30DaystoSyn (35 page)

“I could wait with you if you like.”

“No, that’s okay. If he doesn’t show up by
six-thirty I’ll get a taxi back to my place. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“She says that like I’d let her get a
fucking taxi.”

Spike moved to the side of the door as he
walked past her. “You’re a plonker, Synjyn McGregor,” she told him.

“And you’re a pain in the puku,” he
mumbled. He plopped down in a chair and laid his head along the back, put a
hand to his temple and closed his eyes.

“Unh huh,” Spike said. “He’s got a
migraine.”

“Piss off,” he told her.

The tall blonde woman snorted. “That one
will drive you ‘round the bend, Lina. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow unless you
murder him in his sleep tonight.”

“Tomorrow?” she questioned.

Spike’s eyebrows drew together. “He didn’t
tell you?”

She looked from Spike to the Kiwi. “Tell me
what?”

“We always have Thanksgiving together at
the club every year. The asswipe over there, Jono, Jake and whatever girl he
can find to bring, Craigie, Kit, their wives and me. He didn’t tell you?” Spike
inquired. “Damn it, Synnie, you were supposed to have asked her on Monday!”

“I forgot,” he muttered. “So sue me.”

“You’re inviting me?” she asked, looking at
the Kiwi who was massaging his temple.

He wedged one eye open. “Woman, don’t
aggravate me any more than you already have for one day. Of course you are
invited.”

“What time?”

“Seven sharp,” Spike said.

“Should I bring something?”

“It’s catered,” he mumbled. “And you’ll
already be at the Club. We’ll be spending the day there tomorrow.”

“Not all day,” she said.

“Yes, all day,” he stated.

“No, I’m having lunch with my brother,” she
told him.

He opened his mouth as though he would
protest then snapped it shut. “Yeah, okay. We’ll fly out whenever you want.”

“Fly?” she queried. “Why not drive?”

“Because the paparazzi are camped out
around the entrance road and I don’t want them bothering you again,” he
groused. “Bastards can’t get on the property but they can fucking sure make a
bloody nuisance of themselves.”

“The joys of being associated with the
gorsepocket,” Spike said with a laugh.

“Go. Away!” he snapped. “Or I swear to God
I will shit can you, Christine!”

“You have my sympathy, Lina,” Spike said
with a wink. “You’ve got to deal with him and his shittiness the rest of the
night.”

“Gunga,” he threw at her.

“Punga,” she threw back.

After Spike left he was silent for so long
she thought he might have fallen asleep but then he held his hand out to her.
She got up from the sofa and went over to take it.

“You want me to call Craigie?” she asked.

He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he shot
his leg out and plucked his cell phone from his pant pocket. He handed it to
her. “I need to you to call Jono and have him come pick us up in the chopper
and take us to the Club. I don’t feel like driving.”

“I
can
drive you know.”

“Talking heads.”

“Oh, right,” she said. They were probably
flocked around his office building as they would be the next day around Cedar
Oaks.

“‘Sides, you can’t drive my car,” he told
her.

“Why not?”

“Stick.”

“Humpf,” she said, thumbing through his
numbers and clicking on Jonny’s. As she waited for him to answer, she tugged
gently at the Kiwi’s hand. “How bad is it?”

“On a scale of one to ten?” he asked.
“Fourteen.”

“You’ve got to learn not to get so angry,
Kiwi,” she said. Jonny answered on the third ring. “Hey, it’s me. He asked if
you would please bring the chopper ‘round and pick us up. He’s got a migraine.”

“He actually said please?” Jonny asked.

“Ah, well…”

“Never mind. I’ll be there in thirty. Get
him to drink something before it gets any worse. Chances are he’s dehydrated.”

She hung up and tried to pull her hand out
of his grip. He wouldn’t let her.

“Nope,” he said and tugged her sideways
onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and dropped his head to her
shoulder.

“I need to get you some water,” she said.

“I’ll chunder it,” he protested.

“How about Gatorade?”

“Don’t wanna, Mommy,” he said.

She smoothed the short hair at his
forehead. “You are such a baby,” she said.

“I’m your baby,” he muttered.

“Yes,” she said. “That you are.”

He lifted his head and looked up at her—his
eyes boring into hers. “Really?”

She put her arm around his neck. “Yeah,
Kiwi. Really.”

He studied her face for a long time then
laid his forehead against her breast. “You’re
my
baby,” he whispered.

With one arm around him—her hand cupping
his shoulder—and the other hand gently stroking his cheek, she watched his
eyelids flutter. Soon he was gently snoring but his arms were tightly around
her.

“How is he?”

She looked up to find Jonny standing in the
door. “Not so good.”

“I called Craigie,” Jonny said softly as he
came into the room. “He’ll meet us at the Club. I knew this would happen.”

“I did too,” she said. “He doesn’t deal
well with stress, does he?”

“There’s a lot of things he doesn’t deal
well with,” Jonny replied

“
He’s
not deaf,” he told them. He
relaxed his hold on her and opened his eyes wide. Suddenly, he shoved her hard
and she fell out of his lap and to the floor.

“Hey!” she yelped.

He twisted in the chair and threw up over
the arm.

“Oh, delightful,” Jonny said with a
grimace. He grabbed a wastebasket and shoved it close to the chair just in
time. Another wave of vomit spewed from the Kiwi and his friend gagged.

She scrambled up and to the bathroom for a
washcloth.

“What the hell did you eat today?” she
heard Jonny ask. He was staring wide-eyed at the mess in the wastebasket.

“Reuben sammie,” came the ragged answer.

She returned with the cold washcloth,
pressed it gently to his forehead and held him as he upchucked yet again. This
time it was a dry heave.

“We need to get him to bed,” she said.

“Get the wastebasket from the bathroom,”
Jonny ordered. He bent over and shoved his arms under the Kiwi and lifted him.
“Don’t you fucking chuck on me, bro.”

She followed Jonny to the elevator that
went to the roof, kept the wastebasket close just in case but her lover didn’t
need it. His cheek was pressed close to Jonny’s chest and his lips were a
tightly clamped thin slash that told her he was in a great deal of pain.

It wasn’t far from the MI corporate offices
to the Club but felt like a long flight to her. Jonny sat with the Kiwi in his
lap like a child, staring at her in a way that made her wonder what the Māori
was thinking to cause such an intense look.

Two of the hulking security men were
waiting on the roof of the Club when the helo landed. As soon as Jonny hopped
down from the craft, the smaller of the two took the Kiwi from him. Without a
word the man turned and headed for the door to the roof elevator.

“He’ll be out of it in the morning,” Jonny
told her as they followed. “I’ll take you out to Cedar Oaks.”

“I appreciate it, Jonny,” she told him.

He stopped, reached out to put a hand on
her arm. His eyes locked on hers. “Don’t hurt him, Lina,” he said. “He’s been
hurt enough in his lifetime.”

“I have no intention of hurting him,” she
said.

“Just saying,” Jonny told her. He entered
the elevator behind her.

On the way up to the seventh floor, she
kept looking over at Jonny. His attention was on his friend’s pale face but now
and again he’d flick that hawk-like gaze to her. She smiled but he did not
return it. Instead, he seemed solemn—so unlike the man she had come to know—and
she wondered why.

“I guess I should have asked, but you do
have access to his private suite, don’t you?” Jonny asked as the elevator
stopped.

“Yes,” she said.

The doors opened and she was relieved to
see Craigie standing on the landing.

“Would you look at that?” Craigie said,
pointing to the ceiling.

Jonny glanced at the ceiling and his
eyebrows hiked up. “Fuck me for a chocolate duck,” he said.

“You guys have never been up here?” she
asked.

“Never invited ‘em,” the Kiwi murmured.
“Got no business being here. My place, not theirs.”

“Shut up, you cheeky bastard,” Craigie said
with a snort.

“Kumara cruncher,” the Kiwi insulted him.

They reached the door to the suite and she
placed her hand against the scanner. She was curious what their reaction would
be to the ceiling beyond the bedroomdoor. She didn’t have long to wait.

“Crikey dick!” Craigie exclaimed, his mouth
hanging open.

As he and Jonny and the steroid jockey
carrying the Kiwi all stared up at the spectacular ceiling in awe, she went to
the bed and turned down the covers.

“More money than sense I always thought,”
Craigie said. “But this was money well spent.”

“My place,” she heard the Kiwi mumble.

The hulk brought him to the bed and laid
him down gently.

“Thank you, Dwayne,” Jonny said.

With a slight bob of his head, the big man
left the room.

“Get him undressed,” Craigie told Jonny.

“Not gonna happen,” the Kiwi informed his
friend. “Want Lina to do it.”

“Then you undress him,” Craigie ordered
her. “I’ll get the meds ready.”

She reached down to take off his loafers.

“Go ‘way,” he said, shooing Craigie and
Jonny with a couple of flicks of a limp wrist.

Once the men were gone, she leaned over him
to unbutton his shirt. He kept trying to fondle her breasts and she slapped at
his hand.

“Knock it off or I’ll let Jonny strip you,”
she warned.

He made a raspberry to that statement but
dropped his hand to the bed. “Hurt, Lina,” he told her.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “Can you sit up
so I can take this off you?”

With a wince and a fierce grimace he pushed
himself up. She peeled the shirt from his shoulders and pulled the white
T-shirt he was wearing under it over his head. He fell back on the bed with a
grunt.

“Hurt,” he repeated and threw an arm over
his eyes. “Hurt, hurt, hurt.”

She unbuckled his belt and the button at
his fly, ran the zipper. “Lift your sweet little ass,” she ordered and saw him
grin. She thought he’d say something crude or at the least do something vulgar
but he didn’t. She tugged the trousers down his legs—not in the least surprised
he was commando—then took off his socks. She pulled the sheet over his
nakedness. “Craigie?”

Craigie returned without Jonny. “Turn your
ass over, mate,” he said.

When he rolled to his side, she pulled the
sheet down enough to give Craigie access to his hip.

“Fucking shit!” was the explosion as soon
as the fiery payload was injected. “Why do you do that, you bastard?”

“You’re such a fuck-knuckle,” Craigie said.
“You know fucking well I’m not deliberately trying to hurt you, Synnie.” He
gave her a roll of his eyes. “Call me if these shots don’t work and I’ll pop him
again. I’ll be staying here tonight.”

“Thanks, Craigie,” she said.

“Fucktwit burned my arse to a crisp that
time,” he complained as he rubbed his hip. He moved to his back. “It stings
like a motherfucker!”

“Poor baby,” she said. “You’re so picked
on.”

“Damn straight I am,” he said and already
his words were slurring. She figured Craigie had given him something stronger
than his normal dosage.

She kicked off her shoes and went into the
bathroom to get another cold washcloth since she’d left the other one in the
chopper.

“Where’d you go?” he called out to her.
“Come back here, woman!”

She returned with the cloth, skirted the
foot of the bed.

“Where you going?” he asked then came a
long, drawn out, “Whoa.”

“Med kicking in?” she asked as she climbed
into the bed beside him. She folded the cloth then laid it on his forehead.

“Mother McCree,” he whispered. “What the
fuck
did he give me?”

“Just close your eyes and let it take you,”
she said, settling down beside him. She reached for his hand. “I’ll be right
here with you.”

“Promise?” he asked and the word came out
as
promish
.

“I promise,” she said. “Now, get to sleep.”

The last thing she heard from him was
something that completely threw her off guard and she spent the rest of the
night staring up at the cavorting fish.

Night Twenty-Eight

He’d spent the late part of the morning in
a drug-induced numbness that did little to assuage the anger he had at being
left behind while she went to visit Drew. Not that he would have been of much
use to her. He could barely walk a straight line thanks to the powerful drug
Craigie had pumped into his arse. But he had wanted—desperately wanted—to spend
Thanksgiving with her and her brother. Now, he lay on the sofa in his great
room staring at one particular clown fish as it wove its aimless way through
the water.

“I know how you feel, bro,” he told the
fish.

There was no one there to hear him.
Apparently Craigie had spent the night on the sofa. The medicine man was
snoring loud enough to wake the dead when he stumbled out of bed looking for
Melina.

“Wake up, asswipe!” he’d ordered, shaking
Craigie.

“Piss off,” Craigie snapped.

He shook him again. “Where’s my woman?”

“I said piss off!” Craigie said, slapping
his hand away.

“
Where
is my woman?” he repeated as
loudly as his numb head would allow.

“With Jono, you fuck-puck!” Craigie
snapped. He growled as he sat up, swung his legs from the sofa. “He took her to
Cedar Oaks.”

“Without me?”

Craigie looked up at him. “You aren’t
there
are you?” he asked.

“Son of a bitch,” he cursed. “I wanted to
go.”

“You were in no condition to go,” Craigie
stated. “Get me a cuppa, will ya?”

“I’m not your bumboy,” he told his friend.
“Are your arms and legs painted on?”

“Fuck you,” Craigie replied as he bent over
to slip on his sneakers.

“Fuck you! And get the hell out of my
suite.”

“You’re getting to be a real gutsache, you
know that?” Craigie mumbled as he got up. He tucked his shirt into the
waistband of his pants.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he replied, dismissing
Craigie with a wave of his hand.

When Craigie was gone, he’d taken a shower
then lay down on the sofa because the world around him kept skittering away at
times. He could eat the crutch off a low flying duck but wasn’t sure he should
eat anything just yet. His stomach felt a bit queasy and there was still a dull
ache over his right eye.

“
He doesn’t do well with stress, does he
?”
she’d asked.

“No and not having you here when I woke up
is stressing me the fuck out, woman,” he grumbled aloud.

He was annoyed that Melina hadn’t been
there when he woke. He’d called her name several times before he realized she
wasn’t going to answer. A quick turn through the suite had revealed nothing but
Craigie drooling and sawing logs, smacking his lips and farting in his sleep.
He’d been tempted to douse the bastard with a glass of iced water but he really
didn’t have the energy so he’d decided to shower instead.

Standing under the hot water, he’d lowered
his head to let the stream beat down on his shoulders. It ran down his cheeks
and dripped from his chin as he stood there with his eyes closed and a fat one
poking toward the wall. How he could possibly have an enormous erection with
two potent drugs circulating through his system was a mystery. He’d dropped his
hand to his shaft to rub one out.

As he relieved himself, he thought of her,
and the more he thought of her, the lonelier he felt. He had wanted to be with
her today. All day.

And tomorrow. All day.

Saturday he planned to fly her over to
Savannah for a midnight cruise. Stand on the deck of the sailing ship and watch
the sun come up over the water.

Then there would be Sunday.

Sunday was going to be something very
special for her. He was moving heaven and earth to see that it was.

“What if she takes the check and says
see ya
?”
Jake had asked
. “What
then, bro?”

He refused to think bad thoughts. He
refused to consider she would walk out the door without a backward glance. He
refused to believe things wouldn’t turn out exactly as he had them planned.

“Melina,” he said as he came. He came hard
and his body jerked. He snapped his eyes open—ashamed as he always was—when the
last spurt left his cock. Masturbating brought back memories of spying on the
women at the brothel as they conducted their business. It also brought back to
him the nights in Parrie when the only relief had been his hand upon his cock.

Dropping his head to the wall of the
shower, he had never felt so alone in his entire life than he did at that
moment.

Drew had dozed off while watching the
latest blockbuster sci-fi movie the Kiwi had sent along with the massive
seventy-inch flat-screen TV that took up a goodly portion of her brother’s
room. On the shelves beneath the gigantic viewing screen was state of the art
electronic stuff that Drew could access from his wheelchair. An all-region DVD
player so he could watch movies from England and Down Under; a sound system
with MP3 and CD players; the controls for the Xbox and only the nerd gods knew
what else.

“Time to go?” Jonny asked. He’d spent the
day in the Kiwi’s stead and had played games with Drew that she would never
understand how to play.

“I’m a bit tired myself,” she whispered as
she spread an afghan over Drew.

“Triptoflan,” Jonny told her. “Turkey
sedative.”

“Tryptophan,” she corrected. “And actually
it isn’t the turkey meat but the carbohydrates like the stuffing, dinner rolls
and the sugar from the desserts you consume with the meal that increases the
production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.”

He blinked at her. “Yeah, that’s the
ticket,” he said. “Melon toenails and all that.”

“You goofball,” she accused. “You know
perfectly well what I said.”

He grinned. “Got my number, don’t you,
chickie?”

“Yes, Jonny, I do,” she stated.

On the way out to the chopper, she hooked
her arm through his. “What kind of meal can I expect tonight?”

“Oh, a real downhome Southern meal,” he
said. “Turkey, cornbread dressing—and thank you for calling it stuffing since
you think I wouldn’t know what dressing meant—with giblet gravy, mac and
cheese, collard greens with pepper sauce, rutabagas, fried okra, cranberry
sauce, sweet potato soufflé with raisins and pineapple, ambrosia, Waldorf salad
and pecan pie for dessert. Wash all that down with sweet iced tea and it’s a
heart attack in the making.”

They had reached the chopper and he helped
her inside. Once seated, she narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me you don’t put
ketchup on your turkey.”

“We Kiwis slather everything with tomato
sauce, love,” he said, buckling himself in. “It’s a national law. You can be
arrested if you don’t.”

She sniffed as the bird began to lift off.
“Perfectly good waste of turkey if you ask me although…”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“I like ketchup on fried chicken.”

“There you go!” he said with a wink.

A light mist began to fall as they reached
cruising altitude. She looked out the window at the kaleidoscope of scenery
passing beneath the skids. The sun was going down and it lit the myriad windows
of the Atlanta skyscrapers in a strange reddish-gold light. They were miles
away from downtown yet the reflection of the light on the glass lit the
darkening sky.

“He went all out this year,” Jonny said.
“Spike said he even has entertainment for after the meal.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Usually we sit
around and play euchre or backgammon or poker. He’s very competitive as if you
didn’t already know that.”

“I know enough not to ever play backgammon
with him again,” she said drily.

“I think you’ll like the entertainment,” he
said with a smile. “And even if you don’t, tell him you did because it’s
costing him an arm and leg.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” he said cryptically.

* * * * *

She sat across the table from him and he
kept smiling wistfully at her. She knew it was the heavy drugs in his system.
He was—he’d told her when she asked how he felt—comfortably numb.

“Good?” he asked of the potato soufflé she
was tasting.

“Infinitely so,” she said. “I like the
marshmallows on top.”

She felt his bare foot rubbing along her
shin and raised an eyebrow. He gave her an innocent look as he happily munched
on a big helping of fried okra. His toes were tickling her and she fidgeted in
her seat.

“Something wrong, love?” he asked
pleasantly.

“I’m getting stuffed,” she replied and
realized as soon as his eyes widened that had been the absolutely wrong phrase
to use.

Apparently everyone else did, as well, for
eyes and heads snapped toward him and forks paused in midair.

His grin was slow and markedly evil. “Then
I suggest you save some room for dessert. That, I promise, will fill you up.”

Heads and eyes shifted to her.

She felt the blush from the bottom of her
neck to her forehead. “I probably won’t have dessert,” she muttered.

A slight gasp came from somebody as heads
and eyes flew to him. It was like watching a slow motion tennis tournament.

“Oh, I think you will,” he said. He sat back
in his chair. “As a matter of fact, I’m gonna insist on it.”

She became the center of everyone’s
attention.

She swallowed. “I guess it depends on what
it is,” she said.

He was center court again.

Head down, he looked at her from under the
barrier of his long lashes. “Let’s just say it’s cream filled.” His eyebrow
rose and fell.

“You do realize talk like that makes the
rest of us feel like a pork chop at a synagogue, don’t you?” Craigie groused.

“The bugger is a vaginamite. He’d fuck a
blind man’s dog if given the chance,” Jake said under his breath but the Kiwi
heard him.

“You get the fuck away from my table,
Tonika,” he said, blue eyes blazing.

Jake scowled. “What the hell did I do?”

“You want a grocery list? Get the fuck up
and leave. Now!”

The two men glared at one another for a
moment then Jake scooted his chair back, got up and threw his linen napkin on
his plate.

“Fine. Have it your way. You’re the trump
of the dump, now, aren’t you?”

“Fucking right I am! You forget it again
and I’ll nail your hide to the dunny door!”

Jake aimed a mean look at her then spun on
his heel and slammed out of the dining room. She wondered what had set the two
of them at loggerheads. They’d been uncivil to one another ever since the Kiwi
had taken Jake into the kitchen after the lawyer had arrived for the meal. When
they came out, Jake’s face was red and the Kiwi’s eyes were hard and
glittering.

Spike leaned over to ask her. “I know
Jake’s date bailed on him and he wasn’t in a good mood when he got here but
something else must have happened. What’s going on between him and Synnie?”

“I’ve no idea,” she answered.

The Kiwi had followed Jake’s exit with his
lips thinned and eyes narrowed. It was obvious to the other seven people left
that he was very angry and not just because of the crudeness of Jake’s words or
his insult.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,”
Craigie said quietly. “You don’t need another headache.”

“I don’t wear knickers,” he told his old
friend and shifted his gaze back to her. “You okay?”

“Are you?” she replied.

“Never better. Who’s for dessert?”

After the pecan pie and excellent Colombian
coffee, her lover came around the table to pull out her chair. “We’re going
over to the nightclub now,” he told her. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

The eight of them walked out of the dining
room and down the corridor to the nightclub. She hadn’t been in that part of
the Club yet and was just as impressed with it as she was with the rest of the
establishment. The Kiwi had spared no expense to make it a very cosmopolitan and
comfortable area with deep, upholstered booths and intimate tables for two
scattered around the room. The décor was the same as the dining room except
there was a jewel-toned stained-glass ceiling above them and lots of polished
chrome. Above the long bar was a beautiful mirror that reflected the myriad
beer taps lining the bar itself. At one end of the room was a stage with three
crisscrossed spotlights lighting a stand of five microphones. There were
guitars, a banjo and several other instruments waiting for the performers.

Directly in front of the stage the tables
had been pushed back and in their place were ten very comfortable-looking
chairs. He showed her to the center of the row of chairs and took a seat to her
left, reaching for her hand as he did. He threaded their fingers and laid their
combined hands on his right thigh.

“Happy Thanksgiving, baby,” he said and the
lights on the stage began to dim until all she could see was the shadows of
five men filing out on the stage.

The moment she heard the first skirl of the
tin whistle, the opening chords of the banjo and the low thump of the bodhrán,
she knew who the five men on stage were.

“Oh, Kiwi, you didn’t,” she whispered.

“I’d pluck the stars from the skies for you
if you asked for them,” he said.

“Is that who I think it is?” Spike asked
excitedly. She was seated beside her.

“The Coyne Brothers and Sean Cullen,” she
said.

His hand tightened around hers and he
lifted it, brought it to his lips as Sean Cullen’s strong tenor voice filled
the room as he began to sing
The Prince’s Lost Lady
.

“Where are you going, my lady, my love?
Where are you going this day?

“Said she to him, ‘It shall not take
long; For I go but a very short way.’

“And how long will you be, my lady, my
love, how long will you be gone this day?