Holy shit.

I nearly wet myself.

The way Lee said that made me shiver and not in the usual way Lee made me shiver.

Wilcox sighed, obviously overwhelmed by the stupidity of his workforce. Clearly, sometimes it’s tough being the leader of the bad guys.

“It was Teddy,” Wilcox answered.

Lee nodded, walked toward me and pulled me off the couch.

“It was nice to meet you,” Wilcox said calmly as Lee escorted me out of the room, his hand curled around my upper arm.

I looked over my shoulder and said (perhaps feeling a bit tougher now that Scary Lee was with me). “The pleasure was all yours.”

I heard him laugh as we left.

Lee did not laugh, Lee ignored the whole exchange.

Lee put me into the passenger seat of his silver Crossfire and got in the driver’s side, started the car and we shot from the curb. Before I could say a word, he grabbed his cell and punched a number.

“Pick up Teddy and take him to the office,” he paused, “Coxy’s boy.”

Then he hit a button and tossed the cell on the console.

Yep, angry.

“Ally...” I started to say.

“She’s fine.”

I took in a breath.

“How did you know where I was?”

“I’ve got a man at Rosie’s. He saw the whole thing.”

Uh, say what?

“Why didn’t he do something?” I asked, somewhat loudly.

“He didn’t know who you were,” Lee paused, “now he knows.”

Yikes.

I decided not to talk loudly anymore.

“You have a man?”

His eyes moved to me, his face was blank, he was still angry. He turned back to the road.

“I have a lot of men.”

“Oh.”

I found that surprising but I decided that maybe it was not the time to give Lee the third degree about his secret life, such as how many men he had and how he knew lowlife kidnapping scum like “Coxy”. I wasn’t even certain I wanted to know about his secret life, in fact, I think I was more certain I didn’t want to know.

Maybe it was the time to begin planning how to avoid Lee again. However, I didn’t know how to accomplish that when I was actually with Lee.

The house I was taken to was in the Denver Country Club area, very ritzy, very wealthy. Lee hit Speer Boulevard and drove faster than was allowed or safe, changing lanes on the three lane road deftly and often. I decided it was probably best not to say anything about this as Lee’s energy wasn’t exactly inviting conversation and definitely not admonishments about driving safety.

He passed the turn to Broadway.

“I need to go back to the store,” I informed him.

He ignored me.

“Lee, I need to get back to the store,” I repeated.

He continued to ignore me and headed downtown, toward his condo.

Damn.

I sat back and crossed one arm on my stomach, still holding the ice to my cheek and I evaluated my situation.

Firstly, I clearly was not in any position of power here. Lee was driving, Lee was angry and Lee was, as per usual, going to do whatever he damn well wanted to do.

Secondly, I’d been kidnapped. I tried to ignore that.

Thirdly, I’d been kidnapped. I couldn’t ignore that.

Big, bad, steroid-fuelled guys dragged me out of my car, made me go unconscious somehow and took me someplace I didn’t want to go.

Post-traumatic stress settled in and my hands started shaking.

Lee drove into the underground garage, parked and came around to open my door. We walked to the elevator, Lee’s hand at the small of my back.

We stood together in the elevator. Curiosity and a desire to end the frightening silence made me say, “They did something to make me black out.”

“Stun gun,” Lee replied shortly, his features showing his thoughts were grim.

I started shaking some more. Someone had stun-gunned me.

Holy crap.

I’d never even seen a stun gun before, now one had been used on me.

He let us into his apartment and I followed him into the kitchen. I was mildly surprised when he took a gun out of the back waistband of his jeans and set it on the kitchen counter.

Being the daughter of a cop, guns didn’t scare me. Dad taught me years ago how to respect a firearm. He did this by showing me how to use them, taking me to the shooting range a couple of times a year and lecturing a lot. He was always careful with his guns in the house, what with me, Ally and all of our friends running around. Nevertheless, Lee casually setting a gun on the kitchen counter like it was a pizza cutter was a trifle frightening.

Then he turned and opened his mouth to speak.

Or, by the look on his face, perhaps roar.

Before he could get a word in, I threw up both of my hands, waving around the ice bag.

“Don’t start!” I yelled and let the trembling take over my body just as I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes.

Definitely delayed reaction.

To keep from crying, or collapsing, I started shouting.

“Oh. My. God! I’ve just been stun-gunned and kidnapped and hit in the face by a guy! And it hurt!” Lee closed his mouth and started toward me but I threw out my arm to ward him off. “No, no, no! Don’t come near me!” He stopped and crossed his arms on his chest.

I paced to the sink, and then back, then to the sink, and so on, holding the ice to my cheek with one hand and waving the other one around in the air, the whole time babbling.

“I mean, this is unreal! Rosie’s disappeared and he’s half-idiot so who knows where he is. I’ve been shot at, stun-gunned, pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by my ankle! There’s a million dollars worth of diamonds out there and that dude wanted to have a chat with me about them. I don’t know anything about them. I haven’t even seen them! What’s worse, I think Grandpa Munster has the hots for me and I think you’ve just done something that makes me owe you another favor, which does not make me happy.” I took a breath and continued. “Not to mention, I’m dog-tired. I’ve not been able to have my nap yet today and last, but definitely not least, I’m starving because I had cupcakes for lunch! Cupcakes!”

I’d stopped my tirade standing in the middle of his kitchen, my arms straight down, my hands clenched into fists, the ice bag dripping and I was trying not to cry. I’d been brought up by a man without a wife who loved me to death but also wanted a boy. Crying wasn’t something that was tolerated. Crying was sissy.

I took a shaky breath to control my emotions and I think my bottom lip may have trembled. Lee assessed that the shouting was over and took a step toward me, grabbed the bag of ice, threw it in the sink and slid his hands around my waist.

“Cupcakes?” he asked.

I hauled in another shaky breath.

“Yes, cupcakes.”

The wrinkles next to his eyes creased.

“We need to get you some food.”

I nodded in agreement.

His grim thoughts were gone and so was his anger. His face had changed, the tightness relaxed, something entirely different there.

One of his hands went to my temple by where Terrible Teddy socked me in the face and Lee tucked my hair behind my ear. Then he let his hand rest against my hair with his thumb splayed and gentle on the underside of me cheekbone. His gaze rested on my cheek for a couple of beats then he looked in my eyes.

“First, maybe we should do the nap,” he said quietly.

I ignored his soft touch and his words, which held a little promise of what might happen before or after the nap (or both).

I’d had enough.

I needed a bottle of red wine and a darkened room and the Disco Nap to beat all Disco Naps. And not one that happened with Lee next to me, preferably one that happened with Lee not even in the same state as me.

“I’d like to go home please,” I requested, trying to sound calm and rational, over my tirade and unaffected by his intimate gesture.

He changed the subject.

“I told you this morning to stay in the condo,” he said this with just a hint of soft menace but more accepting-yet-frustrated-annoyance (yes, I could read all this in his tone, I’d known Lee a long time).

“I don’t often do what I’m told,” I noted.

He shook his head, likely a gesture to indicate he thought of my stupidity as irritating but cute (at least I hoped so).

Then he brushed his lips against mine (that counted as a half a kiss too, which put me at four kisses from Lee in one, single day).

“These are really bad guys. They may seem like imbeciles, but they’re not nice guys,” he said. “You don’t mess with these guys.”

“They’re scared of you,” I told him.

“I can probably protect you from them, I likely can’t protect you from yourself. What did you think you were you doing?”

“I was looking for Rosie,” I said out loud.

“I thought I was looking for Rosie.”

“If I find him first, then I don’t owe you anything.”

“You owe me for this afternoon.”

“That wasn’t that hard, you just walked in and took me out. That’s only worth, say, me making you a batch of cookies.” His lips twitched. I decided to change the subject. “Please take me home.”

He shook his head and watched me for a beat.

“Leave Rosie to me,” he demanded.

I didn’t respond. I may have been shot at, stun-gunned and kidnapped which would make any logical-minded person back off. Not me. Now, I was on a mission. I was going to find Rosie, beat the crap out of him, turn the diamonds over to Terry Wilcox and then move to Bangladesh to avoid Lee, and, possibly, Terry Wilcox.

“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” Lee said. “You look like you looked when your Dad told you that you couldn’t go to Vegas to see Whitesnake in concert.”

Hmm. That was a good concert and very worth the month’s grounding I got when I returned.

Lee’s arm around my waist brought me closer, in direct, full-frontal contact.

“You better be worth the trouble you’re undoubtedly gonna cause,” he said softly, his lips very close to mine.

Somewhere along the line I got mesmerized by his dark brown eyes.

“Of course I’m worth it,” I whispered.

Damn it all! I was losing control and beginning to flirt.

I tipped my head back and licked my lips, my tongue touching his lips as I did so.

“Jesus,” Lee muttered.

The door buzzer went.

He ignored it, his hand at my face moved back to tangle in my hair, his other arm tightened further at my waist.

I went up on tiptoe to get closer.

The door buzzer went again, this time, whoever was pushing it didn’t let up.

“Maybe it’s Rosie,” I said.

“Shit,” Lee let me go and walked to the door.

Two minutes later, the entirety of both our families walked through the door.

“We’ve decided we’re going to have a celebratory dinner,” Kitty Sue announced as she came in.

“You decided, the rest of us were all just hungry,” Malcolm said, starting to smile at me then the smile froze on his face.

Indeed, everyone stopped dead when they saw me.

“What happened to you?” Dad shouted.

Hmm. I hadn’t seen my face but clearly it looked as bad as it felt.

Malcolm Nightingale’s sons looked like him, even now that he was getting older, he looked fit and lean and his face was still handsome and interesting. He kept in shape by running, a lot, sometimes traveling around the country to do marathons.

Tom Savage was tall, with a still-handsome face, sky blue eyes and most of the time, he could be very charming. He had salt and pepper hair and had been built like a defensive lineman when he was young. Over the years, that had given way to just a bit of a pot-belly fueled by beer and his obsession for Mexican food.

He turned to Lee. “You hit her?”

I took in a sharp breath at this insulting question and so did everyone else.

Lee stared at Dad for a beat and then I watched as his face closed down. He leaned his hips against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms on his chest and didn’t deign to answer.

Dad loved Lee, Dad thought about Hank, Lee and Ally like Malcolm and Kitty Sue thought about me. I knew Dad even admired Lee.

But Dad was a cop and he knew things about Lee and his past that I didn’t know, things of which he didn’t approve. Things that made Lee being involved with his daughter not a happy circumstance to celebrate.