Sunny Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Sunny Larkspur was patching a hole in the pantry wall when she spotted the intruder through the kitchen window. She set down her hammer, wiped plaster off her overalls, and smiled. Her arms were thicker than the beam she'd just replaced. At sixty-two, she still fixed everything the master of the house broke, and she still enjoyed a project that pushed back. This one had a shaved head and a knife on his belt. Viktor Krauss crouched behind the herb boxes with his back to her, muttering under his breath. He was drawing lines in the dirt with the point of a blade. Sunny recognized the shape. A floor plan. An X over the room where the curvy bodyguard slept. He'd sworn to come back every day until he killed the woman who'd broken his nose, and here he was again, plotting like a boy who hadn't learned his lesson the first three times. Sunny padded across the grass in bare feet. Two hundred and forty pounds of muscle, and she moved without a sound. She'd always liked that about herself. He felt her a second too late. His shoulders locked. Before he could turn, Sunny slid one arm under his and hauled him back against her chest. His boots left the ground. The knife dropped into the dirt. "Hello, sweetheart," she said into his ear. He thrashed. She let him. His elbows hit her ribs and bounced off. He kicked backward and connected with nothing. She hummed the tune she'd been humming all morning and waited for him to tire. When he stopped, she loosened her grip just enough to let him breathe. "You've got that look," she said. "The angry one. I like the angry ones." "Put me down." "In a minute." She turned him around, still off the ground, and set him on the herb box so their eyes met. She kept one hand flat on his chest. He couldn't have moved it with a crowbar. "You're going to leave Petra alone today." "I'll come back tomorrow." "I know you will." Sunny's grin widened. "That's the part I like." She leaned in. He tried to lean back and hit the wall. His scowl cracked. Something else flickered under it, the thing that always showed up in strong men when they realized they weren't the strongest one in the yard. Confusion. Then interest. Then shame at the interest. Sunny saw all three and filed them away. "Like what you see?" she said. She picked up his knife, snapped the blade off between two fingers, and dropped the handle in his lap. “I guarantee there's more for you to look at.” She purred. He gulped. He was intimidated, frozen by the woman flirting with him.