Tied Up in Knots (20 page)

“The hell?” Redeker was there, his hazel gaze darting between us. “You girls flirting over here?”

“Yep,” Callahan assured him. “You can bring whoever you want back to the room tonight. I’ll be in with Jones.”

The look on Redeker’s face, uncertainty mixed with something colder, deadlier, told me Callahan had much more of Redeker’s interest than he thought. “Wait—” I began.

“No,” Callahan snapped before he walked toward the bar.

Redeker rounded on me. “What the hell was that about?”

I weighed what to say and decided I didn’t care because I didn’t need to. Being careful wasn’t necessary here. “I think that your partner is tired of waiting.”

“What?”

“Could we not do that whole thing,” I said grumpily. “I know what I’m looking at.”

“And what is that?” I ignored him and he shook his head. “You’re way off base there, Jones. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do something or don’t, it doesn’t affect me one bit,” I clarified. “I’m outta here tomorrow either way.”

Redeker studied me intently. “I could ruin his whole life, do you understand?”

I understood that he
thought
he could.

“Career, what he wants family-wise, all of it could just be gone in a moment if I forget what my responsibility is here.”

With the drawl, the way his voice dropped low, husky, how rough looking he was, a little scary but with dimples at the same time, I could understand the man’s allure. Everybody wanted a cowboy to call their own. “I think it’s awfully shortsighted of you to think you know what he wants his whole life to be.”

He shook his head like I had no idea.

“You never know until you jump.”

His glare was dark. “Not all of us have the safety net you apparently enjoy up there in Chicago, with the way you’re comin’ at me. Everyone’s all nice and out in the open, huh?”

“No, but my boss, the guys I work with—none of them give a shit about who I sleep with. They only care about how I do my job.”

After a moment he nodded.

“I like having my safety net, and maybe if you don’t have one here, you should think about going someplace where you will,” I quipped, smiling in that way I did that pissed people off. “You guys could both put in transfer requests tomorrow, but you won’t because you’re scared of what that would mean for the two of you.”

“You don’t know anything about me or him.”

“Nope,” I agreed. “All I know is that your partner looks at you like you walk on water, and you like that just fine.”

“Listen—”

I rode roughshod over him. “You have all the power. And he has shit because you haven’t come clean and told him that the idea of taking him home with you gets you hard.”

I expected him to hit me, and I was prepared if he tried. What I was not expecting was the look of absolute surprise on his face.

“Oh, come on,” I said, remembering how I hid my heart from Ian and how much longer we would have been together if I had just come clean with him from the start about my feelings. “You’d have to be blind to miss what you mean to him. It’s you who’s playing his cards pretty damn close to his chest.”

“I—”

“It was the same for me, so I get it. I swear to God, I wouldn’t even be giving you shit if I hadn’t been right there where you are.”

“How do you know?”

I shrugged. “You were jealous when you walked up on us, and earlier today—you stand really close to him, right up in his space. I’m now familiar with that maneuver.”

“Oh?”

“I live with my partner.”

It took him a second. “And you’re not roommates.”

“No.”

“Where is he now?”

“Deployed.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s his calling.”

He nodded and was quiet for a moment. “Callahan’s really young.”

“And you don’t wanna fuck him up. I know. You told me.”

“I need to keep things how they are, just friends.”

I took a breath, let it go, resolved to stay out of it going forward. “Okay.”

“That’s it? You give me the third degree and finish with okay?”

“No, man, you’re a lot stronger than I was, and if you can stand it the other way, more power to you.”

“What other way?”

“Watching him fuck other people.”

“The fucking don’t bother me none.” It was patronizing how he said it, like he was above it all.

“The falling in love with will,” I volleyed.

After a long moment, he said, “I suspect you’re right.”

“But there’s nothing to be done, right?”

He declined to answer.

The “Hey, hi, hello.” came out of nowhere.

I turned, and there in front of me was five foot seven inches of Josue Hess, looking even more fragile and beautiful than he did in his pictures online. I’d noticed his eyes first because it was something I did from my days as a foster kid. Always check first to see if people had kind eyes. Hess’s were dark, glittering obsidian. That and his gorgeous burnt sienna skin with undertones of ochre, a blush of antique gold under silken brown that his Jamaican-born father had gifted him with, made him traffic-stopping beautiful. But that wasn’t all. From his German and Dutch mother, he received sharp elfin features: a short upturned nose, a wide expressive mouth, and long curling lashes. “Pretty” was the only word to use with such devastating genetics at work right there in front of me.

“Josue,” I greeted. “May I call you Josue?”

He nodded quickly, and I noticed he was looking me over like he was examining me for flaws. It was slightly disconcerting, but the scrutiny wasn’t interest, more like he was making a decision on my worth as a human being.

“How are you?” I asked.

He moved in closer and stared up into my face, studying me further.

“Josue?”

“Okay,” he said after a few moments of silence, nodding. “This makes more sense. Mind, body, and soul in alignment with what I expected.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You actually look like I thought you would, is all.”

“Pardon me?”

“You three, you’re marshals,” he announced, waving the pointer finger of his right hand at me and Redeker and Callahan, who’d just joined us. “But I didn’t see them in my reading, only you, so clearly you’re the one I’m supposed to go with.”

Had he seen my badge?

“Sorry, I’m freaking you out. I apologize. I read my cards this morning, and the Knight of Swords was crossing me, and I read that as protective,” he explained before grimacing and nodding to Callahan and Redeker. “These two—not so much with the inspiring faith and loyalty, but you… I get.”

Cards? “I’m still not following.”

He cleared his throat. “The reason I know that things are happening and that I would be okay up until this point is that I’m a medium.”

Oh
no
. I looked over his head at Callahan and Redeker. “No one briefed me on the fact that he’s psychic.”

He tapped my chest, bringing my attention back to him. “I’m not crazy. My father had the gift, so I have the gift.”

Had. Shit. Orphan trumped whatever my feelings were on psychic ability. “You’re all alone, huh, kid?”

He nodded.

I could see the pain of his past written in those dark, too serious eyes, and I personally knew how it felt. My reserve melted, and I sighed as I realized what was going to happen—what I couldn’t help but do. I decided right then and there. I was taking him back to Chicago whether he wanted to go or not. I was putting his life before mine; I was ready to take a bullet for him.

“Let’s go pack your shit.”

“Okay,” he sighed, smiling at me.

“I thought I’d have to spend a lot of time convincing you.”

“No. Like I said, the cards said you were coming, and I had the Tower card a few days ago, so I told the band I was done, to get ready since, yanno, my life is about to change, and fighting it is just futile.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s why we let everyone know that this was our last gig. My cards are never wrong.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

He rolled his eyes. “Believe what you want, marshal, but I trust you because all the signs say I should, and the path you’re leading me on promises happiness and love.”

“Love, huh?”

He nodded.

“I’m taking you to your love? Is she pretty?”

“He,” I was corrected, “and yes,
he
is very beautiful.”

Lord. “Show me where you live, kid.”

Callahan and Redeker were looking at me like I had horns growing out of my head. The whole plan of going into the lounge and scoping it out and finding an opportunity to get Hess alone was moot in ten minutes flat. Hess was ready to go, and it couldn’t have been easier. No arm twisting necessary.

Since nothing was ever that simple, it made sense that as soon as we got outside and the bullets started flying—centering on Josue—that things changed quite a bit.

I heard the squeal of tires before I heard the
pop-pop-pop
of gunfire and a bullet hit the doorframe beside me. I shoved Josue up against the wall, bent over to pull my gun, shielded him with my body, and shouted for everyone to get down, wishing Ian was there with me. Not because I wanted bullets whizzing by his head too, but because he was good in life-and-death situations and always kept me grounded. Like now, I didn’t return fire; I couldn’t. Ian wouldn’t have either. The street was too crowded, so I was hoping that between me yelling and the obvious threat, everyone would use their brains and hit the ground.

As was usual, the opposite happened, and chickens without heads would have been smarter. People never ceased to amaze me with their lack of self-preservation. They ran into the intersection instead of away from it, so I had no choice but to dart out—after warning Hess not to move—into the line of fire and direct the chaos.

“Stay there!” I roared at a woman who thought a better option than remaining crouched down behind a parked car with her daughter was to make a mad dash for a nearby restaurant.

Jesus.

When I pointed at my star, she nodded that she understood and would remain still. A young couple was going to do the same thing—dart out into the open—but I threatened to put them in jail if they moved. They looked horrified.

“He’s trying to save your lives!” Josue yelled.

And of course they listened to the gorgeous aspiring rock star, lifting their hands to let him know they understood. Forget about the badge I’d tucked my shirt behind so it was visible; being law enforcement carried no weight in the face of his cult status.

“Jones!” Callahan yelled as he joined me.

“Cover him!” I ordered, waving at Josue and then bolted into the street with Redeker right on my heels. “Keep them off me!”

“Done!” Redeker thundered back.

The guys in the car shot at us, but we were flying and the distance was sprint short, not what I did in San Francisco just days ago. So the fact that I was able to get to the car and dive inside, on top of the guy sitting there, was not that big of a deal. Redeker being right there with me, launching himself through the driver’s side window and wrestling for the steering wheel, was.

I felt the car lurch forward, and then we all whiplashed as it came to a bouncing stop, the sound of fists and breathing loud in the cramped space. Redeker was trying to knock the driver out and get to the ignition at the same time.

Twisted up in the back seat, my gun hit the floorboard and I went down on top of it, wedged there but just free enough to kick the guy I’d fallen over in the side of the jaw. His head swiveled hard, and he was out as I grabbed wrist of the second guy in the back seat, making it impossible for him to shoot at me but not at all impeding the man in the front passenger seat, who shot straight down at my face.

The sound of the discharge inside the small space was jarring. Hitting his arm from below made it jerk up, and the bullet went over my back and hit the seat, made a decent-sized hole, and continued on into the trunk, where I heard it hit metal as the car accelerated again.

“The fuck are you doing?” the guy I was tussling with yelled at the passenger. “You’re gonna fuckin’ kill me!”

“Use your goddamn knife!” the driver shrieked, still grappling with Redeker.

The Mercedes E-Class sedan we were in had lovely leg room, but after the sharp braking moments before, we were squashed together. I pinned the arm of the guy I was fighting with and hit him in the face with as much leverage as I had between the back of one seat and his lap.

There was not much power there, especially as he moved his legs and I was sinking, both of us squirming, jostling to sit up.

“Where the fuck is your knife!”

A butterfly, maybe a switchblade… that was what I expected. The
Crocodile Dundee
version that came through the seat at me, grazing over my bicep—I was not prepared for that.

“Fuck!” Redeker gasped, spotting the knife as the guy in the passenger seat yanked it out, and he hit the driver—finally—at enough of an angle to make him swerve.

My gun was under me, so no help there, and even though I was pretty flexible, I wasn’t small. I carried quite a bit of muscle, and my chest and shoulders were wide enough that I was stuck, almost upside down. When the car hit whatever it hit, I thought for a second my back was broken before the knife was there again, the light sliding over the curve of the blade I could see over the console.

Adrenaline was wild. It made you able to do crazy things.

Heaving myself up, I did my best dolphin impression, contorted in a way that would have given Ian a shock—he was always surprised by the positions I could get myself into—and got my left leg between the front seats so that when the passenger lunged at Redeker, Redeker was able to grab his wrist and the blade.

“Down,” Callahan yelled, there suddenly over me, gun leveled on the guy I was fighting with as he leaned in and elbowed the passenger in the face.

“Fuck,” I gasped, still mostly on my head.

“We don’t normally dive into cars,” Redeker huffed as he clocked the driver and Callahan took guns out of the car and dropped them on the street.

“No?” I panted, righting myself before opening the back door and stumbling out of the car to stand in the street next to Callahan. “We do in Chicago. We’re hardcore in the Windy City.”