Kristen Ashley - Rock Chick

Tex had followed us out.

“Was that Tim?” I asked Tex.

“Yep.”

“Ohmigod.”

“Please tell me you didn’t touch anything in there,” Lee said to me.

I shook my head.

“Please tell me you didn’t break that window,” Lee went on.

“I did the breakin’ and the enterin’ for both of us. After I did the breakin’, I threw her through the window,” Tex offered this information and Lee’s eyes cut to Tex.

“I’m sorry?” Lee asked and his voice was scary.

Tex seemed not to notice it. “She was gettin’ second thoughts.”

Lee stared at Tex for a beat.

“Jesus,” he muttered then he pointed at me. “Stay here. Don’t move.” His finger moved to Tex. “You come with me.”

Lee tossed the goggles to Tex and they re-entered the house. I was a little surprised that Tex followed Lee’s command but then again, Lee was using that “brook no argument” tone again.

I sat down on the grass, too freaked out to stand any longer and I put my forehead on my knees.

I feared this did not bode well for Rosie and I feared more that this did not bode well for Duke.

They came back out, Lee closed the door, fiddled with the handle and then walked toward me, removing surgical gloves.

“No Rosie,” he told me.

“Thank God,” I said on a whoosh and didn’t realize I was holding my breath.

He put a hand on my upper arm and hauled me up.

“I’m callin’ Hank in on this one.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

“You can’t! He’s gonna freak that I’m here!”

“You weren’t here, Tex was here. Tex, the concerned neighbor,” Lee replied.

“That’s me. Everyone around here knows I’m a concerned neighbor. Gotta go make a call.” Tex put his big hand on top of my head. “You did good, for a girl, didn’t puke or nothin’.”

“Thanks Tex,” I said on a shaky smile not quite sure that was a compliment but willing to accept it as one all the same.

Tex ambled off and Lee dragged me to a Mercedes sedan. He’d hit a button on his cell phone and was waiting for it to ring through.

“Lee…” I said.

He pulled me to a stop at the passenger side, opened the door and pushed me in. He stood in the opening of the door while his call was picked up. I sat in the car too freaked out by the dead body to fume at him pushing me around.

“Hank, a call’s gonna come into 911 soon. I need to talk to you about it.” Pause. “Yeah.” Then he disconnected.

Lee slammed my door and got in on the driver’s side of the car.

I turned to him. “I have a car here, it’s my neighbor’s, my bag’s in there, I have to –”

Lee held up a hand and I stopped talking.

“What you have to do is keep your mouth shut until we get back to the condo so I can take that time to talk myself out of strangling you.”

Yikes.

I felt it prudent to do as he requested. I’d had a rough couple of days, I didn’t want it to end in strangulation. And anyway, Lee was such a badass, even if it didn’t end in strangulation, he might come up with some more creative punishment.

Lee didn’t say word one until we were in his condo. He dragged me by the arm into the bedroom, pulled out a drawer and threw me a t-shirt.

“Get ready for bed,” he said to me.

I immediately saw red.

It was not surprising. I wasn’t one of his boys, I wasn’t one of the troops, I wasn’t a child, he couldn’t tell me what to do. I’d had a tough night, I’d seen a dead body, for goodness sake!

I was willing to give him some leeway with his being pushy when I was in the vicinity of said dead body but this was too much.

“No!” I snapped. “Stop telling me what to do. I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want –”

I didn’t say any more because Lee came at me, I backed up and slammed against the wall. Lee’s body came up against mine and he bent his face so he was nose-to-nose with me.

“You want your Dad to see crime scene photos of you, dead, sitting on that sweet ass of yours with your brains splattered against the wall?”

Yikes.

My stomach lurched and my legs went weak.

“No.”

“Then this ends tonight.”

I stared at him.

“Indy, by God, if you don’t promise me –”

“Of course it ends tonight! I just saw a dead body! You can’t think I’m that stupid.”

His face said he thought I was that stupid.

“Lee! Rosie’s my friend. He’s out there, somewhere. And they’re not only looking for him, they’re looking for Duke. And now they’re killing people.”

“I’ll find him and I’ll find Duke.”

We looked at each other for what seemed like days. His brown eyes were hard and angry. I tried to tell myself that all his anger wasn’t directed at me but I was having trouble believing it.

My gaze slid away. “I couldn’t have known I was going to find that tonight,” I whispered.

“I told you these were bad guys.”

My gaze slid back.

“What kind of job do you do that you know about this shit?”

He shook his head. He’d moved back an inch so we weren’t nose-to-nose anymore but he was still close.

“Un-unh, you aren’t gonna make this about me.”

I moved out from between him and the wall and I stomped to the bathroom on my favorite parting line.

“Whatever.”

I brushed my teeth with what now seemed like my toothbrush which was cozily resting next to Lee’s.

I tried not to think of my day’s plan of not ending up in Lee’s car, company, condo or bed, all of which I’d failed to do. I tried not to think of Tim Shubert, dead and smelly and left to rot in his house while his neighbors worried about him. I tried not to think of Rosie or Duke in a similar position either now or later. I tried not to think of Tod and Stevie’s car, which I had left outside a crime scene. I tried not to think of what a fuck up I was or how Lee could move around in these situations so casually, without blinking an eye.

I got undressed and put his t-shirt on. It was huge on me and had a Night Stalkers insignia emblazoned across the chest. Too big, I was going to get tangled up in it the way I slept but I wasn’t going to tell Lee that.

Plus, it was a fucking cool shirt.

I walked into the bedroom, about to dump my clothes on my bag, which I’d left on the floor, when I saw my bag was missing.

“Where’s my bag?” I asked Lee as he walked into the room, coming toward me. I dumped my clothes on an armchair.

“Judy unpacked you,” Lee replied, still coming toward me, he grabbed my wrist and walked me toward the bed.

“Judy?” I asked, not paying much attention because I was thinking of being “unpacked”, my clothes hanging next to Lee’s. My undies in a drawer. My toothbrush next to his. My body in his bed. How did this happen so fast? It had only been two days, for God’s sake! Whatever happened to taking it slow?

“My housekeeper.”

“You have a housekeeper?” I was shocked he had a housekeeper. I was shocked that I was kind of living with a man who I didn’t know had a housekeeper. I was shocked that I was kind of living with a man, period, dot, the end, much less that man being Lee.

He pushed me gently and I fell back on the bed and finally realized where I was and what he was doing.

“Lee –”

Then he moved fast, he pulled my wrist over my head, leaned into me, I heard a snap and ratchet, then I heard another snap and ratchet.

Then I was handcuffed to his bed.

“What the hell!” I yelled.

I was on my back, my left arm over my head and cuffed to one of the slats in the headboard of Lee’s mission-style bed. Lee was leaning over me.

“I’m goin’ out and I’m makin’ sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“You can’t leave me handcuffed to your bed! What if there’s a fire, a break in?”

He shook his head, pushed away from me and got off the bed.

“I won’t do anything stupid,” I told him, my voice just this side of seriously pissed off saying clearly that the first stupid thing I’d do when he let me go was kill him.

He came back, leaned in and kissed my forehead.

“I know.”

Then he walked across the room, turned off the light and was gone.

Fucking, fucking Lee.

* * *

Normally, I could sleep just about anywhere, crash on someone’s couch, in a double bed with four other people (mainly because my activity cleared the bed), in the back of a van.

I was learning I had a great many life skills I had not known I possessed, such as running away when people were shooting at me, holding my own when I’d been kidnapped and not throwing up when I found a dead body.

Unfortunately, those new life skills did not include being able to sleep while I was cuffed to Liam Nightingale’s bed.

I found a somewhat comfortable position and tried to sleep but I was spitting mad and every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Tim and his brains that were no longer contained in his body.

What seemed like hours later, I heard the door open and my body tensed. I kept myself perfectly still and listened as someone walked through the house. They didn’t turn on any lights and they were quiet as a cat, the only noise a barely distinct rustling. Then, that someone walked into the bedroom, I heard something fall on the chair, then the whisper of movement of the sheets, then hands at my wrist, the smell of leather, spice and tobacco and when I was released from the headboard, I knew it was Lee.

No sooner was I released, I rolled away, toward the other side of the bed and freedom.

I got a roll and a half in before an arm hooked around my waist and I was stopped.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m getting a taxi home,” I said between clenched teeth.

“No.”

“Then, I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“No.”

Great. We were going to go through this rigmarole again.

“I’m sleeping on the other side of the bed.”

“No.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Maybe.”

Shit.

Lee settled in, tucked my back to his front, his arm wrapped around my waist.

I laid there wondering if I should flip over, knee him in the ‘nads and take off.

Then, for some reason, the vision of Tim floated into my head and my body started trembling, like, a lot. Full-on human earthquake.

“Shit,” I whispered and Lee turned me to facing him and wrapped both his arms around me, tight.

I pressed into his warmth and tried not to cry.

“Did you know him?” Lee asked softly.

“No.” My voice sounded shaky, even on that one word. I took in a big, broken breath. “Though, I think he’d come into the store every once in awhile.” I took another breath to control the threatening tears. “It’s an ugly way to go. What are his parents gonna think?”

Lee started stroking my back and he didn’t answer, likely because he had no idea what Tim’s parents would think and didn’t want to dwell on it.

Lee started to play with my hair and I pressed my face into his neck. His body was hard and warm and I could hear his steady breathing. His hand at my hair relaxed me and his arm around my waist made me feel safe.

After awhile, I fell asleep.

I woke up in Lee’s bed, but this time, no Lee.

I didn’t have enough mental capacity to wonder where he was and certainly not enough to process my sense of disappointment. I told myself there should be no disappointment at the absence of a man who would handcuff me to his bed against my will, so I shoved it aside.

It was twenty past six and I decided when I had all that time to think when I was handcuffed to the bed that Fortnum’s was going to close for the weekend.

Sometimes it was good being the boss.

Truth was, working there wasn’t tough. There were four of us, five when Ally was around which was most of the time. We were open seven thirty to six on weekdays, eight thirty to six on Saturdays and ten to four on Sundays. Outside of the morning rush, most of that time was spent hanging around. We all came and went when we pleased.

With two staff down, it was beginning to seem like work. With me and Ally gallivanting across town looking for Rosie, Jane was taking the burden.

I didn’t make shifts or assign hours, everyone worked whenever they wanted, which was pretty much seven days a week, give or take a couple hours here or there to run errands, go to lunch with a friend, go shopping at Cherry Creek Mall, come in late if you were sleeping it off, leave early whenever or to tie one on at Lincoln’s Road House, the local biker bar. People took days off whenever they wanted and no one did more than the others. Gram had set the precedent. We all pitched in and, somehow, it worked.