I saw his eyes smile.
Then I didn’t see anything because he was kissing me, slow and sweet.
Then he did other things to me slow and sweet that I wasn’t sure the Vatican approved of.
Much later, drowsy, sated, happy, my man’s arms around me, his body curled into me spooning, I decided we’d had a good day without anything exploding and another day without us fighting (so far, a record). Further, his breath was evening, which meant he was heading toward sleep.
So I’d tell him tomorrow about my plans for the future that didn’t have to do with me discussing conversion with a priest.
Chapter Fifteen
I’m Good at What I Do
Ren moved to the sink, dropped his plate in it and moved to me sitting on the counter.
He pulled my coffee mug out of my hand and set it on the counter. Then he pulled my legs apart and moved between them. With a hand at my ass, he yanked me close.
His face dipped to mine and his voice was sweet when he noted, “You got lots of bags upstairs, baby.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“You got a dress for me?” he asked.
“Yep,” I repeated, and this was true. Roxie, Tod and Stevie bought me four of them and they were all smokin’ hot.
“Good. Date night tonight.”
I grinned.
Ren kissed me.
Then he kissed my neck.
After that, he let me go and on a, “Later, honey,” and walked to and through the front door.
I watched.
Smiling.
* * * * *
It was mid-morning when the bell over the door rang.
I was in Fortnum’s with Indy, Jet, Tex and Jane. Stella and Mace were also there, both of them at the counter. Stella was shooting the shit and sipping a latte. Mace was being silent and badass as he held his woman in a casual-but-affectionate embrace at his side.
Duke had not showed. I told myself this wasn’t because he was avoiding me, but because he’d hopped on his Harley with his wife Dolores for an impromptu ride of the Rockies.
However, even as I told myself this, I wasn’t very convincing.
Everyone looked to the door to see Tod walking in carrying two big thick scrapbooks.
One was stuffed full with copious pieces of paper and fabric swatches protruding from the sides. The other one looked new.
The first was Ava’s wedding planner.
The second, seeing as she’d only been engaged for a little over three weeks, was Sadie’s.
Tod was a drag queen and a flight attendant. He was also the unofficially-official wedding planner to all the Rock Chicks. This meant a lot of headache, arguments, browbeating and unnecessary powwows sprinkled with a few hissy fits.
It also meant every single Rock Chick had the wedding of her dreams that went off without a hitch.
Nevertheless, Tod, with the planners in tow, did not bode good things.
The door closed behind him and his eyes came to me.
“Good to see you alive, girlie,” he called.
“Good to be alive, Tod,” I called back.
“Do me a favor,” he kept talking loudly, “stay alive until Saturday. And a call to the bomb squad to do a sweep of the church and function room would come in handy.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” I heard Mace mutter, and I looked to him to see his expression was serious.
Then again, the way things were, he and Tod were right.
“I thought we had the final read through of Ava’s shindig last weekend, Tod,” Indy noted, moving his way.
Tod dumped the books on a table and looked at her. “That was the final read through. Now we’re having the final final read through. And tomorrow, before the rehearsal, we’re finalizing the final final read through. But also now, we’re deciding Sadie’s wedding colors.”
Indy looked around the store and then back at Tod in order to point out the obvious. “Sadie isn’t here.”
“I know, she’s busy at the gallery,” Tod replied, slapping open the smaller album and I saw a plethora of colors on the page. But he said no more.
With experience of the planning stages of Tod organizing a wedding, it was understandable that Indy’s tone was cautious when she stated, “Honey, we can’t pick Sadie’s wedding colors without Sadie here.”
Tod looked up at Indy and I felt everyone brace (except Mace, he sighed).
But I grinned.
“Not another word,” Tod warned.
Indy opened her mouth to give him another word.
He gave her The Hand. “No. Sadie’s a millionaire. I have no budget. None at all. I’m pulling out all the stops. She told me I could. And anyway, Stella and Mace are going to be married on a beach in Hawaii.”
“We are?” Mace muttered to Stella, and I heard Stella’s throaty laugh.
Tod must not have heard any of that because he kept going.
“And everyone knows Ally’s going to do something like elope to Vegas. So this is my last shot at greatness. Not that I didn’t kick butt with your wedding,” he said to Indy, then turned his attention to Jet. “And yours too, girlie.”
He had, indeed, kicked butt with both of their weddings. It seemed practice made perfect because Indy’s was awesome, Jet’s was fantastic, and Roxie and Hank’s was the bomb. Not to mention, plans for Ava’s were far from shabby. So without a budget, Sadie’s was undoubtedly going to rock.
It also should be noted that going to Vegas was what I had always wanted to do.
However, I wasn’t certain how Catholics felt about Vegas.
I added this on my mental list to discuss with the nun or priest who Ren set me up with for my literal come to Jesus (and Mary, God and the Holy Spirit) meeting and shared, “I’m thinking it might be a full mass.”
Tod’s head snapped to me, his eyes alight.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jet, the voice of experience, said under her breath to me.
“Seriously?” Tod cried.
“Unless there’s a Catholic priest who dresses like Elvis and has a wedding chapel in Sin City, yeah,” I answered.
“Oh girlie,” Tod’s eyes were getting bright, “you’ve made me so happy.”
Don’t think I was crazy. I was a Rock Chick. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Tod lifted his hands to the sides of his head and wriggled his fingers, announcing, “I feel it! It’s coming over me! You!” He suddenly pointed at me. “Buttery yellow, the creamiest of creams and a bright grass green. You,” he pointed at Stella, “a white bikini, I’m thinking crochet, a lei, maybe a band of flowers around your forehead, and a fabulous sarong.”
Again with Mace muttering, this time through a smile, “That works for me.”
“Tropical island paradise will be your theme,” Tod kept at it and looked at Indy. “And Sadie, ice blue and shimmery glittering winter white.”
That wasn’t bad for Sadie. In fact, perfect.
But no way I was doing yellow and green.
Red and maybe black.
If the Pope approved.
I didn’t share this with Tod. Mostly because the door opened, Ava blasted through it and sauntering in on her heels was Luke with a half-grin going.
Ava did not have a half-grin. She was fuming.
“Tod,” she snapped. “I’m here, but not for the final-final-read-through-preliminary-to-the-finalized-final-final-read-through.”
Clearly she’d got the memo.
“I’m here because the wedding is off!” she finished.
“No!” Tod exclaimed, then proceeded not to react to the dire news that it appeared Ava and Luke were at odds (then again, that happened occasionally; she busted his chops often and Luke, having chops of steel, got off on it) but to something else. “It’s too late to get any of the deposits back!”
“Calm down, man, the wedding isn’t off,” Luke announced.
“It is,” Ava retorted angrily, whirling on her man.
“It isn’t,” Luke replied c
almly, staring down his nose at his woman.
“Are you going to dance with me?” she asked.
“Vertically?” he asked back, and I pressed my lips together in order not to laugh.
“Yes!” she snapped.
“Yeah, baby,” he said. “I’ll dance with you vertically, in the bathroom on the plane on the way to Bermuda.”
This was not the answer she was looking for, therefore she whirled back to Tod and ordered, “Start making calls. It’s over.”
“I’m not… I can’t… it’s…” Tod stammered, hand to his throat, eyes wide and filled with panic. Then he shrieked, “The custom order baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s have already arrived! There’s nine pounds of them already parceled out and ribboned up for wedding gifts! What am I going to do with nine pounds of baby blue, aqua and teal M&M’s?”
“Give them to me,” Ava retorted. “I intend to eat them all in one sitting.”
“Don’t make any calls, Tod,” Luke contradicted Ava’s order as he also ignored her response to Tod.
Ava again whirled on Luke. “I’m not marrying a man who can’t set aside the badass for three minutes in order to dance at our wedding.”
“Yes you are,” Luke replied.
It was at that, Ava had had enough.
I knew this when she shouted, “I’ve been in love with you since I was eight! And I’ve been dreaming of dancing with you at our wedding,” she leaned toward him, “since I was eight! And if you can’t give me three minutes of that drea—”
She didn’t finish.
This was because Luke’s hand flashed out, caught her behind the neck and pulled her to him so she landed face first in his chest. He then bent his neck and his face disappeared from my view as he spoke in Ava’s ear.
But I saw Ava’s face get soft. Then softer. Then the hands she had curled in his tee at his sides uncurled so she could wrap her arms around him.
Luke’s head lifted.
Ava’s neck twisted so she could look at Tod. “Don’t make any calls, babe.”
Tod heaved an audible sigh of relief prior to collapsing into a chair by his albums.
I did not know if this meant Luke was dancing with Ava at their wedding or not.
I just knew that whatever he said made Ava happy.
And seeing that, thinking on how Eddie was with his pregnant wife, and knowing Mace was standing with Stella only a few feet away and she’d barely been out of the curve of his arm in the fifteen minutes they were, what Ren said in that motel room two days before hit me.
And it hitting me made me reach to my back pocket and pull out my phone. I started it up, touched the button to send a text and typed in, Tonight. Post date. Cowgirl, lotus, doggie. Then I hit send.
With the most recent crisis in Fortnum’s diverted, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and moved out from behind the counter to do a sweep of the tables to gather empties when I heard the store phone ring just as my phone at my ass binged.
I yanked it out and saw I had two texts from Ren.
The first, Not positions. Locations. Stairs. Wall. Bed.
His plan was way better than mine.
The second, Love you, baby.
I smiled and sent back, Back at ‘cha just as Jane called, “Phone for you, Ally.”
My brows drew together as I looked at her.
No one called me there. Not friends, definitely. And my informants and “clients” all knew my cell was the only acceptable form of communication.
I walked to the book counter, took the phone and put it to my ear. “Yo.”
“You want Rosie to stay alive, you deal,” a man’s kinda whiny, definitely weasely voice said to me, and my back went straight. “We want Rosie alive ‘cause we want him growin’ for us. We wanna talk about what it’ll take to buy him outta your protection. You don’t deal, face to face, you comin’ alone, we find a farmer who can take over the crops and his pain in our ass gets dead. You hear me?”
My heart pumping, blood singing, I made a split second decision. I lifted my head and hand and snapped my fingers, my eyes moving from Luke to Mace.
They were both already studying me and they immediately moved my way, their hands going to the back pockets of their jeans.
“You’ll understand I’m not big on a meet seeing as your last approach was detonating a bomb in my apartment,” I replied, eyes to Luke.
“That was before we knew your connections,” the voice returned. “We want no beef with you. We just want Rosie.”
My eyes moving to Mace, I said into the phone, “I may have misunderstood. Do you currently have Rosie?”
“Not yet. But you askin’ that means you don’t either. Which, gotta say, has us confused as to why your crew is searchin’ for him when he has your protection.”
I decided not to share with Lee that these idiots thought his crew was my crew and stated (mostly lying), “Rosie knows I’m not a big fan of explosions. Firefights, okay. Car chases, I dig. Rescues, a specialty. Shattered kneecaps, not my gig, but I got a guy who does that. Everything me or those under my protection owns burning to a cinder, not so much. He brought that down on me, he knows to avoid me for a few days.”
“We apologize for that error, and you can tack reimbursement onto us buyin’ out your protection on Rosie,” he offered.
Thinking on the check I wrote to Roxie the day before to reimburse her for the bags of clothes currently sitting on the floor in Ren’s bedroom, I thought this actually wasn’t a bad deal.
I heard a snap. I focused on Luke, saw he had his phone to his ear and he jerked his head to Mace.
Mace was bent over the counter, phone to his ear, other hand scribbling. He straightened and turned a pad of paper around to me.
On it, it said, Take the meet. Tell them you’re sending an intermediary.
I shook my head.
Mace jerked a finger at me then down to tap the pad.
I slid my eyes away and said into the phone, “Lincoln’s Roadhouse. Today. Three o’clock.”
“Fuck.” I heard Luke bite out quietly.
“Nowhere public,” the voice said in my ear.
“It’s public or it doesn’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, I have more time to focus on getting Rosie under my wing, unleashing the dogs to deal with you, and moving his operation back to Denver where I can keep an eye on him.”
This was obviously a partial lie. The first two were already happening. The last one, never.
I kept going. “You’re on my turf and you don’t sound entirely stupid, so you gotta know you’ve got no hope of locating Rosie before me. But given time, Rosie knows I’ll calm my shit and he’ll come to me. Then I can focus all my energies on you. And I had a lot of really sexy underwear in that apartment, all of it with fond memories. I’m feeling a little grumpy I’ve got to start from scratch.”
“Fuck,” I heard Luke bite out again, this time less quietly, and I looked at him to see him scowling at me.
I held his eyes as I said into the phone, “Lincoln’s. Bring your checkbook. Rosie’s a pain in my ass, but he’s mine. You make an offer that’s motivating and reimburse me for your error, he belongs to you.”
Then I hung up.
The minute I did so did Luke. Mace walked away, phone still to his ear.
Luke instantly launched in, leaning toward me growling, “Jesus, Ally. What the fuck’s the matter with you? Talkin’ about your underwear? Christ. You never sexualize yourself to guys like these.”
“You do when they think you’re a badass who isn’t scared of them, which I’m not because you nor Lee nor anybody would let anything happen to me,” I shot back. “You lose the upper hand if you act like anything they can do puts the fear of God in you. And newsflash, Luke. They knew where I lived, they know where I work. It’s a possibility they’ve had eyes on me. Therefore, unless they’re blind, they know I’m a girl. They don’t need me to sexualize me. They’re guys. They’ve already done it.”
Luke’s mouth got tight, which was s
ilent macho badass for point taken.
“You need to set up for a takedown at Lincoln’s,” I ordered.
“Lee’s already on that,” Mace stated, walking back to us. “And you better prepare, woman, ‘cause he’s also on his way here and he’s not real happy.”
Whatever.
Lee wasn’t real happy when Indy and I bottle rocketed Nina Evans’s front yard when she spread that rumor I had herpes, her brother went ballistic and he had to step in.
And he wasn’t real happy the sundry times I’d gotten a bit past tipsy and interrupted his evening for a ride.
I could go on.
He always got over it.
He’d get over this too.
“I’m gonna go see if my stun gun is charged,” I told Mace and Luke.
Luke frowned at me.
Mace frowned at his boots.
I barely got three steps before Tex was there.
“I’m in,” he declared.
“This is team play,” Luke declined.
“I’m in,” Tex repeated.
“This’ll take three seconds, we don’t have to deal with a wildcard,” Luke returned.
“I’m,’ Tex leaned in and finished on a boom, “in!”
Luke stared him in the eyes.
Then he muttered, “Fuck.”
By the way, that was verbal macho badass that meant Luke was giving in.
A second after that, the bell over the door went and I looked that way to see Lee stalking in, eyes on me.
Yep.
Unhappy.
Whatever.
* * * * *
“Tex and Brian are already in place,” Lee said to me.
We were in the biography section of the bookshelves.
It was near go time for Operation Takedown New Mexican Baddies.
Tex, you know. Brian was Brian Bond. He was a uniformed cop who had been a rookie when Indy had her Rock Chick Drama, but now he had some experience under his belt. He was also partner with Willie Moses who, aside from being a seriously fine black man, was a friend of the family and a very good cop.
“I know,” I answered Lee.
“You go in, you keep an eye out. You do not look at Tex or Brian, even a glance. They do not exist for you,” Lee ordered.
I fought rolling my eyes and saying, Duh.
Rock Chick Revolution Page 23
