Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) (7 page)

Her fairy spell.

He still wasn’t free of it.

The sound of heels on asphalt claimed his attention. Suze sashayed toward him, hips moving, big hair and big boobs bouncing. The necklace he’d bought her at last weekend’s event as thanks for helping smooth that awkward encounter with Cami lay nestled in her abundant cleavage.

Beside him, Spence sighed. “I suppose Irish would gut me if I made a play for his girlfriend.”

Eamon grinned. “I suppose.”

Though Suze had more than a decade on him and Spence, she oozed sex appeal.

Now she put a motherly hand against Eamon’s cheek. His own mom would lose her mind at the gesture, but he ignored anything she had to share about Irish and Suze. Her relationship with the former was understandably fucked up. If he thought about why the latter person infuriated her, then he’d have to conclude his mother still carried a torch for his dad.

So messed up.

Another Rooney romance doomed forever.

“What’s up?” he asked Suze now.

Her free hand toyed with the necklace. “Did I tell you how much I love this?”

“Yes, you did.” He put his hand over the one she held to his cheek. “You did me a favor in a bad moment.” Who the hell knew what he might have said to Cami if Suze hadn’t shown up?

“I’m not sure that was such a good thing,” Suze said now. “But…” Her hand slipped in her back pocket, and she pulled out her phone. “Bart’s been trying to reach you.”

The world went white. His heart stopped beating. “What? What happened?”

“No, no,” Suze said, pushing her device into his hand. “Nothing like that. He just has a question and said you’re not picking up.”

Because he’d turned off his phone, wanting to get away from it all and find that warmth of connection at the compound. On a silent groan, he snatched Suze’s phone and dialed the last call.

Bart’s voice sounded. “You found him?”

“I
am
him,” Eamon ground out. “What’s going on?”

“Oh.” The other man cleared his throat. “We did what you asked. Followed her home from the salvage yard. Stuck around her neighborhood for a while. She’s on the move again, though. What should we do?”

Yeah, Eamon had assigned them to seeing her home from her regular job, too. She worked Wednesday through Saturday for her brother. Once again, she’d made it home safely. But now it was Saturday night, and Cami wasn’t sticking to her place.

Going out on a date? To the store for a gallon of ice cream? “What’s she wearing?”

Bart cleared his throat again. “I don’t know much about female fashion…”

“For God’s sake,” Eamon snapped out. “Yoga pants or high heels?”

“That last one. And a short dress.”

Fuck me.
He closed his eyes. Still, so what? She was safe, right? The Sons hadn’t put the two of them together. Weeks had gone by.

If he set the guys to following her again now, then he was either a stalker or a sadist.

Yet he couldn’t forget the sight of Jules, his favorite barista, sitting on a hospital bed with singed eyebrows and stubby eyelashes and gauze wrapping her forearm.

You still have to stay away from Cami
, his common sense insisted. She probably had a date. Another man.

He got that. But it didn’t mean he could allow her to possibly waltz into trouble. Closing his eyes, he pulled in a long breath. “Follow her,” he said. “Keep me posted.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure.”
Go ahead.
“And report back.”
Fucking drag my bleeding carcass over a bed of coals while you’re at it.

Cami followed the hostess toward the Mexican restaurant’s patio, breathing in the scent of spicy, mouthwatering food. Cilla had called to ask her to a dinner that included Rose, but as she came around the corner she noted her brothers’ fiancées were seated at a long table set for eight. Only one end seat remained empty, as the rest were filled with the other women attached to the Rock Royalty—Alexa, Cleo, Honey, and Ashlynn. A final surprising addition was Jewel. She was the single mother of a baby and lived on the same street as the Lemons’ Laurel Canyon compound.

“What are you all doing here?” she asked, looking around at their smiling faces. “Have I forgotten someone’s birthday?”

Cilla shook her head and jumped up to kiss Cami’s cheek then pull out the free chair for her. “Do we really need a reason to drink margaritas and eat our favorite variety of food on the planet?”

She pushed Cami into the chair. “Sit back.” A waiting margarita glass was pressed into Cami’s hand, salt encrusting the rim. “Drink. Have fun.”

“So bossy,” Cami pretended to complain. Then she leaned toward Jewel, who sat on her left. “I didn’t forget a special occasion, did I?” she whispered. Wrapped up in her own misery as she’d been lately, she could have overlooked any number of things.

The willowy brunette shook her head. “I don’t think so. I got the call that we were convening an emergency Girls’ Night. Since my grandmother is constantly after me to get out of the house and give her a chance at doing all the baby-spoiling, I couldn’t say no.”

“How is Soul?” Cami asked.

Jewel’s daughter looked like a child designed to melt hearts, with her cream-and-roses complexion, big brown eyes, and dark halo of curls.

“Growing up way too fast.” The other woman sighed. “I miss her already.”

“Jewel,” said an admonishing voice from across the table. “No long faces allowed—especially over Soul who will have her mommy back by her side before she’s barely gone to sleep. This is Girls’ Night.”

Emergency Girls’ Night, Cami remembered, as Jewel mock-saluted.

They’d arranged this for her, she realized, while a server went about setting down baskets of hot tortilla chips and clay bowls of salsa and guacamole. Tonight they intended for her to forget her troubles.

The least she could do was oblige them, she thought, then lifted her hand to catch the server’s attention. “A round of tequila shots as well, please. For all eight of us.”

Cilla groaned. “Cam—”

“And a second for her,” she said, pointing at her sister-in-law-to-be. “To start.”

Thanks to the liquor and the luscious food, the mood at the table continued to elevate as the evening wore on. The women shared stories about work, men, sex, and weddings. With Cilla’s in the offing, it only took a nudge for the youngest Rock Royalty princess to go starry-eyed over her plans with Ren, Cami’s big brother.

Cami’s gaze circled the group, taking in their smiling and flushed faces, and a great affection welled up inside her. She got to her feet, swaying a little on the strappy sandals with their thin heels, accustomed as she was to her more comfortable leather boots. With a fork, she tapped the side of a glass.

The puny sound didn’t come close to interrupting the cacophony created by seven chattering females. She snorted out a laugh.

Whoops. Might be a little drunk.

But that was okay if it kept her troubles at bay.

This time, she rapped her knuckles on the table, loud enough to cause seven pairs of eyes to swivel her way. She grinned at her posse, the girls—women—who had gathered together when one of their own was down.

“All my life,” she said, “I…I was apart. From the crazy Lemons parties—okay, I admit that was a good thing—from my brothers, from the rest of the Rock Royalty. Even from Cilla, who was as locked away as me, but in her tower across the compound.”

The younger woman’s blue eyes went even brighter from unshed tears. “Oh, Cam.”

She smiled at her, well-being rising so high in her chest it pushed her heart toward her throat so that she had to clear it. “Don’t cry. Because now I have all of you wonderful people gathered around me. Wonderful friends. Thank you,” she said, lifting her glass to one side of the table then the other. “Thank you.”

Cilla wiped her cheeks, the others clapped and cheered, and Cami sank back into her seat—just as that happy wave reached its peak…and crashed over her, leaving her flung, starfish-style, on the sand.

Their chattering voices rose around the table again, but Cami sat, breathless and helpless, as a second wave rose from the dregs of first. This time its power crushed her—flooding her with a freezing, drenching loneliness.

Trying to breathe through the pain of it, she glanced at Rose, who had launched into some story about taking uber-macho Payne down a peg or two, and then at Honey, who was laughing so hard she was clutching her stomach. Pre-Walsh’s love, his admin had been a shy mouse who used to hide in corners. Now she bloomed in the sunshine of his feelings for her.

Engaged in a side conversation, Alexa and Cleo focused on a drawing Lex had made on a napkin. Probably a wedding dress design. Lex’s family ran a bridal salon business, and both women were knee-deep in details and anticipation over their upcoming nuptials to their devoted Rock Royalty princes.

Ashlynn, still new to the tribe, sat quietly at the other end of the table, but there was a serenity about her that told of the security she’d found in the shelter of Brody’s embrace.

The women were Cami’s friends, that was sure, and she was thrilled for them and their bright futures. But it didn’t get past her that despite their warm companionship tonight, they had something she did not. Each had another, more intimate partner who made them whole, or stronger, or whatever it was that happened to a couple when they made a lasting commitment. Perhaps just…less feeling alone?

Cami wasn’t certain exactly. She only knew that even as a welcomed part of this tribe, of this family, she continued to be the one on the outside because the kind of love they’d found continued to elude her. Not all that long ago she’d told Cilla, who’d been sporting a brand-new tattoo that was the other half of one that Ren bore, that she hoped she’d never fall in love.

Now, she hadn’t changed her mind.

It hadn’t made her happy, had it? Not a jot less alone.

“Cami?”

A cool hand touched her wrist, startling her. Her head turned to see Jewel gazing on her with concern. “I…um, yes?”

“Are you okay?”

With effort, Cami pinned on a small smile. “Sure. Overwhelmed, I guess.”

Jewel laughed. “I know what you mean. I’m sure I’ve never heard so much discussion about wedding cakes and bridal veils and seating charts at one place and at one time.”

Cami leaned close. “I’ve learned to block out most of it.”

“Good thinking.” Jewel patted her arm again.

Cami picked up her current margarita, tossed it back, then eyed the woman next to her. She was a single mom with no man in sight, as far as Cami knew.

“Does it…” But even half-drunk, she couldn’t pry. Perhaps Jewel had chosen to visit a sperm bank and conceive without the risk of falling for some guy. “Never mind.”

“Does it make me feel a little forlorn that I haven’t found my mate?”

Cami shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe that’s not on your agenda. You have Soul, after all—”

“I was in love with her daddy,” Jewel admitted. “Pretty good high, then…”

“A no-good low,” Cami guessed.

The place she wallowed in right now, and if she didn’t get up from this table in the next thirty seconds, the emergency Girls’ Night was going to be ruined when she laid down her head, and then all her troubles, on the table.

Taking another look at the cheery faces around her, Cami knew what she had to do.

With another smile tacked on her face, she popped to her feet. “Peeps,” she called out. “Sisters.”

Their heads turned her way.

“I’ve got an early, uh, appointment in the morning, so I’m going to have to say goodnight.”

Frowns overtook more than one face.

“What?” protested Cilla.

Rose’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t think you should be driving.”

“There’s an app for that one tap away,” Cami said, hand going into her purse for her phone. “Now you guys have a great rest of your night.”

And she scuttled off, her spirits lifting as she made it out the door before anyone could voice another objection. Outside, she found a driver for a popular car service just dropping off a passenger. The man behind the steering wheel obligingly agreed to take her home and her mood lightened more.

A phrase from an old song floated through her mind. Judy Garland singing about chasing your cares away in order to get happy. She hummed it to herself on the short ride, and even while she exited the car and waved it off. Her footsteps might have been a trifle unsteady on the walkway—how many tequila shots had she downed?—and she blinked at her door as she approached.

It looked funny. Odd. The light coming through the panes of the upper half of the Dutch door had a different quality. Perplexed, she approached the entry, trying to understand what she was seeing. Broken glass? That couldn’t be. Peering into the dimly lit foyer, she noted her favorite guitar braced against the wall where she’d left it—
and it was peppered with holes!

Her gasp sounded loud in her own ears, maybe even like a choked shriek, and without thinking she reached toward her precious instrument, her hand passing through jagged, broken shards that tore into her flesh.

Now she emitted a true shriek and yanked her hand back, causing more cuts. Shocked, she stared at the welling redness that ran in drips down her hand. Her head spun. Stupid tequila, she thought hazily. Stupid troubles, stupid heart.

Stupid…blood.

Blood?
As she stood there trying to make sense of things, heavy footsteps sounded.

Her head whipped up, and she saw two men rushing in her direction. As she lurched back, her shoulders hit the door and more glass fell with a tinkling sound. Her heart pounded against her chest.

“What—” she started, holding up her hand. More blood dripped. “Stay away.”

One of the men—gray-haired, sturdy—halted, leaving six feet between them. He half-turned his head but kept his gaze on Cami and spoke to the younger man over his shoulder. “Call Eamon.”

Eamon
? Her mouth moved. “I don’t want—”

The interruption sounded somewhere between a growl and a death threat. “Call Eamon.
Now
.”

Chapter 4

Eamon parked two blocks away from Cami’s cottage on a short, narrow side street and prowled in the direction of her house, keeping to the shadows, all of his senses on alert. It was just midnight and the neighborhood homes were quiet and the roads deserted.