Page 3 of Frankie and the Fed (Untamed Rascals #3)

M y pain in the ass neighbor stood in his yard, staring at me as we left for work the next morning. I pulled out my pepper spray and waved it at him. He at least had the good sense to back up a step when I did.

“What was that about?” Lily asked as we buckled in.

“Just taking care of a pain in my ass.” I zipped my bag and tossed it in the back before starting the car.

“What did you do?”

“Why do you assume I did something?”I backed out of the driveway faster than strictly necessary, hoping that the idiot would be standing in just the wrong place. My bumper would survive.

“Frankie.” She turned to me, and I didn’t like the look on her face, like I was a child who needed scolding.

“Seriously, nothing. I just had his car towed. In my defense, he blocked the driveway. When he confronted me, I pepper sprayed him.” I drove slower down the street, trying to act like a human and not an over-caffeinated raccoon.

“Well, he sounds like a dick. Just don’t get hurt.” My shoulders relaxed at the validation I didn’t even realize I needed.

“Didn’t you see his face? He was afraid of me.” I smiled at her, more teeth and feral ferocity than happiness.

“You know what his face looked like is meaningless to me. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” She patted my arm quickly before pulling away and looking at her phone, no doubt texting Duke.

“I promise I won’t.”

Thankfully, she dropped it. I was eager to get to work today and poke around to find out exactly what happened last night, who that woman was, and why Tom was lying about a shipment.

I was inundated with emails all morning about a paper I’d been working on. Unfortunately, my co-author was ancient and could kick the bucket any time, so I couldn’t put off responding to those.

By the time I’d finished that, the entire morning was gone, and I didn’t have time for any investigating. It was lab time, and I was on intern training duty.

“We catalogue new fossils here,” I explained to Shelby, the newest intern.

I always took it upon myself to teach interns the right way to do things before someone could come along with the actual rules.

I looked up to make sure she was following along and caught a glimpse of the tour coming our way .

This museum was cool for many reasons, but having a lab as one of the exhibits was one of my favorites. Almost every weekday, tour groups full of kids came by and pressed their faces to the glass for a look into the daily work of a paleontologist. Well, the cool parts, at least.

Today’s group was led by someone new.

There was something in the way she moved that grabbed my attention and set off alarms in my head.

Something practiced and almost, but not quite, predatory.

No, that wasn’t right. It was bland, but too bland, too nondescript, like that predator lived just beneath the surface, ready to emerge and prowl, slash, feast.

She moved like she had to learn to blend in rather than coming to it naturally.

I couldn’t help but compare her to the memory of the woman from the other night—examining everything from the set of her shoulders and angle of her jaw to the way looked behind her as she walked, leading the group through the museum.

The timing was too coincidental. It set my teeth on edge and made me instantly suspicious.

She prowled the other side of the long room, guiding her group from exhibit to exhibit, her ponytail bouncing rhythmically, a perfect blonde cadence with every step—the beat so steady it could be a metronome. No one walked like that, the perfect timing, each step precisely spaced—

“Earth to Dr. Woolbridge,” Shelby said as she waved her hand in front of my face.

“Sorry, distracted.” I turned to her and prayed she didn’t notice I’d been staring at the tour group.

Shelby looked at tour guide, or rather right past her, trying to see what had distracted me. It always baffled me how clueless people were. They only ever saw what they expected to see and never what was clear as day in front of them.

I chugged the rest of my energy drink, crushed the can, and tossed it in the nearby recycling can.

Turning back to Shelby, I tried to instruct her on the right way to catalog new specimens and then had her do a few practice rounds.

I swear, interns knew less and less every year. I might stop taking them under my wing, let them figure shit out on their own.

Except Lily worked hard to keep the museum archival records in pristine order, and Tom would weasel his way in if they slipped, even if she wasn’t at fault.

He didn’t know the first thing about paleontology, but he could smell vulnerability.

It would be a fucking mess, and I would have to clean it up.

Shelby did what I asked, and I refocused on the new guide. Each stop on the tour brought her closer to our lab.

If the windows weren’t soundproof, I would be able to hear her now—hear the exact cadence of her voice as she entertained the group, and she was entertaining them. She held everyone’s attention. Every eye stayed trained on her as she spoke animatedly about each exhibit they passed.

Too perfect.

Jamie, her name tag said, now close enough to read.

The pen I held in a death grip groaned as I watched her prepare her group for our exhibit.

“Time for a show,” I said to Shelby as Jamie stopped at the exhibit just before our lab.

I grabbed my white coat and the silly dinosaur glasses that matched the dark green of today’s wig. Sweat beaded my brow, and I fumbled when I heard her voice for the first time, deep and resonant, and for just a moment I forgot to breathe.

Shit, get it together . I tried to focus. Was that the same angular jaw I saw last night? Did the woman in the shadows walk with such precision?

She smiled serenely at me when she approached the window that separated the lab from the museum floor. A crooked incisor made her smile charming and only added to the harsh beauty of her. I didn’t trust charm. Especially not when it came with perfection.

I couldn’t think straight.

My part came around, and it took everything in me to focus on the kids. I listened to her voice as it filtered into the lab, trying to remember my parts.

It should have been the other way around. She was the new tour guide. She was supposed to be the one fumbling. Instead, her musical voice perfectly delivered her lines and entertained the guests.

I couldn’t help imagining what the voice would sound like if she sang in those vibrant, rich tones. Heat pulsed through me, but I shut it down.

No, I could not be turned on by her. Not if she really was the woman in the shadows last night.

It ended too soon, leaving me more frustrated than ever.

“Eyes on your work,” I snapped at Shelby when Jamie led the group away. She’d been making moon eyes at Jamie for the entire time the tour group was here, eyeing her long, toned legs in the stupid khaki uniform shorts that never looked good on anyone—ever. Including now.

Stupid fucking—

The pen I held snapped .

I needed to let off some steam.

“I’ll be back,” I said to Shelby before abandoning her to the work I should have been doing with her.

I locked myself in my office, leaned against the door, and counted to ten. There was absolutely no reason why this woman should be under my skin. We’d never even had a conversation, and she was suspicious as hell. I’d been with women hotter than her on a regular basis.

Semi-regular basis.

Not never.

Whatever.

I should be able to think of her in totally normal terms, but for whatever reason, she stuck in my brain.

It was her pristine, almost bland nature. No one is that fucking… perfect.

I pushed off the door and pulled my personal computer from my bag. I had some research to do.

Even her name seemed fake. Jamie Smith. That couldn’t possibly be real. I plugged it into some social media sites and produced so many results that it was impossible to weed through them.

Naturally.

Hidden in plain sight. Exactly what I would do if I were up to no good.

I needed a picture of her to run through an image search. Unfortunately, she was new and had an insignificant role in the museum, so there wasn’t a picture of her in the employee directory.

I scrubbed my face, frustrated at the dead end.

A heavy fist pounded on the door one second before the handle jiggled. Thankfully, I had a lock installed on it not long after I took over this office .

That knock was disgustingly familiar.

I sighed before slipping my personal computer back into my bag, opening my work computer to whatever I had been working on last, and answering the door to Tom Halverson, Museum Director and general pain in the ass.

“How do you have a lock? Why lock it at all?” He asked without preamble.

“I have an entire wing with my name on it. Do you really need an explanation?” I liked to rub that in as much as I could with him.

I hated it otherwise. It was just a pathetic attempt by my parents to support me after spending my entire childhood telling me I had to follow only one path in life.

“What can I do for you?” I asked when Tom turned red instead of answering.

“That friend of yours is going to get herself fired if you don’t get her in line,” he said as he loomed over me, and I wished I could handle him as easily as I handled my neighbor. Alas, both the proximity of the office and his position at the museum made that a bad idea.

“What did you do now? Lie to her about the robot again?” I folded my arms and leaned against the door frame. The closest approximation of a power pose that I could manage, considering how much shorter I was than him.

“Get her in line,” he threatened, his face flushing a blotchy red, whether because I called him on the robot or simply because he was an angry man, I couldn’t tell.

I grabbed the finger he waved in my face and pushed it away.

“Get out of my face before I report you to HR for harassment. ”

“What harassment?” He stepped back, though, as if that would change the previous proximity and threatening tone.

I didn’t respond. He didn’t deserve any more of my time. I closed my office behind me, making sure to lock it as I did and pushed past him.

It took him too long to move out of my way, and I barely suppressed the desire to stomp on his foot just to get him to move.

I hunted down Lily and found her hunched over her desk, the soup she brought for lunch uneaten and congealed into a mass beside her.

“The day is over,” I said without even knocking first. I should have. She jumped sky high at my words.

I was too keyed up from Tom, the new tour guide, the mysterious delivery, the connection between them all…

and maybe the three energy drinks I’ve downed today.

Not that I would admit that part out loud, both the number and the effect.

Lily probably wouldn’t give me an ‘I told you so,’ but I didn’t want to risk it.

“Shit.” She grabbed her chest and stared at me all doe eyed. “Already?” She looked at her phone and seemed to come back to the real world.

“Yes, already. Let’s go.” I threw her old soup in the trash and grabbed her bag, shoving it at her to make it harder for her to fight me on this.

“Oh shit. Right. I’m glad you interrupted me. It’s the first full moon of fall, and Grace wants to have a coven meeting,” she said as she stood up and shoved her phone in her purse. “I don’t want to miss that.”

We passed the employee lounge on our way out. Tom’s booming voice carried into the hall. He sat talking to the new tour guide, and she seemed a little too friendly with him. My stomach churned at the thought. No one willingly chatted with Tom.

Unless, of course, she was the woman I saw last night, and she was in on whatever Tom was hiding in that crate of purses.

“Coven?” I asked Lily to distract myself.

“Remember? Grace and Jessica thought it would be fun to start a coven. I’ve been meeting with them for a month now.” She said all this like we had had this conversation multiple times. Who knows? Maybe we have.

“Oh, right. I’ll drop you off and grab some coffee while I’m there.”

“You know you’re invited, right? Also, isn’t it a bit late for coffee? I’m really worried about you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” I brushed her concerns aside and opened the heavy door leading us out into the damp parking lot.

I didn’t tell her that coffee was necessary to keep me grounded, that without the buzz of caffeine running through my veins, I felt like I would float away and be lost in the atmosphere without anything to tie me to this earth.

It was a lonely, empty sensation that made me feel too big and too small all at once.

I sighed and pulled out of the museum parking lot.

“I will always worry about you,” Lily said softly. I must not have hidden my emotions very well. “You know, you don’t have to join the coven or do witchcraft, but we will have cookies and cider and chat. It’s always a great time.”

I would be a fool to ignore the olive branch she offered me. The last attempt I made at hanging out with Duke’s friends had gone about as poorly as I was sure any future attempts would go.

I should fit in, but nothing felt quite right, like I didn’t truly belong. I was always the roommate, the ride, the third wheel, and never just the friend.

Of course, if Lily could step outside our house and try to be social, maybe I could, too.

“I won’t promise anything, but I do like Grace’s cookies,” I said eventually. “It’s your stupid doe eyes. I never could say no to them.”

“Perfect,” she said as she grabbed my arm. The car swerved just a little when I didn’t let go of the wheel soon enough.

“What time is it? Do we have time to stop at home and change first?”

“Oh, yeah. It won’t start until Grace closes the bakery for the night.”