Rock Chick 06 Reckoning (7 page)

“More?” Roxie asked.

“Me,” I replied then sighed and went on. “It was me.

Effing
me
.”

“What about you?” Stevie asked.

I saw Jet’s back go straight, she’d caught sight of something but I wasn’t paying attention. I’d started and now I couldn’t stop and I was noticing it felt kind of good to get it out, let it go. I was thinking maybe I should have done this ages ago.

Therefore, I kept right on talking.

“My Mom had trouble getting pregnant. When she did, my Dad was over the moon. Total y psyched. He wanted a boy so bad. I know this because he told me, like, every day of my life. Mom never got pregnant again and Dad never got over not having a son. No matter what I did, how hard I worked to gain his approval, his respect, to earn anything, even a little thing that was good from him; I’d never be a boy. Dad was disappointed in me from the minute I opened my mouth, took my first breath and screamed.”

“Stel a –” Jet broke in but I ignored her, I was on a rol .

“It wasn’t abuse, he didn’t hit me, he just said shit to me.

Made me feel like dirt. Made me know I wasn’t wanted. I don’t know how to describe it, it just wasn’t nice. What it was, was
constant.
”

I pul ed my hands through the sides of my long hair, held it’s heaviness at the back of my head and looked back out the window.

“Mom left me to him, made it easier for her, kept her out of his sights. He’d turn it on her, make no mistake, and she didn’t want it. So she let me take it.”

“That’s awful,” Ava whispered.

I dropped my hands but kept my gaze at the window.

I dropped my hands but kept my gaze at the window.

“Maybe, yeah. But I didn’t blame her. Stil don’t. It could get rough. Who’d want that?”

“A mother should protect her child!” Daisy burst out.

I turned my face from the window and smiled at Daisy.

“Wel , my Mom didn’t. I’m not whining. I used to get pissed off about it but there’s no going back, no changing anything, not who he is, she is or I am. We are who we are, we did what we did.”

“How did you cope?” Jules asked softly.

“I left, soon as I graduated high school. Took off my graduation robes, threw them on the bed, grabbed my guitar and left. I came to Denver, got in a band. You al know Floyd?” My eyes did a mini-scan and everyone nodded. “Wel , Floyd was the pianist. He told me I was good, better than most anyone he’d heard. Until then, no one had ever said anything like that to me in my whole effing life. Definitely not my Dad and also not my Mom. I knew why, if she did, she’d court the Wrath of Dad, so she didn’t.”

“Oh sugar,” Daisy whispered and I saw her eyes had tears in them.

“Don’t cry for me Daisy,” I said softly. “I’m not broken, just scarred.”

“Wel , I’d think Mace wouldn’t ever leave if he knew al this shit. How is this part of why he broke up with you?” Al y snapped.

“Oh, I never told him any of this.” I waved my hand in front of me and noticed, in a vague way, Jet’s head snapping around and her attention coming to me.

around and her attention coming to me.

“You didn’t?” Jet’s eyes were wide, her face was pale and I saw her gaze slide to the side after she stopped speaking.

“No, and I’m glad I didn’t. If he left me because he thought I was needy, heck, if he knew this crap, wel , that would have made him leave sooner.”

“Stel a –” Jet started again, her voice now sounding more urgent.

“Anyway,” I kept going, talking over Jet, “after a few years, Floyd and I started another band. Then that band broke up and we started another one. The Gypsies. Then I met Mace. He made me feel good about myself, not when I was onstage, not when I had a guitar in my hands and a mic in front of my mouth but al the time. He made me feel good about just being me. Even when he wasn’t with me, just knowing he’d
be
with me eventual y felt good. A man like that, a good man… I ate it up. I sucked it out of him. I needed it. No one had ever made me feel that way, not even Floyd. I took al of that I could get too.”

“Stel a, girl –” Now Indy had gone pale and she was looking in the same direction as Jet.

“I don’t blame him –” I ignored Indy too.

“Stel a, honey bunches of oats –” Daisy tried to cut in, she was looking over her shoulder.

I ignored her too and went on, “Not for leaving me, I get it. But he’s like my Mom, my Dad too. I don’t blame them either. But I’l never forgive them. Not ever.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Jet breathed and the way she did it made me focus.

I saw that now everyone was looking in the same direction. My head turned to see what they were al staring at and it was Mace standing in the doorway. He had his shoulder leaned against the jamb, his arms crossed on his chest, his feet crossed at the ankles and his eyes on me.

He’d been there awhile.

Effing hel .

Al air evacuated my body and I stared at him.

Do you think he heard?
My brain asked me.

“Come here,” Mace said to me.

Yep, he heard.

Queen of Super Shitty Luck strikes again!

I shook my head at Mace.

“Kitten, come here.” His voice was ultra-deep, low, soft and he was looking at me in a way… in a way…

I closed my eyes tight and shook my head again.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw him uncross his arms and ankles. He pushed away from the door and my body went tense.

“You can come here or I can come get you,” he stated.

“I –” I started to say but didn’t move. Apparently my non-movement was answer enough for Mace. His long legs took him across the room in no time. He got close, leaned in, his hand grabbed mine, his hold firm; he yanked me out of my seat to my feet and pul ed me out of the room.

“Oh lordy,” I heard Stevie say from behind me.

“Sugar, that ain’t the
half
of it,” Daisy added and she sounded excited.

Shitsofuckit!

Mace took me through the house and back to the room we’d slept in. I didn’t protest or struggle. So, he heard.

Maybe a little, maybe a lot. So what? Nothing had changed.

Right?

He hauled me in the room, stopped, closed the door and then turned back to me. His hand holding mine drew me near, nearer,
nearer
. He dropped my hand and both of his came to my waist. They slid around to my back and he started to pul me close.

Okay, it was safe to say something definitely had changed.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice breathy, my brain rethinking my decision not to protest or struggle. I had my head tipped back and was staring at his face.

His eyes weren’t blank but broody; they were intense and active.

I put my hands on his chest and he stopped pul ing me close. I figured this was mainly because he couldn’t get me closer without me moving my hands. Our bodies were pressed together, Mace looking down at me from his height, six inches tal er than me (this, for your information, was another of those seven hundred, twenty-five thousand things I missed most about him, him being so tal , since I was also tal , it made me feel petite and protected).

I was beginning to find it hard to breathe.

“You remember I told you after al of this was over, we gotta talk?” he asked.

I nodded, for some reason (okay, it was that look in his I nodded, for some reason (okay, it was that look in his eyes, he’d never looked at me like that, not even when we were together), I was afraid to speak.

“We’re not gonna wait ‘til this is over. We’re gonna talk now.”

Okay, not good. Al of a sudden, I didn’t want to get this over with.

I found my voice. “I’m not sure I want to talk.”

“That’s fine. I’l do the talking.”

Effing hel .

“I’m not sure I want that either,” I tried.

He dipped his head and his face got closer. “Sorry, Kitten. Enough time has been wasted.”

Oh dear. I didn’t like the sound of
that.

I couldn’t stop him that much I knew. When Mace wanted something, Mace got it. I learned that early in our relationship like, the first date when he ended up spending the night, being the first and only guy I’d ever dated who I’d slept with on the first date.

However, thinking positively, maybe I could stal for long enough to get my head together.

“Before you start, tel me how much you heard,” I demanded.

He didn’t even try to screw with me, he just told me flat out, “Al of it.”

Shit!

“What’s the first thing you heard?” I didn’t know why I asked, maybe a form of self-punishment for being such an effing idiot and giving into Al y making me spil .

“The first thing I heard was, ‘Hel o? Stel a? Are you in the room?’”

Yep, he heard al of it.

I must remind you, my luck was not just shitty luck, it was
super
shitty luck.

“It doesn’t change anything,” I told him.

“It changes everything but then everything changed when you sang Hank Wil iams to me.”

Not this again!

“Mace, I’m not going to say it again, I didn’t sing Hank to you.”

“Kitten, the place was packed and stil , you and I were the only ones in that room.”

Sheesh.

“Please, let me go,” I asked, trying a different tactic.

“I didn’t leave you because you needed me.” Mace saw through my new tactic and didn’t think much of it.

I blinked. It felt like it took two days for me to blink; I did it in slow-mo. When my eyes were back to open they were a whole lot wider.

“Excuse me?”

“It wasn’t about you.”

Ah, so it was this game now.

My lips made a soft noise that sounded like, “poof”.

Then I said, “That’s what they al say.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So, it wasn’t me, it was you?”

“No, it was the men who watched you onstage, the ones I’d see gig to gig. Drinkin’ beer and adjusting their crotches and likely goin’ home and jackin’ off, thinking of you singing

‘Black Velvet’.”

“Right.” I sounded sarcastic because I meant to.

His face got closer. “Yeah. That’s right. Listen to me, Stel a, it wasn’t about you. I’m not the kind of man who wants other men jackin’ off to his woman. I’m also not the kind of man who wants to share her with four other guys.” My body went solid and my hands pressed against his chest. “I never cheated on you!”

“Yeah you did, every time you let me take a cal from Buzz or Hugo or Pong or Leo.”

Okay. Shit. Wel .

Um.

I had nothing to say to that because, in a weird way, he wasn’t wrong.

He felt my body relax, he knew he scored a point and he took advantage, pressing closer, his face dipping lower, coming to a stop an inch from mine.

“I knew when I got into it with you that I wouldn’t be the center of your universe. I was fine with that. I just didn’t know I’d be a satel ite.”

At his words, my body did an involuntary jerk.

I hated it that he thought that. I shouldn’t hate it, since I was over him, but I did.

“You weren’t a satel ite,” I whispered.

“I know that now, after hearin’ what you said in the kitchen. I didn’t know it then.” His arms came from around me and his hands went to either side of my neck, his thumbs pressing into the undersides of my jaw to tilt my head further back to look at him. “Kitten,” he said softly,

“you should have told me.”

Hang on a second here.

Was this happening?

And if it was, how was this happening? Why was this happening?

He broke up with me!

“You said I was needy,” I accused on a toss of my hair which, for your information, did nothing to dislodge his hands.

“I said your band was needy,” he contradicted.

“You did not,” I contradicted right back.

“I did. You heard it the way you wanted to hear it. I hate to break this to you but Stel a Gunn is
not
the Blue Moon Gypsies. There’s you and there’s the band. Babe, you gotta find where one ends and the other begins.” He was right. I knew he was right. I’d been worried about that for a long time.

But I wasn’t going to tel him that.

“You have no right to speak to me this way,” I snapped.

“I do.”

“And just how do you figure that?”

“Because the minute you sang the word ‘whippoorwil ’ a coupla months ago, your eyes locked on mine, you became my woman again.”

I jerked my neck away and took a step back.

Erm,
excuse me?

“I did not!” I flashed.

“I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe didn’t want to know it.

“I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe didn’t want to know it.

I definitely fought it. But I gotta say, lookin’ back, you did.”

“I most certainly
did not!
” I yel ed.

He grinned. “Yeah, Kitten, you did.”

I could not believe this was happening. I could also not believe he was
grinning
about it.

He kept talking. “It hit me last night after I told you Lindsey’d been murdered. Your face… fuck.” I watched his eyes grow soft, a look I knew too wel but this look was magnified, like, by a mil ion and I experienced a different kind of gut kick. “I knew then we weren’t done, definitely not over. Then the bul ets were flying around you and in that instant, I became sure.”

“Shut up!” I yel ed, not being nice nor meaning to be nice and wishing I could put my hands over my ears but thinking maybe that was a tad too juvenile.

He didn’t shut up. “I thought I’d wait until the Sid business was over but after what I heard in the kitchen, I’m not waiting.”