Junkyard Dog (4 page)

I
storm into the office. Too many fucking stupid
people in the world and they’re all conspiring to drive me to an early grave. I
have enemies surrounding me, and my allies are fucking morons.

Sitting at a cleared off table, I find a boy and
girl writing with pencils in math workbooks. The children stare at me, and I
stare back at them. When they don’t look away, I glare hard at Candy’s
offspring.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“Mom has work to do,” the girl says.

“Where is Candy?”

“In the bathroom.”

I take a step closer and really turn on the scary
glare. The boy decides he’s had enough and focuses on his school crap. A dark
haired version of Candy, the girl won’t relent. She narrows her brown eyes at
me, and I swear the little bitch is trying to intimidate me.

“Stop fucking looking at me,” I growl.

“Stop looking at me,” she growls back.

Admiring her guts, I smile. “Nicely done.”

The girl isn’t sure if I’m tricking her, so she
keeps glaring. Candy appears from the bathroom and looks startled to see me.

“I didn’t say you could bring them here,” I growl
at her.

Without missing a beat, Candy replies, “You didn’t
stay I couldn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. I fucked up. Now get them out of
here.”

“I’m waiting for a phone call,” she says, sitting
at her desk. “I can’t leave unless you’re planning to stay in the office and
answer the phone yourself.”

“Make them leave and you stay.”

“That’s a really great plan but no.”

“Candy, we need to have a conversation about
boundaries and work expectations.”

“Right now? I’m pretty busy currently.” Candy leans
back in her chair and takes a nail file to her pinkie finger. “How did your
meeting go?”

“Like shit.”

“People are stupid. What can you do?”

Frowning, I don’t like how her words amuse me.
Candy still makes me uneasy. I want to fuck her, but she’s got kids, and I
don’t like kids. I’ve hated all my assistants, but I don’t hate Candy. It might
be possible to learn not to hate her kids too.

“What are their names?” I ask.

“Chipper and Cricket.”

“That’s right. I remember you saying they have
stupid names.”

The twins look at me and then their mother. She
waves her hand as if telling them to ignore me. They return to their work.

“Their father picked their names.”

“You should have insisted on better names.”

“Having unique names makes us unique. Wouldn’t you
agree, Angus?” she asks, emphasizing my name.

I swear her daughter snickers and sounds exactly
like her mother. I should hate knowing there are two of them in the world, but
I don’t. The world is a stupid place full of morons. Having more than one of
Candy makes me hopeful for humankind.

“Come to my office.”

Candy follows me immediately. I know she thinks
I’ll put my foot down about having the kids in the office. She’s ready for my
rage, so I give her something else. She isn’t the only sneaky person in the
room.

“Have you found a place to live yet?”

“No. I’m still looking around. I don’t know dick
about White Horse.”

I open my address book and find a number for her.
After writing it on a slip of paper, I hand her the information.

“This realtor handles my rental properties. I have
a few empty places on the north side. That’s where you’ll want to live if you
want your weird kids going to good schools. The east side has good schools too,
but the people there are arrogant fuckers. You won’t fit in as a single mom
with a stripper name. The south is too close to Hickory Creek, and that place
is a shithole. The west side is too close to Common Bend, and the schools are
full of junkies’ kids.”

Candy looks over the number and then nods. Her gaze
is soft and appreciative. I drink in her attention and feel like a junkie myself.

“You can pick whatever empty house I have
available.”

“What’s the rent like?” she asks, still watching me
with a warm expression.

I think about kissing her. If my lips taste hers, I
know I’ll devour her whole. Based on her expression, I don’t think she’d stop
me. Then I remember her kids in the next fucking room and realize I’m going
home alone again tonight.

“No rent,” I say, finally answering her. “Just get
your kids into a real school, so they don’t end up being fucking morons like
most people in this town.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Sitting in my chair, I lean back and frown at her.
“I don’t have to do much of fucking anything.”

“No, but that’s because you’re scary and rich. This
gesture is you being nice. You don’t need to do that.”

“I went through a shitfuck of assistants before I
ended up with those temp broads. If giving you a rental house keeps you happy
and I don’t need to learn a new moron’s name, it’s no skin off my ass.”

Candy smiles at me, but the warmth in her eyes is
gone. She’s in smartass mode again.

“This is like the end of one of those
Scrooge
movies where the mean man gets all sweet and syrupy about humanity.”

“Go away,” I say, but I’m fucking smiling because
her teasing doesn’t piss me off the way most things do.

Candy bats her eyes at me and then spins around and
leaves the room. I hear her rounding up the twins and checking the backdoors.
Soon her car starts and she disappears down the road toward the hotel she
currently calls home. I imagine her moving into a house and getting settled
into White Horse. Keeping Candy happy means making me happy and me being happy
is all that really matters in life.

H
ayes’s realtor Janice shows us three houses on the
north side of White Horse before we arrive at the red brick box-style home. I
don’t think much of the flat front exterior. Despite its lack of hominess, the
place feels safe. Strong, unassuming, ready to withstand chaos. Sort of like
Hayes’s office.

When we left the hotel this morning, the twins were
thrilled to look for a house. Now they’re tired and bored. The first house
interested them, but the yard was tiny, and Chipper said the bedrooms smelled
evil. When Cricket asked what evil smelled like, he said her butt.
Things
went downhill from there.

By the time we see the brick box, they’re ready to
live anywhere.

“Nothing feels like home,” Chipper whines after the
third house.

I don’t know what home feels like. Since I left
home at eighteen, I’ve lived in apartments and the Eddison family’s guest
house. I don’t know what I’m looking for in this rental besides three bedrooms,
a decent backyard, and enough space in the house for us not to step on each
other. My standards are low, yet I still can’t find anything that fits until we
drive up to the brick box.

The inside of the house is painted a sunny, pale
yellow. The floors alternate between plush carpet and shiny wood. Something
about the house reminds me of Hayes. Not the yellow, of course, but the place’s
no-nonsense flow. The tall ceilings remind me of him too. The house isn’t fancy
but has good bones. Like with Hayes, I’m attracted to something at the house’s
core.

“I like it,” I tell Chipper and Cricket while we
stand upstairs.

“It feels like a home,” Chipper says.

“The bedrooms are small,” Cricket mumbles and then
adds, “We’re used to sharing a room. Having two will be good.”

“Do you like it, though?” I ask. “We don’t have to
move here or anywhere until you guys are happy.”

I feel guilty again for taking them away from Cincinnati. They lost their school, friends, and grandparents. I worried about them
turning soft from that plush life, and made the decision to ditch the drama
Toby’s new wife created. It was my call, but the kids have to live with the consequences.

“I like this house,” Chipper says, walking into a
bedroom. “This is mine.”

Cricket runs to the second smaller bedroom. “Mine
has a bigger window.”

“Mine has a bigger closet!” Chipper yells.

Smiling, I have my answer. Downstairs, I talk with
Janice.

“Hayes made clear you can have whatever house you
wanted. He told me to help you with moving too.”

“I don’t have much to move. We lived in a furnished
house back in Cincinnati. Where’s a good place to buy furniture?”

“Mister Hayes owns Rickman’s Furniture. I’m sure
you’ll get a good deal there.”

Janice’s tone makes me wonder if she thinks Hayes
and I are playing hip gymnastics. She likely views me as his assistant in name
only. If she works harder and helps more, I’m cool with this misperception. I
learned long ago not to give a flying fuck what strangers thought about me. Hell,
I only mildly care what my friends think. Life is too short to stress others’
opinions.

W
ho in the fuck have I hired?
Candy is a huge pain in the ass yet a great
assistant. The problem is she’s a good looking chick.
Scratch that.
She’s fucking gorgeous, but I’ve seen plenty of gorgeous women who might even
be better looking than Candy. None of them got under my skin. Not a single
fucking one of them ever made me wonder about their soft hair.

Candy is fun to look at with her tall, athletic
build. Her blonde hair hangs loosely down her back, and I find myself wondering
what it looks like up in a ponytail. My obsessed brain wants to see her neck
bare. She’s been my assistant for three days, and I’m already a dog in heat.

I feel her in the next room. Fucking feel her
breathing. I can close my eyes and sense her on my skin. I hate how Candy toys
with me without even her knowing it.
What in the fuck will happen if she
ever figures out what she can do to me?

I have shit to do today. Now I have a competent
assistant so I should be working more. Not me, though. Not with Candy in the
next damn room.

Breaking pencils keeps me from standing up and
checking on her every ten minutes. An hour later, I’m out of damn pencils, and
I’m forced to ask her to bring me more.
Breaking pencils isn’t a long-term
fucking plan.

I should fuck her and be done with it. That’s what
my problem is, and I know how to fix it. Give my dick what it wants so I can
fucking think straight.

If I fuck her, she’ll think we’re an item. Women
always think that shit five seconds after a man fucks them. Only a whore is
safe to fuck without worrying about strings attached.

Candy might be capable of remaining rational after
I fuck her. Or she might want something from me. Or she might quit, and I’ll
end up with those crying temps. I’m sick of listening to women cry. Candy never
cries. When I yelled at her yesterday for misplacing a file, she only smiled
and said she would do better. I realized later I put the file in the wrong
place. I also realized she fucking knew it was me who fucked up. Candy shrugged
it off. No doubt she’s smart and tough enough to let me fuck her and then go
back to work.

What if I fuck her, and she remains a good employee
but decides to date a guy? An asshole sharing my pussy isn’t acceptable.

Does she already have a man in White Horse?

Who is he?

I’ll find out and scare him off.

And if he doesn’t scare?

I’ll beat him with a bat.

I’ll take an ax and chop him into tiny pieces.

No, drag him behind my truck until he’s mush.

If any man in White Horse touches Candy besides me,
I’ll beat him until he’s half dead. Then I’ll let him get medical treatment and
heal up, so I can beat him to death for real.

By the time I walk out to where Candy plays a
computer game, I’m ready to hunt someone down and kill them.

“What are you doing?”

Candy doesn’t even look at me. “My kids like
Minecraft
.
I’m trying to care about the game.”

“You’re at work.”

“Yes, but I have nothing to do,” Candy says and
then glances over her shoulder at me. “Too bad you don’t have boxes full of
crap I could clean up and organize.”

My hand reaches out to touch her hair before I
regain control of myself. Candy notices but only turns back to the computer
screen.

“How long would it take you?” I ask, walking around
the desk, so she’s forced to look at me.

“For what?”

“To clean up all this shit,” I say, waving my hand
at the stacks.

Candy stands up and surveys the mess. “Depends on
what’s in the boxes.”

“Business records. Tax shit.”

Candy’s sexy mouth drops open. “Shouldn’t they be
at your accountant’s office or something?”

“They have their copies. I have mine.”

Candy walks to a pile of boxes and shakes her head.
“Is there anything sensitive in these boxes?”

“Probably, but my enemies would have to dig through
a lot of boxes to find them. I don’t even know which ones have anything
important in them.”

Candy frowns at me, and I feel small under her
disapproving scowl.
Fuck her for having such power.

“What did you fucking think was in the boxes?”

“MREs and other prepper stuff,” she says and then
adds when I frown at her. “Your office looks like a bunker, and you have a
small arsenal in the coat closet. I assumed this other crap was you preparing
for the end of the world.”

“For your information, I keep my end of the world
shit at my fucking house. I can survive for five to ten years easily. It’ll
only depend on if I save anyone with me.”

Candy holds my gaze, and I wait for her to catch
the hint that I’d be willing to save her under the right circumstances.

“I’m glad you mentioned that,” she says, turning
away and looking inside a box. “If the bombs fly or zombies rise, I’ll bring my
kids to your place. Might bring my sister and her kids too. I’ll leave the
douche husband at home.”

“You can show up, but I make no promises about
whether I’ll let you inside.”

Still checking the box, Candy grins. “If the world
is coming to the end, you could do worse than having two hot blondes at your
beck and call.”

I shrug, but there’s no denying I’d be a lucky
fucker to sit out the end of the world with this woman. Her kids, sister, and
even more kids don’t interest me as much.

“You keep bitching about cleaning all this up, so
have at it.”

Candy looks at me suddenly, and I can feel her
thinking.
Devious thoughts too.
She’s up to something, and I cross my
arms in anticipation for whatever bullshit she’ll pull.

“How do you feel about paying someone under the
table?”

“Who?” I growl, sounding scarier than I plan, but
Candy doesn’t react to my tone.

“My sister could use extra cash, but nothing that
can be traced.”

“First, you bring your kids here. Now you want me
to hire your sister. I’m not running the Candy Wilburn charity house here.”

She hears how I stumble over my words. Her eyes
narrow and she sizes me up. I don’t need her knowing she turns me into a dog in
heat. I want to shift my stance and let my hard dick breathe. Knowing Candy, I
have no doubt she’ll notice.

“Her husband is a douche, and I want her to leave
him. Any cash she can hide would help.”

“Why in the fuck do you think I care?”

“You said her husband is a douche. I would think
you’d want to piss him off. Don’t you live to fuck with people?”

I detect no judgment in Candy’s voice. She’s right
that I get a kick out of fucking with people. Something about seeing a man
squirm makes me smile.

“Fine. I’ll pay the same rate per hour as I pay you
and I’ll pay in cash. I don’t want to see her or hear about her emotional
crap.”

Candy smiles and her dark eyes light up in a way
that makes my dick hurt. “I’ll slap duct tape over her mouth and keep her
focused on cleaning up your mess.”

“You do that,” I say in a threatening tone for no
reason besides my dick’s painful throbbing.

The cause and possible relief stand three feet from
me. She won’t fuck me today. I can see how the thought isn’t on her mind right
now. No doubt she’s considered me inside her, though. Candy isn’t stupid. She’s
a sexy woman, and I’m an available man.

I think to push the topic, but something stops me.
My brain might be working again because I realize she’s a stranger. I don’t
know shit about her, yet I’m ready to let her see me at my most vulnerable. No
one can have power over me. I won’t even give it to my sickly father or
Nightmare. No way will I give such power to Candy.

So I walk back to my office and leave the tempting
blonde to play computer games. She’s only free for the time being. Once I learn
her secrets and tilt our relationship in my favor, I’ll make my move.