Page 22 of Guarding Grace (Hawk Security #2)

Lucas shot out of the car and ran to me. “Who are you?” he bellowed at my captive.

Neck Tat only whimpered.

“Who do you work for?” Lucas demanded.

Nothing but another groan.

Lucas patted me on the shoulder. “I can see Pete taught you well. You hold that weapon like a pro. Don’t hesitate to shoot him if he moves.”

Neck Tat froze, without even a whimper.

The compliment made me smile. My two-handed shooter’s grip had become habit from the times Pete had taken me to the range.

He moved behind me to the second man. “Who hired you?”

“If I say, they kill me.” True fear gave the man a trembling voice on top of his Asian accent.

“I hate cowards who shoot at women, so I might put you with your friend over there and flip a coin to see which one of you gets to live.”

Several seconds of silence followed.

“Or, better yet, I think I’ll introduce you to my Australian spider collection. They say that if one of those bites you, the pain is so intense you wish you were dead.”

His words made me cringe, but neither of the men said anything. Sirens sounded in the distance.

“Winston, give Terry your keys and we’ll take these two to our guest quarters,” Lucas commanded. “Terry, get Grace out of here, now.”

A moment later, Terry took my hand and led me the long way around the wrecked car to Winston’s Porsche, shielding me from viewing the driver.

My pulse was still tripping a million beats a minute as we started off at a normal speed, which seemed so slow after that breakneck chase. My hand trembled uncontrollably.

“Are you okay?” Terry asked, a block away from the crash scene.

I nodded and put my hand under my thigh to hide the tremors. “Yeah, I guess,” I said after a moment when I got myself settled enough to talk. “I’m scared,” I admitted.

“Grace,” he said, placing his large hand on my thigh, “you can count on me. I will always do anything and everything to keep you safe. I promise you that.”

I nodded, feeling ashamed of my behavior with the gun. I thought it was good to help, but he didn’t agree. Hell, I knew what I was doing with a gun. Pete had seen to that .

Now I could see our arguments in different light.

He’d been doing everything he’d just promised—telling me what was the safest path forward and insisting on it in his dictatorial manner.

His approach lacked subtlety, but his words, “ anything and everything to keep you safe ,” summarized it all—he cared.

He squeezed my thigh in a reassuring way.

I added my other hand to hold his. I didn’t want to let go of this big, strong, grumpy, annoying, opinionated, caring, overprotective man.

“No more heroics. You’re doing exactly what I say,” he continued. “I’m done with your bitching. It doesn’t matter how much you complain. I’ll drag you by the fucking hair if I have to.” There it was again, the same old sensitive, considerate, soft-spoken Terry.

I laughed. “Oh my, Rambo, you say the sweetest things.” The big lug didn’t know a different way to say he cared.

He tried to pull his hand away, but I didn’t let him. Unwilling to admit just how scared I was after the conversation about the Albanians and being shot at, I held onto my rock, my anchor, my protector.

With every squeeze of his hand, I regretted more and more my earlier reaction to his protectiveness. How much of the angry and argumentative dynamic that we’d fallen into over the years had been my fault? Seemed like maybe a lot.

I looked at Terry in profile for the longest time. I’d always been attracted to the sexy man, but put off by his character. Why did it take being beaten up, almost kidnapped, Tasered, and shot at to see the admirable man beneath the gruff demeanor?

“What?” he demanded.

“Nothing. I’m just trying to see behind the mask to the nice guy underneath.”

He puffed out a breath and shook his head. “Maybe I need to take you back to the ER for another CAT scan. You, of all people, should know there’s nothing nice about me and never has been.”

There it was again, the attempt to push me away. What was it he’d said earlier? He’d never disliked me.

The man who’d vowed to protect me no matter what, didn’t hate me the way I’d always thought. So why had he always gone out of his way to anger me?

He slowed the car. We’d reached Marina del Rey. “I’m going to need my hand back to park.”

“Of course.” I released my grip, feeling a bit self-conscious.

We were in front of an Ironman Fitness. He reached for the sun visor, pressed a clicker, and a garage door next to the gym opened .

“I’ve always known you worked out, but I never imagined you lived in a gym,” I joked.

“Not in, above,” he clarified. “Lucas owns the building. He sold me a ten-percent interest, and with that I get the apartment.”

He pulled into the garage, parking alongside an old Mustang with its hood up and a huge motorcycle. Not being a gearhead, I couldn’t tell much more than that. The door closed behind us, and the noise of the street receded. He led me upstairs where he opened a fancy electronic lock with a palm scan.

His home wowed me. It was light and spacious.

No, spacious didn’t do it justice. It was huge, with a view of the boat harbor and even a terrace.

“This is gorgeous. How can you possibly call this sublime space an apartment? It’s larger than a lot of homes in this town.

” It was no bungalow. This much space in Marina del Rey spelled money.

My entire unit would have fit in the kitchen off to one side. With simple furniture of black leather and oak, a monster television, and a minimalist feel, it screamed a man lives here .

He shrugged. “You only asked that it have hot water, and it does.”

I shook my head, feeling a bit in awe. “This place is a sweet deal.”

“Lucas wouldn’t let me say no to this.”

“Does he own the gym as well?”

“No.” He shook his head and walked toward the window. “The space is rented.”

I followed him to the window, admiring his fine ass the whole way.

When he stopped, I took in the harbor. This kind of view encouraged you to contemplate things.

While he’d gone overboard in the protectiveness department, Terry was a good man.

He didn’t deserve the hassle I’d given him.

One of us had to take the initiative and break the cycle of arguing.

As we silently admired the view together, I decided to take a chance. Wrapping my arms around him from behind, I leaned my face against his muscular back. “I’m sorry about arguing earlier and not following your advice.”

“Orders,” he corrected. He pulled my arms apart and walked out of my embrace. “Forget it. I told you I admire your passion.”

“Thank you… I think.” I bit my tongue and didn’t tell him off about assuming he could order me around.

We’d gone from the best kiss of my life to arguing, and now to him walking away because I couldn’t control my temper or my actions.

I was even willing to admit it was my fault because I’d kept pushing his buttons , as Peyton put it, and wanting to shoot back.

How could I blame the man who’d saved my life, who’d taken on armed criminals to protect me without accepting some of the blame myself?

As he walked away, the room suddenly turned cold, and I felt empty.

Terry

I extricated myself from the woman I wanted, but couldn’t have. Dammit, I wished Pete was here so I could resolve this with him.

She followed me. “Terry, why won’t you talk to me?”

I needed to keep my distance from her. It had been a mistake earlier to forget that she was, before all else, Pete’s little sister. It had taken Lucas’s mention that Omega had a location on Pete to remind me.

With a huff, I pulled open the refrigerator. “See? I’ve got apples, chicken, green onions, all kinds of things that qualify as real food.” I was perfectly adept at being cold, as I’d proven for years.

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did. You even doubted I had hot water.”

She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at me. “I said I’m sorry. What more do you want from me?”

“Nothing.” I opened the door wider. “What would you like for dinner, Hellcat?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“That’s not an answer. What would you like for dinner?”

She threw up her hands, turned, and walked away. “I don’t care about dinner. Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Octopus stew? Monkey brains? Chocolate-covered termites?”

“Very funny.” With a dramatic sigh, she returned to the kitchen. “I’ll settle for oatmeal. Do you have any?”

As expected, she was easy to anger. “Check the pantry.” Like a pervert, I ogled her ass as she leaned over to view a lower shelf. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t help but lust after the one woman in the world who was off-limits to me.

“Who doesn’t have oatmeal?” She looked like she was about to lose it.

With all that she’d been through, I couldn’t keep this up. “Okay, you want to talk? Let’s talk.” Mentally I crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t see through me. “I almost lost you out there.”

“I—”

I waved my arm and felt my face going red as I raised my voice. “What the hell were you thinking? It’s not a goddamned movie where you hang out a window and shoot bad guys without them shooting back.”

“I was helping,” she argued with a hand on her hip. “And I know how to shoot.”

“That’s not the point. You put yourself in danger by not doing what I said.”

She squinted at me. “We’ve been through this already. I’ll follow your suggestions?—”

“Orders,” I corrected. “These are non-negotiable. We can only get through this if you do what I say. If we operate as a team.”

She walked forward, and before I knew it, she had her arms around me and her head against my chest. “Fine. Orders. Can we drop it now?”

Knowing I should never have started this conversation, I pushed her away to keep myself from giving in to her warmth. “Oatmeal doesn’t work for me.”

“You’re evading. What’s really going on?”

“I said you have to follow my instructions. It’s important.”

She nodded. “I heard you. But?—”

“Good. We can do chicken marsala, if you’re willing to help.”

“You’re not going to avoid this forever.” She shook her head in obvious frustration and opened the freezer compartment. “I don’t see it.”

It might not be forever, but I needed time to figure out how to deal with her. “I mean from scratch.”

“You can cook that?” Surprise laced her voice.

“You think all I can cook is chili straight out of a can, or maybe microwave a pizza?”

She closed the freezer. “I’ve never cooked that before—chicken marsala, I mean, not the pizza.”

“Don’t knock pizza. It has all the major food groups.”

She half-heartedly opened the fridge. “Where’s the beer?”

“Chicken marsala is the offer. Would you like it or not?”

“Sure.”

“You need to help then.”

She moved things around on the fridge shelf. “I don’t see any beer in here.”

“There’s a bottle of Chardonnay in the door.”

“A wine drinker and you cook? You surprise me, Mr. Goodwin.” She rummaged around in the drawers next to the fridge. “I thought all you tough guys only drank beer.”

“And scratched our crotches and opened the bottle caps with our teeth?” I suggested .

“I was going to say farted.” She laughed.

“Insult me all you like. The corkscrew is one more drawer to the left.” I joined her and pulled chicken from the fridge, followed by mushrooms and an onion.

“I don’t hate you,” she said. She uncorked the wine and poured two glasses, offering one to me. “Can we cook without fighting? Pretty please?”

I nodded.

She raised her glass. “To being friends.”

I didn’t have it in me to say no, so I clinked my glass to hers. “Friends.” I sipped. It was lovers I had to avoid.

“Put me to work, chef. I’d love to cook chicken marsala with you.”

The pendulum had swung to teamwork, and I liked it. “First, we need a gallon-sized plastic bag and cassava flour. It’s in the pantry.”

“Cassava?”

“I make it gluten-free.” I trimmed the chicken and pounded the pieces thin on the cutting board one at a time. Then she shook them in the plastic bag, coating them in the flour and spices.

“We’ll need two-thirds of a cup of chicken broth—there’s concentrate in the door of the fridge—and the same amount of yogurt and marsala wine.”

She cocked her head. “I thought it was made with a cream sauce?”

As she turned away, I caught that profile view that always turned me on. “I don’t have cream, and yogurt is healthier.”

“I didn’t picture you as a health nut.”

That was only one of a long list of things she didn’t know about me.

I got my head back in the game in front of the stove. After adjusting the temperature and adding oil to the pan, I turned from the stove. “What’s wrong with eating healthy?”

She worried her bottom lip. “Nothing. You’ve been in my life a long time, but I guess it shows how little I really know about you.”

I shrugged as I added the first pieces of chicken to the pan and slid the splatter shield into place. Sharing personal things with her was counterproductive to my goal of keeping distance between us.

While I seared the meat in the pan, she sliced the mushrooms, onion, and garlic.

After I’d flipped the meat to brown on the other side, she slid up behind me. “What’s next?” Her tit rubbed seductively against my arm as she leaned in to check the pan.

I shifted away from the temptation of contact with her. “When the meat finishes, we’ll put it aside and sauté the dry ingredients before adding the broth, wine, yogurt, and chicken.”

She added a hand on my hip. “How long does it need to simmer?”

I removed her hand. “Long enough to reduce a little.”

She pulled away to clean up the island. “When is Zane coming over?”

“He’s not. Why?”

“You don’t seem to want to have me around.”

I held back my growl at the idea of Zane here with us. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I thought we were cooking.”

My phone rang before she could react to that.

“What’s up, Zane?” I answered.

“We have a problem.”

I backed away from the stove. “Which is?”

“They had the apartment staked out all right, including some bozo in her hallway.”

“So you couldn’t go in?” I guessed.

“No. I got the clothes and things?—”

“You shouldn’t have. Now they’ve made you.” That was a stupid move.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Terry, where are the plates?” Grace asked.

“Cupboard on the far left,” I responded.

“Playing house now?” Zane asked.

“Eating in is the safe alternative.” Fuck you.

He knew I was right and didn’t argue. “I took the whole load back to the office instead of bringing it to you. They already know Hawk is involved, so no harm, no foul. I’ll bring the stuff over after they get tired of watching our building.”

“Okay, see ya then.”

When I hung up, Grace was at the stove sautéing the mushrooms, onions, and garlic. “When’s he coming over?”

“Not for a while. They were watching your place, and they followed him, so it’s not safe for him to bring your things here yet.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Just great.”