Walk Through Fire

  “Babe,” he called.

  “Hang on,” she said.

  “Millie.”

  “Hang on,” she repeated, and he saw her making another attempt to extricate the paper out of the skillet.

  “Hallelujah!” she cried, whirling his way, intact paper dripping water to the floor between tongs and fingers.

  The minute she stopped, it ripped down the middle.

  She glared at it and shouted, “Goddamn it!”

  High burst out laughing.

  “This is not funny, Low. That’s like my seventh try! We’re never gonna eat at this rate.”

  He kept laughing even as he declared, “I’m never gonna lose you.”

  Her head jerked and he kept laughing since she was still holding the broken paper in her hand, looking adorable, her sweater from the front cut low, a vision he liked, as she asked, “What?”

  “Never, baby, not ever. Never gonna lose you. Never gonna do shit to take away what I got back. Never gonna do shit to make it not worth it, all you gave to me. I’m not gonna go back there. That path didn’t feel right from the start. You at my side, it’s all kinds of wrong.”

  “Low,” she whispered.

  Top to toe he saw it written all over her.

  She got him.

  So, still chuckling, he got close to her and swept her (and her paper) in his arms.

  It was wet against his chest.

  He didn’t give a fuck.

  “Stop worrying,” he ordered.

  She stared up at him.

  He let her go with one hand to take the paper and tongs out of her hands and toss them to the side.

  The tongs clattered.

  The paper splatted.

  He just wrapped his arm back around her.

  His Millie.

  His girl.

  The only woman he’d ever loved, the only woman he’d ever love.

  He’d take her tidy, washing out her wineglass at night, getting cats who matched her house.

  And he’d take her like this, cooking shit he probably did not want to eat and getting ticked as all hell doing it in a kitchen that was a disaster.

  He’d take her however she came.

  He’d take anything from her.

  What he would not do was do shit that might make him lose her.

  “Walked into a party, fell in love with you. Walked through fire when I lost you. Got you back. Nothin’, Millie, nothin’ will make me lose you. Hear?”

  Her eyes were warm, but her question was hesitant. “Did someone… say something to you?”

  They did.

  She didn’t need to know that.

  “The brothers are gonna do it right,” he told her.

  They were, once he had words with Tack.

  She studied him, doing it closely, taking her time, then she relaxed in his arms.

  “Okay, Low,” she said quietly.

  “Also not gonna eat fuckin’ spring rolls,” he told her.

  She gave a slight jolt in his arms before her eyebrows drew together.

  “It’s only partially healthy, Logan. The rest of it is all meat and sauce.”

  “I hate spring rolls.”

  Her brows stayed drawn. “It’s impossible to hate them. Everything in them is good.”

  He looked to the side, then looked to her. “Sprouts?”

  “They’re all water. They don’t even taste of anything.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Logan—”

  “Turn it all off. We’ll clean it up later. Now, I’m starved. We’re goin’ to Chipotle.”

  “Logan!” she snapped. “I’ve been cooking for an hour.”

  “Eat it for lunch,” he replied.

  “You need to eat healthier,” she declared. “We both do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s good for you and it’s a good habit to teach your daughters.”

  “Think Deb’s got that covered, babe.”

  She shut her mouth.

  He had her there.

  He let her go but grabbed her hand and dragged her to the door. “You got some tennis shoes or somethin’ to pull on?”

  “Do I look like a woman who owns tennis shoes?”

  He stopped and looked down at her. “You wanna get healthy and you don’t own tennis shoes?”

  She looked to the wall.

  He had her there too.

  He started laughing again.

  She looked back to him but only to glare.

  “Babe, get some shoes,” he demanded.

  “You go get Chipotle. I want spring rolls,” she replied.

  “Get some shoes,” he repeated.

  “Seriously, Low. This might be a disaster but it also might be really good,” she returned.

  He pulled her close, bending his neck to get his face in hers.

  “Get some shoes.”

  “This is the bossy part I’m not fond of,” she announced.

  He leaned back and lifted his brows. “You gonna send your man out in the cold alone to get his dinner?”

  “And this is the heretofore unmentioned hot biker manipulation I’m not fond of.”

  He again started laughing.

  “Fortunately for you, I’m fond of that,” she said while he did it.

  “What?” he asked, still laughing.

  “You laughing.”

  He stopped.

  Then he remembered.

  And once he remembered, he did something about it.

  Because he’d come home but he hadn’t greeted his woman properly.

  So he tugged her hand hard, felt her body hit his, and he saw to that.

  When he was done, he was fighting going hard and had to keep doing it when he saw her face dazed.

  “Turn off the shit, baby, get some shoes. Let’s go get dinner. Hear?”

  “Hear,” she whispered breathily. Then she held his eyes and something drifted into them that, along with the sudden tightening of her body, made him brace before she said, “I found a counselor. I’m gonna go talk to her about what happened with Valenzuela.”

  “You let me know when that shit goes down,” he stated immediately. “I’ll drive you.”

  She relaxed in his arms.

  She got tight again when he went on to declare, “You gotta know, we’re movin’ and we’re doin’ that soon.”

  “We are?” she asked.

  “Your neighbors suck.”

  He’d told her about her neighbor witnessing her being taken and doing nothing about it.

  So when he declared that, she relaxed again and added a smile.

  “House hunting,” she murmured. “Fun.”

  If she thought that, she was nuts.

  He didn’t share that mostly because she rolled up on her toes, touched her mouth to his, then pulled out of his arms to do as he’d asked.

  So they could eat it warm, they ate their burritos at Chipotle.

  It was cold outside.

  But the best she could do was flip-flops.

  It was cute.

  It was Millie.

  And it had made him laugh.

  EPILOGUE

  Today’s No Different

  High

  “YOU SURE YOU wanna play it that way?”

  Standing alone with Tack and Hound in the Common Room of the Compound, when Tack asked that question after High told him how he wanted things to go down, High only nodded.

  Tack studied him for a beat.

  Then he said, “Your call, High.”

  High looked at him, then he looked at Hound.

  It was done.

  So he said, “Gotta go look at a house.”

  He said it like he’d rather voluntarily be bolted into an iron maiden, which was to say he said it how he felt it.

  Tack’s lips twitched.

  Hound grinned straight out.

  “Later, brothers,” High muttered, and jerking up his chin, he walked away.

  Tack

  “We gonna play it that way?”
r />   Hound asked this question the instant the door to the Compound closed behind High.

  Tack took his eyes from the door and looked to Hound.

  “Your call, Hound.”

  “They got to Zadie, they took Millie.” Hound told him something he knew.

  Tack didn’t reply but he knew where Hound was leading.

  “They feel pain,” Hound said low.

  That was where he knew Hound was leading.

  “High has chosen the righteous path. It’s the right path. But I know you, brother, your path has always been your own,” Tack returned.

  “Our world, wrong done to our own, righteous takes a different meaning,” Hound told him.

  Yeah.

  Hound’s path had always been his own.

  “I get you,” Tack replied.

  “I’m maverick on this, Tack. Club stays clean.”

  Tack turned fully to him, shaking his head. “No, brother. We’re always at your back.”

  Hound held his gaze a beat before he whispered, “Not this time.”

  Before Tack could say a word, Hound walked away.

  He was uncertain if that was good or bad. Knowing what he now knew, he wondered if Hound enjoyed riding the edge because it made him feel something when he knew what he wanted to feel, what he wanted to have, he couldn’t feel and he’d never own.

  What Tack was certain of was that Hound was wrong.

  He could think he was maverick.

  But Hound’s brothers would have his back.

  He took a stool by the bar, pulling out his phone.

  He made some calls.

  And he made that so.

  High

  All his girls in the truck, High slowed to a stop at the curb in front of the house that Millie had found on the Internet.

  He bent and looked through Millie’s window and up the incline to the monstrosity sitting obnoxiously proud on its huge lot in Denver’s Highlands, overlooking the city.

  Jesus.

  No fucking way.

  “It’s like… like… better than a castle,” Zadie breathed from the backseat.

  Shit.

  “It’s amazing!” Cleo cried, also from the backseat.

  Christ.

  He heard their doors open, sensed his girls jumping out eagerly, but his attention was caught by Millie, who had been inspecting the house but now she was slowly turning her head his way.

  He caught a look at her face, the face he fell in love with over two decades ago, a face now shining with excitement.

  Fuck.

  Without a word, she turned back to her door, threw it open, and practically fell out of it in her hurry to get out the door and up the walk to where the real estate agent was standing on the fucking veranda waiting for them.

  High sighed as he angled out of the truck, moved to the hood, and stopped to look back up at the house, now with an unadulterated view.

  Millie had showed him the listing. It was bad enough in photos. It was worse in reality.

  But he knew the house had been built in 1903 and in the past two years, roof to foundation restored.

  It had a wraparound veranda with Italian tile. It had five bedrooms. It had six baths. It had a living room, a massive kitchen, a buttery (whatever the fuck that was), a dining room, family room, study, and a fucking library. It also had a renovated carriage house at the back where Millie could put her studio. Further, it sat on a huge lot that would require him buying a riding lawnmower because no way in fuck he was gonna push a mower across that lawn. It’d take him two days.

  It was majestic. It was classy.

  It was ostentatious.

  It was not where a biker lived.

  No way in fuck.

  His eyes went from the house to his daughters racing up the steps toward the agent, his woman following them, her ass swaying with her excited strut on her high-heeled boots.

  He watched Millie make it to the terrace and shake the agent’s hand.

  Then he watched Clee-Clee latch onto her on one side, Zadie grab her hand on the other, Zadie so out of it with joy, she was jumping up and down, jarring Millie as she took his woman with her.

  Millie didn’t mind. She just smiled down at his baby girl so huge High could see it all the way to the street.

  Oh yeah.

  Fuck.

  He looked back to the house.

  His girls could each have their own bedroom, Millie could have a guestroom and also her junk room.

  The basement was finished, so High could also have space of his own.

  Further, it had a three-car garage, room for his truck, hers, all his bikes plus plenty of space to park the RV.

  And the yard was so damned big the Club could party there with his entire family coming from Durango for a 4th of July bash.

  Not to mention, he’d been to dinner at Dot and Alan’s. They had a four-bedroom ranch, which was far from shit.

  But it wasn’t a turn-of-the-century Denver mansion.

  When Alan saw this place, High wouldn’t need to make the man eat his words.

  Alan would have no choice but to choke on them.

  On that thought, slowly, High felt his lips curl up.

  Slower still, he rounded the hood of his truck and walked up the path to the house.

  No.

  Not to the house.

  To his girls.

  The next day, they put Millie’s pad on the market.

  Two months later, Logan “High” Judd moved his girls in to what Denver had to offer as a castle a mile high in the sky.

  Millie

  The buzz of the needle sounding, I lay curled on the reclining seat with Logan, watching the ink penetrate his skin.

  Logan and I had agreed to a different placement of the tat because Logan wasn’t big on shaving and he didn’t want my ink obscured in any way.

  So it wasn’t being inked into his throat.

  It was being inked curled around the base of it.

  The artist wasn’t all that thrilled with me being up on the seat with Low. To be able to be close to him, I’d promised him I wouldn’t move and I wasn’t.

  This was partly because I wanted the tattoo to be perfect.

  It was mostly because I was too overwhelmed with the feelings I was feeling, watching me tatted back into Logan’s skin.

  The… only was done when Logan muttered, “Break, bud.”

  Without a word, the artist wiped him down, rolled his stool away, and took off.

  I watched him do this, sliding my hand from where it was resting on Logan’s bare abs up his chest. I moved my eyes to his.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “Fuck yeah,” he answered.

  I tipped my head to the side. “Then why do you need a break, Snooks?”

  “’Cause it’s time to do this,” he replied, his hands moving, one circling my wrist at his chest, the other one going from around me and into his jeans pocket.

  When I saw what he was doing, my breath hitched and my chest started to burn.

  This continued as Logan slid a heavy ring with a large solitaire diamond encased in a solid rectangle of filigreed white gold on my finger. The sides leading up from the band expanded wide at the rectangle. One was embedded with an infinity symbol inside which was an M and an L. The other side had the stem of a rose entwined with a snake.

  It was specially made.

  No.

  It was an engagement ring especially made for the old lady of a biker.

  Primarily, me.

  In other words, it was perfection.

  I looked from the ring to Logan and I did it not breathing.

  “Best moment of my life was lyin’ beside you, watchin’ you ink me into your skin while you did the same with me,” he stated softly.

  When we’d done it together, he’d felt the same as me.

  But of course he did.

  My whole body bucked as my breath caught and his hand closed around mine tight, the weighty ring digging into my finger.

&
nbsp; “I fucked that up,” he whispered.

  “Low,” I whispered back, shaking my head.

  “So I’m fixin’ it.” He held my gaze. “Marry me, Millie.”

  I stared into his eyes until I couldn’t see him anymore because he’d washed away with the unshed tears.

  Then I dropped my face and buried it in his chest.

  He cupped his hand on the back of my head even as he kept hold of my other one, doing this tight to his chest.

  He gave it a few moments before I heard him rumble, “That mean yes?”

  Was he crazy?

  My head jerked up, my fingers closed around his, and I replied, “Fuck yes, that means yes.”

  His body started shaking with laughter.

  Mine didn’t.

  I got closer, pressed deeper, and kissed him hard.

  He finally let my hand go so he could wrap both his arms around me and we could make out in a tattoo chair.

  We did this until the artist called, “Dude, you go at your babe much longer, I’m gonna need a different kind of break.”

  This meant we broke our kiss with both of us laughing.

  Yes.

  Perfection.

  Logan’s laughter died first as he slid his hand to cup my cheek.

  “Love you, Millie,” he whispered.

  I drew in a deep breath through my nose.

  I let it go, replying, “Love you, too, Snook’ums.”

  He grinned.

  I settled back in.

  He looked to the artist and jerked up his chin.

  I finished watching him get inked with me alternately staring at my kickass engagement ring.

  After he was done, we celebrated that tat and our engagement in the back of his SUV in the parking lot of the tattoo parlor.

  Because that was the way of a biker.

  And the way of his old lady.

  Tyra

  “Crap, High!” Boz yelled from the pool table in the Common Room, looking disgruntled. “Now I got all your girls kickin’ my butt in pool.”

  Sitting at the bar with Lanie and Elvira, I heard Zadie giggle, so I looked that way.

  She had a pool cue and was leaning into Millie, who was giggling with her as Cleo lined up her shot.

  Cleo let fly and pocketed the six.

  “Shee-it,” Boz grumbled.

  That was when I heard a rough chuckle.