by Amy Vansant
Broch sauntered back into view, rolling something in his hand. Catriona decided she didn’t have time to walk him through how to handle situations like this. She had to talk Jaxon down from his perch, get the girl somewhere safe, clear the crowd and keep the story from spreading—
Broch cocked his arm and threw something in Jaxon’s direction. Catriona followed the object’s path in time to see it strike the boy between the eyes.
What the—
Jaxon’s hands unwrapped from the girl and jerked out to either side as he fell backwards and out of view.
He’d been holding Brynlee suspended and, released from his counterweight, she spilled over the edge. Catriona lunged to break the girl’s fall, only to smack into Broch’s back. She bounced off of him as the girl fell safely into his arms.
Catriona sat on the ground watching as he lowered the shaking girl to the pavement.
“Ye'r safe noo, lassie.” Broch ran his hand once along the curve of Brynlee’s skull, like a father soothing a frantic child. The girl stared into his eyes as if hypnotized. Her shaking ceased.
The two girls who’d been watching the drama ran to their friend, breaking her trance with their collective hysterics. Brynlee collapsed sobbing into their arms and they pulled her toward the nearest chair.
Catriona realized she, too, had been mesmerized by the scene until she heard a celebratory whoop! behind her. The other teenage boy had caught the whole ordeal on his phone and couldn’t contain his excitement.
She pointed to him. “Broch. That guy. Grab his phone—Quick! Before he can upload anything.”
Broch’s brow knit. “Eh?”
“The thing in his hand, bring it to me.”
The young man realized he’d been seen and locked eyes with Broch. Terrified, he tried to run, but even in his restrictive borrowed jeans, the Highlander was on him in a flash. He tore the phone from the boy’s grasp and tossed to Catriona. She caught it, slammed it to the cement and kicked the pieces into the pool.
“My phone!” The young man wailed as if she’d killed his twin brother.
“Before you call your lawyer, do you mind if I have you arrested as an accomplice? Maybe have your blood tested for drugs? And—related question—were you hoping to be discovered? Because you breathe a word of this to anyone—your mom, your therapist, the pre-pubescent psychopath on the other side of your video game headset—and you’ll never work in this town again. I promise you this.”
The kid threw a defiant expression but she saw his complexion grow pale. She walked to him and stood inches from his face.
“Are we clear? Do we have an understanding?”
He set his jaw.
Tough guy. Let’s try this.
“If ruining any chance of you ever having a career doesn’t scare you, maybe violence will. He’s not even close to the biggest or scariest person I know.” She jerked a thumb in Broch’s direction.
The kid’s gaze darted to Broch and then returned to her. He moved to the gate to leave. “Fine. Tell Jax I’ll call him.”
Catriona looked at Chad. “That little jerk does want to be famous, right?”
He nodded. “You got him dead to rights.”
She called out to the boy’s retreating figure. “Don’t forget I know who you are—”
She shot a look at Chad, telegraphing to him that she needed a name.
“Iron Crow,” he mumbled.
“Iron—Really?”
He nodded.
“I know who you are, Iron Crow.” She looked around the yard. The teen girls still sat on a giant lounger, clumped in a teary group hug. “Any other witnesses?”
Chad shook his head and nodded towards Broch. “Did he hit Jax with a rock?”
Catriona glanced up at the balcony and saw nothing but the soles of Jaxon’s feet. Broch approached and followed her gaze.
“Did you throw a rock at him?” she asked.
“Aye.”
She nodded slowly and then entered the house, Broch close on her heels. Upstairs, she checked to ensure Jaxon was breathing. He seemed fine, but for the angry, plum-sized lump in the center of his forehead and the fact that he was unconscious.
Lot of lumpy foreheads this week.
She pulled her phone from her jeans and called Noseeum.
“Need you at Jaxon Pike’s house.”
“Did the little brat O.D.?”
“More of a rock to the forehead situation. That, and when he wakes up he’ll still be high on meth and who knows what else.”
“On my way.”
She hung up and called Big Luther.
“Luther here.”
“Tell the powers that be that Jaxon Pike will be in rehab for a while.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
“Can’t Noseeum give him something to get him through this week’s schedule?”
“Maybe, but that isn’t going to help the huge lump on his forehead. Unless he has to wear a helmet in all his scenes this week, he’s out one way or the other.”
“Lump? Should I ask?”
“No.”
Luther spat a string of expletives and hung up.
Catriona stood. “Our work here is done.”
Broch put his hands on his hips. “Ye hae a strange job.”
“No argument there. Nice throw.”
He grinned. “Thank ye. Seemed the easiest way tae free the lassie.”
“It didn’t worry you that she might fall to her death after you knocked him unconscious?”
He scoffed. “Ah was there, wasn’t ah? Ye could see she’s a wee thing.”
“And what if you killed him?”
Broch scowled at the boy. “Then he reaped what he sowed.”
She patted her intern on the arm. “Scotland justice seems a little less complicated than here.”
“Aye. Ah haven’t seen a lot o' common sense in this place.”
She looked up at him and grinned. “On the upside, it seems like you were born for this job.”
Chapter Fourteen
Catriona and Broch returned to her truck. As they stepped inside, she saw the big man put his hand against his stomach.
“Are you hungry?”
“Aye.”
“I’ll take you to get a Pink’s hot dog. That work?”
He peered at her, his lower lip extended and the sides of his mouth downturned. “Dog?”
“A hot dog. It’s not made with actual dog. It’s beef. Cow.”
He visibly relaxed. “Och, that sounds better.”
“You don’t eat hot dogs in Scotland?”
“If we dae, we dinnae call them that.”
Catriona drove him to L.A.’s iconic hot dog stand, stealing peeks at his expression as he watched the other cars move around them. If he was pretending to be from a place without traffic, he was awfully good at it. She’d lost the ability to even imagine such a place.
She parked and they walked to the bright pink building. “What would you like on it?”
His brow knit. “On whit?”
“On your hot dog.”
“Oh—I dinnae ken.”
She ordered him a chili bacon dog and they found a spot to sit.
“If you don’t like the stuff on top just scrape it into the trash.”
He bit into the hot dog and his eyes lit. “Ah've never had anythin' like this. Ye say tis made o' cow?”
She nodded, chewing her own.
“Whit part o' the cow?”
“Hot dogs are usually made of something between every part and you don’t want to know.”
He finished the dog in a few bites and she offered to buy him another. As unorthodox as his methods had been, she felt as though she owed him something for fixing the problem with Jaxon so quickly.
He declined and finished the bottle of water she’d bought to wash down the mess, holding it up for her to see.
“That was water.”
She nodded, her mouth full.
“Ye bought water?”
<
br /> She nodded again and he shook his head.
“So, tell me about yourself. What do you do in Scotland?”
He twisted his mouth to the side as if deep in thought. “Ah think ah took care o' some women there. The women wha raised me.”
“You were raised by women? Like in an orphanage?”
“Aye. Ah was an orphan and they took me in.”
“And you took care of their place?”
“Aye.” He tilted his head as if a thought had just occurred to him. “And ah helped other folk in exchange for money as well I think—later.”
“People hired you to help them? With what? What did you do?”
“Ah was whit they needed. A sword, a back.”
Catriona took her last bite. Sean’s fascination with the stranger made more sense to her now. She wiped the mustard from her mouth and swallowed. “So you were a fixer, like Sean and me? You made other people’s problems go away?”
He paused and nodded. “That sounds right.”
Something he’d said gnawed at the back of her brain until it occurred to her what it was. “Wait. Did you say sword?”
“Aye. Mah mother Blair taught me how tae use a sword. But I can hunt and shoot. And ah could make food grow from”—he motioned to the paved road in front of Pink’s—“from this godforsaken land.”
“And how did fighting and farming bring you to Parasol Pictures’ lot? I don’t understand how I found you where I did.”
They locked eyes and she sensed true confusion behind his.
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“Nae.”
“Do you remember how you got that wound in your side? Were you attacked?”
He looked away. “Ah dinnae ken.”
“You dinnae ken a lot.”
“Aye. Sorry—I meant I dinnae know.” He over-pronounced the word, imitating her own American accent and she laughed.
“Okay. We’ll work on dinnae and don’t later.”
She crumpled napkins in her hand. Broch seemed to take that as a signal that they were leaving, stood, and held out a hand to help her to her feet.
She hesitated and then took it. “Do you want to get back home? Back to Scotland?”
“Aye.” He turned and stared into her eyes. “But this place isn’t awful.”
She felt herself blush. Kilty was a conundrum. She stepped back, as if beholding him in his entirety would make the puzzle of him apparent to her.
It did not.
“I guess I’ll take you back to the lot and get you setup with your apartment,” she said, looking away.
He didn’t answer, but instead watched a middle-aged man approach them. His body stiffened and he stepped between her and the stranger.
“My card,” said the man, pushing a business card toward Broch. “I’d love to shoot you.”
Broch’s chest swelled. “Aye? Dae ah get my turn at ye then?”
Catriona couldn’t see Broch’s expression but the man’s eyes flashed with fear. She replayed the conversation in her head and found the problem.
“He means photograph you. Not shoot you with a gun,” she said, touching Broch’s arm. “It’s all right. Just take the card.”
Broch’s shoulders relaxed and he plucked the card from the man’s fingers. The photographer traced the path of the scar on Broch’s temple from end to end in the air two inches from the Highlander’s face.
“That scar is fascinating. So manly.”
Catriona couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Broch growl.
The man glanced at Catriona, his eyes dancing with excitement.
“My god. If I could capture his raw sexuality on film we’d all be millionaires. He’s really got that animal magnetism thing, y’know?”
Catriona glanced at Broch.
I know.
As the photographer’s attention shifted to Catriona she felt Broch lean towards her, as if he was trying to block the stranger’s view of her.
“I wouldn’t hold my breath for his call, if I were you,” she mumbled to the man, steering Broch away from the encounter.
The photographer looked Broch up and down one last time, whistled, and scurried on his way.
Broch watched him go and then turned to her. The squinty lines on either side of his eyes told her he still wasn’t sure the danger had passed.
“Photographs don’t kill,” she said, patting his bicep. “Though the bad ones can hurt for a long time.”
Chapter Fifteen
Luther heard a knock, sighed, and stood from his sofa. Raising his oversized, ex-Army frame seemed a little more difficult every year.
No one ever told him knees had a shelf-life.
Lumbering to the door, he opened it and peered at a chubby man with a lump in the middle of his forehead.
“Can I help you?”
The man smiled. “Hiya. My name’s Knotty, er, John. John Knotty. I work for the news station and I was wondering if you could tell me who this man is? We need to git a paper signed by him to use him on the TV.”
He held up a photo printed on paper and pointed towards a face Luther recognized; two faces, if he included his own. He recognized the shot of Sean and him standing on the Parasol Pictures lot from a piece that had run on the national news. An extra had pulled a gun on set, threatening the lives of one of their stars. Luther and Sean had neutralized the threat, though the studio had spun to the story to make their A-list star the hero.
He didn’t mind.
Luther glowered at his smiling visitor. John Knotty’s smile made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t the sort of smile a person made when bothering someone after dark. It didn’t say I’m sorry to be bothering you so late at your home. It didn’t even say, I know this business could wait until tomorrow when you’re at work, but my boss is on my back.
No. This man’s smile said don’t look too closely, and not just because one of his bottom teeth was discolored and had clearly died.
“I’d really like to git this paper signed. You know him?” said Knotty.
“You mean a release?”
“What?”
“This paper you want signed. You mean a release?”
Knotty nodded. “Oh. Right. Yep, one of those. But we’re having a dickens of a time finding this fella. We know he works with you though, because there you are, next to him.” He pointed at the photo.
Luther straightened to his full height of six foot six and put his hands on his hips. As rule, it was all he needed to do to encourage people to leave him alone.
“Do you need a release from me, too?”
“What?” Knotty glanced at the photo and laughed. “Well, you got me. Yup.”
Luther plucked the printout from Knotty’s hand. “You print this out?”
“Sure.”
“So you know it’s a photo of a story they ran on your television. I can see the trinkets sitting on your damn mantel there. This shot of Sean and me that has already been on television. What do you need a release for now?”
“Sean? Would you happen to have his last name?”
Luther pressed his lips together and did his best to make the lumpy-headed pest melt beneath his stare. “Look man, I don’t know what you’re up to but you don’t need any release. What station you say you work for?”
“Channel two?”
“Are you sure? You don’t sound like you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re saying you’re going to rebroadcast a news clip about a problem we had at the studio weeks ago? That’s some pretty poor news, if you ask me.”
“Uh...yep. If you could just let me know how I can get hold of this Sean fella—”
Luther tossed the paper at the man. “You must think I’m as dumb as you are. Get your lumpy head off my doorstep—”
“I wouldn’t,” said a new voice.
Luther looked past the chubby man and saw an older man, tall, with heft to him and a large red beard. He held a gun in Luther’s direction with a glov
ed hand. Something about his face seemed off kilter, like someone had taken a shovel to the lower half and knocked it out of whack.
Knotty stepped back and manifested a gun of his own.
Luther raised his hands and squared himself in the doorway.
“Look I don’t know what you two are up to—”
The red-bearded man cut him short. “Our quarrel isn’t with you. Tell us where we can find Ryft and we’ll be gone.”
“Rift? What’s rift?”
“Not a what, a who.”
“He said the fella’s name is Sean,” offered Knotty.
“Sean what?”
“He didn’t git to that part.”
“Na, ya twit, I’m asking him.”
Before the older man could return his attention to Luther, Luther spun, bolting towards the back of his home. He heard his front door bounce off the wall as John Knotty pursued. Ripping his back door off its hinges in his haste, he burst outside and caught a split-second vision of a bat headed towards his skull.
No time to duck, he slipped into darkness, with only one word ringing in his head.
Stupid.
Chapter Sixteen
Catriona drove Broch to the lot and walked him to the payroll office. He strolled with his long kilt tossed casually over his shoulder, winking, waving and grinning at everyone they passed like a returning hero. Though he showed little sign of remembering or sharing any more of his mysterious past, he was rapidly warming to his new reality.
She walked him to the building that housed his new apartment. The apartment located adjacent to hers. She’d worked years to earn that apartment. Kilty strolls in with his muscles, rugged scars and mysterious past is handed the keys on day one.
Pfft.
A middle-aged woman with a champagne blonde bob sat behind a computer in the payroll office. She looked up as they entered and, as her gaze settled on Broch, her neck stretched and chin tucked like that of a curious bird.
“Jeanie, this is Brochan—Broch. He’s going to be staying in the apartment next to mine for a while.”
Jeanie smirked. “Oh. The apartment next to yours. Right.”
“No, seriously. He’ll be in the guest apartment, so let him up if he comes through here without me.”
