Mac locked the gun and, with a flourish, put it on the ground. “Go right ahead and say more things to me, Dartmouth.”
“Mac,” Ava hissed. “Enough! For God’s sake. Both of you. Corbin, you can wait for me in the house. The front door is unlocked. Just follow the flagstone path around. And don’t let the dog out or I’ll let Mac shoot you.”
Faintly, they could hear the squeaky, beeping barks of Chick Pea.
A series of hard stares ricocheted among the three of them like a bullet in a closed closet.
“Going.” Corbin flung up his arms and turned around and stalked toward the house.
“Nice meeting you, Corncob,” Mac called after him.
Corbin shot a middle finger up in the air without turning around.
And suddenly Ava was alone with Mac.
They stared at each other in silence that felt portentous, and not in a good way.
“Mature,” she said finally.
“But probably not wrong,” he said mildly. “About the underwear.”
His mood felt dangerous. The little hairs were standing up on her neck, as if in anticipation of a lightning storm.
“I hope Chick Pea bites him,” he added. And he wasn’t joking.
“She doesn’t have enough teeth to do that.”
He sighed. “Of course not.”
Their faces in the floodlight from the balcony looked as stark as X-rays.
It wasn’t a flattering light for anybody. Certainly not the be-stubbled.
“So...” Mac began with a blitheness edged all around in razors. “I’m your”—he bobbed exaggerated air quotes—“‘er,contractor’?”
“You preferred me to introduce you as the guy I’ve been banging in between coats of paint?”
He considered this. “Yes.”
She made a sound. Almost a laugh. Only much less amused.
“Avalon?”
“Yes?”
“Why is Corncob here at two in the morning creeping around your house before I could install the motion-sensitive lighting?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Cross my heart, swear on Chick Pea. I sure as hell didn’t invite him.”
“He knew where to find you?”
“Well, yeah. I wasn’t trying to hide from him.”
“So you’re not worried about...”
Her voice softened a little. “I’m safe from him, Mac. I swear to you. He is mostly pretty harmless. In the physical sense.”
“He looks like he’d bow like a twig if I handed him a barbell.”