TUCKER: Valley Enforcers, #3 (6 page)

There was a mystery stain on my scrub top, most of my hair had fallen out of my top knot, and I was still recovering from a glitter explosion in the middle of our snow globe crafting activity. It was two days after Christmas and you’d never guess it if you stepped inside Hewitt Nursing Care Center. The halls were still stocked with boughs of holly and the residents were in full holiday mode. The lifestyle director always made the Christmas season a big deal and the residents loved it. The entire month of December was a shindig full of socials, crafts, and movie nights. Getting a few minutes to hang out with residents in the activity room or the lounge was always the highlight of anyone’s shift, but after a long day my patience was all but gone and I was ready to go home.

As Edna McDonald so affectionately put it, I was acting like a Grinch.

To be fair, when you’re stringing your hundredth popcorn ball two days after Christmas after cleaning up an accident, you’re allowed to be a little grumpy. No amount of Edna McDonald charm
or
her yummy caramels would fix my bad mood.

There was a flutter of blue in the door. “Em, can I get your help with a lift?”

I looked at Heidi like she was a gift from the heavens. Edna was one of my favorite residents, but I could only put up with so much.

“Wait one second!” Edna protested. “We are busy. If we don’t finish these popcorn balls tonight, we won’t have them for the New Year’s Eve party.”

“There are still four days until the party, Edna,” Heidi said.

“We need them finished tonight,” Edna insisted.

I started cleaning my little area on her bedside tray. “Andy is coming in after me today. He would love to help you finish these. What if you two got Mr. Oraland to help?”

Edna blushed, despite the scowl in her voice. “Now, you know I can’t be seen in here with two men. It’s bad enough that Andy boy has to see me in my knickers.”

“Andy is nothing but professional.” I patted her hands and offered a warm smile. “These are going to look great at the party, Edna. I can’t wait to see them.”

Heidi and I said our goodbyes, knowing our shift would be ending within twenty minutes. I had, luckily, finished my charts before sitting down with Edna. Heidi, on the other hand, always waited until her shift was almost over to get in her charts. That meant she was scrambling to finish her work. I was always willing to help her out with a two person assist or finish her rounds so she could chart. Heidi had been my mentor when I first started. Her daughter graduated a few years before I did and was actually a nurse at Hewitt.

“Did you hear that Georgia put her two weeks in this morning? HR is pissed.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t surprise me. The quitting part, I mean. I’m surprised HR is upset. She calls off once a week and shows up late like, every day.”

“The turnover rate is almost eight thousand dollars. Our revolving door of bad aids is costing them an arm and a leg but they aren’t listening to any of the union’s suggestions on fixing the problem.”

“They don’t listen to anything, Heidi. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

“It’s costing them money. You think that’d be something they care about.”

I waved my hands in the air as we entered the resident’s room. Heidi had picked up the lift in the hall on our way. “They work in mysterious ways, young Padawan. Hey, Ronald. How are you feeling today?”

Seventeen minutes
after
my shift ended, I strolled out into the parking lot. Both of the halls Heidi and I covered all needed to go to the bathroom at the same time – the end of our shift. Even with Andy and Melissa, the second shifters who were taking over our halls, helping it was almost impossible to get to everyone. The myriad of flashing lights up and down the two long halls acted as their own form of twinkling Christmas lights.

Making a quick stop at the store for a bottle of the cheapest wine I could find and a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, I headed home. To keep the cashier’s dirty look – why, yes I am buying wine and chocolate at two thirty in the afternoon leave me alone – out of my head, I cranked my music and put on a one woman concert that managed to lift my spirts.

Kate, who was a bank teller, wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. That meant me, my wine, and my handy dandy BOB would have time for a nice bubble bath. Vivid memories of Mr. Mocha Eyes definitely required.

Balancing my lunch pail, purse, grocery sack, and the mail, I attempted to unlock the door. My key got stuck a little, so I applied more force. Still, no luck. I could hear Echo on the other side of the door. She wasn’t barking – she could smell that it was me – but the sound of the door would make her anxious if I didn’t hurry it up. The last thing I needed was an even rowdier Echo. She was due for a brush and a walk before my bathtub date, and I needed her to be cooperative.

The heaviness of my grocery sack pushed it down my arm, along with the rest of my bags. The pressure took me by surprise and the bags slipped to the ground. I managed to save my wine from breaking, which would result in another trip to the store for something with a much higher alcohol content. I heard the click of the door, signaling I had finally unlocked it, before my keys joined the pile on the ground.

A string of words that would definitely make my mother turn fifty shades of red left my mouth as I bent to collect my things. Then I felt it. Eyes. Heat.
Him
.

“This view is fantastic, but do you need any help, Em?”

Em. The way he said it was like we were old friends, not two people who shared a night tangled together.

I snapped up, fingers gripping the neck of my cheapo wine like it was my lifeline. Turning slowly, I resisted the urge to pinch myself. It wasn’t a dream… not that I had dreamed up the very situation at least a half dozen times since I snuck out of his cabin.

Tucker stood at the bottom of my steps. With his hands shoved in his pockets and a freshly shaven face, he looked devastatingly handsome. My wolf leaped to her feet and was ready to pounce. I had so many questions and definitely not enough answers. None of it seemed to matter though. I was confused, angry, upset, and most of all…. happy.

Santa is definitely getting a thank you card this year
.

Tucker

“What was that?” I asked, taking a few steps towards her. I couldn’t keep the grin from my face – especially not when she turned pink. I definitely heard her, but I was pretty sure she didn’t mean to say it out loud. “Something about Santa?”

“Nope! Nothing about Santa.” She adjusted the cluster of bags in her hands and tilted her head to look up at me. There was glitter sparkling in her hair and bags under her eyes, but she still looked amazing. “What are you doing here? And how did you know where I lived?”

Because I’m a stalker who hasn’t stopped thinking about you since you snuck out of my house.

I made sure to keep that thought strictly to myself. Pulling her wallet out of my coat pocket, I waved it back and forth. “Found this outside my house. I was betting on the address being right. Cute picture, by the way.”

“I thought I lost that in the crash. And nobody looks good in their license picture, jerk.”

“I was being honest.” I tucked the wallet into the open end of her purse, smiling when it crunched on some receipts. “So, uh… can I come in? I did just drive four hours, so I think the least you can do is let me use your bathroom and give me an explanation as to why you split before the sun came up.”

Yup. Wrong thing to say. Her big eyes turned to angry slits. She looked like a predator. “You could’ve mailed it and saved some time, yeah? Ever think it was a little weird showing up on your one night stand’s doorstep?”

“A little,” I admitted honestly. “But then you thanked Santa that I was here, so I figured all was good.”

“I didn’t thank an imaginary person that you drove four hours to see me.” Not to return her wallet, to
see her
. We both caught her little slip up. Taking a steady breath, Emily moved to her door handle. “You can come in for a little while. I have a roommate, though.”

There weren’t any other cars in the driveway, so I shrugged. Even ten minutes alone with Emily would be good. Not nearly enough time, but a start. I didn’t know how to tell her I was fucking obsessed with her and needed to see her body writhing under me for at least another few nights without sounding like a total creep.

“You’ve been warned,” She said with a smile that let me know she wasn’t telling me something.

She opened the door and stepped back. There was a flash of black and white and an excited bark that turned into a high pitched whine the second the thing stepped outside. I blinked a few times. It was a dog. Emily owned a fucking dog. And it was looking at me like I wasn’t a human – maybe because to it, I wasn’t.

Emily dropped down to a squat and began to rub the dog’s fur. The most sickeningly sweet noises came from her mouth, and I’ll be damned – I’d never wanted to be another animal so much in my life. “Echo, baby girl, calm down. He just looks like a scary beast. I promise, he’s a cuddly teddy bear. Shhh. It’s alright. Instead of a walk tonight, we can go for a run. Does that sound nice?”

“You have a dog,” I stated, as if the evidence wasn’t sitting between us.

“Her name is Echo.” Emily looked up at me with an unreadable expression. “I rescued her. Once she realizes you aren’t going to hurt her, she’ll calm down. She’s not a fan of shifters –”

“Obviously.”

“But strong male shifters especially make her nervous.”

My eye twitched. “You rescued her, you said?”

“When I was eighteen there were some dicks in my pack messing with her. She’s been my bestest buddy ever since, haven’t you Echo?” I wasn’t quite sure why, but her high pitched baby voice made my dick painfully hard. Or maybe it was the smell of her natural perfume buried under the layer of sanitation and sterile latex gloves. I was so close to her I could smell it all. Even with all the glitter and the daily grime, her hair still smelled like coconut. It was the same smell that, despite washing my pillowcases four times, still lingered in my bed.

I’d never been around a dog before. Not a pet and not in the wild. Most animals typically sniffed us out and ran in the opposite direction. We had a good bond with the wildlife on clan land; we didn’t eat them, but we weren’t so friendly that they came onto the main part of the reserve. Growing up, my friends were all shifters so they never had pets. I dated a human girl in high school with a little yappy thing that hid in the bathroom any time I visited. That was the extent of my experience with dogs.

It was either a weird sympathy for the dog that had obviously been injured by male shifters or a desire to please Emily, but I awkwardly squatted and stretched my hand out. Shocking both me and Em, I turned so my palm was facing up.
Submitting to a dog. You’re moving up in the world, man
. I didn’t even care how ridiculous I felt.

Echo’s nose peeked through the gap in Emily’s legs. Her chest vibrated with uncertainty – an emotion that reflected in her dark eyes. I thought I was making progress, but her low whine snapped into a bark and she backed away from Emily. I held my ground and hoped I still came off as submissive, but Echo saw through me and bolted down the tiny concrete steps and into the yard. She looked up at Emily and yapped before flopping down and rolling in the snow.

“That went better than expected,” Em mumbled under her breath. She eyed me as I stood back up. “Sorry. She still is skittish around my family. Next time bring her food and she’ll love you. I mean, not that there will be a next time. Obviously.”

I couldn’t help the smirk that plastered itself on my face. “Do I get a say in any of this? Maybe I want a next time.”

“Tucker,” She sighed. It wasn’t one of the breathy ones, half a moan with her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I loved when she breathed my name like it was a prayer. No, this sigh sounded worn and upset.

I brushed my fingers against her chin. She shivered and I let out a little victory lap inside my head. I had
something
. She could tell me she didn’t feel the fire between us but it would be a big fat lie. I affected her just as much as she affected me. “Don’t push me out.”

“Awfully big demands for someone I slept with once.”

“It was more than once and we hardly slept,” I countered, raising an eyebrow suggestively. I had to keep the memories of her legs wrapped around me out of my head. Her moans of pleasure were either a nightmare or a wet dream, depending on the mood I woke up in. “You promised me an explanation.”

Her lips parted for a defeated sigh. She nodded her head to the door before looking out to the yard. “Echo, be a good girl and stay close to home. I promise we’ll go for a run tonight. She waited, eyes expectant like the damn dog was going to talk back to her. A few seconds later a snow covered head popped up from a mountain of blindingly white snow. The dog let out a happy bark before returning to her romp.

“Do you two go on a lot of runs?” I asked, following Emily inside her house. Echo seemed like neutral ground, and I honestly was intrigued as to how a wolf shifter was best friends with a Siberian Husky.

“She’s a really active dog. It’s hard with work sometimes to play with her as much as she needs, so I make up for it with runs. I try not to take her to pack land, but we have neighbors here so it’s a little difficult to strip down and shift.”

I was surprised when I pulled up to Emily’s place. She lived on what appeared to be a country road, but it was only a short drive from the Missoula exit. There were a few houses on her road, but they were scattered apart. Not so far that you couldn’t see them, but they weren’t bumped up together. Her house was a little outdated with old grey vinyl siding and a tin roof that didn’t look very insulated, but it was still nice. The ranch style duplex was boxy with two wings jutting off to the side and a two car garage tucked partially to the side.

“Make sure you take your shoes off. I hate cleaning salt out of this carpet. Bathroom is right around that corner.” Emily, already out of her work shoes, was halfway across the living room. She gave me a tentative smile before disappearing through a boxy arch in the wall.

I shrugged out of my jacket and carefully kicked my heavy boots off while surveying her house. Em claimed she wasn’t a designer, but her living room was stylish. The off-white walls and equally as uninspiring tan carpet were the perfect backdrop for her furniture. Her television sat on top of a refurbished dresser with a distressed white paint job. The first row of drawers had been removed and a long shelf was in its place that held her cable box, a Blu-ray player and a few movies. There were a few trinkets on the stand, most of them festive. Her modern cream colored couch looked uncomfortable as hell, even with the colorful accent pillows. They popped with pinks and yellows and blues. The same pillows were situated in the two accent chairs. They were a matching set of a pale blue and yellow floral pattern. Between them was what I assumed was another Emmy Lou creation, a refurbished side table with a distressed pastel yellow paint job. It held a framed picture that was too far away to see and a lamp on top of a stack of books. On the other side of the couch was a floor lamp, body made up of weird metal circles. Her coffee table looked antique; the deep mahogany was rimmed with a gold trim that flared up just enough to make it look fancy. Covering most of the floors space in the corner of furniture was a long white rug with a blue and yellow Moroccan pattern. The shades were bolder than the rest of the furniture and in any other situation, the pattern would have clashed with the florals that popped throughout the room. It worked well in the sanctuary Emily created for herself. The wall behind the couch was cluttered with at least five mirrors of different shapes, sizes and colors. There were a few small framed art pieces, a floating shelf with some weird accent statues, and a rustic looking window pane.

Following her directions, I found the bathroom. I resisted the urge to peek at her in the kitchen and to strip down and jump in her bed. If the rest of my day played out the way I hoped it would, I’d be there soon enough.

The off-white walls seemed to be a house-wide thing. Her bathroom was surprisingly big. It was standard enough with brown cabinets and linoleum floors. The first thing I noticed was a decal in a bold circus type font that said ‘Get naked’. I was tempted to take her – or, the sign, I guess – up on the offer. Patience made me a great Enforcer, and though my patience when it came to Emily was lacking, I was tactful enough not to pull a dumb stunt.

Emily wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen – which was styled with the same eclectic yet chic blend that was very obviously her style – when I returned from the bathroom. Seconds away from calling out her name, she appeared in the arch that led to the small boxy hallway. I wasn’t sure if my groan was audible, but it rumbled inside my chest like a chord on a guitar.

She had changed out of her work clothes and was in a v-neck styled University of Montana Grizzlies shirt and a pair of tight black yoga pants. She wasn’t wearing socks and yup, her toes were painted the same baby blue they were the last time I saw her. The flashes of skin weren’t gratuitous, but they were enough to get my blood pumping. There was still glitter in her hair, but she had rearranged her wild copper locks into a new bun that sat high on the top of her head.

“I never thought I’d see a wolf wearing a bear on her shirt.” The sexual tension between us was so damn electric. Diffusing it with humor would help a little, but I was itching to run my hands down her body.

She smiled. It was a much better sight than the nervous mask she wore when she appeared in the doorframe. “My little sister is going to UM next year. It’s our dad’s alma mater, so we grew up in a house full of bear memorabilia.”

“How scandalous.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. A lot of our pack attends UM and it makes Alpha Matthew
real
pissed. When I was in high school, someone came to a pack meeting with a Grizz shirt on and got punished in front of the entire pack.”

I already hated her Alpha, so it came as no surprise the egotistical shit would do something like that. “Over a shirt? That’s petty.”

“The Silver family is the definition of petty.” She peeked through the blinds to check on Echo. “Would you like something to drink? I just bought some wine.”

“Probably not a good idea to drink before I have to drive home.” I put the line out there, hoping she would take the bait. For the first time in a long time, I prayed to the stars that Emily wouldn’t fight me. The attraction between us was crazy.

With knowing eyes, she turned to me. “You don’t have to leave. Not right away, I mean.”

I was so damn close to having her again. I needed my fill of her again. Needed to clear my head so I could think of anything but her sweet smell and addictive smile. “I don’t normally drink wine, but why the hell not.”

“Just a heads up, it’s going to be really shitty. I bought the cheap stuff.” That’s what I thought she said, at least. I was too busy staring at her ass while she crossed the room and went into the kitchen. I followed her like I was a lost puppy. At least Emily had a thing for strays. “It was a long day. I was going to get drunk and take a bubble bath, but I guess hanging out with you is cool, too.”

“I want to do more than hang out with you, Em.”

She swallowed hard but didn’t miss a beat in pouring the wine. “You drove four hours for a booty call? That’s optimistic and a little creepy, Tucker.”

“I wanted to see you again. Since you ran out before I had a chance to tell you that, I had to take extreme measures. It’s not like I broke into the police station and looked you up or something. You literally left your wallet at my house.”