REDEEMING THE ROSE: GILDED KNIGHTS SERIES BOOK 1 Read online

  Nixon bolts from his post. Luc dumps his patient. Kari releases the woman she relocated.

  And I look back at the little girl—dead already, at peace—and her grieving father.

  I let her go, the way I’m supposed to, detach myself from my own personal feelings of guilt, and grabbing the father, I use all my strength and spin us both away so we crash to the ground some ten feet from where we began.

  Scrambling to my knees, I throw myself over top of him, cover his body with mine, even as he fights me. Pin him to the dirt, even as his fists slam into my ribs, my kidneys, my chest. Then when the unit slams to the ground, bringing with it fire, heat, sparks, and red-hot air that burns my legs, I curl in closer and close my eyes while the fire crews do what they’re trained to.

  Preserve life first. Then property.

  One of the truck crews turns their hoses on the unit, simply because it’s too hot, and too near me and the guy, but a mere second after that, Nix and Luc reach us, and I’m swept up by my brother’s hands and dragged toward the rig.

  Luc grabs the father, and when the guy fights him on it, he fights back. The father wants his baby. He wants to go back to her. But Luc won’t allow it; he won’t allow his life, or the father’s, to be put in danger for a lost cause.

  “She’s gone,” I say… for me, for him, I’m not sure who. But I repeat it. “She’s gone. She was already gone before she came out of the building.”

  “It’s okay.” Nix drags me toward safety. “You did the job.”

  “She was already gone.” Tears burn my eyes—from the smoke, I’m certain of it. “I couldn’t save her.”

  “I know.”

  He shoves me around to the back of the rig, then he pushes me down to sit on the bumper. My ass is inside, but my feet are on the dirt. My eyes come down to find my shoes are smoking, my pants, holey and singed with black edges.

  “You did the job.” Nix palms the back of my head and pulls me close. “It’s okay.”

  “I didn’t wanna let her go.”

  “It’s okay. You tried.” Like me, he chants, he repeats, and with any luck, he’ll eventually believe and be able to live with the decisions we made tonight. “She couldn’t be saved. It’s okay to let go.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.” I glance up, and when I catch sight of Luc and the father, I say it again. Gravelly voiced, pain in every syllable. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ll kill you!” The man tries to surge from Luc’s hold. “Rosa!” He reads the tag on my shirt, and fights Luc’s steely grip. “Rosa! I will end you!”

  1

  Nadia Reynolds

  You Look Like A Porn Star, Ya Know That?

  A fresh new start, in a fresh new town. A new home, with four new walls, new rugs, and new dishes. I’ll need new curtains and new sheets. Most of all, new memories and new friends, because the ones I have, turns out, aren’t very nice.

  To reach the ripe old age of twenty-six and find myself with nothing to my name but someone else’s money, a 2000 Ford Taurus, and a set of estate papers folded neatly in my purse on the passenger seat, makes me feel a little… oh, I don’t know. Empty.

  I’ve spent the last eighteen months of my life living for someone else; sleeping in their space, cleaning their home, and making sure the world doesn’t implode while their back is turned. I mean, I could be talking about a man, I suppose. There are women who’ve wasted years—decades, even—living for a man. Living under his reign, wasting her time, too scared and too controlled to leave.

  Fortunately, that’s not me.

  Score one for Nadia for always being too afraid of commitment to ever truly jump in with one man.

  No, for the last eighteen months, I’ve been my Aunt Tracey’s everything. Her caregiver while she fought against an autoimmune disease that started from seemingly nowhere.

  She was once a business mogul, a rich executive who commanded thousands of staff and had minute-by-minute assistants who took care of anything she needed. But then it all dissolved, like sand through her fingers, when she got slammed by a nasty little disease once known as Churg Strauss Syndrome.

  My limited reading between chores leads me to believe the disease is no longer referred to as Churg Strauss, and instead, has been replaced with one of those fancy, thirty-vowel names whose intention is to sound worse. But for the sake of my brain, I go with the abbreviation: EGPA.

  Once my aunt—my mom’s sister—was diagnosed, it was a fast slide from ‘This doesn’t feel so great’ to ‘Aw fuck, let’s get my estate in order.’

  My mom passed away long ago. Funny how, now that I have more context, I wonder if her illnesses might have been autoimmune-related also, but that’s a thought for another day, another sleepless night.

  Like many lone children of single moms, I may have learned my aversion to commitment from her. The difference was, she was addicted to men, to relationships, to living for someone else. And because I was front row for that show all of my life, I swung the other way; this chick isn’t touching any of the commitment dicks. No siree. Not me.

  It was just me and Mom for the longest time, but Aunt Tracey was a regular “swing by”. As in, she was busy living her rich and important lifestyle with her husband and two daughters, but Tracey would swing by when she could. She’d visit, hang out and bring sweet gifts, things she saw when she wasn’t purposely looking, and if she thought of me, she’d buy it for her only niece and tuck it away for the next swing.

  Eventually, as often happens with successful women whose husbands suffer from a well-known disease called Small Man With A Small Dick Syndrome, Uncle David’s manhood felt threatened. He needed his ego soothed, and who better to do that than one of Tracey’s twenty-something-year-old assistants?

  David was caught with his dick in the assistant’s mouth and was subsequently booted out of the family home. He took the fine china, got himself a fancy lawyer, and ended up with a fat little payout, since Tracey was doing so well, and he, David, was skilled with bullshit and lies.

  Either way, in the end, Tracey considered that payout the price of admission, cut him a check for the agreed upon amount and not a cent more, then she celebrated her emancipation with an ‘I’m divorced!’ party, at which point, she learned the difference between a husband who was selfish in bed, and a man who was ready and willing to blow her mind.

  For free, even!

  Smiling at that memory, I indicate toward the shoulder of the mostly empty freeway, and angle for my exit. I shake my head in the darkness and remember back to when my aunt told me that story.

  She was high on pain meds, she was miserable and trying to hide just how much she was hurting, but she told me of that party with such glee. Possibly not something she should have told her niece—whether I was ten, or twenty-six—but still, she was so pleased with herself. The ultimate payback against a man with a fragile ego: to fuck another dude and actually enjoy it.

  That’s what Tracey did in her final years; she worked, she fucked, and sadly for her, she raced head-first into an illness that would take her out faster than she ever thought possible.

  Tracey’s clients were handed over to her colleagues when she got too sick, her fancy office given to someone else once she stopped coming in. Her lawyer visited with us often, to make sure everything was in order, and after a while, it just became an unspoken understanding that I would stay.

  The fact I’ve called her home mine for the last eighteen months was unintentional. I swung her way one weekend, with plans to visit and hang out with my favorite auntie, but before my planned two-day stay was up, I’d caught wind of trouble. Tracey’s ex was vying for a little attention, and her two children—who, unfortunately, took a little too much after their father—were frothing at the mouth for what this could mean for them.

  Money.

  It’s the root of all evil, I’m certain.

  They wanted in on the will, wanted all of the details, and would corral the lawyer on her
way in and out of the house.

  Tracey, being Tracey, switched shit up… made me executor of her will, kicked her ex-husband out completely—she hadn’t been steely about it up to that point, which meant he waltzed in and out at his pleasure—then she added some nasty little clauses and trust accounts for her children.

  It didn’t matter that my cousins were old enough to have a say; it didn’t matter that one had already completed her college education, and the other, high school; they would not receive a cent from their mother’s estate until they’d satisfied the terms she’d set out. And the terms included things like helping the poor, volunteering with the disadvantaged, and making friends with people who would teach them a little appreciation and humility.

  So I have papers that outline all of these conditions, and have dollar signs listed beside each task. Once the girls complete each new thing, they unlock a little more money.

  I’m the sucker in charge of this shitshow, and what’s worse is that I have my own section in the will. I have money coming my way, property and assets, all with my name next to them, and they come with no conditions at all, except one: accept a house in a sleepy little town far, far away from where Aunt Tracey lived and died.

  I have access to enough money to keep me going for a long time; not so much that I’m trading in my Taurus or buying Louis Vuitton, but enough that I can pursue a career I want without worrying about making rent.

  Not that rent will be an issue, since the house is fully paid for, and, well, now it’s all mine.

  The fact I have it so ‘easy’, when my cousins have to jump through hoops that they consider ridiculous, makes me public enemy number one. I’m the bitch, they’re out for blood, and all I have to help me along are the papers on my passenger seat—a roadmap, of sorts—and the phone number for Tracey’s lawyer in case I have questions.

  Personally, instead of a house and role as executive bitch in this mess, I think I would have preferred the party planner contact who organized the divorce shindig. But hey, beggars and choosers and all that.

  Slowing as I approach a sharp bend leading toward this small town, I reach out and turn off my stereo—goodbye, Kelly Clarkson—and without that noise, I somehow convince my tired self that I can see better.

  The road I travel along is narrow, bendy, and lined on both sides with trees and thick foliage, which means I can’t see the town, or anything that resembles a town, until I’m practically on top of it. Winding road makes way for a set of train tracks that make the do-do do-do sound beneath my tires as I cross them at fifty miles per hour. But once I pass those, I turn just one corner, the road widens, and bam! Town.

  “Oh wow.” I straighten my spine, and angle closer to the steering wheel to catch a better look at this sleepy little village.

  It’s closing in on midnight, the moon is shining bright, and beside it is millions of stars, but almost every storefront on this street is shut down, lights out, doors closed.

  I slowly putter along Main and glance through the windows in search of my new favorite place. I pass a bakery, an ice cream shop, a studio, and a few other small businesses. I pass through a set of traffic lights that seem so out of place on a street whose only car is the one I sit in. But then I pass a place called Franky’s, and though the illuminated inside makes me slow and look closer, the people at the front door locking up signal they’re done for the day.

  A woman with thick, black hair the very opposite to my ash blonde is owner of an ass even my heterosexual self sighs at, and beside her, a man keeps an eye on her, on the diner, and on the street, all at once. They chatter between themselves and laugh at something I’ll never be privy to as she works the keys in the locks. The moment she’s done, they turn in my direction, stop, and watch me pass, just as I watch them.

  Is this what a small town feels like? I wonder.

  Will the good folks down at town hall know of the new chick before I even reach the house? Will there be meetings, discussions, plans made to scope out the newcomer to make sure I’m going to be a positive addition to the town that Aunt Tracey’s letter assures me is made up of kindness and close-knit families?

  “Make friends,” her letter said. “And don’t piss anybody off. Everyone knows everyone, and every old person knows everything.”

  “Geez. That’s a lot of pressure.”

  I say it to myself—and to Kelly Clarkson too, I suppose, if she’s listening in. But then my GPS tells me to turn right at the end of this block. So I do, and I follow instructions all the way to the address I typed in when I left my old, unused apartment at five o’clock this morning.

  I packed my things, handed in my keys, made sure to leave a little extra bird seed on the balcony for my fleet of visitors who’ve made it a routine to drop in and sing for me, and then I was gone, armed with a drive-thru coffee and enough music to make my ears bleed.

  Slowing in the darkness out front of a beautiful two-story home with a narrow porch and a wire-screened door hanging off-center, I pull up the handbrake and cut the ignition so all I hear is the clicking of my hot engine, and the chirp of a few evening bugs in the air outside my rolled-up windows.

  The house is dark—uninhabited for years, from what Aunt Tracey told me—but the shutters are cute. The paint is peeling, and the hinges are rusting away, adding themselves to my to-do list. But none of this, nor the broken door, nor the weedy garden, nor the overgrown grass, feels like a burden. Rather, I view it as a fun adventure I can’t wait to get started on. Painting, planting, weeding, and decorating. I’ll sage the place first chance I get tomorrow, chase away any lingering negativity the Reynoldses who came before me left, then I’ll furnish and thrive.

  Tracey’s letter assures me there’s furniture inside, but that same letter also warned me to be careful while sitting. “Go slow,” it said. “Don’t flop down. Because you might just fall on your ass if the bugs got in and ate it all away.”

  Bearing that advice in mind, I came prepared today with a sleeping bag, since I don’t want to sleep in bug-riddled sheets on a bed that may or may not dissolve under my weight. Then tomorrow, when the sun is up and the bugs are hiding in the floorboards, I’ll take stock of what’s good, what’s dusty, and what needs to be replaced. I’ll collate the wall art and decide what I want to keep, and the rest, I’ll donate to someone who wants it more. I’ll go into town and find myself a shop that sells the good crystals and sage, and if there is no such shop, perhaps when I’m called into that town meeting I’m sure is coming, I’ll suggest it.

  Every town needs a local witch to keep the gross stuff away.

  After my explorations, cleaning, sorting, purging, and cleansing—and a shower in my new bathroom—I’ll go to my job interview, and hopefully cement my position in this town, living the life I’ve always wanted, doing work that isn’t really going to pay the bills, but will hopefully make my heart soar. And as an added bonus, I might just be able to hide away from the handful of people who want my head, purely because they think it’s my fault they have to be nice to people so they can get a payout from their dead mother.

  Unsnapping my seatbelt with an odd grin creeping across my face, I grab my handbag, keys, and the coffee cup I long ago emptied, then I climb out of my car with a groan. My body has been unused for too long today, my muscles contoured to the shape of my seat, and the springs that don’t sit exactly where they used to when they were brand new.

  Closing the door with a too-loud slam—sorry, neighbors—and coming around to the passenger side, I open the door and reach in for Milo’s carrier and the file of paperwork Aunt Tracey foolishly left for me to deal with.

  “What a jerk.” I grunt when I lift Milo’s carrier to a symphony of enraged hisses from my one and only housemate.

  Milo is an eight-pound, three-year-old, black-furred with golden patches, golden-eyed… pain in my ass. He’s a cat. And that might be the kindest thing I can say about him.

  He hisses again, pissed at me, and swipes a paw through the bars of the ca
ge with the intention of tossing a little pain my way. He’s furious that he had to live in a cage for a whole day. Under a blanket, in tiny living quarters, forced to endure my operatic singing for fifteen hours straight.

  “You’re gonna be fine. Two more minutes.” I bump the car door closed with my hip. “Just two minutes until we’re inside, then I’ll free you, and you can go pee on something. Happy?”

  If meows could be translated to English, I’m certain Milo is saying something along the lines of ‘Listen here, bitch.’ But since that cannot be confirmed, I’m going to assume he’s waxing poetic about how he adores me.

  While I make a beeline for the porch steps, I still take a moment to study the narrow footpath that splits the front yard in two. On each side of it are overgrown and messy flowerbeds. Rimmed by what appears to be red gum, they make the perfect bed for what I’ll spend a little time digging through over the next few months.

  In the spring, I’ll plant something colorful and bright, and by then, I’ll have fixed my shutters and bought a cute chair for the porch, which means I’ll be able to spend my evenings sitting out here with something yummy in a sparkling crystal glass. Then finally, I’ll partake in the town’s tradition of watching everyone and knowing everyone’s business.

  “Sounds perfect, huh, Milo? Doesn’t that sound like heaven?”

  Meow.

  ‘Fuck you, twat.’

  “Well, alright.”

  I set his carrier on the creaking timber porch, carefully pull the squeaky screen door open, and propping it with my hip, I juggle my bag and paperwork until I get to my keys. Selecting the right one, I insert it into the lock and grit my teeth when it takes a little wiggling to get the lock to budge.

  Don’t snap the key, I chant to myself. Don’t snap the key. Don’t snap the key.