Rock Chick 08 Revolution (11 page)

So I had not only not made amends
for being a bitch to Sadie, I had nothing to give to her right now. I didn’t
have the skills to get in there and make her see she was not even
close
to the things she saw in herself.

And that killed me.

“Ally.”

My head jerked at that familiar,
deep, sweet voice and I looked up at Ren.

He was staring down at me looking
gorgeous and worried.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered.

He lifted a hand, and it seemed
like he was going to touch me but I moved before he could.

Fast.

As quick as my four inch stiletto
heels could take me, I dashed to the counter where Sadie had her cash register.

I grabbed my bag.

And I got the fuck out of there.

* * * * *

Three hours later…

I sat in the dark on my ass in my
living room. My back was to the wall, my knees up. I was still in my killer
dress, but I’d taken off my heels.

The Rock Chick phone tree had
been engaged so I’d learned that Sadie was okay. She had her thing, let it out,
and then Duke had done his thing.

Duke worked at Fortnum’s with us.
In fact, Duke had been working at Fortnum’s way before Indy inherited it from
Grandma Ellen, so he was the veteran.

He was a Harley guy with a gray
beard, long gray hair and a rough voice that somehow felt smooth on your soul
whenever he used it (even if he was tearing you a new one while using it; I
know it sounds crazy but it’s true, trust me). He wore Harley tees (always),
leather vests (occasionally) and rolled bandanas around his forehead (without
fail).

And he was wise. Very much so.

Therefore, when the Rock Chicks
came to the point in their drama where it was clear everyone needed to quit
fucking around because they needed their shit sorted—tough love or gentle and
sweet (as the case may be)—Duke stepped in.

So it was Duke who stepped in
with Sadie and sorted her shit.

Duke could do that.

But not me.

I closed my eyes, shook my head
to get my mind off that path, and opened my eyes, pointing my thoughts in a new
direction.

I stared into the dark at the
shadowy shapes in my apartment and commenced trying to figure out what the fuck
was up with me.

And not why Sadie’s outburst that
night so deeply affected me.

I sensed I wasn’t ready to face
that.

No, I thought about where my life
was leading me.

I gazed at the shadows.

I liked my apartment. That said,
it wasn’t much to write home about, but since I wasn’t there often, it didn’t
need to be.

The building was two-story and
built in the fifties. The rooms were not spacious and there was no personality.
Though, the last couple of years, the landlord had pulled out all the dull,
uninspired bathrooms and kitchens and put in new dull, uninspired bathrooms and
kitchens.

Not much, but it was something.

He’d also jacked up the rent.

Annoying but not surprising.

Recently, though, my unit had
been getting a facelift that came all from me.

I had new cushiony, awesome
furniture that invited you to sink in and stay forever (major discount from a person
who used my services who knew a person who owned a furniture store). I had a
new flat screen TV (ditto on the discount, as you know). Due to gift
certificates from other “clients”, I had new kitchen implements (not that I
cooked much, seeing as I was never home; still, gadgets were gadgets, and
everyone needed as many gadgets as they could get), new bathroom towels and
sheets (total lush—I should so totally have gone the way of expensive towels
and sheets
ages
ago; alas, a
bartender/barista couldn’t usually afford luxury).

Also due to my activities, I had
more shoes and clothes in my closet and a collection of gift cards of a variety
of denominations to restaurants, bars and movie theaters.

All payments for my services.

All making life that little bit
sweeter.

I’d done the defensive/evasive
driving course and kicked its ass. I was all
over
defensive/evasive maneuvers in a vehicle and could not wait to
do the chase program. And with more practice at Zip’s and wisdom from Darius,
I’d also cleared the house in C. Springs without killing one innocent.

This shit was it for me.

I loved doing it and I was good
at it.

And it made life better in a
variety of ways.

So I didn’t understand what was
holding me back from going whole hog, getting licensed and putting out a
shingle.

And maybe more importantly, with
all that going so well, why did I think I was missing something?

That you could have someone good and clean and right.

Sadie’s words haunted me, yanking
me back to the path I was avoiding, and I closed my eyes.

I had to get on making amends. I
had to be certain, in my way, to make sure Sadie knew she was part of the
family.

She seemed to be getting there.

But I’d sensed she wasn’t there
entirely.

And tonight proved I was right.

On that thought, a knock came at
my door.

I looked to the door. I didn’t
want to get it. I had no cases brewing. I’d cleared the slate when Sadie’s shit
hit so I could focus on that.

However, since I’d gotten home
that night, my phone had been ringing. All the calls were from the Rock Chicks
to natter about what happened and what we were going to do next about Sadie. So
once I got the “all’s good” with Sadie, I’d turned off my ringer.

Now someone was at my door.

I knew one thing. Behind that
door was not a Rock Chick. They all had their Hot Bunch boys at home and it was
past bedtime. They would be nowhere near my door.

So it was probably someone who
needed me.

I wished I had an office with a
hotline. This hitting my pad business, interrupting me while I was sitting on
my ass in a sexy dress in a dark apartment evaluating my life was not working
for me. Not that that happened all the time, but once was enough.

The knock came again, and when I
gave it time and there was more knocking, I knew they weren’t going to let up.
So it would seem I had to haul my ass off the floor and tell them to take a
hike.

This, I did.

Except when I got to the
peephole, I saw Ren out there.

He wasn’t looking down the hall
this time. He was looking at the doorknob as if he expected to hear the locks
turning.

Fuck.

I pulled away from the peephole
and rested my forehead against the door.

He knocked again.

Fuck!

Okay, I was Ally Nightingale. I
figured whatever this was wasn’t going to be a lot of fun, but I didn’t shy
away from anything.

Sucking in breath, I unlocked the
door and opened it.

Ren stood there in all his glory.

I swallowed the lump that
suddenly clogged my throat and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t look good after
Sadie’s thing, honey,” he answered.

I didn’t look good because I
wasn’t good.

And he’d noticed and done
something about it.

Why couldn’t he be a dick?

I mean, seriously.

I didn’t ask that.

I asked, “Where’s your date?”

“I was worried about you. You
weren’t pickin’ up your phone. Dropped her and came to you.”

Again.

Why couldn’t he be a dick?

Seriously.

“You still don’t look good,
baby,” he whispered, and it happened.

What happened was something that
never happened. Not to me. I was a Nightingale. I was a cop’s daughter. I was
the daughter of a cop’s wife. I was tough. It was born in me
and
bred in me.

So it took serious shit, like
Indy marrying my brother—something she and I both wanted since
forever
—to make me lose it.

But right then, I lost it.

I felt it happen and had no hope
of stopping it. The wet forming in my eyes, making my vision bright. Then the
tear breaking loose and gliding down my cheek. Then one on the other side.

“Ally,” Ren murmured, eyes to my
cheeks.

“I was mean to her,” I whispered.

His eyes came to mine.

“Baby,” Ren whispered back.

Another tear.

“I was mean to her, and that
night, she was raped.”

“Honey.”

Another tear. “She looks like a
fairy princess and she was
raped.
”

Then I totally lost it, taking
two steps back to escape at the same time I stupidly lifted my hands to cover my
face and hide my emotion (which would make escaping difficult, seeing as I
couldn’t
see
).

But I got no further.

The light from the hall was
extinguished because Ren was inside, and I knew this because I was being held
tight in his arms.

As I felt the strength of his
arms surrounding me, the heat from his body penetrating, one of those
hiccoughing sobs burned up my throat and made my body buck in his embrace.

God!

I so totally hated crying!

His arms separated, one going low
and again tight around my waist. The other one moved so his hand could stroke
my back and I heard him encourage into the top of my hair, “Talk to me.”

I didn’t know why I did it. I
just knew I needed to do it and he was the only one around.

So I did it.

I pressed my hands and face into his
chest and let it all hang out.

“I thought she’d been mean to
Daisy. I thought she hated Hector. And I came to Lee’s office the day she came
to Lee’s office to ask for his protection.” My head shot back and I cried, “And
I was mean!”

His hand soothingly stroking my
back (and I had to admit, I’d lost it, but it still was soothing) moved to cup
my jaw and he replied, “I know what went down with Daisy and Sadie, and also
Sadie and Hector, and Sadie’s not the kind of girl who lets people in. So at
the time, honey, you couldn’t think anything different.”

“She got raped that night, Ren!”
I stated loudly.

“I know, baby,” he said
comfortingly.

“Now she’s a Rock Chick and you
heard her tonight!” I kept talking loudly, tears sliding from my eyes. “And I
haven’t figured out how to make amends.”

“You and your posse taking her in
and having her back is doing that, Ally,” he pointed out.

“Obviously not fast enough!” I
returned. “But none of my posse was ugly to her. Except me and Shirleen, but
Shirleen got her chance to make amends. Sadie even
asked
for her.”

And this was true. Shirleen was
Darius’s aunt, Lee’s receptionist, and also a Rock Chick of the Daisy variety
(which meant she wasn’t attached to a Hot Bunch boy, but she was a Rock Chick
all the same).

She’d been snippy with Sadie that
day. But when Sadie finally reported her rape, she’d asked for Shirleen to be
there.

“Ally, baby, what happened with
Sadie tonight didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“I know that,” I snapped, yanking
out of his arms and taking a step away. “But she…” I shook my head. “God, that
monster broke her wrist. Gashed her face. Made her feel tawdry.”

“Come back to me, honey,” Ren
urged.

I shook my head again. “No. I
can’t.” I stopped talking, started pacing then kept babbling. “I have to sort
this out in my head.”

I continued pacing and Ren didn’t
say anything.

This didn’t last very long before
he said something.

“Jesus, you
really
can’t deal with being mean,” Ren murmured incredulously.

I stopped pacing and whipped
around to face him. It was dark but I still could feel he was watching me.

“Not to someone who doesn’t
deserve it!” I yelled. “I’m all for a smackdown if a bitch is a bitch. But
Sadie is no bitch.”

“No, she’s not,” Ren agreed
cautiously.

“So that means I kicked a sister when
that sister was low. I don’t do that shit, Zano.”

“Fuck, you’re back to Zano,” he
muttered.

“What?” I asked sharply.

“Nothing, honey. Just come here,
will you?”

I shook my head again. “No. I…”
my eyes narrowed on him and I re-asked an earlier question. “What are you doing
here?”

He gave me the same answer. “I
was worried about you.”

“You ditched your date because
you were worried about me?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately.

Shit.

What did I do with that?

“Ally, look at me,” he ordered.

I was looking at him, or at least
I was looking at his shadow. But he sensed I wasn’t focused, and how he could
sense that, I had no clue. It weirded me out and made me feel all warm inside
at the same time.

Still, I focused on him and he
sensed when I did that, too.

Yikes.

When I did, hesitantly and
gently, he asked, “Did something like what happened to Sadie happen to you?”

Oh God.

He thought I’d been raped.

That
was why he was worried.

I couldn’t let him think that so
I replied softly, “No, Ren.”

“Back to Ren,” he whispered.

Oh shit.

He was trying to figure me out.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Okay, time to end this.

“I—” I started to do that, but
that was as far as I got.

“Shut up and listen to me.”

I clamped my mouth shut, and I
did this with a bit of surprise and not a bit of temper since he’d suddenly
turned macho alpha on me.

Before I could start yelling, he
started talking.

“I don’t know what’s up with you,
but tonight, watching you at the gallery in a dress that succeeded in making me
fight my dick getting hard faster than that other one, and your response to
what went down with Sadie, I don’t give a fuck.”

He’d been watching me?

When?

And how did I miss that?