Breaking the Rules (3 page)

And even though working at the Burger King for minimum wage was more dignified, it would take her months to earn the same kind of money that she could make here in a week.

Dignity was overrated, anyway.

And the female body was just that—the female body. Yes, she’d be the first to agree that hers was exceptionally nice-looking. She couldn’t take any credit for that—it was an accident of birth.

True, she’d worked it, hard, to get back to her pre-pregnancy weight, even in the aftermath of losing her baby. And she’d had to get a tattoo to hide the scar from the C-section that had saved her life.

But she’d had a beautiful mother and a drop-dead handsome father, which didn’t necessarily mean Eden had to be exceptionally beautiful. But luck had been on her side, and she was.

She had a classically beautiful face, with even features, big brown eyes and long, dark lashes. Her skin was smooth and clear, and she had thick, dark, shiny hair that fell halfway down her back.

Of course, while a pretty face and great hair were valuable assets, they weren’t as important as the body she’d won in the genetics lottery. Tits and ass. It always came down to that bottom line, at least for men. And hers were world class—they had been ever since puberty hit.

And after years of getting leered at wherever she went, she was now on the verge of getting
paid
for the very same thing.

Mostly the same thing.

The song that had been playing—some generic 1970s disco—finally faded out and there was a smattering of applause from the crowd of losers and lowlifes who were out there getting wasted on a Thursday morning at eight o’clock.

The woman—billed as Chestee von Schnaps—who’d been on that stage came stomping off in disgust. “Four fucking dollars,” she said, to
no one in particular. “The morning shift is bullshit.” She stopped to put a finger practically up Eden’s nose, oblivious to the fact that she was still mostly naked, with breasts that were nearly the size of basketballs. “You—new girl. Make sure that cocksucker Alan gives you breakfast. You work this bullshit shift, you make sure you at least get fed, you hear me?”

Were those things real?

“You hear me?” the woman repeated, and Eden nodded, even though Alan hadn’t said a thing about meals. This was not a woman with whom anyone would dare to disagree.

“I’m Nic. What’s your stage name?” she asked, appraising Eden.

Her stage name. Instead of admitting that she didn’t have one yet, Eden blurted out the first thing that came into her head. “Jennilyn LeMay.” It was her brother Danny’s new girlfriend’s name, and right from the first moment she’d heard it—in an e-mail from her other brother Ben—Eden had thought it sounded like a stripper name.

The large-breasted woman seemed satisfied with that information, because she nodded and stomped away.

And okay. Now Eden was in a panic, because the CD that she’d given the DJ had started, which was her cue to take the stage.

She’d always thought she was well endowed, but compared to the twin basketballs … Holy crap. This audience was going to look at her and laugh.

“Go!” someone whispered as they put two strong hands on her back and pushed her out from behind the curtain.

Where, oh sweet Lord, she froze.

She’d thought, with the lights, that she wouldn’t be able to see the audience, but they were lit, too. And she realized that Alan, the manager who was considering hiring her, had told her as much.
It’s the eye contact that’ll get you the biggest tips
, he’d told her, when offering her pointers.

“Dance,” someone shouted, because she was just standing there, gaping at them, as her life all but flashed before her eyes.

All the crap she’d been through, all the garbage, all the pain. And Izzy, who’d married her when she was pregnant, even though he wasn’t the father of her child … 
Don’t think about Pinkie, don’t think about Izzy …

But she couldn’t help thinking about them both—the baby and the lover that she’d lost. What would either of them think to see her here, now? But Pinkie was dead, and Izzy was gone.

Eden could see Alan in the back, in the DJ’s booth, shaking his head in disgust.

“Get off the stage,” someone else yelled.

She was blowing this. She needed this money. And it really was no big deal. She’d been putting on shows for men ever since she’d realized that if she washed her face and wore one of those silly dresses that her grandmother bought for her, her chances of being bought an ice cream rose exponentially. What was she, three, when she’d learned that? This was just a variation on that exact same theme.

She could see a man in the audience who could’ve been the brother of Mr. Henderson, her high school chemistry teacher, who’d let her know that a visit to him at home could significantly raise her grade for the semester. And there, at another table, was a man who had the same sleaze and smarm level as Mr. Leavitt, the sanctimonious father of one of her many high school boyfriends. He’d disapproved of his son dating her, but had turned around and propositioned her one night when he’d “accidentally” bumped into her at the video store, where he damn well knew that she worked.

And, there. Over there was a look-alike for John Franklin, who, at nearly four years her senior, had pledged his undying love before taking her virginity in the back of his car when she was only fourteen. He’d immediately dumped her—laughing because she’d been stupid enough to believe him.

This place was crawling with predators, with men who wanted a piece of her—and not the part that held her brain. But they weren’t just in here, they were outside as well, scattered across and around and all over the world.

And she would have to put up with their unwanted attention and inappropriate comments while she worked for slave wages at BK or Micky D’s, or even just walked down the street.

Or she could get rich off of them, working here, taking advantage of the fact that she had the ultimate power. She had what they wanted, and they could look, but they could not touch. Not unless they wanted to slip a five- or, no, a
ten
-dollar bill into the elastic strap of the red satin thong she’d bought just yesterday, as an investment for her and Ben’s future. And even then, they had to watch their hands because the bouncers would kick their asses out of there if they even so much as copped a feel. No, if she so much as
claimed
they’d copped a feel.

She
had the power. And she liked having it. She always had. She’d just had to learn not to trade too much for the proverbial ice cream—and never, ever confuse need and lust with real love.

She’d tried real love once—or she thought she had, and that had ended horribly.
Don’t think about Izzy, don’t think about Izzy …

Money—she had to think about the money. She needed money—lots of money—and she needed it fast, in order to get Ben out of their stepfather’s odious grasp. And here, at D’Amato’s, with the stage and the lights and the men in the audience with the hungry eyes, she had the power to get it.

Eden forced herself to breathe and to not think about Izzy, or Pinkie, or even her little brother Ben as she walked to the front edge of the stage and called to the DJ. “I’m sorry, Vaughn, will you start that again?”

The DJ—a big black man—glanced at Alan, the manager, who was still shaking his head.

So Eden spoke directly to the predators who’d come there to see women get naked. “I’m a little shy,” she told them, looking from one to the next, to the next, to the next, and on and on, around the room—eye contact. She was good at that. She made her voice a mix of sweet-young-thing and girl-gone-wild. She was good at that, too. “This is my first time. You guys all want to be here for my
very
first time, don’t you? Will you help me out and ask Vaughn to start the music over?”

And now they were shouting at Vaughn, but they didn’t need to, because Alan was already on board, looking at her and smiling. He gave Vaughn a nod.

And this time? When the music began?

Eden danced.

And when she left the stage, it was with a hundred and seventy dollars in tips—ten-dollar bills only.

Not bad for a bullshit morning crowd.

And needless to say, she got the job.

D
an was helping a pair of very young and very female Marine privates get the wounded off the toppled bus. One of them was inside, pushing a frightened woman and her wailing two-year-old out of the window and into the other marine’s arms.

That second private—blond and cute in a Heidi of Wisconsin way—handed the child to Dan, who was on the ground. She then scrambled down herself to help with the woman, who was no lightweight.

The civilian was bleeding from a gash on her forehead, but she seemed more concerned with keeping her headscarf on. Her little boy was terrified, though, sobbing as he stood waiting for her, his arms outstretched.

“Your mommy’s going to be all right,” Dan told him, trying various dialects, but the boy didn’t stop crying even when his mother clasped him tightly in her arms.

“You should see the medic about your head,” the blond marine tried to tell the woman, pointing over to where Lopez had set up his triage, where the first ambulance had finally arrived, bringing medical supplies. But it was clear she didn’t speak English. The marine—the name S. Anderson was on her jacket—looked at Dan. “I’m sorry, sir, can you tell her—”

“I’m not an officer,” Dan told her, then used his rudimentary language skills to point to Lopez and say
doctor
.

The woman nodded and thanked them both profusely, her boy’s head tucked beneath her chin.

“But you’re a SEAL,” S. Anderson said as she scrambled back onto the bus. “There should be some form of address for SEALs that trumps sir. Maybe
Your Highness
or
Oh, Great One
?”

She was flirting with him, marine-style, which meant she was already getting back to work.

And Dan wasn’t quite sure what to say.
I have a girlfriend that I really love
seemed weird and presumptuous. After all, if S. Anderson had been a man, he might’ve said the same thing, and Dan would’ve laughed and replied, “
Great One
sounds about right.”

Except S. Anderson’s smile was loaded with more than respect and admiration. There was a little
Why don’t you find me later so you can do me
mixed in there, too. And Dan didn’t think he was merely imagining it.

The sure-thing factor was flattering, as it always was, and the old pattern that he’d run for years kicked in, and he found himself assessing her. Her uniform covered her completely, but it didn’t take much imagination to see that although she was trim and not particularly curvaceous, she was curvy enough. She
was
cute, freckled and petite and—Jesus, what was he doing?

But then there was no time to bitch-slap or otherwise chastise himself, because a gunman opened fire.

The first shot took down the Marine officer who was running the rescue effort, and the cry rang out, repeated by all of the military personnel in the area. Dan shouted it, too:
“Sniper!”

Jesus, the civilian woman and her child were in the middle of the open marketplace, completely exposed.

S. Anderson saw them, too, and instead of diving for cover inside of the bus, she jumped back down to help him help them. Dan could hear her, just a few steps behind him as he ran toward the woman, shouting, “Run!”

But the woman had heard the shots, and she’d crouched down to shield her child, uncertain of which way to escape.

Because there was no cover anywhere near, and nowhere to run except …

“Go!” Danny shouted, thrusting the child into S. Anderson’s arms, pointing to the blast crater. If they could get to the edge of that gaping hole in the road, and slide down to the bottom and then hug the rubble and earth …

The woman shrieked as her child was ripped from her, but his plan was a good one, because she immediately followed, no explanation needed.

He tried to shield her with his body, tried to get her to run a zigzag path that was similar to the one Anderson was taking with the little boy. But the woman’s mission to reach and protect her child was so single-minded, it was like trying to push a freight train from its tracks.

From the corner of his eye, as he ran at the woman’s top speed, Dan saw Lopez and Izzy pulling the fallen officer to cover onto the patio of what, in happier times, had been a hotel.

But then Dan saw Izzy turn to look out at him in disbelief. He heard the other SEAL shout his name, and Dan realized that the slap he’d just felt in the back of his thigh had been a bullet.

And Jesus Christ, that was his blood exploding out through the front of his pants from the exit wound. And sure enough, his leg crumpled beneath his weight with the next stride he took. But they were close enough to the crater for him to push the woman the last few feet, down into Anderson’s waiting arms.

But Dan was still six feet away, with a leg that not only didn’t work but, holy shit, was really starting to hurt. He had to crawl, pulling himself forward, his hands raw on the rough debris in the street, because he was
not
going to do this to Jennilyn. He was
not
going to come home in a coffin.

But he saw all the blood, and he knew he was dead. There was no way he was going to survive, even if he made it to cover. The motherfucker with the rifle had hit an artery. Dan was going to bleed out
before that sniper was taken down, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him.

But he didn’t quit because he didn’t know how to quit. And then he didn’t have to quit, because something hit him hard in the side, and he realized with a burst of pain that it was Izzy, singing at the top of his lungs, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful …”

The freaking idiot had run all the way across that open patch of gravel and debris. He’d dived, as if sliding into home, right on top of Dan, and they’d tumbled together down into the blast crater.