Rock Chick Bonus Tracks
Track 2
18%
Rock Chick Rescue
Show Her
* * *
Eddie
* * *
Eddie let himself into the kitchen through the back door.
He did not smell what he normally smelled; some of Jet’s amazing cooking.
He immediately smelled paint.
“Mi amor?”
he called.
Nothing.
He moved farther into the house. “Jet?”
Still nothing.
She wasn’t in the living room, so he headed to the hall.
And he stopped dead at the door to the bathroom.
It was painted.
Purple.
It was a deep, dark purple. If there was a shade of purple that was a modicum of masculine, this was it.
It was still purple.
“Jet!”
he shouted, thinking maybe she was downstairs doing the laundry and having a few things to say about a purple bathroom.
That day, she’d taken off from Fortnum’s. Her plans were to get her hair done and run some errands.
There had been no mention of painting the bathroom, and absolutely no mention of painting it purple.
But she wasn’t at home.
Her car was in the garage. He’d just parked next to that piece of shit.
It had only been a couple of months since he’d dropped a load on getting it running.
It was still a piece of shit.
His woman needed a new car.
Bad.
When he received no answer, a frisson he didn’t like slithered through his frame, and he pulled out his phone.
Since it’d happened, he’d tried, but he couldn’t get that last scene with Jet and Vince Fratelli out of his head.
On one hand, he’d trust his life to Lee. He knew, logically, that his hermano had the situation under control.
On the other hand, it had happened to Jet, and with her, his logic flew out the window.
Not to mention, when her ordeal was over, he’d come home to a house that was sparkling clean, and her shit was gone.
He’d sorted that right fucking quick, but the Rock Chicks had a way of finding trouble.
It had been weeks, the shit with Hank and Roxie had come and gone, Roxie was in Chicago preparing to move back, all seemed calm.
But Eddie still didn’t like the fact he was home, Jet’s car was in the garage, and she wasn’t answering his call.
Jet’s shit had been worse than Indy’s.
Roxie’s had been worse than Jet’s.
If this kept going, he didn’t know how he was going to handle it.
One way he knew would help was if all the shit stopped happening to Jet.
But she was supposed to be home, and she was not.
And he didn’t like that.
Before he could call her again, his phone rang, and the screen said, Jet Calling.
He took the call by saying, “Where the fuck are you?”
“Eddie?”
Oh fuck.
He knew what the sound of that “Eddie” meant.
“Where are you?”
he demanded.
“Lavonne and Bear’s.”
This seemed innocuous, but since her father was staying at Lavonne and Bear’s, he knew it was not.
“And, um, Indy’s here with me,”
she went on hesitantly.
Indy. Wildcard, with an emphasis on wild.
“Give it all to me, chiquita,”
he ordered.
“And mom and Lottie. And, um…Tex.”
He turned on his boot and retraced his steps to the door, asking, “Do I need grenades?”
“Probably not…”
More hesitation, then, “but maybe a call to Lee wouldn’t be remiss.”
Fuck.
When he got to the house, a house he’d only been to once and he’d never been inside, he walked in without knocking.
He was momentarily stunned at what he saw.
The yard was a disaster. It looked like Chernobyl twenty years post-meltdown.
But the inside was neat as a pin, countrified so much it made him appreciate his new purple bathroom, and choked in hearts.
Eddie only allowed this to momentarily take his attention, because what he took in next, he didn’t get.
First, Jet seemed fine. She was standing next to her dad, and both looked fit. No one was bleeding, and he might miss it from the stale (and fresh) cigarette odor that clogged the air, but he couldn’t smell any expended gunpowder.
Indy was sitting next to Tex on a couch. They were eating from a bucket of chicken wings. Tex had hot sauce all over his mustache and beard. Indy did not.
Lottie was in an armchair. She was doing her nails.
What seemed to be the problem was Bear appeared to be facing off against Lavonne…and Nancy.
Nancy looking pissed was probably why Tex was there. Or Nancy being there at all was why Tex was.
But Nancy wasn’t prone to getting pissed, and when it happened, it was usually on someone else’s behalf.
Even if there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger, Eddie didn’t let his guard down. Bear was probably in his mid to late fifties. If he’d ever attempted to stay in shape, that was a thing of the past, that past being decades ago. Nevertheless, the man was enormous, and bulk could be dangerous if the person who had it knew how to use it.
Eddie had already clocked the guy as knowing how to use it.
Lavonne was small, but wiry, and Eddie figured when she was riled, she was like a rabid chihuahua that could take down a pit bull.
He pinned Jet with his eyes.
“Cari?o?”
he called.
She came to him, put her hand on his chest and looked up in his eyes.
On her way, he would have liked to appreciate the snug sweater she wore, the tight jeans and the high-heeled boots that did great things to a naturally perfect ass. Not to mention, she had seen Trixie at her salon that day, so her hair was freshly highlighted and styled, with that sexy-as-all-fuck sweep of bangs across her eyes that was now even sexier.
The look she wore on her face, he didn’t take the time to appreciate any of it.
“Talk to me,”
he demanded.
“Okay. See, Mom and Lottie were just over to visit Lavonne, you know, girl chat and?—”
“Jet,”
he grunted in order to get her to focus.
“So annnnnyyyywaaaaay…”
she trailed off but did it turning to give big eyes to her father.
Eddie’s attention cut to Ray.
“Ray?”
he bit off.
Ray put up both hands. “Don’t look at me.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,”
Tex boomed, then using a partially-gnawed-on chicken wing, he pointed at Lavonne. “She…”
He swung the wing to Bear, “Wants him out. He…”
He whirled the wing in the air. “Won’t leave. I don’t know what the big deal is and why Jet had to call in the fuzz.”
Eddie also didn’t have the time to react to Tex using the term “the fuzz.”
He’d come home from work, expecting to eat dinner with his woman, watch TV with her, fuck her, then sleep beside her.
Instead, he got a purple bathroom and a callout to Chernobyl house.
He looked down at Jet and raised his brows.
“I think she’s worried about this,”
Lavonne put in at that juncture.
Eddie’s gaze went to her, and his body went solid, because she was squinting through the smoke drifting up from the cigarette between her lips and brandishing a long-barrel .44 Magnum revolver.
“Yeah,”
Jet whispered. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
Eddie’s voice was such a quick lash, Lavonne jumped when he ordered, “Put that down.”
She squinted harder at Eddie, deciding something, then she made the wrong decision.
“You get his lazy ass outta my house, I’ll put this down.”
He heard the door open behind him but didn’t turn to it, knowing it was Lee, since he called him on his way over. Instead, he stalked across the room and wrenched the weapon from the woman’s hand.
“Hey!”
she shouted, the cigarette hovering on her lower lip, but either by a miracle or through practice, it held.
“What’s goin’ on?”
he heard Lee ask behind him.
“This isn’t a toy,”
Eddie snarled at Lavonne.
She plucked the smoke out of her mouth and retorted, “I know it’s not a toy. I also know I want his good-for-nothin’ ass out of my house, and he ain’t goin’.”
“It’s my house too!”
Bear yelled.
Lavonne leaned to the side to see around Eddie and asked her husband, “Oh yeah? When’s the last time you put money in the bank to pay the mortgage? Hunh? When’s the last time you even sat your lazy ass down to write out the check to pay the mortgage? Hunh?”
Bear flung an arm toward Ray. “I gotta look after my boy here.”
Ray—who’d had a clean bill of health delivered to him at his last doctor’s visit, but who had been putting a fair amount of effort into getting on with his life for weeks, doing this like he was a man on a mission, something Eddie suspected happened when someone stabbed you repeatedly, shot you and threw you from a moving vehicle so your daughter could deal with the literal bloody mess you’d made of your life—took a step back, put his hands up again and said, “I’m not in this.”
“No, you’re not,”
Lavonne agreed. “’Cause you’re bein’ good. Goin’ to meetin’s. Got yourself a job. Givin’ me money I didn’t even ask for to cover that food I put in your belly and that bed you sleep in. Gettin’ your shit together. You know who’s not gettin’ their shit together?”
She poked her finger at Bear but turned accusing eyes to Eddie. “It packs a bigger punch when I do that with my .44.”
“God, I missed home,”
Lottie remarked fondly, and when Eddie glanced at her, he saw she said it while stroking the brush on a nail and not looking up from her task. “So glad to be back.”
“And we sure are glad to have you back, hon,”
Lavonne said fondly.
Fuck him.
Eddie turned his attention to Jet.
She bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders.
“Eddie already disarmed her, took the fun out of it, if you ask me,”
Tex put in, aiming this at Lee. “So you’re overkill.”
Lee locked eyes with Eddie, and Eddie knew his friend felt his pain.
“Eddie,”
Nancy said quietly.
He twisted at the waist to look at Jet’s mom.
With what he saw, he twisted back and said to Bear, “You need to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
“Huh,”
Lavonne grunted victoriously.
“I ain’t goin’,”
Bear declared stubbornly.
That was when Tex lost interest in his chicken wings. He tossed some picked-clean bones on a heart-shaped plate Lavonne had set out for them on the coffee table and stood to his very tall, massively bulky height.
He leveled his gaze on Bear and said, “Nancy wants you gone ’cause Lavonne wants you gone, which means you’re gone, turkey.”
“I barely even know you. You’re not gonna tell me what to do in my own damned house,”
Bear shot back.
That was when Tex lifted one long, beefy leg and stepped over the coffee table like it was a small fallen branch.
Bear was smart enough to back up, but not smart enough, because he didn’t back far enough, like, out the door.
Shit.
Now they had a situation.
Eddie and Lee closed in.
Ray, too, got closer.
“Pack a bag, brother,”
Ray said carefully to Bear.
Bear didn’t take his eyes off Tex as he crossed his arms on his chest. “Not goin’.”
“You’re out or I put you out,”
Tex warned.
“I’d like to see you try,”
Bear returned.
Tex grinned, hot sauce glistening, and even Eddie felt a shiver because the man looked deranged. Or, more deranged than normal.
Ray shifted so he was between Tex and Bear, his back to Tex.
“C’mon, Bear. Talk to Lavonne later when she cools down,” he urged.
“Not gonna cool down this time,”
Lavonne called.
Eddie watched Ray’s head tip slightly to the side and the look that crossed his face that said without words, You’ve heard that before, give her what she wants, this will blow over.
Bear made them wait a few beats before it was him doing the leaning to stare down Lavonne.
“Not gonna forget anytime soon you pointin’ that .44 at me, woman,”
he threatened.
She took a drag from her cigarette, blew out the smoke, and replied, “Good.”
Bear made a face at her, swept the room with his gaze without catching on anyone, turned and stormed down the hall.
“Not as good as car bombs, but it’ll do,”
Tex mumbled as he lumbered back to the couch and his bucket of wings.
Nancy giggled.
Eddie caught Jet’s eyes and blew out a sigh.
They stopped at Famous on the way home to get a pizza for dinner.
Not as good as Jet’s meatloaf or her chili, but then, nothing was.
She made up for it by scooping out a treat she’d introduced him to shortly after her shit settled. Vanilla bean ice cream with a huge wodge of chunky peanut butter slopped on, this smothered in chocolate sauce.
Since he wasn’t about to get a gut, he decided they’d need to be energetic to work it off.
And how he chose them to do it, he didn’t mind he was doing most of the work.
Though, his woman put a fair amount in herself.
She was taking it doggie-style, one of her arms out, hand braced to the headboard so the effort he was expending didn’t get lost in the sway, at the same time giving herself an anchor to meet him, when he heard that sweet catch in her throat.
He pulled out, she made a new noise, one that told him she didn’t like that, but she got over it when he rolled her to her back, swung her leg in front of him and hiked her up his thighs, pounding back in.
He watched her take him, and Christ, she was pretty.
She also needed to blow.
He shifted a thumb between her legs and saw to that.
After that was accomplished, he let go.
He lowered himself to her after his orgasm left him, and she wound her limbs around him.
He felt that, where she had hold of him, on the outside and on the inside.
This woman loved him. This woman, with her snug tops and perfect ass and sexy bangs and phenomenal cooking skills and beautiful smile and huge heart, loved him.
But…
“Purple?” he asked.
Her body tightened underneath him, so he smoothed a hand down her side, her hip, and then up to cup her breast.
“Do you hate it?”
“Is Prince coming for a visit?”
She giggled and, better, relaxed.
She had her mother’s gorgeous smile.
She also had her mother’s giggle.
He moved his hand from her tit to her neck. “There’s one good thing about the bathroom.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t have to paint it.”
A laugh this time, not a giggle, but he’d take it.
“You like it?”
he asked softly.
“I think it looks amazing,”
she said timidly, and that was his woman too. She was shy. She was losing that with him, but she loved him. She wanted him to like his bathroom. She worried.
If he didn’t like it, she’d paint it again tomorrow, he knew it.
He didn’t hate it, and as he said, he didn’t have to do it himself, so he knew he could live with it.
“Then I like it,”
he only slightly lied.
“Good,”
she whispered.
“How’d you do that and get your hair done today?”
“Stevie and Duke came over to help.”
“Ah.”
“And it’s a small room.”
“Right.”
“She’ll take him back.”
Now she’d lost him.
“What?”
“Lavonne. She’ll take Bear back. She always does.”
“Not my problem, not yours. Unless you’re in the line of fire when she’s waving around a revolver.”
“There’s nothing fun about watching people fight, but I’ll admit, that made it a whole lot less fun.”
Considering Jet had been in that room, and it had concerned her enough to call him, Eddie started to get pissed.
Jet covered his hand at her neck and said gently, “It’s over.”
His voice was inflexible when he said, “That was far from cool.”
“Agreed, but I noticed you didn’t give it back to her when we left, so it won’t happen again.”
No, he didn’t. And he wouldn’t. You didn’t use a firearm to put strength behind a threat when you were bickering with your spouse. You used it for protection. The end.
But he wasn’t going to discuss that with Jet.
“It was sweet, when Tex saw Mom was over it and he waded in.”
“You need to prepare, mi amor, he’s in deep for her.”
He said it even knowing he didn’t have to. Jet adored Tex. In the short time the man had been in her life, he’d been a better father to her, and a better partner to Nancy, than Ray had in her twenty-eight years.
But the stillness he felt in her was not about what he said.
It was about what he hadn’t yet said.
She loved him, he knew it, she showed it with peanut butter and chocolate sauce sundaes, and a fuckuva lot more.
She’d also told him.
He hadn’t told her.
He felt the same. It was there. He knew it when he saw the empty space where her bag used to be when she tried to break up with him after her ordeal.
But before he gave it to her, he needed them to have more than a couple of weeks under their belts.
They had that now.
She had to know.
He had a purple bathroom, and he didn’t throw a shit fit.
He came home from work only to have to haul his ass to Lakewood to extricate her from a situation that involved a .44.
But he wasn’t going to tell her. Not now.
She wouldn’t believe him.
Ray seemed to be turning his life around, but he’d been a shit dad and a shit husband who’d left his woman and daughters with serious baggage.
Eddie had more work to do to show her, and he was down to put in that work, as long as it took.
And when the time was right, she’d have the words.
“I know,”
she replied belatedly about what he said about Tex, maybe waiting for Eddie to say what he hoped they both knew. Maybe not.
But since it wasn’t time, he moved them past it.
He touched his mouth to hers then asked, “Ready to go to sleep?”
He watched her nod on the pillow.
He grinned, saw her eyes drop to where he knew his dimple was, and they warmed. The love blasted out of them, and Eddie decided it wasn’t time to sleep.
Not yet.
Later.
They had more business to see to.
But this time, it wasn’t about the fact he had ice cream to work off.
“Oh my God, stop doing this!”
Jet cried as he hauled her out of bed the next morning.
“You like our showers,”
he reminded her as, hands to her hip with her in front of him, he guided their way to the bathroom. “Why you always bitch about it, I have no clue.”
She turned in his hold and stood firm, so he “had to”
bump into her. He then took the opportunity to stay close.
“Do they have to happen at five thirty in the morning?”
she demanded.
“Yes.”
She heaved a huge sigh that was cute, and which had the added benefit of pushing her tits against his chest.
After he enjoyed that, he whipped her around, replaced his hands on her hips and took her to their purple bathroom.
Jet was at his side. She had heels to her chair, thighs to her chest, the chair angled away from the table and facing him sitting at its head, and she was munching toast and staring at him.
Eddie swallowed the eggs she’d made him and advised, “Chiquita, give it up. We’re gonna fool around every morning in the shower until I croak at age eighty-nine.”
Her lips parted, her eyes went huge, but she said nothing.
Show her.
Right, so that wasn’t showing as much as telling.
Though, the shower was definitely showing.
When he didn’t follow that up, she threw her toast on the plate, swiped her hands above it to get rid of the crumbs, then refocused on him.
“Eddie, I’m all right.”
He smiled at her. “Know that, cari?o. You’re vocal.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “I know this is hard, given the certain appendage you have that makes it always on your mind, but I’m not talking about sex.”
He forked up more eggs. “What are you talking about?”
“You toss and turn in your sleep, and sometimes grab me…really hard.”
Fork halfway to his mouth, Eddie froze, eyes to Jet. “Cómo?”
She reacted to his tone, his intensity, he knew it because her voice went soft when she shared, “You don’t hurt me.”
He put his fork down, sat back and gave her his full attention. “Tell me.”
“Since that night, since…Vince, it happens. Not every night. But often enough, and it’s not going away,”
she explained. She put her feet down, leaned to him and wrapped her hand on his forearm resting on the table. “Baby, I’m all right.”
“I know you are,”
he said shortly. “I grab you? Hard?”
She squeezed his arm while shaking her head. “Like I said, it doesn’t hurt.”
“Why don’t you wake me?”
She looked confused. “Because you have an important job. You need your sleep.”
Christ.
His woman.
“Cari?o, I grab you hard and I’m unconscious, you wake me so I don’t hurt you not knowin’ I’m hurtin’ you.”
“You grab me harder when we’re having sex. Obviously, I don’t mind that,”
she teased.
Teasing wasn’t going to work.
Not this time.
No fucking way.
“I want you to wake me.”
“I’m not going to wake you.”
“Jet.”
“Eddie.”
“Jet,”
he bit off.
“Eddie,”
she mimicked him.
“This isn’t funny,”
he gritted.
“I know it’s not. I also know he can’t hurt me. He’s dead. If you’re still angry with Lee, work it out with Lee. If you’re angry with me, work it out with me.”
“I’m not angry with you.”
“Do you normally toss and turn in your sleep?”
“I don’t know. I’m sleeping.”
“You didn’t before Vince.”
Eddie pulled from her hold, returned his attention to his plate, picking up his fork, and clipped, “Stop saying his fucking name.”
“Eddie.”
He knew that “Eddie”
too. It was, “listen to me, I’m worried about you, Eddie.”
But fuck that.
He tossed his fork on his plate, sat back again, and exploded, “He had your pants undone!”
Jet held his gaze, said nothing, but didn’t back down or away.
“Jesus fucking Christ, he had your pants undone,”
he continued. “He had his hands on you. You were scared. Nope. You were terrified.”
She said something to that. “Lee had it contained.”
“I don’t give a fuck,”
he returned. “And you didn’t know that at the time, or you wouldn’t have been terrified.”
“I’m fine,”
she said quietly.
“I know that,”
he barked.
She held his gaze again. A beat passed. Two.
Then she got up, came to him, and he tipped his head to keep his eyes on her.
She put her hands on him, smoothing his hair back, not taking her attention from his face. Eventually, she just held the sides of his head before she bent and touched her lips to his.
When she straightened, she mumbled, “You’ll work it out in your own time.”
She let him go, turned, nabbed her coffee cup and asked, “Want more coffee?”
That was when he was up and had her in his arms, her back molded to his front, his face in her neck.
She gave him that, sliding her hands along his arms so she was holding him while he held her.
Then she whispered, “It’s over, honey.”
“Yeah,”
he grunted into her neck.
“Do you want more coffee?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure you’re not mad about the bathroom?”
He laughed in her skin, kissed her there, and at her ear, repeated, “Yeah.”
She turned her head, he lifted his, and they caught eyes.
“Give me your mug, Eddie.”
I love the fuck out of you, he thought, staring into her eyes.
Same, she thought back, staring into his.
After they shared that, he kissed her mouth, let her go and gave Jet his mug.