by Leigh Morgan
Sensei managed a straight face when he said, "Congratulations." Three seconds later he burst out laughing again as he headed out the door. He only made it a few steps when Jordon heard him say to Shay. "Man, he is so screwed. I haven't seen Mohr this scary since Jesse got suspended for something the quarterback did. I think that principal is still managing the carwash."
Shay's laughter sounded forced to Jordon, but the mirth in his words was real enough. "He'll have to wear sparring pads to bed for a while. That's for sure. I know I would." Jordon could hear them chuckling all the way up the stairs.
It was going to be a long thirty days.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Henry surveyed the area around Potters Woods with a sniper's eye for detail, grateful he'd managed to talk Jordon into waiting until morning to invade his new wife's domain. He wasn't really worried about security, not even William knew where he and Jordon were, but Henry hadn't survived both Gulf Wars by being careless.
The early morning light captured the dew on the grass and the flowers lining the driveway all the way to the house, making them seem to glow from inside. Daisies, impatiens, lilies, begonias, hostas and trilliums lined the gravel drive interspersed with various sculptures, some small and delicate, others not so small. Elves, winged fairies, a mermaid and a merman, frogs in yoga poses and some creatures he couldn't identify nestled among the flowers, ferns, and hostas. The effect was a little out there for him, but surprisingly welcoming nonetheless.
Henry especially liked the frogs. He snapped a few rapid fire flower and frog shots for the photo album of gardens he'd been keeping since he'd started traveling around the world. First in the service, then with Jordon. He saw more gardens and less blood with Jordon.
Leaning through the passenger window of the late model dark blue sedan he rented for surveillance, Henry pulled a strawberry licorice twist from the bag he always kept hidden in the glove compartment of every vehicle he used, right next to his backup Glock nine millimeter.
Henry stuck the sticky candy in his mouth, closed the glove box and straightened. He kept his candy and weapons locked up for safety. No sense letting anyone know of his weakness for strawberry and powerful black guns.
Licorice dangling from his mouth like an old gangster's cigar, Henry stepped out of the car and snapped a series of perimeter shots, shots of the house, a few more of the garden, the driveway, and every point of entry visible from the road. He wished he remembered to fill up his thermos with tea before he left Jordon's loft at five a.m. Licorice always made him thirsty.
Something hard hit him in the back of one knee making him lose a shot of the front door.
"Are you one of Charlie's boy-toys, or did we finally make the cover of Not-so-Better-Homes-and-Gardens?" The huskiness of the voice and the fact that it was decidedly female didn't worry Henry as much as the fact that he hadn't heard or sensed his would-be attacker.
Spitting out his licorice, Henry spun around coming face to face with Finn Mohr, Reed Mohr's aunt. He recognized her from the photos his team took of her yesterday and forwarded to his phone.
She didn't look all that angry yet, but it was hard to tell with the sun in his eyes. She moved well. He hadn't heard her coming and that bothered him more than anything else this morning, but he should have smelled her, cinnamon wasn't a garden scent. Not even in fairyland gardens. He'd be more careful next time, assuming there was a next time.
Finn cocked her head at him sending improbably long silver-blond hair over one well rounded shoulder. She wasn't petite like her niece. For Henry, that was a plus. He hated having to contort his six foot four inch frame into improbable positions just for a kiss. Most of the time it wasn't worth the effort.
Henry could tell from the photos his team took of her that Finn was taller than average, standing a head above her niece. In person she was even taller than the photos suggested, and more striking than any two dimensional representation could adequately capture.
Of course that might have something to do with the baseball bat slung casually over her right shoulder. Right handed. Armed. Now all Henry had to discover was how dangerous.
"You don't look like one of Charlie's boys, but the way you were going to town on that licorice, it was hard to tell from a distance. Up close you're not Charlie's type at all. So why are you spying on us?"
"I'm not spying." He preferred the term reconnaissance to spying.
He heard a growl, low and menacing, before the largest cat he'd seen outside of Africa stepped around the woman and sat at her left side, out of swinging range, giving the impression the two of them had performed this little dance before. Henry glanced at the cat briefly. Green eyes pinned him where he stood, unblinking. He knew instinctively the cat was female by the threat she exuded without half trying.
"I know he's lying, Freya. But thanks for the confirmation."
Nothing in the short report his team forwarded hinted that Finn was crazy, yet here she was conversing with a cat. A very large cat named after a Norse Goddess.
Freya. Goddess of love, fertility and all things sensual. Leader of the Valkyries. Ruler of death. Great. Sex and death.
Instead of taking the bat away from her by force, Henry tried using diversion, in his experience it worked about seventy percent of the time.
"Didn't Freya ride around in a chariot drawn by cats? If memory serves, she was also considered the Goddess of magic. Has she given you a truth telling cat?" Get them talking about something else. Anything else. Until you can figure a way out.
Both females looked him up and down again, appraisingly. "I'm impressed. So you're not just a dumb peeping Tom with a camera. Where did you learn that, mythology 101?"
Henry smiled fully sending as much non-threatening energy to his eyes as he could manage, charm usually worked for him. Maybe if she thought he wanted to sleep with her she'd drop the bat. Probably not, but a man can hope.
"I like fantasy art. Amazonian blonds with long hair and large...cats turn me on. Of course bikini bottoms, boots and chest armor do add something." He shrugged, "But the bat has it's own allure. You don't need it you know. All you have to do is say the word and I'll follow you to your cave voluntarily."
She raised one elegantly shaped brow at him and Henry noticed the small twinkling stone piercing it for the first time. With her left hand she reached into the back pocket of her baggy parachute pants and pulled out a cell phone. When he shifted his weight she lowered the bat, holding it out toward him as a warning. She was smart enough to maintain a safe distance and remain a threat at the same time. He could rush her and disarm her simply enough, but tackling his boss's new family might not be the best way to announce Jordon's arrival. He did learn something valuable from their exchange, Finn was completely immune to his dubious charms.
Finn hit the speaker phone button so Henry could see how un-charming she found him.
"911. State your emergency."
She tapped her foot and waited.
The inanimate voice repeated it's demand. "911 state your emergency."
Henry held up his hand and mouthed, "You win. I was spying."
"We're tracing the call. Hold on. Emergency services will respond shortly."
And still she waited.
"All right. I'll answer your questions." Henry hissed as quietly as he could. "Call them off."
Finn flicked off the speaker button and spoke directly into the phone. "Hello, operator. I heard a noise and saw an intruder in my yard. I can see now it was just my neighbor searching for his dog. Max must have broken his leash again. We're fine here. Sorry to disturb you." Finn clicked off the phone.
"If I get charged for that call, you're paying."
Henry wasn't sure if she'd be taking cash or taking payment out of his hide, but that didn't matter at the moment. Making sure the police didn't show up did. The last thing any of them needed was Jordon's name plastered around. Someone was bound to recognize it, and then all hell would break loose. Not only for Jordon, but for his new in-laws a
s well.
He should have kept his internal smart-ass in check. It came out to play whenever he met a woman he was strongly attracted to, no matter how unlikely it was that he would or could do anything about it.
Henry leaned back against his car crossing his arms over his chest, cocking one foot in front of the other. It was a casual pose designed to put his opponent at ease. Most people didn't notice that he coiled his body in such a way that he could spring like a snake if he needed to. Finn didn't seem to be the exception to that rule, although her cat growled at him again.
Smart cat.
Henry ignored Freya and focused on her mistress. "I was spying. Next question."
"Why?"
So much for distracting her. "It's my job."
"Who hired you to spy on us?"
"My boss."
The smile on her face wasn't pleasant. "We can do this all morning. Or I can call the police again." She said, twirling the bat with an expert flick of her wrist. "Or I could use your car for batting practice. I haven't had the satisfaction of hearing glass shatter in a long time. I've been doing more work with metal these days than glass and I miss it. I do have some frog blobs I could throw through your windows. That way I could get rid of the trash and listen to shattering glass at the same time. Then, there's the added benefit of smashing from a distance. I don't like picking glass out of my hair."
He didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but the gleam in her blue eyes, coupled with the grin on her face, told him she'd have no problem wielding that bat. He didn't need the complication of explaining the damage to the rental company, especially when he'd declined the rental insurance. Even if he had taken the insurance, Henry doubted intentional bat or frog blob damage was covered. He answered her question.
"I work for Jordon Bennett. Among other things, I supervise his security. Just routine safety check. Making sure the woman he cares about is safe. No big deal."
"You're pretty easy to sneak up on for a security guy. And whomever Jordon Bennett thinks he is, he has no business here. One date with Reed doesn't rate a security check, unless he did something that would merit me taking this bat to him. So why don't you cut the crap and tell me what you're really doing here?"
Usually when Henry dropped Jordon's name that was the end of it. Not this time. Finn didn't seem to know or care who Jordon was beyond the fact that he was dating her niece, so using Jordon's name wasn't going to get Henry anywhere. The comment about being easy to sneak up on stung. He wasn't easy to sneak up on. The fact the valkyrie standing in front of him had done it irritated the hell out of him. He should have sensed her. The fact that he hadn't had Henry scowling at her cat, who responded by swishing her tail, totally unimpressed with him and his show of bravado.
"I am doing surveillance work. I am head of Jordon's security. And, I'm damn good at my job."
Finn looked at her cat. It didn't hiss. When she looked back at him she appeared to accept that he was telling the truth.
"Why are you here?"
This was getting old. "I'm assessing the security threat to Potters Woods. The rest you'll have to get directly from Jordon. Call the cops if that'll make you feel safer, but as far as I can tell from the survey map, I'm not actually on Potters Woods. This," Henry said, lifting one foot then letting it fall to the ground, "is not your property."
He smiled without real warmth. He was still stung by her opinion of his skills. "Taking photos isn't a crime and I'm not loitering. Go ahead, call the police. I'll tell them I'm bird watching on what is actually county park land. Come on, pull that phone back out, sweetheart. I'd like to lodge a complaint for harassment and assault."
"You'd know it if I assaulted you, big guy. And don't ever call me 'sweetheart'." Finn said visibly relaxing, she dropped the bat to her side, where it rested against her leg. Useless.
"I don't think I need to call the police." She continued, dismissing his skills once again. "You don't seem like much of a threa..."
Henry was on her, hand over her mouth, pinning her to the ground before she could add the 't' to threat. He let her feel his full weight for a millisecond before easing back just enough so she could breathe. Henry didn't want to squish her, he just wanted...well what he really wanted he wasn't going to act on until she got to know him better.
The cat jumped on his back, claws fully extended.
In pain, Henry hissed in Finn's ear. "Call off your cat. I don't want to hurt her, but I will if she doesn't get off me." He wouldn't hurt the cat, not much anyway. He liked cats. He preferred them claws sheathed and purring, curled in his lap, to spitting while shredding his skin.
He must have sounded like he meant what he said because the cat moved away from him even before he removed his hand from Finn's mouth.
"Go home, Freya." Finn ordered, sounding more defiant than afraid.
The cat looked at her mistress, looked back at Henry as if to say later jerk, before she turned and silently loped off toward the house. Henry got the distinct impression that the cat went home only because she knew her mistress wasn't in any real danger, not because she was told to.
Henry turned his attention away from the feline to the warm woman under him. She stared mutinously up at him.
Definitely not afraid.
Anger shot from her denim blue eyes, making him laugh.
"You were saying something about my skills? Come on, sweetheart, tell me again how bad I am at my job. I want to hear all about it."
...
Finn stared up into nearly colorless eyes.
They'd be hard to describe later if she did file a police report, which she had no intention of doing. It wasn't worth the trouble. Finn didn't want this man or anyone associated with Jordon Bennett around long enough for the police to follow through. She purposefully provoked him without realizing he maneuvered her into letting her guard down.
He wasn't threatening her. She didn't feel unsafe. She'd been around long enough to know when she was in real danger. He wasn't letting her up though, but Finn wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of demanding that he do so before she exhausted all her other options. Which she'd get right on, just as soon as she could stop trying to define the color of his eyes.
Not gray, or green or blue. Certainly not any shade of brown on the palette. His eyes were more than any one color. Like river rock in the shallows they seemed to project a different mix of color as the light shifted and changed. They reminded Finn of mist in the early evening or morning fog through the trees.
River rock? Mist? Nice one. That'll look great on the complaint. Six three or four. Heart-stopping smile. Reddish brown hair. Eyes the color of morning mist. Great. Get ready for the APB.
Irritated by her reaction to him and the fact that he wasn't letting her up, Finn made a sound low in her throat; part anger, part frustration, mostly wounded pride. She twisted back and forth, trying to dislodge him but her arms were pinned to her sides and he was laying on her legs. She hadn't realized he was supporting most of his weight on his elbows until he let her feel him fully. For a second she couldn't breathe, then he was there surrounding her again like a protective male cocoon.
"Stop wiggling like a fish. You're well and truly caught and all that thrashing isn't making me less interested."
Henry sounded more pleased than annoyed with her attempts to free herself, which annoyed her, but Finn stilled instantly anyway not wanting to encourage him further. She didn't like forceful men. She liked artistic men who spoke gently, touched gently, and lived gently.
"Good." He said, smile widening as his grip eased allowing her to move a little more freely. "You were putting grass stains on your clothing that you'll never get out."
"Grass stains? You're worried about grass stains? You ought to be worried about your blood staining my clothes when I get free."
He smiled at her again and gently brushed the hair that had fallen across her eyes and mouth away from her face. "I applaud your effort and look forward to the challenge."
> She wished he'd stop touching her so gently. She didn't like forceful men with gentle smiles and kind, indescribable eyes.
"Stone."
"What?"
"Your eyes. They're the color of stone after the rain."
"Thanks." He said.
"It wasn't a compliment." But it had been. Henry's eyes were lovely and they seemed to change the more she studied them.
"It wasn't?" He asked, eyes twinkling with the knowledge that she was lying. He could see right through her and that was a bigger sin than knocking her off her feet. Pleasure shot through her when he laughed and gently ran the back of his hand across her cheek again. She closed her eyes to block out the effect his smile and those luminous eyes were having on her senses so she could mentally squash every pleasure impulse she was feeling and get on with a plan to turn him into a quivering mass of tissue and bone.
That was a mistake. Without his eyes to distract her, Finn could feel every inch of him. The inches were burning their way through the fabric covering her inner thigh were growing as they throbbed against her. His lips at her ear and the soft caress of his hair on her cheek effectively stopped all her mental pleasure squashing. She was a woman unashamed of her healthy appetite for sex. The fact that she wanted to writhe against him, not push away, was beginning to over-ride her irritation with him and her preference for artists with soft hands.
He was so close she could smell his breath as he whispered in her ear. Strawberry licorice and black tea, not an unpleasant mix.
"I should have smelled you coming." He said, inhaling the scent of her homemade shampoo. "You smell like cinnamon and nutmeg. Do you taste as good as you smell, sweetheart?"
His tongue flicked out, tracing the shell of her ear. Finn couldn't control the shiver running through her or the small groan that escaped her when he pulled her earlobe into his mouth.
He pushed away from her suddenly and she felt the loss. Finn's eyes snapped open in time to see him lifting his head like a hound scenting the air. "Damn. He's early."