Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (39 page)

“Damnit!”

“I’m not his girl.” Kathy stepped up beside Collin, refusing to be protected like some piece of fragile china. It was a gesture that went unnoticed by Amos, who watched Collin with a twinkle in his eyes. Collin, certainly, didn’t appear to even notice she had spoken.

“Pack a bag, we’re leaving.” Collin’s order didn’t shock Kathy in the slightest, and she had a feeling this would begin an argument they’d be having for quite a while. “You can call your coworker from the road and tell her you’re sick or whatever. We need to get you out of town. Amos, do you—”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Kathy dug her heels in. “I’m not leaving my home just because this old fart has you all riled up.”

“This isn’t a fucking game, Kathy.” Collin turned to loom over her in a blatant attempt to intimidate her. “Pack. A. Bag.”

“No.” Kathy drew the denial out, making her position as clear as possible. “I can’t win this battle by running away from it.”

“No truer words could be spoken.” Amos banged his fist on the table as he nodded his head, drawing both their attention back to him. “I tell you what, Hitchens, I like this girl.”

“Shut up, Amos,” Collin snapped, turning back on Kathy as he latched onto her. He pulled her in close enough to feel the heat of his breath against her cheeks. “And you
are
packing.”

“Damnit, Collin.” Kathy jerked against his hold, trying to wiggle backward as she spat at him. “Don’t make me have to have Tony arrest you.”

“And don’t make me have to hog-tie you and cart you out of this town,” Collin shot back, refusing to release her.

“Children, enough!”

Amos injected himself not only into their argument, but also into the middle of their physical struggle. Placing a hand on Collin’s chest, he forced the younger man back far enough to break his hold on Kathy. Amos held Collin there as he glanced between him and Kathy.

“I think I have the solution to all of our problems,” Amos stated. “But first, we sit and talk like civilized people.”

“There is no discussion needed.” Collin jerked back from Amos’s touch. “I’m not leaving Kathy here to be killed or kidnapped.”

“And of the two of us, who do you think is the boss of me?” Kathy asked, not expecting an answer but hoping the question alone would penetrate Collin’s thick skull. She wished in vain, though.

“Me,” Collin answered without hesitation. “Unless, of course, you finally see reason.”

“Meaning agreeing with you,” Kathy translated. “That’ll be a cold day in—”

“Collin, why don’t you take a walk?” Amos suggested, holding Kathy back now when she would have stepped up to directly challenge Collin. “I’d like to have a few words with this little lady.”

“I’m not a little lady.” Kathy shook off the beefy hand Amos had settled on her arm. “And I’m not exactly interested in talking right now.”

“Collin?” Amos ignored her to prod the man seething not ten feet away.

“Fine,” Collin finally snapped. “Try it your way. You got a half hour. Then Jack will be here and you’ll both be outnumbered.”

With that warning, he stormed through the kitchen and slammed out the back door, leaving Kathy alone with Amos. They stared at each other for what felt to her like an uncomfortable moment. She couldn’t tell what Amos thought. His smug little smile had returned along with the glint in his eyes.

“Come. Sit.” Amos moved back around the table, taking his seat as he gestured to the one across from him. “Let’s talk.”

“I’m still not sure what we have to say to each other, given I don’t even know who you are.” Even as she offered up that complaint, Kathy pulled out the chair and settled into it.

“That’s simple enough to fix. I run the security company that the Reese brothers hired to protect Amanda.” Amos reached for the pitcher, pouring a glass of tea for Kathy as if they were in his house and she was the guest.

“Fine job you’re doing, too.” Kathy accepted the glass, but didn’t take a sip as she settled deeper into her seat. “She can’t even leave the house.”

“My job is to keep her alive, not happy.”

“And what about betraying her?” Kathy didn’t see any reason not to be blunt. Given the situation, it felt almost called for. “That part of your job description?”

She got the old man with that one. He stiffened straight up, meeting her gaze with the kind of bottomless stare the Alpha dog used to confront a competitor. Kathy wouldn’t blink, though. Her daddy had taught her better than to cave to such tactics.

“Where I come from, accusations like that aren’t made unless you’re willing to back them up,” Amos warned her.

“You do know that I know that Jack is a DEA agent, right?” Kathy forced her lips up into a tight smile. “Because I know Amanda doesn’t know that fact.”

“Those men of hers, they hired me to keep her safe and alive. How that’s done, what I have to do to fulfill my obligation—none of them want the details,” Amos explained what sounded like a very convoluted justification to Kathy. It didn’t shock her, though, the conclusion he came to. “They asked to be ignorant. So you see, there isn’t any betrayal.”

“If I told Amanda that you’d let a federal agent go undercover on her security team, you would be fired.”

“And the fact that you haven’t tells me you can appreciate my stance.” Amos smiled, making his face crease with lines that gave away his age. “It also tells me that you are a practical woman.”

“Really?” Kathy snorted at that, not impressed by the man’s flattery. “Well maybe you can share that bit of information with Collin because I don’t think he’d agree.”

“That’s because he’s thinking with his heart, not his brain.” Amos’s glance shifted to the back door as he sighed and shook his head. “Believe it or not, I hired him because he’s one of the best damn agents I ever saw in action. Man’s quick on his feet and got great instincts, just like his buddy Jack does, but you exist to prove that a woman can turn a capable man into a useless one.”

“Is that a fact?” Kathy knew when she was being bullshitted, knew, too, when a man’s compliments shouldn’t be taken at face value. Right now Amos wanted something from her. Kathy didn’t need three guesses to figure out what.

“It’s not that shocking. You are after all a very pretty woman.”

“Pretty?” Kathy lifted a brow at that word choice. “Not beautiful? Or perhaps devastatingly gorgeous? Not even sexy enough to make a gay man go dumb?”

“No.” Amos laughed out that denial, shaking his head at her. “But I could have said cute.”

“Oh, God,” Kathy groaned. “I hate that word. Puppies are cute. Babies dressed up like pumpkins for Halloween are cute. Grown women who you are trying to butter up are
not
cute.”

“Sorry.” Amos didn’t sound or look it. “I’ll remember that for the future, but I’d like it noted that I’m not trying to butter you up.”

“Please.” Kathy waved away his denial. “We both know you want something from me. The only difference is you know what it is and I don’t.”

“Actually, it’s you who wants something from me,” Amos corrected her.

“If you say help—”

“I was going to say information.”

That cutting retort shut Kathy up as she considered the possibilities of just where that statement led. “What kind of information?”

“The kind I’d only share with those who worked for me.”

Amos paused to offer her a small smile with that bit of bait, but Kathy didn’t bite. Instead she let her silence settle over the room until finally the old man broke and got to the point.

“Of course, I’m willing to rectify that small matter.”

“Oh, you are?” Kathy tried to keep her lips stiff and straight but it wasn’t easy. “So this is a bribe.”

“No, it’s a job and given the money I’m willing to offer, you’d be a fool to turn me down.”

Despite her determination not be charmed by the old man, Kathy couldn’t hold on to her anger. There was a jovial quality to his voice that softened the blunt edges of his arrogance, making him a little more endearing than Jack or Collin were with their highhanded mannerisms.

“You’re not that stupid, are you, girl?” Amos pressed, all but daring Kathy to disagree with him. She couldn’t, but that didn’t mean she agreed either.

“No, but that doesn’t make me buyable.” Kathy wouldn’t betray Amanda, or anybody else. She didn’t care how much Amos put on the table. “I have people I care about and people who care about me. No paycheck can buy that.”

“And that’s just why I want to hire you.” Not put off in the slightest by her rejection, Amos’s grin only grew wider as he agreed almost instantly with her. “Loyalty and intelligence are the two things I can’t teach a person to have, and two things in my line of work that are necessary for survival.”

“Yet you’re trying to buy me out of mine, which means this is either a test or you’re full of shit.” Kathy paused to give Amos a moment to squirm under the weight of that suggestion.

The old man didn’t give her that satisfaction, but instead threw his head back and laughed. Acting as if she’d made some kind of joke instead of an accusation, he didn’t offer her any assurances.

“You certainly look for the worst in a situation, which is another good trait for people in my kind of work to have.”

“And just what is your line of work?” While Kathy suspected she already knew the answer, she also knew better than to take anything for granted.

Of course, Amos couldn’t simply answer that relatively straightforward question. Instead he pursed his lips and considered the matter with a thoughtfulness that could only be an act. Kathy saw right through it and knew he was just looking for the right one to appease her. “We help clients solve and prevent security issues.”

Amos finally settled on a relatively simple explanation that, no doubt, covered a wide variety of complex problems. Kathy sensed this man liked to get into trouble. That was kind of her specialty, but that still didn’t make her qualified to work for him.

“I’m not exactly a ‘securities issue’ unless you want to talk about causing them.” That might have been brutal, but it was also honest as was the rest of Kathy’s summation of her abilities.

“I’m not qualified to drive anything other than a regular car or shoot anything other than a handgun. I’m not big enough to kick down any doors or intimidate any witnesses. I only know how to use a computer, not how to hack into one much less how to install or override security systems. So, I’m kind of wondering what the hell you want with me.”

“You’re smart, you’re curious, and you got balls.” Amos clicked off a short list of what he clearly considered her major attributes, before landing on the one Kathy could believe he meant. “Most importantly, you know how to research something.”

Amos leaned across the table, his smile dipping along with his tone. “Before I kick in a door I have to know it’s the right one and while I have hackers who get information, that doesn’t mean they know what to do with it, but you do. Don’t you?”

She should have been honest and told him “no,” but Kathy wasn’t that dumb. Instead she ducked the answer by responding with her own question. “And Amanda?”

“Is not relevant to this deal.” Amos straightened, his features hardening into a scowl. “The job is yours now or later, whatever fits your schedule, though I might point out that now might help your friend more than later.”

“Yeah?” Kathy lifted a brow, not surprised by that bit of advice. Amos had his agenda. While she didn’t blame him for it, Kathy still felt obliged to make him justify it. “And how’s that?”

“Because no matter how smart you are, without access to information, you’re just spinning your wheels.” From the way he spoke to the gleam in his gaze, Amos clearly had something he
wanted
to share. Kathy didn’t think it would take too much to make him blab.

“As in…” Baiting him with that slow prod, Kathy didn’t have to wait long before Amos finished the rest of her sentence.

“The Feds have a Judas.”

Cold shivers rippled down her spine. The frigid wash of fear had Kathy pulling back, unwilling to accept his words at first. Amos countered with his own lean forward.

“You want to hear a story?”

Kathy really didn’t, but had no choice in the matter. All too soon Amos had her head spinning with tales of federal safe houses getting hit and of a money runner being kidnapped only to show up dead down in a run-down motel just outside of Humble.

So many things started to make sense, one of which was just how much danger Jack was actually in. That realization only solidified Kathy’s determination to find out who was really behind all this mayhem. It wasn’t just about saving Amanda anymore.

* * * *

Jack pulled to a stop in front of Kathy’s house and stared at the vehicles crammed into her driveway. Kathy’s little hatchback was dwarfed by Collin’s monster-size truck, which itself almost completely disappeared behind the two black SUVs that had managed to pack themselves onto the cracked, concrete path. Jack didn’t have to wonder who the SUVs belonged to, already having gotten that call from Tagger.

To say the other agent was pissed would be putting it mildly. Between Kathy riling Marion and Amos’s sudden appearance, Tagger had damn near crapped himself he’d screamed so loudly. The agent’s real problem was that he didn’t know what to do. A free Kathy could lead them to more clues or end up helping out Amos. Of course, an imprisoned one could cut a deal and end up helping them out.

While Jack might have been all in favor of hauling Kathy’s ass out of the line of fire, he knew she’d never give under the pressure of an interrogation. That kind of force would only have Kathy digging in and becoming more stubborn. Worse, she might end up hating him. Jack couldn’t tolerate the thought of that any more than he could stand the idea of her ending up hurt.

Honestly, he didn’t know what the hell to do beyond confronting both Amos and Kathy. Jack shoved out of the truck and headed for her door. He ignored the muscle men clearly watching him as they lingered around the SUV’s bumper. While he didn’t catch them in the act, he bet the boneheads had already alerted Amos to his arrival. His suspicion proved right as the stocky ex-general opened the door just as Jack reached for the handle.