Rock Chick 01 (40 page)

“Yeah, I like it. If you’re wearin’ it in my
kitchen while cookin’ steaks. I don’t like it when you’re wearin’
it sittin’ on a barstool and thirty guys are imaginin’ your legs
wrapped around their backs.”

Jeez.

“Lee, you’re gonna have to get over this
jealous-possessiveness thing.”

“Indy, you’re gonna have to get used to the
fact that I’m the jealous-possessive type.”

Great.

I decided to change the subject. I wasn’t
going to change how I dressed and he wasn’t going to start to like
it. We were at a stalemate.

“Have you had dinner?”

“I grabbed something at the condo.”

His eyes moved to the bar and he lifted his
chin and said to the bartender, “Fat Tire.”

Marianne still hadn’t materialized so I
decided to broach a new subject.

“We need to talk about Eddie.”

Lee slid into the area between me and
Marianne’s barstool, his hip pressing my knees to the side, he
rested his forearm on the bar.

“Yeah, we do. From now on, you see Eddie only
when I’m with you.”

My teeth clenched. “Okay, first we need to
talk about you bossing me around all the time and how I really
don’t like it.”

His eyes crinkled and I knew he thought I was
being cute.

“I’m being serious.” I went on.

His beer came, he slid a note across the
counter, took a pull and leaned into me. “This is how it works, I
tell you how I feel, I’m honest about it, you do the same. A lot of
the time we won’t agree but we’ll deal.”

I blinked at him.

Did he really think that was going to
work?

Lee kept talking. “Obviously you heard our
conversation. I know where Eddie stands, Eddie knows where I stand.
If things are good between you and me, Eddie won’t be a threat.
They start to go bad, Eddie’s movin’ in.”

“I got that part,” I said.

“I don’t intend for things to go bad but that
doesn’t mean that Eddie isn’t gonna give you hints at what you
might be missin’.”

Holy crap.

Lee continued. “So I want to be there when
you’re with him because I’m the jealous-possessive type. That’s
just the way it is and now you know how I feel. If you see him when
I’m not there, then it’s down to you. Okay?”

“So, you aren’t telling me what to do, you’re
telling me what you want.”

“If I wanted a woman who did what she was
told, I wouldn’t be with you.”

I didn’t know any women who did what they
were told, but I suspected they were out there. I just didn’t hang
with them because that definitely wasn’t my scene.

“If it’s just you sharing your feelings,
perhaps you can voice it less like an order,” I suggested.

“I’m used to giving orders and if it sounds
like one then there’s always a chance you’ll obey.”

I gave him a look.

He gave me The Smile.

Marianne walked up and our conversation
ended. While Marianne and I chatted and finished our drinks, Lee
stood close behind me and nursed his Fat Tire. So close, I got
comfy and rested my back against his front. Every once in awhile
Marianne would take us both in and sigh.

When we were done, Lee and I walked Marianne
to her car, I hugged her good-bye on the sidewalk and Lee and I
watched her drive away. We went back to the front of The Hornet
where Lee was parked, at the curb almost directly outside the front
doors.

“How do you get these parking spots?” I asked
when Lee opened the door for me.

“Luck,” he answered.

Bullshit. Luck. It was one of Lee’s
“ways”.

We were coming away from the curb when his
cell rang. He answered it as he was cutting across the four lanes
of Broadway so he could make the turn right to my house.

“What?” he said into the phone and then
barked out a clipped, “Details.”

Before he was done listening, he moved back
into traffic. He flipped the phone shut and slid it in the
console.

“I thought it’d be a quiet night. I need a
quiet night,” he muttered to the windscreen, not talking to me.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“
We
aren’t doin’ anything. I’ve got
something to do. You’re waitin’ in the car.”

“Lee, that sounded like an order.”

“That
was
an order.”

Hmm.

Lee explained, “Luke was scheduled on call
tonight but since he’s in the hospital, we’re a man down. I thought
it’d be a quiet night, only one skip who can wait and most of the
boys have been doubling up, working cases and doing stuff for you.
All of your shit is either dead, behind bars or been offered
employment at Fortnum’s. An informant’s called Ike whose manning
the surveillance room. The skip has turned up. Bobby and Vance are
on call but instead of at the office, I let them go home. Vance
lives in a cabin outside Golden. I’m closest. Bobby’s comin’ as
back up. He’s five minutes behind.”

“How do they know you’re closest?”

“All company vehicles have a tracking device,
the Crossfire and your VW have one too.”

My VW? This was news.

“Really?” I asked.

“Really.”

“These days, my car never moves,” I told him,
like he didn’t know since he took me practically everywhere.

“I know,” he said.

“Are you gonna take it off now that Rosie’s
found?”

“You’re now covered by Nightingale
Security.”

Er… what?

“I thought you weren’t doing security
anymore.”

“Only special circumstances. The boys monitor
the condo and now they monitor you.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with
that.”

“You will be when some nut job with a
vendetta against me uses you to get to me and my boys get to you in
five minutes rather than after you’ve been raped and murdered.”

Yikes.

I hit the mental control that set up Denial
Zone around that subject and changed it to a new one.

“Who’s Ike?”

“Another of my men.”

“How many haven’t I met?”

“Luke, Mace, Jack and Ike.”

Mace?
Who had a name like
Mace?
Where did these macho idiots come up with this shit?

“You got a guy named Mace?” I asked, I
couldn’t help myself.

“His name’s Mason. Mason is a shit name. We
call him Mace.”

That made sense.

“Oh,” I said.

We pulled up outside a bar off Colfax Avenue
that I never knew existed, though I couldn’t say I spent much time
on Colfax.

The bar looked rough.

Lee yanked the parking brake, turned off the
car and twisted toward me.

“You stay here, stay down and keep the doors
locked. Bobby will be here soon.”

I nodded.

He got out. I locked the doors and watched
him go in. Then I leaned across the console, found the trunk
release and grabbed the keys. I got out and went to the trunk. My
belt was there. As far as I knew, Ally still had the pepper spray,
Eddie had the taser which left me with the stun gun. I grabbed it,
closed the trunk, bleeped the locks and walked toward the bar.

I did this for several reasons. Firstly, I
felt more vulnerable and exposed in the car. Secondly, I’d never
liked to be left out, not to mention, I was beginning to see why
guys liked this shit, it was a rush. Lastly, I wanted to see Lee in
action.

I walked into the bar and stood
stock-still.

Even though it had been less than two minutes
since Lee left me, a humongous black guy was laid out on the floor,
long arms and legs sprawled, one of his wrists over his head and he
was cuffed to the foot rail that ran the length of the bar.

Lee was in the middle of the room, some guy
who was either drunk or not very good at what he was doing was
aiming punch after punch at Lee. Lee dodged each punch with a calm
jerk of his head and upper body, then out of nowhere, Lee’s fist
came up and jabbed the guy in the left eye. Surprise and the power
behind the jab sent the guy back three steps.

Lee was advancing on him when someone jumped
Lee from behind and I could see another guy was approaching. Lee
bent at the waist and flipped the guy over his shoulder. Mid-flip
Lee’s torso lifted up. Using his strength and the guy’s momentum,
Lee threw him, upside down, into the guy coming at them. The two
guys went toppling backwards, slammed into a table and drinks flew
everywhere.

This heralded the beginning of the brawl,
including shouting, grunting, flying beer bottles and broken
furniture. One second, Lee was the show, the next second, everyone
was in on the act.

Two new guys came at Lee and he turned to
one, not a small guy, not even average, though he wasn’t huge, and
Lee grasped him by the collar of his t-shirt and belt of his pants,
picked him up and threw him four feet across the room.

Just… like… that.

The guy that Lee jabbed was recovering and
going toward Lee so I felt it was time to wade into the action. I
hit the switch on the stun gun, it started to crackle and I moved
forward and touched the guy with the prongs. He went still and went
down.

Holy shit!

That was cool.

Lee’s eyes locked on mine, he gave a small
shake of his head and then turned and dispatched another guy with a
smooth uppercut. The guy went sailing.

“Hey, whitey! What the fuck you doin’?” I
turned to see a black woman, hand on hip, head wobbling from side
to side. “You can’t just stun gun my man… you can’t just… eek!”

I put the prongs to her, she went still then
went down.

“Yo, bitch! Who you messin’ with?” The girl’s
girlfriend was coming at me, all pissed off attitude, definitely in
bitch smackdown mode. So I leaned forward, put the prongs to her
too and she went down as well.

Regardless of the bedlam, people were giving
me, and my crackling stun gun, a wide berth. Then, two hands
settled on my waist. I was lifted up and my butt was planted on the
bar. Lee bent, grabbed my ankles, swung my legs around to the back
of the bar, then with a hand between my shoulders, he gave me a
shove and I fell over to the other side.

Bobby came in and spotted Lee immediately. He
fought his way to Lee, they both bent down and I couldn’t see them
over the bar. The place was pandemonium and twice I had to duck,
once to dodge a flying beer bottle, the second time to duck and run
from a flying chair.

Bobby and Lee came up with the humongous guy,
cuffed now at the back.

Bobby pushed humongous guy forward,
half-walking him, half-scooting him along. The big guy was either
mostly knocked-out or stunned. Bobby, who was even bigger, in fact
bigger than anyone in the room, didn’t have a problem handling
humongous guy or wading through the crowd.

Lee jumped the bar, lifted me up and planted
me on the bar again, reverse action. He went back over the bar,
snagged me around the waist and hauled me out of there.

Sirens were blaring and a cop car had already
rolled up. Willie and Brian were headed into the bar as we came out
and I saw another squad car approach.

Brian’s mouth dropped open when he saw
me.

Willie’s eyes turned to Lee. There was some
nonverbal male communication going on that I couldn’t decipher
except I had a feeling that Lee was not going to win the Cop’s
Daughter Boyfriend of the Year Award.

“I’m droppin’ Indy, I’ll meet you at the
station,” Lee informed Bobby as Bobby shoved the humongous guy in
the backseat of an SUV, then pulled out some ankle shackles.

I was jazzed. I’d never been in a bar brawl
before, if you didn’t count what happened at BJ’s Carousel.
Personally, I was classifying that as a shootout rather than a bar
brawl.

I discovered I loved stun guns, stun guns
were righteous when they weren’t used on you.

And Lee could kick ass.

He was calm, cool and totally in control.

No one touched him, no one even got near
him.

Lee drove down Colfax, going fast, weaving in
and out of traffic and not saying anything.

“You’re thinking of cuffing me to the bed
again, aren’t you?” I asked.

“No, I’m wondering if I should skip town
before getting lynched.”

Hmm.

“Can I keep the stun gun?” I asked.

Lee didn’t answer.

He pulled up in front of my house and I
turned to him, I couldn’t contain my excitement any longer.

“Is it a bad thing that I’m, like, totally
jazzed?”

Lee twisted toward me, his face in shadow.
“No.”

“Did you learn to fight like that in Special
Operations School?”

“I learned to fight like that in bar
fights.”

“Aren’t you jazzed?” I asked, he seemed so
calm.

“Yeah, I’m jazzed. And I’d like you to get
out of the car so I can go to the station and deal with the
paperwork and get home so I can work that feelin’ out with
you.”

Holy crap.

“Okay!” I chirped, leaned forward and gave
him a quick peck and hightailed it out of his car.

Lee took off when I was safely inside.

I let Chowleena out the front for a change of
scenery.

I ran upstairs and yanked out my red lace
undies and garter belt.

There was gratitude owed not to mention I was
allowing happiness to seep through those walls Lee said I had built
around me.

And I had one seriously hot, badass,
good-looking boyfriend.

I didn’t have any stockings that weren’t
black so black would have to do. I had a pair of black pumps with a
dangerously pointed toe, a thin stiletto heel and a saucy ankle
strap and I yanked them out of their box. I pulled off my clothes,
put on the underwear, threw on a short robe, and ran and called
Chowleena in. Then I smoothed on the stockings and lit the room
softly with a small lamp on my dressing table that gave just enough
light to see but not enough light
to see
.

Then I paced, waiting for Lee. It couldn’t
take that long and he was jazzed, he’d want to get home.