And when we left, looking out my window with a totally freaked out Kevster at my side, Ren and Lee were nose to nose, and neither of them looked happy.

I was not either, being carted off like a girl (or a pothead) who needed to be protected.

What was that all about it?

I also wanted to know why Lee and Ren were in each other’s faces, but neither of them were answering their phones. Sadly, before I could try to get to either by proxy, as in calling Indy to call Lee, my phone ran out of juice.

The Kevster didn’t have one.

And Mace had destroyed Lee’s office phone in a fit of (justifiable) rage during his and Stella’s drama and Lee elected not to replace it. This meant Shirleen couldn’t transfer annoying phone calls from clients that he didn’t want to handle and therefore he could spend more of his time “in the field.”

It also meant, since we were locked in (again, locked in), I was incommunicado.

And I was steaming.

My apartment had exploded!

What the fuck was that?

And here I was, pacing in an office across town, not knowing anything, and worse, not able to do anything, all because the macho alphas in my life deemed it fit I should be carted away.

I had been, at the time, semi-flipped out, seeing as my apartment had exploded, so I didn’t argue.

I made a mental note to delay flip outs in future so I would not give the macho alphas in my life the opportunity to treat me like a girl.

After making this mental note, I eyed Kevin and decided I’d given him enough time to control his freak out, or get it together enough to converse with me (insofar as The Kevster could do either, even when things weren’t exploding) so I moved to Lee’s desk. I rested my hips against it and looked down at Kevin.

His wide eyes looked up at me.

Okay, maybe I hadn’t given it enough time.

Still, I had to do something.

“Kevin, do you feel like talking?” I asked carefully.

“I nearly exploded,” he told me instead of answering.

“I know. You may have saved Ren’s and my life, and dude, I don’t know how to thank you for that. That was way cool. I’ll try to figure out a way to express my gratitude, but now we need to talk. I gotta know how you knew—”

The door opened before I could finish and my eyes went there.

Lee was prowling in, but looking behind him, arm raised, finger pointing at something or someone.

I watched him order angrily, “Keep the Rock Chicks back and I don’t give a fuck what it takes to do it.”

Then his eyes came to me and coming in behind him were first Ren then Hank, Eddie, Luke and Mace.

“What’s—?” I started but Lee jerked his finger toward my face and interrupted me.

“You. Shut it,” he growled then turned his attention to The Kevster and jerked his finger in Kevin’s face. “You, tell us how you knew there was a bomb.”

I clenched my teeth and my eyes flew to Ren.

He was looking at me and he looked even less happy than me. But he jerked his head in a negative shake once and looked to Kevin.

I did too and saw that The Kevster was fidgeting, his eyes darting from me to Lee to different men in the room then to Lee again and he said, “I, uh… dude, I—”

Lee leaned into him and roared, “Tell me how you knew there was a bomb planted in my sister’s apartment!”

I pushed away from the desk. “Lee,” I started cautiously. “He’s freaked. Give him a minute.”

Lee turned blazing brown eyes to me. “Your best bet right now, Ally, is to keep your mouth shut. I’ll get to you.”

He’d get to me?

I felt my eyes get big. “Excuse me?”

Lee turned fully to me and planted his hands on his hips. “One day, my sister gets up in the business of every dirty power broker in a hundred mile radius of Aspen. The next day her apartment explodes. You puttin’ these pieces together or do I gotta do it for you?”

Oh I did not think so!

I leaned into him and started to snap, “Don’t you—”

“It was Rosie.”

That was said by The Kevster, and both Lee and my eyes shot to him.

“Say again?” Lee demanded.

“Rosie’s back,” The Kevster told Lee, and then looked at me. “I mean, dudette, he didn’t plant the bomb. But he may have, um… dropped your name, to some, uh… people and, uh… well, that didn’t go too good.”

What the hell?

“Rosie’s back?” I asked.

“Yeah. He’s back and he might have, uh… brought some trouble with him.”

Lee dropped his head and looked at his boots.

I stared at The Kevster.

I saw movement and turned to see it was Ren who was the one moving.

Taking one look at his face, belatedly I felt the weight of the air and I knew he was not just angrier than me. He was livid.

I moved quickly, got in front of him, put a hand on his chest and caught his eyes. “Let me, Ren. Please,” I asked quietly.

“You got two minutes, babe. Then it’s me,” he replied.

I stared into his eyes.

Yep. Livid.

Hmm. Better get a move on.

I nodded, turned my back to him and looked down at The Kevster.

Kevin was looking up at us, so he saw it when Ren’s arm curled around my upper chest.

Seeing that, his eyes lighted and he cried, “Dudette! You two finally comin’ out?”

Jeez. Even The Kevster knew about me and Ren.

“Maybe we can discuss my love life over Cheetos and beer later. Right now, and fast, Kevin, you need to tell us about Rosie, what he’s up to and how this concerns me.”

“And how you knew there was a bomb in Ally’s apartment,” Hank butted in.

Kevin looked to Hank when he spoke and got visibly more uncomfortable (then again, Hank had had him arrested during the Premier Rock Chick Drama, which would be Indy’s). When Hank was done speaking, Kevin’s eyes came to me.

“Right. Well. You know he grows. Yeah?” he asked.

I nodded. “I know he grows.”

“And you know things got hot here when he was growin’ in Denver,” The Kevster went on.

I nodded again, lifting a hand and rolling it because I knew that too. Intimately. I was the one who found his ass, and I’d also been there when Hank had The Kevster arrested for trying to save Rosie’s unattended pot farm—a pot farm unattended because Rosie was in hiding.

“And I think I told you he’s the maestro of pot,” Kevin continued.

“Skip to the parts we don’t know,” Luke ordered, and Kevin fidgeted again in his seat as he looked to Luke then back to me.

“He kind of recently moved to New Mexico,” The Kevster said.

Finally, something I didn’t know.

“And?” I prompted.

 “Well, he started growing,” Kevin stated and I closed my eyes.

Rosie.

All that trouble he had the last time, and, I might add, brought down on Indy, and he was growing again?

What a fucking idiot.

I opened my eyes again when The Kevster kept at it. “He established a fanbase, like, real quick. So some dudes wanted in on the action. As you know, that’s history repeating.”

Oh, I knew this, too.

“Rosie was having flashbacks, not the good kind, and he’d heard word you were establishing yourself as the Badass Queen of Denver,” Kevin stated.

At this, Ren’s arm got tight and I sighed.

The Kevster kept going. “And so, you know, for protection, he dropped your name.”

Ren made a noise that sounded like a growl and I was pretty certain I heard others, primarily from Lee and Hank. But fortunately The Kevster had finally found his mojo and was on a roll.

“The dudes down there tryin’ to horn in on his action don’t know you’re a badass with badass backup. They apparently were unimpressed.”

Great.

Kevin went on.

“So they stopped tryin’ to horn in and just did it. Rosie got pissed. Told them he was comin’ to get you to take care of business and he hightailed it up here. They followed him. He came to me because I knew where to find you. I didn’t get a good feeling about things, because, you know, he was totally tweaked. And Rosie’s usually mellow. When he’s tweaked, dudette, that means bad things.”

It so did.

Kevin carried on.

“I talked to him and got him to bare all. This included the fact that one of those New Mexican dudes blows stuff up in the New Mexico boonies all the time. So that Rosie didn’t, like, lead them to you, I came to tell you this was all going down, and saw some dude who I knew was not your style comin’ out of your apartment. I figured they found you without Rosie. He didn’t see me, so I followed him and he was just sittin’ in his car in your parking lot. But he had this little box in his hand.”

“Fuck me,” Ren murmured.

Kevin talked over Ren. “I figured he was waiting for you to get there so he could, you know…”

He trailed off. The room became stifling, so I urged him to go on, saying, “I know.”

Kevin nodded. “So he wouldn’t see me, I went in and kept an eye out. But you were takin’ a long time to come home, so I went to the stairwell I thought you’d use and had myself a doobie to smooth out the rough edges and pass the time.” His eyes went to Hank and he stated quickly, “It’s legal now, you know.”

“I know,” Hank growled, his thoughts on that matter not hidden even in those two words.

Again, I sighed.

“What I don’t know,” Hank stated. “Is why you saw a strange man walking out of my sister’s apartment and sitting in her parking lot, holding a box you knew was a detonator, and you didn’t phone the police.”

“The police?” Kevin asked, like the concept of law enforcement was foreign to him.

Hank said nothing, obviously realizing this conversation would lead to nothing good. But I saw his jaw clench.

The Kevster clearly also decided conversing longer with Hank would lead to nothing good, so he gave up, looked my way and kept going. “So, obviously, I missed you. Luckily I came up as you were comin’ up and,” he flicked out his hands, “we’re all breathing.”

“Where’s Rosie now?” Eddie asked, and Kevin looked at him.

“My place,” he answered.

“Mace, roll out,” Lee ordered, but Mace was already moving to the door.

I looked back at Kevin. “Why would Rosie think I’d help him?”

“’Cause you guys are buds,” The Kevster informed me.

“Since when?” I asked.

The Kevster looked confused. “You’re not buds?”

“He got my best friend in a situation where she nearly got kidnapped to Costa Rica,” I replied. “No, we’re not buds.”

“Dudette, that was like, years ago. Forgiveness is divine,” Kevin told me.

“Kicking ass feels better,” I replied.

At my words his eyes got big and he grinned a goofy grin. “You are so totally badass.” Then he threw his arms up in the air and cried, “Rock Chicks rule!”

This was true, all of it, but I didn’t get the chance to agree with him. Lee took over.

“There are uniforms in reception. You’re goin’ with Eddie now and making your statement. Then, until this shit blows over, you’re in my safe room.”

The Kevster’s eyes stayed big, but for a different reason this time.

He bounced in his seat and cried, “Dude! No! You have a no-smoking policy!”

“Man, you nearly got blown up today,” Lee reminded him. “You can stay here and stay off the weed or you can go out there and take your chances. Your choice. You got two seconds to make it.”

“Can I crack a window?” Kevin asked.

“No,” Lee answered.

Kevin slouched in his chair. “Bummed, dude.”

“Are you accepting my protection?” Lee pushed.

“Things get hairy when a Rock Chick is under fire so… I guess,” The Kevster accepted ungraciously.

But at his words, Ren’s arm got tight again.

Lee looked to Eddie, but Eddie was looking at Kevin. “Up. Now. Let’s go.”

The Kevster pushed up and his eyes came to me.

“Stay alive,” he advised as he walked by me.

That got another tightening of Ren’s arm and another sigh from me.

The door closed behind Eddie and Kevin and all attention focused on me.

Or I should say Ren and me.

“Where’s Darius?” Lee asked me.

“He and Brody started down the mountain before Ren and me so he should be in Denver,” I answered. “Listen, Lee—”

He lifted a hand close to my face and shifted his eyes to Ren.

My body strung tight.

“I take it you two are makin’ it official,” Lee noted.