Chasing Can Be Murder (15 page)

I took a couple of steps away from the front door, all the better to stop the leather-clad intruder from overhearing our conversation.

“
Cool
? Jake, the guy’s a
biker
!” I whispered, my teeth grinding together the same way I’d like to be grinding Jake’s head against a rocky embankment. “Or are you so absorbed in planning your next protest march you hadn’t noticed?”

“Hey, man, we’re marching against the destruction of trees. How’d you like it if your grandkids were born into a world without trees?”

Okay, he had a point. Except for one thing. I would never have grandchildren. One had to have a reason for having sex without a condom first. Like being in love instead of lust—and the guy you’re in love with reciprocating. And then, of course, one had to go through the painful motions of giving birth to a baby. And that baby had to grow up, also having sex without a condom and give birth etc.

Highly complex.

And not relevant to this conversation.

“Anyway, dude,” Jake continued, blocking my depressing thoughts re sex, condoms and the current state of my love life. “What you got against bikers?”

“They eat people for breakfast.”

“How many bikers you know, Kat?”

“Umm…” I racked my brains, but all I could come up with was the eighty-two-year-old pensioner who lived in a run-down caravan at the Two Wells Caravan Park. He wore a black leather jacket summer and winter, and okay, he now rode a Gofer handicap-scooter, but I bet he’d owned a Harley somewhere in his murky past.

“Kat?”

“Okay. You’re right. I don’t know any bikers.”

“And bottom line, you
do
need protection.”

I sighed. I’d been thinking more along the lines of half a dozen fierce Dobermans patrolling the perimeter, or even a couple of hungry dingoes for protection. Anything but a seven foot biker. I let out another sigh and clutched the phone more tightly. Perhaps if I humoured Jake and let his cousin stay for the night, seeing he’d gone to so much trouble to find someone to protect me, then politely ask the scary guy in black leather to leave in the morning. Tell him, thanks, but no thanks, and hire myself a security guard. Someone I didn’t have to crick my neck every time I looked up at him. “So...is this Scuzz a good guy?”

“Good guy? Hey, man, Scuzz is my cuzz!”

This conversation was getting old and the giant on the veranda was getting impatient. I touched the hang-up button and passed the phone back through the gap.

“Satisfied?”

Struggling to assimilate the educated voice with the yob in black leather, I lifted the chain and nodded. “Okay, you can come in. Just for tonight. But if you try anything remotely funny my two guard dogs will tear your arms off and bury them in the backyard. Okay?”

Scowling at the big guy on my doorstep, I picked up the now traitorous Tater whose tail was wagging a welcome and shook my head at Lucky, still snoring on the rug. I didn’t know whether to be relieved about having a bodyguard or more apprehensive. After all, according to the emblem adorning his jacket, Scuzz was a
Red Dragon
.

The floorboards shuddered and creaked as the man-mountain bobbed his head to get under the door frame and lumbered towards me. I took a hesitant step backwards, noted a knife strapped to his left boot, tent-sized black leather pants and a straining black T-shirt under his sleeveless jacket. I tipped my head back and peered upwards until finally locking into two sharp black eyes set in a craggy face that, if he was to lose the wispy ginger beard, wouldn’t look half bad. A red and black bandana, nose ring, matching eyebrow rings and a shaved head completed the biker image. Yet, instead of the expected odor of sour sweat, there was a hint of something masculine, even sexy, that teased my nostrils. A lingering trace of cologne or aftershave, along with the homely smell of engine oil.

I smiled wanly. “Hi.”

“Good evening, ma’am. I am sorry to have caused you alarm.” The leather-clad Goliath held out one hand, each finger tattooed with a bright red-and-black eye. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Theodore Samuel Parkington the Third. But you may call me, Scuzz.”

“I’m Katrina Tess McKinley—the One and Only. And you can call me, Kat.” I watched in awe as my hand disappeared inside his. It was like having your hand swallowed by a whale.

“So…Katrina, where do you desire me to bed down for the night?”

Bed down? Holy crap! Hadn’t thought that through. I don’t suppose I could expect a biker with a plum and two silver spoons in his mouth to kip on the old sofa in the kennel-house.

Or could I?

“Umm…well…”

“If it is acceptable to you I’d like to camp here on your lounge room floor. I have my own bedding.”

“Umm...well...”

“Shall I fetch my accoutrements?”

Accoutrements?
Had this guy swallowed a Dictionary
?

“Er…right. Go for it!”

Bemused, I watched Scuzz wheel his Harley into my lounge room with the same care and attention to placement as he would a priceless Da Vinci painting. Evidently satisfied his pride and joy was in the best position, he flipped his sleeping bag onto the floor, unzipped the front and spread a black satin sheet inside. After carefully smoothing the shiny satin with one beefy tattooed hand, he placed a pastel pink pillow on top.

Was this guy for real?

“Kat, I wonder if you have a hot-water bottle I could borrow? I seem to have misplaced mine. If I left it in Jake’s apartment, I may as well kiss it goodbye. They have probably cut it up to make letters on a protester’s slogan by now.”

“I’ll see what I can find.”

If Scuzz was Jake’s idea of a joke, I thought, as I marched into the kitchen, I’d slaughter him in the morning, then spread him on toast and feed him to the dogs.

With one ear tuned in to Scuzz, who seemed to be having an in-depth conversation with my two adoring canines, I dug around in the kitchen drawers until I found an ancient hot-water bottle. Okay, it had a fluffy panda bear outer covering, but I couldn’t see that worrying a man who slept on black satin and rested his shaved head on a pastel pink pillow. Unable to restrain a grin, I tossed the water bottle onto the kitchen table, unearthed the matching stopper at the back of the drawer and filled my electric jug with water.

And then the doorbell rang.

Again.

My house was busier than Rundle Mall on a Saturday morning.

“Will you answer the door please, Scuzz?” I asked, endeavoring to keep my voice light. “If it’s the Avon lady calling, tell her I’m not interested. I’d need more than her special hand cream to make
my
hands smooth and silky.”

Adrenalin sizzled and buzzed in my brain as I switched on the jug. If the killer had dropped in to break off more ears—he was in for a nasty surprise. Even if the knife strapped to Scuzz’s boot failed to prove a deterrent, the height, width and breadth of my newly acquired bodyguard certainly would.

While waiting for the jug to boil, I scuttled across the kitchen lino, put my ear to the door and listened. Muffled voices drifted in from out front. What sounded like a quarrel and what could have been several loud thumps. Or Scuzz tearing the killer apart. I smiled as I wandered back to unplug the jug. Perhaps having the man in black leather around wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Ears alert for sounds of screaming, loud banging, or severed heads rolling across the polished wooden floorboards, I held the water bottle over the sink and filled it from the jug before screwing the stopper down tight.

Okay, everything had gone silent.

Time to face the fallout.

Almost afraid of what I’d find, blood, guts, maybe even mangled body parts, I slipped the cover over the rubber bottle and sailed back into the lounge.

The scene could have come from a family sit-com. Scuzz and the dogs were stretched out on the settee all eyes tuned in to the last few minutes of
Dancing with the Stars
.

“Hey, what’s going on? Who was at the door?”

“No one of interest.”

“What do you mean no one of interest?”

“Just some sappy guy in cowboy boots.” Scuzz’s eyes didn’t leave the television screen. “After securing him in a hammer lock I checked him for weapons, informed him you were currently upstairs changing into something more comfortable then told him to get lost.”

Oh, God. “You didn’t?”

Unrepentant, Scuzz looked up and nodded. “Afraid I did.”

“I don’t suppose this sappy guy in cowboy boots was also wearing an akubra hat?”

“Yes.”

“And did his jeans fit like a glove?”

“Well…I…can’t say I noticed.”

“And did he have gorgeous black brown eyes with tiny flecks of buttercup yellow running through them?

“Kat, I—”

“And did he have cute little lines each side of his eyes when he smiled?”

Scuzz shook his head. “Believe me when I say this guy did not,at any time, smile.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. And for a moment there, I had the feeling Cowboy Boots was contemplating punching my lights out, but instead, after informing me several times, in a rather impolite manner, that I did not know my birth father, he drove off in a huff.”

Damn
.
I’d never hear the end of this.
“Scuzz, you chased off the wrong guy.” I groaned. “That was my mate, Ben. He’s one of the good guys.”

Scuzz removed the hot-water bottle from my hand, pushed himself off the settee and bent to tuck the bottle deep inside his bedroll. Then, displaying a rare litheness for a man his size, he moved towards me with the grace of a wild African lion until my eyes were level with the shiny metal tag in the middle of his jacket zipper. He was so close I could see the rise and fall of his chest. Smell his expensive cologne and the strangely comforting scent of engine oil. Feel the roughness of his fingers as he cupped my chin and forced my head back to meet his eyes.

“While I am your bodyguard, Katrina,” he said his voice gentle, but firm. “No one enters this house without first producing police ID, a driver’s license
and
an original birth certificate.”

Relief spread through me like melted toffee as the significance of this statement sunk in. And yet, I still wasn’t quite ready to trust him.

Eyeing me with that unsettling look of the jungle, Scuzz brushed hair from my eyes and tucked a stray lock behind one ear. For such a big man his touch was soft. “My cousin informed me of the danger you face, Katrina.”

The way his eyes devoured my lips, I wasn’t sure which danger he was referring to.

“Jake has a big mouth.”

“And
you
have an exquisite mouth.” He dipped his head closer. For a moment I was tempted to stretch up to meet him. Then sanity intervened. I’d known Scuzz all of ten minutes. And look what happened last time I’d allowed a guy’s soft-talk to melt my defenses.

I shook my head, placed both palms on his chest and pushed. It was like pushing against a ten ton truck. “Down boy,” I growled, knowing if Scuzz wanted to force himself on me there’d be nothing I could do about it.

He stepped away and let both hands drop to his sides.

“Sorry, Katrina,” he said with a twist to his mouth and a twinkle in his eye that completely belied his apology. “I am but a mere man and you are a beautiful sexy woman.” With that, he sank onto the settee with the dogs, lifted Tater onto his lap and tuned into the beginning of
Packed to the Rafters.

I closed my gaping mouth and shook my head. It wasn’t fair.
It just wasn’t fair
! Two guys in the last three days had hit on me, yet the one I wanted to notice me, that big lug, Ben Taylor, treated me like a mate. Couldn’t ditch his blinkers long enough to see I not only had boobs—I was also endowed with every other piece of equipment proclaiming I was female.

According to Scuzz...I was a beautiful, sexy woman.

A beautiful, sexy woman who was going quietly insane while struggling to prevent her rampant, unrequited hormones from exploding from their cage. All Ben ever saw when he locked eyes with me was the good mate he borrowed Bone Radial from when he needed to treat a dog’s sprained wrist. Or an extra person to make up the numbers in a poker game on a slow Friday night.

If only
he’d
brush his fingers through my hair and tell me how exquisite my mouth looked. Hell, I’d throw caution not only to the wind, but out the window and over the back fence. Ben only had to say the word and I’d lay myself out for him like a Playboy centerfold.

Yeah, I know. I’m pathetic. A disgrace to feminists the world over. So sue me.

“Any idea who would have had reason to kill your friend, Katrina?”

“Sorry?” I shook my head to dislodge the frustrating images of Ben from my head and blinked at Scuzz’s unexpected question.

He patted the seat beside him. “Come along, tell me all about it. You must have some idea who perpetrated the crime.”

I frowned, ignored his invitation and perched on the edge of an overstuffed armchair. What was going on? One minute Scuzz was all warm and fuzzy and attempting to kiss me and the next he was ferreting for information. I gave him a closer, narrow-eyed scrutiny. Was Theodore Samuel Parkington the Third
really
one of the good guys? After all, Jake hadn’t seen his cousin since childhood and kids can change when they grow up. I’d heard rumors that Al Capone was a shy little boy who used to hide behind his mother’s skirts.

When I didn’t answer, Scuzz cocked his head to one side. “Are you certain you didn’t catch a glimpse of the killer that night? Feel his presence? Smell his aftershave?”

“No.” My frown deepened and a small scared little butterfly began fluttering around in my stomach. “As I told the police, I knew nothing until my fingers found the knife in Matt’s chest. If I’d seen Matt’s killer, do you honestly think I’d be alive and talking to you now?”

“Sorry Kat, I am being obtuse. And thank goodness you
are
alive,” he said smiling at me while pulling gently on Tater’s ear. “I thought he might have left a clue, that’s all.”

“Well, he
didn’t
.”