Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Track 4

Rock Chick Renegade

His

* * *

Boo

* * *

This was unacceptable.

Since the New Human showed (who Boo liked, he smelled good and Boo liked the way he looked at Boo’s Primary Human), Boo’s schedule had been disrupted.

Boo wasn’t thrilled about this, and as was his duty, he let them know at his every convenience.

But no one, not even the human next door (who he considered his Secondary Human), had come to feed him his breakfast. (He was thinking with the way his Primary looked at the New Human, that human was going to be the new Secondary Human, and the next-door human was going to be, well…the Next-Door Human, known to other humans as “Nick”).

Next-Door Human did not excel at the simple feat of breakfast. He didn’t break up Boo’s food like Primary did. She knew exactly how he liked his breakfast, though, her portions were puny, and he wasn’t fond of the fact she didn’t make up for them with his required amount of treats. She was also a good cuddler, she liked to talk to him as much as he liked to talk to her, and she kept his litter box clean. Therefore, he didn’t complain…too much.

But still, unbroken-up-correctly food was better than no food at all.

The light outside had gone up and down, and still, no breakfast.

He didn’t count his kibble, of which there was plenty. Everyone knew kibble didn’t count.

So.

Entirely…

Unacceptable.

So unacceptable, obviously, when he heard the key in the door in the back, he jumped off his throne at the front by the window (he had many thrones, indeed, every surface in the house was his throne) and pranced toward the kitchen to let them know precisely how he felt about this delay.

He saw the light switch on before he got there.

He entered the room, noted it was New Secondary, not Primary (which wasn’t entirely unusual, but he still found it concerning).

And then he got a good look at New Secondary’s face: the human Primary called “Vance.”

Boo decided to delay his litany of complaints because something really was not right.

New Secondary (that was Vance) took two steps in, his eyes never leaving Boo.

Boo didn’t take his eyes off Vance either.

Then the human did something funny.

And Boo knew.

He knew.

So when Vance folded down, right on the kitchen tile, sitting cross legged, still staring at Boo, Boo knew right what to do.

He jogged to Vance, stepped right in, circled in on himself in Vance’s lap, and he got to work purring.

Vance’s strong fingers sifted through Boo’s fur.

“She’s gonna be okay,”

Vance whispered.

Boo had no idea what that meant, but he wasn’t all fired up about the tone, so he concentrated harder on purring.

Vance kept stroking him. “She’s gonna be all right.”

It’d take a lot of work purring to get Vance sorted out to finally get up and get Boo some food.

He broke it up just like Primary did (known amongst the humans as “Jules”).

So when Vance put it down, it was perfect.

But Boo didn’t eat it.

He sat on the toilet while Vance took a shower.

He sat in the hall and watched Vance put on clothes.

And he sat in the kitchen and watched Vance leave out the back door.

He still didn’t go eat.

No.

He didn’t.

It would come to be his and Vance’s secret. He’d have some kibble so he could keep his strength up (purring took a lot out of you, and so, he would find, did waiting).

But until she came home, he wasn’t hungry.

He was in the kitty carrier in the back seat.

So, okay, they set him up in the middle so he could see a little of them and a lot of the front of the moving machine, and that was better than being in the seat and having nothing to look at but the back of another seat.

And she was with them.

Finally.

It had been forever.

But this was intolerable.

“Meow!”

he shared his thoughts.

She turned and looked around the seat at him.

“It’s okay, Boo.”

He had no clue what she was saying (other than knowing his name was Boo), but considering she didn’t end it by reaching out and releasing him from this prison, he shouted, “Meeeeeeeoooow!”

“We’re going to be at the cabin soon,”

she promised.

He didn’t know what that meant either, and she still did not free him from his unearned incarceration, so he told her exactly how he felt about that.

“Meow. Meow. Meowmeowmeow. Meow!”

“He hates his carrier,”

she told Vance, who was where Boo should be. Everyone knew when they were in the moving machine, Boo sat in the lap of the person at the wheel.

How was he supposed to help if he was stuck in confinement in the back?

“I don’t know how he’s gonna react to you being with us, and you’re not a hundred percent, Princess. I don’t want him jumping on you.”

Boo didn’t understand that either, but he knew it didn’t bode well, so he aimed his next, “Meow!” at Vance.

“We’re gonna be there, half an hour, tops,”

Vance assured.

Even if he didn’t know what he was saying, he still read the tone, and Boo was far from assured.

“Meow!”

Boo put in.

Jules turned to look at him, and said in his most favoritist voice, “Love you, baby. Missed you so much.”

Ugh.

Whatever.

Might as well use this time for some obsessive grooming so he could get a good hairball worked up and hurl it out as their punishment.

So he set about doing that.

They were back in the wilds, a domicile Boo approved of.

He liked the smell. He liked sitting in the window and lording over all the critters outside who were too foolish to know how to bend humans to their will so they gave in to your (almost) every whim. He loved that he could tell Vance was at home here and Jules was relaxed here.

Even though she was holding herself funny, he didn’t love that.

But it was morning. She was still in bed.

And Vance had just put his food bowl down in the kitchen.

Boo looked at the food perfectly prepared, then up at Vance.

Vance was staring down at him.

Boo shoved his face in the food.

He didn’t know what Vance said, but he felt the stroke down his spine, and heard the relief in his tone when he whispered, “That’s it, cat. It’s all good. Mama’s home.”

Boo ate and ate and licked the bowl clean when he was done.

But don’t worry, he shoved some food out on the floor with his nose so they’d have to clean up after him.

He was happy Jules was back, ecstatic (though he’d be careful not to let that show overly much).

But he was never derelict in his duties.

Boo carried out his complete inspection of her the first chance he got, and it wasn’t easy to find that chance. Vance was always there, helping her get around, stretched out next to her on the bed, sitting on the couch with her head in his lap while he read and she listened to music.

He was an animal. He was intuitive.

He knew his playground (her body) was not accessible at this moment, so he couldn’t go gallivanting on the bed when they were both in it. There wasn’t enough room.

So when Vance went to shower, Boo jumped up on the bed (and yes, he did mean to miss the top so he had to sink his claws into the covers and pull himself up, he had to keep his claws sharp…obviously), and he gave her a good once-over with his eyes and nose.

She smelled like Jules.

She smelled like home.

So he cuddled into her side and allowed her to scratch behind his ears while she babbled at him words he’d never understand.

Vance came back, and Boo had to skedaddle as he helped her up and to the bathroom.

Vance returned alone, and Boo noted it was going to be more of this lazing about they’d been doing, which Boo wholeheartedly supported.

To share this, while Jules showered, when Vance got dressed and laid back down on the bed, Boo joined him, and there were no limits to this playground, so he settled right in on his chest, shut his eyes, and the instant Vance’s strong fingers started to give him a neck massage, he started purring.

“Home,”

Vance murmured.

Boo didn’t know what that meant either.

But he knew two things.

One, it was directed at Boo.

And two, Vance really, really meant it.

* * *

Vance

When he pulled into Shirleen’s driveway and idled, and neither of the boys moved, he knew something was up.

He turned to Roam in the front seat, who was looking around the back at Sniff.

After school, they’d come to the office and done their homework in the surveillance room, which happened a lot these days, then they’d done some surveillance in the surveillance room.

Twenty minutes ago, Shirleen texted, If you don’t have my boys home in twenty minutes, I won’t be responsible for what I do.

She was down with surveillance. She was down with the fact that Monty, or Mace, and sometimes even Luke would go over their homework to make sure they got shit right.

But they had a weekday curfew of nine o’clock, and right then, it was ten past.

“Talk to me,”

he ordered.

Roam’s steady gaze came to him, but as usual, it was Sniff who talked.

“We want you to teach us how to drive.”

Vance looked over his shoulder at Sniff. “I thought Shirleen was teaching you how to drive.”

“Yeah, she is. Like a grandma,”

Sniff replied.

He couldn’t imagine Shirleen did anything like a grandma, including drive, so this was surprising.

“She’s probably just going cautious,”

he suggested.

Roam chimed in. “We drive every Saturday with her. Sniff for an hour and a half, me for an hour and a half. We’ve been doing this for six weeks. And she doesn’t let us go over thirty in a forty, we haven’t parked the car in a parking lot, much less parallel, and we haven’t been on the highway. We just drive around for three hours, pulling up in her driveway halfway through to switch out drivers. We’re real good at reversing out of the driveway and driving, and that’s it. When we ask her if we can do more, she tells us we’re not ready. But we are. We’re real fuckin’ ready.”

Jesus.

She was teaching them to drive like a grandma.

And they were both turning sixteen soon, and like any teenager, they wanted the freedom of a driver’s license.

“I’ll talk to Shirleen.”

He said that.

What he meant was, he’d talk to Jules and Jules would talk to Shirleen.

Slowly, as time went by, it was shifting (case in point, the curfew and text). But Shirleen deferred a lot to Jules. She looked to her for guidance with the boys.

It was smart. She was a childless woman who took on two runaway teenagers. And Jules had a lot of experience with runaway teenagers.

But she was finding her way, and Jules would eventually guide her into taking over.

Though now, someone had to teach them how to drive.

That was going to be him, but it was Jules who would talk to Shirleen about it.

Their relief filled the cab.

“I’m waiting!”

Shirleen called from the open doorway to her house where she was standing.

“She’s gonna go over homework Monty already went over,”

Roam muttered. “Even knowin’ Monty went over it.”

“Let her,”

Vance advised. “She gets something important out of it. It’s no hassle for you to give it to her, so give it to her.”

Roam nodded.

“You da man,”

Sniff said.

Vance sighed.

Sniff punched him in the shoulder and swung out. Roam held up a closed fist, Vance bumped it, then he swung out.

Vance waited until the door closed on that new family, then he reversed out of Shirleen’s drive.

When he got home, Boo was waiting at the back door for him, filled with news of his day.

Vance ended the conversation by picking him up and curling him like a baby to his chest.

He then went right to Boo’s treats.

Boo was snarfing them down, fingers to fangs, when Jules strolled in.

Vannce’s heartrate, never quite right when he was away from her, settled.

Her gaze went from him to her cat, back to him.

“The vet said he was chonky,”

she reminded him.

Vance quit feeding him treats because Boo turned his pointy face her way and glowered at her.

“Cats are supposed to be chonky,”

he returned, which meant he got Boo’s attention again, so he gave him another treat.

Jules came fully into the kitchen and rested a hip to the counter. “They’re not. If they were, the vet wouldn’t have pointed out he was chonky.”

Vance answered that by giving Boo another treat.

“We talked about this, Crowe,”

Jules snapped. “We’re supposed to cut down on his treats, not give him more.”

He’d never told her Boo had barely eaten while she was in the hospital. And if she didn’t notice her cat had lost weight, he wasn’t going to point it out. She’d had her recovery to concentrate on. She didn’t need to worry about her pet.

Therefore, as far as Vance was concerned, he and Boo were working on getting him back to his fighting weight.

He fed him another treat.

Boo ate it, still purring.

“I hope you don’t spoil our daughter like that,”

Jules remarked in a way that had Vance’s eyes racing to her.

What he saw on her face made him go completely still.

They’d decided. Once the doc told her it was all systems go. Once she was back to her normal self physically, they decided.

Life was too short. It was too filled with shit.

They weren’t going to wait.

On any of it.

Marriage. Babies.

Everything.

They were going to do it all right away.

Therefore, she went off the Pill she’d barely got on, but they’d been told it might take a few months for her cycle to regulate.

Maybe it didn’t take that long.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I took a test. Positive. So I went out and bought another test just in case. Positive. So I got an appointment with my OB, and she confirmed it. I’m pregnant.”

Vance bent to drop Boo to his feet, scattered about fifteen treats across the floor, Boo purred a “Mrreow!”

in excitement and chased after them, just as Jules cried an irate, “Crowe!”

But Vance was across the room, in her space, in her face, framing her head in his hands.

His eyes roamed her face.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. More beautiful than anyone on a movie screen. More beautiful than any in the pages of a magazine.

And she was his.

His.

And she was having his baby.

His.

“I take it you’re happy,”

she whispered.

He crashed his mouth down on hers and answered that question with his tongue.

When he lifted his head, she breathed, “You’re happy.”

“Yeah, I’m fuckin’ happy,”

he replied.

Her violet eyes lit with joy as she returned, “Good. We’re naming her Rebecca Ann.”

“We’re naming him Max.”

“It’s not a him, Crowe.”

“It’s a him, Princess.”

“How can you know? I’m only six weeks. She’s a mass of cells now.”

“I just know.”

“Whatever,”

she mumbled.

He took his hands from her head and slid them around her body, drawing it up against his. “Who have you told?”

“You, and only you. That’s all either of us are going to tell. Even Nick and May need to stay in the dark until I reach the three-month zone.”

He could be down with that.

Still, he was telling the men. Doing the cigar shit, the whole damned thing.

She watched him a beat, then her face screwed up. “You can’t tell the guys.”

“They won’t say anything.”

“They’re sleeping with half the girls!”

she shot back. “And they have big mouths.”

“Not when it’s important.”

She couldn’t argue that, so she didn’t try.

Instead, she said, “If it’s a boy, we’re naming him Harry.”

“No. Max. Then our next one is Sam. The one after that will be Rex.”

“You have it all figured out.”

“Yup.”

She rolled her eyes, let that go, then asked, “Did you eat dinner?”

“Yup.”

“Wanna celebrate me getting knocked up?”

He grinned at her and answered.

“Yup.”

They lay in her bed loft, both of them naked, Jules on top of him, the moonlight filtering through the window at the head of the bed.

She had her face in the side of his neck, her finger drawing on his shoulder.

“You can tell the guys,”

she whispered. “But really, I want it on the down low with everyone else. Life has a tendency to?—”

He cut her off by using his arms already around her to squeeze her tight. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I don’t want everyone to get excited for us and then put them through something else after they went through all that business with what Shard did.”

He tucked his chin in his neck in an attempt to see her.

“What’s this?” he asked.

She lifted her head and looked down at him. “Thanksgiving in a hospital room isn’t a lot of fun, Crowe.”

“Maybe you were still thinking you were an angel, because if you paid attention like I paid attention, you’d have seen a bunch of people who didn’t give two shits that they were celebrating Thanksgiving in a hospital room. They were just happy you were alive.”

“Yeah, normally you don’t make your friends have to feel happy you’re alive. They just take that for granted.”

“Do you think Roxie should feel guilt for being beat to shit and abducted?”

“No.”

“Do you think Jet should feel shit because her dad’s loan sharks focused on her to get him to pay, and some asshole was incapable of a blow to his manhood, so he wanted to make her pay?”

“No, of course not, Vance, but?—”

“Listen, Princess, I’m down with you not wanting anyone to know for a few weeks. But you’re fit. You’re healed. Roam’s fit. Him and Sniff are in a good home, being looked after by a good woman. They’re even in school. Our shit times are over.”

He rolled her to her back and spread his hand over her belly. “Now it’s about making babies, getting married, and raising our family.”

She stared up at him through the moonlight. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Kid’s gonna have my name when he comes out every way that can be, Jules. Legally. Whatever god you pray to. All that shit. And if I’m your husband, they’ll probably give me the birth certificate to fill out, so I can put in the right name.”

She narrowed his eyes at him. “So you want to marry me so you’ll win on the name?”

He knew she was bickering because that was what they did. It was playful and it was loving, and it was them.

But when he answered, he was dead serious.

“No. I’m gonna marry you because I love you. I’m gonna marry you because you’re not only the best woman I’ve ever met, you’re the best person. I’m gonna marry you because my heart doesn’t beat right when I’m not with you. I’m gonna marry you because we’re going to make beautiful babies. You’re gonna be an amazing mother. And you’re going to teach me how to be a good dad. I’m going to marry you because I want to spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthday with you until I die. I’m going to marry you because you’re mine. I want that legal. I want that binding. In the eyes of the law and whatever gods there are out there to pray to. So tomorrow, I’m going to get you a ring you won’t ever want to take off. And as soon as we can manage it, I’m going to add a band to it. And for the rest of our days, you’re at my side and in my life, Jules, as my woman, the mother of my children, and my wife.”

The unshed tears in her eyes that were shining in the moonlight glimmered at him as she whispered, “Your heart doesn’t beat right without me?”

“Does yours without me?”

Her whisper was even quieter when she gave him the answer he knew.

“No.”

“So we doin’ this?”

“Yes.”

He kissed her. He did it a long time.

And when he was done, they were face-to-face, heads on the pillows, bathed in moonlight.

Boo came up and settled by draping himself across their ankles.

“You don’t need me to teach you to be a good dad, Vance. You’re very patient.”

“We’ll see.”

“You are. You’re great with Roam and Sniff. They love you.”

They loved her. He just came with the bargain.

She cupped his cheek. “They love you, Crowe.”

“Whatever you say, Princess.”

She grinned at him. “And my baby pug loves you too. He thinks you’re the shit.”

Vance chuckled.

“Not to mention,”

she went on. “You’ve kinda stolen Boo.”

“Not true,”

he negated. “He’s all yours. He’s just accepted me as an official minion.”

That was when she chuckled.

She stopped doing it to say, “I want your mom at our wedding.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to come.”

And he was more than sure she would.

“Something simple. Not a big deal. That’s not us,”

she decreed.

He was totally down with that.

He’d heard of Tod’s wedding planner book. He wanted no part in that shit.

“You’re right. That’s not us.”

“Justice of the peace?”

she suggested.

He grinned at her.

“Perfect.”

The next morning, Jules was off to the shelter by the time Vance, with Boo tucked in his arm, moved across the back room to Nick’s door.

He knocked.

Nick opened it, looking about ready to head off to face the day.

“Hey, Vance, everything good?”

“Yeah, got a second?”

Nick nodded and stepped back.

Vance and Boo walked in.

“You two have really bonded, hunh?”

Nick said, smiling at Vance and his cargo.

“Until there was no pain, and she was getting around a lot better, he didn’t step on her. Not once. Never had a pet, don’t know if they sense that kind of shit. But yeah. He gave her the space she needed, we bonded.”

Nick was still smiling, and maybe reading between the lines, though he couldn’t know that the only true comfort Vance had in those early days was a clumsy, talkative black cat who curled up in his lap and kept him company in the dawn after his darkest hour.

“You had coffee?”

Nick asked.

“Yep.”

His eyes twinkled behind his glasses, already knowing the answer when he asked, “Breakfast?”

“I’ll pick something up on the way to the office. And I know you’re heading out, so I’ll do this quick. I already asked her. She said yes. But I want to do this right. For both of you. For all of us.”

Nick leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms on his chest, never taking his gaze from Vance. “What’s up?”

“I’d like to know you’re good with me and Jules getting married.”

He watched Nick’s body start, then he watched his eyes get wet.

Vance scratched Boo’s head, giving Nick a minute.

After that minute, Nick cleared his throat and answered gruffly, “I’m honored you’re gonna be an official member of the family.”

Vance jerked up his chin.

“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

Nick whispered.

Vance said nothing, just held his gaze.

Nick explained. “I went over the other day. Let myself in. Heard her puking in the bathroom.”

His felt his spine snap straight. “Jules was puking?”

Nick’s brows went up. “She hasn’t told you?”

“No,”

Vance grunted.

“Well, I didn’t either.”

Vance nodded to affirm he got what Nick was saying.

“She’s worried,”

Nick told him.

“She would be,”

Vance replied.

“She’s also worried that you’ll be worried.”

Fuck.

Nick pushed from the counter, approached, clapped him on the arm then clasped him there.

“It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be amazing. She’s not going to be able to hide getting sick forever. She’ll settle in. It’s all gonna be as it’s supposed to be.”

Yes. It absolutely fucking was.

“Yeah,”

Vance agreed.

Nick clapped him on the arm again.

Vance headed to the door, saying, “I’ll let you get on with your day.”

“Vance?”

Nick called when he was standing in the open door.

He turned back.

Nick’s voice was back to gruff when he said, “I’m so damned happy for you. For you and Jules. Damned happy.”

Nick swallowed.

Then he finished.

“And Reba would be too.”

“Thanks, man,”

Vance said quietly.

Nick nodded.

Vance and Boo went out the door.

And he took his little furry boy home.

They were back in moonlight, Jules lying on her back, Vance stretched down her side, his hand on her belly.

“You gonna rest your hand on my stomach every night for the next seven and a half months?”

she teased.

He looked from her belly to her. “Yes.”

She stared at him.

Then she did an ab curl to touch her mouth to his before settling again.

“You got any symptoms yet?” he asked.

“Throwing up,”

she said without hiding or hesitation. “That’s why I took the test. It’s a weird kind of nausea. I’ve never felt anything like it before. And since we went off birth control…”

She shrugged against the sheets and let that lie.

“Anything I can do?”

he offered.

Her face warmed and her voice went soft. “I don’t think so. But thanks.”

“Talked to Lee. He’s not going to give me any assignments that take me out of town throughout the pregnancy.”

Her face grew surprised. “That’s not necessary, Crowe.”

He put gentle pressure on her belly. “I’m not missing this, Jules. Not a second of it. I’m here, for you, for him. I’ll work, but I’ll be close. Lee didn’t blink when I asked. He’s happy for us. Told me whatever I need. It’s good.”

“Crowe—”

He dipped down so he was nose to nose with her and enunciated each word clearly. “Not. Missing. A. Second.”

She gave in a lot faster than he expected by lifting a hand and curling it around his head. “Love you, Vance Ouray Crowe.”

“Love you too, Princess.”

She didn’t have to do an ab curl to get her kiss that time.

He gave it to her.

But as he did, he didn’t take his hand from Max, growing and getting strong in the fierce protective womb of his warrior mother.

And for the next seven and a half months, his woman got used to getting it just like that.