Page 2 of Rebel

I didn’t even look up. “Home for a three-day weekend, Dusty? How’s UCLA?”

“Yeah, it’s my mom’s birthday. UCLA is great but you didn’t answer my question about what you’re missing in your life.”

“Not a thing, Dusty. Especially not a cat.” My eyes went to her arms and the large calico cat she was holding.

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m not being like anything, sweetheart. But I know you think everyone’s problems can be solved with a feline. I ain’t got time to look after myself, let alone another creature.”

“Did you hear that, Katy Purry?” Dusty was speaking in a baby voice. “That horrible man called you a creature.”

I turned around to tell her to go away and found that she’d crept up right behind me and was holding up the calico cat. The moment I locked eyes with the animal, it meowed. Fuckin’ thing was adorable and probably the biggest cat I’d ever seen. She moved the cat around in the air, almost hypnotically and my eyes couldn’t help but follow the movement.

“She really likes you. I can tell. Want to hold her?”

Against my better judgment, I allowed Dusty to foist the cat into my arms. She was really cute and soft. I liked the way she snuggled down and purred.

“She likes you,” Dusty said.

“Look, I really can’t have a pet right now. I work twelve-hour days and in the evenings I’m prospecting here. It’s not fair on an animal,” I said, trying to hand the cat back to her.

“She’s got a home,” Dusty started. “My friend is going to take her, but she’s on vacation at the moment. Could you look after her for a couple of weeks? I’d do it, but I’ve got to head back to LA on Sunday.”

I let out a sigh.

“Please, my dad said you would. He told me that you were complaining about how empty your house was. It’s the perfect solution.”

Damn Celt and his big fucking mouth, “Okay, sweetheart. I’m just fostering her, right?”

Dusty grinned at me, though I’m sure I saw a twinkle in her eye, “Right.”

I had a horrible feeling that Katy Purry was gonna become a permanent houseguest. Goddammit, what was I supposed to do with a cute purring cat? I set her down on the counter, pulled out my cell phone and ordered some fucking cat food and then got distracted ordering a bunch of other cat stuff to be delivered to my house.

“Okay, Katy Purry. I guess we’re gonna be spending some time together.”

After settling the cat in one of the empty rooms I started prepping the bar for the evening rush, wondering what in the hell I was going to do about stabilizing my business. It was becoming increasingly obvious not only that I was rubbish when it came to handling the paperwork side of running a business,but taking care of that was a full-time job in itself. I was only one man, I couldn’t be answering the phone, fielding calls about potential jobs, preparing and mailing invoices, keeping up with tax payments and every other damn thing it took to run a small business, and still be out in the field earning enough to pay my own bills and keep my grandmother’s care workers in place. And the icing on the cake was that I didn’t know what the fuck else I could do that even came close to the salary I was earning as an electrician. That made getting another job a moot issue. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I’d be damned if I knew a way out.

Chapter 2

Lacey

Iwas staring across my desk at my boss who’d pulled a chair up to have lunch with me, like always. I don’t think his mother liked him very much, because who names their kid Edward Edwards? It was just one of many oddities about this pudgy, arrogant man who never stopped talking.

Trying to eat my lunch while chatting with Mr. Edwards was an impossible task. The list of reasons I didn’t particularly like dining with him was long. At the top of that list was the fact that he had no table manners. He also had a habit of monologuing instead of having a two-way conversation. And then there was also the fact that he had a nasty tendency to share too much information about his personal life. Since I got paid for lunch and that cut my workday by an hour, it meant I was still officially on the clock, and I couldn’t really tell him to buzz off.

It also made me uncomfortable that he complimented me nonstop over really insignificant things, while talking shit about his soon-to-be ex-wife. I didn’t know what his problem was. I always liked Sandra. They were both in their mid-forties and when I first came, they seemed like a match made in heaven.

Now that they were getting a divorce, he had pushed her out of the business. He was the one sending his electricians out to do jobs. None of his employees liked him. His wife had been the oil that soothed the friction between Edward and his staff. Now, he was trying to run the office himself and failing so badly that I had to step in and help. It was clear to me that he was one ofthose men who thought his wife’s job was easy compared to his, so taking over her part was gonna be a no-brainer for him. Even now, it was clear he didn’t even realize he was in over his head because I was picking up the slack.

If it hadn’t been for me, he’d be close to bankruptcy right now. Since my father was an electrician, I’d grown up in the business and helped my mom run my father’s office during the summers when I was out of school. I knew everything there was to know about being an office manager. I was supposed to be extra help but went full time when he booted his wife out of the office.

He just talked and talked and talked every day at lunch—and as it was only the two of us there most of the time, I couldn’t escape.

“And you know what I told her? I said that at this stage in my life, I’ve got no room for dead weight. Since she can’t carry her share, we’re finished.”

“Umm, that was harsh,” I told him.

“In the business world there is no such thing as too harsh. Now, she was a good housekeeper. I’ll give her that. But housekeeping is in a woman’s blood. She don’t get extra bonus points in my world for doing what comes naturally to her.”

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