face to face with a peeved cougar who’d woken from his nap sooner than expected.
Fuck me, I forgot to tie him up. Not his fault. Boris usually didn’t make a practice of keeping people who attempted to kill him, alive.
He grabbed for his gun, determined to put an end to the damned cat who threatened his fox , only to discover his holster was once again empty. Twice now she’s taken my weapon. Her and her damned feminine wiles!
Before he could demand she hand over his gun, Jan brought his gun up, two handed, and fired.
With a blink of its eyes, that didn’t include the new third one in the middle of its forehead, the cougar toppled over. Dead.
Boris looked from the pile of fur to Jan , who chewed her lip in obvious annoyance, to the gun. “I can’t believe you did that,” he said. He couldn’t. Despite the bodies he’d come across on his search, despite the story Reid once told him about Jan taking down a wild grizzly with nothing but a pocketknife and a slingshot, in spite of her comments, Boris never believed the elegant fox capable of such a deliberate and deadly act.
“Fudge it all , neither can I,” Jan exclaimed.
“It’s al l right. You didn’t have a choice,” he soothed, somewhat placated by her finally normal response in killing something. An appropriate girly response to killing a cat who was a man.
Big eyes regarded him with incredulity. “You think I’m upset because he’s dead?”
“ It’s okay to be. Killing isn’t easy.”
“ I’m miffed because I should have aimed for his shoulder, because now how will we get some answers?” she said.
For real? She was worried about questioning the cougar who’d tried to impale him on his claws and stalked her for the last eight hours or more? “I’m sure Reid will have kept one of his cohorts alive.”
“Reid’s around here too?” she asked , peeking around. “I thought it was just you.” Jan tucked his gun into the pocket of the large coat hanging on her frame. Given he had a few more stashed in his bag and in his boot, he decided let her keep it. She’d probably just steal it back again anyhow. At least he now knew she wouldn’t shoot her toes off.
“Reid went after Tammy. According to my last text from him, they found her.”
“She’s all right?”
Boris shrugged. “I guess. He didn’t really say.”
“And did he take care of the thugs who took her?”
Yeah, led by none other than another old army buddy of theirs, Gene. Gene, whom they’d all thought dead in the prison camp they’d spent time in. The camp that forever changed his mental state and future.
“The guy leading them got away, but Reid and the boys managed to take several of the rogues down.”
“Good.”
The feral smile on her face should have shocked him, but Boris was beginning to realize that the Jan he knew wasn’t the true Jan. The real Jan was a much tougher lady than he’d have ever credited. Tough and sexy.
For some reason he couldn’t help but think this spelled big trouble. And extreme pleasure.
Speaking of Reid , though, and in need of distraction from the maddening vixen, he yanked out his cell phone and put a call in to Reid. As alpha of the clan, he’d want to know Boris had located Jan.
He didn’t bother with pleasantries when Reid answered. “I found her.”
“Jan? She’s okay?”
Before Boris could reply, Jan snatched the phone out of his hand. “Is that the boss? Let me talk to him.”
“Give that back, woman.”
“Make me.”
“Since when did you get so argumentative ?”
‘ Weren’t you paying attention before? Since a moose decided I wasn’t good enough for him.”
“I never said that.”
But Jan ignored him to answer Reid’s earlier question. “Of course, I’m fine. No thanks to big dumbass here, tromping around like, well, a big ol’ moose and leading the enemy right to me.”
“I took care of them,” Boris said , a tad defensively. Had she not disarmed him with a kiss in the first place,