Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Frank stared at the grinning face. “What?” he asked when it became clear that Jag was waiting for this question with excitement. Some days, he was far too similar to Shane’s pups.
When he opened his mouth, words came out like bullets from a machine gun. “I set up traps on one side of the shipping containers. Today, a fox fell in, proving they work!”
Frank rubbed his forehead. Shame for the animal, but in truth they did have too many foxes roaming the junkyard. Going by the lack of carcass in Jag’s hands, Frank would be getting some kind of taxidermy surprise for his birthday.
“How big are the traps, Jag? We don’t want the dogs getting hurt.”
Jag’s mouth twisted. “Well, I made them to catch trespassers, not foxes, so—”
Oh, Goddamn.
Frank got up and put away the ledger. He couldn’t express too much anger, or Jag might want to hide that he made traps at all next time. “Okay. Let’s go. Show me where they are.”
Jag’s eyes lit up, and he marched right outside, barking at Eros when the dog attempted to latch on to his leg and give it some uh—loving attention. The unruly pooch yelped and rolled over, showing Jag his underbelly, which Jag accepted with a proud huff.
If Frank hadn’t found him injured all those years ago, he’d surely be leading his own wolf pack by this point. Or lying dead in a ditch.
“When did you set them up?” Frank inquired, following the junkyard Tarzan past the gate and toward the truck. They could easily reach the containers on foot, particularly when traversing the junk piles instead of following roads, but the property was huge, and he didn’t want to get his one good pair of shoes wrecked.
“Last week,” Jag said, rolling into the truck bed like a stuntman in his prime.
Getting behind the wheel and opening the little window at the back of the cab gave Frank just enough time to count to ten. “Someone could have gotten hurt. You should have informed me right away!”
Jag’s pout reflected in the rearview mirror. “You would have said no.”
Frank started the vehicle and headed between the nearby hills of crushed cars, into the labyrinth that would lead them to the rotten places where dead bodies disappeared without a trace and people’s secrets were kept for a fair price. “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea in general, but someone could get hurt. You know Ros walks around everywhere, scavenging junk for the sculptures. When you said the fox fell in, did you mean that literally? You dug out hidden trenches or something?”
Jag grunted. “Yes, we should tell Ros to stay away from there. I was thinking about putting in spikes or glass at the bottom, but for now I left the traps empty, so if someone fell in, it would just break their leg, or something.”
Only break a leg. No problem at all.
Frank rubbed his face before taking a sharp turn onto a narrow track with piles of used tires on either side. But as worried as Jag’s secrecy made him, an additional layer of security around this most important spot within the junkyard wasn’t a bad idea. If Jag was willing to set things up on his own, why not let him? Anyone who ended up hurt would have been an unwelcome visitor.
Frank must have stayed quiet for a bit too long, because now Jag was grinning like that time they all went on a trip and he caught a fish with his teeth. “Maybe you could use the trap to catch yourself a mate of your own?”
This again? And coming from a man whose love story started with abducting a half-dead stranger?
Ridiculous.
Frank slowed as they approached the empty shipping containers. At times, for a fee, they’d keep someone here for the local motorcycle club. Dex was prospecting for them now, and he offered the club a discount as if it were his to give. He didn’t even work at the junkyard full-time anymore, and only came over on the odd day to lend a hand.
“Jag, I don’t need to trap myself a man.”
“Worked just fine for me.”
Frank sighed, following him away from the containers, toward a sandy area with a gaping hole in one place. The dirt must have fallen into the trap when the tarp used to hide the ditch dipped under the weight of the fox.
“Jag, I have other things to do.”
“You say that, but deep down your heart is yearning for a mate to curl up with at night,” Jag insisted without any sense of embarrassment over his phrasing.
Frank scowled and shook his head. “Not everyone wants to live like a rabbit in a den. I’m a grown man, and I’m perfectly fine on my own.” He spread his arms. “Do I miss getting my dick sucked on the regular? Sure, but I’ll get to arranging that when I have time. This is not helping. I still need to move a lot of the cars from around the western gate until I can even dream of days off.”