Rock Chick 03 Redemption (3 page)

A tremendously handsome, tal Mexican man with a very A tremendously handsome, tal Mexican man with a very pretty blonde woman was entering, obviously in the middle of a light-hearted tiff. I knew this because I’d watched my parents have mil ions of them.

“You’re so ful of shit,” he said what I had thought and grinned at her like this was a lovable trait.

“What’s shakin’?” the brunette behind the counter asked the couple.

“I’l tel you what’s
not
shakin’, I’m
not
moving in with Eddie,” the blonde said, glaring at the man at her side.

Holy cow!

I stared.

Tex had told me about Jet, and how Jet had a crush on Eddie and how Eddie was trying to capture Jet’s attention but, even though she had a crush on him, Jet was having none of it. That was in one of my last letters, I’d received it only a few weeks ago.

Now they were talking about moving in together.

Boy, Eddie was a fast one.

“You are,” Eddie retorted, stil looking down at Jet.

“Eddie won’t let me work at Smithie’s. Or I should say, Eddie
thinks
he won’t let me work at Smithie’s,” Jet said.

“I think you should let her work at Smithie’s.” This came from the couches. I braved a look at them, wondering what Smithie’s was. The comment came from a Native American guy with shiny black hair pul ed into a ponytail at the base of his neck, cheekbones and eyelashes to die for and a shit-eating grin on his face.

I also noticed Whisky was no longer looking at me but smiling and winking at Jet.

I felt my heart contract.

I tore my eyes away and saw Eddie was raising his brows to Jet like some point had been made.

It was a weird feeling, knowing these people and not knowing them at the same time.

“I thought you were moved in with Eddie?” Indy asked and I turned around to look at her.

“It was temporary,” Jet said. She caught my gaze swinging back to her and she gave me a smal smile before she stomped behind the counter (the stomping was obviously al show, stil , I could appreciate that she was good at it, my Mom would have given her a high five for form
and
execution).

This left me looking at Eddie. He noticed me and his black gaze shifted the length of me. I immediately got the strange sense that he did not like what he saw. Not that every guy who looked at me, especial y guys who were obviously
very with
pretty girls, had the instant hots for me, but stil , it was strange. It made me feel wrong, like I was invading, not wanted and not welcome.

I got this sense because his eyes, which were liquid with warmth and tenderness when he looked at Jet, turned completely blank when they locked on me and Eddie didn’t strike me as a blank kind of guy.

Then he turned, completely dismissing me and walked to the couches.

I also turned, feeling funny about his reaction. I shook it off, put my back to the couches (because I needed to focus and another glance at Whisky would make me lose that focus, I knew this like I knew my favorite designer was Armani) and I faced the espresso counter

The redhead, brunette and blonde were al talking behind the big coffee machine, looking like the
Witches of
Eastwick
, but prettier and scarier. Since the redhead was Indy and the blonde was Jet, that left the brunette as Al y.

Which meant, from what I knew from Uncle Tex’s letters because she was most definitely related to the brothers at the couches, Whisky was either Lee (which would be bad as I knew he was with Indy) or Hank (which would be bad because Tex told me Hank was a cop and thus not likely ever to be interested in the likes of me, a gangster mol or whatever I was).

“I think you should move in with Eddie,” Al y was saying, finishing up my drink.

“I’m trying to break up with him,” Jet said.

I gasped, because even if he dismissed me, who in their right minds would break up with Eddie? He was gorgeous.

They al looked to me.

“Don’t worry,” Jet assured me with another smile. She was pretty normal y, but her smile made her spectacular. “I already tried to break up with him, but it didn’t take.”

“Here’s your coffee,” Al y said, handing me a paper cup.

I took it and set it on the counter. “What do I owe you?” She told me, I gave her the money and then she leaned forward and said, “What did you mean, you know the feeling? Do you have a boyfriend you can’t get rid of? I know it’s nosy but I’m asking ‘cause my brother’s sitting over there and he’s been staring at you since the moment you walked in the door like he wants to rip your fancy-ass clothes off.”

I bit my lip and just stopped myself from looking over my shoulder toward the couches.

I was right, this was Al y and since Indy was standing there, and Al y wasn’t likely to point out that Indy’s boyfriend Lee wanted to rip my clothes off, then we were talking about Hank.

Unattached (as far as I knew) but stil a cop.

I didn’t question the fact that Al y would say something like this about her brother to me. She seemed the kind of girl who cal ed them like she saw them.

I leaned forward and made my first mistake of many that were to come. “Are we talking about Whisky?” I whispered, mainly because I couldn’t help myself.

“Whisky?” Indy leaned in.

“The one with the whisky-colored eyes,” I answered.

Indy smiled at the other two, then al three smiled at me.

“That’s him,” Indy said.

“Are you Indy?” I asked, just to be sure.

She blinked, her face registering surprise.

“Yes,” she answered. “Do I know you?”

“I’m looking for Tex MacMil an. He says he works here.” Her face changed and I could see she was shifting straight into mother hen mode.

Yep, I was right, this had to be Indy.

But it was Jet who responded to me. “Who wants to know?” she asked, also, I noted, in mother hen mode.

I looked at Whisky’s sister. She was not in mother hen mode, she’d rocketed straight to lioness mode ready to tear me limb from limb if I gave even a hint that I was there for anything but a happy purpose.

I decided it was best to tel them quickly that it was a happy purpose (sort of, they didn’t need to know about Bil y).

“I’m Roxanne Logan. Tex is my uncle.”

The two hens and the lioness disappeared instantly as three mouths dropped open and they stared in frank astonishment at me.

Then, Whisky’s sister shouted so loud I could actual y feel al the male eyes at the couch area swiveling to look,

“You have got to be
fuckin’ shittin’
me!” Then, for some bizarre reason, she threw her head back and laughed. Both Indy and Jet were laughing too. Indy, so much, she wrapped her hands around her middle and leaned over a bit.

“I don’t believe it!” Jet yel ed.

What in
the
fuck?

I stared at them like they’d lost their minds, which I feared they had, when Al y turned to the couches and shouted, “You are n
o
t going to believe who this is.”

“No, don’t… ” I said to her and I looked out the corner of my eyes to the couches and saw they were al watching me, most especial y Whisky, or Hank, his eyes somehow managing to look both alert and lazy and I felt the dizziness hit me again and I quickly looked away.

The bel over the door went just as Al y announced, “This The bel over the door went just as Al y announced, “This is Roxanne, fucking Tex’s
niece
!”

I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath and put my hand on the counter.

“Roxie?”

It was said in a soft boom. I’d never heard a soft boom but that was the only way to describe it.

I opened my eyes and turned and stared at an older version of my brother Gil (an older version with a wild-ass beard). He was nearly as tal as he was wide (which made him humongous), barrel-chested, blond-headed with dark blue eyes and a russet beard. He was wearing a flannel shirt, a pair of jeans and there was a very pretty older woman at his side, leaning heavily into him, holding on to him with one arm while the other arm dangled strangely.

“Uncle Tex?” I asked quietly, but knew it was him and I felt tears come up my throat. As usual, I couldn’t control them. Even though I tried to swal ow them, they fil ed my eyes and started sliding down my cheeks.

“Jesus Jones! Roxie!” Tex gently disengaged from the woman who stood somewhat unsteadily on her two feet with a nod to him and a smile at me and then he took two gigantic strides towards me.

I put my hands up to give him a hug but they glanced off his massive chest. To my shock, he bent low, grabbing me around my thighs, just above my knees and he lifted me up and swung me around in a ful circle. “Roxanne Gisel e Logan, the most beautiful fuckin’ girl in the whole fuckin’

world!” he boomed, ful on this time.

My nose started stinging and I sucked both my lips in to control the tears but it was too late, I was crying flat out.

“Uncle Tex,” I laughed through my tears, holding on to his shoulders, “Put me down.”

He did and I landed hard on my high-heeled boots. He put his big hands on either side of my head, yanked me forward and planted a kiss on top of my hair. Then he shoved me back, keeping his hands where they were and he stared at me for a long time.

Then, his eyes grew soft, and even a little misty, and his voice went back to the low boom when he said, “Fuckin’ A, girl, you look exactly like your mother.”

I held on to his arms.

“That’s what Dad says,” I told him.

Uncle Tex kept staring.

“Fuckin’ A,” he whispered and, to my total and complete mortification, I made one of those loud, crying hiccoughs.

He let go of my head and engulfed me in a hug. I put my arms around him, closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to his chest.

It would seem Uncle Tex wasn’t going to close the door on me and I felt like I’d been blessed. I let out a deep breath and al owed myself a private smile through my tears.

He held me for a long time and I held him right back.

“I’d look forward to your letters every month. I would never have made it through prison if it wasn’t for you, Roxie darlin’. Never,” he said softly to me but his voice was stil loud.

I just nodded my head against his chest, tears flowing freely now. I was incapable of control ing it and no longer wanted to. What he said meant the world to me and that he had the courage to say it meant even more.

“Been waitin’ a long time, Roxie, to give you a hug. A long, fuckin’ time.”

My arms spasmed around him and I held on tight.

“Me too,” I whispered, his arms pul ed me deeper into him and he squeezed the breath out of my lungs.

I opened my eyes and looked straight into Whisky’s (I couldn’t think of him as Hank, not yet, right then he had to be just Whisky to me). He was stil watching me, leaned back in the couch, the sole of one of his booted feet resting on the edge of a table. But now his expression was different, the laziness was long gone and his eyes were total y alert.

“Uncle Tex,” I started, stil looking at Whisky, in fact, entirely unable to tear my eyes from his, “I… can’t…

breathe.”

That’s when Whisky smiled.

If I thought I couldn’t breathe before, I was wrong.

Whisky’s smile was so damn good, it made me forget how to breathe entirely.

“Sorry, Darlin’.” Tex let me go, grabbed onto my arms and shook me so hard, my head bobbed back and forth.

“Yee ha!” he boomed and looked around the room and then he slung an arm around my shoulders. “This is my niece, Roxie!” he announced to al and sundry (like they didn’t already know).

He jerked me around and my head snapped back.

“Nance, meet my niece.”

I let my brain juices calm down and then smiled dazedly at the pretty woman who walked in with Uncle Tex.

“Hi Roxie, I’m Nancy, Jet’s mother.” She shook my hand and then sat down on the arm of a chair in a way that made me think that if she hadn’t, she would have fal en over. I glanced worriedly at her and her dangling arm, which appeared to be useless. I was about to move toward her to ask if she was al right, when Tex jerked me around toward the espresso counter and my head snapped back again, then again as he yanked me forward.

“Indy, woman, Al y, Loopy Loo, get your asses over here and meet my niece,” he ordered and they came forward.

I was right about al of them. Al y was Whisky’s sister.

Loopy Loo was obviously (for some reason) Tex’s nickname for Jet.

Then I was introduced to Lee; I learned the latest news, that Lee was now Indy’s fiancé and I noticed he had dark brown eyes, Vance; the Native American, Mace; who I guessed had some native Hawaiian or Polynesian in him, was almost as tal as Tex and had fantastic jade green eyes, Matt; a good-looking blond guy that was my height and Eddie; I’d already figured that out but didn’t tel Tex and, luckily, the announcement of blood relation to Tex made Eddie’s coolness toward me melt a bit.

And final y, Whisky, or as Tex introduced him, Hank Nightingale.

Hank Nightingale.

Jesus.

Be stil my heart.

That was a great, fucking name.

Hank’s hand came out and I put mine in his and immediately pul ed my bottom lip between my teeth when our skin made contact.

Shit, Roxie, pull yourself together
, I thought and took a breath, forced my teeth to let go of my lip and tried to smile (and failed miserably). Luckily, he didn’t notice as his eyes were doing a ful body scan and then they came up and locked on mine just as Tex jerked me in another direction.