Are you defending Marcie?”

He shook his head. “I don’t need to. She handled herself. You, on the other hand…”

I pointed at the door. “Out.

Don’t start. I saw Marcie climb inside your Jeep.”

“She needed a ride.”

I adopted a hands-on-hips pose. “What kind of ride?”

“Not that kind of ride,” he said slowly.

I blinked down the street where the jeep had vanished. I felt the unexplainable urge to storm after them and do something I'd hoped I'd regret -like choke Marcie with her stupid red thong.

Try it on."

"It's probably a little snug. Marcie tends to buy down when it comes to sizing." He merely smiled.

"It has a slit up the thigh." His smile depened.

"Zip it up?"

Patch's eyes made a slow assessment of me, sharpening to vivid black. "I'm going to have a hard time sending you off with Scott in that dress. Just a heads-up, if you come home and the dress looks even slightly tampered with, I will track Scott down, and when I find him, it won't be pretty.

You're a guardian angel now." I was still too much in awe to wrap my mind around it, but at the same time I felt amazement, curiosity...happiness.

"I'm your guardian angel," he said.

"I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?"

"Guard your body." His smile tipped higher. "I take my job seriously, which means I'm going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.

I personally believe Patch scared the pants off normal, and it took off running for the far side of the world.