Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  “Stella?” Monty’s voice was sharp in my ear.

  “Monty,” I whispered back, having nothing else to say, holding Preston’s gaze, reading his look, knowing I was wearing the same terror with only a nuance of difference on my face.

  “Please, God, not again,” Preston breathed, my heart twisted, it hurt like a mother then we heard footfalls.

  We both jerked our heads toward them, my neck went way back and my eyes filled with wet that instantly spilled over when I saw Mace casually striding toward us.

  His jacket was torn at the shoulder.

  That was it.

  Just his jacket was torn at his shoulder.

  Lordy be.

  I surged to my feet and rushed him. He took my full body impact without even going back on a foot as Juno woofed excitedly over and over again and I felt her body brushing ours as she circled us. Mace’s arm wound around my waist, going tight and his other hand slid the phone out of mine.

  I shoved my face in his chest, pressing close, deep, hard, holding him tight and bawling like a baby as I heard him say into the phone, “Current threat neutralized.”

  For some bizarre, insane reason which likely had a lot to do with the fact that I was temporarily unhinged due to the extreme relief washing through my system, his words made me laugh through my tears, still burrowing, his arm getting tighter as I did so.

  That was when I heard the sirens.

  Okay, now I believed we were good.

  But only because my man made us that way.

  On that thought, I stopped laughing, gulped back a sob and more tears flowed.

  * * * * *

  I stood outside at the edge of the activity still wearing my heels. My feet were killing me as was the gunshot graze at my hip which I’d landed on when I went down on it in that room. It hadn’t really hurt for days, just itched. Now it hurt.

  I had a blanket wrapped around me, a blanket Mace had wrapped around me and this was because, even though it was summer and still warm, it was late at night and I was trembling and not because it was late at night.

  Juno was sitting at my side, her big body leaning into my legs, her eyes riveted to Mace who was standing fifteen feet away where he had walked not thirty seconds ago to talk to Eddie and Hank.

  My eyes were riveted anywhere but at the body that was on the ground, under a sheet, next to Preston’s limousine.

  His driver had been taken out. One minute, innocently chauffeuring a rich guy (or whatever), the next minute, dead.

  I couldn’t deal with that so I was ignoring it.

  The place was crawling with cops, squad cars, forensic personnel, paramedics, ambulances, big lights had been set up and trained around the space so they could see what they were doing and, lastly, there were Nightingale men. In fact, the only Nightingale man not there was the Nightingale, Lee, who I was told briefly by Mace was not let in on this fiasco seeing as it was his wedding night. After Mace imparted this information on me, Luke had noted that Lee would likely be displeased about being kept in the dark. I had noted (but silently) that Lee and Indy would likely be more displeased at having their big, happy day and its culminating, arguably happier festivities interrupted by mayhem.

  If the guys took shit from Lee, they did. Luckily, they were badasses so, even though Lee was also a badass, I doubted they’d have difficulty dealing.

  There were bystanders and media at the edge of the property, cops and police tape holding them back.

  I was counting as the stretchers came out of the building.

  Two men fully covered.

  Dead.

  Four men still alive but even from a distance seriously not in good shape.

  Mace didn’t fuck around.

  This would probably fascinate anyone else, how he did it, how he pulled that off, holed in a room one second, one against six armed men the next and besting the lot.

  Not me. I didn’t want to know and I was never, ever going to ask.

  Mace was breathing. I was breathing. My dog was breathing.

  That was good enough for me.

  The good news was, this was the last hurrah. I knew this because Luke told Mace this while Mace was holding me close, his hands running soothingly up and down my back as Luke gave his briefing. The six men Mace neutralized were the final six men in Sidney Carter’s army. Sidney was still unaccounted for but his operation was fully dismantled. He had no more soldiers. They were still looking but they suspected, once he heard that this last mission was not successful, he would cut and run. They were covering trains, airports, bus depots and the Highway Patrol was on alert. They’d even contacted Border Control.

  I was not really processing this information. I was concentrating on my teeth not chattering.

  This was what I was concentrating on when I caught movement out of the side of my eye. My head turned and my mind was not switched on enough to react to seeing Preston Mason suddenly, for some reason, sprinting my way.

  The only thing I thought was, he wasn’t exactly young but the guy could still move.

  Then I heard him shout, “Sniper!”

  At his shout, the air went thick and electric. My body twitched first then instantly jerked to the side in preparation to run (again) and the second it did I heard the whiz and thud as a bullet slammed into the dirt just beyond me.

  Then I was tackled from behind as I heard a second hiss split the air. I hit the soft, thick grass in Swen and Ulrika’s side yard with a painful thud that was made more painful by the weight that landed on me and Juno barked.

  I lay there, facedown and whoever was on me didn’t move.

  There was rushing all around me, I twisted my neck and saw men running and one of those men was Mace.

  But he was running somewhere else.

  I had no chance to react to this as I felt Juno’s nose snuffling around my neck and hair and felt my body being crushed by the one on me. I tried but failed to heave the weight off and saw the hems of uniform pants and shiny policemen shoes and the weight on me was rolled off. I rolled with it, to the other side, and instantly saw Preston lying on his back beside me, a cop on his knees by him, carefully rolling him back to his belly and shouting, “Medic!”

  Medic.

  Oh God.

  Medic.

  He’d been hit!

  Someone tried to pull me up but I yanked my arm away and got back on my belly, flat, pressed to the ground, even my cheek was in the grass, my face super close to Preston’s, my eyes locked to his pained ones.

  “You with me?” I whispered.

  Hands were at my back but I ignored them. Preston stared at me as I heard more running feet and bodies landing on their knees around Preston.

  My hand darted out and caught his, my fingers curling around.

  “Preston, stick with me,” I urged, my fingers squeezing.

  “Gurney!” I heard shouted.

  Preston blinked.

  I scooted closer and held his hand tighter.

  “Hang on,” I whispered.

  I watched his eyelids lower a millimeter and his mouth went slack.

  And I knew.

  I knew.

  I knew. I knew. I knew.

  “Hang on!” I shrieked then I was up, arms tight around me, one at my chest, one at my belly and I struggled against the hold as they lifted Preston lifeless body onto a gurney. “Hang on!” I screeched.

  They strapped him in.

  “Hang on!” I screamed.

  They pulled the gurney up to its full height and wasted not a second in rushing it in a roll across the lawn, the drive and into the ambulance.

  “Please hang on,” I whispered, the fight left me, oozing out and my body went slack in the arms surrounding me.

  When it did, those arms turned me. I looked up at Willie Moses just as his hand curled around the back of my head and he shoved my face in his throat.

  I again burst into tears, my legs collapsing from under me as the weight of knowing a man might have lost his life to save mine sett
led on me, the weight heavy, crushing and Willie’s arms got tighter.

  “Find Mace,” I felt as well as heard Willie order. “Now.” Then, into the top of my hair, he whispered, “Hang on, honey.”

  I felt Juno’s body press against the side of my legs and somehow found the strength to lift up my hands, curl them in Willie’s shirt and hang on.

  * * * * *

  Mace

  Mace slid the dark, heavy hair off Stella’s neck, eyes locked to her sleeping profile.

  Then he pulled in breath.

  Then his hand moved from his woman to her dog, he slid his fingers through the fur on Juno’s head and he whispered, “Stay with her.”

  Juno blinked up at him then shuffled on her belly closer to Stella.

  Mace straightened from sitting on the side of the bed in one of Daisy’s guest rooms; he switched out the light and walked out the door.

  He was nearly to the stairs when Daisy made it up them.

  She stopped as did he.

  Her blue eyes captured his, her head tipped to the side then her hand came up. She rested it gently on his jaw and pressed lightly as her eyes held his and she let them and her hand communicate for her.

  Her hand and her eyes had a lot to say, they didn’t waste time and all of it was beautiful.

  She dropped her hand and whispered, “Your Momma and Chloe are in the great room.”

  Then without waiting for a response, she skirted him and walked down the hall without looking back.

  Mace watched her while he thought, not for the first time, that Daisy Sloan was a good woman.

  Then he walked down to Daisy and Marcus’s great room where Chloe was sitting on a sofa staring vacantly into the dark, unlit fireplace and his Mom was standing at a window staring vacantly into the dark night. They were in their own thoughts, not pleasant ones, as they wouldn’t be. An attraction, a bad decision, giving their heart to the wrong man and then no end to heartache.

  And now closure but not the right kind.

  The instant he entered, Chloe’s neck twisted, her eyes shot to him and she asked, “How is she?”

  His Mom turned from the window as Mace answered, “Out.”

  “She take the pills?” Lana asked.

  Mace nodded, stopped and sat on the armrest of the couch.

  He was wiped, fucking shattered. He felt like he could sleep for a goddamned week. He not only felt like it, he wanted to do it.

  But he wanted to do it somewhere where there was a beach right outside his room, Stella in his bed and no one around for miles.

  Lana moved toward him saying, “She’ll be okay, sweetie.”

  He knew that. He knew it.

  He knew it because, if Stella didn’t wake up that way, he’d make her that way even if it took a lifetime.

  Lana stopped two feet in front of him and looked down at him.

  Then, softly, she asked, “Okay, now, are you okay?”

  “He died for her,” Mace replied bluntly and Lana drew in breath through her nose as he felt Chloe tense down the couch from him.

  “Why the fuck would he throw himself in front of a bullet to save Stella and he wouldn’t –

  ?” Mace started and Lana moved.

  Closing the distance between him, her palm came to his cheek, fingers curled around his jaw forcing his face to look up at hers.

  Jesus, he missed her touch.

  Jesus.

  He should have fucking remembered his Mom could soothe a hurt just with her touch.

  He didn’t remember.

  Jesus.

  “You’ll never find answers to your questions, Kai,” she said softly and it hit him, not for the first time in the last few days, how fucking much he also missed her voice. She could soothe with that too. Effortlessly. “So please, sweetie, please, right now, with me and Chloe, let them go. He did what he did and it’s done. Your beautiful girl is upstairs sleeping. You caught that Carter man and even if he wasn’t going down before, you caught him with his rifle so he’ll go down for what he did to your father. It’s done. Your father is gone but his death is avenged. Life goes on. Live it. Enjoy every minute of it and let this go.”

  The minute his father shouted “sniper”, Mace knew just how desperate Carter was, not for freedom, for vengeance.

  Sidney Carter was a trained sniper. The first Iraq war. It wasn’t something they didn’t know, he’d just stopped doing his own dirty work a decade before.

  But instead of going down like a man, he decided to do his own dirty work, the stupid, sick, demented fucking fuck.

  But what his mother said was true. Carter was already going down but now there was no way Carter wouldn’t stay down.

  Mace thought his thoughts, drew in breath and stared into his mother’s eyes and, not for the first time in the last few days or in the last seven years, he realized how much he missed them and as he did this, he felt his hand taken in Chloe’s.

  Lana’s hand dropped to his shoulder as he looked to Chloe.

  “We love her,” Chloe whispered, changing the subject and changing it to Stella. “She’s perfect for you.”

  She was not wrong.

  “Totally,” Lana muttered and Mace looked back up at his Mom.

  “She’s beautiful, she’s talented,” Chloe went on and Mace turned his gaze to her to see her face soft. “And she looks at you like you turn on the sun in the morning and switch it off at night.”

  “Totally,” Lana repeated on another mutter and Mace felt his lips twitch.

  “Tiny would absolutely adore her,” Chloe went on, Mace’s lips stopped twitching and Mace saw her turn to Lana. “Wouldn’t she, honey?”

  “Oh yeah, heck yeah,” Lana answered and Mace’s eyes went back to his Mom just in time to watch her say, “Tiny thought you turned on the sun in the morning and switched it off at night too. She’d definitely adore Stella. Two peas in a pod, the way they love you. Two peas in a pod.”

  Mace sucked in breath. He did this to fight the burn that threatened to consume his chest.

  He could control it, had been for years. It was only recently when he started to believe he could beat it, move past it and maybe find a life where his memories focused more on his sister’s grace, her smile, her giggles, her easy affection and less on watching her life end way too fucking soon.

  And that was because only recently he’d finally come to understand that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that alone.

  Luckily, he’d also recently come to understand he was far from alone.

  Then he stood and both women disengaged from him, Lana taking a step back.

  Then he muttered, “Wiped,” and moved to his mother. He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her to him as he bent to touch his lips to her forehead. There he whispered, “Missed your voice, your eyes, your touch, even your smell.”

  Mace heard her draw in a sharp breath, her hands went to his waist, fingers digging in but she didn’t say a word and he said no more. He also didn’t move. Not for awhile. He breathed her in, felt her touch and let it heal.

  He should have remembered.

  He didn’t.

  Now he did.

  Thank Christ.

  Then he kissed her forehead and pulled away. She let him go. Feeling his mother’s gaze soft on him, he turned to Chloe, ignoring the tears shimmering in her eyes, he bent and did the same but saying nothing, just touching his lips to her forehead and pulling back.

  She sniffled.

  He looked between them and muttered, “See you in the morning. We’ll all go out and have breakfast,” he paused then finished, “If Daisy lets us.”

  “Right,” Lana agreed, her voice husky.

  “Oh… okay,” Chloe stammered, her voice trembling.

  Mace started to move from the room but stopped at the door and looked back. Then he smiled at his “Moms”.

  They smiled back.

  He walked out of the room and back up the stairs.

  In the darkened room he was shar
ing with Stella, he silently accepted Juno’s soft, welcome back woof, took off his clothes, stood by the side of the bed and repeated the actions he’d done once that day. He lifted his arms, undid the chain at his neck, brought it down, upended it and Tiny’s ring Indy had returned to him with a kiss to his cheek before getting into Lee’s Crossfire dropped into his hand. He set the chain on the nightstand, pulled back the covers and slid in behind Stella.

  His arms moved around her heavy, sleeping body, his fingers found her right hand, he lifted it and the fingers of his other hand slid Tiny’s ring on her pinkie.

  When he did, she moved, nuzzling back into him and muttering groggily, “Grenades. Jeez, babe, Swen and Ulrika are gonna be pissed.”

  Then her body settled and Mace knew she was again asleep.

  And he lay in the dark listening to her breathe.

  It was the most beautiful sound he ever heard.

  Then her words hit him.

  And he couldn’t help it, his arms closed tight around her, he buried his face in her hair, smelled mint, decided he seriously fucking loved that smell and he burst out laughing.

  * * * * *

  Stella

  I woke and blinked at the tight hold of the arms around me and the sound of Mace laughing into the back of my hair.

  That’s weird, has he cracked up? My brain asked me.

  I listened to his laugh, felt his warm strength curled all around me and considered this for a millisecond.

  Then I decided, if my man had gone insane and Mace’s brand of insanity meant he was holding me close and laughing, I didn’t give an ef.

  And on that thought, I went back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Rock Chick

  Jane

  One week later…

  Jane slid through the shelves of Fortnum’s unnoticed by customers. Then she slid behind the front counter unnoticed by Rock Chicks, unnoticed by Hot Bunch, unnoticed by Tex and unnoticed by Duke.

  “It has to be somebody,” Ally stated and Jane looked to the couch faced by two armchairs all of which sat in front of the huge front window.

  Mace was sitting on the arm of the couch, Stella held close in front of him between his legs. Daisy and Shirleen were in the sofa. Hector was seated on the other arm of the sofa, unlike Mace, who had one foot in the sofa seat, one on the floor. Hector had both feet on the floor, his back slightly to the couch, slightly removed.