Fierce (26 page)

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t say anything about it. Helmsley answered at first, then he put Rose on. Jesus, it’s a good job you noticed that…whatever it was.”

“We noticed there was some interference with our feed, so I rewound the video right away. It’s lucky he wasn’t standing behind one of the others when he planted that thing. The game would have been up by now.”

“We underestimated them,” said Avery.

“Yes, and they us.”

Avery took a pair of Jack Daniels bottles out of the mini bar, served himself a double on the rocks. “So we’re good, Nix? We got what you needed?”

“I think so. Pulling those weapons on you would be enough to bury them, but his threats were clear and unambiguous. All four of them are now on the official FBI shit-list. So it’s just a matter of applying the right pressure. Using their own tactics against them. Don’t worry, we’ll take it from here.”

“I did good?”

“You did great. You even convinced me you’re going to take that dive in a few weeks.”

Avery nearly coughed up his drink. “Shit. Now I really
can’t
lose, or else I’m technically guilty of fight-fixing, right?”

Nix laughed. “For what it’s worth, my money’s on you.” He slapped Avery on the back. “So you’d better not let me down, huh?”

“I guess not…Agent Nix.”

“Best give your lady a call back. She’ll be worried.”

“Way ahead of you.” Avery had already hit redial. This time Rose answered almost immediately, and he gave a sigh of relief when he heard her voice. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said. “It’s all over now. And so is my career in the FBI.”

***

Things had been much better between them, Rose had to admit. Avery had taken her out on three date nights since their talk the other week, and he’d been all-round more attentive. Yes, he still trained hard, but in his downtime, he had really started to make an effort to connect with her. It was all a matter of being open. The brooding warrior thing had its place, but not when you were trying to make a new relationship work. So, as tough as it was for him to separate those two aspects of his life—he’d been single-minded his whole career, up to now—Rose felt confident he could strike a balance.

He’d played his part in the FBI operation in Vegas, and now he was home. They could pick up where they’d left off in this crazy new life together. His plane had landed half an hour ago, and Rose was waiting in the arrival lounge to surprise him. Helmsley had sent one of his agents to watch over her, and he stayed pretty close. Also, he dressed smartly—way smarter than her—which made her feel safe. The shades, too, were a giveaway. It was obvious to any potential abductor that he was here in an official capacity.

“I wonder what the delay is,” she said to him.

He checked his watch. “Plenty of time yet. Baggage collection can be a real pain at this time of day. Arrivals sometimes get backed up.” It was late afternoon, a little before six. “Commuter flights are the worst,” he added, offering her a stick of gum.

She accepted it. “You fly a lot?”

“All the time. You?”

“Twice. I’ve only ever flown twice in my life.”

“Where to?”

She replied, “Reno.”

“Well, you’ll be doubling that count in a few weeks, right?”

Rose smiled. “I hope so. If everything goes well.”

“Ah, it’ll be fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

She might have believed him if she hadn’t caught sight of Avery, right there at the arrivals gate, leading his “entourage” into the lounge.

“Okay, I think he’s here,” the FBI man said.

No shit,
she thought. Because he wasn’t here alone. In fact, he couldn’t be any further from alone if he tried, the bastard. At least seven shockingly hot female models were all over him, linking arms and giggling and pawing him like he was a side of beef. He lapped it up, too. Grinned and flirted like one of those millionaire playboys you saw on bad TV shows about Hollywood players. He’d been busy in Vegas, she decided, when he wasn’t collecting his Junior G-Man badge.

Disgust curled through her like a sickly wave. It was as if he’d tuned into her worst nightmare and decided to re-enact it for her, for the whole world to see. How could she have been so stupid? A world champion fighter, known throughout America. She had to have been hallucinating to think he would settle for her, a homeless nobody with barely B-cup breasts, over a line-up of curvy models most guys would die young to be able to fuck.

This was the Avery Wright she’d dreaded. The one beyond her reach. And it was suddenly real and in her face. In her mind, she had two choices: one, fight for him, right here at the airport, maybe bloody a few silicon sluts in the process; or two, face reality and get as far away from him as possible before he broke her heart into smithereens.

The FBI man must have seen how hurt she was; he removed his shades and gave her a conciliatory look. Then he looked away, acknowledging that it was none of his business.

“Take me home,” she said and stormed out of the terminal.

He followed her without question.

All Rose wanted was to leave Mitre for good. She could always return for Cate, on her birthday. But Avery? That fucking slut-magnet? He wanted to be a player—he could go play with himself from now on! They were done. She was done. He’d wounded her for the last time, and she never wanted to see him again.

Not ever.

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Avery dropped his bags at the front door and scrubbed his tired face with his hands. “She’s taken off? On her own?”

Helmsley shook his head at his junior colleague, a handsome young agent, then turned to Avery. “I’m afraid so. About ten minutes ago.”

“And she didn’t say anything? She just left?”

“Actually, she packed first, then loaded the pickup,” the young FBI man said. “I asked her where she was going, but she didn’t say. I told her it was a bad idea to leave before you got here. She told me she’d wait, but while I was making a call, she snuck out the back way and took off. Not much I could do. When someone’s that determined to slip away, they’ll find a way to do it.”

“Do you know
why
she was so determined?” asked Avery.

“She saw you at the airport, sir. I guess she didn’t like what she saw.”

“Oh crap. She came to meet me?”

“Yes, sir. I was with her. She was upset when she left.”

Again, all Avery could do was scrub his face in frustration. He was in no state to deal with this. The press event yesterday had been an interminable, draining affair, too many interviews and photo ops and way too many meet-and-greets. He reckoned he must have shaken hands with half the money men in Vegas.

And now
this.
Not sleep, like he needed, but rescuing his wayward girl again, after a dumb misunderstanding. Another one. They
really
needed to work on their communication. But a part of him had suspected she might react badly to the whole fame bullshit once it kicked into high gear. She was a down-to-earth, provincial girl in her first serious relationship. He’d travelled far and thrived in the spotlight for several years now. And it had to be a difficult thing for her to take, sharing him with the carnival that was the mass entertainment media.

She’d seen him with a group of giggly women he’d flown here with. Naturally she’d assumed the worst.

If only she’d told him she was going to meet him. If only he’d known…

“Give me a call if she shows up,” he told Helmsley.

“Where are you going?”

“To fetch her, if I can. I think I know where she’ll be.”

Helmsley said, “Care to let us in on it?”

“Not right now. This is between me and Rose.”

He left his bags there and ran to the garage, opened it with his remote. He went straight to Rose’s hiding place in the corner, where she left the shotgun. Thank God. It was still there. He put it in the trunk of his Camaro and drove off at top speed.

***

Now that her anger had settled a little, Rose watched Mike’s house from behind the wheel of her pickup, parked across the street, feeling low and miserable. She had no purpose anymore except to free Cate. Between now and then, just over three weeks, she was once again homeless, jobless, and had no boyfriend. She could keep on driving, maybe find somewhere to stay out of town, but the pull of her new life here in Mitre made that increasingly difficult the longer she sat and thought about it.

This might be one time when she shouldn’t follow her impulse. That knee-jerk reaction at the airport—had it been an overreaction? Was there some other explanation?
Had
Avery cheated on her? It had sure as hell looked that way, but what if she was only seeing what her jealousy wanted her to see?

The passenger door opened and someone got in. Rose spun on her seat ready to kick out at the intruder. She stopped. “Avery? Where the fuck did you come from?” She pressed a hand to her chest to still the thumping beat inside. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”

“Likewise, when I heard you’d given your guy the slip. We need to stop doing that—scaring each other to death.” He looked out across the road. “I thought you promised not to come here again.”

“Yeah, well, promises don’t mean a whole helluva lot when we’re away from each other, do they?” She hit him with her fiercest, most accusing glare.

“Your FBI guy told me you came to meet me at the airport.”

“Sucks to be me, huh. You piece of shit.” That came out with natural venom.

“It must have looked bad,” he said. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you do, Bub. I’ll bet you wish I wasn’t onto you, you fucking snake.”

“Rose, will you give me a minute? Just one minute.”

She thought about completing her kick. His head would crash right through the glass, she reckoned. But she
was
curious to hear how he’d try to squirm out of this. “The clock’s ticking,” she said.

“One of our sponsors had the idea of doing a photo shoot in our gym, in Wright Hook’s. They want two separate shoots. The first is a glamour shoot, me and a bunch of professional models posing like they used to do for those old bodybuilding mags. Dumb, sexy glamour pics. Nothing more. The second is a series showing me working out. We’ve brought a respected photographer with us. An afternoon’s work and it’ll be over. The girls will all fly back with the photographer, and that’ll be it. What you saw at the airport was a bunch of models who’d had too much to drink on the flight, flirting with an MMA champ. Just playing. I don’t know them any more than I know the hundreds of women—and men—who chase after me with autograph books around fight night. It’s part of the circus, that’s all.”

“It looked like you were having fun all right. And not just the circus kind.”

He bowed his head. “That’s why I wished you hadn’t seen it. I can totally see why you’d take it that way. But you have my word there was nothing more to it. And there never will be. Rose, I’m crazy about you. Don’t you know that? I nearly went out of my mind in Vegas.”

She sat upright in her seat, desperately wanting to believe him. She closed her eyes. “I wish I could trust you.”

“What can I do to convince you?”

There was no answer to that question, and they both knew it.

“That lifestyle. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with it,” she said. “It seems out of control. Like the whole world wants a piece of you. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

“I was thinking the same thing about you, after Reno,” he said. “The new guys at the gym practically mobbed you. I just had to put up with it.”

“Yeah, but you could see there was nothing going on. When you’re out of town, and I’m here, how can I ever know for sure…?”

Avery shrugged. “I think that’s why they call it trust. It’s a two-way thing, no? When I’m out of town and you’re here, getting mobbed by those guys, how can
I
ever know for sure…?”

He had a point there, but Rose still felt it wasn’t a fair comparison. One of them was a bona fide sports celebrity and spent time alone in some of the sleaziest cities in America.

“We both need to make a promise, here and now,” he said, holding her hand. “To always give each other the benefit of the doubt, and not let jealousy come between us. I shouldn’t have let those women get carried away with me like that at the airport. It won’t happen again.” He paused, waiting for her to reciprocate.

Rose sighed. “And I should have waited to hear your side of the story before I moved out like that.” She kissed his cheek. “It won’t happen again.”

He leaned forward, touched his forehead to hers. “I love that you’re feisty, that you’ll always stand up for yourself, but I want you to know, you don’t have to fight me all the time. I’m not going anywhere. Not ever. Okay?”

She’d forgotten how disarming he could be when he let his defenses down. It made her want to tell him everything. But she settled for “Okay.” Hearing herself say the word, while he was so close, left her feeling strangely warm. Contented. Like an echo that filled empty places, giving her hope.

“And you’re not going anywhere either, right?” he said.

Rose kissed his lips. “Not without you.”

Before she knew it, they were lost together in a deep, sensuous kiss that was so far removed from how she’d felt a few minutes ago, all their fighting and jealous outbursts and squabbles seemed absurd, so petty they were a waste of the neurons it took to remember them.

From feeling utterly alone and abandoned to this—being wanted in every way imaginable? Why
did
she have to doubt Avery at every turn? He was just like her. Reluctant to connect because he was afraid that connection might be ripped away. Again. He’d lost his Maggie. She’d lost her mom. And since then, neither of them had really given anyone else a chance to get that close.

Until now.

“Let’s make another promise,” she said. “Promise that our guards will always be down for each other. I think it’s important. It might hurt sometimes, but it’s why we’ll make a good team. I reckon—”

“It’s why I need you,” he said.

Rose blushed and twined a loose curl of hair around her finger. “You do?”

“I swear.”

She threw her arms around him and wanted the moment to last forever, but from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a flicker of light from the front window in the house across the street. Mike’s house. The curtain had just moved.

Someone was looking out.

***

The entire firmament of stars seemed to blaze that night as Avery lay on his side in bed, Rose’s arm draped across him, and gazed out of the open bedroom window. Those pinpoints in the blackness could be the highlights of their past—his, Rose’s—or they could be what was waiting for them if every night proved as good as this one. They’d made love in the shower, then they’d sat up in bed, talking till late; and even though Avery was dog-tired, he just didn’t want the night to end.

It felt like he and Rose had passed a point of no return. They’d had problems; they’d worked through those problems; and it had somehow brought them closer, as if those adjustments had realigned their edges together into an even better fit. It might not hold true tomorrow, or the day after, but tonight he wanted to savor what it felt like to truly connect with a girl—a woman—he loved without question.

His morning in Vegas had been frustrating, the afternoon a near-disaster, but tonight—tonight was worth it all. He was excited about the upcoming fight. But more than that, much more, he was looking forward to what would happen after that…and for the rest of his life.

A life with Rose.

The only thing that could ruin that, he reckoned, was her long-promised confrontation with her stepdad, that psychotic prick, Mike Hague. That would take place on Cate’s eighteenth birthday, a few days before he flew to Vegas to face Grillo.

Two confrontations, then, stood between them and the future he saw so clearly in the night sky. There was darkness out there, but he had to have faith in the stars. After all, they had brought him and Rose together.

He stared out the window until his eyes couldn’t stay open any longer. Then he dreamed he was running on a wild, open road. Every time he looked back, she was there, keeping pace, assuring him they’d never get tired as long as there was road ahead of them.