"I want to ask Janet to marry me, and I'd like your blessing."
"Well, shit. You should have waited until I'd finished a few of these."
"I'm a little disappointed that you didn't spew some of it out your nose like you did when I caught you and Trixie sneaking a beer behind the bar when you were only sixteen."
It was Logan's turn to chuckle. So many things he and Trixie had done. Wild things. His heart ached. He couldn't think of his childhood without thinking of her. She was so much a part of his life.
"Do you love my mom?" he asked.
"More than my life," Axel answered without hesitation. "I've always loved her. She just wasn't ready for me until now."
Sounded like someone else he knew.
"You hurt her and I'll hurt you."
"If I hurt her, you put me in the ground."
"Deal." Maybe he could grow to like Mr. Watchman with his mom. "All right." He held out his hand to shake. "You have my blessing."
"Thank you, Logan."
"Don't thank me." He took another drink of his beer. "You still have to get Mom to agree to marry you."
Axel gave him a crafty smile. "Not worried. I have my ways."
"Ah, TMI, man." He shuddered. But then that did give him an idea.
The town already had too much information about him and Trixie. What was a little more?
"Hi-ya, Trixie," Miles greeted, looking sheepish as he cautiously sat at the bar.
"Miles." She barely spared him a glance as she mixed drink after drink.
"I, uh, owe you an apology."
"Ya think?" She'd been dealing with nothing but gossip mongers all night, spectators and hecklers. The only upside was that business was great.
"I really didn't mean to tell everyone that you were married to Logan. I'm really sorry. While I wasn't happy to hear the news, it wasn't mine to share."
"Thank you, Miles."
"There's one other thing."
Wasn't there always? "What is it?"
"Well, I need to break up with you."
She paused in her pouring. Weren't they already broken up? Well, technically she guessed they weren't. "Why?" she couldn't help asking. Didn't him finding out she was married automatically put a stop to them dating?
"You see, last night—after I had too much to drink and blabbed to everyone—Pamela made sure I got home safely."
Trixie motioned with her hand for Miles to continue, her gaze ferreting out Pamela's bright blond hair where she'd hustled to serve drinks. Come to think of it, Trixie couldn’t remember actually talking to Pamela tonight. She'd come in and grabbed her apron without making eye contact... "Ohhh, you and Pamela?"
Miles reddened and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. Well, it was just one of those things and she feels really bad about it. So do I," he was quick to add.
Wait. If Miles and Pamela hooked up, then she might not lose the best waitress she'd ever had.
"Miles, it's okay. I think you and Pamela are perfect for each other. Like it was meant to be."
He reddened even further. "Thanks, Trixie. You're a hell of a woman, and Logan is an idiot for letting you get away."
"Yes, well." She could be called an idiot too.
Suddenly the level of noise in the bar dropped to mere whispers, and the person singing Kate Perry's Hot N Cold on the Karaoke machine fell off to nothing.
Logan stood in the doorway.
She felt all the eyes in the bar turn to her then back to Logan. She knew tonight had been going too well.
"I've been a fool, Trixie," Logan said advancing into the bar. The patrons parted as if Moses had entered the room.
"What are you doing, Logan?"
"What I should have done a long time ago." He reached into his jacket pocket, and her heart skipped a beat and then stalled as he handed her a piece of paper.
"What's that?"
"Read it."
She didn't want to. "Do we have to do this in front of the whole town?"
"You don't want to fight me on this, Trix. I'm sure there is a list of things you'd rather fight me on."
"Pick my battles?"
"Now, you're getting the picture." He smiled, the action sweet if not a little worried.
She set down the bottle of vodka and took the paper from him. Slowly she unfolded it. Her eyes scanned to the bottom, his signature was bold and large and caused a lump to form in her throat. She had to clear it before she could speak. "These are the annulment papers. You signed them?"
"Yes. We are no longer married. It's like we never were."
A gasp traveled through the crowd, the sound getting louder and louder until it was a roar. Or was that the blood rushing through her veins?
"Hey, so does that mean you're single?" Bob asked, a regular and a man forty years her senior. "Wanta go out Friday night?"
"I wouldn't go out with you when I was married. No way I'm dating you single."
Their exchange broke the tension, and the crowd settled after a few laughs.
"Why?" she asked Logan, holding up the annulment papers.
"Because we went about everything eight years ago wrong, and we need to make it right. I need to make it right."
Logan reached into his other pocket and produced a ring box. The room went silent as he bent to one knee. He flipped the box open to reveal diamonds in the shape of a snowflake. "I truly believe, that in a person's lifetime, love can happen again, but true love only happens once. You, Trixie Frost, are my true love. You were my best friend before we became lovers, and I have loved you for as long as I can remember. Please marry me and be my wife."
Eyes swiveled to her as everyone waited with baited breath for her answer.
"How do you know we'd be able to make it work?" she asked. "We couldn't even make marriage work for one day."
"We're older, less selfish. Of all the things in my life I'm most ashamed of it's how I handled that day. I would like a chance to make it up to you. But one thing is certain, if we don't at least give it a try, this marriage won't work. Or are you too afraid?"
"I'm not afraid of anything." Damn him. He knew what buttons to push, but then he knew everything about her. His smile bloomed from ear to ear, and she had a sinking feeling that she'd played right into his hands.
"Then don't be afraid to love me."
Tears blurred her vision. "What about the Army?"
"I retired my commission, and as we are putting everything out there, I'm currently unemployed."
"I'll hire you, Logan!" a voice in the crowd yelled out.
"Thanks, but I have a survivalist idea that I was hoping to implement, and I know someone who's dying to pay me back a loan." He regarded Trixie with anticipation. "What do you say? Share the rest of your life with me? Love me?"
"Oh, criminy, Logan." Her voice hitched, and she climbed up and over the bar to the deafening cheers of the crowd.
Logan caught her up in his arms and swung her around in a circle, clenching her tight to his chest, his head buried in the crook of her neck.
Just like she'd wished he'd greeted her that first day he'd entered her bar.
He settled her back onto her feet. "Say it," he demanded.
"I love you."
"That too, but I need to hear you say the other."
"Yes, Logan Slade, I'll marry you."
"Halle-fucking-lujah," his voice broke, and he clutched her to him again like he'd never let her go.
THE END
Author Bio:
Photo by: Kelli Ann Morgan
USA Today Bestselling Author Tiffinie Helmer is always up for a gripping adventure. Raised in Alaska, she was dragged "Outside" by her husband, but escapes the lower forty-eight by spending her summers commercial fishing on the Bering Sea.
A mother of four, Tiffinie divides her time between enjoying her family, throwing her acclaimed pottery, and writing of flawed characters in unique and severe situations.
To learn more about Tiffinie and her books, please visit http://www.TiffinieHelmer
.com
Books Also By Tiffinie Helmer
Romance on the Edge Novels
Edge
Hooked
Shiver
Death Cache
Wild Men of Alaska Novellas
Bearing All (sequel to Edge)
Impact (prequel to Hooked)
Moosed-Up (prequel to Shiver)
Dreamweaver (sequel to Death Cache)
Wild Women of Alaska Novellas
Reel Trouble
Bushwhacked
Fireweed
Icebreaker
Other Novellas
Heartless (in My Bloody Valentine anthology)
Bait
Collaborations
Which Witch is Which?
Bundles
Wild Men of Alaska
Romance on the Edge #1
Romance on the Edge #2
Romance on the Edge #3
Romance on the Edge #4
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WILD WOMEN OF ALASKA
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2016 by Tiffinie Helmer
http://www.tiffiniehelmer.com/
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
Cover Design by Kelli Ann Morgan with Inspire Creative Services
Interior book design by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
Wild Women of Alaska Collection Page 32