Rock Chick 06 Reckoning (24 page)

I stood. ‘Focused on what?”

When I stood, it brought me close to Mace. He didn’t move out of my space, just kept looking down at me.

“Focused on what’s important,” he answered calmly.

“Being front page news isn’t important?” I retorted, not calm at al .

I’d never been front page news. I didn’t know how it made me feel. It was both weirdly thril ing and scary-as-shit.

But also that strange panic was stil encroaching. I stil didn’t get it and I didn’t want to. I had enough to panic about as it was.

“No,” Mace broke into my thoughts.

“Then what’s important?”

“Keepin’ you alive. Workin’ out our shit. Movin’ on together. That’s what’s important.”

I shook my head at his words, not awake enough or together enough after last night’s drama and this morning’s position on page one to go there.

I changed subjects. “Who was on the phone?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Who was on the phone, Mace?” I asked again.

He opened his mouth to speak and the phone rang He opened his mouth to speak and the phone rang again. My eyes moved to it. Mace’s upper body twisted and he looked over his shoulder to look at it too.

It rang a second time and Mace turned back to me just as I launched myself, moving quickly around him, toward the phone.

I was almost there when Mace hooked an arm around my waist, hauled me into his body and reached around me.

I was reaching too but his effing arms were longer and he tagged the phone.

He beeped it on and put it to his ear.

“Yeah?” he clipped just as I shouted, “Mace!” He listened for two seconds then said, “We have nothing to say,” then he beeped it off again.

“I cannot believe you just did that! It’s
my
phone!” I yel ed, struggling against his arm which was stil tight at my waist.

He shook me. “Stel a, calm down and listen to me.”

“Let go!”

He did but only so I could take a step forward. Once I did, he grabbed my hand, twirled me and brought me back to him, front-to-front.

He placed the phone on the counter, put both arms around my struggling body and tilted his head down to look at me.

“Listen,” he ordered.

I stopped pul ing away from him and looked at his face.

“This is unreal,” I stated the obvious.

“Reporters are fuckwads. We don’t talk to them. Ignore it. Don’t read it. Say nothing. Don’t pay any fuckin’ attention.

This’l be over and they’l move on to new meat.”

“I can’t ignore it!” I snapped.

“Why the fuck not?”

I didn’t know why not. My life was so out-of-control, it didn’t feel like I knew anything anymore.

“I know you have experience with this, Mace, but I don’t,” I told him.

“That’s why you need to listen to me,” Mace returned.

Then it came out. It came from someplace buried deep.

Someplace I thought was locked away for good, never to be opened again.

The panic overwhelmed me and my body started trembling. It was so huge, I quit fighting and melted into Mace. My head tilting back further, I put my hands to his chest and my shaking fingers curled into his white tee.

I heard the tremor in my voice when I asked, “What if my mother sees that?”

Mace’s face had been hard with determination but at my words his face and his green eyes went soft.

“Kitten,” he murmured.

“I’m not big news but maybe you stil are,” I told him.

“What if it makes the news where she is? I need to talk to the reporters, tel them I’m okay, tel them you and Lee and the boys know what you’re doing. Tel them the police are involved. The Feds too. Tel them that Sid’s a prick and he kil ed Linnie and we’re doing the right thing.”

“Stel a, we can’t tel them any of that shit.” My fists grew tighter on Mace’s shirt.

“She has to know we’re doing the right thing.” Mace studied my face a beat and his head dipped closer to mine.

Then, quietly, he asked, “Your Mom does or your Dad does?”

I blinked.

“What?”

“You want your Mom to know you’re doin’ the right thing?

Or you want your Dad to know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t care about Dad.”

“Kitten –”

My body went stil and I shouted, “I don’t!” right in his face.

I didn’t know why I shouted, I just did.

I also didn’t know why I was trembling and feeling panicked, I just was.

Big time.

I started to pul away again, thinking only of escape.

Where to, I had no idea but I had to get there, right…

effing… now.

Unfortunately, Mace was ready for me.

He turned us, picked me up with his hands at my waist and planted my ass on the counter. Then he moved in with so much determination his hips forced my legs open at the knees and he kept coming until he was ultra-close. We were chest-to-chest, privates-to-privates, nose-to-nose. He put his hands on the counter on either side of me.

“Talk to me, babe,” he demanded softly.

I turned my face to the side and stared at the counter.

Something was happening to me, something very frightening and there was only one thing I knew – I couldn’t deal.

I needed to lock it down.

Mace didn’t feel like letting me lock it down. His hands came to my neck and he moved my head to face him. His thumbs at my jaw, he forced me to look up at him.

“Talk to me,” he repeated and his eyes looked strange.

He was looking at me in a way he’d never looked at me before. It was a warm look but, if I was reading it right, it was fil ed with concern, so much concern it looked a lot like worry. And al that was mingled with such tenderness, at the sight of it, my breath didn’t take a flight, it beamed to another galaxy.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

The phone rang again and we let it, staring at each other.

Mace didn’t move, neither did I.

The phone stopped ringing and Mace’s face came closer, his forehead resting on mine.

“They don’t know where you are,” he said and it wasn’t a question.

I didn’t answer but my non-answer was an answer.

“You don’t want them to know where you are.” Mace made another statement and I kept quiet. “You don’t want them to know,” he repeated. “You don’t want them to know so much that you’d sabotage your career by turning down the scouts. Keepin’ yourself secluded here doin’ smal -time gigs rather than lettin’ yourself be what you’re supposed to be.”

I swal owed.

He was digging deep into a place he wasn’t al owed to be. A place I didn’t let anyone visit, not even myself and my trembling body started shaking.

I put my hands to his chest and pushed.

He didn’t budge.

“Move away, Mace,” I whispered.

“You lied to Daisy. You aren’t just scarred. You’re broken.”

I was beginning to breathe heavily.

“Move away.”

Mace changed tactics. “They can’t hurt you anymore.” I felt them then, the tears sliding up the back of my throat, my sinuses tingling.

I swal owed again, this time it hurt.

“Please, move away.”

“I won’t let them. Floyd won’t let them. Fuck, if Hugo heard them say one nasty thing against you, he’d tear them apart. You have people who care about you now, Kitten.

They can’t get at you. You can let it go. You can shine.” For some reason, I said, “They can get at me.”

“Kitten.”

At his soft, deep voice uttering his sweet, special name for me with his face so close, his eyes al I could see, I exposed myself in a way I’d never exposed myself to anyone. Not friends, not bandmates, not even Floyd.

“
He
can get at me,” I said, so softly I could barely hear myself.

Mace closed his eyes and his hands moved from my neck, down my back and he wrapped his arms around me but he didn’t take his forehead from mine.

I hated to admit it but his arms around me like that felt good.

No, if I was honest, they felt
great
.

I couldn’t deal with that either.

His eyes opened again and they dril ed into mine. “He can’t.”

I nodded my head.

Mace shook his.

I put my hands on either side of his neck and squeezed gently.

“You don’t get it,” I whispered.

“I get it.”

“You can’t.”

He pressed even closer, his voice got lower and I watched in horrified fascination as something tremendously frightening happened.

Earth-shatteringly frightening.

World-rockingly frightening.

I watched, my breath held, as the guard I never knew Mace kept firmly in place faded clean away.

“Babe,” he murmured fiercely. “I
can
.” That’s when I slid out of my pain, out of my panic and I saw them, clear as day, dancing malevolently behind his beautiful eyes.

Demons.

Mace had demons.

And they were far worse than anything I could even imagine.

Sinister tingles slithered down my back as a savage, steel-toed boot hit me straight in the gut. It was so savage, my body jerked with it and I sucked in breath, staring speechless at the open torment in Mace’s eyes.

Before I could say anything (not that I knew what to say), the phone rang and the buzzer went on the door.

The moment was lost.

The guard slammed down over his features and he stepped away. Snatching the phone off the counter, he stalked to the door.

What was THAT?
My brain asked me.

I was stil trembling, now for a different reason.

I have no idea,
I told my brain.

Juno bounded in before Hector and Mace muttered, “No comment,” into the phone again while I watched.

What are we gonna do?
My brain asked.

I swal owed, more scared now than when bul ets were pounding in the dirt al around me. More scared than I’d ever been in my whole fucking life.

I have no effing idea,
I answered.

Stella

I had no time to figure it out.

Juno butted my calf with her nose with such strength my whole body shifted to the side, tel ing me in no uncertain terms it was breakfast time.

I’d already left her in the clutches of an unknown, but hot (not that “hot” factored in Juno’s choice for companions, stil , it must be said), Hispanic guy for her morning bathroom break. I was heading for Worst Doggie Mom of the Year if I didn’t at least take care of the bare necessities.

“Al right, baby,” I murmured, jumping down from the counter.

Juno knew what my motion meant. She wagged her tail in response and her whole body went with it.

“We gotta rol .” I heard Hector say as I nabbed Juno’s bowl from the floor.

“Yeah,” Mace replied. “Give me a second.” I looked up to see him coming my way.

I straightened and backed up two steps stil in the throes of a jumble of strong emotions, none of which I could process at the moment considering my dog was starving.

“I got things to do,” Mace told me, stopping close and I tilted my head back to look up at him.

“Okay.”

Mace going was good. No, it was
great
. It meant I could nap. It meant I could play my guitar. It meant I could cal Al y and process every second of the last twelve hours. Or, better yet, pul together a clever disguise and skip town.

He took the bowl from my hand and put it on the counter.

Juno whined, unhappy with this turn of events.

“I have to feed Juno,” I informed Mace.

“In a second.”

My poor Juno.

Mace continued speaking. “You answer the phone, it’s a reporter, you say ‘no comment’ and hang up. Got me?”

“Mace –”

“Stel a, no comment. I don’t want that shit in my life. Not again.”

My head jerked a bit to the side and I felt a mini-gut kick at his words and the harsh undercurrent with which he said them.

I wondered what he meant but I didn’t ask because I was tel ing myself I didn’t want to know (when, in reality, I did).

Do you
see
how messed up my head was?

“Stel a, tel me you got me,” Mace pressed.

“I got you,” I muttered, giving in so I could feed my dog and because I didn’t want that in Mace’s life either (and, unfortunately for Juno, not in that order).

It seemed my luck was going to be even shittier than normal that morning because we weren’t done.

Mace got closer and shifted. He did this so his back was to Hector and I was hidden from him. Mace put his hand to my neck and dipped his face toward mine.

His eyes were back to guarded but they were stil warm when they looked deep into mine.

“We good?” he asked softly.

I didn’t know if he was asking if we were good about what happened onstage last night. Or if we were good about what happened with Eric. Or if we were good about the interrupted bed action that morning. Or if we were good about the crazy-scary shit that happened in the kitchen five minutes ago.

Since the answer was the same for al of them, I said,

“No.”

This made him smile.

Which made my toes curl.

He bent in, touched his lips to mine, giving me a neck squeeze at the same time. Then, lips stil on mine, he promised, “We wil be.”

That gave the toe curl the addition of a ful body tremble.

He gave me another neck squeeze then walked away and I stood motionless in the kitchen watching him move toward one of his bags. For some reason, my skin started to feel hot so my eyes shifted toward Hector who was standing, arms crossed on his chest, gaze on me, mouth curled in a sexy grin.