Walk Through Fire

  Not for the ten years I’d known him. I tore my eyes off High and looked at Millie.

  She belonged in those arms and she knew it.

  So what had happened?

  I lost sight of the photo when Elvira straightened from her squat.

  “This situation just went from code blue to code freakin’ red,” she declared.

  Lanie reached and pulled the photo from Elvira’s fingers, whispering, “Truth.” She looked from the photo to me. “Have you ever seen him like that?”

  I shook my head.

  She looked back to the picture, murmuring, “God, High happy. Crazy.”

  “Crazy beautiful,” Elvira stated. “We were on an assignment. Now we’re on a mission. Regroup for tactical strategy meeting, tonight, cosmos and boards, my house,” Elvira declared, then lifted a hand and wagged a long-rounded-gray-painted fingernail at us. “And don’t tell me no shit about no kids. Saddle those biker boys of yours up with diapers and Tasers and get your ass to my house. Seven sharp. No excuses accepted.”

  Since Lanie’s Nash was hardly a year old, when Elvira mentioned Tasers, she was talking about my Rider and Cutter.

  My boys were hellions. I knew it. I figured they’d work it out or become bikers and it’d work out for them.

  This was Tack’s second round of kids, so he had more experience and more patience.

  But my boys were who they were, so I wasn’t going to give my husband any ideas about Tasers.

  “I’m in,” Lanie said.

  “Me too,” I added.

  “You thinkin’ Tabby on this or you thinkin’ she knew Millie?” Elvira asked me about Tack’s daughter, my stepdaughter. She was the Chaos princess and also an old lady since she was married to Tack’s lieutenant, Shy Cage, and now pregnant with his baby.

  “That’s why she’s not here. I’m thinking she knew her,” I shared.

  Elvira looked at Lanie. “Then, Lanie, softly-softly, but you get what you can outta Tabby and see where she’s at with bein’ pulled in on this. But we got our work cut out for us, and I can herd commandos in my sleep, but whatever that bitch in that studio,” she jabbed her finger toward the door, “is dealin’ with, it’s all hands on deck.”

  I nodded.

  Lanie nodded.

  And all three of us squatted down to right the crate and gather photos.

  Not one of us suggested we should leave well enough alone.

  But even if it had crossed any of our minds, sifting through those photos to put them back into that crate, it would have been banished.

  Whatever ended Logan “High” Judd’s and Millie Cross’s love affair was not a play or a betrayal.

  It was a tragedy.

  And if a sister had the power to right a wrong, it was her sworn duty to do it.

  We were sisters.

  So we were doing it.

  Millie

  Twenty-three years earlier, outside the Chaos Compound…

  “I’m Tabby,” the little girl declared.

  She had a mass of thick, dark hair and deep blue eyes and she was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt that had a glittery decal on the front that declared her princess.

  I sat on top of the picnic table outside Logan’s biker club headquarters, looking down at the little girl who had to be no more than four or five while replying, “Hey there, Tabby. I’m Millie.”

  “Do you belong to Low?” she asked.

  Belong.

  She was certainly a princess.

  A biker princess.

  I grinned down at her.

  “Yep,” I answered, knowing this to be true even if this was only our sixth date.

  But since our sixth date was coming to a cookout with his soon-to-be brothers, a date he had planned from the very beginning, a date that all the other dates led up to, regardless of how few there were, I figured I was right.

  I was Low’s.

  And that made me happy.

  “I like Low,” little Tabby told me.

  “I’m glad you do,” I replied. “I do too.”

  “That’s good,” she said, her eyes going beyond me.

  I felt him before I turned my head and saw him just as Logan settled in beside me, arm coming around my shoulders, leaning into the picnic table… and me.

  But his eyes were on Tabby.

  “Yo, Tab,” he greeted.

  “Your girlfriend’s pretty,” she declared.

  “No, she ain’t, little pea,” Logan returned. “Lots a’ things are pretty. Millie here’s loads more than that.”

  Little pea.

  Loads more than that.

  God.

  Seriously.

  Even if I wasn’t his, I would make him be mine.

  But I was.

  Which meant he was.

  Oh yes.

  Happy.

  I grinned again and leaned in to him.

  “She ride on the back of your bike?” Tabby asked.

  “Yup,” Logan answered.

  “Rush says I can’t ride on a bike,” she announced, and looked from Logan to me. “That’s my brother,” she explained. “He’s older than me and thinks he knows everything.”

  “I suspect most older brothers do,” I shared ruefully, like I felt her pain.

  “He’s stupid,” she proclaimed. “I’ll ride what I want.”

  “How ’bout you wait about fifteen, twenty years before you do that?” Logan suggested, a smile deepening his voice.

  “Well, duh!” she cried like the next word she wanted to use but knew better than to use on a biker was silly. “I can’t do it now,” she went on. “Even if I had an old man, I can’t get my arms around his middle.”

  I swallowed laughter but Logan didn’t bother. I heard his chuckle.

  “You ever think of getting your own bike?” I asked her.

  She tipped her head to the side and stated contemplatively, “Maybe. When I can reach the grips.” She righted her head. “Do you have your own bike?”

  “Nope,” I answered.

  “Want your own bike?” she asked.

  “Nope,” I repeated.

  “You like ridin’ with your old man,” she proclaimed knowingly.

  “Yep,” I stated, and Logan’s arm around me tightened.

  “Tabitha!”

  I tensed at the shrill noise, Tabby’s body jerked and whirled, and Logan straightened but didn’t let me go.

  I looked up just when a redheaded woman, who was pretty but she had an ugly look on her face and it was directed at the little girl in front of me, shrieked, “Get your ass over here!”

  “Gotta go,” Tabby mumbled, and did it hightailing it over to the shrieking woman.

  “Naomi,” Logan said, and I looked up at him to see his eyes still directed to the redhead. “Woman’d be okay, ’cept she treats her daughter like shit. Kid’s ’bout five years old.” He shook his head. “Do not get that.”

  I didn’t either and didn’t get the chance to comment on it because something took my attention and I turned my head the other way.

  There I saw a man Logan had introduced me to earlier called Tack.

  He was looking at the redhead, too, and you could tell he didn’t like the way she treated her daughter either.

  Not at all.

  “Naomi’s Tack’s old lady,” Logan said, and I looked back to him to see he now was gazing down at me. “Loves his little girl like crazy so don’t see that lastin’.”

  “What?” I asked. “Her treatment of their daughter?”

  He nodded. “That and if he can’t put an end to it, then what’ll end is Naomi bein’ his old lady.”

  “Good,” I murmured, looking back to Naomi who was bent over Tabby, wagging a finger in her face, her own expression like thunder.

  I watched, wondering what the kid had done. She was just talking to us, and I hadn’t been keeping tabs on her, but before that, she was just talking to other people.

  The finger wagging stopped when suddenly Tabby wasn’t standing in front
of her mother, head tipped back, face pale, lower lip quivering.

  Instead she was in her father’s arms, and without a word, he turned and walked away.

  Watching it, I decided I liked Logan’s brother Tack.

  Naomi stared daggers at their backs, visibly huffed, and then stormed off in the other direction.

  I decided I didn’t like Tack’s old lady, Naomi.

  “She’s it,” Logan stated, and I looked to him again.

  “What?”

  “Naomi. She’s it. Only bitch a’ the bunch.” He bent toward me. “All the rest, all good. Good folks. Good family.”

  He wanted me to like them.

  I smiled, twisted, and leaned in to him so my breasts were brushing his stomach.

  “There’s always one.”

  He cupped my jaw, eyes to my mole, and muttered, “Yeah.”

  I’d learned what Logan’s eyes to my mole meant and I liked what it meant.

  But I had a few things to say.

  “I like that there’s kids here,” I told him quietly, and earned his gaze.

  His warm, happy gaze.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “This isn’t what I expected of bikers,” I admitted.

  And it wasn’t. Sunny day. Grill fired up. Table groaning with food. Coolers filled with ice and packed tight with bottles of beer and cans of pop. Loads of people around. Kids in the mix.

  I didn’t know what I expected, but something this laid back and friendly was not it.

  “Lotsa different kinds of families, Millie.”

  I nodded.

  He was right and it appeared, away from the one he left behind in Durango, he’d found a good one.

  And the fact that was what he’d do, find a family, said a lot about him, all of it good.

  I leaned deeper in to him and dropped my voice even more. “Thanks for bringing me here, Logan. I don’t want this to sound corny because I mean it. But I’m honored you did.”

  The warm tunneled into his eyes, going deep.

  “Means a lot, beautiful,” he replied.

  I grinned and lifted a hand to curl it around his wrist. “Good.”

  Finally, he bent, touched his mouth to mine, and I let him.

  “Yo! Low, Millie!”

  Logan lifted away and we turned our heads toward a brother I’d met called Black who was manning the grill.

  “Burger. Dog. Brat,” he shouted. “Call it now, they’re goin’ fast.”

  “What you want, darlin’?” Logan asked me.

  “Brat!” I yelled to Black.

  “Got it!” he yelled back. “Low?”

  “Burger and a dog,” Logan replied.

  Black lifted his chin and turned back to the massive half-barrel grill.

  “Fresh ones.”

  This was muttered from our sides and I looked to the man introduced to me as Big Petey, a guy probably in his forties, an older member of the Club, which was definitely multi-generational, just as he slid the warm bottle of beer out of my hand and put a cool one there.

  He grinned at me and winked while he did it.

  Then he, too, jerked up his chin to Logan as he did the same with Logan’s beer.

  “Black kicks ass with a brat, baby, good call,” Logan said before lifting his fresh beer to take a draw and turning his attention back to the grill. “Then again, he kicks ass with everything.”

  I shifted so my side was pressed to his and lifted my own bottle, saying, “Awesome,” before I took a sip.

  “Gotcha!”

  I looked to my left and saw the brother called Boz with a camera he was lowering after obviously just taking a picture of me and Logan.

  I hoped, if I asked nice, he’d give me a copy.

  Our first photo.

  It had just been taken but I couldn’t wait to see it.

  “Too pretty for that brother, Millie,” Boz declared as he gave Logan a joking take-that look and me a grin. He turned only to stop and lift his camera to take a picture of a dark-headed boy who was racing after a dog on the tarmac between the Ride store, the Ride garage, and the Chaos headquarters.

  “Don’t eat all those, Chew,” snapped a woman I had not yet met, who was not too far from us at another picnic table, one that was laden with food. “They’re Low’s favorite.”

  “He’s a grunt. He gets the dregs,” the brother I did meet, called Chew, replied, doing it with a mouthful of deviled egg, two more of which he had in the palm of his big hand.

  “He’s got his girl with him, moron,” she returned. “Grunt or not, all Chaos got manners.” She planted a hand on her hip and challenged, “Or am I wrong?”

  “You’re not wrong but you are a pain in the ass,” Chew shot back.

  “My job,” she muttered.

  I giggled quietly.

  “Dad! I want a puppy!” the dark-headed little boy shouted, and I looked that way.

  He was now close to Tack, who had his daughter riding on his shoulders.

  “You got it, bud,” Tack replied with a grin.

  That was easy.

  “Really?” Tabby screeched.

  Apparently, Tabby felt as I did.

  Tack twisted his neck just as she leaned over and put both hands to his cheeks.

  “Yeah, baby,” he told her.

  How sweet.

  Yes, totally liked Tack.

  “Puppy!” the little boy I suspected was Rush shouted as he pumped his arms with excitement.

  “Pushover.”

  The word was muttered from behind us and when I twisted, I saw it was from Big Petey, who had his gaze to Tack and his kids, and even if his word sounded disapproving, his grin was not.

  Oh yes. I liked Logan’s whole Chaos family because it was like family. Safe. Loving. And like any family, even having its flaws, it still felt good.

  I sighed and melted sideways into my man.

  “You okay?” he asked the top of my head.

  I wrapped my arm around his waist and rested my head against the side of his chest.

  “Yeah, Logan,” I replied. “I’m definitely okay.”

  He gave me a squeeze.

  I returned it.

  “Millie!” Black called. “Brats are done, honey.” He looked to Logan. “Low, come get your woman her food.”

  Your woman.

  “Be back,” Logan muttered, let me go, and walked toward the grill to get me my food.

  I watched him move away thinking, Yes, oh yes.

  Absolutely yes.

  I was one hundred percent okay.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Don’t

  High

  “HEY! HIGH!”

  Striding out from the back of the store toward the Compound, hearing Cherry’s call, High looked toward the garage to see her quickly coming down the steps to the office in her high heels.

  He changed directions and started moving her way.

  “I’m in a bind,” she called when she got to the bottom of the steps and started rushing to him. “The tires don’t fit!”

  High said nothing. He just kept walking across the expanse of tarmac to her.

  “The buyer is coming on Monday and Joker’s decided on different tires, not recutting the wheel wells,” she went on, still hoofing her way to him. “I called the first two suppliers and they don’t have what he wants. And I—”

  They met. She stopped. He stopped, too, and lifted a hand so she’d also stop yapping.

  “What you need, Cherry?” he asked.

  “I need tires,” she replied. “Which means I have to call around to everyone to find them and that means I can’t go get the champagne.”

  His brows drew together. “Say again?”

  She threw out a hand in agitation. “I can’t get the champagne.”

  “What champagne?” he asked.

  “For the event,” she told him. “Tack and I are donating twelve cases of champagne to this fund-raising thing happening downtown. They called and needed underwriting. They were in a bind because s
omething had happened and the champagne donation fell through. It’s a good cause and a big event and any big event needs champagne. But there wasn’t enough time to get the brothers together so they could vote on the donation so I decided Tack and I would donate it personally.”

  “Thinkin’ the brothers would cover you, you thought it was worth the cake,” High informed her of something she absolutely knew.

  She shook her head and grinned at him. “Doesn’t matter. Tack and I need write-offs too.”

  “Whatever,” he muttered, and got to the point. “So what you need from me?”

  She nodded. “Right. Well, it’s ordered, the champagne that is, and they need it because the event’s tonight. They also need it in time so they can get it in the fridge to chill. I was supposed to go pick it up and take it there. The store can load it and they have guys at the event location to unload it. I just need the pickup. But now I can’t—”

  “Where’s the booze and where’s it gotta go?” he asked.

  Cherry smiled big and shouted, “You’re the greatest!” before she shocked the shit out of him by leaning in, putting a hand to his chest, and getting on her toes to press her cheek to his.

  Fuck.

  She’d never touched him.

  A decade he’d known the woman and she’d not touched him.

  Not once.

  She moved away, still smiling but also giving him the info he needed.

  He nodded. “On it.”

  “You’re my savior today, or you’re King’s Shelter’s savior.”

  King’s Shelter. They took care of runaways.

  Yeah, a good cause the brothers would totally vote to support.

  He didn’t get into that again with her.

  He told her, “You can keep talkin’ to me or I can go get your shit and get it to the hotel.”

  She kept smiling. “Then I’ll shut up. Thanks, High. You’re the best.”

  She continued to smile as she lifted her hand and then the woman touched him again, squeezing his biceps before letting him go, turning on her heel, and sashaying toward the garage like she had all day and wasn’t in a rush to find some tires.

  He didn’t think of that. Not when he was watching her ass move in her tight skirt, an ass that was beyond fine even after popping out two kids and being firm in her forties.

  Tack was a lucky man, seeing as Cherry was his woman.

  High stopped watching her ass and went to his bike, which he rode to Boz’s place so he could switch it out for his truck.