Just Kidding

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “That’s cool,” I said softly. “We can fuck them up together, because I don’t either.”

  Chapter 19

  Goest & Fuck Thyself.

  -Text from Dax to Harleigh

  Dax

  “You got her?” I asked carefully.

  Reese looked at me.

  Really looked at me.

  And narrowed her eyes.

  She planted her hands on her hips and turned to face me fully.

  “Dax Tremaine,” she said softly, her voice barely a whisper. “I know it’s hard to believe, but that girl’s been my heart before you were even a glimmer in her eye.”

  My lips twitched for the first time since Rowen had been hurt. I’d left her lying in my bed earlier that morning.

  She’d rolled over after I’d made love to her and gone back to sleep as if the orgasm had drained every ounce of energy right out of her.

  I’d grinned, smiling wide, and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck.

  “I know, ma’am,” I said. “But…”

  “But she means a lot to you,” Reese finished. “Do you know what it feels like? To get a call about someone you love? A voice that says that someone tried to kill that person that you love?”

  I’d gotten a few calls on a buddy or two throughout the years, but I’d never had that kind of call.

  But the shit that had gone through me today at seeing Rowen hurt and lying on the floor nonresponsive? That had been the single most scary thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

  “Go, Dax,” came Rowen’s sleepy reply. “You’re on the SWAT team. It’s not like you can choose when the emergencies are. I’m okay. The b-baby is okay. My mom is here, and she won’t let anything happen to me.”

  Derek slapped his hand down hard onto my shoulder, jolting me forward.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered. “I really don’t want to be reamed out. And my mom has it covered.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  I looked at my dad who was also in the room.

  My mother had gone home to watch my sister’s baby for the night, even though my sister had intended to cancel her date night. Rowen sent her home, though, unwilling for anybody to be giving her any special treatment.

  “Dad’ll be back as soon as he grabs food for us, too,” Rowen muttered. “And I’m fine. They said that the swelling was minimal at best. Nothing is going to happen. I promise.”

  I just had this gut feeling that wasn’t going away.

  After an afternoon and evening spent looking for Shondra, we’d settled for Theo, who’d been helping Luke look for her for the last couple of hours with no results.

  Which meant I’d gotten more and more pissed as the day had progressed to the point where now my SWAT loyalties were being tested.

  I growled in frustration and stood up, leaning over the bed so that my face was close to hers.

  “You get hurt in any way, and I’m going to lose my shit,” I growled. “Lose. My. Shit.”

  She cupped my face and brought my mouth to hers.

  “Go, babe,” she ordered. “And bring me back a cookie.”

  I stood up straight and looked down at her.

  “You’re not allowed to have cookies,” I told her. “The doc said…”

  “The doctor can kiss my ass,” she said. “I deserve a motherfuckin’ cookie.”

  The room went silent as everyone listened to her words.

  I couldn’t help the small laugh that burst free of me when I thought about how ferocious she was over a cookie.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I shook my head.

  Then looked at Reese and my dad. “Take care of her.”

  Seconds later, I left with Derek, my eyes scanning every fucking person we passed on the way out.

  “Don’t see her,” I muttered darkly to Derek.

  Derek grunted out a ‘me neither’ as we continued to make our way outside.

  After arriving at the end of the hallway and the elevator, I rubbed my face and tired eyes with my fingers.

  “I was right there while that shit was going down,” Derek said, sounding just as tired as I felt. “My sister was getting her head bashed in with a hammer, and I was mowing her fucking lawn, ten feet away.” He shook his head as we stepped into the elevator. “I saw Rachelle over there, too. Watched her like a hawk because she came from the side of your place. I didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Was so interested in what she was doing looking like she came from your back yard that I…”

  “She was coming from the back yard?” I asked.

  He nodded once.

  Our phones went off again, this time with a cancellation of the SWAT call.

  Derek breathed a sigh of relief.

  I, on the other hand, was trying to figure out why Rachelle would’ve ever left the fuckin’ porch.

  Then I remembered something Rowen had said about Shondra looking over her shoulder at something, and Rowen turning around before everything went black, and my heart skipped a beat.

  “Fuck yes,” Derek muttered, shoving his phone back into the pocket.

  When the doors opened, and he went to press the floor we were just on, I stilled him and gestured for him to follow me out of the elevator.

  “I have a suspicion…” I started, explaining what I suspected.

  Derek’s eyes, once I got done explaining, were hot with an inner fire.

  “Is that right?” he said, his jaw tense. “Well, let’s just go ask her what she wanted to apologize for.”

  I managed to pick up a few tag-alongs on our way to Rachelle’s place.

  Bourne Pena, one of the twins, as well as Adam Stoker, another very good friend, and Malachi Stokes. All members of the SWAT team and men that Derek must’ve been able to get for backup on such short notice.

  “What do you have, a hotline of phone numbers in there?” I asked.

  Derek shrugged and shoved his phone back into the pocket as he nodded at the last of the men, Malachi, who’d shown up.

  “Can’t hurt to have a couple of friends who know how to handle themselves,” Derek admitted, grinning at Bourne. “Y’all know what happened to my sister?”

  “Been out looking right along with half of Kilgore,” Malachi murmured softly. “So yeah, we know what happened to your sister.” He turned to me. “Heard you’re gonna be a daddy.”

  I felt something in the vicinity of my heart start to swell as emotion overcame me.

  I was going to be a father.

  “Yeah,” I croaked.

  “Congrats,” Bourne said. “Welcome to the lost dad’s club.”

  I snorted.

  Bourne didn’t have a baby. But his brother, Booth, did. And spent just as much time taking care of the kid as Booth did.

  “What’s going on?” Adam asked.

  I looked at one of my best friends in the world and immediately explained what I suspected.

  Adam’s glare was ferocious.

  “Let’s go fucking ask her, then,” he suggested.

  “Best idea I’ve heard all night,” I muttered, turning and walking up the front walk of a woman that at one point in time I’d thought I’d known.

  Turns out, I didn’t know her at all.

  Oh, and she wasn’t home.

  Her husband, however, was.

  And he was most helpful with his houseguest for the evening.

  ***

  Rowen

  “I have to pee,” I groaned.

  Max chuckled and moved to help me out of the bed.

  My mother had disappeared out to the nurses’ station about twenty minutes ago, and I was so sore and unsteady on my feet that I was unwilling to be picky about who helped me out of the bed.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, holding onto my gown at the back and my IV pole with both hands. “Can you close it behind me?”

  I heard it close behind me and stared at myself in the mirror.

  Dax was right.
/>   They hadn’t had to cut my hair again.

  Honestly, if you looked at me, you wouldn’t think that I’d just taken a hammer to the temple.

  There was no outward sign that anything had happened.

  Inwardly, though? Yeah, my brain was throbbing like a bitch.

  After using the bathroom and washing my hands again, I made a half-assed attempt to tie the gown in the back so that I wouldn’t have to hold on to it. Then made my way out the door.

  I arrived just in time to hear Max say, “Dax isn’t here. He got a SWAT call and left about a half hour ago.”

  I narrowed my eyes and looked at the door that Max was barely holding open and saw Rachelle on the other side.

  “I wanted to apologize to Rowen, too. Is that okay?” Rachelle pleaded.

  I was about to reply with ‘hell no’ when another voice entered the fray.

  “I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

  Max opened the door a little more and placed his big body into it, blocking the way to me but also allowing me to see who’d just spoken.

  It was Hayes.

  He was another new member of the SWAT team and one that I didn’t know all that well just yet.

  I had a feeling being with Dax would mean I’d get to know them all at some point.

  Rachelle turned and pressed her back up against the wall right outside my door. I could just barely see her from where I was standing.

  My mother was turned and surveying everything from across the hall.

  “Ma’am,” Hayes said as he removed a set of handcuffs from his pocket. “If you could please come with me.”

  Rachelle shrieked then. “I will not!”

  There was a crowd gathering around now, and even the throbbing in my head couldn’t stop me from watching the show in front of me.

  “I didn’t do anything!” she continued, her voice so high-pitched that I couldn’t help but wince as the pain started to pound even harder in my skull.

  “Ma’am,” Hayes said, moving closer to a clearly not-going-to-cooperate Rachelle. “Time to go.”

  Rachelle went wild then, throwing herself forward, her hands curling into claws as she aimed them at Hayes’ face.

  Hayes caught her and had her face first onto the hospital floor in about half a second flat.

  I watched with enjoyment as her face was pressed to the nasty floor and she was handcuffed.

  “So what did she do?” Max asked curiously.

  Hayes opened his mouth to say something, but Rachelle started spitting venom.

  “That bitch,” Rachelle growled. “I should’ve never let her do this. But Rowen and her smug ass face. I wanted to ruin it after what she did to me.”

  What I did to her?

  What the hell had I done?

  Then Dax, who was the latecomer to the party, arrived.

  “Sorry to inform you,” Dax replied. “But my girl didn’t do anything to you. You did everything to yourself.”

  “I was forced to tell my husband what I’d done down to the smallest of details. He didn’t take kindly to being married to someone who was practically a sex offender, so he filed for divorce.” Rachelle turned her venomous glare toward me. “All because that one had to go and open her mouth in a public place. One of my husband’s business partners heard and told my husband. Now he’s divorcing me and leaving me penniless.”

  “Being penniless will be the least of your problems,” Dax supplied. “Thanks, Hayes.”

  Hayes marched Rachelle out before I could get the rest of the story.

  Dax shook his dad’s hand, then looked at me standing there looking curious.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  He walked up to me and put his strong arms around me, pulling me in close.

  I laid my head down against his neck and breathed deeply, inhaling his scent over and over again.

  When I closed my eyes, my headache started to pound less fiercely.

  “Come sit down,” he ordered.

  I felt the rumble of his words underneath my cheek.

  I wanted to move but only if he came with me.

  Which he did when he picked me up like a child and carried me back to bed.

  But he crawled into it with me.

  Which was about the time I saw that he was in sweatpants and not the gear he’d left in.

  “Tell me what happened,” I ordered.

  So he did. Starting with the words I’d said earlier about thinking Shondra was looking behind me.

  “Rachelle had crawled in through a broken window,” he continued. “We’d thought that was how Shondra had gotten in, but apparently it was how both of them got in.”

  I shook my head as my dad entered the room, looking pissed.

  I didn’t say hi to him, eager to hear the rest of the story.

  “Shondra somehow convinced Rachelle to help her. Not sure how or why, but they were working together yesterday,” he continued. “And then Rachelle had a stroke of conscience and called me after beating you over the head with a golf club I had in my spare bedroom.”

  I winced. “So not a hammer?”

  He shook his head, and I sighed, curling up into his arms.

  “Rachelle’s husband wasn’t aware that Shondra was being looked for. But upon being made aware, he gladly handed her over. Then told us Rachelle’s whereabouts. We’re not sure what she was up here trying to do, but my guess it wouldn’t have been good.” He paused. “They’ll both be facing attempted murder charges now.”

  “And a slew of other charges,” Dad said. “Anything we can pin on them at this point.”

  I grinned then turned to my man.

  “Did you get that cookie?”

  He produced a cookie out of his sweatpants pocket.

  “Why are you changed, anyway?” I asked curiously, uncaring that the cookie had been smashed to a million pieces after being in his pocket.

  He’d splurged and gotten me a good one from my favorite deli.

  Yum.

  I took a bite as he answered.

  “Shondra was in the shower when we found her,” he answered. “We took her out of there with soap suds still clinging to her skin.”

  I snorted. “I hope she got shampoo in her eyes.”

  Everyone in the room laughed.

  “That’s my girl,” Dad said.

  Chapter 20

  My alone time is for your safety.

  -T-shirt

  Rowen

  I got up and shuffled through the house on wary feet.

  The last few days had been… rough.

  There were no other words for what I’d experienced.

  What Dax and I had experienced.

  Thank God he was there as fast as he was.

  If he hadn’t been…

  I shivered as I made my way to the kitchen, my sights set on getting a cup of coffee, stat.

  I was honestly going to hell.

  I’d given Katy so much shit about drinking coffee when I’d first come home that I honestly should be apologizing.

  It was literally the hardest thing ever to give up all caffeine.

  I should know.

  I’d tried.

  No wonder she was so fierce when it came to keeping the few things she was allowed, even if it was only a certain amount a day.

  Arriving at the coffeepot, I grinned wide at the cup that was waiting for me.

  It read, ‘Hello, Beautiful.’

  Smiling wide, I got my coffee started, then turned to the fridge.

  The favorite part of my day sometimes was reading the little notes that Dax had left me.

  I was sure it was the same for him.

  But today? I was almost sick to my stomach.

  The last note I’d read on that refrigerator had left a sour taste in my mouth.

  I knew it hadn’t been from him, but it’d still been terrifying to read, and then to experience.

  “Don’t
be a weenie.” Dax’s warm, amused voice came from the kitchen doorway.

  I snorted and turned, eyes closed.

  “Open them,” he ordered.

  I did and found my eyes settling there automatically.

  ‘Will you marry me?’

  I felt my heart literally somersault inside my chest.

  “Well?”

  I turned to find Dax standing there, smiling.

  I licked my lips and felt tears start leaking out of my eyes.

  “I was scared to read that,” I admitted.

  He walked forward and ran his hand down the length of my head, his fingers sifting through the short tendrils of hair that were covering my head while still avoiding the sore spot.

  “I know,” he murmured. His eyes soft. “You’ll be okay.”

  “I will,” I told him.

  “I know it’s been such a short time,” he said. “I know that we’re young and you’re nervous and we’re just starting our careers and—”

  “No,” I interrupted him. “I mean ‘I will,’” I said. “I will marry you.”

  He grinned widely at me, then picked me up and twirled me around.

  I didn’t even care that it made me dizzy or that my head was now throbbing a little bit harder.

  Because seeing that smile on my man’s face?

  Worth every single ounce of nausea that was coming my way.

  I’d do anything—endure whatever pain I needed to—to see him smile.

  Epilogue

  I’m returning your nose. I found it in my business.

  -Text from Rowen to Derek

  Dax

  “Hey,” I rumbled, sounding just as tired as I felt. “You eaten yet?”

  There was a long silent pause, then the sound of chewing.

  “Yes,” Rowen paused. “Was I not supposed to?”

  I grinned weakly.

  “No, you’re allowed to eat,” I corrected her. “I just wanted to make sure that you did. What are you eating?”

  There was a long pause while I assumed she was swallowing, then she said, “A sandwich. I got too hungry to wait.”

  That was okay.

  She was seven months pregnant with my child.

  I didn’t want her to wait.

  I wanted her to eat when she needed to.

  And, seeing as it was about five hours past when we were supposed to meet to get dinner, I didn’t blame her for not being able to wait.