by Mia Carson
“I’m sorry, I must have the wrong house,” she said in a high, fluttery voice.
“Who are you looking for?” she asked, even though she knew she would dread the answer. Her stomach twisted in knots as she waited.
The woman checked her phone and glanced up at the number above the door. “Alec Wolf. This is his place, right?”
“Yes, it is. May I ask why you’re looking for him?” she asked, struggling to maintain her polite composure.
“I’m Nikki, his fiancée,” she replied tightly. “Where is he? Who the hell are you?”
Iris stared blankly at her as the words sunk in. Fiancée. This was his fiancée? “Ex, I thought,” she said before she could stop herself, and the woman’s face grew livid. She stomped her heeled foot, and before Iris could close the door, Nikki shoved past her and into the house.
“Alec Wolf! Where are you? Show yourself, you coward!” she yelled, her words echoing harshly off the walls.
“He’s in the shower,” Iris informed her. “Why don’t you sit down and have some coffee?”
Why the hell am I being nice to her?! Stop it!
Nikki glowered at her and stood at the bottom of the steps. “Alec! Your fiancée is here!”
Iris watched, unsure what to do, and tried to quash the growing anxiety in her belly that Alec would walk down those stairs, see his hot, blonde ex, and fall into her arms. She heard a door close and hurried steps as Alec reached the stop of the stairs. From where she stood at the bottom, Iris saw the anger flare to life in his usually rum-colored eyes, now darkened with bitterness.
“Nikki? How the fuck did you find me?” he snarled as he stomped down the steps in his boots. Her mouth fell open, and Iris couldn’t hold back her laugh, which she quickly turned into a cough under the woman’s intense glare.
“I called your mom, and she told me where the movers were supposed to deliver your furniture,” she told him, and her voice softened. “I want you back, baby, please? I’m so sorry about everything, but you said it yourself… We’re meant to be together.”
Iris’s bit back the nausea at the woman’s lie, and by the way Alec’s hand tensed on the stair railing, he felt the exact same way. Inwardly, she breathed a sigh relief to know he wasn’t so easily swayed. He walked down the last few steps, and Nikki grinned until he passed her and planted himself firmly beside Iris.
“If you think I’m going to take you back, you are sorely mistaken. Get out of my house and do not come back,” he warned. “I’ll call the cops and tell them you’ve been harassing me for a month. I have a record of all the calls and messages.”
Her face fell and her pouty lips disappeared. “You’ve moved on, is that it? You think this… this woman who can’t even dress herself properly is better than me? Please tell me she cleans your house.”
Iris took a step forward, but Alec held out his arm, holding her back. “Actually, she runs the local museum and a shop here in town,” he argued. “She’s also an anthropologist with a degree, more than you ever tried to do in your life, sweetie.”
The pride in his words lifted Iris’s spirits even more, and she slipped her hand into his. He squeezed it tightly and moved to stand beside her again.
Nikki fumed at them, glaring at their clasped hands. “You can’t have him.”
“I think that’s up to him,” Iris said. “And after the past week, I’d say he’s made up his mind.”
“You worthless, little bitch!” Nikki raged and charged forward, but Alec blocked her path and grabbed her arm. “We can talk about this, Alec. I know you love me!” she pleaded as he steered her towards the door.
“No. I don’t think I ever did, and your definition of love is flawed, my dear. Get out and do not come back, understand?” He gave her a gentle shove over the threshold, waved, and slammed the front door in her face. He wiped his hands together and turned around, leaning his back against it. “Well, that was not how I wanted this morning to go.”
Iris laughed quietly. “Could’ve been worse,” she assured him.
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
Her fingers running through the damp strands of his hair, she shrugged one shoulder. “You could’ve tossed me out instead.”
Alec picked her up and tightened his hold on her as she wrapped her legs around his waist, staring down into his eyes. “Never going to happen,” he promised. “I don’t think I could ever let you go, not now.”
“Good,” she said. Her tongue flicked out to taste his lips and he grunted. “How much time do we have before work?”
She barely got the last word out before Alec carried her to the living room and followed her down to the couch with a hungry look in his eyes, filling Iris with the need to be sated by this man who she could never get enough of.
Nikki stormed down Alec’s driveway to her red convertible parked in the street. “That bastard thinks he can throw me out for that piece of trash? I’ll show him, I’ll make him see how much he misses me,” she snapped as she threw her purse in the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel.
The dash clock said it was barely nine, but there had to be a place open somewhere in this town she could get a drink. It was blue collar, after all. Everyone here was most likely a drunk, and drunks needed their bars open early. She drove back towards Main Street in this tiny little joke of a place and parked her car alongside the curb when she saw the signs for Danny’s Dive. The open sign flashed on, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Snatching up her purse, she climbed out of the car and stomped across the sidewalk to the door.
A bell jingled overhead, and everyone turned to stare at her. She didn’t dignify any of their looks with a smile or a wave. She was not in a friendly mood and didn’t want to be friends with anyone in this smelly place, anyway. All she wanted was a damn drink.
“Here for breakfast?” a man behind the bar asked as he moved towards her and handed her a small menu, aged and greasy.
Nikki picked up the corner of it and slid it aside. “No thanks. I’d prefer not to have a heart attack today. I need a martini, extra dry with extra olives.” The man stared at her and didn’t move to make her drink. Tapping her perfectly manicured red nails on the bar top, she glowered at him. “Do you not know how to make a martini in this dive bar? Where’s your manager? I want to speak with him now. Like right now,” she said and snapped her fingers.
The man leaned on the bar, a smirk playing across his face. “I've got news for you, honey. I am the owner of this fine establishment.”
Nikki sighed, exasperated. “Of course you are. Then make me a martini.”
“I don’t serve liquor until noon,” he informed her. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Jutting her jaw out, Nikki’s glare intensified and the man smiled wider. “Listen here, I came into your business to spend money, and I expect to be allowed to do just that.”
“And you can by ordering something off the menu,” he said and nodded towards it. “Otherwise, you and your haughty attitude and your fake-ass nails can leave my place, and please, don’t come back. Ever.”
“You asshole!”
“Is there a problem, Danny?” a man’s voice grumbled from behind Nikki. She spun around on her stool to see who was talking to find a handsome, tall man wearing a deputy badge on his chest and a black cowboy hat. “Well?”
Nikki glanced back at Danny, a sly smirk on her face.
“She’s trying to order a martini,” Danny said lightly. “You know the rules, Deputy. No booze here until noon.”
“I just want one tiny drink,” Nikki said, lowering her tone and turning around with wide eyes to stare at the deputy. “I’ve had a very rough morning, and this gentleman has his rules, I understand that, but I’m a paying customer who’s visiting your little town and want to tell everyone back home how wonderful it was… including the people.”
The deputy’s lips thinned. He winked at her and leaned on the bar. “Danny, just bend the rules once. We could use some good words said about us. The holiday festivals
are coming up, and this lady, here—I’m sorry, ma’am, what’s your name?”
She held out her hand, and he took it lightly. “Nikki Thompson.”
“Deputy Jenson Drayer,” he replied. “Nikki could return home and give our town some good publicity, so do me a favor and just make her a damn martini. What can it hurt?”
Danny’s face went blank, but he grinned and bowed his head. “Of course, Deputy, anything for our sad little town. Let me fetch that drink for you.” He stalked off down the bar.
“Thank you,” Nikki said and motioned to the stool beside her. “Care to join me?”
“I have an hour before I have to be officially on duty,” he said happily and sat down. “Now, what is a fine woman like you doing in Lundy? You said you had a rough morning?”
She crossed her legs and smiled seductively as Jenson’s eyes followed the movement as her dress hiked higher up her thigh. “I came here looking for someone, but it turns out I’m not wanted anymore.”
“I find that very hard to believe,” Jenson replied and leaned a little closer.
Danny set the martini down silently, glaring at them both before walking away again. Nikki saw him pull out his cell and start texting as she swirled the olives around her drink. “Well, believe it. He’s here with another woman. Even pawned my engagement ring to rub it in my face, but that woman he’s with? She’s not good enough for him.” She shot back the whole glass and held it up, trying to get Danny’s attention as she chewed an olive loudly. “Another, please.”
He walked unhurriedly towards her and took her empty glass. “You want some food to wash it down with?”
“Watch your tone, Danny,” Jenson warned, and Danny turned on his heel and walked off. He kicked open a door behind the bar and disappeared behind it. “He’s just a lowlife. Don’t worry about him. Who’s this man you’re chasing after?”
“Alec Wolf,” she snarled. “The rotten bastard left me to run away here! And he’s hooking up with some… with some brown-haired woman who looks as if she’s worked on a farm all her life! It’s horrible. His mother will lose it if she finds out what he’s doing to the family name.” She sniffed hard, glancing down the bar for her next martini, but Danny hadn’t reappeared yet. “He was supposed to marry me, a Thompson and a Wolf together. We’d be unstoppable, but not now.”
Jenson nodded slowly beside her, his eyes calculating. “Did you catch this woman’s name?”
“No, but she’d slept with him,” she muttered darkly. “I could tell by the way he held her hand, the way he looked at her. She’s sleeping with the man who’s supposed to be my fiancé!”
She pouted, glaring at her reflection in the mirror as that woman’s face popped into her mind again. She wanted to claw her eyes out, tear her hair out by the roots for taking her man away, her precious Alec. Nikki hadn’t meant to cheat. It had just happened, but Alec didn’t understand that. He said he never even loved her in the first place. For all she knew, he’d been seeing this other woman on the side while she was seeing Mark. He had simply disappeared several times, and she didn’t know what he was up to. Not that she’d cared back then. She’d usually taken those days to sneak off with Mark.
“Nikki, I think I might be able to help you out,” Jenson said quietly as Danny finally returned to replace her martini. He motioned her away from the bar, and they situated themselves in a back-corner booth.
“I don’t want him arrested,” she whispered, holding her martini glass to her lips.
“Of course not, no, but you do want him back, right?”
“I want him back, and I want my three-carat engagement ring back,” she whimpered, thinking of that beautiful ring on someone else’s finger, on that horrible woman’s finger. “I want what we had back, all of it.”
He nodded and leaned closer. “That woman he’s with? She and I have a history, and I’ve been desperate to have her back in my life, but Alec stole her from me.”
Nikki tilted her head and rubbed her toe against Jenson’s leg under the table. “Are you proposing we split them up to get them back?”
“I’m suggesting something of the sort,” he said, and Nikki heard the strain in his voice. “There is something I need you to do for me, something I need destroyed in Alec’s house.”
“Why don’t we go somewhere more private so we can discuss the details of this little arrangement,” she said softly. “Figure out the best way to help each other in such a tough situation.”
Jenson’s lips curled as desire pooled in his eyes. “I have a bit of time before my shift. Let me get those drinks for you, and I’ll show you where the mayor’s son gets to live.”
“The mayor’s son?” she repeated, intrigued.
“Yes, which is why, if you can remove this pest Alec Wolf from my town, I would be forever indebted to you.” He rubbed his fingers together, and Nikki’s eyes lit up even more.
“Then by all means, lead the way,” she said and followed Jenson out the door.
Chapter 13
Still riled up from Nikki showing up unexpectedly at his home, Alec couldn’t focus at the range and after slamming his fingers in the register drawer for the fourth time, August shoved him towards the door and told him to take off.
“Really, I think I can handle it,” he muttered. “Go get a drink and clear your head.”
“What if she’s at the house?” Alec whispered, hating how the words sounded coming out.
August shrugged, not sparing him a glance. “You’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself. Now get out of here and watch out for the—wall,” he said lamely as Alec ran into it, missing the door.
“I’m good,” he called back. “Good.”
The whole drive back to the house, his hands twisted against the worn leather of his steering wheel as he pictured Nikki’s convertible parked outside his house—or worse, her waiting for him inside. What he found instead was Joe sitting on his front step, holding a box with a worried look etched into the weathered lines of his face.
“Hey, Joe,” he said as he climbed out of his truck. “Didn’t know you were swinging by.”
“Just called the range. August said you were heading home, so I thought I would meet you here.”
“Sure, come on in. Want a beer?” he asked, showing Joe to the kitchen. “I think I need at least one. Maybe two.”
“I heard you had an unexpected visitor this morning,” Joe said and set the box on the kitchen table. “And yes, I’ll take a beer. I might need it for what we’re about to dig into.”
“Is this about what you found yesterday?” Alec asked and reached into the fridge for two beers. “Does it have to do with why the Drayer family doesn’t like the Newton family?”
“I think it has everything to do with that,” Joe said and sat down at the table with a heavy sigh.
Alec joined him, his eyes darting to the front door, paranoid now that Nikki would magically appear again in his house and try to drag him off somewhere. She had always been crazy, especially when she was pissed off. Seeing him with Iris just might send her off that ledge into crazy town, so he texted Iris again, just checking in to make sure she hadn’t seen Nikki at all.
Joe took the lid off the box on the table and pulled out several stacks of files as Alec sipped his beer and wondered what the old man had found at City Hall. His gaze drifted around his kitchen to the framed photograph Iris had left there that morning. It sat on the edge of the table, and he stood to move it out of the way.
“I wish she would keep that,” Joe said quietly, his eyes darting to the photo.
“I’m sure I can find a way to sneak it into her house,” Alec said. “She looks so much like Gyda. It’s strange they’re not related.”
Joe held up his finger, shaking it as he pulled out one more stack and set the box on the floor. “That might not be true, not anymore. Iris has brought me several family heirlooms over the past year, pieces of jewelry passed down in her family for generations and worth quite a lot, pieces that I have recen
tly discovered belonged to our dear Gyda Lundy.”
Alec set his beer down slowly and picked up the file filled with aging papers and records falling out of it that Joe indicated. “You’re sure?”
“When Astrid and Jim ran the museum, they had a local historian on call,” Joe explained. “A very dear friend to them both. Since I saw the first piece of jewelry turn up in another photograph of Gyda, I’ve been setting them aside and meeting with this person. It has taken many phone calls and months of digging into the archives of this town and those surrounding it, but every piece,” he said, leaning closer in his excitement, “every one of them belonged to Gyda Lundy. One of them was a gift from my tribe.”
“You recognized it?” Alec flipped through the records of family histories in the town, his eyes glancing over names and dates going all the way back to the founding of the place.
Joe handed over a photograph of the beautiful, handcrafted earrings. “The first piece she ever brought me. Broke her heart to do it, but I’m damn glad she did. I might never have realized what the Drayers did all those years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, many years ago, it was the Newton family who owned the town. They weren’t called that,” he explained, pulling out several pages and laying them flat on the table. He tapped his finger on a different name.
Alec craned his neck to read it. “Lundin. They changed it to Lundin?”
“A variation of Lundy,” he said. “It was a very common thing to do back then for immigrant families. In 1946, the Lundin family disappeared and the Newtons came to this town. The Drayer family, also residents here for many years, had their name in everything. They owned the town after that, and no one has bothered to ask questions since.”
Alec grabbed another file and stared at page after page of documentation for the town, anything mentioning either the Drayer family or the Lundin name. Joe and he went through three more beers each before he sputtered on a mouthful and slapped a filed down on the table.
