Piper (Queen's Birds of Prey #4) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,43

group, and he’d bully whoever didn’t do things his way. “Do you have your will filled out, Mr. Curtain? Someone we can notify when this is over? Because no matter what you say to the contrary, you’re not going to be living here any longer.”

“So says you.” The man looked at the others. Piper wasn’t sure they were thinking Curtain was in the right any longer. Each of them started away once they realized Grant wasn’t backing down. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve scared off some of my fine neighbors. I’m afraid now I’m going to have to find me a whole other group of people to piss you off.”

“Sorry, but I’m not pissed. I don’t get pissed. It’s not worth the effort.” Grant looked at her and winked. “You see, when you have one of the queen’s prey as your mate, you don’t have to worry about much of anything bothering you. So this is your final say, is it? You’re not moving on?”

“Nope.” Curtain aimed his gun at her when she hopped in his direction. Grant told him that if he did that, he was only going to piss her off. “She ain’t real anyway.”

The gun went off just as she drew in a breath to hit the tent behind the man. As soon as he realized it was flaming, he aimed the gun at Grant. Piper turned her flame to Curtain, and it hit him all at once. Her fire was hotter than anything manmade. Mr. Curtain didn’t even have time to scream.

Chapter 6

The castle was a mix of modern and old. There were places along the walls that would hold things such as books and collections. Grant knew that over the years, he’d collected a lot of both. Mostly books, but he did have a few things he thought would mix well with the things he was sure Piper had collected too. She met him in the office where he was looking around.

“I’m not sure what is going on right now, but the kitchen changes every time I come out and go back into it. I don’t cook, you see. I could if pressed, but I don’t. So when I leave, it changes, I’m assuming, to your standards of kitchen work. With mine, it’s two microwaves, as well as lots of paper plates. I’m not sure I like that.” He asked her what was bothering her about it. “That this place is more in tune with me than I am. Do you cook?”

“I do. And I love to. But I think we’ll still need someone here to cook all the time. With the projects we have going, we’ll need to do that. Have you heard from Benson about the children?” She told him what she’d heard. “I figured as much. Malnourished seems to be the way children of his sort wind up. Mercy has contacted their mother. She’s been looking for them for six months. He took them out of the state when he only had weekend visitation rights. Apparently, she’s more than grateful to have them back. The others have left as well. They even cleaned up their messes instead of leaving it for us. I believe you scared some sense into them.”

“For the moment anyway.” He knew that sometime in the future, they were going to have to do the same again. Grant hoped the castle being occupied would deter some people, but he didn’t have much faith. “Baker went to find us some staff. The kitchen is going to be your domain, so you can interview someone for that. I’ll see about having the staff here in the morning. I want this night, our first night here, to be just about the two of us. How about we look over the rest of this place, and then we head up to what is going to be our bedroom and make it ours?”

She wiggled her brows at him, and he laughed. Piper was as straight forward as anyone he’d ever met. When she wanted something, Piper didn’t have any trouble asking for it. He thought perhaps that was why he loved her so much. Before they went any further, he bent on one knee in front of her.

“It’s about time.” He laughed again, telling her to behave herself. “I don’t know if you’ve realized this or not, but I don’t do behaving very well. I can, I suppose, but what the hell is the fun in all that? But I do love