Find Me Page 2

  And they’d woken up so damn late, the fish would be hanging out somewhere else.

  But, to do something meaningful with their music. The thought of it put a little kick in his step, which the caffeine from his coffee failed to do.

  Oh, Jack. If you only knew what you’ve started…

  Chapter Two

  Culpeper, VA

  “I can’t believe I’m at a protest, with my parents, no less,” Dee said as she picked up her picket sign.

  “Just because they’re here doesn’t mean we need to hang out with them.” Rhonda eyed her up and down. “Why in the hell did you wear a skirt? This is a protest, not a courtroom.”

  Dee laughed as she glanced down at her violet-colored skirt. “Well, excuse me for not knowing the dress code. It’s my first rally.”

  And, depending on how it turned out, it might be her last. Her stomach already felt tied up in knots. Why, again, had she been so restless lately? Now, she just felt scared.

  As long as she didn’t have to wear pantyhose and high heels, like she did at work, she didn’t feel dressed up. Rhonda wore a hot-pink T-shirt, camouflage cargo pants, and Converse sneakers. With her hair skinned back and dark glasses, she looked plenty tough enough to be here.

  “If things get bad, I’ll hide behind you, okay?” Dee joked.

  “Go ahead, but you’re taller than me, remember?”

  The site was a shopping center with a vast parking lot. They stood on one side of the library. Its creepy statue looked even worse in person than in pictures. A bunch of tough-looking dudes, armed with their own signs, stood on the other. The throng contained mostly young males, but some women and older people had shown up, too.

  “Game on, bitches,” Rhonda yelled their way.

  With her heart thundering, Dee gripped her arm. “Chill! Are you trying to start a riot?”

  Rhonda lifted an eyebrow. “We came here to fight, not shop at Wal-Mart.”

  As Dad had told her to, she shaded her eyes with her hand and scanned the area for brewing trouble. Why hadn’t she remembered to wear sunglasses, too? Reporters, probably hungry for blood, thronged the perimeter, and a couple of police cruisers sat in the parking lot.

  Some guys with long hair gathered on the sidewalk. They were pulling long things out of dark cases. Oh, no. Weapons? No, guitars. Guitars!

  “Looks like we’ve got entertainment,” she told her friend, her stomach relaxing a little bit. “I wonder whose side they’re on.”

  Their Confederate flag soon gave her the answer, and her stomach sank again.

  “Wait. They look familiar. Is that Breeze? Here?”

  She hated to admit it, but she enjoyed their music and their sexy looks even more. Especially the lead singer, Rodney Walker, dressed in black as always, including the cowboy hat capping his golden-brown hair. His short beard behind the microphone, just a shade darker. He looked even better in person than digitally.

  It was clear they liked the South, where they were from, but they’d never said anything racial. Or taken sides. Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? Seeing them here, though, soured her taste for them forever.

  As a matter of principle, she’d have to change the station from now on when their songs played on the radio. And delete the picture of Rodney she’d downloaded to her computer. The one she gazed at whenever she needed a little eye candy to relax her between cases.

  Her parents joined them, and Dad jerked his thumb toward Breeze. “What is this, Woodstock? Why doesn’t our side have a band?”

  “Shit. We’re already outnumbered,” Rhonda said. “We’ll have to fight harder.”

  The word fight tensed Dee’s stomach up again.

  “You girls be careful,” Jeremy told them as he gripped their shoulders. “I’m going to hang out on the sidelines with your mother. She’s too old for this kind of thing.”

  Dee grinned. “And you’re not?”

  He flexed his biceps. “Quit making eyes at the band,” he warned her before he left. “They’re the enemy.”

  Why did the enemy have to look so good? The breeze lifted Rodney’s thick, silky hair, making her want to run her fingers through it. He sure filled out his long-sleeved shirt and tight pants. With his solid build, he’d feel fantastic in bed. Throbbing electric guitars filled the air, but his voice grabbed her the hardest. Rich and bluesy in the center and rough and male around the edges.

  After the first stanza, her panties were soaked. Lord, help her. She didn’t belong here. Maybe she should go home and take a cold shower. If burnout from work was her problem, she could deal with it in much safer ways.

  The arousal sizzling through her reminded her what her parents had told her about grandchildren, though. If she wanted a relationship, it was about time to start one. But not with some flag-waving bigot. With an everyday guy who shared her values about racism and everything else.

  “Ready?” their group organizer asked.

  “Let’s go,” Rhonda yelled, thrusting her sign into the air like a spear.

  Dee fell into the line behind her friend and marched. She vocalized with the others while waving her sign around.

  Damn. She’d barely started and had already gotten a splinter in her palm and broken a nail.

  “I can’t hear you,” Rhonda complained.

  So, she yelled louder, her voice mixing with Rodney’s until she didn’t hear anything or anybody else. What was wrong with her? Had her hormones gone whacko? She tried to ignore him as she marched, focusing instead on the issue that brought her here.

  Why did the line have to pass so close to the band, practically at their feet? When she glanced at Rodney, he seemed to look back. Was that a wink?

  “He winked at me,” she hissed in Rhonda’s ear.

  “Then give him the finger,” her friend shot back. “Never mind. I will.”

  She’d been doing it during the whole march, working her sign with one hand and her finger with the other. Was fighting hate with more hate the answer? Dee didn’t think so.

  “This is supposed to be a peaceful rally,” she reminded Rhonda.

  “I’m just expressing myself. Besides, we already asked the city nicely to take down that butt-ugly statue, and they didn’t listen.”

  “We can still be firm without fighting.”

  “You sound like your hippie parents,” Rhonda joked. “Most of the peace and freedom you enjoy today is because somebody fought in a war.”

  She had a point. If not for the Civil War, they might be in leg irons right now, picking cotton on some miserable plantation.

  So far so good here, though. No one had killed each other yet. In fact, Dee had had her fill, and her feet were starting to hurt in the black patent-leather sandals she’d worn.

  “How long do we have to march?” she asked. “Thanks to the media, the town officials have surely seen and heard us already.”

  “Until everybody leaves. If we go now, it’ll look like we’re running away.”

  Great. They could be here all night. She could think of worse things than spending the night with Rodney, but not under these circumstances. And he couldn’t be more wrong for her.

  “You hungry?” Rhonda asked. “I’ve got candy bars in my pants pockets.”

  “You did come prepared. Maybe later,” she replied. “I don’t really want to know what else you packed in those pockets.”

  Weapons? Her father carried a knife, but she refused to. She didn’t have time for a regular workout routine, but she tried to keep in shape. If things got bad, she’d be hauling ass out of here.

  Their line circled back to face the statue, now surrounded by shouting and angry gestures. Someone from their side threw a sheet over it. A white guy wearing a leather vest and no shirt yanked it back off just as fast. The N word sprinkled the air.

  The first punch hit one of their own, the man dropping to the ground. Crap! They should have left already. What if something happened to them? Or her parents? Panic s
eized her belly. Where were her parents?

  “Oh, shit. Here we go,” Rhonda exclaimed. “It’s on! It’s on!”

  Dee’s eyes widened in disbelief as her friend dropped into a guerilla stance, reached into one of her pockets, and pulled out a knife. One punch followed another until the entire crowd was fighting or trying to run away from it. She kicked off her sandals and gripped them in one hand by the straps, more than ready to do the latter.

  The band’s guitar hit a sour note, and Rodney’s voice faded into a whispered “oh, fuck no” before the microphone squealed.

  But Dee had forgotten all about Breeze because some pissed-off guy near Rhonda was bleeding, his buddy had a knife, too, and someone swung a fist…

  Everything went black before Dee hit the ground.

  * * *

  Rodney concentrated on relaxing his vocal cords when they began the next song. This gig had been a mistake from the beginning. Playing on a sidewalk was nowhere as convenient or secure as a stage. At least the police helped keep the fans from mauling them.

  He had to admit, the statue was kind of scary looking. Not something he’d want to put in his backyard, anyway. As usual, he scanned the audience for a woman or two to sing to. It helped him inject emotion into the song and probably gained him another fan for life.

  More often than not, he ended up in bed with one of them after the show. But groupies had gotten old. They were fun for a night, but few women could handle a relationship with a famous musician. Always on the road, putting the music first, and tempted at every turn.

  Two women of color marched in front of them. The one in the pink T-shirt acted pretty rude, giving the finger to everyone, including the band. Well, he definitely wasn’t going to make eyes at her.

  The other, however. Now, she looked sweet. Big brown eyes matching her curly hair, which ended well above her shoulders. The fact she’d worn a skirt to a rally resonated with the Southern gentleman in him. Gazing at her endless, golden-brown legs, however, made him feel anything but.

  When she looked at him, he did a double take. Despite the Confederate flag Jack insisted on waving here, she had admiring fan written all over her face. Whose side was she on, anyway? Had she come here looking for peace, like him?

  The marching line led her away from the stage, making him itch to run after her. Suddenly, shouts pierced the air. People had been yelling all day, but these sounded different. Shrieks and screams followed as fists and knives flashed.

  The peaceful rally had turned into a massive barroom brawl.

  He cursed under his breath, stopped singing, and turned to glare at Jack who wailed on his guitar like a man possessed. The rapture on his face curdled Rodney’s stomach. Holy hell. He was actually enjoying the spectacle!

  “Stop playing,” he ordered the band.

  “Keep on,” Jack countered, launching into one of their hell-raising songs.

  The rest of the band stared from one to another, not knowing who to follow. Well, Rodney intended to take care of that issue when this ordeal was over. He’d been giving his brother too much power. Some people just couldn’t handle it.

  He tried to think of a song to play about harmony and peace, but the excitement had caused his mind to stop working. Another to-do item after the gig would be to write one. When the pretty protester girl dropped to the ground, blood trickling down her face and turning one side of her skirt red, he jumped off the stage.

  Joe, their security manager, ran after him. “Rodney, get your ass back here. Time to go.”

  But he didn’t listen. He dropped to his knees beside the girl and gripped her hand. Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Rodney?” she whispered.

  “You got that right,” he replied. “What’s your name?”

  “Dee Dobson,” her friend said. “Now, get your bigoted self out of our way so I can take her to a hospital.”

  Sirens wailed as more police arrived on the scene. A couple of ambulances did, too. The slightly injured rushed toward them while others dragged or carried the ones worse off.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” the woman yelled when he picked Dee up. “Put her down.”

  “I can get her to the hospital faster than they can,” he said, nodding toward the ambulances. “You coming?”

  She glared at him for a second, but she must have decided to trust him because she fell into step beside him and told him her name was Rhonda.

  “What the hell?” Jack demanded when he saw the woman in Rodney’s arms.

  “We’re going to the hospital. Pack up the band, will you?”

  He and Jack had come in a rental vehicle—a deluxe silver pickup truck—while the rest of the band drove a rented van with the equipment. Joe drove the truck while Rodney sat with Dee in its backseat. Her head lay in his lap, and he did his best to stanch her bleeding with some paper towels.

  Unfortunately, it meant he had to pull up the side of her skirt. At the same time, he kept her stable through the quick turns they made in heavy traffic. His black jeans were ruined, but he didn’t care.

  From what he could tell, she’d been punched in the face and stabbed in the hip. At least she was breathing and conscious, but she acted dazed, probably still in shock.

  “Where…we going?” she whispered.

  He barely heard her above the roar of the engine as the truck raced along the highway.

  “To the hospital,” he said, stroking her hair. “Don’t try to talk.”

  “Why are you helping us?” Rhonda asked from the passenger seat, her voice thin with worry instead of the earlier attitude.

  “Because I feel responsible,” he admitted. “Playing at a rally was my brother’s idea. I should’ve known how it would turn out.”

  “A lot of people got injured. Why save us?”

  “I couldn’t save everyone.” He shrugged. “She looks…special.”

  Rhonda cocked her head. “No shit? She does need a man, and she was making eyes at you the whole time.”

  “Shut…your…mouth,” Dee muttered.

  The emergency room was a bigger zoo than the rally. Because she’d been stabbed, she was a high priority, but he didn’t leave her side until they forced him to.

  “Does she have insurance?” he asked Rhonda at the information desk.

  “Yeah, she’s an attorney.” From one of her many pockets, she pulled out a change purse with Dee’s ID and insurance card.

  “Whatever insurance doesn’t cover, I will, okay?” What else would he spend his money on? Booze? Drugs for the band, which he never touched himself? A bigger boat? A newer truck? None of it had any meaning.

  Rhonda raised her eyebrows. “Dang, you do have a thing for her.”

  When his cell phone rang, he stepped outside to take the call. Like a shadow, Joe followed him.

  “We’re at the municipal airport,” Jack said. “Our charter plane is fueled up and ready to go. Where are you?”

  “Still at the hospital. I’m going to be here for a while.”

  “How much is a while?” his brother asked with an impatient huff.

  “Hours? Overnight? However long it takes. Dee is in surgery.”

  “Who the hell is Dee? That black woman you rescued?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you flipped your lid, man?” Jack asked. “She’s a complete stranger. Get your ass to the airport so we can go home and rest up for our upcoming tour.”

  “I have to stay, even if it means delaying the tour.” Rodney raked a hand through his long hair. “We’re responsible for at least some of those injuries. You’re the one who got us into this mess, remember?”

  “You’re on your own, then,” Jack said before the connection went dead.

  Which meant Rodney would have to hire his own charter plane or fly commercial with his security manager. He’d probably do the latter. First class wasn’t so bad, and those small planes gave him the creeps.

  Why had he attached himsel
f to a stranger? Did he simply need a change in his life? He’d be hard put to think of a bigger one than taking up with an African-American woman. His Southern roots had been his entire identity. Now, he didn’t know who the hell he was, and it didn’t feel good. She’d be in good hands here, so why not leave? Go back to his life.

  Pocketing his phone, he walked back into the hospital and found Rhonda in the overflowing waiting room, face buried in a magazine.

  “Any word?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. To his dismay, some fans recognized him and rushed over with requests for autographs and a million questions. A couple of reporters even joined in. Why was he here? Where was the rest of the band? Had any of them gotten hurt? Was he upset the statue would be moved to a museum?

  It would?

  He made his face blank and said no comment. At least the bloodshed today, including Dee’s, hadn’t been for nothing. Southern gentility was about making people feel welcome. The fierceness of the statue, especially near a library where children visited, didn’t represent that.

  If he’d taken the time to think the issue out earlier, he never would have done today’s gig. But then, he’d never have met Dee. He must have met her for a reason, and he couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

  A couple of hours later, she was out of surgery. He jumped out of his seat, but a white man with long, salt-and-pepper hair and the black woman with him beat him to it. When the doctor said Dee should completely recover from her concussion and stab wound, between the hip bone and top of her femur, Rodney experienced an elation he hadn’t felt in a while.

  He tagged along with Rhonda to her room. “Are those her parents?”

  “Yep.”

  They looked as Southern as he was. The father wore a flannel shirt and work boots, and the mother had on a plain cotton dress. When they reached Dee’s room, the older woman rushed to her bedside. The man, seeming to notice Rodney for the first time, glared at him with hard green eyes.