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“Rowdy, damned good to see you. ” Cranston frowned as he stepped into the office and extended his hand. “You ignored my invitation to the party last week, by the way. ”
Shaking his hand, Rowdy raised his brows in surprise. “That was really from you? I couldn’t believe it. I was afraid it was a trick to get us all in one place to kill us all at once. ”
Cranston’s frown turned suspicious, and evidently the innocent smile Rowdy gave him did nothing to alleviate the suspicion.
Cranston’s jaw tightened.
Turning to Dawg and Rowdy, he sighed deeply.
Dawg was still engrossed in his newspaper, and now Natches had a part of it—the comics, no less—and appeared just as involved in it.
“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Cranston muttered, sounding strangely disappointed.
The look he shot Rowdy had a curl of shame rearing its head that only managed to piss Rowdy off. Hell, he had no reason to feel ashamed.
“What did you expect?” Rowdy asked as he walked to the desk and took his seat behind it. “Come on, Cranston; we know you. When you make one of your infamous requests that we all meet you together, it means you’re going to pull us into one of your schemes, get us shot at, and piss our wives off. We’re not playing this time. ”
“Yet here you all are. ” Timothy waved his hands out to encompass the room, that glimmer of somber disappointment still gleaming in his eyes.
“Out of curiosity,” Rowdy assured him as both Dawg and Natches lowered their papers with a snap.
The other man sighed—tiredly?— before moving to the desk, though he didn’t sit down.
“There’s no scheme,” he assured them, his voice matching the resignation in his brown eyes.
“Sure there’s not,” Dawg expressed doubtfully. “You’re still breathing; that means there’s a scheme. ”
“The party was thrown, Dawg”—he singled Dawg out, and it wasn’t missed by any of them, especially Dawg—“to allow you to meet four young women and their mother. ”
“We’re not bodyguards; nor are we in the market for a woman,” Dawg snapped.
At this point, Cranston sat down. Slowly.
His brows lowered, his brown eyes darker and flickering with what Rowdy had always said were the fires of hell. It was actually the green coming out in the dark hazel of his eyes.
They just appeared brown until he was pissed.
He was pissed now.
He watched the three of them silently, his jaw clenched and granite hard.
“At what point have you failed to miss the fact that I am completely besotted by you
r wives and children? And since you acquired those wives and children, at what time have I asked you to do anything dangerous?” he asked them then, and Rowdy had to admit he hadn’t expected to hear that edge of some emotion akin to hurt in the agent’s tone.
Dawg and Natches both put their papers aside as Rowdy tensed. They’d seen Cranston in a lot of different moods, but they rarely saw him pissed off at them. And they had certainly never seen him give the impression that his feelings were hurt.
They had seen him pissed at others, often— But he’d never seemed to care enough about anyone that they could actually prick emotions they’d never known he had.
“That doesn’t mean you’re not trying to draw us into one of your damned operations,” Natches growled, clearly missing the fact that Cranston didn’t get pissed at them for saying no to a mission.
“Natches. ” Rowdy said his name softly, warningly, his gaze locked on the former agent. “Let’s see what he has to say. ”
“Why?” Dawg grunted. “He’s obviously out to cause trouble. ”
“Or to alleviate some,” Cranston stated softly, the cool smile that crossed his lips sending that chill racing up Rowdy’s spine again.
Cranston stood slowly, the expression on his face hinting at not just anger, but also that inner disappointment that had Rowdy confused as hell. “Had I known this would be my reception, I would have just told you over the phone,” he stated. “Rather than believing we had been friends for the past four years. ”
