Page 11 of Herding Cat

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Tate and Luke arrived first thing in the morning to relieve Garrett and it was a damn good thing. He’d had enough of lying sleepless on the sofa of her sitting room, knowing she was just beyond that thin door, on her bed. Maybe naked.

He was ready for a distraction.

He and his team had a long discussion about the events of the night before, possible scenarios and strategies to address them. They scrambled their schedules for the coming days until Scott’s replacement could get to Hong Kong. It was critical to keep Catherine’s coverage two deep during the day.

It was a pity Garrett was bleary-eyed through the whole thing. Not that he hadn’t slept well. But he hadn’t. And it wasn’t worry over the safety of his target either. He’d spent the whole night tossing and turning and horny.

It was tough walking away and letting them take over for the day, but he had to. He was no good to anyone if he wasn’t well-rested and alert. Still, it was annoying that he had to be away from her for an entire day. He knew his buddies were the best, they’d keep her safe, but he wanted to be by her side.

He forced himself to go back to his room, pull the shades and rest. Fortunately, he was exhausted enough to sleep. When he awoke in the afternoon, he grabbed a sandwich and headed over to the hospital to visit Scott, who’d had his surgery and was still as giddy as a schoolgirl with the morphine.

Once Garrett had assured himself his friend was in good hands—specifically the cute little nurse he had by his side—Garrett called Luke.

He was irritated to find out that Catherine had insisted on going to the Kowloon market after her meetings. Located on Temple Street, which was closed to traffic in lieu of vendor kiosks, the street was a crowded nightmare for a bodyguard. It was a bustling jumble of humanity.

Normally, it would be impossible to find three people in that snaking den of tents and tourists, but as a matter of course, they’d tagged Catherine with a GPS necklace, and the whole team had the Global Location app active on their phones, so Garrett just tracked the red dots. And then, of course, he followed his nose.

He should have known.

He found them sitting at a rickety table at a Hairy Crab restaurant set up in the intersection of two main roads. Luke—who was actually doing his job and paying attention—saw Garrett right away and nodded. It took Tate a minute—he was making love to a crab leg—but he saw Garrett as well. Catherine, not so much.

Or maybe she did see him, and was pretending to be a block of marble. She sat there, staring off into the distance with her jaw clenched and looking pensive and beautiful. There was a tiny bit of crab on her lip. He wanted so badly to brush it away. Or nibble it.

“Hey guys,” he said as he took a seat.

Tate and Luke grunted, but Catherine didn’t even look at him.

“How was your day?”

“Fine,” Luke said.

“Any incidents?”

“Not a one.” Tate picked up his beer and took a swig. His shift was over now. He could drink all he liked.

“So I went by to see Scott.”

Catherine’s head whipped around. Finally. It was wonderful to have her attention, if only for a moment. “H-how is he?”

“He’s fine. He had his surgery and now he just needs to heal.”

“Any word from Ryder?” Luke asked.

Garrett frowned. “Nothing yet. But I’m sure he’s sending someone good.”

Luke’s expression was stony. “We should consider returning to Los Angeles.”

Catherine blew out an impatient breath. “Not that again.” The annoyance threaded through her tone told Garrett that Luke had been harping on it for a while. It was only logical, when a target was in danger, to retreat to somewhere safe, especially if a team was down a man. “I still have a lot to do. Besides, we still don’t know that accident was intentional.”

Luke rolled his eyes and Garrett grinned at that, but he fixed a somber expression on his face before he looked at Catherine. “We don’t know it wasn’t. It is only good sense to proceed with caution.”

She harrumphed. Actually harrumphed. “I am not canceling my meetings.”

“Fine.”

“And I was planning to visit the Night Market tonight.”