Rock Chick 06 Reckoning (63 page)

Juno was sitting at my side, her big body leaning into my legs, her eyes riveted to Mace who was standing fifteen feet away where he had walked not thirty seconds ago to talk to Eddie and Hank.

My eyes were riveted anywhere but at the body that was on the ground, under a sheet, next to Preston’s limousine.

His driver had been taken out. One minute, innocently chauffeuring a rich guy (or whatever), the next minute, dead.

I couldn’t deal with that so I was ignoring it.

The place was crawling with cops, squad cars, forensic personnel, paramedics, ambulances, big lights had been set up and trained around the space so they could see what they were doing and, lastly, there were Nightingale men. In fact, the only Nightingale man not there was
the
Nightingale, Lee, who I was told briefly by Mace was not let in on this fiasco seeing as it was his wedding night. After Mace imparted this information on me, Luke had noted that Lee would likely be displeased about being kept in the dark. I had noted (but silently) that Lee
and
Indy would likely be more displeased at having their big, happy day and its culminating, arguably happier festivities interrupted by mayhem.

If the guys took shit from Lee, they did. Luckily, they were badasses so, even though Lee was also a badass, I doubted they’d have difficulty dealing.

There were bystanders and media at the edge of the property, cops and police tape holding them back.

I was counting as the stretchers came out of the building.

Two men ful y covered.

Dead.

Four men stil alive but even from a distance seriously not in good shape.

Mace didn’t fuck around.

This would probably fascinate anyone else, how he did it, how he pul ed that off, holed in a room one second, one against six armed men the next and besting the lot.

Not me. I didn’t want to know and I was never,
ever
going to ask.

Mace was breathing. I was breathing. My dog was breathing.

That was good enough for me.

The good news was, this was the last hurrah. I knew this because Luke told Mace this while Mace was holding me close, his hands running soothingly up and down my back as Luke gave his briefing. The six men Mace neutralized were the final six men in Sidney Carter’s army. Sidney was stil unaccounted for but his operation was ful y dismantled.

He had no more soldiers. They were stil looking but they suspected, once he heard that this last mission was not successful, he would cut and run. They were covering trains, airports, bus depots and the Highway Patrol was on alert.

They’d even contacted Border Control.

I was not real y processing this information. I was concentrating on my teeth not chattering.

This was what I was concentrating on when I caught movement out of the side of my eye. My head turned and my mind was not switched on enough to react to seeing Preston Mason suddenly, for some reason, sprinting my way.

The only thing I thought was, he wasn’t exactly young but the guy could stil move.

Then I heard him shout, “
Sniper!
” At his shout, the air went thick and electric. My body twitched first then instantly jerked to the side in preparation to run (again) and the second it did I heard the whiz and thud as a bul et slammed into the dirt just beyond me.

Then I was tackled from behind as I heard a second hiss split the air. I hit the soft, thick grass in Swen and Ulrika’s side yard with a painful thud that was made more painful by the weight that landed on me and Juno barked.

I lay there, facedown and whoever was on me didn’t move.

There was rushing al around me, I twisted my neck and saw men running and one of those men was Mace.

But he was running somewhere else.

I had no chance to react to this as I felt Juno’s nose snuffling around my neck and hair and felt my body being crushed by the one on me. I tried but failed to heave the weight off and saw the hems of uniform pants and shiny policemen shoes and the weight on me was rol ed off. I rol ed with it, to the other side, and instantly saw Preston lying on his back beside me, a cop on his knees by him, careful y rol ing him back to his bel y and shouting, “
Medic!
” Medic.

Oh God.

Medic.

He’d been hit!

Someone tried to pul me up but I yanked my arm away and got back on my bel y, flat, pressed to the ground, even my cheek was in the grass, my face super close to Preston’s, my eyes locked to his pained ones.

“You with me?” I whispered.

Hands were at my back but I ignored them. Preston stared at me as I heard more running feet and bodies landing on their knees around Preston.

My hand darted out and caught his, my fingers curling around.

“Preston, stick with me,” I urged, my fingers squeezing.

“
Gurney!
” I heard shouted.

Preston blinked.

I scooted closer and held his hand tighter.

“Hang on,” I whispered.

I watched his eyelids lower a mil imeter and his mouth went slack.

And I knew.

I knew.

I knew. I knew.
I knew.

“
Hang on!
” I shrieked then I was up, arms tight around me, one at my chest, one at my bel y and I struggled against the hold as they lifted Preston lifeless body onto a gurney.

“
Hang on!
” I screeched.

They strapped him in.

“
Hang on!
” I screamed.

They pul ed the gurney up to its ful height and wasted not a second in rushing it in a rol across the lawn, the drive and into the ambulance.

“Please hang on,” I whispered, the fight left me, oozing out and my body went slack in the arms surrounding me.

When it did, those arms turned me. I looked up at Wil ie Moses just as his hand curled around the back of my head and he shoved my face in his throat.

I again burst into tears, my legs col apsing from under me as the weight of knowing a man might have lost his life to save mine settled on me, the weight heavy, crushing and Wil ie’s arms got tighter.

“Find Mace,” I felt as wel as heard Wil ie order. “Now.” Then, into the top of my hair, he whispered, “Hang on, honey.”

I felt Juno’s body press against the side of my legs and somehow found the strength to lift up my hands, curl them in Wil ie’s shirt and hang on.

* * * * *

Mace slid the dark, heavy hair off Stel a’s neck, eyes locked to her sleeping profile.

Then he pul ed in breath.

Then his hand moved from his woman to her dog, he slid his fingers through the fur on Juno’s head and he whispered, “Stay with her.”

Juno blinked up at him then shuffled on her bel y closer to Stel a.

Mace straightened from sitting on the side of the bed in one of Daisy’s guest rooms; he switched out the light and walked out the door.

He was nearly to the stairs when Daisy made it up them.

She stopped as did he.

Her blue eyes captured his, her head tipped to the side then her hand came up. She rested it gently on his jaw and pressed lightly as her eyes held his and she let them and her hand communicate for her.

Her hand and her eyes had a lot to say, they didn’t waste time and al of it was beautiful.

She dropped her hand and whispered, “Your Momma and Chloe are in the great room.”

Then without waiting for a response, she skirted him and walked down the hal without looking back.

Mace watched her while he thought, not for the first time, that Daisy Sloan was a good woman.

Then he walked down to Daisy and Marcus’s great room where Chloe was sitting on a sofa staring vacantly into the dark, unlit fireplace and his Mom was standing at a window staring vacantly into the dark night. They were in their own thoughts, not pleasant ones, as they wouldn’t be. An attraction, a bad decision, giving their heart to the wrong man and then no end to heartache.

And now closure but not the right kind.

The instant he entered, Chloe’s neck twisted, her eyes shot to him and she asked, “How is she?”

His Mom turned from the window as Mace answered,

“Out.”

“She take the pil s?” Lana asked.

Mace nodded, stopped and sat on the armrest of the couch.

He was wiped, fucking shattered. He felt like he could sleep for a goddamned week. He not only felt like it, he wanted to do it.

But he wanted to do it somewhere where there was a beach right outside his room, Stel a in his bed and no one around for miles.

Lana moved toward him saying, “She’l be okay, sweetie.”

He knew that. He knew it.

He knew it because, if Stel a didn’t wake up that way, he’d make her that way even if it took a lifetime.

Lana stopped two feet in front of him and looked down at him.

Then, softly, she asked, “Okay, now, are
you
okay?”

“He died for her,” Mace replied bluntly and Lana drew in breath through her nose as he felt Chloe tense down the couch from him.

“Why the fuck would he throw himself in front of a bul et to save Stel a and he wouldn’t –

?” Mace started and Lana moved.

Closing the distance between him, her palm came to his cheek, fingers curled around his jaw forcing his face to look up at hers.

Jesus, he missed her touch.

Jesus.

He should have fucking remembered his Mom could soothe a hurt just with her touch.

He didn’t remember.

Jesus.

“You’l never find answers to your questions, Kai,” she said softly and it hit him, not for the first time in the last few days, how fucking much he also missed her voice. She could soothe with that too. Effortlessly. “So please, sweetie,
please,
right now, with me and Chloe, let them go. He did what he did and it’s done. Your beautiful girl is upstairs sleeping. You caught that Carter man and even if he wasn’t going down before, you caught him with his rifle so he’l go down for what he did to your father. It’s done. Your father is gone but his death is avenged. Life goes on. Live it. Enjoy every minute of it and let this go.”

The minute his father shouted “sniper”, Mace knew just how desperate Carter was, not for freedom, for vengeance.

Sidney Carter was a trained sniper. The first Iraq war. It wasn’t something they didn’t know, he’d just stopped doing his own dirty work a decade before.

But instead of going down like a man, he decided to do his own dirty work, the stupid, sick, demented fucking
fuck
.

But what his mother said was true. Carter was already going down but now there was no way Carter wouldn’t stay down.

down.

Mace thought his thoughts, drew in breath and stared into his mother’s eyes and, not for the first time in the last few days or in the last seven years, he realized how much he missed them and as he did this, he felt his hand taken in Chloe’s.

Lana’s hand dropped to his shoulder as he looked to Chloe.

“We love her,” Chloe whispered, changing the subject and changing it to Stel a. “She’s perfect for you.” She was not wrong.

“Total y,” Lana muttered and Mace looked back up at his Mom.

“She’s beautiful, she’s talented,” Chloe went on and Mace turned his gaze to her to see her face soft. “And she looks at you like you turn on the sun in the morning and switch it off at night.”

“Total y,” Lana repeated on another mutter and Mace felt his lips twitch.

“Tiny would absolutely
adore
her,” Chloe went on, Mace’s lips stopped twitching and Mace saw her turn to Lana. “Wouldn’t she, honey?”

“Oh yeah, heck yeah,” Lana answered and Mace’s eyes went back to his Mom just in time to watch her say, “Tiny thought you turned on the sun in the morning and switched it off at night too. She’d definitely adore Stel a. Two peas in a pod, the way they love you. Two peas in a pod.” Mace sucked in breath. He did this to fight the burn that threatened to consume his chest.

He could control it, had been for years. It was only recently when he started to believe he could beat it, move past it and maybe find a life where his memories focused more on his sister’s grace, her smile, her giggles, her easy affection and less on watching her life end way too fucking soon.

And that was because only recently he’d final y come to understand that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that alone.

Luckily, he’d also recently come to understand he was far from alone.

Then he stood and both women disengaged from him, Lana taking a step back.

Then he muttered, “Wiped,” and moved to his mother.

He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pul ed her to him as he bent to touch his lips to her forehead. There he whispered, “Missed your voice, your eyes, your touch, even your smel .”

Mace heard her draw in a sharp breath, her hands went to his waist, fingers digging in but she didn’t say a word and he said no more. He also didn’t move. Not for awhile.

He breathed her in, felt her touch and let it heal.

He should have remembered.

He didn’t.

Now he did.

Thank Christ.

Then he kissed her forehead and pul ed away. She let him go. Feeling his mother’s gaze soft on him, he turned to Chloe, ignoring the tears shimmering in her eyes, he bent and did the same but saying nothing, just touching his lips to her forehead and pul ing back.

She sniffled.

He looked between them and muttered, “See you in the morning. We’l al go out and have breakfast,” he paused then finished, “If Daisy lets us.”

“Right,” Lana agreed, her voice husky.