“Hey, I have an idea.” I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
“What?” they asked in unison.
“Felix owns the house, doesn’t he, Resa?”
“Yes.”
“So, you could move.”
“It’s not as simple as it sounds. Tori jumped at the little apartment over the hardware store because it was the first place to come open in quite some time. Kano says I’m on the wait list, but who knows how long that will take.”
“I own this house, Resa. Move in here. Call it house sitting if you want while we go through the trial period.”
“What? No fair. I love this place,” Tori complained.
“You love your apartment,” Resa pointed out.
“True but look at all the space you’d have here. Jealous.”
She looked around and I could see she was considering it. She was easy to read so I even knew the second she decided to accept my offer. “Fine, but I’m taking the guest room and I will make it mine.”
“You can take whichever room you want. I don’t mind. The place is all yours.”
“Are you leaving the furniture and everything?”
I nodded. “I assume Baine has all the essentials we need already. So unless I find I need something specific we’re packing light, mostly clothes and necessities only.”
“So why is that taking so long?” Tori wondered aloud.
I rolled my eyes. “We decided to go ahead and purge things while we’re at it.”
She groaned. “Not again. Didn’t we just do this a few years ago?”
“Yes, but it just reaccumulates. We don’t need all of this. Help?”
My cousins nodded.
“Well, let’s get started,” Resa said excitedly.
“You can have first dibs on anything. Macie already finished her room and her stuff is in the living room. My bedroom is an absolute mess though.”
We walked over and they laughed. “Yeah, this is going to take a while. Stand back, tell us which pile is what, and we’re on it,” Tori said.
I hugged her. “You two are the best cousins a girl could have.”
We worked non-stop for the next five hours and the house was spotless. We’d made three runs to the thrift store for donations and another nine boxes headed over to Resa’s consignment shop. It was mostly clothes and household items she didn’t think she would need and thought she could sell quickly for me.
The consignment store wasn’t full time. She only worked it on the weekends and one evening a night as she got it established enough to go full time. During the weekday she worked for the Clan out at the lumber yard. She was on the admin team and kept them straight over there, but it was her dream to own her own business and work it full time. She was taking baby steps trying to get there.
“How about I call in some pizza for dinner?”
“Sure,” Tori said.
Resa rolled her eyes. “Is Shawn working tonight? You know, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to just hide in the back room and pretend to work if he shows up.”
I laughed. “Why are you hiding from him this time? I thought you were beyond that now.”
She groaned and put a pillow over her face. “He asked me out again. I thought I made it clear the last time. He’s cute and sweet, but I want a true mate. If there were any doubts about that, seeing you and Baine together has solidified it for me. I don’t want to settle.”
“Yet, he’s definitely ready to settle down with his Resa-bear,” Tori teased.
“Ugh, I’ve always loved that nickname, but you make it sound dirty. Now I can’t ever use it again.”
We were cracking up still as I called in the order. Shawn had answered and assured me he’d have it over as quickly as he could.
“I’ll admit, I do love the priority bump in the pizza line when he’s working.”
“He does not do that,” Resa insisted.
“I should have told him you were hungry. I bet he’d break his delivery time record getting here.”
Resa groaned into a throw pillow again.
“It’s cute,” Tori insisted.
We were still discussing it when Shawn knocked on the door ten minutes later. Macie came out of her room to see who was there, while Resa squealed and ran to lock herself in the bathroom.
“Hi Olivia,” he said when I opened the door.
“Thanks for coming so quickly. We’re starving.”
“I saw Resa’s car out front. Is she here?” he asked with a sheepish grin. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance with my cousin.
“Yeah. She’s um, preoccupied at the moment.”
“Oh,” he said sadly. “Well, tell her ‘hey’ for me. I have two more deliveries to make while I’m out, but I could come back by later.”
“Sorry, lover boy, but it’s ladies’ night,” Tori informed him as she escorted him out of the house.
Macie watched him out of the window. “All clear, Resa,” she yelled once his car had pulled away.
Resa walked out of hiding, rolling her eyes. “Call me a chicken, I don’t care. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I’m not interested either.”
Macie shrugged. “Just tell him that then. Grownups always make things so much harder than they need to be.”
She helped herself to a slice of pizza piled high with all the meats. My baby was growing up too quickly. I just wanted time to slow down.
Fat chance of that.
Baine
Chapter 21
With each passing day, I was getting more irritable. All we were doing was surveillance. I was over it and ready to either blow something up or just go home, preferably the latter.
“Hey, check this out,” Tarron called out.
I walked back into our hotel room that had been staged with all his monitoring equipment.
“What’s up?” Silas asked.
“We have movement in the back quadrant.” Tarron pointed to something on the screen.
My heart fell. “How much longer are we going to leave him in there? We need to move.” It made me sick to see my former Alpha being experimented on in there.
“I’m in agreement here. This is too much,” Painter surprised me by agreeing.
“Any word from our man yet?” Taylor asked.
Silas nodded. “He checked in this morning and warned us this was coming. I think it’s time to move in for extraction.”
“Finally.” I was already mentally taking inventory and deciding what I would need where.
“You heard him. We’ve got the green light. You’ve all been preparing for this for days. Grab your gear and let’s move out. I want to be in and out and back on the road within the hour,” Painter barked.
“What about the others?” Ben asked.
“Not our problem today,” Silas said. “With Jake inside, we can continue to monitor things.”
“Does Jake know this?” Grant asked.
“Yeah, he does. He’s in for the long haul,” Ben confirmed. “Just, nobody shoot him if he gets pulled into the middle of this, and don’t blow him up either, Baine. I mean it.”