Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Noa
T he next time I run into Stone, I don’t expect him to be sweaty, shirtless, and intent on a rampage.
The interior of the Merc is in its familiar frenzied state when I arrive for lunch.
I choose to forego a pre-made sandwich and do a light shop for groceries instead.
I have enough time off to get back to Mrs. Stalinski and make us a warm meal and give Moo the rare treat of my presence. He’ll be thrilled.
The Mercantile is a one-stop-shop for almost anything while searching for items in Falcon Haven’s downtown district.
It has all the necessary groceries, a sandwich and ice cream shop, and a gourmet cafe.
If you feel like adding a quick beauty treatment to your errands, Maisy rents out the attached space to Jenny Ridge, a certified esthetician.
Maisy also allows local items to be featured in her store, like handmade jewelry and artwork.
I’m distracted from my groceries and holding up a beautiful silver, hand-hewn upside-down crescent moon necklace made by a local metal worker when the shouting begins.
“She took my picture,” a low, rumbling voice says. “I did not appreciate it.”
I inch closer when I register that it’s Stone.
I round the grocery aisles and into the small gap between the back of the store and the loading and storage area.
Stone stands amid overstock boxes and a tower of hay, small pieces sticking to his heaving bare chest. One’s even sticking out of his wind-tousled hair. It doesn’t make him look goofy, or boyish, or any of the things a stalk of hay sticking out from a man’s head should.
He makes it look rough hewn, like the grass belongs on him because he’s been working the fields all day and gained all that muscle through stubborn physical work.
The stubble along his jaw and the chestnut hair curling around his ears and forehead add to his homegrown, working-man air, as well as his low-slung jeans and his favorite brown leather belt, beaten up and used since he was a slimmer, ganglier version of himself.
If you didn’t know him, if he wasn’t recognized by the world twice over, no one would guess he’d where he’d gained those muscles. None would think those jeans were designer or that belt something he grabbed out of his teenaged drawer, his personal preference for it long forgotten.
Another man stalks into my eyesight, bringing me back to the present. I hold my grocery basket against my middle with both arms, my eyes wide.
“You touch my girl, you get a punch to the fucking face. I don’t care how famous you are, you pansy-assed bitch.”
Wow. Even I, ever the pacifist and against all forms of aggression, can call those fighting words.
Movement and shuffling sound out on either side of me, the exchange between the two men drawing a crowd.
Stone throws up his hand, his manicured nails dirt encrusted, and the palm blistered and bleeding. Rome must not have given him gloves. Deliberately.
“Talk to your lady. I merely suggested to her that taking a photo of someone without their permission is not the best choice,” Stone says.
“With your fucking shirt off in a grocery store?” the other man asks. “I swear I saw you try to snatch her phone away from her. I know what you’re like.”
“No,” Stone disagrees calmly. Too levelly. I watch his hands, clenched with veins protruding along the tops. “First, I don’t touch women without their clear consent. Second, there is no ‘try.’”
The chubby, leather clad man cocks his head in confusion.
“If I wanted to get the phone,” Stone clarifies quietly. “I would have rendered you unconscious and lifted the phone from her fingers while she stared down at you in shock. But I did not. So I’ll ask you again. Respectfully, delete the picture.”
“Baby.” The woman of the hour creeps out of the aisle she was hiding in (with her phone held up and in video mode).
Long, raven hair falls in waves to her elbows, her white tee tight and braless and in cutoffs.
“I had to. It’s Stone freaking Williams!
Do you know what this will do to my follower count? ”
The big man spears a finger at his girlfriend. “Don’t you fucking post that. He’s not wearing a shirt. You post something like that, I’ll be the laughingstock of my club, and I ain’t no punchline. Defy me, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”
I parse through his toxic masculinity enough to latch onto the word club.
Shit. He’s part of the White Tigers, a motorcycle gang living on the outskirts of Falcon Haven. They come into town occasionally to grab food, cigarettes, and meet up with those willing to assist them in their underground trafficking. In a small town like this, it’s more people than you’d think.
They’re enough of a presence that those not in their pockets know not to fuck with them. Stone knows it, too, though by the current look in his eye, he’s decided to ignore their violent warnings.
“Do you usually talk to your woman like that?” Stone asks lightly. I sense a threatening undercurrent, both in his stiffened lips and curled fingers.
More phones go up. I step forward. “Stone.”
Stone’s attention hurtles to mine as if I’d whistled loud and hard. He catches my eyes, locking in place and registering my presence, softening slightly before hardening again.
“Stone,” I say again with a harder whiplash to it. “Don’t. It’s not worth it. Let’s go.”
“Isn’t it?” Stone cocks his head, answering me but looking at the gang member. “He disrespected me, he disrespected this woman, and now he wants to throw a punch at me in front of you. All of which are shitty actions deserving of consequences.”
“What are you gonna do, Rich Boy?” The man laughs.
“Those muscles of yours are all for show. You have makeup people who do better work than you ever will. I bury people while you’re in your skyscraper reading and pretending you do tough guy shit.
The most you do is jack off while real men do the work for you. ”
“Mostly true.” Stone nods sagely.
Stone swings before anybody predicts, causing gasps and cries at the same time a skin-to-skin crunch rings out.
The man collects himself and swings back, but Stone dodges the punch with ease.
“Stone!” I shout.
Stone bends low and runs at the man’s middle, toppling them both to the ground.
The girlfriend screams, then centers her phone.
The people who gathered scatter like a flock of geese.
Lunchtime on a school day at the Merc is mostly filled with retirees or farmers finishing their day’s work before the sun gets too hot.
There aren’t too many willing to stay and film the action, which I’m thankful for, since Stone just rolled them into a pyramid of glass spaghetti jars on sale.
Glass shatters, and sauce flies everywhere, including my face. The sudden, dramatic fracturing of one hundred pasta jars brings Maisy running full on into the fray with a broomstick and a battle cry.
“Goddamned hooligans!” She smacks the gang member on the head, but he just shakes it off and continues boxing-style punches into Stone’s chest. Stone has the wherewithal to block him, but with glass shards flying, he’s bound to bleed.
“Noa!” Maisy shouts. “Help me!”
The grocery basket I was holding drops to my feet. I fly into the fray, too worried about Maisy breaking them up on her own to think straight and maybe call the police first before I kick at a motorcycle club member.
On my way, I pick up a pasta jar that somehow survived and swing it at the side of the motorcycle guy’s head as he rolls on top of Stone to land more punches.
“You bitch !” I hear before someone yanks me back by the hair, and I’m slammed into the mess of pasta and glass, sliding a few feet on my back like an overturned beetle. “ Nobody touches my man but me!”
The girlfriend shrieks and lands on top of me, using her acrylic nails to her advantage and scraping them along my cheek.
Crying out, I swipe back and buck like a wild stallion to get her off me. I’ve taken enough self-defense classes to use my legs to wrap around her and drag her down, then crawl on top of her and hold her by the wrists, yelling into her face, “I’m not your enemy!”
She won’t hear any of it. This girl has turned feral, snarling at me and promising threats against me and all those I love.
There’s no reasoning with her, so I let her stumble into a stand, heading toward Stone.
She, of course, tries to drag me back into it, but I catch enough to see their fight is more brutal than ours, grunts, curses, and bone-breaking thwacks ringing out.
Maisy is still there, adding cleaning spray to her arsenal and aiming for their eyes.
Until a shot rings out.
The shock is so stunning, no one screams. Everyone freezes. I lose all hearing, and the girlfriend goes slack with surprise.
Then my heart drops.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, sounds of the Merc tunneling back into my ears. “ Stone? ”
I fumble through the mess, my sneakers squeaking, then slip and land on my stomach, my chin ricocheting off the linoleum with a fiery sting in its wake. I roll onto my back, moaning.
Stone lies still on the floor as the club member stands, brushing at the wet stains on his pants like the nuisance they are.
“That should fucking teach you,” he mumbles, then limps to his girlfriend. “Come on, Veronica. Look what the hell you’ve done. Let’s get out of here before the cops arrive.”
Then, with the help of this Veronica, he pockets his gun and they both disappear.
“Noa. Noa! Are you hurt? Say something!”
Stone darts into my vision, the worried lines of his handsome face rippling overhead like an avenging angel I’ve summoned from thin air. His firm hands pat me down, decorum forgotten as he does a full-body search, pressing against my breasts and inner thighs, searching for a bullet wound.
This isn’t the time for that kind of molten fire, yet it comes scorching between my legs and sparking into my nipples as soon as his touch leaves my skin.