Rock Chick Renegade

by Kristen Ashley

  The men weren’t laughing.

  “Better wipe that goofy-assed smile of your face, Law, and get your fuckin’ head in the game,” Heavy barged right into my happy thoughts so I scowled at him.

  “I have my head in the game,” I told him.

  “Your mind’s somewhere else. Probably knitting baby booties,” Zip said and even though I knew he was trying to goad my head crackin’ mamma jamma to the surface, I still took the bait.

  “No! Not booties. Knitting sweaters for Vance. Babies are out of the question, for now.”

  Daisy gave another tinkly laugh.

  “Hon, you thinkin’ about babies?” May asked, her face now the picture of motherly worry. “Don’t you think it’s a bit too soon? As in, seriously too soon? I mean, it’s only been a week.”

  “A week and three days,” I replied.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Zip said to the ceiling.

  “Let me get this straight. A second ago we were talkin’ about three angry drug dealers markin’ you for rape and torture and now we’re talkin’ about you knittin’ sweaters for Crowe?” Duke asked. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ. You fuckin’ girls.”

  At Duke’s words May lost her motherly worry face and it went back to the narrow-eyed, pissed off face.

  Then I watched, fascinated, as her face started to get red.

  Zip and Duke moved a bit away from her.

  Then she exploded. “What?” she screeched.

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  Everyone turned and Vance was standing at the end of the row.

  He had his hands to his hips. He was wearing a black t-shirt, his black leather jacket and black cowboy boots. His hands had pushed the jacket back and you could see a gun clipped to the wide belt on his jeans.

  He looked good.

  He also looked unhappy.

  Before I could say anything May advanced on him, arm up, finger pointed. She got right into his space and poked him in the chest.

  Uh-oh.

  That was spitting in the eye of the tiger if I ever saw it.

  “What you doin’ about this, boy?” she snapped.

  Um.

  Yikes.

  May called Vance “boy”. I wasn’t sure that was good.

  Vance didn’t respond; he just looked down his nose at her.

  I wasn’t sure that was good either.

  “My girl’s been marked for rape and torture and you swing by to pick up your Arby’s roast beef and cheese?” May continued.

  “It’s covered,” Vance replied.

  May’s back was to me but I saw her body go rigid. “Covered?” she shrieked.

  Time to intervene.

  “May,” I said as I pushed through Duke and Heavy and headed toward Vance and May. “It’s okay,” I told her when I arrived. “I told Vance last night I was off the streets. He’s giving me a panic button and I’m checking in regularly.”

  “Panic… checking…” May spluttered, “I do not believe what I’m hearing. What kind of lame-ass bullshit is this?”

  I noticed with dismay that Roam, Sniff, Clarice, Indy and Jet had all joined our party.

  “Jules has tracking devices on her car and in her bag. Her house is wired and under surveillance. I’m giving her a panic button and I know her schedule for the day. She checks in whenever she arrives somewhere,” Vance explained and I thought it was rather nice of him, he didn’t have to. Then his eyes cut to me. “Which you didn’t do when you arrived at Fortnum’s.”

  Whoops.

  That explained his unhappy face.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’. Lame-ass bullshit,” May kept at it, luckily taking me off the hot seat for not calling in.

  “May, I can take care of myself,” I put in.

  “Yeah, maybe you can. Maybe you can’t. You’re dating one of the baddest badasses in Denver and he’s workin’ with the rest of the baddest badasses. Indy, Jet and Roxie got bodyguards. What are you? Chopped Liver?” After delivering this tirade, May turned back to Vance. “She look like chopped liver to you, boy?”

  Oh no, there was the “boy” comment again.

  “May, I think it best you don’t call Vance ‘boy’ anymore,” I whispered to her.

  “He is a boy to me!” May shouted back at me.

  I stepped away a bit.

  “Jules didn’t want a bodyguard,” Vance informed May.

  “Yeah, well, she didn’t want a boyfriend either and you took care of that,” May shot back.

  Hmm.

  She had a point.

  “She’s got bodyguards,” Heavy joined the conversation from behind us.

  “Yeah. Us,” Zip added.

  May turned slowly and looked the Middle-Aged Man Posse up and down. You could tell she found them somewhat lacking and I understood why when she turned back to Vance.

  “Roxie told me when she was being stalked, Luke Stark was her bodyguard.”

  I had a feeling even though he was older Duke knew what he was doing. After my experience with Heavy, Zip and Tex, I knew for a fact they knew what they were doing.

  Still, I had to admit they didn’t compare to Luke.

  I bugged my eyes out at Vance in a non-verbal “Do something!” but he just crossed his arms on his chest.

  I guessed it was up to me. “May, simmer down. It’s going to be fine,” I said.

  She made an angry and unimpressed noise that sounded like “humph”.

  “No, really. I have a lot of people looking out for me,” I went on.

  “Something happens to you, what are those boys gonna do?” she pointed to Roam and Sniff.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I assured her.

  “Something happens to you, what’s your uncle gonna do?” she carried on, a dog with a bone as usual.

  “May, nothing’s gonna happen to me,” I repeated.

  She walked to me, got in my space and looked up at me.

  Quietly, she said, “Something happens to you, what am I gonna do?”

  It was then I saw the tears she was trying not to shed shimmering in her eyes.

  She was scared. Scared for me. Scared that something would happen to me that decades of using her Mama’s Gonna Make It Better Voice would never heal.

  I put my arms around her and held her close. She did the same to me.

  I’d never hugged May and in the back of my head it registered that she gave good hugs.

  I looked around and saw Indy, Jet, Roam, Sniff and Clarice at one end of the row, all staring at me. Even Roam, Sniff and Clarice, hardened street kids, couldn’t hide their worried expressions.

  Duke, Tex, Zip and Heavy were in the middle of the row still looking like my favorite uncles, all pissed off and wanting a role in my protection.

  Daisy was standing with them. She was hard to read but I suspected she was patiently waiting for me to make the right decision and that was huge.

  May and Vance were at my end of the row.

  Home, Auntie Reba whispered in my ear.

  My eyes locked on Vance’s.

  Then I closed them slowly and when I opened them again, he was still looking at me but he had that look in his eyes again and now that I knew what that look meant, a happy shiver slid up my spine.

  Shit.

  I’d just made a decision.

  Even when this was all over, I wasn’t going back on the street. Too many people cared about what happened to me and they would get hurt if I got hurt.

  With one look at me Daisy knew I’d come to my decision. She smiled and gave me an approving wink. Then she came forward and pulled May away from me.

  “Let’s get you your roast beef sandwich,” she said, guiding May away.

  Everyone followed.

  “I’m first up,” Duke said, pointing at me before he left.

  I rolled my eyes (just for show) and when I was done with my eye roll, Vance was there.

  His arm went around my neck and he pulled me to him. “Thinkin’ something big just happened there,” he said, loo
king down at me.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Wanna share?”

  I shook my head but I said it anyway. “I’m giving up the street.”

  Vance’s body went tense. “For good?” he asked.

  “For good,” I answered.

  It was his turn to close his eyes but as with everything Vance, he did it better than me. In closer proximity, he dropped his forehead to mine, opened his eyes again to look into mine and breathed out on a quiet sigh, “Good.”

  “You think Lee would let me go out with the boys every now and again, keep my skills sharp?” I tried.

  He lifted his forehead from mine and shook his head. “I’m thinkin’ Lee might think you’re a distraction.”

  I was afraid of that.

  Then I asked the all important question.

  I stared deep into his eyes and whispered, “Do you think Park would understand?”

  His arm went from around me and his hands came to either side of my face. “Yeah.”

  I nodded.

  Then I let my body relax into his, his arms went around my waist and I tucked the side of my face into his throat.

  “What’s this about knittin’ sweaters for me?” Vance asked.

  Shit.

  * * * * *

  My bed moved when Vance got in it.

  Normally I figured I would have slept through this and I had no idea why I didn’t. It could have been the covers moving as Vance slid between them, Vance’s heat hitting me or him pulling my back into his front and his body making contact with mine from shoulders to heels.

  He settled into me silently, I settled into him the same way.

  After awhile he said quietly against the back of my neck, “How’d it go?”

  I knew he meant my evening. “Weird,” I whispered back.

  Duke had been in the parking lot leaning against his bike when I finished at the Shelter that afternoon. He followed me to the hobby shop and was by my side as I made my knitting selections and even when I wandered into the sticker and card-making sections just in case knitting didn’t take.

  I thought this was something which would annoy him but he seemed to have all the patience in the world for hobby shop shopping.

  “You’re good at this,” I told Duke in the checkout line.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Shopping.”

  “Dolores paints,” Duke replied then went on, “and does macramé and a bit of cake decorating and dried-flower arranging.”

  Sounded like Duke was no stranger to hobby shops.

  I handed over my credit card and turned fully to him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?” he asked again.

  “Protecting me. You barely know me.”

  He regarded me for a second.

  Then he said, “Got a feeling you’re gonna be a fixture in Indy’s life. Whoever is a fixture in Indy’s life is a fixture in mine. Don’t got no family outside Dolores and her folks. What family I got walks through the doors of that store on a regular basis. I’m guessin’ by the way Vance looks at you and Indy and her gang have taken to you, you’re gonna be walkin’ through those doors on a regular basis. I’m gonna do my bit to make sure you continue walkin’ through those doors. Where I come from, you take care of your family.”

  At his words I’d had to put my hand to the counter to hold myself steady.

  For some bizarre reason, maybe because he’d shared so I felt I should do the same, I told him. “I don’t have much family.”

  “You do now,” he replied.

  I had the strange but strong desire to hug him. I didn’t, instead I turned to the clerk and took my credit card back.

  Duke followed me home and did a walkthrough of my house even though I told him there were cameras everywhere. He stayed for a beer and long enough for me to knit and pearl my way through a line of wool, all the while Duke reading the directions to me.

  Finally he said, “Gotta go or Dolores’ll be pissed I let the dinner go cold.”

  I walked him to the door.

  “You go anywhere you call me or one of the boys. Hear me?” he ordered.

  I wanted to be a head crackin’ mamma jamma but I couldn’t, not after what he said at the hobby shop and not after what happened at Fortnum’s that afternoon.

  I just nodded.

  He gave me a look as if to assess my honesty. I must have passed the honesty test because he nodded and left.

  While I was eating a dinner of microwave popcorn (I might not be any good with an oven but I was hell-on-wheels with a microwave), Sniff had called.

  He was full of stories. He told me of their official tour through the Nightingale Investigations offices, their “cool-as-shit” (Sniff’s words) hour-long shift in the surveillance room and working with Brody, Lee’s hacker, on the computers.

  He told me of dinner at Lincoln’s Road House and I made a mental note to have a word with Vance about taking my (underage) boys to a biker bar for dinner.

  He also told me of their ride-along with Vance after they ate.

  I was only slightly alarmed to learn that Vance had gone gung-ho. Not starting slowly, he had taken them along on a break-and-enter search that included disabling an alarm, picking a lock and rifling through the possessions and computer files of a possible corporate embezzler. Vance did this so well, the “possible” became “definite” and the boys were high with excitement. They were also left understanding that you had to be more than just physically fit to do the job. It wasn’t just about cracking heads, you had to know computers; you had to understand electronics; and you had to be smart, thinking three steps ahead so you didn’t get caught.

  If Roam and Sniff thought Vance was the shit before, they were even more convinced of it now.

  “He didn’t make, like, a sound. It was like he was a ghost. It was fuckin’ cool!” Sniff told me.

  I smiled into the phone but said, “Sniff, for the last time, don’t say fuck.”

  After my conversation with Sniff, I knitted and pearled a line about the length of my house and took a bubble bath. I was about to head to bed with a book when a knock went at my door.

  I looked out the window and saw Tex standing outside.

  I opened the door and looked up at him. “What’re you doing here?” I asked.

  “You got any plastic wrap?” he asked in return.

  I stared at him.

  Then I smiled. “Yeah.”

  He smiled back. His smile was kinda scary but it worked.

  I loaded Tex up with my plastic wrap stash and waved him on his merry way.

  My phone rang about ten minutes after Tex left. It was Zip.

  “You still breathin’?” he asked after I answered.

  “Yes,” I replied unnecessarily.

  “Good.”

  Disconnect.

  This was rude but it was also sweet and I felt the warm whoosh in my belly again.

  After Zip’s call I went to bed.

  I told Vance about my adventures in boring, everyone else having fun and me knitting the world’s longest micro-scarf and taking a bubble bath.

  “How was your night?” I asked.

  “I picked up Clarence and Jermaine.”

  My body went still.

  Wow.

  That didn’t take long.

  God, he was good.

  “And?”

  “Mace is workin’ with them.”

  Yikes.

  I didn’t figure that was good for Clarence and Jermaine. Mace had a reputation for fucking people up and good.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “I’m thinkin’ you don’t want to know.”

  “I’m thinking I do.”

  Vance pulled me deeper into his body and I felt his lips touch the nape of my neck.

  Then he said, “Mace doesn’t have a lot of patience with men who fuck with women. He doesn’t give a shit if they do it or threaten it. Livin’ in fear of gettin’ hurt is almost as bad as gettin’ hurt. M
ace’ll do what he has to do to get them to back off.”

  “What about their boss? Won’t he be pissed, you guys fucking with his boys?”

  “You already know we’ve declared protection. Lee drew a line in the sand. Everyone on the street knows you’re marked which means they’ve stepped over that line. What that means is, if the bosses back their boys, we’re at war. That kind of war has no rules.”

  Oh my God.

  I had no idea this was so huge.

  I rolled around so I was facing Vance and looked at him in the moonlight. “Does that mean you guys are up against the drug lords?”

  He shook his head. “The bosses have cut their boys loose. Shard’s got no beef with you, I took him down. He’s just an ass. Clarence and Jermaine have gone against direct orders. You’re an annoyance, but you’re also a social worker. There are lots of ways to put you out of commission that don’t include what those boys had planned for you. I made a deal with their boss. They reneged on that deal. Looks bad for the boss. This morning we spread word you’re off the street. They should have backed down. They didn’t. They’re on their own. Not a lot of people would invite war against Lee, at least not about this.”

  “So now it’s just Shard.”

  “It’s just Shard.”

  “You going to find Shard?”

  He shook his head again. “Luke and Ike are tracking Shard.”

  I figured Shard would shortly be joining Mace’s party.

  “What about Hector?” I asked. “Did you tell Lee I saw him?”

  “Yeah. Lee told Eddie, they intensified Brody’s hack. Hector’s DEA. Deep cover, been workin’ at gettin’ close to a local big man for over a year and has had success. Anyone finds out he approached you, he’s dead.”

  Fuck!

  I closed my eyes and pressed into him, nuzzling my face in his neck.

  I was such an idiot.

  What was I thinking, going out and annoying drug dealers? How lucky was I that, in the end, I found Vance?

  If I hadn’t and I was alone facing this shit, I’d be fucked and not in a good way.

  “I’m an idiot,” I whispered.

  His arms got tight around me. “You’re not an idiot,” he whispered back.

  “I just wanted to –”

  He interrupted me. “You got passion, you got courage. Nothing’s wrong with either of those. You just got to learn to point them in the right direction.”