Dangerous Ground 2: Old Poison (3 page)

He frightened Will. He frightened him because even after being shot—twice, if someone wanted to get technical about it—Taylor seemed to have no sense of his own vulnerability. Or he just didn't care.

When they arrived at the Red Dragon restaurant at nine o'clock that evening there was an altercation going on the parking lot. Three Hispanic youths—baby faces and gang tattoos—

appeared to be hassling a young black woman. One of the punks was sitting on the hood of the woman's Sebring convertible. Another was lounging in the backseat, drinking a can of Tecate beer—and that was the woman's mistake for leaving the top down and the car unattended while she went inside to get her carryout. This was not a nice neighborhood.

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Josh Lanyon

The third asshole was blocking the girl's retreat. He didn't look too dangerous to Will, although the girl—young woman—was plainly upset. She was trying to escape to the safety of the restaurant, and the punk jumped in front of her, grabbing his crotch and flicking his tongue in and out lizardlike. He was still keeping a hands-off distance from her, though, and the posturing seemed mostly about amusing his compadres in the convertible. He was probably not more than eighteen. The other two looked of a similar age.

Just pulling into in the parking lot signaled the end of playtime, and if more was called for—

Taylor swung sharply next to the convertible and was out of the Land Cruiser before Will had his seat belt unbuckled.

Will heard Taylor's flat, hard, “What's going on here?” which promptly changed the entire dynamic of the situation.

It might have changed for the worse anyway, of course, but Taylor, sleek and beautiful and deceptively slight in his tight jeans and green silk shirt—with the expensive car and pugnacious attitude—triggered all their cholo insecurities and hostilities.

Will scrambled out quickly, cursing the fact that neither of them was armed because they were going out to dinner and alcoholic beverages were sure to be consumed, and they shouldn't have to carry when they were just going out to eat, for chrissake.

“What's
goin' on here
is none of your business,
culeros
,” the punk hassling the girl said, drawing himself up to all his compact, muscular five-eight. The kid on the hood of the car rolled off and started for Taylor. The kid in the back raised his arm as though threatening to throw his beer can.

Will was closer. He grabbed the kid's arm, yanked it back hard, surprising a yowl of pain out of him. “
Don't
be a litterbug,” Will warned.

The kid snatched his arm to his chest, rubbing it and glaring. The one who had previously been lounging on the convertible hood stopped midtrack, eyeing Will warily.

“What are you supposed to be, cops?”

“Something like that,” Taylor said. “What are you supposed to be, gangbangers?”

“Something like that.”

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

13

Taylor laughed. The kid opened his mouth, then read something in Taylor's face that shut him up, already backing down, looking for a way out.

“Out of the car,” Will instructed the kid in the backseat.

The kid climbed awkwardly, one-handed, joining his glaring, resentful cohort. “Come on, Jorge,” he called to the third gangbanger.

Jorge, the kid who had been hassling the girl—who had remained wide-eyed and silent, clutching her carryout bags throughout this intervention—was a different animal.

“You're no cop!” Face twisted in a sneer, he advanced on Taylor. That put him in Will's path. Will planted his hand in the kid's chest, shoving him back a step.

Furious, Jorge looked from him to Taylor. “What is this? What are you? Two
jotos
, eh?

Yeah, I bet you are.”

“Want to find out the hard way?” Taylor inquired.

“No, you
don't
,” Will answered as Jorge opened his mouth. “Believe me, you don't.”

After a trembling pause, Jorge flung away, hands raised in the air in a grand “don't touch me!” gesture. He started walking, furious, head down, and his minions raced down the street after him, shouting back obscenities at Taylor and Will.

Game over. But what if they'd been carrying? What if Larry, Moe, and Curly had whipped an arsenal out of their falling-down pants and opened fire at Taylor? It gave Will chills to think about it.

The girl launched into tearful thanks and explanation, and it was a few more minutes before they were finally in the restaurant, apologizing for being late for their reservation.

“You really pushed that, you know,” Will said from behind his menu once they were seated and the waiter had departed with their drink order.

Silence on the other side of the table. Finally Taylor lowered his menu. “You think we should have stood by and watched them carjack her?”

“Of course not.” Will couldn't help adding, “They weren't going to carjack her.”

“You don't know that.”

14

Josh Lanyon

True. Will's instinct was that they were just having fun hassling her, but it could have turned ugly fast—it nearly had. Jorge had turned out to be harder and more reckless than Will had initially reckoned. If Jorge had been packing, he probably would have pulled his weapon.

Into Will's silence, Taylor said carefully, “You think I mishandled the situation?”

“Of course not. I don't have a problem with what you did. I have a problem with the way you did it.”

Taylor's brows were drawn together in a narrow black line. His eyes glinted like old jade in the soft lighting. “How's that?”

“You didn't talk to me. You didn't wait to see if I was with you. You didn't—”

“Since when do we need to discuss our every move?”

It was Will's turn to be nonplussed. There was truth to what Taylor was saying. They usually knew exactly what the other was going to do without discussing it—half the time with no more than a glance between them. They had been reading each other's thoughts for years. That was part of what made them such an effective team.

Taylor had always been a little quick off the mark, a little hot tempered. Will had taken a tolerant view of it and watched for Taylor's cues so he could back his play.

Watching Will, apparently reading his surprised recognition, Taylor said quietly, “You know what? I haven't changed, Will. You have.”

* * * *

The mai tais came in small red urns carved with dragon heads. Taylor rarely drank hard liquor, and then he stuck to Rusty Nails, but Will seemed to think the evening called for the Red Dragon mai tais, and who was Taylor to argue? The mai tais were sweet and citrusy and very cold. Under their influence, Will finally relaxed and forgot about the incident in the restaurant parking lot.

Something was going on with Will. Something more than the usual thing going on with Will—which was confusing enough. Taylor watched for the visual cues of Will's eyes, his hands, his mouth. Will was the stoic type, so every little gesture, every microexpression, meant something.

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

15

From the point that they had moved from being partners to lovers, Will had had problems.

Initially Taylor had put it down to the old thing about Will feeling guilty for Taylor getting shot.

He'd been convinced that Taylor had stopped a bullet because he didn't love him—not the same way Taylor did Will.

Taylor had been shot because he was careless. End of story.

They'd worked through that, for the most part, during the now-famous camping trip from hell. A week in the High Sierras—in freeze-your-ass-off April, of all times—where they'd managed to fall afoul of murderous hijackers looking for the ruins of a crashed plane—and two million dollars.

They'd survived that, come out of it stronger than ever, come out of it lovers as well as friends. Will had stopped feeling guilty, and he trusted Taylor to be able to handle himself again—and yet something
had
changed.

“How's the tea-smoked duck?” Will inquired.

Taylor picked up a bite with his chopsticks. “Great. Excellent.”

And it was. The best Japanese food in town. Will had taken the trouble to call ahead so that Taylor could have his favorite tea-smoked duck, which had to be prepared the night before.

Taylor was particular about his Japanese food, having lived in Tokyo for two years.

He preferred not to think about Tokyo, though.

“You want another drink?”

Taylor hesitated, and Will said, “Go ahead. I'll drive home.”

Home. That sounded good. Taylor wished… Whatever. This was good too.

He nodded yes to another drink. Refocused on Will. Yeah. Whatever was going on with Will tonight wasn't just the dustup in the parking lot. “Did you get a call about testifying in the Black Wolf hijacking case?”

“Yep.” Will met his eyes, smiled faintly.

“Don't ask me to go camping again,” Taylor warned him.

“Good things come to those who camp.” Will batted his eyelashes. There was nothing remotely camp about Will, and Taylor nearly choked on his duck.

“Ha,” he managed. “Anyway, next vacation it's my turn to pick where we go.”

16

Josh Lanyon

“Well, this wouldn't be a vacation, MacAllister. We'd be testifying in a federal case.”

“I'm going to remind you of that when you start packing the fishing poles.”

Will grinned, conceding the point, and returned to his wild salmon. He was not much of a fan of Japanese food.

Taylor bit back a smile, watching him. “How's the fish?”

“Fine.” Will gave him one of those looks that turned Taylor's bones to jelly. “I'm looking forward to dessert.”

Taylor said blandly, to cover the fact that his cock was instantly hard and aching, “I hear the green-tea ice cream is something else.”

“Maybe we can get it to go.”

Taylor smiled into his mai tai.

* * * *

When they got back to Taylor's house, Will fed Riley, and Taylor cut the birthday cake.

“We're not singing 'Happy Birthday'?” Will asked, accepting the paper plate with the generous slice of cake Taylor handed over.

“Go right ahead,” Taylor invited. Taylor couldn't carry a tune to save his life, but Will liked to sing, and Riley—after a couple of beers—was known to howl along.

“Maybe later,” Will promised. He was anxious to see Taylor open his birthday present.

Anxious and nervous both. He'd never bought anything this expensive for anyone, and this particular item was pretty far out of his realm of expertise.

He was relying on this gift to go a ways toward fixing the damage when Taylor heard what Will kept putting off telling him.

Taylor got a glass of iced water, took the wrapped parcel into the den, and sat down on the long sofa beside Will. He gave an experimental tug to the golden coil of ribbon and gave Will a half smile that seemed to flutter in Will's chest like a butterfly.

“Well, go on,” he said.

Taylor held the box up and shook it gently. “Emmylou Harris's greatest hits?” he guessed.

Dangerous Ground: Old Poison

17

“You must think I'm pretty cheap. That would be her entire collection. And all her collaborations.”

Taylor raised his brows. Guessed again. “Porter Cable Speed-Bloc sander.”

Now that was a very good guess. That was the gift Will had originally planned to give him.

In fact, that was the gift Taylor had admitted he'd like when Will dropped a couple of casual hints about upcoming birthday requests.

But this was a special birthday.

Will kept his expression blank.

Taylor smirked. Mr. Know-It-All was in for a surprise. He pulled the gold ribbon off the box, tore the cobalt blue paper away, opened the oversize, unmarked cardboard box, and lifted out the flat wooden box.

He shot Will a puzzled glance, opened the box, and stared.

Will waited tensely, watching Taylor's profile. He saw Taylor's Adam's apple jump as he swallowed.

He said at last, almost inaudibly, “Will.”

Will relaxed, pleased with himself. He could see Taylor struggling to stay stoic and knew he'd scored big-time.

Inside the box was a Japanese percussion pistol. The black wood grip was carved in the shape of a dragon head with a gleaming brass eye. The dragon had a large pearl in its fangs. The long, narrow brass barrel was ornately engraved with kanji on a textured background.

Taylor said disbelievingly, “Where did you did find this?”

“I've got a few contacts. You like it?”

Taylor nodded. He still hadn't faced Will, so Will made it easy on him by hooking an arm around Taylor's neck and pulling him over. Taylor grabbed him fiercely, didn't say a word—

pretty much a first.

Will's heart seemed to light up. He'd hoped this was the right thing. Taylor had a small but pricey collection of vintage Japanese weapons. A couple of samurai swords, a pistol—but nothing as nice as this.

18

Josh Lanyon

“You shouldn't have,” Taylor said, voice stifled by Will's shoulder. “Must have cost you a fortune.”

Nearly three thousand bucks, as a matter of fact. And worth every penny to see Taylor MacAllister finally at a loss for words.

Will kissed Taylor's ear, which was all he could reach. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, and he was astonished to find his own voice husky, choked.

Taylor sat up, swiftly dipping his head to his forearm, then studying the pistol with awe.

“How old is it?”

“Eighteenth century. The details are on the bottom of the box.” Will turned his attention to his cake, which was moist and delicious and lavishly frosted with gooey pecans and coconut.

“Beautiful,” Taylor murmured, and Will tended to agree.

* * * *

It was even better the second time.

They weren't in any hurry now. They had the whole weekend ahead of them, and they'd already taken the edge off their urgency before they'd gone to dinner.