Chapter 3
Fa la la la llama.
Hudson eyed the fourth fence line with growing frustration. More intentional damage in multiple places. And she had no cameras, absolutely nothing out here. Which…wasn’t out of the ordinary for a place this big and spread out.
But he was going to head to town and grab some basic supplies later this evening. At least some trail cams.
Later this week he’d be setting up more cameras to figure out exactly who was behind this sabotage.
He still needed more details from Scout because those two men had been trying to intimidate her.
There had to be more going on. And he wasn’t going to let those guys harass her.
For some reason she brought out his most protective instincts.
And it was clear she was struggling in more ways than one, so he was going to help. It wasn’t like he had any contracts lined up, and his home—a boat at a marina—was just another lonely place to lay his head.
Especially around the holidays. He had no family left, not that he’d ever been close to any of them. No, the people in his life were the family he’d chosen. But the holidays were still hard.
Even some of his oldest friends had settled down. They were still working, still taking contracts, but they had someone to go home to. Unlike him.
He’d never realized how lonely he was until last Christmas when his friend Dante had finally made a move on the love of his life, Aileen. Seeing someone like Dante, a grumpy bear of a man who reminded Hudson of the Grinch, settle down… It had shaken something loose inside him.
And it was part of the reason Hudson had taken a job in north Florida a week ago—then he’d finished it earlier than planned which had screwed up his plan of avoiding Miami for Christmas.
He’d hoped to kill even more time by stopping on the outskirts of Candy Cane to talk to one Lucas Smith—a fake name if he’d ever heard one—about getting some custom weapons made.
Instead he’d been knocked out by a llama and was now starting to get obsessed with the llama’s owner.
He didn’t give a shit about getting those new weapons now.
He just cared about keeping Scout safe. And maybe getting her naked.
“So have you changed your mind yet?” Scout strode up to him, shoving her sunglasses up on her head as she eyed the fence he’d been looking at.
“I’m not changing my mind,” he murmured, not looking directly at her.
Because doing so was like looking at the sun.
She was so gorgeous it hurt, in a completely natural, unaffected way.
She wasn’t tall, maybe five feet six, but she was lean and strong.
He could see the outline of her toned arms through the tight T-shirt under her overalls and couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of her looked like.
It was clear that she was fit from working on her farm.
She kept her dark wavy hair pulled back away from her face, but a few strands had broken free and he had to resist the urge to tuck some of the wayward ones behind her ears.
There was more than a hint of innocence around her, something he wasn’t used to. Not in his line of work. She actually reminded him of his friend Aileen. “I just don’t like that this is clearly intentional damage. So these pastures, they’re closest to that horse farm, right?”
“Yeah.” Her jaw tightened.
“We’re going to get some cameras up here.”
She was already shaking her head before he’d finished. “I can’t afford that. And there’s no way to set up something with enough Wi-Fi to get them all the way out here anyway.”
“I’ve got a few trail cameras I can set up.
” A lie; he had to go buy some, but he knew she’d balk at that.
“It’s not the best thing, but it’ll catch any movement in the near future and we can look at the images later.
But I might have an idea for some boosters to get service this far out.
Maybe not all the way out here, but to some of your closer pastures. ”
“Well…I do have cameras set up on all the girls.”
“Girls?” He frowned down at her, again struck by her blue-green eyes.
“Oh, my llamas. Lucy, Clover and Patricia.”
He blinked. “They’ve got cameras on them?”
“Yep.” And she looked quite proud of herself for that.
“Catch any good feeds?”
“Eh…not really, but I only recently put them on. No one is messing with my girls, and they’re fast. Plus the cameras don’t look like cameras, so if they catch someone trespassing, they won’t realize they’re being recorded.
The only downside is that I have to upload them every night to look at them. It’s a lot of extra work.”
He nodded and looked away, because again, he couldn’t keep staring at her. But then he asked, “Did you have a camera on Lucy when she knocked me out?”
Her eyes widened for a moment before her cheeks flushed a delicious shade of pink. “Yes.” Then she slid her sunglasses back on.
“I’d like to see that feed.”
“Oh, pretty sure I deleted it.” A clear lie. “How’s your head anyway? Do you need any more Tylenol, or something stronger? In fact, are you sure you should even be out here working now?”
“I’m fine.” He wanted to push a little, mostly because he liked seeing her flustered, but decided to hold off.
He had some stuff he wanted to do before the sun set, and it was coming up fast. “Would you mind if we headed back? I need to head into town to grab a few things and then I want to get a few cameras set up before dark.”
She nodded. “Sure. I’ve got to get back and feed everyone anyway.”
***
“Why am I getting reference calls from a tiny farm in Candy Cane, Florida about you?” Lorna asked through the phone before Hudson had a chance to even get a greeting in.
“I’m working.” He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was following him. He’d spent more time in town than he’d planned on, and now it was after dark. He could still get some of the cameras up, but not all of them.
“What kind of work?” she demanded.
He didn’t work for Lorna, but she handled a lot of incoming contracts for him and others.
Unlike him, she lived in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood with a bunch of other hitmen.
He actually owned a house in the neighborhood, but preferred to live on his boat.
He respected the hell out of her, considering the jobs she’d taken decades ago with her husband, so she was one of the few people who got to demand things from him.
“It’s personal.”
There was a short pause. “How personal?”
“Just helping someone out, that’s all.”
“Someone? A woman, perhaps?”
“Why are you in my business?” he asked as he turned onto the dirt road that would eventually lead to Scout’s farm. Such a unique name, like her. So far he’d seen sheep, goats, chickens and of course her menacing llamas.
“Because I care about you,” Lorna said bluntly.
Oh. Shit. He couldn’t get mad at that. “Yes, I’m helping a woman, but it’s not like that. Her grandfather died recently and she’s running this place by herself and apparently being bullied by some neighbors. I don’t know the details yet, but she needs help. And she reminds me of Aileen,” he added.
Who was Lorna’s daughter. There was a short, charged pause. “You want backup? Nestor and I could come up there for a bit. It’s not a long drive.”
“No…I know how busy the holidays are for you with everyone.” She had a granddaughter she doted on (they all did) and two grown children she also doted on. Didn’t matter that one of them was a hitman too. She spoiled her family.
“We can get away.”
“I’m good for now, but I’ll let you know. And you’ll let me know—”
“If I find anything weird on one Scout Harlowe? I’ve already run the information you sent. You’ll find an email from me when you check, but she’s clean. And pretty too—I saw some of her pictures on her llama page.”
“Her llamas have social media?”
“Yep. Popular too. She does videos with them. Or of them, I guess.”
Of course they had a page. That menace Lucy probably ate it up. “One of her llamas knocked me out,” he admitted.
Lorna snort-laughed. “I don’t even know what to say to that…You sure you want to get tangled up with a woman who has so many animals?”
“I’m not… I told you, it’s not like that.
We’re not romantic or anything.” It wasn’t like he’d turn her down if she offered to get naked with him, but he was simply helping someone in trouble.
That was it. It would help balance the cosmic karma scales.
At least that was what he told himself. He killed people for a living.
People who deserved it, but still. He had to balance that shit out somehow.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself. Contact me if you need backup. I’ll put the word out. I know some people who are looking to get a break from the holiday madness this week. They’ll come help with security if you need.”
She hung up before he could respond, which was just as well.
As he parked, the sound of gunshot filled the air and his adrenaline spiked. He jumped from the vehicle and sprinted in the direction of the nearest barn.