by Tarin Lex
“Let me get that,” Sawyer says when I reach down for the box of books. “Pillows,” he says, halfway admonishing me. “Tissue boxes. Things that don’t weigh a hundred pounds.”
He’s right this time. Smiling, I press a hand to my growing belly. New love. New life. We really should’ve made this transition months ago, moving Jake and I into Sawyer’s cabin in the woods. I still have to decorate the nursery for baby Alessandra. She’ll be here in just two more months.
How lucky am I to treasure two full lifetimes of love? And they don’t compare. Both are perfect. Both will transcend life and death. The love I have for Sawyer still feels brand-new. And this perfect, epic love…is all ours.
The End
2 | Atlas
One
Piper
I told Nana not to leave me with the pastry shop. It’s bad enough she had to leave at all. I begged her to stay, promised I would visit more often, but she was firm in her resolve. When I asked why she felt so inclined to go all the way to Madeira, Portugal, anyway, she simply said: Love.
Seriously, Nana? Who’ve you been chatting with online?
Of course I’m concerned for her safety and health—not that she isn’t smart, or fit. It’s just so far away and I am so not cut out to run a bakery. On the first day I’ve eaten more of the chocolate ganache than I’ve sold. I can’t scrawl “Happy Birthday” in icing to save my life. I can’t distinguish a 9-inch pan from an 8-inch pan without measuring tape. (Turns out, it matters.)
But alas, Sawtooth Sweets is Nana’s baby, so I’ve got to try and make this work.
Wait a minute. Do I smell…smoke?
Ah, just the cannoli shells, I bet. I already massacred them, what’s the harm in letting them burn to an unsavory crisp before I just toss them out like I would’ve anyway? I’m testing the surly customer’s patience already. A redhead in a business suit, tsking over the glass counter: “It’s just not the same as Belinda’s.” Ya think?
The customer wrinkles her nose. Poor burning cannolis. I can tend to the shells just as soon as she leaves. Nana’s paying me to cover for her, but I’ll be lucky if I don’t owe her money for all the wasted inventory. Hopefully no permanent customers lost.
Seriously, what was she thinking?
What was I thinking…when I said yes?
“Well.” Ms. Business glares at the selection again, then at me, looking very displeased. “I think I will just try Dominic’s this morning.”
“Sure.” I smile sweeter than Nana’s ambrosia. “Thanks for stopping by!” Dominic’s Donuts is friendly competition, a few storefronts down the way from Sawtooth Sweets. I’m thinking Dom should treat Belinda, my nana, to a fancy dinner when she gets back. For all the business she’s handed him as a result of hiring me.
The front door chimes with finality as it closes behind Ms. Business, and I whirl toward the ovens in the back. When did it get so smoky in here?
I turn off the oven and open the door and more thick black smoke whooshes out of the oven, covering me head-to-toe in soot and setting off the smoke detector. It probably should’ve gone off sooner. My breathing chokes. Quickly, I swipe a rag off the nearby counter to loosen the smoke-filled air, effectively knocking over a bit of frying oil and some other accoutrement in my rush. It happens so fast. Dishes and pastries clang and clatter to the floor. Heat blooms over my skin. I wheeze a cough. When I turn to peek at the carnage exacted… All I See Are Flames.
Suddenly Nana’s cannolis are the least of my concerns.
Atlas
The team and I are on our way back to the station from an early morning call when we’re rerouted over to Sawtooth Sweets. It’s been one helluva day already. Jerome Karney was out laying sod in his front yard when he suffered a mild heart attack. We got him to the ER and then went back to finish laying the rest of his sod. Figured he was out there at five o’clock on a Friday morning, he’d probably be happy to have it done. When the dispatcher calls about Sawtooth I make a joke about the chief’s sugar craving. Poor timing, but it stops me from imagining anything bad happening to Ms. Belinda. My own heart can’t handle it.
“She’s not there,” Sawyer says when he sees me looking contemplative.
“No?”
He shrugs. “Went on a trip to Brazil, or Spain, or somewhere.”
“Portugal,” Lieutenant Thorne cuts in.
“Then who’s at the bakery?” Maybe no one. That’d be for the best, considering the call we just got about a kitchen fire. It’s not like Belinda to leave any chance of that behind. But closing Sawtooth Sweets is bound to break some hearts around here until she gets back. I toss a look at Thorne, who’s got his arms crossed, looking smug. “What, man?”
“I hear she’s got her granddaughter covering while she’s gone. And apparently”— Thorne smirks—“she’s quite a babe.”
I feel my stomach churn. Sawyer looks at me with sympathy. It only makes my chest ache worse. Sawyer and I go decades back—he was there for me when my parents divorced, when I wrecked my first car, when I had my first crush. First hangover.
“Does Belinda have…more than one granddaughter?” Sawyer probes.
I shake my head. “Nope.” Just Piper—the girl I once was planning to marry.
Right before I broke her heart.
Two
Piper
The fire races across the back room as smoke billows, filling my lungs. This is the moment I learn that my instincts are shit. What should I do? Stop, drop, and roll? Isn’t that a hip-hop song? I get low to the ground for good measure, but I can’t think straight—where should I go? The back exit is the quickest way out but aren’t I supposed to try to lock the front door so no one else comes inside, letting in oxygen that could fan the flames? Did I make that up?
I should call 9-1-1 but is there time? It’s hard to think clearly when my chest is pressing down on itself. It’s so hard to breathe. Get to a phone. The room darkens in my periphery. Get out of here. I trip over my toes. Is that me who’s coughing? Go, now!
I struggle to stand. I fall back down. Sanity drains out of my mind as energy drains from my limbs.
Everything spins.
I close my eyes.
#
I’m lying on a stretcher when I come to, halfway inclined and breathing into an oxygen mask. A face hovers over mine. Eyes like the deep blue sea. Beautiful, kissable lips. A five o’clock shadow on suntanned skin. My god how I want to kiss those lips.
Really? I almost just died. Yet my core clenches hard at the sight of his blurred form as it comes more and more into view, letting me know I am very much alive and well. And Jesus, I have serious issues if I’m actually feeling horny right now. To be honest I’m a little surprised I’m not dead. Did I call the fire department? How’d they get to me so fast?
I blink at the fireman’s face, but it won’t come all the way into focus. Remember to breathe. I can tell he’s insanely handsome. He’s saying things in a low, soothing, velvet voice. On instinct I slow my breaths to steady my pulse, and my thighs squeeze together, trapping the sudden mindless heat.
The man smiles, and I just about go boneless. I think I mutter, “Wow,” or maybe I just mouth it to him. Is it bad form to flirt with your rescuer? “Am I in heaven?”
Speaking out loud somehow snaps me fully awake. And ohhh—no!
No no no. I know that face. Atlas? Indigo ocean…I know those eyes. Handsome, indeed. Amazing lips I have actually kissed. Too bad he’s also the biggest jerk in the Wylder Bluffs!
Suddenly I feel warm all over, and not for the same reasons I felt warm when my traitorous girlhood quivered before, assailing me with fantasies. Atlas became a firefighter?
I get my eyes all the way open. He lifts the oxygen mask, and I issue him a proper scowl.
He grins at me. “Hey, Boots.” His voice has deepened a notch in the three years since he ripped out my heart. And dammit if it’s not hella sexy. He leans over me, such that his forearms align with my cheeks and his biceps assault my p
eripheral vision. I gulp. My blood turns hot.
Dear god tell me I am not swooning in Atlas Fucking Rutherford’s arms! Nice arms.
I’d rather be dead.
Atlas
I sorta liked her better unconscious. There’s fire burning in those pretty eyes when she opens them...that is, after she drinks me in with her gaze. I didn’t expect a rocket to go off in my chest when her eyes met mine. Christ. It’s been so long. She’s still so fuckin’ beautiful.
Piper has every right to hate me. I didn’t want to break her heart. That’s exactly what I was trying not to do. I know I did. I can’t take it back. I can’t make up for three years. But she’s here now. And maybe...
I should say something nice to her. Instead I act like a profound jackass. How else would she know it’s really me? “You didn’t need to start a fire to get my attention, Boots.”
Piper frowns. She ignores my snark, shifting her gaze to the marred façade of Sawtooth Sweets. “Is Nana’s bakery gonna be okay?”
“It’ll need some repairs. Her insurance should cover the damage,” I tell her, and she just sighs. I press a hand to her shoulder and she wiggles it away. “And you, Pipe?”
“What, damaged?” She raises one soot-coated eyebrow at me.
“I meant—”
“You don’t have a right to ask if I’m okay.”
“No,” I grind out. “I guess I don’t.” I expected Piper to hate me, but her hostility still takes me by surprise. And it hurts. As if she wasn’t always a sassy little spitfire. “I’m obligated to.” That came out wrong.
Piper stills. “Go to hell.”
“Sure thing.” I grin. “Let’s get you home first though.”
“What?”
I tap my orange-and-yellow uniformed chest. “Duty.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “I’m not going to the hospital?”
“You need a shower, Boots.” I wrinkle my nose, teasingly. “But you’ll be fine. Good thing I already know the way.” I smirk.
Piper grimaces, hard, as I wheel her onto the fire rescue. “Don’t call me Boots.”
I do my best to stifle a laugh at that. Passionate, this one. She always was. Me, too. Hell, we spent half our relationship fighting. The other half making love so good I still think of it all the time.
Even angry at me, scowling with her face all caked in smut, Piper’s hot as hell and making me realize it’s been too damn long since I had sex. I give her the minute of quiet she wants and she spends it examining me. Not subtly. She licks her lips and my yearning zips straight down to my cock.
“I know I fucked up,” I whisper when the doors close. “But that doesn’t change what you are to me—Boots.”
Three
Piper
Stop looking into his eyes. It’s a futile attempt. I could drown in those sapphire spheres. In fact, I have before. It wasn’t so fun. I wish I could take back the time spent with him, and the lonely months after our breakup—all those years invested in a relationship that only went up in flames. All the fighting, yelling, tears. Getting over him was more of the same. Anger, frustration, sadness. Confusion.
Good thing I’m over him now.
I am so totally over him.
Admittedly, I am not over the sex though. Atlas was my first, and I was his, and did he ever set the bar. Atlas made my world spin, my toes curl, my eyes roll back. He was a gentle, yet primal lover. So intimate, soothing, and sweet—when he wanted to be, or I needed him to. Other times, he pulverized me. Such a feral, boorish beast. And sometimes I wanted that too.
Wanna guess how many guys in the Big City know how to gauge my shifting desires, and can play any of those roles as well as Atlas could—soothing me or wrecking me as needed, on demand, with great effect? How about anywhere?
I’ll take fictional men for a thousand dollars, Alex. And there’d be only one who’s real: Atlas.
“I didn’t know you’d be in town,” he says, breaking the long, tenable silence.
“I didn’t tell you.”
“Touché.” He scratches at his day-old stubble. It’s only been three years, but he looks so much older now, all grown up. His tan skin looks rough and chiseled all over, from what I can see, and my fingers twitch, how badly I want to rake my nails across his jaw. His lips are still pillowy soft, those eyes too, and the contrast of hard and tender threatens to be my undoing. “A heads-up woulda been nice,” he bellyaches.
“Why would that make a difference? No.” I tip my head. “I don’t owe you—”
“Anything. I know.” His low voice rumbles, like a faraway storm. “I might’ve tried harder to stay away.”
“I wish you would.”
“Unfortunately for you”—his jaw ticks as he addresses me—“I can’t now.” He pins me with a smoldering gaze. “I’ll need to see you inside your home. Make sure you’re stable, safe.”
We’ll be alone…together? The thought of it makes me weak in the knees. He’s changed so much, so have I, we hardly know each other now. Strangers. He could have a girlfriend, a wife, a baby, who knows. I’m newly single after a crappy seven-month relationship and definitely not interested in sparking something new with Atlas. Never again. But dammit if the man doesn’t have me in fits already, my thoughts spiraling toward the edge of erotic. What if it’s only physical? No harm in that, right? After everything that’s gone awry, I could use a good, fast, mind-blowing lay…doesn’t mean feelings have to get involved. I might even argue that he owes it to me.
“I don’t think that was in your Pledge,” I tease. “But if you feel so…obligated to…”
“Not obligated,” he bites out. When the vehicle parks outside of Nana’s one-story house, where I grew up, Atlas opens the doors for me and wheels me out. “Not obligated,” he echoes, softer this time. He dips his head to assault me with his familiar cologne, and to whisper by my ear, “I feel compelled.”
Atlas
I trip over Piper’s hiking boots the moment I step in the house. Goddamn boots always in my way. I prefer to see them tossed over the foot of the bed. Opposed to right fucking next to a shoe rack. Piper giggles as I lose my footing for half a breath. She’s wearing black skid-free work kicks now, but “Sneakers” doesn’t have the same ring. And she’s still the same Boots.
I take the sneakers off her feet one by one and set them neatly—along with her scattered boots—on the shoe rack by the front door. Piper sits all the way up on the stretcher, ticking up an eyebrow at me.
“You could at least—” I start.
“I know. I know.” She shakes her head, but I swear I see a hint of a smile form on her face. “Old habits.” She hops down from the stretcher, swaying as she tries to stand. She winces and I reach out to catch her before she falls. “Ow, ow, ow!”
“You’re in pain.”
“No shi—”
“Where?” I ask. “Where’s it hurt?”
“My hip. Ouch. Dammit.” She squeezes her eyelids closed, bracing against the pain as I help her to lean against the stretcher. “I think I fell on it.”
“Hm.” I take a step back. “Maybe we oughtta take you in.”
“No. It’s just bruised, I think. Just a bit sore.”
“I’ll get you some ice.” Gingerly, I lift Piper and sit her up on the stretcher before she can protest. Ms. Belinda doesn’t have ice packs in the freezer so I wrap a bag of frozen green beans in a lightweight cloth and hold it gently to Piper’s injured hip. I hand her two ibuprofen for the pain. “There.”
“Mmm.” Her little noise of satisfaction makes my heart thump. I rake my gaze from the curve of her hip to the slope of her neck, then up to her eyes looking back at mine, making my dick spasm and my chest constrict. Christ, this woman is nose to knees in dust and grime. She needs a shower. And I’m inclined to ask if she needs my help.
She’s still grinning, warmly now. “Nice job growing up…sir,” Piper croons.
I swallow a tortured lump, clearing my throat. My voice still comes out husky. “I
could say the same of you.” She was always gorgeous, but her body has filled out, and she’s grown her hair long. Her wayward blonde locks and languid curves threaten to steal the last wit I have left. As if she hadn’t been damn near perfection already.
“Do you have to leave soon?” Piper all but purrs next to my ear, sounding breathless and giving me shivers.
Sawyer gave me the OK for a little time with her, but if her darkening gaze is an indication, the way she’s subdued against my touch in spite of her pain, her mouth wavering inches of mine…I might need more than a moment alone.
Smiling, she laces her fingers over mine over her hip, and touches my face with her other hand. I grunt at the sudden contact…and the implication.
“Naw, Boots. I can stay. Lemme just make a phone call.”
Four
Piper
This is a terrible idea. I’m not of sound mind to try to seduce someone—I almost died and my hip hurts, and of all people, it’s Atlas. This is why I need female friends. Someone reasonable who I can call to talk me off the ledge. But no such person exists. The closest I have to a real girlfriend is Nana, and she’s off the grid.
What did she mean, for Love? Who on earth does she love in Madeira?
Atlas hangs up his cell and returns to me, snapping me out of my wandering thoughts—along with my doubt. Of course I’m going to make a move on him. Look at him!
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Hey, you.”
And just like that, I’m all caught up in his orbit again, like old times. He’s very easy on the eyes. His voice is toasted and smooth, like whiskey, paired with an irresistible sweetness that altogether dissolves my panties.