Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(9)

Mace kept walking and I watched his departing back.

Luke turned at the door, his eyes hit mine and his chin lifted. I felt the chin lift was an indication of respect. Respect that I didn’t freak out when I got shot or at al . Respect that I let them get on with what they had to do and maybe a bit of respect that I held my own, even though I didn’t win, with Mace. This made me feel funny, a funny I’d never felt in my life except when I was onstage.

Then Luke stepped out and closed the door behind him.

“Oh girlie, look at that. That’s nothing. Just a flesh wound,” Tod declared, head cocked, finger to his cheek, eyes staring at my hip.

“He left,” I whispered, my gaze stil on the door.

“What’s that, sugar?” Daisy was pushing me toward some towels that were now spread on the couch.

“Nothing,” I replied and let myself be pushed.

* * * * *

“You okay?” Indy asked. She and Al y were making up the pul out bed in the room where I’d endured the humiliation of Mace pul ing down my jeans. I was putting pil owcases on pil ows.

Under strict Lee edict, the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch were staying the night at The Castle. Apparently they were at war with some guy named Sid and The Castle was out of the way, had a security system that included camera surveil ance outside and was “covered” by an army of men employed by Marcus, Daisy’s husband (Daisy and Marcus lived in The Castle, for your information). It had the added benefit of not having its windows shot out in a recent drive-by.

Daisy was in seventh heaven. She was treating this like a co-ed slumber party, not that her big mansion had become a scary-as-shit impromptu safe house. She issued orders to the dark-suited members of her husband’s army to go out and buy toothbrushes, contact lens supplies and food so she could serve a “Big Ole Stick to Your Ribs Southern Breakfast” (her words). She handed out nightgowns and toiletries and she assigned bedrooms.

She had a goodly number of rooms but Al y was forced to take a couch and, in deference to my injury, I got a pul out bed. I didn’t know where Mace was sleeping or if he was even staying there and didn’t care (wel , I cared, but I tried not to).

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied to Indy.

“You are so not fine,” Al y muttered.

“I’m fine, it hardly hurts at al ,” I told Al y.

I was talking about my hip. The doctor came and cleaned it, shot me up with something to numb it and then stitched it. After he was done, he dressed it, gave me some pain kil ers and took off again, maybe to do another clandestine stitch up somewhere in the early morning dark of Denver. The whole thing took less than an hour.

“I’m not talking about your leg,” Indy said.

I threw the pil ow at the head of the pul out and grabbed the other one.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“She’s talking about Mace,” Al y told me.

“What about Mace?” I played dumb.

“Chickie, you aren’t fooling anyone,” Al y replied.

“I’m not trying to fool anyone.” This was another lie.

“Yeah you are, most especial y yourself,” Indy said softly.

Effing hel .

“It was over a long time ago,” I explained.

“It was over then when the Hot Bunch’s women got targeted by a criminal overlord, you wouldn’t have been cal ed out, exposed and shot at,” Al y pointed out logical y.

This was true. This was also something to mul over, later, privately, perhaps over some risotto and a nice, chil ed glass of pinot grigio.

“Can we talk about this later?” I asked, al of a sudden exhausted. I threw the other pil ow at the head of the bed.

Al y opened her mouth. Indy shot her a look. Al y closed her mouth. They smoothed the covers and made to move out.

“Just as long as we do talk about it later,” Al y said on her way out, not about to be silenced for long by Indy.

“Goodnight,” I cal ed, giving no assurances.

“Later,” Indy replied and she closed the door.

I careful y took off Daisy’s cream, velour, Juicy Couture track bottoms but left on the snug, white t-shirt she’d given me.

“It’s new, haven’t worn it yet so I haven’t broken in the chest area,” Daisy informed me, circling her extraordinary bosoms with a pointed, frosty white-polished, ultra long finger-nailed finger to make her point. Ava had seized my Heidi shirt which had a bit of blood on it and disappeared, muttering something about stain removal.

I took the pain kil ers using a glass of water Daisy brought me, got in bed and stared at the ceiling.

My first thoughts were of Linnie and Buzz. Then, for peace of mind, because thoughts of Linnie were too difficult to bear and because I no longer had my phone so I could cal Buzz and see how he was doing because Mace had confiscated it; my thoughts went to the final chapter of the weird and wild evening.

After getting stitched up and changing clothes, the Rock Chicks were cal ed into a Tribe Meeting by Lee.

We al sat in Daisy’s big room. The gathering had grown bigger. Jet’s fiancé, Eddie Chavez was there. Roxie’s boyfriend, Hank Nightingale as wel . There was a handsome man who I found out was Marcus Sloan, Daisy’s husband. Bobby, Matt and Ike, al Nightingale Men, had also arrived. Bobby was a barrel-chested, sandy-blond behemoth; Matt was a fit, also-blond, cute guy; Ike was light-skinned black man, shaved bald with a cool-as-shit tattoo you could see slithering up his neck and down his arm around the sleeve and col ar of his t-shirt. The man who stopped my retreat earlier was Nick, Jules’s uncle.