Off the Hook Read Online Free

there’d be absolutely no chance of her making the O’Donnell mistake again.
    The other part of her, the part that knew she needed to nail this job, was already kicking and screaming and begging her to keep her mouth shut before Liam got on the phone and called in a Helijet to pick her up.
    She wasn’t going to let him think she cared either way, though; better for him to believe she was indifferent to the whole thing and that by sending her packing he’d be the one losing out, not her, that he needed her more than she needed him.
    The moment dragged on until Jessie finally huffed out a sigh and moved so she stood between them, with her back to Kate.
    “Clearly I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” she said. “What I do know is that we’re out of options. We’ll never get an operator’s permit with this place in the shape it’s in, and without that permit, we can’t open. If we can’t open, we can’t raise the money to pay the taxes, and if we don’t pay the taxes—”
    “I know,” he said, his voice hard and tight.

    “Good.” Jessie nodded. “Then you also know it’s just you, me, and Finn, unless Ronan can score some time off to come help, and with opening day a little over six weeks away, there’s no way the three of us’ll get everything done before the start of the season. Truth be told, we’ll be damn lucky to get everything done even with her helping. No offense, Kate.”
    “None taken.”
    “Jessie.” Her name came off Liam’s tongue in a long, low growl. He’d growled Kate’s name a couple of times back in Vegas, too, but there’d been none of that anger in those growls, just a low, sexy— oh, stop it!
    “Finn will be back from the mainland tomorrow,” Jessie said. “Should we call him and Ronan right now and tell them to forget all this because you want to turn away the free help we need?”
    She gave him almost a full second to answer, and when he didn’t, she kept right on going, and once she got rolling…wow.
    “We don’t have time to go ten rounds on this, Liam, because I just walked away from my paying job—which came with some pretty great benefits, I might add—to come back here on a freakin’ float plane to do this with you guys.”
    The way Jessie tipped her head at him made Kate think that must have meant something huge.
    “I don’t give a flying rip if you don’t like her or if she doesn’t like you; we need her help to avoid having this place go up for auction. Like it or not, all that matters right now is getting the work done, so unless she’s some kind of serial killer who’s going to hack us all up with a chain saw, she’s staying.”

    Jessie had him and they all knew it, but at least she gave him the courtesy of waiting for him to blink before she turned to Kate.
    “What do you say?”
    Kate took her time before answering.
    “Well, for starters, I’m sorry to say that in my rush to pack last night, I forgot to throw in my chain saw, so there’s no worry about me lopping off anyone’s appendages, though I will admit it was something I considered a few times back in the day.” Kate looked straight past Jessie and locked her accusing gaze on Liam. “And besides that, I committed to doing this job, and I, for one, don’t walk away from my commitments.”
    “Oh, for—” Liam stopped, ground his jaw tight, then shook his head. “Whatever.”
    “Great! Then let’s do this.” Jessie’s grin wasn’t all relief; there was a good dose of caution in it, too, as she started toward the lodge again, indicating for Kate to follow. “So do I want to know what the history is between you two?”
    Giving Liam a not-so-friendly clap on the shoulder, Kate laughed right out loud as she moved past him. “You want to field that one, Sporto?”
    The look he gave her was almost as comical as it was venomous.
    “According to the Clark County recorder’s office in Las Vegas,” he said, his voice tight, each word dragged from his tongue,