It was that thought that had me keeping my eyes to myself as Dallas left the bear enclosure and headed my way. It wasn’t until he was standing in front of me that I nodded my head. “Morning,” I murmured.
Dallas sent me a nod and then motioned around us. He pulled his phone out a moment later and typed out Tour?
I nodded and fell into step next to him.
The property was huge, and with Dallas typing out messages about each pen, it was a slow process of making our way around the place. But I was glad when he took the time to explain things to me, because I was learning much of what I would have expected to find on the website.
The center was a mix between a rehabilitation facility and a sanctuary. Dallas indicated his goal was always first and foremost to rehabilitate an animal so it could be returned to the wild, but in some cases, that just wasn’t possible. He used the bear he’d been interacting with as an example.
He indicated the animal’s name was Gentry and explained how he’d received the bear after authorities had discovered Gentry and several other bears as part of an attraction at a roadside zoo. Gentry had been kept for years in a cage that had barely allowed the bear enough room to turn around in. He’d been malnourished, covered in scars from the abuse he’d suffered at his former owner’s hands and near death when Dallas had gotten him. Sanctuaries all over the country had volunteered to take the rest of the bears in, but they’d all been in captivity too long to be released back into the wild. Dallas went on to explain that while Gentry was used to humans, it was important to never forget that he was still a wild animal at heart. My respect for Dallas climbed several notches when he told me that he never got into the cage with Gentry, no matter how gentle the bear acted. I suspected many people wouldn’t have had that same level of restraint.
Although the center was geared toward wildlife, I saw many domesticated animals as well, including dogs, cats, and a variety of farm animals. I was more than a bit relieved when Dallas indicated it would be these animals that I’d be working with for starters.
The tour took longer than it probably should have, since I couldn’t stop asking questions about each animal’s story as we went along and Dallas was forced to type out his responses on his phone. Despite the awkwardness of it all, I could tell Dallas was extremely proud of what he’d built for his animals and I enjoyed watching him interact with each one. Like Gentry, there were several animals that had no chance of surviving in the wild and would spend the rest of their days at the center. He explained that the majority of the domesticated animals were up for adoption, but finding them homes was a challenge.
There was a hint of something besides disappointment in his eyes when he said that last part, but he didn’t expound on the comment, so I left it alone.
After the tour, he led me to his office. My nerves began to kick in, because despite his openness on the tour, there was a certain distance he’d kept between us. I knew it was likely just me overreacting, since it was admittedly hard to gauge the reactions of someone who couldn’t talk, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite offering me the job, he wasn’t happy to have me around.
I was half-tempted to tell him the feeling was mutual, since I hadn’t been able to escape the humiliation I’d been feeling ever since I’d driven away from the center the day before. By the time I’d arrived home, my pride had insisted at least ten times that I turn around and return to the center to tell Dallas I couldn’t accept the job.
I’d even composed an email that I’d planned to send to him via his website, but every time I’d tried to hit the send button, my eyes had fallen on the pile of unpaid bills sitting on my nightstand. When I’d told my mother this morning that I’d finally found a job, she’d told me that was nice to hear, and then she’d told me I needed to be home by three to watch my father so she could go with Edith to the hairdresser’s.
I’d left the house without saying anything.
She’d figure it out soon enough at three. At least she’d have more fodder to share with Edith about her good-for-nothing, ungrateful, Hollywood-crazed son.
A light tapping sound had me dragging my eyes from where I’d been staring at a wall full of framed photos of various animals. I recognized Gentry in one of them.
I turned my attention to Dallas who’d been rifling through his desk for the paperwork I needed to fill out.
I still couldn’t believe the guy I’d been crushing on for two long, miserable years (and maybe still a little now) was my boss. All the work I’d done to escape the shame and humiliation I ever felt around Dallas Kent and his friends, and none of it had made a difference.
I was right back where I started.
Only, I wouldn’t be able to pretend to ignore the man when he came to the realization that he’d made a terrible mistake in hiring me. Not only did I know nothing about animals, I had next to no experience doing any kind of manual labor.
God, this was so very, very bad.
I ignored the urge to confess to Dallas that I was a fraud and took the paper he handed me. I scanned it and realized it was a pay period schedule. My eyes automatically fell to the bottom of the page where the hourly rate was listed.
And barely managed not to cry.
It was too much.
Way too much.
I should have been relieved to know I’d be making so much more than minimum wage, but all I felt was embarrassment. There was no way in hell a position cleaning up after and feeding animals paid so much.
I could feel my skin heating as I handed the paper back across the desk. “It’s too much,” I said. I hated that my voice carried notes of both humiliation and anger in it.
Dallas held up his hand and shook his head.
I wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. The salary was pittance compared to what I’d been making just a few short months ago as the First Chair violinist in the San Francisco Orchestra. I’d even made considerably more my first year after finishing Juilliard. But if I’d learned anything over the last two weeks of job hunting, it was that being able to play Bach’s Chaconne from Partita in d minor to a roomful of San Francisco’s elite wasn’t worth the sheet music the notes were written on in a town like Pelican Bay. And it sure as hell wouldn’t come in handy when I was cleaning up dog shit or scooping litter boxes.
“It’s too much,” I repeated softly, though I didn’t try to hand the paper back to Dallas again. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and tried to count down the minutes it would take for all this to be over. At least once I was out there cleaning up shit or filling water bowls or whatever, the animals wouldn’t pass judgement on me.
When Dallas tapped his fingers on the desk again, I forced my eyes up because that was my job now. I expected him to hand me the forms I needed to complete, but instead he was studying me like a bug under a magnifying glass. I forced myself not to look away, though it was really fucking hard. It wasn’t until I straightened my spine in some kind of silent act of defiance that I saw Dallas’s mouth twitch into something that almost looked like a smile.
He finally slid the papers across the desk and then held out a pen. But just as I went to reach for it, he put his finger up to stop me and then jotted down something on the forms he’d pushed toward me. Once he was done, he climbed to his feet and came around the desk. Since I was still sitting, I had to crane my neck to look up at him.
He handed me the pen, but when I took it, he held onto it for a second. Even though we weren’t touching, I still felt the current of electricity between us. Dallas released his hold on the pen and then motioned to the door and then to me. I nodded in understanding. He wanted me to come outside when I was finished.
I waited until he left the office to read the note he’d left me. A shiver ran down my spine, and not entirely in a bad way.
Don’t worry, Nolan. I’m going to get every penny out of you.
Any innuendo I’d chosen to read into Dallas’s words was gone by lunch time, and by day’s end I was silently cursing my pa
rents, Trey, the animals, and basically anything in my orbit that converted oxygen to carbon dioxide for the hell spawn that was Dallas Kent.
Okay, so yeah, I was overreacting a bit. But having one’s limbs turn into one large raw exposed nerve did that to a guy.
On the positive side – and there really was only the one positive – any guilt I’d felt about the large wage Dallas was paying me fell by the wayside pretty quickly.
Along with my sanity.
And my patience.
My sense of pride.
My love of hygiene.
The problem had started from the second I’d stepped outside that office door, and I definitely was blaming Dallas for that one.
Because he’d lulled me into a false sense of security by having me start in the kitten room.
I mean, how could anyone go wrong in a room full of kittens?
I’d practically been in seventh heaven as I’d easily cleaned out the three litter boxes that the seven kittens shared, changed their water, and filled the food dish. The hardest part of the task had been watching where I stepped, since the excited bundles of fur had followed me all over the large space. Since Dallas had given me permission to do so, I’d spent a good ten minutes just cuddling the babies and plying them with love. And while I’d felt a little dejected as I’d waved my goodbyes to the warm little bundles of joy, I’d actually been excited about meeting their adult counterparts in the next room over.
And that’s where it had all gone downhill.
The adult cats had definitely come with a lot more attitude, but I’d managed to escape the room with just a minor scratch across the top of my hand after I’d made the mistake of trying to move what I could only guess had been a geriatric cat out of the way so I could clean the litter boxes. I definitely hadn’t felt any guilt about saying my goodbyes to the adult cats.
The dogs had been next, and they’d been crazy with excitement from the second I’d walked into the area they were housed in until long after I’d left. There’d been no actual kennels for the fifteen dogs of all sizes, just little cottages set up in a row over nearly an acre of land. The dogs had all come running as soon as I’d entered the enclosure and, like the kittens, the mob had followed me everywhere. Only problem was, they’d made it a lot harder to see where I was walking, so I’d stepped in multiple doggy landmines.
The same landmines the dogs had stepped into right before they’d jumped on me, spreading the filth all around. And while all the dogs had been friendly, a particularly hyper German Shepherd had torn the sleeve of my shirt when I’d had the audacity to pick up the tennis ball it had kept dropping in my path.
My muscles had been quietly protesting the abuse by lunch time, but despite the stinging hand, torn clothing, and pungent scent of dog shit literally following me everywhere, I’d still felt somewhat in control.
And more than a little proud that I’d survived a whole three hours on my own. Dallas had come to check on me several times, but had stayed only long enough to answer questions and lay out my next task for me.
I’d both been grateful for his minimal intervention and a little annoyed, too.
By the time I’d finished with the hooved residents in my charge, I’d been cursing Dallas to hell and back. Not only was the work backbreaking, the warning Dallas had given me about the single non-farm animal in the enclosure – the zebra that had somehow ended up with the innocuous moniker of Jerry – had been wholly inadequate.
Dallas had described the black and white monstrosity as “ornery” but not dangerous. And while the “not dangerous” part had been accurate, the “ornery” part had been way off the mark.
The animal was a menace.
Jerry had seemed friendly enough at first as he’d come to check me out as I’d cleaned the stalls that opened into the large paddock the animals shared, but I’d quickly figured out it was all a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security.
It had started when Jerry had inadvertently knocked over the pitchfork I’d had leaning against the wall. I’d jokingly admonished the animal and urged him out of the stall. The second I’d had my back turned, Jerry had been back to sniff through the wheelbarrow full of shit.
The wheelbarrow that had ended up overturned seconds later.
It had been followed by the full water bucket I’d momentarily set on the floor of the stall getting tipped over, forcing me to clean up the wet shavings for the second time.
The second I’d gotten the stall perfectly clean, Jerry had taken a dump and a piss in it. I’d once again shooed him off, re-cleaned, and then moved to the next stall.
Where the process had started all over again.
It wasn’t until almost three hours later as I’d been cleaning the last stall that Dallas had shown up, spied Jerry in the stall with me, and then promptly asked me why I hadn’t closed the outer stall doors leading to the paddock to keep Jerry out.
If I’d been holding the pitchfork in my hand, I’d have probably stabbed Dallas in the foot with it. As it was, I’d managed a polite smile, thanked him for pointing that out as an option three hours after the fact and proceeded to the paddock to scrub the water trough and refill it.
The water trough Jerry knocked me into when it was still half full of icy cold water.
Which was the reason I was in my current predicament.
Standing half-naked in Dallas’s bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist as I waited for the man to appear with the promised clothes.
As if he’d had some kind of crystal ball, Dallas had shown up within seconds of Jerry pushing me into the trough. With my humiliation complete, I’d cursed Jerry and my new boss and had stomped toward the small barn so I could finish my last assignment of the day, feeding the animals. My goal had been to save the few remaining scraps of my pride by getting the hell out of there and going home to cry in my shower and then crawl between the clean sheets of my bed.
Dallas, of course, had had other plans.
He’d stuck around to help me feed the animals, and when I’d bid him farewell and headed toward my car, he’d snagged my arm in a tight grip and practically dragged me toward the blue farmhouse on the southwest corner of the property. With darkness falling, I’d been too cold and tired to protest much. I’d barely even gotten a look at the inside of the warm house before Dallas had led me to a bathroom on the second floor and pointed to the shower and then my clothes. I’d gotten the gist of his demand and had been too damn uncomfortable to even consider arguing.
Of course, I hadn’t been expecting him to steal my clothes while I’d been in the shower.
The shower with the tempered glass walls.
I studied myself in the mirror as I took in the things Dallas would have been able to see if he’d chosen to look hard enough as he’d been collecting my clothes.
My scrawny body.
Limbs that were too long and gangly.
Pale skin.
I shook my head. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked my reflection.
I jumped at the knock on the door and then carefully opened it a crack. Dallas was holding a bundle of clothes for me, which he promptly handed my way. He kept his eyes averted and as soon as I took the clothes, he pointed down and then disappeared, leaving me to wonder if that was his way of telling me to come downstairs when I was done.
The fact that he’d worked so hard not to look at me should have had me feeling relieved, since it meant he wouldn’t have likely paid me any attention while I’d been in the shower. But all I felt was humiliation of a different kind.
“You’re ridiculous,” I muttered to my reflection once again as I placed the clothes on the vanity. The clothes Dallas had given me included a pair of sweatpants that thankfully had a drawstring and a soft, white T-shirt. Both items of clothing were way too big on me, but they were dry and didn’t reek of dog shit and ornery zebra, so I was happy.
The fact that I was wearing Dallas’s clothes wasn’t lost on me, but I tried not to think too much about it. Espec
ially not the part where I was currently going commando in a pair of pants that Dallas could have quite possibly been commando in at one time or another.
Once I was dressed, I forced myself to leave the safety of the bathroom. I needed to get my clothes and get the hell out of there. My body ached, my pride was in tatters, and I was so physically exhausted that I was afraid if I sat down even for a minute, I’d never get up again. As it was, I’d probably end up sleeping in my car in the driveway once I got home, because I doubted my protesting muscles would work long enough to get me out of the car and into the house.
As I made my way toward the stairs, I caught sight of several closed doors along the hall, presumably bedrooms. The only open door was for the bedroom at the end of the hallway, and all I could see was a large bed with a brown comforter on it. As tempting as it would have been to sneak a peek at Dallas’s bedroom, I ignored the urge and hurried down the stairs. I slowed my step after noticing the pictures on the wall. There weren’t many of them, and while most were of more animals, including several of Dallas’s wolf-dog as a puppy, one picture in particular caught my attention. It was of Dallas and his older brother, Maddox. Maddox was wearing some kind of formal military uniform and he had his arm around Dallas. I knew Dallas had to be around eighteen at the time the picture was taken, which had me guessing it was for Maddox’s graduation from West Point. I remembered my mother’s story about how Maddox had told Dallas he should have been the one who’d died in the accident. I couldn’t correlate the hatred that it would take to make that kind of statement with the picture I was looking at.
A creaking sound from downstairs had me hurrying past the picture. My bare feet padded along the cold hardwood floors as I made my way toward the sound of water running. I found Dallas in the kitchen. His back was to me and I could see he was filling a pot with water.
Locked in Silence_Pelican Bay [Book 1] Page 7