Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(57)

The blow to the back of his head threw him face forward over the hood of the car. Gasping, he rolled to the side and lifted his arms to defend himself from the next blow.

A woman’s voice came from far away. “Kate! Stop! I know him!”

“Bev?” he asked. But the assailant kept at him, her second strike aimed at his groin. This one he deflected just in time and blinked away the stars from the first hit to focus on the short blonde in Fite’s second delivery for spring of last year, balanced on the balls of her feet preparing to strike him again.

“Stop, Kate, damn it! That’s Liam! From Fite!” Bev’s voice was stronger now, but breathless, like she was running. Liam couldn’t risk looking away from the psycho to see where she was exactly, but it sounded like down the street, not in the house.

“What the hell did you do to our house?” the psycho demanded, kicking him in the shins.

“Quit—hitting—me—!” He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, trying to disable her without hurting her. “Listen to your goddamn sister!”

But she slammed her head up into his chin, dropped several inches and tried to knee him in the balls again. Though he would have loved to return in kind, he grabbed her calf and held it tightly so she could have to focus on not falling over backwards instead of trying to unman him.

“Kate! Jeez!” Bev came up and grabbed her sister around the waist and jerked her backwards. “You can let go of her now. I’ve got her.”

Liam eyed the hopping, violent female with skepticism. She was small but packed with muscles. “You must be the little sister.” He didn’t let go of her leg.

“You must be the loser who tried to scare us out of our house.” She thrashed in his grip.

“Please, Liam. Let go of her leg.”

“I want her to swear she won’t try to hurt me again.”

Kate pursed her lips, but stopped struggling. “For now, anyway.”

“Good enough.” He let go and braced himself.

“He is not the one screwing with the house,” Bev said. “Why can’t you believe me?”

Kate eyed him from head to toe then shifted her gaze and gave her sister the same once-over. “Because I know how you are with guys like him.”

Curiously, Bev turned red.

“Guys like me?” He started to smile.

“He’s totally like Rand,” Kate said to her sister. “You lose all sense.”

He had to admit he liked the idea of Bev losing sense over him. Though certainly not over some dork named Rand. “Is that so?”

“My sister is going inside.” Bev, still holding Kate around the shoulders, tried to push her towards the house when Liam realized what she and her sister must have been doing when they came upon Liam looking into the car window.

Running. Bev had been running. “Nice shorts.” He admired her round ass and felt dizzy. First her damn sister smacked him upside the head, now this. And they weren’t Fite, either, which explained why they fit her so well.

“Now I get it,” Kate was saying. “He’s why you’re jogging. I knew it couldn’t be your job.”

“He is my job,” Bev said, glancing over at him. He smiled, and she stopped abruptly in alarm. “You’re lip is bleeding!”

Liam ran his tongue along the corner of his mouth, tasting blood, and nodded. “So I am.”

“You hurt him,” Bev said to her sister. “You drew blood.”

“He was spying.”

“Go inside,” she said to her, eyes flashing. “You’re worse than a pit bull.” She pointed at her house until Kate took a step in that direction, then she came over to Liam. She cupped his cheek and peered into his face with those big blue eyes. He looked down into them and felt dizzy again.

“He’s swaying,” Bev said, looking over at her sister. “Help me get him into the house.”

Kate was sulking near the front door. “Bring him to his own house. Where he should have stayed.”

“Your family is charming.” Liam lifted a finger to his lip that came away wet and red.

Bev hooked her arm in his and rotated him away from her sister. “Let’s go to your mother’s. I bet she has a first-aid kit.” Then she peered up at him again, and he looked down and met her concerned gaze and wondered if it was the blood loss that made him feel light-headed.

“She’s hunting right now,” he said.

Frowning, Bev marched him down the yard. “Watch your step.” She threaded through the shrubbery.

“How far did you go?” He slowed his stride, confident she wouldn’t be able to propel him on her own, and studied the damp spots on her t-shirt. She was drenched. “Your sister pushed you too hard. I can tell just by looking at you. That’s a terrible way to start an exercise program.”

“We hardly got started,” she said. “It was running up the hill to save your life that nearly killed me.”

He pretended to stumble and sagged in her arm, making her hold him more tightly. “Thanks,” he said, reveling in the feel of her soft hip digging into his, “but it’s your sister whose life you saved. If she’d kept that up I really would’ve had to fight back.”

But Bev didn’t seem to believe him. She squeezed his arm and sighed. “Kate has anger issues. And too many years of kick aerobics.”