Outspoken Angel (24 page)

“Out.” He motioned for Stone to leave the
truck.

“No way. I’m not going in there.”

Steele sighed, grabbed Stone by the arm and
pulled him out of the truck. “No, you’re not.”

He dragged Stone around to the driver’s side
and unlocked one handcuff before he shoved Stone back inside and
re-locked the cuffs to the steering wheel. Steele grabbed the keys
from the ignition and tossed them to Max.

Max gave them both a pointed stare before he
stalked toward the house.

“Uh, Sterling.” Steele’s lazy drawl held a
hint of humor. “We have a prisoner.”

Max stopped in mid-stride, spun around and
stomped back to the truck. A sickening crack filled the silence as
his fist connected with Stone’s jaw. A small trail of blood
trickled from Stone’s bottom lip as he lay slumped in the seat.

Steele shook his head. “That’s one way to
make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”

Max’s response was interrupted by Hawke’s
arrival. The black Suburban pulled up next to Max’s truck and Hawke
jumped out.

“Somebody tell me what the hell is going on
in there.”

Max exhaled in frustration. “We don’t know
yet.”

Hawke turned to look at Stone. “What happened
to him?”

Steele shrugged. “Nap.”

Hawke frowned. “I thought he was the one
responsible. What does Pirelli have to do with this?”

Max squared his shoulders. “That’s what I’m
about to find out. You and Steele stay here until I give the
signal.”

“What’s the signal?” Steele asked.

“Birdcall. Sparrow.”

Steele nodded.

Hawke folded his arms across his chest.
“No.”

Max whipped his head around at Hawke’s
protest. “No?”

“No. I’m going with you.”

Steele grunted. “Hell, Hawke, if you go, that
means I have to go.”

“I need you both.” Max ran a hand across the
top of his head. “But at least let me get a fix on the situation
first.”

Hawke nodded. “We’ll wait outside the
door.”

Anxiety knotted his stomach when Max found
the front door of the house unlatched. Easing cautiously through
the opening, he jumped when Maxwell wound himself back and forth,
in and out of his legs and meowed insistently.

He swallowed his panic and leaned down to
scratch the cat’s ears. “What’s wrong, Buddy?” he whispered.

Maxwell answered with a feral growl low in
his throat and ran toward the back door. Max signaled for Hawke and
Steele and then followed the angry cat. He stopped short as soon as
he could see the patio.

His heart pounded until he thought it would
crack when he saw that Sean Pirelli stood in front of Rachel, Holly
and Cameron with a gun holding their absolute attention. Rachel and
Holly sat mute, but Cameron didn’t appear intimidated. Although he
couldn’t hear what she said, her head bobbed from side to side with
each accented syllable.

“Sonuvabitch,” he muttered under his breath.
He cast a glance at Hawke. “Can you go out there and distract
him?”

Hawke balled his fists and nodded.

Max lifted the corner of his mouth. “Without
pissing him off?”

Hawke turned to look out the back door.
“Think he’ll fall for it?”

“Pirelli’s not exactly Einstein.” Max pulled
his gun from the back of his pants and released the safety. “As
long as you can keep his attention, Steele and I can take it from
there.”

“Or, you can stay here with Sterling and I’ll
go,” Steele suggested.

“The hell you say!” Hawke’s face turned
bright red. “My wife, who happens to be pregnant, is out there with
that lunatic.”

Steele took a step back.

Max snickered. “Then go.”

* * *

Cameron heard Rachel gasp as Hawke stepped
out of the back door onto the patio.

“Pirelli,” he said flatly.

The wanna-be-bad boy spun around and took his
aim off the girls and onto Hawke. “Well, this is an added
bonus.”

Hawke inched his way to Rachel, sat down
beside her and laid his hand tenderly over the baby inside her
swollen stomach. “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“What’s the problem, Pirelli?” Hawke stood
and crossed his arms over his chest.

Pirelli waved the gun in circles. “Them.
You.”

“Come again?”

“I’ve been blacklisted, Hawke.” Pirelli’s
eyes flashed a danger signal. “Since you fired me, no one will hire
me. And all because Little Miss Innocent here whined to you.”

“This isn’t the guy from the gym,” Holly
murmured.

Cameron snorted. “I sure can pick ‘em,
huh?”

Hawke frowned. “We fired you because you
screwed up several performances.”

“With bubble-headed groupies,” Cameron chimed
as she stood and moved next to Hawke.

Hawke shot her a heated stare.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” she mumbled.

Hawke took a step closer to Pirelli. “What
does Rachel have to do with this?”

Pirelli snorted and took a step backward.
“I’m sure she had a vote in the decision.”

Glancing at the hose strung across the patio
behind Pirelli, Cameron decided to take matters into her own
hands.

“So you decided to get back at all of us.”
She walked a circle around Sean.

“That accident wasn’t supposed to be an
accident.”

Pirelli turned slightly to follow her
movement but stopped halfway, as if he suddenly remembered Hawke
was still positioned in front of him. Sweat trickled down the side
of his face and the gun wobbled in his grasp.

Sensing his panic, Cameron reached down and
picked up the hose.

“You’ve spent enough time in my organization
to know you can’t get away with this,” Hawke taunted.

“I’m the one with the gun,” Pirelli stated
confidently, “and good ole Max is beating the hell out of the wrong
guy.”

While Hawke had him distracted, Cameron used
Pirelli’s cockiness against him. She tossed the hose across his
legs which caused him to fall to the cement when he stepped
forward. Taking advantage of his position, she wrapped the hose
around him. Hawke jumped on top of him and the two men struggled
for control of the gun. In all of the confusion, Cameron found
herself tangled in the hose and all three of them rolled across the
patio and fell into the pool.

As the cool water doused her heated skin,
Cameron heard a single gunshot echo off the sunny afternoon.

Holly screamed.

* * *

Brett followed Max out the patio door and
skidded to a stop to avoid a dip into the pool. Hawke and Cameron
subdued Sean Pirelli in the pool with a hose wrapped around his
neck while his lips turned blue. A gun floated nearby on the other
end of the hose.

Sterling dove into the pool and squeezed
Pirelli in a headlock with one muscled forearm. Pirelli sputtered
and gasped at the added pressure to his esophagus.

“Hawke?” Sterling thundered.

“I’m good,” Hawke answered.

“Cameron Baby, let go of the hose.” Sterling
attempted to pry her fingers loose with his free hand. “You’re
strangling him.”

“I’m trying to!” she screeched.

“He’s not going anywhere, honey. I can’t get
him out of the pool until you let go.”

She finally released the hose.

“You have an obsession with hoses, don’t
you?” he teased as he yanked Pirelli out of the pool.

“Guess so,” she mumbled, climbing out after
him.

Satisfied Sterling had the pool secure, Brett
jogged across the patio where Rachel knelt beside Holly’s lounge
chair.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Are you
alright?”

She gave him a half smile. “I’m fine, thanks
Brett. But Holly’s bleeding.”

“I’ll take care of it. Go convince your
husband you’re really okay.”

Brett watched as Hawke unwrapped himself from
the other end of the hose and boosted himself out of the pool.
Rachel folded herself into his arms.

Despite all the tension, she giggled. “One
more adventure for your memoirs.”

Brett shook his head and turned back to
Holly.

“Holly!” Cameron shrieked. “Someone needs to
see about Holly. I heard her scream.”

“I’m on it, Cameron,” Brett answered as he
squatted in front of a pale and shaking Holly.

“He shot me,” she whispered, choking back
tears.

“Ssshh, baby,” he soothed. “Let me look.”

Fury almost choked him as blood seeped
through the leg of her shorts and camouflaged the actual wound. She
moaned. “I’m going to pass out.”

He stretched her legs out in front of her.
“Better?”

She nodded. “Thank you. I’m Holly London, by
the way.”

He smiled and swallowed hard. Her polite
introduction almost made him feel guilty, considering he’d already
been introduced to her intimately.

He glanced at her long, tan legs. “Brett
Steele. I’m going to have to pull your shorts down. I think you’re
hit in the thigh.”

She grabbed his hand as he reached toward
her. “Brett, I don’t have anything on underneath.”

He grinned and arched an eyebrow.
Bonus.

“I have to look, Holly.”

She sighed and nodded.

He gently eased her shorts over her slender
hips and down her long, bronzed legs and dropped them to the
cement. Taking a deep breath, attempting to ignore her nakedness,
he separated the torn skin of her thigh and satisfied himself it
was just a flesh wound.

Sneaking a quick peek at the honey sweet
treasure between her legs, he felt himself harden. He pulled his
shirt over his head and shook himself free from his arousal.

“Nice abs,” she said weakly.

He gave her an apologetic grin. “This might
hurt.”

He wrapped his shirt around her thigh and
tied it tightly to stop the bleeding.

“Okay?” He stood beside her.

She gave a faint smile. “More than okay.”

Brett squeezed her shoulder and covered her
with a towel as policemen and paramedics swarmed the patio to
secure the scene and collect information from Sterling and
Cameron.

As soon as the ambulance arrived, Brett
lifted Holly from her lounge chair and placed her on a gurney.

“I wonder if either of them had anything to
do with the trouble at the gym,” she mumbled.

He tilted his head to the side.
“Trouble?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “My pool flooded
yesterday, and the day before, there was a bicycle implanted in the
mirror in the aerobics room.”

Brett took half a second to process her
confession as he buckled the safety straps on the gurney. Why
didn’t she mention this before?

“I didn’t want to bother anyone with it,” she
said softly.

Her response jerked him from thought and he
lifted his head to study her. He knew damn well he hadn’t spoken.
Sterling’s earlier analysis was dead-on. The girl was downright
spooky.

“I’ll tell Sterling.” He pushed his curiosity
to the side and squeezed her hand. “You rest.”

She nodded as her eyes closed. He waited
until she had been loaded into the ambulance and then approached
Max and Cameron.

“Is she okay?” Cameron asked worriedly.

He nodded. “She’s fine. It’s just a flesh
wound. You might want to grab her something to wear before they
take her. She’s, uh, bare on the bottom.”

Cameron giggled mischievously and went into
the house.

Sterling arched an eyebrow. “Naked?”

“Yeah,” Brett mumbled absently. “Did you just
hear bells?”

Sterling shook his head. “Forget it, Steele,
you’re hearing things. How did Holly end up naked? And why was she
naked
after
you got here?”

“I had to see where she was hit,” he
explained weakly.

“Uh-huh, and you had to take your shirt off,
too.”

“I needed to stop the bleeding with
something, Sterling.”

“Yeah, those flesh wounds bleed a lot, don’t
they?”

Realizing he was cornered, Brett grinned.
“Kiss my ass.”

“Stone’s probably awake.” Sterling slapped
Brett on the back. “I’ll turn him over. You go to the hospital with
Holly.”

Once Max was convinced the police had
everything under control, he shuffled Cameron into the house and
locked the patio door behind them. He pressed her against him and
rested his chin on the top of her head.

“Max,” she wheezed from the depths of his
arms, “what are you doing?”

“Holding you.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Deal with it.” He squeezed her tighter. If
he had anything to say about it, he’d never let her go.

She wiggled in his arms and rubbed her
barely-covered breasts against him in the process.

“I should spank your pretty little ass.”

“For what?” Her words were mumbled against
his chest.

“For putting yourself in danger.”

“What else was I supposed to do, Max? Rachel
is pregnant and Holly was oblivious to the whole thing.”

He paused to analyze her explanation. “I’m
proud of you, but you should’ve waited for me.”

“You took too long.” She slipped from his
hold and stepped back. “Are you still interested?”

“In what?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Spanking my pretty little
ass.”

“Hell yes.” He grabbed her hand and pulled
her up the stairs.

* * *

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Floating somewhere between Heaven and eternal
bliss, Max groaned when the bedside phone rang.

“Answer it,” Cameron groused. “Everyone knows
you’re here now.”

He planted a wet kiss between her plump,
naked breasts and reached for the phone.

“On our way.” He returned the receiver to the
cradle and pulled on his pants.

She braced herself on her elbows and squinted
narrowly. “Hold on, Minute Man, we’re not done.”

He pinned her to the bed and kissed her
valley of cleavage. “If I had my way, Fussbudget, we’d never leave
this room. Rachel is in labor. Get dressed.”