The Gazebo

“Hell, you hear that?” Swastika’s fuzzy haired crony grumbled. “He doesn’t even have the brains to deny he got special treatment!”

“You owe me, Stone!” Swastika snarled. “And I’m not leavin’ here until I get some of my own back!”

Deirdre swallowed hard. She could understand where King Kong was coming from. If she’d been his size six years ago she might have been tempted to take a swing at Stone herself. Once again she was the queen of rotten timing.

Stone couldn’t have gotten the crap beat out of him the hundred other times she’d wished him ill. No, he had to wait until she actually needed him standing upright with his brain functioning to take on three house-size cons at once.

“Ten years,” Swastika griped. “I spent ten years in the joint.”

“And I’ve spent eight off the force. Let’s call it even.”

“Just tell me how much it cost, Stone,” Swastika demanded. “To make your murder rap go away.”

“Hedron, I know how it is for you,” Stone said, quietly persuasive. “You go and get yourself all drunked up and crazy, and there’s my ugly mug staring at you from Conlan’s wall. So he stokes you up and sends you over here looking for a fight. Why not? Conlan’s got nothing to lose. But you, Hedron, you’re gonna lose plenty, breaking parole. All you’re gonna get here is another aggravated assault charge and a few broken bones in the bargain.”

Two of the cons looked downright edgy, Deirdre marveled. But the ink the tattoo artist squirted into Hedron’s skull must have pickled the part of his brain that dealt with impulse control. He didn’t look daunted in the least.

“Hell, man, I’m not worth it,” Stone said.

He meant it, Deirdre thought astonished, wondering at the shadows that suddenly stormed in his remarkable eyes.

Stone spoke so quietly, so evenly, as if he were trying to talk someone down off a ledge. “Just get the hell out of here, climb on your bikes and head for the nearest bar,” Stone urged. “We’ll forget this whole thing.”

Swastika’s eyes narrowed, as if he could sense a chink in Stone’s armor, was trying to sniff out the best place to draw blood. “You know, I remember that pretty little wife of yours.” Stone was married? Deirdre glanced at his left hand—no ring in sight.

“Police chief’s baby girl, wasn’t she?” Hedron taunted. “Did she go crying to daddy to save your ass?”

A muscle in Stone’s jaw twitched. “That’s none of your damn business.”

“Oh, I think it is. Tell me, Stone. Why did I spend ten years with only my hand and Miss November while you spent it screwing a real-live woman’s brains out? Come on, Stone. Explain it to me.”

Something shifted in Stone’s face, hardening the planes and angles, turning his gray gaze flinty. “Sorry. I only use reason on animals that are at least in throwing distance from me on the evolutionary scale. My dog, for instance.”

Hedron’s lips snaked over teeth whose repair would have paid for a dentist’s summer home. “You still think you’re untouchable, don’t you, you arrogant son of a bitch. I’m not leaving until I prove that you bleed red just like the rest of us.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed, his powerful body taut, ready. No, Deirdre realized—not just ready—eager to fight. “I bleed plenty red,” Stone said. “But today I’m all out of Band-Aids.”

“Stop it!” Deirdre cried out. All four men nearly jumped out of their skin, heads jerking around to look at her, but only Stone’s gaze pierced deep, stark recognition registered on his face.

“What the hell? Deirdre?”

He recognized her, remembered her after six years, Deirdre realized, stunned. Cornered as he was, Stone lunged, trying to bulldoze his way between Swastika and Curly in an effort to put his body between her and the other men. But she’d obviously shattered his concentration. He didn’t even see Swastika as the giant man’s fist drove into his midsection. Air whooshed out of Stone’s lungs, and Deirdre expected him to go down, out cold, but he stayed on his feet, bellowing warning.

“Get out of here!”

Good advice, Deirdre realized. But instinct kept the soles of her shoes glued to the floor. It wasn’t a fair fight. McDaniels never deserted—Pain shot through her, the letter and its ugly truth surging into her mind.

So what if she wasn’t a McDaniel. She couldn’t leave Stone to get pulverized. The man wasn’t going to do her any good in the hospital.

“Lookit Stone’s face,” Swastika gloated. “We’ve got his girlfriend.”

Stone sucked in a painful breath. “She’s not…my girlfriend.”

Deirdre met the bikers’ gaze with a fearless one of her own. Well, almost fearless. “I wouldn’t date Jake Stone if he was the last man on earth.”

“Then how about giving me a test drive, sweet thing, and we’ll call it even? It’s been a long time since I had me a woman.”

The con turned toward Deirdre, the stench of cheap whiskey rolling over her in suffocating waves as Swastika closed in on her.

Stone lunged, lightning fast, just as Moe swung some kind of club—a blackjack, Deirdre realized from fights in the nightclubs she’d sung in so long ago. Stone dodged, the blur of black leather glancing off his jaw instead of breaking it.

Deirdre cried out, her voice drowned by Stone’s bellow as he fought to keep his feet under him. Deirdre grabbed Stone’s arm, tried to steady him, but the P.I. tore away from her.

“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. But Swastika’s arm snaked around her ribs, yanking her back hard against him. The stench of cheap liquor made Deirdre’s stomach churn, panic welling through her. Helpless. She felt so helpless. No. She’d sworn she’d never be helpless again.

Deirdre drove the sharp edge of her heel hard against the ex-con’s instep, just like the Captain had taught her. Swastika howled as she yanked free.

“Run!” Stone yelled, plunging between her and the raging men. She had a straight shot to the door. But the blows had dulled Stone’s reflexes, slowed his speed. Even if she could reach her cell phone, Stone would be toast before anyone could get here.

She didn’t owe Stone any kind of loyalty. He was the last person she should be defending. And yet…She stared, suddenly frozen, as a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of the P.I.’s mouth.

“It’s red,” she cried, inanely.

All four men looked like she was insane. “What the hell?” Swastika snarled.

“His blood,” she insisted. “It’s red!” Her cheeks flamed. “You’ve proved he bleeds, now why…why don’t you all leave.” She thought longingly of her cell phone, wished she’d had the brains to call before she’d barged into the office. But then, Moe, Curly and Swastika didn’t know she hadn’t. She drew herself up as if she were a six-foot Amazon instead of a five-foot-three midget the three stooges there could snap with one hand. “I called the police from my cell phone before I came in here,” Deirdre said.

Swastika chortled. “Sure you did, lady.”

Deirdre glared right into Swastika’s mud-colored eyes. “The dispatcher said they’d be right here. Her name was Joan.”

“Joanie?” Stone feigned recognition. “She’s a hell of a looker, that one. Too bad you won’t have a chance to romance her, Hedron. She doesn’t like men in orange jumpsuits.”

Swastika’s buddies glanced uneasily toward the door.

Swastika sneered, pacing toward Stone. “He’s laughing his ass off at you,” he told Moe and Curly, taking a menacing step toward the P.I. “You two can be cowards if you want. I’ll beat the shit out of him myself.”

In a split second Stone coiled like a whip, sprang into action. Whatever grogginess he’d felt from the blows evaporated. Deirdre watched, stunned as Stone hurtled his body through space, fists cracking bone, long powerful legs executing rib-crushing kicks to Swastika’s midsection in such fast succession he drove the man across the room.

Moe and Curly gaped as if they’d fallen into a Lethal Weapon movie. Moe dropped his blackjack. Curly fumbled for something in his pocket—a knife. But he was shaking so hard he struggled to open it. Dee grabbed a bronze statue of lady justice from Stone’s desk, slamming it down toward the con’s head. Curly ducked, the heavy base grazing his temple, exactly the kind of blow the Captain always said only made combatants madder than hell.

Only strike if you’ve got a clear shot, the old man had drilled her. Hit to kill. A woman’s got only one chance to surprise an attacker. She’d already used that up when she’d stomped Swastika’s instep flat. But Curly wasn’t coming back for more. He and Moe cowered like whipped dogs as Stone kicked Swastika square in the face. The con doubled over, blood spurting from his nose. Stone bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his whole body ready to fly into action as he turned toward the other two men. “Who’s next?” he dared them. “Any more takers?” But Swastika’s streaming nose was as effective as a flag of surrender. The three cons bolted out the door.

Deirdre braced her trembling body against a chair, trying to remember how to breathe, as she heard the bikes’ engines fire up, roar down the street. But before she could get oxygen into her straining lungs, a hard hand gripped her shoulder. Stone whipped her around to face him. He crushed her against him for a heartbeat, his big body hard and overwhelmingly male. Then, as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go.

Deirdre stared, momentarily struck dumb. Mr. Cool was mad as hell. Not roaring mad—roaring mad she could handle. Quiet, nuclear-meltdown kind of mad—eye-of-the-hurricane kind of mad. Tornado-warning, head-to-the-basement-before-you-get-blasted-to-smithereens kind of mad. Deirdre pulled away from his grip, unconsciously tried to take a step back. Her bottom collided with the chair.

Stone swiped the blood from his bottom lip with the back of his hand. A strange flutter awoke in Deirdre’s middle. She had seen just how lethal a weapon those hands could be moments before. Skilled and powerful—his eyes alive with rage. She stared at his mouth, lips knee-meltingly sexy, as if he could drive a woman’s common sense right out of her body if he kissed her. She wondered if he knew she was immune to all that animal magnetism.