Rock God (Hearts of Metal Book 3)

by Ann,Brooklyn

  Dante sighed. “Good point.”

  He rummaged through the rest of the backpack, taking out dirty clothes, a power cord and a makeup bag that contained no makeup but several flash drives. It was a shame the computer was broken. There was likely tons of information on each.

  He looked around. “Any of you have a laptop handy?”

  The others shook their heads.

  In the backpack, Dante’s hand lingered on a small powder blue blanket adorned with teddy bears. Unlike everything else, it was relatively clean. Why this and not something more practical? Shrugging, he shoved the rest of the stuff back in the bag. Then he felt a hard lump inside a shirt.

  “Bingo,” he said, pulling out a wallet.

  The face on the driver’s license matched that of the comatose woman—well, sort of. The Oregon resident, class-D driver Shayna Jones, age twenty-five, looked like an airbrushed model compared to the filthy, banged-up lady on his lap. Only the dark eyes, height of five-two, and cute, upturned nose confirmed that they were one and the same person.

  His gaze lingered on her picture for a while before he went through the rest of the wallet. There were an insurance card, a bank card, a Portland library card, and some grocery store cards. That was it. No cash, receipts, or family photos. In fact, the little photo sleeve was reduced to a dangling scrap of clear plastic like it had been torn out…

  Actually, a picture hid there in a rear slot. Dante slipped it carefully free, frowning as he realized it was ripped in half. Shayna smiled back at him, holding a newborn baby that was all dimples and eyes. A man’s hand gripped her shoulder, but the rest of his image had been torn away.

  Was that who she was running from? Where was the baby?

  Dante frowned as he put the wallet in his pocket. The library card looked fairly new, so she couldn’t have been away from home too long.

  Julian handed him a wet cloth, and Dante gently placed it on Shayna’s forehead. She gave no response, but at least she was breathing.

  Carefully, Dante cleaned the dirt off her face, delicately blotting at the raw wound on her chin. Her brows tightened and her breath hitched, but she still did not awaken.

  The bus lurched to a stop in front of the ER building at the hospital. “We’re here,” the driver called.

  “I’ll take her in and get a cab afterwards,” Dante said as he slung her backpack over his shoulder. He lifted Shayna, frowning again at her lightness. Between the workouts he got onstage and regular swimming, he was fairly fit, but holding her was too easy. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she’d missed too many meals.

  “You mean, you’re not just gonna drop her off?” Dom asked incredulously.

  Dante shook his head. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”

  The keyboardist looked bemused. “White-knighting again? You’ll still show up at the after-party, though, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Dante said. “Maybe.”

  The inanity of it all made his head hurt. Here they were talking about a party when there was an unconscious and bleeding woman in his arms. Yes, this was Sacramento, and yes, comatose people, violence, and drug overdoses were regular sights in the world of heavy metal, but still, the coldness of his bandmates disturbed him. Had they all become so jaded?

  At first, the ER staff were indifferent to him and his charge. Besides the usual gunshot wounds being a higher priority, Dante looked liked a miscreant with his long hair and stage attire of leather and chains. But then other people with less pressing issues seemed like they were being helped.

  With a frustrated groan, Dante glared at the woman behind the counter who’d handed him a form he’d barely been able to fill out. “How much longer are we going to have to wait?”

  “Sorry, sir,” she replied. “We need to check on her insurance before we can put her in the queue. It won’t be much longer.”

  Dante sighed. He didn’t do this often, but… “Do you know who I am?”

  “No, sir.”

  Just then, the other receptionist hung up the phone, looked at him, and gasped. “Oh my God, you’re Dante Deity!”

  The first receptionist frowned. “Who’s Dante Deedy?”

  The second rolled her eyes. “Only the king of metal. He was on the cover of Rolling Stone last month. We can’t keep his friend waiting. Do you have any idea how much money he donated to this hospital last year?”

  The first receptionist shrugged. “Don’t know him. I just listen to pop.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s the guy who married Coll—”

  Dante sighed. “Forget about what I said. It’s not important. Shouldn’t you be attending to this young woman, regardless of whether her insurance is valid?”

  “Exactly. It’s our jobs,” the second receptionist said, nodding while the first paged a nurse. Then she looked up at him. “Can I have your autograph?”

  As Shayna was wheeled off to be treated, Dante signed autographs for both receptionists—and for a few of the other waiting patients who knew him. He should have left then, but something compelled him to stay and make sure she was well taken care of. To talk to her and maybe hear in her own words what had happened. And to find out who she was. For some reason, that seemed imperative.

  For the next few hours he flipped through magazines and even managed to doze in the uncomfortable ER seat. A nurse awoke him with a gentle tap to the shoulder.

  “She’s awake, and she wants to thank you.”

  “How is she?” Dante asked.

  The nurse frowned at him over her clipboard. “I’m afraid I cannot disclose medical information without the patient’s consent, but you can ask Shayna.”

  Dante rose and followed the nurse. He stopped her just outside of the hospital room. “What are you going to do with her now?”

  The nurse shook her head. “If she’s homeless, as you suspect, we’ll have to direct her to a shelter, but what she really needs is at least a week of rest and plenty of food and fluids. And that is all I’m allowed to say unless she gives me permission to tell you more.”

  “I’ll take her home with me.”

  The words were out of Dante’s mouth before he thought. But, once he spoke, conviction filled his pores.

  A person to rescue, something broken to fix, a mystery to solve.

  “That is beyond kind of you,” the nurse replied with wide eyes. “But it will have to be up to the patient.”

  Dante nodded. “I guess I’ll just have to convince her.”

  The nurse nodded and headed off down the hall, her shoes whispering along the sanitized floor. Dante waited, lingering at the door to Shayna’s room and finally hearing the nurse’s hushed voice as she spoke to the doctor.

  “The blisters on her feet were so severe, I’d almost think she walked here from Portland.”

  Chapter Two

  Shayna continued walking, focusing every cell of her being into placing one foot in front of the other. Her feet had been numb for the last few miles, but now the pain returned with unbearable virulence. When it rained, her hair slapped against her cheeks like soaked whips, and the remains of her socks squelched in her shoes. Then the sun would come out and the asphalt would scorch her feet through the holes in her soles.

  She didn’t know how many miles she’d covered, or how long she’d been walking. Had it been two weeks, or three? Time had blurred since she set out on that first day, when the last thread of her life had been lopped off.

  As her shambling steps carried her forward, her torn shoes resembled toothless mouths. They made dull fwapping sounds as she walked. People moved out of her way on the sidewalk, the streetlights reflecting their hostile stares. Shayna knew she looked like hell, but she didn’t care. Her only focus was finding a place to lie down before she fell. Every blister pierced her feet like hot irons. Even walking on the sides of her arches no longer helped.

  The blisters broke. A weak whimper escaped her lips, but she continued walking. The pain in her feet was preferable to the agony of her memorie
s; in fact, she welcomed it. Unfortunately, her body’s ability to cooperate dwindled with every throbbing step. She needed to rest and maybe decide what to do.

  As if the skies mocked her predicament, it began to rain again. So much for sunny California.

  The ground suddenly pulsed under her feet, sending fresh jolts of pain from her toes to her skull. At first Shayna thought it was an earthquake, but then her head cleared and she heard faint music. There must be a concert going on in the stadium up ahead. As she drew nearer, the music was more audible, calling her like the Pied Piper’s flute. Shayna avoided the parking lot and headed toward the rear of the building, keeping an eye out for security guards who would no doubt run her off if she got too close.

  She found a dark alcove shielded from the rain. There she sat down, her feet screaming as she rested her head against the concrete wall. She could hear the crowd cheering as a new song began, and the music was enticingly familiar. She’d heard the song before, a long time ago. In another lifetime. And the singer… God, his voice was beautiful. Shayna closed her eyes and gave herself over to aching nostalgia and bittersweet dreams.

  When she woke, the music had stopped. Shayna thought it was the silence that roused her, but then a pair of dark shadows fell over her.

  “Want some company, lady?” a drunken voice slurred.

  Shayna’s eyes snapped open, and her soon-to-be attackers vanished into the light of the hospital room.

  Hospital?

  A nurse leaned over her and smiled, speaking words that Shayna only partially understood. Fatigue, dehydration, something about her feet… Confusion, a side effect. But a side effect of what?

  Hoping she sounded coherent, Shayna struggled to ask how she’d gotten here. The nurse beamed and explained that a man had rescued her. Slowly, Shayna understood more of what was being said. Did Shayna want to thank the man?

  Reflexively, she nodded. Shayna’s mother always said to express gratitude.

  A shadowy figure filled the doorway, and a tremor of trepidation shimmied down Shayna’s spine. Suddenly, the idea of thanking her rescuer didn’t seem like a good one. The world still blurred in and out of focus. Who was he? What did he want? What if she made a fool of herself?

  “Hello, Shayna,” the man said. “How are you feeling?”

  His voice warmed her more than the thin hospital blanket. Shayna struggled to sit up, wincing as an IV dug into her arm. It took all of her willpower to get her eyes to focus on her visitor, but she managed. With his long black hair and chain-bedecked leather outfit, he should look dangerous, but he didn’t. If anything, he was handsome. Too damn handsome. Dark curls framed a chiseled face that reminded her of a movie star’s. Bright, friendly blue eyes with only a trace of laugh lines glimmered in harmony with a smile that made her belly flutter.

  He was of medium height and slim, yet his presence felt larger. There was also something familiar about him, but that was probably her memory of his rescue trying to surface.

  “I’m alright, considering.” Her voice came out groggy and cracked, but at least it was intelligible. “They said you paid my copay and offered to cover everything that the insurance won’t. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the man said, obviously not believing she was capable of handling her debt.

  The amusement in his eyes gave her a twinge of annoyance. She was half tempted to explain that she had a few thousand dollars of book royalties put away, but it seemed ridiculous to claim she was an author when she didn’t know if she could ever bring herself to write again.

  “Really,” she protested, desperate to assert she wasn’t completely helpless. “When I get out of here—”

  “About that,” the man interrupted, plopping down in the chair by the bed. “I’ve decided that you’re coming home with me.”

  At first his authoritative tone made her instinctively agree. Almost. But no, this wasn’t her husband. Ex-husband. This wasn’t her mother. This wasn’t anyone she knew or could trust, or even knew not to trust. He was a stranger.

  Shayna choked off a horrified laugh. Who did he think he was?

  “You decided? Sir, I don’t think—”

  “Call me Dante,” the man said with a boyish smile. “‘Sir’ makes me feel old.”

  Before Shayna could recover from that smile, the man changed the subject. “So, what happened to your feet? I overheard the nurses saying it looked like you walked here all the way from Portland.”

  “I did,” Shayna answered without thinking. She bit her lip, wishing she could take back the words. Now he’d think she was crazy. But walking was the only thing that made sense. It had been the only calm in the storm of her life. During childhood, she’d preferred walking over taking the school bus unless the weather was bad. Ever since she’d married Shawn, she couldn’t make it through the day without at least a morning walk, rain or shine.

  Shawn. Her husband’s cruel words echoed in her mind. “I see no sense in pretending anymore. I’ll start the divorce proceedings tomorrow.” The door had slammed behind him, and his car roared out of the driveway, no doubt on the way back to her place. Shayna had sunk to the floor, her heart reduced to an aching, dying mass. It wasn’t the affair that hurt the most; it was that he’d been with that other woman when Shayna needed him. That Shawn had been screwing around on her the night her world ended.

  The howl of a caged thing had torn from her throat. A voice in her mind spoke with irrefutable conviction: Leave now. There is nothing for you here. To stay will give him more power over you.

  The confident voice was right. If Shawn was in such a hurry to be rid of her, it was time to be rid of him. She would start the proceedings on her own terms. But why hadn’t that voice spoken up until now?

  She had frantically dashed through the house, throwing things into a backpack with little thought. She had made a few phone calls—voice calm, belying her panic—and then stepped out of her immaculate suburban home in Portland, Oregon, and walked, stopping only at the courthouse to pick up divorce paperwork to fill out. After that…she’d walked farther than she ever had in her life, trying to outdistance the pain. As if her shame and grief were imprinted on her forehead, she avoided people, stopping only to eat and wash at truck stops and convenience stores. Sleep only came when she collapsed from exhaustion in an alley, or on a park bench; it didn’t matter where. When the nightmares woke her, she got up and walked them off.

  “Damn,” Dante said slowly, bringing her back to the present. “May I ask why?”

  A thread of steel in that dark blue gaze compelled her to answer…if she could only find the words.

  She sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  Dante leaned forward, dark hair falling over one eye. “Good, you’ll have plenty of time to tell me while you’re recovering at my place.” His expression sobered. “You need to rest, eat, and stay off your feet. Do you really think you’ll be able to do that at some homeless shelter?”

  “No, but…but…why are you doing this?” she demanded. Panic gained the upper hand at the prospect of going home with a stranger, even one as good-looking as Dante.

  To hell with his looks. He could be a serial killer! her mother’s voice squawked in Shayna’s head.

  The confident voice scoffed. A serial killer? If he’s been waiting at the hospital so long and associating with me in front of so many witnesses, he’s a bad one. Besides, he doesn’t give off that vibe. Still, be careful.

  She would, as autocratic as this man came across. The last thing Shayna needed was to be trapped under another man’s thumb.

  Dante broke off her inner argument. He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on her, and said, “Because I want to help you. I swear I don’t have any other motives.”

  Maybe she was dreaming. Nobody could have eyes this beautiful. They were the most striking shade of blue and seemed to peer into her very soul. Shayna took a deep, shuddering breath—which didn’t help because she caught a whiff of his m
asculine scent. Pheromones did unsettling things to her lower body, and she shivered. It had been too long since she’d been with anyone. Her husband hadn’t touched her since the pregnancy began to show.

  Now, don’t go down that path, her inner voice said sharply, or you will be in danger, no matter what.

  “You can leave as soon as you want, I promise,” Dante added in a reassuring voice, though his eyes remained determined.

  Shayna struggled to think straight. The nurse had said confusion was a normal symptom of fatigue, but this was getting ridiculous. She looked away from Dante and considered the odds. He didn’t have a predatory look to him like the guys who’d attacked her…but he was still a stranger, and a bossy one at that. Unfortunately, with how badly her feet throbbed, it was doubtful she’d be able to walk for a few days at least.

  Tentatively, she wiggled her toes. Immediate, stabbing agony made her grit her teeth, underlining the fact that she had few choices. Furthermore, she still had no idea where she was walking to. Aside from the vague idea to head south in case winter struck while she was still on the road, Shayna had no real destination. Her common-sense voice had screamed at her to settle down and get an apartment or something, but Shayna had ignored it, unable to face reality just yet. Getting out from under Shawn’s control had been everything.

  Despite the insanity of the situation, Shayna decided to take Dante up on his offer. After all, there were undoubtedly more strange men at the shelter, and this one looked harmless enough. From his appearance, he was still trying to live the glory days of his youth, but damn, the rocker look was good on him. With that skintight leather and long hair, Dante was the very antithesis of her corporate ex-hus—

  She cut off that train of thought and focused on practicalities. Unbidden, her eyes strayed to his left hand, looking for a wedding ring. His fingers were bare. And what wife would allow her husband to dress up like that and go to rock concerts? Okay, she’d been worthless at preventing Shawn from doing whatever he wanted, but that was beside the point.