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.

Viktor sat on the herb box where Sunny had put him. The broken knife handle lay in his lap. His hands stayed flat on the wood, as if the wood might save him. Sunny watched him try to work out how to leave without turning his back on her. He couldn't. She was standing between him and the gate, one hip cocked, humming again. "You're sweating, sweetheart," she said. "Let's fix that." She hooked a thumb under the left strap of her overalls. The brass clasp popped. The strap fell against her ribs. Viktor's eyes tracked it down and stuck there. His jaw worked. Sunny undid the right clasp with the same thumb. The bib dropped. She wore a plain, work-worn undershirt beneath it. Sixty-two years of hauling beams and mixing plaster had built her like a draft horse. Her shoulders were round and hard. Her chest was broad and freckled from working outdoors in the heat. A smear of white plaster ran from her collarbone down the front of her shirt. She had muscle in places most men didn't. She let him look. Viktor looked. He tried not to. He looked again. His face went from pale to red in about four seconds. The broken knife handle rolled off his knee and hit the dirt. He did not pick it up. "There," Sunny said. "Now we're being honest." "I came here to kill someone," he said. His voice cracked on the last word. "I know." She stepped closer. The herb box creaked when she put one hand on it beside his hip. Her arm was thicker than his thigh. "But now you’ve found someone else to focus on." He didn't answer. He was staring at the plaster smear like it was a map out. "Me," Sunny said. Gentle. Not a question. "Yes." "Good boy." She grinned. "Touch me." His hand came up an inch. Stopped. Shook. Dropped back to the wood. Shame won, the way she'd known it would the first time. He was not ready. He wanted to be, and he wasn't, and the gap between those two things was the best thing she'd felt all week. Sunny laughed, short and warm. She left the bib down. She lunged, grabbing him in a sudden bear hug and pinning him against her for a second. She cackled as he tried to wriggle free. Just before he could pass out, she released him. "That's what I thought," she said. "Off you go. Come back tomorrow." Viktor slid off the herb box. His legs held. Barely. He walked to the gate without picking up the knife handle. At the gate he stopped and looked back at her once. Sunny flexed each of her arms. He ran. She stood in the yard, straps down, and watched the dust settle where his boots had been. She'd shown him. He'd looked. He'd bolted. Tomorrow he would come back angrier and hungrier, and she would have to decide how much further to push a man who still hadn’t seen all of her.

The dust from Viktor's boots hadn't fully settled when Sunny heard the side gate bang open. She doesn’t even bother to put her straps back up over her shoulders and turns, wiping plaster off her hands. Petra came through the herb rows at a march, shoulders wide as a doorframe, forearms streaked with chalk from the pull-up bar behind the shed. She lived on Sunny's property, trained on Sunny's property, and had spent the last two mornings hunting the man who kept coming back to it. "Where is he," Petra said. Not a question. She held a length of broken axe handle in one fist. "Where's who, honey?" "The scarred one. Krauss. I saw boot prints at the gate. Fresh." Petra scanned the yard. Her eyes stopped on the herb box, on the broken knife handle in the dirt beside it. She walked over and picked it up. "His." Sunny's stomach dropped a notch. If Petra found Viktor on the road, she would break him in half before he cleared the fence line. That was the end of tomorrow. That was the end of the whole game. "Some tinker came through selling knives," Sunny said. "Cheap steel. Snapped in my hand. I tossed him out." Petra looked at the handle. Looked at Sunny. "You're lying." "I'm telling you what happened." "You're humming." Sunny stopped humming. She hadn't noticed she'd started. Petra stepped past her toward the front gate. Sunny moved. She put one palm flat on Petra's sternum and stopped her cold. Petra was strong. Sunny was stronger, and they both knew it from the last time they'd tested it over a stuck water pump. "Off the road, Petra." "He'll come back." "Then he'll come back to me. Not you." Petra's jaw set. The axe handle creaked in her grip. "You're protecting him." "I'm handling him." "He drew a map of my bunk in the dirt." "I know. I stood on it." Sunny kept her hand where it was. "He won't touch you. I broke his knife. He saw my girls. Trust me. He won’t bother you anymore." Petra didn't move. For a long second Sunny thought she'd have to lift her off the ground and carry her. Then Petra spat in the dirt, turned, and walked back toward the shed. She kept the broken knife handle. "If I see him," Petra said over her shoulder, "i won’t be as affectionate as you." "Mmm, let him make his choice." The shed door slammed. Sunny stood alone in the yard with her hands on her hips. She'd kept Petra off the road. She'd kept tomorrow alive. But Petra was watching now, actually watching, and Viktor was going to walk up that path at sunrise like a dog to a plate. Sunny would have to get him inside the house to her bedroom before Petra's eyes found him. She looked at the front gate and started counting hours.

Victor shifts in his sleep. He flips onto his other side and his breath hitches. In bed with him is Sunny, her enormous muscular and curvy mass hidden under the blanket as she smirks at him. He begins to freak out but she shushes him. The mysterious muscular woman’s touch worried him; how did she get into his house and why is she in bed with him. Her smile is dangerous as she uses one arm to pull him against her. She tells him if he behaves, she’ll rock his world. Before he can speak she sits atop his waist. He gulps and she leans in.

Sunny then removes her overalls, revealing a swimsuit atop him.

The overalls hit the floor. Sunny sat over Viktor, her weight pinning the mattress. He stared up at her, then looked away. His jaw tightened. His hands stayed flat at his sides. She knew that look. She had seen it before, when she first bared her arms and he froze like a boy caught stealing. Viktor wanted her. But the wanting shamed him. A man who came here to kill did not know how to be held. "You keep looking at the wall," Sunny said. "Am I ugly?" "No." His voice cracked. "You could break me in half." "I could." She smiled. "That scares you." He said nothing. His fists curled and uncurled. She saw the fight in him, the pride that would not let him reach up first. He would lie there ashamed until sunrise if she waited. So Sunny stopped waiting. She took his wrist in one hand. Her fingers wrapped it easily. She lifted his arm and pressed his palm flat against her shoulder. He gasped. His hand trembled on her skin. "There," she said. "That wasn't so hard." "I can't," Viktor whispered. "I came to your door to hurt someone. Not this." "I know what you came for." She leaned down until her face hovered over his. "I'm choosing this instead. So are you, right now." He stopped shaking. His eyes met hers and held. The shame did not leave him, but something stronger pushed past it. His hand slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck. "Say it," she said. "I want to stay," he said. Sunny kissed him. He kissed back, rough and clumsy, gripping her like a man afraid she might vanish. She let him hold on. For once she did not pin him or lift him or set him down. She let him choose to stay. When she finally pulled back, his chest heaved. He looked younger. Less angry. "You've never let anyone win a fight against you," he said. "You didn't win." She grinned. "You gave up. There's a difference." He almost laughed. Then they held each other in the dark.