How About No

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  If she said so.

  ***

  Two hours later, it was just after midnight, and I smelled smoke.

  Following the scent with a wary expression on my face, I came to a sudden halt when I got a load of what my wife was doing.

  I looked up to see Landry holding a paper that was burning. Fire licked up the sides of it and climbed into the air, and ashes were falling to the ground by her feet.

  I blinked and walked toward her, gently taking the burning paper from her hands and tossing it into the bathroom sink where it finished burning.

  It was only after I studied the paper for a few long seconds that I saw what she was burning.

  “Ummm,” I hesitated, looking over at her. “Why’d you burn our divorce decree?”

  Her eyes were hazy as she blinked. “So, you can’t return me.”

  That’s when I threw my head back and laughed, walking forward so that I could wrap my arms around her waist.

  “Who says I’d ever return you?” I questioned.

  She bit her lip and looked down.

  I caught her chin and forced her to look back up. “Baby?”

  “I’m so bad at this thing, Wade,” she whispered. “I’m always screwing up. I’m always emotional. I’m just…fucked up. I’m wishy-washy, and not a day goes by that I wish I hadn’t done the things I’d done to us. And you treat me like I’m the beginning and the end of your world. Why do you deal with my shit?”

  I bent forward and dropped my mouth down on hers.

  “Why do you deal with mine?” I asked. “This last month? It’s been awful. I’ve been on bitch duty while my leg healed at the rate of a goddamn slug, and I’ve been in a god-awful mood. Yet, each day you make time to make me feel important. You’ve taken me to work with you. You don’t complain when I go with you everywhere and walk slow—holding you back. You have lunch with me before going to the rescue…and you act like I’m not fucked up, too. I love you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Wade, unlike you, I don’t see anything wrong with you. Not one single thing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So, you’re telling me that having me follow you around day in and day out doesn’t bother you?”

  Because I had done that. I’d followed her around, from room to room, almost as if she was leaving me at any second. As if what we had was something that might disappear if I didn’t keep an eye on it.

  “Actually,” she said softly. “That’s been my favorite part of having you back. You being there when I wake up from a nap. Me coming out of the dog kennels after cleaning shit up for an hour. Wade, why do you think I haven’t freaked out that our house burned down and all of my stuff inside of it was ruined?”

  I gave her a look that clearly said that she had, indeed, freaked out.

  Landry waved it away. “I’m a little freaked out, sure. I’m pissed off at the situation, yes. But, did you ever stop to think that I’m taking this incredibly well?”

  Yes, I had.

  “Yes,” I replied hesitantly. “But I just assumed it was because nothing super important was lost in the fire. It was only material things, and honestly, that house held some bad memories for me and you. I just assumed your feelings and mine were the same on the matter.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You had bad feelings about the house?”

  I snorted. “You lived in it with another man while we were supposedly divorced. Of course, I had some ill-will regarding it.”

  Her eyes went soft. “Kourt asked me today if we were going to renew our vows.”

  My eyes sharpened. “Do you want to?”

  She looked at the still smoldering ashes in the sink. “I want to get married again. I want to do it all over again. I want it to feel real.”

  I took a step in her direction and hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her to me. “You’re saying that what we have doesn’t feel real?”

  She shook her head with frustration plainly written on her face. “I’m saying that I fucked things up, and I want to make sure that you remember you’re mine. I want everyone to know that you’re mine.”

  I looked down at her hand—which still didn’t have my wedding ring back on it.

  “Where’s your ring?” I asked.

  I didn’t bother to ponder it being lost in the fire. I’d seen the box in her purse last week when I went through her bottomless pit in search of ibuprofen. I’d seen it in the middle section, all by itself, as if it was just taunting me to put it back on her hand.

  “My purse on the counter,” she whispered.

  I didn’t waste a second going to retrieve it.

  Stepping over Capo who was laying peacefully in the middle of the kitchen, I winced only slightly at the jarring movement before quickly retrieving her ring and walking back to our bathroom.

  Once I was back in front of her, I opened the box and stared at the ring.

  “This ring means you’re mine,” I told her, not taking my eyes off of the piece of diamond and metal that had changed my life the moment I’d slipped it onto her finger.

  “I was yours whether I had that ring on or not,” she whispered. “I’ve been yours since the moment that I walked into your classroom.”

  I felt my heart swell as I reached for her hand.

  “I’ll marry you again,” I told her. “I’ll pay for another ten-thousand-dollar wedding if it makes you smile at me like I’ve lit your entire world.”

  Sliding the ring on her finger, I felt something inside of me once again become whole at the sight.

  Her breath caught, and I finally lifted my gaze back to hers.

  Her eyes were blazing with the same emotion that was filling my own chest—euphoria.

  “Where’s yours?” She licked her lips.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled it out.

  A day hadn’t passed that I hadn’t had it with me.

  The day that I almost died next to my car, I’d slipped it onto my finger while I’d been laying in my own pool of blood.

  Her cool, delicate fingers brushed mine as she reached for the solid hunk of gold. It was scratched and no longer as polished as it’d once been, but it didn’t matter. That piece of metal resembled us—solid and strong despite all the damage that it’d been put through.

  She reached for my hand, and I snickered. “Other hand, baby.”

  “Oh,” she rolled her eyes, swaying slightly on her feet. “Yeah, I knew that.”

  She’d done the same thing at our wedding—reached for the wrong hand. I teased her about it constantly over the course of our marriage, so it only seemed fitting that she’d do it now, too.

  Clumsily she slipped the metal onto my finger and made a frustrated face when it wouldn’t go past my second knuckle. “Give it a twist, baby.”

  She did, and the ring finally slipped fully on, sliding into place exactly where it was always meant to be.

  “I’m never, not ever, going to let go again. I promise, Wade.”

  Her shining eyes, and her perfect mouth saying those words were exactly what my heart needed to hear.

  “Good,” I told her firmly. “Because I would’ve followed you wherever you went.”

  Her smile was brilliant. “Now, take me to bed. I feel like I’m about to topple over.”

  I took her to bed, then I made love to her until she passed out from my attentions.

  All the while I wondered if life was too good to be true.

  Chapter 17

  Why is it called boob sweat? Why not humidititties?

  -One of life’s unanswered questions

  Wade

  All the good mood from the night—or early morning—before was now gone.

  With both of us standing on the front lawn that we had seeded with our own two hands, it was hard to see anything in this situation at all positive.

  Not with the grass a black blob, nor with the tree we’d planted the day we moved in charred to a barely distinguishable cinder.


  Hell, even the mailbox hadn’t been spared, and that, I remembered, had been an arm and a leg to build because Landry had wanted a fuckin’ dolphin of all things.

  “This is bad,” she said softly. “I don’t think there’s a single thing that we can salvage.”

  I didn’t think so either.

  “Even the lawn furniture is gone,” she whispered. “My mailbox, the one that I loved—gone. The stupid gnome is even broken.”

  The gnome was what finally broke her heart.

  “Awww, baby.” I curled my arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss onto her head. “It’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t see how,” she sniffled. “It’s gone. Not even our weeping willow survived.”

  I dropped one more kiss onto her head and let her go, my eyes on the outside.

  The inside was a total loss. The only thing left standing were the outside walls, and even those were well on their way to falling down thanks to the support beams being charred to cinder at the foundation.

  Unluckily for us, there’d been a second house fire that had started about an hour before ours had, and the entire volunteer fire department had been at that one trying to keep it from spreading to neighboring homes. Our house had burned to the ground, and not a single drop of water had hit it until two hours after it’d started.

  Though, that likely had more to do with the fact that the other home that’d been on fire was one that was threatening other neighbors while ours had been at the end of a block.

  “Did they give you what you put into it?”

  I turned to see the county arson investigator’s assistant, better known as Castiel, standing behind me.

  Castiel was a jack of all trades just like Zee was, and had started the arson investigating about two years ago when the old fire marshal had lost his right-hand man. Castiel had stepped in for a few weeks to cover for him. That few weeks had turned into a few months, and those few months had turned into two years.

  Castiel still said that he was planning on moving on from the job, but he hadn’t done it yet.

  “They gave me what I wanted,” I told him bluntly. “It didn’t cover the furnishings or all the decking outside in the backyard, but that’s to be expected. Luckily, Landry was safe. That’s all I really care about.”

  Castiel was quiet a moment. “I feel like a dick for being so mean to her since y’all separated.”

  I cast him a sideways glance. “She understands. It’s hard to be faced with the choice of choosing your good friend over the woman you met because of the friend.”

  “Still,” he grunted. “I’m not proud of the way I acted.”

  “But you’re human,” Landry’s soft voice said from behind us. “And we all make mistakes, even though I am happy that you stayed loyal to Wade. He deserved that, not me.”

  But Cass and I both turned to survey the woman looking so heartbroken standing behind us.

  I kept my mouth shut, realizing that this was something that Castiel and Landry needed to discuss, or it’d never get straightened out.

  A lot of the guys were likely feeling much the same way, but none of them had been as vocal about their dislike of each other more than Landry and Castiel.

  Castiel was one of my best friends, and even though we didn’t have much time to hang out due to our jobs and our obligations, we still knew that we each had the other’s back.

  “You deserved to be treated differently than the way I treated you,” he murmured. “Suffice it to say, I should’ve been able to control my anger, but that has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the fact that the same thing happened to me. But where you both have a happy ending—I didn’t.”

  “I never knew you were married,” Landry said softly.

  Castiel looked up at the burnt remains of our house. “A lot of years ago I met someone who I thought loved me like I loved her. I was wrong, and she showed me that by packing up and left to pursue her dream of acting.”

  Landry cleared her throat. “That’s tough. And I hope one day to hear the entire story.”

  Castiel grinned, but before he could say anything else, a white semi-lifted newer model Chevy Silverado pulled up to the curb and Conleigh hopped out.

  She looked tired, but her welcoming smile instantly put a smile on Landry’s face.

  Linc, who’d stayed over by the truck with his phone at his ear, started to argue with someone on the other end.

  Conleigh ignored it and left him.

  “Hey!” She practically skipped over, her feet faltering when she saw the melted gnome in the middle of the yard. “He’s actually still kind of cute. You should keep him.”

  I looked down at the gnome. He was black with soot, half of him was melted, but he did still somewhat resemble what he was supposed to be.

  Then Landry was bending down in front of me to pick him up, and I got a really good view of her cute little ass.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she replied sadly.

  “What are you doing here, Conleigh?” Castiel asked conversationally.

  Conleigh’s eyes went from the gnome to Cass. “I’m here to take Landry shopping.”

  “We’re here to take Landry shopping,” Linc groaned at the same time.

  Cass made a gagging sound. “Have fun with that.”

  Conleigh and Landry giggled at his words and at the look of apparent disgust on Linc’s face.

  “Where, exactly, will y’all be going, and when will you be back?” I asked, then turned to Landry. “Remember that we have an appointment with the realtor this evening at seven.”

  I’d found a house while searching for land that was in my price range that I wanted Landry to take a look at. I had a feeling that she’d really like it.

  “I’m going to take her to the mall,” Conleigh informed me. “I’ll have her back by dinner time.”

  I looked over at her husband and said, “She’s going to have her back on time, isn’t she?”

  Linc snorted. “Conleigh talks a good game, but I can guarantee you that she’s going to be tired in two hours tops. She’ll have her back in time.”

  I looked over at Landry and thought much the same thing.

  She went into work this morning at six after only getting three and a half hours of sleep—gotta love unreliable employees—then went straight from the daycare to the rescue, and she hadn’t had time for a nap.

  Hell, I could use one and I was used to the long hours with little sleep thanks to my job.

  Landry looked like shit warmed over, but she seemed to get a little more pep back in her step at the thought of buying clothes.

  “I’ll get them back in time,” Linc promised.

  After offering him my hand, I pulled Landry in for a deep kiss.

  “Be careful, baby. And have fun.”

  She rolled her eyes and smiled up at me. “I’m a cop’s wife. We’re always careful.”

  ***

  Landry

  “You promised you wouldn’t leave me again,” he rasped against my skin.

  I opened my eyes, brain completely confused, and tried to figure out where I was.

  “Baby, please wake up.”

  I frowned, or tried to.

  Something was over my mouth and nose. The air blowing at me was causing my mouth to hang open.

  “Baby, please.”

  I took a deep breath and realized there was something wrong with my lungs. Something hurt. Something hurt very bad, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  I moaned, causing the weight that was resting on my forearm to jerk up in surprise.

  That was when I realized that my eyes weren’t quite as open as I’d thought they were. I could barely even see a tiny sliver of Wade’s horrified face.

  “Landry,” he breathed, standing up. “Are you hurting? Do you know where you are?”

  No.

  I had no idea what was going on, or where I was.

  Hell, I couldn
’t even get my eyes to open up all the way!

  Whatever was over my mouth was making it difficult to speak, and I absently tried to reach for whatever it was and pull it off.

  “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again to stay out of our way. If I have to repeat myself, you’ll be removed from the ER,” someone, a highly pissed off woman, said.

  “Listen, girl,” I heard said. Hoax. “I know that you’re thinking you’re helping, but you’re not. You know how she was acting when she was brought in. The only way she calmed down was when he had her hand. Trust me when I say you need him.”

  “I agree that he helped her calm down,” the woman sounded young. Not old. “But I can also achieve those same desired effects by using drugs. And, since y’all for some reason think it’s better that she be awake so she can tell you what you think you need to know right now, I’m allowing that to happen. But I’m trying to work here. She’s losing blood. I cannot have her getting harmed even worse because y’all won’t stay out of my way.”

  I turned and tried to see the woman, which caused the mask that was covering my nose and mouth to dislodge slightly, allowing me to get a breath without having it forced straight down my throat.

  The woman speaking to Hoax was a nurse.

  She had a headful of blonde, curly hair. She was staring at Hoax like he was a pain in her ass, and I realized that I’d seen her somewhere before, but I couldn’t place where.

  “We’ll behave, Pru,” I heard Bayou say. “But don’t make him leave.”

  My lips twitched.

  That was where I knew her. She was Bayou’s neighbor. The one who sat out on her porch a lot and watched the things happening around her without saying a word.

  I liked her.

  “Is she awake?”

  That shrieked question came from someone on the other side of the curtain, beyond Bayou’s neighbor.

  Then the blue curtain was yanked back and Linc stood there, holding onto Conleigh’s wheelchair like his life depended on it.

  Conleigh had a cut above her eye, and her face was a mask of fatigue and horror.

  “Yes,” Wade said, retaking his seat. “She is. Baby, are you in pain?”