I found it bizarre that I would hear the name “Tex” twice in one day when I had never known a Tex in my whole life.

I finally figured out where we were and this made some of my panic and adrenalin subside. I did some deep breathing and pointed us home. I turned onto my block and my stomach clenched.

My street was filled with cars, big, shiny ones (except for Luke’s Porsche and a Crossfire, they weren’t big, just shiny). What looked like Eddie’s red Ram was there, a black GMC truck, several black Ford Explorers and a black Toyota 4Runner.

I double parked the Caddy (because there were no spaces on the street) right outside my front door and saw over the roof of Luke’s Porsche the Bad Boy Brigade standing in my front yard all wearing scary faces and all those faces turned to the Caddy as it stopped. Luke, Lee, Vance, Hank, Eddie, Matt, Mace and, what I realized was not coincidental, Tex, the wild-eyed coffee guy from Fortnum’s.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

Chapter Nine

Feeling Fine, Feeling Loose

Mr. Kumar and I got out of the car as Luke detached from the Bad Boy Bunch and I met him on the sidewalk.

I tilted my head back to look at him and said softly, “Seems I got kidnapped again.”

His mouth got tight and his eyes did a body scan. I looked down at myself.

Blouse torn, scrapes on my belatedly stinging palms and what appeared to be smears of blood on the skin of my chest (this, I hoped, was Dom’s).

“You all right?” Luke asked and my eyes moved back to his.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Please tell me that isn’t your blood.”

It was then I did something ultra stupid.

The something ultra stupid I did was say, “It’s Dom’s.”

It seemed Luke sucked in every molecule of oxygen in the Denver Metro area when he did a swift intake of breath. With one look at his face it would not have surprised me if he had walked to his Porsche in Incredible Hulk style, picked it up and hurled it down the street.

Mr. Kumar stood beside us. “I saw him carry her out of the house,” he said and Luke and my eyes turned to Mr. Kumar as the Bad Boys gathered around us. “She was unconscious and I knew something was wrong. I followed in my car and when they stopped I wanted to wait for Tex and was about to call on my cell, but I didn’t know where we were.” Everyone watched him talk and he looked around, nervous at being the center of attention. “I was going to call the police but then he started kissing her and Ava didn’t like it and I knew…”

Oh shit.

Luke’s eyes sliced to me.

Oh shit!

“I had to do something,” Mr. Kumar finished.

Luke was still looking at me. Or more to the point, scowling at me in a very scary way.

“Um…” I said to him, lifting my hand to do the finger and thumb half-an-inch-apart gesture again. “There might be a wee bit of my troubles I haven’t shared.”

I watched, somewhat fascinated, as Luke pulled in his very nice lower lip and bit it with his equally nice, straight, white teeth. The Bad Boy Brigade all looked at each other with knowing equally (almost) pissed off in male camaraderie faces and they took a step back.

Then Luke grabbed my upraised wrist and yanked me up my walk and into my house.

“Luke!” I yelled.

He ignored me, walked up the stairs and took me to the bathroom where we stopped.

“Where’s your first aid?” he asked.

I stared at him, surprised at his question, thinking he was going to lay into me. “What?” I said.

“First aid. Your palms.”

Oh. My palms.

“Closet,” I told him, motioning with my hand to the closet door.

He walked to the bathroom closet and pulled out the first aid kit. He opened it, sorted through it, found what he wanted and dragged me to the sink.

“Wash your hands,” he ordered.

I did what I was told, finding his behavior somewhat intriguing. I could tell (hell, anyone could tell) he was angry but he was controlling it and taking care of me.

Hmm.

He’s very nice. And you can tell he’s mad but he’s still being lovely. I like that, Good Ava informed me.

He’s hot when he’s all pissed-off-but-controlling-it. Jump him! Bad Ava suggested.

I blinked away my advice angels, finished with my hands and buried Luke’s most recent behavior right alongside all the rest of it.

He’d gone back to the closet and nabbed a clean hand towel. He tossed it to me and I dried my hands carefully while he took a washcloth, wet it and went to work on the blood on my chest.

“Luke.”

“Quiet.”

I shut my mouth. I knew what Luke’s “quiet” meant when said in that tone and I didn’t want a repeat of Hard Angry Kiss.

He finished wiping off the blood, took the towel from my hands, threw them both in the sink and wiped at my scrapes with an alcohol swab. I sucked in breath at the sting but he kept going albeit gently.

He tossed the swab in the trash and then looked at me. “Now. Share.”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I took in a deep breath.

“Well…” I said and stopped, not certain how to proceed.

Luke got close, his patience visibly waning. “Ava.”

“All right,” I said and leaned back. Then I told him the story of Dom flirting, Dom touching, Dom cornering me in the kitchen and that being the reason Sissy left him. I told him about Dom’s threat to “get what I want”. I finished on a description of the last forty-five minutes.

Luke was silent after I stopped talking. His face was hard but I saw his eyes were working. I also saw his jaw was working too, clenching and unclenching and I did not take this as a good sign. I held my breath while this happened.

Finally he said, “Pack a bag.”

“Excuse me?” I asked on a gush of air.

“Pack a bag.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re movin’ in with me.”

My eyes bugged out. “What? Why?” I repeated.

“Just do it.”

Ho-ly shit.

Lee had made Indy stay with him to keep her safe when she was being shot at and kidnapped. He moved into her duplex after it was over and now they were getting married. Eddie had also made Jet move in with him to keep her safe. He never let her move out and she had just bought a new blender. Roxie had stayed with Hank during her troubles because, at the time, she lived in Chicago. After she was safe, she had decided to move to Denver to be with Hank, thinking to move into an apartment for six months to “see how it went” but he had talked her into moving in with him. Now she was entering his dog into a Frisbee competition.