17. An Angel Will Do Perfectly

SEVENTEEN

AN ANGEL WILL DO PERFECTLY

M y hip was moving.

When I opened my eyes, I saw weak light coming in from outside and a hot guy leaning over me in bed.

With a bleary gaze, I glanced at the clock and noted it was ten to eight.

I pushed up to rest on a hand in the mattress and looked back at Eric. “Are you just getting home?”

Eric was checking out my body, or more to the point, my nightie, but he raised his gaze to mine when he said, “No. I got home at around three. I didn’t expect it to go that long, but what went down required us to make a report to the police, which always drags shit out. When I got back, you were dead to the world, and I was wiped. So I grabbed a couple hours of sleep. Now I gotta hit the office.”

I turned my head and saw both pillows disturbed.

I went back to him, and with no small amount of shock, asked, “You got in bed beside me, and I didn’t wake up?”

He shook his head. “Nope. You were dead to the world.”

Argh!

I wasted my second-best nightie!

Okay, don’t panic.

Maybe I could salvage things.

“If you work late, don’t you get to go to work later in the morning?” I tried.

“I am going to work later in the morning,” he answered.

“By…an hour.”

He seemed to be struggling with a smile, when I didn’t think anything was funny, because, again , we hadn’t broken the seal.

“I have some more bad news,” he announced.

I’d barely been awake five minutes. I was already not thrilled with what I was processing. I wasn’t sure I could take more bad news.

“Fabulous,” I muttered.

“I gotta take a shift in the surveillance room tonight. I won’t be relieved until late. So I probably won’t see you until tomorrow.”

“Wait. I thought only the junior investigators did that.”

“They would only do it if we had the appropriate staff hired to man that room. Now, we all have to kick in.”

“But you worked late last night,” I pointed out.

“Taking my turn is part of that ‘taking your brothers’ backs’ I was talking about last night.”

God!

Why did he have to be so responsible and dedicated to teamwork?

“So we’re not gonna break the seal on wild, sweaty sex until, earliest, tomorrow ?”

I barely got the last word out before I had an arm around my waist, I was flying through the air only to hit a hard wall of muscle, and then I was being kissed.

Hard. Deep. Wet.

And delicious.

I had my hands in his hair. Eric had jacked up my nightie at the back, so I also had his hand cupping one cheek of my ass inside my panties, skin to skin. Their first introduction. And they liked each other a whole lot.

This made me think he was going to be irresponsible and go even later to work.

I was in for that.

All in.

But he set me on my knees in bed, slid his hand out of my panties and the pad of the thumb of his other hand ran along my lower lip.

“I couldn’t help it,” he murmured, watching his thumb move. “It was the nightie. But that was a mistake.”

“I take it that means you’re going,” I noted.

“Sorry, honey,” he whispered.

“Do not even say I’m the bigger tease, ever again .”

He smiled at me, kissed my nose, and ordered, “Don’t dive into that icebox cake. We’ll have it tomorrow.”

And then he was gone.

Gah!

I fell back on the bed.

And I was Jessica Rose Wylde. I didn’t do what I did next.

Ever.

But I did it then.

Because I couldn’t help it.

No Eric.

No icebox cake.

Thus, I pouted.

For a very long time.

* * *

One could say I was not in a better mood by the time I swung into work later that morning.

I knew I wasn’t hiding it when Harlow, behind the bar shooting Diet Coke into a glass, turned to look at me, her eyes got big, and she said, “I can tell something’s wrong, but with that look on your face, I’m scared to ask what it is.”

Raye came back with some empty mugs while I explained, “Eric was called out last night in the middle of dinner because one of the cases he was working broke. He didn’t get home until late. He was wiped, and I was out, so I only saw him this morning long enough for him to tell me he’s working the surveillance room tonight, so I won’t see him until tomorrow. Oh, and he laid a hot kiss on me, leaving me wet and frustrated, before he went to work. And just FYI, I don’t have any awesome memories of sticky, delectable sex with Eric to tide me over, because we haven’t done it yet.”

Harlow scrunched up her face in disappointment for me.

Raye grimaced.

She then said ruefully, “Just so you know, Cap was working that case with Eric so he was out until all hours too. And it happens, Jess. A lot. Probably two, three times a week. He gets home late as well.” Her gaze on me became intense. “It’s important to understand, babe, these are not nine to five guys.”

“I can tell he loves his job,” I retorted. “That’s not the issue. The issue is, I’ve gone through the top three of my four sexiest nighties, and they saw no action . I’ve got one left, then I’m down to the dregs. Sure,”—I flipped out a hand—“those dregs are top-notch. I don’t do anything but. They just aren’t my best. Now we have this situation with these abductions, and we have questions to ask and stakeouts to do, which means I don’t have time to run to the mall to find even better ones to mark the occasion.”

At this point, I realized we had an audience, so I turned to the bar to see Byron standing there.

“Do you need another dirty chai?” Harlow asked him.

“Yes. But carry on with your conversation. I can wait until you’re finished,” Byron answered.

Byron was always hyper-caffeinated, which meant hyper about always having caffeine. It was only four women discussing sexy nighties that slowed his roll with that.

Thus, I shot him a side eye.

Raye got started on his dirty chai.

Harlow took my hand and walked me away from Byron.

She kept hold of it as she said sweetly, “I think he’ll be worth the wait. And today is nearly halfway done, so tomorrow will be here before you know it.”

“I’m falling for this guy, Lolo,” I whispered.

Her eyes lit with happiness and her hand squeezed mine tight. “He’s a good guy. And he’s really into you. I love how he looks at you.”

My breath was coming funny when I asked, “How does he look at me?”

“Like you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and he can’t believe his luck.”

What?

Really?

Eric did that?

Super gorgeous Eric, ex-FBI guy, current generally badass PI?

Wow.

“Totally how he looks at you,” Luna confirmed as she squeezed by us to punch an order into the computer.

“See?” Harlow asked. “So it’s totally going to be worth the wait.”

No man kissed that well when he didn’t fuck just as well.

Okay. I didn’t know that for certain, because I’d never been kissed anywhere near as consummately as Eric kissed me.

I was just connecting the dots.

So, yeah.

I had a feeling I knew what was to come, and the wait seemed like torture.

But Harlow was right.

This was Eric.

We were building something, something pretty damned beautiful.

It’d be worth the wait.

Had I said how much I loved my besties?

Just to reiterate, I seriously loved my besties.

I gave Harlow’s hand a squeeze back and said, “Thanks, babe.”

Everyone jumped when we heard shouted, “Where’s the crazy coffee guy?”

We all turned in the direction of the shout, and I saw the guy who Tex snapped at about the sugar cookie syrup a couple of days before standing just in from the coffee cubby.

“He’s not here!” the guy yelled. He then stabbed a finger toward the coffee cubby. “That guy’s good, but he’s not the crazy coffee guy. No offense!” he shouted toward the cubby.

“None taken!” Otis shouted back.

The guy kept yelling. “But you can’t give him to us, take him away, give him back and then take him away again !”

“Chill, dude,” I ordered.

“ You chill! ” he screeched. “I want the crazy coffee guy back!”

“He’s moving to Phoenix. He has a wife, cats. They all need somewhere to lay their heads. He’s house hunting,” I lied. “Give him a chance to settle in, man. Yeesh.”

“So he’s gonna be back?” the guy asked.

I had no idea.

Though, I hoped so.

“Yes,” I told him.

“Promise?” he pushed.

“Promise,” Raye cut in. “Now go get your coffee from Otis. Tex will be back soon.”

“When?” the guy asked.

“Soon!” Luna snapped. “Go back to Otis. Get your coffee. And chill, sucka!”

The “sucka” was a good touch, and it worked.

The guy hung his head and moped back to the coffee cubby.

I moved to Raye. “Is Tex coming back?”

She nodded, a happy light glinting in her eye.

“Tito officially hired him. Though, he gets to make his own schedule, you know, just in case he has to go undercover at a moment’s notice,” Raye replied, then, in an afterthought, she added, “Or clandestinely meet with his arms dealers to replenish his supply of grenades.”

My day brightened.

I turned to Tito to see how he reacted to these goings-on, but he had his nose stuck in a book.

It was a Rock Chick book with a light-purple cover.

Not surprising, Tito had always had a quiet way with keeping his finger on the pulse.

Anyway, somebody needed to do the research, and I was back and forth on it. But when it came to those books, I was leaning toward that somebody not being me.

I got to work, and it was just after the lunch rush when they walked in.

Daisy.

With Stella Gunn.

Stella showing caused more than a mild sensation, and for once, it wasn’t because of the addition of Daisy. Even if Daisy was wearing a track suit comprised of shimmery, pale-pink velour joggers and a matching cropped jacket that was unzipped to the point Mr. Shithead might give us a limitless number of questions he’d answer for an entire year just for a glance. This was bedazzled with diamante around the waistband of the joggers and at the wrists of the jacket.

Oh, she also had sequined, pink and purple platform sneakers on her feet.

But Stella outshone her because Stella was mega-famous, and it didn’t hurt she was also mega-gorgeous.

Totally got why Eric decided to date her as his cover.

One didn’t normally hang at a kickass coffee/cocktail/fusion food joint and have one of the most celebrated musicians in history casually stroll in.

Therefore, I, along with everyone in the joint, only had eyes for Stella.

On my part, it was for more than just the fact that she seemed to be an uber famous chick wandering out in the wild without a bodyguard.

I kept my gaze on her as Daisy took a stool at one end of the bar and Stella approached where I was standing at the other end.

She slid onto a stool there and greeted, “Hey, Jess.”

I moved to her and put my hands on the bar. “Hey, Stella. Want a coffee? Or are you here to eat? Lucia’s got an awesome chorizo toad-in-the-hole with cayenne-garlic mashed potatoes and green chile gravy on the menu today. Trust me, it’ll rock your world.”

“Although that sounds fantastic, I already ate.”

She shifted on her stool, and to me, it seemed like it was nervously.

Terrific.

This wasn’t a fun getting-to-know-the-new-girls-visit.

“Listen,” she went on. “I know you’re working, but Mace told me you girls were going to be busy for a while in your off hours, and I just wanted to…”

She didn’t finish that.

I didn’t know her well enough (say, at all) to fill in the blank, so I waited patiently, hoping she wasn’t there to try to talk me out of being an Angel.

Since her Rock Chick Ride was as bumpy as Eric said, I got why she’d be concerned about us.

But I had no problem with what we were doing. And the girls had no problem with it. And Eric had no issue with it.

So, no shade, but I didn’t see why Stella should have a problem with it.

“I just wanted to make sure we got off on the right foot,” she announced.

Now I was confused.

“Do you think we haven’t?” I asked.

She spread her hands out in front of her in supplication, something that was both sweet, coming from a mega-famous person, and weird, considering our conversation didn’t seem to warrant it.

“Eric is a member of my family,” she declared. “And he told me that he told you we had a history. I just wanted you to know that it was, um… history and?—”

Ah.

Right.

I held up my hand, and she stopped talking.

I did this because this was about Savannah.

And it made me even more pissed at the bitch because I could see Stella was uncomfortable, which meant Savannah made her feel that way.

I dropped my hand. “I appreciate you coming in. But like you said, it’s history. And that’s the end of that.”

Her shoulders slumped with relief.

“God, was she that bad?” I asked.

“Eric’s told you about her?” Stella asked back.

“Yes,” I answered. “Including the fact she wasn’t a fan of this history.”

“She really wasn’t.” This was uttered in a way I knew it was a vast understatement.

And yep.

I got more pissed.

“What a pill,” I bitched.

“You don’t have to worry,” Stella informed me. “She’ll forget he exists. As shocking as it is with the man he is, she’s good at that. This whole thing with demanding a second chance is about her being unable to admit she failed. The more she pursues him, the longer he resists, in her head, she can say she tried, and he refused to try with her, so the end of the marriage was all his fault.”

“This woman is a fuckin’ trip,” I mumbled irately.

“He deserved a Rock Chick,” she stated.

My attention laser focused on her.

She kept talking.

“He also needed one. He needs a woman who will understand his commitment to his work and the team, who won’t be worried about it and make him feel guilty for doing it. One who’ll understand his training and experience and the men who he does it with means they know what they’re doing. A woman who’ll complement his life, is his partner in it, the way he’ll give the same to her because she has a life of her own, and they fit together that way. And a woman he can’t steamroll, though he’d sniff that out right away and he’d never go there, because that really isn’t his thing.”

She took a breath.

Then finished it.

“But mostly, since he’ll be all about her, she needs to be all about him too. And he needs to know that, be shown it, be told it, and then be allowed to live it.” Her voice lowered when she concluded, “There weren’t any Rock Chicks left. But I’m seeing an Angel will do perfectly.”

Oh my God!

What a nice thing to say!

“I don’t want to overshare,” I told her. “But it hasn’t even been a week, and I’m a little freaked how into him I am.”

“I’m going to repeat something I never thought I’d say in the first place. You need to read those books.”

My eyes wandered to Titto, who was engrossed in what he was reading, then I returned to Stella.

“I think your stories are scarier than ours.”

“Give it time,” she muttered, but even in a mutter, it was authoritative.

It was the authoritative part that made my body give a little shudder.

“Are you out without a bodyguard?” I asked.

“I have a stun gun,” she said breezily. “And so does Daisy. And Kai knows I don’t like to be shadowed. Which is why Gabe is lurking in the parking lot. Because Kai saw my car leave the house and sent Gabe after me. I pretend I don’t know I have a detail. Gabe pretends he doesn’t know we made him. Kai pretends he isn’t ticked that Gabe got made.” She smiled. “Works beautifully.”

I smiled back.

Sensing the hard part was over, Daisy slid onto the stool by her side.

“I know we only had lunch two hours ago, but Harlow told me what toad-in-the-hole is and now I’m feelin’ peckish. Wanna share a plate?” she asked Stella.

Stella looked at her watch and then asked me, “I have to go get Tallulah from school and Walsh from daycare in an hour and a half. Do we have time?”

“I’ll fast track it,” I said.

“That’d be awesome.”

I dashed into the kitchen to give Lucia the VIP order, telling her who that VIP was, and in pure Lucia style, she simply nodded and pulled a metal pan of oil out of the oven. She poured some thin batter into it. It started sizzling immediately.

I watched in fascination as she plopped some sausages in it, slid it back into the oven, and with no further ado, got back to work on the order she’d been preparing when I showed.

Okay.

Maybe she wasn’t into rock and roll.

Okay part two.

I was totally making toad-in-the-hole for Eric.

By the time I made it back to the bar, Harlow, Luna and Raye were huddled close to Stella and Daisy.

They were looking at a piece of paper on the bar.

I approached and Raye said, “Glad you’re here. We finally have a lull, so I wanted to go over the stakeout schedule with you guys.” She tapped a finger on the paper. “Cap said that all the people who have been snatched were snatched when it was dark. So we only have to cover sunset to sunrise. Cap cleared this with Mace and the team this morning, and then dropped it by.”

I looked down at the paper.

It said:

5:30–9:00 Luna & Knox

9:00–12:30 Harlow and Brady

12:30–4:00 Raye and Cap

4:00–7:30 Jess and Eric

Although these pairings didn’t say multi-tasking corn-themed snacks girlie time while nailing the bad guys, I was pretty danged thrilled I got to do my stakeout with Eric.

Thus, the schedule seemed perfect to me (I could share my corn theme with Eric). It’d give Harlow some time to chill a bit after work, but plenty of time to get some sleep. It’d give me time to get some shut-eye before I had to head out. And Luna and Raye could get to work on time.

In fact, only Raye and Cap’s allotment sucked.

“We should do a rotation of Raye and Cap’s slot, because it sucks,” I noted.

“Yeah. That’s the worst one,” Harlow agreed.

“Aw, you guys are sweet,” Raye said.

“Why am I with Knox?” Luna demanded.

We all looked at her, though Daisy did it with a mini tinkly bell laugh.

“Why not Knox?” Raye asked, and she did this suspiciously.

“Why not Liam? Or Gabe?” Luna retorted, I will note, without allaying Raye’s suspicions.

“Because Liam is managing the surveillance room since they haven’t found someone to do that,” Raye explained. “And because Gabe is Stella’s officially unofficial detail.”

“Roam then,” Luna kept at it.

“Roam needs to find a house to live in,” Raye retorted. “And get his legs under him here in Phoenix. He’s only been here days. The others have been here months.”

“Then why can’t I have Brady?” Luna didn’t let it go.

“Do you want Brady?” Harlow asked leadingly.

Another mini trill from Daisy.

“No, I don’t want Brady,” Luna returned weirdly heatedly.

“Let’s go back to why you don’t want Knox,” Raye stated.

“I just don’t, okay?” Luna didn’t quite answer.

“Are you keeping something from us?” Raye demanded.

I stared in surprise as pink hit Luna’s cheeks (she wasn’t one to blush) before she narrowed her eyes on Raye and totally lied, “No.”

Now we were all staring at her.

“If I was fifteen years younger and my Marcus didn’t exist in this universe or any other, I’d want Knox,” Daisy said under her breath to Stella.

“Don’t tell Kai, or he’ll pull him from my detail, but I’d pick Gabe. He’s got those Luke vibes going on,” Stella replied.

“It’s in the blood,” Daisy noted.

“It sure is,” Stella responded. “Who would have guessed there was more Stark goodness floating out there? You’d think we’d sense it simply because we have uteruses.”

Another update: Gabe was the second cousin to one of the OG Hot Bunch, Luke Stark. I’d met Luke at the funeral too. And there was more than a mere family resemblance. In a number of ways.

“Luke do it for you?” Daisy asked Stella in surprise.

“The question should be, which one doesn’t?” Stella answered. “And the answer is, none. Though, the caveat is the same, with Kai not existing in this universe or any other.”

“I hear you, sister,” Daisy mumbled.

“We should get back to work,” Luna decreed.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook on this,” Raye called to her back as she left the bar.

Luna ignored her and kept motoring.

This reminded me to ask a question I hadn’t thought to ask earlier (no, not the one about why Knox was at Luna’s apartment Sunday morning, that’d have to wait until later since she plainly wasn’t feeling talkative about the subject, and equally plainly, Raye nor Harlow knew what was going on with those two either). My actual question needed to be asked, particularly to Eric, someone I couldn’t ask at that moment, because he wasn’t there.

So I asked Raye.

“These guys are expending a lot of resources on a case that isn’t theirs. What’s up with that?”

Stella made a noise.

Daisy murmured, “Mm-hmm.”

I looked to them then back to Raye when she spoke.

“Cap explained that they do this kind of thing.”

“They sure do.” Daisy was still murmuring.

“Do what kind of thing?” Harlow asked.

It was Stella who answered. “Watching your asses, so you don’t get exploded by a car bomb.”

Cripes!

She continued, “Along with working cases they lose money on so stuff the cops don’t have the time and resources to focus on can get sorted a whole lot faster so innocent people stop vanishing.” She threw out a hand and finished, “And the like.”

I ignored the car bomb mention and said to Stella, “Like pro bono avenger type stuff?”

Stella smiled. “Yes. But in this case, there’s also the fact they can’t have you girls showing them up.”

I didn’t think it was that.

I thought it would be easy just to keep an eye on us and let us do our thing without members of their team being up all night, helping us do our thing.

I thought instead they were doing it because, just like us, they didn’t want anyone else to go missing, and if they were still around to be found, they wanted to locate the ones that were already gone.

I also thought this was tremendously awesome.

“What time are we starting tonight?” I asked Raye.

“Right after work, if you two are game,” Raye answered.

Harlow and I nodded our heads.

“Cap suggested we start with swinging by the hotel to talk to Mary. She wasn’t around for very long, but she was there when someone was taken,” Raye told us.

“That’s a plan,” I confirmed.

“Luna can just get over it. Knox will be at the stakeout spot at 5:30. She can join him when we’re done,” Raye stated.

Harlow inched closer, so Raye and I inched with her, and Daisy and Stella both came up to their forearms on the bar so they could listen in too.

“What do you think that’s about?” Harlow queried.

There it was.

I was right.

Or, at least Harlow didn’t know what was going on.

“I think she’s got the hots for Knox, and Knox has the hots for her, and they won’t do anything about it because Cap and I are together, and she’s my best friend, Knox is Cap’s best friend, and they’re big, fat dorks,” Raye shared.

Time to get my question in.

“Do you know why Knox was at Luna’s Sunday morning?”

Raye shot me a baffled expression. “He’d come over to ours. Cap was going to make brunch then they were going to the shooting range.”

Oh.

That wasn’t very hot tea, or any tea at all.

Bummer.

“Knox was pretty up in her space while Mary was brandishing her knife,” Harlow noted.

“Knife?” Stella asked.

“ Shh , don’t interrupt,” Daisy whispered to her.

“I saw him get close, but I didn’t see what happened when Mary whipped out that knife,” I said. “Liam had pulled me out of the way.”

“Knox put his arm around her belly and yanked her behind him,” Harlow told me. “It was really sweet. And I thought it was weird that it looked like Luna’s face would burn off, it got so red. But I figured she was ticked that he protected her when Mary wasn’t going to do anything with that knife.” Her gaze wandered to the restaurant. “Maybe it was something else.”

Oh, it was something else.

We all looked to Luna, including Daisy and Stella twisting on their stools to do it.

Luna felt it, and without turning our way, yelled across the space, “Kiss off and die!”

Daisy’s laugh sounded again.

“We probably should go back to work,” Raye said.

We probably should.

“I’ll check on your order,” I said to Daisy and Stella.

“Thanks, sugar, you’re the best,” Daisy replied.

I headed back to the kitchen.

The order was up.

I brought it out to the girls, gave them cutlery and got them both sodas.

Then, except for Stella, once she finished the toad-in-the-hole, declaring she was coming back once a week for lunch before they left, nothing else happened all shift (apart from Tito barking out laughter on occasion while he read his book, something I decided to take as a positive sign).

This lull in activity was good, even if I didn’t know how good it was at the time.

Because, as Eric would say, shit was about to spark off in a huge way.

We just didn’t know that.

If we did, we would have wallowed in that quiet time.

Alas, we didn’t.