Lace & Lead (novella) (4 page)

“How should I divide it?”

Peirce tried not to watch that hand sneaking down between her breasts over and over. He looked outside, praying Douglass and Kai would return quickly. “Three thousand each. Pay Douglass and Kai first.”

She stilled. “That’s only nine thousand.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you take the larger share for yourself.”

Her derisive tone rankled him. “Three thousand each. We use the other thousand to cover costs. It’s not easy to sneak a wanted woman into Monterrey.”

That shut her up.

Douglass and Kai returned shortly, pleasantly surprised to find their respective paydays waiting. “Just because we take the money now doesn’t mean we’ll ditch out on you,” Kai assured Emmaline.

“What’s the plan now, sir?” Douglass asked with a look at Peirce.

“Get her off the street and wait out Gregson until he figures out we got away. I don’t think those idiots are going to share that information any time soon.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“You have room at your place?”

“Hell no, sir,” Douglass said. Peirce could understand that. He didn’t know any man who liked having his nightmares paraded in front of a complete stranger. During the wars when a guy had night terrors, everyone else just rolled to their other side and pretended not to hear the whimpering.

“Kai?”

“Not unless she wants to join me and my lady friend tonight.” He waggled his eyebrows at Emmaline, but she laughed and shook her head no.

One option left. He didn’t want her to realise how many lines he was crossing, so he attempted to make it sound casual. “Fine. My place.”

Emmaline nearly choked on her own tongue. “
Your
place?”

“It’s clean,” Taggart said.

“Ish,” Douglass corrected.

“At least it was a few years ago,” Kai chimed in.

“I...I was just going to check into an inn.”

Taggart snorted and her temper flared. Again. “And why shouldn’t I do that?”

“Have you ever checked into an inn before?”

She hated his condescension. “No,” she responded primly. “But it can’t be that hard.”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” he agreed, but she could hear the biting sarcasm in his voice. “Too bad they require palm and retinal scans. An account chip on file in case of damages to the room. Not so useful for people who are trying not to be found.”

Douglass turned to her, worry in his dark eyes. “If Richard Stone is involved, you can be sure that he’s flagging any scan you show up in.”

“Isn’t worth the risk,” Kai said seriously.

She swallowed, realising she was
still
out of her element. Taggart looked at her lazily over his shoulder. “So...my place.”

Oh, the taste of defeat was bitter
. “Fine.”

“Great.” He motioned for Douglass to start up the Stallion. “You can drop us off at the service elevator.”

“Service elevator?”

“No cameras.” He chuckled at the expression on her face. “The better half never wants to see how their servants live, Miss Gregson. I guess privacy is a benefit of being one of the mindless rabble.”

The service elevator was not at all what she’d expected. True, there was trash strewn on that lower level of the underground garage, but the elevator itself was somewhat clean. She and Taggart had exited the Stallion after he promised to update the men on any new developments. Standing beside him in the tiny metal box, especially now that she could fully appreciate how intimidating his body armour and small weapons cache made him, was comforting and maddening at the same time.

Taggart wasn’t looking at her. In fact, since they’d exited the Stallion, he’d made a concerted effort to pretend she didn’t exist. The numbers ticked slowly higher.

She asked, “Do you live at the top?”

His look was all amusement, but didn’t extend past his eyes. “The penthouse? Hell no. There are better things to spend money on.”

“Like what?”

“Guns. Toys.”

Her mind flashed to the neon advertisements they’d passed rolling through the red light district. He’d teased her about her naivety when she’d asked what they were for.

“Oh. I see.”

This time he actually threw his head back and laughed. The breath left her body at the same instant a wave of heat flashed through her. His laughter was rich, deep and rumbled in his broad chest. But when he was done, he looked her straight in the eye and smiled.

Books she’d read had claimed that a man’s smile could make one’s knees buckle, but it had never happened to her personally. At least, not until now. It softened all the harsh angles of his face and the dirt smudges only heightened the whiteness of his teeth.

“Not those kinds of toys,” he said in a lazily sensual tone.

Her cheeks were burning, but she was grateful for his tact. Coming from a blue-blooded family, she knew she was embarrassingly innocent on the subject of sex. Still, she expected him to take advantage of that and use the knowledge to put her in her place. Instead, he sidestepped the clear opportunity to shame.

She cleared her throat. “Um, what did you mean then?”

“Vehicles. Aircraft. You know, mechanical stuff.”

That made sense. He wore mechanic’s gloves, assorted tools had their places on his belt and, on more than one, occasion she’d seen him leaving the estate’s garage with his welding goggles resting comfortably atop his head; they were currently hanging from a belt loop.

“You like building things?”

“Building, fixing, whatever.”

The elevator dinged and halted twenty floors from the top. She couldn’t resist asking, “Why this floor?”
He had money to burn, after all…

“Direct access to the express way,” he explained as they stepped out of the elevator. “Being an ex-Lawman has its privileges.”

“Most people in this section of town don’t have cars, do they?”

“Or private garages.” His eyes twinkled with barely contained glee. He looked younger and she couldn’t help trying to imagine the Taggart she knew—a war-hardened vet with a cynical streak ten metres wide—as a tow-headed child.

They passed down a narrow hallway. There wasn’t much noise behind most of the doors. “Is it always this quiet?”

“Usually. Lotta guys are either ex-Lawmen or are still enlisted.”

“You like their company?”

“I like their respect of boundaries.”

She fidgeted with the sleeve of her jacket as he stopped at a door and held his hand to the palm scanner. “I’m sorry about this,” she told him as he punched in a complex key code.

“Why?”

“I can understand why you like your privacy.”

“You’re paying me to protect you. This is what it requires.”

“So you normally bring employers here?”

He didn’t insult her intelligence by trying to supply an idiotic answer. Her respect for him grew a bit.

“Thank you,” she said into the silence.

He shook his head and moved in place for the retina scan. “You haven’t seen my place. I wouldn’t thank me yet.”

The door’s locks clicked open.

Gods, he hoped she wouldn’t freak out when she saw his place. In the two weeks he’d gotten to know her, she hadn’t struck him as the type of woman who would put him down just because of where he lived. But he’d been surprised before.

Peirce held the door open and motioned Emmaline inside. The one benefit of working all the time: he was never home long enough to get the apartment dirty. Closing and locking the door behind them, he realised she’d stopped in the hallway, taking in the room before her.

Coming from the wealth she did, it probably didn’t look like much. Sterile, with bare floors and minimal furniture. The walls showed some water damage, but he’d never really cared since he wasn’t around long enough to notice. He waited behind her nervously, wishing he could see her face, gauge how she was feeling.

Which immediately led to the question,
what kind of pansy-ass am I
?

He was Peirce Taggart, former Lawmen commander, honourably discharged with medals of highest merit for his efforts during the wars. He had gone toe to gun with some of the worst scum, dragged them to interrogation and watched them crumble under his careful attentions.

So why the
fuck
was he growing a vagina and worrying about her
feelings
?

He pushed past her, refusing to alter his normal pattern just because she was watching. Telling himself he didn’t care if she followed him or not, he made his way to the bedroom.

Guns removed from their places, checked, reloaded and placed down one at a time on the bed before being moved to their respective pegs. Utility belts unclipped and laid out on the dresser, extra magazines left standing in perfect rows. Gloves removed and stacked on top of each other. Boot knife alongside the flashlight and goggles. Cuff and comm facing the bed in case he had to get to them fast.

The calming routine slowed his mind and let him focus on what was at hand. It allowed him to forget—no matter how briefly—the massive changes Emmaline’s rescue would cause to the next week or two of his life.

He unclasped his boots, stepping out of their heavy weight and placing them to the side of the shelves he used to store his armour. The cold floor felt good against his feet, helped him stay grounded. A real soldier didn’t need comforts like carpet.

His good arm undid one row of clasps holding his armour in place in no time, but as he raised his other hand he realised the problem. His shoulder felt better after visiting the med-centre, but he still didn’t have his regular range of motion. If he pushed his luck, he’d rip the staples. He wasn’t in the field right now; he could afford a day of downtime.

Even if it bugged the hell out of him to admit it.

He opened his mouth, about to ask for help, but the words stuck in his throat. He wasn’t asking for help from her. Not from a blue-blood.

Tomorrow
. Tomorrow he’d take it easy.

He took a deep breath and kept stretching, knowing it was just a matter of time before he’d be able to hit the clasps. He could feel the skin straining around the staples, the warning signs that it was ripping a little. Sweat beaded on his brow.

Just a little farther
—

The clasp suddenly went but he hadn’t reached it yet. He looked over his shoulder and saw Emmaline standing behind him, her slim, delicate fingers undoing the entire seam.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

She just nodded and focused on her task.

The familiar split in the armour is what told him he was finally home. With a sigh of pleasure, he took the chest piece off, making sure to wipe down the inside with a rag before storing it on the shelf. Emmaline had held onto the back plate and for a split second he wondered if he liked the silence that came when it didn’t fall to the floor.

The sign that he was no longer alone.

She handed it to him without a word, eyes lingering over the tight white tank that fit like a second skin. He ignored her reaction and repeated the wiping process. When it was finally stored, he took a breath and peeled off the tank, throwing it into a corner of the room.

Her shocked gasp hurt, but he didn’t try to hide as he dug a fresh tank out of his drawers. She was going to see the scars at some point.

Chapter 4

Today was full of new lessons.

Lesson one: Peirce Taggart had absolutely no sense of comfort or décor.

Lesson two: He was fastidious to the point of OCD.

Lesson three: Watching him unload the tools of his trade had done strange things to her, things that made her want to try some moves she was pretty sure were illegal in the Republic.

Lesson four: Taggart in a tank top had given her a hot flash.

Lesson five: Taggart without a tank top was even hotter.

Then she was distracted by the scars.

They crisscrossed his body, some so faded from time they were nearly gone, others so fresh they looked as though they’d just finished closing. The pockmarked indentations of bullet holes. The sweeping lines of knife wounds. Across the left side of his ribcage, three bite marks with such a radius she was sure some prehistoric creature had inflicted the damage.

The scars were so prominent, she almost didn’t notice the tattoo—the Lawmen’s crest—sitting on his hip, running parallel to the blonde hair that trailed down the muscular slabs of his abdominals into the top of his pants.