Walk Through Fire

  She also had an add-on to this business where she’d design the schemes, then decorate houses or offices, inside and out, for holidays. Any holiday (but mostly Christmas). And from the pictures in the gallery on her website, she was really good at that.

  After learning all of this, Elvira had concocted a plan where she scheduled an appointment, ostensibly to plan her upcoming nuptials, this happening so we could get a “feel” for Millie and from that feel, decide for ourselves if we should officially wade in.

  And without girl posse consensus, Elvira had put that plan into action.

  Thus we were there, sitting in my Mustang on the street in front of Millie Cross’s (very quaint and unbelievably pretty) little old house in Cheesman Park.

  We were there because, at the back of the main house, there was a small mother-in-law cottage where Millie had a studio in which she ran her business. You got to this going up a drive that was two narrow strips of concrete between wider strips of tufted lawn. These were under an overhang that was, back in the day, probably to protect cars or even carriages and it had a wall of trellis covered in wisteria.

  And Elvira’s appointment was two minutes away.

  Elvira turned her attention to me. “How can you not have a good idea about this? It’s the perfect plan.”

  She would think that, it was her plan.

  “Well, you might not have gone through the initiation ceremony, that being becoming an old lady, but you’re still de facto Chaos,” I stated. When Elvira opened her mouth to retort, I kept going. “And you know it. Which means, if Millie Cross is who I think Millie Cross is, and we can fix what’s broken with her and High, which means she might come back in the fold, do you think the first thing we should do as her possible future Chaos sisters is pull a fast one?”

  “What I think is you gotta know what you’re dealin’ with here and you got your man’s strong words. She’s got her man’s strong words.” Elvira jerked a thumb at Lanie. “And those two boys are far from dumb. Loyal, perhaps to a fault, but not dumb. So I think you gotta proceed with caution.”

  Elvira wasn’t wrong. Lanie had gently probed Hop about his knowledge of the history of High and Millie.

  Hop’s response had been, “Heard she showed her face. I’ll say what Tack said to Cherry. Bitch is not welcome anywhere near Chaos. So do not stick your nose in that, woman. You do, you won’t be prepared for the extreme.”

  Lanie being married to a biker and the mother of one of his sons, getting this warning and sitting in the back of my Mustang with crazy Elvira on a mission was one of the many reasons she was my bestest bestie.

  I still didn’t have a good feeling about this.

  “I hear you,” I told Elvira. “But I think you should call her, reschedule, and we should talk this out further before—”

  Her phone beeped before I finished. She held the screen out to me.

  I saw the appointment alarm on the display just as she said, “Go time,” turned to the door, tossed it open, threw out her Valentino pump, and hauled herself out.

  The door was slammed and she was gone.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Shit is right,” Lanie agreed, and I looked to the backseat. “I can’t help but feeling, one way or another, this is going to go south for us.”

  I had that feeling too.

  I was worried Tack and Hop, who both knew Millie and had been around when whatever went down went down, were right.

  I worried more seeing Millie Cross’s neat, trim, pretty old house that obviously was lovingly restored and taken care of.

  It did not say biker babe.

  Nor did her clothes say it at Wild Bill’s.

  Then again, before I met Tack, mine didn’t either and in many cases, at least with my clothes, they still didn’t.

  Lanie’s didn’t either. You took one look at her, you thought, Retired Supermodel and Current Muse to Couture Designer. You did not think, Biker Bitch.

  So Millie’s look and her house meant nothing.

  Millie’s expression that night meant everything.

  And I was hanging a lot on that because the boys did not like meddling in their affairs and Tack was not wrong. If one of the guys got a hangnail, the rest of them would rally around staring balefully at the unfortunate who wielded the cuticle clippers until it was successfully clipped out.

  Okay, so that was a slight exaggeration.

  But there was a lot expected of earning the Chaos cut.

  Loyalty was at the top of that list.

  If High was done with this Millie woman, he was done.

  The thing was, no man was in a foul mood for three days after he saw an ex unless he wasn’t over that ex, if she was an ex for twenty minutes, but especially for twenty years.

  Since it had been twenty years, something was going down.

  And I intended to get to the bottom of it for High, who I might not be tight with but I liked him. I respected him. And he was the only Chaos brother I knew who wasn’t happy.

  He lived. He loved his brothers. He loved his kids. He put up with his recent ex-wife.

  But down deep, the man was existing.

  Joy came from his two girls.

  That was it.

  And I wanted more for him.

  So did Lanie.

  So did Elvira.

  So we were here.

  Elvira wasn’t dumb but—as hard as it was to believe, it was true—she was even more loyal to the sisterhood than Chaos was to the brotherhood. If there was a sister in need, she was there, one hundred percent, and she didn’t even need to know them to be there.

  I knew this from experience.

  So did Lanie.

  And I worried in her zeal she was going to fuck it all up.

  “I think we should go in, introduce ourselves, and come clean,” I told Lanie, even though I was worried that Millie would recognize me from Wild Bill’s.

  “I don’t know about that but I do know we should go in and stop Elvira from starting to plan a wedding before Malik proposes,” Lanie replied, shaking her head, her tone turning dire. “That’s bad juju and every girl knows it.”

  This was also true.

  “Elvira?” We heard through the speaker Elvira had requisitioned from Hawk’s equipment room that was right then in my car, connected to the mic that Elvira was wearing.

  “Damn straight,” Elvira answered. “Millie?”

  I could actually hear her smile through the speaker as she replied, “That’s me. Please come in. Do you want some coffee? Tea?”

  “Let’s go,” Lanie said over Elvira’s response on the speaker.

  I nodded, turned off the speaker, threw open my door, and got out, lifting the seat so Lanie could curl herself out of the back.

  Then, both of us coming from work to do this, thus both of us in high heels, tight skirts, and fabulous blouses, we hurried up the concrete strips to Millie Cross’s studio.

  To get there, we hit a large back courtyard that was covered in attractive pavers, part of it overhung with a pergola that radiated out diagonally from an L in the house. The pergola was also covered in dormant wisteria. There was a shiny red Mazda SUV back there and enough room to park two more vehicles. There were also enormous, eye-catching pots dotted around that had been planted for autumn in purple-pink, lavender, and white cushion mums.

  And beyond the courtyard, between the house and the studio, an area you got to under an arch, there was terraced garden, the grade going down. I couldn’t see much of it, but I could see a gazebo.

  This, the clothes Millie wore to Wild Bill’s, and her website told me she was a single woman with not much in her life so she spent her money on herself and her house.

  This also made me think we were doing the right thing because I knew what it was like to be a woman of a certain age who was doing the same.

  There were good parts about it.

  But there were also bad.

  And the bad had been written all over Millie’s face in the dark at Wild
Bill’s.

  I stopped at the door to the studio and looked at Lanie.

  She nodded.

  I nodded back, took a deep breath, opened the door, and entered.

  Two heads turned our way and two sets of eyes got huge.

  I ignored Elvira, who looked pissed, and turned my full attention to Millie Cross.

  Her hair color was too rich a red to be strawberry blonde, and yet it wasn’t red either, more a deep-hued reddish gold. It had an amazing wave to it that wasn’t kinky or curly, just pretty, and that wave looked natural. It was pulled into a soft, side ponytail that managed to look graceful at the same time professional. She had big, dark brown eyes and a pixie face with one of those moles by her mouth that defined why they were known as beauty marks.

  She was wearing a pretty cream blouse that was both immensely feminine with some gentle ruffles down the front, but it, too, was professional. High-heeled, dark brown pumps that, at a glance, I pegged as Manolos.

  And, like Lanie and me, she was wearing a pencil skirt, hers tight, brown tweed, and to die for.

  Her face started to pale as she stared at me.

  “You—” she began.

  “I’m so sorry,” I rushed out my words. “Really. Truly. I just…”

  Crap!

  I hadn’t planned this, so I didn’t know what to say.

  “You,” she whispered, face now very pale and her eyes still huge.

  “You screwed this pooch,” Elvira hissed as Millie didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. “Say something.”

  “I’m Kane Allen’s wife,” I stated. “Um… Tack.”

  Something moved over her face.

  Not pain. Not fear.

  Emptiness.

  No.

  Armor.

  Shit.

  “I know Tack,” she stated coldly.

  “Well, um… we ran into each other at—” I began.

  Her voice was ice when she cut me off to say, “I remember.”

  I nodded and threw out my hand. “This is my friend, Elvira. And my other friend, Lanie.” I indicated Lanie, who’d come in behind me. “Lanie’s married to Hopper Kincaid. I think you might know Hop.”

  “Indeed I do,” she replied, her words brittle.

  Okay, this was not going too well.

  I had to lay it out.

  “We had a plan, the girl posse and me,” I admitted. “Elvira actually does have a man she’s been living with for a long time and they’re close to…”

  I didn’t finish that just in case I’d hex her because Lanie was right about that bad juju.

  However, unfortunately, I also didn’t grab my friends and bail.

  I struggled on.

  “But, well, I saw your face at Wild Bill’s and I talked with Tack about you and I thought that maybe…”

  I trailed off when she continued to sit behind her tidy, pretty, delicate, white desk with its squat bunch of pale pink roses shoved tight with green hydrangea in a round vase at the corner, staring up at me emotionlessly.

  I’d seen her once for maybe a second and that one time I’d seen her, there was so much emotion pouring off her, I could swear I could taste it.

  Right now, void.

  Nothing.

  “We’re here to help,” Elvira chimed in.

  Slowly, Millie Cross’s eyes moved to Elvira, and even Elvira, who feared nothing and no one, not even any of the badass commandos she worked with or the badass bikers she hung with, I could see shiver when the frost of Millie’s gaze touched her.

  “You’re here to help,” Millie repeated.

  “With High,” Elvira went on.

  That was when I saw it. I heard the noise Lanie made behind me and I knew she saw it too.

  But I was too busy flinching at pain that wasn’t mine but was visible to extremes. Pain that slashed through Millie’s face before she hid it.

  Oh yeah.

  There was something going on and as awkward as this was, we were right to come. I knew it. I sensed it with the surety of a woman, the certainty of a mother, the definitiveness of a sister.

  “You’re here to help with…” she paused strangely, then emphasized the word, “High.”

  “Boy’s in a foul mood,” Elvira shared, either powering through the chill Millie was emanating or she’d put up her shields and was impervious to it. “Spreadin’ that wide through Chaos. Somethin’s gotta be done.”

  Again with the strange emphasis. “High is in a foul mood.”

  “That’s what I said,” Elvira replied.

  “You,” Millie started, then looked to me, “and you,” her gaze went beyond me to Lanie, “and you all came to my place of business, which is also my home, to inform me that High is in a foul mood and you’re here to help.”

  “Listen.” I took a step forward. “I know this may seem strange. And we’ve obviously taken you off guard. But I saw High after whatever went down and the boys aren’t really sharing much about your history but you should know that he—”

  Millie interrupted me.

  “Get out.”

  I saw Elvira straighten with a jerk in her seat even as I felt my own body jerk, not to mention the surprise coming from Lanie, who was now standing beside me.

  “I think you may mistake me,” I tried again. “We’re sisters. We’re—”

  She interrupted me again.

  “Get out.”

  “Girl, you don’t get us. We’re here ’cause—” Elvira tried.

  Millie interrupted her too.

  Except this time, she did it by straightening out of her chair and screeching, “Get out!”

  We all went completely still.

  There was no other reaction to have.

  The mask had slipped.

  The anguish had been bared.

  And it was so immense, so impossible to process, witnessing it was paralyzing.

  “My apologies,” she said, her voice shaking, as was her body.

  Visibly.

  “I was wrong,” she went on. “You can help. Please follow me.”

  And then she started walking stiffly, rounding her desk, passing Lanie and me, and moving right out the door.

  We looked at each other and then followed.

  All our heels sounded against the pavers as we made our way across the courtyard to the steps that led up to a split farm door that had a window at the top. The steps were brick and formed a half circle into the pavers.

  Definitely a cute house.

  Millie went in the door.

  We followed her into a kitchen that I would kill for just so I could look at it (since my husband did most of the cooking).

  It wasn’t cute.

  It was fabulous.

  “If you’d stay there,” she requested, and we stopped.

  She disappeared into a hall off the equally fabulous living room.

  Honestly, it was amazing. Like out of a magazine.

  “Bitch can decorate,” Elvira muttered.

  I gave her a look.

  She raised her brows. “Do I lie?”

  She didn’t.

  “Just shush,” I hissed.

  “Not me who blew our plan,” she returned.

  “It wasn’t our plan,” I shot back in an irate whisper. “It was yours and I think we all get it wasn’t a good one.”

  “Okay, girls,” Lanie cut in. “Before, we had to tread cautiously. Now we know we have a minefield to navigate. Look alive and don’t do it bickering.”

  She had a good point, so I shut up.

  It was a good call because Millie appeared carrying one of those large, lidded plastic crates, blue with an opaque white top.

  It looked heavy.

  Even so, she gave it a heave. It flew several inches through the air and was clearly weighted wrong because one side dipped, so when it hit her wood floor, it did it on an edge. The latch on the lid popped, the lid opened, and it landed on its side, its contents spilling and sliding across the floor right to our feet.

  Photograph
s.

  Hundreds of them.

  And at a glance, they were all of a younger Millie Cross… with High.

  All of them.

  “Twenty years and I can’t bring myself to get rid of that. So,” Millie stated, “if you’re here to help, if you’d be so kind as to take that away, that would be appreciated. Dump it. Burn it. Whatever. Just get it gone.”

  My eyes drifted from the abundance of evidence that Millie Cross was High’s dream woman—and High was Millie’s dream man—to Millie just in time to see her straighten her shoulders.

  “I sense you’re nice women, so I hope you’ll do as you said you wanted to do and help me by leaving immediately and taking that with you.” She pointed to the floor. “And I hope with all my fucking heart I never see it again.”

  Oh yes.

  She hoped that.

  And oh yes.

  She needed our help.

  Just not that kind.

  She kept talking.

  “I also hope you take no offense when I say I’m walking out of my house and going back to work and I never want to see any of you again either.” She looked to Elvira. “Gayle Niedermeier is an excellent wedding planner. If I’m maxed with clients, I refer to her. If you do, indeed, need assistance, I’d contact Gayle. Mention my name. She’ll take care of you.” Her gaze swung to all of us. “Have a nice day.”

  She then stepped over the avalanche of photos carpeting her kitchen floor, walked by us and out of the house.

  I stared at the door.

  Lanie stared at the door.

  Elvira squatted down to the floor.

  “Shit,” she mumbled.

  I looked to her to see she’d picked up a photo and was studying it.

  I looked at the photo she was studying.

  Dream man.

  Dream woman.

  Happy.

  Whoever took it wasn’t a good photographer because half of High was not in shot.

  But in it they were in each other’s arms, Millie with her back to the camera. Her head was tipped and twisted to smile over her shoulder at the lens. She was doing this so big it wasn’t hard to read she was laughing, her long, long hair hanging down over High’s arms that were wrapped tight around her.

  High was looking down at her, grinning, his face carefree and happy like I’d never seen it before.

  Not once.

  Not even when he was with his kids.