Through the flap torn in the seat of Grayson Jennings’ pants, Mickie watched the flex and release of his muscular thigh as he walked out of the alley. After he disappeared around the corner, she let out her breath, which carried her thoughts out too.
“Santa Madre, that is one sexy man.”
Tall, smart, handsome, snarky, protective—well-dressed and well-groomed, with an extra dose of machismo. The only missing check was that he was not Italian, which would only be a problem for her mother.
What in the hell are you thinking about that for, Mickie? He will never meet your mother, because he is your boss, not your boyfriend. The mob is after you, and the only thing that stands between you and them is this man at the moment. Focus!
Mickie walked to the corner of the alley and peeped around the edge to see he wasn’t on the sidewalk, which meant he must be inside the pawn shop. She flattened her back against the dirty brick wall to wait for him to come back.
She had no idea why Grayson Jennings was trying to help or protect her, any more than Lou Ellen had wanted to do the same. He could save himself by running back to the office, but instead he was inside that pawn shop buying a pistol to protect her. That would be a lot more effective than her purse if the goombas came back.
Chivalry wasn’t dead, and neither was she, because of him. Thank God he’d followed her to the mission even though it ticked her off, no, embarrassed her, at first.
What she couldn’t figure out was why would the mob be trying to kill her if they wanted answers about their money? If she were dead, she couldn’t very well give them those answers. Heck, even alive she couldn’t give them answers. Only her cousin, Teresa, could.
A better question was how had they found her here?
Michaela spent long minutes pondering that question while she waited for Gray to reemerge from the pawn shop. She peered out of the alley again to scan the street and sidewalk but still didn’t see him. After twenty minutes, her nerves were at the snapping point and she wondered if maybe he hadn’t just left her there to run back to the office.
Fear mixed with disappointment five minutes later when there was still no sign of him. She’d just stepped out of the alley when he finally appeared outside of the pawn shop with a bag in his hand. His eyebrows crashed together when he saw her and he stalked toward her.
“I thought I told you to stay in the alley,” he growled, pushing her back into the shadows.
“You’ll find that I don’t always do what I’m told—especially when you were gone almost half an hour!” she replied, frowning back at him.
Grayson huffed a frustrated breath. “I couldn’t buy a real pistol on the spot. I was stupid to think I could with my old ID. I had to get the guy to show me C02 air pistols, instead,” he growled and her eyes tracked to the bulge under his suit coat near his left arm.
“What’s an air pistol?” she asked, unable to visualize how air could be used as ammunition.
“It looks like a real pistol, but it’s a glorified BB gun on steroids. I can put an eye out with it if I’m close enough and lucky,” he said, reaching into the bag. “I bought you some pepper spray too, just in case something happens.”
“Something like you getting yourself killed using a toy gun on a mobster?” Mickie shrieked, her insides quaking as she took the pepper spray from him and examined it.
“It’s not a toy if I hit the target in the right place, so I got one with a laser sight. I’m not happy either, but it’s the best I could do. I would’ve gotten you a Taser, but they don’t allow them in DC, either.” That he was thinking of her, worrying about her safety, sent warmth spreading through her to melt the coldness in her middle.
“Thank you, but how do I use it?” she asked, flipping the tab back on the leather case.
“You just aim in their direction, push that button on the top, then run like hell,” he replied, pointing out the button.
Unzipping her purse, Mickie slid the canister inside, then closed it. The run like hell part is what she’d be doing. She wouldn’t be sticking around to use spray. That would just make them angrier and give them another chance to shoot her if she missed.
Her uncle carried and Mickie knew her cousin had a .22 in her purse. Mickie never had the guts to buy a pistol, figuring she’d end up shooting herself, or having the weapon used against her when it came down to brass tacks. When she met the brass tacks at the office the day she found her uncle dead, it backed up her decision. Mickie was better off sticking to using her purse or a well-placed toe, but she couldn’t help but yearn for a real pistol at the moment.
Gray grabbed her hand and stopped at the alley opening, looked up and down the street, then pulled her out onto the sidewalk. Mickie hissed when the hot pavement burned the soles of her feet, but didn’t stop until he opened the door for her at the store and pushed her inside.
“Find what you need. I’m going to stay here and keep an eye out,” he said, and Mickie nodded.
The cool, but dirty tile put out the fire on her soles as she walked toward the children’s section where she knew she could find a pair of shoes. She picked up a pair of size five, cheap, white tennis shoes, then searched the rack behind her for a pair of socks.
Wearing the tennis shoes with the red suit was a total affront to her fashion sense, but it sure beat being dead. The sneakers would give her the ability to run if she needed to, much more so than the heels with the chrome spikes she’d left in front of the shelter.
Gray walked up beside her, surprising her. He held up two pairs of capri-style yoga pants and a couple of graphic tee shirts. Mickie was sorry, but she would have to draw the line there. She’d tried a pair of those pants on once and they made her look like she was wearing a sausage casing.
Her butt had looked huge.
Mickie was not a yoga pants or jeans kind of woman. She owned a pair of jeans, but had only worn them one time. They were hanging in the back of the closet at her apartment with the rest of the clothes she wasn’t able to get to before she left Ducktown.
Her Italian mother drilled into her from birth the value of looking her best. People will judge you based on their first impression, cucciolo. The only thing that separates us from animals is dressing well.
She had taken those words as truth, and that is why she’d spent ten dollars of the precious little money she had left to buy the red suit and shoes at the thrift store. Even though the interviewers at the more menial jobs she’d applied for hadn’t appreciated her effort, Lou Ellen had.
“Um, thank you, but I can’t wear those.” Especially not the pink t-shirt that would brand her as Chick Fit. Pink was definitely not her color and neither was the army-green edging the collar and sleeves. She shivered as a vision of her wearing that passed through her mind.
“Why the hell not?” Grayson growled, looking like he wanted to strangle her.
“I don’t wear yoga pants,” Mickie replied, laying the clothes down on the lower rack, but Grayson snatched them up again.
“Well, you’re going to wear them, princess, because we don’t have time for a stop at Nordie’s.”
Mickie’s mouth flapped, but before she could say anything, Gray turned and strode toward the check-out counter leaving her glaring at his back.
Don’t you tell me what I’m going to do, cazzone. Ask my brothers how well that worked out for them.
Grumbling under her breath, Mickie stomped to the sundry aisle and yanked a box of Band-Aids off the shelf. She found antiseptic and ointment, then stalked to the front of the store. She stopped beside Grayson Jennings to throw her bundle of purchases on the counter and stepped back to cross her arms to glare at him.
He didn’t look at her as he reached behind him for his wallet and his hand froze. He slid his fingers closer to the rip in the seat of his pants. His fingers curled around one edge and then dipped inside the huge hole to crawl down to the lower edge which ended mid-thigh. He looked over his shoulder as if he could see it. Mickie snickered and he shot her a hot stare.
“Feel a little breeze?” she asked, with a bubbling laugh. Color crept up from under the collar of his white shirt as he glared at her.
“You owe me a suit,” Grayson growled, as he jerked his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open.
“Well, it will be a long time before I can buy it, so I hope it’s not your only one.” Mickie flinched as she watched the cashier yank the ugly stretch pants and shirts off of the hangers. Without her permission, her eyes slid down his back to the rip again, and she realized the band of his tighty-whities was also torn. “If that’s your only suit, you’d better invest in some new underwear.” His shoulders stiffened and he eyed her.
“What’s wrong with my underwear?” he asked.
“You ripped a hole in those, too.” Nice ass, she thought, taking another hard look. Dio, was there anything imperfect about this man other than his attitude and the fact he wore tighty-whities?
His hand flew back to the seat of his pants to find the hole. “You owe me underwear too, then,” he grated.
“You could use better than those tightie-whities anyway. I didn’t know men under fifty wore those anymore,” she said, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “You pay a thousand dollars for a suit, but you buy Fruit of the Loom underwear, probably from a store like this?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he snarled, spearing her with his sparking gray-green eyes as he brushed past her. “And I’m going to wear them. You have a problem with that?”
Mickie shook her head, as he stomped off toward the men’s section. Thirty seconds later he was back with a three-pack of underwear, a pair of gray sweatpants and a t-shirt he must not have read before grabbing it. She bit her tongue to stop her laugh when she saw the pack of underwear contained boxer-briefs this time in black, gray and white.
The cashier announced the amount due, and he handed over his credit card. After she pushed the bag over the counter to him, Gray looped it on his wrist and grabbed her hand to drag her to the door. Because the man’s legs were so long, it seemed like he was always dragging her. At the corner he stopped to pull her into the alley and dropped her hand to fumble inside the bag.
“We’ll doctor your feet up when we get back to the hotel. We don’t need to be out on the street longer than necessary.”
He pulled out the tennis shoes and socks and handed them to her and Mickie leaned against the building to put them on. No sooner had she tied the second lace before her hand was in his and he was again dragging her across the street.
“Can you slow down a little, please?” she begged two blocks later, when she developed a stitch in her side from running. Her feet were used to being in heels, so the flat-arched sneakers made them ache.
“No,” he replied, gruffly as he stopped at a crosswalk to push the button. It turned green and he pulled her across the street, then jaywalked through another.
Stronzo. Maybe he wasn’t chivalrous after all, she thought, the muscles in her legs stinging as she jogged to keep up with him. By the time they reached the back lot of the hotel, Mickie fought for breath as she pulled her hand from his to bend over and wheeze.
“Fuck,” he growled, and she looked up.
“What?” she asked, standing up again, adrenaline making her dizzy.
“That limo in the lot is the same one that cruised by the shelter. We can’t get to the back door. Lou Ellen is in there, so I hope they don’t surprise her.”
“What limo?” Mickie asked, her eyes scanning the lot to find a long black car parked to the right of the building. None of this made sense to her as she spotted a heavily tatted, thuggish looking man at the side of the building smoking a cigarette.
“Let’s go in the front entrance. I doubt in this neighborhood they’d shoot us in broad daylight on the sidewalk.” Before she could protest, he pulled her down the sidewalk, across the street and into an alley. Breathing hard himself, he leaned on the wall to dig through the bag again and pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt.
“Put these on,” he said, shoving them into her chest.
“I can’t do that here!” He must’ve lost his mind if he thought she was going to strip in broad daylight.
“Just do it!” he growled. “That suit is like a red flag. They may have even seen us at the back of the lot, so hurry.”
Grayson Jennings didn’t seem to have a problem stripping in broad daylight. He quickly shed his suit coat, the holster and gun, then his shirt and pants. Her eyes felt glued to his smooth skin as they darted to scan every nuance of his leanly muscled body.
When he hooked his thumbs into the band of his underwear, her breathing stopped as she focused on the bulge at the front. He turned his back before pushing them down to his ankles and replacing them with a new pair of new boxer briefs, but the view was still breathtaking.
“Stop gawking and get changed!” he hissed, as he turned to pull on the sweat pants, then the pickle-green, size-too-small t-shirt over his head, which announced he was Kind of a Big Dill.
Yes, he was, Mickie thought as she dragged her eyes away from him. She reached for the buttons on her jacket and Grayson turned his back, which brought back that warmth. Another display of his chivalrous tendencies.
After criticizing his underwear, she was glad he was facing away, because that meant he wouldn’t see her plain, dingy white underwear. She quickly pulled on one of the t-shirts to cover her bra. Getting the yoga pants over the tennis shoes without removing them was a challenge, but she finally shimmied into them. She nudged his arm and held out her suit, which he took and shoved into the bag with his before grabbing her hand again.
She noticed the air gun was again in place in the holster under his arm, and he’d pulled his white shirt over the t-shirt to hide it. As much as she’d fought the idea of wearing yoga pants, she had to admit she felt much better equipped to keep up with him now without the tight skirt restricting her knees.
He pulled her out into the bright sun again and she squinted as he towed her to the corner where he pushed the crosswalk button, but stopped when a phone rang. Mickie knew it wasn’t hers because she was out of minutes, so she didn’t bother searching in her purse.
With a groan, Gray pulled her back toward the alley while scanning the street. He stopped to reach into the bag to pull out his suit coat and find his phone.
He glanced at the display, frowned then answered quickly.
“Is everything okay there, Lou?” he asked.
“Gray, ah—I need you back at the office,” Mickie overheard Lou Ellen say, her voice loud and agitated. “Bruno is stuck in Dallas, so he couldn’t come to our meeting.”
Mickie watched Gray’s face pale, and her heart stopped. Something was wrong.
“I get the message and I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t do anything stupid.” His eyes narrowed, as he disconnected the call. Instead of moving back out of the alley, he dialed a number on his phone. “This is Grayson Jennings with Deep Six. We’re holding interviews in conference room 832 at the back of the building. I need you to call the police and send security down there. Someone is holding my office manager hostage.”
“Hostage?” Mickie whispered, with fear turning her blood to ice. Had she done this? Put these people in danger?
This problem was hers, not theirs, but she’d dragged them into her drama and now Lou Ellen, who’d been so kind to her, might pay the price for it. Spinning on her heel, Mickie took off running. To where she didn’t know, but if she was away from these people, at least they wouldn’t be in danger from the mobsters who wanted her.