Tee'd Off

Chapter Five

I poured myself a very large whisky and sank down on the couch. "I still don't know why you're here, Anthony."

He helped himself to some of the purloined Lagavulin and nodded towards his laptop bag. "Did some digging on your Anderson guy. Who did the preliminary work on his file for you?"

I frowned. "Not sure, research is just shared out among the crew these days. Why?"

Anthony dropped down next to me and propped his feet up on the expensive looking coffee table. "It's a front, well that's what it looks like anyway."

"What's a front?" Bailey asked as she wandered out of the bedroom, and picked up the half empty Chenin Blanc bottle from earlier.

"Anderson. His jewelry business seems legit at first glance, and I suppose it could be, but when you do a little bit of digging around, he's connected to all sorts of shit that's in the red," Anthony explained.

"So what does he want with Rangeman?" she quizzed and she sat down in the arm chair and took a drink of wine straight from the bottle.

"I don't know yet, but I don't think that it is going to be anything good," Anthony offered. "What are your thoughts on this, Ranger?"

I sipped my whisky slowly and sifted through information in my head. "I don't honestly know. He approached me to overhaul the security at all his stores, which in itself is not an uncommon request for Rangeman."

"Insurance scam?" Bailey offered.

I shook my head. "How?"

"New security contractor and one of his stores gets turned over? It must be your fault, right? Can you say lawsuit as well as a very large insurance claim? He could sink your business, Ric."

"He'd never get into our system."

Bailey smiled. "He might be a moron, but I could crack your system. All he has to do is find someone who thinks that they can, and offer them a cut of the insurance payout. Plus don't forget that he won't actually have lost anything as the heist would be a set up in the first place. That might help get his overall bank balance back into the black."

Anthony smiled. "I think you might be on to something there, kiddo."

I looked between the two of them. "Can we just get some more information together before we start dreaming up elaborate plans?"

"They're not that elaborate," my brother offered. "And for the record, I could crack the Rangeman systems too."

"I run a tight ship, Rangeman's security is damn good, and now you're both telling me that despite all that, my system could be compromised?" I growled.

Bailey shrugged. "We get half a dozen attacks a day on the main system, Ric. If I let you know every time some cyber menace tried to get into our servers, then I'd never be doing anything else. Besides, half of them are the effing government anyway, the cheeky bastards. It's fine, so don't worry about it. Besides, I can hack the system because I wrote it, and Mr. Genius over there understands how I think, so he'd know where to start. Anderson's got to be looking at only a handful of people who would even know where to begin with the Rangeman server, and I know who they are anyway. I also know where they live, so it's all cool, baby."

"Okay, time out," I demanded. "Let's not jump to conclusions just yet. I'll see what information I can get out of Anderson in the morning, Anthony, you get back to digging up dirt for me, and Bailey, you see what you can get out of the wife; you've a session booked at the spa with her while I'm playing golf."

She grimaced. "The spa? I hate you."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise," I soothed.

"You still owe me, Ric."

Anthony laughed. "And the both of you owe me for earlier. So, who wants to tell me just what I interrupted on the front lawn?"

Bailey glared at me. "Don't you say a word, buddy."

My brother cracked his knuckles. "I have ways of making you both talk."

"You don't scare me, Anthony," she stated as she slammed the now empty wine bottle on the coffee table.

He grinned. "No? Well that's okay because I know of other ways to make you talk, little girl."

I turned to glare at him, jealousy coursing through me. "You will do no such fucking thing, little brother. Hell, I don't even want you thinking shit like that about my woman!"

Anthony laughed. "Been there, done that, man."

"Knock it off, Anthony!" Bailey growled, "Stop messing with Ric."

"Someone needs to tell me what happened earlier," he said in a sing-song voice.

"Fine, you want to know?"

He chuckled. "See, I knew I could get one of you to talk."

"Bastard," Bailey muttered under her breath. "I hate both of you, you know that? I'm going to bed and you can sleep on the couch."

"Thanks for the offer," Anthony replied.

"Not you, I was talking to Ric. You can sleep on the floor for all I care, Anthony Stewart."

"You PMSing, darlin'?" he teased.

"Fuck off!" she gritted out at she stomped off to the bedroom and locked the door behind her.

I got up to get a refill on my drink. "Thanks for that, Anthony."

He smiled. "No worries. Just pick the lock, bro."

I shook my head. "Not right now, she's got a knife under her pillow."

"She still a paranoid little thang?"

"For the most part, yeah. Some days she's better than others."

"So," Anthony said as he held his glass out for a top up, "You gonna tell me what on earth you two were doing on the lawn?"

I poured him another couple of fingers of Lagavulin and considered how best to answer him. "We…"

"Yes?"

And here goes my reputation. "We were playing hide and seek."

Anthony shook his head and then stared at me like I'd grown three heads. "What the fuck?"

I sat down in the armchair that Bailey had recently vacated. "Part of the deal Bailey set down when she agreed to this job was that she wanted clandestine sex in a hot tub one night. So we pulled out the resort map but couldn't agree on the location. In the end she suggested that we played hide and seek; if I found her then I got my choice of hot tub, and if I didn't find her then she got her choice."

My brother grinned. "I'd have agreed to any hot tub she wanted, man. Hang on, why were the pair of you rolling around the lawn?"

"Bailey thinks that I cheated."

"Did you cheat?"

"I used my thermal scope to find her in an oak tree with only a couple of minutes left on the clock. We didn't discuss the use of such items, so I figured that because she didn't rule it out, that it was fair game."

"But Bailey thinks differently, right?" my brother chuckled.

"She wants a rematch. She jumped down from the tree and took off across the lawn, and I'd just taken her down when the manager turned up. The only thing I could think to do was to pull out my wallet, flash him my I.D. and tell him I was bond enforcement."

Anthony nearly choked on his Lagavulin. "You two have all the fun. So the manager didn't buy your flimsy charade then?"

I shook my head. "He wanted us to go to his office until he'd verified everything with the authorities."

"Hah! You'd have been well and truly fucked then, Ranger; it's a damn good thing that I turned up when I did. I still think you owe me, brother."

I looked at him warily. "What do you want?"

"I'm sure that I'll think of something."

By nine fifty-six A.M. the three of us were standing in the foyer awaiting the arrival of Phil Anderson for my round of golf. Bailey was still smirking at my golfing attire; I guess that she'd not seen this section of my wardrobe before.

"It's not black," she giggled.

I looked down at my mint green polo shirt and charcoal colored trousers. "It's not that funny, babe."

"True, at least it's not pink," she replied as she nodded her head in the direction of my brother and his baby pink shirt.

"There's nothing wrong with pink," Anthony stated defensively.

"You just keep telling yourself that, Anthony," Bailey teased.

I pulled her close and dropped a swift kiss on top of her curls. "You behave yourself, missy."

"Make me," she whispered in my ear before she bit down gently on the pulse point on my neck.

I slid my hands over her ass and up to her hips. "Bailey, are you wearing anything under your dress?"

She pulled away and smoothed her hands over the simple black silk wrap dress that stopped short of her knees by a couple of inches. "Not a stitch."

I took a deep breath and willed my cock to remain unaffected by the image of me slowly unfastening the belt that held Bailey's dress together, of her standing there in nothing but her black spiked heel sandals. Shit, it wasn't working. I stuffed my hands in my pockets in an attempt to hide my growing erection.

Bailey looked down at my groin and licked her candy-apple red lips with the tip of her tongue. "Ooops, it that my fault, baby?"

"You are in so much trouble later, you hear me," I gritted out. "I'm going to-"

Bailey cut me off. "Save it, solider, it's show time."

Anderson stepped out of the lift with Jessica on his arm. "Carlos," he called out as he got closer. "Did you hear the scandal at breakfast?"

I shook my head, "I'm sorry, we called room service for breakfast. What did we miss?"

"The FBI was here last night! Apparently there was a wanted felon staying here; she was tackled on the front lawn by a bounty hunter."

Fuck! I managed to keep my blank look in place. "How exciting."

"It's appalling," Jessica piped up. "To think that some dangerous criminal was at the resort; we could have all been in serious danger!"

Phil patted her hand absently. "I'm sure that the standards of this place are slipping, you know."

"Did Carlos tell you that they lost our booking? The service here is not a patch on that of Gleneagles," Bailey stated, her English accent reappearing as she fell back into Amanda mode, and tried to change the topic of conversation slightly.

"Gleneagles' has a much superior course too," Anthony commented to no one in particular.

Phil turned to him and held out his hand. "Phil Anderson, CEO of Diamonds Galore. Maybe you've heard of my humble company."

Antony nodded politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Anderson; you have an exceptional network of stores, sir."

"Oh, I'm very sorry," Bailey cut in. "This is Tony Stewart, my PA."

Phil looked confused. "PA?"

"Yes, and I don't know what I'd do without him; I'd never make any of my business appointments, would I Tony?"

Anthony looked like a deer caught in the headlights. It was one of the few times in my entire life that I'd witnessed someone put him on the back foot. His only reply was to nod and shift uncomfortably.

Jessica looked him up and down appreciatively, and Bailey stepped up to her and put her hand on her arm. "Tony's gay, darling. He's still very pretty to look at, so I keep him around. Not a patch on my last P.A, if you catch my drift. Then again, I wasn't engaged to Carlos when Adam worked under me. Maybe it's a good thing Tony's gay; Carlos gets terribly jealous, don't you, baby?"

I stole a glance at my brother; yeah he was not a happy camper. His face was blank, but I could tell he was pissed at Bailey.

"Why don't you ladies trot off to your spa appointment, where you can discuss that sort of thing in peace," I suggested tactfully.

"We're meeting Hank at the first tee," Phil commented.

"Oh, I didn't know he was joining us for our game," I said. How the hell was I supposed to get information out of him now? Then again, Hank did seem to have a big mouth; maybe I wasn't out of luck just yet.

"Well, we have room for one more if Tony plays. Do you play, Mr. Stewart?" Phil asked.

"He is supposed to be contacting George to confirm the wallpaper samples I'd FedEx'd over," Bailey responded.

"Amanda is an interior designer," I offered by way of an explanation.

Anthony pulled out his Blackberry and scrolled through a few things. "Darling, I contacted Mr. Clooney while you were getting dressed. He said that the teal was just simply divine and he'd like that for his hall."

"See, he's just fantastic, aren't you Tony, love," Bailey cooed. "You run along and play golf with the boys; I'll call you if anything comes up."

"Thank you, Amanda," my brother replied with fake sincerity, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Bailey shot him a sweet and innocent looking smile and then linked arms with Jessica. "Shall we, darling? I hear that they have a new masseur this season. Apparently, he's from Sweden."

Jessica smiled. "Really?"

"Oh yes. We'll see you gentlemen at lunch," she replied before leading Jessica away in the direction of the spa.

Phil shook his head and set off for the front door, and I looked to my brother. "It was the pink shirt that did it, man."

"The little bitch," he hissed. "Not only am I her freaking P.A, but I'm her gay P.A having imaginary conversation with George fucking Clooney! I'm going to kill her later."

"You could try," I replied.

"I could take her out."

I nodded. "Sure, whatever you say."

"Fuck you, Ranger; you're supposed to be on my side."

"Why?"

"Because…" he growled, "Because you owe me one, bro."

I rolled my eyes. "Come along Tony, we're going to be late."