That was news to me, and unwelcome news at that. Personal things don’t usually include ice showers, guns, and bruises, and don’t need to be hidden behind a lot of makeup and scarves, I thought to myself.
“I’m sure you do,” Ren said with a chuckle. “I myself had some personal things to take care of, and now I’m here trying to get things to make dinner for the wife. She somehow seems to be catching on to these personal days.” His eyes raked over my body with his last couple of words, and I forced myself to look at the shelves of refrigerated food, then to Collin. Even though Collin had never liked Ren, and the dislike had grown into something stronger since the night of the fund-raiser, I knew that if I showed a hint of disgust for the man in front of us, I would pay for it later.
Collin’s smile never faltered, but I felt the way his body stiffened and noticed the slight change in his eyes. “I’m sure your wife will enjoy the dinner.”
Ren made an annoyed face. “So, the sheriff threw a fit over the new chief yesterday; it didn’t . . .” He trailed off and his hand shot out to rest on my hip. “Young girl, be a sweetheart and leave the men to talk about things that you don’t need to be around for.”
I tensed when Collin’s fingers dug into my back but tried to relax my body. I knew it wasn’t because of something I’d done, and I knew Collin was thinking of a hundred different things he could do to make Ren pay.
I didn’t move, mostly because I couldn’t with Collin’s hold on me, and we both stayed silent as Ren opened his mouth to talk to Collin, only to shut it when he realized I wasn’t leaving.
“Young girl,” he began again, “that wasn’t a suggestion.”
A low rumble sounded in Collin’s chest as he turned me toward him. Dread filled me when I noticed the dead look in his eyes, but he just pulled me close and kissed my cheek. “Keep shopping; I’ll come find you when we’re finished here.”
“You need to teach that wife of yours how to listen,” I heard Ren say as I escaped down the aisle, and a tiny smile pulled at my lips with Collin’s response.
“She does listen . . . to me.”
I grabbed the last two things on the list, then headed back to the produce section since Collin had been too frustrated to stay in it for more than a couple of minutes earlier, and I knew there would be hell to pay if I didn’t get the rest of the vegetables. Using the face of my phone as a mirror, I glanced around to make sure no one was looking at me before holding it up for only a second to make sure the infinity scarf was still hiding what needed to stay hidden. Even though Collin had spent five minutes before we’d left making sure it wouldn’t move, the light material had me second-guessing it every time I started walking. And now that Collin wasn’t next to me to keep an eye on it, I was shaking just thinking that someone might see something they weren’t supposed to.
My head instinctively snapped up when I heard a screech, only to find a small girl running across the produce section to launch herself at a man.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Knox was standing with a few men in dark blue Richland Fire Department shirts and was holding up the smiling, dimpled girl.
A girl with dark brown hair nearly identical to Knox’s. A girl who was talking a mile a minute and looking at Knox like he was her favorite person in the world. A girl whose mom had just joined them.
I took a few quick steps backward, not wanting to look at the mother, not wanting to see the woman Knox had a daughter with, and hit something.
“Excuse you!” a woman hissed.
“I’m so sorry!”
“You do realize you are in a crowded store; you can’t just go flying around without looking where you’re going.”
“I know,” I whispered, even though I hadn’t been able to hear Knox and the girl, so I knew they couldn’t hear me. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
She rolled her eyes and threw the can of food she’d been holding into her cart. Her already loud voice grew louder and raised an octave. “Well, don’t you think that was a little obvious when you tried to run me over?”
“Yeah, prob—” The word cut off when I felt a presence behind me, and the woman’s eyes snapped up and rounded.
“Low,” Knox’s deep voice rumbled. “Everything okay here?”
Knox
Present Day—Richland
“I’M TELLIN’ YOU, this girl is the one. I’m gonna get a ring and put it on her finger, and get out of the bachelor life for good,” Pete said as we walked into the grocery store to get food for the firehouse. The rest of the guys and I rolled our eyes.
Every couple of months or so Pete had a new girl he liked to claim was “the one,” only to replace her with someone else not long after. So if he was talking about getting a ring, then I was sure this girl only had a few days to a week left with Pete before she found herself single.
“I saw that! I saw you roll your eyes, but none of you have met her. You haven’t seen her . . .”
I turned to look at the guys, and mouthed the rest of what Pete said as he said it.
“. . . she’s got wife material written all over her.”
I laughed when Pete smacked my arm. It was what he said about all of them. “One day you’ll actually find someone, Pete,” I said. “And maybe then we’ll stop making fun of you.” I gave him a look and shrugged. “Maybe.”
We all tensed at the high-pitched shriek, ready for whatever it could mean, but my body relaxed and a smile crossed my face the second I caught a dimpled three-year-old running full speed toward me.
I bent down and grabbed her up into my arms as she yelled, “My Superman!”
“Hey, little flyer!” Pete said, and held up a hand for a high-five.
After slapping his hand quickly, she looked back at me and began talking as fast as ever. “Superman, I miss you. Can you come back so we can fly? We aren’t at my house, we’re at my aunt’s house, but you can find us at my aunt’s house, right? Because the fire hurt mine? But we’re going back to our house. Mommy said so, so we can. Where’s your cape?”
“Where’s yours?” I asked, and gave a disapproving look when I didn’t see the starry blanket in her hands.
She leaned close to whisper, “It’s in Mommy’s car because I can’t fly in here, she said.”
Natalie’s mom, whom I’d met later on the night of the fire, walked up to us and gave an awkward wave. “Hi, guys. Sorry about this; she saw you and was so excited.”
“Not a problem,” I murmured, and smiled when Natalie patted me excitedly and looked at her mom.
“Mommy, did you see? Superman is here!”
“I saw,” she said with wide, apologetic eyes. “We should let him go though, sweetie; they have things to do.”
Ignoring her mom, Natalie looked at me with the most excited expression and softly asked, “How are the stars?”
My smile widened and I whispered back, “Still saying you’re the bravest little girl.”
With a secretive smile, she again agreed. “I am.”
“Natalie, honey,” her mom said.
“I have to go,” the little girl said with a sad sigh.
“See you around, Natalie,” I said as I set her back down on the ground.
“Promise?”
“If the stars can see you, I can see you.”
Natalie sent me the cheesiest grin and took off after her mom, but after a few seconds turned and ran back to smack into my legs. Hugging them tightly, Natalie said, “You’re my favorite, Superman.”
I couldn’t respond as she released me, I just watched her go, my gaze only leaving her to automatically look over my shoulder when a woman yelled, “Excuse you!”
My body froze when I noticed Harlow trying to calm a woman down who kept yelling at her. Despite my instant irritation at someone yelling at my Harlow, relief surged through my body at seeing Harlow here. She was okay.
“You do realize you’re in a crowded store; you can’t just go flying around without looking where you’re going,” the
woman continued, and by that point, I was already stalking toward them despite the confused calls from my crew.
The woman put her hands on her hips and gave Harlow a look that clearly said Harlow was beneath her. “Well, don’t you think that was a little obvious when you tried to run me over?”
“Yeah, prob—” Harlow began, but stopped when the other woman’s head tilted back to take me in, her eyes widening as she did.
“Low,” I mumbled. “Everything okay here?”
Harlow’s body sagged. “Yes,” she said softly.
I didn’t take my eyes off the other woman, and they narrowed when she opened her mouth and put a hand up like she was about to disagree with Harlow. Her mouth snapped shut.
“Again. Is everything okay here?”
Harlow swayed back toward me as we waited for the woman to respond, and I lifted an arm to grasp her thin waist in my hand. But the second I touched her, her body jolted and she moved away from me like I’d electrocuted her.
“Fine, fine. Just your everyday grocery store collision,” the woman tried to joke, but when she saw the frustration on my face from Harlow jumping away from me, she nodded absentmindedly, grabbed her cart, and took off in the opposite direction.
“Low,” I began, but Harlow whirled around and whispered, “You need to leave!”
My eyebrows slammed down and my shoulders went up as I threw a hand out. “Why are you always trying to make me leave?”
“He’s here, Collin is in the store, and I don’t know when he’s going to come looking for me. You can’t be here when he does.”
I automatically looked behind me, then took the step back to get out of the aisle and look up and down the store. When I didn’t see her husband, I walked back into the aisle and pushed her farther into it with me.
“No, no, no, no, Knox, no!” she said. “He cannot find me with you!”
I turned her so her back was against the shelf of bread and caged her in. “Tell me what the hell happened yesterday.”
“He’s going to find us,” she whispered, and tried to look past where my arms were blocking her line of sight.
“I waited for you at the coffee shop. I was fucking terrified that something had happened to you. And then you didn’t show . . .”
“Please, Knox. You have to leave,” she tried to speak over me, but I kept talking.
“. . . there was no call; nothing. I went by your house, but—”
“You went by my house yesterday?” she asked, her tone matching the horror on her face.
“Yes, but there was another car there, so I thought you had company. Jesus, Low, I know most the time you won’t be able to use that phone, but you can’t pull the shit you did yesterday. You can’t say you need to talk to me in person, then not show and not fucking let me know that you’re okay,” I said. “I needed something . . . anything.”
She’d stopped trying to get me to leave and stopped looking for her husband, but I couldn’t stop talking. I hated that after vowing to never waste another minute with her, I was doing exactly that, but I had to get everything out.
I cupped her cheek and leaned close enough that my nose brushed hers. Her mouth parted when she inhaled softly, and my eyes zeroed in on the action. I pressed my body closer to hers and had to remind myself repeatedly that we were in a store when she blinked slowly, then looked up at me under her thick lashes. My beautiful Harlow.
My tone was low and rough from having her so close but keeping myself from taking any more of her. “Do you know what it’s like, living every day not knowing if you’re okay?” I brushed my thumb across a single tear that had slipped down her cheek and whispered, “Everything about your situation scares me. I’ve never been more scared of anything in my life. Not while running into a house on fire, not while rescuing people; nothing. You, knowing he’s hurting you, the possibility of losing you . . . Harlow, I spend every day on edge, ready to break at the littlest thing.”
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I never wanted you to get caught up in this.”
I looked at her in confusion. “Caught up in . . . Low, I love you. I would do anything for you; I want to take you away from this. I’ll do anything to get you out of this. This isn’t some hardship; it just kills me that you won’t let me help.”
“You think this isn’t hard for me, too? Seeing you, knowing that you’re there and willing to help me after what I did to you all those years ago. I’ve been worried I wouldn’t see you again, but I can’t do this to you. I can’t let something happen to you or your family! When were you going to tell me that you have a daughter?”
My head jerked back. “What the hell? Daughter? What are you talking about?”
“That girl you were holding,” she said as she gestured her head toward the end of the aisle, her tone now defeated. “Why didn’t you tell—because you didn’t have to,” she mumbled to herself.
“Natalie?” I balked. “Harlow, I saved her from a fire last week; she’s not my daughter.” I shook my head, and my lips tilted into a smirk as I took in Harlow’s crushed look. Leaning in so my mouth brushed against hers as I spoke, I said, “I love that something like that made you as crazy as the fact that you’re married makes me.”
One of her hands fisted in my shirt against my stomach and pulled me closer. “That’s not funny.” Her lips were barely touching mine, and even though her hand was still pulling me close, I could see the fear in her eyes.
“It isn’t,” I agreed, and pulled back. “But it was good to see nonetheless. You still haven’t told me about yesterday. What were you going to say, and why didn’t you ever text me again?”
Harlow blinked a few times, like she was trying to gather herself, then shrugged helplessly. “Collin took my purse right after I got off the phone with you. It had both my phones in—” She quickly stopped and gasped, her eyes widened as she looked around her. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Collin’s here, I completely forgot. I can’t be near you. He has to be done talking to Ren by now,” she mumbled to herself.
If it weren’t for the facts that the woman I loved was freaking out over her abusive husband finding us, and that he’d taken away all my communication to her, I would have smiled knowing that I could make her forget about everything else.
Though I’d already pushed our luck enough, I pulled her close once more. “Quickly, Harlow. Does he know about our phone?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, please if you can, let me know how you are when you get your purse back.”
Her head was going back and forth to look all around us, but she nodded. “Of course, I—”
I gripped her chin and brought my mouth down to hers. The kiss was quick and hard, but she still stumbled toward me when I pulled away. I would’ve given anything right then to have more time with her. Relaxing my grip on her chin, I ran my thumb over her bottom lip and whispered, “I love you, Low.”
“To the stars,” she vowed.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to release her and walked away. It didn’t take long to find my crew; they were still lingering in the produce section, not even trying to act like they hadn’t been watching everything between us.
“Pete’s over here talking about the fortieth girl he’s fallen in love with, Knox finds random women to make out with in the store, and I can’t get girls to stick around for the third date. I think I’m doing something wrong,” Jake, one of the guys on my crew said. I laughed.
“Maybe because women want a man who is big enough to make them feel protected, not so big that they’re afraid he’ll suffocate them if he rolls over in his sleep,” Pete suggested.
“They love this,” Jake countered quickly, and slowly flexed, making every woman in the produce section stop to watch.
I rolled my eyes and turned to start grabbing what we needed, busying myself so I wouldn’t search out Harlow again.
“If you’re done putting on your show . . .” Pete trailed off in an annoyed tone as he gestured a
t Jake. “You’re over six and a half feet tall and have muscles on top of muscles. You’re a freak, dude. You look like you could kill someone just by thinking about it. That is why you can’t get someone on a third date. You scare guys by looking at them, and you scare women when they think of getting into bed with you.” There was a silence before Pete continued, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making you think I’m going to kill you just by thinking about it.”
I snorted and turned to see Pete roll his eyes while Jake continued to glare at him. Pete scoffed and said, “I know you’re more scared of spiders than most of the women I know, so there’s no way in hell that’s going to work on me.”
I opened my mouth to jump back into the conversation, but my words died in my throat when I looked up and watched Collin Doherty look down the aisle I’d just been in with Harlow, then turn and walk into it. We’d been too close.
Harlow
Present Day—Richland
AFTER TAKING A minute to collect myself, I turned my cart around to go to the produce section, and gasped when I found my husband standing right behind me.
“Collin!” I said breathlessly.
He put a possessive hand around my waist and growled softly into my ear, “People are not allowed to touch what is mine.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for whatever was to come. How long has he been standing there? How much did he see and hear? I wondered.
“Never take orders from someone else, especially someone like Ren.”
I held in a sigh and thanked God that he couldn’t see the relief on my face. “I didn’t,” I assured him, even though he had been standing with Ren and me the entire time.
“If he didn’t work with my dad . . .” he began, but didn’t continue. He took a deep breath in, then released it as he asked, “Did you get everything?”
My eyes drifted over the cart, and my face pinched with worry for a second before I could control it.
“What?”
“Well, we didn’t finish getting the produce.” Collin’s face fell, so I quickly added, “But I know you didn’t like being in there, so we don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can figure something out.”
To the Stars Page 17