Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(91)

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Nah, I’m taking the Blue Line in,” she told him, referring to the famous Chicago El-track. She inhaled the familiar mix of exhaust from the street traffic and the wet, fishy aroma that wafted up from the Chicago River. The wind was coming in from the direction of the Blommer Chocolate Factory, overlaying everything with the rich scent of cocoa.

She’d grown up close to this neighborhood. These were the smells of home.

But right now she took no comfort in them. She yearned for the sweet scent of suntan lotion and the spicy aroma of thick coconut curry. She yearned for anything to take her mind away from Frank Knight, her broken dreams, and the overbearing despair hanging like a sickness around the compound.

“I’ll see you in a month,” she assured him, taking the handle of her suitcase, barely wincing when their fingers brushed.

“One month,” he echoed, giving her a hard, searching look.

She quickly turned away, unable to stand the worried glint in his eyes.

Without a backward glance, she hurried down Cherry Street. The blocks of gum-pocked sidewalk disappeared under her sneakers, and it wasn’t until she turned the corner onto North Avenue that she released a deep, shuddering breath.

She had one month to try to pull herself together, to try to come up with new dreams to replace the old ones.

But…before she crossed that big blue ocean and started in on her—hopefully—life-altering journey, she had a stop to make on the East Coast.

***

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Criminy!” Ali squealed and dropped the fresh baked ladyfinger she was about to shove in her mouth. Someone was trying their level best to knock her front door off its hinges.

“Alisa Morgan!” A familiar voice yelled through the solid wood panel. “Open up! I know you’re in there!”

She tripped over her new rug and—“Ow, ow, ow!”—stubbed her little toe on the leg of her sofa in her mad dash to wrench open the door.

“What in blue blazes are you doing here, Becky?” she demanded, hopping on one foot while holding her screaming pinkie toe in the palm of her hand.

“I’m here to beat some damned sense into your obstinate, irrational, frickin’…erroneous head,” Becky hissed, pushing her way into Ali’s apartment, dragging a small rolling suitcase behind her.

Good heavens, was the woman planning to stay?

“That’s, uh, quite a lot of adjectives,” she declared, eyeing that suitcase like a treed bird eyes a grounded cat, with a sort of puzzled apprehension. Her aching pinkie toe was instantly forgotten.

“Oh don’t get all teachery on me, and quit looking at my suitcase like it’s seconds away from growing fangs and taking a bite out of you. I’m not staying. Consider yourself a minor pit stop on the journey that’s going to change my life.”

“Where are you—”

Becky waved an impatient hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve screwed up royally, and you’re either going to get your ass to Chicago, double-time, and make things right, or I’m going to have to beat the crap out of you. I wasn’t joking about that part.”

Good heavens.

“I don’t—”

“I know you don’t,” Becky interrupted her, setting aside her suitcase and actually lacing her fingers together to stretch them out in front of her, popping her knuckles, looking like a fighter about to take the ring as she tilted her pretty blond head from side to side to loosen her neck muscles. “You don’t deserve Ghost’s unwavering devotion. You don’t know the unimaginable guilt he feels about having to, yes, having to take his best friend’s life. You don’t have the right to blame him for Grigg’s death when what he did was a frickin’ heroic act of mercy! You don’t—”

“You’re right,” Ali said quietly, grimacing as the ache that’d set up shop inside her chest for the past six weeks expanded until it was hard to draw breath.

God, Nate. Wonderful, loyal, brave Nate. Why didn’t you answer any of my calls?

“I am?” Becky stopped bouncing from foot to foot and looked momentarily confused. Then she shook her head like a dog shaking off water. “You’re damned right I am.”

Crapola. Ali was going to start bawling if she didn’t do something to distract herself. Just looking in Becky’s familiar brown eyes made her painfully desperate to see Nate again. To watch his resolute face for those oh-so-brief glimpses of sweet emotion, to listen to his deep voice smash up his few taciturn words, to touch him, to feel the vitality of his tough flesh, even if only in passing.

“I was about to have some ladyfingers and a cup of tea,” she murmured past the hard lump in her throat. “Care to join me?”

“Uh, sure. I guess.” It appeared that Becky didn’t know what to do with herself as she twisted her hands together, glancing around uncertainly. She obviously hadn’t expected Ali to be so obliging.

Beckoning for the woman to follow her to the kitchen, she took a moment to drag in a burning breath and corral her stupid, stupid tears. If she got started now, she wasn’t sure she’d ever stop and wouldn’t that endear her to Becky?

Um, no. Most definitely not.

“Have a seat,” she motioned to the small, wrought iron bistro table in the corner and busied herself arranging the tea tray.