Rock Chick Reckoning

by Kristen Ashley

  His mind was somewhere else.

  Jane briefly wondered where it was.

  Then her eyes moved to Ally who was in one of the armchairs across from the couch. Stevie was in the other one, his dog Chowleena on her belly beside his chair taking a snooze.

  Tod was on a flight. Seeing as he was a flight attendant, that frequently happened which meant he often missed the action. This annoyed him and he let this be known as only Tod could do. Then again, he had drag queen outfits to buy and something had to pay for them so off he went, grumbling and/or throwing attitude all the way.

  Jane found this amusing.

  Then again, Jane found a lot that happened in Fortnum’s amusing.

  Her eyes moved again and she saw Roam and Sniff sitting at a table, coffee cups in front of them. Roam was lounged back, one long leg bent, foot to floor, one long leg stretched out. He had his phone to his ear. Sniff was sitting across from him, shoving the contents of the bag of fast food he’d brought with him into his mouth.

  Three girls around Roam’s age were at an arrangement of chairs two tables away from him. All of the girls had been in before. All of them frequently. All of them were now staring at Roam which was what they did if they were lucky enough to time their visit when he was hanging. And all of them were doing it in a way that it was clear they wished it was the other way around.

  Jane knew why. When she first saw Roam some months ago, she thought you had to be blind not to see the promise of good looks. They were stamped on him. In just months, this had grown with his confidence, the bulking out of his body along with his understanding of what it could do, his quick and acute awareness of his surroundings, his alert eyes that held a wealth of experience far beyond his age and just simply the fact that he was maturing into his looks.

  It was plain to see he was going to be beautiful mostly because he was nearly there now.

  It was also plain to see he was following close in the footsteps of his Hot Bunch mentors. Jane knew this because he was oblivious to the looks he was getting. Completely.

  The girl who caught Roam’s eye and held it would not look. She would do the opposite and he would thrill to the chase.

  It was just the way of the Hot Bunch.

  They didn’t do easy.

  Well, that wasn’t true. They did a lot of easy they just didn’t install it in their bed for a lifetime.

  Jane’s eyes continued to move and she saw Tex and Duke behind the espresso counter, bickering. About what, Jane couldn’t hear at that moment but, with practice, eyeing them for a moment, she knew everyone would hear it in approximately two point seven five minutes.

  Jane continued to scan and she saw Eddie standing at the end of the espresso counter, Jet in his arms. Jane couldn’t see Jet’s face and only could see Eddie’s profile. His head was bent and he was whispering in her ear. As he did, Jane watched observantly and noted Jet pressed closer then closer.

  And Jane knew, for Eddie and Jet, the world had ceased to exist. There was Eddie and all there was for him was Jet. Then there was Jet and all there was for her was Eddie.

  Jane decided in that second that Eddie and Jet were going to be her favorites for the day. She changed them every day depending on what she witnessed. Sometimes it was Lee and Indy. Other times, Hank and Roxie. Others, Jules and Vance or Luke and Ava and now Mace and Stella.

  Today it was Jet and Eddie.

  Jane’s eyes moved from them back to the couch, they fell on Stella and Mace and she instantly changed her mind.

  Stella was leaned into Mace, her arms wrapped around the one he had at her stomach, her head had fallen back on his shoulder, turned slightly so her temple was pressed to the side of his throat.

  Jane studied them.

  Mace looked content.

  Stella looked well beyond that.

  This would be surprising for normal folk considering a week ago Stella’s apartment and most of her belongings had been blown to smithereens and Mace’s Dad lost his life to save Stella’s.

  Then again, the two things most important in her life, both of which breathed, weren’t blown to bits so with the Rock Chicks at her back (sans Indy, who was still in Barbados on her honeymoon and would be for another week), Stella did what she could with what was left and was now living with Mace at his house.

  That was to say, she was doing this in the short-term considering they were already searching for a new place and had arrived at Fortnum’s thirty minutes ago after spending the morning viewing three properties.

  No matter what, life for the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch always just went on.

  As for Preston Mason dying, Jane had listened (as she always listened, avidly) and she knew, although it wasn’t nice to think, his life ending was not a big loss to the world. And she knew from experience that whatever Stella was enduring due to a man dying so she could live and Mace was enduring because he lost his father, they’d make it through and they’d do it because they had each other.

  Preston Mason bequeathed his vast holdings to his son.

  His son had turned them over to his mother and stepmother. They were in turn making enormous donations to a variety of charities.

  Most of them having to do with the arts.

  And most of those having to do with giving underprivileged children opportunities to learn to dance.

  Jane, still unnoticed, always unnoticed and liking it that way, continued to study them.

  She had watched Kai Mason now for months and months. Jane had spent most of her life being quiet and watching. Therefore she saw things others didn’t. On the rare occasion, she had noted Mace showing humor but that was rare.

  For months and months she saw only pain in Kai “Mace” Mason.

  Today she saw no pain.

  This made her smile a little, unnoticed smile.

  Her eyes dropped to Stella’s hand and, at her distance, she could just barely make out the gold ring on Stella’s pinkie finger.

  Just the other day, she overheard Jet telling Jules that Stella never took that ring off.

  Never.

  Jane sighed.

  So there it was; Stella and Mace were now her favorites for the day.

  She wasn’t fickle. No doubt Eddie or Jet would do something, and soon, to regain the title.

  “Mystery for the ages,” Stevie replied with unconcern to Ally and Jane’s eyes moved to him.

  “I think not,” Ally shot back. “It has to be part of the inner circle. No one knows all that shit. Someone spilled. And that is way uncool.”

  Jane didn’t think so but she wouldn’t considering she was the one who talked to the reporters and Jane knew Ally was talking about whoever talked to the reporters. She knew this because Ally had been talking about it a lot.

  She felt no guilt. Jet and Tex’s tips had quadrupled. Tex had a nest egg but Nancy was moving in with him the next week and she wasn’t able to work but part-time and not at a job that paid very much.

  Further, Jet wanted a KitchenAid and she’d wanted one awhile.

  So Jane got it for her, kind of.

  Not to mention, coffee sales had seen that increase too and even book sales.

  Lee wasn’t hurting for money.

  Now Indy wasn’t either.

  No, Jane felt no guilt. None at all.

  Anyway, it was a week ago and it had all already blown over.

  All of it but the increase in customers.

  So there.

  “No one is copping to it and, in this crowd, someone did it, they’d cop to it or they’ll never cop to it,” Shirleen decreed and Jane looked to her thinking she was right.

  Jane would never cop to it.

  “We’ll never know,” Shirleen finished.

  Hmm.

  Jane didn’t know if she was right about that.

  “It’s still uncool,” Ally mumbled.

  Whatever, Jane thought.

  Without a word but with a chin lift at Mace, Hector got up.

  Jane tensed.

  Then s
he watched as he moved toward the door, carrying his takeaway coffee cup.

  Jane’s hand darted to the drawer where they kept their purses; she opened it, nabbed hers, grabbed it, shut the drawer and scurried after him.

  No one noticed her go.

  * * * * *

  Hector’s Bronco pulled into a spot across from the art gallery in LoDo or Lower Downtown Denver and Jane pulled into a spot two car lengths down on the opposite side of the street.

  Hector sat in his beat-up, brown Bronco, head turned, eyes aimed into the art gallery.

  He did this awhile.

  Jane watched awhile.

  Finally, Hector put his Bronco in gear, pulled out of the spot and drove away.

  Jane switched off the ignition to her car, exited it, locked it, fed the meter and walked into the gallery.

  When she did, she smiled.

  A petite, curvy, very well-dressed, strikingly beautiful woman with a mass of golden-cream-strawberry blonde hair that was a riot of soft ringlets mixed with full waves that floated down her back and all around her exquisite face and shoulders was standing behind the counter.

  She looked like a fairy princess.

  Jane especially liked her hair. It was fabulous.

  Jane suspected Hector Chavez liked her hair too.

  But he probably liked her curves better.

  “Hello.” Her soft voice sounded as her pretty eyes smiled.

  Mm-hmm.

  This was good.

  Jane approved.

  “Just looking,” Jane muttered, the woman tilted her head welcomingly toward the gallery then Jane spent the next fifteen minutes pretending to look as she surreptitiously watched the blonde doing whatever she was doing behind her counter.

  Then Jane bought three postcards that had prints on the front of art displayed in the gallery. Postcards she would never use.

  Then she left.

  * * * * *

  Jane waited for her computer to boot up as she turned on dim lighting around the room and lit a scented candle.

  Cotton flower.

  Pretty and soothing.

  Then she sat at her desk, moved her mouse and opened her word processing program.

  Then she centered the cursor, turned on bold, set the font size at eighteen and typed.

  Rock Chick.

  Then she hit control at the same time she hit return, starting a new page, changed the font size to fourteen and typed.

  Chapter One.

  She hit return, turned off bold, turned on italics and changed the font size to twelve and typed.

  The Great Liam Chase.

  Then her eyes went fuzzy and her memory was swamped with the image of Liam Nightingale embracing his very soon-to-be wife in her angelic wedding dress prior to being declared man and wife.

  Then Jane smiled.

  Jane was a romantic and she felt the world needed to learn about this love affair.

  She felt this because it was beautiful.

  They all were.

  Then she refocused on her monitor and started typing.

  Epilogue

  Get Out Here, Babe, I Wanna Kiss You

  Ava

  Five years later…

  I was sitting, cross-legged, smack in the middle of Luke and my big bed.

  I could hear Shirleen downstairs, talking to Gracie while Shirleen (and Gracie) banged around the kitchen.

  I told Shirleen that she should come with us tonight but she wouldn’t. She’d fashioned herself into the Rock Chick version of Auntie Mame and it was clear her favorite of the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch progeny was, by far and away, Gracie. If Luke and I came home to find Gracie and Shirleen spirited away in the night with a note explaining that Shirleen had kidnapped her and would never return, I wouldn’t have been surprised. She loved that child nearly as much as Gracie’s father and I did.

  It was lucky for Gracie, Shirleen had a lot of love to give and I was happy she wanted to give it to my daughter.

  The shower turned off and my attention went to the door of the bathroom.

  Within minutes, the door opened and Luke was there.

  He was clean shaven and his hair, worn much longer now than the way he used to wear it when we first got together (that was to say it was thick, wavy and lush), was wet. He’d long since shaved off the killer mustache he used to have much to my despair but with the time he spent with me, Gracie and at Nightingale Investigations, not to mention spending time at our cabin in Crested Butte (where, if we were there very long, which we were a lot these days, he’d usually grow a beard) he said he didn’t have time for ‘tache maintenance.

  He’d done his usual half-assed job at toweling off. There were droplets of water clinging to his beautiful shoulders and perfectly formed, just hairy enough to be sexy as all hell chest and he had the towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Towel off much?” I teased and his dark blue eyes sliced to me.

  He stopped moving toward the dresser and one side of his mouth went up in a half-grin.

  “Babe, get dressed. We’re gonna be late,” he ordered.

  “We won’t be late. I’m totally ready.”

  I watched as one of his dark eyebrows went up.

  “You’re in a robe,” Luke pointed out.

  “I just have to put on clothes,” I replied.

  “And half a ton of silver.”

  He was right about my silver. I still wore a lot of silver jewelry even though Gracie was usually tugging at my necklaces. I was constantly in danger of her choking me to death. She was like he-baby, she was so damned strong (that, she got from her father). Not to mention, she kept shoving my rings (while they were on my fingers) in her mouth and biting hard and that child had the jaws of death, kid you not, I should know, I nursed her. She was teething and the silver must feel cool on her gums so I didn’t mind (much, I was pretty sure one day I’d find the baby Gracie gum mark grooves in my rings cute).

  I decided to change the subject to one I wanted to talk about.

  Luke had made it to the dresser and was rooting through a drawer.

  I winced as he rooted. Our drawers were painstakingly tidy. I liked them like that and put a lot of effort into it. Everything folded neatly and organized by color or color combination or long-sleeved (then by color) and short-sleeved (then by color), etc. I had a system, a tidy system.

  Luke didn’t do tidy and he wasn’t all that hot on any of my systems either, no matter how often I explained them to him (which was a lot).

  I got over Luke’s ruthless rooting and asked his naked, muscular, sexily dotted with droplets of water back, “What do you think of the name Maisie?”

  Luke’s body went completely still. Then, very slowly, he turned to me and his eyes locked with mine.

  “Repeat the question,” he demanded.

  “You heard me,” I said softly.

  Quick as a flash, Luke was across the room, I was flat on my back, he was on me and wrapping my legs around his hips.

  “Luke!”

  “Quiet,” he muttered as he yanked the towel away and then kept muttering, as if to himself, “Please God, don’t be wearing any underwear.”

  I slapped his shoulder, “Luke, Shirleen is…”

  He kissed me to shut me up (he did this a lot).

  When his mouth moved to my neck, I was breathing faster but I still said, “We’re going to be late.”

  “We’ll be quick.”

  “Luke, seriously…”

  His head came up and his eyes caught mine and I went quiet at their intensity.

  “You sayin’ you’re havin’ my baby?”

  I nodded.

  His face went soft and, just as soft, he said, “Then we’re celebrating.”

  I smiled at him. There was no denying Luke when he was in the mood to celebrate (not that I’d want to).

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He kissed me again.

  I kissed him back.

  * * * * *

  Sometime later, we were both ya
nking on our clothes, way late, and Shirleen was shouting up the stairs for us to get a move on.

  “You never said what you thought about the name Maisie,” I said to Luke.

  “I don’t give a fuck what the name is, long as you come out of it alive.”

  I felt my breath catch.

  All the Nightingale Men got off facing all kinds of uncertain situations and hair-raising danger but they became a wee bit edgy when their women got pregnant.

  This was because Indy had nearly died while having her and Lee’s first, Callum.

  I’d known Lee a long time and I’d never seen him the way he was in the hospital that day when the doctor ejected him from the birthing room. He was always cool and in control. Ultra cool and in control.

  That day, he was not cool and in control.

  He was so not cool and in control, I thought they’d have to tranquillize him.

  In the end, it was surprisingly me who calmed him down.

  It was funny how life came around and then went around. Lee had been the one to find me at my worst, my most humiliated, beaten up and taped to a pole after my ex violated me. He had taken care of me, doing so gentle and sweet.

  Years later it would be my touch that stopped him from losing it.

  I’d put my hand on his arm. He’d frozen at my touch right before he turned into me, slid an arm around my shoulders and yanked me to him, shoving his face in my neck.

  I remember it like it happened two minutes before. Then again, it was something you never forgot.

  “Fuck, Ava,” he had said into my neck as his other arm wrapped tight around my waist.

  I slid my arms around his waist, turned my head and whispered in his ear, “I know, Lee.”

  “She was screaming.”

  I shut my eyes tight and held on tighter.

  “I won’t be able to…” he started and his voice was hoarse.

  “You won’t have to,” I cut him off.

  He pulled me deeper into him and I thought he’d crush me but I didn’t make a peep.

  “Fuck,” he murmured and said no more, just held on. So I did the same thing.

  Indy and Callum had made it, though the drama wasn’t over. A year later she announced she was pregnant again and Lee went berserk. I’d never seen anything like it and I’d seen Luke go berserk once and, let me tell you, when one of these boys lost it, it wasn’t pretty.