First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5

by Nicole Blanchard

  “Well, he stumbled on that article, like I’m sure you did. I couldn’t have him go blabbin’ to you before I was ready. Especially not when you were carrying my grandson. I figure it’s only fair that you repaid one baby with another.”

  I swallow around the knot in my throat. “Is that why you tried to kill me and tried to kidnap Cole?”

  She slows a bit to take a corner. “You’re hardly fit to take care of a child, Amy.”

  “My name is Olivia,” I growl. “And you will never have my child.”

  I lurch forward, my freed hands reaching for the wheel and jerking it to the side, jerking the car to swerve dangerously off of the road.

  The car skips over the knotted ground and careens into a fence, the force throwing me into the front seat. My head smacks against the dashboard and something cracks. Melissa screams, or maybe it’s me and things go black for a while.

  When I come to, it’s because the sound of a car horn is blaring nonstop. I blink, blood dripping into my eyes, and find Melissa conked out, draped over the steering wheel.

  I try to sit up, but my ribs protest and I let out a long, low moan. Shit. Something is definitely wrong there. I push myself up, slowly, and slither into the back of the car. The front, from what I can see, is completely shattered and pinned against the fence. The back driver’s side door is free and I’m able to wedge it open, though it makes a God-awful squeak that causes Melissa to jerk in front of me.

  I pause a few seconds to make sure she isn’t going to raise like the dead. When she doesn’t, I scoot out the door, but my foot catches on the frame and I stumble to the damp ground, wrenching another scream from my throat. My leg is caught in the doorway and when I turn to free it, I find Melissa’s cell on the floorboard.

  After I manage to snag the cell I slide backwards along the ground, mud caking my jeans and soaking me to the core. I dial Ben out of instinct, fingers trembling, and use a tree with my free hand to get to my feet.

  “Melissa, what the fuck did you do with Olivia? Listen to me bitch, if you—”

  “Ben, wait, it’s me. Please don’t hang up,” I beg, my voice breaking.

  “Olivia? Where are you? You okay?”

  “I-I don’t know where we are. She just started driving. God, Ben, is Cole okay?”

  “He’s fine, baby, focus. Find a street name, if you can. Look around.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know where we are. Oh my god, Ben, she’s so fucking crazy.”

  “Goddammit, Olivia. Fucking find a street name right now!”

  I do as he says and relay the only sign I can see. “Please hurry, Ben.”

  “We’re on the way, baby, sit tight.” Then the line goes dead.

  I turn back around to check on Melissa and find her coming at me, blood dripping from her hair, a vicious gash on her hairline and her eyes wild. She screams as she charges, wielding the gun she used to get me in the car.

  “This is the last time you’ll fuck things up for me, Amy. The last time. Get back in the car!”

  My body decides that it’s had it and it takes every single last store of energy I have to make the short trek back. Hopefully it was enough to bide Ben some time. Hopefully he’ll get here before it’s too late.

  I’m thankful for the numbness spreading through my chest. It would be so easy just to give in at this point and let it completely overtake me. How much can one person take?

  She shoves me back into the back seat and I screech, my vision going dark for a second. The door slams behind me and I sit up to find her digging in her pockets. She pulls out a lighter and then the gas suddenly makes sense.

  “This is for Tommy and Sam,” she shouts, dumping the remaining fuel on the car. “It should have been you.”

  She flicks the lighter and sets the car on fire. I watch unable to move, shock from the pain and adrenaline having sapped all my energy. Smoke furls in from the windows and fills the interior in a shocking amount of time. I see her face split in an evil smile before it, too, is engulfed in smoke. Sweat beads at my hairline and mixes with blood. Both sting my eyes as the smoke stings my lungs.

  Something cracks. The front window maybe? There’s a veritable feast of accelerants to feed the fire. Please dear God let someone get here before then. I curl on the seat, as low as I can get, to find fresh air.

  Over the crackle and woosh of fire, I hear the squeal of brakes and my heart lifts. Someone screams and the black part of my soul hopes that it’s Melissa.

  A male voice catches my attention and I force my eyes to open. I see Ben standing in the open door, and I’m half-convinced I’ve died and gone to heaven. He leans into the car and I can make out the ruddy streaks of blood on his shirt. The sight causes me to frown. This man needs a near constant supply of shirts. His face comes into view as he kneels next to me. I hear a woman screaming and the muffled sounds of a scuffle. Warm hands cup my cheeks and I refocus on his face.

  “Jesus Christ, Spitfire. It’s going to be okay. Look at me.” His voice sounds real, a feeling of absolute calm comes over me and I know he’s right. Everything is going to be okay.

  “She’s bleeding. We have to get her to a hospital,” Jack says from somewhere behind Ben.

  But he’s already wrapping his strong arms around me and lifting me into his embrace. I try to voice my fears about Cole, but the horrors of the past few weeks converge and I give up the fight against the darkness consuming me. The echo of Melissa’s shouts follow me into oblivion.

  Ben

  I carry Olivia from the car to the emergency room, though because I’m not family, I’m not permitted to be with her during the evaluations. Jack goes in my stead and keeps me updated as they admit her and examine her wounds. While I wait, I make a call to check on Cole and find my mother nearly frantic with worry. I manage to calm her down with the news that Olivia was found safely and promise to call back when she wakes.

  Logan still hasn’t quite explained to me how the small-time drug dealer and Melissa were related, but I can’t seem to muster the energy to care. The only thing I can focus on is the fact that Olivia nearly died for the third time due to my own stupidity and selfishness. I wasn’t about to let there be a fourth. In fact, she won’t be leaving my sight for the rest of her life.

  Three hours after I carried her lifeless body into the emergency room, I still haven’t been permitted to see her. But I don’t care. They’re going to have to pry me out of the waiting room with a crew of firemen and the Jaws of Life if they want me to leave.

  Jack made a few trips, but none of them brought the news I wanted. The doctors sedated her, so it wasn’t likely she’d wake any time soon, Jack said. He even suggested I go back to my parents with Cole and get some sleep. I ignore the suggestion until he takes the hint and leaves again.

  When at last they let me into her recovery room I find myself unwilling to enter, afraid of the truths I may see in her eyes. Jack comes out and holds the door open for me so I have no choice but to face my mistakes. My shortcomings. My failures.

  “She’s awake, but groggy,” Jack says. “She’s asking for you.”

  I pause at the entrance to the hospital room with Jack at my side. “I want to apologize to you.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, man.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I do. I’ve let her down so many times. But I want to tell you, to promise you, that it won’t happen again. You have my word.”

  Jack nudges my shoulder with his. “If it does, I’ll have your ass. Now go.”

  For the second time, I walk to her hospital bed and gaze down at her slumbering form. I take the chair already placed on her uninjured side and hold her free hand in both of my own. I bow my head over it, like a man seeking absolution. And maybe I am, in a way.

  I must have fallen asleep because when her hand jerks in mine, I shoot straight up to find her eyes open and on our clasped hands.

  “Baby,” I mumble, sure I’m dreaming.

  “Ben?” Her voice is scratchy with s
leep, so I grab her a glass of water and hold it to her lips.

  I wait as she swallows, and for her to open her eyes again. She blinks rapidly and winces against the bright light.

  “So, this is what it takes,” she says and I frown.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is what I have to do to keep you in bed next to me, isn’t it? I have to say, the school pays me pretty well, but the insurance is shit. I don’t think I can afford to keep landing in the hospital just to keep you around.”

  I’m nearly weak with relief. “It’s not funny, Olivia. She could have killed you…again. For a while, I thought she had.”

  “We Walkers are made of pretty tough stuff.” She coughs, and I offer her another sip of water. “What happened?” she asks when she’s able to talk again.

  “We don’t have to talk about this now—”

  “No,” she cuts me off. “I want to get it over with so we can finally move on.” She pauses and seems to consider something before continuing on, though her voice is now laced with a tremor. “She was my mother, my biological mother.

  I caress the soft skin of her cheek, thankful she didn’t suffer another round of head trauma. “Yes,” I tell her gently. “She was. How did you know? Did Jack tell you before I got here?”

  “No,” she answers. “She did. She blamed me for my biological dad’s death. He and my little brother were killed in a car accident. How did she find me?”

  “You’ll have to ask Logan for the specifics, but he believes she’s been watching you for a long time.” The mere thought of how close she came to dying makes me want to throw something. “We think your pregnancy may have set it off, maybe even caused a psychotic break. That’ll be up to the courts and the psychologists to decide. Whatever it was, she tracked down your family, your dad, you, and bided her time. But you don’t have to worry now. She’ll be going away for a long time.”

  Tears leak from the corner of her eyes, and I wipe them away with a knuckle.

  “I just can’t believe it, after all this time.” She hiccups.

  I nod. “She couldn’t handle their loss, so she put you up for adoption.”

  Livvie closes her eyes and rests her head against the pillow. “Cole? Is he with you?” she asks, her voice still heavy with grief and sleep.

  “He’s still with my parents. My mom is keeping a hawk eye on him.”

  She smiles softly. “Of course she is,” she says around a yawn. “Did she tell you that she called me, trying to convince me to take you back?”

  “She did?”

  Livvie nods.

  “Was she convincing enough, or do I need to grovel?”

  She levels a pensive look at me and narrows her eyes as though deep in thought. The moment seems to suspend for an eternity. “We’ll save the groveling for later, but first I want you to tell me what you were hiding from me. All of it. Otherwise, we’re never going to work, Ben. Secrets,” she sighs, “secrets don’t do anyone any good. And whatever you’re holding inside, I just know it’s eating at you. Let me help you,” she pleads.

  I swallow thickly. “Logan was looking into that guy for me. My friend? From my convoy that I saved but was critical…I was having Logan take a look, to see if he had any luck, because I sure haven’t. I need to know that he’s all right somewhere. I just need to. All of my guys can’t be gone.”

  He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it. I just couldn’t. I feel like he’s one more person who I turned my back on. The things I’ve done…it’ll be a long time before I ever come to terms with what happened, if ever. I can’t promise you that I’ll ever get over the things I’ve been through, but I can promise I’ll try. Every day, I’ll try. For you. Because the only thing that got me through the worst of it was imagining coming back to you. Seeing you.”

  Livvie lifts a hand and cups my cheek. “Thank you for telling me. I hope you know that I’m here for you, whatever you need. All I want to do is to share my life with you. I want you to be the one by my side. And I want to be there for you.”

  I press a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Thank you.”

  I look up from the laptop in surprise as the doorbell rings. After the kidnapping, I wanted to give Olivia some time away from everything. I couldn’t think of a better place than my—our—lake house.

  “Who is it?” I ask as she peers through the peep hole.

  “Logan. Were you expecting him?”

  I set my laptop down on the countertop. “Yeah, I forgot to mention that he’d be coming by. He wanted to check on us, but I told him to wait a few days so that we could unwind. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Livvie smiles, reminding me of the fact that we haven’t touched in what feels like fucking years. Now I’m regretting letting him come over. “Of course I don’t mind.”

  Logan enters the living room, his watchful eyes falling on Olivia and I see him smile for the first time in a long time. “Damn, girl,” he says, “you look good even all wrapped up in bandages.”

  She blushes and pulls him into a hug. “It’s so good to see you, Logan. I‘m glad you came by.”

  “I had some time,” he says, shooting me a sly look. We’d both known that he wouldn’t be getting any commendations for looking the other way when I beat the shit out of Mason Smith. As it turned out, he would be on unpaid suspension for a long time—if they even let him back on the force, but Livvie didn’t need to know that yet. I wasn’t going to keep it from her—I didn’t want to keep anything from her anymore. But, she deserved a break.

  “Why don’t you come say hi to Cole? I think he’s gotten bored with us.”

  “How’s the little guy doin’?”

  Livvie picks him up from the playpen and brings him over to Logan. “Much better.”

  “I just wanted to check in and make sure y’all were doing okay,” Logan says.

  “We’re doing great, thanks to you. And you’re more than welcome to come by any time. We’ll probably be here for a while.” Livvie looks to me and I nod.

  “I’ll be taking you up on that.”

  Logan slaps me on the back and offers Olivia a smile. Which was more than she’d offered me in the past few weeks. Not that I didn’t understand.

  After they were released from the hospital, I managed to convince her to come with me to the lake house. Ever since she’d been focused on Cole. If he wasn’t in her arms, he wasn’t far away.

  That night I rock Cole to sleep as Olivia finishes her shower—and I try to distract myself with something else, anything else. So I take to singing cadences—songs we’d use to keep time during PT—to help him sleep. I hope to hell he can’t understand anything I’m saying and that Olivia doesn’t happen to overhear. Military men can be…colorful.

  As I lay him down to sleep, I brush a hand over his eyebrow and smooth down his blankets. “Sleep good, little man.” I rest my hand on his chest and feel the reassuring beat of his heart under my palm. “I love you,” I tell him, like I tell him every night. Every chance I get.

  I hear a sound behind me and find Olivia wrapped in a towel in the doorway. Fucking Christ. My eyes feast on her bared flesh. I can feel myself grow instantly hard. I’m damn near frozen to the spot, barely able to breathe.

  When she drops the towel, my heart leaps into my throat. She smiles, backing away and I follow, like I know I always will. If it takes years to convince her of that fact, I’m determined to make sure she knows it.

  Her skin is pale in the darkness and she takes measured steps toward my bedroom. My feet thud heavily with each labored step. I find her slithering onto the bed, her ass round and firm right in front of me. I reach the foot of the bed and slide my hands over the softness of it, unable to resist touching her. She lowers down to the bed and I hover over her on all fours.

  “Gonna let me in?” I ask.

  She turns over to face me, pulling my neck down to meet her lips and that’s answer enough. Her fingers snag the button on my jeans and flick it
open. I hiss in pleasure / pain while she unzips and then draws out my straining cock. Her slim hands work it up and down slowly and I fear we may end before we’ve even gotten started.

  I possess her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss as I shuck my jeans and tangle with her heat. I spread her legs wide and ease inside. She wraps her legs around my waist and sucks me so deep I almost go off right then. With each slow, smooth thrust, she lifts her hips to meet me until we’re rocking in tandem. Each time her internal muscles grip me, fighting my backwards glide and pulling me back in.

  Soon, she’s breathless beneath me, her muscles going hard and her limbs tightening around me. She calls out to God and curses me in the same breath as I bring her through her orgasm. Then, when she’s arching beneath me, caught in an endless storm of pleasure, I bring my finger back to her clit and send her over again with me right behind her.

  Soon after, when we’re both exhausted and limp, she turns in my arms and says, “I don’t know what to do now.”

  Fear has my throat closing up. “You don’t need to do anything. In fact, it would probably be good for my health if you could stay in this bed for a couple years at least.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I just…the past year has been a whirlwind. I don’t know what to do without all of the drama.”

  “So like a woman,” I mutter. “I’m sure you’ll learn to like the boring life eventually.”

  I feel the vibration of her laugh against my chest. “I don’t know if that’ll ever be possible,” she says.

  “I know what you can do.”

  She looks up at me and I can see the love in her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “You can let me take care of you. Let me love you.”

  She smiles. “I can live with that.”

  Ben

  There are good days, and there are bad days.

  Today happens to be a very good day.

  Though I’m still haunted by the loss and horror I experienced, I try to take each day as it comes and enjoy the hell out of the good things. My little boy taught me that.