The Proviso (102 page)

That did take him aback, this new and different
Justice McKinley. He hesitated, then bucked up and chuckled. “Naw,
ya won’t, girl. You might even like it. Now, you put that shoe down
and we can have a little fun before I let you call Hilliard to come
bail you out.”

She hefted her shoe in her hand, feeling for the
right angle, looking at him through narrowed eyes. She couldn’t
remember ever being so outraged.

You have to walk barefoot through fire on broken
glass.

The feeling—it was never a thought—infused her with
strength and courage. She fired her shoe at him with such force
that the heel drew blood where it hit him in the face, barely
missing his eyeball. He howled, clutching at his cheek.

She picked up her other shoe and aimed for his
crotch. Once he’d doubled over, she slid across the smooth concrete
floor in her stockinged feet and plucked his gun out of his
holster. Stepping back, firm on her feet then and pointing it at
him two-handed, she said, in a terrifying voice, a voice she didn’t
know she had:

“You picked the wrong woman, Raines. That girl who
walked in here five months ago is long gone. You want me to drag
your sorry ass upstairs to Knox and let you tell him what happened
or do you want me to blow your face off?”

“No need,” came Knox’s emotionless baritone from the
door to the holding cell block. He stepped aside to allow in a
couple of deputies and said, “False imprisonment and attempted
rape. I’ll figure out what else I want to add to the list and
arraign him myself.” He looked at Justice, his eyebrow raised.
“You’re late for work. Again. Get your shit together and get to my
office.”

He left. Just like that.

She rolled her eyes and collected her shoes, but
didn’t put them on, preferring instead the stability of flat feet;
now that the crisis had passed, her thighs and knees trembled and
threatened to buckle. The property clerk handed back her holster,
gun, badge, briefcase, and purse. She was still missing one
thing.

She looked around the office and saw the trooper who
had arrested her. He looked miserable. “You—” she snapped and
pointed at him. He barely looked up in time to duck her car keys,
thrown at him so hard it put a hole in the plaster behind him,
right where his head had been. “Find someone and go get my
car.”

Every man in that office looked at her with an awe
and respect they had never shown her—and she
liked
it.

She shrugged into her shoulder holster and put away
her gun. Blazer, badge. She straightened her dress and didn’t care
who looked at her nearly-uncovered ass when she bent clear over to
do it, her hands up her skirt to adjust the lining. She glanced up
to see that the state trooper was still there.

“Why are you still here?” she barked, making him
scramble.

Justice jogged up the stairs, shoes in hand, purse
over shoulder. She strode into the office like she owned the place,
her large copper curls bouncing. She looked neither left nor right
and proceeded directly to Knox’s office, shoving the door open so
hard it banged back against the wall. She thunked her shoes on his
desk, right on top of the file he was studying.

“The county owes me a new pair of shoes,” she
demanded, daring him to challenge her.

Knox looked up at her slowly then and she realized
why he sat at his desk, not prowling around like a caged lion as
usual. His eyes were the darkest blue she’d ever seen them and she
sucked in a breath, her own eyes wide, wondering if she could get
away with closing the door and staying awhile.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he muttered tersely,
grabbing the shoes, dropping them in a desk drawer.

“Thank you,” she said and turned on a heel.

“McKinley.”

She stopped, but didn’t dare look at him.

“The next time you’re late—most likely tomorrow—you
better have a better excuse than you had today. And I hope you’re
not planning to go into a courtroom with bare feet.”

“Nope.”

And she slammed the door behind her on the way
out.

* * * * *

Justice went home that night with a new and profound
sense of purpose. Knox had tricked her into marrying him, but she’d
chosen to come back—and it had been the right decision.

I promise you, there will come a day when all this
will have been worth it and you’ll be glad you persevered.

Yes, Giselle had known what would happen to her, how
Knox felt about her—had known from the minute he touched Justice in
class and sent her out to buck Sherry up against a tree until she
nearly passed out.

Now she wanted more. She wouldn’t live in that wreck
of a house one more second. She really wanted to be his wife
publicly, but she knew that wouldn’t happen until the handoff of
OKH had taken place: Fen would have no reason to hunt her down and
Kevin could stay clear of any association with Knox. Justice wanted
children with Knox, but not before the deadline. Of course, they
hadn’t done anything to prevent that.

But for right now, today, she wanted some stability
in their marriage and their life together and it had to start in
the kitchen.

She walked in the house and yelled. “Knox!”

“What?!” he yelled back from the basement.

“I want to talk to you.”

She waitedwaitedwaited and then heard his footsteps
on the stairs and waited some more until he was fully present and
engaged. “What?”

“I want a new kitchen.”

His jaw dropped. “You what?”

“I want a new kitchen. This is a piece of shit and
if I had the means to call a tow truck and have it towed, I would.
If I’m going to live here the rest of my life, I am NOT—repeat,
NOT—going to live in this Brady Bunch monstrosity with chipboard
furniture.”

He leaned against the door jamb and crossed his
arms. “You planning on living here the rest of your life?”

“Yes, I am,” she said defiantly.

“What if I want to live somewhere else?”

“Then you’ll build me a house to my
specifications.”

“You’re awfully uppity today. Was it the shoes?”

She ignored that. “And also? I want natural gas.
Electricity is useless to cook on and I’m just not going to live
like this. You might be okay with a bed and a roof, but
I
want a home. We can keep the bed,” she muttered as an afterthought.
“I like it.”

“Well, you’re on a roll; first Raines, then that
poor little state trooper you terrified out of his wits, then
storming into my office demanding new shoes. And now you want a
kitchen.”

“And you know what? You’ll do it, too, because you
love me.”

That wonderful sunshine of a grin slowly took over
his face. “So what if I do? That doesn’t mean I’m going to give you
everything
you want.”

“I’ll give you a blow job.”

That surprised a bark of laughter out of him. “You’d
do that anyway. You
like
giving me blow jobs.”

“Well, okay, that’s true.” She turned to go to the
bedroom and, over her shoulder, said, “But I still want a new
kitchen.”

She squealed with laughter when he grabbed her
around the waist and spun her around. He put her back down and
turned her around to kiss her.

“Knox, did you know I’d been arrested?”

“No. You’re never more than a half hour late, so
when it was going on an hour, I was starting to get worried. I
thought for sure Fen had found out about you and gotten to you. One
of the defense attorneys who’d seen you brought in came to me and
told me what happened. She was worried what might happen to you in
Raines’s jail.”

“How much did you see?”

“All of it. I would’ve stepped in if you were in
over your head, but I knew you had him dead to rights the minute
you picked up your shoe. And you know what?”

“What?”

“You were
hot
. Come to bed.”

* * * * *

95:
PIXIE DUST

Justice awakened at midnight only to find she was
alone, and she waited for Knox to come back, but he didn’t. Dim
light pierced the darkness as usual and she decided to go find him.
Not in the basement. Probably out in the barn.

It had grown cold at night now, so she had to put on
socks and Crocs and a heavy robe over her nude body before she went
trudging outside and across the lawn, the Puccini growing louder
with each step. She rounded the corner, not surprised to find him
and Sebastian in the middle of a yelling match.

She sighed and marched herself in to break it up,
only to stop short when she saw the canvas. She stepped back,
looking up and up and up, and gasped, her hand over her mouth and
her eyes wide.

The music died abruptly and Sebastian yelled, “Knox,
it’s none of your business!” and walked across the barn toward
Justice. “You like?”

“Oh, Eilis!” Justice whispered, awed and reverent.
“She’s
beautiful
.”

“Yes,” Knox sneered as he approached them, “and
Sebastian just can’t bear to go back to her and beg and grovel for
forgiveness.”

“Look, I tried to explain. I’ve emailed her. I’ve
called her but she won’t take my calls. She doesn’t feel needed at
HRP, so she’s pretty much stopped going to work except to sign
paychecks and nobody misses her. She won’t let me in her gate.
Giselle won’t tell me when she’s at their house so I can ambush
her. I can’t seem to get to a tribe party when she’s there because
of business and I do
not
want the tribe to know about our
relationship since it seems to be dead in the water. I’ve begged
and groveled every which way I know how. What the hell am I
missing? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Knox wiped his hand down his face and relented with
a sigh. “I don’t know, Sebastian. She asked me about you.”

“Yeah, tell her to talk to me personally instead of
mooching information off her brother.”

“I did. But. In case you forget, she,” Knox went on,
pointing up at the goddess, “is as much
my
business as
Justice is yours.”

“Not true. She,” Sebastian said, pointing to the
canvas, “can help us. Queen Mab here,” he said, throwing his thumb
at Justice, “is crucial. She doesn’t get pregnant, you’re done and
then I’m at war. She’s the woman you love and gave everything up
for and she’s the woman who chose to come back, knowing
all
the ramifications.

“I was just fine with doing it your way once Kenard
and Oakley threw in with me, but now that you’ve got a chance at
meeting the proviso with her, I’d like you to at least
try
to fight your own fight. There’s still the election, although I’m
pretty sure Fen’s gone through his funds by now and, as Mab
continues to remind me, I’m going to end up in the hot seat whether
Kevin’s elected or not and there’s still HRP to deal with.”

“A—Bryce is dealing with HRP, so that dog don’t
hunt. B—You’ve been enjoying the hell out of this takeover since
you acquired cohorts. You’re not exactly a martyr. C—It’s not like
you’re going to be in that hot seat all by your lonesome, so go
whine at someone else. You get summoned to Capitol Hill, so do I.
And Bryce. Hell, let’s make it a party and bring the women along
for shits and grins because at this point, they’re all knee deep in
it, too. D—Whatever happens with a baby is up to the Lord and you
know how I feel about having one before the deadline anyway.”

Sebastian ignored that and speared Justice with a
look. “Are you pregnant yet?”

“No.”

“Get that way,” he snapped and stalked out the
opposite barn doors.

Knox looked at her and chuckled, wrapping his arm
around her shoulders and walking her to the barn doors where the
light switch was. Then he picked her up and took her in the house
and laid her down in the bed.

“Why has everyone started to call me Queen Mab?” she
asked when Knox kissed her slowly, teasing.

“Queen Mab is a faery queen, the bringer of dreams,”
he whispered. “Shakespeare refers to her in
Romeo and
Juliet
: ‘She gallops night by night through lovers’ brains, and
then they dream of love . . . ’ I’d quote you the whole thing but
you’d fall asleep.”

“So?”

“So you look like a faery queen, Iustitia. Queen
Mab, bringer of dreams. You brought my dreams to me.”

* * * * *

96:
FERTILE SOIL

Eilis gardened. She didn’t have much to do at HRP
and she hadn’t yet thought of any other business projects she
wanted to pursue, so she went out to her garden and worked from
sunup to sundown.

She dug in the hard clay soil by hand, something she
hadn’t done since she got her backhoe, because she needed that kind
of backbreaking labor. On the weekends, Giselle would often come,
sometimes with Bryce, to learn about plants. Eilis wasn’t sure if
she was really interested or if she was faking it for Eilis’s sake,
though she did seem more interested in cooking herbs than anything
else. Either way, Eilis was grateful for the company and support of
her family.

Justice and Knox showed up a couple of times a week
for dinner; neither she nor Justice could get enough of Knox’s
tales of the Dunham tribe and the stories of his growing up. Eilis
came to know her brother better and like slowly turned to love, the
same kind he had for Giselle and Sebastian and Bryce, and filled in
the holes in her soul that Trudy and Fen had shot into it. Justice,
Giselle, and Eilis spent a lot of time at the spa and it felt good
and right to have other women to talk about sex with, who could
help her smooth out the few remaining nicks in her psyche.

One Saturday morning, she opened her gate to find a
delivery truck idling. As Bryce directed it in, he pointed to a
spot where she’d once absently said she wanted something that
looked like Hadrian’s wall. The truck door slid open and she gasped
as five pallets of river stone were unloaded, along with a pallet
of cement mix, bagged sand, wood, and other assorted tools that
looked brand new.