Sweet Seduction Serenade (46 page)

I blinked frantically to wipe the white dots from my vision and continued to suck in air until it reached my lungs. Finally the world came into focus and oxygen filled my poor aching frame. I sat up gingerly, arms wrapped around my ribs and watched Levi and Nick beat the ever loving crap out of each other.

Nick is trained to fight. Hand to hand combat is something he excels in. But Levi is an overweight street rat, who plays in the gutter and loves it as dirty as he can get. Levi landed punch after punch to Nick's torso, then followed it up with a few lucky shots to Nick's face. Nick returned the favour with a kick to Levi's guts, then a swift one-two jab to his kidneys. I watched in horror as both men continued to pummel each other.

Darn it all to fucking hell, but this was never going to end, was it? I jerked when Levi landed a particularly nasty upper cut to Nick's jaw, feeling the pain right along with him. I screamed encouragement when Nick returned the favour with a knee to Levi's solar plexus, making the oaf double over and for a moment give me hope it was enough. But Levi rallied, responded with an arm wrapped around Nick's waist and a harsh shove against a tree trunk eliciting a grunt of agony from Nick.

A few hard and fast - and I was thinking desperate - punches from Nick to Levi's middle had the larger man backing off. But not before Levi landed a solid hit on Nick's nose. Blood gushed like Niagara Falls down Nick's chin and chest. He didn't make a sound, but I whimpered.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. This was awful. This was unbearable. I was watching Levi pulverize Nick into a bloody mess. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to be anywhere else but here. I wanted to get off my butt and intervene, but even standing upright was a challenge right now. Not that I don't ever rise to them, but still, once I found my feet the world spun, and the only thing that stopped me from landing on my knees again was the trunk of a nearby tree.

Levi made an animalistic sound from deep inside his throat, a roar of defiance I didn't think the coward had in him. Nick staggered, showing just how weak he was getting. That bullet wound and consequent blood loss from earlier taking its toll. And Levi, seeing his prey falter, somehow found all the encouragement he needed to finish the job. The growl became an unnatural and unholy cry, announcing Nick's demise. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but the punches Levi rained down on Nick's torso, face and sides were unrelenting. The force of each strike utterly debilitating. Blood splashed across the dirt, sounds I wished never to hear again assailed my ears. Images of Nick's death before me branded on my brain for eternity.

I was crying, I realised. Wetness running down my cheeks. Me. A cowgirl-in-the-rodeo-ring was breaking down in tears. This was it. I was watching my cowboy get killed. Levi Russell was taking the one thing that meant
everything
to me. My heart. My soul. My beloved. I took as deep a breath in as I could manage, preparing myself for one last attempt to stop the train wreck before my eyes. The world swayed as my palm left the roughness of bark, bile rose up my mouth at the nauseating feeling of vertigo... and my knees found the hard packed earth.

Failure.

Tears.

A scream of defeat that I knew was all mine.

Then out of the shadows of the bushes behind Levi came the most bizarre sight. The distinctive shape of a guitar case, followed by the even more distinctive sound of Levi's head cracking as it was hit at high speed by the solid object.

Levi grunted. His eyes bugged out further, a small trickle of blood began to trail from his right nostril. Then he blinked, shook his head to clear some sort of haze and growled, preparing to throw his full weight back at Nick.

Whack! The guitar case hit dead centre on the back of Levi's head a second time. He started to sway, like a great big thousand year old Kauri tree as it's about to be felled by lightning strike. My eyes found Nick's ice-blue. He looked exhausted, in pain, but equally dumbfounded as to what was happening. We both turned our gaze back on Levi just as the Kauri tree came crashing down.

The sound of Levi's unconscious body hitting the dirt reverberated through the still night air.

Only to be broken by a deep voice singing from the shadows of the trees. I knew the song immediately: Garth Brooks' 
I Got Friends In Low Places.
I know
every
Garth Brooks song.

"
I'll just say goodnight and I'll show myself to the door.
"

And I was getting to know that voice too.

Spike wandered out of the tree-line without a single care in the world; guitar case slung casually over his shoulders like a baseball bat, huge-ass smile on his face.

Three weeks later...

I was running late, I knew it. Everyone would be there already, waiting on me. I hated being late. But I'd been waylaid by Carmel before I could get out of ASI's doors. God alone knows why the surly woman suddenly decided she had to tell me every scrap of her life. From when she was a kid living in Papatoetoe, to when she met her dearly departed husband Marcus, the love of her life. To the four unruly, but apple-of-her-eye sons they'd had. Right through Marcus's untimely death at aged forty, the years of single parenthood afterwards, the first grandchild at a way too young age. To when her life took on meaning again, after her horde up and left for the their own nests, and she started working for Nick.

I had to admit to a bit of curiosity. Not only was the woman an enigma to me; grandmotherly in appearance, tough as nails on the inside. She also doted on Nick and the ASI guys. Fussed over them, picked up after them, and genuinely treated them as though they were of her own blood. And they all softened around her too. Not so much as raising an eyebrow at her sharp tongue or persistent badgering when they stalled on a job or task they had been set.

It became obvious that she was more of an office manager, than a receptionist. Aware of what jobs were under way at any given time and who was doing what, keeping them all on target, when Eric was too busy to put the pressure on. And that she was capable too. She'd pointed out the shotgun attached to the underside of her desk, the panic button next to it and the fact she knew how to handle a Baby Glock, "Just as well as you, cowgirl."

I heard it all, just as I was struggling out of the key code locked rear door with my new Martin, the one Spike had rescued from Levi's hiding place deep within the clump of trees at Eden Terrace Reserve. He'd heard some chatter, as he put it, on the muso's grapevine - a grapevine I think was more nefarious than musical, but who was I to argue with Spike? - that a Martin was buried in amongst the trees on the Reserve. Spike put two and two together and came up with my childhood tormenting spot and the Russell boys' recent theft of my father's gift to me. He happened to be there at the exact time we confronted Levi, but thinking initially, we had it all under control, continued to dig my case out. Once he had it in hand, things had turned south with Levi and Nick's brawl, so Spike intervened the only way a guy like him knew how.

Thankfully the case protected the fragile guitar inside and now sported some scrapes and dirt encrusted scratches on the outside. A badge of honour Spike insisted I kept, so he could brag about his involvement in our "rescue" to the groupies after our sets.

I wasn't sure I needed the reminder of Levi's near successful attempt on Nick's life, but I also wasn't giving my trailer-trash cousins anything else of mine. They'd taken enough. One guitar too many. They weren't getting my guitar case too.

Things hadn't been sorted out completely as far as the Russell Family was concerned, but the upshot of it all was that Levi, Bailey, Tyler, Leo and Ryder would all do time for their attempts to harm me and mine. And that Jessie was looking at a charge or two as well, but the fight had all but left her. The realisation that her sons would be behind bars for a long time to come, that her only sibling had died and she was now all alone, had a drastic effect on Jessie Russell, that no amount of pleading to her conscience in the past had ever been able to do.

She was awaiting the verdict on whether the police were going to follow through with aiding and abetting charges on herself, but Pierce and Stone suspected if they didn't she'd still disappear with her tail between her legs and we'd never see nor hear of her again.

I thought they might just be right on that count, how did you survive the incarceration of all five sons at once? Mum and Dad had enough trouble dealing with Gabe's imprisonment, times that by five and the result would be heartbreaking I was sure.

I wasn't scared of my Aunt anymore. She and her boys had always worked best when in a crowd. Confidence in numbers they'd never really had on their own. Alone, Jessie was stripped of her posse, and the blustering bully was nothing but an empty shell.

I resolved, however, to make sure she was never visiting her sons on the days I visited Gabe. Having decided that my brother needed a little familial support. Despite our upbringing, despite our parents' faults and lack of loving care when we were young, I was not going to turn my back on my brother any longer. Whether he wanted me visiting or not, I was going to make him a part of my life from now on.

And my life was in Auckland.

I managed to finally slip away from Carmel, nabbing one of the company SUVs Nick had left available for me when he'd had to shoot out earlier for some emergency. He'd promised to meet me at Sweet Seduction, but who knew how long this current problem would take. I was getting used to the late night phone calls that pulled him from our bed, even though it had only been three weeks since I returned. I'd considered moving into a motel at first until I could find a suitable flat to stay in, but there didn't really seem much point. Other than various ASI responsibilities taking him away now and then, we'd spent every second together. Day and night. From the moment he'd left hospital after recovering from Levi's bullet wound and feral attack, through Dad's funeral a day later, where I sung
Wrapped Up In You
and farewelled my Dad on his gift; my new Martin D28 engraved with
Daddy's Cowgirl
on the front.

To now, when I was due at Gen's shop to jam with the guys, a new concept she was trialling on Sundays. Sweet Seduction's Sunday Sessions, where local artists - be they musical, artistic, poetic or dramatic - could perform impromptu acts to their hearts' content. Testing their material, seeking comfort from like minded people and garnering a little publicity at Auckland's most popular café-come-chocolatier-come-music-store. We were her opening act, mirroring the Showcase Local Talent Night we'd performed at with such resounding success.

I found a carpark a street over from High, and beeped the locks behind me. Lugging my case lovingly as I walked toward Sweet Seduction, feeling like I was heading towards a family gathering and knowing that's exactly what Gen's shop would be for me from now on. Home meant so many different things, to different people. To me it had been a place far away from childhood memories and hardships growing up. But now that had all changed. There was much to Auckland that reminded me of my father. Reminded me of those years I'd struggled to be something other than what I had be born into. But it didn't matter anymore. With Dad gone and Gabe behind bars, those reminders were no longer bitter, but mixed with a little sweet.

And considering what I had discovered, that maybe, just maybe, my memories were tainted by the distance of time and immaturity, I'd also promised myself I'd give my Mum a better shot. Maybe I could bridge the gap there. But I wasn't holding my breath. Her loud and very public breakdown at Dad's funeral was enough to set that back a month or two. I needed to get her forced weeping out of my head, before I crossed that particular bridge.

But in the immortal words of Garth Brooks, "
Burning bridges one by one, what I'm doin' can't be undone. And I'm always hoping someday, I'm gonna stop this runnin' around. But every time the chance comes up, another bridge goes down.
" I wasn't so sure, but then, maybe his words were a warning I needed to heed. Because at this point and time, that particular bridge might have been on fire, but hadn't yet burnt completely through.

I ducked around a few Sunday shoppers, dodged a couple holding black take-away coffee cups splashed in hot pink writing declaring
Sweet Seduction on High
and made my way to the brightly lit, moulded glass frontage of Gen's dream shop. A smile already spreading across my lips at how many blurry figures I could see through the warped glass, indicating, as per usual, that her shop was the busiest on the street - even on a Sunday afternoon.

My heart skipped a beat, hearing the familiar sound of Gus's harmonica as the door opened and another take-away coffee cup clad shopper emerged, smile on their face, a lift to their step, humming along to the Country tune Gus was performing inside. I stopped just outside to take everything in. The welcoming glow inside the shop, the beautiful curved glass and wooden trim of the frontage - standing out against the mainstream on either side - and the happy sounds of Country and laughter and people talking and having a good time.

I wished Cary was here to share it with me, but I also knew I was no longer alone. The people in that building I could all call friends. This place was now a part of what I called home. And Nick, if he wasn't here already, would be soon. And wherever he was, I wanted to be.

Gus finished his solo, so I thought it was a good time to make my appearance, apologise for my late arrival and start jamming with the guys. Anticipation curled through me, making my fingers tingle and my toes begin to tap. It was almost as if I could hear the music already, and my body was beginning to sway.