With Vengeance (15 page)

Cliff blinked myopically. “Now?”

“No, we’re going to hang out awhile,” Klement
reassured him. “Don’t worry, I’m buying another round.”

Cliff frowned. “But what if someone screws
with my car like Kat’s?”

“I’m going to load it up with cameras before
we leave.” That way, he might even be able to catch the bastard.
All according to plan.

“Aha!” Cliff raised his finger. “Sneaky. But
still, I don’t want anything happening to it.”

“Dude, it’s a rental. It’s insured.”

Roderick joined them, and Klement ordered a
round of drinks, smiling as Kat chose sangria. Cliff laughed, too,
when the bartender handed Kat the big glass full of blood-red
liquid and chunks of fruit.

“That is the girliest drink I’ve ever seen.
Damn thing even has an umbrella.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, don’t
knock it ’til you try it.”

“Fine.” He seized her drink and took a sip.
His eyes widened. “Hey, this is damn good!”

Roderick just took his ale, dug quarters out
of his pockets and made a beeline for the pool tables.

“Do they have a dartboard?” Kat asked. Klem
saw her eyes gleam with a sudden impish glee as Cliff nodded.

“It’s around the corner from the pool tables.
Just ask the bartender for some darts.”

She laughed and pulled a slim box from her
purse. “Oh, hell no. I don’t use bar darts. I have my own. Want to
play?”

The singer shook his head, clearly seeing her
predatory eagerness. “Not if you’re a dart shark.”

Her upper lip curled in an adorably teasing
smirk. “Wuss.”

“I’ll play with you,” Klement offered. Then
he bit his tongue. That hadn’t come out right. He did want to play
with her, but darts were the last thing on his mind.

“Okay!”

She jumped a little, making her skirt flirt
with the tops of her thighs. Klement wasn’t the only one to notice,
either. He clenched his teeth and followed her over to the
dartboard, carrying their drinks.

Kat won most of the games, and as much as
Klement would have liked to blame it on his distraction with how
delicious she looked, he knew it was really because she was just
that good. He had a board in his garage. It seemed he needed to
move the crap away from the wall and get back into practice once
they finished work on her car.

He smiled suddenly at a memory of the
competent way in which she’d removed the fuel lines. It was rare to
know a woman who knew how to work on cars. Hell, it was becoming
rare with guys too. And her story of how she’d come by her
knowledge was delightful. It had been another wonderful afternoon.
The only awkward part was when she’d tried to call her IT Guy as
they were leaving the garage. Thank God he’d left his phone in the
office or his pocket would have been ringing, since those
call-forwarded to his cell.

So. He would have to come up with some excuse
to avoid her making tech-support calls with him around or come
clean. But how the hell was he going to even bring up the subject?
And what would she do if he told her the truth? What if she thought
he’d been stalking her all this time or something? What if she left
the band?

Weirdly, he didn’t want to think of Bleeding
Vengeance without her. And when with a radiant grin she passed him
the darts for his turn, part of him knew he’d miss her smile even
more than her playing.

After their tenth game and her fourth
sangria, which some other dude had bought for her, Kat started
missing her throws and tottering a bit on her chunky high heels.
Klement was about to suggest that it was time to take off, but she
beat him to it and packed her darts in her case.

“I think I’m done for the night. Is it okay
if we go?”

“Yeah. Let’s get the others.” Klement was
anxious to get home as well. He was suddenly eager to do more work
on the footage of the car belonging to the asshole who’d delivered
that dead cat.

They found Roderick at the bar counting the
money he’d won playing pool, and Cliff sat beside him, staring at
the TV with glazed eyes while a blonde chick chattered at him. Both
were glad to head out.

In the parking lot, Klement took a moment to
install motion-sensing cameras in Cliff’s rental Lexus SUV. He
gnashed his teeth in annoyance when the singer claimed shotgun and
bounded into his Suburban’s front passenger seat. He’d enjoyed
having Kat beside him on the way here. Furthermore, he’d have to
fight to keep his eyes on the road and stop constantly glancing in
the rearview mirror to make sure Roderick was behaving himself.

Despite the distractions, he got them home in
one piece. Cliff and Rod raided the kitchen for snacks before
taking off to the theater room to play video games on the big
screen. Normally he’d join them, but with Kat’s nearness driving
him crazy, shooting virtual bad guys was the last thing on his
mind.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked her as
she kicked off her shoes and moaned with relief.

“Yeah, though I’m a little tipsy.” She gave
him a sideways smile. “But I’m in much better shape than last
night. Which reminds me, I wanted to ask you. When did people start
making butter from THC? The last time I encountered ‘special’ baked
goods, it was brownies that were obvious with all the greenery
baked right in.”

Klement couldn’t help laughing. He wouldn’t
have thought she was that behind the times. “Technology is a
wonder. Honestly, I think the practice came from back when medical
marijuana laws passed. Not all patients like to smoke it, and they
certainly don’t want to chew on leaves or stems. Not the ones I
supply, anyway.”

“Oh yeah. I heard that you grow for
dispensaries.” Kat’s dark eyes glittered with curiosity. “Can I see
them?”

“Okay. I need to check on my girls
anyway.”

Kat giggled. “Kinley told me that, when she
and Viciӧus were coming up to your place, she heard everyone
talking about your girls and thought you were running a brothel or
something.”

He joined in her laughter. “Quinn told me
about that.”

He led her to the door of his grow room and
tapped in the code on the security panel. When he opened the door,
there was a roar and the bright, thousand-watt lights made them
both squint. Then the pungent smell of his crop overwhelmed his
senses.

“Wow,” Kat shouted over the roar of the
ventilation system. “It looks like a jungle in here.”

Klement chuckled as he watched her gape at
his five-foot-high plants that were only weeks away from
harvesting. “I suppose it does.”

She wandered inside, crouching down to see
the labels on the twenty-gallon buckets where each plant was
growing. “
Thymelord
, Muscular Dystrophy.
Schnozberry
,
Glaucoma.
Lilac Kush
, ADHD…” She looked up at him.
“ADHD?”

“That one’s for me. I don’t think doctors
have prescribed it, but it works a hell of a lot better than the
fucking Ritalin my parents forced on me when I was a kid. I was too
hyper for them to handle when they were in town. When I smoke, I
can focus better and I don’t feel like crawling out of my own
skin.”

The tips of his ears grew hot with
embarrassment at the admission, but maybe it was for the best that
she knew. With his mind always running in eight different
directions, and the frantic need to bounce from one thing to
another, no one had ever been able to handle a long-term
relationship with him, not even his parents. During the limited
times he was around them, they were always impatient and annoyed
with his lack of ability to hold still and concentrate on one
thing. Kat definitely deserved to be warned away from that.

Instead of pursing her lips and looking at
him like he was an overgrown child, Kat gave him a soul-searing
look and nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. I heard that Ritalin
fucked up a lot of kids. This has got to be better…for some people,
anyway.”

The compassion and understanding in her voice
made Klement’s chest tight, and it took all of his willpower not to
yank her into his arms and kiss her. “Yeah, it really messed with
my head. Weed just helps me focus. It keeps me from bouncing off
the walls.”

Kat traced her finger across one of the
leaves. “These look purple. It’s kinda pretty.”

“Thanks. It took me three years to perfect
that strain.” And for some reason, her calling his custom plant
pretty meant more to him than the praise it always garnered from
actual pot-smokers.

He showed her the rest of the plants and
explained the growing and harvesting process. He expected her to
get bored, but actual hours passed before she even looked at the
clock.

“Holy shit, it’s two in the morn—” Her words
broke off on a yawn.

“Damn, it is late,” Klement admitted. Time
seemed to stop whenever he was with her. “I guess we should go to
bed.”

Together,
he wished.

He led her out of the grow room, the silence
in the hallway deafening after the roar of the ventilation fans.
They both stopped and blinked, waiting for their eyes to adjust to
the dimness of the rest of the house.

Kat’s arms suddenly slid around his waist.
Her cheek pressed against his chest, and her husky whisper was like
a caress.

“Goodnight. I had a wonderful time.”

“Goodnight,” Klement replied. He held her
tightly a moment, then bent down and kissed the top of her head.
Releasing her was agony.

As he watched her tiptoe toward bed with his
cat Geddy on her heels, he considered asking if she wanted to help
him with the harvest. Then the stupidity of that thought made him
wince. As well as they’d worked together in the garage and in the
music room, he needed to remember that, after Thashfest, she’d be
going back to Idaho. She was a colleague. All of the band members
would be headed back to their respective homes after the recordings
and Thrashfest. He’d only ever see Kat again a little before
Bleeding Vengeance’s next tour—or never again if she couldn’t
handle the stage.

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning Kat groggily wandered into
the kitchen, grateful for the smell of fresh coffee brewing. It had
been awhile since she’d gotten to play darts, and though it had
been worth it, she was exhausted and had a slight headache. Inner
scorn surfaced as a self-deprecating laugh. She needed to toughen
up if she was going to be a decent rock star.

Of course…things weren’t always what they
seemed. Klement’s reputation as a big stoner had always been a
subject of humor and admiration in the metal world, but after
talking with him last night in the grow room she’d learned that it
was more medicine to him than anything. Yet he seemed so painfully
embarrassed about it, like she’d look down on him for having ADHD.
Why would she, when she had her own disorder? Then she remembered
him talking about his parents forcing him to take Ritalin. That
would explain his shame, and his scorn for manmade drugs. Her heart
ached for the little boy whose parents were barely around, and when
they were, they couldn’t tolerate him unless he was doped up. The
more Kat learned about Klement, the more she understood why he was
so eccentric.

Cliff and Rod were just finishing up some
toaster strudels and rising from the table, looking ready to face
the day, though Cliff looked a little pale and red-eyed. Kat’s
stomach sank a little as she realized Klement was nowhere in sight.
Then her lips curved in a rueful smile. At least she’d mastered
sleeping in like a rock star.

Roderick approached as she was pouring
coffee. “We’re going to go pick up Cliff’s car and check out the
shops downtown. Want to come along?”

Kat shook her head. After hanging out at the
club last night, she had no desire to go out in public again so
soon. Something about her anxiety issues made too much socializing
difficult. And: “Thanks, but I gotta help Klement with my car. We
still have to wrestle the tank back in and hook up the hoses.”

Cliff laughed. “Don’t count on doing that
anytime soon. He’ll be tapping away on his keyboard for at least
another two hours—if you’re lucky.”

“That’s fine,” Kat said. “I have my own
computer work to do today anyway.”

Taking her coffee back to her room, she
paused in the hall and smiled at the rapid clackety-clack of
Klement’s keyboard and the soft mutters coming from his office. He
talked to himself when he was working? That was so cute. But she
couldn’t discern a word because he rattled off whatever he was
saying as fast as an auctioneer.

Kat took a sip of coffee and set it on the
desk in her room, fired up her laptop and logged on to the admin
section of her website. She still needed to call IT Guy and run the
update. It was odd that he hadn’t answered the phone when she’d
tried to call him last night, even more strange that he hadn’t
called her back or shot her a quick message; he’d always responded
quickly to any question or concern before this. A tinge of worry
gnawed at her gut. Hopefully he was okay.

Grabbing her phone, she began to dial his
number…and cursed when the screen remained black. Between working
on the car and then the new song, and then going out to the bar,
she’d forgotten to charge the damn thing.

Kat plugged her phone in and seethed with
impatience. Rod and Cliff would only be gone for about another
hour, and she wanted all the alone time with Klement that she could
get. She smiled as she listened to the clattering of his keyboard
and his muttering down the hall. It would probably be best if she
closed her door, but one of the cats had nudged it open and was
weaving through her ankles with a heavy purr.
Geddy.
It was
new for him to approach her. He’d been too shy before. Now he was
letting her scratch him between the ears.

Sitting back down at her laptop, she started
composing an email to IT Guy to see if he wanted to schedule a
call. She hoped he didn’t do that text-chat thing again. She
preferred to hear his voice, especially since she was nervous as
hell over Thrashfest and Kinley wasn’t available to comfort her.
Kat would die before she told IT Guy about her feelings for the
bass player, but he could be a good sounding board for her
anxieties about her first time on stage with Bleeding
Vengeance.