Nick
“Come on, Emmy. Put your back into it. Quit fucking around.”
Keeping a straight face while I watched her was nearly impossible. Her feet were sliding backward over Costco’s concrete floor as she tried to push a flatbed cart loaded with over three hundred pounds of pancake mix, syrup, chocolate chips and peanut butter. Her face turned nearly as red as her hair every time she held her breath and pushed against the handle bar. The cart would rock an inch but move no further.
“Fine! You were right. I can’t do it,” she huffed. “I’m too small.”
Pouting with her arms crossed, she looked more like one of her kindergarteners than a thirty-two-year-old woman.
It was adorable as hell.
If we had a daughter one day, I wished she would get her mother’s redheaded temper. Emmy usually kept it in check, but when she let that fire go, I was hard within seconds. Even when I was pissed at her.
“Told you so.” I smirked, hoping to get her eye roll.
She didn’t disappoint.
“Move over, Wife. Let a man take over,” I said.
“Shall I wait until you thump your fist on your chest and let out a caveman roar? Or are you ready to go now?”
“Funny.” With one hand, I set the cart in motion. From the corner of my eye, I didn’t miss another eye roll.
“Do you think you can manage the cart?” Eye roll number three. I was going to try for seven today, a new record.
“What else is on the list?” I asked.
“Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Coffee.”
“Let’s get the coffee first and put in on the flatbed. Then the meat. You can take all the eggs in the cart.”
Tomorrow was the Prescott Fire Department’s annual pancake breakfast. Every year, the fire station put on a huge fundraising breakfast the Sunday before Easter. Even though it was a fuck load of work, it was one of my favorite things about my job.
The whole community would turn out to support the station and our volunteers. And for the last few years, we’d raised a ton of money. The proceeds always went toward upgrades that I couldn’t fit within my normal operating budget, which was already stretched too thin. This year I was hoping to collect enough to get four new sets of gear and at least five new top-of-the-line radios.
So after morning sex, I’d loaded Emmy up and driven to the closest city, Bozeman, to buy bulk breakfast supplies.
“How much money do you want to raise?” she asked me as we meandered through the warehouse aisles.
“Ten grand would go a long way.”
She whistled. “That’s a lot of pancakes.”
“Yeah. We might not make it all this year but every little bit helps.”
“You may recall, Chief Slater, I once had a career in fundraising.”
“Yeah? I had no idea,” I teased.
“It’s true. This isn’t raising money for political candidates, but I’d be happy to help brainstorm ideas. Maybe think of a few things that could make you some extra cash.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” She smiled.
I’d thought to pick her brain for ideas earlier but I hadn’t known how she’d react. Anytime she talked about her former career and working for her father, she sounded hurt and bitter. But now that she had volunteered, I was going to take advantage.
She could have just offered to donate a big chunk of change. Ten thousand was probably nothing for her. And it meant a lot to me that she didn’t throw her money around. Instead, she was using her time and talent to help me reach the goal.
We finished our shopping and over the next hour, Emmy tossed out ideas as we drove home.
Her intelligence astounded me. Her ideas were creative and smart. And when she landed on a good one, the belt barely kept her in the passenger seat. I loved that she’d nix an idea before I ever had a chance to respond, telling me, “Never mind. Never mind. That won’t work in Prescott,” while she flapped her hands in the air.
By the end of the trip, we had come up with two fundraisers in addition to the breakfast.
One was a raffle to win what she called a “restaurant tour.” She was going to get in touch with the local restaurants and arrange for a winning couple to have a multi-course feast, each course from a different chef.
Her second idea was a photo contest for a Prescott Fire Department calendar featuring local businesses. Though no money would be collected right away, she thought announcing the contest at the breakfast would create a buzz of excitement.
“I love these ideas, Emmy,” I said. “But how are you going to pull all this together for tomorrow?”
“Don’t you worry. I’ve done last-minute things like this for years. Usually it was because my father ordered me to do it. At least these are my ideas and I have a clear vision of the end product. This is going to be perfect!”
I loved her enthusiasm. The way her beautiful gray eyes danced with excitement. How she’d flip her hair around her shoulders, sending the faint scent of coconut floating through the air.
I bit my tongue before I could tell her that I loved her. I’d loved her for a decade and she’d never heard me say the words.
But today wasn’t the day. I had too much I needed to do. When I did tell her that I loved her, and I prayed she’d say it back, I wanted it to happen on a day when we could spend all of it in bed.
No. Not today.
But soon.
Emmeline
Nick was in his element.
We had been up since four a.m. prepping the fire station for breakfast. Not long after we’d arrived, Nick’s volunteer firefighters had followed. He’d held a quick meeting to outline the plan for the day and then everyone had split to do their assigned tasks.
The fire truck was moved outside. The center of the station’s floor was filled with round tables and folding chairs. The furniture in the on-call pit was moved to the back and a food station set up in its place.
Griddles and camp stoves were lined up on two long tables in order to cook pancakes and scrambled eggs. Outside, one of the volunteers was manning a huge barbeque, cooking bacon and sausage links.
Nick had told me yesterday that the station couldn’t hold all of the breakfast’s attendees, so a couple of years ago they’d started breaking up the flow in waves. All week, Prescott residents had been buying tickets for one of three breakfast servings. They were expecting nearly five hundred people today, nearly two-thirds of Prescott’s entire population.
While Nick and his volunteers prepped the breakfast, I set up my raffle station on the front ticket table. Every restaurant I had called yesterday had been delighted by the idea of a restaurant tour. I’d happily spent hours at Nick’s office computer, making signs and printing tickets.
“Looks great, Wife. Do you need anything else?” Nick asked, surveying my setup.
“I think we’re all set,” I said. “What else can I do to help you?”
“You don’t need to help, Emmy. Just enjoy the breakfast.”
“You’ve got more than enough work to do. Let me help.”
“Do you want to stick around here and help Michael take tickets at the door?”
I smiled. “I can do that. It will give me a chance to promote the raffle too.”
He leaned in and gave me a soft kiss. When the catcalls from his men started ringing through the air, I blushed.
“Get back to work, you lazy assholes!” Nick shouted over his shoulder with a grin.
At eight o’clock, the first breakfast attendee walked through the doors. By noon, the food was nearly gone, my raffle tickets had sold out, and I needed a nap.
“That was something else,” I told Michael.
Michael was Nick’s newest volunteer firefighter and also Maisy and Beau Holt’s youngest brother. He wasn’t nearly as large as his brother but I could see the family resemblance.
“No shit,” he said. “I’ve only ever come as a guest. That was crazy. I don’t know how Nick stays so calm.”
I had been so proud to watch Nick this morning. With masses of people all trying to get his attention, he had never once gotten flustered. He’d talk while cooking, effortlessly visiting while flipping hundreds of pancakes.
He was a natural leader. Inspiring. Steady. Genuine. Hardworking. If my house was on fire, I wouldn’t want anyone else in charge of putting it out.
“Thanks for your help, Emmeline,” Michael said when the table was stowed in storage.
“My pleasure.”
“It was cool of you to watch Coby so Maisy could eat without him on her lap.”
“I was glad to. He’s such a sweet little boy,” I said.
“I’m not so good with babies. Beau is better.” Michael frowned.
“Don’t worry. He won’t be a baby for long. You can aspire to be the uncle that teaches him how to fish or takes him camping.” The frown on his face turned into a happy grin. Apparently, I had just turned on a light bulb.
“Right. My work here is done. While you guys finish tearing down tables, I’m going to catch a nap on Nick’s couch.”
“Thanks again, Emmeline. Nick’s lucky to have such a nice wife,” he said.
Wife.
Since the beginning, Nick had only ever called me by two nicknames, “Emmy” and “Wife.” I liked that I wasn’t his “baby,” “sugar” or “darling.” I was “Wife.” He was “Husband.” Though, I hadn’t called him that since Vegas. I wasn’t sure what, but something was missing now. A part of me felt that using that nickname disparaged the word’s true meaning in a way. Made it less special.
So I hadn’t said it.
But I didn’t want Nick to stop calling me “Wife.” That endearment was only for me. No other woman had fallen asleep in his arms with that word ringing in her ears.
I flopped down on his couch and closed my eyes but couldn’t find sleep. There was too much noise outside Nick’s office and doubts were swirling in my mind.
We needed the divorce to start over. Right? Besides, even if we ended the first marriage, it didn’t mean we couldn’t try again someday.
If I could just find a way to explain it, Nick would certainly understand my position. That I didn’t feel married.
And even though I loved hearing Nick call me “Wife,” I was willing to give it up.
For a little while. Because when I got it back, nothing would be missing.
“Hello?”
“Put Nick on the phone,” a rough voice ordered. I sat up in bed and forced myself awake.
Shit.
The phone in my hand wasn’t mine. “Nick,” I said, shaking his shoulder.
I was surprised that he hadn’t woken up when his phone had started vibrating on the nightstand. He was normally such a light sleeper but we’d had an incredibly long day and were both exhausted.
Four a.m. alarm. At the station by five. Pancakes. More pancakes. Again, the pancakes. Cleanup. Dinner at the café. Sex. When we’d fallen asleep at eight o’clock, we’d been dead to the world.
“Here,” I said, handing him the phone. “Sorry I answered it. I thought it was mine.”
“It’s okay, Emmy.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sat up against the headboard. “Hello,” he rumbled. Nick came fully awake the second the voice on the other line started speaking.
I reached over and turned on a lamp. Nick’s face had turned to stone and his eyes were trying to burn a hole in the footboard of his bed.
“No,” Nick clipped.
I heard the man’s voice through the phone but was unable to make out his words.
“Don’t call me again,” Nick snapped and hung up.
I stayed quiet, propping myself up next to Nick and staring into the room.
In the far corner of the room was the door leading to the master bedroom and walk-in closet. Across from his bed was a wide dresser. Next to his watch and a few pieces of my jewelry was a picture of him and Dash when they were younger. Nick had his arm around Dash’s shoulders and they were both leaning against the open hood of a car.
Next to that photo was a new addition. A picture the pilot had taken of Nick and me on our hot-air balloon ride. Nick was at my back, leaning down so his chin rested on my shoulder. His arms were banded across my chest. Our noses and cheeks were pink from the cold air but our smiles were warm and bright.
“Are you okay?” I asked Nick after a few minutes.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“Okay.” I turned out the light and shifted under the blankets. I trusted Nick would tell me what was going on when he was ready. And I was much too tired to push him tonight. Not long after he tucked me into the curve of his body, I fell asleep.
It didn’t last long.
A pounding at the front door woke us up a few hours later.
Nick bolted out of bed while I rushed to the closet to pull on pajamas and my robe so I could join Nick downstairs in finding out who was at his door at four o’clock on a Monday morning.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Nick said from downstairs.
“Told you on the phone, we needed to talk.”
I didn’t recognize the man’s voice but it had to be the same one that had called a few hours ago. When I hit the main room, three men were standing across from Nick.
“And I told you that wasn’t happening,” Nick snapped.
The men shifted their eyes to watch me walk down the staircase. Nick looked over his bare shoulder as I came straight to his side.
All three men were dressed entirely in black, wearing leather vests full of patches. Dash had worn a vest when he had visited weeks ago but before I could inspect it, he had stowed it away in his duffel bag. But it didn’t matter. Those vests meant these men were from a motorcycle gang.
“Is this my daughter-in-law?” the man in the center asked.
Not a motorcycle gang. Nick’s dad’s motorcycle gang. And this was Draven Slater Sr. himself.
On his head he wore a black bandana covered with white skulls. The curls poking out from under the rag were dark gray and matched the color of his beard. Nick and Dash must have inherited their hazel eyes from their mother because his dad’s eyes were solid brown.
“You don’t talk to her,” Nick growled, standing in front of me.
“C’mon, Nick,” one of the other men said. “We’re just here to talk.”
“Stay the fuck out of it, Stone,” Nick said.
Stone was the oldest of the three. His head was bald but his face was covered with a long white beard braided at his chin. His cheeks were leathery and wrinkled.
“Hi. I’m Jet,” the third man said, peering around Nick’s body to give me a small wave.
Jet was an attractive Native-American man, probably close to my age. His athletic build was similar to Nick’s and he had a wide white smile on his face. He was either oblivious to the tension in the room or he just didn’t care.
“Hello, I’m Emmeline.”
Jet strode right between Draven and Nick and plopped down on the couch. “Emmeline. Sweet name,” he said. “And fucking rad robe! My girl would love that. Where’d you get it?”
“Thank you. I got this at a spa in Italy.”
“Nice! Do you have any coffee?” he asked. “I’m wiped. The drive here took for-ev-ver.”
I had no idea what to say so I just stared at him until he winked at me. I looked to Nick, who shrugged, my cue to get out the coffee. “Sure.”
But before I could move to the kitchen, Draven thrust his hand out toward me. “Draven Slater.”
“I’m Emmeline Austin,” I said, then shook Stone’s hand as well as my manners took over. “Nice to meet you both. Coffee?”
“Yeah,” Draven said. “We’re going to stick around for a bit.” His last sentence was for Nick.
“Fuck, you are stubborn, old man. Let me put a shirt on,” Nick said and jogged upstairs.
I busied myself with coffee until Nick came back down and we all sat in the living room.
“Would you like to explain why you drove three hours to talk to me when I told you on the phone it wasn’t going to happen?” Nick asked. He was sitting next to me on the arm of the chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
“I wanted to meet your wife,” Draven said.
“Now you’ve met. Bye, Dad.”
“There’s something else.”
“Figured,” Nick muttered.
“Emmeline. This isn’t a conversation for you. How about you make yourself scarce?”
“No,” Nick said, placing his hand on my knee so I wouldn’t rise. “If you have something to discuss with me that you don’t want my wife to hear, then you should have picked a better time to visit. I think I was pretty fucking clear on the phone.”
The room went silent. Draven’s eyes narrowed at Nick before they came to me. I steeled my spine and held his gaze with equal intensity. Determination coursed through my veins.
Draven sneered, expecting me to fold, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. When it came to people I didn’t like, I never backed down. And I did not like Draven.
He was rude.
First, he called in the middle of the night. Then he barged into Nick’s house before dawn. Now he was telling me that it wasn’t my place to sit in the living room of the house where I had basically been living for months.
And this stare-down was just an intimidation tactic.
But I wouldn’t let him bully me out of the room, not when Nick said I could stay. In a lot of ways, Draven’s behavior reminded me of my father. And though I’d always had a difficult time standing up to Trent Austin, pushing back against Draven wasn’t all that challenging.
“Fuck. She’s got a backbone, this one,” Draven finally said, breaking away.
“She reminds me of your mother.” Stone chuckled.
“They’re a lot alike,” Nick said before looking at his dad. “Emmy can stand up for herself. But I’ll warn you once. If you ever stare at her like that again, I’ll fucking beat you within an inch of your life.”
I swallowed a gasp at Nick’s statement.
Draven looked to the floor and nodded. “I apologize, Emmeline.”
“What do you want?” Nick clipped.
“Shit’s going down with the Arrowhead Warriors. It’s getting out of hand and we need to put a stop to it. Something serious. We’re looking to send a message. The Gypsies need a favor,” Draven said.
“What kind of favor?”
“Need you to help us start a fire.”