Biting Oz: Biting Love, Book 5 (14 page)

“You’re alone,” a baritone snarled
right behind me
.

Shock spun me into a groin shot, knee rising sharply. With my whole body powering it, testicles would have achieved low earth orbit.

A hard palm blocked my thigh, judo-style, tossing me completely around and pitching me toward concrete.

Sausage leaped from my grasp. The box made a beautiful arc before hitting pavement. The smack-crunch of cardboard was loud but I knew the sausage was fine. One good thing about Pop’s
it-vill-be-perfekt
packaging.

I wouldn’t be so lucky.

At the last second, hands netted my arms, yanked me flush to a hot torso. A big, familiar torso, the monster sock puppet nestling into my butt like home, cinching it.

“
Glynn
? What the fu…?”

“I might ask you the same thing. Out at night.
Alone
.” He spun me, hands clenching as if he’d like to shake me. “After being attacked by three monsters only last night. I thought you were with Mishela. What are you doing?”

“I’m—”

“What were you thinking?” His voice crescendoed like “Bolero”. “Abducted by a maniac just tonight. Yet here you are,
alone
. Are you
trying
to drive me mad?” By the end he was practically yelling.

My mouth fell open. Why was he so angry? Could he possibly be worried about me?

Ridiculous. “What do you care? It’s not like you’ve been smothering me all my life or are here to take the job over from my parents.”

Which sounded like I wanted him to. Oh, my foot did not taste good, but I bulled on. “In less than two weeks you’re going back to Iowa. I’ve walked these streets for years. I’ll be walking them after you’re back in the land of corn and…and corn.”

“There’s more to Iowa than corn.” He growled it, but a glint of sapphire humor warmed his eyes.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like trucks. And cows.”

“The universities and international businesses?”

“Those don’t count.” The corner of his mouth quirked. Stunningly handsome lips became downright edible. But I’d be a fool to tell him that.

“Did you know your lips are really yummy?” I slammed a hand over my idiotic mouth.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me.”

“I doubt that. I’ve seen how women look at you.”

“Perhaps it’s not the words, but the one saying them.” He pulled me tight, stroked my head. “
Babi
. I can’t live through seeing you in such danger again. As long as I am here, you will not go unescorted at night.”

“I’m not helpless.” I pushed him away. “I fended off a burglar last year. Side-kicked him on his ass.” A Meiers Corners-style burglar, a teenage kid with midnight munchies and no sausage in the fridge, but Glynn didn’t need to know that. “And I nearly kneed your balls to the moon. I’m not helpless.”

“You’re not.” He considered me with proper seriousness. “But you’re facing a different kind of foe, far stronger and faster than you’re used to. Inhumanly so.”

“Oh, right. Like monsters? Space aliens?” I snatched up my dropped sausage.

“No. Chicago vam…hoods. Big city thugs.”

“Big city automatically makes them worse somehow?” I started across the river. “Meiers Corners folk are narrow-minded because they’re stuck in the echo chamber of small-town tradition and don’t know any better. What’s your excuse?”

He caught up easily with his long legs. “You think big cities are somehow better? I’m to be open-minded simply because I’m more urban?”

“Urban, urbane. They’re related for a reason.”

“A small town can teach people many things, Junior. Things found only in the smaller group, a tight-knit family, a home—”

“Sure, if you want to learn about being an intolerant, tight-knit idiot.”

He made a
tch
of dissent. “Being an idiot isn’t a function of community. There are idiots in small towns and big cities. But there is love in both, too. Acceptance, nurturing.”

“Sure, but a fish grows to the size of its pond. Simple physical fact. Small pond, small fish. Wanna grow, you gotta get into the ocean.”

“That may be true of fish, but not of people. There are big people in small towns, and small people in big ones.”

“I’m not talking good-hearted, I’m talking broad-minded. Name one Meiers Corners resident who thinks outside the box. Just one.”

“Julian Emerson—”

“Was a hotshot Boston attorney before he settled here last year. Boston’s kinda fair-sized.”

He blew a frustrated breath. “Nixie Emerson.”

“Thinks everyone is out to repress anything fun or spontaneous in her—because they are. She doesn’t count, Glynn. She’s our oppressed minority.”

“Oh? What about your parents? They strike me as worldly. They’d have to be, to run a store with imported sausage.”

“Are you joking?” I shook my head. “
Mutti und Vati
are the worst of the lot. So insular they could be used as parka stuffing.”

“‘Insular’ means ‘island’.”

“Fine. Little islands, never seeing beyond the borders of town. Half the town is related and the other half is married to it.”

“Such connection. Such belonging.” Glynn stuffed hands into his pants pockets. “It is a rare gift. You should appreciate it more.”

“Such inward focus. Such limiting ties. Why defend it so hard?”

“No reason.”

“Right.” I stopped to punch him with a good glare. “This is the second time you’ve made an issue of it. We don’t have to talk about it, but don’t lie to me.”

“Fine.” He swept by me, snagging my elbow on the way and tugging me into motion. “I have no mother, no father. Be glad you do.”

“Say
what
?” I grabbed his wrist, tried to yank him to a stop. Like halting a truck. I tried digging in my heels, but he kept going and I pitched off my feet.

With a growl he stopped to catch me, his big strong hands splayed on my… But he’d stopped, so mission accomplished. I dropped sausage (to another crunch) and took his face between my hands. His skin felt like warm satin. I searched his eyes. “You lost your family? When?”

He didn’t say anything. But his eyes twitched away, an answer in itself.

“You
never
knew your parents?”

He turned out of my hands, jammed his deep in his pockets again.

“Oh, Glynn, I’m so sorry.” I caught his biceps, stopping him. Facing him, I wound arms around his waist and hugged him tight.

At first, his body was stiff under mine. I rubbed gentle circles on his spine, let my heat sink in. He softened. His arms came around me in return…and then he was hugging me back, so tightly I thought ribs would crack.

The pain was worth it if it helped him even a little.

We stood in silence, drawing comfort from each other. We might have stood that way for the rest of the night.

“Is that my sausage on the ground,
liebchen
? I do not think the health inspector would look on that favorably.”

Chapter Six

I spun. Behind us, leaning heavily on his broom, was Uncle Otto. Blushing, I stepped out of Glynn’s warm embrace.

Otto’s shaped like a kid’s top, round in the middle with two pointy ends. He’s usually whirling around sweeping. When he’s not, he’s leaning on something, mostly the broom, but sometimes his wife, Aunt Ottowina, who’s built like a tank. I think that, like a top, if Otto wasn’t whirling or leaning, he’d tip over.

I should mention there are three Stieg children—my dad Gunter, Uncle Otto and Aunt Hattie. Only Hattie and Pop produced Stieg grandchildren, one each. It makes family reunions both easy and hard. While other families have to rent a park, we can gather in my parents’ flat. But while other families play volleyball, we’re reduced to lawn darts—far more dangerous because they’re nothing but big spikes with wings, and Aunt Hattie’s aim isn’t so good.

Which, come to think, may have been why Uncle Otto never had kids. Lawn darts and testicles, not a good combo.

“Uncle, what are you doing here?” We’d barely crossed the river. Otto’s B&BS was two blocks south.

“Your father called to say you were coming. Then he called ten minutes later to say why have you not arrived? So I came to check. I do not like you alone on the streets,
liebchen
. It is dangerous.”

“I told her she needs an escort,” Glynn said.

“Because of our dangerous streets. Right.” I rolled my eyes. Main had hookers (part-time) and Grant had abandoned factories (now getting renovated). MC was so squeaky clean, city workers ran around checking home porches for the correct pitch. Not that a saggy old porch wasn’t dangerous. It’s just, where did the whole city get that kind of energy?

“Now,
liebchen
. You should listen to your young man.” Otto tapped me on the forehead to get my attention. “He shows good sense.”

I puffed in consternation. “And I don’t? I’m shocked I’ve made it this long, traipsing around
alone
since I was
six
.”

“That was before the trouble in November,” Glynn said. “Now you need an escort.”

Otto nodded. “Listen to your young man.”

Second time, I couldn’t let that pass. Habits in the Corners were deadly. If you didn’t immediately dig them out, they’d take root, like a tree finding a nice juicy sewer line. “Uncle. Glynn is
not
my young ma—”

“It’s about time you were settling down.”

See? “We’re
not
settling dow—”

Glynn’s expression stopped me, a gut-jarring combination of sad and wistful.

Well, hell. After hearing he was an orphan, I couldn’t quash that hope, even in fantasy.

But maybe I could derail things a little. “Glynn’s leaving after the show’s over. He lives in Iowa.”

“He does not sound like an Iowa boy.” Otto, instead of calling me directly on it, started sweeping, a sort of nonverbal accusation. The fact that he was sweeping sidewalk apparently didn’t bother him. “He sounds Welsh.”

Glynn said, “You have a good ear, Mr. Stieg. I spent my childhood in Wales. I still make my home there several months out of the year.”

I blinked. “But I thought—”

“Mr. Elias is my employer. I’m based there but don’t live with him.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t ask.”

I winced. A very basic, simple question I hadn’t asked because I didn’t wanted to get any closer to this gorgeous, blue-eyed Welshman. Because I had a duty and dreams that needed protecting.

But protecting dreams didn’t mean being an ass. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“
Gut
,
gut
, you are reconciled. Now for the making-up sex,
ja
?”

My jaw cracked pavement.

“I’ll get Junior home safely,” Glynn said.

“
Wunderbar
, wonderful.” Uncle Otto whirled merrily. “I’ll be off with my sausage,
liebchen,
and you’ll be off with your young man.
Auf Wiedersehen
!”

“Uncle Otto! Glynn’s
not
my young—”

Glynn put his hand on my shoulder. His big, warm hand. Damn, the man’s blood was hot. I wondered what all that blood would feel like inflating his big hot—yeah.

Otto’s round form whizzed down the street on its pointy feet like a top. Or maybe a tornado, cuz I sure felt like I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why? It’s only the truth. I will get you home safely.”

“Not that. The young man thing. Otto’s twirling home to call Pop, who’ll tell Mom, who’ll brag to Dolly Barton, and then everyone in town will think you’re my boyfriend.” When he stared at me blankly, I added, “Significant other. Suitor. Steady Eddy. Relationship partner. You know. Boyfriend.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” The wistful look was back.

“You don’t understand things here.” I started west. “Once we’re hooked up, it’s forever, get it? All over but the shotgun and wedding cake.”

Glynn fell in beside me with a comfortable glide. “You don’t want wedding cake?”

“It’s not…look. I don’t want the wedding.”

He stared at me like I’d announced I was doing a remake of
The Room
.

“I can’t start a new family. I already have a family and family obligations.”

He gave me a strange look. “I thought you hated family. That you felt home was a cage.”

“No. I love my parents and I’m happy to do my daughterly duty. But I also have dreams. I’m trying to make them both work. It’s not easy.” Crossing the river, I stopped. “Adding another family would make it impossible.”

Glynn stood there, watching me with that strange look on his face.

I leaned on the bridge, facing the cop shop. “Speaking of smothering family, why are you here instead of doing your hovering routine on Mishela?”

“She’s safe at our rooms.”

“Oh. Good.” I cleared my throat. Time to sell our idea. “We talked after you left about the attacks. We’re wondering who the real target is, since both Dumas and I were attacked.” Which reminded me. Elena knew about last night, but she didn’t know about tonight. I started south, toward the police station. “Mishela and I came up with a plan.”