CHAPTER 41
Asher
“ I have my phone with me at all times, Chief. I won’t miss the call,” I say into the phone as I look out onto my yard.
Even after two years, the natural beauty of Kentucky and the peace it offers me still catches me off guard sometimes.
There are some beautiful places in New York, but everything there was tainted by my father.
“Good. There are currently twelve burning now. The boys almost put them out, but damn wind picked up again and now they’re dangerously close to Franklinville.
If one hits the town head-on, the team just don’t have the resources to fight this on their own.
They’re already flying in hotshot teams from Washington to California.
But they aren’t experienced with the structural side, and we may need all hands on deck.
Can you talk to your team?” The head of Kentucky Emergency Management, Dale Brenner, is a straight shooter, and he wouldn’t be calling me if the wildfires in the eastern part of our state weren’t a worry. A big fuckin’ worry.
“Yes, sir,” I tell him, knowing we have enough men to look after the town. “I can leave most of my volunteer deputies in charge here. I can bring Walker, and probably also three or four fairly experienced hose jockeys too.”
ME
Just got the call from the head of K.E.M. Stay on alert. With what’s going on in Franklinville, they may need us if it gets any worse.
WALKER
You got me any way you need me, Chief.
ME
Thanks. I’ll be in touch.
“Everything okay?” Olivia asks with a hint of worry as I emerge from my bedroom.
“Everything is fine. Just lining up the possibility of helping with the wildfires in Franklinville. If the wind stays on course, and they can’t get it under control, it could hit the town head-on.”
“Is that normal to call in firefighters from other towns?”
I nod as she checks her sour cream cake in the oven.
“Yep, if there is a threat of damage to the town. Wildland firefighters aren’t any more trained on the structural side than we are on the forest fire side. In an emergency, it’s best to have experts from every field. All hands on deck.”
“Hopefully they’ll be able to control it.” Olivia bends down to pick up the new love of her life as he purrs into her. Dick. “That seems scary.”
“We ready to get this show on the road?” I try to steer the conversation away from work as she sets her fluffy pet down.
The wide-necked Motley Crüe T-shirt she’s wearing distracts me every single time she bends over because it gives me the perfect view of her full tits, and I’m already itching to touch her after watching her wander through the vendors at the rodeo this evening, hair blowing in the breeze, her heart-shaped ass on full display.
“Yep.” She smiles as she washes her hands. “Icing making one oh one.”
I move to the other side of the island—whiskey in hand—and watch her.
If anyone would’ve told me three months ago that I’d be letting the mother of my child baby talk a fuckin’ cat as she taught me how to make icing with a movie called 13 Going on 30 on the TV in my living room, I would’ve told them they were fucking high.
But watching Olivia like this lets me get a glimpse of the nurturing woman she is, the kind of woman who will love my child more than anything in this world.
And that might be the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Duke moves closer as she works, sniffing around to assess what the fuck is happening. My boy is already used to having Dick around, so the new addition of him in the house doesn’t seem to faze him.
“I’m supposed to be cooking for you, not the other way around,” I say to Olivia as I watch her check the consistency of the butter in one of the bowls.
“I like to bake. It calms me. And I have the best memories because of it.”
“You and your nana, right?”
She blinks up at me with a surprised expression.
“That’s right. The Joy of Cooking was her bible.” She looks away for a moment, the reminder that it no longer exists hitting her all over again.
Olivia tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear. “Can’t be sad while I bake. It’s illegal. So get over here, cream this butter.”
She holds out the bowl to me, which I take and dump into the stand mixer.
“This is gonna be a glaze. We use it in two steps. One, when the cake comes out and we flip it on the plate. We’ll add just a drizzle. Then we’ll use it again after the sponge has cooled.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, turning the mixer on low.
“Now add this icing sugar, slowly,” she says, and the way the soft light of the early Kentucky evening hits her face right now is fucking unreal. “Half a cup at a time. Don’t go getting all impatient and dump it in there. It won’t cream right. It will be too wet.”
Christ. How is baking with her doing it for me?
I let my eyes trail over her, lost for a moment in the way she shifts her hips as she checks how level her sugar is in the measuring cup.
Olivia lets out a laugh and pokes me in the chest when she catches me staring. “Stay focused. Remember, moment of weakness? Best co-parents? Keeping things uncomplicated here, Reed?”
I look down at her as I tweak her chin. “Right.”
Wrong. I want to complicate the fuck out of things. Averting my eyes from hers, I get back to the task at hand.
“Tell me. What part of Ireland is your family from?” Liv asks tentatively as we watch the mixer do its thing. The leaky faucet to tell her the whole truth about my family and my father drips constantly in the back of my head.
I’m silent as she continues with a devilish grin. “It will help me feel relaxed to know more about your family history.”
“Such a brat,” I mutter as she giggles, pouring a little vanilla into a teaspoon and adding it to the mixer bowl.
“Plus, since I didn’t know my birth parents,” Olivia offers, “it might help me to know more about yours.”
I hate talking about my past, but I know she deserves to know as much as I can offer.
The memory of my mother’s screams creep in but I push them away, forcing myself to give a little to Olivia.
At the very least, sharing this with her will keep my mind off wanting to fuck her right here in my kitchen.
“I’ll tell you what.” I study her pretty face. “I’ll tell you about my family if you tell me about yours.”
“Deal,” she answers almost immediately, her smile widening. As if I could deny her anyway.
“Belfast,” I say slowly. “My family is from Belfast.”
“You still have a bit of an accent.”
“We came here when I was six. I don’t really remember life in Ireland.” I can feel my body tensing as I speak, and I try so fucking hard not to let my history control me.
“How old were you when your mother passed away?” Olivia asks as if she’s interviewing me for a documentary.
I shake my head. “Uh-uh. My turn. Tell me about your birth parents.”
“I don’t remember a lot, though I do remember snippets from my fourth birthday. They come to me in dreams. I swear sometimes I remember the way my mother smelled. The smell was like sugar cookies or vanilla, and when I smell it, mostly when I’m baking anything sweet, it’s comforting.”
Olivia blows out a raspberry as she continues talking.
“I have quirks that remind me of my adoptive parents, probably just from being raised by them.” She uses a spatula to push down the icing as it mixes. “But I have no idea who I’m like at my core. In a sense my entire personality, who I am, is a mystery.”
She takes a lick, and some of the mixture sticks to her lip.
I move closer. She doesn’t back up, but her breath increases as I swipe the sugar off her lip with my thumb then suck it into my mouth.
I love the way she has to force her gaze from my mouth back to my eyes and, when she does, her pupils are blown wide as the pink I crave climbs her cheeks.
The air between us is so charged you could power a damn city block.
“I was seventeen when my mother died,” I answer her earlier question, pointing to the bowl. “You gotta add something else to this?”
She looks down in question at the icing. It’s perfectly whipped.
“Shit, yes. Just a little milk.”
She grabs the carefully measured-out amount and pours it in.
“What do you miss most about her?” Olivia asks as she assesses the icing, slowing the mixer down a little.
I haven’t spoken about my mother with anyone ever. But, with Olivia, I want to. I have the strong sense that my mother would fucking love her.
“I miss the way she looked at me, with an unconditional sort of love. She knew all our family’s demons. I wasn’t the best … version of myself when I was a teenager, but she loved me exactly how I was.” I think for a breath. “And she always made sure I knew it.”
“What happened to her?” Olivia’s eyes search mine as I fight the walls I’ve so carefully put in place all these years. I reach out and tuck a copper lock behind her ear, thinking maybe the best way to protect her is to arm her with a little of my truth …