Walk Through Fire Read online

  She finished this still grinning.

  “You ain’t ridin’ back with her,” Logan growled, and my gaze shot back to him. “Fact, she ain’t drivin’ anywhere.”

  Oh man, I could love this guy.

  Oh man!

  That was crazy!

  How could I possibly think I could love this guy just from him saying that?

  “She isn’t and I’m not,” I shared. “We’re staying the night here.”

  “Good,” he muttered right before he got bumped by someone precariously making their way to the keg.

  “You wanna get out of here?” I found myself asking, and got his swift attention. “I don’t know. Sit out on the back deck or something?” I finished quickly so he didn’t get any ideas.

  “Fuck yeah,” he whispered, his brown eyes locked to mine, and the way he said that, the way he was looking at me, I felt a shiver trail down my spine.

  “Okay,” I whispered back.

  He leaned in and grabbed my hand. His was big and rough and felt warm and strong wrapped around mine.

  Okay.

  Oh God.

  Seriously.

  Seriously.

  It was true. It was crazy and totally freaking true.

  I could fall in love with this guy.

  And I knew that just from him wanting me to be safe and the feel of his hand around mine.

  Oh man.

  He led me out to the deck, straight to the steps that led to the yard and we sat on the top one.

  I was nervous in a way I’d never felt before but it felt good as I stared out into Kellie’s parents’ dark yard.

  “So, Millie, tell me what we’re doin’ tomorrow night,” he ordered.

  I turned my head to look at him. “What?”

  “Whatever you wanna do, we’re doin’ it,” he stated. “So tell me what you wanna do.”

  I tipped my head to the side, intrigued with this offer.

  “How about we fly to Paris?” I suggested on an attempt at a joke.

  “You got a passport?” he asked immediately, not smiling, sounding serious.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  Though, he couldn’t be serious.

  I mean, Paris?

  “Do you?” I returned.

  “Nope, but that’s what you wanna do, I’ll get one.”

  I grinned at him. “Not sure you can get a passport in a day, Logan.”

  “You wanna go to Paris, I’ll find a way.”

  I shook my head, looking away.

  He was good at this. A master at delivering lines.

  I liked it. It showed confidence.

  But they were still just lines.

  “And he says all the right things,” I told the yard.

  “Babe, I’m not jokin’.”

  My eyes flew back to him because he still sounded serious.

  And when they flew back to him, the lights from the house illuminating his handsome face, he looked serious.

  “I don’t wanna go to Paris,” I whispered. “Well, I do,” I hastened to add. “Just not tomorrow night. I don’t think I have the right thing to wear on a date in Paris.”

  He grinned at me. “Well, that’s a relief. Coulda swung it by the skin of my teeth but it’d set me up for a fail on our second date. Not sure how I’d top Paris.”

  He was already thinking of a second date.

  I liked that too.

  But I liked his words better because it was cool to know he could be funny.

  I couldn’t help it and didn’t know why I would try.

  I laughed.

  He kept grinning while I did it and scooted closer to me so our knees were touching.

  “So tell me, Millie, what d’you wanna do?” he asked when I quit laughing.

  “I wanna see what you wanna do,” I told him.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  I looked into his eyes through the dark and felt something strange. Not a bad strange. A happy one.

  Comfortable. Safe.

  Yes, both of those just looking into his eyes.

  “So, do you wanna go to Paris?” I asked. “I mean, one day.”

  “Sure,” he told me. “Though, not top on my list.”

  “What’s top on your list?”

  “Ridin’ ’cross Australia.”

  “Riding?” I asked.

  “On my bike.”

  I felt my eyes get big. “You mean, the motorcycle kind?”

  He put pressure on my knee as he gave me another grin. “I’m the kinda guy, Millie, who doesn’t acknowledge there is another kind of bike.”

  Absolutely for sure, my parents would not approve of this guy.

  And absolutely for sure, I so totally did.

  “So you have a bike?” I pushed.

  “Harley,” he told me.

  “Do I get to ride on it tomorrow?” I went on, not bothering to filter the excitement out of my question.

  He stared into my eyes.

  “Absolutely,” he answered.

  I smiled at him and I knew it was big.

  His gaze dropped to my mouth and when it did, my legs started tingling again. But this time, the tingles emanated from the insides of my thighs, out.

  I looked away and took a sip of beer.

  “Millie,” he called.

  I kept my gaze to the yard and replied with a, “Hmm?”

  “Safe with me.”

  My attention cut back to him.

  “Never won’t be, babe,” he went on softly. “Not ever. Hear?”

  Again, it was like he read my thoughts.

  And he knew. He knew he was exactly what he was. That guy parents would freak if their daughter ever said yes to a date with him.

  But I knew something else, looking at him.

  My parents were wrong.

  “Hear?” he pushed when I just stared at him, not feeling tingly.

  Feeling warm.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  He pressed his knee into mine again and looked to the yard.

  “So, you wanna go to Paris,” he noted. “What else you wanna do?”

  I looked to the yard, too, and told him.

  We stayed out there, sitting on the steps of the deck, our knees brushing, for what felt like minutes at the same time it felt like hours, talking about nothing that felt like everything before the guy he came to the party with stuck his head out the back door and called, “Low, ridin’ out.”

  To that, he told me he had to go and we both got up.

  He didn’t kiss me.

  He walked me into the house straight through to the front door.

  There, he ordered somewhat severely, “Your girl is totally shitfaced, so you go nowhere with her and you let her go nowhere. Hear?”

  I nodded. “Staying here, Logan.”

  He nodded.

  Then he lifted a finger as his eyes dipped to my mouth and he touched my mole.

  More thigh tingles.

  He looked back at me. “Tomorrow, babe. Call you.”

  “Okay, Logan.”

  He grinned and walked away.

  I watched him, feeling a crazy-giddy that had nothing to do with beer, strangely not disappointed he didn’t kiss me.

  He’d touched me in a way that felt way sweeter than a kiss.

  And the next day, he called me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Every Breath He Took

  Millie

  Present day…

  WHAT I WAS about to do was ridiculous.

  And possibly insane.

  But there I was, about to do it.

  It had been a week since I saw Logan at Chipotle.

  I still had that bin of spinach and bag of shriveled carrots in my fridge and they were still the only things there. Except that bin of spinach was now not wilted but instead spoiled.

  I should throw them out.

  I didn’t throw them out.

  I worked.

  I got fast food (or ready-mades, though no salads).

  I s
lept.

  I watched TV.

  And I thought about Logan.

  I couldn’t get him out of my head. I even dreamed about him.

  And these were not good dreams. They were dreams of him walking away. They were dreams of him shouting at me that I was a coward. That I’d thrown my life away. They were dreams where he was pushing a faceless little girl on a swing, smiling at a faceless woman who, even if faceless, I knew she was beautiful and she was definitely not me.

  In other words, bad dreams.

  Dreams that haunted me even when I was awake.

  So now I was here and it was ridiculous, stupid, insane.

  Dottie would be pissed if she knew I was here. Twenty years she’d been struggling to pull me out of Logan’s snare, a snare I was caught in even if he didn’t want me there and wasn’t even in my life.

  She wanted me to move on. She’d even begged me to move on. At first she’d wanted me to go back to Logan (and she’d begged me to do that too). When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, she’d wanted me to go on a date, to go see a shrink, to go get a life, any life without Logan.

  None of this had worked.

  Now I couldn’t get him out of my head.

  So I was there.

  “Shit, damn, damn,” I whispered, looking at the façade of the roadhouse.

  It was run-down, near to ramshackle. The paint peeling on the outside. The sign up top that said SCRUFF’S was barely discernable considering it was night and only the neon u and the apostrophe worked.

  Strangely, Scruff’s looked much the same as it had twenty years ago when Logan and I used to come here all the time.

  Except back then the c also worked, though it had flickered.

  There were bikes outside, less of them now than back when this was Logan and my place because it was Chaos’s place, but it was still clearly a biker bar.

  I just had no idea if one of those bikes was Logan’s.

  I hoped one was.

  And I was terrified of the same thing.

  “You should go home,” I told myself.

  I should.

  But home was where I’d been nearly every night since I’d bought my house and moved in eleven years ago. It had changed since I’d renovated every inch of it (I had not done this myself—I’d paid people to do it—but it was all my vision).

  I loved home. I never got sick of looking at what I’d created (or someone else had, obviously, through my vision).

  But I was there nearly every night. And the only times I wasn’t were when I was at Dottie’s or babysitting a friend’s kid or at one of the events I’d planned.

  The last, being my work, didn’t count.

  Now I was not at home. I was back at Scruff’s. A place I hadn’t been in twenty years.

  I was there because Logan might be in there.

  And I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  “God, this is crazy,” I muttered, pushing open the car door and throwing out a leg.

  I got out, slammed the door, and beeped the locks, keeping keys in hand and purse clamped securely under my arm.

  I walked toward the building, worried about my car. I had a red Mazda CX-5 that was only a year old. I loved it. I hadn’t upgraded cars in five years, so it was my baby. And not only was this bar not the safest spot in Denver, it was located in a neighborhood that also wasn’t the safest in Denver.

  I had to brave it. I was there. I was out of the car.

  There was no going back.

  Before I got to the door, a biker fell out of it, shouting behind him, “Fuck you too!” and I nearly turned back.

  He stumbled the other way, so my path was clear.

  I knew I should retreat.

  I didn’t.

  I went in.

  When my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw the inside hadn’t changed much either, except to get seedier. In fact, even the neon beer signs looked the same and on my second eye sweep after the quick, frantic one I did to see if Logan was there, I saw four of the plethora of them no longer worked at all. The vinyl on the barstools was worn, the furniture scattering the space was more mismatched. Even the felt on the pool table was more faded.

  And there was no Logan.

  Actually, there wasn’t much of anybody. It wasn’t vacant but back in the day the place was nearly always hopping. Logan and I would go on a Wednesday to find fun with the dozen people who were also there that we knew and partied with. Or we’d go on a Saturday and find mayhem with three dozen people we knew and partied with.

  It was Chaos’s place. It was where the boys went when they wanted to tie one on, tag fresh meat to bang, find trouble, or if none was to be found, make it.

  However, looking around, I didn’t see a member I knew from back in the day. I didn’t even see a Chaos patch on any jacket.

  This was a surprise. Chaos had been a fixture there in a way that there wasn’t a night when at least a couple of brothers were at Scruff’s.

  This was also an excuse to leave.

  I didn’t go.

  I walked to the bar and slid onto a stool, doing this with my eyes still scanning the space like Logan could materialize out of thin air.

  “Well, fuck me. Millie freakin’ Cross. Blast from the past and not a good one.”

  I turned my head and stared in shock at Reb.

  Reb had been a bartender back then. One I would have suspected would have been long gone by now.

  This was because she’d been sleeping with Scruff’s son who was set to inherit the place since Scruff was on his deathbed. Though, Scruff had been on that deathbed the entire three years I’d gone there (two of which I’d drank with a fake ID, not that Reb or any of the other bartenders cared).

  Wade, her man and the next in line to own the establishment, was rarely there (or rarely there working). He was usually there drinking or alternately out cheating on Reb or fighting or drying out in a jailhouse or on his bike wandering and leaving her behind to bitch about him and swear she was going to leave him.

  Reb was tough. She was so unfriendly she was mean. And she didn’t take a lot of shit (except from Wade).

  I was sure she’d get fed up and go.

  But she wasn’t gone. She was behind the bar, looking as faded and worn as the rest of the joint, like she’d aged forty years in the last twenty.

  I barely recognized her.

  The life-is-shit-and-then-you-die look in her eyes was unforgettable, still there and even sharper, so I knew it was her.

  “You’re like a mullet,” she stated, glaring at me from her side of the bar. “’Cept haven’t seen you in forever and I see too many a’ those every week. Though, you’re here so just sayin’, coulda used a longer forever when it comes to you.”

  That wasn’t a warm welcome.

  Reb wasn’t big on handing those out. She never had been.

  But this was more than her usual nasty.

  I decided to ignore it.

  “Hey, Reb,” I greeted.

  “Fuck off, Millie, and I mean that as in, you can get your ass off my stool and get the fuck outta my joint,” she replied.

  I stared.

  Way nastier than her usual nasty.

  “Like,” she leaned in to me, “now.”

  Because apparently I’d gone insane, I decided to ignore that too.

  “Your stool? This is your place?” I asked.

  She straightened and held my gaze like a threat as she stated, “Yeah. Was suckin’ the wrong dick. Wade didn’t own the place, don’t know what I was thinkin’, takin’ his shit. The old man might not’a gotten around real good but he still had a dick and any man’s got one of those, they like it sucked. Sucked my way to him changin’ his will. Now Wade’s gotta eat my pussy to get on my schedule to get his tips and actually work to get ’em. Like it better that way.”

  I knew she was sharing all of this information to shock me and she succeeded.

  I tried not to let it show and replied, “Well, good for you, Reb. Glad you got wha
t you wanted.”

  “Didn’t get it,” she returned. “Worked for it. Worked my ass off behind this bar for ten years. Sucked old man dick for two. Now it’s mine, shit hole that it is, so not exactly doin’ cartwheels ’cause it cost a fuckuva lot more than it’s worth.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  I didn’t share that.

  Instead, I asked, “Can I have a beer?”

  “No.”

  This time, I held her eyes and started softly, “Reb—”

  She leaned in again.

  “This here’s a biker bar, Millie,” she snapped. “Chaos quit comin’ years ago but it’s still a biker bar and there aren’t many people wanna show here but I’ll pour a drink for any a’ them, ’specially if they’re a biker ’cause that’s the way it is; that’s the way it’s always been. Who I will not pour a drink for is some up-her-own-ass bitch who don’t like bikers. I think you get I can use every dollar my boys spend on the rotgut that goes here. That don’t mean I’m willin’ to take yours.”

  “Reb, what happened was a long time—”

  “What happened was you told one of my kind,” she jabbed a thumb to her chest, “you’re too fuckin’ good for him. You’re too fuckin’ good for High, you’re two fuckin’ good to sit your ass on my stool. Now, Millie, not gonna say it again, get the fuck out.”

  High.

  That was right. I’d forgotten. Logan had become High when he’d officially become Chaos. The joke was his name had been shortened by his parents to the nickname Low. But he liked to smoke back then and not only cigarettes, so he’d become High.

  I’d hated that name mostly because I really wasn’t that fond of how often he smoked pot. I’d hated that name enough I’d never used it.

  I had to admit (just to myself) I still hated it.

  “There are things that I—” I tried again.

  “Don’t give a fuck.”

  “I’m looking for Logan,” I blurted.

  Her face twisted in a way that scared the absolute shit out of me as she moved closer to the bar, put her hand on it, and leaned deep.

  “And I hope like fuck you don’t find him,” she hissed. “He moved on but before he found it in him to do that, you obliterated him.”

  My heart constricted in a way I actually felt pain.

  Excruciating pain.

  “Christ, he was so into you, he was you,” Reb spat. “He lived for you. Every breath he took, it was for you. Then you sunk the blade in and slashed it straight through, gutting him. Honest to fuck, Pete, Tack, Arlo, Brick, Boz, none a’ us thought he’d survive. Ride off a cliff. Set himself swingin’ in the Compound. Get himself in a fight he knew he couldn’t win. He searched for it. It never came and you could smell the goddamned disappointment on him when he woke up to face another day without you in it. Every woman on this goddamned earth wants a man like that to feel like that about them and you had it and you fuckin’ tossed it away like it was garbage.”