by Joss Wood
Kai shook his head at Rufus, who was sitting on his haunches, his interest caught by something down the street. Kai followed the direction of his gaze and saw the old man and the rat and. . . .
Shit!
With a howl, Rufus bounded across the road, ears flapping and tongue lolling, and Kai sprinted to the front door, chasing the woman-he-wasn’t-going-to-sleep-with-again’s dog.
There was something very wrong with this picture, he thought, sprinting down the main street, his eyes on the crazy dog and the squealing gent. He was shouting at Rufus, who was having a fine time trying to hump the miniature dachshund’s head.
Kai ignored the outraged and slightly girly squawks coming from Mr. Pink Stilettos—God, this town!—as he lunged toward Rufus, grabbing his collar and managing, just, to pull him away from what looked like an overcooked hot dog on legs. Rufus howled his distress and looked up at Kai.
Kai looked down to check if the dog was, actually, a she. Luckily for Rufus’s credibility, she was.
Maybe Flick should get you fixed, he thought, placing his hand on Rufus’s rump to get him to sit.
Hell, he was having a silent conversation with a dog. Kai shook his head, tightened his grip on Rufus’s collar to keep him at his side and looked at the older man, who had the hotdog/rat/pseudo dog tucked into his neck. Oh, God, the man was wearing a jeweled collar and a pink shirt with ruffles.
Mercy. Kai closed his eyes, trying hard not to laugh. Cute.
And also completely crazy.
***
Flick was still laughing when she walked into her house. In the hallway, she made Rufus sit and she tried to look stern, but she really couldn’t. She could still see the tableau: hot, sexy, confused Kai; a pissed-off Rufus; and Mr. Greystone frantically petting Candy and alternatively chewing his lip-gloss off and sending Kai you’re-smokin’-hot vibes.
Another laugh erupted and she gave up trying to discipline Rufus. Instead, she pointed him in the direction of the kitchen and his basket and scooped up the calico kitten weaving between her legs.
Cuddling the kitten, she walked into the living room, where Pippa was tucked up in the corner of the couch. The TV was on low and she was flipping through a magazine.
“Oh, Pips, you should’ve seen it. Rufus tried to attack Candy and Kai ran after him and then he saw that it was Mr. Greystone’s day to dress up and he was wearing this sparkly collar and Mrs. G’s pink ruffled blouse and Kai was all ‘What the fuck?’”
Mr. Greystone was a high school art teacher, now retired, and Mercy’s favorite cross-dresser. After years of trying to hide her husband’s peccadilloes, Mrs. G finally threw in the towel and compromised: One night a month Mr. G could raid her closet and wear what he liked. Mercy residents looked forward to his eclectic outfits and they were avidly discussed the next morning over coffee. Or now, no doubt, on the online forum. Flick hoped that the anonymous comments would be, at the very least, kind.
Flick waited for Pippa to laugh, but when she didn’t, Flick frowned and walked into the room. Pippa just continued to stare at her magazine, her mouth pulled into a tight line.
“What’s wrong?”
Pippa tossed the magazine onto the floor and jumped to her feet. Her brown eyes were bright with anger and unshed tears and Flick felt her stomach plummet to the floor. “Where do I start?”
Oh, crap, the volume to Pippa’s voice was climbing. Flick could tell that that the storm was about to break. Pippa rarely lost her self-control, but when she did, small animals and big people ran for cover. Flick put the kitten on the back of the chair and sat on the arm of the couch. When Pippa was this upset, the trick was to keep her cool, to keep calm. If she didn’t, the house might not survive.
“I called Mom tonight, as I always do.”
Oh. Crap. This wasn’t good. “How was she?”
“You should know, you spoke to her earlier. When I called she was a bit doped up and she was confused. She thought I was you.”
Of course—because this was her crappy life—she did. Flick, deciding to err on the side of caution, kept quiet.
“She kept begging me, you, not to tell.”
Oh, Gina. Flick stared at the floor, desperately hoping for a distraction. A lightning strike, an epileptic fit, a tornado. She wasn’t picky.
“Care to explain that, Felicity?”
Pippa was using her full name, which meant that she was beyond pissed and well on her way to volcanically furious. “I can’t.” Flick whispered the words.
“What does that mean?”
Flick, thoroughly miserable, thought that her sentence was largely self-explanatory. “She told me something and made me promise to keep it a secret.”
“But we don’t keep secrets from each other,” Pippa said in a low, hard tone. “We don’t, Flick! Ever!”
Flick placed her fist underneath her ribs, trying to rub the burn away. “I know, Pips. But I don’t have a choice.”
“Tell me!” Pippa shouted and Flick closed her eyes.
She shook her head. “I can’t—not yet.”
Pippa walked up to her and gripped her shoulders, her fingernails digging into Flick’s shoulder blades. Flick, understanding how hurt and how angry Pippa was, didn’t resist. She just prayed that this argument wouldn’t rip their friendship apart.
“Is she sick? Sicker than we thought? Is she going to die?”
“God, no!” Flick grabbed Pippa’s face and held her cheeks so that she had to look at her. “I promise you, she’s not hurt. Or sick. Or dying. It’s not that bad.”
Pippa wrenched herself away and stepped back, her chest heaving. “But it’s not good news?”
“I can’t tell you!” Flick shouted, frustrated. “Don’t you think I want to? I’ve begged her, Pips, but she’s standing firm.”
“If you loved me you’d tell me,” Pippa stated, her face and tone steel-hard. The heat of her anger had burned away but it was hardening, solidifying. This wasn’t going to go away.
“I’m so sorry.” Flick brushed a tear off her cheek. “Please try to understand.”
“She’s my mother, not yours. You can’t just take her over because your own mother didn’t love you enough to stick around,” Pippa said. “She’s my mother!”
“I know, Pips.” Flick used both her hands to wipe away her tears, trying to push past the hurt to remind herself that Pippa was in pain, that she was lashing out, that she’d hate herself for being such a bitch in the morning. But her words still felt like acid in an open wound.
Your own mother didn’t love you enough to stick around . . .
“Tell me and we’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”
But it was happening and they couldn’t go back. Flick wanted to tell her, wanted all this to go away. But Kai’s voice in her head told her that no matter how hard it was, she’d promised, and she had to stick to that promise. Because integrity was doing the right thing, even when times got tough.
“I can’t,” Flick said, choking the words out between her sobs. “I promised.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this! I will never, ever forgive you,” Pippa said before running out of the living room and up the stairs. Flick heard the door to her bedroom slam closed and she slowly stood up.
She had to get out. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t breathe and she felt like the walls were closing in on her.
Damn you, Gina, Flick thought as she walked out of the living room and into the hall and back out of the front door. You are selfish and stubborn, just like my mother was. I love you, Gina, but don’t really like you right now.
Chapter Ten
SawyersFutureWife: Missing Sawyer.
JasonSturgiss: I am selling my old treadmill. Will entertain offers. Find me at the Fire House.
MandyK: Jason, why haven’t you called me? You’re not answering your phone or replying to my messages. Why? W
hat did I do wrong? I’m soooooo sad.
***
Kai stepped into the Smirking Fox and sneezed from the combination of smells from perfume and beer and fried food. He’d been conscious of a low-grade headache all day and while he enjoyed Axl’s company, he wished that they were sitting on his porch in the fresh air. He really didn’t want to have to fight his way to the bar to get a drink, wasn’t interested in making small talk, and definitely didn’t want to bat off the subtle, and occasionally flat-out obvious, invitations from the bar bunnies.
He must be getting old, he decided as he followed Axl to the bar. There was a time when bars and clubs had been his hunting ground, when he’d felt as home in establishments like these as he did on the streets or on the battlefield. At home on the battleground and on the streets . . . Normal people don’t feel like that, he mused.
Well, he certainly wasn’t normal. Speaking of, Flick—who was a normal as they came—surprisingly hadn’t had much of a reaction to the little he’d told her of his past. He’d expected shock, some distaste, maybe even a little fascination, but she’d acted like the fact that he had been a low-life street rat wasn’t that big a deal.
But it was, wasn’t it? They came from two totally different worlds, with different ethics and morals. He wasn’t afraid to break the rules and he knew that Flick followed them. He was utterly self-sufficient and Flick needed people like she needed air to breathe. Family and friends were important to her, while he could count the people he wanted at his funeral on one hand.
They were as different as an AK-47 and cotton wool, yet he’d felt a connection to her tonight that went deeper than attraction or sex, something that made him want to open up a little more, that encouraged him to find out exactly what made her tick. And, on that point, what the hell did her aunt think she was doing, asking her to keep secrets from her best friend? He could see the stress of whatever she was dealing with in her eyes, in her tense shoulders, in her slow-to-smile lips.
A life spent on the streets had made calculation and discretion a lifestyle and the military had cemented those traits in Kai, but they were foreign nature to Flick. She loved her aunt, she loved her friend, and she was being asked to value her loyalty to one above her loyalty to the other. That wasn’t fair.
Axl’s elbow in his side pulled him back to the crowded bar and the bartender’s expectant face. Kai ordered his beer and flicked his eyes to the end of the bar, where Jack was serving a group of bikers. As if he felt Kai’s eyes on him, Jack snapped his head up, and his look suggested that he’d like to shove a red-hot poker up his nose. Or somewhere equally unpleasant.
Shit, he hadn’t done anything to Flick. Jack couldn’t beat him up for having lascivious thoughts about his sister, could he? Who the hell knew? This was Mercy, after all.
Axl handed over some cash and took a long sip of his beer. “Why are you getting the hairy eyeball from the dude behind the bar?”
“Long story.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fact that you banged his sister?”
Kai choked on his beer and Axl’s large hand slammed into the space between his shoulder blades. He kept a firm hold on his beer as he rocked on his feet. When he could breathe again and had regained his balance, he met Axl’s amused eyes. “Sawyer can’t keep his mouth shut.”
Axl placed his foot on the railing of the bar. “I think talking about you and what’s-her-name . . . Fudge?”
“Flick, you moron,” Kai grumbled.
“I think that talking about Flick was a good way to distract him from the fuck-up that is his brother.”
There wasn’t a hell of a lot Kai could say to that. After all, he’d told Sawyer about Axl’s and Reagan’s argument for exactly the same reason. “I just can’t wrap my head around Doug raping anyone. The guy is so laid-back he’s practically comatose.”
“The evidence is pointing to him. DNA, her statement, the fight they had.”Axl’s eyes narrowed with tension. “He has admitted that he was high and doesn’t remember a damn thing.”
“If it turns out to be true, it’ll kill Sawyer. He’s stood by Doug through the petty shit, but rape is a whole new ballgame.” Kai placed his arm on the bar.
“I offered to fly out to Cincinnati, asked if he wanted some company, but he told me he wanted to handle this himself,” Axl said.
Kai had made the same offer and had received the same response from Sawyer. He understood. There were just some things that you had to work through on your own. Sawyer knew that they would drop everything if they were needed; the offer had been made and refused. The best way that they could help Sawyer was to look after the business. Speaking of . . .
“Did you have to give me such a hard time about Reagan protecting Callow?” Kai demanded. “And what the hell were you thinking using the company plane to make your point?”
Axl looked him dead in the eye. “Have I ever used the plane when it wasn’t necessary?”
“Okay, no,” Kai admitted. “Why are you here, then?”
“I made a detour from New York.”
“And what were you doing in New York?” Kai asked, his voice pitched so that only Axl could hear him.
“Parent kidnapping. A quick in and out,” Axl responded, his lips barely moving. “Very high-profile couple having a brutal argument about custody. Father took the kid and refused to return her to the mother. They wanted to keep it quiet and I”—Axl hesitated briefly—“resolved the issue.”
Which meant that Axl had restored the kid to his mother on his own.
“Fuck, you are not James Bond, and you know the rule: Always have backup.”
Axl snorted. “Please, the father is a senator’s son who was born with a drawer full of silver spoons in his mouth. The baby was bawling her head off and I had to change the diaper before I could leave.”
Kai lowered his bottle to stare at his friend. “And he just let you leave?”
“Well, I was pointing my Glock at him, but even if I hadn’t been, I think he would’ve just handed the kid over to me—he was that rattled. The kid was hungry and tired and freaked out, screaming her head off, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with her. Apparently he and his wife were separated before the birth and he hasn’t spent any time with the kid at all. Taking her was a fuck-you gesture but once he had her, he knew that he was in over his head. Dipshit.”
“How did he grab her?” Kai asked, fascinated.
“Sneaked up behind the nanny in a crowded mall. Nanny let go of the stroller, turned away, and he walked away with her. Store cameras captured a full headshot so they knew, immediately, who’d done it and where the kid was. Grandfather is connected, he calls me, I fly over and enter his house. Situation resolved.” Axl shrugged.
“Big paycheck and that little girl is restored to the loving arms of her nanny,” Axl added cynically. “Why the fuck do people have kids if they’re just going to hand them over to someone else to look after?”
Kai didn’t have an answer, so he just shrugged. He looked at Axl and curbed his smile. His warrior friend was a sucker for kids and wanted a bunch of his own. It was just finding, and living with, the provider of said kids that was problematic.
“Speaking of hostage rescues, is Reagan serious about wanting to do rescue?” Axl asked, thunderclouds forming on his face. Kai lifted his eyebrows as Axl’s hand tightened around his beer bottle. He hoped that the damn thing didn’t shatter under the pressure.
“How did she find out anyway?” Axl wondered.
“Reagan isn’t a fool.”
“She’s crazy to think that I would ever let her anywhere near one of my missions,” Axl growled.
“Fight with her, not me,” Kai suggested and glanced at his watch. “She’ll be joining us soon.”
Axl frowned. “I thought she’d left already, the actor was sending his jet.”
“His pilot got sick. It’
s coming tomorrow,” Kai explained. Axl groaned. “Thanks so fucking much, Manning. Like I haven’t had enough nagging from her already today. If I wanted my ear burned off, I would marry the woman!”
Kai’s lips twitched. That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Not that he could see them married—he couldn’t see any of them married—but he could see them together. Reagan was about the only woman who had a strong enough personality to deal with Axl. And Axl had a big enough set of balls to deal with the craziness that was Reagan.
“You suck,” Axl said. “I should wipe the floor with your face.”
“Get in line.”
Kai looked up to see Jack standing over them. Jack followed up his statement by placing his hands on the bar and leaning forward, a gesture that immediately pissed Kai off.
Flick’s brother, he reminded himself. Don’t punch the guy.
Kai saw Axl tense and noticed that his right fist was clenched. He shook his head and felt, rather than saw, Axl relax. His partner didn’t need any encouragement to throw a punch, but it wasn’t necessary.
Besides, Kai was a big boy, and the last time he checked, he could still fight his own battles. This was a bartender in Mercy, after all, not a soldier at war.
“Want to explain what’s got your panties in a bunch?” Kai asked.
He thought he was being moderately polite, but Jack’s pissed-off expression suggested otherwise. “I told you that I would rearrange your face if you hurt my sister.”
His sister? As in Flick? What? Kai lifted up his hands. “Whoa, hold on, Jack. What the hell are you talking about?”
Jack jerked his head in the direction of the staff door. “Flick is sitting in my office and I can see that she’s been crying.”
“Who’s crying?” Axl demanded. When Kai didn’t answer him, he looked at Jack. “Kai made a woman cry? Who is she?”
“Shut up, Axe,” Kai snapped. He’d made lots of woman cry over the years, but this time he wasn’t at fault. And, more important, Flick was crying? Why? When he left her they’d been laughing at Rufus, he’d kissed her cheek, and they’d parted ways, with him regretting the fact that they weren’t going home together.
