Authors: Linda Grimes
But Billy didn’t land—he flew higher, banked steeply to the left, and came back toward us, coming in lower and lower the closer he got.
What the hell?
The plane buzzed by, probably not close enough to reach up and touch, but it sure felt that way.
I dove to the ground, followed by Cody and Dave. (Sure, the plane was already past us by then, but it’s hard to stop a reflex.) Bluto tried to duck, but Eeyore, panicked into action at last, reared up, clocking Bluto’s jaw with the top of his rock-hard skull. Bluto fell backward, letting go of the rope.
Eeyore, unrestrained at last, ran in circles, bucking, tossing his head until the sack came off. I pushed myself up from the ground. Dave and Cody did likewise. We all looked at each other, mentally divvying up what to do next. The pair of them made a beeline for Bluto, leaving me to cautiously approach my wild-eyed pony. Guess a crazy man armed with a twelve-inch switchblade was less intimidating than a disgruntled Shetland pony.
“Hey, sweet boy,” I said softly, extending my hand toward Eeyore. “It’s me. You’re okay now.”
Eeyore snorted twice, stamped his foot, and trotted to where Dave was bent over the semiconscious Bluto.
“Heads up!” I hollered.
Eeyore stretched out his neck and bit Dave.
Dave straightened—fast—and grabbed his ass. “Goldarn it!”
Dave was sprawled on the cowhide sofa in the lounge, belly down and quietly moaning, bag of ice melting on his butt. (Yeah, I know. Cowhide. Brown and white and hairy. But it came with the place when I bought it. I’d been planning to redecorate when my finances got healthier, but now I wasn’t so sure. It was kind of growing on me. I’d even given it a name: Elsie the Cowch.)
Rosa hovered over Dave, her face a mixture of sympathy and see-I-told-you-so. “Two inches lower and the tiny demon would have turned you into a woman. What would you have done then, huh?” she said.
“Become a lesbian,” Dave said without missing a beat, and groaned when Rosa replaced the ice bag with a new one, none too gently.
Billy and Cody laughed while I apologized for the umpteenth time. “I’m so sorry, Dave. I thought he was going for Bluto.”
Not that I could have stopped him anyway. Eeyore was fast when he wanted to be. He was safely back in his stall, munching on an extra helping of oats. The trauma of being a hostage hadn’t dampened his appetite one bit.
We’d all taken to calling the guy currently duct-taped to a chair in the pantry “Bluto” because he refused to tell us his real name. Billy had checked him for ID, but came up empty.
Dave waved aside my apology. “That’s okay, darlin’. The bruise will match the one on the other cheek.”
“HEY! LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Bluto’s voice blasted us. Again. And then kept on going until I covered my ears in frustration.
“You should’ve let me tape his mouth, too,” Billy said from behind me. He was standing behind the leather chair I was sitting cross-legged on, massaging my shoulders. Guess I looked tense.
I looked up over my shoulder at him. “With a beard like his? That would be cruel. Duct-taping his arms and legs was bad enough.”
“Cuz, the man threatened to kill your pet pony. Would a little cruelty really be out of line?”
“What do you care? You don’t even like Eeyore.”
He leaned over the top of the chair and kissed my nose. “No, but I like
you.
And you, for some inexplicable reason, are fond of that hoofed hellspawn. Therefore, I’m willing to be cruel on your behalf. That’s just the kind of guy I am.”
Even upside down, Billy’s eyes were amazing. I used to think it was only because they were gorgeous (I mean, what’s not gorgeous about big, dark blue, black-lashed man-eyes?), but now I thought there was more to it. Whether it was with a spark of mischief, a glint of amusement, or an ember of passion, they always glowed with life, and promised things Billy was very good at delivering.
“I could gag him with a napkin,” Cody said helpfully, interrupting my reverie before I fell too deeply into the indigo-orb ocean.
Damn, girl. You have it bad.
Rosa shook her head once, emphatically. “No. You will not put one of my good napkins into the mouth of that—”
She continued in Spanish, something along the lines of “knife-wielding, pony-threatening pig,” if I caught it correctly. Not that she cared for Eeyore any more than the others did, but the pony was part of her household, and
nobody
threatened anyone in Rosa’s household. Well, except Rosa. Naturally.
Cody pulled a faded, sweat-stained bandana from his neck. “I suppose I could use this.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew, gross.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t like the idea of his spit getting on my favorite bandana either.”
Not exactly what I was referring to, but okay.
A loud thumping noise was added to the hollering.
“What’s he doing now? Is he kicking the door?” I asked.
“He can’t be, not with his arms and legs taped,” Billy said.
Cody nodded. “Though I suppose he could be using his head.”
Rosa rushed out of the room. “
Madre de Dios,
if he has dented my pantry door with his big fat coconut of a head…”
“I’ll keep an eye on things,” Cody said, and followed her at a more sedate pace.
“Maybe we better let him out,” I said, watching them go. I wasn’t too worried. Even without Cody and duct tape, I’d put my money on Rosa.
“Nah. Let him stew a little longer. It’ll make him more amenable to answering our questions next go-round,” Billy said.
Our prisoner hadn’t been at all cooperative so far. Billy had hinted that if the rest of us left him alone with Bluto for a few minutes, the man would tell us anything we wanted to know. I’d vetoed it firmly at the time, but was beginning to reconsider. He was one annoyingly loud son of a bitch.
“Can you make him shut the hell up?” I asked.
Billy nodded. “Easily.”
“Without bloodshed or bruises?” I added.
He tilted his head and considered. “Well, no bruises where they would show.”
I sighed. “Let him holler.”
Bluto’s volume increased by a few decibels, then stopped abruptly on the heels of a loud
thwack
and a stream of Spanish.
Over on the couch, Dave’s eyes got big. “Holy guacamole. That’s some pretty bad language, even for Rosa in a temper.”
Resigned, I got up and headed for the kitchen along with Billy. Dave hauled himself up and limped along behind us, holding the ice pack to his backside.
The door to the large, walk-in pantry was open, but blocked by Rosa. Cody leaned against the colorfully tiled kitchen island, watching intently, with a smile on his face, as the housekeeper hit Bluto over the head with a spatula, apparently not for the first time.
“Ouch! That hurts! Hey, somebody make the bitch sto—OUCH!”
Rosa, still holding the spatula, yanked open a nearby drawer and grabbed a heavy metal meat tenderizer. She held it up in front of his face and said, “You
saco de mierda,
you better shut your mouth, or next time I will use
this
on your useless head. Do you understand me?”
“Anybody want to tell me what’s going on?” A new voice came from behind us.
Mark.
He was standing right beyond the large dining room table (the kitchen was open to the dining area, separated only by the island).
“What are
you
doing here?” I asked.
Cody raised one hand about halfway up, looking guilty. “I contacted him after Dave called to tell you about the gun.”
“Why the heck did you do that? Did I
say
to contact him?” I said.
Red crept up the security guard’s neck. “No, ma’am. But when Mr. Fielding got me the job here, he told me if there was ever any trouble I was to let him know right away. When nobody knew who the gun belonged to, I figured that qualified as ‘trouble.’”
Mark had vetted the security guards at all three of my client hideaways. Guess I should have known he’d use them to keep tabs on me. He’d picked up Thomas’s overprotective tendencies when they were roommates at Harvard, and hadn’t let go of them since. It was annoying—but somewhat understandable—when I was in high school, and maybe even college, but now that I was a businesswoman I was trying to break him, along with the rest of the men in my life, of the habit.
Mark crossed the space between us, kissed the top of my head, and said, “No need to bite his head off, Howdy. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Then he smiled at me and, okay, I still melted. Speaking of breaking bad habits …
Of course, melting at another man’s smile is a little awkward when your new boyfriend is standing a few feet away. I glanced at Billy, who had a rueful half smile on his face and a knowing look in his eye. Damn. He’d noticed, all right.
Nothing I could do about that now. So I coughed and plowed ahead. “That’s beside the point. Cody is
my
employee”—I cut the employee in question a stern glance—“and he should check with me before he contacts someone else.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that from now on,” he said. But he still looked at Mark for confirmation, which Mark gave with an all but imperceptible nod that almost set me off again.
“Hey, Mark. Good to see you,” Billy said, defusing the tension with his trademark affability. “If I’d known you were coming I would’ve offered you a lift.”
“I believe I’ll wait until you log a few more flight hours before I take you up on that.”
Billy laughed. “Wuss. Even Ciel has been up with me, and you know how she—”
“EXCUSE ME!” the voice from the pantry rudely interrupted. “I can have you arrested for kidnapping, you know. You can’t hold me against my will. I know my rights!”
Mark zeroed in on me right away, for some reason. “Aren’t you usually on the other end of things in these situations, Howdy?”
* * *
Billy put his palm over my mouth. “Ciel, I
understand.
You can stop trying to explain. Trust me, you’re not helping your cause.”
I pulled his arm down, but held on to his hand. “I want you to know…” Oh, hell. What did I want him to know?
I’d dragged him out to the barn with me on the pretext of checking on Eeyore, which I really did want to do, but mostly I wanted to get him alone so I could reassure him about the Mark-melting thing. Eeyore eyed us malevolently from his stall, munching on hay.
Mark and Cody were hauling Bluto to the local sheriff’s department. We’d discovered through persuasion (“we” being Mark, and “persuasion” being something I’d rather not dwell on) that Bluto was a Las Vegas parking lot attendant with an oh-so-clich
é
d gambling problem. He’d been contacted by an anonymous source and told where he could find the gun. All he’d wanted to do was retrieve it, drop it at a prearranged location, and pick up the money that would be waiting there for him. When I’d interjected that that was mighty trusting of him, he’d said if there hadn’t been money there, he wouldn’t have left the gun. Guess he wasn’t totally stupid.
Of course, he swore up and down he thought the gun had been stolen from the person who hired him, and therefore it wasn’t as if he was stealing it himself. He was only
retrieving
it.
Yeah, right. But Mark was sure the guy was at least telling the truth about not knowing who’d hired him. The plan was to let the local sheriff deal with the man while Mark followed through with the drop. Using Bluto’s aura, naturally, in case anyone was watching.
I swallowed and looked beseechingly into Billy’s eyes. “I want to be sure you know I’m not still hung up Mark. I’m
over
him, really I am. Only sometimes, when seeing him catches me off guard … well, the best way I can explain it is, it’s a reflex. Like a … a sneeze. Or something.”
He grinned, the twinkle back in his eyes, and tugged a lock of my hair. “Gesundheit.”
I laughed. “Okay, maybe not like a sneeze. More like a bad habit. One I’m trying my best to break,” I said sincerely.
“I almost wish you’d gone ahead and had a fling with him and gotten it out of your system. Might be easier for you to forget about him if your curiosity didn’t keep poking you,” he said, still teasing me.
Frankly, I wasn’t so sure that would have worked, but I wasn’t going to say that to Billy. “Well, that boat has officially left the dock. No flings for me. I’m sure my Pavlovian response to Mark will fade away to nothing soon, and
you
will be the only one I drool over.” I smiled as engagingly as I could.
“Ciel, it’s not wrong to respond to other men. It’s normal and healthy. Do I like it?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Not a bit. But as long as you come to me to act on those responses, I’m not going to complain.”
He pulled me to him and kissed me in a way that made me wonder what in the heck I had
ever
seen in Mark.
Finding myself on a plane for the fourth (or was it the fifth? I’d lost count) time in three days was not the highlight of my week. But at least the first-class accommodations Billy had insisted on springing for helped somewhat. And, yes, I let him. My independent, pay-my-own-way streak is severely weakened by altitude.
If Billy had been with me, it would have been even better, but alas. He was with Mark, monitoring the drop to see who
else
was watching.
It was killing me not to be with them, but if I didn’t get back to the East Coast for my final dress fitting, and other assorted wedding stuff, Mom might send her favorite celestial hit man after me with (pardon the expression) God knew what. I’d already had a heck of a time explaining how I’d come to leave such an unladylike text message on her cell phone. For some reason, she did not appreciate being told to “fuck this shit” by her daughter.
To make amends, I was going to have to do a spectacular job on the shower. Billy’s sisters could handle it, but if I didn’t figure out a way to put my own brand on it, they’d take all the credit and bank the brownie points themselves. (Not that I’d blame them. I’d do the same thing. Brownie points are essential currency in our great big happy adaptor family.)