“I’m not joking, Aydan. Squeeze my fingers! I want to make sure you’re not having a stroke.”
I grasped a finger in each hand and squeezed. “I’m not having a stroke, Linda, I promise. Ask these guys. They’ll all tell you this is normal for me.” I shot a significant glare at Spider’s frightened face. Kane’s and Germain’s easy posture might have fooled the rest of the world, but I read their hyper-alertness in the hard lines of their faces and the tension bulging in their muscles.
Beside me, Kane chuckled, sounding perfectly relaxed. “It’s all right, Linda. She really does do this all the time.” He reached over knead the base of my skull with his strong fingers. “Sometimes this helps…”
I groaned and relaxed into his touch. “It always helps. Thanks.” I met Linda’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I heard you, it’s just that I’ve got a really bad headache and I was in the middle of some relaxation exercises. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She planted her hands on her slim hips, still frowning. “I still think you should be checked. A sudden intense headache like that can be one of the signs of a stroke or aneurysm. And you lost consciousness earlier. You might be having TIAs… mini-strokes,” she explained to my uncomprehending frown.
I patted her arm. “But remember, Dr. Roth checked me over, and I was fine. And this really is normal for me. I promise if it gets worse I’ll come in again, but there’s really nothing to worry about.”
She blew out a breath. “All right.” Her usual sunny smile returned, but her gaze still probed my face. “You don’t take good enough care of yourself. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for the people who care about you.” She slid an arm around Spider. “Like this guy.” She leaned down to kiss him fondly before turning her smile back in my direction. “And me.”
“Thanks, Linda.” I spoke around the pleasant lump in my throat. “That means a lot to me.”
“I guess we’d better get back to the office,” Germain said lightly. “We’ve been goofing off long enough.”
We all rose with various expressions of simulated regret and made a hurried exit.
As soon as we gained the sidewalk, Kane extracted his phone and punched a speed-dial button. A moment later, he said, “She’s back. We’re coming in.” He listened, then said, “Understood”, and hung up.
I shot him a questioning look, but he simply said, “Let’s go.” He and Germain took their places and our procession resumed.
I leaned close to Spider. “What happened?”
He turned a still-pale face to me. “Stemp called me and said you were lost in the network so I started sending out camel searches, hoping you’d remember from when we did it before. Then Linda came in and said hi to everybody and you didn’t react. Kane and Germain tried to distract her while I kept doing searches, but she had just leaned over and called your name when you came back. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t.”
When we gained the safety of the lobby at Sirius, Spider collected the network key from me and vanished through the door to the secured area.
Kane, Germain, and I drew a collective breath of relief, and I flopped into one of the chairs, letting my head drop back. “God, I don’t know if my nerves can take much more of this.”
“Actually…” Kane sounded troubled.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Oh, God. What?”
“Stemp wants you in his office. Right now. Minutes ago, in fact.”
I groaned and hauled myself to my feet.
When I tapped on Stemp’s door a few minutes later, he looked up from his computer with his usual lack of expression. “Come in. Close the door.”
Aw, shit.
I did as he bade and shuffled over to stand in front of his desk.
“Sit.”
I sat.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Coming from a man of his monumental self-control, the sharp demand had the same impact as a full-throated shout.
“Um…?”
“What made you think it was a good idea to dive into the internet when you knew you wouldn’t have any way of navigating back?” His tone cut like a scalpel.
“I, um…” There didn’t seem to be a good answer to that. I hung my head. “Sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” There was a long silence. When I looked up, he was pinching the bridge of his nose as if trying to push back a headache. At last he spoke. “Don’t be sorry. Be careful. Dismissed.”
I rose to slink out, but his voice stopped me with my hand on the doorknob. “Thank you for conducting the test.”
“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, and fled.
In the lobby again, Kane and Germain eyed me with concern. “You look like you just gave a pint of blood,” Germain said.
I tottered over to the security wicket to turn in my fob. “You know the expression, ‘he tore me a new one’?”
Germain grimaced and nodded.
I turned for the door. “He didn’t tear. He sliced with surgical precision.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” I offered them a weak salute. “See you guys tomorrow.”
Safely outside, I leaned against the building in the long rays of the setting sun and breathed the cold air, quieting my mind. As I watched, the glowing orange sliver of sun vanished below the horizon and purple shadows deepened. A glance at my watch made me sigh. Only four-thirty. At least the days would start getting longer soon.
A vibration from my waist pouch startled me out of my reverie, and I thumped my head lightly against the building at the sight of the call display. Shit, I’d forgotten about the damn self-defence workshop. Maybe I could weasel out of it.
I punched the Talk button. “Hi Lola.”
“Hi Aydan!” Her bigger-than-life voice made me smile in spite of myself. “I can hardly wait for tonight! Do you want to come over for supper and we can just go from my place?”
Her enthusiasm scuttled my hopes for escape. Damn.
Well, I’d promised.
I summoned up a cheerful tone. “Sure, that sounds great. What time do you want me?”
The rec centre’s gym looked like an audition for Hollywood exercise videos. Most of the twenty or so women sported designer workout gear along with perfect hair, nails, and makeup, and perfume scented the air. Jack smiled and waved from the other side of the gym, movie-star gorgeous even in her sweatpants and T-shirt.
I sighed and fiddled with my ponytail, using the motion to sniff surreptitiously in the vicinity of my armpit. The morning’s sweat had dried on my T-shirt and sports bra, and they were distinctly gamey. A layer of fresh deodorant had helped a bit, but as soon as I started to sweat again it was going to get nasty.
Lola nudged me, and I straightened as one of the gym’s two personal trainers waved for attention from the front of the room. “Ladies!” She waved again, her blond ponytail swinging above her perfect little size two pink crop-top and tights. “Ladies!”
The group quieted and she gave us a megawatt smile, radiating so much bouncy energy that I experienced an overwhelming need to haul my aging decrepitude to a dark corner where I could crumble quietly into dust.
Since the room lacked dark corners, I pulled myself up a little straighter and tried to summon some enthusiasm instead.
She had more than enough to compensate. “Hi everybody, I’m Brianna, Bree for short! Welcome! It’s so great to see you! Are we ready to kick some butt?”
A few chirps of agreement made her shake a playful pink-tipped finger at us. “I didn’t hear you! Give me a ‘hell, yeah’!”
“Hell, yeah,” we parroted obediently.
“What did you say?” Brianna cupped a hand behind her ear. “Give me a ‘HELL, YEAH’!”
This time the response had a little more volume, but it wasn’t good enough for Brianna. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” she shouted.
This time the responding bellow rocked the gym, and she let out a whoop, punching a small fist at the air. “RIGHT ON LADIES!”
God, if she got any mo
re enthusiastic, I was going to have to go over there and smack her.
Then again, maybe that was the whole point of a self-defence seminar…
“Ladies, I know you’re as excited as I am about this, so I won’t keep you waiting any longer. As you all know, we are soooo lucky to have such a wonderful instructor for this workshop! He’s an RCMP officer and martial arts expert…”
A sense of impending doom made me squeeze my eyes shut.
“…so please give a big hand for Officer John Kane!”
My eyes popped open to glare down at Lola. “You set me up. You evil little-”
She returned an expression of wide-eyed innocence. “How could you even think that? I signed you up for a valuable course led by a highly-qualified instructor.”
Kane strode to the front of the room to applause followed by whispering and fluttering from the crowd. Hell, I didn’t blame them. Standing there with his killer body displayed to advantage in a snug T-shirt and gym shorts, he looked like a dream come true.
A smoking-hot dream with a dangerous edge. Twenty pairs of female eyes drank in the still-visible suture marks on his muscular thigh and the thin white scar that bisected his eyebrow. And if they only knew what was under those clothes…
He smiled, increasing the room temperature by about ten degrees. “Thank you for coming.” His velvet baritone caused another small murmur in the crowd, and he waited for our full attention before speaking again. “In an ideal world, you wouldn’t need self-defence skills. But since this isn’t an ideal world, tonight you’re taking an important step toward making the world a safer place for yourselves. I’ll be teaching you techniques and strategies that will help you minimize risk, as well as protect yourself if you find yourself in a dangerous situation.”
He eyed us gravely for a moment before speaking again. “I want to emphasize that although it’s important and potentially life-saving for you to be aware of risks and proactive about your own safety, it’s absolutely not your fault if you have been attacked or if you are attacked in the future. No matter where you go, no matter what you’re wearing or what you do or say, an attack against you is a crime and the blame lies solely with the perpetrator. Never forget that.”
Lola slid an arm around my waist to give me a quick squeeze and I swallowed a lump in my throat, glancing over the suddenly solemn faces in the room.
Kane continued, “The other thing to remember is that you’ll almost never win in a contest of physical strength, so you don’t want to let a conflict escalate to that point. May I have a volunteer?”
A flurry of hands waved, but Kane met my eyes over the heads of the crowd. Shit. Why did I always have to be taller than every other woman in the room?
“Lola?” he asked. “Will you help me out?”
A grin split her wrinkled face. “Sure thing, Big John!” She scurried up to the front, pursued by envious glances from the rest of the participants.
When she stood beside him, he smiled down from his nearly two-foot height advantage and engulfed her bird-like wrist in a large hand. Turning to the group, he said, “I’ve just cornered Lola on a darkened street and grabbed her arm. I outweigh her by more than a hundred pounds. I’m bigger, stronger, and younger. Who’s going to win this fight?”
A nervous ripple ran through the audience. Nobody seemed willing to state the obvious.
Kane grinned. “She is.”
“RIGHT ON LOLA!” That was Bree, echoed by whoops and hollers from the rest of the group.
Kane waited for the bedlam to die down before sobering. “But she’s not going to win with physical strength. First we’re going to identify some danger signs and talk about ways to avoid danger in the first place. After that we’ll discuss strategies for removing yourself from a potentially dangerous situation as quickly as possible. And tonight you’re going to learn and practice some basic wrist locks that can help to deter or disable an assailant. Let’s get started.”
Kane was an excellent instructor, though I found myself wondering whether he would have received the same rapt attention if he’d been short, fat, and bald.
I shrugged off my cynicism. Despite their fluffy appearance, most of these women were serious about learning as much as they could. They should be damn proud of themselves. I smiled down at Lola, affection warming me.
“What are you smiling at?” She screwed up her face into a threatening scowl. “I’m about to bring you to your knees.”
“Just go easy on my thumb,” I cautioned as we took the positions Kane had demonstrated. “My arthritis is really kicking up in this cold weather.”
“Wimpy old lady,” she scoffed, grinning.
As we stepped through the motions, Kane finished coaching the pair of women next to us and moved to Lola’s side. “That’s good, Lola,” he encouraged. “Aydan, I’ll take over now.”
I rose from the mat and stood aside to watch as he took his position, towering over Lola.
“All right, Lola, take me out.”
She sprang into action like a tiny tiger, her hands dwarfed by his bulging forearms.
“Twist it and bend,” he encouraged. “Use the arm for leverage. Harder!”
Lola redoubled her efforts, and Kane sank to the mat, tapping her hand to signal her to release him. “Good job, Lola. Aydan, your turn.”
I eyed him uncertainly as he rose and faced me, but he didn’t give me time to think. His hand shot out and I seized it, tentatively securing the wrist-lock but afraid to apply too much pressure.
His muscles bulged against me. “Harder! Take me right down to the mat!”
Come on, brain, quit with the double entendres. I ignored the rush of heat and pressed a little harder, feeling him going down on me…
Jeez, I wish.
Shut up, brain, just shut up.
His tap made me release him as if his skin had burned me, and I stepped away breathing a little harder than necessary.
“Good job, Aydan.” Did his gaze linger for just an instant before he turned away to the next pair of women?
“Holy cats, that was hot!” Lola’s whisper echoed my thoughts. She leaned closer, bouncing her eyebrows. “I’d pay good money just to have him on his knees in front of me. Learning self-defence is a bonus.”
I shook myself back to reality with a grin. “You’re incorrigible.”
Shivering in my car after the class, I groaned at the illuminated dashboard clock. Nine-fifteen, pitch dark, freezing cold, and I was about to drive two hours for the privilege of walking alone into a biker bar in the middle of the night.
Well, just give me a ‘hell yeah’.
I cranked up the tunes and hit the road.
Chapter 13
Belting out an off-key rendition of ‘Back In Black’ along with the radio in an attempt to bolster my inner badass, I peered out at the grey highway and dirty-white snow unrolling in my headlights. Riding an open road on a bright sunny day was one of my greatest joys, but tonight the oppressive darkness crouched beyond the bubble of light, waiting to swallow me. I shivered despite the warmth of the heater.
The song segued into unidentifiable thrash metal and I pressed the next preset button, hoping for more musical encouragement. Garth Brooks began to sing ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’, and I snapped the radio off and growled, “You’re not helping, Garth!”
Silence closed around me and my mind crept unwillingly toward the glow of Calgary’s streetlights reflected against the cloudy sky, only half an hour ahead.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. It was the middle of winter, the middle of the week, and the middle of the night. Surely bikers hibernated in winter, curled up snoring and snuffling in their beards while they dreamed of sunshine and open roads.
The mental image brought a smile to my lips as I imagined Hellhound in sleep, his quiet snores soothing me like a lullaby.
The smile fled as quickly as it had come.
God, why had I been such a pathetic wimp in front of him? He’d probably had to wash that shirt twice to g
et all my tears and snot out of it. Better to just let that whole thing end quietly.
I shook myself back to the business at hand. Be alert and avoid conflict. Just get in and get out. I replayed the mechanics of the wrist lock in my mind.
No, don’t piss around. Pull the Glock at the first sign of trouble and get the hell out of there.
Fine.
I’d be just fine.
My heart sank when I cruised past the bar. Even with my windows rolled up, the thunder of heavy bass pummelled my ears when the door crashed open to disgorge three large bearded men. They stumbled down the cracked steps, their bellowed obscenities audible even above the din of the music.
Apparently bikers didn’t hibernate in winter. They garaged their bikes, got madder and meaner, and went to the bar.
Shit.
I drove on by, thankful I’d stopped at home to exchange my shiny new car for my battered half-ton truck. It fit right in with the broken-down winter beaters that lined the sides of the street.
Parked a block away, I eyed the decrepit building, clutching the steering wheel with shaking hands. Goddamn Hibbert and goddamn my idiot mouth. If I hadn’t pissed him off playing high and mighty, I could have just quietly accepted the envelope he had offered in the safety of Blue Eddie’s. Now I was being punished for my insolence. No wonder he’d sounded triumphant, the bastard.
I eased out a long breath, trying to slow my pounding heart. Okay, options.
I could just drive away. Phone Hibbert, apologize for my rudeness, and ask him nicely to deliver the money somewhere else.
Yeah, like that would work. Not. He’d make me do penance one way or another, and I was pretty sure what form it would take. He’d want me on my knees, and it wouldn’t be to say Hail Marys. And considering my damn porn-star cover, it would be pretty implausible to refuse.
Option two; phone Hellhound and ask him to escort me in.
I sighed. In the first place, it would be cheesy to ask him to risk his skin after avoiding his calls for two months. And in the second place, I didn’t want him to take the risk anyway. Alone, I was entertainment, not threat. Hellhound’s bulk, tattoos, and fearsome face would up the ante far into the danger zone for both of us. And I didn’t want Fuzzy Bunny to even catch a glimpse of him. The farther away he was from me, the better.
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