Finally, she reached the bottom of her trunk. She was just about to lift the little panel that hid the spare tire when she saw them—a thin man in fatigues and his rather round companion. In farmer-style overalls, the second guy looked like he belonged with milk cows, not on a street in Los Angeles. But Tracy had long since learned not to bat an eye where fashion in the City of Angels was concerned.
The men were walking toward her, and she didn’t have any real reason to feel nervous. For all she knew, they were suffering from chicken and waffle cravings. Except, she
did
feel nervous. She made a point of rummaging a little faster, the adrenaline rush building until she felt her fingers close over the cool metal of a tire iron.
“Hey, lady. Shesa pretty lady, yes?”
She turned, facing them straight on, the tire iron gripped tight in her hand.
“Oh, yes. Pretty. Weesa like pretty ladies.”
What she wanted to do was take a step backward, but since her car was blocking any escape, that wasn’t an option. Instead she hefted the iron, and tried to summon her most authoritative voice. The one she used with misbehaving dogs.
“Sorry, guys. I’m busy. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”
The fat one nudged the skinny one, nearly knocking him over. “D’you hear that? Sheesa wants us to leave. Not nice, lady.”
“We leave,” the skinny one said. “You gives it to us, and we leave now.”
It
? What
it
?
The skinny one wasn’t staring at anything except the tire iron she was holding at her waist. Did he want that? ‘Cause if he did, at the moment, she’d be happy to give it to him....
“Give
now
.” He moved toward her, and she held the iron up, brandishing it a bit until he moved back. Where the hell was everybody? This parking lot was hidden from the street by some brush, but this was a restaurant. Where were all the patrons? Where was the cavalry? Didn’t anyone eat anything but tofu in this town?
Without warning, the skinny one lunged. Tracy reacted automatically, her throat releasing a high-pitched scream even as she hauled off and hit her assailant in the gut with the tire iron. She might not have played softball since junior high, but she had to mentally congratulate herself on the force of her blow.
Of course, while she was busy congratulating herself, the guy was busy recovering. And it didn’t seem to take him anytime at all. The fat one was getting into the act too, now, so she had two thugs advancing on her.
Wildly she swung the tire iron, connecting with the solid bone of the skinny one’s jaw before moving on to whonk the shorter, fat one across the top of his skull. Oddly enough, she didn’t hear bone cracking. Instead, she had the weirdest sensation of dragging an oar through pudding.
She blinked, but didn’t have time to ponder the oddity. Everything was happening too quickly and as she took a deep breath, they advanced. Closer and closer, until—
“Gentlemen, I suggest you leave the lady alone.”
Hale!
Like some foolish twit in a scary movie, Tracy dropped the tire iron and ran to his side, grateful when he swung his arm around her and pulled her close.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Sorry?” How on earth could he be sorry? “I’m just glad you’re here at all.” She frowned. “Why
are
you here?” But she didn’t really want an answer. At the moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to be held. Just wanted to be taken care of.
And Hale was just the man she would have chosen to be her hero.
“I’m here to fight the bad guys, of course,” Hale said, keeping an eye on Dopey and Grumpy.
The bad guys in question shifted in front of him, moving from side to side, foot to foot. Hale let them squirm. At the moment, there wasn’t anything he could do with them, so he might as well let them stew.
Gently, he kissed the top of Tracy’s head, the sweet smell of her shampoo intoxicating him. “Can’t let
Henchmen
wander the streets of L.A. picking on beautiful women.” He threw in the word to let the Henchmen know that he knew what they were—and that he was a Protector. It was a bluff, of course. If they ran, he couldn’t catch them. Not without revealing himself to Tracy.
Which was too bad, since he’d thoroughly enjoy beating them to a pulp. But since he couldn’t beat them with his brawn, he could only hope to outwit them with his brain.
Considering how dumb Henchmen tended to be, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
“Should we call the police?” Tracy asked.
A slow grin crossed Hale’s face. “Actually, I think that’s a perfect plan.” He produced his cell phone.
While Hale could easily see past their disguise, mortals wouldn’t be able to. And though a county jail cell wasn’t going to be able to hold the slimy critters for long, it would certainly put a crimp in Uncle H’s style when he learned that his thugs got picked up for assault and attempted robbery. Even so, Hale had to mentally congratulate his uncle. A mortal couldn’t steal the belt, and what Protector would want to? But slimy, vile Henchmen suited Hieronymous’s needs to a T. It had been a clever tactic, using them.
Dopey took a step backward, getting ready to bolt.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Hale said. The creature stopped, its eyes narrowed. It weighed its options as Tracy dialed Hale’s phone.
Fortunately Hieronymous—or that maniac Clyde—must have drilled into the Henchmen’s heads that they weren’t to raise any mortal suspicions. In no time at all, cops had arrived and had them in cuffs. The two flabbergasted blobs were shoved into the backseat of a cruiser.
Hale glanced at his watch, wondering if even an hour would pass before these friendly neighborhood thugs performed their little jail-break routine. Well, it didn’t matter to him. He already knew what he needed to. It was time to institute a twenty-four-hour watch on Tracy.
Beside him, she relaxed, clearly pleased to see her assailants hauled off in cuffs.
“Better?” he asked.
“I’ve lived in LA. my whole life, but I’ve never been mugged before.” She looked up at him, the smile on her face only slightly distracted. “I’ve even taken self-defense classes for years. Not that you could tell. All I did was swing a tire iron.”
“It worked, though.”
“Well, sort of. Since you showed up before they clobbered me.” She cocked her head. “Why
did
you show up?”
“Oh. I was just heading to my sister’s place, and I saw you back here. Guess we go home the same way.”
She nodded, but still looked confused. “From the road, you saw me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Even though this lot curves around behind the restaurant?”
“Must’ve been the angle.”
“So you were really just driving by?”
“That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”
“Uh-huh.” The corner of her lip twitched as she fought a smile. “Well, where’s Elmer?”
Good question. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a good answer. “Still in my car, of course.”
“In your car? In this heat?”
“It’s a convertible.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Aren’t you afraid he’s going to run away?”
“He’s trained, remember?”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look convinced. “So where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Are we playing twenty questions? Your car. Where’s your car?”
“Right. Of course. My car.” One heck of a long way away. He probably should have driven it. “Uh, it’s around here somewhere.”
“Okay. Well, how did you get here?”
“Here? American Airlines has plenty of regular flights from New York. I just caught one and voila!” A lie, of course. He’d come to L.A. under his own power. But since she wasn’t talking about that—and he damn well knew it— he didn’t regret the lie too much.
Her eyebrows lifted above the rims of her sunglasses, her foot tapping a rhythm in time with the
whoosh, whoosh
of the passing traffic. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“Oh.” He added the proper note of enthusiasm to his voice. “Oh! You mean
here
. In this parking lot. With you.”
“Yup.”
So much for stalling. Clearly he hadn’t thought this out well enough beforehand. Glancing around, he noticed the grocery store across the street. “I wanted ... uh ... lettuce. So I left after you. And then I pulled into the store and saw you. So I came over here to help.”
“A salad man, huh?”
He hated salad. “Absolutely.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She shielded her eyes and looked toward the Gelson’s supermarket. “Should we go get Elmer?”
“Oh, no. He likes the peace and quiet. Thrives on it, really.”
“Uh-huh.”
Enough of this. He took the tire iron from her hand. “Why don’t you let me change that flat for you?”
“Sure.” This time when she smiled, it seemed slightly shy, not confused. “That would be nice.”
Much better. Something physical he could do and do well. And it was a good thing, too; he obviously didn’t make the best liar on the planet. The only tricky part would be remembering that he had to change this tire like a mortal guy: no slipping off the lug nuts with his thumb and forefinger, no using super speed to have the new tire on in the blink of an eye. But even doing it the annoying, slow way, he still had her spare tire on and ready to go in well under five minutes.
Finished, he looked up. “All done.”
“Bravo!” She clapped, looking completely enamored, and Hale decided there was something to all that clichéd talk about knights on white horses and damsels in distress.
“Listen—” he said.
“Could I—” she began at the same time.
They both laughed, and then he said, “Go ahead.”
Again, a shy grin flitted across her face. “I just thought that since you rescued me, the least I could do was buy you a cup of coffee. There’s a coffee shop right across the street next to the grocery store.” She glanced at her watch. “I can’t stay for too long, but maybe a quick one?” Immediately, her cheeks turned pink, and he realized she must be remembering her date with Leon.
All the more reason to spend some quality time with her.
“That would be great. But I’m buying.”
“Why? Because you’re a guy?”
Holy Hera, she was priceless. “No. Because I want to.”
Ten minutes later they were tucked into a corner booth at Jumbo Java, a slice of truly decadent chocolate cake on the table between them.
She nabbed a tiny bit of the cake with her fork. “So, tell me about being a cover model. Is it a fabulous life?”
“Sometimes.” He couldn’t tell her the full story of what he did, of course, but it was nice to be able to share a little piece of his life. “I enjoy it. The shoots, seeing myself on book covers. The fans.”
After she swallowed, she grabbed another forkful of cake. “Must be very glamorous.”
“Sometimes. Mostly it’s rush, rush to get to a shoot, a few hours under the hot lights in costume, and a lot of waiting. But the personal appearances are great. I love meeting the fans.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she said, and he stifled a grin as she forked up a huge bite of cake dripping with icing.
Behind her, a guy who looked like a reject from a rock band slid into a booth, his eyes scouring Tracy before he turned the other direction. Hale scowled, something about the green-eyed man flickering in his memory.
“Hale?”
He looked up, shaking off his random thoughts. “Sorry, I got distracted. It is wonderful, but it can be exhausting.”
“I understand exhausting,” she agreed. “Mel’s just getting Paws off the ground, so we’re both working a lot of hours.” Tracy took another bite, then smiled. “But I love it. I’ve always loved working with animals. In fact, about the only job I’d like better would be training animals at Sea World.”
The image of Tracy in a skintight wetsuit was enough to bring a smile to his face. “Really?”
“The ocean,” she said. “I love the ocean. The beach, the surf. I always have. It’s where I go to wind down.” She shrugged. “Actually, it’s just as well I don’t work with marine life. If I lived and breathed the ocean, it would probably lose a lot of its mystique.”
Hale nodded, understanding what she meant. He loved the ocean, too, but he’d never bought a beach house. Somehow, escaping to the shore was more enticing than simply being able to walk out his back door into the sand.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said.
“You do?” she asked, sounding pleased. When he nodded, her smile broadened. “Guess that’s one more thing we have in common,” she said.
“One more?”
“Yeah,” she said, the corner of her mouth twitching. “I really love salads, too.”
Hale laughed, enjoying this outing with Tracy more than he should be for a simple seduction.
“Tracy?” A male voice said, and Hale fought a wave of irritation at being interrupted. “Tracy, I’m so glad to see you again.”
A blond guy, about six feet tall with football-player shoulders, joined them at the table, a steaming to-go cup in his hand.
“Hi, Walter.”
While Walter looked ecstatic, Tracy appeared less than thrilled. “What’s up?” Her voice was polite enough, but underneath, Hale thought he detected a note of irritation. Under the circumstances, he was pretty annoyed himself. At the moment, he had absolutely no interest in sharing Tracy with anybody.
“Listen,” Walter said. “I’m sorry about yesterday. Of
course
I recognized you. I’d just... uh ... drunk too much coffee. Moving back to town and all, I’ve been living on Diet Coke and coffee. Caffeine high, you know. And I was distracted. That girl I was with ... uh, she wasn’t a girlfriend. No. She was, uh, a rep. For an air-conditioning company. My new apartment is so hot—”
“Uh, Walter? I’m kind of in the middle of something here.” She nodded toward Hale.
“Oh. Right.” The guy took a few steps backward. “Well, I’ll just get going, then.” He fished in his coat pocket. “But call me, okay? Here’s my card.” He plunked a business card down on the table, then slinked out of the coffee shop. Hale couldn’t remember the last time he was so glad to see someone go.
“Friend of yours?”
“Sorry.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “Ex-boyfriend. I bumped into him yesterday and he didn’t even recognize me.” She shrugged, then grabbed some more cake with her fork. “Weird. Especially since yesterday I was wishing that he
had
recognized me—and wishing that he’d fawn all over me because his life had become such a shambles since he left me.”