Sparring Partners (8 page)

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 as 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.