by Snow, Nicole
“Santa?” Landon's eyebrows crunch together.
“I see you when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake.” I grin. “I'll leave it there because actually, I always thought that red-nosed old bastard was a bit of a creepy peeping tom. But it’s not that different from taking second shift. Watching out for her when she’s got her guard down.”
Landon lets out a rough bark of laughter. “This one never lets her guard down. But sure. Play Santa. Just no dandling her in your lap.”
“She already got someone?”
“She’ll take your nuts off if you try.” His eyes sharpen. “And so will I.”
I chuckle. “Duly noted.”
He starts to say something else, but then a soft call of his name comes drifting down the beach from up in the main house. I glance over my shoulder. A petite figure with a tumble of chestnut hair stands in the doorway, waving across the distance.
“There's Kenna,” Landon says, and levers himself up, dusting sand off his jeans. “Girl sleeps like a damn grizzly bear after she’s finished a book. Didn’t think she’d come out of hibernation for another week.”
I hide my grin against the mug. “Awful small for a bear.”
“Say that again when she’s pissed at you. She’s larger than life, then.” But there’s nothing but love, real affection, when he says that, and it’s not hard to see how his eyes gravitate toward her and stay there. “You want to come up to the house? Eat something more than a box of Jimmy Dean sausages?”
“Nah.” I take a long, lingering sip of thick black coffee. I make it like mud. Trucker coffee, my Ma used to call it. “I’m good. Got everything I need right here.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m a man of simple needs, Landon. You know that.” I raise my mug in a salute. “So, let’s keep things simple. You set things up with Skylar, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Landon chuckles. “If you think it’s going to be that easy, my friend, you’ve got another thing coming. I'm paying you so well because it's work.”
I'm still smiling as he looks back over his shoulder one last time, making his way back to the house.
A little hard labor never hurt these bones. And neither did no little girl.
* * *
Apparently, Landon’s idea of 'setting things up' is giving me an address, a time, and a basic physical description before leaving me to fend for myself against the legendary She-Demon of NoCal.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting when I park my truck outside Enguard to wait and watch the sun go down in a rush of pinks and purples and oranges, noting down the colors in my book while the hours pass.
Short hair, pint-sized, blue eyes, last one out of the office. That's what Landon told me I'm looking for.
Since there’s only one car left in the lot – a Buick even more beat-up than my Dodge, the front seat and dashboard all slashed up – I guess that door opening must be her.
I glance in the rear-view mirror – and then look again. A classic double take.
For a split second, I think I’m looking at someone’s eighteen year old daughter, she’s so tiny.
Talk about knee-high to a frog; I could pick her up with one hand, but one look in those flinty, pale blue eyes says I’d die trying.
She’s got eyes like the shadows in glacier caves, so pale and cold it’s impossible to see anything but ice. Her hair’s a sort of sandy dark brunette, no-nonsense and cropped in a cute little pixie bob falling in messy strands from a bun spilling around her face, bringing out pert features and a stubbornly pointed chin.
Her lips are pink, the remnants of a day’s worn-off lipstick, and her mouth is too full and soft for the hard line she makes of it. Her uniform shirt and slacks are perfectly pressed and fitted like a second skin, all square edges.
Too bad they can’t hide the delicate curves that seem to belong more to a graceful ballet dancer than a hardened tactician.
“Damn,” I whisper to myself, doing a slow blink.
I’d expected a stubby little battle-axe. Not this tiny, fairy creature.
But there’s nothing fey about the way she moves. I recognize that stride; it’s ex-military.
You get to know certain things about people like you, and this woman knows what it’s like to shine boots before dawn and tuck every corner of your bedsheets in till they’re so tight they sing.
She knows what it’s like to always have one ear open for trouble, and knows what it’s like to have people you can rely on through blood and death and fire and pain, only to be shipped back home as a changed thing that doesn’t quite fit into the normal world anymore.
She’s like me.
She’s like me, and my heart already aches for her, when I know damn well the kind of things you have to go through to have that hard, empty look in your eyes, to wall off everything, both good and bad.
Because if you don’t feel the nice things, then you can’t feel the painful ones, either. Dualism is a bitch, and it's making me think real crazy right now.
It feels like I’ve been needled, cut, exposed. Shown this place inside me that recognizes her even though we’re total strangers. Cut and bleeding with this powerful need to protect her.
Maybe it’s that brotherhood ingrained in old soldiers, the same brotherhood that makes me so loyal to Landon, that feeling of comforting sameness.
Or maybe it’s just something about her, this Pixie, and the wary way she holds herself as if even before the military, she’d never known what it was like to have anyone shelter her and keep her safe.
I’m staggering out of my truck before I even realize it, smoothing my hair back, straightening my shirt before stepping forward and offering my hand. “Miss Szabo –”
Her eyes snap to me: quick, assessing.
Taking in my threat potential in an instant. She bristles subtly, a certain stillness settling over her that says if I make any sudden moves, I’m in deep shit.
She’s sharp, as if she’s fresh off the battlefield.
Her mouth thins. “It’s Skylar. Don’t you ‘Miss’ me, Barin. I know who you are. Since I’m stuck with a glorified babysitter for the next few weeks, let's skip the formalities, m'kay?”
I let my hand drop, trying not to grin.
Maybe I should be offended, but you gotta understand I’m used to Southern charm, where people say bless your heart when what they really mean is go fuck yourself.
Her bluntness is refreshing. “Sure thing,” I tell her.
She folds her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up till they make the button over her chest strain. This time, the way she’s eyeing me isn’t tactical.
It’s just raw and skeptical, a complete once-over that says I don’t measure up.
“Just so you're aware, this is a favor to my boss,” she points out sharply. “One I don’t really need. So let’s keep this simple and minimal. You’ll drive me home, then get lost. You can come back later for scheduled overnight patrols. Check off whatever report you're turning in. I'll sign what I have to saying I was a good girl. After I’m asleep, in the morning, so I don’t have to deal with you more than I need to. You’ll follow Landon’s orders to the letter of the law, and no more. Got it, Barin?”
It's like I'm holding burning napalm in my guts, trying not to laugh.
I’d worked with drill sergeants less demanding. I’m keeping my grin inside, but good goddamn. This girl’s a human razor blade.
Small, but cuts real deep.
This is gonna be fun.
“We’re in the same boat,” I say. “We’re both here as favors to Landon. So, let’s do what we’re gonna, sugar, and when it’s over, you can put my ass out on the street.”
Her eyelid twitches. “Never call me sugar.”
“Sorry. Southern thing.”
“I can tell from the accent, but we’re not in Alabama anymore.”
“Louisiana,” I interject.
“Same difference.”
“Nah, darlin’. No way, no how. In Alabama, t
hey marry pigs. In Louisiana, we just eat them. Feet and all. I like ‘em pickled myself.”
I love Alabama, actually. Lost my virginity to a pretty little thing in Mobile half a lifetime ago, but she doesn't need to know the truth behind the shit-talk that goes down in Dixie.
Her nose scrunches. “That’s disgusting. And don’t call me darling, either.”
“You got it.”
She says nothing, just flashes me one of those looks like I just crapped in her shoe.
Then, with a lift of her chin, she breezes past me – and storms right into my truck without even waiting, pulling the door open and hefting herself up on the footboard before sliding into the passenger seat.
I move to close the door for her, but she slams it shut with a baleful look before I can.
Okay then. Little lady wants to do things for her lonesome, she can.
I'm not her butler. I’m not here to wait on her hand and foot or make her feel like an overgrown baby. I’m just here to keep her safe.
But goddamn, she’s meaner than an alligator and prettier than a peacock.
That makes her a hard one to figure out. And it's even harder to fight the urge not to shake my head and let my dick stand on end simultaneously as I climb into the driver's seat.
If only I'd had some honest warning.
Landon didn’t warn me just how interesting this was gonna be.
* * *
I’m starting to think this woman never sleeps.
I’m supposed to be the night watch, but from where I'm looking, the sun never goes down on Skylar Szabo.
My truck's parked on the road leading up to this adorable little run-down fishing shack you’d never expect to find in gentrified San Francisco. Looks more like the kind of thing you’d see perched on a float out in the Atchafalaya Basin back home.
It suits her, I decide. It’s charming, the wood slats painted a dusty dark blue that’s been weathered down to bare wood in the cracks.
From this distance I can see her silhouette through the blinds, shadows and bits of color moving through the spaces between the Venetian slats, backlit by a lamp that hasn’t shut off since I dropped her off on the sand-littered path. She’s wearing an overly large shirt, and when she moves it catches the light till she’s like a naked silhouette through a screen, backlit by fire.
There’s a laptop, I think. Something she’s bent over, focusing furiously.
Occasionally, there are hints of jerky motion, probably typing. I shouldn’t be watching her this closely like a creepy lunk, but I can’t help myself.
She has this energy about her that’s fascinating, all raw rough edges and bleeding fury and this knife-edged grace. She’s a tempest, and it’s damnably easy to get swept up in her even when you’re standing on the edges of her storm, trying to stare into the eye.
Skylar Szabo is a hurricane. I’m just wondering if there’s a calm at heart, hidden somewhere in all this chaos.
I make myself tear my gaze away from her and focus on my phone.
She looks back at me again from the screen, a photo. It's one of those brutal, offhand photographs.
Her gaze looks like she'd enjoy gutting the photographer, even though her face is streaked with tears, her eyes not cold like they are inside that house, but burning with hate, pain, loss, grief, determination.
It’s a news story from months ago, one of many I’ve been skimming all night. Easier to get the scoop this way than to expect her to spill the beans, when she clearly resents me for breathing.
Looks like her niece, Joannie Szabo, got snatched up right under Skylar’s nose while she was out with the girl and the kid's mother, Monika.
Fuck. That’d eat me up inside, too. It must be tearing Skylar to bits, chewing her up like the devil's own dentures. No wonder she’s so focused.
I remember being like that, too, once upon a time.
Like when Mama called in a panic, pulled me back from wherever I’d been roaming and trying to remember as much as trying to forget, and told me Dad was missing.
It’s fucking weird seeing myself in her, this tiny, warped, beautiful Pixie mirror.
Even stranger, wanting to save her from the mess I fell into, the one that brought me to the brink of no return.
Drinking, gambling, fucking around, doing some work for some people I ain’t really proud of. Despair can chase you into some mad, dark places, and I can’t help wanting to shine a little light for Skylar Szabo. Make the blue of those eyes one of my memories that turns blue into something I never want to forget.
Except, I can’t let myself get caught up in this.
Can’t make her present about my past. It ain’t supposed to get personal.
I’m just here to do a job.
It ain’t that deep. Ain't that real. Ain't that crazy.
Though I can at least do that job right. I couldn’t save my Dad. I couldn’t save anyone, even myself.
But I can try my damnedest to pull Skylar back from the bitter edge and protect her as best I know how for as long as that furious, cold, beautiful, viciously independent little woman will let me.
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