Walk Through Fire

by Kristen Ashley

“Would I scare my baby?” Logan asked.

  “No,” Zadie answered.

  “I like scary,” Cleo announced.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’. You wouldn’t, but Clee-Clee would,” Zadie explained.

  “You and me can have our scary nights when I get another TV in this joint,” Logan told his oldest. “That way, we do that, Zade and Millie can go watch somethin’ else in the bedroom.”

  I was not putting a TV in the bedroom. It would be ugly, ruining the aesthetics. I knew this because I’d considered it and even looked for a media center with doors that closed the TV away in order to have a TV in my bedroom. Years of looking, I’d found nothing that would work.

  So that was not going to happen.

  However, Logan and I would have that conversation at a later date.

  Right then, I looked up at Logan. “I actually DVR’ed Pitch Perfect and Easy A a while ago and I’ve been wanting to watch both of them for ages.”

  “I love Pitch Perfect!” Cleo squealed.

  “Jesus,” Logan muttered, frowning down at me.

  “Of course,” I said hurriedly, “we can watch them another weekend.”

  “Oh, Daddy, we so have to watch Pitch Perfect,” Zadie stated excitedly.

  So excitedly, my eyes flew to her.

  She was looking up at her dad, her eyes now shining, something I’d never seen.

  Like her sister, the transformation was amazing.

  She was a cute kid, a budding beauty, both impossible to miss.

  But now, both the cuteness and the beauty shone from her like a beacon that was blinding.

  Seeing it for the first time, I got why her father spoiled her. I, too, would do anything in my power to get that aimed at me on a regular basis.

  It might not be good parenting.

  But staring into that beam, I knew it would be near impossible to beat back the urge.

  “It’s funny and so good,” she went on, “even you’ll like it.”

  I hadn’t seen the movie yet.

  Still, I knew a movie based on a capella groups dueling each other in college was not something Logan would ever like.

  “That movie too old for you?” Logan asked.

  “No,” Cleo answered.

  “Totally no,” Zadie put in.

  “Zade’s right, Daddy. You’re so gonna laugh. It’s really funny,” Cleo stated.

  Logan let me go to move back to the stove, muttering, “So I gotta put up with the mall, nail polish smell, and I don’t even get to pick the movie.”

  “Millie, Cleo, and me’ll make chicken, bacon mac ’n’ cheese,” Zadie bartered.

  When she did, I went still.

  She’d included me in that.

  Me!

  I didn’t know what chicken, bacon mac ’n’ cheese was. But I was so totally making it.

  I fought back giggling like a lunatic and twirling in delight.

  “Chicken, bacon mac’s the only thing worth watchin’ an asinine high school movie,” Logan murmured to the skillet.

  “They’re in college, Daddy,” Cleo informed him.

  “Chicken, bacon mac’s the only thing worth watchin’ an asinine college movie,” Logan murmured to the skillet.

  Cleo giggled.

  Zadie did too.

  My heart got so light, it lightened everything about me to the point it was a wonder I wasn’t floating on air when I went to the pantry to get the syrup.

  I had that out, plus the butter and plates, forks, and napkins on placemats before I went back to the stove to relieve Logan of his duties.

  “Heat up your coffee, Snooks,” I said softly, pushing in to take the spatula from him. “And grab a stool. I’ll finish here.”

  “Babe,” he replied.

  I looked up at him.

  It was then my heart stopped.

  Because now, his eyes were shining. Shining and happy and relieved.

  And I saw his girls got that from him, too, that look transforming his beauty into something breathtaking.

  As I gazed up at him in wonder, he bent and touched his mouth to mine. It was a swift kiss. Light. There and gone.

  But it was happy too.

  He relinquished the spatula, grabbed my mug as well as his, and heated up both our coffees before he took a stool.

  I served French toast. It was good French toast. But it was just French toast.

  Still, I was going to remember that French toast for the rest of my life.

  Because I ate it listening to Cleo babbling, Zadie joining her, and watching my man eat his surrounded by all his girls, looking straight down to his bones happy.

  * * *

  “Okay, so that went good,” I said to Logan, who was moving around me in the kitchen.

  It was late evening. He was finishing up his last beer. I was cleaning my wineglass.

  We were headed to bed.

  The girls were already down.

  Bribery apparently worked.

  It worked so well that even when Pitch Perfect proved to be a tad bit too adult for Logan’s girls (as decreed by Logan, even though they’d both already seen it so he couldn’t put the kibosh on it) and he’d shared that unhappily, nothing came of this since we were still riding the wave of mall, yogurt by the pound, and girlie treat in-house mani-pedis.

  Zadie may not have been about hugs and shouting endorsements of me from the top of her lungs, but she hadn’t done a single bratty thing all day. She’d even shyly, almost like it was against her will but she couldn’t stop it, asked my opinions on things she’d purchased.

  And she’d listened to my answers.

  As for Cleo, any barriers that may have remained between her and me had crumbled down. She saw her mom with me. She saw her father not happy to be at the mall shopping but definitely happy to be with his girls. And she appreciated all my efforts, and not just the gift cards.

  The people she loved were settled and content and that was all Cleo Judd needed.

  Therefore, she was open and talkative, friendly and familiar, and riding a near-teen-girl wave of joy at having a new top, earrings, bangles, hair stuff, and girl gizmos.

  She was just a phenomenal kid. It was remarkable watching her be carefree after seeing her so often be careful about all around her.

  I watched this falling in love with Cleo.

  I knew Logan agreed with my assessment on the day when I felt his arms round me from behind.

  He gave me his verbal agreement when he shoved his face in my neck and muttered, “Yeah.”

  “You were wrong,” I told him, placing my glass on a spread kitchen towel by the sink.

  He took his face out of my neck and turned me in his arms.

  When he got me face to face, I wrapped mine around him.

  “Yeah?”

  “You said six point five visits for Zadie.” I grinned up at him. “It only took four.”

  “Five,” he returned.

  He was counting too.

  But he was wrong.

  “Four,” I returned.

  “Five, babe. She was still holdin’ back over dinner with Deb.”

  This was true.

  Which meant he was right.

  Therefore, I muttered, “Whatever.”

  He gave me a squeeze not to give me a squeeze, because he’d begun laughing.

  It wasn’t unadulterated mirth. He was being quiet because we had two sleeping girls in the house.

  But it was still open, genuine, and amazing.

  And further, we had two sleeping girls in our house.

  I stood in his arms, in the kitchen, watching my man laugh quietly.

  The road to that moment sucked big-time.

  Having that moment, just that one, Logan and me holding each other in our kitchen, him laughing and happy, two girls who’d had a good day with their dad and his woman sleeping in our house, that road was worth it.

  So I gave him a squeeze and I did it to give him a squeeze.

  He focused on me, still chuckling.
/>   I was not chuckling.

  I wasn’t even smiling.

  And when Logan caught that, his amusement died.

  “Baby?” he whispered.

  “Sometimes I felt consumed, like I didn’t exist, gone,” I whispered back. “Every day it was just going through the motions.”

  He dipped his face close to mine and his repeated, “Baby?” was rougher.

  It was also confused.

  I didn’t explain outright, even as I did.

  “But it was worth it. Every step was worth it. Even if all I ever get from it was this one moment with you.”

  “Millie.”

  That was abrasive.

  He got me.

  I gave him the rest anyway.

  “I’d do it again for another moment like this. And again for a moment like I had over French toast with you and your babies. And again and again and again, for each night I get to sleep with you. No joke, Snook’ums. No lie. I’d do it every day it was so worth it to walk through fire for you.”

  He didn’t call me baby. He didn’t call my name.

  He kissed me.

  Not a touch. Not a peck. Not light.

  Hot and hard and so, so wet.

  I ended it, breaking the connection to slide my lips to his ear because I wasn’t done.

  “I love you, Logan Judd,” I whispered there. “I never stopped loving you. Thank you for making it worth it.”

  He groaned, grasped onto my hair, and turned my head so he could kiss me again.

  It was as good as the one before and then some.

  Yes.

  Absolutely yes.

  Consumed by the flames for twenty years, every second was totally worth it.

  * * *

  “Zadie?” I called, then stutter-stepped on my way down the hall because Chief, chased by Poem, ran under my feet.

  There was no answer.

  I looked into the living room and saw nothing, which I wouldn’t, since I’d left her on the couch.

  Perhaps she’d gone out back with her dad and sister.

  It was the next morning. The workmen hadn’t come early. By the time they arrived, we were all up but Logan had gotten up before everyone and he’d gone out to get LaMar’s donuts.

  So we were all sugared up too.

  When the men arrived, Logan went out back to go over the project with them and oversee the work.

  Cleo, daddy’s girl, had gone with him.

  Zadie, possibly sugar crashing on the couch in front of some program, probably not wanting to move because Poem had fallen asleep curled into the curve of her little body, had elected to stay in the house with me.

  I didn’t suspect she wanted to be with me but instead with Poem as her giving me a shot meant her not avoiding the kittens anymore.

  I also suspected that even though this weekend was going great, she didn’t need me up in her face all the time, continuing to try to win her.

  She needed to get to a normal with me, her dad, her sister in our house.

  So I’d decided to give her some alone time and left her and Poem to hit the shower and get ready to face the day.

  It was totally a half-hair-air-dried day. We didn’t have the girls much longer so even if I needed to give them normal, I also wasn’t real fired up they’d be gone the next day. It was awesome to have them around because they were awesome (even Zadie), they filled up the house, and made it feel homey and Logan loved having his girls with him. So I wanted more of all that before it went away, which meant I wasn’t wasting time spending eons on my hair.

  I still had to roll out the top.

  However, between blasts of the hair dryer to the roller brush, I’d heard the doorbell ring. So I’d quit my preparations to find out who was at the door (with Chaos back in my life, it could be anyone—I was still thinking it was Dot, Alan, and the kids, just so they could check up on me knowing the girls were there for their first weekend).

  When I’d walked by the front door, no one was in the window.

  And now Zadie wasn’t answering.

  I hit the living room, going to the back of the couch and looking over it.

  Poem, obviously, had woken up and decided to play with her brother.

  Zadie also had clearly decided to do something else because she wasn’t on the couch.

  “Zadie?” I called again, looking toward the kitchen to look out the window of the back door even though I couldn’t see all the way to the end of my property from there.

  She didn’t answer.

  She must have gone out to check on progress with her dad and sister.

  My body moved that way but, for some reason, my head turned the other.

  When it did and I saw what I saw through the sheers, I froze, as did all the blood in my veins.

  Then, my feet bare, I ran, right through the living room to the hall, the foyer, and out the front door.

  Once out the door, I kept running, straight to the two good-looking, well-dressed Hispanic men who were talking to Zadie on the sidewalk.

  Benito Valenzuela’s henchmen. The one that held a gun to me and one of the men who stood behind him when he sat in my cuddle chair.

  “Zadie!” I snapped.

  She turned to me as the men’s eyes came to me.

  “Daddy’s friends are here,” she informed me. “I told them he was out back.”

  “Get in the house,” I ordered, making it to her and pushing in with my body, at the same time pushing her back and putting myself between her and the men.

  “Lookin’ for you,” one of the men said. “Thought we found better. Now we got both.”

  Oh God.

  I took a step back, feeling Zadie’s body forced to move back with me.

  I kept my eyes to the men as I demanded, “Go, Zadie. Run and get your father.”

  One of the men made a move toward me. “Now, hang on—”

  I pushed back farther even as I whirled and bent to Logan’s girl. “Go! Now! Run and get your father!”

  “They’re Daddy’s friends,” she retorted, not bratty, looking confused. “They told me—”

  I got in her face.

  “Run!” I shrieked.

  When I did, her body jerked perhaps due to my tone but also because one man wrapped his fingers around my elbow and yanked me away from her as the other one made his move… toward Zadie.

  “Go!” I screeched, swinging my body still in the other’s hold toward the guy who was moving to Zadie.

  She turned and ran.

  The other man started to run after her.

  I wrenched free and threw myself at him. I managed to take him off trajectory of Zadie, scuttling him to the side.

  He wrapped his arms around me and tossed me at the other guy with such force, I flew at him, unable to stop myself.

  Far away, I could hear the noises of the trucks working out back.

  Still struggling against my captor, I screamed, “Logan!”

  “We’ll take her,” the man holding me stated.

  The guy I feared would go after Zadie turned to him. “Benito said—”

  “We got her. We’ll take her,” the guy I was fighting declared.

  “Logan!” I shrieked.

  “Shut her the fuck up,” the one coming back our way ordered.

  A hand came over my mouth.

  I tried to bite it but he felt my intention and moved it away and then right back even as he pulled me toward the curb.

  “Let me go!” I demanded, the words muffled. I was swinging my body viciously this way and that, hoping for the desired result.

  “Benito told us—”

  “To force it,” the guy with me finished for him. “We’re forcin’ it.”

  The other guy looked at us a beat before he said, “’Spose she’ll work.”

  Really?

  Broad daylight?

  Even if Logan couldn’t hear me over the trucks out back, where were my neighbors?

  “Move your hand, muchacho,” the guy advancing ordered. />
  The hand was moved.

  I sucked in air in order to scream.

  I didn’t get it out when his arm shot back and slammed forward, connecting with my temple, and I was out cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Like Any Good Old Lady Should

  High

  “DADDY, THEY SAID you were friends.”

  “Quiet, Zadie.”

  “But they said they knew you.”

  “Quiet!”

  His word was a roar and he saw his baby jump in fear.

  He fucking hated that.

  But he and his girls had just gotten back inside from going out front, where Zadie told him two men had Millie.

  When he finally sprinted to her front drive, a neighbor was standing in their yard looking down the road. Catching sight of High and his girls, that neighbor yelled that he’d seen someone shove Millie, who appeared unconscious, into an SUV.

  Then he’d asked, “You want me to call the police?”

  It was the stupidest fucking question High had ever heard in his life. The man had watched his unconscious neighbor shoved into an SUV. Of course he should call the fucking cops.

  High didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He had zero control.

  He’d just stalked into the house, his girls following, and pulled out his phone.

  Commence him scaring the shit out of his baby.

  But he couldn’t think about that because he heard, “Yo,” in his ear.

  “Valenzuela sent some guys,” he told Tack, his voice low, rough, and tight. “I was out back with Cleo. They got Zadie out of the house at the front. Millie saw it, went out to protect her. Zadie ran and the neighbors just informed me they saw Millie, unconscious, hauled away in an SUV.”

  “On it,” Tack stated urgently.

  High turned his back to the girls and started to prowl down the hall, saying quietly, “Oh no. Fuck no. You get Tyra here or some fuckin’ old lady, I don’t care who, to look after my girls. They got Millie. I’m on this.”

  “That’s what they want, High,” Tack told him.

  “Yeah. And that’s what they’re gettin’,” High returned.

  “Brother—”

  “Get… an… old… lady… here.”

  “You ride out with us,” Tack declared.

  “I ride out in five minutes. You don’t get an old lady here, I’m droppin’ the girls at Deb’s and I’m on it.”

  “Copy that, High.”

  High disconnected and stalked back into the living room.