Rock Chick Reckoning
Page 5

Effing hel .
Chapter Two
Hunky Dory
Stella
When they referred to “The Castle”, they meant an actual castle. I didn’t know Denver had a castle but there it was, right in front of us.
We’d driven to the ritzy part of Englewood, down a winding lane in a heavily wooded area and, al lit up with a shitload of lights that would make even your average environmentalist shudder, was a stone castle, complete with turrets and a moat.
During the drive I decided that it was evident that I was not going to die of my wound.
I also decided I did not want Mace to know I was injured.
If he knew I was injured, it might mean I’d have to spend more time in his presence. The last time I’d spent more than a few minutes in his presence was when he’d come to a gig with the Rock Chicks. I ended up singing Hank Wil iams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” directly to him. I had no control over it. It just happened. Even the band was taken aback. I did not want a repeat of that moment of weakness.
Unh-unh.
No effing way.
I had a plan. I’d slip into a bathroom, clean up, maybe confiscate a washcloth then I’d cal Floyd to come get me.
This was a total y stupid plan but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Floyd was my pianist, older than anyone else in the band by a decade and a half. Floyd was married to Emily, had a steady day job, two kids in col ege and could play and sing Bil y Joel’s “And So It Goes” so beautiful y that if you didn’t at least tear up, you had to be made of stone.
His lead on our rendition of “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” didn’t suck either.
Floyd and Emily would take care of me, I knew it.
Especial y considering there was a bleeding bul et wound involved.
They were the only ones in my whole life who took care of me or at least the only ones who did it for any length of time. I didn’t cal on them often because I didn’t want that to end like it had with Mace that night when he stood, shoulder leaned up against my doorway, and told me I needed him too much.
That wasn’t going to happen to me again, not if I could help it.
Two men wearing dark suits, white shirts and slim ties and carrying big guns materialized and approached the Explorer as we swung into the drive. I sucked in breath, thinking this was not exactly a welcome party but they spied Luke and Mace and disappeared in the shadows again.
I had no time to dwel on castles with moats and men with guns because Luke’s lights flashed on a limousine that was parked in front of the house. We could see the bul et holes along the side. At the sight, the cab went electric and this electricity was emanating from Luke.
“He should have gone down like a man,” Mace said softly.
“Now he’l pay,” Luke replied.
“Now he’l pay,” Mace agreed.
“Who?” I asked.
Mace turned around to look at me as Luke parked and I got the gut kick feeling that he forgot I was there.
“You okay?” he asked belatedly but not, I noticed, answering my question.
No, I’ve been shot which could be the definition of “not okay”, my brain replied sarcastical y.
“Hunky dory,” my mouth said.
Luke had turned off the truck and was now twisted to look at me too. He heard my reply and I saw his half-grin. I grinned back.
“Out,” Mace snapped, sounding for some reason impatient and jerked open his door.
I opened my door too. Juno trundled over me and hopped down. I gritted my teeth against the pain and hopped down behind her. It took a lot but I walked normal y and, to hide it, kept my bloody hand pressed against my bel y like a pregnant woman.
Luke had forged ahead probably keen to get to Ava.
Mace walked at my right side, opposite the wounded left side. He walked beside me but he put distance between us.
When we’d been together he didn’t like distance anytime, anywhere. Mace was not a man who shied away from public displays of affection. He walked with his thumb hooked in the side belt loop of my jeans so I was plastered against him. In restaurant booths he sat next to me not opposite me. He lounged in front of the TV with my head or feet in his lap or me pressed against his side. In bed, he was a spooner, the front of his long, hard body curved and pressed into the length of the back of mine. When we kissed, standing up, sitting down, lying in bed, he sought maximum physical contact. He didn’t seek it, he demanded it. It was another one of the seven hundred and twenty-five thousand things about Mace that I missed the most.
Juno loped beside us, alternately trotting and sniffing the ground.
After we crossed the little stone bridge over the moat and Mace caught the door Luke was holding open for us, I said, “I’l cal Floyd to come get me.”
Luke was again moving ahead. Mace fel back in step beside me. I was staring in awe at my surroundings. A long, stone-wal ed hal , a bright red carpet runner punctuated by shiny brass rods holding it down, crossed swords, wrought iron torches with electrical lights in and ful suits of armor decorating it down either side. It was unbelievable. It was indescribable. It was like I stepped into a different world.
“You need to wait until we debrief. Then I’l tel you what you can do,” Mace replied.
I lost my awe, I forgot about the pain in my hip and my head turned to Mace. I was pretty certain I was pissed off again.
“What did you just say?” I asked.
“You heard me,” he answered but didn’t look at me.
Either in an attempt not to argue or because he was raring to debrief, whatever the hel that meant, he forged ahead too, his long legs taking him wel ahead of me. I scrambled to catch up.
He, and then I, entered a big room with a beamed cathedral ceiling, a massive fireplace and loads of studded leather furniture. There were banners dangling from the stone wal s with multiple rows of olde worlde lions and fleur-de-lis depicted on them. I lost my anger at Mace because I regained my awe.
I stared. It was the kind of room where you stared. You couldn’t do anything else.
“Holy shit! Stel a! What are you doing here?” That was Indy.
I looked at her and saw the room already held a number of people. Luke and Mace, of course. Also Indy, her neighbors Tod and Stevie (a g*y couple I knew from meeting them at Indy’s many parties which I attended back in the days pre-Mace), Ava, Daisy (a new-ish addition to the club, I’d met her too, she looked just like Dol y Parton, but a younger version and yes, she even had the enormous hooters) and Al y. They were al standing and they al turned to me.
“What’s on your leg?” Al y asked, her eyes on my leg.