Read Neal (Golden Streak Series) for Free Online Page B

project. He watched her between
ringing out customers, and when he went to get something for someone, she
manned the station. He thought they worked well together. When Karin returned,
Rayne put her lunch aside and finished up while he devoured his.
    “Tell me what to do and I’ll finish up
while you eat.” She told him no. “You have to be hungry. I know I was and I’ve
not been working nearly as hard as you were. Come on. I can shove a few posies
in the dirt while you watch.”
    “Are you always this annoying?” He told her
he was, but mostly when people were being too stubborn to eat when he could
hear their belly growling. “Well, I don’t need a fucking sitter.”
    “Then act like it,” he said. She stomped
away, and he followed her with her lunch. “You are by far the most pigheaded
woman I’ve ever known. Eat the damned sandwich.”
    She snatched it from him and tore the
wrapping open. He knew that her mom had made them lunch and had brought it
back. His had been a thick roast beef sandwich with mayo, lettuce, and tomato. She’d
also brought him some potato salad and a couple bottles of water. He sat down
at the desk while she sat at the tiny table in the office.
    “I’m not going to go away.” She didn’t
answer him, but he’d come to realize she didn’t answer when she wanted to argue.
He thought she needed to argue more. He knew he did. “Do you know how much I
want to press you against that table you’re at and have my way with you?”
    She dropped her fork, and he smiled. When
she looked at him, he sobered up, deciding that she’d hurt him badly if she
even thought he was making fun of her. When she glared, he decided to try
another tactic, one less likely to get him murdered.
    “Tell me about your business and where
you see you in a few years.” She took another bite of her sandwich and he noticed
that she had pasta salad, not potato. He wondered if she didn’t like it or her
mom had brought different kinds of salad. Not that it really mattered, but even
as full as he was, he thought he’d like to have a bowl of it as well.
    “I just want to grow things and help
others grow them too.” He started to tell her that she had to want more. Then
she shook her head. “No, that’s not right. I want to work for myself and not…I can’t
work for other people, I guess. I don’t play well, as my mother is fond of telling
me. I guess you’ve figured that out as well. But my last job…I had to quit,
kill someone for being just plain stupid, or at the very least be fired. My
boss wanted more from me than I thought that his pissy checks covered. So my
mom and I pooled our money and we bought this place. I want to buy her out
someday and support her, but she says she likes her job and figures that’s good
enough for her right now. She’s the cook at the Casual Diner.”
    “My mom and I ate there this morning. It
was really good.” It was, too, and after thinking about the lunch he’d just eaten,
he couldn’t wait to eat there when Karin was there. “How long has she worked
there?”
    “Since my stepdad died. He’s been gone
for a few years. Mom was set up really well no thanks to him. But she was bored,
she said, and needed something more.” He could relate to the being bored part. He’d
been bored at his job for the past several years. He smiled at her when she
stretched out her long legs. “He changed her when I was ten. He told me that
he’d make me a wolf too when I got older, but he didn’t live long enough. He
was killed in a snow storm when he came to pick my friend and me up from the
mall. He didn’t…he drove off a ravine and drowned in an iced-over pond he’d
broken through.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Stan, that man
who works for me, said he was a good man. He likes your mom too. I’ve been
thinking that I need a change too. Something more than numbers, at least for a
little while. Something that I can…I want to be outside in the sunlight, move around
with