Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(3)

He didn’t move his hand, in fact his fingers tightened. It didn’t hurt but it certainly made his meaning clear too.

“Either you go to the van or I carry you there. Your choice, Stel a.”

He meant it.

This pissed me off.

I didn’t get pissed off very often. I didn’t have the time.

My life was music and my life was the band. When we weren’t playing, we were loading or unloading our gear.

When we weren’t loading or unloading, we were rehearsing. When we weren’t rehearsing, I was finding us gigs. When I wasn’t finding us gigs, I was practicing guitar.

When I wasn’t practicing guitar, I was getting my bandmates out of trouble. When I wasn’t getting my bandmates out of trouble, I was hanging out with Juno and cooking fabulous, gourmet meals-for-one because Juno was a big dog with not a lot of energy thus she didn’t do much so I had to find some way to amuse myself and Juno liked the scraps. When I wasn’t hanging out with Juno and cooking, I was shooting the shit with my girlfriends on the phone or meeting them somewhere.

The rest of the time, of which there wasn’t much, I was sleeping.

As you could see, I didn’t have time to be pissed off.

But real y, who the hel did he think he was? He couldn’t break my heart one day and then get in the way of me and a member of my band the next.

Nunh-unh.

No way.

No one got in the way of me and my band.

I leaned into him.

“Tel me what’s going on,” I demanded on a quiet hiss.

“Buzz’l cal in the morning.” He kept attempting to blow me off.

“What the f**k is going on?” I demanded on a not-at-al quiet shout.

I felt rather than saw the eyes that turned to us.

“Stel a, lower your voice,” Mace demanded.

That pissed me off more.

“I’m goin’ in there,” I told him.

“You aren’t goin’ in there,” he told me and his hand stayed where it was.

Effing hel .

I changed tactics. “Why are you doing this?” This caught him off-guard, I saw it. His usual y blank-but-broody look disappeared and I saw his eyes flash in the dim il umination of Lindsey’s porch light.

“I’m protecting you,” he answered, his voice low, the words seemed torn from him as if he didn’t want to say them.

There was the gut kick feeling again and more fear started tearing through my insides.

“It isn’t your job to protect me anymore, Mace,” I reminded him and watched the flash in his eyes again.

Erm, excuse me? What in the heck was that al about?

“You’re right. It’s not,” he said and dropped my arm.

Big time gut kick.

Sheesh. He gave up easily.

Oh wel , so be it.

I started to move away.

“Lindsey’s dead. Executed,” Mace said to my back.

I stopped moving and turned to stare, unable to process what he just said.

“What?” I whispered.

Mace got close again. “She was executed, somewhere else, brought back here,” Mace answered.

“But…” I started then stopped then started again, “but, Buzz said he thought she overdosed. How could –?”

“Bul et to the forehead. No blood because she was moved from wherever they whacked her. She was put in bed, covers pul ed up, f**k knows why. Her face, except for the bul et hole in her forehead, looks normal but the back of her head is gone.”

I turned my eyes away from Mace, bile sliding up the back of my throat at the vision he created. I swal owed it down.

I saw Luke standing across the yard stil talking to Wil ie but my mind was elsewhere.

It was on Lindsey, the sweet girl who came to one of our gigs two years ago and fel in love with Buzz on sight. She was plump and pretty and she loved rock ‘n’ rol . And because she was plump and pretty and sweet-as-hel , we al loved her.

How she got caught up with he**in and that life no one knew, not even Buzz. Everyone tried to pul her out of it, the entire band, mostly Buzz and me and, for a short time, Mace. But she slid down into that world no matter how hard we tried to stop her. Buzz didn’t give up nor did I but I was losing patience. She was hanging with bad dudes, doing stuff that was not good, al to get her fix. She’d started to bring these bad dudes to gigs. That was where I drew the line.

Now she was dead.

“Linnie,” I whispered and Juno felt my mood and pushed my hand with her nose. I absentmindedly stroked her head as I heard Luke’s phone ring and watched, unfocused and not knowing what to feel (sad, definitely; angry, heck yeah), as Luke pul ed his phone out of his black cargo pants.

“Kitten.” I heard as if from far away, so far away it was like a dream.

It was Mace’s voice cal ing me “Kitten” his nickname for me, a nickname I earned because he said I “purred” when I was content. Normal y this purring happened post-orgasm but there were other times too. I was content a lot when I’d been with Mace. It was something I hadn’t heard in a year. It was one of the seven hundred and twenty-five thousand things I missed most about Mace.

A touch, whisper-soft, slid across the smal of my back and I shivered.

“Linnie,” I whispered again.

Then I watched in distracted fascination as whatever Luke heard over the phone changed his entire body. I was fascinated because I could swear Luke looked scared.