I waited for him to say more, to explain, but he didn’t.

So I waited some more.

Nothing.

“What does that mean, you lost control?” I whispered.

More nothing.

After awhile, his fingers brushed my hair aside and his lips touched my nape.

I let it go at that and listened to his steady breathing. I knew he wasn’t asleep and I also knew our talk was over. No way was Liam Nightingale going to admit, out loud, to being scared. That was as good as I was going to get.

And it was all I needed.

I let the tension go out of my body and settled into him, wriggling my bottom into his groin.

There was a time to hold a grudge, this wasn’t that time.

Chapter Twelve

I Did My Duty to the Pot

I woke up when I felt the sheet go down my hip and a hand go up it.

I turned bleary eyes to Lee, who was sitting, from what I could tell in the dawns early light, fully-clothed on the side of the bed.

“I need coffee,” I mumbled.

“You don’t have to get up, I’m just sayin’ good-bye,” he answered.

I blinked in the semi-darkness.

“Where are you going?”

But I’d lost his attention, he was looking in the vicinity of my hips.

“Do you always wear underwear like this, or is it for me?”

I rolled to my back and pulled the sheet to my waist.

“It isn’t for you, I’ve been wearing underwear like this since Gram gave me my first Frederick’s of Hollywood box on my sixteenth birthday. Now, I owe Victoria’s Secret my first-born child.”

Before speaking again, Lee waited several seconds that can only be described as “loaded silence”. While this silence was going on, he pulled the sheet back down.

“You’re tellin’ me that since you were sixteen you’ve been sittin’ next to me every year at Christmas Dinner wearin’ underwear like this?”

I was having trouble processing all that was happening, seeing as it was oh-dark-hundred, Lee was dressed and leaving and we were talking about my underwear.

Had I sat beside him at Christmas Dinner every year?

I had. At first because I finagled it, the last ten years by a cruel twist of fate.

“I didn’t sit by you,” I kind of lied.

“No, I sat by you.”

At that unbelievable announcement, I got up on my two elbows and winced. Another learning experience, rolling around in bushes with your arms cuffed behind your back made you ache.

I glanced at the clock, five after five.

“It’s five after five! Where are you going?”

He leaned forward and brushed my lips with his.

“Hunting.”

The way he said it made me fear for all the furry little creatures in the woods. Then I realized that Lee didn’t hunt, at least not furry little creatures.

Yikes.

I considered what to say and settled on, “Be careful.”

An arm went around me and he pulled me to him. I was not a big fan of morning kisses before brushing your teeth, especially if tongue was involved.

His kiss was so fine, I made an exception and kissed him back.

He dragged me across his lap and deepened the kiss. If the kiss got any deeper, my lovely sage green satin undies with smoky gray lace were going to spontaneously combust.

When he lifted his head, he said, “Call Hank if you go anywhere, I need my men working. Hank’s gonna watch you today.”

Since I didn’t want to get kidnapped again and yesterday had beaten out the day I called the ticket line and found out Pearl Jam was sold out as the worst day of my life, I said, “Okay.”

He kissed me quickly, deposited me back in bed and then he was gone.

* * * * *

I slept more, got up, drank coffee, sucked down some ibuprofen and called Hank to come and get me. I didn’t know what I intended to do that day but I was too wired by recent events to sit around all day in Lee’s condo.

I surveyed myself in Lee’s bathroom mirror. The semi-shiner was fading but still there.

I looked down at my body.

I had added bruises on my wrists, biceps and thighs as well as some small scratches on my arms and legs.

Very attractive.

To make myself feel better about this situation, I turned to my MAC cosmetics. MAC never let me down. I put on some dewy blush, eye shadow that really had no color but was mostly sparkles, that white under-mascara-base-coat that makes our eyelashes look a mile long and a double-coat of mascara. I donned my Lynyrd Skynryd t-shirt, jeans, black woven belt with the big, square, silver buckle stamped with tiny roses and black cowboy boots.

I’d just tugged on the second boot when my cell rang.

“We have a problem,” Duke’s gravelly, Sam Elliott voice crunched in my ear.

“Duke! God, I’m glad to hear from you.”

“I’m at the store –”

“I closed the store for the weekend,” I informed him belatedly.

“I saw the note, I opened it. We have a near-riot on our hands here. People are freakin’ that Rosie’s not here. It started out pretty peaceful but now the mob want blood.”

“Are you there alone?”

I was aghast. Staffing Fortnum’s in the morning alone in the years pre-espresso-counter was doable. Post-coffee, impossible.

“Dolores is with me.”

Uh-oh.

Dolores drank instant coffee. This was not a good thing.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I flipped my phone shut and the buzzer went just as my cell rang again.

The phone was Ally, I flipped it open and told her to hang on while I hit the button on Lee’s intercom. It was Hank so I told him I’d be down to meet him.

“You doin’ okay?” Ally asked.

“Yeah, I ache but other than that, fine,” I answered.

“What’re you up to today?”

“Duke opened Fortnum’s and just phoned in a potential Rosie Riot. I’m heading over with Hank.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Hank was not thrilled about heading into a riot situation as the first order of business during his Indy Watch. I talked him into it by alluding to concerns about his masculinity.

I walked in the door at Fortnum’s and wished I’d let Hank talk me out of riot control. There were at least fifteen, maybe twenty people and the air crackled with hostility. It was pretty clear that the regulars were okay with a few confused Rosie-free days but now the natives were getting restless.

Annie spied me before the door shut behind Hank. Annie had been coming every weekday morning for years, eight fifteen, wearing a suit, her blonde hair molded into a style reminiscent of a football helmet. We’d chatted over the counter hundreds of times and she was always pleasant if sometimes in a hurry. It was Sunday and I’d never seen her there on a weekend.