Let Us Prey: BBW Military Paranormal Romance (Wild Operatives, #2) Read online

  “Argus? Hope I caught you at a good time.”

  “Always have time for you, Ian. What can I do for you today?” he asked in his easygoing voice.

  “I need you to draft up some legal paperwork for me about a job.”

  Chapter Two

  ~Leigh~

  Just before Daddy died, he signed his old Ford F-150 over into my name. Letting go of it for a few grand was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, but the money helped to make ends meet until I found a job.

  With less than seven hundred dollars of it left to my name and few worldly possessions, I threw myself into finding gainful employment before I lost everything. Time at the library consumed most of the week, allowing me to fill out online applications at every business within fifty miles.

  Days without Sophia passed into weeks and became months. The ache in my heart was a hollow, barren field where my baby belonged. Two days a week wasn’t enough time, but I needed firm footing beneath me before the court returned her to my care. I failed her and myself when I didn’t seek professional help during pregnancy.

  Back then, I thought they’d judge me and take my baby away if I asked for help. In the end, they did it anyway by citing child endangerment. After CPS took her away, I spent the first weeks cursing the medical staff who reported me and laying blame everywhere but the place it belonged. Myself.

  The driver of the carpool to Ferguson Unit honked from the side of the road. I ran out and joined two other women in the backseat after passing ten dollars to the driver. An hour later, an intimidating prison loomed ahead of us, a massive brick facility with two layers of perimeter fencing and harsh razor wire. Impassive guards armed with AR-15s watched us from towers in passing.

  I shivered and scurried along with the rest of the flock, feeling like a sheep herded to pasture. The other ladies wore makeup, but my face was bland and intentionally unappealing. They wore dresses and tight-fitting tops. I wore jeans and a light cardigan over a V-neck, which I fastened before entering the facility.

  The humiliating shakedown procedures were just part of the sacrifice I made to see Dennis. I turned my pockets inside out, set my shoes in the bin for the x-ray machine, and walked through the metal detector with my hands raised. A female officer ran her fingers down my body, sliding her palms down my spine then the backs of her hands down my ass. Her smaller build placed her at an inconvenience and forced her to stand on tiptoe and lean uncomfortably close to reach around my thicker frame. Once she was satisfied I didn’t have drugs and cigarettes stuffed into my meager bra, she shooed me to get out of her line.

  I was shuffled into a visitation room for an impersonal meeting behind glass walls. I sat nervously on my chair with my hands folded over my lap. I’d never gone into a prison before in all of my life, but the dismal, gray-painted cinder blocks and dirty floor depressed me.

  I tensed the moment Dennis entered the room and sat opposite me with a thick pane of glass between us.

  He looked as good as I remembered, with full lips, chiseled features, and a strong jaw. I’d always loved his cocoa brown skin and the contrast between our complexions. At a glance, I could tell he’d picked up some weight and broadened his shoulders with muscle. Figures in the penitentiary he’d have nothing better to do than work out, but the plain white uniform didn’t do his athletic body the justice it deserved.

  “What took you so long to finally come here and visit me? You don’t write and you didn’t register to accept calls from me.”

  “I don’t have a vehicle anymore, Dennis. I had to sell Daddy’s truck a couple months ago to make ends meet.”

  The honest truth didn’t seem to satisfy him. “Yeah, all right. That don’t explain why you didn’t register. I could have been calling you by now, baby.”

  The last affection I had for Dennis died on the day he’d gotten himself locked away for a quarter of a century on an unnecessary crime. I hated knowing Sophia would grow up without a father for the mistakes he made. We should have been raising her together.

  “I’ve been too busy trying to find a job to sit at home on the phone, Dennis. Besides, I don’t know how to register,” I lied.

  “Damn. Fair enough.” His brown eyes drifted to the inmate beside him. The guy’s family had purchased him a pile of chips and four icy Cokes from the overpriced vending machine.

  “I came to talk to you about Sophia,” I spoke up to direct the conversation.

  “Buy me a Coke first, Leigh.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t have it on me.”

  “What? You can’t even buy me a soda while you’re here?”

  “I don’t have the money,” I repeated, voice low. “No one told me I could bring quarters for the machines.”

  “It’s a fucking buck, Leigh. You mean to tell me you don’t have a goddamn dollar to spare for me?”

  “I wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t carpool with a group. I gave them ten dollars to get here.” I had an electric bill to pay and groceries to buy. While he received three hot meals and a cot courtesy of Texas, I was left to fend for myself.

  “Then what the hell are you doing here, girl? It’s not like you even tried to pretty yourself up,” he fussed at me. I swear he said those things just to be an asshole and hurt me.

  “Pretty myself up for a prison visit? Like I said, I came to talk about Sophia and getting her back. Or at least seeing her more often.” Had he even been listening to me? “Can’t you talk to them? They’re your parents, Dennis.”

  “You know how Ma and Dad are. I can’t tell them nothin’ from in here.”

  “Tell them to let me see her more.”

  “Hell, Leigh, you see her more than I do. You think they bring her up here for me to see her?”

  “Yeah, well whose damn fault is that?” I snapped back.

  A couple of prison guards in stiff gray suits glanced our way. When the male officer moved as if he intended to come over, I dropped my voice again.

  “Listen, Dennis. Sophia is my baby. Ours. She doesn’t belong with her grandparents. She needs a mom, and them keeping her from me when I’ve been clean isn’t for her benefit. They’re doing it because they’re pissed at us.”

  “Bitch, are you even clean for real this time? How many days did you tell me you were done and not to get you any more pills, but the moment I offered a bottle, you were ready to take them?” he mocked me.

  “I am clean,” I hissed. Counting backward from ten in my head helped me calm down. “I haven’t touched so much as an aspirin since they discharged me from the hospital.” I must have looked hostile, because the officer was on his way back again. I stood up from my seat and beat him to the punch. “Our visit is over. I’m leaving. Don’t expect to see me back again.”

  I spent the rest of the two hours outside on the curb, the occasional passing car the only witness to my silent tears. Eventually, the shudders ended and I was able to embrace a future without Dennis in my life. In our lives, if I could pull it together and meet the requirements set by the court.

  I had to have a job, and I needed it yesterday.

  ***

  “Thanks again for the ride,” I said to Kelly. The blonde woman in the driver’s seat smiled at me.

  “No problem, sweetheart. You email me next time you need a ride up there.”

  Positive I’d never go back, I smiled and nodded. “Sure.” I waved and let myself inside, kicked off my shoes, and locked the door behind me.

  My dad’s home had seen better days, and with him gone, I couldn’t replace the leaking roof. But it was a house, and it was better than some people had. Once I secured a job, I’d be able to change things and do him proud. I’d get the windows replaced and a new roof over my head. I’d have a new bedroom door to replace the one the cops knocked down when they arrested Dennis. I’d need the floors covered in something eventually, so Sophia wouldn’t have to crawl on hard cement.

  A quick shower let me wash the stink of the prison from my skin and hair. I could still smell
it, the stench of a few thousand men and sweaty guards in a cement box without any air circulation. I shivered, remembering the way some of the inmates had stared at me with lust in their eyes despite my perceived plain appearance.

  Someone beat on the door just as I toweled off in the tiny closet of a bathroom. I squeezed into panties, shorts, and an off- the- shoulder t-shirt then stepped barefoot into the narrow hall. I twisted my hair into a bun on the way to answer it. My tee revealed my lack of a bra, but without much on top to warrant wearing one all of the time, I thought I was safe from any lookie-loos wanting to steal a peek. My pear-shaped body meant I carried all of my junk in the trunk.

  Caution made me pause before opening the door, and a quick glance through the parted window shades revealed an unfamiliar black SUV parked alongside the road. I frowned and angled my body for a peek at the stoop.

  Ian MacArthur stood on the porch, his hands folded behind his back. The sexy military vet wore a black leather jacket and dark shades over his unusual, strangely colored eyes. The t-shirt on his body stretched taut over every muscular ridge, a second skin in navy blue.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” I whispered. The next sharp rap on the door made me jerk back; then a surge of courage prompted me to crack it open and peek out at him. “Hello?”

  “Good evening, Leigh. This a good time for a talk?”

  “I just got out the shower.”

  “I can wait for you to get dressed,” he said pleasantly.

  “I am dressed.” I paused and looked down at my chunky thighs. My current state of dress was inappropriate for meeting with the grandson of our town’s founder. “What do you want, Mr. MacArthur?”

  “To offer you a job.”

  I opened the door to stare at him. “Bullshit.”

  “Give me a second and hear me out. I’m told you’re in need of a job. As luck would have it, I need an employee.”

  It was too good to be true, the perfect solution to my problem at the ideal time. I gazed at the handsome man on my doorstep and felt a cold stab of shame streak through me when I realized he could see the room behind me. The rough concrete floors needed another sweep, but it was the least of my troubles when I had a spreading water stain on the ceiling.

  “May I come in to talk?”

  “We can talk out here.” I scurried outside and shut the door behind me.

  “I want to offer you a job. You see, I work out of town and my grandmother’s getting up in her years. The home health agency only gives her so many hours on the weekends, and she won’t hire a housekeeper through the week or allow me to do it for her.”

  A flash of rage shot through me. “Housekeeping? Is this a joke? Is that it? Did you come to have a laugh at me too because no one wants to hire me for a real job in this shithole?”

  “Leigh—”

  “Fuck you, Mr. MacArthur. You can go to hell along with everyone else.”

  I slammed the door in his face before the tears began, and within moments, I was reduced to uncontrollable sobs. Damn him. Damn him and everyone else laughing behind my back. In the privacy of my own home, I wiped at the hot flood trickling down my cheeks and succumbed to my anguish. I needed a legitimate, tax-paying job, and under the table work cleaning bathtubs wouldn’t cut it.

  Maybe I brought it on myself, but why couldn’t they just allow me to wallow in my own well-deserved punishment without rubbing in the salt?

  “Leigh?” Ian’s soft voice penetrated my flimsy door. A glance through the peephole showed the man hadn’t moved. “I only want to talk to you for a moment. I’m not here to make fun or judge you. If you’d just let me come in for a moment to talk...”

  “Is it a real job?”

  “A real job,” he confirmed.

  I opened the door for him again after I wiped my face. “Okay.”

  When Ian entered and removed his glasses, he barely gave my sparsely decorated home a glance. His eyes lingered on me, resting on my face instead of my thick thighs and single bare shoulder. His features held no judgment and lacked the mockery I expected.

  “Thank you. I brought the paperwork with me, and you can keep it to review overnight if you’d like, or sign it now and I’ll take it with me. Choice is yours.”

  He offered me a manila folder filled with official looking papers and not like something he’d typed up at home. The fancy letterhead and watermark featured a wolf’s head logo from the law offices of Argus Prescott.

  “I’m sorry for losing my temper and slamming the door,” I apologized. “Can I get you anything? I have...” Nothing. I have nothing to offer him except tap water. Soda wasn’t in my budget lately. Food stamps could only get a single person so far.

  “Water’s great.”

  I set the papers on the coffee table — a handmade, beautiful piece my dad had carved and assembled himself about ten years ago — then gestured for him to have a seat on the paisley green sofa. I returned with his glass of ice water and joined him.

  “Thank you, Leigh. Why don’t you take a moment to review those while I’m here in case you have any questions.”

  My hands shook as I lifted the thin folder and flipped it open for a look. Responsibilities of the job and daily duties, a schedule, protocols for calling in sick, and a close set of rules to follow. He’d outlined everything professionally, complete with information about healthcare and vacation days.

  “Vacation days?” I asked.

  “Twenty-one days a year with two weeks advance notice so I can be there for her in your stead. I expect you to be at Gram’s place five days a week. You’ve got two paid sick days a month, but they’ll add up and won’t expire so make them count. But keep in mind, I’d prefer if my grandmother wasn’t made ill because you forced yourself on the job with the flu, got it?”

  “Okay. What’s my pay?”

  “Fifteen dollars an hour to start, paid every Friday. If you like it a month from now, I’ll raise you to twenty.”

  Tears stung my eyes. “I... you want to pay me twenty dollars an hour to clean your grandmother’s house?” Sniffling and wiping my cheeks, I tried to maintain a calm expression. I couldn’t. Emotion burned my throat and tears spilled over my face too quickly to be dried for long. “This isn’t a joke?” I repeated again.

  “It isn’t a joke.”

  “Why help me? Why?”

  “Well, I hope you’re not too mad at me, but I asked about you, and the way I see it, there’s a little girl depending on her mama finding a stable job. And I have a legally blind grandmother with rheumatoid arthritis. We need each other, right?” Ian asked.

  I wanted to throw my arms around him and smother his neatly groomed face in kisses. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. MacArthur—”

  “Ian,” he said again with a pleasant smile on his handsome face. “Just call me Ian.”

  “Ian,” I agreed. Shock made it impossible to convey my gratitude without floundering for words. I repeated the simplest ones. “Thank you.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions for my own curiosity.”

  My belly sank a little, like a lead weight hit the bottom of my gut. “Okay.”

  “I know you’ve had some drug problems, Leigh. I want to believe it won’t be a problem again. I’m not one to mince words, so I’m sorry if I offend you but... what happened? Did your boyfriend get you hooked?”

  “It won’t be a problem again,” I quickly blurted out, too defensive. “This is a bit of a long story, and it’s no excuse, but it started in college. I played volleyball until I blew out my knee at the start of my junior year. Surgery was out of the question because my dad was fighting cancer.”

  “Right. You probably couldn’t afford two sets of medical bills,” Ian deduced.

  “Yes. So my doc prescribed me some codeine while I did physical therapy. I got into therapeutic horseback riding at this ranch at the edge of town, volunteering to help the kids in exchange for riding lessons and time with the therapist. Loved it. At the st
art of my senior year, Dad’s cancer got worse. I dropped out to care for him and the ranch closed down due to lack of funds. They weren’t getting enough money to care for the horses even though the therapist and trainer volunteered their time. Because I’d dropped out of school, I lost my student insurance plan.”

  Ian shook his head. “I wish I’d known about the ranch’s troubles. I knew they shut down, but never heard about why. I must have been away at the time.”

  “Yeah. It was really sad. I couldn’t afford my doctor or a new therapist, so Dennis supplied me with codeine. I was too stupid to ask where it came from. Or I didn’t care. I was hurting and always needed one more to get through a day with Dad. The laryngectomy didn’t help him, you know? The surgeon missed some of the cancer, and it metastasized to his lymph nodes. He came home here to die instead of hospice in a facility.”

  I swallowed and focused on my lap, fearing if I looked up at Ian, I’d see the judgment in his handsome face. Stealing a quick glance revealed compassion instead.

  “I wanted to get help, Ian. I did. By the time I realized I had a problem, I was pregnant. I tried to kick it a dozen times on my own, but I was so afraid they’d take her from me. If I had it to do over again, I’d have never started taking them.” Time had given my knee the chance to heal, but I’d probably benefit from resuming therapy.

  Ian’s fingers brushed the top of my hand in a reassuring stroke and left goose bumps in their wake. “It’s behind you now, Leigh. What about your boyfriend?”

  “We’re done. I don’t even know what I saw in him anymore. His parents used to love me, you know?” These days, I couldn’t get them to talk to me unless it was my scheduled visit to see Sophia.

  “What about the theft? Do I have to worry about you stealing?”

  I shook my head. “I stole a television a couple years back when my dad lost his job and we fell on hard times. Welfare office was going to take forever to process our case, and your food pantry didn’t exist back then.”