that. We can talk in the office. I can answer your questions.”
Without speaking, he inclined his head in agreement and followed her to the office at the front of the barn. Cass noted with reluctant approval that he took the same giant step she did over Lilly lying in the doorway then reached down to pet her graying muzzle gently. To her surprise Lilly’s tail thumped the floor once.
Cass was glad (wasn’t she?) when he took the chair closest to the doorway and farthest away from her desk. Sure, it could mean she was trapped but it also put distance between them. His presence seemed to draw the air and everything else toward him in the small, narrow office and she had to concentrate not to scoot her chair closer. She wished she had taken the time to at least sweep out the office this morning. Plus a little mopping might help the worn, linoleum tiles look not so sad. Stranger Danger, she reminded herself. Who cares what he thinks about her office floor?
Cass thumbed through her phone quickly. No message from the new guy, Benny. She held up a finger then made a couple calls, trying to find someone to fill in. Not a single person answered, probably because it was before 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
“So what can I help you with?”
As Cass turned to face the stranger, her eyes caught the weird blobs on her desk. Two on the desk itself near the edge then two more on yesterday’s hay receipt.
The deep ruby color on the paper left no doubt. Blood, shiny and wet. She checked her hands then swiped it across her nose. No. No cuts or nosebleeds. With the elevator scene from Silence of the Lambs running through her head in painful clarity, Cass slowly rolled back her chair, glancing at the ceiling just in case. Nothing there. The headache that had been squatting behind her eyes rose, stretched and said “knock-knock, here I am“ before returning to its customary crouch in her skull. Squinting, she stood and spread her arms toward the man who was still waiting patiently for her full attention, his eyes having never left her. Cass turned in a slow circle.
“Am I bleeding?” She asked. He blinked once, his nostrils flaring.
“No, but I can smell blood.”
Cass immediately held her breath and strode to the door, lifting up another please wait finger. Once outside the door, she gulped deep, blood-smell-free breaths to quell the nausea. It was hay and horses and leather and wood shavings, the everyday smells she loved. Home.
Tomas. It had to be him. He was the only one who would dare leave her office in this contaminated state. The hay truck crossed the parking lot on the way to the high barn and she ran after it. Ozz must have seen her because brake lights flared red. Tomas, standing on the back, hung his head and refused to look at her.
“I’m fine,” he mumbled.
“Let me see,” she ordered. He held out his hand which had silver duct tape wrapped around what appeared to be paper towels stuffed on his palm. Bits of hay were stuck to the rolled back edges. “Does it hurt? Of course it does. What happened?”
“Cut it.”
She sighed with impatience before speaking. He’s just acting like the twenty-year-old boy he is, she reminded herself. “Cut it on what?”
“The manure spreader.”
Cass cringed. It was quite possibly the filthiest thing on the entire property, used daily to remove loads of soiled shavings and manure. She met Ozz’s eyes in the side mirror, waiting for an explanation. He shrugged his big shoulders.
“I told him it needed stitches. Kid listens for shit.”
She growled. Tomas was now sitting on the steel flatbed, swinging his legs. “Tomas, you’re going to the urgent care for stitches, antibiotics probably, and a tetanus shot for sure.” Cass expected an argument and had the I’ll call your mother card ready but to her surprise, he nodded and hopped to the ground.
“Yeah, okay. It doesn’t hurt that much, though. I can drive myself,” Tomas said with a smile, waving his taped hand as he walked away. She was now down two men, the high barn still needed hay, all the horses needed grain and water, and ninety stalls needed to be picked and cleaned, not to mention the full slate of riding lessons scheduled. Ozz was strong but still just one man.
Ozz snapped his fingers to get her attention. Cass could hear horses whinnying in the high barn, demanding their breakfast.
“Breathe. We’ll figure it out. Tomas is fine. I’ll finish feeding. First, deal with the guy in your office.” His voice was calm, soothing her escalating nerves immediately. Ozz’s quiet presence was the perfect counter to her sometimes scattered tendencies. Grateful, she brushed her fingertips across his forearm resting on the door, taking a breath.
“Right.” She nodded. “Clean the blood before the kids get here, talk to the hot guy, and we’ll figure the rest out.”
“Good girl.” Ozz nodded and drove toward the high barn.
Feeling centered again Cass jogged to the little bathroom, grabbed supplies and, taking another deep breath, walked into the office. Nathan stepped back stiffly. He looked irritated but perhaps angry-man was his resting face. She offered an apologetic smile but realized he couldn’t see it behind her paper mask.
“Two minutes and I’m all yours,” she said, her voice muffled. His lids dropped over his eyes as she maneuvered by him in the doorway, his nearness triggering a delicious shiver of awareness. She clutched her supplies to her chest like armor. Ye gods, he was a tall guy and their height difference placed the smooth, enticing skin of his bicep within inches of her mouth. All she’d need to do is—her internal alarms blared. No no no, keep walking sister. This one could scorch her alive. Cass scooted in the office.
His eyes were on her as she sprayed and wiped, hunting all the errant drops which gave her much needed time and space to compose herself. It’s not like she never got stares from men. She was fit, reasonably attractive, blonde. She got stares. It was her own reaction that baffled her—the intensity, the longing, her pulse pounding physical response just being near him. This was uncharted territory. Maybe the problem was it had been like a hundred, okay five, years since her last horizontal tango.
If he wasn’t a complete stranger, and if she wasn’t drowning in work, and if she could tolerate prolonged human touch without frying, then maybe, and it would have been spectacular.
Daydreaming about what could have been distracted her from the repulsive task at hand. Cass gagged once but that was because she was ambushed by the bloody Band-Aids lying in wait when she opened the lid of the wastebasket. Jesus. Common sense dictated that soiled Band-Aids do not get placed in the garbage in such a way as to completely gross out unsuspecting people; they get shoved underneath something else, anything else. Everyone knew that. Lilly left the office sneezing.
When she was reasonably sure her office was blood-free, Cass shoved the paper towels and the bloody hay receipt in the garbage, pulled the bag out, tied it, and walked past Mr. Rivers with the bulging bag in between them. He backed up a step, wrinkling his nose. A quick dash into the bathroom where she peeled off the rubber gloves and mask, washed her hands, tried to fix her hair then was back in her chair facing Nathan.
“How bout now?” He just stared. “Blood smell,” Cass prompted. He shook his head.
“No. Just bleach.”
Relieved, Cass leaned back in the chair. “Sorry about that. Tomas cut his hand pretty bad and is on his way to get stitches. I’ve got two girls off on vacation, one guy who no-showed. Mind you I just hired him yesterday to replace Carlos, the guy who quit last week which was awful because I liked the kid, and riding lessons starting soon.” She ran out of breath and gulped air.
Stop babbling, Cass told herself. Tall, Dark, and Handsome does not care about your business woes. The babbling, unfo
rtunately, continued. “And I haven’t had my coffee yet so I’m about to get either really mean or start crying. That’s also my excuse for my rudeness earlier. So, I’ve got ten minutes. Ask away. Here’s some information on the farm, prices for board and service extras. You look like you ride Western. Do you trail ride with your horse?”
Out of breath again, Cass zipped it, determined to be normal and passed him a brochure with her card stapled to it, careful to not touch him. He said nothing, just examined the material.
A niggle of doubt floated through Cass at his continued silence. Darn it. She was so rattled by his stupid hotness she couldn’t remember if he’d actually said why he was here. No, he didn’t. He just said he had some questions. “Um, you are looking to board your horse, aren’t you?” Cass asked as she pulled open a drawer and rooted around for a bottle of aspirin, wincing when another red drop of blood glared back at her from the deposit slip pad. Tomas had apparently done the same thing. She slammed the drawer shut.
“No.”
Cass looked at him, waiting for more. He took the man of few words thing to a frustrating new level. Refusing to shove her foot in her mouth yet again, she leaned back, and raised an eyebrow. The silence stretched a beat, then two. She turned her attention to the receipts on the desk and began organizing them for Tabitha later, the urge to speak bubbling like a boiling pot perilously close to overflowing all over the stove. Nathan opened his mouth to speak and Cass sighed with relief.
“I’m here for a job. You said your man didn’t show up.”
“He’s not my man,” she blurted. Her face flooded with heat. Good Lord, had she just said that out loud? Sad, pathetic really. Cass pressed her lips together before she said anything worse, like I’m single and ready to mingle… with you.
His eyes gleamed. “Employee, then.”
Cass glanced briefly over his body. The hard muscles visible on his arms suggested he was strong and fit enough for the work. Clearing her throat she dragged her eyes away from him and stared at the phone to think. He’d stood right next to Boo without a problem so wasn’t afraid of horses and she was down two employees at the moment. What was holding her back was the man himself. He lacked the desperate air of the people who regularly stopped by to ask for work. She understood it. Barn work was difficult and the pay wasn’t much higher than minimum wage so by the time they wandered into Sky Blue Farm, all had been rejected elsewhere. This guy didn’t fit that mold. He had the look of former military, the hard face, hard body, cropped hair, and eyes that, although beautiful, had seen too much ugliness in the world.
Tilting her head, she stared at him, tapping her favorite pen against her lips as she opened what she enjoyed calling her spidey sense. No sinister emotion buffeted her skin. In fact, she didn’t sense much of anything beyond a quiet determination and that was more from his demeanor. Well, spidey sense didn’t always work. He lifted a brow during her scrutiny but remained quiet.
“Were you a soldier?”
Cass sensed his surprise. He nodded.
“Are you a criminal, Nathan? Can I call you Nathan?”
“No and yes you can.”
No anxiety. In fact, he seemed pleased, like he knew she’d decided to hire him.
“Pay is twelve bucks an hour if you can start now.”
Nathan rose and so did Cass, perhaps too fast as her headache intensified with wicked suddenness. She braced a hand on the desk.
“Are you ill?”
Cass waved her hand dismissively as she walked toward the door. “Headache.”
“She’s fine,” Tabitha snapped from the doorway, passing a large coffee past Nathan to Cass who grabbed it and immediately took a sip. She almost Gollum-whispered “Precious,” knowing Tabitha would get it, but she figured she’d shown Nathan enough weird already. Tabitha crinkled her nose and backed up a step.
“Ew. Why are you bleaching. Wait. Did he—” Tabitha glared at Nathan, her mouth a thin line. “You’ve got no business here. Leave her alone.”
Her normally laid-back friend had been replaced with a woman who looked like a warrior ready for battle, hands curled into fists and her body coiled like a spring quivering to be sprung. Nathan only turned his head casually toward Tabitha and stared, his gray eyes flinty. His body didn’t change position but Cass had no doubt if Tabitha launched at him, destruction would rain down. Somehow she knew it for a fact.
Could this day get any stranger? She read once cold water worked on stopping a dog fight but Cass only had hot coffee and certainly wasn’t wasting it. And of course it could burn someone, she corrected hastily. With the threat of violence palpable, Cass scrambled between them, ignoring the tingles from the fleeting skin to skin contact. She pushed past Nathan to bump Tabitha’s shoulder and turn her sideways, breaking their stare-down.
“What the hell, Tab. Don’t make me pull this car over,” Cass warned, earning a snort from Tabitha. Her friend’s rigid shoulders relaxed slightly but she was still glowering.
Cass spun back to Nathan whose posture was still deceptively casual yet obviously dangerous.
“And you.” She jabbed a finger at him, mindful not to actually touch him. “Tone down the I’m-a-bad-ass vibe. We get it. You’re a bad-ass. This is my business and you will not scare my lesson kids with your scowly face.” He narrowed his eyes at her finger swirling circles in the air inches from his face. She turned back to face Tabitha.
“Tomas cut his hand on the spreader and bled all over the office. It was super gross. He’s on his way to get stitches. This is Nathan. He’ll be filling in today, playing the role of Tomas and new guy.”
“I vote no,” Tabitha said, glaring at Nathan. Cass blinked in surprise. Potential boarders and employees often met with both her and Tabitha. It was rare they didn’t agree and when it happened it was in private and she usually deferred to Tabitha. Today, though, they didn’t have any other options.
“Too late. He’s hired.”
Tabitha shook her head slowly. “This is a mistake. You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand? What am I missing here?” Cass glanced at both of them. Nathan leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, saying nothing. Tabitha clamped her lips together mulishly. Huh, interesting. A big hairy secret to which she wasn’t privy. Maybe the two had dated and it ended badly. She sipped her coffee then felt his hot gaze zero in on her throat. Yikes. Probably not ex-lovers, she decided. Mr. Nathan Rivers seemed too intense for her friend’s taste.
“Okay, that hurts my feelings a little, but whatever,” she said after a long silence. Cass cocked her head and looked at two again, peeked at her watch then gave up.
“And now we’re out of time.” She glanced up at Nathan who hadn’t moved. “This barn’s about to get crazy-busy for the next six hours. If I feel you’re not a good fit here, today will be your first and last day. Everyone good with that?”
She turned to Tabitha.
“Fine,” Tabitha said, smirking as she strolled toward the north aisle. Cass looked expectantly at Nathan. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Use your words, Nathan.”
His lips quirked for an instant.
“Fine.”
“Staff meeting’s at two o’clock. Find Ozz in the high barn. He’s the guy driving the hay truck. And none of the, you know.” Cass screwed her face into an imitation of his. She saw him blink once before the scowl returned.
“Two o’clock, Miss Nolan.” He inclined his head. Ignoring the sizzle in her blood his voice elicited, Cass returned the gesture and watched him stride away to the high barn to follow the feed truck. She texted Ozz a quick heads up—hot guy to help out 2day, ask ?s l8r. B NICE with a smiley face. Cass slipped her phone in her pocket, pasted a smile on her face, and started the rest of her day.
Omega Rising Chapter Three
Four hours later, wolf Enforcer Nathan Rivers wiped the sweat from his face. They had just finished feeding, cleaning all the stalls, and watering twice. His back and shoulders ached ple
asantly as he stretched, the breeze cooling his skin. His right thigh throbbed with a sharper ache. While cleaning the stall of a white monstrosity named Mr. Clean, the creature pinned its ears and bit him with its giant yellow teeth, tearing his jeans. He’d barely stopped himself from pulling one of the knives in his boot and gutting the thing. Instead, he swore viciously while the horse, unconcerned, mosied away. Ozz’s voice, strangely bland, had floated over the neighboring stall. “Oh yeah, that one bites.”
No shit.
The stable work was dirty, physically difficult, somewhat dangerous, and the smells. My God, the smells. The horses themselves didn’t smell bad but the hints of ammonia in the urine and the constantly dropping manure were an insult to his sensitive nose. No wonder the woman had a hard time keeping casual help.
Nathan figured that between the two aisles in the main barn and what they called the high barn, he had hefted thousands of pounds of horseshit and urine soaked shavings, pushed a broom for miles, and cleaned so many buckets his hands were pruny. All while dodging around dogs, cats, and chattering kids with their arms overflowing with saddles, bridles, brushes, dropping items left and right. The parents either hovered over their children or stood in small groups socializing. Teenaged barn grooms, pony-tailed and lanky-limbed girls, darted everywhere.
He disliked being surrounded by so many people but he enjoyed the physical work. It was the frenzied atmosphere that annoyed him. As an assassin Nathan did his best work in solitude and this was the exact opposite. How could anyone get anything done here in this chaos?
He had expected more hostility from the shapeshifters. Again, not that he cared. Ozz hadn’t been warm and fuzzy when giving him instructions, but he hadn’t lunged at him, teeth bared, either. The tiny Vivi scurried out of his way, but Nathan kept an eye on her when she was near, just in case. The bobcats he’d tangled with in the past were tough as nails and obscenely fond of sneak attacks. The she-wolf, Tabitha, stayed far away and was always in one of the three arenas teaching lessons. She never passed up an opportunity to glare at him and once mouthed something which he didn’t understand but could guess at. He waved in response just to piss her off.
Bite Somebody Else Page 28