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 Praise for Kristen Ashley
‘Kristen Ashley’s books are addicting!’
Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

‘I adore Kristen Ashley’s books!’

Maya Banks, New York Times bestselling author

‘A unique, not-to-be-missed voice in romance’

Carly Phillips, New York Times bestselling author

‘I don’t know how Kristen Ashley does it; I just read the damn [Dream Man series] and happily get
lost in her world’
Frolic

‘[Kristen] Ashley captivates’

Publishers Weekly

‘When you pick up an Ashley book, you know you’re in for plenty of gut-punching emotion, elaborate
drama and sizzling sex’
RT Book Reviews
 ALSO BY K RISTEN ASHLEY

The Dream Man Series

Mystery Man
Wild Man
Law Man
Motorcycle Man

The Colorado Mountain Series

The Gamble
Sweet Dreams
Lady Luck
Breathe
Jagged
Kaleidoscope

The Chaos Series

Own the Wind
Fire Inside
Ride Steady
Walk Through Fire

The Dream Team Series

Dream Maker
Dream Chaser
 Copyright

Published by Piatkus

ISBN: 978-0-349-42588-7

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Kristen Ashley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Excerpt from Dream Keeper © 2021 by Kristen Ashley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

Piatkus
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ

www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
 Contents

Praise for Kristen Ashley

Also by Kristen Ashley
Copyright
Dedication

Prologue
Chapter One: Ivan the Terrible
Chapter Two: I Blew It
Chapter Three: Don’t Give Up
Chapter Four: Whoosh
Chapter Five: Because We Love You
Chapter Six: Anytime
Chapter Seven: Worth It
Chapter Eight: Keep Putting in the Work
Chapter Nine: Porn Preferences
Chapter Ten: Us. Here. Finally.
Chapter Eleven: B
Chapter Twelve: Safe Place
Chapter Thirteen: Fireman’s Hold
Chapter Fourteen: Scratched the Surface
Chapter Fifteen: Back on Track
Chapter Sixteen: That Path Is Always Open to You
Chapter Seventeen: Two Drawers
Chapter Eighteen: Off
Chapter Nineteen: Setup
Chapter Twenty: Tripped
Chapter Twenty-One: Stolen Base
Chapter Twenty-Two: In Her Corner
Chapter Twenty-Three: She Was Mine Before
Chapter Twenty-Four: Fly Forever
Chapter Twenty-Five: Deviled Eggs
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Women
Epilogue

About the Author

For my ice-blue-eyed protective,
possessive alpha, Axl.

I miss you.
 PROLOGUE
Right at Him

HATTIE

It happened on the opening night of the Revue.

I knew it when I finished my dance.
And I looked for him.
They were there, all the guys (and Evie) to cheer us on.
To support us.
But when my dance was done, I didn’t look to my friend Evie.
I didn’t look to Lottie’s man (and my friend) Mo.
I didn’t look to Evie’s guy (and also my friend) Mag.
I further didn’t look to Ryn’s fella (and yes, my friend too) Boone.
Or Auggie, who should be Pepper’s, but he was not.
I looked right at him.
Right at him.
At Axl.
And he was looking at me.
Of course, I’d just been dancing.
But it was more.
Because I’d picked that song.
And it became even more when my eyes went right to his.
I saw how his face changed when I did this, and I didn’t know him all that well, but I still read it.
I knew exactly what it meant, the way he was looking at me, and the fact, after I’d finished dancing
to that song, I’d looked right at him.
And what it meant was …
I was in trouble.
 CHAPTER ONE
Ivan the Terrible

HATTIE

It went well.”
“Tens of thousands of dollars on teachers, leotards, pointe shoes, payin’ for gas to drive you to
class, recitals, competitions, and you’re sittin’ here tryin’ to convince me all that was worth it seein’
as you got the big promotion from being a stripper to being a burlesque dancer.”
“It’s not burlesque exactly. They’re calling it a Revue.”
“It’s a fuckin’ titty bar.”
I sat opposite my father and decided it was a good time to start keeping my mouth shut.
Dad did not make that same decision.
“You can try to dress it up however you want, Hattie, but you’re a glorified whore,” he went on.
“Though, just sayin’, a whore’s more honest. Least she doesn’t take a man’s cash while she’s givin’
him nothin’ but a tease.”
I wish I could say Dad was in a rare mood tonight.
But he wasn’t.
It was just that it was more foul than normal.
A lot more.
“I think maybe I should go now,” I said quietly.
Dad shook his head. “You never could hack listening to reason. Or honesty. Or truth. I can see
you’re too fat to be in New York or London, Paris or Moscow, but for fuck’s sake, not even the
Colorado Ballet?” Again with the head shaking. “Instead, you’re onstage at Smithie’s strip club.”
Yes, whenever he got into calling me fat, it was time to go.
I got up and started clearing his dinner dishes.
“I can do that,” he snapped.
He couldn’t.
He could barely walk.
Mismanaged diabetes.
The mismanaged part being, when I was fed up with his abuse, I’d quit coming to give him his
insulin, take his blood sugar, make sure he ate, and doctor his booze by watering it down so his
drinking didn’t put his body out of whack.
None of which he did for himself.
Three trips to the hospital, and the subsequent medical bills, which meant selling his old house
(something I saw to), downsizing (something I also saw to), and putting up with his complaints he had
about having to move (something I listened to, though the move part, I saw to), meant I kept coming
back.
Mom didn’t get it.
She’d washed her hands of him years ago. Even before she did it legally with the divorce.
But I simply could not do nothing and let my father die.
And I knew this would happen if I did not manage his health and his life.
I took his dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them, put them in the dishwasher, tidied and headed back to
the living room to remove the TV tray from in front of Dad.
Then I was going to get my purse and go.
“Hattie, it’s just—” he started in a much less ugly tone as I was folding up the tray.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
All these years, he thought he could dig in and dig in and dig in because … whatever.
He didn’t like his job?
He didn’t like his marriage?
He didn’t like his health?
He didn’t like his life?
So he took that out on his daughter?
And then he has a think about what he’d said, or what he’d done, and realizes he’d been a jerk, so
he decides he can say he’s sorry and that will wipe away all that came before, like it didn’t happen.
It didn’t wipe it away.
It never got wiped away.
A person was born clean.
But I believed they died with the stains their parents gave them.
Even if they lived to be a hundred and two.
I mean, seriously?
He’d called me a whore.
“I just wanted more for you, sweetheart,” he said gently.
I looked him right in the eye.
“I started with a tour jeté down the center stage. It was massive. I was the first solo to go out. Ian
wanted their attention. And I got it. He wanted to make a statement right off the bat this was a change
for Smithie’s. And I made that for him, and for Smithie, flying through the air in a titty bar.”
“I wish I’d seen it,” he lied.
“Well, I don’t,” I retorted. “Because you would have found something wrong with it. And you
would have shared that with me. And I don’t need that. Because I thought I was magnificent, and I
probably was not, but at least it’s nice to think I was, even if only for a little while.”
On that, I moved to my bag while Dad called, “Hattie.”
I said not a word.
I walked right out the door.
It was torture—stupid—but after that conversation, I did what I shouldn’t do.
When I got in my car, I cued up Anya Marina’s “Shut Up” on my iPhone, Bluetoothed it to the car
stereo and listened to it on my way home.
Repeatedly.
Doing this playing the dance I’d choreographed to it in my head.
And thinking about the look on Axl’s face after I was done.
 That first dance I danced for the first solo at Smithie’s on opening night five nights ago when
Smithie’s Club became Smithie’s Revue.
The dance was slow, avant-garde, my movements staccato.
So when I’d do my double fouettés, arabesque turns, and the final grand jeté that was reminiscent
of Kitri, it came as a shock to the system for the viewer.
And by that time, I fancied, they didn’t care I was dancing in a red turtleneck bodysuit that had the
thighs cut up nearly to my underarms.
Even for the patrons of a strip club, it was about the dance.
Days before that, when Dorian had cornered me, saying he wanted to see all the girls’ routines so
he could set the lineup, I’d performed it for him, just him and me.
And when I was done, he sat side stage at his uncle’s strip joint that he was reforming into
something else, and he did this immobile.
“You didn’t like it,” I’d said, thinking the avant-garde part would be too weird for the gentleman’s
club crowd and I should go back to my first thought, pulling something together for “Dancing Queen.”
“You’re first,” Ian had declared. “You’re also last. If they see you first, they’ll stay and drink until
the lights go down on you.”
My heart had thumped hard at these words.
“So you liked it?” I asked hesitantly.
Ian stood to his impressive height and stated, “Hattie, you took something beautiful and made it
cool. Sexy … and cool.” He nodded decisively. “You’re first, baby, and you’re last. Every night.”
I loved that Dorian clearly enjoyed what I did.
But I worried that this would make Lottie, the current headliner (and my friend … well, she used to
be), mad at me, but since I was avoiding all the girls, and had been doing it for so long (weeks!) I had
it down to the art, I didn’t know if she was.
Which was another reason why I was torturing myself with that song, that dance—a song I picked
to a dance I put together to say things to Axl Pantera I wished I could in real life say because I knew
he was going to be there.
And I was thinking all this, listening to that song, because if I thought about what I should be doing
right then in order to get where I should be going that night, I’d break down, blubber like a child and
probably get into an accident.
So yeah.
There it all was laid out, messy and unfun.
My life.
I had an abusive father that I, as a twenty-six-year-old woman, kept going back to and enduring his
abuse.
I had Axl, a handsome man who’d asked me out, I’d turned him down, he started seeing someone
else, but in the interim he saw me have a mini-breakdown, so then he tried to befriend me, which was
worse than him just moving on to some other chick.
And I had a pack of friends I was avoiding because they all wanted me to go for that handsome
man, even though now he had another woman, and he just wanted to be my friend. A pack of friends it
had long since stopped being semi-kinda-rude (but understandable, considering how embarrassing the
event was that started it) to constantly blow off and avoid them and now it was just ugly.
And that night was Lottie’s pre-bachelorette-boards-at-Elvira’s party, and Lottie, Ryn, Evie,
Pepper and Elvira had all texted me to tell me they wanted me to come. And I didn’t even know
Elvira. I just knew she worked with the guys (that being Axl’s guys, or more to the point, Hawk’s guys
(since Hawk was their boss): Mag, Boone, Auggie and Mo).
I’d heard Elvira’s charcuterie boards were everything.
But no.
Nope.
Not me.
I wasn’t there, enjoying life and being with my friends. Instead, I did what I had to do to make
certain my father lived another night. I tortured myself with a cool song that was a stark plea to take a
chance with your heart. And I was going to go home, and I didn’t know, binge I Am a Killer or
something on Netflix, while all my friends were beginning celebrations to herald in one of the
happiest times in life.
What was the matter with me?
I should go to the studio.
I should get some work done.
But that wasn’t helping like it used to.
Because if I didn’t have the guts to tell my father to take care of his own damned self …
And if I didn’t have the courage to say yes to a handsome guy when he asked me out, further not
having the backbone to accept him as a friend when he gave up on me …
Last, if I didn’t even have it in me to lay it on my friends, or if not, just tell them to back off, I was
dealing with my own issues, and instead, it felt like I was losing them, and it was me who was making
that happen …
Then I wouldn’t (and didn’t) have the ability to boss up and do something with what I was creating
in the studio.
So that was me all around.
Hattie Yates.
Failed dancer.
Failed daughter.
Failed friend.
Failed artist.
But really freaking good loner.
I parked at the back of the house where my and three other apartments were and let myself in the
back door, thinking at least I had this.
My pad.
A weird, funky space, part of a big, old home broken in chunks. But the landlords wanted to make
it cool, so they did, with up and down steps, insets in the walls to put knickknacks, interesting
lighting, creamy white walls and beautifully refinished floors.
Mine was on the first level.
Living room and kitchen up front, a step up to the kitchen from the living room. A wall that was
open, seeing as it was made up of open-backed shelves. Shelves in which there was a doorway with
three steps down to delineate my bedroom area. That back area had a walk-in closet and biggish bath,
which, no other word for it, was divine. And the only other room, what I was in now, a side area at
the back that had a washer, dryer and some storage.
As décor, I’d gone with white and cream in furniture with dove-gray curtains. Some navy-and-
cream throw rugs. Black-and-white art or photos in white frames.
I added to this only shocks of color here and there. In some pictures, one with a frame that was
geranium pink.
 Turquoise. Sky blue. Lime green. More pink.
And my prize possession, a loud beanbag in primary colors that was covered in a print of flowers
that I used as a beanbag as well as an ottoman.
My funky little me space. Small. Light. Bright. Interesting.
All things that were not me.
With ease born of practice in that small, dark room lit only slightly by the waning sunlight of a
Denver summer night, light that was coming through the single narrow window, I went up the three
steps that should lead me to my living room/ kitchen.
And stopped dead when I got there.
Illuminated by the big wicker-globe-covered hanging fixtures, sitting back in my comfy, creamy
armchair with his feet on my flowery beanbag, was Brett “Cisco” Rappaport.
The man who, a few months back, had kidnapped Evie, Ryn, Pepper and me—my friends, but also
fellow dancers (except now Evie had quit and gone full time as an engineering student and computer
tech).
Then he went on to kidnap Ryn again some weeks later.
He’d since been cleared of the crime he’d been framed for committing by two dirty cops who had
killed another cop.
But still, not a good guy.
In my living room. “I’m irate with you,” he announced.
Okay …
Did I run?
I mean, he didn’t have any henchmen with guns trained on me this time.
So that was good.
But he didn’t even say “Hi” before he told me he was irate with me.
And he was nefarious, what with having henchmen and kidnapping women and all. I didn’t know
what he did to make a living, but I didn’t think it was running an animal shelter.
“Um …” I started when he said no more and also didn’t move. “Why are you irate with me?”
“Because I saw that first dance. And the second one. Also the last. And Axl Pantera saw that first
dance. And the second one. Also the last. I also saw the man nearly come out of his skin, beating back
the need to charge you on the dance floor, carry you to his Jeep, take you to his house, and tie you
down until you swore you’d never leave him, and here I am.” He extended an arm out to indicate my
place while I fought to catch my breath after what he said. “Alone in your house with you, after you
visited that waste of a space you call a dad. And where is Pantera?”
He leaned toward me.
I didn’t move.
“Not here.”
“Uh …he has a girlfriend,” I shared, deciding to get into that and not the information he knew I’d
just come from my father’s, which freaked me out.
“He’s seein’ a woman. There’s a big difference.”
“I’m not sure after all this time she’d define it as that.”
“All this time … what? A few weeks?”
“More like a few months.”
He shook his head. “You women have way too many scruples.”
Yup.
Nefarious.
 I took a chance and stepped another step into the room because I was less afraid of doing that than
taking one the other way.
“Can I ask …I mean, no offense, truly, but it’s a little weird … so can I ask why you’re here talking
to me about this?”
“Because you’re my girl and I gotta whip you women into shape.”
Erm.
What?
“I’m your girl?” I whispered.
His brows shot up. “Didn’t Ryn tell you?”
“Uh—”
“Yeah, you’re avoiding your friends. What is up with that?”
Okay.
Now, how did he know that?
“How much do you know about me?” I queried.
And, yup.
Still whispering.
“I look after what’s mine.”
“I’m not really yours.”
“Well, see, this is how it goes.”
He stopped talking, took his feet from my beanbag and stood.
I went completely still.
He crossed his arms on his chest.
And call me crazy (which on my next thought, I apparently was), but in my opinion, he was kind of
cute.
In a bizarre, bad-guy kind of way.
And if indications were correct under that finely tailored suit, he had a great body.
Not to mention, he was tall.
“I kidnapped you,” he reminded me.
“Yes, I remember,” I told him.
“And I still assert that was Evie’s brother’s sitch. I mean, he was the one who swung you girls out
there. I was just reacting to his bullshit.”
I could argue that.
I didn’t.
“But regardless,” he shrugged, “I did what I did which really swung you girls out there so it’s up to
me to look after you.”
This did not track.
Even a little bit.
“Uh …” was all I could get out to refute his statement.
Cisco didn’t need me to speak.
He had more to say.
“And there’s four of you, only one of me. Which means I need some assistance. Now Evan has that
Mag guy. And my girl Ryn got her Boone. But still, the last two of you need to get the lead out. I work
hard. I got some cake. But I can’t be payin’ guys to keep an eye on you girls forever. You need men in
your beds.”
It sounded strangled when I asked, “Am I in danger?”
 “Is the sky blue? Is the earth round?” he asked questions I did not want to hear after I asked if I was
in danger. “You’re a woman. It’s a crapshoot you just walkin’ to your car out back. Hell, just bein’ in
this sweet, hip pad by yourself. If Pantera was here, some guy broke in to do you harm, he’d shoot
him in the face.”
Considering Axl was a commando as a profession, this was probably not far off the mark.
“For sure he’d scrape off that waste-of-space dad of yours,” he continued.
My back went straight at that.
“You’re talking about my father,” I told him.
“Girl, Evie told me he was abusive. She said straight-out you had violence in your life when she
was talkin’ about your dad. And Ryn told me you checked out on all of them because he got in your
head and you couldn’t even dance all on your own and enjoy it without self-abusin’ when you thought
you’d fucked up. I mean, when that’s the case, why do you go make dinner for this asshole every
night?”
Boy, Evie and Ryn had talked a lot to this guy.
And that was the embarrassing thing that happened that made me retreat from my friends. I’d been
dancing. I’d been loving it. I’d messed up. And I’d lost it …on myself.
This was embarrassing because Ryn had seen that, and I figured she’d told Pepper, Lottie and Evie
about it.
Not to mention (and this wasn’t embarrassing, it was mortifying), Axl had seen it too.
“He’s my dad.”
“Yeah, and Ivan the Terrible was a dad, and look how that turned out for his kid.”
Now I was more confused.
Ivan the Terrible?
“What?” I asked.
“The dude beat the shit out of his daughter-in-law because he didn’t like what she was wearin’.
His son tried to intervene. Ol’ pops cracked him on the head, killing him. And the woman was
pregnant, so she miscarried. That’s quite an afternoon for Ivan.”
Okay, I had to take a sec because …
How had something that had started strange, gotten so much more strange?
“My dad isn’t Ivan the Terrible,” I pointed out.
“Only ’cause he’s not a tsar. If he had carte blanche, where would you be?”
This was a chilling question.
“We’ll let that go …for now,” he allowed. “We’ll let Pantera go for now too. You had dinner?”
“I was actually going to fast tonight,” I told him, and not because it seemed he might ask me to
dinner, but because I was going to fast that night.
His head ticked sharply. “Why?”
“Why?” I parroted, since he was looking right at me.
“Your fuckin’ dad,” he bit out, his tone suddenly alarming.
Right, this had to stop.
“Mr. uh …”
“Brett,” he spat. “And tell me, you see the women at Smithie’s?”
“Pardon?”
“Women go there. A lot. And not just since Ian switched shit up. Also not only lesbians gettin’ their
groove on. All kinds of women go there to party and to watch.”
I nodded. “It’s a thing. Women have embraced strip clubs.”
 And this was true, though I didn’t get it. Maybe female camaraderie. Maybe they thought it was
edgy and cool. Whatever it was, we had nearly as many bachelorette parties as we did bachelor ones.
“So what do you think it says, they see a woman with a healthy body flyin’ through the air five feet
off the ground, the back of her head nearly touching the heel of her foot?”
I again went still.
He answered his own question.
“It says they can stop eating that bullshit people been feeding them. They can be in shape and do
magnificent things and they don’t gotta be ninety pounds to do them. So, I’ll repeat, you had dinner?”
“No,” I answered.
He nodded. “We’re goin’ out.”
“Brett—”
“Hattie, listen to me,” he cut me off, his tone again different. This time gentle, coaxing. “You don’t
get this, you never had experience with this, and I’m seeing it’s my place to show you the way. All
men are not created equal. There are men who give a shit. Ryn tells me you’re set for Pantera. I can’t
go there. And just sayin’, that ass, those curls,” he tipped his head to me, “you’re cute. Normally, I’d
be all over that. But Ryn says it’s gotta be Pantera. So this is not that. We’re lettin’ that go. We’re
lettin’ your dad go. You’re lettin’ the fast go. And I’m gonna take you to dinner and you’re gonna be
around a man who doesn’t treat you like shit. Start you gettin’ used to that. We’ll go from there.
Yeah?”
I didn’t know what it was.
I didn’t know why I did it.
But I didn’t hesitate to say, “Yeah.”
He smiled at me, and that decided it.
He was definitely cute.
I walked his way and he escorted me out of my own place like it was his.
The henchman was out there, folding out of the sleek Lincoln town car at the curb in order to open
the back door for us.
We got in, and after Brett settled next to me, he declared, “I feel like a steak. Do you feel like a
steak?”
“Who doesn’t feel like eating a steak?” I asked.
“Atta girl,” he muttered.
His driver glided from the curb.
And call me crazy (and I’d be the first person to do that), but when we did, I thought for the first
time in a long time that things were looking up.
“At dinner, we’ll talk about you wastin’ your time in that studio. And we’ll talk you into spendin’
time that you don’t waste in that studio. Got a coupla folks I know who own galleries. Your shit is
good. Time to stop fuckin’ around with that and let the world know you got talent.”
My lungs seized.
Brett called out to the driver. “Call ahead. We’re not waiting for a table.”
Okay, maybe I was wrong about things looking up.
But for the life of me, even after what he’d just said about my studio and knowing people who own
galleries, I felt I was right.
 CHAPTER TWO
I Blew It

HATTIE

Sitting in my Nissan Rogue outside the studio the next morning, I again scrolled through my texts
from last night.
Lottie:

Where are you?

Pepper:

Are you coming?

Ryn:

Girl. You are missing out!

Elvira’s boards are EVERYTHING!

Evie:

OK. Now you’re worrying me.

Strike that, you’ve been worrying
me. Now you’re SERIOUSLY
worrying me.

My reply, copied and pasted to each of them:

Something came up! I’m SO

sorry! I hate to miss it!
Have SO MUCH fun!
xo♥♥♥

I knew I needed to give it a minute (or a hundred hours of professionally directed time while sitting
on someone’s couch) to try and figure out why I was so terrified of spending time with them again
after what Axl and Ryn saw when I was dancing.
I had just, until then, refused to give it that minute.
But sitting in my burgundy Rogue, giving it that minute, I realized it wasn’t just because it was
embarrassing.
It was because it was weak.
See, Lottie had it together. She totally knew who she was and she made no apologies (not that there
were any to be made, she was awesome, still, she was a stripper, and before that she’d been Queen of
the Corvette Calendar, and by my estimation, 99.9 percent of the population was judgy, so they’d
think she had apologies to make).
She loved stripping, made a ton of money doing it and was at one with her looks and her body. She
also had a great house she’d pulled together herself, as well as the love and devotion of Mo, who
might look terrifying in a could-be-one-of-Brett’s-henchmen type of way, but he was a softie.
And Evie was a genius. Like, certifiable. I’d seen her do mathematics on the fly in her head that I’d
probably mess up on a calculator. Her family was way more messed up than my dad. But she’d
scraped them off and moved on, going back to college to get her degree, fixing computers, living with,
looking for a new house to share and now engaged to Mag, who was a super-cool dude and insanely
into her.
Then there was Ryn, who had it just as together as Lottie. She was gorgeous and sexy and sweet
and strong with a fantastic fashion sense and she’d just sold her first flip, a house she’d worked on
herself. Now she and Boone were in the midst of waiting to close on their second because that was
what Ryn wanted to do full time. Flip houses. And with Ryn as she was, I knew that would happen.
Last, there was Pepper, who had a daughter, Juno. And Pepper was the best mom in the world with
Juno being the best kid ever, even if Pepper had zero support from her family and her ex was a total
tool. Motherhood seemed effortless to her. No one messed with her or her kid, not even her family …
or her tool of an ex.
Then there was me.
And I was none of that.
But seriously, it was embarrassing, dancing free and breezy by myself in a room then screwing it
up and losing it the way I did. Doing all this not knowing Ryn and Axl were watching.
No, not embarrassing.
Mortifying.
I mean, on the whole I was shy around good-looking guys.
Very few weren’t.
But the one who saw me do that? The one Lottie had picked for me, tried to set us up, he’d asked
me out, and I’d wanted to go, but I refused? That one saw me do it?
Forget about it.
And now …
I didn’t know.
They were good people. Good friends.
We’d been kidnapped together!
But what did I say?
When they were so together and didn’t let anyone shit on them, how did I explain why I continued
to take care of my dad?
Especially when they knew it was him. They knew it was my dad who was the reason Ryn and Axl
saw me self-harm.
And how did I share what I’d never shared? That I rented studio space, and worked on pieces, but
never even attempted to show one, much less sell one?
Bottom line, how did I tell four totally together women who had been in my life for a good while,
who all counted me as friend, that I had not let them into my life hardly at all?
Do unto others, right?
And I thought, if I cared about someone, gave them my time, and they didn’t let me in, how would I
feel?
Not good.
Of course, I could just let them in.
But the longer I left it, the harder that became.
And now …was now.
I’d blown off Lottie’s pre-bachelorette party to go out to dinner with a (probable) felon.
And none of them had texted again after my text.
I wasn’t sure I could come back from that.
The only thing I was sure of was that, right then, I was going to head into my studio. I hadn’t been
there in at least a week.
And maybe, what it used to be able to do—give me focus, calm, and an outlet to express things I
didn’t even admit to myself—it would do again.
Not to mention, Brett had told me last night over steaks that he’d had a look (breaking in to do so,
and how I didn’t feel disturbed and invaded by that, I had no idea) and he thought my stuff was “the
shit.”
“Want that piece in my living room. The girl folded in on herself,” he’d said. “Think about how
much you’ll charge. I’ll get you the cash and arrange to have it moved.”
He’d actually said that.
And the girl folded in on herself, a piece I called “After,” made of concrete and rusted iron with
some copper wire and carefully selected bits of stone, was one of the favorite things I’d done so far.
I didn’t want to sell it.
It was me.
But if someone wanted to buy it …
On this thought, I got out of my car, went to the door of my studio, unlocked and opened it, walked
in, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, stopped dead.
Because Axl Pantera was standing right next to “After.”
Right next to “After.”
In my studio.
Where I expressed …
Everything.
My heart lodged in my throat.
He was tall.
Beautiful body (and I meant beautiful, so beautiful I wanted to form it from concrete and shiny
steel so it could live forever).
A thick head of spiky silver hair atop fabulous features—strong nose, square jaw, gorgeous full
lips and the most remarkable ice-blue eyes I’d ever seen.
Truth be told, he wasn’t handsome in a classical sense.
He was more rough, though I’d prefer to call it roguish. With a high forehead, heavy dark brows,
hooded eyes that were quite deep set and downturned at the ends which gave him a look like he was
always alert, always assessing, didn’t miss a trick.
I had no idea where he got that silver hair. He couldn’t be much older than me.
But he worked it.
“How did you—?” I started to ask how he knew about my studio.
“Stood them up,” he stated. “Again.”
What?
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Lottie’s big thing. Gearing up. That was last night. Shower is coming up. Bachelorette party after
that. Next day, wedding. And last night you’re … what? Kissin’ your dad’s ass?”
And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I found my body stunned still.
This time it was to fight the pain.
“Told myself to have patience,” he continued. “This shit isn’t easy. I know. My dad didn’t hide the
fact he wasn’t all that thrilled with the way I turned out either.”
Uh …
What?
He was …
Well, Axl was …
Perfect.
How could his dad not be thrilled with how he’d turned out?
“You, it was dance. Me, track and field. Dad was a track star. Sprinter. Long jump. I was the same,
but better. A lot better. Didn’t make the Olympics, though, and you would have thought me not doing
that when the vast majority of athletes can’t, I was patient zero with the coronavirus.”
“I—”
“And I still see him. He’s my dad. Now he thinks I’m an idiot to quit school to go into the service. I
wasn’t a gold medal winner with millions in endorsements, he wanted me to be what he became. An
attorney. Work at his firm. He’s in the thick of it. He gets off on it. He doesn’t see or tries to ignore or
just enjoys the fact the prosecutorial system in this country is fucked to the point it’s a joke. The penal
system is the same. And I don’t find justice a game where you rack up wins and losses on your
personal score sheet and that proves how big your dick is when sitting next to you is a person whose
life is at stake. He does not appreciate my opinion on these subjects, but he’s a scrapper. His
description of himself. So he brings it up all the fuckin’ time. Just to get a rise out of me. I try not to
take the bait, but he won’t let it go until I either walk out or double down.”
“That doesn’t sound—”
“Good?” he interrupted in order to finish for me. “No. It isn’t. I hate it. It drives my mother crazy.
But I love her and I want to see her and that comes with seeing him. And he’s my dad. There’s a pull.
Nearly impossible to fight. So I get it. How it’s hard to let go. Hard to stay away. But my father never
hit me.”
All right.
I was beginning to rethink my friends being much better friends than me. Because it seemed
everyone knew what I didn’t quite openly share (but I still shared) during our kidnapping. This being
about my dad getting physical.
And really, what happened during a kidnapping should stay with the kidnapping.
“Axl—”
“He never drove me to harming myself.”
 I closed my mouth.
He looked down and touched “After,” a piece that came to his hip, and then his attention returned
to me.
“This breaks my fucking heart,” he declared.
I held my breath.
Oh yes.
He knew that this studio was where I expressed things.
“It’s you as a girl and it’s you as a woman, cast in cement, formed of iron, and I get it’s hard to
break free. What I don’t get is that it isn’t hard to come out of yourself and take someone’s hand. You
got at least half a dozen of them extended to you. Why the fuck would you not only avoid them, but
slap them away?”
Since he wasn’t letting me talk, even if he asked a question, I didn’t say anything.
“Lottie’s hurt, Hattie,” he shared.
Oh no.
I closed my eyes.
“Yeah,” he said.
I reopened them.
He kept going.
“She likes you. You mean something to her. Last night was so important, everyone’s gathering,
Elvira’s pulled out her boards, all so they can celebrate one of their own, and where the fuck are
you?”
“I had something come—”
“Don’t give me any of your shit.” He shook his head sharply. “I don’t buy it.”
I shut my mouth again.
“Mac has a heart of gold.” “Mac” being what the guys called Lottie, seeing as her last name was
McAlister, at least for the next few weeks. “What the woman doesn’t have is the patience of a saint.
So you blew it last night, Hattie. Fuckin’ huge.”
With this statement, suddenly, breathing felt alien to me.
Axl walked my way.
He got close.
He stared down his nose at me.
And breathing was a memory.
“And you dance for me,” he said quietly, but not a sweet quiet, an angry one, “begging me to kiss
you like I mean it. I wait over an hour for you in the parking lot after, and you run away. You dance for
a room full of people, but it’s all about me, then you run away from me.”
God.
I’d done that.
After the opening night of the Revue, I’d delayed as long as I could before I’d gone out.
Partly because the girls and guys were all meeting at an after-hours bar to celebrate, and I intended
to do a flyby, but the longer I delayed getting there, the less time I’d have to spend there before I could
say I was tired and leave.
Mostly, though, it was because I worried, after I looked at Axl when the dance was done, that he’d
be waiting for me.
And he was.
Right outside the door.
 And I’d run from him.
I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about it since.
But now that he brought it up …
Humiliating.
“The girls tell me you’re shy,” he said. “They tell me I gotta put in the effort. I do, and time and
again, you make a goddamn fool of me.”
Oh no!
I didn’t want him to feel like a fool.
“Ax—”
“So yeah, Hattie, last night, hurting Lottie, you fuckin’,” he got nearly nose to nose with me, so
close, I could see thin threads of midnight striking through the steel of his eyes, “blew it.”
And with that, he moved away, walked around me to the door, and he slammed it behind him.
I didn’t even turn to look at it.
I stared at “After.”
He was right.
That was me.
After my failed audition for the Chicago Academy for the Arts.
Mom had been there, and of course Dad, both of them together, even though she’d moved out and
got her own apartment at least a year before.
I’d been fourteen.
Two years before that, my ballet teacher had told my father, “Don, she’s talented. There’s no doubt
about it. She just doesn’t have the body for it. Through no fault of her own. Hattie’s healthy. Fit.
Limber. She has grace and power. She’s just too tall and big boned. She simply isn’t built to be a
prima ballerina.”
And even before that, Mom had said, “Hattie, sweetie, dance for you. If you’re not dancing for
you, you need to stop dancing.”
I thought I was dancing for me.
I loved dancing.
I loved dancing and painting and calligraphy and helping Mom decorate her cakes.
“My artsy girl, my free spirit, my rainbow,” Mom used to call me.
But I’d messed up, twice, during my solo routine at the audition for the Chicago Academy. They’d
let me start again, but not a third time.
And after, Dad had lost it, backhanding me, catching me on the jaw.
Right in front of everybody.
Huge drama.
Huge.
The teachers were horrified and ticked. They threatened to phone the police.
Mom had lost her mind.
“If you think you’re getting custody now, Don, you’re insane. I’ll fight you ’til I die, until I die, you
monster.”
And I’d retreated from their hate, doing physically what for years as they hurled it at each other I
did mentally. I curled into myself in a corner, just like “After.”
A teacher and Mom had talked me out of my solitary huddle, and all the way back to the hotel,
Mom was on me, “Has that happened before, Hattie? Has your father touched you like that before?”
I told her no.
 And he hadn’t.
He’d never hit me.
But she stayed on me.
So I confessed that he’d pinch me. Grab my arm in a way it hurt. Sometimes pull my hair.
“How had I not seen this?” she’d lamented, openly torn to shreds. “How did I miss this? How
didn’t I know this was happening?”
I didn’t have the courage to tell her it was because I hid it.
Though, it was out then and Mom had carried through with her vow. She dragged it all out into the
open during the divorce and she won custody of me.
It came with a price though.
One I paid when I was with my father.
So my dad had hit me, my mom was a mess, and I felt guilt and shame I didn’t tell her what was
happening so it was me that made her feel that way, I was humiliated in front of the admissions board
of one of the most prestigious performing arts high schools in the U.S., this after I failed my audition
because …
Well …
I blew it.
And I stared at “After” knowing I was really, really good at one thing.
Blowing it.
My phone rang in my bag, and automatically, I reached in and found it.
I pulled it out and it was a number I didn’t know.
I was so in my head, against all the laws of dealing with robocalls, I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hattie Yates?”
“Yes.”
“Hattie Yates.”
“Yes.”
“Nice voice.”
“What?”
“Nice voice. Nice tits. Nice hair. Great ass. Tie you down. Tie you down tight. Whip that ass.
Whip you until—”
I took the phone from my ear, disconnected the call and blocked the caller.
I did all of this remembering after what went down with Axl how to breathe.
And I was doing that rapidly.
Staring at my phone.
“Okay, okay, okay … ” I whispered, deep in the trenches of flashback city.
Not my own flashback.
One that was about what had started all of this. Months ago. When Lottie got that creepy guy
sending her even creepier letters which was why Smithie arranged a bodyguard.
That bodyguard was Mo.
Not long after, Lottie was living with Mo and fixing all her girls up with Mo’s boys.
And now I had a call from a number I didn’t know, someone who probably saw me dance,
someone who’d found out my name, my number and was calling me telling me he was going to tie me
down and whip me.
I should tell Mo, Mag, Boone … Axl.
 I should call them and tell them what just happened.
But I’d blown it.
And it was just a creepy phone call.
Nothing to get excited about, right?
Though, they’d never shared in full, but when they found out who was sending Lottie sinister
threatening letters and put him out of commission, the vibe with Smithie was super off for a while.
It wasn’t just a crackpot.
It was worse.
And then there was the thing with Evie and her brother, the result of which got all of us (save
Lottie) kidnapped.
Which carried on to Ryn having her thing, and a guy was shot dead on her back deck and a friend of
hers was murdered.
So, I mean, it seemed like if shit could happen, it would.
And he knew my name.
My number.
Probably, if he was talking about my ass, where I worked.
And he could follow me from there to where I lived.
I shouldn’t take any chances.
I reengaged my phone.
Went to Contacts.
And scrolled.
I hit the button to make the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Hey, beautiful,” he answered.
“Brett, um …I think I need you,” I replied.
 CHAPTER THREE
Don’t Give Up

AXL

He knew something was up the minute he walked into the offices the next morning after he laid into
Hattie.
All his buds, Mo, Mag, Boone and Auggie, were in a huddle at Auggie’s workstation two rows up
in the large theater-style main space that made up Hawk’s operations base.
Workstations ran across each row and were aimed at a variety of monitors on the front wall that
someone watched 24/7.
And Auggie’s station was the one next to Axl’s.
Elvira, their operations manager, had an office on the first floor left, and there was a big
conference room across the space opposite. A smaller conference room in the midsection left, with
Hawk’s office at the top. Walls to all of that space were windows.
To the right, the side space on the upper levels was closed from view, secured with keypads and
retinal scanners and held their gear, meaning tech stuff like listening, comms and tracking devices (as
well as other), protective equipment like Kevlar vests and body armor, and some weapons and
munitions.
Axl looked left, saw Elvira’s office empty, looked top left, saw Hawk’s office dark, and this didn’t
make him happy because he really wanted to avoid the huddle and he had nowhere else to go.
He wanted to avoid it because first, he’d thrown down with Hattie the day before, and she was no
longer tight with her girls, but he’d been such a dick, and that was something she might share.
And his brothers were not big on guys treating women like dicks generally (and the same with him,
but when Hattie ran away from him after that dance, compounding it with dissing Lottie on her party
—he was far from proud, but it couldn’t be undone—he’d lost it).
Definitely the men were not okay with someone being a dick to a woman in their crew.
Or second, he wanted to avoid them because this could be about the dirty cop situation they were
investigating that Brett “Cisco” Rappaport dragged them into when he’d kidnapped the women, a
situation that couldn’t be ignored, because … dirty cops.
Enough said.
And since there was absolutely zero movement on that, just like all the men, Axl was frustrated as
fuck about how that was not going down.
And he wasn’t in the mood to talk about either, but his workstation was next to Auggie’s.
Fuck, Mag was standing right in front of it.
 Axl was less in the mood when his friends caught his eye and he didn’t like the change that came
over their faces.
Mo and Mag, concerned and alert.
Boone, annoyed.
Auggie, prepared.
Considering whatever it was, it was better to get it over with, but regardless, they all worked in
one room, and it was a big room, but they were at his station, so there was no way to avoid it, he
made his way to them.
“What’s up?” he asked when he got close.
The answer waited until he was there, standing among them.
“Right, brother, not sure I got a bead on where you’re at with this anymore, but we’ve been talking
and we figure you should know,” Boone started it, doing that ominously. “Ryn’s ride was in for
servicing so I was at the club last night to bring her home, and as we were getting in my car, we saw
Hattie coming out.”
Terrific.
It was about Hattie.
The topic he least wanted to talk about.
Mostly because he’d been a dick, and he’d been that standing next to that statue she’d made that
shared just about everything there was to Hattie Yates, and none of it was good, but none of that was
on her.
And then …
Yeah.
Even standing by that piece, he’d dug right in and acted like a dick.
“And?” he prompted when Boone didn’t continue.
“She got in the back of a Lincoln town car. With Cisco.”
Axl felt his eyes do a slow blink.
Then, quietly, “What?”
“Don’t know what that’s about,” Boone said. “The women are pretty pissed at Hattie for dissin’
Lottie on her party so they’re all about the cold shoulder. But Ryn called Cisco and demanded to
know what was going on, and Cisco told her it wasn’t his to share. She should ask Hattie. My woman
can be stubborn so that was the end of that.”
“Wasn’t his to share?” Axl asked.
Boone shrugged. “No idea, man.”
Axl took in a big breath.
Right.
He wanted to know what was Hattie’s that wasn’t Cisco’s to share, but Cisco knew it and the girls
did not.
No, he needed to know.
But bottom line, it wasn’t his business.
It really wasn’t.
That said, Hattie fucks with his head dancing to that song for him, afterward running away, and
then, a week later, she’s with fucking Cisco?
Denver’s top crime lord and the man whose actions landed all of them in a load of shit?
What the fuck?
“Okay, I’m getting a bead on where you’re at with this now,” Boone muttered, watching him
closely.
“Not my business,” Axl forced through his teeth.
“Axe, bud—” Mo started.
“I can’t kidnap the woman and make her go out with me,” Axl pointed out.
The reactions to that would have been hilarious if he was in the mood to laugh.
Mo, agreement.
Mag and Auggie, intent contemplation.
Boone, open disagreement.
“Not endorsing kidnapping, but maybe the cautious, restrained approach isn’t working,” Auggie
noted the obvious.
“I wasn’t cautious or restrained when I got up in her shit yesterday morning about her missing
Lottie’s thing,” Axl informed them, getting some widened eyes, brows raising, and Boone’s head
jerked. “I was an asshole. And when I stormed out, she didn’t race after me in order to offer an
explanation it bottom line isn’t my right to have. Though, I acted like it was. And I haven’t heard from
her since. I’ve tried the direct approach. I’ve tried the let’s-be-friends in order to lull her into the
we’re-not-just-friends-anymore approach. I’ve tried the dickish, get-your-head-out-of-your-ass
approach. I’m battin’ zero across the board. I’m not sure where to go from here. But what I’m thinkin’
is, after I lost it with her yesterday, she’ll be even less inclined to give me a shot.”
“You were a dick to her?”
That was Mo’s rumble.
“You saw that dance,” Axl returned.
It was weak, but it also was an excuse.
Mo’s lips thinned.
He saw that dance.
He also knew what that dance was about.
So he knew it was an excuse.
“She ran away from me after that dance,” Axl continued. “She’s no longer replying to texts, even
when she never really did, she just did it enough to blow me off without seeming to blow me off. And
she wasn’t replying even before I was a dick to her. I don’t know what the woman wants. I think she
wants me, she knows I want her, and I’m all in to put in the work, but for her sake, as well as mine, I
gotta know when to stop banging my head against the wall. Because there’s a line where it stops bein’
about a man who thinks you’re worth the effort and a man who doesn’t get the hint and he becomes a
creeper. And it feels like I’m edging over that line.”
“We gotta get one of the girls to talk to her,” Mag noted.
“That’d be Evie since Ryn is pissed as shit,” Boone declared. “Missing Elvira’s boards with a
lame excuse was the last straw. She ranted for a whole half an hour when she got home after that.”
“I shouldn’t have told you Lottie got her feelings hurt,” Mo remarked to Axl.
“Mac is like a sister, buddy, and I was angry Hattie hurt her. But it isn’t on you I got pissed on
Mac’s behalf and did something about it. That’s on me,” Axl replied.
“How deep does this shit go with her father?” Mag asked cautiously.
Axl shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t dig. I felt it was something, when we got together, that
she’d want to find her time and her way to lay on me, not me invading her life like that.”
“What?” Boone asked, but he didn’t ask Axl.
He was looking at Auggie.
So Axl looked to Aug.
 And when he saw the expression on Auggie’s face, he demanded, “You looked into her?”
“Only to be prepared for this very conversation,” Auggie replied.
Mo crossed his arms on his substantial chest.
Mag blew out an audible breath.
Boone chuckled low.
Axl just stared at his brother.
“So? What’d you find?” Boone pushed.
“I don’t wanna know,” Axl said quickly.
“It was ugly and then it was uglier,” Auggie stated.
Fuck.
“Divorce proceedings are on record,” Auggie kept on. “The custody stuff, the mom testified and
Hattie was of an age, she could too. Massive control issues for the dad, and he had them with both the
mom and Hattie, which was why the mom left. Mental abuse, both, until the mom left. Physical stuff
was only Hattie, and it was minor, even if it wasn’t, but in a way a kid might not think anything of it,
except that it seriously sucked, and for Hattie, it was constant. Pinching. Shaking. Shoving. Holding
her arm or hand too hard. Pulling her hair. The mom never knew about it, because Hattie didn’t report
it. But that escalated to what caused the mom to go balls to the wall to get sole custody of Hattie with
only every-other-weekend-Saturday-afternoon visits with the dad. He caught her with a vicious
backhand when she fucked up some audition for some high school in Chicago. The mom saw it and
Hattie never again stayed for any length of time with her father while she was still a minor.”
Axl dropped his head because he couldn’t hold it up and battle the rage of fire in his chest at the
same time.
Yeah.
That was ugly.
And it got uglier.
“That’s tough, brother, but it gets tougher,” Aug said quietly.
Axl lifted his head and stared again at his friend, that burn inching up his throat.
“Not just every competition or recital, but every class, which was every day, including Sunday, he
was there. He’d videotape it. And from the ride home to repeated viewings of the video after, he’d
dissect every second of what she’d done, highlighting the bad. Making her take notes on what she
needed to work on. Report back the next day after practice on how she felt she worked on those
points. Sometimes even making her do lines, like ‘I will relax my arm,’ and she’d have to write it five
hundred times.”
“You’re fucking joking,” Boone growled.
Aug shook his head. “She said to the judge, that when he’d pinch her or shake her, it was a relief.
He’d feel bad about doing that, so for a while, he’d lay off the other stuff.”
“So she was glad he’d physically abuse her so he didn’t mentally destroy her,” Axl stated.
He felt all the men’s eyes on him.
He knew why.
His voice was not right.
The huddle became closer.
“Lock it down, Axe,” Mo murmured.
Axl didn’t take his eyes from Aug and went on, “But he mentally destroyed her.”
“I saw that dance,” Auggie said low. “And, brother, she’s way into you. Watching that, it was like
watching her say she wants you so bad, it’s killing her. It fuckin’ hurt watching her dance like that for
you. So yeah, she wants you that bad and won’t let herself have you, he mentally destroyed her.”
Axl stepped back.
The men shifted to follow.
He stopped and stated, “I crossed that line to creeper. Could not get a lock on what was goin’ on
with her, so I followed her. She has a studio. Not to dance. To create shit. When she left, I let myself
in. It’s filled with pieces of substance. No watercolors or delicate sculptures. Big pieces. A couple
that are even taller than me. They all gotta weigh hundreds of pounds. Her mediums are concrete and
steel, iron and stone, marble. Even the soft stuff is hard or jagged. Like copper wire or aluminum.
And you gotta have no heart in your chest if you can look at her shit and not need to fight taking a knee
to battle the pain.”
“Fucking hell,” Mag whispered.
“I stood in that space and I got up in her face,” Axl told them.
“You want to be a part of her life, a good one, one of the few,” Boone pointed out. “I don’t
condone bein’ a dick to her, but you’re only human, brother. Just give her some breathing room and
then go fix it.”
“I’ll talk to Lottie and she’ll talk to her,” Mo offered.
Axl shook his head. “No. No one knows about this. Her art. That space. I already violated it. I
don’t want to make that worse.”
Mo nodded his concurrence.
“Boone’s right,” Mag put in. “Give her breathing room and then go and fix it.”
“Not much time,” Boone said. “Just don’t give up.”
“How much of a dick were you to her?” Auggie asked.
“I told her she hurt Lottie and I told her I knew what that dance was about and she blew it, with
Lottie and with me,” Axl admitted.
“That doesn’t sound like much of a dick,” Auggie observed. “What you said is the truth.”
“There’s layin’ out the honesty and bein’ an asshole while you lay out the honesty, and I was the
second one.”
All the men knew of that distinction, so no one said anything.
“What about Cisco?” Mag asked, bringing them full circle. “Do I need to get Evan on that?”
“Let me talk to Hattie tomorrow,” Axl said.
“It might not be him takin’ it there, making a move on her,” Boone told him. “Told you all, Cisco’s
got a thing about the women. He’s taken them on. Feels responsible for them. Probably guilt he scared
the shit out of them when he abducted them. But I gotta admit, maybe it’s just that he’s a nuanced guy
and he’s a piece of shit out there in the world, but he knows the right way to treat women.”
“The man fired on Axl,” Mag, jerking his head toward Axl, reminded Boone of the firefight Axl
had with Cisco’s associates while they were taking Ryn.
“They’re either the worst shots in history, or they had orders not to hit me,” Axl said and all eyes
came to him. “There had to be nearly eighty rounds exchanged in that and there was a lot of damage to
the vehicles parked in that parking lot, but no one was even grazed.”
“So now you’re on the same bent as Boone that there’s more that makes this guy when he’s picking
up Hattie from work at two o’clock in the morning?” Mag demanded.
“I think it’s clear I got more work to do with Hattie and it’s not gonna help me, not even having
taken her out to dinner, bein’ that guy who’s an even bigger ass to her, I jump to conclusions about
what’s going on with Cisco when, right now, strictly speaking, it’s none of my business. But she
knows I want it to be my business, so I ask, and she can decide if she wants to tell.”
 “I do not see Hattie with Cisco,” Mo mumbled.
Obviously, Axl didn’t either.
He saw her with him.
He saw all that curly hair of hers on his pillow in the morning and in his lap when she was
blowing him.
He saw himself wading in and finding a way to guide her out of her father’s life, no matter what
fucked-up reason she was still in it, so he could help her find a road to healing.
And he saw himself finding ways to make her laugh and finding others to give her a life that, the
next time she pulled a mold from set concrete, seeing what she wrought might bring joy, not cut you to
the quick.
That’s what he saw.
And if once, just once, she gave him a shot to kiss her like he meant it, she might see it too.
“Me either, I barely see her with Axl,” Auggie stated, taking Axl from his thoughts. “She needs an
accountant or something. Boring and no drama.”
“And I’m drama?” Axl asked.
“Brother, her father’s a top-of-the-heap dick, when I thought yours was. But Don Yates beats out
even Sylas Pantera, something that was impossible, until Hattie. So she still deals with Yates’s ass,
but this goes the way you want it to, she’s gotta meet your dad, and if you think Sylas won’t bring the
drama, you need to wake up. Because I believe in you and I saw Hattie dance that dance. So you’re
gonna win that battle, eventually. But with those two in the mix, that’s not even close to winning the
war.”
“Way to be a ray of sunshine, Aug,” Boone clipped.
“We’re all thinking it,” Auggie clipped back.
Yeah.
Axl could definitely say that Hattie meeting his dad had crossed his mind more than once.
First, she was a stripper, or had been, Sylas Pantera would look down on that, and it depended on
his mood how, or more accurately, when he shared that with her.
Second, Sylas Pantera could find a mood where he felt even a stripper he looked down on was too
good for his boy, and he’d find the time to share that too.
Axl sighed.
Then he suggested, “Maybe we should get some work done?”
It would seem they’d have no choice, because the men barely made their various gestures of
agreement before the door opened and Hawk walked in.
None of them moved when they saw the look on his face.
He stopped at the bottom level of workstations and shared what he had to share from there.
“Got a call from Mamá.”
“Mamá” would be Mamá Nana. A woman who traded in information. She did it successfully. It did
not make her rich, because she was Robin Hood to her community. It did make her respected, in a
variety of ways, and not just that she was Robin Hood to her community.
She was an ally of Hawk’s.
And of Cisco’s.
“She wants a meet. Tomorrow,” Hawk went on.
“I thought Boone was Cisco’s handler,” Auggie noted.
“This meet won’t be with Cisco, though Mamá wants him there,” Hawk shared. “It’s gonna be with
Lynn Crowley.”
 All five of the men immediately went wired.
Lynn Crowley was Tony Crowley’s widow.
And Tony Crowley was the cop who Cisco was framed for killing.
Then, when that frame job went south, what they now knew was a syndicate of dirty cops moved in
to clean up that business.
This being staging a murder-suicide of two of their own: Detectives Lance Mueller and Kevin
Bogart. Partners as cops, partners in crime, and part of a collective of bad police who the team knew
were out there, they just didn’t know who they were or what they were up to.
Mueller left a bogus suicide note that explained why they killed Crowley (who was investigating
them) and why he personally killed Bogart (who the note said did the kill on Crowley).
How they knew this was bigger than just Mueller and Bogart was because they had several good
cops on their team. One of them was Malik, Elvira’s husband. Malik got his hands on the suicide note,
and they had just enough time to have it gone over by an expert to find that it was forged before Malik
had to return it.
Also, before whoever was still pulling the strings got to him, the medical examiner who examined
the bodies shared that Mueller was so juiced with Rohypnol, even at close range, he in no way could
aim to hit Bogart dead center in the heart, because he wouldn’t even have enough faculty to lift the gun
to his own head. Both of which happened, shot to the heart took Bogart out, one to the brain took out
Mueller.
Though, this was not in the report that was filed.
It was deemed murder-suicide and the case was closed.
Until now, even though the murder of her husband had left her with two kids and pregnant with the
third, Lynn Crowley had been adamantly opposed to assisting them in any manner to find out who and
what her husband was investigating before he got dead.
This told the team that she was under someone’s thumb.
Now she was reaching out through Mamá Nana.
“And Heidi Mueller,” Hawk finished.
“Holy fuck,” Mag whispered.
Yeah.
That said it all.
Because no one had even thought to go to Heidi Mueller, Lance Mueller’s widow.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Because she was a woman who had been through the wringer not only because her husband of
nearly two decades was dead, after murdering another man and being a party to having a good cop get
killed. She was also under the false impression he’d cheated on her repeatedly by coercing freebies
from sex workers.
Rounding this out, the media had had a field day with this and Heidi was the current poster child
for “Wronged Woman, You Decide If She Was Just a Huge Idiot or If Her Husband Was That Good at
Being a Lying Douchebag.” And considering the word woman denoted she had a vagina, the vast
majority of assholes out there considered her an idiot, no matter how massive a lying douchebag her
husband was.
Somehow, that was her responsibility and she took that rap.
And the last few weeks, Heidi Mueller had been living heavy with that rap.
“Boone, get on Cisco,” Hawk ordered. “Mamá wants us for lunch tomorrow.”
 “On it,” Boone said.
Hawk looked to Mo and then to Axl. “I want you two with Boone and me.”
Axl nodded.
Then to Auggie, Hawk said, “I wanna know anything I don’t already know about Heidi Mueller.”
“You got it,” Auggie replied, shifting to his workstation.
Hawk jerked up his chin then moved to the steps that would take him to his office.
“Is this a break in the case?” Mag murmured to them all.
“Fuck, I hope so,” Boone answered.
Axl did too.
He really did.
Because this needed to be done seeing as they were talking dirty cops and death.
But also, he had something important to concentrate on, that being Hattie, and this bullshit was
getting in the way.
 CHAPTER FOUR
Whoosh

HATTIE

It was morning and I was sitting out on my side deck in my jammies with a cup of coffee and my
phone, scrolling up and down.
Yes, doing this on Axl’s text string.
There had been nothing new.
Not after what happened at my studio two days ago.
Instead, I was scrolling through the old from after he and Ryn saw me lose it while dancing in that
studio to when I was dancing to “Shut Up” at Smithie’s.
It started with:

You OK?

And then:

Hattie, just tell me if you’re OK.

I’m OK.
Thanks for asking.

He gave it a couple of days and then:

You want to meet up? No pressure.

Just want to see for myself you’re good.

I’m good.

Right.
You want to meet up?

To that one, I didn’t answer.

Then, the next day:
 Time for lunch? Going to Mustard’s.
Mac says you dig it there.
Meet me in an hour?

Lottie was right. I loved Mustard’s Last Stand. It was crazy, but I was a hot dog girl.
I did not reply.
Axl didn’t seem to mind, because that night, I got:

I want to reiterate there’s no pressure.

This isn’t about the fixup. I’m seeing someone.
You don’t have to worry about that.
But even if I don’t know you that well,
I give a shit about you. We’re in the same crew.
So just friends.
And as friends, I’m trying to look out for
you. See for myself if you’re all right.
Make sure you know I’m here to listen
if you want to talk.

I couldn’t ignore that, so I didn’t.

You’re very sweet. And that’s very

sweet. But I’m not lying when I said
I’m good.

I, of course, was totally lying.

I was so not good.

OK, then you’d be good to hang

with me sometime.

And I was oh-so-totally not good to hang with him sometime.

OK. We’ll set something up.

It’s just that I’m busy right now.
Getting ready for the Revue.

Right. Tell me when it’s a good time.

Will do! ☺

Needless to say, I didn’t tell him when it was a good time.

Onward from that, he asked me a half a dozen times to meet up. Again at Mustard’s. Out for a beer
at Lincoln’s Roadhouse. For black bean dip at Reivers.
 He also asked if I was around to talk, either on the phone, or he’d come by my place with a bottle
of wine and a six-pack.
I either ignored these texts or texted a day or two later, telling him I was sorry for the delay in
reply, I’d been busy.
And then came opening night of Smithie’s Revue.
I didn’t even get home before (along with three missed calls I hadn’t picked up) I got:

Babe, WE NEED TO TALK.

Obviously, I totally ignored that.

Though the “babe” part gave me a little shiver.
Which meant, not long later, I got:

Hattie, this is serious. You know it.

You made that clear. And I’m taking
it serious. But so you know, I already
was taking it serious.
We have to talk this out.

I didn’t reply to that either.

Therefore, before I was even awake the next morning (not that I slept great, but I did eventually get
to sleep), I had on my phone:

I don’t think you understand where

I’m at. And for me to explain that to you,
it can’t be over a text.
I want to see you, Hattie.
You’re driving me crazy, seems you’re
doing the same to you.
We have to put a stop to this.

Annnnnnd … yes.
I didn’t reply to that either.
And that was the last text he sent.
I kept staring at that one, specifically the “I want to see you, Hattie” and the “You’re driving me
crazy” parts.
Liking the first, not liking the second (but still kinda liking it, in a very feminine, stupid, maybe
even mean way that still gave me a hint of a powerful thrill), wondering how that fit in with him
having a woman in his life.
I continued to do that until the phone was slipped from my fingers.
I watched Brett, wearing striped pajama bottoms, and nothing else, sit back in the turquoise
Adirondack chair that was angled across from mine.
The minute he was settled, he scrolled my texts.
Important note: I was right. Brett had a great body.
Another important note: Brett took that “whip your ass” phone call more seriously than I did. Case
in point, he’d slept on my couch last night and the night before.
Semi-important note: He was a big guy, and my couch was comfy and deep-seated, but it wasn’t
huge. And he didn’t complain. He also refused to switch places and take my bed while I slept on the
couch, seeing as he was the one doing me a favor, so I shared I thought that was only fair. He’d still
declined. Which I thought was incredibly sweet.
Last important note: He made great coffee. But as we sat outside on my cute, square deck that led
from a fabulous glass door in my kitchen, a deck that had high walls around it so there was privacy,
but there were vertical openings with crisscross slats on them so you could see out, I kinda wished
he’d put on a t-shirt. There was an intimacy to this that Brett seemed totally okay with in a big-brother
way.
I’d never had a big brother, a little one, or ever been around a man with that good of a body that
was that exposed outside a beach or a pool, definitely not on my deck, so I was not at one with it.
That said, after that weird phone call, I thought it was totally nice that Brett was all in to make me
safe.
To the point he was hanging with me on my deck for coffee.
(Still wished he’d do it with a tee on.)
Though, it wasn’t nice that he was helping himself to my texts.
“Um …” I began my effort to share this thought with him.
He stopped scrolling and looked over my phone at me.
“Can I ask why you don’t go there?”
It was careful and gentle, the way this question came.
But I couldn’t tell him why because I didn’t know why.
I also couldn’t tell him there wasn’t a “there” I could go to any longer, not after the way Axl threw
down with me.
I’d blown it.
It was over.
And now all that was left was to torture myself with how huge a fuckup I’d perpetrated.
I grabbed my coffee cup off the lime green ceramic stool that sat between us and served as a table,
looked out the slats toward the street and took a sip.
“Message received, sweetheart, but seriously, this guy is into you,” Brett stated.
I turned my gaze to him.
“He wants to be friends,” I shared.
“No, he’s into you.”
“He has a woman.”
Brett made no reply to that.
“So, again, he wants to be friends,” I repeated.
“And you got a problem with that?”
“He’s gorgeous. He seems really nice. I had a shot at him, I blew it. But in a perfect world, he’d be
mine and now it can only be friends. Can you understand how that might be hard?”
Brett put my phone on the stool but did this with his eyes moving over me in my sleep set that was
shorts and a short-sleeved pajama shirt that was pink with big, bright blue and green flowers on it. I
was curled up, heels to the seat, knees to my chest.
But still, there was a lot of me to be seen.
And as he did this, he said, “I get the gist.”
Oh no.
 “Brett,” I whispered.
His eyes came to mine. “It’s okay, baby, ’cause, see, the thing is, you give a shit about someone,
you take what you can get.”
Oh man.
Maybe it was me who shouldn’t be out on the deck in my jammies.
Maybe I should find a turtleneck and some jeans.
Bulky ones.
“You’re incredibly sweet,” I said softly.
“Right, the other thing is, I’m not,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I’m really not, Hattie. But that’s
what you’ll get from me. And sweet is all you’ll ever get from me. But the reason I don’t blow
through Pantera and take what I want from you is because you don’t need that in your life. So you get
the sweet. And only that. But you do knowing that there’s more. And the rest, well,” he lifted his
broad (bare!) shoulders, “I’ll find a woman who can deal.”
“I’m sure she’s out there,” I informed him.
“I need to find a Daisy. Or better, an Anya,” he muttered. “I’m seein’ I like the quiet ones, not the
ballsy ones.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothin’.” He then pushed out of his chair. “Gonna get a refill. Check the
cupboards. See what you got. Makin’ you breakfast then I got shit to do.”
He was making me breakfast.
Yesterday, he had one of his henchmen bring doughnuts.
I was always in for a doughnut.
I was more in for someone (not me) making breakfast.
I seriously had to scan my friend memory banks (which weren’t all that hearty, sadly) and see if I
knew someone who could “deal” who might make Brett happy.
I didn’t share these thoughts with him.
I nodded.
He held out his hand.
I gave him my cup for a refill.
Yup.
He was sweet.
He went inside and I watched the muscles of his back (and, okay, the movement of his ass) when he
did.
He was bigger than Axl, not taller, and I’d regrettably never seen Axl bare-chested.
But I’d imagined it.
Repeatedly.
And other things bared.
Those repeatedly too.
On these thoughts, I let out a heavy sigh and looked out the slats so I wouldn’t grab my phone again
and torture myself with the various ways I’d screwed up with Axl.
And it seemed I was really good at this, considering as I did it, I conjured up the image of Axl
walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
Though, the truth of it was, Axl was walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
I sat up straight in my chair.
My movement must have caught his attention because he stopped, and his eyes caught mine through
the slats.
Oh boy.
He shifted direction. No longer heading to the front walk, he was striding up the grass to the gate of
my deck.
And then I lost sight of him because he was at the gate to my deck.
Oh boy!
I took my feet off the chair, put them to the rug and stood.
The deck door opened and Axl was there.
And man, he made navy cargos and a gray tee look like everything.
No offense to Brett, but better than Brett in practically nothing.
Crap!
I was so in trouble.
“Uh—” I started, panicked.
No.
Frantic.
Because he was there, and I really could not take him being mean to me again, even if I deserved it.
And …
Brett was there because I had a situation that might be nothing, but it also might be something, and I
hadn’t thought Axl would ever find out I had this situation.
But now he was there, and Brett was there, and to explain why Brett was there, I’d have to explain
said situation.
However, as what was becoming usual with Axl, that “uh” was all I got out before he lifted a hand,
palm out my way.
“No. I gotta start. Because I fucked up. I was a dick. Totally uncool.”
What he said made me completely forget I had anything to say.
He dropped his hand and kept talking.
“I was pissed, and I’ve been frustrated for a while you won’t let me get to you and that came out.
No excuses. I should have locked it down, sorted through it before I came to you. But I didn’t. And I
apologize. Seriously, Hattie. What I did was fucked and I wished I didn’t do it. But I did. And there’s
nothin’ left but for me to say I’m sorry.”
Ohmigod.
That was so nice!
“I—”
I again got no more out.
“You’re beautiful.”
I blinked and my belly felt funny.
Um …
I was?
I mean, I knew I wasn’t hard to look at.
But … beautiful?
“And you danced that dance for me,” he continued. “It messed with my head. It was … ” He shook
his head. “I’d never seen anything like that. Felt anything like it. No one had ever given me anything
as gorgeous as that. It was too much. Too big. And the only person I could work that out with was you,
and you cut off every avenue to you, and I needed to process what I was feeling. I couldn’t hang on to
it anymore.”
 “Axl—”
Yup, again, that was all he let me say.
Though, I was glad whatever I was going to say didn’t stop him from saying what he said next.
And the way he said it.
Low and tortured and thick and amazing.
“Christ, baby, I can’t get it out of my head. I go to sleep, thinking about you dancing. I wake up, and
the first thing I see before I open my eyes is you looking at me after that dance. I—”
Okay.
Done.
I moved the five steps to him, put my hand to his chest and whispered, “Shut up.”
He stared down at me, unmoving.
I stared up at him, the same.
The air around us grew heavy.
And he was so gorgeous, saying such incredible things, not to mention right there, and I was
touching him, I couldn’t stop my lips from saying, “Shut up, shut up.”
The words that came after that lingered in the air unsaid, but they were there.
Kiss me like you mean it.
And he heard them.
I knew he did when his arm sliced around me and my hand on his chest was forced up into his
spiky hair because my body was plastered to his.
And his mouth was on mine.
He kissed me.
Axl kissed me.
And he did it like he meant it.
His other arm swept around me, and I came up on my toes, his head angling, mine tipping the other
way. He held tight and I pressed deep and I tasted, and I took, and I gave, and I drank, and he
plundered, and he sucked, and his tongue danced with mine and yes …
Yes.
He kissed me like he meant it.
And I kissed him back the same way.
“Okay, the very last thing I wanna be doin’ right now is interrupting this.”
Axl tore his mouth from mine and looked over my shoulder at who I knew was Brett.
And those steely-blue eyes grew stone cold.
But his arms got so tight, I was having difficulty breathing.
Please tell me this was not happening!
I looked over my shoulder and there was Brett, bare-chested and in pajama bottoms.
And there I was, in my jammies in Axl’s arms.
For the first time, in Axl Pantera’s arms.
After he kissed me.
This was happening.
CRAP!
“Before you lose it, I sleep on the couch,” Brett declared. “And we don’t got time for you to lose it
anyway, because, Hattie,” Brett looked to me, “you need to see this shit.”
He then waved something he was holding in his hand that I hadn’t noticed, what with my freak-out
that he’d interrupted Axl and my first kiss.
 But it looked like pictures.
And a large manila envelope that vaguely, in my hazy mind, I remembered came in the mail
yesterday. It had no return address. My address was handwritten. I didn’t know what it was. I figured
it was marketing material, but regardless, I didn’t open my mail because I was busy getting ready to
go to work.
“Why’s he sleeping on your couch, Hattie?”
At Axl’s question, slowly, I turned my head back to him.
His eyes were still cold.
“Well—” I began.
But now Brett was interrupting me.
“It’s good you’re here,” he stated, and I could tell by his voice he was getting closer—even if, on
that little deck, it was hard to be too far away—but still, he was coming closer. “And it’s good
you’re not fucking around with working shit out, finally. But what seemed like a low-key sitch is now
officially a serious fucking sitch.”
At that, I looked to my side and down at what Brett was holding.
Pictures.
Black and white. Eight by ten.
Porn.
Hard-core, BDSM porn.
And it did not look like the woman tied up in a very unsexy way (to my inclinations) was enjoying
it.
My skin chilled.
“The fuck?” Axl whispered dangerously.
His skin didn’t chill.
It seemed to heat.
And his arms got tighter.
“There’s three pics,” Brett explained. “This one’s the least fucked-up. And it came with a note that
said, ‘This is you.’ ”
Suddenly, Axl let me go and took a step back.
That chill on my skin turned to ice.
“The fuck?” he repeated.
I looked up into his eyes.
But Brett answered for me.
“She got a call two days ago. Man said her name, threatened to tie her down and whip her. Odds
were, he was just a crackpot fan. Now, think he isn’t just fucking around.”
“That’s why he’s picking you up from Smithie’s,” Axl said to me.
Okay, well, as I suspected, Boone and Ryn saw me get in Cisco’s car.
And Boone told Axl.
“Axl—”
“That’s why he’s sleeping on your couch.”
“Okay, see, the call came in when—”
“That’s why he’s on your deck hardly wearing anything, while you are on your deck, also hardly
wearing anything.”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say this was hardly any—”
“And you didn’t call me.”
 His voice was so flat in delivering that, I closed my mouth.
“You didn’t call me or Mo or Boone or even Smithie. You called Cisco.”
And that was an accusation.
“Okay, I see that isn’t—”
“And you kissed me like you just kissed me. What’s the matter with you?”
And again, I shut my mouth.
Because that?
I did not like the tone of that.
It hurt.
“You know, think I made it clear I’m in to do the work, Hattie. But there’s only so much a man can
take,” Axl declared.
“Listen, brother—” Brett tried to get in there.
Axl’s head jerked his way. “I’m not your brother.”
“Just calm down and let Hattie get a word in.”
“You got advice for me with this?” Axl asked, flinging a hand out my way.
Right.
First I was “work.”
Now I was “this.”
Seriously?
I mean, he always wore cargo pants. And I knew he was a commando. He’d been in on Evie’s
rescue the first time she got kidnapped (that one without all the girls) and Evie said there were smoke
bombs and tackling involved. Not to mention, he’d charged after Ryn when she was taken, I was there
as yet to be abducted, and I heard the gunshots he was exchanging myself.
So he left it in little doubt he took his masculinity very seriously.
But acting possessive and like the wronged man when he’d only kissed me once and he did it when
he had a girlfriend?
(Okay, I participated in that, and encouraged it, and that was very wrong, until I understood what
was up with him and the woman he was seeing, but I didn’t have a boyfriend.)
Seriously, after he broke into my studio and was a jerk to me, then I got a nasty call when he
stormed out, I could phone whoever I wanted.
Right?
Before I could share my thoughts on this, Axl’s attention returned to me.
“So, official. My job in this,” he cut a hand between him and me, “is done. You want it? You’re
up.”
And with that, but no explanation to what that meant, he walked right through my gate and the entire
deck shook when he slammed it behind him.
For long moments, both Brett and I stood there silent, staring at the door.
Then for longer moments, we did the same.
After those moments were over, I turned to him.
“You’re a guy. What on earth was that?” I asked, tossing my hand toward the gate.
“Quiet, sweetheart,” Brett said in a voice I’d never heard.
Instantly, I got quiet.
I also belatedly took in the look on his face as he continued to stare at the gate.
And when I did, I decided to give him as much time as he wanted.
He didn’t take a lot of it before he rearranged his face (slightly) and turned to me.
 “Now that I’m not in danger of getting my knife, hunting that motherfucker down and teaching him a
lesson …”
Eek!
“ … as a guy, I can tell you that he’s in it so deep with you, he can’t fuckin’ see straight.”
At that, I threw up both hands and reminded him (again), “He has a girlfriend!”
“I’ll be expending some effort today in finding the veracity of that statement.”
My body jolted.
“You don’t think he has a girlfriend?”
“You’re my girl to look after. I been doing that. This situation was not moving forward, so I had my
ear to the ground, eyes I always got lookin’ checkin’ things out. He spends time with a woman. Until
now, I thought she was a place keeper.”
Uh-oh.
All of a sudden I was in serious danger of getting insanely pissed at a man who had not too long
before shared he was “not sweet” and I knew the form this could take since I was in the room when
he ordered one of his henchmen to point a gun at Pepper’s head.
Still, I couldn’t quite keep the ticked-off tremble out of my, “Place keeper?”
“Baby, guys are dicks. They don’t mean to be. It comes naturally. Though, when they find the one
for them, that’s all done.”
With all that had just gone on, I only had it in me to repeat an even more trembling, “Place
keeper?”
“I’d apologize for the brotherhood if I didn’t know for a fact that there are women out there who
need validation or can’t be alone or just want some guy around to take her car to have the oil changed,
and she knows he has no staying power. Because she wants one who’s better looking or has a
healthier bank account, and even though she’s got one, she’s still looking for what’s next. It goes both
ways, Hattie.”
Sadly, I couldn’t argue that.
“You think Axl’s like that?”
“I don’t think a man who’s like that has it in him to kiss a woman like he was kissing you.”
My breath left me.
Whoosh.
Gone.
So when I spoke again, I had to force it out on a wheeze.
“Really?”
His face got soft, he came to me, and then he tucked me in a brotherly headlock to his side.
“Really,” he said quietly. “And as such, I’ll be checking the veracity of your earlier statement.
Now, it sucks huge, but I gotta bring us back to why I felt the need to interrupt that kiss.” He shook the
photos again. “Hattie, this is next level. And I got resources, but I can’t lift then run DNA on a postage
stamp. Not unless I find a new resource that’s reliable and add it to my arsenal. Which will take time.
Too much of it. I need to give this to Hawk.”
I had to admit, there was very little doubt my caller had sent those pictures.
So he knew where I lived.
And very likely where I worked.
And in the porn industry, it seemed they catered to their clientele thinking that a woman needed to
look in pain even when she was having a non-BDSM orgasm.
Not that I watched porn (okay, full confession, I had one subscription, but they did really quality
stuff, and I was a girl on my own with what seemed to be a somewhat limited imagination, so I didn’t
watch porn a lot, but I watched it—though, still in full confession, it was usually gay porn because
(A) hot and (B) the women in the hetero stuff always seemed fake when they were having orgasms,
and one could just say, a man couldn’t fake it).
But what was in those pictures was absolutely next level.
Whoever this guy was, he meant to scare me.
And if Brett didn’t have me in a headlock right then, I’d probably be more scared.
Fortunately, I had good friends.
Which reminded me …
“But to answer your question,” Brett said, taking me out of my thoughts.
I focused on him.
“When he said ‘You’re up,’ that means, after that kiss, and you dissin’ him on Protecting Hattie
duties, something I’m seeing clear now I should have strongly advised you against, then again, I’d
never seen him kiss you like that, but back to the point. The next move is on you.”
Okay, now I was scared.
“Oh boy,” I whispered.
Brett gave me a squeeze and encouraged, “You can do it.”
I chewed on my lips a bit before I whispered, “That kiss was really amazing, Brett.”
“That wasn’t lost on me, baby. Sorry I had to fuck it up.”
“I get it. Those pictures are next level. And obviously, Axl would have wanted to know about
them. Just maybe not be blindsided by them.”
He studied me closely as he asked, “Are you okay about the pictures?”
A cold feeling stole through me.
“Are you—?”
He shook his head once in a firm way that was more like a jerk.
“You got me or one of my boys until you got other cover or until this is over.”
I relaxed. “Then I’m okay.”
“Evie was right,” he muttered, gazing down at me.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“She told me when I found a woman, I shouldn’t make her work for it.”
“Work for what?”
“Me. Put up with my shit in order to have me. Seein’ now it’s the other way around, if it’s worth it.
You don’t make them work for it. You do the work so they don’t have to.”
“Axl’s been doing the work,” I told him something he knew.
He gave me another squeeze with his arm, and he sounded almost apologetic when he said, “Your
turn, sweetheart.”
It was.
I didn’t know what was happening with Axl’s girlfriend (or him not actually having one), but Brett
was also right.
A man did not kiss like that.
Unless he means it.
It was time to boss up.
Because whatever was happening was happening.
And Axl deserved it.
So it was my turn.
 I chewed my lips some more.
I stopped doing that to pip a quiet, “Eek.”
Brett grinned at me.
Then he turned me toward the door to the kitchen, saying, “Bacon and eggs.”
Good idea.
Moving on.
“Uh, we have something else to discuss,” I told him.
“Yeah?”
“Well, you opened my mail. And you read my texts. I hope it goes without saying I’m extremely
grateful you’re looking out for me, and I’ll find some way to repay you, I promise,” I told him as he
shifted us sideways through the door so he didn’t have to disengage in order to get both of us through
it. “But perhaps we should go over boundaries.”
He positioned me by the refrigerator, let me go, tossed the pictures on the counter and then opened
the fridge.
“First, you don’t have to repay me,” he said into the fridge.
“I so totally do.”
He closed the door, coming out with my eggs and bacon. “Not if I say you don’t.”
“Brett—”
“Second, baby, while I’m up to bat for you, I do what I have to do. With the writing on the flap, I’m
surprised you didn’t open it.”
“What writing on the flap?”
His brows came together. “You didn’t see it?”
I shook my head, my gaze going to the pictures that were upside down.
I couldn’t see the envelope.
“It says, ‘Whip you into shape,’ ” he told me.
I looked at Brett and made a face.
“Yep, this dude is fucked up,” Brett agreed to what my face was saying. “Totally making a deal
with Hawk, once we find him, I get my licks in before they disappear him.”
Okay.
Hold on.
Um …
What?
“Disappear him?”
His reply to my question was offhand.
His words were not.
“Delgado doesn’t turn shit over to the police. Delgado deals, either in house, or he contracts out.
But how he deals, it’s permanent.”
Delgado was Hawk, that was his last name.
And Hawk, again, was Axl’s boss.
“Permanent?” I asked.
Brett was getting out a skillet. “You don’t know what your man does?”
“My man?”
“Pantera.”
Another breath leaving me.
Whoosh.
 When I got some oxygen, I drew out, “Ummm …he’s a commando?”
Brett chuckled.
Oh man.
“He’s not a commando?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s a commando all right,” Brett muttered.
“Brett!” I snapped.
Brett turned his attention from the skillet to me and he did it smiling.
Hugely.
Then he stated, “There are a variety of different types of badasses, you dig?”
I wasn’t sure I dug, but I nodded anyway.
Brett read the wasn’t-sure part and explained.
“Okay, you got your motherfuckers who you do not, under any circumstances, want to come up
against in a street fight. But you get that same dude in a tactical situation, he wouldn’t know his ass
from a hole in the ground.”
Well then.
That made sense.
I nodded.
“Or you got your boys who are badass behind the scenes. Meaning they can plan an operation
within an inch of its life, every angle covered, every scenario accounted for.”
I nodded again.
“Then you got sublevels of that, depending on terrain. Urban. Mountains. Rural. Water. Domestic.
Foreign. You with me?”
More nodding.
“And then you got expertise in tech. In weapons. Then there’s more expertise in types of
operations. Assault. Defense. Extraction. Reconnaissance. Undercover. That sounds military, and it is,
but there are a number of cases, the majority of them, where it’s not. It’s how a lot of us do business in
a number of ways.”
Oh crap.
At where this seemed to be heading, I stopped nodding and just stared.
“A man, or woman, cannot call themselves a commando unless they got expertise in all of that. And
Hawk Delgado is the most expert in all of that I’ve ever seen. And he does not employ a single man
who’s any less than he is.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“So Pantera, and his brothers, are not badass. Adjective. He’s a bad … ass. Noun. And when
you’re a badass, you get a job done, start to finish. You don’t hand shit over to anyone. So yeah,
Hattie, Hawk is gonna take that on.” He stabbed a finger at the pictures. “And whoever is behind that,
for the rest of his days, and it’ll be up to Hawk and the team how many of those there are, and how
much ongoing pain he’ll endure through them, will regret fucking with you.”
“Maybe I should call the police,” I said quickly.
And Not Sweet Brett came out again.
“Too late,” he said softly. “’Cause if Hawk doesn’t get him, I will. And I’m no commando, but I am
a motherfucker. And I know for certain one thing in this life. A man does not fuck with a woman,
Hattie. This guy obviously does not know that now. But he’s gonna learn.”
Hmm …
Time to belatedly rethink.
 “Maybe I shouldn’t have called you,” I whispered.
Brett held my gaze and repeated, “Too late.”
“Um—”
Brett was done.
And he communicated this by saying, “Grab a plate and cover it with paper towel. We’ll need to
drain this bacon when it’s done. And warm up our joe. Think it got cold in the drama.”
Okay.
Brett was moving on, so I’d talk to him a bit later about the lessons he was intent on teaching a man
who was a creep, but he’d been that creep using the postal service to deliver a threat, so he’d also
committed a felony. And the cops and prosecutors could teach him that lesson.
And if I managed to straighten things out with Axl, and Hawk took this on, I’d also share my views
on that with them.
After, I’d turn this over to the police.
But for now, as Brett mentioned, there was a drama.
And I needed more caffeine, breakfast, and to get to the club to rehearse the new numbers I was
introducing that night.
So it was time to get a move on.
Though, while Brett cooked, I went back out to the deck to grab my phone.
But before I came back in, I sent the first text I’d ever instigated to Axl.

You’re right. You’ve always been

right. We really need to talk.
I hate that went bad this morning.
Let me know when a good time is
for you.
I’m on at the club tonight. But any
other time, I’m yours.
Just let me know.

Then Brett and I had breakfast.

After, Brett got dressed and introduced me to my bodyguard of the day, a man with no neck, a buzz
cut that exposed several scars on his scalp (yikes!), with a very full beard, wearing a badly hidden
shoulder holster under his well-cut suit jacket.
His name was Sylvester.
With me covered, Brett kissed my cheek, told me unless he heard from me, he’d see me when I was
done at Smithie’s that night to pick me up, and he took off.
I took a shower. Got ready to face the day.
And with Sylvester, I headed to Smithie’s.
In all that time, Axl did not reply.
So yeah.
I guessed I was up.
And it was my turn to do the work.
Crap.
 CHAPTER FIVE
Because We Love You

HATTIE

I had to admit, in the beginning, when Smithie and Dorian suggested the change to a Revue, I loved
the idea.
But I was worried.
See, at Smithie’s Club, strippers made a lot. And they could do that without doing lap dances.
And although, if there was a fabulous slab of marble I wanted to buy or I felt like a new outfit that
was beyond the reach of my normal clothing budget, I was in to do a few lap dances to get them,
mostly, I lived well off just salary and tips.
So the Revue worried me, because we still got tips, but we didn’t dance all night. Depending on
the schedule Ian set (and he shifted it nightly so patrons wouldn’t become accustomed to what was on
offer), it was anywhere from four to six dances a night.
And although Lottie had been making a mint off much this same schedule for years, first, she was
famous, and second, she was a downright inspirational stripper.
The woman had serious moves.
But I’d been worried.
Sure, I had moves.
But I was no Lottie Mac, Queen of the Corvette Calendar and the most famous stripper west of the
Mississippi, which was also the most famous east of it, seeing as Vegas was west, and Lottie was
even more famous than any girl in Vegas.
So, not only was I worried because I thought my incoming cash would reduce, I thought it’d be
boring, being there nine to two (which was actually a cut in hours, it used to be seven to three, but the
last headliner—me—went on at 1:45 and then it was pure strippers for the next hour) and only
working for maybe twelve to twenty minutes a night.
But Smithie had tripled the already substantial cover charge in order to hike our salaries.
He’d also increased the price of drinks.
And even if I wasn’t onstage as often, preparing for my next dance was a total do-over in hair,
makeup and costume, not to mention making sure our new stagehands had whatever I was going to use
sorted.
Topping that, I had to have new material all the time. I had yet to dance the same dance twice and
wasn’t set to recycle for another two weeks. That was some serious work, having that number of
routines performance ready.
 In other words, that amount of prep and rehearsal took a lot of time.
With relief, I’d found quickly that I didn’t have anything to worry about.
Smithie’s used to be a hip hot spot.
Now it was a super-hip hot spot.
The Revue was a smash hit, even the papers were writing about it.
And Dorian had set up some social media that had gone from around a hundred followers to over a
hundred thousand in just a week.
As such, the velvet ropes were jammed outside to the point they had to turn some people away.
And my tips were off the charts.
Before the Revue, I never had a night less than five hundred dollars in tips.
Since the opening of the Revue, I hadn’t made less than seven hundred in tips, and the opening
night, it was over two thousand.
So even though it was weirdly more work, what with having to have so many routines, and those
routines having to be amazing, it was more money.
And it was a lot more fun.
This was what I was thinking when Sylvester and I walked in the back door and down the dancers’
hall.
I wasn’t thinking about fun when I heard the voices coming from the main room of the club.
I hesitated.
“Everything cool?” Sylvester asked when I did.
I stared at the open door to the club, hearing Ryn’s voice, and Lottie’s, and in the midst of thinking
I’d turn right around and text Ian, asking him to tell me when the club was empty so I could rehearse,
another thought invaded my head.
This thought being it was time to grow the heck up.
These were my friends.
And I’d done them wrong.
I needed to fix that or face the consequences if I wasn’t able to.
Because, just like Axl didn’t deserve me sending him very public mixed messages about where I
was at with him, my girls didn’t deserve me acting like a twelve-year-old who didn’t know how to
handle her own emotions.
“Yes,” I said to Sylvester, though it was a lie. “Everything’s cool.”
Then I might have tossed my hair (just a bit), and forcing a lot more confidence in my movements
than I was feeling, I strode through the door.
Ryn and Lottie were there, that I knew.
Pepper was too.
She was onstage in some leggings and a workout bra.
The other two were sitting side stage.
All eyes came to us when we showed.
And looking at them, I realized I saw them often, I avoided them all the time, and I missed them
like crazy.
They’d done their work in trying to reach me.
It was again my turn.
So I walked right up to them.
They were all eyeing me, but mostly eyeing Sylvester and me.
I’d get into Sylvester later.
 Priorities.
I looked right at Lottie.
“I’m sorry I didn’t go to Elvira’s. It was wrong and I knew it and I felt bad about it. So bad, you
wouldn’t believe. But that night, my dad called me a whore …”
Gasps ensued, from all of them, with Lottie’s eyes narrowing and Pepper’s face getting red.
But Sylvester rumbled, “What the fuck?”
I ignored all this and carried on.
“No, worse than a whore because he says a stripper is a tease and at least a whore is honest about
it. And I wish I could say that was the reason why I didn’t go. But it isn’t. At least not the only one. It
was because I made myself so distant from all of you, and I didn’t know how to come back. And then
that happened with dad. Also stuff was weird with Axl because I danced that dance for him and he
wanted to talk it out and he scares me so badly, even though I want him even worse, I couldn’t go
there. And then I got home to my house and Brett was there. And he got in my face about putting Axl
off and fasting …”
“Fasting?” Ryn asked quietly.
I heard her.
But I kept going because I had to get it all out.
And it was now or never. Because further delays might mean I couldn’t sort the damage.
Since I decided it was now, I had to get it all out now.
“Then Brett took me out to dinner, and we made friends and then the next day Axl shows and he
gets in my face …”
“What?” Lottie demanded.
I also heard that, but I kept on my bent.
“And he was right in what he said, but he wasn’t nice in how he said it. Then I got the phone call
where the guy threatened to tie me up and whip me.”
“What?”
That came from all three of them.
I still persevered with what I had to tell them, but that time, it was because I’d be answering them.
“So I made the fateful decision to call Brett because it wasn’t that bad, just an obscene phone call.
But, you know, shit happens.”
“Shit does happen,” Pepper muttered.
I looked to Ryn. “So that’s why Brett is picking me up at night. And he’s spending the night with
me, sleeping on my couch, because he doesn’t want to take any chances. Which is good. But also bad,
seeing as he was there this morning with me, having coffee on my deck, but he’d gone inside to figure
out breakfast when Axl showed to apologize for getting in my face and then we started kissing.”
“Ohmigod,” Ryn breathed.
“Right on,” Pepper said.
“Then Brett broke it up because my caller is more of a stalker and he’d opened my mail and found
the guy had sent me some hard-core BDSM stuff with some threats and …and …uh …”
I trailed off because none of them were looking at me anymore.
They were all looking beyond me.
I’d know why even before I turned because Sylvester greeted, “Yo, Ian.”
And Dorian, who, after I turned, I saw was standing behind me, replied, “Yo, Sly.”
But he did this scowling at me.
Another full confession: in the beginning, I had serious problems with Dorian mostly because he
was utterly gorgeous. The most beautiful Black man I’d ever seen. And I know some might have an
issue that I included the modifier of “Black” in that, but before I saw Axl, he was just the most
beautiful man I’d ever seen.
Then I saw Axl.
So Dorian’s title had to change, slightly.
And because he was so handsome, I was shy and awkward around him.
This, even if he was incredibly nice and he could be funny when he wasn’t being serious (which
was a lot, but he ran a strip club with his uncle, it wasn’t just staff who could get out of hand, it was
patrons, so serious was a good quality to have).
But he sensed I was shy, so he put in the work to make himself approachable to me, make me
understand he wasn’t just my boss, he was a friend and he cared about me, and now I liked him a
whole lot.
It was on this thought I realized everyone around me put in a lot of work.
And me?
Well …
Hell.
“Hey, Ian,” I greeted.
“You got a stalker?” Ian did not greet back.
“Dude,” Sylvester said, and Ian and I looked to him. “Cisco showed me the pics this asshole sent.
Now, I could do me a sweet piece in some handcuffs or creative use of silk scarves, but this shit was
extreme.”
Ian stared hard at Sylvester.
Then he dropped his head and looked at his shoes.
In order to give Ian some time, I turned to Sylvester and mouthed, “Sly?”
He shrugged.
I turned back to Ian who was still contemplating his shoes.
He then put his hand on the back of his neck, rubbed it up over his hair and then dropped it to his
side, saying, “My mother told me, do not get involved in the club. Those girls will be the death of
you.” He lifted his head and speared me with his eyes. “She was right.”
“I’m not stalking me,” I pointed out.
“I know you’re not,” he clipped. “But you show with a bodyguard and don’t come direct to me
when you got a problem?”
Hmm.
He had a point.
“You’ve kinda had your fair share of problems,” I said.
It was lame, but it wasn’t untrue.
“That’s life, Hatz. You have problems. You deal. You move on. You don’t know you got a problem,
you can’t deal, and that problem becomes a bigger problem.”
Before I could agree to his wisdom, and apologize for messing up, Dorian looked to Sylvester.
“You on her all day?” he asked.
“Until Cisco pulls me, and he did not communicate he intended to pull me, so maybe,” Sylvester
answered.
“You do not go into the dancers’ dressing room. Outside only. I’ll brief security. If you’re still here
tonight, when Hattie is onstage, I want all eyes on the crowd. I’ll give you, or whoever relieves you, a
headset so you can communicate with the team. But before, I’ll introduce the team to you so they know
you’re point on Hattie. You down?”
“I’m down,” Sylvester replied.
Ian looked to me. “Right now it’s a call and pictures?”
I nodded.
“To your cell phone and sent to your house?” he went on.
I nodded again.
Dorian’s visible unhappiness got visibly unhappier.
“And Cisco knows this?” he pressed.
More nodding.
“What about Pantera?”
“Uh, he knows it too.”
“I’ll call them,” he muttered, beginning to move away.
“Wait!” I cried.
He turned back to me.
“Axl and Hawk and all of them aren’t officially on this, hence Sylvester,” I shared, throwing a
hand Sylvester’s way.
Ian’s eyes moved to Sylvester then back to me as behind me I heard Ryn say, “Sorry?” Lottie say,
“Say what?” and Pepper say, “Oh man.”
I turned to face them. “Axl found out I called Brett before him and he was kinda mad.”
This time it was Pepper looking at her feet.
Ryn was smiling.
Lottie hitched a hip, put her hand to it and glared at me.
“I know!” I said to Lottie. “I blew it! I’m going to fix it. Promise.”
Though I shouldn’t promise.
Axl still had not texted me so I had no idea how to go about fixing it.
Though I knew I had to try.
“Hattie, attention to me,” Ian demanded.
I whirled back to him.
“How bad did you blow it? Meaning, is this going to delay Delgado and his boys wading in by half
an hour or half a day?” he asked.
There was low laughter behind me when I said, “Probably half an hour, seeing as Brett is going to
rope them in. But I suspect, even if Axl probably hadn’t calmed down, he was on the phone to the
office while he drove away from my house.”
Ian nodded curtly, said, “God forbid there’s a next time … ” and when I nodded that I got his
message, he strolled away.
I took in a big breath, turned again, and looked right at Lottie.
“I hate it I missed the kickoff to the wedding festivities. I hate it. And I’m so sorry I hurt your
feelings when I didn’t show.”
She hesitated not one second before she came to me and pulled me in her arms.
She kissed the side of my head and then said in my ear, “You don’t have to let us in, but you do
have to let us know. You need space, we can give that to you. You need to talk, we’re there for you.
You need someone to listen, you got ears who will be happy to hear. Just don’t pull away. Because
we love you and we want to be there for you, however you need that to be.”
Oh no.
I was going to cry.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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all probability to see him, or to consult him upon some
important matter. She had made no sign to the Millers that
she was previously acquainted with their guest. The
conclusion, therefore, was that both Lucie and her father
were in utter ignorance of the curious truth. Ella had left
suddenly and travelled by motor-car to Upper Wooton, while
he must have left immediately after my departure from
Studland, and travelled by train by way of Yeovil.

To Mr Murray and the rest of the party he appeared as

though he had not been away from home. Only Ella knew
the truth, and she was silent. That there was some
extraordinary manoeuvre in progress I was convinced. The
Murrays of Wichenford were one of the county families of
Worcestershire, and Ella’s father had always been an
upright, if rather proud man. He was, I knew, the very last
person to associate with a man of Shacklock’s stamp had he
but known his real character.

On the contrary, however, he had grasped the man’s hand

warmly when he descended, saying:—

“Why, my dear fellow, it’s quite two months since we met!

How are you?”

And the pseudo-lieutenant was equally enthusiastic in his

welcome in return. He was the host; “the London
gentleman” known locally as Mr Gordon-Wright.

This was by no means extraordinary. In our country villages

and their vicinity hundreds of people are, at this moment,
occupying big houses, and under assumed names passing
themselves off for what they are not. Summer visitors to
the rural districts are often a queer lot, and many a
gentleman known as Mr Brown, the smug attendant at the
village church, is in reality Mr Green whose means of
livelihood would not bear looking into. From time to time a
man is unmasked, and a paragraph appears in the papers,
but such persons are usually far too wary when it is a
matter of effacing their identity under the very nose of the
police, and enjoy the confidence and esteem of both the
villagers and “the county.”

So it evidently was with “Mr Gordon-Wright.”

Consumed by hatred, and longing to go forward and

unmask him as the ingenious swindler who stole Blenkap’s
money, I stood at the gate, eager to obtain another glimpse
of the woman who he intended should be his victim.

What was the nature of his all-powerful influence over her, I

wondered? She loved me still. Had she not admitted that?
And yet she dare not break from this man whose life was
one long living lie!

“Fortunately I’ve discovered you,” I said, between my teeth,

speaking to myself. “You shall never wreck her happiness,
that I’m determined! A word from me to Scotland Yard, and
you will be arrested, my fine gentleman.” And I laughed,
recollecting how entirely his future was in my hands.

He had already dressed for dinner before the arrival of the

party, and I overheard him shouting to Murray not to
trouble to change, it being so late. Then he came along the
hall, and stood at the door, gazing straight in my direction,
his hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket, awaiting his
guests.

He could not see me, I knew, for the roadway was rendered
very dark at that point by the trees that almost met
overhead. Therefore I watched his thin clean-shaven face,
and saw upon its evil features an expression of intense
anxiety which was certainly not there when we had met
earlier that day in Dorsetshire.

Ella was the first to descend. She had exchanged her dark
dress for a gown of pale blue Liberty silk, high at the throat,
and, though simply made, it suited her admirably. The
fellow turned at the sound of her footstep, and hurrying
towards her, took her hand, and led her outside upon the
gravelled drive.

“The others, of course, have no idea that I’ve been to

Studland!” I heard him whisper to her anxiously as they
stood there together in the shadow, away from the stream
of light that shone from the open door.

“I told them nothing,” was her calm answer, in a voice that

seemed inert and mechanical.

“I only arrived here an hour ago. I feared that you might be

here before me. You, of course, delayed them by excuses,
as I suggested.”

“Yes. We had tea on the way, and we came the longer way
round, by Plymouth, as you told me.”

“It was lucky for you that you left the Millers as early as you
did,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they had a visitor. He came an hour or so after

you’d gone. I found him talking to Lucie, and she introduced
me. His name was Leaf.”

I saw that she started at mention of my name. But with

admirable self-control she asked:—
“Well, and what did he want?”

“Wanted to see you. And what’s more, Lucie told me after

he’d gone that he had once been engaged to you. Is that
true?”

“I’ve known him a good many years,” was my loved one’s

evasive answer, as though she feared to arouse his anger or
jealousy by an acknowledgment of the truth.

“I ask you, Ella, a simple question—is what Lucie Miller has

said true? Were you ever engaged to that man?” he asked
very seriously.

“There was not an actual engagement,” was her answer,

and I saw that she feared to tell him the truth.

What right had the fellow to question her? I had difficulty in

restraining myself from rushing forward and boldly exposing
him as the thief and adventurer he was.

“Lucie, in answer to my question, told me that you had lost

sight of each other for several years, and that you believed
him dead.”

“That is so.”

“And that he has been travelling on the Continent the whole

time?”

“I believe he has,” was her reply, whereupon he remained in

silence for some moments, as though reflecting deeply. Was
it possible that, after all, he had recognised me as the man
who he had intended should be his cat’s-paw in the Blenkap
affair?

I felt certain that he was endeavouring to recall my face.

“Your father knows nothing of my friendship with Miller?” he
asked suddenly, with some apprehension.

“I have told him nothing, as you forbade me.”

“Good. He must not know. It’s better not.”

“Why?”

“Well, because your father has a long-standing quarrel with

Miller, has he not? If he knew we were friends he might not
like it. Some men have curious prejudices,” he added.

His explanation apparently satisfied her, but he, on his part,

returned to his previous questions regarding myself.

“Tell me,” he urged, “who is this fellow Leaf? If you were

fond of him I surely have a right to know who and what he
is?”

“He’s a gentleman whom I first knew years ago, soon after I

came home from school.”

“And you fell in love with him, like every school-girl does,
eh?”

She nodded in the affirmative, but vouchsafed no further

information.

“Well,” he said, in a tone of authority, “you will not meet

him again under any consideration. I forbid it. Remember
that.”

She was silent, her head downcast, for in that man’s hands
she was as wax. He held her in some thraldom that I saw
was as complete as it was terrible. His very presence
seemed to cause her to hold her breath, and to tremble.
“Last night,” he continued, “you crept downstairs after you
had gone to your room, and you listened at the door of the
smoking-room, where I was talking with Miller,” and he
laughed as he saw how she started at his accusation. “Yes,
you see I know all about it. The faithful Minton, who saw
you, told me,” he went on in a hard voice. “You overheard
something—something that has very much surprised you.
Now there’s an old adage that says listeners never hear any
good of themselves. Therefore we must come to a thorough
understanding as soon as we can get a quiet half-hour
alone together.”

“I think it is perfectly unnecessary,” she said, with some

attempt at defiance.

“There, I beg to differ,” he answered. “You have learnt a

secret, and I must have some adequate guarantee that that
secret is kept—that no single word of it is breathed to a
living soul. You understand, Ella,” he added, in a low, fierce
half-whisper, lowering his dark clean-shaven face to hers.
“You understand! My life depends upon it!”
 Chapter Twenty Two.
At Dawn.

The dark-haired woman who had accompanied Ella in the

motor-car came forth and joined the pair, preventing any
further confidences, and a few minutes later the dinner-
gong sounded, and all three went in to join Mr Murray and
his companion.

The windows of the dining-room were closed almost

immediately, therefore I neither saw nor heard anything
more of that strange household.

My one desire was to see Ella alone, but how could I give
her news of my presence?

I turned on my heel and strolled slowly back down the dark

road in the direction of the village. The first suggestion that
crossed my mind was to send her a telegram making an
appointment for the following morning, but on reflection I
saw that if they had fled in secret, as they seemed to have
done, then the arrival of a telegram would arouse Mr
Gordon-Wright’s suspicions. Indeed he might actually open
it.

I was dealing with a queer fish, a man who was a past-

master in alertness and ingenious conspiracy. As Minton, at
the Manor, was in the confidence of Miller, so that round-
shouldered old fellow was, no doubt, Gordon-Wright’s
trustworthy sentinel.

A dozen different modes of conveying a note to her

suggested themselves, but the one I adopted was, perhaps,
the simplest of them all. I returned to the inn, scribbled
upon a small piece of paper a few lines to my well-beloved
asking her to meet me at a spot I indicated at six o’clock
next morning, and then I called Gibbs, took him into my
confidence, and gave him instructions to take the pair of
lady’s gloves with fur gauntlets that I had found in one of
the pockets of the car, go boldly to the house, ask to see
“the young lady who had just arrived by motor-car,” and tell
her a fictitious story how he had found the gloves where
they had stopped at Plymouth, and as he was passing
through Upper Wooton on the way to Launceston he
thought he would like to restore them to her.

“She’ll, of course, at once deny that they are hers,” I said.

“But in handing them to her you must contrive to slip this
little bit of folded paper into her hand—so,” and I gave him
a lesson in pressing the small note, folded until it was only
the size of a sixpence, into her palm.

He quickly entered into the spirit of the adventure, and

three-quarters of an hour later re-entered the low-ceilinged
little sitting-room announcing triumphantly that he had
been successful.

“At first, sir, their man said I could not see the lady, as she
was at dinner, but on pressing him that I wished to see her
particularly, he went an’ told her,” he explained. “My request
seemed to create quite a hubbub among ’em, for as I stood
in the ’all, I heard the conversation suddenly break off, and
a chap with a clean-shaven face come to the door an’ had a
good straight look at me. Seein’, however, that I was only a
chauffeur, he went back, and a minute later the young lady
herself appeared alone. I told ’er the story, slipped the bit o’
paper into her hand, and gave her the gloves. The instant
she felt the paper in her palm she started and looked at me,
surprised like. Then, carryin’ the gloves into the drawing-
room, as if to examine them, she glanced at what you’d
written, and when she returned a few seconds afterwards,
she whispered: ‘Tell the gentleman all right’. Then, sayin’
aloud that the gloves wasn’t hers, she thanked me, an’
dismissed me.”

I congratulated him on his success. So far, so good. I had to

wait in patience until six o’clock on the following morning.

That night I slept but little, but when daylight came a

certain hope and gladness came with it. At half-past five I
went out, and strolled along to the cross-roads I had
noticed between the “Glen” and the village. The roads
traversing the highway were merely green lanes leading to
adjoining fields, and with high hedges on either side were
admirably adapted for a secret meeting.

Not without fear of being noticed by some yokel on his way

to work, I idled there until the clock from the old ivy-clad
church tower below struck the hour. For the first ten
minutes I saw no sign of her, and every moment increased
my peril of being noticed and my presence commented
upon. The villagers were certainly not used to seeing a
gentleman wait at the cross-roads at six o’clock in the
morning.

Presently, however, my heart leaped with sudden joy, for I

saw her in a fresh pale blue cotton dress hurrying towards
me, and in order not to be seen meeting her in the main
road I withdrew into the lane.

Five minutes later we were standing side by side, in a spot

where we could not be observed, she panting and
breathless, and I full of eager questions as to the reason of
her flight.

“So you actually followed me all the way here, Godfrey!”

she exclaimed anxiously, turning those dear eyes upon me,
those eyes the expression of which was always as
wondering and innocent as a child’s.

“Because I am determined that you shall not again escape

me, Ella,” was my answer, grasping her hand and raising it
with reverence to my lips.

Are we ever truly read, I wonder, save by the one that loves
us best? Love is blind, the phrase runs; yet, I would rather
say Love sees as God sees, and with infinite wisdom has
infinite pardon.

What was it I felt? I hardly know. I acted without knowing—

only stung into a bitter, burning, all-corroding jealousy that
drove me like a whip of scorpions.

“You should never have done this,” she answered calmly,

though her voice trembled just a little. “Have I not already
told you that—that our meeting was unfortunate, and that
we must again part?”

“But why?” I demanded fiercely.

“It is imperative,” she faltered. “I can never be yours.”

“But you shall—Ella!” I cried fiercely, “in this past twenty-

four hours I have discovered a great deal. Unknown to me
there was a man staying with Miller at Studland. The real
object of your visit there was to speak with him in secret.
You did so and left by motor car, while he travelled here by
train. Your father has no idea that he and Miller are friends
nor has he any idea of his true identity. He believes him to
be Gordon-Wright, yet I know him under the name of
Lieutenant Harold Shacklock.”

“You—you know him?” she gasped.

“Yes. After you left the Manor I called, and Lucie introduced
me—as though I needed any introduction to him,” I laughed
bitterly.

“Then where have you met him before?” she asked, deeply
anxious.

“Abroad. I know who and what he is, Ella,” I said

determinedly. “And you shall never be his wife.”

“But I must,” she declared. “It is all arranged. I cannot

break my engagement. I dare not.”

“Then I shall simply go to the police and tell them what I

know. I will never allow you to wreck your happiness
because this fellow holds some mysterious power over you.
You are mine, Ella—remember—mine!”

“I know! I know!” she gasped, her face pale, her eyes

terrified. “But you must not say a word. I beg you, if you
really love me, not to say a word.”

“Why not?”

“Because he would revenge himself upon me. I know

certain of his secrets—secrets that I discovered by the
merest chance. Any information given to the police he
would suspect of coming from me. Therefore, don’t you see
that any such attempt to free me will only bring upon me
disaster—even death!”

“You fear he may take your life!” I gasped. “Ah! I see! He

might even kill you, in order to close your lips!”

And I recollected the fellow’s ominous words I had

overheard on the previous night, when he had told her that
upon her secrecy his very life depended.
He was as ingenious and unscrupulous a criminal as there
was in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom.

I saw in what deadly peril was my sweet well-beloved. She

was in fear of him. Perhaps he, on his part, held some
secret of hers. From her attitude I suspected this. If so,
then any word of mine to the police would bring to her only
ruin and disgrace!
 Chapter Twenty Three.
Children of Circumstance.

Was any man more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically

lonely, more grotesquely fooled by Fate than I?

Was all the world a lie?

Upon the face of my love was a trouble that for once

clouded its wondrous beauty. I tried to touch her hair, but
she avoided me by a gesture that made me shrink a little.

The years, the tranquil sorrow of my late life dropped from

me; I became again only the fierce, fearless, thoughtless
lover; the man who had walked with her and adored her
beside that summer sea so long ago.

A madness of determination came to me. At all hazards she

should be mine. Shacklock was a liar and a schemer, a thief
and an adventurer. I would bear witness against him, even
at risk of the vendetta which would inevitably fall upon me.

She saw my changed face, and for the first time clung to
me.

“Godfrey!” she whispered hoarsely, “have pity upon me, and

remain silent. Any word from you must reflect upon myself.”

“I will not allow you to make this self-sacrifice,” I cried

fiercely. “Remember Blumenthal.”

“It was for my father’s sake,” she replied. “To save him.”

“And now?”
She did not answer for several moments. Then in a low
voice broken by emotion she said:—

“To save myself.”

“But it is madness!” I cried. “In what manner can you be in

the power of such a man? You surely know what he is?”

“Alas! I do—too well. If he had one grain of sympathy or

feeling he would surely release me.”

“And your father approves of this shameful engagement?”

“He does, because he is ignorant of the truth.”

“Then I will tell him,” I said. “You shall never fall into that
man’s hands. I love you, Ella—I love you with all the
strength of my being—with all my soul. If you are beneath
the thrall of this adventurer, it is my duty to extricate you.”

“Ah! you can’t—you can’t,” she cried. “If you only could,
how gladly would I welcome freedom—freedom to love you,
Godfrey!” and she clung to me tremblingly. “But it is all a
vague dream of the unattainable,” she went on. “My whole
life is on fire with shame, and my whole soul is sick with
falsehood. Between your life and mine, Godfrey, there is a
deep gulf fixed. I lied to you long ago—lied to save my dear
father from ruin, and you have forgiven. And now—Oh!
God! I shudder as I think—my life will be alone, all alone
always.”

I held her trembling hand in silence, and saw the tears

streaming down her white cheeks. I could utter no word.
What she had said thrust home to me the bitter truth that
she must bow to that man’s will, even though I stood firm
and valiant as her champion. My defiance would only mean
her ruin.
I had met my love again only to lose her in that
unfathomable sea of plot and mystery.

All the dark past, those years of yearning and black

bitterness, came back to me. I had thought her dead, and
lived with her sweet tender remembrance ever with me. Yet
in future I should know that she lived, the wife of an
adventurer, suffering a good woman’s martyrdom.

My heart grew sick with dread and longing. Again I would

mourn the dead indeed; dead days, dead love. It pressed
upon my life like lead. What beauty now would the
daybreak smile on me? What fragrance would the hillside
bear for me as I roamed again the face of Europe?

I should see the sun for ever through my unshed tears.

Around me on the summer earth of Italy or the wintry
gloom of the Russian steppe there would be for ever
silence. My love had passed beyond me.

Unconsciously we moved forward, I still holding her hand

and looking into the tearful eyes of her whom I had believed
dead. Was it not the perversity of life that snatched her
again from me, even though we had met to find that we still
loved one another? Yes, it was decreed that I should ever
be a cosmopolitan, a wanderer, a mere wayfarer on the
great highways of Europe, always filled with longing regrets
of the might-have-been.

I remembered too well those gay Continental cities wherein

I had spent the most recent years of my weary life; cities
where feasts and flowers reign, where the golden louis
jingle upon the green cloth, where the passionate dark
faces of the women glow, where voices pour forth torrents
of joyous words, where holiday dresses gleam gaily against
the shadows; cities of frolic and brilliancy, of laughter and
music, where vice runs riot hand in hand with wealth, and
where God is, alas! forgotten. Ah! how nauseous was it all
to me. I had lived that life, I had rubbed shoulders with
those reckless multitudes, I had laughed amid that sorry
masquerade, yet I had shut my eyes to shut out from me
the frolic and brilliancy around, and stumbled on, sad,
thoughtful, and yet purposeless.

The gladness made me colder and wearier as I went. The

light and laughter would have driven me homeward in
desolation, had I a home to shelter me.

But, alas! I was only a wanderer—and alone.

“Tell me, darling,” I whispered to my love, my heart

bursting, “is there absolutely no hope? Can you never free
yourself from this man?”

“Never,” was her despairing response.

And in that one single word was my future written upon my

heart.

I spoke to her again. What I uttered I hardly knew. A flood

of fierce, passionate words arose to my lips, and then
bending I kissed her—kissed her with that same fierce
passion of long ago, when we were both younger, and when
we had wandered hand in hand beside the lapping waves at
sunset.

She did not draw back, but, on the contrary, she kissed me
fondly in return. Her thin white hand stroked my brow
tenderly, as though she touched a child.

No words left her lips, but in her soft dear eyes I saw the
truth—that truth that held me to her with a band that was
indivisible, a bond that, though our lives lay apart, would
still exist as strong as it had ever been.

“Ella,” I whispered at last, holding her slight, trembling form

in my embrace, and kissing her again upon the lips, “will
you not tell me the reason you dare not allow me to
denounce this fellow? Is it not just that I should know?”

She shook her head sadly, and, sighing deeply, answered:—

“I cannot tell you.”

“You mean that you refuse?”

“I refuse because I am not permitted, and further, I—”

“You what?”

“I should be revealing to you his secret.”

“And what of that?”

“If you knew everything, you would certainly go to the

police and tell them the truth. They would arrest him, and I
—I should die.”

“Die? What do you mean?” I asked quickly.

“I could not live to face the exposure and the shame. He

would seek to revenge himself by making counter-charges
against me—a terrible allegation—but—but before he could
do so they would find me dead.”

“And I?”

“Ah! you, dear one! Yes, I know all that you must suffer.
Your heart is torn like my own. You love just as fondly as I
do, and you have mourned just as bitterly. To you, the
parting is as hard as to myself. My life had been one of
darkness and despair ever since that night in London when
I was forced to lie to you. I wrecked your happiness
because circumstances conspired against us—because it
was my duty as a daughter to save my father from ruin and
penury. Have you really in your heart forgiven me,
Godfrey?”

“Yes, my darling. How can I blame you for what was, after
all, the noblest sacrifice a woman could make?”

“Then let me go,” she urged, speaking in a low, distinct

voice, pale almost to the lips. “We must part—therefore
perhaps the sooner the better, and the sooner my life is
ended the more swiftly will peace and happiness come to
me. For me the grave holds no terrors. Only because I leave
you alone shall I regret,” she sobbed.

“And yet I must in future be alone,” I said, swallowing the

lump that arose in my throat. “No, Ella!” I cried, “I cannot
bear it. I cannot again live without your presence.”

“Alas! you must,” was her hoarse reply. “You must—you

must.”

Wandering full of grief and bitter thoughts, vivid and yet

confused, the hours sped by uncounted.

To the cosmopolitan, like I had grown to be, green plains

have a certain likeness, whether in Belgium, Germany or
Britain. A row of poplars quivering in the sunshine looks
much alike in Normandy or in Northamptonshire. A deep
forest all aglow with red and gold in autumn tints is the
same thing, after all, in Tuscany, as in Yorkshire.

But England, our own dear old England, has also a

physiognomy that is all her own; that is like nothing else in
all the world; pastures intensely green, high hawthorn
hedges and muddy lanes, which to some minds is sad and
strange and desolate and painful, and which to others is
beautiful, but which, be it what else it may, is always wholly
and solely English, can never be met with elsewhere, and
has a smile of peace and prosperity upon it, and a sigh in it
that make other lands beside it seem as though they were
soulless and were dumb.

We had unconsciously taken a path that, skirting a wood,

ran up over a low hill southward. To our left lay the
beautiful Cornish country in the sweet misty grey of the
morning light. The sun was shining and the tremulous wood
smoke curled up in the rosy air from a cottage chimney.

Was that to be our last walk together, I wondered? I sighed

when I recollected how utterly we were the children of
circumstance.

Beside her I walked with a swelling heart. I consumed my

soul in muteness and bitterness, my eyes set before me to
the grey hills behind which the sun had risen.
 Chapter Twenty Four.
“I am not Fit!”

Of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my

eyes. Her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those
glad and gracious days.

I stood still for a moment, and catching her hands kissed

them; my own were burning.

We went on by the curving course outside the wood quite

silent, for the gloom of the future had settled upon us.

The past! Those days when my Ella was altogether mine! I

loved to linger on those blissful days, for they were lighted
with the sweetest sunlight of my life. Never since, for me,
had flowers blossomed, and fruits ripened, and waters
murmured, and grasshoppers sung, and waves beat joyous
music as in the spring and summer of that wondrous time.

To rise when all the world was flushed with the soft pink of
the earliest dawn, and to go hand in hand with her through
the breast-high corn with scarlet poppies clasping the
gliding feet; to see the purple wraith of rain haunting the
silvery fairness of the hills; to watch the shadows chase the
sun rays over the wide-open mysterious sea; to feel the
living light of the cloudless day beat us with a million pulses
amid the hum of life all around; to go out into the lustre of
the summer’s night; to breathe the air soft as the first
kisses of our own new-found love, and rich as wine with the
strong odours of a world of flowers. These had in those
never-to-be-forgotten days been her joys and mine, joys at
once of the senses and the soul.
I loved her so—God knows! and yet almost I hated her. She
had, on that night in Bayswater, deceived me! She had
deceived me!

This was the iron in my soul. It is an error so common.

Women lie to men—and men to women for the matter of
that—out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion,
or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest
courage is not exempt. A woman deceives a man with
untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to
hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a
painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is
reluctant to wound his weakness. It is an error so common
in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always.

Had she been quite frank with me on that night when we

had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as
we now were—she held to a man who was clearly an
adventurer and a blackguard to boot.

Yet how could I reproach her for what was a great and
complete self-sacrifice. No. She had done what was,
perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had
been wrecked in consequence.

“My love!” I murmured passionately, as with a cry I caught

her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will
hold some dear dead thing. And was she not, alas! now
dead to me?

Our lips met again, but she was still silent. How many
moments went I do not know; as there are years in which a
man does not live a moment, so there are moments in
which one lives a lifetime.

Her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense

grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out
from me—all dark. But it was the sweet warm darkness, as
though of the balmy night in June; and even then I know I
prayed, prayed to Him that she might still be mine.

The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot

tell.

After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses

seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died
away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still
holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood.

I remembered.

She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held

herself from me.

“Why look at me like that?” she cried. “I—I cannot bear it.
Let us part now—at once. I must return, or my absence will
be known and I shall be questioned.”

I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of

reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in
those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness
in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had
deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know.

In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind
of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that
sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.

Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her

eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.

I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter

reproaches.
All I know is that I next became suddenly filled with shame.
I knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her
hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the
eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe,
the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn
had taken possession of my heart.

“I love you, Ella!” I cried. “I love you and as I love am I

jealous. Mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. You are
mine—mine though you may be bound to this blackguard
whose victim you have fallen. I am jealous of you, jealous
of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon
you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they
are with you while I am not.”

Her head was bowed. She shut her ears to the pleading of
my heart. She wrenched her hands from me, crying:—

“No, no, Godfrey! Enough—enough! Spare me this!”

And she struggled from my arms.

“My darling!” I cried, “I know! I know! Yet you cannot

realise all that I suffer now that we are to part again and for
ever. I hate that man. Ah! light of my eyes, when I think
that you are to be his I—I would rather a thousand times
see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for I would then
know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”

It seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me.

She flung back her head and eluded my embrace.

“My love!” I cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for
the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped
hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea.
Do you remember them? Do you remember the passion and
peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew
that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its
own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”

“Yes, dear,” she sighed, “I remember—I remember

everything. And you have a right to reproach me as you
will,” she added very gently.

She was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now

tearless, and she stood motionless.

“But you have forgiven me, my love?” I cried humbly. “I

was mad to have uttered those words.”

“I have forgiven, Godfrey,” she answered. A heavy sigh ran

through the words and made them barely audible.

“And you still love me?”

All the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died
off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the
impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that
masks all pain.

“Do you doubt I loved you—I?”

That reproach cut me to the quick. I was passionate with

man’s passion; I was cruel with children’s cruelty.

My face, I felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. I

shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow
that I could not return.

“Then—then why should we part?” I asked, as all my love

for her welled up in my faint heart. “Why should we not
defy this man and let him do his worst? At least we should
be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith—our love.”
For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me
very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear
eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into
speechless terror.

“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white
hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of
tears. “You do not know all—I pray that you, the man I love
so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me
and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words,
and forget me—yes, forget—for I am not fit to be your
wife!”
 Chapter Twenty Five.
By the Tyrrhenian Waters.

Ella was all mine—all mine! Mine all the glad fearless
freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous
tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And
I had lost them.

The grave had given her back for those brief hours, but she
was, alas! dead to me.

I stood there as a man in a dream.

I, athirst for the sound of her sweet voice as dying men in

deserts for the fountains of lost lands.

But all was silence, save the lark trilling his song high above
me in the morning air.

I turned upon my heel, and went forward a changed man.

At the inn I made further inquiries regarding the tenant of

the “Glen.”

The stout yellow-haired maid-of-all-work who brought me in

my breakfast was a native of the village and inclined to be
talkative. From her I learned that Mr Gordon-Wright had
had the place about four years. He spent only about three
months or so each summer there, going abroad each year
for the winter. To the poor he was always very good; he was
chairman of the Flower Show Committee, chairman of the
Parish Council, and one of the school managers as well as a
church-warden.
I smiled within myself at what the girl told me. He was
evidently a popular man in Upper Wooton.

He had friends to stay with him sometimes, mostly men.

Once or twice he had had foreign gentlemen among his
visitors—gentlemen who had been in the post-office and
could not speak English.

“My sister was ’ousemaid there till last Michaelmas,” she

added. “So I’ve often been up to the ‘Glen’. When old Mrs
Auker had it she used to ’ave us girls of the Friendly Society
there to tea on the lawn.”

“I think that a friend of mine comes to visit Mr Gordon-

Wright sometimes. His name is Miller. Do you remember
him?”

“Mr Miller—a tall middle-aged gentleman. Of course, sir. ’E

was here in the spring. I remember the name because ’e
and Mr Wright gave a treat to the school children.”

“Was a lady with him—a young lady?”

“Yes, sir. His daughter, Miss Lucie.”

The girl knew little else, except, as she declared, Mr

Gordon-Wright was a rich man and “a thorough gentleman.”

An hour later, while I was out in the yard of the inn

watching Gibbs going round the car, we suddenly heard the
whirr of an approaching motor, and down the street flashed
the blue car which we had pursued so hotly on the previous
day. It carried the same occupants, with the addition of one
person—Mr Gordon-Wright.

The latter, in peaked cap and motor-coat, was driving, while

behind were the two strangers, with Mr Murray and Ella.
The latter caught sight of me as she flashed past. Our eyes
met for an instant, and then she was lost to me in a cloud
of dust—lost for ever.

“They’re going back again, it seems,” I remarked to Gibbs.

“No, sir. I saw their man this morning. They’re going to

Bristol. He’s heard from ’is master that it’s all right. The
young gentleman and the lady are his master’s friends,
after all—even though they’re such a queer pair,” and then
he added: “Did you think of startin’ this morning, sir?”

“Yes. As soon as you are ready.”

“Where to, sir?”

“Back to Swanage.”

We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower

speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40
“Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance
before any local bench. Indeed nowadays lit is useless to
make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and
such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that
motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the
pioneers of locomotion.

We returned by another road, which proved better than that

by which we had come, and just before eleven at night I
descended from the car at the “Lion,” and after some
supper with the fat genial landlord, who took a deep
interest in my journey and hardly credited that I had been
into Cornwall and back, I went up to the room I had
previously occupied.

Tired after the heat and dust of the road I slept well, but
was up betimes, and at half-past nine walked out to the
Manor House.

A maid-servant came to the door in response to my ring.

“Mr Miller and the young lady have gone away, sir,” the girl
replied to my inquiry. “They went up to London yesterday.”

“Are they staying in London?” I asked eagerly. “I’m sure I

don’t know, sir.”

“Is Miss Miller at home? If so, I’d like to see her.” And I
handed her my card.

I was shown into the morning-room, and in a few minutes

Miller’s sister appeared.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Leaf,” she said, in her thin, weak voice,

“but my brother and his daughter left quite suddenly
yesterday. He received a telegram recalling him.”

“Where?”

“To Italy. He left by the mail from Charing Cross last night—
direct for Leghorn, I believe.”

“Is he likely to be away long?”

“He won’t be back, I suppose, before the spring.”

“And Miss Lucie has gone with him?”

“Of course. She is always with him.”

It was upon my tongue to ask her brother’s address in

Leghorn, but I hesitated, for I recollected that, being an
Englishman, he could be easily found.

The receipt of that telegram was suspicious. What new

conspiracy was in progress, I wondered? Evidently
something had occurred. Either he had been warned that
the police were in search of him, and had escaped back to
the Continent, or else certain of his plans had been matured
earlier than he anticipated.

As I sat there in the old-fashioned room, with its punch-

bowls full of sweet-smelling roses, I resolved to travel south
to the Mediterranean, see Lucie, and endeavour to find
some way in which to rescue my love from her father’s
accomplice.

From that Dorsetshire village to the old sun-blanched port

of Leghorn is a far cry—thirty-six hours in the express from
Calais on the road to Rome—yet that night I was back in
Granville Gardens; and hastily packing up my traps,
chatting with Sammy the while, I next morning left London
for Italy.

I told my friend but little. The circumstances were too

complicated and puzzling, and the tragedy of it all was so
complete that I preferred to remain silent.

I was going south, upon one of those erratic journeys I so

very often took. I might return in a fortnight, or in six
months. All depended upon the mood in which I found
myself.

Therefore he accepted my explanation, knowing well as a

constant traveller and thoroughgoing cosmopolitan himself,
and he saw me off from Charing Cross, wishing me bon
voyage.

The journey by way of Calais, Paris, Modane and Turin you

yourself have done often, so why need I describe it? You
have lunched between Calais and Paris, dined at the Gare
de Lyon, turned into your narrow sleeping berth between
Paris and the frontier, lunched in the wagon-restaurant
between Modane and Busseleno, scrambled through your
dinner in the big buffet at Genoa, and cursed those stifling
tunnels between Genoa and Spezia, where between them
you get your first glimpses of the moonlit Mediterranean,
and you have alighted at old marble-built Pisa, the quaint
dead city that contains one of the wonders of the world—the
Leaning Tower.

From Pisa you have gone on to Rome, or to Florence, but I

question if you have ever travelled over that ten-mile
branch line down to the ancient seaport of the Medici,
Leghorn. The English, save the mercantile marine and a
stray traveller or two, never go to Livorno, as it is called in
Italian, and yet it is in summer the Brighton of Italy, and
one of the gayest places in Europe during the bathing
season.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when I alighted at

the “Palace,” that great white hotel on the sea-front, and
went to the room allotted to me—one with an inviting
balcony overlooking the promenade and the fashionable
bathing establishment of Pancaldi.

Livorno was full, the night-porter informed me. It was the

height of the season, and there was not another vacant bed
in any hotel in the town that night.

I knew the place well, therefore early next morning I went

forth, and took a turn across at Pancaldi’s, which is a kind of
stone pier built out upon the rocks into the clear sunlit
waters. Though so early there were already quite a number
of smartly dressed people; the men in clean white linen
suits and the women in white muslins, mostly of the Italian
aristocracy from Florence, Bologna, Milan and Rome.
It was delightful there, seated in a chair with the waves
lapping lazily at one’s feet, and the brown sails of the
anchovy and sardine boats showing afar against the dark
purple island of Gorgona in the distance. On every hand
was the gay chatter of men—for Italians are dreadful
chatterboxes—the light laughter of pretty dark-eyed
women, or the romping of a few children in the care of their
nurses.

I was fatigued after my journey, and as I idled there my

eyes were open about me to recognise any friends.

Suddenly, approaching me, I saw a stout elderly lady in

white, accompanied by a slim young girl of seventeen,
whom I recognised as the Countess Moltedo and her
daughter Gemma. I rose instantly, removed my hat, and
drawing my heels together in Italian fashion, bowed.

“Ah! my dear Signor Leaf!” cried the Countess in English

merrily, for she was American born, and like so many other
countesses in Italy had been attracted by a title, and had
long ago found her husband to be a worthless fellow who
had married her merely in order to replenish his
impoverished purse. “Why, this is a surprise! Gemma was
speaking of you only the other day, and wondered if you
had deserted Italy entirely.”

“No, Countess,” I replied. “Once one really knows Italy, she

is one’s mistress—and you can never desert her.”

And I took the young girl’s hand she offered, and bowed
over it.

“You are here at your villa at Antigniano, I suppose?” I went

on.
“Yes. We’ve been here already two months. It is too hot still
to return to Rome. The season has been a most gay one,
for the new spa, the Acque della Salute, has, they say,
attracted nearly twenty thousand persons more than last
year.”

“Leghorn in summer is always charming,” I said, as I drew

chairs for them at the edge of the water, and they seated
themselves. “And your villa is so very delightful, out there,
beyond the noise and turmoil.”

“Yes, we find it very nice. Myself, I prefer the quiet village

life of Antigniano to this place. We only come up here at
rare intervals, when Gemma gets dull.”

The pretty dark-eyed young girl laughing at me said:—

“Mother likes all the old fogies, Mr Leaf, while I like to see
life. Out yonder at Antigniano they are all old frumps, and
the men never remain there. They always take the tram
and come into Leghorn.”

Like a flash it occurred to me to make an inquiry of them.

“By the way,” I said, “you know all the Americans and
English here. Do you happen to know a man named Miller?”

“Miller? No,” was the American woman’s reply.

“Haven’t you mistaken the name? There’s a man named

Milner, who has a daughter, a tall, rather smart dark-haired
girl.”

“Milner,” I repeated, recognising at once that in Leghorn the

final “r” was added. “Yes, perhaps that’s the name. He’s a
tall elderly man—a gentleman. His daughter’s name is
Lucie.”
“I know her,” exclaimed Gemma quickly. “We’ve met them
lots of times. They live in a flat at the other end of the
promenade, towards the town.”

“I want to call. Do you know the number?”

“Number nine in the Viale,” replied the Countess promptly,

with her slight American accent. “Second floor. Where did
you meet them?”

“In England. I returned from London only last night.”

“I don’t think they are here,” she said. “The week we

arrived at the villa, nearly two months ago, Lucie called and
said that they were going to spend the summer up at
Roncegno, in the Trentino, a place that is becoming quite
fashionable with the Italians. They left Leghorn, and I
haven’t seen them since.”

“I believe they are back,” I said. “Anyhow I will leave a

card.”

“Because the handsome Lucie has attracted you, eh?” asked

the Countess, laughing mischievously.

“Not at all,” I protested. “I’m a confirmed bachelor, as

you’ve known long ago.”

“Ah! men always say so,” she remarked. “Why do you take
such an intense interest in Milner and his daughter?”

“Because they were kind to me in England,” I replied briefly.

“Well—he’s a peculiar man,” she said. “They have very few

friends, I believe. He’s a gentleman, no doubt, but in very
reduced circumstances. My own idea is that when Lucie’s
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