Bewitched. Lori Foster

not to understand. He stared at a shelf filled with canned goods, finally selecting some potted meat. He shuddered. Nasty looking stuff, potted meat. The little female remained frozen beside him.

      After an extended silence where no one seemed willing to move, Harry looked up. “Hmm? You were talking to me?”

      The guy pushed off the counter and started forward through the narrow, crammed aisles. His blond hair was long and greasy, like the rest of his body, and his eyes were a pale, washed-out blue, red-rimmed and with lashes so light they were nearly invisible. Scraggly whiskers dotted his chin, a discredit to every manly beard ever grown. His partner, heavier and darker, also turned to watch while the proprietor, a man close to seventy, seemed to grow more agitated by the moment.

      “Yeah, you. Who did you think I was talking to? The kid?”

      Harry smiled. So the guy was a dolt, believing she was a man. Or rather a boy. Was he myopic? Couldn’t he smell her, for God’s sake? Harry cocked an imperious brow. “I didn’t hear the question.”

      Irritation flashed on blondie’s face as he struck an insolent pose, one hip thrust out, his arms crossed on his narrow chest. “I asked what the hell you’re doing.”

      Bells jingled as a customer started in, then jingled again as the woman took in the situation in a glance and hurried back out. Obviously the denizens of this area were well aware of what went on. They were all simply too old or too wary to stop it on their own. Harry wasn’t old or wary. He stared down at the man with utter disdain.

      “I’m shopping. What concern is it of yours?”

      Blondie’s face darkened and he straightened slightly. “You’ve been hanging around since we got here. Why haven’t you bought anything yet?”

      Harry raised both brows. Pushy little bastard. “I’m selective.”

      The young man scowled, his pale eyes going even paler, then he obviously decided not to pursue it, probably given the fact that Harry stood a good six foot five, nearly half a foot taller than him. Though Harry dressed like a gentleman, few people ever thought of him as one. It was something, they said, to do with his eyes, though he tended to disregard such nonsense.

      “Well, get done and get out. I don’t like you hanging around.”

      Harry was willing to play along—up to a point. Right up until the punk turned to the girl and poked her in the chest with his finger, almost knocking her over. “Same goes for you. Beat it.”

      Harry wasn’t a hero, he truly wasn’t, but he detested bullies. Beyond that, he couldn’t tolerate violence of any kind toward females, regardless of the fact the fellow was too dense to realize she was a female.

      When he started to add an additional poke, snickering at the way she’d stumbled, Harry dropped the potted meat—no big loss there—and snatched the fellow’s finger into his fist. Harry squeezed.

      A loud wail of outraged pain filled the store.

      Unconcerned, Harry asked, “Now, why would you want to inflict abuse on someone smaller than yourself?”

      The guy’s knees were starting to give way as Harry ruthlessly tightened his grip. Blondie stared up at him, his face pinched in a grimace. “He’s almost as tall as I am!”

      “Not an adequate excuse. You’re obviously older. And moreover, I’ve decided I don’t like you.” Using a deft movement of his own hand, Harry twisted the hapless finger, attached to an equally hapless arm, until the man was forced to go on tiptoe, high-pitched curses winging from his mouth.

      Pandemonium broke out.

      The little female overflowed with umbrage. “I don’t need your help, you pompous ass!” The men either ignored her, or didn’t hear her.

      The bully’s dark friend rushed forward. “Floyd!” he called out, as he pulled a gun from his pants. His gaze lifted to Harry, narrow-eyed and mean. “Turn him loose before I shoot your head off!”

      The hard nose of a gun barrel poked into Harry’s ribs. He cast a wry expression on the friend. “Now, that’d be rather difficult, with you aiming there. My head’s a bit higher up.”

      His ill-advised insult got the gun immediately raised, and now he felt the cold metal against his ear. This comedy of errors was getting out of hand. Slowly, he loosened his grip.

      Floyd shook his hand and cursed, then shook it some more. He looked up at Harry with red-rimmed eyes. “Shoot him.”

      “What?”

      “Damn it, you heard me, Ralph! Shoot him.”

      Harry said a quick prayer. The girl, finally showing some small signs of intelligence, began inching her way nonchalantly toward the door.

      “Get back here, damn it.” Floyd wasn’t about to let her, or rather him, get away. “I think you two are working together to distract us. Who sent you here?”

      The little female blinked and her smooth cheeks were suffused with color. “No one sent me! And I never saw that guy before in my life.”

      Harry waited for a gasp, waited for the recognition because her husky voice had obviously been that of a female’s, despite her efforts to lower it accordingly.

      He waited in vain.

      “We can’t jus’ shoot him, Floyd. You know what Carlyle said. Keep it tidy. Besides, it’ll be easier if we jus’ let him go. He’s nobody.”

      “Then what was he buttin’ his nose in for?”

      Ralph lowered his brows in thought, all the while keeping the gun steady on Harry’s head.

      Trying to placate them, Harry shrugged and said, “I simply can’t abide a bully.”

      The gun smacked against his head, making his ears ring. “You can abide anythin’ Floyd tells you to! That’s how it’s done in these parts.”

      Floyd grinned, and Harry was amazed to see he had fairly even, white teeth. “So you didn’t like me pushing the scrawny runt around?”

      Knowing he’d handed Floyd his revenge on a silver platter, Harry almost groaned. Damn his mouth anyway. He started to speak, his brain searching for words to defuse the situation, and in that instant Floyd backhanded the woman. She went sprawling, landing with a clatter in a stacked display of canned tuna.

      Harry growled, discretion forgotten, and lunged forward to grab Floyd by the neck. The proprietor shouted. Ralph, the only one thinking at this point, snatched the woman up and held the gun on her. “Stop now or the little bastard’s gonna be in some serious trouble.”

      Harry stopped. The woman was dazed, he could see that, a bruise already coloring her jaw, but she was otherwise unharmed. Breathing hard with his anger, Harry slowly opened his hand and Floyd stumbled back two steps—and threw a punch. Harry caught the fist an inch from his nose, then made “tsking” sounds of disapproval. “I do believe your associate said to stop.”

      “He was talking to you, not me!”

      Harry heaved an annoyed sigh. “Look, gentlemen, you obviously had business here and it’s gotten sidetracked. Perhaps you should let us innocent bystanders go and finish up whatever it was you started?” Rather than observing, as he’d wished, Harry had managed to complicate things hideously. Now he only hoped to salvage what he could.

      The proprietor nodded his head in frantic, disgruntled agreement. His low, scratchy voice was that of an aged sailor, used to taking command. “Yeah, take the damn cash. But put the gun away.”

      “Shut up, old man, and let me think.”

      Harry considered that an unlikely prospect given that Floyd obviously had very little brain to work with, but he held his peace. He didn’t want to rile anyone further, especially the proprietor who looked ready for violence. That would be all he’d need to tip the scales into the never-imagined.

      After