Sprayed Stiff

by Laura Bradley

  Taking out the broom, I began cleaning up the hair on the floor. Then I heard a board in the hallway creak. I plastered myself against the wall and waited, listening. As soon as I saw a shadow cross the room, I spun out, knocking the intruder into the washing chair, straddling him and pinning him down with the broomstick to his throat.

  It was Scythe. He had a beribboned bottle of Moët & Chandon in his hand.

  “This is a little quick and a little rough for what I had in mind, but I’m sure I could get up for it.”

  From what I could feel, he was already up for it.

  “What are you doing, sneaking around, scaring me?” I demanded, dropping the broomstick and trying to wiggle off his lap. His hands came to my hips to still me.

  It just made me want to wiggle more.

  “Weren’t you expecting me? You called down the hall that you’d be right there. You never came.”

  “But Cameron, Daisy Dawn…Mrs. Reinmeyer?”

  “They all tiptoed by with their fingers to their lips. I thought you were taking a nap or had a migraine or something.”

  “A headache. Yes, that’s what I have. Too bad.” I tried to get my caiman boots to the ground, but that just put certain parts of my anatomy closer to his. I pushed off the chair handles but my hands slipped off, and I just bounced.

  Scythe groaned and grinned. His laser blues burned. I jumped back like I’d been scalded, not caring that I had to ricochet off the wall. He chuckled. “This is going to be fun.”

  “In your dreams,” I countered bravely.

  “I’ve already had those,” he admitted wryly.

  I threw a glance back as I walked into my styling room. Him, too?

  I resorted to desperation tactics. “I would’ve thought you’d be a little mad at me.”

  He’d crouched down to study his roses, brushing the pad of his finger across the soft petals. “A little mad at you?” he asked carefully. Too carefully.

  “Yes, for my interview drawing the Texas Rangers here.”

  I watched his jaw ripple as he flexed it. Hmm. “I don’t know,” he finally said quietly. “We probably need all the help we can get at this point.”

  Sure.

  “I did my part to get them off your backs. I told them everything I know.”

  “Him,” Scythe corrected tightly.

  “Clint Calhoun,” I clarified.

  “I wish you hadn’t let him in.” More jaw flexing. He took a step toward me. “I told you to go home and lock your doors. Then you’ve got a Texas Ranger and two of your buddies paying midnight visits. At least, I hope they were buddies, otherwise you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to let them in. Who were they?”

  “You were watching me?” I asked, aghast.

  “I didn’t say that.” He took another step toward me.

  “You had someone watching me?” I jammed my hands on my hips.

  “I don’t now.” His hand cupped my chin and brought my lips to his. This kiss was better than his last one, and that one was damned good. The best I’d ever been kissed. His other hand teased the hair at the nape of my neck. It sent pulses of energy places I had no idea were connected to my hair follicles. Somehow my hands ended up around his shoulders.

  What was that I said about willpower?

  His lips moved across my cheek and he breathed into my ear, “It’s time to pay up on your deal, before you have to make another one to get me to keep you out of trouble.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, to demand whether the only way he could get a girl was with threats. Then I heard the words of Gore of Wretched Roadkill: “You shouldn’t argue so much with your copper boyfriend. Guys don’t like a chick with a mouth and an attitude.” I hated to take advice from a half-stoned member of a headbanger band who sang about squashed armadillos, but heck, maybe he was right. Maybe I was coming across as Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, I always kind of liked her. I imagined men didn’t, though. I couldn’t stay celibate forever.

  “Okay.”

  His eyebrows lifted in stunned surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

  “But maybe I’ll like it so much that I’ll stay in trouble just so we can keep making deals to get me out.” I smiled sweetly. I didn’t say I’d be a total pushover.

  His right eyebrow dropped, leaving the amused left one half-hitched. “Wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have?”

  “Do I get to spiff up with a shower, or do we go after it right here?”

  “How about both?”

  “Nope. You have to choose.”

  “Shower.” He sniffed the air as we left my styling room. “Especially since it smells like you had some of that old kimchee in your refrigerator for lunch.”

  “That wasn’t me. Percy came to visit.”

  Scythe stopped in his tracks. “Why?”

  “He said he wanted to find Lexa to apologize for her finding out about him cheating on her mother and for betraying her scumbag boyfriend.”

  “Thoughtful of him. You tell him where she is?”

  I met his penetrating gaze. “I don’t know.”

  He looked away, disappointed. “Your one saving grace is you can’t lie.”

  “My one?” I asked as I locked the salon’s front door.

  “I might be able to think of another one. Maybe lots more, after tonight.”

  You know, I shouldn’t drink champagne. Not four glasses in an hour, anyway. Not expensive champagne either, because it goes down way too smoothly. Of course, I didn’t know I was drinking four glasses until much, much later when I realized that Sleazeball Scythe had been slipping into the bathroom, refilling my glass as I steamed myself in the shower, then into the bedroom, refilling the glass again as I searched the closet for the right ensemble. No telling what peeks he snagged while he was at it. Pervert.

  Anyhow, I was still ignorant of his deception when I emerged from my bedroom, scented with Ralph Lauren’s Glamourous, made up with eyeliner (sienna to highlight the gold in my hazel eyes), and wearing a dress (black denim, but still a dress). Knee-high ostrich boots finished the look. I even had pretty undies on, dragged out of mothballs from three Christmases ago.

  I thought Scythe was having a heart attack when he saw me. He started hyperventilating. He grabbed at his chest. It was probably my bare legs. I knew I shouldn’t have worn the minidress. I ran to the couch, ready to administer CPR. He pulled me on top of him and started kissing me. Everywhere. My nose, my ear, my neck, my cleavage (I was wearing a push-up bra, so there was a little there). His hands started roving. Everywhere. My waist, my hips, the skin on the backs of my thighs, my…

  “Whoa.” I pushed away and sat up. I don’t think the last glass of champagne had hit yet or I’d still be rolling around on the couch with him. “I came over here to give you mouth-to-mouth.”

  “And you did. I feel much better now.”

  “So is this the deal? Making out on my couch all night?”

  “No. I had a private caterer setting up a gourmet dinner at my house.” He looked almost regretful. “With wine, turtle cheesecake, the works.”

  I might’ve argued, but the turtle cheesecake convinced me. Plus, I was dying to see his bachelor pad. Maybe Zena’s toothbrush was in the bathroom. “Let’s go. Grab the champagne.”

  “Oh.” Surprise, surprise. “It looks like I finished it all. Too bad.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and hoped I wasn’t swaying. He didn’t look a bit tipsy for having three glasses to my one. Maybe he was a closet alcoholic, but I didn’t think so.

  Furthermore, I should’ve been suspicious when I saw Rick come out of his house and walk toward the Labs, see us just pulling out of the driveway, then turn around and run back in. No, of course not. I was under the influence of Moët and testosterone.

  Scythe lived in a log cabin on a ten-acre hill overlooking Cibolo Creek south of town in a little country village called Floresville. It was remote but beautiful, with the moonlight reflecting off the water. Surrounded by rolling
hills and lush pastures, it seemed wild and calm at the same time. I could see why a man who dealt with the worst of civilization during the workday might want his home to be away from it at night, and I told him so.

  He seemed a bit discomfited by my insight.

  “You haven’t cornered the market on figuring everyone out, you know,” I teased as we picked through the tenderloin dinner.

  “Oh, Reyn,” he began, then stopped himself. He stood and gathered my wineglass with his, ushering me out the door to the back porch. The moonlight danced off the water below us. He gathered me in his arms. “You don’t make it easy to care about you.”

  Huh? And here I thought I was being easy to get along with tonight. I’d let him cop a feel, kiss me places he’d never kissed me before, even take me to his home, and who knew what else….

  Men were hard to figure out, especially on multiple glasses of vino.

  Scythe pressed his lips to my temple, and I shifted to face his chest so I could breathe in the mesquitey scent of him. Tipping up my face, I kissed him again, and then the spark that had been there for months ignited. My hands were all over him and his were all over me; we were bumping and grinding and pushing and pulling and…panting.

  Somehow we ended up in the bedroom. I’d lost my dress somewhere along the way. He’d lost his shirt.

  Then a man jumped out from behind the closet door.

  He looked familiar.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but before the sound could emerge, Scythe had pulled his gun from his ankle holster and aimed.

  Twenty-Two

  “DAMN IT, SCYTHE, what the hell are you doing?” the man shouted. “Get your brain out of your pants and drop the piece.”

  Scythe shook his head like a dog shaking water off his coat. He slid his Glock back into its holster. He rebuckled his belt.

  What the hell was going on?

  My blood supply was focused in other places, too, which somehow made it impossible for my mouth to work right. Of course, it had worked just fine for the kissing and nipping that had been going on, I noticed as I reviewed the ghost of a hickey above Scythe’s collarbone. No telling what war wounds I had. I felt flushed and hot and damp….

  I glanced down, and my hands flew to cover myself. I was in bra, panties, and boots. Our interloper was sneaking peeks, but trying not to show it. I pointed at him. “Hey, keep your eyes to yourself.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” He cleared his throat and turned toward the doorway.

  Scythe grunted, reached into his closet, and threw me a set of worn-out warm-ups. My gallant hero. I shrugged into them.

  When I saw the guy’s profile, I recognized him. “Wait a minute. You’re Scythe’s bodyguard. I thought you didn’t need him anymore since the threat was bogus? And why would you need him in your bedroom anyway?”

  “I didn’t need Byron to begin with, did I, Reyn? You could’ve clued me in on that a long time ago.” Those laser blues, not so long ago hot with lust, were now razor sharp in anger. “Since you were the one to start the damned rumor.”

  “It was just a joke. Trudy came to get me at the courthouse and said something off the cuff, and then that started the whole thing and—”

  He waved off the story. “Why Zena Zolliope? How did you know about me and her?”

  So there was something going on. I knew it. My stomach clenched. Good thing Byron had stopped us before we went too far. I guessed her toothbrush was by the sink after all. I felt nauseated. “I know her work. I could tell.”

  “How do you know her work? You work down there on Broadway, too?”

  “Broadway? Her salon is on Leland.”

  The two men looked at each other, baffled. Scythe turned to me. “What does this have to do with her salon?”

  “What else would it have to do with? She cuts your hair, you date her. You think I care?”

  Scythe and Byron started laughing. “I don’t date her, Reyn.” Scythe tried to sober up. “I let her cut my hair so I will have an excuse to be seen with her.”

  “See!”

  “She’s an informant. We picked her up doing some extracurricular activities with tourists and turned her in exchange for immunity. We’re working a case that has a john beating prostitutes to death. She was getting close until we heard about the death threat against me and we thought she’d been turned by the perp. It really complicated things.”

  Oops.

  “Sorry.” I swallowed. “But how was I to know?”

  Scythe shook his head. “You couldn’t. It’s just your uncanny ability to step in the dog-pile no matter what you do.”

  What an image. Glad he was so enamored that I had him seeing me through these rose-colored glasses.

  He reached into his closet and shrugged into a clean, starched shirt. He threw Byron a set of keys he’d taken out of his pocket. “Keep your eye on her at all times. I’ll be in touch.” On his way out the door, he leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Be good.”

  “Hold on a minute! What’s going on?” Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

  “I tried to put you under house arrest at your own house, but you had midnight tea with how many suspects?” Scythe ran his hand through his bad haircut. I wondered how long this informant hairstyling gig was going to last. “So, I decided the only way to keep you safe, keep you from accidentally starting rumors that bollix up investigations, is to keep you under house arrest at my house, with my bodyguard. When we have it all wrapped up and tied with a bow, I’ll be back.” He looked me up and down. “And Byron will be excused so we can finish what we started.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “We can do all that, too.”

  With a wink and that promise, Scythe was gone.

  I didn’t know how those people who were witnesses against the big crime bosses did it. They were kept for months in gross little motel rooms eating pizza and Twinkies, watched by some smelly, scratching cop who pulled the short straw and favored the Sci-Fi Channel. I had a big log cabin with an awesome view for miles, a larder stocked with gourmet fare, and a guard who wasn’t half-bad-looking, smelled like Irish Spring, and liked HBO.

  And I was still going crazy.

  It was only twelve hours into my exile. Scythe had called Byron earlier, asked to talk to me, and said he’d explained to Bettina that I was under the weather and wouldn’t be at work for a couple of days. Guess what they were all thinking back at Transformations? Accused of fun I wasn’t having. That wasn’t fair.

  Byron refused to let me watch or listen to any news. I was allowed to answer my cell phone so my absence wouldn’t send up a general panic, but only under strict supervision.

  “You see her legs?” Byron motioned to the television, where Angelina Jolie was rising from a swimming pool. She did have super legs. “Long but shapely, that’s how I like them. None of this stick-leg stuff for me.”

  I wondered what he thought about my legs, since he’d seen more of them than most of my dates did. Not long, maybe shapely. I didn’t think I ought to ask.

  I smiled absently as he waxed poetic about his favorite woman’s legs. I wished I could show him the best pair of legs I’d ever seen. They belonged to my best friend.

  Wait just a minute.

  I had an idea.

  Trudy and I might be on the outs, but she’d be there for me in a pinch. I was seriously pinched. I dialed, praying that she hadn’t lost the ability to read my mind and catch a hint. Byron sat up and turned down the volume on the movie. I felt a little guilty until I realized the legs didn’t talk, so he wasn’t missing much.

  “Reyn.” Trudy’s voice sank to a conspiratorial level. “I heard you had a big night last night.”

  What? Was it in the newspaper? It was only ten o’clock in the morning.

  “Right.”

  “So, did you culminate your deal?”

  “Not quite. Unless it included a threesome.” One day we were going to have to get this cleared up. The whole deal thing was still a little nebulous for
me. Scythe knew. Trudy knew. I didn’t know.

  “There was not supposed to be any threesome! What do you mean, not quite?”

  “We got interrupted. He had to leave.”

  Byron shot me a warning look. I smiled and tried to look subservient. It was an effort.

  “Jackson’s gone?” Trudy was aghast.

  “Yes.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “No telling.”

  “If he’s gone, then why aren’t you at work?”

  “Some days you just gotta take a break, enjoy some peanuts.”

  Byron looked around at our array of chips and dip, puzzled. I got up to go to the kitchen. Floresville was the peanut capital of Texas. I held my breath.

  “Reyn, are you in Floresville?”

  “Yes, I am.” I let my breath out slowly.

  “What are you doing there?”

  “Yep, some days you’ve just got to enjoy the view, and the water this time of year seems to run so fast.”

  “You’re on a hill and next to a creek.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re at Scythe’s. He’s got you handcuffed to a chair, doesn’t he? Bastard. I’m going to find you.”

  “You know, I was just thinking a little while ago, I’d love to have a pair of those short shorts you just bought—you know, the red leather ones?”

  “What does that have to do with—” Trudy paused. “Never mind. I’ll wear them.”

  A leg, tanned and long, bearing bloodred toenails and five-inch gold spike heels appeared in the window next to the television set an hour and a half later. Byron did a double take as it flexed like a stripper’s back and forth, forth and back. I thought I saw spittle forming at the corner of his mouth. He licked his lips. The leg disappeared.

  “Did you see that?” Byron asked me.

  “What?” I looked up from the Cosmo I’d found on the table. I wanted to know if Scythe subscribed to Cosmo, a girlfriend had left it, or he was considerate enough to have stocked reading material specifically for me.