The bottle of environmentally friendly aphid spray didn’t seem nearly as menacing as a poison-laced switchblade.
“Ulyana?” the intruder said. “Uh, is that you?”
Obviously, he didn’t follow script because he didn’t have a gravelly, threatening voice. What he did have was a Texas-sized amount of surprise in his tone. Probably because he hadn’t expected the teen demon hunter to be a thirtysomething-year-old woman in cutoff sweatpants and with a slightly pudgy baby belly. Well, they were even. She hadn’t expected a “fan” to be here.
“How’d you get on this ranch?” she asked.
He lifted his shoulder, causing his body armor to clang and ping. “The woman in the raincoat didn’t shut the gate after she drove through. I was parked on the side of the road and followed her in. If the gate’s open, it’s not trespassing.”
She huffed. Eve had no idea who the woman in the raincoat was, but this warrior wannabe had a warped notion of what constituted trespassing.
“She didn’t have on any clothes underneath the coat,” he added a moment later. “When she opened her car door to press in the code for the gate, she put her foot on the ground so she could lean in better. The side of her raincoat came open, and I saw her hoo-hoo and ta-tas.”
“Too much information,” Eve muttered. “And this is private property. You need to leave right now.”
Normally, she didn’t feel threatened by the hornies. Only frustrated that they seemingly had too much time on their hands. But this guy was big, and her baby was just inside the house. So was Cassidy. And Eve considered calling out to her, but she wasn’t ready to sound the alarm just yet.
He came even closer, and even though most of his head was covered with the bulky hood, she could see his face. He was probably about Tessie’s age, maybe younger, and she saw the disillusionment when he studied her.
“You don’t look like Ulyana,” he said. “She’s beautiful, and you’re, well, just okay. You’re kinda old, and your body’s a little...squishy.”
Gee, this wasn’t doing much for her ego, but it would make it easier for her to be rude and send this Swaron running. But before she could do that, she heard someone who was already running. With her head clearing, she had no trouble making out the footsteps this time.
And she saw the blur of motion as it went past her.
The blur was Lawson, and he cut right in between her and the Swaron. “What the hell are you doing here?” Lawson snarled to the intruder, and he had the menacing tone down pat.
“Uh” was all the teenager managed before he volleyed some nervous glances between Lawson and her. In the middle of those glances, he turned and took off.
Lawson looked ready to chase him down, but Eve caught his arm. “It’s okay. Let him go.”
“Did he hurt you?” Lawson snapped.
And that’s when she noticed Lawson’s body language. For one thing, he was out of breath, and since his truck wasn’t there, it likely meant he’d run—in cowboy boots—from his place to hers. The muscles in his neck were corded, his right hand was in a fist and his eyes were narrowed to slits.
And that’s when she noticed her own body language.
She had the bottle of aphid spray poised in the air, the way someone would wield a weapon. She probably looked a little on the defensive, too. That meant Lawson had thought she was in danger and had come to her rescue.
Wow.
That gave her a nice, warm feeling that chased away the bruised ego from the Swaron. She tried not to read too much into it though. After all, Lawson obviously hadn’t wanted to be near her in Austin, and that’s why he’d taken off the way he had.
Lawson clearly wasn’t feeling nice or warm though. He whipped out his phone and made a call to police chief Clay McKinnon to tell him that he wanted the “asshole in the Grim Reaper cape” arrested. Even though Lawson didn’t put the call on speaker, Eve was close enough that she heard Clay tell him that he’d send someone out right away.
When Lawson finished the call, Eve was about to assure him that she was okay, but he hooked his arm around her waist and got her moving toward the porch. “Wait inside, and I’ll go looking for that idiot. How’d he get onto the ranch, anyway?”
“He said some half-naked woman in a raincoat left the gate open. I figure it was someone coming to see Dylan.”
Lawson turned toward her so fast that his neck popped, and he did some more cursing. She didn’t know what to make of that, but when they went into the house, his cursing stopped. For a couple of seconds, anyway. Then he uttered some more after he did a double take. Eve didn’t approve of cussing near the baby, but in this case, it was warranted.
“Shit,” Lawson spit out. “What the heck is that?”
Good question, and Eve had another look at the massive stuffed animal to see if she could figure it out. She didn’t have any better luck identifying it now than she had when it’d been delivered about an hour earlier. If Jabba the Hutt and a mutant koala had had a baby together, it might resemble this creature. Of course, it also looked like a thirty-pound blob of hairy mucus.
“It’s from Kellan,” she said. She set down the bottle of aphid spray and checked the baby monitor to make sure Aiden was still asleep. He was. “It’s a gift for Aiden.”
Lawson made a face. Maybe because he, too, was having trouble understanding why anyone would consider that ugly thing gift material for anyone. “So, Kellan’s seeing the baby,” he commented.
“No. He just keeps sending creatures like that. Actually, I’d rather see the creatures than him, so it’s a good trade-off.”
Lawson made another face.
She’d probably already said too much, but that didn’t stop her from adding, “That should tell you just how much I don’t want to see Kellan.”
Yes, it was too much, and Lawson no longer seemed interested in running after the Swaron intruder. “You two had a falling-out?”
Anything she said at this point would only lead to more TMI and possible questions from Lawson, but he had more or less rescued her, so the least she could do was answer him. “Kellan and I were never actually together to have a falling-out. I had a one-night stand with him after Tessie and I got into a big argument.”
That made her sound impulsive and stupid. Which she had been. No one could tag her with labels any worse than those she’d already given herself.
“Tessie,” Lawson repeated. But he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than her.
Lawson muttered their daughter’s name again, didn’t make another face, though, or even look at her. He went into the adjacent family room and peered out the bay window. Maybe keeping watch for the Swaron in case he returned. He also glanced at the three stacks of boxes that were next to the coffee table.