Page 14 of A Shade of Myself
There were sounds of a tussle and then he spoke into the phone. “Come get me, partner. I’m boooorrrrrred and she’s mean.”
“Yes, get him out of my hair. For good.” Tatiana had taken possession of the cell again.
Smiling at a couple of young female hikers, I held the phone away, making “blah blah blah” motions with my hand.
They laughed and wished me good luck.
I’d heard some version of this bitching on a regular basis since Emmett moved in with Tatiana on temporary bodyguard duty. Everyone expected her to send him back to live with Laurent when the danger had passed, but she’d kept him and the two had settled in like an old, disgruntled married couple.
“Tell Emmett he can come to my place tomorrow, but it’s too crowded on the trail to keep him under the radar.” I poked in the dirt with a skinny stick. “What do we do? I’m not sitting here bounty hunting rogue escapees for the rest of my life.”
Tatiana clapped her hands and I tensed. “What?” I said.
“Bounty hunter. Brilliant idea, bubeleh. That’s your new official title. We can charge a bundle for that service.”
“While you’re counting your piles of money, Scrooge McDuck, how do we fix this?” I clapped my hand over my mouth at my outburst, ready to grovel and blame fatigue and lack of food and liquids, but Tatiana laughed, amused by my insult. The woman was entirely unpredictable.
“I’m not sure. The only thing I can think of is… Wait there.” She hung up before I could press for details or warn her not to try to come herself.
If she was faster than I’d been, I was flinging myself off the nearest cliff.
