Zoe glanced up from the utterly baffling and infuriatingly detailed monthly expense report, and immediately her tetchy mood vanished. There stood Maria, and in her arms she held a squirming, singing little bundle. Zoe got to her feet, already smiling and extending her arms.
“Hey, little flower,” she said. “How’s your day been?”
Maria handed Keira over, and right away, the baby clung to her mother like a monkey. Zoe smoothed some unruly blonde curls back, kissed Keira’s forehead. The baby clutched Zoe’s shirt, and grinned gummily even as she rubbed her eyes, thrilled to have someone else to coo at.
“How was she today?” Zoe asked Maria. “Is the teething better?”
“A bit.” Maria set the loaded diaper bag on the chair next to Zoe’s desk. “But she was so busy practicing pulling herself up on every piece of furniture in the house, that she didn’t go down for a nap She needs a sleep pronto, and I’d be surprised if she lasts an hour.”
“Ahhh, poor baby.” Zoe kissed Keira’s nose, and as if on cue, the baby yawned widely, practically swallowing Zoe’s chin. The two women laughed, and Keira scowled at them. “Standing up is way better than lying down, huh?”
“She seems to think so,” Maria said. “Every time I turned around, she was off and standing somewhere else. She can cross a room at warp-speed now, I swear.”
“I know,” Zoe agreed. “I keep hoping that I’ll grow eyes in the back of my head.”
“No luck so far?”
“Nope.” Zoe rocked Keira as her little body started to go limp and heavy. “But fingers crossed.”
“So… same time tomorrow morning?” Maria asked, handing Zoe the blanket from the diaper bag.
“Yes, please.” Zoe gently set Keira into the travel crib that she had set up between her desk and the door to the back storage room. “And you’ll be able to go a bit early, I think. My last client will be finished around three, and I’m going to try to get away ASAP. I want an evening with Little Miss Sleepy here.”
“No problem.” Maria grabbed her backpack. “See you tomorrow, Zoe.”
“Thanks, Maria,” Zoe said. “Have a good night.”
Maria nodded, and headed out through the tattoo parlor, greeting the guys as she went. Zoe looked down at Keira, and tucked the pink bunny from Scars against Keira’s soft cheek. The baby sighed happily, hugged it tightly, and dropped off, as easy as a light switch being flicked.
“You’re amazing,” Zoe said to her daughter. “I wish I could just do that… drift off so quickly and peacefully. I could learn a thing or two from you, little one.”
She kissed her fingertips, pressed them gently to the back of that sweet little fuzzy head, then returned to her desk. She glared at the monthly report again, wishing that the damn thing made more sense to her. Thanks to those years back in Fargo, Zoe knew the day-to-day, up-close-and-personal running of the tattoo business inside and out, but Blue Dragon was a surprisingly busy parlor, and under her management, business was growing month on month.
That meant more of everything – more ink, more gloves, more staff hours, and now, more staff. She had to hire at least two other tattoo artists, and that meant more tables, more equipment, more insurance and medical. And here she had to sit, and put all of that ‘more’ into cold, hard numbers in neat little rows, to then run past Wolf when she justified asking for more money to cover things. She had to get it right, and she had to get it right the first time. Failure to do that meant delays, suppliers not paid on time, new hires on hold and so she’d be forced to take double shifts.
Urgh. Math and projections and shit. Soooo tedious.
She sighed, then mentally smacked herself in the face. Come on, the whole reason this was happening was because she and those guys out there had worked their asses off… expansion was a good thing, and she’d better get appreciative damn quick and stop her inner bitching about her pretty crap accounting skills.
Zoe looked at Keira, reminded herself that that little girl was counting on Zoe to make a go of this business. Zoe had to save several thousand more to buy a new car, start a savings account for herself and Keira, maybe even save to buy her own cute little house with an apple tree in the backyard. That got her head on straight again. She grimly set her mouth into a line, picked up her red pen, and narrowed her eyes at the rows of numbers.
“Wow.” The deep, sexy drawl came from the doorway. “That is one hell of an intense look you got going on, beautiful.”
Every part of her jumped at that achingly-familiar voice: her stomach, her heart, her breath. Hell, even her pussy jumped, somehow.
Yeah, Scars had her. He had her whole.
“Scars!” She jumped to her feet, shot out from behind the desk. “Hey…”
He stepped into the office, glanced down at the sleeping baby, then gathered Zoe in those strong, safe arms. She lifted her shining face to his, needing his kiss… and he delivered. Boy, did he ever.
She let out a little moan as he kissed her, his tongue teasing her mouth until she opened. He tasted her then, gentle little sips, just darting in and out, little licks of flame between her eager lips. Taking his time. Savoring her.
“Scars…” His name was a ragged whimper. “Scars…”
“Missed me, baby?” he whispered against her mouth. “Need me?”
“Yes and yes.” She arched, just a bit, longing to feel that delicious bulge against her lower body. Sure enough, he was hard, the most male part of him reaching for her softness, her sweetness. “Are you OK? Where have you been? Can you tell me now?”
“Ah.” He kissed her again, lightly, then stepped back. “I’ll show you. Come on out.”
“But –” She glanced down at Keira. “I don’t want to leave her.”
“Bring the baby monitor and have the guys keep an ear open,” he said, taking the monitor out of the diaper bag and handing it to her. “We won’t be more than two minutes, I promise.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” Zoe said, still not thrilled at the idea of leaving Keira alone. Though, if she thought about it, how was leaving her in the office next to the bustling tattoo work space any different than leaving her alone in her bedroom while Zoe was in the living room? Or sleeping in her own room? Or being absolutely filthy with Scars on the kitchen floor? “Two minutes?”
“Tops,” he promised her as he headed for the door. “Come on, beautiful. I’ve got something for you.”
“For me?” She turned up the volume on the monitor and trailed behind him more eagerly now, leaving the office door open. “Like… a present?”
“Yep.” He gave her one of his devastating little winks. “Like a present.”
“Viking?” Zoe paused next to his work area, and he looked up from the butterfly tat that he was inking on a woman’s lower back, his red hair as wild as ever. “Can you listen for Keira? She’s sleeping, and I think she’s out for at least two hours, but can you just stay alert? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Two minutes,” Scars corrected her. “Scout’s Honor.”
“You were a Boy Scout?” Zoe asked him skeptically. “Tidy little uniform and badges and making fire by rubbing two sticks together ?”
“You kidding me?” Scars rolled his eyes and smirked. “Nah, baby. I was kicked out after three meetings. Mouthed off to the guy with the whistle and the idiotic Ranger Rick hat.”
“Figures,” she muttered. “So… you can keep an eye on Keira, Viking?”
“Yeah, of course.” Viking grinned at them. “And hey, that’s one hell of a quickie, Veep… two whole damn minutes! You can satisfy your girl that fast?”
“Shut the hell up, Callahan,” Zoe said in her best ‘you’re dead where you sit’ voice, even as Scars guffawed. “Unless you want to work ten-hour shifts for the next ten weekends?”
“No, boss,” Viking said, pulling out the affability card double-time. “Sorry about my hastily uttered words. They were vile and unprofessional.”
“Harrumph,” Zoe said, still giving him the evil eye. “Watch it, big guy.”
Viking snapped a salute, gave Scars a tiny grin, the returned to his client. Scars took Zoe’s free hand, tugged her towards the door.
“C’mon, Zoe. It’s just right here.”
“What is?” Zoe stepped through the door that Scars held open for her, and the blast of early-summer heat and bright sun smacked her in the face. She sighed happily, looking forward to taking Keira swimming soon, because Wolf had bought her the stinking cutest little pink and orange bathing suit. “Hey, where are you going?”
Scars was still walking across the parking lot, and about fifty feet away from the parlor front door, he stopped.
“What am I looking at?” she asked him.
“This.” Scars pointed at a car. “It’s yours, baby.”
“It’s – what?” She blinked up at him. “How can it be mine?”
“Because I bought it for you.”
“You – what?”
“I flew out to Salt Lake City yesterday, drove back this morning. Like I told you, I’ve got a good old schoolfriend friend out there who I owed a huge favor to. He had this car for sale, and I got it for one hell of a good price, but still better than he’d get from anyone else. In exchange, he got cash in hand to pay for his kid’s medical bills.”
“So…” Zoe looked at the car again. “It’s… it’s mine?”
Scars produced the paperwork from his back pocket. “Yours, Zoe. Free and clear. The guys over at the garage just officially did the safety inspection and Silver signed off on it, and all that’s here too. The car’s in good shape, just two years old, barely used. I want you and Keira out of that death trap on wheels that you own now, and so here you are.”
“But…” She stared at the documents with her name all over them, looked up at Scars. “But that’s a huge present.”
“Not so much.” He gently stroked her cheek. “You and Keira are huge parts of my life, baby. You’re huge presents, ones that I don’t take for granted, not now and not ever. I promised to keep you safe, both of you, and this is just one way for me to do that.”
“But I was going to buy –”
“Nuh-uh.” He lowered his dark head to hers, kissed the protests right off her rosebud lips. “Let me do this for you, and for that gorgeous baby girl in there. Don’t fight me, or argue with me, or tell me that you could have done this yourself with a bit of time. Just try to not be your stubborn and ornery self for two minutes, OK? Please accept it, Zoe. Please let me do this.”
She was staring down at her feet quietly, and he actually saw the internal tussle that she was having with herself. This was the tough part for Zoe, he knew: the handing over and letting go. The ‘being vulnerable’ part, the ‘letting someone help’ part. She was way out of practice with all of that, she had been for years and years, and it was something that Scars had to proceed with extreme caution about.
But goddammit… Zoe was his, and that made Keira his too, by default and by choice. He’d throw himself in front of a damn semi-truck to protect them, he’d take a bullet, he’d do anything, anything, to keep them safe. But since death-defying acts of love and chivalry were in short supply – and thank Christ for that, really and all things considered – he had to settle for doing things that made Zoe’s life easier, safer, more relaxed.
And she was struggling with accepting even that much. He understood, though, so Scars just stood there, his arms around her loosely, not wanting her to feel trapped or pressured. He just waited, waited for her to let him in a little bit more. Or not.
When she looked up at him again, those incredible green eyes warm and sweet, he exhaled, his worry gone. And when she smiled, said Thank you, Scars, and got up on her tiptoes to kiss him, his heart almost burst out of his chest.
Scars recalled every single kiss that he’d shared with this woman, but something about this one was… well… it was –
Sweet surrender. She just handed over to me, completely and totally and fully.
Zoe was almost dizzy with the relief of just letting herself accept a gift, of not checking motives, of not being suspicious of what she’d have to do to ‘pay back’ the gift-giver, or of being in someone’s debt. There was freedom in accepting something with an open heart. She’d forgotten that freedom. This rough, scarred, gorgeous man in front of her had just reminded her of that amazing secret.
Scars gave to her with an open hand, he always had, and he did it because he didn’t know any other way to be. He gave to the people that he cared about, he just gave, and he never kept score or came back to collect.
He was a good man. He was a man worth loving.
He was a man that she loved.
She wanted him to know that. Now.
“Scars…”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I –”
A noise on the baby monitor caught her attention now, and she stared down at it, puzzled.
“What, Zoe?” he asked. “Is she waking up?”
“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “I don’t think so. Is that… was that the storage room door opening?”
“Probably one of the guys, going back there to get something. Ink or whatever. Probably trying to be quiet and not wake up Keira.”
“No.” She shook her head, already turning back to the parlor, every mothering instinct in her body screaming at her. “It was the back door.”
“You mean the one leading out to the back parking area?” Scars was catching her unease and urgency, and he matched her strides. “The one off the storage room?”
“Yeah.”
That was when the man’s voice crackled over the monitor, low and hoarse and unfamiliar:
“Gotcha, sweetheart. Stay quiet now.” A rustling noise – Keira’s blanket? “Nice and easy now, here we go.”
“What the hell?” Zoe whispered, shocked. “Scars – who –”
They were running now, flat out running to the door, shouting at the parlor, praying that one of the guys would look up and out the massive front window and see their panic. But the door remained resolutely closed, nobody shot out to ask what the fuck, guys? Nobody noticed and nobody came.
Suddenly, with the loudest boom that Zoe could possibly imagine, the tattoo parlor window exploded into a thousand pieces of glass. Scars and Zoe weren’t thrown from the force, exactly, but it felt like ruthless hands had shoved them back, hard. With cries of shock and pain, they fell heavily between two parked cars, and without one second of hesitation, without any conscious thought at all, Scars rolled over on top of Zoe, his body covering hers, his hands covering her face. Protecting her with his own flesh and blood and muscle.
Zoe lay on her back, trying to breathe through the pressure of those massive hands, through the solid weight on her chest. What the actual fuck…what had just happened?
“Scars?” she said in a muffled voice, even though it hurt to breathe out. “Was that… was it an explosion?”
His eyes were intense and furious as he checked her for damage. Nothing, not even a scratch from flying glass, and thank God for that. He didn’t say one word, because his mind was whirring and spinning and racing, trying to figure out who had been where in the parlor when they’d walked out the door.
Jesus fuck.
He lifted himself off Zoe. “Baby? You OK?”
She was staring at him, white as parchment as it all hit her at once.
Keira. Keira. Keira.
“Scars…”
“I know.”
He leapt to his feet now, spun back to face Blue Dragon. He heard shouts behind him, recognized some voices coming from the direction of the garage and Satan’s: Wolf, Silver, Cole, Jinx, Cain, Ice, Dux and Drake. But he didn’t even look around – he was running, limping, fighting his way over the last forty feet to what had been a tattoo parlor not even two minutes earlier.
A parlor that was now completely obscured by billowing gray smoke.
Oh, fuck… fire. No, no, no. Please God, anything but that.
When Scars saw Viking and Arrow stumbling towards him through the nightmare haze, holding up the butterfly tattoo woman between them, and the two other customers following closely behind, he almost sagged in relief.
“Scars!” Arrow hacked out his name, coughing wildly. “Keira…”
“Where the fuck is she?” Scars grated, his throat already thick with smoke. “And where’s Saint?”
“He went to get her,” Arrow said harshly, his voice raw. “Last I saw, he was heading for the office. But Scars… that’s where the explosion happened. In the back, where Keira was sleeping.”
“Jesus Christ.” Scars was frozen for a second, then he snapped back to the moment. “Get clear. Now.”
“What are you –”
Scars didn’t hear the rest of Arrow’s question, certainly didn’t bother to answer the other man. He was running again, running through flame and smoke and heat.
Running back through time and memory.
“Mom! Dad!”
They were almost free of their seatbelts… so damn close… just a few more seconds.
Then the surge of flame. The one that that set his clothes and flesh on fire, even as he screamed in agony and kept trying to save his parents. The one that he still carried on his skin to that day.
Not this time. No fucking way.
Jus then, Saint lurched out into the parking lot, coughing, sweating, black with soot, his brawny arms covered in angry red burns.
He was alone.
“Keira?” Scars demanded. “Still in the office?”
Saint nodded, tears streaming down his grimy face. “I can’t get to her, man. The smoke is too thick, worse than the fire… no way to breathe at all…”
Without another word, Scars pushed past Saint, bolted straight into the burning building.
And disappeared from view behind the rolling, raging, gray wall of hell on earth.
**
Thanks to Ice taking her down her from behind, Zoe was on her knees in the parking lot, watching as Scars raced straight into the parlor, watching the way that the flames were licking at his body as he plunged in and through them. She gasped as the front of the building collapsed, driving Silver, Rebel, and Cowboy back, their arms shielding their faces from the roar of fire.
Zoe needed to get up now, needed to figure out a way to get into the parlor, needed to get to her perfect, innocent daughter.
She couldn’t do any of that, though, because she had approximately two thousand pounds of pure muscle standing between her and what used to be a front door. The guys were watching her fixedly, then shooting tiny glances over their shoulders at the blaze, then snapping their hard eyes back to her. Clearly, after her mad dash to follow Scars, which had been thwarted by Ice cooly and silently performing his NFL-worthy tackle, no doubt perfected by his years of Enforcing, Wolf had told them to make sure that she stayed put.
She staggered to her feet anyway, felt her knees go out under her. Before she could fall on her face, Wolf was there, his hands under her elbows. Despite the futility of moving him, she shoved against his body anyway, knowing that even if by some miracle she managed to take him out, she had eight more Road Devils to get through.
Hopeless.
“Let me go!” she cried out, determined to fight somehow, in any goddamn way that she could. “I need to get Keira!”
“No fuckin’ way.” Those gray eyes were the color of the coldest, deadest winter in history. “You’re stayin’ right here, Zee.”
“But…” She struggled in his grip, didn’t gain so much as an inch. “Scars –”
“Has made his decision,” Wolf said calmly. “He’s goin’ after that baby, and if he can’t get her out, nobody can. You saw the ceiling go down, you saw how Silver and Rebel and Cowboy couldn’t get within ten feet of the fire. Scars is the guy in the mouth of the devil, and he’s fightin’ that bastard right now. You get me, baby girl? He’s it, he’s the only one who has a chance. Nothin’ any of us can do except stand here and wait and hope.”
“No.” Zoe shook her head, hating every single goddamn thing about that scenario. “We have to do something, Wolf! Somebody has to do something!”
“We’re doin’ it.”
“You’re – what?” she faltered. “What are you doing?”
“We’re keeping’ you from fire-walkin’.” Wolf tightened his grip on her as she twisted and pulled. “We’re keepin’ you from dyin’, Zee, because no way we’re lettin’ you go in there.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then hauled back and kicked him in the shin… hard. He growled and let up minutely – she’d scored a direct hit, even with chunky platform sandals – and she got free. For two seconds. Then Wolf grabbed her again, shook her until her teeth rattled.
“Hey, Wolf,” Jinx protested, watching this with alarm. “Take it easy, Prez…”
“Like hell I’m takin’ it easy!” Wolf thundered, and to a man they backed up. “You think I’m gonna let her kill herself?” He turned his ferocious glare back to her, showing no mercy or pity at all. “You listen to me, Zoe, and you listen good. You stay put, and if you can’t or won’t do that, then I got no problem sending you over to Satan’s to wait. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck if it takes five guys to drag you over there kickin’ and screamin’, you will go. If you want to stay here, then you will behave yourself. Am I bein’ clear enough about how things are gonna go?”
“Wolf…” she whispered, and suddenly, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “That’s my baby girl in there, my sweet little flower, and she needs me…I promised to take care of her, no matter what, and I left her in there, left her sleeping… and Scars is in there all alone… and he’s… I love him. Don’t you understand? I can’t just stand here… I can’t.”
His face softened. “I do understand, Zee. I promise you that I do. But you’re forgettin’ somethin’.”
“What?”
Wolf wiped her tears away with his thumb. “That Scars is a man who has survived fire once already in his life. He’s the only man I know who’s walked through the literal flames of goddamn hell, and come through the other side with anyone still alive.”
She stared up at him, and she realized that he was right.
“Don’t bet against Scars Innis, not ever,” Wolf said quietly. “Deep breaths, baby girl… you hold on to me, and you hold on. You keep the faith. And don’t you count Scars out – don’t you fuckin’ dare.”
**
Scars knew that he had to keep moving – even the briefest of pauses could be the end of him – because this was all about time now. Not minutes, either… seconds.
The whole ceiling could go at any second.
The tattooing chemicals and cleaning stuff that he saw scattered around could explode at any second.
The fire could move behind him, trapping him inside, at any second.
Keira could succumb to smoke any second (he refused to believe that she already had… that was not an option today).
He grabbed a shirt off the floor, dashed across the room to the water cooler next to the reception area, dumped the whole bottle on the shirt. He held it to his mouth, took a breath, and ran to Zoe’s office – or where her office used to be.
God, the heat. The acrid, awful taste in his lungs, black and thick, even through the soaked material. And the smell… Jesus, he’d forgotten what fire smelled like, because whenever he thought about that deadly winter night, all he remembered was the smell of his own skin burning.
Fire smelled like death.
Fuck that. Nobody dies today.
He avoided something burning on the floor (part of the ceiling? Oh, God), and coughed into the wet shirt, praying for the first time in twenty years… praying that Keira was passed out peacefully. Praying that that was why there was no screaming coming from the crib that he now saw.
The crib that was on fire.
“Fuck!” he mumbled. “C’mon, God… c’mon now… don’t do this to Zoe…”
He ran through a wall of flame, ignored the intense burning on his upper back, and peered into the crib.
Empty.
Relief smashed through him, until he remembered that voice over the baby monitor… and he knew that whoever had Keira had gone out the back door.
To the second parking lot.
He sprinted through the office, exploded into the back room, tripped over something solid, and landed heavily on his elbows… and there was a man on the floor.
Passed out cold. Or dead.
Scars didn’t care and he didn’t check – whatever had happened here at Blue Dragon, Scars knew that this prick was 100% responsible. Let him die, then let his stinking soul rot in hell. Scars had other priorities than hauling a full-grown murderous asshole out of harm’s way.
“Keira!” Scars said, wildly and stupidly, as though she’d respond with ‘Over here!’. “Keira!”
Unbelievably, he heard a sharp little wail, and he followed the sound through the smoke, crawling on his hands and knees now, noticing that the smoke was much thinner closer to the floor. And there she was – sitting on her bum and lodged under a shelf, clutching her bunny. Whole. Not visibly burned. And pissed off as hell.
“Oh, my God.” Scars scooped her up, immediately wrapped the wet shirt around her tiny body, making sure to cover her face. “I’ve got you, little peach. We’re getting the fuck out of here now, OK? You good with that?”
She screamed in response, and he took that as a good sign. He also took it as enthusiastic agreement.
He crawled in the direction of the storage room door, the door to the back parking area, the door that meant that they were mere feet from salvation and sunshine and goddamn air… he wrapped his hand in his long jacket sleeve, reached for the door handle, twisted it to open, and…
Nothing.
Panicking now, he turned it the other way, pushing his massive shoulder against the door as he did.
Still nothing.
Goddamn it.
Scars lay on his back, Keira tucked into his side, lifted both legs to his chest, plowed his boots forward into the metal door. It stayed resolutely closed, so he kicked again. Again. Again. That was when he saw that the frame was bent, buckled, deformed, undoubtedly by the heat. His heart fell into his stomach, as he clocked that this escape route was shut to them.
Motherfucker. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Seconds, seconds, seconds.
Tic. Tic. Tic.
Go.
Scars took a deep breath and shot to his feet, paused long enough to cover Keira more securely with the damp shirt, then ran back through the now-blazing office. Through the main tattoo work space, where jagged, burning pieces of ceiling were falling like snow, setting the lower legs of his jeans aflame. He hunched his whole body and gathered Keira to his chest as he ran, feeling chunks of wood and plaster hit his broad back, fire burning through his shirt, searing his skin, but he barely felt it and he didn’t slow, not even a little bit. Scars just nailed his eyes on a tiny sliver of bright blue sky that he saw thirty, forty feet above them, just held onto that blue like a talisman.
We’re gonna make it, little peach. You’re goddamn right we are.
**
For the rest of her life, Zoe would remember the second that Scars came bursting out through that wall of smoke and flame.
He was holding a wrapped little bundle tight against his chest. He was coughing, tears streaking tracks through the thick layer of soot on his face. He was running like hell, like a man running from death.
And he looked… bright. Glowing.
Like an avenging angel. He’d never looked more destroyed, more fierce.
He’d never looked more beautiful.
“Jesus fuck!” Holt grabbed Keira and ran over to Zoe, who had fallen to her knees with her arms outstretched. He shouted over his shoulder, “Down, man… down on the ground! Guys… help him!”
Without a word, Scars dropped. Zoe lost sight of him as Keira lay silent in her arms, just caught glimpses of the man that she loved through the legs of his brothers as they peeled off their clothes and surrounded Scars, as they started to pat him with their shirts and jackets.
His back. His legs. His hair.
“What….” she croaked, her mind not engaging, still trying to figure out if her daughter was breathing, half-hearing the sirens wailing closer and closer. “Wolf… what are they…”
“They’re dousin’ the flames,” Wolf said tersely. “Stay here, Zee. Stay with me.”
“They’re…” She shook her head, her fingers trembling as she held her palm against Keira’s mouth, praying for an exhale. “I don’t…”
“He’s burnin’, baby girl.”
“No,” she said shaking her head, blank and dazed. An EMT appeared out of nowhere, gently lifted Keira out of her arms and started CPR, and she looked at him in confusion. “But…”
That was when Scars began to scream. And Zoe knew, knew with everything that she had, that her beautiful, shining avenging angel had just had his wings burned right off him.
He was on fire.