Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(14)
Wait for it. Wait for it…
“Rebecca! Damnit!”
Ah, there it was.
Frank “Boss” Knight had a way of furiously screaming her name followed by that familiar epithet. It made her wince and grin at the same time.
Grin because the Knights liked to joke with her and say Frank might actually be under the mistaken impression her last name was Damnit. And wince because, other than her father, Frank was the only one to ever call her Rebecca—which made her feel about six years old, and she’d wondered more than once if Frank did it intentionally, just to drive home the difference in their ages.
That one word virtually screamed, Yes, I’ve seen the way you look at me, but I’m old enough to be your father.
Which wasn’t really true unless he started his sexual adventures at thirteen—although, since she thought about it, that seemed completely possible. She’d seen pictures. Even at thirteen it’d been beyond obvious Frank would grow into a beautiful man.
Of course he would never admit to being beautiful. On the contrary, she’d heard him mention on more than one occasion, “It’s a standoff who has more battle wounds, me or Peanut.”
And Becky supposed that was true. The slashing scar bisecting Frank’s left eyebrow gave him the look of perpetual skepticism, while the little white line snaking up from the corner of his mouth made his full lips quirk up just a bit. Taken together, it created an incongruent combination.
Okay, so maybe beautiful wasn’t quite the right word to describe him. His face had far too much character to be put in such vapid terms. Unfortunately, it was a face she’d learned to admire from afar, because that was as close as he ever let her. Not surprising considering she seemed to annoy the ever-lovin’ shit out of the man.
“Yes, Frank?” she innocently replied to his having bellowed her name at the top of his lungs.
Frank. Everyone else called him Boss, but not her. Oh no. Not when calling him by his given name made his eyelids twitch.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed,” he roared down at her, “or just give me a flippin’ heart attack?”
Heart attack. Yeah, right. The man had a resting pulse of sixty beats per minute and a cholesterol count that would make a triathlete weep with envy. He was more likely to get hit by a freak bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky than die of a heart attack.
And since she reckoned his last question was rhetorical, she didn’t bother to answer it. But when he yelled, “Get your ass down from there ASAP,” she did as she was told with only a minimal amount of eye rolling.
“I saw that,” he growled once her feet were safely on the ground.
“No way could you’ve seen that all the way up there,” she called back, hands on hips, incredulously chewing the cherry Dum Dum she’d shoved into her mouth before tackling that last bolt. She’d taken to eating the stupid things three years ago in order to help herself quit smoking. Unfortunately, she’d simply exchanged one addiction for another.
“You’re right. I couldn’t. But you just proved my little theory.” The implied gotcha basically flew off the second story to land on her head.
She cursed and called him a colorful name beneath her breath.
“I heard that, too,” he barked, and she clamped her mouth shut, just in case he was telling the truth this time.
***
When the explosion ricocheted around the warehouse, Nate instinctively lunged toward Ali while simultaneously reaching for the Para Ordinance CCW .45 he kept concealed in the waistband of his shorts. Luckily, before he could take her to the ground and cover her with his body, he realized what’d happened—namely, Rebecca “The Rebel” Reichert doing what she did best. Making an unholy ruckus.
He managed, just barely, to halt his flying lunge.
It was a good thing, because Peanut was now stuck to Ali’s head like some weird feline version of the Daniel Boon raccoon hat.
“Oh my God, get him off me,” she whispered as a trickle of blood oozed from her left temple where Peanut secured himself to his precarious perch with one sharp claw.
The sight of that crimson drop sliding down her pale, flawless cheek made Nate want to kill someone. At the moment, he figured he’d start with Peanut and work his way over to Becky and then up to Boss, who wasn’t helping to calm the stupid cat by yelling at Becky.
Go figure. The guy was always yelling at Becky.
Man, the list of friends he was ready to murder was mounting at an astonishing rate since Ali minced her sweet ass into the shop. Just before the uproar, he’d been ready to cap Ozzie for his unnecessary interest in her lingerie.
“Be still,” he whispered as he reached for the cat. The animal was foolish enough to lay back his ears and hiss a warning.
“Um, yes,” she said as she tightened her hold on the rail. “Being still is certainly the plan since movement might cause one of two outcomes. One, it’ll unset the hefty Peanut here and break my neck. Or two, it’ll result in a scalping. And though I’ve been thinking for a while now about cutting my hair, I’m seriously considering keeping the roots.”
“Be quiet, too,” he instructed as he made another attempt to reach for Peanut. It was impossible to concentrate when he was this close to her, especially with her jabbering in that adorable way she had.
He spared a glance at her distressed face and knew it to be a mistake instantly.