Lori Foster - Bewitched - In Too Deep

“Well, get done and get out. I don’t like you hanging around.”

Harry was willing to play along—up to a point. Right up until the punk turned to the girl and poked her in the chest with his finger, almost knocking her over. “Same goes for you. Beat it.”

Harry wasn’t a hero, he truly wasn’t, but he detested bullies. Beyond that, he couldn’t tolerate violence of any kind toward females, regardless of the fact the fellow was too dense to realize she was a female.

When he started to add an additional poke, snickering at the way she’d stumbled, Harry dropped the potted meat—no big loss there—and snatched the fellow’s finger into his fist. Harry squeezed.

A loud wail of outraged pain filled the store.

Unconcerned, Harry asked, “Now, why would you want to inflict abuse on someone smaller than yourself?”

The guy’s knees were starting to give way as Harry ruthlessly tightened his grip. Blondie stared up at him, his face pinched in a grimace. “He’s almost as tall as I am!”

“Not an adequate excuse. You’re obviously older. And moreover, I’ve decided I don’t like you.” Using a deft movement of his own hand, Harry twisted the hapless finger, attached to an equally hapless arm, until the man was forced to go on tiptoe, high-pitched curses winging from his mouth.

Pandemonium broke out.

The little female overflowed with umbrage. “I don’t need your help, you pompous ass!” The men either ignored her, or didn’t hear her.

The bully’s dark friend rushed forward. “Floyd!” he called out, as he pulled a gun from his pants. His gaze lifted to Harry, narrow-eyed and mean. “Turn him loose before I shoot your head off!”

The hard nose of a gun barrel poked into Harry’s ribs. He cast a wry expression on the friend. “Now, that’d be rather difficult, with you aiming there. My head’s a bit higher up.”

His ill-advised insult got the gun immediately raised, and now he felt the cold metal against his ear. This comedy of errors was getting out of hand. Slowly, he loosened his grip.

Floyd shook his hand and cursed, then shook it some more. He looked up at Harry with red-rimmed eyes. “Shoot him.”

“What?”

“Damn it, you heard me, Ralph! Shoot him.”

Harry said a quick prayer. The girl, finally showing some small signs of intelligence, began inching her way nonchalantly toward the door.

“Get back here, damn it.” Floyd wasn’t about to let her, or rather him, get away. “I think you two are working together to distract us. Who sent you here?”

The little female blinked and her smooth cheeks were suffused with color. “No one sent me! And I never saw that guy before in my life.”

Harry waited for a gasp, waited for the recognition because her husky voice had obviously been that of a female’s, despite her efforts to lower it accordingly.

He waited in vain.

“We can’t jus’ shoot him, Floyd. You know what Carlyle said. Keep it tidy. Besides, it’ll be easier if we jus’ let him go. He’s nobody.”

“Then what was he buttin’ his nose in for?”

Ralph lowered his brows in thought, all the while keeping the gun steady on Harry’s head.

Trying to placate them, Harry shrugged and said, “I simply can’t abide a bully.”

The gun smacked against his head, making his ears ring. “You can abide anythin’ Floyd tells you to! That’s how it’s done in these parts.”

Floyd grinned, and Harry was amazed to see he had fairly even, white teeth. “So you didn’t like me pushing the scrawny runt around?”

Knowing he’d handed Floyd his revenge on a silver platter, Harry almost groaned. Damn his mouth anyway. He started to speak, his brain searching for words to defuse the situation, and in that instant Floyd backhanded the woman. She went sprawling, landing with a clatter in a stacked display of canned tuna.

Harry growled, discretion forgotten, and lunged forward to grab Floyd by the neck. The proprietor shouted. Ralph, the only one thinking at this point, snatched the woman up and held the gun on her. “Stop now or the little bastard’s gonna be in some serious trouble.”

Harry stopped. The woman was dazed, he could see that, a bruise already coloring her jaw, but she was otherwise unharmed. Breathing hard with his anger, Harry slowly opened his hand and Floyd stumbled back two steps—and threw a punch. Harry caught the fist an inch from his nose, then made “tsking” sounds of disapproval. “I do believe your associate said to stop.”

“He was talking to you, not me!”

Harry heaved an annoyed sigh. “Look, gentlemen, you obviously had business here and it’s gotten sidetracked. Perhaps you should let us innocent bystanders go and finish up whatever it was you started?” Rather than observing, as he’d wished, Harry had managed to complicate things hideously. Now he only hoped to salvage what he could.

The proprietor nodded his head in frantic, disgruntled agreement. His low, scratchy voice was that of an aged sailor, used to taking command. “Yeah, take the damn cash. But put the gun away.”

“Shut up, old man, and let me think.”

Harry considered that an unlikely prospect given that Floyd obviously had very little brain to work with, but he held his peace. He didn’t want to rile anyone further, especially the proprietor who looked ready for violence. That would be all he’d need to tip the scales into the never-imagined.

After a considerable amount of time, Floyd nodded. “I think you’re a cop.”

That straightened his spine. Harry blustered. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

A low whistle slipped past Ralph’s drooping mustache. “Now that you say it, Floyd, he does look like a cop. Check out that coat he’s wearing.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry said, “You’ve been watching too much Columbo. It’s drizzling today, therefore I wore a trench coat. I hardly think it’s standard dress for the police force.”

“Come to that,” Ralph added, “you speak damn fancy for someone from these parts.”

“I’m not from these parts.”

Floyd jutted his chin forward. “Then what are you doing here?”

“I was in the area on business and I remembered I needed to pick up something for my dinner. It’s no more complicated than that, I assure you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Well, hell, Harry thought, eyeing the female who now remained blessedly silent, her eyes downcast. Was he to be done in by a damn coat?

“Just to be on the safe side,” Floyd said, grinning, “I think we’ll take the boy with us. You call the cops, or try to follow, and I’ll kill him.”

The situation had gotten completely out of hand. “No, you can’t do that.”

Ralph tilted his head, his smile taunting. “And why not?”

The woman began to struggle. “I’m not going anywhere with you two! If you want a hostage, take him!” Her slender finger pointed in Harry’s direction, disconcerting him for just a moment.

“Somehow I think you’ll be easier to handle.”

She kicked at Ralph’s shin and he neatly sidestepped her, but Harry could see he was nonplussed by her somewhat feminine, awkward reaction. “What the hell?”

She tried to run. Harry was helpless, seeing the gun held steady, knowing any move on his part could get her injured. He wanted to curse at her theatrics, since she only complicated things further.

Floyd made a grab for her, and after his arms circled her chest, he too stopped, stunned. He released her as if burned, his eyes wide, going over her entire body in a single sweep.

“Take off your jacket.”

“Go to hell!”

Floyd began to laugh. “I’ll be a son of a… He’s not a boy at all.”

Dryly, for he was tired of the whole thing, Harry muttered, “How very astute of you.”