Walk Through Fire by Kristen Ashley
His baby girl was not going to get her way.
Though High had no clue how to go about doing it. He just knew he had one shot at giving Millie any kind of family. Maybe not of her blood but something that was still beautiful.
And because of that, he had to pull out all the stops.
“Before you go to school, got somethin’ I wanna tell you,” he said.
Cleo looked from her cereal bowl to him, attentive as usual.
Zadie looked to him, happily encased in the knowledge things had gone her way.
She grinned and asked, “What, Daddy?”
He stayed where he was and replied, “Worried you’re too young to share this with you. Worried you’re too young to get it. But it’s important enough I gotta give it to you.”
Cleo’s attentive look went guarded.
His baby’s eyes narrowed as the first suspicion she might not have gotten away with being a snot started to hit her.
High ignored that and kept talking, hoping the way he was going to share what he had to share would hit somewhere in Zadie she understood.
“Long time ago, I walked into a party and saw the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Fell in love with her right then and there. Fell in love the minute I locked eyes on her.” He looked between his girls and went on, “Millie did the same.”
Zadie’s mouth got hard.
Cleo stared at her dad.
“For three years we lived happily,” High told them, and looked to Zadie. “But we didn’t live happily ever after.”
When he said no more, Cleo asked quietly, “What happened, Daddy?”
High turned his eyes to his eldest. “We both wanted a family. We both wanted kids real bad. Knew it before I had it with you two that you were the only things I wanted on this earth. My own babies. Kids I could love and help to grow up strong and good. Millie wanted that too. We talked about it all the time. Had names picked out and everything. Out of the blue, she split with me and it was over.”
“That wasn’t very nice,” Zadie snapped.
“It was,” High disagreed. “It was the most generous gift anyone could give seein’ as she found out she couldn’t have babies and she made it so I could go on in my life and have you.”
Zadie blinked.
Cleo’s mouth fell open.
“Best Millie can do is have cats,” High told his girls. “She wanted more. A lot more. We were gonna have tons of kids. Four. Five. Boys. Girls. We didn’t care. Now all she’s gonna have is cats.”
Cleo’s lower lip started trembling so she bit it.
Zadie looked down at the table.
“She makes me happy,” he said gently. “I know she’s just come into your life but she’s been a part of mine for a long time so I’m gonna share with you that I love her and she makes me happy. I wanna make her happy. And it’d mean a lot if you helped me with that.”
Zadie’s eyes cut to him and declared nastily, “Mom’s our mom.”
“Not sayin’ that she isn’t, Zade,” he told her, expending the effort not to get pissed that nothing but what she wanted was sinking in. “Your mom will always be your mom. She’s not out of the equation. I’m just adding Millie to it. Everyone’s got an endless capacity for love. Which means everyone’s got the shot at receiving an endless supply of love. Don’t matter who you give it to or get it from. Just matters you got a heart big enough to give it and a heart open enough to get it back. I can promise you, Millie’s got that kind of love to give.” He shrugged. “Up to you whether you open yourself up to receive it.” He focused closely on Zadie. “I’ll just say, your old man will be disappointed if you decide not to do that.”
“I like her,” Cleo piped up, and High saw his youngest aim an irritated frown at her sister before he looked to his big girl.
“I’m glad, baby,” he said quietly.
Zadie didn’t say anything, so Cleo looked to her sister.
“Zade?” she pushed.
Zadie hopped from her knees in the seat and grabbed her bowl, muttering, “We’re gonna be late for school.”
She didn’t give a shit about school.
She wanted this conversation to be over.
She took her bowl to the sink.
“Rinse that and put it in the dishwasher,” he ordered.
“Whatever,” she mumbled, dumping the milk in the sink.
“Look at me, Zade,” High demanded.
She gave him a squinty look that told him she had things to do and he was wasting her time.
“First, wipe that look off your face,” he said. She didn’t, so he went on, “Now.”
She huffed and changed her look to a bored one.
High let that slide.
“Your old man loves you,” he told her.
She changed her look to a disbelieving one even though she knew deep down that was not right.
He let that slide too.
“Measure of the love you got for me how you decide to give it back,” he said.
“Measure of the love you got for me you got rid of Mom and found some other woman,” she returned.
He stared straight into her eyes and whispered, “Ouch.”
That got her.
She flinched.
But she didn’t say anything.
“Honest to God, you okay with layin’ that kinda hurt on your old man?”
She stared at him a beat before she turned to the dishwasher, opened it, and shoved her bowl in.
“Now more hurt, you not answerin’, which means you obviously are,” he noted.
She looked back at him. “Just because I don’t like your girlfriend doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Daddy.”
“Hit me, darlin’. Lay it out straight. You won’t get into trouble,” he told her. “Tell me, what did Millie do to make you not like her?”
Zadie didn’t answer.
So Cleo joined the conversation.
“She can’t say anything because Millie’s nice.”
Zadie turned to her sister and hissed, “She’s old and fat.”
“You’re so full of it,” Cleo snapped back. “She’s super pretty.”
Right.
This had to end because now his baby girl was pissing him off.
“She’s two years younger than your mother,” High declared. “And I hope to God you don’t think she’s fat, Zadie, because you think what Millie is is fat, we got more problems, those bein’ about how you think a woman’s body should be.”
She turned to him while he spoke and opened her mouth when he was done.
He lifted a hand before she could say a word because he saw on her face that what she was going to say he wasn’t going to like.
“Enough outta you. There’ll come a time when you look back at this weekend and you’ll wish for it back. I love you too much to let you make that worse.” He dropped his hand and jerked his head to the couch. “Get your books and jacket. We gotta get goin’.”
Zadie stomped to the couch as Cleo got up and dealt with her bowl and High poured himself a travel mug of coffee.
Zadie then stomped right out as Cleo helped him shut down the RV to leave.
He’d shrugged on his cut, nabbed his keys and the mug, and was reaching to the door Zadie had slammed when his big girl looked up at him.
“At least she got kitties who’re really pretty,” she said softly.
Fuck.
His girl.
He put the mug on the counter and reached out to curl his hand around her soft cheek, bending so his face was in hers.
“Comes as a surprise. My girl hides how deep she feels so when she lets that out, comes as a surprise, darlin’. A surprise I love each time I get it. Thank you for that, baby.”
She grinned up at him, pleased at his words but more pleased she did her bit to smooth out a bumpy morning for her dad.
He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then straightened away, grabbing his mug and saying, “Now let’s get you to school.”
* * *
After dr
He parked the truck in the courtyard, got out, and moved to her office.
He opened the door and heard the alarm beep even as he saw her on the phone behind her desk, hair piled up at the back of her head, another turtleneck, this one beige. He couldn’t see the bottom through her desk at his angle, but he could see she had on her brown boots.
She smiled huge at him.
He grinned back, turned to the alarm’s control panel, and punched in the code as he heard her say, “I’m so sorry. Someone just came in the door and it’s unexpected but it’s also urgent. I need to call you back. I apologize but I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
He turned to her to see she was up and rounding the desk, coming his way.
He moved hers.
Tight brown skirt that skimmed her knees and hugged her hips.
Brilliant.
“Right. Of course,” she said in her phone, still walking. “Thank you. Talk soon,” she finished as she got to him.
She disconnected and instantly threw her arms around his neck.
“Hey, Snooks,” she whispered as he slid his hands around her waist.
High didn’t return her greeting.
He bent his neck and laid a long one on her. She had the fingers of one of her hands in his hair when he finished it.
“Hey,” he replied.
Her smile was hazy but it was bright.
It faded slightly before she said, “Missed you.”
He gave her a squeeze. “Then good I’m back.”
The smile came back.
“Know you got shit on and I got somethin’ I gotta do with Snap, so I gotta go,” he told her, and watched her mouth with its cute little mole start pouting. “But I wanted to come by, see you, drop some more shit in the house, connect with Chief and Poem, then I gotta take off.”
“More shit?” she asked.
“Don’t got much, babe, but I’m movin’ in. Packed some things this mornin’ while the girls were gettin’ ready, put ’em in the truck. Outside of the stuff that stays in the RV, like plates and mugs, with the bag I got in my car, most of my crap is here.”
“So you’re essentially moved in.”
He studied her, thinking they’d gone over this already, and after the shit conversation he’d already had with Zadie that day, not wanting to have another one.
“That a problem?” he asked.
“If you hadn’t done it, I would have probably taken off work, found Boz’s house, broken into your RV, and done it myself.”
He felt a smile hit his face.
Her lips quirked as she said, “Waking up alone sucks.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Goin’ to sleep without gettin’ off sucks too.”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and told it, “Men. Sex on the brain.”
“You use your toy while I was away?”
Her eyes rolled back and when he got them again, they were bigger and her cheeks were pink.
Fuck.
He’d been teasing.
But she did.
“You made yourself come without me?” he asked.
“Well…” She trailed off. He gave her a squeeze and she kept going. “I was actually doing that thinking of you. Does that count?”
“Dinner,” he grunted. “Sweater dress. Tonight. And after-dinner plans changed.”
Her eyes got big again. “How?”
“You’ll see.”
She slid her fingers from his hair and wrapped them around the back of his neck. “How, Low?”
He bent in and put his mouth to hers. “Trust me, beautiful, it’ll be a good surprise.”
He felt her tremble in his arms.
“Now gonna let you go ’cause I gotta go. Give me another kiss.”
He watched disappointment hit her eyes that he was leaving before she closed them and pressed her mouth to his, touching her tongue to his lips.
He gave her entry and he gave her time to taste him.
Then he took over before he ended it on some soft, quick kisses, let her go, turned her, and slapped her ass to move her to her chair.
He moved to the door saying, “Later, babe.”
“Later, Low.”
In the opened door, he looked back at her sitting behind her desk. He reached out a hand and tapped the security panel.
“Rearm, beautiful.”
She sighed but nodded and said, “I will. See you later, Snooks.”
He lifted his chin, grinned, and closed the door so he could see to hauling the single bag he had that held the rest of his shit and moving into her house.
* * *
High leaned against the side of the truck, watching and not liking what he was seeing.
Snap was standing on the sidewalk with Rosalie.
High remembered Rosalie. She was no less pretty now than when she was Shy’s.
She was also trouble.
They’d come in his truck. Too easy to be noticed on their bikes in their cuts.
Not that anyone had any reason to have an eye on Rosalie. The dope run had gone down that weekend just like she told them it would. That meant no one had a clue she was feeding information to Chaos.
But neither he nor Snap had their cuts on and before he’d dropped Snapper off, they’d done a drive around the upscale pizza joint where Rosalie was a waitress and they’d spotted nothing.
So the face-to-face meet, which was a face-to-face meet for a reason, a reason that was all Snapper’s, could go down.
High watched as Rosalie gave him a number of the reasons why this meeting was face to face. It was winding down and she was smiling up at Snap. She reached out and grabbed his hand, tugged on it playfully a couple of times, then said something to make him smile.
She then took off, aiming her eyes and lifting her hand to wave at High before she aimed another smile to Snapper, turned, and skip-walked, long hair swaying, tits bouncing, to the door of the restaurant.
High watched her go for a beat; then he turned his attention to Snapper and he watched his brother watch her go.
They were watching for two entirely different reasons.
Only when she was out of sight did Snapper move his way.
As his brother moved, High turned to his truck, opened the door, and angled in. He started her up as Snapper hauled his ass in the other side.
High backed out of the parking spot and took them on their way as Snap said, “They’re already planning another run.”
“You need to stop,” High replied.
He did it quiet and careful. But he also did it strong.
“Say what?” Snapper asked.
“Get a burner phone. Give her the number. Talk through that. Face-to-face meets gotta stop, Snap,” High advised.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
High slowed for a light, stopped, and looked to his brother. “She’s got a man.”
He saw the hard hit Snapper’s face.
Snap was a good-looking kid. Tall. Built. Blond. He was young but he had that look about him that all that was just gonna get better with age.
What he wasn’t was Shy. Shy was lanky. Dark. Before Tab, Shy could charm the panties off a bitch in ten minutes flat and he didn’t even have to know her before he did it. He’d been about good times. Getting off. Easy grins. Easier pussy.
High knew Rosalie’s current man. He was lanky. He was dark. He’d been a player before Rosalie. He knew what he had in her, old lady through and through who would stick by his side through thick and thin, all that on top of a great ass, long legs, good tits, thick hair, and a pretty face. So he found Rosalie, his player days disappeared, and he held on.
Snap was intense. High knew his story and he never got where that intensity came from. Before Chaos, Snap didn’t have it bad. He didn’t have it good. He just had a life.
The intensity was always there, though. The brother paid attention, nothing escaped him. It reminded High a lot of Tack back in the
He’d shoot the shit. Have a laugh. Unlike Tack, Snapper was serious far more often than he wasn’t and didn’t talk much. But he did read a lot. In his room at the Compound, door open, him on his bed, eyes to a book.
It wasn’t unheard of for a member of Chaos to read. But Snap did it maybe too much.
He might partake of easy pussy if the spirit moved him but he’d had a girl when he’d become a recruit. He’d split with her and got another one where fucking around became something more and it did it fast.
He’d also split with her.
He was now a free agent.
Rosalie was not.
“No reason to put your ass on the line, and more to the point, brother, hers by doin’ shit face to face. Get a burner. Every time you see her puts her out there.”
“No one knows shit about what she’s doin’ for Chaos,” Snapper replied.
“They don’t know but people talk. Could be innocent, one of the other waitresses in that joint sees her with you, sees her man, mentions you. It’s not smart, Snap, and you need to put a stop to it.”
“We’ll meet somewhere no one can see us,” Snapper returned. “She prefers face to face. Doesn’t want to get overheard or have her man see shit on her phone he shouldn’t see.”
“Then she deletes her texts and calls,” High told him.
“I hear you, High, but it’s the way she wants it done.”
“It’s the way you want it done, brother,” High returned quietly.
“She’s stickin’ her neck out for Chaos. We do it like she’s comfortable doin’ it.”
“You’re doin’ it ’cause she’s pretty, she smiles at you, and you’re into her.”
“It’s not that,” Snapper bit out.
High saw traffic moving around him, looked back to see the light was green, and moved his foot to the gas pedal, accelerating.
He did this speaking.
“Rule between brothers but that rule extends between bikers and you know it. Pussy’s claimed, pussy is claimed. You do not go there.”
“Told you it’s not about that,” Snapper replied.
“Got years on you, brother, and I’m not blind. Not sayin’ this shit to piss you off. Sayin’ it to save you a load of hurt. She’s into her man. She’s riskin’ a lot to get him clean. You’re not in that.”
“Straight up and no offense, High, but her man is weak,” Snap returned.