The Honourable Maverick

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Max offered Ellie. His gaze dropped automatically to the bulge of her sweater. So obvious now he’d felt it. Curiously, he could still feel it. As part of that body shaking with sobs she’d tried so hard to stifle. A shape that seemed to be imprinted on his own body. She was eyeing the beer bottles on the table. ‘I mean…water or something?’

‘Hate to break up the party,’ Rick drawled, ‘but there’s a guy on the street out here who seems rather interested in this apartment.’

Ellie’s indrawn breath was a gasp. She slid sideways, making sure she wasn’t in view. Closer to the wall now, she kept moving and peeped around the edge of the window frame.

‘Oh…no…’ The word was a groan. ‘It’s Marcus. I thought I’d lost him at the airport.’

‘And who is Marcus?’ Max stepped swiftly to look out of the window but the street below was deserted apart from a taxi and its driver.

‘He’s…um…He was my…’ Ellie seemed to be finding it difficult to find the description she wanted. ‘I was in a relationship with him. Briefly. It’s been…hard to get away.’

The underlying message was unmistakable. Max tried to curb the slash of anger. ‘He’s stalking you?’

‘Ah…kind of, I guess.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Today? Wellington. I think he must have hired a private investigator who picked up on my air-ticket purchase. He must have flown down from Auckland to be at the airport by the time I arrived.’

‘Auckland…of course…’ Rick snapped his fingers. ‘Thought the little weasel looked vaguely familiar.’

Everybody’s head swung in Rick’s direction. Max and Ellie spoke together.

‘You know him?’

‘Marcus Jones. Orthopaedic surgeon, yes?’

‘Y-yes,’ Ellie stammered, looking bewildered.

Rick addressed the others. ‘Had a little run-in with him when I was working in Auckland Central a few years back.’ The huff of expelled breath was not complimentary. ‘Guy with a nasty spinal tumour. I was keen to try a new approach. Risky but perfectly doable. Would have left him neurologically intact.’

The nod from Max and Jet accepted that Rick’s judgement would have been correct.

‘The weasel is persuasive. He talked the patient and his family into going with the standard protocol. Poor guy ended up quadriplegic and on a home ventilator. Probably dead by now.’

Max caught Jet’s raised eyebrow and nodded. ‘He follows the rules.’

‘Hell, he thinks he can make the rules,’ Rick said.

‘Does he, now?’ Max injected enough of an ominous tone into his query to earn approving glances from the other men. A glance at Ellie’s wide eyes revealed that she had no clue what the unspoken conversation going on here was about but it certainly wasn’t making her feel any more secure.

Should he take the time to tell her that one of the things that welded the three of them together was the shared conviction that sometimes some of the rules had to be broken? That they were all people who had no hesitation in doing exactly that if they considered it to be necessary?

He didn’t have the time. The rap on his door was far more demanding than Ellie’s knock had been.

‘Open the door.’ The owner of the voice was used to being in control. ‘I know you’re in there, Eleanor.’

Jet went to open the door.

‘No,’ Ellie breathed. ‘Please…’

Max and Rick moved to stand on either side of Ellie.

Max tilted his head. ‘He doesn’t sound like he’s going to go away without a little encouragement. You’re safe here, remember?’

‘Mmm.’ The sound was hesitant but hopeful. It tugged at something deep inside Max.

‘You’d like him to go away, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘For good?’

‘Oh…yes.’

Jet flung the door open.

‘About time.’ The small man in a pinstriped suit stepped into the apartment. ‘Come on, Eleanor. I’ve got a taxi waiting for us.’

Ellie said nothing. Max could see the way her lips trembled even though she had them pressed tightly together.

The newcomer took another step further inside and it was then that he seemed to notice Ellie’s companions. He looked over his shoulder at Jet, who had closed the door and was leaning against it, his arms folded and a menacing look on his face. Max almost grinned. No one could do menacing quite as well as Jet.

Rick earned a look then. And finally Max. Good thing they were all still in their leathers, having only just finished their annual road trip, which was part of their tribute to Matt. Even better that they were all at least six inches taller, considerably heavier and quite a lot younger than the dapper surgeon.

Marcus Jones cleared his throat. ‘Who are these people, Eleanor?’

Ellie remained silent. She looked remarkably like a small, wild animal caught in the glare of oncoming headlights, Max decided before flicking his gaze back to the most recent arrival.

He watched the way Marcus swallowed, revealing his discomfort. This man was a bully, he realised. The thought that he’d had the opportunity to bully the woman standing beside him was more than enough to fuel his simmering anger.

The surgeon spread his hands in a contrived gesture of appeal and directed his words to the men in the room. ‘Look, I don’t know what she’s told you but this is nothing more than a minor misunderstanding. Eleanor’s my fiancée. She’s pregnant with my child and I’ve come to take her home.’

Max felt Ellie sway slightly beside him. He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. He glanced down and met her eyes. He saw a silent plea for protection that no red-blooded man could have resisted. Especially an angry one.

‘Funny,’ he heard himself say mildly, ‘Ellie told me the baby is mine, and you know what?’ He speared the stranger with his gaze. ‘I believe her.’

The silence was stunned and no wonder. Max was more than a little stunned himself by what he’d just said.

The baby is mine?

They were words he’d never expected to utter in his life and they were having a rather odd effect. Creating a weird tingle of something that felt curiously…pleasant. Good, even. They made him feel taller. More powerful.

Rick made a sound that could have been strangled laughter but was effectively disguised as a cough. Unseen by Marcus, Jet shook his head in disbelief and didn’t bother to hide his smirk.

Max drew himself up to his full six feet three inches and didn’t break his stare by so much as a blink.

‘Eleanor…’ Marcus narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you going to say something or just stand there like some kind of stuffed toy?’