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“He believes that two of the three most important females in his life being alone together overnight presents a high-value target for our enemies.”
Tapping Cork on the shoulder, Rose asked innocently, “Are you a terminator, ‘cause you sure sound like one.”
Tiffany turned her face toward the window and smothered her laughter behind her hand.
“A what?” Cork asked, genuinely confused.
“You know, a robot sent from the future to protect us.”
He clucked indignantly and turned away. “I refuse to dignify that question with a response.”
“I’m just saying,” Rose continued, “if you are a terminator, you’re seriously malfunctioning.”
Ace cleared his throat, changing the subject. “So, what did you say you ladies are making for dinner tonight?”
Rose shifted her suspicious gaze from Cork to Ace. “Tiffany’s going to teach me how to make homemade pizza. Why? Wanna join us?”
“Negative. We are not to fraternize with the…split tails.”
Rose’s face morphed into a pure, blind fury, and she went completely off on the seriously stupid man. “That’s it. These two are going to hold you down, and I’m going to cram pizza in your mouth. We’re gonna keep cramming you full of pizza till you apologize for calling us that.”
Without much of a reaction, Cork intoned, “I do not eat pizza. It’s a disgustingly cheap pseudo-food intended to pacify the masses.”
“Someone hold me back, ‘cause I am going to kill that pompous son of a…”
“Rose Staunton, get ahold of yourself.” Tiffany’s stern voice snapped the teen back to reality.
Gesturing wildly at the man, Rose stared at Tiffany with big eyes.
Tiffany scrambled to decide what to do with the two of them. “Cork, you monitor the perimeter outside the house tonight. Ace, you’re inside with us.”
Cork responded smugly, “Thank you, Tiffany. My prior military training makes perimeter patrol a particularly good assignment for me. I’m not the type to lie about inside like a big, lazy house cat.”
Rose’s indignant huff sounded much louder in the small confines of the vehicle.
Tiffany shot the man a dark look. “You’re intent on getting your eyes scratched out before the…assignment is over, aren’t you?”
Tossing her a heated look, Cork responded curtly, “I never allow myself to be attacked by children.”
Tiffany was beginning to wonder if his words were designed to be an insult to Rose or some kind of come-on for the woman wearing his club brother’s property cut. Ace must have thought the same thing, because the moment Cork stepped out of the vehicle at her place, Ace nailed him a hard right across the face.
Cork came back up and raised his fist, and Tiffany quickly spoke up. “Do not touch him. He’s a fully-patched brother. It would get you thrown out, and Ace has not been medically cleared by his doctor for roughhousing.”
Cork’s hands immediately dropped to his sides, and his expression cleared. “Take him and Rose inside. I’ll bring your groceries.”
Crisis averted, for the time being, Tiffany breathed deep. Turning, she hurried up the sidewalk to their front door. Taking out her keys, she was grateful that Ryder had installed security lighting on their front porch. It made it so much easier to get her key into the double locks.
Out of habit, she looked down and noticed what appeared to be muddy footprints on her doormat, and if she wasn’t mistaken, they were the right size for a man’s boots. They were all over the place like the dude had run back and forth. What the hell…?
Glancing around, she spotted a small package sitting on the stoop. Picking it up, she pushed the front door open and put the security code into the keypad to rearm the alarm. Between the dead birds and the muddy porch, coming home was getting to be a fairly depressing affair.
Tossing the package onto the table without bothering to check who it was from or who it was intended for, she went to put on some tea. Moving around, she noticed Cork drop her bags on the table before going back outside. There was something to Rose’s declaration that he had acted like a robot. His face was always expressionless, and he walked with the kind of slight, rigid movement normally associated with robots. Maybe he had sustained an injury in the military or something...
Rose stared the man down as he left. Shrugging out of her coat, she complained bitterly, “That man’s always an ass to me for no reason. He’s the only prospect with no people skills. When he gets patched, I hope they sew it right to his skin.”
Damn, when the girl got pissed, she gotpissed. Tiffany could almost laugh if it weren’t so true.
Ace tried diplomatically to smooth things over. “He’s probably just going through something right now. Best steer clear of him, kid. I’d hate to have to nail him twice in one night.”
