Breaking Jacob (2nd in Breaking Series)

Chapter Two

"Pack up Ellie, you're leaving in the morning for a new job." Ellie tossed down the dime store novel she'd been reading and looked up at her caretaker… Though caretaker was hardly the correct word for Otis Black. He was ugly, mean and sometimes cruel but he had taken her in off the streets, ten years ago, after her father had kicked her out and he had taught her how to provide for herself and her young sister. Now she was stuck in his web and in this life, though it was beginning to wear on her.

"You said the last job was the last job I'd have to do for a while. I have not even been home a full two weeks yet."

"Are you getting lazy in your old age?" he asked with a grin that revealed his rotten teeth. Ellie rolled her eyes and rose to her feet, smoothing out her white sleeping gown over her large chest and narrow waist.

"I am not old." she said, tossing her thick, raven black hair over her shoulder. Otis curled his nose and looked her up and down.

"Twenty-Four is old for a woman. Pretty soon we'll have to find another way for you to make money because these unmarried men aren't going to want an old hag to spend their money on." Ellie said a silent prayer, hoping that was true. She was getting tired of making rich, boring, stuffy old men fall in love with her, only to run off in the night with all of their gifts and the entire contents of their household safes.

"One can only hope." she said too sweetly.

"Don't hope too hard, sweetness. Once you lose your glow it'll be the whorehouse for you." Ellie stiffened and shook her head.

"Never." Otis laughed his harsh laugh and rubbed at his crusty, bloodshot eyes.

"You're a weird one. You'll play with a mans heart, steal his money and leave him broken and alone but you won't dare touch what he's got under his pants."

"My husband is the only man I'll ever touch like that, Otis." she said matter of factly. Otis chuckled as he twisted the tousles on Ellie's bedspread. Ellie wrinkled her nose with disgust when she saw the dirt crusted under his fingernails. Otis had plenty of money and Ellie had never understood why he always insisted on looking so dirty.

"You'll never have a husband. What man would trust a thieving little tramp like you?" he demanded. She glared at him and he sighed. "Maybe not the whorehouse then…. Course I'm sure Liza would hate it if I stopped paying for that fancy boarding school in New York City and she had to come back here and work for me too. Wouldn't the men at my saloon love her?" Ellie felt her blood run cold. Over her dead body would Liza ever have to live the way she had lived the last ten years. She didn't care what she had to do to keep that from happening, she'd do it.

"Stop threatening me, Otis." she said calmly as she sat down on her bed and crossed her long legs beneath the yards of the white fabric of her gown. "I haven't let you down yet. What's the job?"

"That's my number one thief. You know you're my favorite girl." he said tweaking her chin. She glared at him but managed a smile.

"What's the job?" she asked again. He smiled and leaned against the purple wall.

"It's an easy one this time. You get to be a nanny."

"A nanny?" Ellie asked, raising her brow. She's put on a lot of different acts in the last ten years to woo different men but a nanny was certainly a new one. "I don't know a thing about taking care of kids." she added scratching at a patch of dry skin on her arm. Otis grabbed a jar of cream from the end table and tossed it to her.

"I've studied the family. They put an ad in the paper seeking someone who could come in and help with their twin babies and two thirteen year old girls. Of course I did a little digging. They are right here in Texas, down around Bakerstown and they own a big, successful ranch."