Blaze (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 8)

by Ophelia Sexton

  With emotions running so high, he feared the worst. After all, he had seen these two bear shifter matriarchs clash before with teeth and claws.

  "But it's not too late, Anastasia," Elle continued. She spread her hands, encompassing the ranch and everyone who lived there. "You made your peace with Ash for little Mitya's sake. Surely you can do the same with Dimitri's Damaris, if you want to be part of their future children's lives."

  Anastasia huffed, but her gaze finally dropped away from Elle's.

  "I believe we can," Mikael rumbled.

  Damaris squeezed Dimitri with the arm she had wound around his waist. It was the only warning he received before she said, "Mr. and Mrs. Medved, we're holding an engagement party on the Fourth of July. Since you've come all this way, would you like to stay for the party?"

  Dimitri stared down at his mate in horror.

  My parents under my roof for the next two weeks? No privacy?

  He cast an appealing look at Elle. "Uh, is Evan's place available? It's right next door, and I'm sure my parents would appreciate having the space and the privacy."

  To his immense relief, his mother waved her hand in denial. "No, no, we cannot stay. It is impossible on such short notice. We have important business meetings in the city that cannot be postponed."

  "Thank you for inviting us," his father added graciously. "We look forward to seeing you at the wedding."

  * * *

  In retrospect, confronting Dimitri's parents had been a really dumb thing to do. But Anastasia Medved's high-handed attempt to convince Damaris to break up with Dimitri had made Damaris so damned angry.

  Added to that was the fact that Damaris had been acutely aware that Sophie was asleep and vulnerable inside the house, which had aroused all of her protective instincts.

  She still felt bad about being the cause of friction between Dimitri and his parents, though. It didn't matter if they were acting like jerks by showing up and trying to scare her off…at least he still had parents.

  Which was why she'd tried to patch things up with an invitation to the engagement party. Though she had to admit that she'd been relieved when Anastasia and Mikael declined.

  Dimitri's parents had taken Elle up on her offer of breakfast, then left the ranch three hours after they arrived, with just a brief stop to say hi to Nika, Ash, and Little Mitya.

  Three days later, the owner of the Bearpaw Ridge Florist and Bridal Shoppe delivered an extravagant bouquet of red, white, pink, and yellow roses to Damaris at the ranch.

  At first, Damaris thought that they were from Dimitri. But he looked as surprised as she was when he emerged from their shared home office to find her almost hidden behind the mass of blooms in her arms.

  Then she read the note that accompanied the bouquet:

  Congratulations on your engagement. We look forward to seeing you at the wedding. Warmest wishes, Anastasia and Mikael

  "I sense my father's hand in this," Dimitri said, frowning at the bouquet. "He was always good at smoothing things over whenever Mama went overboard."

  "It doesn't say 'welcome to the family,' though," Damaris noted.

  Dimitri shrugged. "Baby steps, I guess. And Elle's already welcomed you into the Swanson clan, remember?"

  "That's good, because I like Elle and Justin a whole lot better than I like your folks, no offense."

  "No offense taken," Dimitri said. "Though my parents have actually mellowed out a bit since they got out of prison."

  The next two weeks flew by as Damaris and Dimitri both worked to make all of the arrangements for their engagement party while still working at GCG.

  Then, suddenly, it was the beginning of July, and the day before Dan and Jim were due to arrive in Bearpaw Ridge.

  Damaris spent all that day racked with anxiety. She couldn't wait to see them again, but at the same time, she felt so nervous that she wanted to throw up.

  After dinner, Dimitri did his best to tire her out with his passionate lovemaking, and Damaris was able to fall asleep instead of tossing and turning all night, like she'd feared.

  When Dimitri woke her with a kiss and her usual cup of coffee just after dawn, she saw that she'd received a text from Dan. It said simply,

  At JFK, waiting to board. See you soon, doll!

  The Missoula airport was about a three-hour drive north of the Grizzly Creek Ranch, so she would have to hit the road soon. Even if the closest thing to rush hour in this part of the world was getting stuck behind a lumbering motorhome on a stretch of the highway with no passing lane.

  Damaris emerged from the shower to find a substantial breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and freshly made fruit salad already laid out on the big kitchen island.

  "I figured you guys will probably want to stop for lunch somewhere before you start the drive back to the ranch," Dimitri said, pouring coffee into a big travel mug.

  He handed her the mug, and she went up on tip-toes to give him a quick kiss. "You know you're totally spoiling me, right? I'm never going to be able to downgrade back to a normal life after this."

  She received a panty-meltingly sweet smile in return. "I don't intend to let you downgrade," her fiancé informed her. "And if anyone deserves a little spoiling, it's you, Damaris. I love doing it."

  The kiss they shared was longer this time.

  "Ew, gross," Sophie said from behind them.

  Damaris and Dimitri broke apart, laughing.

  Dimitri grinned down at Sophie. "Hey, there, Sleeping Beauty. I thought your mom was going to have to drive to the airport by herself."

  "And miss Uncle Dan and Uncle Jim? No way!" Sophie said firmly. "I even traded chores with Matt so that I don't have to go to the barn this morning."

  "Well, good. So, sit. Eat. Both of you," Dimitri ordered, still smiling. "I'll make something special for dinner for all of us tonight."

  * * *

  "Ms. Kiddo!" Dan exclaimed as he picked up Sophie and swung her around. "Geez, you grew up and turned into a young lady on me!"

  He'd grown a beard since the last time Damaris had seen him. It matched his salt-and-pepper hair. His craggy features hadn't changed at all, though he'd lost weight and gained muscle.

  Apparently, despite Dan's protests to the contrary, Jim's attempts to drag them both to the gym were working.

  "And you look great, honey," Jim told Damaris as he hugged her tight.

  He was a tall, clean-shaven black man with short, graying hair and a thick shiny scar on his left cheek where he'd been shot early in his career as a police officer.

  "Just grazed me," he always said in his soft-spoken way whenever anyone asked him about it.

  Over the years, Damaris had learned that Jim had a gift for understatement.

  From Dan, his longtime partner both professionally and personally, she'd eventually learned that "just grazed" had meant nearly a week in intensive care. Jim had been very lucky not to lose his eye, not to mention his life.

  "I've missed you so much," she told Jim, hugging him back.

  The scent of his aftershave catapulted back to her turbulent teenaged years and the safe haven that their apartment had offered her when she found out that she was pregnant.

  "Are you hungry?" she asked after exchanging hugs with Dan and kissing his bearded cheek. "It's a long drive to the ranch, so I was thinking we should stop somewhere before we hit the road."

  "I'm starving," Sophie informed them. "Can we get Chinese food?" She turned to Dan. "There aren't any Chinese restaurants in Bearpaw Ridge."

  "Huh," he said sympathetically. "So, do you like living in a foodie desert?"

  "Oh, yeah!" To Damaris's relief, Sophie answered without hesitating. "I live on a ranch now, and my friend Matt shares his pony with me. I get to ride Oreo every day! And there's a bald eagle nest in a tree right next to the riverside pasture!"

  As they walked out of the terminal and toward the parking lot, Sophie continued to tell Dan and Jim all about the local wildlife, including the bear she had seen in the distance one afte
rnoon.

  Damaris smiled to herself, thinking that the bear had probably been Elle Swanson out for her daily amble around the ranch.

  Knowing that bear shifters were real and that she was about to marry one…that felt magical and nothing like the poisoned weight of her other big secret.

  And soon, not only Dimitri but her second dads would know the truth about her. Was it so wrong to want to put off the moment of reckoning just a little bit longer?

  When they reached Damaris's new Subaru, she tucked her phone in her purse.

  "You're in luck, Ms. Kiddo," she said. "I found at least twelve Asian restaurants here in Missoula, and their Yelp ratings are mostly pretty good."

  * * *

  They settled on a cheery little Mom & Pop Chinese restaurant located in a strip mall not too far from the airport. The place wasn't too crowded, and the food turned out to be delicious.

  The four of them spent most of the meal catching up on everything that had happened in their lives since the last time they'd seen each other.

  Sophie talked about her dance recitals, her new friends at the ranch, and Oreo the pony. Damaris told them about Dimitri and working for Ash at GCG, along with a couple of funny stories about the company-wide video conferences with the colorful staff of gaming developers. And Dan and Jim filled her in on their post-retirement lives as volunteer mentors at the local high school's careers program.

  They talked about everything except the elephant in the room.

  Dan and Jim waited until Sophie left the table to use the bathroom before they brought up the topic of Tony Rizzo.

  Once Sophie was safely out of earshot, Dan leaned forward over the glass-covered table, now decorated with bits of fried rice and drops of sweet-and-sour sauce.

  He lowered his voice. "So, I talked to Adriana last night."

  Damaris put down her chopsticks. Mark had been negotiating with Adriana Marconi to have the Organized Crime Task Force offer Damaris immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony against Tony.

  "She says that OCME has agreed to investigate your claims that, uh, certain accidental deaths in Tony's circle of associates weren't actually accidents."

  OCME was the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.

  "That's good news, right?" Damaris asked warily.

  "You betcha," said Jim. "The detectives I know who worked those cases always thought that there was something hinky going on. They've been pushing to reopen the investigations."

  The cops thought those deaths were suspicious? Damaris asked herself in horror. She had been so sure that she'd covered her tracks perfectly.

  Or maybe Tony had sold her out, just like he'd always threatened to do if she tried to leave.

  In any case, it looked like she hadn't acted a moment too soon in hiring Mark and having him negotiate a deal with law enforcement.

  "Good," Damaris said, though her heart was hammering.

  But if Mark and Adriana couldn't come to an immunity agreement now, Damaris knew she was screwed. And that wasn't even taking into account Dimitri's possible reaction when he found out about her special assignments for Tony.

  "Hon, you know that testifying against Tony is gonna be dangerous, right?" asked Jim, serving himself another helping of the green beans sautéed with chili and garlic.

  "Yeah. I've been working for him for a while now, remember?" She tried to smile, but the concerned look in his eyes made it difficult.

  But it wasn't just the threat of witness intimidation—or worse—that worried her.

  No, once Mark and Adriana made their deal, then Damaris was committed to going on public record about her special assignments.

  Which meant that her new family and friends in Bearpaw Ridge were about to find out that Damaris had been a Mob hitwoman.

  Not to mention Dan and Jim. She hadn't allowed herself to think about how they might react to the revelations.

  Will Dimitri still want to marry me after all this becomes public? And how about my new job? Will Ash still want me as his HR director, or will I lose everything?

  She would have to find a way to tell Dimitri, and soon.

  Because as much as she feared him finding out about her past, she knew it would be infinitely worse if he found out from a news report about the trial.

  I'll tell him everything once the engagement party is over and all of our guests are gone, she promised herself.

  Chapter 21 – Fireworks and Disaster

  July 4

  When she received the text from Sophie's number, Damaris hadn't seen her daughter and the other kids for at least an hour.

  But this wasn't New York, so she wasn't worried. Here in Bearpaw Ridge, free-range kids were the norm rather than the exception, because every adult kept an eye out for them.

  Besides, she knew that Sophie was hanging out with Matt, Ellie, Little Mitya, and assorted other Swanson and Jacobsen kids.

  Most of Main Street had been closed to traffic for the day. It was lined with booths selling all kinds of food from corn dogs to carnitas, not to mention ice cream, shaved ice, lemonade, and cotton candy, plus locally made jewelry, ceramics, and other works of art.

  A stage had been set up at the far end of the street closure, right by Cinnamon + Sugar, and various local bands had been rotating through all afternoon, ranging from Beatles tribute bands to country music singers to a chamber music quartet with strings and a trumpet.

  For the kids, there were face-painting booths, several giant inflatable bouncy houses, and various games such as horseshoes, ring toss, etc.

  The riverside park was filled with families surrounded by picnic coolers and portable barbeques, and there were lots of tourists at the celebration as well.

  Damaris was at the park with Elle, Steffi, Annabeth, and the rest of the Swansons, minus the firefighters.

  Dane, Mark, Dimitri, Tyler, Hannah, and the other Swanson volunteer firefighters were on the long, narrow island in the middle of the river, directly across from the city park. They were working to set up the pyrotechnics display that would take place as soon it got dark.

  The remaining Swansons had spread out picnic blankets and set up stadium chairs on the park's wide lawn, joining the rest of the town in staking out a place to view the fireworks show. While they waited for the sun to go down, they were provisioned with several large coolers filled with ice, cans of soda, bottled water, and snacks.

  Despite their late start in planning it, Dimitri and Damaris's engagement party earlier today had gone off without a hitch.

  To Damaris's relief, Dan and Jim had taken a liking to Dimitri and he to them. And her second dads, Justin, and Elle had hit it off right away.

  To follow up with the delivery of roses, Dimitri's parents had sent a case of expensive French champagne as an engagement gift.

  Maybe my scary future in-laws are going to be less scary from now on, thought Damaris, touching the remnants of the scab on her neck. That'll be one less thing to worry about on my wedding day.

  The party itself had been held in and around Elle's house. Justin had catered the food from his restaurant and set up a buffet outside under the wide roofed porch. Annabeth had baked a big chocolate cake and decorated it beautifully with edible fresh flowers as an engagement gift from her and Dane.

  There had been music, and drinks—including the champagne—and kids everywhere, and Damaris had felt accepted as part of the family. She felt like she'd come home at last.

  By long tradition, the Bearpaw Ridge firefighters were in charge of the Fourth of July fireworks display at the riverside city park, so when mid-afternoon rolled around and it was time to begin setting up, the party guests had piled into every available vehicle and headed into town.

  Damaris was currently seated next to Annabeth, who had brought her wedding cake idea books along to show Damaris. These were big scrapbook albums that consisted of Annabeth's portfolio photos plus magazine clippings with the latest cake designs and ideas.

  The two of them wer
e sipping diet Cokes and discussing various designs.

  Grandma Elle was playing some kind of ball game with Annabeth and Dane's little daughter Maggie, Tyler and Mary's twins Rob and Malia, and Little Mitya. The older children had been handed money for snacks and games and were off wandering the festival.

  "You're really talented, you know that, right?" Damaris said to Annabeth, stopping to admire a stunning ombré cake that began as deep indigo blue at the bottom layer and faded gradually to the palest blue at the very top. A scattering of gold-leaf stars completed the look.

  Annabeth's pretty face, already flushed from the warm summer afternoon, turned even pinker. "I feel so lucky to be able to do something I love."

  "Believe me, the rest of us feel lucky, too," Steffi said.

  She looked comfortable in her stadium chair, with a bottle of beer in the cup holder and a paperback thriller on her lap. "There's nothing like walking into your bakery when the cinnamon rolls are in the oven. I could happily move in and live there!"

  Then Damaris heard her phone chime with an incoming text from Sophie and pulled it out of her purse to look at it.

  And felt her heart stop. The message said simply, You had it coming, D.

  Attached to the message was a photo of Sophie, bound hand and foot in a gray-carpeted area that looked like the cargo compartment of an SUV. There was a black bag over her head.

  And just like that, Damaris's biggest fear about freeing herself from Tony came true.

  Oh God, Sophie! Bearpaw Ridge was supposed to be a safe place for you!

  Then an icy tsunami of pure rage crashed over Damaris, sweeping away her terror and her sense of helplessness. It was the same kind of implacable anger that she'd felt when Nick Leonetti tried to coerce her into bed by threatening her daughter.

  Her phone chimed again.

  This time the message said, Gas station. Come alone.

  There was only one gas station in town, and it was located at the other end of Main Street, four blocks past Annabeth's bakery and Justin's restaurant, where the street curved before it ended at the highway.