by Kalena Lyons
“Can you read my mind, Ethan Mack? I mean, did you wake up this morning and know I was going to tell you we needed to talk?”
“You seemed conflicted last night, so I figured you would want to talk this morning. Besides, if we weren’t going to talk, we were going to do something else out here.”
“It’s thirty-two degrees out there!” Elaine exclaimed as she took her lukewarm coffee. It smelled like peppermint and her mouth began to water.
“It feels pretty warm when I’m between your-”
“Enough,” she chastised after she swallowed her mouthful of coffee. She smiled at him to soften the blow of her words, and he smiled back mischievously. “I want to talk about Thomas, and-” she stopped as she closed her eyes and tried to get rid of the anger building. “Trey,” she finished quietly.
Ethan didn’t say a word as he waited for her to begin. He didn’t sip his coffee either, so she knew she had his full attention. “My husband died in a fire. I’m sure you know that from around town, and I’m sure that you know it was a foolish death.”
“Foolish is a strong word,” Ethan told her quietly.
“He ran into a building to save a coworker when he knew he had a young son and a wife at home.” There it was, the anger boiling to the surface. She tamped it down and swallowed, but it wasn’t staying down for long. “He put his life at risk and he lost, Ethan. He left me alone with our little boy and put a man’s life at risk and that man almost lost it. He almost died trying to save my husband. If he had stayed outside, that woman might have lived or she may not have, but he would have lived. He would have been able to see his son graduate high school and go off to college. Get married.
Thomas and I, we’ve been doing okay because Thomas was little and doesn’t remember the weeks that followed after his father’s death. But he knows the loss of his father every day. I can’t bring a man into his life knowing that that man might leave us someday, too. I don’t want him to go through that again, whether he knows it or not.”
Elaine bit her bottom lip to quiet her rambling thoughts and raised the coffee to her lips, but she didn’t drink it. She knew it would sit sour in her stomach if she did. Ethan was looking out the windshield of his car with his coffee between his legs. When she looked over at him, she found she admired the strength he possessed. Then she got to his face and saw the ticking in his jaw.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up, but I think it’s about time I told you. Your mother, she came to visit me in the hospital. I didn’t recognize her, but my mother did. She was there while I was in a coma fighting for my life. The scars on my back? They’re from the burns I suffered running into a burning building. I think-” Ethan stopped mid-sentence and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that building was the one your husband was in, Elaine. I think I’m the man who risked his life to save another man’s life, and I don’t want you to ever feel guilty for that. You should never feel that way because I go to work every day knowing I might risk my life for a stranger’s. That’s a risk I take, and I’d gladly have given up my life to save his. I’d switch places right now with him to know that Thomas would have his father back and that you would have your husband back.
I can’t replace him, but I can tell you that I’d never intentionally hurt you or Thomas.”
Somewhere, deep down inside, she had known it. She had known it the moment her hands had run over those scars, not as vibrant as they must have been a few years ago, but they were still there. He never took his shirt off facing away from her, and now she knew it was because he must have felt ashamed. He must have felt guilty for not being able to save another human being when that was his job. It was written on his face, and the fear he felt that she would reject him was there, too.
“Ethan,” she said as she brushed away her tears and reached out a hand to grasp his. “I’m not happy my husband died, in no way shape or form, but I’m glad you’re here with me,” she told him. She pulled him in and cradled his head to her chest as she marveled that she was the one who was giving the comfort when she had thought she’d be the one receiving it.
They were silent for quite some time, and as she thought and let her mind wander; Elaine realized she knew what the reading had meant. The anger she had felt was strongly diminished, and she knew what her future held.
Chapter Eight
The doorbell rang, her heart stopped, and her mother seemed to pounce like a cat that had found a mouse. Thomas made train noises as he played with the wooden one with the red paint peeling. She was holding a cup of tea in her hands and gently placed it on the kitchen table as she took a deep breath. Then she traversed the space between her and the entranceway to the kitchen and smiled at Ethan as he said hello to her mother.
“Well, come on inside. It’s bitter cold out there and I’m sure your mother doesn’t like to be kept waiting, oh hello, Marjorie! I didn’t see you behind your tall, statuesque son!” Her mother never missed a beat, and Ethan was pushed to the side like a forgotten, old Christmas gift.
He was holding all the gifts in his arms as if he’d just been drug along on a shopping trip with a shopaholic.
“Good morning,” he whispered when he was finally able to get past Marjorie and Priscilla.
“Good morning,” Elaine whispered to him. She chanced a quick kiss before she led him into the living room to deposit the gifts. Thomas was ignoring the hubbub as he crashed his train into a dump truck. He made crunching noises and swooshing noises and flung the two into the air.
Then he grabbed the fire engine and began to make the alarm sounds. Ethan stepped up behind him with his hands in his pockets. He watched a moment before he squatted down beside the boy and smiled at him. “You know the police officers, come to the scene of an accident, too.” Thomas didn’t miss a beat as he grabbed the cop car; a tiny thing compared to the rest of his toys and handed it to Ethan.
He turned it over in his fingers a few times, glanced at Elaine to make sure she was okay, and then proceeded to introduce himself. “I’m Ethan,” he said as he held out his hand.
“Thomas,” her son responded, grasping the hand as if he were already a tiny man and shaking it. Then he released and went back to crashing his cars together. Ethan handed the police car back when Thomas held out his hand, and they proceeded to talk about what firemen and policemen did at the scene of an accident.
Marjorie and Priscilla were in the kitchen arguing over how long the turkey should be cooked, and Elaine found herself sitting down as she watched her son accept Ethan into his life as if he’d always been there. Her heart swelled with love for the two of them and she felt the worry and fear slowly easing out of her body. No matter what happened, she knew that Ethan wasn’t going to leave her intentionally. He would do the best he could to stick around, and she knew she would eventually accept that he was a firefighter. Every day he would put his life at risk for others, and every day she knew he would do his best to come back to her.
THE END
**BONUS STORIES INCLUDED**
FIRST TIME ONE NIGHT STAND
EROTIC BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE
Chapter One
“There are days where I just want to choke you, Marie.” It was red, silky, and utterly scandalous. She’d look like a runway model wearing this dress, but she’d feel like a washed out pinup girl who was desperate for attention.
“You’ll look great, and that will translate to you feeling great. Come on, you need a night out after that douche bag, Eric, ditched you at that party last week. Besides, it’s bad for your image to be seen sulking around after some nobody dumped you.” Marie smiled and showed a row of perfect, white teeth that could pass as someone’s dentures they were so pristine. It disturbed Claire sometimes, enough that she had nightmares the one night a few weeks ago about Marie’s teeth popping out of her head and trying to eat anyone in sight.
Maybe the nightmare was a prelude to something, but Claire couldn’t think of what it might be.
“My image?” Claire roll
ed her eyes to the ceiling and chuckled a little too loudly. “I don’t have an image, Marie. I’m a weather girl, remember? No one knows my name, just my face, and that’s only sometimes.”
They were silent a few moments as Marie jutted out her bottom lip and began to pull on it, squeezing it and twisting it as she stared at Claire’s curly locks. “I wish you’d let your hair grow out,” she finally whined as she let go of her lip. “It would be so much easier to straighten that way.”
“I don’t want it straight,” Claire grumped as she stood up from the soft chair in front of her vanity. She’d straightened her hair once in her life and would never do it again. Those straight locks had made her look too round in the face and she’d hated it.
“Then at least let me fix your eye shadow,” Marie stated firmly as she put her hands on Claire’s shoulders and pushed her back into the chair. There was an argument on Claire’s lips, but she let it whisper away with her breath and closed her eyes as Marie started to dab at them.
When she opened them, she wished she’d argued. “Green, Marie?” She narrowed her amber eyes into slits as she stared at the color. If she’d had her choice, she’d have gone with nothing, but Marie thought eye shadow was like looking into someone’s soul.
“Yeah, green. Get over it and put on the dress.”
“But I’ll look like Christmas!”
“Then I guess you’d better smile because people are going to want a happy Christmas.”
Claire wanted to point out Marie’s statement barely made any sense, but she got the gist of it. She was going out because she wanted to have fun, and because Marie wasn’t going to bring her any more sappy romance movies. A girl had to have a little time to mourn her broken relationship that had lasted three years. She still questioned why he’d never asked her to marry him after all that time before she fell asleep at night.
It was pathetic and she knew it.
And that’s why she put on the scandalous red dress that only came to her mid-thigh and had tiny straps across the back. She felt like she was naked, probably because she practically was. “I can’t wear a bra in this thing,” Claire complained as she put her hands over her average breasts.
“You’ve never heard of boob tape?” Marie smirked as she pulled out a roll of tape from her purse, and Claire raised both eyebrows at the picture of how to apply this said ‘boob tape’ to her breasts.
“And if I get lucky?” She questioned as she thought about the look on a guy’s face when he pulled off her dress to find that she had taped her boobs up so they were perkier than usual.
“Oh c’mon, seriously, Claire? Lucky?” They both looked at each other and there was a ghost of a smile on Claire’s lips. It felt good to smile a little, but she didn’t want to let it take her over so it disappeared.
She let her best friend, the one who had brought her romantic comedies, thriller movies, and popcorn over almost every night since Eric had told her he wasn’t in love with her, tape her boobs. He’d done it in front of all her coworkers and his at a party they were supposed to be hosting together. It had been, and would forever be, the most humiliating moment of her life. Wearing a little bit of boob tape was not going to lower her self-esteem any further.
“Alright, you’re all set. Now let’s get out there and show those boys what they’ve been missing! Claire O’Donnell is back on the single’s list!” Marie shouted her last sentence and waved her arms in the air like she was at a rave, and Claire couldn’t help the small smile on her lips. She had to admit it would be nice to find a guy that wasn’t Eric Slate. He’d been so boring in bed she’d almost cried the one night.
“Yeah, single again, yippee,” Claire said with her small smile as she let Marie stuff a clutch purse under her arm and some heels that sparkled and looked like a naughty version of Alice in Wonderland’s red flats.
Their ride to the club was not as glamorous as the time they’d spent together getting ready, considering the cab driver looked like he barely knew where he was going. They were ten minutes late for the opening of the newest club in the city, but Claire’s name had been on the list of the invited. Why, she had not a clue, but she figured it had something to do with the club wanting publicity. Almost everyone at that place was going to be a member of New York’s socialite club, and even if she hadn’t been dating Eric Slater for three years, she’d still have been invited.
Chapter Two
“I wish someone would have told me the theme was something from the fifties,” Marie whispered as she looked around at the tables and the bartender wearing a suit and bow tie. Women were walking around in shortened pencil skirts with slits in the sides and button down, white blouses that showed generous cleavage. From what Claire could tell, they were the waitresses.
There was dancing going on, but the music playing was modern jazz and some of the couples looked like they didn’t know how to dance to anything but hip-hop. Claire felt a grin tugging at her lips as she headed for the bar and sat down. It was an easygoing, carefree environment without the hassles of loud, thumping music and nowhere to sit. There were plenty of stools at the bar and a section of tables off to one side.
Marie sat beside her with an odd look on her face as she continued to stare at the inside of the nightclub. There were some that were obviously enjoying the scene, but there were a few that were put off-by the club’s obvious theme. Maybe the owner should have mentioned it in the invitation.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” a booming voice interrupted what Marie was about to say and Claire had to postpone her drink order as she turned to the far end of the dance floor.
A man stood wearing a black suit and tie that screamed money. His hair was hidden beneath a hat more befitting for sixty years prior to the date, but somehow he made it look sexy. His shiny shoes caught the light as it was shone on him and Marie made an appreciative noise next to Claire. “I gotta get me some of that,” she whispered in Claire’s ear.
“Good luck. I think there’s about a hundred women already thinking the same thing,” Claire shot back as she turned away from the man. Yes, he was good looking, but there was something too slick and suave about him that bothered her.
Marie could have him.
“As you can see, Nostalgia is-” And that’s when Claire stopped listening. She turned back to the bartender and ordered her candied orange martini and sipped it as she looked at the choices of alcohols behind the man. The woodwork of the bar was impressive and must have cost a pretty penny, but what she was more impressed with was the man reflected in the mirror about four seats down from her.
He fit in with the club in a way that was eerie.
Vaguely, Claire was aware of Marie leaving her side for the dance floor. The two of them were in agreement that Claire would never have to dance in public. In these shoes, she’d do more than just embarrass herself; she’d probably kill someone.
It didn’t bother her that she had been left alone at the bar. She was too busy eyeing the light skinned man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He had on a top hat, but the crooked way it was sitting atop his head made it look like someone had tried to swipe it off. Claire was busying studying the tilt of his hat and trying to determine how long his hair was underneath the hat that she didn’t notice him staring right back at her.
When their eyes met, she had the grace to blush and look away as quick as she could. There was something that whispered dangerous about this man, and she didn’t need dangerous. She wasn’t sure what she needed after Eric, which was not a good place to be in if a man was looking for a one night stand. She wasn’t ready, no matter how brave she had appeared to Marie the other night when they’d talked about going out.
Oh no, no, she thought as she saw the man slide off his stool and develop a tiny twitch of a grin on his lips. They were full lips and his face reminded her of someone familiar.
“Has anyone told you, you look a lot like Claire O’Donnell from the news?” he said easily as he sat down beside her an
d raised his finger off the tabletop to signal the bartender for another beer.
“Has anyone told you, you look a lot like Channing Tatum?” she quipped easily. Claire couldn’t put her finger on it, but this guy made her feel warm in all the right places and she was a little afraid of her reaction to him. The only way to get rid of the feeling was to wipe that grin off his face, but her comeback hadn’t done it.
“Really? It’s a shame I’m not who I look like I am, but I’m glad you’re really who you look like you are.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’d recognize your voice anywhere. Sweet, whispery, with that sharp undertone even when you’re talking about storm clouds,” he told her before he took a sip of his beer.
“Oh,” was all she could manage when he turned his full-blown, bright smile on her. Smooth, Claire, real smooth, she thought while she tried to hide her enamored expression behind a sip of her martini. “So you came over here to talk about storm clouds?”
“No, I came over here because I saw the most beautiful girl in this place sitting alone and wondered why on Earth someone wasn’t trying to buy her a drink.” He looked thoughtfully at her almost empty martini glass and something in her told her to accept. What could it hurt? She was getting a free drink anyway.
“Candied Orange Martini,” she told him as she set her glass down. “But just one,” she promised him with a small smile. He really did look a lot like Channing Tatum, but she was sure he might be a little taller.
Chapter Three
“So what is that you do, other than stand up there and wave your arms around at all the numbers and talk about clouds?” He’d introduced himself with her third martini as James, and she was surprised it had taken them this long to start talking about her job. Usually, men thought that was the only thing she ever did. James had been more interested in what she was doing at a club on a Friday night and alone, at that. Apparently, he’d heard she had a boyfriend, but he hadn’t heard about the blow-up.
