Wrench tightened his fingers reflexively as Tex stepped forward with a black expression and she gagged until he made his hand relax again.
“Listen good,” he told her. “I ain’t coming back to that work, and I ain’t gonna let him scare me off of doing the right thing. But don’t think for a second that I ain’t gonna protect what’s mine.”
She hissed at him, but Wrench could see that she was less defiant than she had been.
“I’ve got duct tape,” Travis offered.
“She could shift out of it,” Lydia cautioned, as he started to bind the woman’s wrists.
“She can come spend the night with me in my office while we wait for the Civil Guard,” Scarlet said mildly. “She attacked a member of my staff at my resort, and I’ve got a message for her to take back to Blacksmith.”
Wrench gave her a sideways look, wondering if she intended violence.
Dot, taking advantage of Wrench’s slight distraction, suddenly slipped from his fingers as she shifted, and struck out towards Lydia’s unprotected neck with needle-sharp fangs bared.
Wrench roared and grabbed for the writhing snake, but he wasn’t as fast as Scarlet, who caught the snake by the throat with one hand and held her as she snapped her jaws, inches from Lydia’s skin.
“I don’t care which form you’re in for our little talk,” Scarlet said coldly, as if holding the giant, thrashing snake with one slim hand was no effort. “If you wouldn’t mind cleaning up the hall,” she said generally to the staff, and then she was dragging the enormous reptile out behind her. Her heels clicked along the floor as she told it, “Naturally, there will be no refund issued for the remaining days of your stay.”
In the silence that followed the sound of the door closing behind her, Wrench gathered Lydia into his arms.
Chapter 40
Lydia was trembling in shock and relief, and when Wrench kissed the vulnerable skin on her neck that had nearly been bitten, she gave a little moan and sagged into his embrace.
“That was beautiful, what you said about doing the right thing,” Breck told him as he started sweeping up the broken glass.
“I been meditatin’,” Wrench growled with a straight face.
Lydia snorted and then started laughing hysterically, finally able to pull herself away from Wrench’s big, safe arms with tears of laughter streaming down her face.
The twins caught the contagion of humor and laughed until they had to hold their sides and their mates.
Even Wrench was smiling, when Lydia had wiped her eyes and could see him again. “It was beautiful,” she said quietly near his ear as the others bent back to their cleaning.
“I guess you can say beautiful things when you got beautiful things in your life,” Wrench said, looking slightly abashed behind his usual scowl.
“You are my beautiful thing,” Lydia told him, and was delighted to watch him blush faintly behind his tan.
“I ain’t beautiful,” he protested.
“You are in that suit,” Lydia purred suggestively. “If I didn’t want you out of it so badly, I’d never let you take it off.”
Wrench cleared his throat.
“You were wonderful tonight,” Lydia told him. “You figured everything out before Dot could hurt anyone else.”
Wrench shrugged. “Didn’t take much thinkin’ fortunately.”
Lydia stood up as tall as she could so she could put her hands on the sides of his face and put her forehead to his. “Wrench, you are so much smarter and better than you have ever given yourself credit for. I love you, you beautiful, sexy, brilliant man. You are everything I ever wanted, and I—”
The phone in Wrench’s pocket chose that moment to ring, loud in the echoing room.
He swore like a sailor, and dove a hand in after it as Lydia stepped back with a sigh. A glance at the screen sent conflict across his features.
“Renna,” he said apologetically, and he thumbed it on and turned away as Lydia waved at him to.
Lydia couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, only the slight murmur of a voice, but Wrench’s shoulders tightened and then slumped. He turned to her and for a moment Lydia feared the worst.