Page 32 of Burn Bag (Owens Protective Services #31)

DAPHNE

I tripped over another cat, yelping when I nearly squashed him on the way to answer the door.

Even I had to admit that we had just a few too many cats.

It had never been my intention to walk away with this many cats, or even keep them all.

In my mind, they would all get a good home, but finding them was a different situation.

The doorbell rang again and I jumped over a cat, sliding to the door in my socks. “Coming!”

I yanked the door open, blowing my hair out of my face just as Fox pushed through the door. “Um…”

“Yes! This is what I’m talking about!”

I looked around, wondering what on earth he could mean. “What is?”

“This!” He spread his arms wide, grinning as he turned to me. “The cat haven.”

“Oh, we’re not?—”

“I applaud you, madam, for saving these wonderful creatures. You have no idea how much use they’ll be.”

“Use for…”

“Our cat army. ”

He grinned again, but I was lost. “A cat army that does what exactly?”

Scoffing, he rolled his eyes at me. “Why, becoming international spies, of course!”

“Of course,” I nodded, not really sure what he was talking about. “And you would use them to…”

“Infiltrate the enemy.” He scooped one of the cats off the floor and held it to his face.

The cat hissed, swiping at him and nearly taking out an eye.

“Feisty little guys. They’re exactly what we need.

Now, all we need is a cat sanctuary, training center, and a massive amount of treats, and we’ll be good. ”

“Treats for…”

I felt like I had to pull every single thought out of this man’s head. It was infuriating.

“For the cats. To train them. To reward them for their excellent service.”

“And this sanctuary, it would be on the property?”

He burst out laughing, actually wiping his eyes as he laughed at me. I didn’t get what was so funny, but I was beginning to realize it didn’t really matter with this man.

“Of course it would be on the property!”

“Okay, and the training center?”

“It’ll take some time to build,” he said thoughtfully.

“I hate to tell you this, but I know nothing about training cats.”

His eyes widened and he rushed toward me, gripping my hands. “I’m such an ass. I completely forgot!”

“About—” I yelped as he tugged hard, dragging me to the door.

“How could I be so stupid? With everyone else, it’s always the first thing on my mind, but I got distracted by the cat idea. It was brilliant, by the way.”

“Uh…thank you?”

He glanced over his shoulder as he pulled me down the stairs, laughing heartily. “I mean, you did bring the cats, but no, I was complimenting my own mad out-of-the-box thinking.” He tapped the side of his head as he opened the truck door and all but hauled me inside. “That was all me.”

He slammed the door and walked around the truck while I sat there dumbfounded.

I was sitting in his truck in what looked like something out of the eighties.

Most of my hair was wrapped up on top of my head with pieces in the front falling in my face.

I had workout pants on with bright-colored, thick socks tugged up over them.

And my shirt was baggy, hanging off one shoulder.

Seriously, this was not a look for the average woman.

But there was no way to fix it, wherever we were going. I would just have to hope he didn’t take me out in public.

“You’ll have to pardon me for being so thoughtless,” he smiled, glancing over at me. “In fact, I dare say Anna would slap me upside the head if she thought I excluded you.”

“And Anna is?—”

“My darling, loving wife.”

“And she approves of you kidnapping women,” I stated.

He barked out a laugh, shaking his head at me as we quickly swung around the property to the main building. “Oh no, there’s only one woman I’m allowed to kidnap, and that’s her. It’s a thing.”

To kidnap his wife. How was that a thing? I was seriously beginning to question my snap decision to come out here and marry a man I had never met. I had no clue I would basically be attaching myself to all these other people in the process. Maybe Emily had been right to run away at the last minute.

“Here we go!” Fox said, shifting into park.

“Now, there are a few things we need to go over before we begin. One, you must listen to me if you want to succeed. Two, under no circumstances are you to share your throwing knives with anyone. That’s how you end up in jail.

Four, in order for the process to work, you have to believe you can hit the target.

And last, you should always have a snack on hand. ”

He reached into the back seat and pulled out a large yellow bag, grinning widely at me. “Funyuns are a great way to get the day started. ”

“Um…okay?” I started to reach for the bag, but he snatched it away from me with a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought…you said I should always have a snack.”

He huffed out a laugh, “Your own. This is mine. I don’t share.”

Thank God, because the thought of eating Funyuns was not at all appealing. “Okay, then.”

“Let’s vamoose! We have things to do and musicals to watch!”

The door slammed as he jumped out, but I was even more confused now than I was before. “Wait!” I shouted, getting out and rushing to catch up to him. “I thought we were?—”

He spun around, and I stumbled, halting in my tracks immediately. “What was rule number one?”

“Um…always listen to you?”

“Precisely. How can you possibly understand how to throw knives accurately if you don’t watch a musical?”

I felt like this was some kind of trick question, but before I could answer, he strode forward and led me inside. “Great, Daphne. Seriously, let’s follow the crazy man inside to watch musicals and learn to throw knives,” I muttered to myself.

But I went anyway. I had always been incapable of telling people no when I thought I might offend them, and this seemed like one of those times. We wandered through the labyrinth of hallways below ground until we came to a room that had a massive bed and a huge TV on the wall. It was amazing.

“Take a seat, my lady.”

“On the bed?”

Again, he burst out laughing. “Of course, on the bed! You can’t watch fun movies in discomfort! Ooh, but before you do, you’ll need some snacks. I already told you Funyuns were off limits, but there are some other snacks in the mini fridge.”

When I didn’t immediately move, he motioned me over to the corner of the room.

I went along with it because, why not? But when I opened the door, I wished I hadn’t.

There were some curiously odd-looking jars in the fridge, none of which at all appealed to me or made me want to ask what was inside.

There wasn’t even a Diet Coke in sight. Just some really weird bottles of what looked like homemade shakes.

“Uh…you know, I think I’m good,” I said, shutting the door and turning back to him.

Sighing, he nodded. “Alright, just this once, I’ll share with you, but that’s only because you’re new to this place.” He motioned me over to a cabinet and opened it, carefully pulling out another bag of Funyuns.

“Oh, I don’t think?—”

“Trust me,” he said, shoving it against my chest. “Just one and you won’t be able to stop.”

He shoved a bag in my face, then his brows pinched and he pulled out a second, and then a third. “Just to be on the safe side.”

I carried the bags over to the bed, sitting down on the edge and placing the bags between us. This had to be the weirdest day I’d ever had, and that was saying something, considering what I had done in recent weeks.

“What are we watching?” I asked as I got comfortable.

Fox was flipping through the channels, bouncing slightly as he searched a catalog on the TV of only musicals. Didn’t the man watch anything else?

“Normally, I introduce women to The Phantom Of The Opera or Oklahoma first, but I have a feeling we need to go another route. How do you feel about Fred Astaire?”

“Who?”

He sighed heavily. “It’s just as I thought. We have a lot of work to do. I’m not sure we’ll even get to our lesson today. Hold on, kitten. You’re in for a world of magic and singing.”

I was exhausted. Thoroughly and utterly, mind-numbingly tired. But my body felt amazing. If it wasn’t for the naps I took while watching hours and hours of musicals today, I never would have been prepared for the sheer exhaustion of throwing knives well into the night .

“Alright, now, adjust your grip just a smidge.”

I did as he asked, keeping my eyes on the target.

“Now, remember that number Fred did with Ginger where he jumped over the fence?”

Honestly? Not at all, but I nodded anyway.

“That’s what I want you to think about when you throw this knife.”

I didn’t understand that at all, but I focused on the target and let the knife fly through the air. I sighed in disappointment when I missed yet again.

“It’s like you weren’t paying attention at all to the musicals,” Fox sighed.

I didn’t dare tell him that I had fallen asleep during every single movie he forced me to watch. There were only so many hours of black and white movies I could stand. But luckily, every time I woke up, he was so enthralled in the movie that he didn’t notice me snoozing.

I glanced to the right and flushed at the audience watching us.

A line of hot men leaned against the wall, all of them chatting as they watched the process.

I tried to remember all their names, but there were just too many of them.

I had to give them names in my head so I could keep them straight.

Hollywood, he was the one who kept combing back his hair.

And then there was Denzel…one of my favorite actors.

The man who looked like Superman, Bruce Willis, the angry redneck, the Terminator, the sexy cowboy, and…

well, Dash. I remembered his name easily enough.

“You’re not concentrating,” Fox grunted. “When you’re practicing, you need to be in the zone. What has you so distracted?”