In Rides Trouble (20 page)

“I’m going to have to quit, “ Becky said after a few minutes. “I can’t see him every day, know he’s sleeping down the hall from me and—” Her voice broke, but this time she didn’t give in to her grief, didn’t let another teardrop fall.

Leave it to Becky to only allow herself about ten minutes to fall to pieces before she started cementing herself together again. The woman gave new meaning to the phrase, “tough as nails.”

“But, you love that job.”

“I know, but I just…I can’t do it.”

Eve wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to this next question, but she asked it anyway. “Do you love him?”

When Becky met her gaze, Eve figured she had her answer right then and there.

“I love him,” Becky admitted and sighed so heavily she appeared to deflate like a circus tent after the show. “I’ve loved him for over three years, but it doesn’t matter. I know that now. There’s no way it’s ever going to work.”

Eve couldn’t help but agree. She didn’t know Frank Knight very well, but she figured she knew enough of him to know he wasn’t the kind of man to leave his son and the woman he loved behind while he took up with his hot, young boss. Or was he
her
boss? It was all very confusing. But regardless of who ran what, Eve was still surprised he’d given in to Becky’s seduction. He just didn’t seem the type, especially given everything Becky’d told her about him.

Of course, when faced with death, people did strange things…

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Becky suddenly announced.

“I’ll come with y—”

“No,” Becky waved her off when she started to stand. “I’m fine. I don’t need a witness as I pee, puke, and try to repair what’s left of my make-up. Especially considering I have no idea in what order those activities will occur.”

Eve nodded and watched her best friend sway toward the long gloomy hallway that led to the restrooms and back door.

Poor
Becky
, she thought, her heart breaking for her friend.

Mr. Baseball Cap turned to eye Becky’s progress from his new position at the bar, and Eve sat up straighter, trying to make out his partially concealed features.

CIA? Really?

Good grief, was
no
one
what they appeared to be nowadays?

She watched him curiously for a few minutes before she made the decision to go over and introduce herself—she’d never met a real, live CIA agent, ex or otherwise. She clumsily stood from the booth, and her movement caught his attention. For a second, something hot and calculating entered his eyes. Whatever it was, it kept her rooted to the spot, a startled hand fluttering up to her throat. Then a brief smile touched his lips, and she wondered if the lights from the bar had been playing tricks on her, making his amiable, handsome face appear hard and deadly.

She took a step in his direction, but before she could manage a second one, something down the hall snagged his gaze. He jumped from the barstool, dropping his beer in the process. In the blink of an eye, he barreled toward the darkened hall and the dingy restrooms.

For a second, she just stood there, staring in stupefied surprise at the shattered beer bottle and the foaming liquid spilling onto the wooden floor, watching as two peanut shells caught in the beer and briefly turned into little brown sailboats, merrily floating their way across the dusty slats. Then her mind caught up with her eyesight and she raced after Mr. Baseball Cap, ignoring the spinning room and the strange lassitude making her legs a pair of anvils dragging behind her.

She skidded around the corner in enough time to see Mr. Baseball Cap smash through the back door. The high pitched squeal of a car peeling out in the alley blasted into the bar, momentarily drowning out the sound of the jukebox.

What
in
the
world?

She pushed open the door to the women’s restroom. “Becky?” she called, an uneasy feeling swirling around in the pit of her stomach—it had nothing to do with the whiskey. “Where are you?”

No answer.

She peered into the three stalls. All empty save for a plethora of colorful graffiti. Spinning toward the bathroom door, she pushed it open just as Mr. Baseball Cap came thundering back down the hall.

“Call for help!” he hissed as he ran past her. “Some black guy with a bandaged hand just grabbed your friend and stuffed her in the trunk of his car. It’s a black BMW sedan.”

“Wha—”

Mr. Baseball Cap didn’t stop to explain any more. He just burst through the front door. A mere heartbeat later, she heard the sound of a big engine firing up. The shrieking wail of burning rubber followed in the next breath.

Stumbling down the hall and over to the booth and her purse, she fumbled with her phone and didn’t stop to wonder why the digits she dialed weren’t nine-one-one.

“You love her, don’t you?”

“What?” Frank turned toward Shell, wondering if his pain meds were causing him to have auditory hallucinations. He wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, he’d never be surprised again given he sustained the biggest whammy of his life when he actually woke up in the recovery room a few hours ago.

He’d made it through surgery. He still had trouble believing it. He’d been so sure he probably wouldn’t that he—

“Becky. That young woman you have working for you. You love her, don’t you?”

He quickly glanced at the door through which Wild Bill and Rock disappeared mere moments earlier to make a coffee run—the rest of the Knights having returned to the compound long ago. Then he peered at little Franklin who was curled up in an armchair, taking his afternoon nap. Carefully adjusting himself on the narrow hospital bed, he ventured, “What makes you think that?”

“Because hers was the first name you uttered when you came out of anesthesia.” When he shot her a startled look, she explained, “The nurse told us.”

Goddamnit, whatever happened to doctor/patient confidentiality? Did that have no bearing on nurses? If not, someone should really inform patients of that very salient little fact.
Shit!

“Because of the terrible look on your face when you realized she wasn’t here,” Shell continued. “And ever since the guys told you she’d stop by later, you’ve checked the clock on the wall every two minutes.”

Okay, so he’d apparently been playing the role of Captain Obvious.

“I’m just worried about her, he hedged.” I can’t shake the feeling we haven’t seen the last of the pirate who got away.”

“Bullshit, Frank.” Shell grabbed his good arm, squeezing gently. “It’s an easy enough question. Do you love her?.”

For a split second, he considered lying…
No, I don’t love her. I care about her like I do all the guys but…
No. He’d never lied to Shell before, and he wasn’t about to start. Oh, not because he was opposed to lying as a general rule. In his line of work, he told more untruths than truths. Hell, come to think of it, his whole life basically was one giant untruth, so, no, lying wasn’t the issue. It was the lying to his sister that was the issue.

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily against the restraint of his half-body cast, and the motion caused his newly rebuilt shoulder to grumble in protest. “Yeah, I love her.”

It was the first time he’d admitted it aloud. The first time he’d ever really admitted it to himself.

And
the
truth
will
set
you
free?
Whoever came up with that gargantuan load of bullshit was a frickin’ jackass, because now that the truth was out there—just hanging out there like a whore’s underpants on a hot Friday night—he felt so, so much worse. Because
Shell
was going to feel bad for ever making him—

“So what’s the problem?”

He turned to gape at her. “You know what the problem is. She’s barely twenty-six!”

“So?” Shell shrugged. “Last I checked, twenty-six is officially considered way past the age of consent in every state in the union.”

Well, thank God for that, because even if twenty-six wasn’t past the age of consent, he didn’t think he’d have been able to resist Becky last night. Not when she whipped off her clothes and stood in front of him so naked and…

No, she hadn’t been naked. Naked was a way to describe any Joe Shmoe sans a good set of threads. When he shucked his clothes,
he
was naked, all hairy ass and knobby knees and wrinkly balls hanging out for the world to see. But Becky…man, Becky had been
nude
.

Wonderfully, perfectly, artistically
nude
.

Kee-rist.
What the hell had he been thinking? What the hell was Shell thinking now?

“Have you completely forgotten my promise?” he bellowed and then flinched when Franklin stirred sleepily, rooting around his fist for his thumb. When the little guy found it, he shoved it into his soft, cherubic mouth and settled back into sleep with a shaky sigh.

“I haven’t forgotten one word you’ve ever said to me,” Shell whispered, tucking a thin hospital blanket around Franklin’s sturdy little shoulders. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about now.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t turn out like him, and, by God, I won’t! I refuse to!”

“For the love of…
Frank
, would you
please
start making sense?”

“I promised I wouldn’t turn out like Dad, and I don’t—”

“Wait.” She held up a hand, interrupting him. “Wait just a minute. How does your loving Becky have anything to do with your promise not to turn out like our father?”

“Because she’s so much younger than me, and she’s so—”

“Dad’s
lady
friends
,” Shell made the quote signs with her fingers while rolling her eyes, “were young?”

Frank frowned, nodding. Of course they were young…

“You never told me that.”

He hadn’t? So then…

“How young were they? No—” She held up that hand again, shaking her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I have a lifetime’s worth of disgust for that douche bag already. No need to add more fuel to the fire.”

“So then what did you mean when you asked me to make that promise?”

The look she gave him clearly questioned his mental acuity. “I meant I wanted you to swear that when you grew up, when you became a man, you’d find someone to love. Someone you could give your whole heart to without ever looking back, without ever having regrets. Someone you wouldn’t be tempted to cheat on. I meant simply that you should be a good man. A good husband. And a good father, if it ever came to that.”

“Yeah, I got all that. But I also thought it had to do with his particular penchant for younger women.”

She slapped him on the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“For being a jackass. Why would I have you promise not to date younger women? That’s absurd!”

“I was only twelve, Shell,” he mumbled in his own defense, rubbing at his sore noggin. “Jesus, you think you’d have more sympathy for a man fresh from surgery.”

“I have very little sympathy for fools, fresh from surgery or not.”

For a moment, they sat in silence, each contemplating the ramifications of a promise made between two kids, two siblings who’d had nothing but each other to depend on after their father disappeared and their mother decided to hide her shame behind contiguous bottles of Stoli.

Finally, Shell ventured, “So besides your moronic misconception of what your promise to me meant, is there anything that’s keeping you from going down on one knee and begging the lovely Rebel Reichert to love you forever and ever, amen?”

“Did you just quote Randy Travis?”

“Maybe.”

“Where did I go wrong?” He glanced toward the ceiling, grinning when she pinched his arm.

“So I’m a little bit country and you’re a little bit rock’n’roll. What’s wrong with that?”

“Hell, I think I liked it better when you were quoting ol’ Randy.”

“Oh, don’t pretend like you didn’t love Donny and Marie. I seem to remember you had a life-sized poster of Marie Osmond stuck to your ceiling. What was it doing up there, Frank?” Shell batted her eyelids with such fervor, he worried she might start losing lashes.

“Can it, creep,” he grumbled.

Chuckling like only a little sister can chuckle when she’s got her big brother over a barrel, she asked, “
So?
What’s stopping you?”

“What’s stopping me from what?”

“Ugh, the problem with you men…scratch that. Let me rephrase. One of the problems with you men is that you can never follow a conversation. So, what’s stopping you from going down on one knee and professing your love for Becky?”

“It’s not that we can’t follow conversations,” he told her in defense of every male on the planet. “It’s just that we’re linear conversationalists. When we veer off track, it takes us a while to reorient ourselves.”

“Just answer the damn question.”

“What’s stopping me from going down on one knee?”

She nodded.

“Bad knees?” he offered.

Folding her arms in the huffy pose she’d perfected in childhood, she tilted her head and watched him as he considered the question.

So, what’s stopping me? What’s stopping me now that—

And suddenly, like a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky, the answer struck him. He glanced at his sister in slack-jawed astonishment. “Well…nothing, I guess. I…”

Holy shit. There was nothing standing in his way. Nothing keeping him from finally claiming the only woman who’d ever managed to touch his jaded heart, the only woman he could envision walking down the aisle with, the only woman he could ever see growing round with his children, the only woman he could look at and imagine growing old with…

Holy, holy,
holy
shit!

So he
could
still be surprised, because suddenly the universe—in the form of his beloved sister—had just handed him the one and only thing he’d ever coveted, the one and only thing he never dared dream could be his.

She chuckled at the look of shock, hope, and sheer
joy
plastered all over his face.

“I was beginning to think I’d never see the day.” She squeezed his arm, and he was so overcome, he jerked her against his chest, hugging her tight—damn the pain in his shoulder. He barely felt it.

“Oh man, Shell,” he whispered over and over again.

“Oh, Frank,” she murmured, smacking a loud kiss on his ear. “I’m so happy for you.” She pushed back, her smile watery. “I really like her, you know. I mean, I only just met her, but she seems really spunky.” She made a face. “She’d have to be to put up with you.”

“She’s great, Shell. So smart and talented and
kind
. She feeds her cat too damned much, and she’s too nosy by half, but she’s got the biggest heart and she’s so flippin’ brave it kills me and…what?”

Shell was shaking her head, laughing. “You really are in love, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, feeling like the world must’ve leapt into a closer orbit with the sun. Suddenly everything was warmer, brighter…“I’m really in love.”

***

“What are you two grinning about?” Bill asked as he shouldered into the hospital room, juggling a cardboard carton full of Starbucks and a bag of fresh-from-the-oven blueberry muffins.

He was struck again by the sight of Michelle.

Shit, all this time he and the rest of the Knights had thought Boss was sneaking up to Lincoln Park to see some Pamela Anderson archetype when, in fact, the man had been visiting his
sister
. It was so absurd, he couldn’t help but snicker.

Of course, now the small smile that flickered over Rock’s mouth whenever the subject of Boss’s lady love was raised made a whole helluva lot more sense. Rock was the only Knight who’d been with Boss before the founding of Black Knights Inc., and the squirrely son-ofagun had obviously known all along what the deal with Michelle really was.

Bill glanced over at Rock and vowed to give the cagey bastard an earful for letting them all make such fools of themselves…

“It’s a brother/sister thing,” Michelle explained, and he had to remember what he’d asked her. Oh, yeah. He’d asked what they were grinning about.

“Ugh, I understand those,” he groused, and she flashed him a warm smile of thanks as he passed her a tall white-chocolate mocha, extra whipped cream. The woman liked her coffee sweet. God help her if she ever came to visit the shop. He lifted the lid on his own house blend and blew across the steaming liquid. “Only the brother/sister things Becky and I share usually end in insults, minor injuries, or yelled promises of retribution.”

“Oh, Frank and I have our fair share of those, too.”

Bill turned to eye Boss and the monstrous blue cast that wrapped from his waist and chest up around his shoulder and extended down his entire arm, keeping it frozen in an awkward angle away from his body. The surgeon said it was a
species
cast or a
spica
cast or some such thing. Bill didn’t care what it was called, because what it looked like was some maniac’s idea of medical torture.

“So when are they letting you blow this joint, Boss?” He fished in the bag and pulled out a muffin, dropping it in Boss’s greedily outstretched fingers.

Food was the first thing the big guy had requested after coming out of the anesthesia…

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. According to the nurse, the
first
thing Boss had requested was Becky, and that really threw Bill for a loop. He couldn’t help but wonder if things had changed between Boss and his sister since he’d had that little chat with the dude back at the shop.

He hoped so.

Because despite whatever little flirtation she had going with Angel, he knew Boss was the only man on the planet who could make her truly happy, since Boss happened to be the only man on the planet with big enough balls not to be intimidated by a woman of her particular talents and…uh…call it
moxie
.

Not to mention, Boss was the only man she happened to love…

Oh, she tried to hide it, and perhaps she did—from the other guys. But a big brother knows when his little sister gets a particular look in her eye. And she’d had that particular look in her eye since the first day she’d been introduced to Boss.

“They say they want me to stay overnight,” Boss replied around a mouthful of muffin. “Something about keeping an eye on my pain meds.”

“That’s probably—”

Somewhere a phone rang; the tone was the opening jingle to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

“That’s me,” Boss said, and Bill chuckled. He figured if he had to have a brother-in-law, he could do a lot worse than Frank Knight.

“Where are my pants?” Boss asked.

“Here.” Michelle opened the little closet and pulled out Boss’s worn jeans. Digging in the hip pocket, she retrieved his phone and tossed it to him. And even loopy on medication, Boss’s reflexes remained those of a cat.