When a Man Loves a Weapon Read online

  Praise for Toni McGee Causey’s novels

  GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS

  “If you’re a fan of Stephanie Plum, this is a treat for you. Bobbie Faye is another wise-cracking gal with a knack for getting in trouble. The novel is fast-paced, while the mystery keeps you guessing. If you’re up for a fast-paced book . . . this is one you won’t want to miss.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

  “Causey roared into the book world with Bobbie Faye . . . and now takes readers on another thrilling roller-coaster ride in this fast, feisty, and ferociously funny novel.”

  —Booklist

  “Toni McGee Causey doesn’t just write. She takes prisoners. She grabs you by the heart and the funny bone and carries you off into a world of captivating characters that are a whole bunch of crazy and twice as much fun. Don’t try to sleep—you’ll be laughing too loud.”

  —Marshall Karp, author of The Rabbit Factory

  “Janet Evanovich, move over. Toni McGee Causey just gave us Bobbie Faye, and we’re loving her.”

  —Armchairinterviews.com

  “If you’re in the mood for something fresh, edgy—and often downright hilarious as Bobbie Faye shares her take on life, love and the world in general—then you won’t go wrong with [this] sassily written, high-spirited caper brimming with marvelously eccentric characters, crackerjack plotting, non-stop action, and plenty of regional Cajun flavor, a spicy blend that will leave readers begging for the next installment.”

  —Book Loons

  “A fast-paced, can’t-put-it-down novel full of great chase scenes, lots of gun play, and steamy scenes . . . The dialogue is quick, witty, sarcastic, and laugh-out-loud funny . . . A cross between Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry, Toni McGee Causey has a unique style that is a blast to read. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next adventure starring Bobbie Faye.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “Bobbie Faye Sumrall is BACK! Toni McGee Causey has brought back the ever-crazy Bobbie Faye and taken her to new heights (literally)! Once again chaos meets laugh-your-pants-off humor, in the very best of ways. I can only say that I hate (CAN’T WAIT) to see what Toni (and Bobbie Faye) are up to next!”

  —Romantic Inks

  CHARMED AND DANGEROUS

  “This hyperpaced, screwball action/adventure with one unforgettable heroine and two sexy heroes is side-splittingly hilarious. Causey, a Cajun and a Louisiana native, reveals a flair for comedy in this uproarious debut novel.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “There are many things to love about this book—the plot, the pacing, the dialogue . . . think Die Hard in the swamp. And Bobbie Faye? She’s a titanium magnolia.”

  —Bookreporter.com

  “It’s about time women had an Amazon to look up to . . . Bobbie Faye is a hurricane-force heroine who makes this novel the perfect adventure yarn.”

  —Tampa Tribune

  “If you like Janet Evanovich, if you’re looking for a lot of unlikely action (when is the last time someone you know escaped a burning boat by lassoing an oil rig?), or if you’re simply having a bad day, go out and find Bobbie Faye. She’s an outrageous hoot.”

  —New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “Causey’s hilarious, pitch-perfect debut chronicles one day in the life of 28-year-old Bobbie Faye Sumrall.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “If you like Stephanie Plum, you’ll love Bobbie Faye Sumrall! She’s a one-woman catastrophe and absolutely hilarious.”

  —Alesia Holliday, USA Today bestselling author of American Idle

  “Bobbie Faye is Southern, eloquent, kick-ass, highly accomplished, and just plain nuts.”

  —Harley Jane Kozak, author of Dating is Murder

  “Hold on for the ride, Bobbie Faye is 100% pure adrenaline. Causey has penned a laugh-out-loud nonstop thriller.”

  —Allison Brennan, USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of The Prey, The Hunt, and The Kill

  “Bobbie Faye is a true original and Toni McGee Causey a true talent!”

  —Melissa Senate, author of See Jane Date and Love You To Death

  “The tears are still running down my cheeks from laughing. Oh, my. What talent. What verve. What NERVE!”

  —Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Spymaster

  “DO NOT miss reading [Charmed and Dangerous]. Oh, and remember to breathe. The action is so fast, the characters are hilarious and the laughter so rampant that you really do need to remind yourself to breathe . . . The South could rise again with this woman at the helm (unless she blows it up first).”

  —Armchairinterviews.com

  “Toni McGee Causey will have you laughing out loud as her insane characters take you on a ride of pure chaos. This book could only be described as a roller-coaster ride with dynamite!”

  —Romanticinks.com

  The Bobbie Faye novels by

  Toni McGee Causey

  and St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  Charmed and Dangerous

  Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

  When a Man Loves a Weapon

  When a Man Loves a Weapon

  Toni McGee Causey

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Acknowledgments

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON

  Copyright © 2009 by Toni McGee Causey.

  Cover photo © Herman Estevez.

  All rights reserved.

  For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  ISBN: 0-312-35851-2

  EAN: 978-0-312-35851-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / August 2009

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my girls:

  Amanda, Nicole, and Angela Grace

  CONSISTENCY. It’s only a virtue if you’re not a screw-up.

  —bumper sticker seen in Lake Charles, LA

  “Bobbie Faye—keeping paramedics employed since 2005.”

  —bumper sticker

  One

  Bobbie Faye Sumrall lay
flat on her back on the thick blue mat in the sparring ring, and if she weren’t so exhausted, she’d kill him. If she could just roll over and push her rancid sweaty self up, she’d crawl out of the room, pride be damned, and find the gun. It might take days to load because she’d probably have to load it with her teeth, her arms were so tired, and then she’d probably have to prop the damned thing up on something and ask Trevor to please move within range because she was too worn out to aim properly. And then she’d shoot him, assuming she had the strength left to pull the trigger.

  If she thought hard enough, maybe she could come up with a good argument that “lying in a slobbering heap” was the same thing as “being prepared for the next disaster.” There had to be some rationalization somewhere she could use, dammit. Because Trevor seemed to believe that another disaster was imminent and that she needed to be all prepared and shit.

  He leaned over her and the light from the rafters of the old converted barn gave him a halo. He grinned, white teeth against tan skin, biceps bulging and forearms cording as he crossed his arms against his tight black t-shirt, and his wavy brown shoulder-length hair fell into his Satan-blue eyes. The least he could have done was broken a sweat.

  “You’re improving,” he said. “You almost managed to land a kick that time.”

  “I hate you.”

  His grin went from merely smug to completely obnoxious. “You did not hate me before breakfast. Which reminds me, we need to add strawberry jam to the shopping list.”

  Her eyesight fuzzed for a moment as her brain just skipped right on away from the subject of how much of a pain he was being, making her work out for hours every day, and frolicked over to exactly what he’d done with that strawberry jam. Now her favorite food on the planet. She hadn’t even known you could do that with a topping, and she had a friend who ran an S&M magazine.

  “We could have stayed in bed all day,” she pointed out. “I’m on vacation. You’re on leave. Allllll weeeeeek.”

  “And you,” he said, squatting next to her, “are still hesitating. You’re not firing as fast, you’re not hitting as fast, and you’re thinking too damned much.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s ever actually accused me of thinking too damned much.”

  He glowered at her.

  He was right. What was worse was that he knew that she knew that he was right. She really really hated that.

  She needed a temporary amnesia potion.

  Of course, she did not dare tell that to her boss, Ce Ce, who had a little voodoo side business to her Cajun Outfitter and Feng Shui Emporium where Bobbie Faye manned the gun counter. Ce Ce’s potions often had unexpected side effects. With Bobbie Faye’s luck, a “temporary amnesia potion” would probably erase way more than just the stuff she wanted to forget. She studied the man waiting next to her, his blue eyes heated like someone had turned on a blaze as his gaze roved over her body, and there were just some things she was not willing to sacrifice, no matter how much sleep amnesia might give her.

  “C’mon, slacker. Up. You have at least thirty more minutes of sparring, and then we’re going to run.”

  “Did you have to pinky-swear you’d be a relentless, impossible hard-ass when you joined the FBI?”

  “No,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he stood up, smiling. “Pinky-swearing was all the rage back in Spec Ops. The Feds are big on promise rings.” He offered her a hand to help her up. “You can do this.”

  “Ugh. Just shoot me now.” She saw him shift, and she might as well have slapped his face, the way his relaxed stance stiffened, and she felt her own body tense in response. The tightening of the muscle in his jaw was infinitesimally small; most anyone else wouldn’t have noticed it, but she did and she knew what fury flashed through him when that little muscle quirked. Fury on her behalf.

  Four months ago. Three shots. Meant for him.

  Bobbie Faye had jumped in the way.

  They didn’t talk about it. At all. Every single morning, he kissed the scars, and every single night he held her, his long, lean fingers splayed out over that area as if he could ward them off, shove away the memory.

  “Hey,” she coaxed, tugging his hand, trying to dispel the mood, “he’s a metric buttload of miles away.”

  “MacGreggor escaped.” He bit the words out with the same harsh disgust as the first time he’d told her. He’d damned near gone feral, his protective instincts kicking into full gear those first few weeks, and she’d had to fight him to keep him from putting them into complete lockdown mode. He’d have put armed guards on her if she’d have let him, and he’d vetoed traveling to meet his family and his family traveling to meet her. Hell, he’d have vetoed going to the grocery store and Ce Ce’s and ever seeing the sunlight again if she’d have listened to him. Good thing she’d patented “titanium-level stubborn” years earlier.

  “He escaped three months ago.” She was going to put a happy spin on it, if it fucking killed her. “And he’s heading toward Canada. We know that from the tips and witnesses calling in.” There was a BOLO out on Sean on every continent—a “be on the lookout for” notice that went out internationally, at all levels of law enforcement. “He’s trying to get home.” To Ireland, she hoped. Well, she hoped for Hell, because Ireland had never done anything to deserve Sean MacGreggor, either.

  She watched Trevor tamp down his fury, that ice-cold hatred he had for Sean MacGreggor, the man Trevor had shot. The man who’d promised to come back and “claim” Bobbie Faye.

  She’d been studiously ignoring that little nugget of information. Trying to be normal, whatever the hell that was. She’d actually slept a whole night. Well, sort of a whole night. Okay, four hours without waking up ready to fight someone and accidentally smacking the crap out of Trevor.

  Still, she’d been working her ass off to convince him she was okay. “Hey,” she said when he didn’t answer, “everything is back to normal . . . in fact, better than normal, all flowers and sunshine and fluffy clouds. I have set a whole new record of no one trying to kill me. I think I should get a trophy.”

  “C’mon.” He reached for her again, not smiling at her attempt, his perfect poker face back in place. For an absolutely hot man . . . her Hormones took their own little detour at that moment to wander over his muscled thighs, nearly derailing her entire brain with an Ode to Man . . . he could go granite cold, a veneer he carefully adopted whenever he was undercover. It had become something of a personal goal to make him forget how to use that mask, particularly with her.

  He pulled her to her feet, his sparring gloves smooth against her arms, and they stood face-to-face—er, eyes to chin, technically, since he was nearly six inches taller at six foot. She gave him a big grin, which inspired his suspicious appraisal.

  “You realize,” she poked him playfully in the ribs, “that as soon as we get me in prime fighting form, I’ll get flattened by a bus instead.”

  And just as he started to retort, she landed a punch and didn’t take the time to revel in his surprised expression, though he did manage to block her next flurry of moves. Damn freaking man. Two steps later, she nailed his thigh with a kick and they were suddenly game on, sparring, and she came very very close a few times to almost landing another one. Close enough to make Trevor’s eyes narrow, and he had to concentrate and not merely bat her away. Ha. Girl power.

  She maneuvered him the way he’d taught her and, in one sweet move, the angels sang and the Universe was distracted from bringing on her total abject humiliation and she managed to take him down. They slammed against the padded floor mat, and if he hadn’t immediately rolled and pinned her beneath him, she’d have danced around the ring like a winning prizefighter.

  Instead, she kissed him. Which made him relax. Whereupon she flipped him over and straddled him.

  She’d have paid big money to have a photo of his expression—half shock, half pride. She wriggled on top of him and leaned down, kissing the corner of his mouth.

  “You need to focus,” he said, th
e words grinding out against her lips.

  “I am focused.” She smiled and kissed him again, and reminded herself that she was getting to marry this man.

  “You planning on using this technique on everyone you take down? Because that’s a lot of guys I’ll have to kill.”

  “I’m not sure whether to be annoyed that you’re obsessing again, Mr. FBI, or happy that you think I’m capable of taking down multiple men. I landed a punch and a kick and a takedown. I think we need to celebrate.” She grinned, running her fingers through his hair and wiggled just enough for him to be absolutely certain that sparring practice was over.

  “Let’s go with happy.”

  He yanked off his shirt as he rolled over onto her, his hard body pressed along her own, his skin against hers delicious and warm against the cool air in the barn, like safety somehow sheathed in danger. Her body hummed as he braced on one arm and slid the other hand over her, a knuckle rasping just beneath her breast while he kissed her, possessing, dominating. She liked that he could be bossy and strong and rough and gentle at the same time and she wasn’t quite sure how he managed it, this treating her like an equal, but still his. Then she quit thinking completely as she burned beneath the fire of his kisses trailing down the line of her throat. She wasn’t entirely sure when he’d unhooked her workout bra, but she shivered beneath the scratch of his days-old stubble against her breast as he raked his teeth across her nipples, biting, then his tongue soothing, her body flooding with heat and want and need.

  “Up,” he commanded, and she arched her bottom and he stripped off her shorts—thank God for military efficiency—and she was bare to him. The mat warmed beneath her, the rough calluses of his palm sliding down her hip, past the little birth control patch that she’d checked with the religious fervor of a born-again zealot. His hand slid up her inner thigh until his thumb brushed her, his fingers sliding inside, his mouth taking hers, fast, hard, at the same time, and she nearly came undone at his searing attack of her body.