Free SweetlyBad by Anya Breton Page A

stranger off balance. His arms pinwheeled three times
as he fell. Each revolution of his flailing limbs was closer to the ground
until he smacked his head on the lift’s right arm. Down he crumpled, landing
atop her flux welder with a dull thud.
    Erica drew in a long breath. The action was much easier…
Probably because Drew didn’t weigh as much as King Kong any longer.
    She nudged him off her, careful not to rattle any more bones
than necessary. He didn’t so much as snuffle. Had he passed out? Or… Erica
checked his neck for a pulse and found it pounding against her finger.
    Cautiously she got to her feet, half concerned she’d broken
something of her own and half worried the slumped male under garage bay three’s
lift might wake up.
    It wasn’t logical that someone built like a pencil-necked
geek standing feet away could choke Drew and make him weigh three times as much
as usual. But everything had gone back to normal when she knocked the stranger
unconscious. Therefore it was only logical to assume he had something to do
with the strange situation.
    She’d been close to death. That much she knew. Time to call
the sheriff. Erica trundled to the office for the cordless phone.
    “Don’t.”
    Her finger froze over the nine key at the now familiar male
voice behind her. She stomped the remainder of the way back into the garage.
Drew was awake and crouched beside the stranger.
    “Don’t call the police,” he said. “This guy…he has
connections that will get him out of custody before the day is through. And
then he’ll come back to haunt you. Let me deal with it.”
    More than likely he’d come back to haunt Drew . But
that wasn’t the operative statement in his response. “ Deal with it? How
are you planning to do that?”
    “I can call someone.”
    “You haven’t been very successful calling someone up to this
point.”
    His nose crinkled while the rest of his features puckered.
“This is different.”
    “How?”
    “It just is.”
    Oh no he didn’t. Erica’s temperature could have blown
through a thermometer. “Some guy just came into my garage to attack you .
You owe me a better explanation than that cop-out crap.”
    He glanced at the unconscious guy on the floor. “I can’t
give you a better explanation.”
    “You can and you’re going to or I’m going to weld you to the
lift and let you hang there until I get a better answer.”
    “I really can’t.” Drew’s pitch lifted.
    Erica took a
menacing step forward, or at least as menacing as she could pull off given he
was taller than and probably as strong as her. “I let you stay in my
storage room last night. You repay me by getting me embroiled in some vengeance
attack and then don’t even have the decency to explain what’s going on? I swear
to god I’ll hurt you if you don’t give me something better to go on.”
    “It’s like the mob,” he blurted out. Drew gestured at the
slumped figure. “He has powerful connections. I can keep you out of this mess
if you let me handle it my way.”
    “What exactly is your way?”
    “I can’t tell you that. You just have to trust me.”
    “You can’t be serious. I’m supposed to trust a guy whose own
mother won’t help him out of a bind?” Erica winced the moment the words left
her lips. She considered apologizing when Drew went perfectly rigid.
    He spoke before she could. “My mother is trying to teach me
a lesson.”
    “What lesson is that?”
    “I’ll tell you if you let me handle this my way.”
    “Okay, tell me and if I decide—”
    “No ifs. You let me handle this my way and then I’ll
tell you.”
    “I don’t want to know that badly.”
    The guy on the ground moaned, proving that though he’d
looked dead, he was very much alive.
    “I don’t have time to argue with you,” Drew grumbled under
his breath as he bent toward the stranger. He hoisted the guy over his shoulder
and started for the driveway.
    Erica stared in disbelief. What did he think he was doing?
    She