Page 8 of Bad Situation

It was two weeks later when they finally caught up on their list. No one was surprised when Tyne extended their area, and they were behind again. The three guys they had added to their crew seemed pretty happy with their jobs, even though one of them had to sleep on the couch each night. They admitted that they had had to sleep in the woods more often than not while they had been with the haters the short time they had been there. When that was considered, the couch looked pretty good.

Moe called Jenna and told her they would be adding to the house. Four bedrooms and a storage room for equipment would all be added. Tyne’s construction crew that worked out of Wilde would be coming with a couple of campers and staying on site until the work was done. Eventually, he planned to build apartments to rent to the people working there. Until that was done, everyone would be living in the house rent free. Even when it was done, people with certain positions would be living in the house, but it would be part of their pay.

Grant wondered when the builders would arrive. It wouldn't really affect him or Jenna since they would stay in the suite unless a family joined them. Right now, that was unlikely. Tyne might try to recruit a family since he had a family space available. Still, this part of Alaska was not a place families usually moved to. He would have an easier time finding a local who wishes to learn the security business and work in a job that pays better than most jobs in the area.

Because of the three men they had added to their crew, men outnumbered the females two to one. He wondered if this was why most attacks were now in the central office. Many of those cowardly men preferred to attack females; the smaller, the better. Even though they had not done well in the attacks against those ladies, for some reason, they still felt they could win.

It was the next day when the construction guys arrived. No one at the office seemed to know any of them. That was okay because they didn't need to know them for them to do their jobs. It was also a good thing to have all these guys around so that they would not target Jenna in the office. Regardless of how much distance he had put between them, he still worried about her. A big surprise came when he got back early from a job. One of the construction workers had her cornered in the office, and she had her taser out.

“What's going on here?” Grant asked.

“I was just asking the little lady out. She got upset and pulled a Taser on me. That made me afraid to turn my back on her. At this point, I just want to walk away unharmed," the guy said.

“Then walk away. You don't need to come to the office again because everything you need to do is with Moe," Jenna replied.

The guy did exactly what he was asked and that made Grant wonder if Jenna had overreacted. “Are you okay?"

“I'm fine now that he's gone. Why are you back so early?”

“I got my list cleared. There was nothing left to do," Grant answered.

“Do you want another job?”

“I could take one if it's small.”

She handed him a paper. It was a nearby job. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

He hurried away to get to the job. Grant still worried about what he had seen and wondered what was going on. If the guy was a bad guy, he now knew that Jenna had a Taser and might know how to take it away from her. Apparently, the guy didn't know that there were cameras in the office. Tonight, after everyone else went to bed, he was going to look at what had really happened.

Grant finished his extra job and still made it back before the others. They were all operating at the level of average securityinstallers. His level was higher, and even alone, he managed to do well. Maybe it was true that he managed to do better alone than he would have had he had a partner. Tyne was happy even with the newbies, so that wasn't an issue. He ate supper with the others and lingered until they all disappeared. That was when he slipped into the video room where any videos could be viewed. Since this had happened today and only a few hours earlier, it was easy to pull up. He watched as the construction guy entered and began to talk to Jenna. At first, it seemed innocent, but it wasn't long before he began to get pushy and talk about how he wanted to have sex with her. That was not like asking someone on a date at all.

When the man began to move like he was going to come around the counter, Jenna pulled out a taser, and the guy backed off. That was when he was singing a different tune, but Grant had no doubt that he was afraid to turn his back on her. After what he had said to her, she should have tasered him anyway. In the next few days, he would have a chance to speak with this male and explain to him that he needed to leave Jenna alone and stay out of the office. The way Grant looked at things, part of his job was to make sure his people stayed safe.

The next morning, Grant was more tired than usual. He'd gotten to bed late because of his nocturnal activities, and when he had gotten to bed, sleep had not come easy. Never late, he'd not been late today either, and he'd made sure to get plenty of coffee. Whether it helped or not, it seemed to help, and that was good enough. He grabbed a sandwich he had in the refrigerator and took it with him. He would eat on the way. It was easy to notice that Jenna had put an extra job on his list. That made him smile, and he wondered if he would get it all done.

“Still working alone?” Dan asked.

“It suits me.”

“A bit of a lone wolf, huh?”

Dan was always trying to get him to take him on as a partner. If he did, that would leave someone else alone. Grant liked to work alone, and that was how things were going to stay. He only took on a partner if there was a reason that he had to do so. There was no reason right now because everyone else had a partner. Grant had to admit that working with these other people had made him truly appreciate Jenna. Not that he hadn't appreciated her before; he just refused to show it because he needed to keep her away from him.

Chapter 3

Echoes of the Past

Jenna thought the more she tried to forget it, the more it seemed to come to mind. She could remember when she was young, really just a toddler. Her mother had been there holding her and making her feel loved. George had been there too, but he had not made her feel loved. He wasn't her father, and he resented her being there. It was when he had mentioned how easy it would be to break the pup's neck that her mom finally sent her to her grandmother. Her grandmother had even come and gotten her and begged her daughter to go with her. She'd refused.

That was the last time she'd seen her mother. George was well known to be violent, and his girlfriends didn't last long. Tonight, the dreams had come again. She'd relived those last days with her mother, and then she dreamed about what George had done. Jenna hadn't been there, but she'd known deep down that he'd killed her. Someone who would threaten to kill a harmless child would kill anyone. Deep down, she knew that George had killed many people. She dreamed about it, and her grandmother told her those were telling dreams.

If this was part of her witchy skills, she hoped it would go away. George was a monster, and she wished that the wardens would get the information they needed to remove him from hisposition. No one deserved to be under his rule. For now, all she could do was do her job and pray to the goddess that she would get home quickly. Her daughter, the result of a poor choice of a boyfriend, would forget what she looked like if she was gone much longer. Sarah, she'd named her after her mother. Her grandmother was Hildegarde, or Hilda for short.

Jenna had a cousin, Stephanie, who checked on them regularly, but it wasn't the same. Grandma had asked Stephanie to move in several times, but she refused. She said she was not a freeloader. Instead, she lived in a shack that she had to pay rent for and scraped together a living. When she got back, she would do something about that, too. Family could be complicated, but they were important and needed to be closer. They were the most important thing in her life, and nothing else could matter as much. That was the reason that all she was doing while she was here was scraping together every dime she could make.

She couldn't complain about the money she was making right now. Jenna was able to live on what she made from the food she sold, and everything else went either to her grandmother or to her savings account. This made her very happy. Almost everyone staying at the house was buying meals from her, and she had gotten several large crock pots that cooked all day and night. Since she was in the office almost all the time and covered the nights for that extra money, she was doing well.

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