Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2)

by James, Ranay

  “But I don’t work for you, now do I?” She should have left it at that.

  However, she also discovered just a little late that she should have already eaten, too. She was feeling her blood sugar drop to dangerous levels making her way more edgy and aggressive than any extra large, quad shot, extra hot, red-eye espresso ever could make her feel. “The fact that I don’t answer to you is one blessing I count each day I live and breathe. That being the case, I couldn’t care any less tomorrow than I do this minute about what you think or what you would or would not do. Besides, why would I quit and give you the satisfaction of having the last word? I like what I do, and I like Robert. It’s you I don’t particularly like.”

  She smiled sweetly, completely pissing him off in the process. There was a snake behind that smile. He wasn’t buying.

  “You know I just figured something out about you, Babs,” Mason said her name with sarcastic emphasis. “You are so much more attractive when you don’t talk.”

  “Ahh, yes,” she paused for emphasis reaching for a power bar from her desk drawer. She had to eat. Perhaps it was not too late to salvage this encounter with Mason. She really did not wish to fight with him any longer. Life was too short. That was something else her doctor had told her. “The old axiom of ‘There is truly merit in the ideology of a woman being seen and not heard.’”

  “God, yes! However, in your case, you’re not even worth looking at even if you did manage to keep that yap of yours closed.” He felt bad the minute the words were out of his mouth. It was disrespectful. And no woman enjoyed hearing she was unattractive. “I should not have said that. Not even to you.” He felt he had just made a bad situation even worse.

  She was very quick to cover the gasp. In all the years they had gone at each other, he had never been outright mean to her. Not like this. She felt the sting of his insult. She controlled her urge only because she was a true professional.

  “Point, shoot, aim. It is how you have always been, Mason. I would have expected nothing less.”

  She knew his type: only out for a good time, love-em and leave-em. He loved women and she could not fault him there, and as a rule the big jerk usually treated women very well when he was with them, at least the women he dated. He just never treated her well, but she typically never gave him the opportunity, either. Usually, one or the other started off on the wrong foot and the dance usually ended badly. Case in point - their current encounter.

  Although on the outside he was crass, pigheaded, insensitive, and stubborn, her theory was there had to be more to him than what was viewable on the surface. She had, over the years, glimpsed genius in him. Yet, she and Robert both despaired that he probably would never learn. Robert had voiced on numerous occasions that eventually his baby brother’s little world would come crashing down when he woke up one day old, gray, and with some other young buck tossing him out of his territory.

  She took a different approach.

  She felt it would be worse yet, if he woke up one day and realized he had finally grown up only to be saddled with a dumb bimbo who did not have a single brain cell between her ears. Mason wasn’t dumb. Oh no, not by any stretch. He just did dumb stuff. Taking risks of which the normal person would never dream.

  In reality, she really did not care. He was a big boy and could make his own decisions, no matter how juvenile, as long as he got the job done for McKinnon-Bride, which he always did.

  She felt the need to even the score. Mason prided himself on being irresistible to women. Well, she thought, this was one woman who he would never find wrapped around his finger.

  She was shaking, but not from anger. She really wasn’t angry with him, not today. She was hungry, something she should never let happen. It made her nearly an impossible grouch.

  “Well, Mason, while we are on the subject of ideologies and theories, I came up with one of my own. Want to hear it?”

  “Oh sure, like I could stop you. Please, share this brilliant theory, Einstein.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Ok, it goes something like this: The only time you’re attractive to me and I’m truly happy is when you are on the other side of the world. And you know what? That should not be a stretch for you because you usually are halfway around the world. Let’s test it out, shall we?”

  “Or how about this? I’ll just move my office in here just to annoy you. How about that idea, Barbie Doll?”

  “Feel free, but only if you have the urge to be tossed out a forty-five-story building. I hear the view on the way down is great, but trust me the sudden stop is a killer.”

  She was thinking that it would probably be the way he would go out of this world anyway. His crazy daredevil lifestyle would eventually get him killed, and if she did not eat soon she just might hasten that death along.

  Robert had been in the hall and had heard enough. Stepping into the office, his commanding voice boomed out, “Children! Enough, both of you!”

  “Robert, why do you put up with her?”

  “Robert, you should have drowned him at birth.”

  They both talked over each other leaving Robert to referee.

  Mason looked down at Barbara with the urge to choke her strong in his mind. “Don’t give me any ideas, Lady. Like I asked you, Robert why do you put up with her?”

  She was the only woman in this world who he could get so crossways so quickly and with so little provocation. He understood he was as much to blame as she was for their unorthodox relationship. However, he just did not understand her. And he had actually tried.

  If he flirted, she got mad.

  If he argued, she got mad.

  If he ignored her, she got mad.

  Most women he associated with were falling all over themselves to please him. They were just out for a good time. Those women were successful flirts and masters in the art of seduction, which suited him, because he was too. He was a player, who was very good at the game, and with his looks most women were putty in his hands. Barbara, he often mused, must have come from another planet. He could not figure her out, so he had stopped trying years ago.

  Robert sauntered into his office with both of them just steps behind. He was sharply dressed, as usual, in his charcoal gray suit, deep gray-blue shirt, and a stylish tie. His finely furnished office was indicative of his tastes for fine clothes and order to his life.

  “Why do I put up with her,” he repeated Mason’s question as he hung up his suit coat in the hidden closet behind the concealing wall panel.

  “Yeah. That was the question.” Mason was staring at Barbara with his arms crossed over his broad chest. His long legs tucked in snakeskin cowboy boots were spread shoulder width apart. In his case that spread was considerable. Barbara noticed his jacket did nothing to hide the gun holstered under his right arm.

  Hum, she thought, he is a lefty. She had never noticed that about him before.

  Yet, even without the gun, he could have managed a small crowd. His strong personality was enough to ensure order for the average person.

  She was not average.

  “Because, Mason, my dear baby brother,” Robert showed his beautiful white teeth with a smile full of mischief, “unlike you, she does come to heel when called.”

  “Shut up, Robert.” Mason and Barbara both spoke in unison, earning Barbara a raised-brow look from both men.

  Barbara took a deep breath before speaking. Regaining her composure, she figured at this point she was going to be late if she did not get a move on. “I have an appointment, Robert. You’re welcome to this pit bull, but heed my advice and just don’t get too close. He has bad breath and he bites.”

  Robert could not help laughing.

  “Well, you would do well to learn to kiss a little…” Mason said as he took a step toward her.

  “Mason, enough! Come on and have a seat. And Barbara?”

  “What!” She snapped.

  “Make sure you eat something and pronto. I recognize the signs.” He looked sternly at her, his look telling her not to
buck his demand.

  She nodded. There was no use in denying it. She was well past hungry and almost to the point of needing glucose.

  “Please, put the phones on service and lock up on your way out. I don’t want to be disturbed,” Robert asked politely.

  “Your other appointment is not coming?” she asked a little surprised.

  “Just a delay,” Robert reassured her. If Mason turned this down, then John and Liam were his back up plan.

  Barbara turned and walked out of the room throwing her parting shot over her shoulder. “Well, Boss, I hope you have a better time with him than I usually do. I’m going for a massage. I feel like I have a pain in my ass that I need to have worked out. Mason, the pleasure was all yours. See you again in six months. Remember, half-way around the world….” She winked as she closed the office door.

  Chapter 3

  Again, Robert laughed. He liked Barbara. She had grit.

  Mason tried to get mental images of her naked on a massage table, but nothing came to mind as he had no idea what she really looked like. He had never really bothered to look past her frumpy clothes and her ridiculous glasses.

  “Seriously, Robert, why do you put up with her? She is disrespectful, sarcastic, and prickly as a porcupine and certainly nothing to look at from my perspective. She has great hair, but even at that, I don’t think she is actually a blonde. The color is all wrong, making her look washed out.” He rounded off his evaluation of Robert’s office assistant.

  “Very astute. She isn’t a blonde. And usually when she eats like she is supposed to she is very enjoyable to be around,” Robert agreed. “It is when she is hungry that she becomes a grouch. Think back, Mason. Usually, you come in at lunchtime and she has pushed it to the brink, just like today.”

  All right, Mason thought. He would keep that back for future reference. “So, she isn’t always a bitch?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Robert said as he gracefully seated himself in the high back executive chair behind a handsome desk of burled maple. He did not move like a man who was well over six-feet-tall. However, he was not as muscled as Chase and Mason, preferring the leaner look that less muscle provided for his tailor. Still, Robert was Brahma-bull strong and had a hard time fighting good genetics. McKinnon men were just large any way one sliced them.

  “You seem to be the only one who has issues with her, Mase. Besides, she is good at what she does,” he said while rolling up his sleeves to his firm forearms, which betrayed the fact he was not opposed to physical labor. He just did not like the gym. One could, however, find him any given weekend on his twelve-thousand-acre ranch south of Fort Worth, Texas.

  “Good points, huh? What would those be exactly?” Mason was interested in spite of his attempt at neutrality.

  Robert saw his little brother through fresh eyes. All the bickering he and Barbara did was nothing more than their way of dealing with an attraction he saw flickering while they were on an assignment earlier in the year. However, Barbara did not like Mason’s wild and reckless lifestyle to say the least, making no bones about it. Also she was in no way or stretch Mason’s type, so Mason had not given her a deeper look. Yet, Robert knew the undercurrent was there and undeniable. It was just neither one understood it for what it was. There was chemical attraction, and it would be interesting to see what would happen if he locked them into a cell together.

  Or maybe not, he corrected himself. The encounter today was mild by some comparisons.

  “You sell her short, Mason. There are a great many things she does very well, actually. She has many hidden talents,” Robert defended her.

  “You have got to be kidding, Robert. Look at her. Have you gotten desperate now? You know what can happen these days with sexual harassment even if the parties are both willing. Besides, you would have to be desperate to do her.”

  Robert was one step short of disgusted. “Will you shut up, and for once, will you please get your head out of the gutter? Believe it or not, Mason, not all men think with their dick.”

  “Hey, I don’t always think with my dick. I have to sleep sometime, you know.” He grinned, popping off, covering up a feeling that he was recognizing more and more of late. It was resentment and anger. Why did everyone think he had no brains? The older he got the more he resented it.

  Robert ignored him. “And Mason, what’s more pertinent to this conversation is I have too much respect for Barbara for such behavior, even if I might have been tempted to see where our relationship could have gone before I married Kate.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Tempting? Her?” He was genuinely surprised to hear Robert say anything remotely like this about her. “How could you possibly tell what she looks like under those frumpy clothes that she always wears and those glasses that make her eyes look like bug eyes?”

  That got Mason to thinking. Were her eyes blue, green, or brown? No, not brown, he decided. Or maybe they were?

  “You might be surprised what you would find under the layers of Barbara Allen,” Robert was very quick to inform him.

  Mason knew Robert was talking about more than her physical appearance.

  “Well, I have no desire to find out by peeling back those onion layers. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I don’t have to rub elbows with her, I’m a much happier man for it.”

  But was he really? There had been a sick sense of anticipation in the possibility of seeing her when Robert called him. That gave him pause.

  “Then you will love your next assignment. Pack your bags. You’re going to Panama.”

  Mason missed the sarcasm.

  “Oh, yeah! Here I come, fun in the sun, sweet women, warm nights, and Sangria on the rocks. When do I leave?” He rubbed his palms together in anticipation. He was already picturing himself on the beach with an umbrella drink in hand and a woman on each side lying topless in the tropical sun.

  “Not even going to ask why or what the mission entails?” Robert asked crooking an eyebrow.

  “Why? We are talking tropics here. Any reason will do to have an excuse for a little fun in the sun and a little scuba diving in the big blue. I’m there, Bro,” Mason grinned.

  Robert shook his head. He loved his brother. There was just no hope for him. “Very well, then you should not have issues with your assignment if ‘any reason will do’.”

  Robert had that gleam in his eye that would have made Mason wary had he not been so absorbed in his memories of the previous trip to a Central American tropical paradise. Their other brother, Chase never would have stumbled into this one, even on his most distracted day, Robert thought.

  Mason had always been more reckless than he or Chase combined, always giving their parents the grayest hairs. He had a habit of diving head-long into things before really thinking them through. Point, shoot, and then take aim had always been Mason’s M.O., and Robert, at times, was actually surprised his baby brother was still alive. So, he surmised, Mason had to have some brains somewhere in that thick head of his because he always got the job done and came back in one piece. There had been some very hair-raising jobs in the past, jobs Mason and Chase both seemed to thrive upon doing.

  “Do you remember the last time we were there those two sweet little señoritas? Mmm, yes! In fact, I think I still have their numbers.”

  Mason reached for his billfold already thinking about the beaches and crystal blue water of the Caribbean on one side and the cold deep blue of the Pacific on the other.

  Robert sighed heavily. “Mason, that was Chase and Tango you were with, not me. And it was Costa Rica, not Panama and there will be none of that this time. You’re a married man.” Robert enjoyed dropping that bit of news on his self-professed bachelor brother. He knew full well what Mason’s reaction was going to be and Mason did not disappoint.

  “What!” Mason stopped mid-motion as he was pulling the billfold out of his pocket.

  “Your cover, Mason. You’re going as a married man.”

  “Damn it, Robert. I’ve never been down tha
t road in real life for a very good reason, and I do not want to go there either, even in never-never land. I’d rather be a drag queen for cover than married. Come on man, have some mercy.” Robert noted Mason was almost laughing to cover a very uncomfortable topic.

  “I will give the assignment to Liam or John if you don’t want to take it, but if you do take it, then you will go as Mr. McKinnon, a married man. You will go and be blissfully happy, that is an order. After all, you will be with Mrs. McKinnon on your honeymoon.”

  “John, maybe, I can see, but Liam? What the hell does Liam know about leading a mission?” Mason was very quick to ask.

  “Nothing, but neither did you the first time out.”

  “Yeah, but Liam?” He scrunched up his face shaking his head at the prospects for disaster with Liam at the helm.

  Mason was wondering if Robert was choosing him just because no one beside Liam was available. Surely not? He had seen Liam in action. He was a good follower, yes. Was Liam solid at your back? Absolutely solid, but strike force leader material? No. Not nearly enough time in the saddle.

  “Christ, Robert, Liam is just a kid.”

  “Pot calling the kettle black don’t you think?” Robert cocked his head.

  Mason snorted. “Let him do five tours in that hotbed of conflict called the Middle East and then we can talk,” he said dryly, stroking his goatee.

  “I concede,” Robert backed off. His kid brother did have a valid point. Mason was no greenhorn when it came to conflict or hotbeds of political and social upheaval.

  Mason paused for a moment, thinking.

  “Will Mrs. McKinnon be putting out?” Mason asked wiggling dark brows above blue eyes and brushing a wayward lock of hair from his forehead. It was a very boyish gesture Robert was sure most women found enduring. Mrs. McKinnon would not. He felt sure.

  He just shook his head at the futility of the situation. “I guess my telling you to keep it professional is a waste of breath.”