“It doesn’t have nuts on it,” Kenzie explained, her tone heavy on the know-it-all. “It just has a poisonous oil that causes an itchy rash wherever it comes into contact with your skin.” She looked at Dax. “Did you know that poison oak can’t grow in freezing temperatures?”
Friday afternoon, Emerson closed up her cart early and rushed down Main Street. The sun shone bright overhead, painting the orange and red maple leaves with a golden glow. She was meeting her dad and Violet at Stan’s Soup and Service Station. Violet had made it through a whole week without wearing her wings to school—something to celebrate.
Her sister was finally moving past this confusing stage, finding her footing in the world, and Emerson wanted to make sure Violet understood how proud she was of her. Which explained the Tupperware box filled with baklava she’d stayed up late last night making.
Emerson stepped into the service station and was greeted by the seasonal scents of roasting pumpkin and nutmeg. Roger and Violet were already sitting at the counter, smiling and sucking down a root beer float.
“Sorry I’m late,” Emerson said, kissing her dad on the cheek, then Violet. “Wow, root beer float before dinner? Must be a special occasion.”
“No,” Violet said, confused. “Dad and I have a float every morning before scho—”
“Drink up, honey.” Roger put the straw to Violet’s lips, then smiled at Emerson. Sheepishly, she noticed. “Have a seat. We’re about to order.”
Emerson let it go and pulled out the stool next to Violet. Hooking her coat on the hanger under the countertop, she sat, springing back up immediately when something poked her butt.
“Ow!” she said, rubbing her backside. “What is that?”
“My trap,” Violet cried, leaping to her feet to come and rescue the sticks held together by twine. “Did it break?”
“I don’t think so.” Emerson took a closer look at the work. It was circular, smaller on one end and bigger on the other, like a megaphone. It was also more Dad-work than student inspired. “Is that a cornucopia for school?”
“No, it’s a fairy trap. Dad and I made it,” Violet said, using her napkin to brush it off. “It’s not done yet, though. I need to make a door so once a fairy goes in she has to wait for me to let her out. I caught one last night but she got out and only left behind some fairy dust.”
“Fairy dust?” Emerson said, her heart sinking as she met Roger’s eyes over Violet’s head and gave him a long, steady look. He held up his palm as if saying It isn’t wings.
“I wanted to show it to you.” Violet looked up, her eyes big and proud.
“It’s, uh . . . wow! I don’t know what to say.” Only that it negated everything she’d worked so hard on all week. The walks, the long talks, the special dessert she’d made. This entire celebration dinner.
“It’s a perfect survival trap,” the waiter said, and Emerson’s heart did that funny flutter. Scratch that. It was more of a roundhouse kick to the ribs because it wasn’t a waiter at all.
It was Dax.
He towered behind the counter in a pair of battered jeans, his signature soft-looking T-shirt, and a ball cap pulled low, but today he had on an apron that stretched across his chiseled chest. A white line cook’s apron with soup splattered down the front, and he had a half-cut squash in his hand. His lips curled up at the edges as he pinned her with his gaze.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, but her eyes clearly pointed out that he was being a stalker.
He pulled out a notebook and in his most professional voice, informed her, “Letting you know that our soup of the day is roasted pumpkin with basil.”
“Roasted pumpkin.” Roger tapped a contemplative finger to his chin. “You like pumpkin, Violet?”
“You work here?” she asked quietly.
“Today I do. Tomorrow I’m at the county public training center. A few weeks from now, I’m sous cheffing at Street Eats.” He smiled. “I am a man of many, many talents.”
She had the memories to prove it.
“You’re running the training class?”
A hum of something dangerous coursed through her veins. Not only had he followed through on his part, he’d told Jonah yes. She told herself not to read too much into it. Just because he was teaching a class didn’t mean he’d sign on to stay.
She wanted to tell him he’d done the right thing, helping Jonah. And that it would help him too, but he was already taking the trap from Violet to examine. “Good work.”
Violet beamed. “It’s to catch fairies.”
Emerson placed a hand to her head—it was the only thing to do other than banging it against the counter.
“Or you can use it for something useful, like catching fish at the Loveliest Survivalist Campout.” Emerson looked up and Dax’s gaze was on her, warm and unwavering. “Isn’t there some kind of competition for that, Lovely Co-leader Emi?”
Her face heated at the use of her nickname in front of her family. “The, uh, X-tremely Edible competition?”
“The X-tremely Edible competition?” His lips curled up and she knew he was thinking about their night together. She was too.
“The Calistoga Lovelies Nine-Eight-Three win that one every year,” Violet explained.
“Maybe this is St. Helena Lady Bug Lovelies Six-Six-Two’s year,” he said, grabbing a paper placemat. He tore it into several strips, then laid them out and began weaving them together. “Imagine this is wet manzanita bark that’s been cut into strips. You can weave it together like this and then place it in the middle of your trap.” His hands worked at lightning speed to demonstrate a way for Violet to make something non-fairy-centric out of her trap. When he was done, he put the funnel-shaped cone into the center of the cornucopia. “Like this. Then when the fish swim in, they can’t easily swim out.”
“Cool.” Violet took the trap and studied it intently. Dax just smiled at his handiwork. And Emerson smiled at Dax.
“She likes those pumpkin cookies from the store,” Roger mumbled, completely oblivious to the goings-on around him. “The ones with the candy black kitties on top. Will it taste like those?”
“Not sure,” Dax said. “Never tried it. Not a big basil fan.”
“Basil, huh?” Roger said. “That doesn’t sound very celebratory, does it?”
Before Dax could answer, Violet was back in the game. “Do you think fairies could get out?”
“I’m not sure when fairy season is,” he said, following like a champ the tennis-match pace that her family was notorious for keeping. “I do know that bass are everywhere. And that trap there is a perfect shape for a winning bass trap.”
“Winning trap, huh?” Violet clapped her hands at the excitement of winning something. “Would you help me?”
Emerson felt her stomach bottom out as Dax considered the question. She could see the word no forming on his lips, knew how it would crush Violet, but couldn’t blame him. In her family, offering to help was the equivalent of devoting your life to the cause. And the Blake family was a never-ending cause.
Not that Emerson was complaining, but it was her cause. Not his to deal with.
“Violet, Dax has a lot—”
“Of experience with these kinds of traps,” he interrupted, shocking the hell out of her. She’d given him the out and he’d stuck around. “In fact, I’ve used ones similar to these in survival situations. Maybe you can teach your troop how to build the trap, and I can teach them how to make the funnel.”
“Like partners?” Violet asked, all eyes. “Dad, did you hear that?”
“I sure did,” Roger said, putting the menu down and smiling. There was a twinkle in his expression that Emerson hadn’t seen in a long time. He was happy. “I think this calls for a round of floats.”
“But you haven’t finished the float you ordered,” Emerson pointed out. Violet grabbed the straw and sucked it down, licking her lips in a problem solved way.
“Three floats,” Roger said to Dax, then smiled as if the lights, after a
long two years, had finally flicked back on. “Bring one for yourself, too.”
“Oh,” Emerson said, stacking the menus. “I’m sure Dax is busy. I mean, he’s working.”
“Well, he can take a short break, right?” Roger asked.
Dax looked at Emerson as though deferring to her, then said, “As long as it isn’t weird.”
A stab of guilt hit her so hard she had to force herself to swallow. He had done nothing but help her family and she’d accused him of being a stalker. Of being weird.
“No, of course. It’s on me,” she said and a wicked twinkle filled his eyes. “I meant I’ll buy you a drink.” She remembered that first night at the VFW hall, when he’d offered to buy her a drink and she’d shot him down. The irony wasn’t lost on her—or him, since he was grinning.
“I’ll accept.”
“Great,” Roger said, smacking the countertop with his palm. “Because we are celebrating. Big news.”
Oh boy, last time Roger had “big news” it was a multilevel marketing scheme that one of the guys at the local sports bar swindled him into. It involved fish hooks and bobbers and Roger had lost a bunch of money. Something that never would have happened before he lost Lillianna.
When her mom had been alive, Roger had been funny and focused and driven and so incredibly meticulous he could juggle several projects at once. It was what had made him such a great vineyard manager. Then he’d lost his true love and it was as if he couldn’t concentrate through the loss.
“What’s the news, Dad?”
“I officially got the job at the tasting room,” Roger said, and it took everything Emerson had not to cry. She felt her eyes burn and her throat close up, but she held strong. If she started crying now, she might not stop. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing. “I start Saturday. I know it’s your crazy day, but they want to train me and—”
“We’ll work it out.” Emerson leaned in and kissed his jaw. “Whatever the schedule is, we’ll work it out. I am so proud of you.”
“It’s just a job,” Roger said but everyone there knew it was more than that. It was his first real attempt to move on. To put the loss behind him and find a new start—just like Dax had promised.
“Congrats, Mr. Blake,” Dax said as though he had nothing to do with making this moment possible. “I’ll go make those floats now.”
He sent Emerson a wink, and before she could thank him properly, he disappeared behind the swinging doors and into the kitchen. Emerson pulled out her phone and swiped a text.
Thank you for everything.
It was just four little words, but they seemed to mean so much more. Simple, and from the heart. Her cell immediately buzzed back. She looked at the screen and laughed.
Stop being weird.
Emerson had promised herself nothing would change after their night, but that had been before today. Before Dax made her sister feel special and helped her dad find his way. Before the hug by the mailbox and before Emerson realized that, in fact, everything had changed.
And it wasn’t weird at all.
Were you aiming for my nuts or was it a lucky shot?” Dax said after the initial body-jolting impact and feeling of WTF? passed. Grimacing through the shooting pain in his inner thigh, and knowing it was going to last days, he looked at the casing on the floor. Had it been an inch higher Dax would be singing soprano instead of chewing off Fucking New Guy’s head.
Assuming, of course, that each deputy was carrying real ammo instead of Simunition, a nonlethal training ammunition that all of the guns had been loaded with for today’s CQB training.
“No, sir, I saw the shot and took it,” FNG’s voice came through the headset seconds after his team had gotten in position and were awaiting their superior’s command.
“And shot the hostage in the dick?”
“I didn’t know you were the hostage, sir,” he said, breaking what was supposed to be radio silence.
Dax wasn’t the hostage. In this training scenario he was the kidnapper, but in real life, it wasn’t always clear who was who, which was why waiting for orders was imperative. Instead, the kid had taken an unsanctioned shot, ignored a direct order, and was too busy playing hero to play by the rules.
Dax looked out the window of the one-story, nondescript house that sat in the middle of the Napa Valley Public Safety Training Center and pinpointed the little shit’s location on a rooftop a few buildings away. “Why, because I wasn’t tied up and was holding a gun?”
“At the sheriff’s head, sir. You were holding a gun at the sheriff’s head.”
“He isn’t the sheriff today, now is he? This is a drill.” Dax looked over his shoulder at Jonah, who was tied to the chair and wearing a bright-ass hostage shirt. He gave a Who is this guy? look, to which Jonah responded, FNG. What do you expect?
Uh, not to be shot.
Jonah gave a Sorry, bro shrug. That was it. His nuts were nearly shot off and all he got was a Sorry, bro? And yeah, the kid was an FNG, so it was expected that he’d be a little jumpy and a lot hyped on his first training—everyone was. But to shoot the possible hostage ten minutes into the exercise?
“That’s a pretty big misshot, Gomer,” Dax said into his headset. His name wasn’t Gomer, but it would do until the kid learned how to control his premature trigger problem. “Your hostage is dead.”
“Dead, sir?”
Dax pointed dramatically to his package, knowing the kid could see him through the rifle’s scope. “Yeah, you shot his goods off, so I imagine he won’t be of much value to the captors, who now know your location, by the way. And your team? They’re pissed because it’s game over. So want to come down here and bring me an ice pack so you can tell me what you’re going to do to ensure you never misshoot again, and I can make sure I don’t swell up to the size of a grapefruit?” There was a long pause, just static on the line. “Gomer?”
“Uh, yes, sir?”
“I can see your mirror of a forehead puckered at my two o’clock. Did you misunderstand my command?”
“No, sir.” But he still didn’t move.
“Just making sure because ‘We need the hostage alive’ seemed like a pretty clear order to me. Almost as clear as ‘Bring me a damn ice pack,’ yet I still don’t see your freckles moving toward me.” Another moment of hesitation and Dax allowed himself to smile—a little. Maybe the kid wasn’t as stupid as he thought. “We were playing Rescue the Hostage and you killed the hostage,” he lied, seeing how the kid would respond. “Game over. Now be a man and bring me ice.”
Dax watched as Gomer stood and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “On my way, sir.”
“Aw, Jesus. Is he serious?” Jonah mumbled and Dax muted their headpiece so Gomer wouldn’t hear.
“I can’t believe this.” Jonah saw the kid tackle the external ladder, and he jerked back and forth in the chair, because the only thing that had been made clearer than that the hostage was to be rescued alive was that the game was not over until the commanding officer said so.
And Dax, although their training officer, was not their commanding officer. Jonah was, and that kid had just made a tactical error that in a real-life situation could have cost him his life.
Today, it might cost him his job. This training op was a mix of deputies and rookies, a way to increase training skills while creating an environment to see who would move up the ranks. Gomer started out with a strong showing at the range, then went lone wolf the second he saw the shot.
Dax would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered the same thing a hundred times before, only he knew that when in a situation where the information was constantly changing, deferring to the person with the widest vantage point was critical.
“Just cut me loose,” Jonah said, tugging on his hands. “Can’t make him piss his pants if I’m yelling while zip-tied to a chair.”
“As far as I’m concerned the game is still on.” Dax gave him the Sorry, bro shrug and Jonah liked it about as much as Dax liked getting shot in the goods. “And don’t
count Gomer out just yet.” Jonah stopped rocking in the chair long enough to lift a brow. “What? The kid’s got something. That shot was impressive, a hundred yards with Simunition is a damn fine shot. Had I not stood when I did he would have caught me in the chest.”
Dax patted his Kevlar vest.
“But he didn’t,” Jonah said. “He shot without having clearance or a clear shot.”
“But he saw a shot and didn’t hesitate.” Something that Dax couldn’t say.
He’d had a shot, was given clearance, then looked through the scope . . . and knew the target. It was more recognition, really, a familiar face Dax had seen in the neighboring village walking with his kid, holding his hand. And surely a guy who loved his kid that much couldn’t be the right target.
That was it. A simple thread of connection and Dax had hesitated long enough to give away his position and put a group of guys he considered family, who were counting on him to have their backs, in the middle of a seriously screwed-up situation. And the guy who swung hands with his kid had launched the mortar that took out Dax’s knee.
“He took the shot,” Dax repeated.
“And hit the hostage.”
“I’m not the hostage,” Dax reminded Jonah, loving to see his older brother squirm. “I’m the captor.”
“Yeah, I’m tied to a chair with hostage written across my chest in neon yellow, you had a gun at my head. All it took was saying to him, ‘Hey, man, I’m the good guy,’ and he buys it,” Jonah said, and Dax could hear the frustration in his voice.
He could also hear the regret. Jonah didn’t want to let this kid go. He saw in him the same potential Dax did, but overlooking a mistake this epic would be difficult. Because as team leader, Jonah decided who made the cut and who worked the desk. And if he put his faith in the wrong person, someone would die—and he’d have to live with that.
“Trust your gut,” Dax said.
“My gut says he ignored direct orders and broke radio silence and, Jesus,” Jonah said. “There he is all sweaty and winded, running with his rifle and a freaking ice pack.”
Need You for Always (Heroes of St. Helena) Page 18