Rock Chick 08 Revolution (48 page)

“The grip you got on that guy’s junk, no hesitation, bringin’ him down
to his knees. Fuck. His face,” Vance replied. “Half the team’s terrified of
you. Bobby’s having nightmares. I had no choice. Jules and I want more kids.
Don’t wanna piss you off.”

It was clear he didn’t feel like being serious so I lifted a hand and
socked him in the arm.

He lifted a hand and caught me at the back of the head.

Then he shocked the shit out of me by pulling me in and kissing my
forehead before letting me go and murmuring, “You did good tonight.”

“Do you kiss Mace’s forehead when he does well?” I asked and his eyes
got intent.

“Learn now, you’re a woman. This is a man’s job, not because more women
don’t have the stones to do it, but because they think they need to have stones
in order to do it. The way of the world, men can do shit you can’t. What you gotta
remember is, you can do shit that men can’t. You play to that. You use it. I am
not gonna treat you like one of the guys ‘cause you’re not one of the guys.
That doesn’t mean I won’t treat you with respect. And what you learn now is,
even if you get treated differently, there’s no difference. Yeah?”

This was very profound. And wise. And I’d never thought of it like
that.

But I liked it.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Now I gotta get home to Jules and Max,” he muttered.

“Right,” I replied. “Give Max a cuddle for me.”

“Will do,” he said, moving toward his Harley.

“Vance?” I called and he turned back. “Really. Thanks for tonight. I
appreciate it.”

“You’re a Nightingale,” he replied then finished enigmatically,
“Anything.”

He roared off on his Harley and I was in my car following him when it
hit me what his “anything” meant.

He was an ex-con, recovering alcoholic. And Lee had taken him on,
trained him, and offered him a different life. A better life. And when he won
Jules then they had Max, he got the best life there could be.

And he appreciated it.

I parked outside Ren’s, the jazzed feeling I had expiring and fatigue
setting in. So I wasted no time getting in and quietly changing into a nightie,
washing my face and brushing my teeth.

I slid into bed next to Ren, turned into his heat by curling into his
back and snaking an arm around his waist.

He grabbed my hand, slid it up his chest and held it there.

“How’d it go?” he mumbled sleepily.

I pressed closer.

“It was righteous.”

His hand gave mine a squeeze. “Good.”

He was right.

He fell back to sleep.

Not long after, I followed him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Completely Happy

I moved into the middle aisle of bookshelves and did it stealthily.

If I found my target, I didn’t want to be disturbed.

It was the next day, late morning at Fortnum’s. The store would be
closing in an hour so we could all get ready to go to Tex
and Nancy’s
wedding. But Jet, Indy and I were taking off in thirty minutes to hit the mall
to buy dresses (and probably shoes).

So I didn’t have a lot of time.

I found her in the way back room, beyond the middle room with its table
filled with crates, crates that were filled with vinyl.

She was shelving books in Women’s Studies.

Tall, extremely thin, dark hair that was graying and she left it at
that.

Jane.

“Hey,” I called and she jumped.

Then she turned to me. “Hey, Ally.”

I got close and asked, “You going to Tex’s thing?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Going to Blanca’s after?” I asked.

“For a little while.”

This meant she’d show her face, leave a present and get the hell out of
there.

Let’s just say Jane wasn’t social.

“You write those
Rock Chick
books?” I went on conversationally, and her eyes went huge.

She took a step back.

Fuck. My gut feeling was right.

She did.

Holy crap.

I followed her. She took another step back and we kept going, but as we
did it occurred to me she would think I was on the attack. So I reached out,
grabbed her hand and held it just as her shoulder hit a shelf.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

“It’s… okay?” she asked incredulously.

I nodded. “I’m not mad.”

“You’re… not?”

 
I shook my head. “I’m not. But,
if I’m gonna have your back, I gotta know why you wrote them and why you didn’t
tell anyone you did.”

“You’re going to have my back?”

This was going way too slowly. I had to speed things up.

I squeezed her hand. “Yeah, Jane. I’m gonna have your back. But you
gotta talk to me. We don’t have a lot of time and we don’t wanna get caught
talking.”

“No one ever comes back here,” she spoke mostly the truth.

“Duke does, and he’s here and avoiding me, so that’s a possibility.” I
squeezed her hand again.
“Chickie, spill.”

She stared at me.

Then she licked her lips and said softly, “You probably know, since I
was a little girl, all I ever wanted to do was write.”

When she stopped speaking, I nodded encouragingly and kept hold of her
hand.

“Romances,” she went on.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ve written a lot of books, Ally,” she told me.

“I know, honey,” I replied.

“All romances,” she stated.

“Okay.”

“Well, mostly romances, some mysteries.”

“Right,” I said with waning patience, while struggling with not showing
my patience was waning.

Her eyes drifted beyond me and she whispered, “And those romances are
the best kind ever.”

I knew what she was seeing in her mind’s eye and I knew she wasn’t
wrong about that.

She looked back at me. “Real,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“But they’re more. They’re about love of all kinds. They’re about
family. Family of all kinds.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, either.

I felt a tickle in my throat and repeated, “Yeah.”

“It’s extraordinary. So I had to share it, Ally.” This time her hand
squeezed mine and she leaned toward me. “I
had
to.
”

“I feel you,” I whispered.

“But, I did it and the first one is out there and it felt good to do
it. To finish one. Then the other. And the next. And let it out there. But
putting it out there, something happened.”

“What happened, babe?” I asked.

“People… readers… they say it makes them laugh.” She paused. “Out
loud.”

I still hadn’t read it, but we were a pretty wild bunch. I could see
that.

I nodded.

“It’s a gift,” she said, her voice funny, deep with emotion. “Watching
you all get close, witnessing all that happened making you closer, feeling that
love. But it was another gift, maybe even a bigger one,
precious,
knowing that sharing it makes people I don’t know laugh.
It makes them happy. Some of them write to me. They tell me bad things are
happening in their lives. But they read my book and it takes them away. It
makes them smile. Laugh. Even if for moments, or better yet hours, they can
forget the bad, be with us here at Fortnum’s, and laugh.” She tipped her head
to the side. “That’s beautiful. So how can it be wrong?”

“It isn’t wrong,” I told her.

“Lee’s angry,” she replied.

He was.

Crap.

“Is that why you didn’t tell anyone you were going to do it? Because
you had a feeling they would be angry?”

She nodded.

Jeez. Jane.

I shared space with her nearly every day, I meant something to her, she
meant something to me, but I had no idea her well ran this deep.

“The newspapers?” I pressed.

“That was me,” she said quietly. “When stuff was going down with
Stella, they called here. I said no comment. Then I sent letters anonymously.
The reporter who reported it doesn’t even know it’s me.”

Another mystery solved.

“These readers that write to you. Can that be traced?” I asked and she
shook her head.

“They go to somebody else and they send them to me. But I’ve been
assured it’s untraceable.”

“Brody’s pretty good, Jane.”

She pressed her lips together.

I studied her. She was worried.

Then I said, “Leave it to me.”

Her brows drew together. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing, until I have to. Then I’ll take care of it.”

It was her turn to stare at me before she asked, “Why are you helping
me?”

I smiled and gave her hand another squeeze before I lifted it up
between us and got closer.

“Because, no matter how old we get, we always need to believe in
fairytales.”

It was then, Jane smiled back.

Mostly, I knew, because she agreed with me.

* * * * *

“Oh my God, Herb!”

“What?”

“My God!”

“Woman! What?”

“You might wanna leave some for the other guests.”

I took a handful of cashews (Indy’s addition to the party and part of
what Herb was gobbling up) and popped a few into my mouth, watching Roxie’s Mom
and Dad (and Tex’s sister and brother-in-law), Herb and Trish—in town from
Indiana for the big event—fight in Blanca’s backyard.

Don’t be alarmed. I’d been around them more than once. This was what
they did.

Blanca was Eddie and Hector’s Mom. I’d known her ages, and when she did
something, she went all out.

Tonight, even though this was “just family” (for Rock Chicks though,
this meant a huge shindig), Blanca didn’t let the team down.

There were bright colored paper lanterns strung in zigzags in the air
from house to fence posts across the backyard. There were lit lumieres lining
the fence all around. There was low music playing, all love songs, in English
and Spanish. There were tables groaning with food, and in the middle were
large, bright bouquets of flowers (the flowers, Sadie’s contribution). Blanca
had even set up a bar where her eldest
son, Carlos, teamed up
with Willie Moses, were
making people drinks.

Jet had made caramel layer squares (three batches). As I mentioned,
Indy had brought the cashews. Ren and I brought a mixed box full of bottles of
liquor and a couple cases of beer. Roxie, Stella and Sadie had spent the
morning helping Blanca and her daughters Rosa, Gloria and Elena in setting up
and cooking.

Tex, wearing another suit (and for once, seemingly content in it), and
Nancy, wearing a pretty mint green dress with a fancy thing that was kind of a
hat but way smaller so it was mostly a decorated headband (and it had a
cool-ass feather) got hitched earlier by the Justice of the Peace. They did this
while Indy, Duke and I stood by Tex, and Trixie, Ada (Nancy’s old neighbor, and
by “old” I mean that in two ways) and Blanca stood up with Nancy. Jet and
Lottie, by the way, Nancy’s daughters, walked at her sides guiding her to Tex.

The deed done, it was time to party.

My favorite time.

And now Herb and Trish were, as ever, going at it.

Herb looked at the table where he had been stuffing his mouth (a table
covered in food) to another table five feet away that was also covered in food
then across the yard to yet another table which was—you guessed it—covered in
food.

Then he looked to his wife. “It’s not like Blanca’s gonna run out.”

“You don’t eat from
the bowl,
Herb,” Trish shot back. “You get a plate and you
never
double dip.”

“First, I don’t need a plate when I can stand here eatin’,” Herb
replied. “And second, I don’t got cooties. Who cares if I double dip?”

Gross.

“I do,” Trish retorted, and I bit back my verbal agreement.

He glared at her.

Then he declared, “I need a beer.”

“You’ve already had five,” Trish informed him.

“Do we got limits?” he asked.

“You can’t get drunk at Tex’s wedding like you did at Roxie’s,” she
returned.

“Why the hell not?” he asked.

“Because it’s rude,” she answered

“It’s a party!” he pointed out loudly.

Surprisingly, Trish had no reply to that. Then again, Herb was
absolutely right.