Walk Through Fire

  I nearly fell off the barstool in my need to flee because I could take no more. The pain was so immense it was a wonder blood wasn’t oozing from every pore.

  “Yeah, bitch,” she kept at me as she watched me move. “Get gone. Get the fuck gone. Don’t ever come back.” She lifted a hand and jabbed a finger at me. “And don’t you go lookin’ for High. He don’t need your shit in his life. Not again.”

  I backed away two steps, unable to tear my eyes off her simply because I had no thoughts. It was actually a wonder I was moving.

  All I could feel was the pain.

  Eventually my body took flight and I got out of the bar. Into my car. I hit the button and reversed out of my spot without even looking to check if it was clear.

  And I drove home.

  It was late and even though I needed her, I wasn’t going to call Dottie again. I wasn’t going to call any of my other friends who knew about Logan and my inability to get over him. I wasn’t going to go home and burst into uncontrollable tears that felt like they’d choke me and keep crying until I hoped they would so it would finally be over.

  I got into my house and flipped the switch illuminating the kitchen.

  I locked the farm door behind me.

  I walked to my marble countertop that was white with gray veins and dropped my purse on it.

  And then I stood still and stared unseeing into the living room.

  Reb was right. I knew it. I knew I’d destroyed Logan.

  We’d met when I was eighteen, nine weeks after I graduated high school.

  He’d asked me out within minutes of the first words we spoke to each other.

  I’d slept with him on our first date.

  Not because I was easy.

  Because I knew he was everything.

  And he was.

  He was a dream come true. A fantasy come to life. Every clichéd hope of every girl on the planet walking, talking, touching, kissing.

  Except, perhaps, rougher and owning his own bike.

  He’d treated me like gold.

  No, like a princess.

  No, both.

  I was precious. Beloved. Treasured.

  He looked at me and every single time he did it, I knew he thought what he saw was so beautiful he couldn’t believe his luck.

  The sex wasn’t great.

  It was explosive.

  And we slept entwined and woke the same way, like we needed to be connected to each other to recharge in the night so we could take on the day. Like without that, we wouldn’t be able to function.

  To my parents’ dismay and his parents’ delight, we’d moved in with each other within six weeks of meeting.

  We fought and every single time we did it, we ended it laughing like what we were fighting about was ridiculous because, mostly, it was.

  We were together for three years that felt like fifty-three, all of them blissfully happy.

  Then that time felt like three days the minute he walked away from me because I made him do it.

  I looked around my kitchen with its marble countertops and butcher block island that had a vegetable sink. Its heavy, white ceramic farm sink under the window and white cupboards, the top ones with windows. Other cupboards specially designed for wine, cookbooks, spice racks. I took in the kitchen’s stainless steel appliances and six-burner, two-oven stove, the wine fridge.

  Then I moved.

  My boots struck against my hardwood floors that had been refinished four years ago and they still gleamed perfectly. I went to my living room with its multipaned windows at the front and on either side of the fireplace at the side.

  I looked around the white walls and the brick of the fireplace (also painted white).

  The sheers on the windows were white, too, and they were diaphanous. The furniture was slouchy and comfortable and all in soft taupe. The accents of toss pillows on couch, love seat, and cuddle chair as well as the vases spotted around surfaces were in muted pastels. The frames of pictures dotted on surfaces were all whitewashed or engraved mirror or intricate silver. And the pièce de résistance was a large circular peacock mirror over the fireplace.

  The effect was cool and stylish, but not cold. Pretty and welcoming.

  I walked down the hall with its walls filled with perfectly placed frames, all black with cream matting, holding black-and-white pictures of Dottie and her family. My parents. Grandparents. Cousins. Aunts and uncles. Friends.

  I moved past the guestroom and guest bath into the extra bedroom that was a junk room. I flipped on the light, which set the ceiling fan to giving the room a gentle breeze it did not need in September.

  I went right to the closet, slid the door open, and struggled through the wrapping paper, luggage, boxes, then hefted out the plastic crates that were stacked in the corner.

  Four of them.

  I wanted the bottom one.

  I got to it and pulled it into the room. I fell to my behind on the floor and flipped down the latches on the sides of the crate, lifting the top away.

  In there were albums, three of which I’d happily, but painstakingly, filled with photos.

  One album for each year.

  The rest of the crate was filled with those envelopes pictures came in with the front holding the film.

  And last, there were loose photos tossed in in a frenzy to hide painful memories.

  In the beginning, I’d pulled that crate out often.

  But it had been years since I’d opened that box.

  I grabbed an album, put it on my lap and opened it randomly.

  My throat closed against the burn consuming my insides as I stared down at a photo of me standing by Logan, who was sitting on his bike.

  We were outside Ride, the auto supply store with attached custom build garage that Chaos owned.

  Logan was off to do something, I didn’t remember what. I was saying good-bye to the man I loved, who I would see again within hours. He had one of his hands on the bike grip, the other on my hip. I was facing him but looking over my shoulder at Naomi, the wife of one of Logan’s Chaos brothers.

  My hair was long, down to my waist and unencumbered, like Logan liked it. Unrestrained and wild. A way I hadn’t worn it in years.

  Logan had on sunglasses that made him look cool and badass, jeans, a tee, and his Chaos cut.

  We were close, like we were always close whenever we were together, touching, like we were always touching, and smiling.

  Like we were always smiling.

  The picture below that was of us stretched out on a couch in the common room of the Chaos Compound. I was mostly on top of Logan, partly tucked into the back of the couch. I had a hand on his chest and my head thrown back, the picture captured my profile and I was laughing.

  Logan was on his back, head to the armrest, arm wrapped around my waist, holding me to him even though he didn’t need to since I was lying on top of him. He was looking right at the camera, also laughing.

  On the opposite page there was a picture of us at Scruff’s. I had my booty up on the edge of the pool table (something I did a lot to be goofy because being goofy made Logan smile, but something that annoyed the hell out of Reb). Logan was leaning over the table with cue in hand, lined up ready to take a shot.

  But his head was tilted back, his eyes were on me and mine were on him.

  We weren’t smiling. I was saying something to him and I had his full attention.

  Like I always had his full attention.

  I pressed my hands on the pages, palms flat, like I could soak in those times, like I could be thrown back years to relive them, like I could absorb the feelings I’d had back then of being safe and loved and living the life that was just right for me.

  It didn’t work.

  I turned the page.

  Then I turned another page.

  And another.

  I did it reliving memories I’d relived countless times. They were burned in my brain in a way they were always there, even when I wasn’t calling them up. They were scars t
hat tormented me in a way that changed the course of my life.

  It wasn’t simply that I was in a rut.

  My life had been interrupted and I’d never restarted it.

  Since Logan Judd, I had not had a boyfriend.

  I had not had a lover.

  Not in twenty years.

  He was it for me and those pictures showed why.

  I met my perfect man at age eighteen and I had him for three years.

  Then I sent him away.

  Could I right those wrongs?

  Should I?

  You obliterated him.

  I had.

  And I’d done the same to myself.

  Every woman on this goddamned earth wants a man like that to feel like that about them and you had it and you fuckin’ tossed it away like it was garbage.

  I hadn’t tossed him away.

  Reb didn’t know.

  She’d never know.

  But I hadn’t done that.

  I’d never do that.

  Not to Logan.

  Every breath he took, it was for you.

  I turned the page and went still.

  On the two pages before me were six pictures taken at what was known among the biker world as Wild Bill’s Field.

  What it was was a biker rally that happened on Bill McIntosh’s farm every year.

  I remembered those rallies, all three of them I went to.

  The pictures on the page were from the second one.

  Top left, Logan sitting on a log, me on a blanket in front of him on the ground between his legs. He was bent forward, arms around me, chin on my shoulder, the firelight was illuminating our faces as we laughed toward someone that, if memory serves, was Boz being his usual lovable idiot.

  Center left picture, same, except my head was turned and tipped back and Logan’s chin was off my shoulder and he was looking down at me.

  Bottom left, my hand was up and curled around Logan’s forearm and my head was still tipped back.

  But Logan wasn’t looking at me.

  He was kissing me.

  I shut the book.

  The Field.

  Wild Bill’s biker rally.

  Every biker from every club in the entire state of Colorado went to that rally every year. It was mayhem, bikes, tents, campers, RVs, sleeping bags, bonfires, a makeshift stage set up for local and not-so-local bands who played loud and deep into the night.

  It was bring what you want or hit Wild Bill’s kitchen that he set up in a massive tent at the edge of the makeshift campgrounds. He bragged that the proceeds sent him to Miami for Christmas and supported him throughout the year, except we all knew we hit his field just after he harvested the hay or corn he always grew in it, which was the way he really made his living.

  First weekend of October.

  Which was two and a half weeks away.

  Every breath he took, it was for you.

  You obliterated him.

  I needed to right that wrong.

  He needed to know.

  And I was the only one who could tell him.

  It was good now. It was safe. He was alive and well, ordering burritos and raising kids and not a fugitive from the law or worse.

  And he needed to know.

  So I was going to find him.

  Then I was going to tell him.

  On a blanket by a lake, twenty-three years earlier…

  He was on me and in me.

  He was done.

  So was I.

  Logan Judd had just given me my first orgasm.

  And it was crazy-great.

  We were on our date.

  He’d picked me up on his bike.

  I had been right. My parents had freaked.

  But they did what they always did. They trusted me and didn’t make a big deal of it.

  They didn’t like me hanging with Kellie either. She was considered a hood. Her dad had taken off when she was a little kid and never came back. Now her mom and stepdad partied more than Kellie did and didn’t mind it when Kellie had all her many friends over (this was because, I suspected, Kellie, Justine, and I cleaned up afterward and they didn’t have much worth anything to break).

  But anyway, I got excellent grades. I was going to college in a few weeks. I’d gotten into a good one. University of Denver. This meant I was going to stay close to home, something my sister didn’t do (she went to Purdue), so this was something my parents liked. I did my chores. I got along with my big sister. We were thick as thieves and I missed her like crazy since she’d gone to Indiana. I loved my family and showed it. I’d never been one of those bitchy, pain-in-the-ass kids who got in their parents’ faces all the time.

  Even so, I was a bit of a rebel. I drank and it was illegal. Kellie and Justine and I’d go joyriding. I’d lost my virginity at age seventeen (but it was to my boyfriend of two years, who had broken up with me in his first few months at University of Colorado).

  I wasn’t disrespectful. I loved my family.

  I was just… me.

  And the me I was wasn’t stupid and totally irresponsible.

  And the me I was put me on the back of Logan Judd’s bike.

  He’d driven us into the mountains and I’d loved the ride. Dad had a friend who had a bike, Dottie and I had been out on it and we’d both loved it.

  This was better.

  A whole lot better.

  Riding wrapped around Logan.

  The best.

  He’d pulled off the highway and drove to a lake. We’d gotten off the bike and he hefted a backpack out of one of his saddlebags, a blanket out of the other. He’d then taken my hand and walked us down a trail that led to the lake. The sun was just getting ready to set, so we had plenty of light to see the beauty around us and I saw it.

  But I felt the beauty of walking with Logan, his fingers around mine, the backpack slung over one of his shoulders, the blanket tucked under his arm, knowing this was already the best date ever and feeling in my heart it was only going to get better.

  I’d been right.

  He moved us to the edge of the lake and threw out the blanket. We got on it and he pulled stuff from the backpack.

  It was nothing fancy. He had four bottles of beer in there. Homemade sandwiches (turkey and Swiss). Bags of chips (that were a bit crushed). A package of Oreos (similarly crushed).

  But sitting by a beautiful lake up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with Logan, eating and watching the sun set, it was the most delicious meal I’d ever had.

  We’d talked.

  From our conversation on the steps of Kellie’s deck, he knew my full name, my age, that I had a sister, what high school I’d gone to, that I was heading to DU for the fall semester, and that Kellie and Justine were my best friends. I’d learned his full name, that he was three years older than me, he was a recruit for a motorcycle club called Chaos, and he was close with his parents and younger sister, even if he’d left them in Durango, where he’d grown up.

  On the blanket, we’d talked more and it was cool because it was like a rite of passage. The first real grown-up conversation I’d ever had.

  I wasn’t some eighteen-year-old just-ex-high-schooler that he’d met.

  I wasn’t a girl.

  I was a woman.

  A woman he liked.

  We talked about the work he did at Ride, the garage and shop that was owned by the motorcycle club he belonged to. We talked about how, when he was finished being a recruit and he was a full member, he’d get a bigger cut of the money made there. We talked about his brothers and how he liked them. We talked about his brothers’ “old ladies,” or the wives and girlfriends, and which of them he liked… or didn’t.

  We also talked about how I was kind of worried that Justine was partying too much and getting blasted out of her mind when she did. We talked about the fact that I was worried about this because she’d screwed up on her SATs, refused to take them again, and she’d had a really bad couple of semesters, so her GPA was shot. Then, when the first
two colleges she applied to didn’t take her, she’d quit applying. And I’d told him I thought she was lost and freaked about her future and instead of finding her way, she was getting drunk a lot.

  “One thing I know, darlin’,” he’d said gently when we were talking about Justine. “You ain’t ever gonna change a person. Stand by their side or be at their back. But do not push change or expect it. Just be there for them while they sort their shit out. But do it knowin’ you might have to cut ties if their shit starts leakin’ and becomin’ yours.”

  Thus I’d learned on our date that Logan Judd was wise.

  Conversation had while eating changed into conversation had while cuddling and talking and staring at the moon on the water.

  Cuddling had gone from just talking to talking with some kissing.

  My first kiss from Logan Judd had been a revelation. It, too, was my first adult kiss. No fumbling around. No inexperience. No desperation. None of that feel you’d get from a guy like he knew he was lucky he managed to get his mouth on you and the second he did, he was thinking about what else he could get.

  Logan knew what he was doing. Logan took his time doing it. Logan liked what he was getting and Logan knew how to guide me to giving that back.

  It was dreamy from beginning to end.

  And then the talking stopped and it was just kissing until it turned into Logan making love to me on that blanket by a lake in the Rocky Mountains.

  It was slow and sweet and exploratory until it got faster and more urgent and finished on totally explosive.

  It was not only my first orgasm.

  It was also the first time a man had made love to me.

  And I lay under him, feeling his weight, smelling his hair, my body sluggish in a way I liked, at the same time I was crazy-giddy like the night before, except in a quieter way I liked better. All this because I was connected to Logan, feeling complete when I didn’t know I was incomplete and it was crazy, totally nutso, but I knew it to be true.