“What kind of music do you like?” she asked Nathan. Maybe they could order something for him when they got to their destination.
He pulled a small iPod with headphones from the bag Diane had packed him. Now there was a woman who knew how to take care of a child. She was a born nurturer. Look how she’d taken care of Dez, even after finding out one of her best friends was dead. Women like Diane made Dez feel inadequate. She did better on the run, shooting at people rather than taking care of them. She was an un-nurturer, born to disconnect and disassemble. To each her own.
The truck rocked when Mick returned and settled into the driver’s seat. “Ready?”
“No.” She’d rather pull a year of desk duty than face the people in this small town.
“Too bad.” Mick put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. He was all heart.
Nathan slipped on a headset so he didn’t have to make conversation. Dez didn’t blame him. If she could flip a switch to zone out, she’d do it. Instead, her stomach churned the burger around while the GPS gave directions. Dez could have done it from here, could have made the drive in her sleep, but she kept silent, let the annoying female voice on the GPS order Mick to take a left followed by a right.
The house appeared like a jump scare in a horror movie. It made her pulse race, but this wasn’t a scary movie. It was her life, and part of that life had been lived in the white two-story, probably a hundred years old, with a steep roofline and gables covered in snow. Memories hit her first, like flashes from a movie. Horror mostly, mixed with good, but most of it old, just old and past. Mick backed into the driveway. Easy exit. Dez knew the drill, and it was easier to focus on the details than the light in the upstairs window. The light Aunt Peg had always left on for her.
Dez climbed down, stretched, and saw a light go on downstairs. The moisture dried in her mouth. No turning back now. The cold seeped down to the bones. She didn’t have a winter coat, and the scrubs were worthless in higher altitudes. Something else to think about rather than thinking about right here and now.
Mick stepped out and held the half-door to the extended cab open for Nathan to step down. The boy tucked his music in his backpack. He was a good kid. Didn’t have to tell him a thing. He was operating on autopilot, and his autopilot was a well-mannered middle class boy, out of his element in this cold and dark small town. Out of his element with a mob boss on his trail. Dez made herself think about Nathan and the mission rather than the past and her lies of omission.
Mick’s old red pickup looked like a farm truck in the drive, a little beat up, a little rusty. Fit right in where she never had. Before she made it to the small porch, the door opened, the screen squeaked.
“Oh my God.” A whirlwind flew to Dez, wrapped her in a tight hug.
The wound in her arm throbbed under the embrace. “Hey, Aunt Peg.”
Peg grinned, her eyes alight as she pointed down the walk where Mick and Nathan held back, giving them space for their awkward reunion. “Is this—”
“No.” Dez interrupted before her aunt finished the sentence. She wasn’t ready to share that story. She’d never be ready. Sadness tightened like a noose on her throat. “They’re not mine.”
“Well, let me get a look at you.” Peg leaned back far enough to get a good look. She rested a cool hand on either side of Dez’s warm cheeks. “Gorgeous. Still gorgeous. Nothing could change that, Justice.”
Her gaze flicked to Mick. Had he heard? There was no shame in it, but she’d rather keep it separate from Mick. Separate from who she had become. “It’s Destiny now. Dez.” She took her aunt’s hand and held on.
“Sounds like a stripper name.”
The barb struck home. Deep, so she pushed back as was her nature. “Actually, Justice was my stripper name. You should have seen them cheer for the red, white, and blue.”
“Still got a smart mouth on you.”
Others might not realize it, but that was a compliment from Aunt Peg. Sarcasm was nearly a religion. “Learned from the best.”
“That you did. Together we would have ruled the stripper world.”
Dez choked out a laugh. She’d forgotten. Peg was irreverent and mouthy. The absolute best at getting through awkward times. How had she thought her aunt would judge her for the way she’d left? The woman was a free spirit. Always had been, always would be.
Peg waved at Mick and Nathan. “Come in out of the cold. We’ll do introductions inside.”
The blast of heat stung her cheeks when they walked through the front door. “Aunt Peg, this is Mick and Nathan.”
Peg extended a hand and shook the boy’s. “Aren’t you a handsome boy, Nathan?”
“Nate,” he corrected. He glanced at Dez as if speaking to her. “I go by Nate.”
Dez nodded her understanding. The poor guy had no control over anything right now. The least she could do was call him by his preferred name.
“Call me Peg or Aunt Peg.”
His eyes watered, but he answered, “Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.”
The vise on Dez’s throat tightened its grip. Nate had no family left, had escaped near death, and Peg offered him the potential for more warm, suburban love, the kind that had nearly smothered Dez as a teen.
She lost her train of thought when Peg wrapped Mick in a hug. “Mm-mm, aren’t you an eye full? Dez always had good taste in boys.”
Boys? Was Aunt Peg blind? Because no one could look at Mick and think him a mere boy, but Peg chattered on while rubbing a hand to warm Mick’s bare arm. “The tattoos are something else, a shame to cover them up, but you’ll need longer sleeves while you’re here,” Peg said. “I have some men’s shirts lying around that should fit you.”
“I’m good,” Mick said.
“I’ll lend them to you just the same.” Aunt Peg wasn’t as ancient as Dez had remembered her, although now that she did the math, she realized Peg wasn’t old. It had been Dez’s age—anyone over the drinking age seemed old at the time. Peg’s face had a few wrinkles around the eyes that hadn’t been there before, and a sprinkling of gray mixed with the short blond hair. Her delicate hands smoothed up Mick’s tattoo sleeve. “Isn’t this beautiful artwork?”
Trust her to notice. “Aunt Peg’s an artist.” Not that Dez had to say the words. Art and color lived in this old house. Murals lined the walls and watercolors climbed the stairwell.
“Let’s have your coat, young man,” Peg said to Nate before showing him to the closet and hanging up the thick winter coat. “When’s the last time you ate?”
Nate looked to Dez before answering. “We just ate. Take out.”
Peg frowned at Dez. “You always did like your fast food. Nate, did you eat all your dinner?” When he nodded, she said, “Good, I’ve got some strawberry Jell-O waiting on someone just like you to finish it.” Before she disappeared into the kitchen, she stared pointedly at Dez. “You two have a seat. I’ll be right back to chat.”
“Chat.” Dez grumbled to Mick after Peg left. “You just remember this was your idea when she’s giving you the third degree.”
“Seems harmless enough.” Mick sat in Peg’s rocker, and it groaned under his weight.
“You warm enough now?”
Mick grinned. “Your aunt has warm hands.”
“I just bet.” And she couldn’t say anything else without revealing her own fascination with Mick’s tattoos. Dez sat on the sturdy sofa cattycorner from Mick. “There’s still time to make a run for the border, and I’m not talking about a fast food restaurant.”
“Plan’s solid. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey here. Sully’s goons are too damned spoiled to get out in this weather.”
Peg stepped into the doorway by the kitchen and turned back to talk to Nate. “You need anything, you help yourself. I’ll be back after I talk with these two.”
“Dun, dun, dun.” Dez droned the funeral dirge in dark tones.
“Still got a smart mouth,” Peg said, sitting next to her on the couch.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Peg said. “It’s late and that boy needs sleep. What are you running from?”
“Who says we’re running?”
“You a doctor now, Dez? A nurse?”
She squirmed at the way her aunt said her chosen name. “No, ma’am.”
“So you’re wearing scrubs that aren’t yours and carrying a weapon strapped to your side.” She smiled at Dez’s soft gasp. “Not like I couldn’t feel it when you gave me that anemic hug, child. I’ve been dating the sheriff off and on for the better part of a decade. I know what a gun looks and feels like. Added to it, there’s a bandage on your arm that’s bigger than a scratch. What would I find under there?”
Dez wrapped her arms over her chest, feeling exposed. She’d earned Peg’s wrath, running off the way she had, but it hurt to do this in front of Mick, who was currently rocking it out on Peg’s rocker. Dez stiffened her spine. She’d face the music head on, the same way Peg was dishing it out. “What you would find under that bandage—nice observation by the way—is sutures. Gunshot wound,” she added when Peg raised a brow.
“You’re running from trouble.” Peg didn’t say that trouble followed Dez. They’d all known it from an early age. “You a crook?”
Nothing like family to keep your ego in check. Dez plastered a fake smile to her face. “No. And I like how you assume the worst.”
“Just ticking off all the boxes,” Peg said, and then pointed to Mick. “You a crook?”
“No, ma’am,” he answered with an easy smile.
“You a cop?” she asked Mick.
“Not a chance in— No,” he finished lamely.
“You mean not a chance in hell, which is interesting, both that you’re not interested in being a police officer, but you’re not going to curse in front of me.”
“My mama raised me right.”
Peg wagged a finger at him. “I bet you’re quite the charmer when you try. But you—” Peg turned back around. “You are a cop.”
Exposed. That was the only word for the way Dez felt. She’d stripped in front of strangers in a hot, smelly room and never felt as exposed as she did in front of her aunt. She felt like a teenager again, and she wasn’t about to make it any easier on her aunt since Peg seemed hellbent on smacking her down. “A cop. Why would you think that?”
“Makes a certain sense. You may have changed your name, but not your character. You’re still hungering for justice.” Peg clapped her on the thigh and then stood. “Best come on upstairs and get settled. We’ll figure the rest out in the morning.”
Dez didn’t bother arguing with her aunt, but Peg was dead wrong. Dez wasn’t chasing justice. That was her father’s thing. And if there was any justice in the world, he’d found it in hell.
Chapter Five
Mick hauled in his things from the truck. He didn’t have much, but he kept a bag of clothes and toiletries for the times he got stuck at the club overnight. He climbed the stairs, and Peg directed him to the back bedroom. He walked in as Dez opened a bottle of pain pills Diane had given her.
“Arm hurt?”
She gave him an eye roll as she swallowed it down. “No. I’m taking it for the high.”
Which he knew was a joke. He’d never seen her take more than an aspirin. “Your aunt’s right; you are a smartass.”
“No.” She pointed at him as she gulped down more water. “Different part of the anatomy. She says I have a smart mouth.”
“She’s more refined than I am. Speaking of Aunt Peg, she sent me down here.”
“No point arguing. This is the only other room besides the one Nate is in.”
The room was square with a bookshelf that ran the length of the room. Books everywhere. A chair sat under the window and a queen-size bed rested square in the middle. One bed and two adults, one of whom was having a hard time remembering to keep his mind out of the gutter. “I could bunk in Nate’s room,” Mick offered.
“While I’d love to see your mountain-size ass curled up on a twin bed, there’d be no place left for Nate. Besides, I know my aunt. She figures we’ve already slept together.”
“We did,” Mick said.
“How’s that?” She glared across the room. “I would’ve remembered hooking up with you.” Most definitely, because she’d had enough fantasies to last a lifetime.
“Didn’t say we hooked up, but we did sleep together. Four or five months ago. Long stakeout. Came back to the club, and I only had a few hours before I had to open the bar.”
“I told you to stay, but—”
“You crashed. Out like a light. I got up before you did.” He hadn’t slept, couldn’t with the sweet scent of Destiny surrounding him. He’d wanted to roll over and into her, so he got up, went to work. “Perfectly innocent. Nothing that would scandalize your aunt.”
“She’s not exactly old fashioned.”
“I noticed. She really hooking up with the county sheriff?”
“Could be. I haven’t seen Aunt Peg since I was sixteen.”
The woman had practically vibrated with joy at seeing Dez. “Yeah, why’s that?”
Dez wandered the small room, picking up knick-knacks and plopping them back down. She seemed on edge, which wasn’t her thing. “Long story.”
“We got time.”
She shook her head no. Most of the time, Mick would let it go, but not tonight. Not after seeing her shot. Worrying. He figured she owed him for that alone. “Maybe I’ll give that pain pill time to work and charm the story out of you.”
“Good luck with that. So, uh, Peg has made the assumption that we are an item as in, and I quote, ‘He’s a fine hunk of a man, and if you’re not smart enough to jump on that, I didn’t raise you right.’”
“She raised you?”
“That’s the part of the sentence you want to question?”
“I already know you want me, Dez. After all, you’re a smart woman.”
The pale skin of her cheeks turned pink. “To answer your question, Aunt Peg didn’t raise me. I lived with her for a few months. Not even a year.”
“Then you split,” Mick guessed.
The smile she blessed him with was melancholy, a sweet sadness that might have been regret. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, so her face was smooth and pale. She looked younger without it, maybe why she wore it most days. The contrast between her dark hair and pale skin was one of the first things he’d noticed about her, before he’d known she was a cop. She’d been undercover at the time, wearing a skirt wrapped around her tight ass like a sleeve. He’d been ready to dive right in when Blake hauled him back.
That’s my partner, asshole.
Hands off. Mick got the memo, but he was having a hard time remembering why. The sight of her naked had made him wonder. He’d spent the drive thinking about how those sweet breasts would feel in his hands. How they’d taste. They’d tangle up the sheets something fierce, he had no doubt.
She moved to the window, more regret hanging over her. She needed time to adjust to the place. The memories. And he needed time to get his head screwed on straight. Blake had made it perfectly clear that Dez was off limits. He never commented or complained or judged Mick’s extracurricular activities, but when he drew a line, he meant it. Mick didn’t want Blake to feel obligated to kick his ass. Or to try. They’d gone at it enough in their teens, so they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Mick had Blake on size, but Blake was a mean, dirty fighter, which was enough to cool Mick’s thoughts.
He dropped his duffel on the bed, pulled out some clean clothes. “I’m gonna—” He jerked his thumb toward the hall bathroom. “Wash off some road dirt.”
…
It took biting her tongue for Dez to ignore Mick’s last comment. Mick was always the right kind of dirty. Windblown, fresh off his bike, wrapped in tattoo and leather. Muscles all the hell over the place. Man was a serious piece of eye candy. Thinking about him losing the leather warmed the chill that had gripped her sin
ce the attack. It also did a great job of shutting down her brain. Not a good plan.
She walked out with him, pointed him to the linen closet. The words barely escaped. “I’m going to check on the kid.” She needed to start thinking of him as a boy. As Nate, a little human who had lost too much too quickly. Nate was tucked into the twin bed she’d used as a girl. He was wearing Tardis-blue Doctor Who pajamas. He’d been playing a game on a handheld device but pulled off the headset when she entered. Someone had raised him right, which put a huge knot in her throat. While you never knew what was going on behind those perfect suburban front doors, Nate had had a good life up to now. She couldn’t imagine how he was surviving. She pointed to the pajamas. “Doctor Who fan?”
His head bounced up and down enthusiastically. “Yeah. You?”
“Obviously. What’s your favorite episode?”
He answered, his blue eyes lit with a spark. “The one with the angels.”
The Weeping Angels were creepy as heck. “That’s a scary episode.” She’d had to sleep with the lights on after watching it alone in her room at the club.
“Yeah, after that, my mom said she had to watch with me.” Reality flashed through his blue eyes. One minute, he was a kid, a TV junkie in blue pajamas. The next, he realized he was an orphan. Lost and alone without the Tardis to take him home. He blinked away the grief. “She watched it with me every week.”
Smart, brave kid. “That sounds fun.” Her own mother had never taken that much interest. As long as everything looked good from the outside, she was fine with whatever Dez wanted to do. Dez didn’t have any training, didn’t know how to handle a boy like Nate, but it was her job, same as working undercover. She didn’t plan to fail. “So what’s the bedtime routine?”
Nate set the handheld on the blanket. “I could lie. Say I can stay up all night. Eat ice cream.”
Dez laughed. Kid was pretty cool. “You could, but you won’t.” He needed the routine to fill in the dark empty spots of his mother’s death. “Besides, Peg doesn’t have any ice cream. Lactose intolerant. Books?” Not that her parents had read bedtime stories, but Dez had liked to read, so she’d read until lights out.
Unstoppable (The Untouchable Series) Page 4