Walk Through Fire

  Because the longer she gave him nothing much, the more she figured she courted a betrayal that was not hers to claim—a betrayal of the heart—but as his wife it was hers to claim… legally.

  “I know, Deb,” he replied to her free agent comment. “And we’ll talk more when I got you face to face.”

  “You want to introduce her to the girls,” she surmised.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed.

  “Okay,” she stated. “We’ll talk. But it’s not like I didn’t know this would happen and I trust you. You wouldn’t bring just any woman into the girls’ lives. And anyway, I think this would be good for Cleo. She worries about you. It might even be good for Zadie. She needs to get her head wrapped around the end of us and if you’re moving on, that might happen.”

  High wasn’t surprised at her reaction to him having a woman in his life. She wasn’t about jealousy. She wasn’t about anything but her daughters. It was like she knew from what her father taught her that she’d never have that kind of love in her life, so she convinced herself early she could live without it.

  And she did a bang-up job.

  He didn’t try. That was never what they were about. He was hung up on Millie and that was the way it was.

  He’d never shared about Millie. Even as his wife, as fucked up as it was, that wasn’t Deb’s to have, partly because she wouldn’t have wanted it.

  But even if he had tried, he wouldn’t have gotten in there. She’d closed that part of her up so tight, he often wondered if it wasn’t her dad but instead was just her.

  “Right, we’ll set something up,” he muttered.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  “The girls up?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she told him, and he smiled.

  They wouldn’t be. His girls liked their sleep. Since they shared a room, they also liked giggling into the night. Their sharing a room was something that he demanded, wanting them to have that together time to bond as sisters. It was also something he never told Deb he wanted because Millie had it with Dottie and remembered it fondly.

  “I’ll call later and talk with ’em,” he said.

  “That’s cool,” she replied. “Later, High.”

  “Later, Deb.”

  They disconnected and he put the phone down on the counter, reaching to the coffee grinder and hoping him using it couldn’t be heard through Millie’s bedroom door.

  As far as he could tell, it couldn’t. He had the coffee brewing and was unearthing a waffle iron that looked like it’d never been used when his phone rang again.

  He looked to the display and saw it was Tack.

  He didn’t answer. If Millie wasn’t up soon, he’d be waking her up, feeding her, fucking her, then talking to her about what was next up for them.

  That was important.

  Whatever Tack needed could wait.

  Since Millie didn’t have Bisquick, something High couldn’t fathom of the old Millie but something that he could (and it set his teeth on edge) about the new, he looked up a recipe on his phone. And since she had the ingredients for homemade, he was mixing the waffle batter when he saw a flash of motion.

  He lifted his head and caught Millie entering the living room teetering to a stop sideways, pajama bottoms on, still yanking down the top, her face a mix of sleep and panic.

  He felt his shoulders string taut as he went alert at her actions and expression.

  His shoulders relaxed and he felt warmth steel through him when her eyes hit him and visible relief hit her frame.

  She woke up alone, maybe disoriented because of jet lag, and thought he was gone, panicked, pulled on her clothes on the run, and came looking for him.

  His voice sounded strange even to him, low and smooth, when he called, “Come here, Millie.”

  She didn’t move for a beat, staring at him across the living room.

  “Babe,” he prompted.

  He lost her expression when she looked to her feet but those feet moved her toward him.

  They kept doing it and he turned so she was able to collide with his front, head still down, the top of it hitting his chest, her arms immediately moving to wrap around his waist.

  He slid his around her and pulled her closer—a lot closer—so she had to turn her head and press her cheek to his chest as he tucked the rest of her tight.

  He didn’t get in to how she’d made her entrance. He was there. He was going to make her waffles. It was all good and he didn’t need to take her there.

  Instead, he bent his neck and asked the top of her hair, “How you feelin’?”

  “Normal,” she muttered.

  “Good,” he replied.

  “Are we having waffles?” she asked.

  He grinned and answered, “Yeah.”

  “Awesome,” she said softly. “I love waffles.”

  She might love waffles, something he knew since she’d loved them before, but she liked it more where she was because she didn’t move.

  High wanted breakfast but he preferred holding Millie in her kitchen, so he let that go on for a while, giving it to himself, to her, before he decided it was time to take care of both of them.

  That was when he stated, “Not easy to make waffles for my girl with her wedged up against me.”

  She tipped her head back and he lifted his to catch her eyes.

  “Figure it out,” she bossed, and having moved her head, she didn’t move another inch.

  He grinned again and replied, “You feel like stayin’ close, not gonna complain, but you’re also gonna hafta help.”

  “I can do that,” she told him. “Though, I don’t smell bacon cooking.”

  He lifted his brows. “You want bacon with your waffles?”

  “Is bacon bacon?” she asked ridiculously.

  He felt his grin get bigger. “It’s a lot of things, including being bacon.”

  “Then, yes, I want bacon with my waffles.”

  She finished what she was saying but she did it talking through the doorbell ringing.

  Both of them looked to it but High suspected only he knew who it was.

  All the brothers and their women had left him and Millie alone yesterday but Tack had called twice that morning. The sun was shining. The crews would have been at work on the roads, but Tack would never let snow stop him doing anything.

  Especially if his woman was up in his shit about making sure High and Millie were okay.

  Something that Cherry totally would be.

  “Who’s out on these roads?” Millie asked.

  “Don’t matter,” High answered. “Two seconds, they’re gonna be gone.” He gave her a squeeze before separating from her and then he looked down at her. “You start the bacon. I’ll deal with the door.”

  She nodded.

  He moved.

  He saw who it was through the filmy curtain on the door and he wanted to turn right back around.

  He didn’t.

  He sighed, moved to the door, unlocked it, and opened it.

  Two kids, one a little girl, one a little boy who was holding his mom’s hand, Millie’s sister and her man.

  Before he could open his mouth, both kids started to make a dash inside but stopped dead when they saw who had opened the door.

  They also both stood staring up at him, mouths wide open, eyes big.

  But High was frozen.

  Solid.

  And he was this to fight the pain.

  It wasn’t the boy. The boy was cute. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Maybe three, four years old.

  It was the girl.

  She had her aunt’s eyes.

  She had her aunt’s hair.

  She had her aunt’s mole.

  All this something he wasn’t able to see fully when he took her in in the candid, but black-and-white photos Millie had around her pad.

  She was the vision of what he thought he’d have when he gave a girl to Millie.

  Exactly.

  She was adorable, top to toe, and the beauty of her carved out his i
nsides.

  “Well, I see you weathered the storm,” Dottie stated, and he tore his gaze from the little girl to look at her mother. “So, let’s get this started,” she went on. “Katy, Freddie, this is your uncle Low. Logan, these are my kids, Katy and Freddie. I think you can figure out which is which.”

  Katy.

  She’d named her daughter what Millie and him were going to name theirs.

  This wasn’t a surprise. It was her grandmother’s name too.

  And she’d do that kind of thing, Dot would, giving that to her sister when her sister couldn’t give it to the world.

  He forced his eyes back to the kids and rumbled, “Yo.”

  Their eyes got even bigger and their mouths opened even wider.

  That was cuter.

  And more painful.

  Then his world suspended completely when their attention was taken with something, they looked away from High and their faces lit with pure happiness.

  They forgot their amazement that a man had opened their aunt’s door and the girl shouted, “Auntie Millie! You’re back from France!”

  The boy just tore his hand from his mother’s and started running, hands up in the air waving.

  High turned to look and saw Millie in the hall, beaming at her niece and nephew, her hands up in the air waving like Freddie’s before she dropped to a squat and they both hit her, dead-on, taking her right to her ass.

  She didn’t care.

  Fuck no.

  Her laughter rang through the room, filled with joy, her face saturated with it—the first hint he had of his old Millie since he’d seen her again—as they crawled all over her and she wrapped herself in them, hugging them, holding them, tickling them.

  Loving on them.

  Christ.

  Christ.

  He thought he got it. He was sure he understood what she did to tear them apart.

  He didn’t get it.

  Not until then. Not until he watched that. Not until he felt the memories of a million moments just like that he’d had with his own girls.

  It was only then he got it.

  She’d saved him from this. She’d saved him from having to watch her never having this with their kids. She’d saved him from having to watch her only getting it when she got her hit of Dot’s kids.

  And she’d given him his own.

  It was all the same as what he thought he got but witnessing it made it more acute.

  So yeah, now he really fucking got it.

  And it killed.

  “Kids! For goodness’ sake! Get off your aunt Millie! You’ve got her pinned to the floor in her pajamas!” Dottie demanded, shoving in.

  “Jesus.” He heard a man mutter, and he slowly turned back to the door as Dot’s husband stood outside it, not moving, and went on critically, “Knew you were a biker but you’re rough.”

  High took in the big man with dark hair clipped short, undoubtedly due to that making it zero maintenance. He was wearing a white thermal under a padded flannel shirt, faded jeans, scuffed, worn work boots, and the whiskers on his face said he hadn’t used a razor in, High’s guess, at least three weeks.

  High then extended his hand and replied, “Right. You’re pot. Nice ta meet you. I’m kettle.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed.

  Dot burst out laughing.

  High dropped his hand that was ignored.

  “Auntie Millie!” the little girl cried in despair. “Your boyfriend’s name is kettle?”

  “Boyfriend?” the boy asked in disgust, his attention coming back to High and it was not difficult to see the kid found him lacking.

  “Alan, honey, do me a big favor and shut the door on that cold,” Dottie called. “And, no, I told you. That’s your uncle Logan,” she said to her kids. Then she kept talking. “So okay, how about we take this into the house where there’s coffee?” She looked at her sister, who was pulling herself up from the floor. “Alan insisted we come, not call, to check in on you. Sorry we’re interrupting but whatever. We’re here now and I’m two cups down since it took us twice as long as it normally does to get here on those blasted roads.”

  “I—” Millie started, but her attention came back to High when he had to shift back, something he did only slightly, to let in her brother-in-law.

  When the man was in, High shut the door while the little girl asked her aunt, “Did you bring us presents from France?”

  “Did I bring you presents from France,” Millie replied. Not a question, a scoffing astonishment. “I can barely go to the drugstore and not get you presents.”

  “Yay!” the girl screeched.

  All this went on while High and Dot’s husband faced off in the hall.

  Dot had caved when he’d confronted her. As she would. She’d been there. She knew.

  This guy, High had his work cut out for him.

  Their face-off continued until the little boy announced, “You’re not Auntie Millie’s boyfriend. I am.”

  High looked down at the kid whose face was now twisted with dislike and outrage and, fuck him, but he couldn’t beat back the smile.

  “You’re not my boyfriend, sweetheart,” Millie said. “You’re my nephew.”

  The boy looked to his aunt and snapped, “Same thing.”

  If High didn’t know they were already close, what happened next would prove it.

  “We’re making waffles,” Millie announced, adeptly dealing with the kid’s attitude by offering food. “Who wants waffles?”

  The kid’s stomach was obviously more important than his claim on his aunt because he forgot about his issue with High and yelled, “Me!”

  The girl started jumping around, also yelling, “Me too! I love waffles.”

  “You guys had oatmeal at home,” Dottie said, herding her kids into the house.

  “That wore off like ages ago,” the boy replied, pulling away from his mother and dashing into the living room, following his aunt, so intent on doing it that his arms were pumping in an effort to give him more speed.

  They disappeared.

  With that distraction gone, High turned back to Alan and was again confronted with a wall of attitude, the adult kind he didn’t like all that much.

  It didn’t sit well with him because this guy didn’t get it and was making judgments that weren’t his to make.

  But that didn’t matter.

  It was High who was going to have to make the effort.

  “It means a lot you give a shit,” he said low. “And as you can see, she’s doin’ good. And so you know, I get it may take time and I’ll put in the time but in the end, you’ll know I got this.”

  “You fuckin’ better,” Alan replied, and High had to remind himself it was good Millie had people who cared in her life, as that was all the guy gave him before he prowled away.

  He looked to his feet, sighed, then looked up again when he heard little Freddie shout, “Bacon! Yee ha!”

  And High steeled himself against what he knew would be all good at the same time it was pure torture as he walked out of the foyer toward the living room, hearing Millie ask, “Okay, who’s going to help man the waffle iron and who’s gonna help fry the bacon?”

  She got two, “Waffle irons!”

  When he hit the living room, he felt slightly better seeing Dottie’s eyes come to him with a soft look of understanding and a definite communication that it was all going to be okay.

  He felt a fuckuva lot better when Millie’s eyes came to him and she gave him a smile that said she was happy her house was filled with people she loved.

  Then it was High who ended up frying the bacon.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gonna Be My Throat

  Millie

  “ALAN WILL COME around,” I whispered against Logan’s neck.

  We were in my bed, Logan in his clothes, me in my pj’s, Logan on his back, me on top of him.

  My sister and her family had left five minutes ago. The snowplow had gone down our street thirty minutes before that
but it didn’t matter. Alan told us it was going to get near sixty degrees that day, so Denver was going to thaw.

  When they’d left, I’d wanted to do the dishes.

  Logan had firmly led me right where I was.

  “I know, Millie,” he whispered back.

  I lifted my head to look up at him. “How did Dot know about us?”

  Conversation had not been heavy during our surprise visit with my family. We made waffles. We ate them. We talked about France. I gave out presents. The kids took most of the attention but that didn’t mean Dot didn’t go out of her way to communicate to her children and her husband that Logan was welcome and accepted. This meant she went out of her way to communicate the same to Logan.

  Alan, on the other hand, resolutely refused to heed this communication and spent a lot of his time scowling at Logan and being very loving and familiar to me. He did this last bit by centering anything he said around things Logan couldn’t know or hadn’t been a part of, leaving him out.

  Logan appeared not to give a shit about this.

  But he was human and he was back with me. Family was all important to him.

  He’d give a shit.

  This was one concern.

  The other concern was the fact that they’d come at all, not to see me after France, but obviously to check I was okay since they knew Logan was there.

  “After you passed out in my bed in the Compound,” Logan began, “I went to her. We had words.”

  I felt myself go tense as I felt my eyes go wide.

  “Uh… what?” I asked.

  His arms were already around me, loose but warm.

  At my question, he started stroking my back with one hand.

  “Babe, she’s Dot,” he declared. “She was more worried about you than me showin’ up at her door pissed off she didn’t share with me back then. Then she showed her usual spunk, and side note, glad to see she hasn’t lost that, it can be irritatin’ as fuck, but just like you, mostly it’s cute. In the end, she asked me in for cocoa and welcomed me back.”

  I felt better at his words.

  I also felt amused at the cocoa bit.

  “Did you have cocoa?” I asked.

  “Fuck no. Had you back in my bed. Said what I had to say and got the fuck outta there.” His hand stroked up my spine and curled around the back of my neck. “And seein’ as I’m sharin’ this, even if you weren’t already pullin’ out of that Arizona thing, Dottie’s probably been manipulatin’ that since I was at her place so you would be pullin’ out of it, seein’ as I gave her that assignment and, like her little sister, when she’s in, she’s all in.”