Rival Forces

by D. D. Ayres

  He reached for the remote. Punched it on and then turned up the sound louder than need be, as cover.

  Purdy remained by the fire, as if his whippet body could never absorb too much heat. Kye’s gaze ranged beyond him.

  Stacked logs. Fireplace poker.

  He supposed he could say something like, Excuse me. Need to stir the fire. And then grab up the iron poker. But he wasn’t sure he could carry off a strike with enough power to disable Purdy with one blow. A man with a gun and a Ka-Bar wasn’t going to give him many chances to get it right.

  Overwhelming force. That’s what he needed. And to give Yardley warning time to defend herself, if need be. Please, God, let there be a loaded gun within her reach.

  “That coffee smells ready. Still want a cup?”

  Purdy looked up from the TV, all easy manners. “I surely do. Thanks.”

  Kye hated to turn his back on the man. But he called over his shoulder. “Come on in.”

  “Where’s the wife?”

  When Kye glanced at the man coming into the kitchen arch, his expression was still mild. Had he mistaken the edge in his voice?

  “Primping.” Whatever the hell that meant. “Have a seat. Cream and sugar?”

  “Black. Thanks.” Purdy sat down at the kitchen table, spreading his legs wide and resting an arm on the tabletop as though he didn’t have a care in the world. But Kye noticed he’d positioned himself so he could see back into the living room.

  Kye eyed the knife set as he looked in the drawer for spoons. Knives weren’t his thing and if Purdy saw him draw one out, he’d guess it wasn’t for cutting cream.

  A faint cry of pain, cut off in mid-voice, managed to penetrate the sounds of a cheering crowd on the TV. Pretending he hadn’t heard a thing, Kye set a mug in front of Purdy and began to pour.

  A second deeper groan—unmistakably male—jerked Purdy’s head in the direction of the kitchen door. “That doesn’t sound like—?”’

  The shit had just gotten serious.

  Purdy moved an arm as if to reach behind himself. That action had only one possible purpose. Gun.

  No time to think, Kye swerved the stream of hot steaming fluid into Purdy’s lap.

  Purdy cried out as the scalding coffee soaked his crotch. Before he could jump out of the way, Kye swung the full metal pot up, catching Purdy just under the chin, a fully caffeinated uppercut. As Purdy grunted in pain Kye threw his full weight on the man, letting the force push the chair over as he used both hands to grab Purdy’s right wrist.

  They went over in the chair together. The crash splintered the chair back. Purdy cried out in pain. Maybe the broken wood had gouged him. But the man wasn’t going down easy. He was a seasoned fighter even if he’d been caught completely by surprise. Kye delivered a fist jab to his throat. Purdy got in a blow of his own, to the face, smashing cartilage. Kye felt his nose give. Hot stabbing pain shot through his facial bones. Not enough to stun Kye into freeing his opponent but enough so that for a split second Kye saw that black dark sky twinkling with stars that people write about. He swallowed and tasted blood. It didn’t matter. He grappled with the man beneath him, the difference in their weight alone enough to keep the man pinned. If only he could find the damn gun. But he couldn’t let go of the man’s arm or Purdy might beat him to it. Kye knew his advantage. He was bigger, heavier. All he had to do was keep the guy’s hands off his weapons until he wore himself out.

  He heard voices as if from a distance. Had Yard called the sheriff? Fuckin’ A.

  “Stop it! Stop moving now or I’ll set my dog on you!”

  Yardley’s voice at Kye’s back came as a total surprise. He hadn’t heard the bedroom door open or her footsteps but when he turned his head slightly he saw her crouching in the doorway holding a thick leather leash with two hands. At the other end, straining like hell’s fury itself, was Oleg.

  The military-trained K-9 growled and jumped repeatedly against the restraint of the thick leather leash, almost yanking Yardley out of her squat. His lips were peeled back over sharp fangs in a mouth with jaws spread wide to take a full-mouth bite of his target.

  “For the love of fuck!” Purdy kicked out in Oleg’s general direction, panic making his eyes bulge. “Call him off!”

  “Stop fighting me and turn over on your belly.”

  “Fuck that.” Purdy tried to head-butt him. Kye ratcheted one of the man’s fingers back until he heard it snap. Purdy didn’t make a sound. Hardcore. But he had leverage now. He grabbed another finger. “Over on your belly. Now.”

  “Can’t. You’re sitting on me.”

  “Figure it out. I got nine more opportunities to persuade you.”

  Cursing like he was trying to win a profanity contest, the man struggled onto his side under Kye’s considerable weight, and then flopped belly-down on the kitchen floor. “Fuck you” ended the tirade.

  All the while Oleg was lunging and growling, sounding like the soundtrack of a monster thriller. Even Kye was beginning to feel the stress, but he didn’t have time to own it or even look behind him. “Yard. You okay?”

  “Fine.” The word came out of her like a shot. Clearly, Oleg was taxing her, but she knew not to call the dog off too soon. The snarling rampage of canine fury at the end of the leash raised the blood pressure of every person in the room to astronomical levels. It proved too much for most civilians. They gave up. But there was still every likelihood Oleg would have to bite Purdy before he gave up.

  Kye pressed his knee harder into the man’s back, his right hand gripping his arm back at an angle designed to dislocate it if Purdy struggled. Then he leaned in against Purdy, applying pressure to his arm until he groaned. “I’d stay still if I were you. That Czech wolfdog’s new here and not all that reliable.”

  Purdy craned his head around to stare at the dog. “I hear them dogs are bred to kill men.”

  “Is that so?” Kye leaned harder. “Yeah. He does look like he needs to bite something really bad. If you upset him it won’t be me. Got that?”

  Purdy nodded.

  With his free hand he began to search for weapons. He found the bulge of a concealed carry over his right hip and pulled out a Smith & Wesson Shield. In a pocket he found an extra clip. He placed them both behind him and scooted them across the floor in Yardley’s general direction.

  Kye looked over at Yardley. She was sweating, her eyes narrowed as she monitored Purdy while her arms trembled from holding the powerful wolfdog in check. “Yard, pick up the gun.”

  She nodded then barked the command in Czech to call Oleg off his prey. “Pust!”

  The wolfdog glanced back at her as if he couldn’t possibly have heard right, but then he quickly returned to her side when she didn’t speak again.

  “Hodny, Oleg!” Her praise was bright and girlish but she didn’t reach to pet him—the wolfdog was still on the job, hackles raised and gaze still locked on the pair of men on the floor.

  Kye watched Yardley work to calm Oleg with more whispered words of praise until he seemed to work back from high find alert. Only then did she free one hand from her two-handed grip on the leash and reach down for the gun Kye had shoved her way. She picked it up carefully but confidently and looked at Kye for direction. There was fear in her gaze but resolution, too. She would do whatever he asked next.

  “So now we’re armed. That’s a good thing.” He grinned at her. “I need duct tape. Lots of it. But first secure every door.”

  “Right. I’m leaving Oleg with you.” Yard made a motion with her hand sending Oleg into the down position before releasing his leash.

  The Czech wolfdog lay down immediately but continued to growl, his teeth on display as he kept absolute focus on the pair of men on the ground.

  She looked back at Kye, not asking the question in her gaze.

  He nodded once. “I got this. But hurry.”

  “You beat your woman, big man?” Purdy snickered. “That why she moves so fast when you speak?”

  Kye realized he was talk
ing about the marks on Yardley’s face. He’d stopped seeing them. But he supposed that like David, Purdy was seeing her as cowered by the bruises. Not in his eyes. In his eyes she was beautiful and strong, and sexy as hell. They’d missed the stubborn glint in her gaze that said she was ready to do whatever needed to be done.

  Yardley disappeared into the living room and reappeared after a moment with a roll of max-duty silver tape. “I’ll put us on lockdown.”

  Kye took it and wrapped several turns about his prisoner’s wrists and then up his arms until his elbows were tightly pinned together behind him.

  “Ow. I think my shoulder’s dislocated. You’re cutting off my circulation.”

  Kye jerked the tape tighter while Purdy began to struggle. “You were going to try to kill me. If I were you, I’d be grateful this is all the pain I’m dishing out.”

  Oleg came up a bit, nails scrambling on the floor as he assessed the situation. Both men shot wary glances over their shoulders.

  “Lie still. That dog is going to bite the one he gets to first. I swear I’ll be yards behind you if you so much as twitch again.”

  Purdy went flat on his face, as if his bones had liquefied.

  When satisfied his arms were immobile, Kye scooted back slowly to where he could bind his ankles, and then removed the Ka-Bar with its sheath. Then he patted Purdy down, finding a wallet, keys to a vehicle, and a cell phone. He shoved them all into a pocket of his jeans.

  Finally, Kye flipped him onto his back and straddled him again. “Let’s start at the beginning. Who the hell are you?”

  Purdy spat in his face. “Fuck this! You’re screwed.”

  “Maybe. But not by you, you piece of shit.” Kye tore off another short piece of tape, ignoring the blood dribbling down his face onto his shirt. “Are you really expecting backup?”

  Purdy, or whatever his name was, only stared at him with an ugly grin. “Broke your nose, pretty boy. I fuckin’ screwed you.”

  Kye blinked. “I’ll take that as non-compliance.”

  As he reached forward, the man’s bug eyes practically popped from their sockets. “What are you doing?”

  Kye glanced at the tape strip hanging from his thumb. Did Purdy think he was going to tape his nose to torture him for more information? We judge others by what we would do ourselves. He’d heard that somewhere. Okay, this was a level of fucker he really didn’t want to deal with.

  He slapped the tape over the man’s mouth, sealing it tight with the palm of his hand, and then quickly shifted off him on his knees on the floor, needing to put distance between them.

  “What are we going to do with him?”

  Kye glanced up. Surprise zipped through him. Yard stood there, tall and resolute. In the midst of the struggle to control his own emotions he’d nearly forgotten her.

  “The doors are locked. Windows, too. No one else in the house. I checked upstairs.” She held Purdy’s pistol pointed at the ceiling.

  Kye rose to his feet, muscles and joints protesting the punishment they’d taken. He swallowed more blood before he found his voice. “You have a basement?”

  She shook her head. “Cupboard under the stairs has a lock.”

  “Let’s stow him there until the sheriff gets here.”

  She moved in to help him carry the man. The look on her face gave him pause. And then he realized that she was looking at his face. His nose felt like a bloody pulp that he could barely breathe through. “I’m okay.”

  Her dark eyes remained a moment longer, taking in the damage, until her lips thinned in a way that was painful for him to watch. But she nodded. “You’re good.”

  At their feet, Purdy had begun to struggle a bit until Oleg sidled up alongside him. One look into the K-9’s yellow eyes and he went slack.

  Kye bent and gripped him under the arms while Yardley moved to his feet.

  “Wait.” Pulling Purdy’s body up against his chest, Kye said, “If you kick that woman I will lock you and the wolfdog up in the closet together. That’s not a threat. It’s an absolute certainly.”

  Kye went first, taking most of the man’s weight as they did an awkward backward dance into the living room and then to the stairs. Once Yardley opened the under-stairs door, Kye dragged Purdy into the narrow space half filled with boots and jackets and other gear.

  He looked down at the bound man. “The next person to open this door will be the sheriff. Until then, you’d better be the quietest mouse in this house.”

  Purdy jerked his head but his eye were brimming with hatred as Kye closed the door.

  Yardley waited until he had turned the key in the lock and stepped away from the door before she spoke softly. “Who is that man?”

  Kye weighed his options, wanting to tell her how fucked up the situation had become now that Gunnar had arrived. How they needed law enforcement like yesterday. How lover boy had screwed up royally. How her paragon of virtue had been thinking too hard about himself to really consider the position he was leaving her in when he disappeared into protective custody. Or when he busted out, only to land on her doorstep.

  He could have said that, and a lot more, and felt pretty good about destroying her illusions about Gunnar. But he didn’t. Because it wouldn’t do them any good. And it wouldn’t make her feel better or safer. And right now, Yard was all that mattered to him.

  “I can smell the rubber burning from here.” Yardley crossed her arms and cocked a hip to one side. She looked determined and resolute, but her left leg was doing that nervous jig it did when she was pissed. “When are you going to stop thinking and start talking to me, McGarren?”

  “Not until I get some answers myself.”

  Kye moved quickly past her and opened the bedroom door, his eyes fastening on the man propped up on the bed.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Huh.” Kye wiped the blood from his nose with a wet cloth then slapped the bag of frozen corn Yardley handed him against the back of his neck and angled his head back to try to stop the bleeding.

  Lily entered the bedroom where he sat listening to Gunnar explain the circumstances that had brought him to Harmonie Kennels. She climbed up in his lap, doing her kitten impersonation as she curled into his stomach. She seemed to understand he was in pain. Added bonus, the warmth of his body. The thermometer hadn’t crawled past freezing today and night was coming on.

  Yardley, who refused to sit, stood with her back to the wall, her arms folded, the dangerously sexy curve of one hip jutted toward him in an artless invitation he knew she wasn’t making. That didn’t stop him from remembering the feel of her naked hips in his hands as he’d buried himself in her. Was that only this morning? It seemed like a week ago. Looking at her face, he revised. A lifetime ago. Her gaze was sharp and focused on the man on her bed. He wished he could read her mind. Her expression was giving away nothing but serious attitude. Enough to make the room hum.

  Oleg was at her side, sitting alert in his handler’s pheromone cloud as his slanted eyes continually surveyed the terrain of her room. Not even an ant crawling on the floorboard was getting past him unnoticed.

  Angling his gaze, Kye refocused on the problem at hand. Gunner’s narrative of his good deeds and selfless attitude was giving him a headache. The man had some, if not all, of the responsibility in the danger he’d brought to Harmonie Kennels. The gnawing in his gut told Kye it probably wasn’t over.

  Finally Kye broke in, pain and inaction making him impatient. “So far you haven’t mentioned the guy we’ve got stuffed in the closet.”

  “That’s my fault.” Gunnar licked his lips, his eyes dull with fever. “Before coming to see Yardley, I hired a security agent I’d dealt with overseas.” A ghost of a smile laced with affection sketched his mouth. “I wanted to be certain she was protected, whatever happened.”

  Kye stomped on the temptation to say that her brother Law had already taken care of that by sending him. He needed to hear the doctor’s side. “What went wrong
?”

  “We were on our way here when he pulled out a gun and told me there was a bounty on my head that he intended to collect.”

  Yardley gasped. “You didn’t say that earlier.”

  Kye moved on before they could turn this tidbit of information into a lovers’ tiff. If that happened, he’d need to gag them both and stuff them in next to Purdy while he went to see the sheriff. Because, though they seemed in doubt, that’s where this was headed. He just wanted his facts straight first. “Did he say who set the bounty?”

  “No, but I can guess.” David sighed through some pain. “You won’t like it.”

  “I haven’t liked anything about this so far.”

  “Most recently I was acting as a go-between for a counterfeit drug ring and Interpol. I can identify names on both sides that their employers would like kept secret.”

  “Thanks for narrowing it down.” The grimness in Kye’s voice registered as frowns on his companions’ faces. No need to say it. Their situation was becoming more and more like a plot out of a James Bond movie.

  “So, Purdy.” Kye hitched a finger in the general direction of the stairs. “He’s your boy?”

  David’s gaze sharpened, the resentment in Kye’s tone cutting through his own daze. “I’m sure I recognized his voice. But that’s not the name I knew him by.”

  Kye pulled out the wallet he’d taken from Purdy. The driver’s license was issued to Pruitt James Hollister. It was a good fake, if one didn’t look too closely.

  He handed it to David. “Is this the man?”

  David took the ID, his hand a little unsteady. As he looked at the picture a “fuck” escaped through dry lips. He really needed medical attention.

  “I know him as Harold Prosett Jr. He’s based in Texas. Private security. He’d done work for DWB overseas. I thought he’d be trustworthy.”

  “They all call themselves private security for a reason. Many are no more than mercs working for hire. Their loyalty is fluid. It goes to the highest bidder. Obviously you weren’t it.”