Rock Hard (Rock Kiss 2)

“Hey, Charlie,” said the distinctive, gritty voice of Schoolboy Choir’s lead singer. “Miss Molly will be a minute.”

“Fox!” came Molly’s faint voice. “Give me the phone.”

The sound cut off, as if someone had put a hand over the speaker.

Smiling at the image of a kiss-rumpled Molly trying to deny a man against whom she had no resistance, Charlotte waited until her friend came back on the line. “Sorry about that,” Molly said, breathless again. “He’s in a mood today.”

“I can guess exactly what kind of mood he’s in, Miss Molly.”

“Oh, shut up.” Molly laughed. “Soooo? How was your second date with T-Rex?”

“Wonderful.” The memory of the hours she’d spent with him yesterday made her want to sigh and go all gooey-eyed.

“Then why do you sound like that?”

“Do you have X-ray vision? How can you know something’s wrong across a phone line?”

“Because I know you. What is it?”

Charlotte told Molly about Richard’s forthcoming release, rubbing at her forehead with her fingers. “I know I need to take my security situation seriously, but I hate feeling like Richard’s backed me into a corner.”

“You could look at it another way,” Molly said after a small pause.

Eyes on a catamaran coming in to dock on this side of the marina, Charlotte said, “What other way?”

“Last time, Dick was in control, manipulating and scheming.” Her best friend’s anger was a scalpel. “This time, you’re the one in charge. You make the decisions.”

Charlotte hadn’t considered it from that point of view. “I’m still reacting to him.”

“So don’t,” Molly replied. “Decide what you want. Not what will make Gabriel happy or what will roadblock that pathetic monster. What will make you feel like you’re handling the situation?”

“The thing is, Molly, I want to make Gabriel happy.” Seeing him laugh, smile, it lit up her world. “I can’t bear for him to be so torn up.”

“That’s a choice too, you know.” A smile in Molly’s voice. “And it’s one I understand—I like making Fox happy too. Same way I like doing things to make you happy. There’s nothing wrong with caring for the people we love; the problem only comes when it’s one person giving all the time. When it goes both ways, you have love.”

Charlotte flushed and pushed away from the railing to start the walk back to the office. Dropping her sorely abused takeout cup in a trash can along the way, she said, “I’ve just started dating him.”

“Charlie, you two have been doing the tango for months,” her friend responded dryly. “I mean, the foreplay must be driving him nuts.”

“You have a one-track mind.”

“I see you’re following that track, so what does that say about your own mind, huh?”

Charlotte grinned, starting to see the glimmer of a path through this. “Thanks, Moll. I’m going to think about things, act rather than react.” Light sparked off her bracelet as she hung up.

Gabriel had finally shown her how to unlock the complicated clasp last night, after she agreed to keep the bracelet. She’d decided that if it didn’t work out between them, if her problems made that impossible… or if he lost his desire for her, she’d simply ensure it made its way back to him.

That it hurt to even think about no longer being with him told her exactly how badly she’d already fallen.

GABRIEL WAS IN NO mood to find Brian Bishop waiting for him at the Saxon & Archer building. He’d taken the long route back to walk off his fury, but it returned the instant he walked into the lobby and saw the man who was nominally his parent. Brian looked drawn out and pale, but Gabriel also saw the yellowed teeth, the nicotine-stained fingernails, and the crooked nose from when a creditor had beat him up.

His “father” had always chosen his own poisons.

“What do you want?” he snapped after walking Brian back out to the sidewalk.

Eyes wet, the man he’d once called Dad tried to reach out to touch his face. Gabriel backed away from it. “If it’s money,” he said, his voice cold, “give me your account number and I’ll have it transferred.” Better he pay Brian off than have the man shake down Gabriel’s mother by playing on her sympathies.

“No, son.” The quavery voice of a man much older. “I just wanted to see my boy.”

“I haven’t been a boy since I was six years old.” Since the day he’d had his illusions about Brian permanently shattered. Brian’s abandonment a year later had only put the final seal on Gabriel’s view of his father.

The other man huddled into his navy blue windbreaker. “Facing mortality makes a man look back on his life. Mine is full of mistakes—I don’t expect you to forgive me, but please don’t cut me out of your life.”

The plea hit a stone wall. “You made that choice.” Gabriel had watched his younger brother wait for their father to come home, face pressed to the window. Sailor had been adamant Brian would come back for them, his childish pain when that proved a false hope another stone in the wall. “You threw away your family—you can’t just come back and pick us up again.”

“Gabriel, son, I—”

Gabriel sliced out a hand. “Enough. Get out and don’t come back to my workplace. I’ll send you the money.”