Thrill Ride (27 page)

Three
weeks
later…

“You’ve got to come see this,” Becky said, hanging onto the doorframe of Vanessa’s bedroom, alarm in her tone and in her face.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked, in the process of making her bed. Every day was the same, she got up, she made her bed, she went to work, and she pretended her heart wasn’t shattered into a thousand tiny, bloody pieces. And every day the Knights tiptoed around her, handling her with kid gloves, pretending one of their own wasn’t the
reason
her heart was shattered into a thousand tiny, bloody pieces.

“Donna Ward and her CIA partner were both found dead in a hotel room this morning,” Becky said. “The victims of gunshot wounds to the head.”

“Jesus.” Vanessa skirted the bed to follow Becky down the hall toward the media room. “Not that I’m all that upset by their passing or anything. Donna Ward was a horror show, and I can only imagine her partner was, too. But still…
Jesus
.”

“It gets worse,” Becky said as they walked into the media room where all the Knights were gathered around the wide-screen television—it was set to the morning news. For two weeks they’d been kept in the dark about Rock’s situation, General Fuller remaining frustratingly mum on the subject despite Boss’s dozens of phone calls demanding answers. Then, last Friday, Fuller finally called to say Rock and Dunn were being released, and Donna Ward was undergoing psychological evaluation pending release while her accomplice at the CIA was stripped of all titles and security clearances.

“It’s been decided by the powers that be,” Boss had informed the group, and he’d been talking about
the
powers that be, “that it would be too damaging to the reputation of the intelligence community to hold trials, thereby dragging into the light the origins of The Project and the CIA’s initial involvement in said scheme.”

“And Billingsworth?” Ozzie had asked.

“A casualty of the system,” was Boss’s terse reply. “His murder is officially listed as
unsolved
.”

Which Vanessa felt was a grave injustice, but she’d worked for the government too long to really be surprised.

Rock’s name had been cleared of any wrongdoing, his record once again lily white. Dunn had been instructed to return to his job at the FBI as if nothing had happened. And Donna Ward? Well, Vanessa had hoped like hell that
psychological
evaluation
proved her unfit to reenter society whereby she’d be confined to a psych ward for life.

Only, according to the news report, at some point she must’ve been released.

“…late last night. And it appears Dr. Dunn and former CIA agent, Dennis Wheeler, were both shot in the back of the skull at close range before their assailant, an as yet unidentified man, turned the gun on himself,” the pretty blond-haired news reporter was saying. “Local police suspect—”

Vanessa’s heart sunk. “Unidentified man? Who is she talking about?”

Though Rock had been released, he hadn’t returned home. Instead, he’d called Boss to say he planned to return to Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, claiming he needed some time to clear his head. But Vanessa suspected he’d gone back to visit his parents’ and Lacy’s graves. After all that’d happened, all the twists and turns his life had taken due to the events surrounding their deaths, she figured he was seeking some perspective.

But could he have decided Donna Ward and the CIA agent needed to be—

No. Rock isn’t the killing kind
, she assured herself.
And
he’s certainly not the kind to turn his weapon on himself.

Then a lightbulb blinked on over her head, and she answered her own question. “It’s Dunn, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Boss nodded. He was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed, legs splayed, and he didn’t look away from the television screen when he added, “I figure it’s Dunn.”

“Jesus,” Vanessa whispered and realized her vocabulary needed some work. She’d used that same expletive three times in as many minutes.

“Jonathan Dunn could live with being a killer,” Becky mused, sidling up beside Boss, sliding an arm around his waist. “But he couldn’t live with being a murderer. And he couldn’t let the woman and man who’d turned him
in
to a murderer live either. It’s so…so senseless and sad.”

“I’d say you’re right,” Boss agreed, bending to place a kiss by her temple. “On all fronts.”

Vanessa had to turn away. Ever since Rock left, Boss and Becky’s obvious love for one another, not to mention their overt affection, well…she was ashamed to say it got to her. Reminding her of everything she’d hoped to have and everything she’d lost when she’d gone all-in with Rock.

“Hey,” Steady whispered, coming to throw an arm over her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze even as he handed her a mug of steaming, so-thick-it’d-stand-up-on-its-own coffee, “you okay?”

And there they were again, the kid gloves…

Geez, she was a real piece of work. A real piece of sorry, lowdown, heartsick work.

“I guess you probably already know the answer to that,” she told him, taking the coffee, inhaling the dark, rich aroma. She didn’t have an ounce of pride left after that show she’d put on down in the chopper shop, so there was no use lying.

“He’s a fool.”

“No,” she shook her head, taking a tentative sip and wincing, not at the heat, but at the grow-a-patch-of-hair-on-your-chest flavor. “Not a fool. Just stubborn and guarded and unwilling to put himself in a position to get hurt again. Unwilling to let me put
myself
in a position to get hurt like he did.”

“Well, then he’s a goddamned, misguided coward,” Steady hissed.

Before she could open her mouth to defend Rock, a gentle whirring sounded from below. It was the big garage door on the shop.

Boss turned away from the television. “We expecting anybody home today?”

He asked the question of the group, but it was Ozzie who answered. “Nope. Only person scheduled to be coming back in the near future is Mac. And he’s not due ’til tomorrow.”

“Anybody unaccounted for from last night?” Boss queried, because it wasn’t unusual for one or more of the Knights to spend his evenings
elsewhere
when he was in town.

“We’re all here,” Steady offered.

Suddenly everyone knew who was coming home, and it was a race to see who could get downstairs first. A race, that is, except for Vanessa and Steady. The Black Knights’ in-house doctor continued to stand there with his arm around her shoulders as the coffee turned to acid in her stomach.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said, taking the mug from her hands. It was then she realized her fingers were shaking and she was threatening to dump hot java all over the newly waxed wood floor. “You could just go to your room until you’re ready to see him.”

“No,” she shook her head, taking a deep breath. “It’s better to get it over with.”

Steady smiled encouragingly, giving her a reassuring chuck on the chin before lowering his arm and taking a step toward the door.

“Steady?” she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “I want you to know, Rock never lied to me. He told me he could never love me, but I…I didn’t believe him.” She ducked her head, staring at her shoes. “That was…that was arrogant of me, I guess.”

“Or maybe just hopeful,” Steady offered, and she glanced up into his beautiful, swarthy face to find the expression in his eyes understanding, understanding and
kind
. When he finally decided he was done sowing his wild oats, Vanessa figured he was going to make some woman very happy.

“Yeah,” she nodded, the lump in her throat causing her breath to hitch. “Yeah…maybe just hopeful.”

***

Rock backed Patriot into his spot in the shop, pushed the button on the hydraulics, and switched off the grumbling engine. His spot…

Dieu
, when he left three weeks ago he was certain he’d never see
his
spot
again. But so much had happened in the interim. Then again, so much had
not
happened, too. Because after spending two full weeks with the CIA, having each one of his Project missions picked apart and analyzed under a microscope, he’d simply been given his walking papers. Well, those and a direct order to take what he knew of Donna Ward and The Project to his grave or else he might find himself on the receiving end of yet
another
visit from some fabled black stealth Chinooks.

Um, no thank you very much.
One such visit in an operator’s lifetime was plenty.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, you crazy Cajun sonofabitch!” Boss thundered, clomping down the stairs from the second floor, the rest of the Knights right on his heels, sounding like a herd of buffalo. Except…

Where’s Vanessa?

“Feels like I just left, but also like I’ve been gone a year,” he said, pulling off his helmet and hooking it over the handlebars before swinging from the back of the bike.

He was instantly in the center of a group hug, arms and legs squeezing him from head to toe and, “Ozzie, get your hand off my ass,” he growled.

“Oh, is that what that was?” Ozzie chuckled as the group stepped back en masse.

And there they were, the people he’d grown to love.

Yes,
love
. There was no more denying it. Because no matter how hard he fought it, the truth of the matter was, these men and women were his family, and he loved them like crazy. It was just too bad it’d taken almost losing them for him to realize what a goddamned, hardheaded fool he’d been.

And speaking of goddamned, hardheaded fools…

“I guess you heard about Dunn,” Boss said, and Rock raked in a deep, weary breath.

He hadn’t known Dunn for long, but in that short time he’d come to respect the man. And though he never cottoned to anyone taking their own life, he could understand how Dunn had come by the wrongheaded belief that the world would be better off without him in it. After all, he’d been psychologically programmed to take out murderers. And with Billingsworth’s death, he himself
became
a murderer. It was all so sad, and had Rock known what was in the man’s head after they were released, he would’ve done everything in his power to stop the guy. Unfortunately, he’d been clueless.

“I heard,” he shook his head. “It’s a cryin’ shame.”

“Yeah,” Boss nodded, the group observing an impromptu moment of silence in Dunn’s honor.

Then Rock asked the question that’d been eating a hole in him ever since he pulled in. “Where’s Vanessa?”

“Here.” Her voice sounded from the stairs.

When he looked up to see her slowly descending toward the shop floor, trailing Steady, his heart damn near leapt out of his chest. She was so beautiful. So dark and exotic and courageous and smart and wonderful. Everything he’d never dared to dream and didn’t come close to deserving. Everything he was done pretending he didn’t want.

“If ya’ll will excuse me,” he said to the group still gathered around him, “I’ve got some unfinished business to attend to.”

Like Moses at the Red Sea, the Knights parted for him. He was at the stairs in two seconds, catching Vanessa around the waist before she could step from the last tread. Without warning, he didn’t
dare
give her any warning or she’d probably lay into him like she damned well should, he kissed her. And when her mouth opened on a surprised squeak, he
really
kissed her.

She stiffened, going stick-straight in his arms for a couple of interminable seconds during which time he feared he may have messed everything up so badly that there was no way to repair it. Then the most wonderful thing happened…

She kissed him back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hooked an ankle behind his knee, went all soft and sexy like he’d been remembering in his dreams, and she
kissed
him
back
.

Someone started to applaud—Steady?—and Rock pulled back, smiling down at her.

“Rock?” There was a question in her big, dark eyes. A question he was good and well ready to answer.

“
J’taime, mon amour
,” he told her,
I
love
you.

“Oh, Rock,” she sobbed, burying her face in his shoulder, but not before he’d seen the tears standing in her eyes.

“Shh,” he whispered, cupping the back of her head.

“I h-hate crying in-in-in front of everybody,” she sobbed quietly into his motorcycle jacket. “I’m sssssupposed t-to be tough.”

“Woman,” he crooned, kissing her ear. “You’re the toughest, bravest person I know.”

She shook her head, her face still buried in his shoulder.

Turning toward the group, “We, uh,” he jerked his chin and eyes upward. “We’re gonna go—”

“Yeah,” Boss cut him off. “Get lost, will ya? We’re already sick and tired of looking at that ugly mug of yours.”

Rock chuckled, nodding, before he bent and hooked an arm under Vanessa’s knees and hoisted her up against his chest. She squawked out a protest, but he ignored her as he took the stairs two at a time, the Knights clapping and whistling in his wake.

***

Sometime
later…

“Hmmm,” Vanessa moaned blissfully, rolling off Rock who was still winded and sweaty. “That was nice.”

“Nice?” he lifted his chin, frowning over at her until his goatee drooped. “Just nice?”

“
Deliciously
nice,” she clarified, leaning toward him to nibble his earlobe.

“Hmmm.” He let his head drop back to the pillow, turning his chin to give her better access to that ear. She loved when he did that. She loved him. And, miracle of miracles, he loved
her
. If she were any happier, she’d probably explode into a cloud of Valentine chocolate–box dust. Just…
poof.
“Now
that’s
nice,” he said, his arm snaking around her shoulders to pull her close.

For a few minutes they nuzzled and snuggled and laughed, then she pressed back, leaning up on her elbow in order to prop her cheek in her hand. “Rock?”