by Maren Smith
Laying her bounty on the counter with both withered hands, Sadie Doyle pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and beamed a confident smile. “Trust me, dear. He’ll be perfect for you.” Her gray eyes sparkled as she winked. “He’s big. He’s tough. He’s practically fearless, just like his grandfather—God rest him—used to be. Why, just the other day there was this spider—” Sadie spread her hands as wide as her arms would let her.
“Yes, but,” Scotti interrupted, not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting to get distracted from the import of the topic at hand. Of all her regulars here at the library, Scotti loved Sadie the most. But that woman was a walking, talking distraction on the best of days. Hell, her distractions got distracted. Ginormous spiders aside, if she didn’t get Sadie back on track, heaven only knew how far off topic they’d be five minutes from now, and this was just too important for that.
The butchered pillow and mattress in her bedroom, which she couldn’t afford to replace, were proof enough of that.
She was out of time. It was proof of that, too.
“I can’t pay much,” she reminded the other woman. “That’s why no one else will take the job.” Well, that and the fact that no one believed her. Gopher was smart. Up until last night, he’d left no evidence of his stalkerish harassment. There was a lot of evidence now though, but when she took pictures of it into the police station this morning, they’d actually accused her of scraping her wall and destroying her bed herself. She huffed a frustrated breath and tried not to feel like she was taking advantage of her friend. Or rather, her friend’s grandson. “He’ll be risking his life,” she heard herself say, while her guilt tightened inside her. “Gopher won’t like that I’ve involved other people, and he isn’t just making threats this time.”
Smiling, the old woman reached across the desk and fondly cupped her cheek. “Don’t worry about the money, dear. Or the Gopher. My Kurt can protect you. And being as how he just got done working for the state, he’s temporarily between jobs. He’ll be more than happy with anything you throw his way. Believe me, that ex-boyfriend of yours will wish he’d never started all this. Who knows how my darling grandson will deal with it, but I assure you it won’t be half as gentle as being picked up by the back legs and dropped off the back deck into the garden.”
Scotti opened her mouth, but that mental image stopped her.
“I know.” Sadie nodded somberly. “I’d have flushed it down the toilet, too. Although, I’ll admit, your particular problem does deserve more than a good ol’ fashioned swirly!”
Sadie didn’t even know everything, either. Scotti hadn’t told her about last night.
Taking her silence for agreement, the old woman punctuated her declaration with a decisive nod and passed over her library card. “He’ll be coming to collect me soon. You can meet him now if you want to.”
“All right.” Not sure what to hope for, Scotti sorted through Sadie’s selection of books and logged them as checked out. Stuffing everything in the other woman’s tote, she signaled to another librarian that she’d be away from the checkout desk. Not that Sadie needed any help walking. For a little old woman pushing ninety-two, she seemed plenty spry enough to handle her own bookbag. But outside was a far better place to meet her potential new bodyguard, and so long as they stayed near the door and out of sight of anyone who might be spying on her from the parking lot, then they had a better chance of keeping the inevitable conversation that would follow private.
Hopefully, this Kurt fellow was half as rough and tough as Sadie seemed to think he was. Hopefully, she hadn’t exaggerated his abilities. Not that it wouldn’t be understandable if she had. She was a grandmother. Grandmothers should see their grandkids through rose-colored glasses. It wasn’t just a prerogative; it was practically a law. But if she had, if Kurt wasn’t the big, tough bodyguard she had said he was, and Gopher found out what she was trying to do—she didn’t want to know what would happen next. It would be bad though. She knew that much.
As they passed the watercooler and reached the lobby doors, Sadie leaned into her and whispered, “Try not to slouch, dear. You only have one chance to make a first impression.”
Scotti straightened automatically, but even as she did it, it trickled through her head to wonder why it mattered how she was standing if all she was doing was introducing herself to the man she hoped to hire? She glanced at the older woman out of the corner of her eye, hesitant even to ask. “You—you’re not playing matchmaker here, are you, Sadie?”
“Absolutely not. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to run a quick brush through your hair before he comes?”
Scotti caught herself before she touched her hair. She frowned. “I need a bodyguard, not a romantic complication.”
“You’re almost thirty now, aren’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Sadie gave her an exaggeratedly innocent blink behind the coke-bottle-eyeglasses that hugely magnified her pale blue eyes. “Why, nothing whatsoever, dear. Why should it?” She then reached up and, before Scotti could stop her, briskly slapped the apples of her cheeks several times. “You really ought to wear a little makeup. You’d be so much cuter, you know.”
“Sadie!” Scotti cried, dismayed, but already the hunched older woman had shuffled almost to the main exit. Rubbing her stinging cheeks, Scotti hurried to catch up. “Did you tell him I wanted to talk to him?”
“It’s not me who wants to hire him, dear.”
“Does he know he’s even meeting me?” Scotti’s stomach instantly knotted.
“A grandmother doesn’t like to get involved.”
“Does he know anything about anything?!”
“A grandmother doesn’t like to get involved!”
“Sadie!” Scotti cried, the knots instantly pulling tight enough to strangle, and her heart sinking now too.
Out the door, Sadie went, and Scotti almost followed before she caught herself. The heavy library doors were made of thick wood and glass so darkly tinted that no one on the outside could easily see in. That gave Scotti a slight advantage as she held one door slightly open. She peered down the outside steps, searching what parts of the parking lot that she could see for Gopher’s signature Hot-Rod Red Mustang. It was a sunny day. If he was out there, chances were good the top would be down and he’d be in plain sight. Possibly eating an apple, which would give him a reason to have his knife out where she could see it, and remember.
Scotti swallowed hard. She studied every car that she could see, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Nor did she see anyone loitering suspiciously.
“I don’t see him yet,” Sadie said, shuffling out as far as the top of the library steps. She paused to search the full lot, even the parts that Scotti couldn’t see from just inside the entryway, and then she came shuffling back. “Maybe we should come up with some sort of secret code before he gets here. You know, on the off chance that he’s not what you’re looking for.”
So no one’s feelings would get hurt if Sadie’s grandson turned out to be less like Arnold Schwarzenegger and more like Woody Allen. “Good idea,” Scotti agreed, a little relieved. She never liked hurting anyone’s feelings.
Sadie straightened with an excited clap. “I’ve got one! How about ‘The pig is in the poke’?”
Scotti couldn’t begin to see how that might be unobtrusively worked into normal conversation. “What about ‘nice car’?”
“Oh, he doesn’t have a car yet,” Sadie said. “He hasn’t had a chance to buy one since the government, uh… released him from his responsibilities. Do you like egg rolls?”
Scotti shrugged with her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Depends on who makes them. Why?”
“No, no, dear. I mean that can be our secret code.”
“Oh.” She brightened. “That might work. After we meet and I’ve had a chance to feel him out a bit, you could invite me home for egg rolls, and I’ll say yes if I want to hire him or no if I don’t.”
Sadie tsked. “Well, t
hat won’t work. I never cook Chinese, and Kurt knows that.”
“We’ve got to think of—” Scotti began, but Sadie suddenly threw up her hands.
“Shh!” the old woman loudly shushed her. “Here he comes! Here he comes!”
Had Scotti been any shorter, she’d have been tackled to the ground in Sadie’s exuberant attempts to smooth down her hair and pinch more color into her cheeks.
“Ouch! Stop it!” But Scotti’s protests were cut abruptly short when the old woman spun her around and gave her a sharp push, straight out the door into the shadow of the library porch, and quite literally into the startled embrace of one of the most handsome men Scotti had ever had the good fortune to fall into. She didn’t even mind that he was soaking wet from head to toe. His red and black flannel shirt fit him like a second skin, so did his dark blue jeans. The man could have been a clothing model, or a body builder, or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal stunt double, from the shoulders down. His physique more than made up for any secondhand wetness now soaking into the front of her business dress.
He had steel-gray eyes and jet-black hair, buzzed militarily short against his scalp. He had a mouth so delicious that it would have made a nun reconsider, and a hard, square, mess-with-me-buster-and-I’ll-clean-your-clock jawline, the overall effect of which was only slightly gentled by the dimple that kissed his chin.
He looked big. He looked strong.
He looked like he ought to be somebody’s Daddy, Scotti’s Little voice whispered inside her head. Somebody like me would be nice.
“This,” she vaguely heard Sadie say from somewhere behind her, “is my grandson.”
Scotti sighed, melting in his arms as she gazed up into Kurt Doyle’s handsome gray eyes. “Egg rolls,” she said. “I’ll take two, please.”
* * * * *
Kurt didn’t think it possible for the day to get any worse, but Monday quickly proved him wrong.
He’d spent most of the walk to the library fiddling with the squid hat, trying to put it together. Fold out Flap A, insert Tab B into Flap G and secure with Tab C. Tab C? Where the hell was C?
By the time he was within a few blocks of the library, he’d come to the conclusion that he didn’t deserve the added responsibilities of operating a French fry machine. In fact, it was a wonder he was allowed to leave the house without supervision.
And then he ran into the bees. Or rather, he ran into the post that they called home and accidentally knocked the bottom half of the nest loose from the rear of the sign, sending it crashing to the sidewalk at his feet.
The bees got pissed.
Kurt ran a block and a half before hopping a hotel fence and leaping into their nearly empty swimming pool. There was just enough water in the deep end to submerge himself if he lay flat on his back with his toes pressed toward the ground.
After ten minutes of trying to catch him whenever he came up for air, the bees finally gave up. Eventually, they went away, and Kurt crawled out of the pool. Not only was he now dripping wet, but he’d lost his paper hat and his stomach throbbed where one lucky bee had got him.
And now, he had a crazy blonde librarian wrapped in his arms.
“Sorry,” he said, propping her back up on her own feet. “I don’t have any egg rolls on me.” He leaned around her, reaching for his grandmother’s bookbag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Ready to go?”
Sadie knuckled her fists into her round hips and scolded, “Kurtis Bartholomew Doyle! You mind your manners, mister, and talk to Scotti.”
“Who’s Scotti?”
The librarian raised her hand. Sure enough, the nametag on the front of her demure white blouse did indeed read: Hello! My name is Scotti.
Great, Grams is matchmaking.
Kurt managed not to groan as he dutifully raised his gaze back from her chest to her eyes. The way his Monday was going, he supposed he ought to be grateful she didn’t think he was ogling her boobs.
“Hi. Sorry.” When he gestured at her, she dutifully looked down at the spots of wetness soaking into her. Particularly her breasts and stomach, and around her to her back where his arm had hugged her and his sleeve had shared the wetness. “Sorry about that. I fell in a pool.”
“A pool?” Plucking at her blouse, she fluffed it in and out, as if that might help dry it faster.
“In my defense, I was being chased.”
Dismay shadowed her face. “Chased? Did he have a knife?”
“It wasn’t a ‘he’,” he said, the cop in him perking his ears. “It was more of a ‘them’, and why did you just say that like you thought you knew who would be chasing me?”
She tapped her fingers, dismay only growing. “Them? He has… a gang now?”
He stood six-foot-four to her five-foot-one (maybe). When he drew himself up to his full, impressive height and folded his arms across his chest, he knew she noticed. “Okay, I was talking about bees. What, or who, are you talking about?”
She went from tapping her fingers to twisting them and didn’t answer.
He looked from her to his grandmother. “All right, what’s going on?”
“This,” Sadie said, “is a conversation best had in private.” Planting a hand to each of their backs, the old woman pushed until they started moving, and she shooed them back into the library and all the way down the foyer toward the bathrooms.
“Grams,” he warned, in his most authoritative tone, but she still shoved him into the nearest bathroom.
“Give us a moment, dear,” the old woman told Scotti, just before shutting the door, sealing them into the bathroom together. Before he could say a word, she rounded on him like the grumpy, old, Coke-bottle-glasses-wearing honey badger, who used to make him cookies after school. “You be nice to this girl, young man. You be nice to her or so help me—” She didn’t finish her threat, but she did stab at him with her finger, letting him know without a doubt how serious she was.
“Oh, for fu—”
“No swearing!” She smacked his arm.
He glowered; she bloomed into an unbelievably innocent smile and swung the bathroom door open again.
“Oh, dear!” she called, and swept back out again. “Your turn. He can’t wait to talk to you.”
“Oh for—” Rubbing his face, Kurt censored himself a half second before the shell-shocked blonde was pushed into the men’s room with him.
“I’ll be the lookout,” Sadie mock whispered and yanked the door firmly shut. No doubt, she’d have her back shoved up against it, making sure the two of them were good and alone for who knew how long, and for who knew what for.
“Welcome to hell,” he said dryly. “What are you in for?”
“In for?” The little blonde stood frozen when she’d been shoved, her brown eyes huge, her fingers tapping worriedly. “I don’t know, but I have a funny feeling we’re being set up.”
She looked confused, apologetic and not at all like she was in on whatever manipulation his wily grandmother was conjuring.
Kurt softened slightly. “We are.” He started to fold his arms, but stopped when he felt the telltale pinch of a stinger still embedded in his side and catching against his shirt. He started to lift his shirt, then stopped when he realized she was watching. Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were wide. Unlike that minute attraction when she’d first fallen into his arms, right now she honestly seemed upset. “You might want to…” He motioned for her to turn around.
“I don’t think she’ll let me leave,” the librarian whispered after glancing at the door.
He almost laughed. She definitely wasn’t in on the manipulation. “No, she won’t. Don’t let the frail shuffle fool you. That woman is a force of nature.”
He’d given her the option. If she wasn’t going to turn around, then he wasn’t going to be embarrassed about it, either. Hiking his shirt, Kurt angled his side toward the mirror and tried to feel for where the stinger was. The sink was high and the mirror was higher, making it impossible for him to see the tiny thing. It was also
around on his side and closer to his back. He could just make out the redness spreading just under his ribs. Yeah, there was definitely a stinger stuck in him. He felt for it with careful fingers.
“I see it.” She hesitantly pushed away from the door.
He hiked his shirt a little higher, twisting slightly into the light in an attempt to find it in the mirror. Instead what he saw was the librarian duck in up to his side a half second before her fingers brushed his waist.
“Got it.” She washed it down the sink and then retreated to her spot by the door.
“Thanks,” he said, forcing a smile. The place where she’d brushed him tingled a little, but he told himself it was the bee venom. “All right, so… what exactly is it that we’re supposed to talk about?”
“Oh, um… no. No, it’s okay. I-I’ve changed my mind.”
“About?” he pressed.
She hugged her waist with one arm, clapping her hand to her forehead while she laughed in an unsuccessful effort to dispel the awkwardness. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Doing what?” he coaxed, not quite sure if he was growing impatient with her or curious.
Her laughter died. “I really wish she’d asked you about this first; it would have made it so much easier.”
Once upon a time, back before he became a felon, he’d thought he could read women pretty well. Lord knows, he knew physical attraction when he saw it, and back before Grams pulled that stunt with anaphylactic shock and the bee sting, this little woman had definitely been looking at him through the eyes of someone who was physically attracted. She didn’t know his history, though. And once she did, that physical attraction was going to die the kind of death only a guy who had absolutely nothing to offer a date could die.
“Talk about what?” he asked.
“Your grandmother,” she said, chewing at her bottom lip.
“What about her?”
“She…” A slow flush of pink rose to stain her cheeks, and she almost winced as she said, “She said you could stay at my place… for a while.”
Kurt stared at her and he was proud of himself, really. He didn’t say a single one of the curse words currently running through his head.