What If

by Dani Wyatt

  “Right as rain Blossom.” I gather her up and onto her feet and she turns and walks to the door opening it. Jessie took to calling me Daddy on her own a few months after we eloped and I have to say, it still warms my heart whenever I hear it.

  Ryan, Stephanie and Reynolds are standing at the door looking forlorn.

  “What’s the deal with the angry mob?” I ask and Reynold’s, at six, the oldest of the group sets his hands on his hips and answers.

  “You said you would take us on a ride.”

  Jessie looks at me with mock exasperation. “Yeah, Dad. You said…” She giggles and I give her a look then turn toward the angry brood glaring at me.

  “I did. I also said for you to wait on the back porch and I would be done in a few minutes.”

  “It’s been like a jazillion hours.” Stephanie adds crossing her arms over her chest.

  “You kids live on a different clock apparently.” I step toward the door. They know they have to knock and they are not allowed in the bedroom until invited so they all obediently stand in the opening waiting. “Because it’s only been fifteen minutes you overlords.”

  They grouse and stomp as I turn each of them by the top of the head toward the stairway turning to Jessie.

  “We’ll be back.” I intone in my best Terminator voice. “You finish packing. We’ll leave for the airport in two hours.”

  “God I’m so nervous.” Jessie puts her hands on her cheeks, and I lean over and give her a kiss as the kids tug on my hands.

  “Baby, you get nervous for every book signing and every one turns our great. You will be fine. I will be right there like always.”

  “I know. I can’t help it. I think every book, every signing will be the one that everyone figures out I suck at this and no one buys the book or comes to my table at the signing. Ugg, I hate it, but I get so anxious.”

  “Listen to me.” Torin meets and holds my eyes. “Close the door behind us. Take fifteen minutes to meditate. If your anxiety is still going up, do what you need to do and take something baby. Okay?”

  She nods and I give her one last kiss on the nose before being dragged down the stairs and out the back porch.

  “Go on. I’ll meet you at the barn. Get the harnesses out, the brushes ready. Go!” I flap my hands forward and the three run ahead screeching and racing to be first to the barn where I’ll take them on a carriage ride with our two Clydesdales, Daisy and Gatsby.

  Behind the kids three of our dogs follow in chase as the leaves under my feet crunch and the late September crisp air reminds us that winter will be here shortly.

  I’ve stepped down from my position on the force. I was shot in the line of duty six years ago and as much as I love my job, I love my family more and Jessie supported me in whatever decision I made. But in the end, I stepped down and started my own detective agency and actually do some consulting with the department still keeping me in touch with everyone back at the precinct.

  The agency has grown exponentially every year, and we have satellite offices in thirty states. Gerry came on board with me three years ago and runs the day to day operations while I try to work as much as possible from home.

  Sandra who owned and managed Lucky Charlie’s is here with Gerry today as well. Long story short, Sandra always had the hots for Gerry, not me. She only flirted with me when Gerry was around and both of us were too dumb to pick up on it. She wanted him to do more than throw her a few funny side comments and he didn’t think she would ever be interested in him.

  The time we waste playing games.

  Those two finally got their shit straight and got together a year after Jessie and I married, and they made their union official four years ago. They are on their way to watch the kids while we go to London for a book signing. Helga and Spencer are coming as well to help and who are both still doing remarkably well for being in their nineties.

  Jessie and I will do a whirlwind trip, four days because neither of us can stand to be away from the kids for any longer. We have our fairy tale. We’ve had our share of challenges but what we’ve learned is love is like surfing. Sometimes you ride the wave, sometimes you get sucked under but the one thing you have to keep doing is getting back on that board and paddling back out to catch the next wave.

  Because there is always a next wave.

  And the view from up there is better than I could have imagined.

  All because a girl in a bar punched blind date number twenty-eight and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time

  God, I love my wife.

  I love my life.

  Sometimes, the ‘what if’s’ take you exactly where you need to be.

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  ANGEL

  Chapter One

  MAGNUS

  “You are wound too fucking tight, man. When’s the last time you got laid anyway? Go find some fucking chick and just get it done!” Erik smirks at me as he spreads his fingers on the polished birch. The desk used to be mine, and it was big even for me. Erik isn’t small, not by everyday standards, but he looks like a toddler playing like he’s some big shot behind that desk.

  He’s wearing a fucking idiot grin, and I have half a mind to wipe it off with a quick shot to his jaw.

  What he doesn’t know is I get laid a few times a day. In my mind at least and by my own hand. I got laid a couple hours ago. Laying back in my bed, my fist around my rock hard shaft, trying to talk myself out of jerking off for the second time before six a.m. as I thought about my angel.

  I lost that battle, just as I’ve lost hundreds exactly the same over the last few months. As I gripped myself, squeezing and jacking up and down with the sheets tossed off my body, my thoughts had drifted to what her lips would taste like, the way they curve and stay full when she smiles. Thinking of that gorgeous smile as I would sink my tongue so deep inside her I become part of her fucking DNA. The image of myself placing her on her knees in front of me, her willing eyes looking to me for reassurance…

  My fantasy unfolds with the first brush of her tongue on the slit of my cock, drops of pre-cum seeping out just for her. The things I would say to her. How she would smile when I told her she was my good girl… The weight of her magnificent tits in my hands.

  The taste of her pussy. Her legs spreading willingly for me. Then that smile again.

  Every time it happens, I imagine teaching her, guiding her, showing her everything I want her to know about sex. About how I was made to please her and her me. Making her mine in ways most men would think perverse, but it’s not. The ways I want her are beautiful. The ways I wish I could have her. Take care of her. Possess her beyond anything most rational men would understand.

  My Angel.

  My babygirl.

  But it’s what I need. It’s what I’ve always needed, I just didn’t know it until I met her.

  I would tell her to open her legs for me, order her to play with herself so I know exactly what she likes, how to reward her when she is a good girl. Fuck, I gripped my cock so tight, thinking of how her pussy would feel. My stroke sessions are more fits of lust-filled anger than pleasure. I want her so badly it hurts. I need the release because I’m sure I will never truly have her and that is my own private torture.

  Pulses shoot up my cock, thick and hard simply from the memory of my morning fantasy, and I shift in the chair where I sit facing the front of the desk, hoping my brother won’t notice the hard-on that is beginning to fill the front of my pants.

  That’s never happened before at the mere thought of a woman. Hell, I haven’t gotten hard for anyone in so many years I don’t even bother to count anymore. Until three months ago, and my cock seems to be eighteen years old again. Wiley and half hard twenty-four seven.

  I rub an open hand over my jaw and mouth, unconsciously grooming my beard in an attempt to regain control of my pulse. I twist my neck and let out a
huff as I try to shake away the endless fantasies of her, a girl who shows absolutely zero interest in me. A girl I can’t get out of my head.

  My angel. My Cassie.

  The four words out of her mouth that first day I met her told me I was a goner. You would have thought they were more provocative than, ‘Can I help you?’. But that’s all it took.

  “I even have a few girls in mind.” Erik soils my daydream. “My cast-offs, shall we say. I’m sure they would be happy to take one for the team.” My baby brother doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up sometimes.

  “Fuck you, Erik.” I point a meaty finger in his direction. “Getting laid is not the answer to everything. And those women should kick your ass not sleep with you. You need to learn to treat them with more respect.”

  I turn away so that I won’t see his reaction. This is the exact same room I walked out of last year. Nothing has changed, and everything has changed. Erik has managed to turn what was my center of organization, my control room, into something more chaotic than I could ever find comfortable. But it doesn’t matter. He’s the Chief Executive Officer of Foundation Demolition now.

  Right or wrong, that chapter of my life is over.

  “I just think getting laid couldn’t hurt but okay, bad joke.” He scribbles on a yellow legal pad in front of him then his eyes snap up to me with something I think might be pity. “Look, you weren’t wrong about letting the demo go forward that day. You did everything right.” Erik puts down the pen and drums his fingers on the desk, watching me as I avert my own line of sight from his. He knows me well enough to realize I’m still stuck on that fucking day but him bringing it up every time we see each other pisses me off.

  He’s ramping up for another lecture on how I should come back to the business.With a thrust of my chin I set him straight. “Well, I clearly wasn’t right either. I don’t want to talk about it.” My fingers squeeze my knees and I shake my head. “We’ve run circles around this and it’s better this way. You’re doing a great job and I’m not bringing unnecessary attention to the business.” I shift back and forth in the chair, bring a palm up to run a few hard strokes over my head and as belly twists tight. I want to be somewhere else.

  Erik’s upper lip twitches the way it does when he’s nervous. “You were the best though. No one knew how to rig a building like you did. It was almost magical, how you just knew where each impact should go. Every detonation in the right order. Like you were conducting a symphony of destruction. Dad taught us both well, but you had something else. Like Rain Man for building implosions.”

  “Except being the best didn’t save that girl, did it?” The harshness in my voice reminds us both how fresh the pain is for me.

  Pain. I shake my head thinking of the word, trying to clear it, wondering how I can think what I’m feeling equals pain. I’m fucking alive. This isn’t pain, it’s just emotion. I’m an asshole.

  Erik’s chest rises and falls with a deep breath and he rolls a pen back and forth under his fingers, but I’m done here. I shoot him a look that says “no arguments” as I grunt and push off on the chair, rising to my feet.

  My foot, I should say.

  Singular. My constant reminder of that day’s error in judgement.

  “Do you need anything else?” I clasp my hands together, rubbing them until the friction creates heat. My forehead draws tight as the sun assaults my eyes looking out the window so that I don’t have to see his concern. We’re on the seventh floor of the Foundation building, looking across the Detroit River to the Canadian Club sign. Somehow it helps settle me. That sign has been in my memory since Dad had his first office on this site. Seems like a thousand years ago.

  Foundation Demo’s first location was nothing more than a single story, brick square, with bars on the windows and no running water. Two more office buildings were added to the group after that first one, then seven years ago we built this glass and metal monstrosity to house the new, international team of demolition experts. We’re the best, no one doubts that.

  “No, I don’t need anything else. What I still fucking need is for you to let this other stuff go.” Erik has a habit of thinking he’s right about everything and he’s the one that needs to learn to let stuff go. We’ve gone a few rounds over the years because he refuses to see things any way but his. “I mean, fifty thousand to another rehab? Fifty thousand? Do you even know how much that is?” He rubs the back of his neck as I shift my weight off my prosthetic as I move behind the chair. The new one they just fitted me with is still a bit stiff and it’s digging into what’s left of my calf muscle.

  I do know how much money that is, and it’s not like I don’t have the cash. He’s just pissed because he sees it as a waste. Never mind he’s the one that has a garage full of vintage motorcycles, a Porsche 911 Turbo and two Aston Martin Db5s. He fancies himself the James Bond of building demolition. Somehow those trinkets are worthy of the expense in his mind, but not my spending money on trying to fucking help people out of a death spiral.

  “What the fuck do you care? It’s my fucking money. My percentage of the profits, Erik, this is what I want to do with it. Don’t cock-block me man, you’ll lose. You know I won’t fucking back down.” I suck my lips against my teeth with a quick crack of my neck. I love my baby brother, but we’re not too old to throw down if need be. He’s sandpaper on my nerves right now and he knows it.

  If Mom was still here, the only thing she’d say to us is, “Take it outside, boys. Supper’s at seven.”

  “That’s enough, man. Come on.” Erik cracks his palm against the desk, toppling the picture of Mom and Dad sitting at the corner.

  I reach over to right it and he’s drumming his fingers again, making heat start to rise from my core. God, I miss my parents.

  He should know he’s pushing for a brotherly beatdown, but he keeps going anyway. “Some junkie broke into your demo site. You didn’t do anything wrong here. Fucking tweakers looking for a place to squat for the night. One dies and it’s her own fault and now it’s your responsibility to save them all?” He throws his hands up and his voice hits a high note.

  “Do you fucking think people want to be addicts? You think they enjoy that fucking life? ‘There but by the grace of God go I.’ That’s what Mom used to say. You should think about it.” I point at the photo, then raise my hand up to cover my eyes and pinch at the corners of my forehead. The pressure from my fingers somehow relieves the pressure inside my head.

  Erik huffs a dramatic sigh as I rub my temples. I’m thinking about her, the woman they found in the rubble. Thinking maybe if someone had given her a chance, showed her they cared, maybe she’d be alive today.

  I know Erik doesn’t want to hear what I say next but I don’t care. “Do you know Sarah Templeton had been on her own since she was fifteen? Ran away from home because her mother’s boyfriend thought she was his personal sex toy? Then she found a new ‘boyfriend’ who promptly beat her ass until she went to work for him. He also made sure he got a needle in her arm, so by the time she was sixteen she’d already been arrested eight times for prostitution and four times for possession. But, yeah, I guess she just needed to pull herself up by her bootstraps, right?” My nostrils flare as I stare him down.

  He’s the baby, and sometimes he needs the hammer between the eyes because he can’t see things from any perspective but his own. “Not everyone has the same foundation as we had, Erik. Keep that in mind.” After the accident I wanted to know everything I could about the woman that died. Sarah Templeton. Even then I hated how the company lawyers tried to paint her as a low life. They wouldn’t even use her name.

  Like somehow her life mattered less because of her background. I didn’t notice it before this all happened, but people assign a different value to women when they sell their body. When they have an addiction. It was so clear to me during the investigation and the case that somehow to most people, the human that was Sarah Templeton didn’t matter all that much and it infuriated me.

  My bro
ther stares right back at me, calculating whether it’s in his own interests to keep poking the bear.

  Erik, my sister Cindy and I had an amazing childhood. Even when we were dirt poor and supper was the one meal you could count on, we were happy. Erik doesn’t seem to grasp the trauma some people go though in their lives. Most of the addicts I’ve gotten to know since the accident have something horrible in their past. Something that finds their weakness and turns them to the dark road. He has no fucking idea how lucky he is.

  From the way he settles back in his chair and his shoulders fall a few inches I think he’s decided to keep his mouth shut for the moment. Smart choice.

  “Now. Are we done?” My voice thickens as I stuff my hands down in my pockets. The muscles in my shoulders ache and twitch. My mouth is dry and I just need to be out of here. I can’t stop thinking of where I want to be. Even if it’s just looking at her. I came here to sign some IRS shit for him but the conversation quickly turned and I’m ready to be gone.

  “Yep. I guess we are. Thanks for coming by to sign. Fucking IRS wants to know every fucking thing.” Erik leans back in the chair. He’s got Mom’s fair skin, Nordic light hair and lean build, while I, on the other hand, take after our father. Mom used to say Dad and I descended from some ancient human-grizzly hybrid and from the view I get in the mirror every morning she’s not far off. Even my voice comes out of me as a half growl most of the time. “I’m changing your direct deposit like you asked. Once a month still fine?”

  “I don’t care. Whatever. I don’t need the money.” I pick up the picture of Mom and Dad from the edge of the desk, looking at how they still smiled at each other after fifty-two years of marriage. It makes me happy and sad at the same time, and I dust the top of the frame with my index finger before setting it back in place, turning it to face him.

  I’ve left the business in any official capacity, but Erik and my sister insisted I keep drawing a salary. I also have a lot of zeros behind my company profit sharing account, but I only use that now for donations and contributions to the rehabs I support. I’m starting a scholarship sort of deal with three of the best rehabs across the country. The ones where the fucking celebrities go when they need to dry out, the best places. The programs that actually work, where you’re not a junkie, you’re just a hero in need of a rest. But the real addicts, the folks on the street with nothing and no one, don’t get to go to those facilities. No money, no help. I want to change that.