Chapter Fifteen
Dean
I’d been chopping wood for Jillian’s home for some time anyway, so when I finally got my assignment for the pack, my hands had gone from blisters to calluses already.
Ruston had proven elusive. So elusive, I’d never found him. Although the alpha had directed that I be given a job, none of the other betas seemed interested in carrying that out. Pack members received payment for their work both in cash and in access to pack supplies. I had received a few things on arrival, but in order for that to continue, I needed a job.
So I’d come to the compound every morning and evening, asking for Ruston, until I got that brilliant idea. I’d spent enough time hanging around to notice that Jerad spent far more time leaning against things than doing any work at all. And while giving me a job seemed to be additional hard work for him, perhaps my proposition would catch his attention.
When I came upon him in the woods one morning, after I’d already made my trek to the compound and was returning to the forest to continue to build a woodpile taller than the house, I saw my opportunity. “Hey, Jerad, how’s it going?”
He jumped, dropping the axe right next to his foot. “Are you trying to get me to chop my foot off?”
“No, man. You’re out doing some woodcutting today?”
He glared at me. “No, I planned to do some axe throwing for the Olympics. What do you want?”
I shrugged. “Not a thing. I was just checking in to see if there was any work for me, and now I’m heading home to get my axe. I found some dandy downed trees just outside pack lands, and I thought I’d add that to our woodpile at home.”
His eyes gleamed. “Downed wood, you say?”
I nodded. “Nice and dry, too. Won’t even need to age...and should be good for chopping. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you. Have a great day.”
“New wolf!” His sharp bark held more command than I’d ever heard. Maybe he really had a beta in there somewhere under all that lazy. “Get back here. I didn’t dismiss you.”
I made a U-turn on the path and headed back his way. “Sorry, beta. No disrespect intended. I thought we were through talking. What can I help you with?”
“How long were you planning to keep that wood to yourself? Don’t you know everything belongs to the pack?”
I arched one brow in question. “Well, this isn’t strictly pack wood, if it’s not on the pack’s lands, is it? That’s why I didn’t mention it before. Also, I just found it yesterday, and I found nobody to tell in the compound.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, the axe hanging over his less-than-flat belly. “Well, if I’m the first person in authority you’ve run into, I suppose you did report the find.”
“I did,” I encouraged. “Of course.”
“So you still are only doing work for yourself? Not bending your back for the rest of the group?”
I did not remind him I’d been begging for a job twice a day.
He continued. “We cannot have that. I hereby assign you to cut up all that wood and haul it back to the compound. To the general woodpile. Let the quartermaster know you are now the woodsman.” He thrust his axe at me. “Use mine for today so you don’t lose any more time goofing around. You can return it when you bring in your haul for the day.”
Without dismissing me, he turned and started back toward the compound, muttering to himself, “Finally, I’m not the woodsman anymore. That’s never been a job for a beta, not even with the helpers.”
I didn’t call after him to ask about helpers. For the time being, I’d be grateful to have a job.
So, every day, instead of going to the compound, I headed out into the woods and provided wood for the pack’s fires. I’d come a long way since I arrived here as a very confused AWOL college student. Someday I’d have to check back into that life because it had been such a sudden break and there were probably friends who wondered where I was. Like Christie. A couple of weeks after I became pack woodsman, I was getting ready to leave the house when Jillian appeared in the doorway holding her whiteboard. She’d written,Can I come with you?
And since nothing would make me happier, I nodded. “All right. I’m going to finish up that big downfall of trees today, but it means working late. Maybe we could take a couple of sandwiches or something?”
She waved a basket at me. Always two steps ahead. But walking through the forest with Jillian was a pleasure anytime. Most days, she had her own work to do so this was a treat. We walked along, me babbling as always and her mostly listening. I’d never realized what a chatterbox I was, but once we reached the area where I wanted to deal with the last few logs, I set to work.
Jillian was working away on her whiteboard, as she often did. Her progress at writing was nothing short of remarkable. Although she couldn’t read aloud, she could write the answers to questions I had that confirmed she understood what she read from the books I’d managed to find and bring back.
Stretching my back, I decided to take a break and eat something. When I dropped at Jillian’s side, I said, “One sandwich please.” She turned the whiteboard facedown on the ground and reached into the basket.
“How are you doing?” I picked up the whiteboard and she reached for it, but it was too late. I was staring at a sketch of me chopping into the largest of the logs. And… “This is amazing. Jillian, I had no idea you were such an artist.” Nobody who looked at this would ever wonder who she’d drawn. Just the whiteboard markers she’d brought, purple and green, had created a very true-to-life image. “I think you were a little nice to me though. I’m not this handsome.”
I was chuckling, but she grabbed the board from my hands, shaking her head hard, and moved to wipe it off.
“Jillian, it’s so good. What’s wrong?”
I stopped fighting her because she looked so distraught. On the whiteboard it would end up being erased anyway, but I made a mental note to find her some art materials somehow. She had a talent, and I wanted her to use it. Her sense of self had been assaulted for reasons I did not understand, but I was making it my business to change that. To help this woman become everything she could be. She deserved that and so much more.