Snippet #2 for Dwarf Bounty Hunter

I’m warning you, don’t drink coffee while you read this! Or any liquid! When I hit a certain spot, I automatically laughed out loud! I swear, these are the best coonhounds anyone could ever have!

Snippet #2

Rex and Luther slowly circled their master’s worktable as Johnny, Agent Nelson, and the woman gathered around it. The woman pursed her lips and stared at Johnny with a small, playful smile. “Are you gonna introduce us, Agent Nelson?”

“What?” Tommy slapped the manila folder down on the table and glared at the dwarf. “Yeah, sure. Johnny, this is Agent Lisa Breyer with the Bounty Hunter Division.”

“So you’re doubling up with me, huh? Magical liaison and Bounty Hunter expert working together to bring in Johnny Walker. You’re really pulling out all the stops, Nelson.”

“That was the plan,” Tommy muttered and slowly opened the manila folder before pulling out the top sheet of paper and spinning it around to face the dwarf. “This is a—”

“What are you?” Johnny jerked his chin up at Lisa, his arms folded as he looked her up and down. “Half human, obviously. What’s the other half? Light Elf?”

She smirked and shot Tommy a brief glance. “You have a good eye.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tommy scowled at the heavy-hitting glances passing between them and cleared his throat. “Like I was saying, we have—”

“How old are you?” Johnny shrugged. “While we’re on the subject.”

Agent Nelson sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “That’s not the subject, Johnny.”

“And I don’t think that’s an appropriate question,” Lisa added.

“Why? You don’t look older than twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.” Johnny cocked his head. “I just wanna know if I’m close.”

Lisa shook her head. “How old are you?”

“Eighty-five.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow.”

Tommy licked his lips in aggravation. “Yeah, yeah. We all wish we had the dwarf’s perky youthfulness. Now can we get back to—”

“I bet you’ve gained a lot of experience in eighty-five years.” The smallest part of Lisa’s bottom lip dimpled between her teeth.

Johnny smirked. “Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tommy whispered and bent his head to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Can we get back on track, here?”

“I’m thirsty.” Johnny smacked a hand down on the table, then wagged his finger back and forth between the two Federal agents. “You want anything?”

Lisa raised her eyebrows. “What do you have?”

“Little bit of everything, but I’m not gonna waste the good stuff when y’all are gonna be heading back out to wherever you came from in…” Johnny glanced at his gold wristwatch. “Two minutes. So how about iced tea?”

She pursed her lips and failed to hide her smile. “Sure.”

“I don’t want anything, Johnny.”

“Good. I didn’t ask you.” The dwarf turned and clomped off into the kitchen.

Tommy let out a heavy sigh and turned to scowl at Agent Breyer. “You too, huh?”

“Me too what?” Lisa’s smile vanished when she met the man’s gaze.

“Falling all over yourself ‘cause Johnny Walker just happens to be in the same room.”

“I’m not falling all over anything, Nelson.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say. Until they start falling all over him.” Tommy pressed his knuckles down onto the worktable. “I don’t get it. You know? This guy’s bristly as a damn cactus. Scarred all over. Hell, half of him’s a redhead. Forget the dwarf part. I haven’t seen a single woman look at that asshole and not start drooling. What gives?”

Lisa smirked at the worktable and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s got cookie-dough mojo.”

“Cookie dough. What the fuck does that mean?”

“You know he’s not the best choice, but there’s just something about him that makes you want to eat him all up.”

“Jesus. Tell me you’re joking.”

“You asked, Nelson. I’m just giving you a woman’s perspective. And for the record, I don’t drool.”

In the kitchen, Johnny smirked as he poured the tea over two glasses of ice on the counter. That’s one of the better explanations I’ve heard. Most women can’t even put it into words.

“Hey, she said cookie dough.” Luther trotted across the kitchen, his nails clacking on the floor as he sniffed dutifully toward the fridge. “You think he has some?”

“Yeah, can you get the fridge open?” Rex looked up to shoot Johnny a quick glance before licking the side of the fridge door. “For real. We should work on that.”

“All right. Out.” Johnny pointed at the doorway out of the kitchen and toward the back door. “Go run it off, boys.”

The hounds slid and skidded around the linoleum floors before barreling through the house. Luther knocked against the doorway and yipped. “I’m gonna eat the next one!”

“Not if I catch it first,” Rex called as he leapt through the dog door.

Shaking his head with a tiny smile, Johnny returned to the glasses of iced tea, paused, and grabbed the bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label off the counter. He uncorked it and counted to three as he topped off his own drink. I’m gonna need this to get through the next thirty seconds of Nelson whining that I wasted his time. What goes around comes around, bud.

He swirled his glass, took a long sip, and shrugged before bringing Agent Breyer her uncut iced tea.

“Here you go.” Johnny set her glass down slightly in front of him, and the woman let out an uncertain chuckle as she leaned across the table to grab it.

“Thank you.”

Johnny sipped at his whiskey-tea and glanced at his watch again. “All right, Nelson. Your time’s up, and I’m still sayin’ no. Good luck, though.”

Tommy glared at him. “Just take a look.”

“I said five minutes.”

“And you spent the whole five minutes deflecting from—” The agent sniffed and glanced at Johnny’s glass. “Are you drinking right now?”

“Huh.” Johnny stared at Tommy as he took another look sip, and when he lowered his glass again, his wiry mustache dripped with whiskey-flavored tea he didn’t bother to wipe off. “And I just figured your sense of smell would’ve disappeared with your hairline.”

Lisa snorted.

Tommy gritted his teeth and jabbed a finger down on the top paper of the file he still hadn’t gotten the ex-bounty hunter to read. “You said you’d take a look. Don’t think I’ll just walk out of here because you poured yourself a drink. We both know how well you hold your liquor.”

“It’s not a drink if it’s a floater.”

“Johnny…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Johnny set his drink down on the table and brusquely swiped his hand under his mustache just to get rid of the cold on his upper lip. Then he turned and grabbed one of the rifles he’d mounted on the shelf of his workshop too—the ones he used sometimes, not the ones purely for his collection—and the long tin box beside it. The box clunked down on the table, and the dwarf opened it. With a sniff, he pulled out his cleaning rod, cleaning patches, and solvent, refusing to look up at his unwelcome guests. “I don’t like to say things more than once. And twice is already too many times, Nelson.”

“You’re really gonna make me—” With a grunt of frustration, Tommy abandoned the briefing sheet and flipped through the rest of the papers in the file. One after the other, he slapped down a series of enlarged photographs across the worktable and stabbed at each one in turn. “If you don’t want me to ease you into it, fine. I’ll just pull out the big guns.”

Johnny snorted and removed the bolt from his rifle. Then he glanced down at the photographs and paused.

The scene was laid out in front of him in five parts from five different angles. The first two were blood spatter all over the walls of a middle-class living room. The third and fourth depicted a man and woman, both in their late thirties, sprawled across the light-colored carpet now soaked with their blood. And the last was of a girl.

She lay on her side, her thin arm outstretched beneath her head. Long, light-brown hair matted with blood covered most of her face, but Johnny didn’t need to see her face to know she was way too young to be photographed post-mortem like this.

“We found them like this two days ago,” Tommy said in a low voice. “Bruce and Denise Coulier. Their daughter Claire. She was twelve.”

Johnny grunted. Yeah, he’s pullin’ out the big guns all right. A fucking child.

“She has a fraternal sister,” Lisa added. “Amanda. The assholes who did this took her. And we need to find her.”

Looking down again, Johnny inspected his rifle and grabbed one of the patches to rub down the exterior of his weapon. “How old is she?”

The agents exchanged a knowing glance. Tommy nodded. “Twelve.”

Fuck. He knew exactly what buttons to push with this one.

Johnny sniffed. “And you need me why?”

“It’s a special case for the Bureau. We want the best of the best.” Tommy pulled another sheet of paper from the file, but the dwarf didn’t give it a second’s glance. “Bruce Coulier was an investment banker. Did real well for himself and had personal ties to more than one US Senator. One of whom sits on the Bounty Hunter Department Committee.”

“Huh.” Johnny laid down the rifle and popped open the lid of the cleaning solvent before dipping the cleaning patch into it. He couldn’t look at those pictures again, and all three of them knew it. “So what aren’t you telling me, Nelson?”

“These are the facts.”

“But not all of them.”

“No.” Tommy glanced at Agent Breyer, and she raised her eyebrows in consent. “Amanda Coulier has… special powers.”

Johnny looked sharply up at the man. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

“She’s a shifter. The whole family was, and they did a damn good job keeping that lineage secret.”

“Until these bastards found out and figured they’d… what? Blackmail a senator and keep a shifter kid hanging over his head?”

“No.” Tommy rubbed his chin. “These bastards have no idea what she is. We got that information from the senator on the department committee. And they didn’t kidnap her for blackmail.”

“Then what do they want?” Johnny stuck the soaked patch onto the end of the cleaning rod and pushed it all the way through the barrel.

“A payday.” Tommy glanced briefly at the gruesome murder-scene photos on the worktable, then looked cautiously back up at the dwarf cleaning his rifle. “The kidnappers are part of an aggressive gang on the East Coast specializing in drugs and human trafficking.”

Johnny grunted.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to close in on the Boneblade, as they like to call themselves. And it apparently stuck. But we haven’t been able to touch them. None of our other contacts have had any better luck, and we just don’t have time to go at this our way. So we need the monster hunter.”

Johnny removed the cleaning rod from the barrel of his rifle and set it gently on the table. “This is what you brought me.”

Tommy nodded. “This is what we brought you. We need your help, Johnny, and this is the only option any of us could come up with. Trust me, a dwarf who’s been in retirement for fifteen years for very good reasons wasn’t anywhere close to our first choice.”

“You’re not making a very good case for yourself, Nelson.” Despite how low and calm Johnny’s voice remained as he reached toward the long metal box of his cleaning supplies, the kind of rage he’d spent fifteen years trying to smother flared up inside him again. Doesn’t matter what he says. He knows I’ll be on this case like a catfish on four fingers. The way I should’ve been for Dawn.

“So what d’ya, Johnny?” Tommy stuck his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “Amanda needs you.”

The lid of the tin box slammed down into place with a sharp bang. “You need me to save your scrawny neck, Nelson. That’s what this is about.”

“This is about the girl—”

“And you came all this way to rip me out of my goddamn life knowing I can’t say no.”

“You know what?” Lisa briefly tapped the back of her hand against Tommy’s arm to stop him from saying anything else and smiled at Johnny. “I think we should start over.”

The dwarf’s red mustache bristled as he glared at her. “Little too late for that, Agent Breyer.”

“You can call me Lisa.”

“I can call you both a pain in my ass.”

Lisa nodded slowly and tapped her fingers against the worktable. “You’ve set things up pretty nicely for yourself all the way out here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wouldn’t wanna leave either, if I were you.” She shrugged. “We need to get these assholes, Johnny. And this girl deserves another shot. She can’t go home, at least not the way she’s always known it, but she can be safe. Protected. You can give her the chance to rebuild after what’s been taken from her. This is a one-shot deal. And when it’s over, you can come right back here into retirement. Deal?”

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t make deals. Lisa.”

Tommy slammed his hands down onto the table. “When are you gonna pull your head out of your ass?”

Johnny glanced coolly at the man and smirked.

“What’s so funny?”

With a sniff, Johnny stepped around his worktable and headed into the hall toward the front door.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tommy spun around, fuming. After all this time, the damn dwarf and one of the best bounty hunters the Department had worked with in at least twenty-five years was just as infuriating as he’d always been. “We’re not done here.”

Johnny opened the front door and let out a piercing whistle. Three seconds later, the dog door in the back clapped open and shut behind Rex and Luther, and both hounds trotted obediently through the house toward their master.

Rex licked his chops splattered with swamp water and what might have been blood. “We didn’t do it.”

“I did. Yeah.” Luther’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, bits of ripped-up reeds peppering his soaked, short-haired coat. “What are we talking about?”

Tommy stared at the dripping dogs with wide eyes and took a step back toward the doorway of the workshop.

Johnny folded his arms, and his smirk widened into a slick smile showing his perfectly straight teeth as he stared at his former government liaison. “Boys, it’s time to show Agent Nelson out.”

Tommy gawked at the dwarf as Rex and Luther let out low, matching growls. “Johnny…”

“Give him a good bite in the ass while you’re at it.”

Rex snapped at the agent and darted toward him.

“Shit!” Tommy’s shiny agent shoes squeaked across the hardwood floor as he barreled down the hall toward Johnny and the open front door.

Luther let out a sharp bark and raced after his brother and Agent Nelson. “Hey! Get back here!”

The screen door banged against the outside of the house as Tommy shoved it open and practically threw himself off the front porch. Both hounds raced after him and cleared the porch in a single leap.

“I bet he tastes better than squirrel.”

“More fat on him too.”

“Yeah, right on his fat ass. Get him!”

“Johnny!” Tommy roared. “Get these—oh, fuck!”

The man slammed himself up against the side of the SUV and narrowly avoided being tackled by Rex’s flying jump toward him. The larger coonhound slid across the dirt drive when he landed, throwing up thick plumes of dust. Tommy fumbled with the handle of the driver-side door, finally jerked it open, and scrambled into the front seat with a yelp of pain. As soon as he slammed the door shut again behind him, Luther leapt toward the door, his huge front paws slamming down on the window as he snarled in Agent Nelson’s wide-eyed, terrified face.

Rex snorted and shook his head, spitting out a shredded wad of black slacks and bright-red boxer-briefs into the dirt.

“You got him!” Luther shouted.

“No way is that better than squirrel.” Rex pawed at his snout and snorted again. “Too salty.”

With a short grunt of a chuckle, Johnny swept the front door closed and returned to his workshop. His hounds bayed outside, but whatever Agent Nelson’s next protests were, they were too muffled through his car for to be heard inside the cabin.

Johnny stopped in the doorway of his workshop and found Agent Lisa Breyer standing on the other side of the table in front of his cleaning box. His partially disassembled rifle admittedly looked pretty damn nice in her hands. Her slow smile when she looked up at him didn’t hurt, either.

“That’s not yours.”

Lisa ignored his gruff attempt to shake her and watched him with a raised eyebrow as he clomped slowly toward the table. “You’re taking the case, aren’t you?”

The closest Johnny could get to nodding was a half-assed shrug. If she thinks she can weasel more out of me than that, she’s in the wrong business.

“Then I guess you and I are a team now, Johnny Walker.”

He leaned away from her and frowned. “Uh-uh. You’re barking up the wrong tree with that one, sweetheart.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman?”

Johnny snorted. “Because I don’t do teams.”

“Hmm.” Pursing her lips, Lisa returned her attention to the rifle, and her hands kicked into action. The trigger guard and firing mechanism slid out of the stock, followed by the stock, firing rod, and the assembly rod. “I’m on this case too, whether you like it or not. You can fight me all you want, and I know I can’t force you to play nice.”

In four seconds, she had his weapon pulled apart and raised her eyebrows without looking up at him. Then she slid all the components back into the right place in the right order.

“If you insist on not doing teams, Johnny, I’ll just end up tracking the Boneblade on my own. And you. I’ll probably end up stepping on your toes. Slow you down. Or we can do this together. Who knows? I might even be more useful than you realize.”

Lisa grabbed the rod he’d removed earlier, slid it back into place, and lifted his fully reassembled rifle in both hands. Her smirk returned as she stepped around the table and stopped in front of him to hand over the rifle. “Your call.”

Johnny gazed up at her and narrowed his eyes. She knows her way around a firearm. Gotta admit it’s sexy as hell.

He sniffed. “If we do this, I’m layin’ down some ground rules. Non-negotiable.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She raised her eyebrows and waited for him to take back his weapon. When he finally lifted it out of her grip with one hand, her smile widened. “We leave in two hours for New York City. I’ll get my bag out of the car. Looking forward to meeting Sheila.”

She stepped past him and headed toward the front of his house.

Johnny ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek and clomped across the workshop to return the rifle to its place on the shelf. His cleaning box followed, and he shook his head. Sheila stays the hell out of this.

__________________________

Did you follow my advice? LOL Or did you spit coffee all over your device? Did it go up your nose? Which is your favorite coonhound? Mine is Rex! Dwarf Bounty Hunter is live today! Go to Amazon and get your copy now!

First Snippet for Dwarf Bounty Hunter

Get ready for an exciting new Oriceran journey! This new book will release sometime Sunday afternoon, October 4!

Snippet #1

“If this doesn’t work, I’ll—” Johnny grunted, the ghost of a smile flickering across his lips beneath his thick, dark-red mustache. “Who am I kidding? Of course it’ll work. I made it.”

He inserted a tiny metal pick into the side of the device set on a black leather collar to activate the translator. Then he did the same with a second device on a brown leather collar and lifted both from the worktable in his dining room turned workshop.

“All right, boys. Time for a test drive.”

The dwarf’s size-ten boots clomped across the wooden floor of his small, tidy cabin until he reached the living room. His two black and tan coonhounds lay sprawled out on the rug in front of the dead fireplace Johnny hadn’t used since he’d bought the place. Both dogs lifted their heads at his approach, droopy ears perking up as they eyed the collars in each of their master’s hands.

Johnny glanced at the boar’s head trophy mounted above the fireplace and the collection of old hunting rifles on the mantle—two of them from the end of the sixteenth century—and smirked. This’ll be the cherry on the swampy damn sundae.

“Rex.”

The coonhound lying closest to the fireplace sat up and stared at the dwarf. His tail thumped once on the rug.

“You first, boy. Come here.” Johnny held out a hand toward the slightly larger hound, and Rex obediently trotted toward him. Sticking the brown leather collar between his teeth, the dwarf fastened the black collar around Rex’s neck, then lifted his index finger. Rex sat immediately, and Johnny took the other collar out of his mouth to call to the hound’s brother. “Luther. Let’s go.”

Luther scrambled excitedly to his feet and practically leapt across the room toward his master. His tail wagged fervently as Johnny fastened the brown leather collar around his neck, but the dog sat just as obediently as his brother when the dwarf raised his index finger one more time. Neither hound made a sound as Johnny pulled a small metal tube the size of a .44 Magnum shell from his pocket. But they’re about to make a lot more noise now.

“See this?” Johnny held the tube between thumb and forefinger, showing his hounds the last piece of his newest magical-tech invention. “We’re about to take this to a whole new level. Only took me four years to realize we needed it, but you boys won’t wanna go back. Just watch.”

He stuck the end of the tube against the side of his neck and pressed down on the top end with his thumb. A sharp jolt shot through Johnny’s neck, and he grunted, blinking quickly before wiggling his nose under the intense but short-lived itch.

“Damn. Shit packs a punch and tastes like… is that onions?”

“Onions?” Luther’s tail thumped wildly against the floor as he stared up at his master. “He said onions, right? I want onions.”

Rex didn’t move. “We can’t eat onions. He dropped one off the grill last summer, remember? I spent the rest of the day shittin’ in the swamp.”

“Ooh. The swamp. Let’s go.”

Johnny chuckled and folded his muscular arms covered in a thick layer of the same wiry red hair as his mustache and beard. “We’ll head out in a little bit, boys. And Rex is right. No onions for dogs. Though at this point, I reckon both of you’ve eaten twice your own weight in shit you shouldn’t’ve.”

“Hey.” Luther’s higher-pitched voice filled Johnny’s mind as the smaller hound cocked his head and let his tongue flop out of his mouth for a quick pant. “He heard you say onions.”

“No he didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did.” Johnny spread his arms. “Look at this, huh? I can hear you, you can hear me. I’d call that a hell of a success.”

“Cool.” Luther lifted his back legs for a brief moment before a quick glance from his master forced him back down onto his haunches again. “So let’s go. It’s been a little bit, right? Swamp time.”

Rex licked his muzzle and let out a low chuff, even as he stared up at Johnny, waiting for his master to his release him from sitting there at the edge of the area rug in the living room. “Wanna eat?”

Luther’s tail thumped wildly against the rug. “I could eat. Do we catch it? I could catch it too.”

“Hey, chill out. There’s an easier way to get what we want now.” Rex’s droopy eyebrows lifted as he tilted his head at Johnny. “Just ask him over and over to let us out or feed us until he gives up.”

Johnny grunted. “That’s your smart idea?”

“Johnny.” Luther let out a low whine. “Johnny. Johnny. Let’s get some food. Hey, Johnny. Come on. Food time. Swamp time.”

The dwarf took two steps back and smirked at his hounds. “All right. Go on, git.”

“Yes!” Luther kicked at the rug to get back on his hind legs before leaping around to scramble toward the dog door at the back of the house.

Rex shot up and trotted after his brother. “Yeah, we’ll catch it. You want us to bring you something back for fun?”

“Not if you eat it first,” Johnny called as the dog door clicked shut again after both of his retreating hounds.

A loud, coonhound bay rose from behind Johnny’s cabin, followed by the dogs’ shouting voices diminishing as they raced off across the yard at the edge of the swamp.

“It went this way.”

“Get it! Faster!”

“Oh, man! I’m gonna rip its tail off!”

Nodding in satisfaction, Johnny ran a hand through his thick, dark-auburn hair and turned back toward his workshop. That’s how you get shit done. Screw man’s best friend. I’ve got dwarf’s best huntin’ dogs and two extra pairs of eyes. See if we don’t just triple the game we bring home after this.

Walking back into the workshop, Johnny paused to eye the taxidermized alligator mounted on a well-oiled plank of oak right off the small kitchen. Better’n this gator. I wanna trade this one out for a fifteen-footer.

He stopped at his worktable and sniffed, smacking his lips against the slight aftertaste of onions, and got to work cleaning up after finishing the translating dog collars. That was part of his number-one rule: Keep it simple. And simple meant cleaning up after himself, everything in its place, no matter how happy he was with the way the collars turned out.

As he closed the jumbo-sized tacklebox where he kept his magical tools, both hounds bayed wildly outside, followed by the clack and scrabble of the dog door whipping up and clapping back down again. Claws clicked across the floor toward the dining room.

“Johnny! Johnny, open the door.” Luther raced past his master and skidded to a stop inches from the front door. “Open it.”

Rex trotted after his brother and shot Johnny a quick glance. “Someone’s here.”

“No kiddin’.” Setting the tacklebox on the floor and shoving it under the worktable with the toe of his boot, Johnny hiked up his black Levi’s and headed after his hounds toward the door. “Anyone we know?”

“Black SUV,” Rex said, stopping behind his brother and shifting sideways as Luther’s tail threatened to whack him in the face.

“It was blue,” Luther added.

“Black.”

“All right. Back up.” Johnny trudged toward the front of the house as the hounds stepped backward, tails wagging, and stopped in front of the small square window beside the front door. He swept aside the plain gray curtain to peer outside. Sure enough, a black SUV rolled up along the dirt road and stopped in front of the folding lawn chairs at the end of the drive.

“Black.” Johnny frowned at the hounds. “Luther, what color are my boots?”

“Blue.”

Rex stepped sideways again to avoid his brother’s tail. “They’re black.”

“Huh.” Johnny snorted and returned his attention to the sliver of window behind the curtain in his hand.

The driver-side door of the SUV opened, and a nondescript man in an equally black and boring suit with a receding hairline stepped out of the car, waving a hand in front of his face to clear the dust cloud he’d stirred up with his vehicle. But he wasn’t nondescript enough for Johnny not to recognize him.

“What’s this bastard doin’ here?” Johnny shook his head. “Same black sunglasses and everything.”

“Let us out, Johnny.” Luther let out a sharp bark. “We’ll go see what he wants.”

“Nobody’s gonna answer your questions when they can’t hear you. That’s just me.” The dwarf frowned when the passenger-side door opened too and a tall, slender woman emerged. His left eye twitched, and he tugged the curtain back into place over the window. “And he brought a friend. I don’t care how long it’s been. He knows I don’t like him bringing friends.”

“We like friends.” Luther’s tail wouldn’t stop, and he stepped toward the door and away again in excitement.

“Is it a dog friend?” Rex asked.

“No, she’s a ten all around.” Rubbing a hand over his mouth, chin, and beard, the dwarf headed toward the front door and folded his arms. “Whatever he wants, he’s shit outta luck.”

“Johnny, open the door.”

“Open it. We’ll tell ‘em to go home.”

Johnny snapped his fingers, and both hounds sat. “He’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Then he turned around and headed back into his workshop to finish cleaning up.

“They’re coming.”

“They’re here.”

“Johnny, open the door.”

The screen door creaked open, followed by three sharp, solid knocks on the front door. Both hounds barked once in reply.

“Leave it alone, boys. We’re not entertaining guests.”

The knock came again, followed by another sharp bark from each hound.

“Johnny Walker. I know you’re in there. Open up. It’s Tommy Nelson.”

“Tommy.” Luther backed up with a low whine. “Who’s Tommy?”

Johnny grunted. “Salesman.”

“Johnny?” The man outside paused, then grabbed the door handle. “If you don’t open this door, I will.”

The dwarf shook his head and swept the stray metal bolts and scrap pieces off the table and into his wide palm. “Go ahead. I didn’t have dogs the last time.”

“Want us to rip off his hand?” Rex asked with a low growl.

“Not yet.”

“All right, Johnny. I’m coming in.” Tommy cleared his throat. “Last chance if you wanna start this off by not being a dick.”

Johnny snorted. Like that’s even an option.

“Fine.” Tommy muttered something under his breath and turned the door handle.

Rex and Luther each barked once and stayed where they were as the front door swung open.

Tommy Nelson removed his black sunglasses and paused when he saw the two fifty-five-pound coonhounds greeting him at the front door. “Hey, pups.”

Rex barked, and the man jumped. “I’ll knock him over if you want.”

Luther whined, his tail wagging furiously as he panted and stared at the newcomer. “You think salesman tastes better than squirrel?”

Johnny shook his head and called from his workshop-dining room, “Whatever it is, Nelson, I’m not buying.”

“Well good thing I’m not actually selling anything.” Tommy inched through the front door, eyeing the dogs and trying to stay calm and relatively friendly—or as friendly as a government liaison to monsters and magicals could ever get. “I’m the one paying you, remember?”

“Not in a long time.” Johnny sniffed and dropped the handful of metal scrap into the tin pail beneath the worktable. “And not anymore.”

Tommy glanced around the entryway of the dwarf’s house and skirted around the dogs. “I see you got yourself a few partners since the last time we talked.”

“Yeah, and they’re better company since the last time you were here too.” Dusting off his hands, Johnny finally stepped into the front hall from his workshop and hooked his thumbs through the beltloops of his jeans. “Feel free to turn around and head out again.”

“Can’t do that, Johnny. Not without laying everything out for you to see.”

“Ooh! A lady!” Luther whined again as the tall, smoking-hot woman with long dark hair spilling over her shoulders stepped through the front door. “She smells good, Johnny.”

The dwarf glanced briefly at the woman, who wore the same black suit as Agent Nelson but looked a hell of a lot better in it, and shook his head. “I’m not interested.”

“You haven’t even seen the—hey!” Tommy lurched away from Rex’s snout nudging into his backside, then turned and pressed his back against the entryway wall. “You got some friendly hounds here.”

“Only if I want ‘em to be.”

The woman smirked and held out her hand toward Luther as his back half wiggled. “They’re beautiful.”

Johnny snorted. “They’re dogs. Pick of the litter, but still dogs.”

Luther ignored the woman’s outstretched hand and waited for her to shut the front door before sneaking around to sniff at her legs and backside. “Whew. I knew she smelled good. Whad’ya think, Rex? Lunch an hour ago?”

Rex moved his nose up and down Tommy’s pantleg and snorted. “He had the Rueben.”

“Yeah? I’m gettin’ shrimp.”

The woman stepped tentatively away from the over-excited Luther and glanced around the inside of Johnny Walker’s home. “You’ve got some place here.”

Johnny ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I’m not a fan of words that don’t match facial expressions. Even when they’re a compliment.”

She looked quickly down at him, gazed him over from head to toe, and smirked without another word.

Tommy stared at her, a small frown flickering across his eyebrows, then cleared his throat. “Just hear me out, okay? Let me show you what we’re lookin’ at.”

“I don’t need to see it to tell you no, Nelson. You’re wasting your time.”

“Then what if I started by telling you the US Government’s willing to double your normal fee for this one?”

Johnny shook his head. “Still wasting your time. And mine.”

“Come on, Johnny…”

“Fifteen years, Nelson. I’m outta the game. You know that, and you know why. Things are simple here for me now. All I need is Sheila and two coonhounds and my guns.”

“There’s the crossbow too.” Rex panted heavily and stalked after Tommy as the man inched his way down the hall. “Tell him about the crossbow.”

“I like the grenades.” Luther circled the tall woman two more times before joining his brother in sniffing Agent Nelson up and down.

The dark-haired woman cocked her head. “Sheila?”

Tommy shot her a brief glance with a barely perceptible shake of his head. “His Jeep.”

She looked Johnny up and down one more time and raised an eyebrow.

“And I don’t need to explain myself,” Johnny added. “The answer’s no.”

“Good leg.” Luther nudged his wet nose against Tommy’s pantleg. “Smells like it needs a good humping to go with it.”

“Yeah, you test it out and let me know,” Rex replied.

Johnny smirked, and when he caught the tall woman’s gaze, he wiped the expression off his face completely.

“Well then maybe you’ll…” Tommy jerked his leg away from Luther at the first sign of the hound getting too close and sidled toward the dwarf again. “Maybe you’ll be more interested in the nature of this case, Johnny. It has your name written all over it.”

“Because you think I’ll enjoy myself or because you can’t find anyone else to take it?”

Tommy shrugged. “A little of both.”

“Well go somewhere else and find a bounty hunter who isn’t retired and who actually gives a shit.”

The woman clasped her hands behind her back and lifted her chin. “I think you’ll give a shit about this one, Mr. Walker.”

“Naw, I don’t do that Mister crap. Just Johnny.”

“Of course.”

“You should take the job, Johnny.” Rex sat beside the uncomfortably sidling Agent Nelson, his tongue lolling from his mouth as he waited for the man to step away from the wall. “You need to get out more.”

“Hell, we get out more than you do.” Luther sniffed again at Tommy’s pantlegs and made one more half-assed attempt to climb up on the man’s leg before Tommy jerked his foot away again. “We’re all the way out here in the Everglades, and you have nothing to do when you’re not hunting.”

That’s how I prefer it.

“We get laid more than too,” Luther added, panting now and sizing up the government agent who refused to let his leg be objectified by either hound. “That’s just sad.”

“Yeah, but the ladies he brings home aren’t.” Rex eyed Tommy up and down, then took off to go give the woman a good once-over too. “Come on, lady. Quit turning around so I can smell you. Oh, yeah. You were right. Definitely shrimp.”

Johnny snorted and looked up at Tommy Nelson. “If I take a look at your file, will it get you and the shrimp—uh… your friend off my property?”

“Nice one, Johnny.” Luther panted and turned in a tight circle as an energetic chuckle filled the dwarf’s mind.

Tommy grabbed the manila folder from under his arm and nodded. “Just take a look, yeah. That’s all we’re asking.”

Wrinkling his nose, Johnny gave the tall woman one more brief glance, then raised an eyebrow at Tommy. “You get five minutes, Nelson. Then I want you and your wannabe badass SUV off my property.”

“You got it.”

Johnny jerked his head toward the workshop. “Table’s over here.”

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Come back tomorrow and get the next chapter. But be warned, I wouldn’t drink any coffee when you read it. Or, you might want to make sure you have plenty of paper towels if you do!