Chapter Three
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Are the influences really bad?
Wolfe
Once I have Amia tucked up tight in her purple, star-studded bed, I grab my fancy video-and-sound monitor, my wallet, and my keys, and head downstairs to meet Sterne.
I find him in a corner booth at the back of Blackwood Brew nursing a glass of what I assume is his favorite bourbon—Wild Turkey Rare Breed, stocked behind the bar just for him.
I nod at my friend before approaching the counter for my own beverage.
“One sec, Wolfy!” Poem, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, calls more amicably than I would have expected considering she’s currently striking my existence.
Her butterscotch blonde hair swings as she rushes past me to deliver a margarita the size of Texas to a bar staple, Harry.
Harry’s silver tooth sparkles when he cackles at the sight, and Poem’s eyes shine as manic as his do in response.
They exchange excited words before she jaunts back to me, practically skipping around Fox, her fiancé and my dark-haired twin.
“Whatcha want?” she asks. I could almost believe she’s forgiven me for my part in Fox’s extended self-torment, except now that she’s up close, I can see better than that. She might be smiling, but those teeth are feral, not friendly.
“Guinness,” I answer, doing my very best to insert an apology into the syllables as they pass through my lips.
She sniffs. “Sure.”
I deflate as she pours my draft, and Fox’s sky blue eyes meet my own. I forgive you. It’s okay, he twin telepathies into my brain.
You shouldn’t, though, and it really is not, I twin telepathy back.
Unfortunately, of the two of us, Fox has always been the least in tune with the twin bond, and his translation of my message gets lost somewhere around when it hits Poem’s aura, also known as the area where Fox loses all sense of reality and common sense.
His eyes catch on her hair, then travel down, over the curve of her waist and lower.
My eyes roll. So much for brotherly reassurance.
Poem manages to get my beer to me with only a slight glint of malice before Fox crowds her, wrapping his arms around her and transforming her irritation with me into a softer, gentler, faker irritation for him.
I leave before they start making out over the ice well. Again.
As I slide into the embrace of soft, faded black leather, I grimace at Sterne across the booth table. He regards me cooly, thick ginger brows slightly raised, and says nothing.
I clear my throat.
He blinks.
I sigh.
He takes a sip of his drink, and I swear the green of his irises sparkles as I squirm.
“Fine,” I grunt finally. “I’ll go first.”
He hums, ominously. “Well, since you’re the one who called me here, I do think that would be best, yes.”
I take a long slug of my beer, buying time.
“You know, it would probably be less painful if you just spit it out,” he says mildly, a smile threatening to form as he observes my discomfort—and revels in it.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I mumble. He’s not the one being told he should kidnap a woman. He’s not the one considering it.
“Let’s go slowly,” he suggests. “One word at a time. Easy as pie.”
Easy as pie. For the man not being torn apart at the seams to such a degree that federal crime seems like a feasible solution.
Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe I should just spit it out.
Not one word at a time, but faster, like a Band-Aid.
Rip it right off. Get it out there. Then, he can look at me with his sharp, stern eyes and his terrifying, judgmental demeanor, and I can rest easy in the knowledge that kidnapping is not a solution to any problem, ever, at all.
So I’ll just. Rip it off, then. I guess.
I take a fortifying breath and blurt, “I told Leora I want to meet and she told me no and Amia thinks I should kidnap her and I told Amia no but honestly it’s seeming like a good idea to me and in line with my decision to be less passive and more proactive in my relationships and life.”
I freeze after the words have left my lips, not daring to move as I wait for his response.
In a testament of his love for me, he does not laugh in my face.
In a testament of his absolute insanity, he instead tilts his head, brows rising as if he might be considering the merits of kidnapping.
“Please tell me you are not considering the merits of kidnapping,” I hiss, leaning over the table. “I texted you so you could be a voice of reason.”
“Seems like a reasonable person would think of all sides before outright dismissing an avenue that could provide his friend some relief,” he notes, casually. Because my relief is of utmost importance when abducting a woman is on the table.
“Sterne, be serious.”
“I am being serious. Perfectly serious.” He raises a perfectly serious eyebrow. “I don’t think Leora would mind a little kidnapping, considering she and Almond are in the same book club, and Almond is where Amia got the idea, I’d assume?”
“You’d assume correctly,” I confirm. “And annoyingly. What are you, Sherlock Holmes? Stop connecting pieces to a puzzle that barely exists.”
“No,” he retorts. “So Almond and Leora read books where kidnapping is not only happening, but happening in such a way that they would view it in a positive light. Ergo, ipso facto, and so, Leora loves kidnapping. Presumably this means she loves a romance where the man is perhaps not quite morally white.” He eyes my stark white hair, and frowns.
“Maybe we dye that back to black?” he asks.
“To get you in the right headspace for sweeping your girl off her feet and into your tower, where she’ll live happily ever after—after several hundred pages of will-they-won’t-they enemies-to-lovers nonsense that makes women like Leora and your sister swoon. ”
“I’m not dying my hair,” I dismiss. I like my white hair. It reduces the number of people mistaking me for Fox by one hundred percent. “And you’re doing a terrible job of upholding the law right now. Aren’t you supposed to be morally correct?”
“I’m a firefighter, not a cop,” he scoffs. “I don’t have to be morally anything. I just have to stop things from burning and people from suffocating in the smoke.”
“Right,” I drawl. “You just have to be the knight in shining armor, saving lives and keeping the world from burning to the ground. No morals required. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he agrees. “Now, about your kidnapping.”
I groan. “This is horrible. I’m not meant to be talking you down from a human snatching. You’re meant to be talking me down. Please, learn your role and heed it.”
“That’s stupid,” he declares. “Leora wants to be kidnapped. She’ll love it.”
“She’ll love it?” I repeat, deadpan. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“I do, and what I hear is the sound of me being dead right.” His gaze strays to the rest of the room, scanning, then alights. “An expert among us,” he mutters before yelling across the bar. “Almond! Come here!”
My head whips around to watch as my little sister yells back, “Let me grab a drink first!” Her pink hair sits piled artfully atop her head, taunting me.
It would be so easy to grab hold of that knot and yank until she explains to me why she thought it would be a good idea to tell my daughter—who is eight—that kidnapping is romantic, thus putting it in my head that kidnapping might be freaking romantic.
I’m in a desperate spiral right now on so many fronts, and she is not helping.
“If Almond is an ‘expert’, then we’re all doomed,” I grump, slouching back against the leather. “She told Amia that kidnapping is romantic. She hasn’t got a single contained marble in her entire body.”
“The only person whose marbles are loose is you, my friend,” Sterne retorts. “We’ve got a perfectly viable solution to several of your problems here, and you aren’t giving it nearly the credit it deserves.”
I sputter. “Which problems does this solve without creating new, bigger problems?”
He lists them, lifting a finger with each example.
“The one where you want to have, in your own words, ‘more initiative.’ The one where you’re head over heels in love with this woman and want her in your life in a more substantial way.
And, last but most definitely not least, the one where you need someone to love you back with the sort of love that you give to others, no matter how ‘passive’ you think you’ve been.
I see you. I see the love you have in you and how much of it you pour out.
You deserve all of the wonder and beauty this life has to offer.
You’ve got much of it in your family and in your daughter and in your friends, but you need love, too, Wolfe.
You deserve it, and you’re going to get it, even if it takes a kidnapping to make it happen. ”
He ends intense and determined, and I fear for my immediate future—and Leora’s. If I don’t kidnap her, I wouldn’t put it past him to do it for me.
“Scoot over,” Almond interrupts my gaping to demand, making a feeble attempt to push me into obedience.
I take full advantage of my status as Large Man and do not move.
She huffs, and Sterne shimmies over so she can slide into the certifiably insane side of the booth where she belongs.
“You both need to be committed,” I say. “Top tier committed. Padded rooms, straight jackets, the full shebang.”
“What did I do?” Almond protests, hand to her heart.
I hit my head against the table.
“Wolfe is contemplating the merits of kidnapping,” Sterne informs her, ever the help. “And the cons, too, few though there are.”
Alight, Almond gasps. “You’re going to kidnap Leora?” she squeals. “Oh my gosh, she’s going to love that!”
“Not just insane,” I groan, rolling my head on the tabletop. “Criminally insane. Padded jail cells. Straightjackets with your ankles cuffed to the floor.”
“You’re awfully judgy for a man who came to me with the ‘criminally insane’ idea,” Sterne comments.
I sit up to wag my finger at him. “For you to refute! Not encourage!”
He sips his drink and shrugs. “I’d refute it if it were a bad idea. As it stands, I think it’s a brilliant idea, and experts concur.” He gestures to Almond, who nods her concurrence. “Case closed, abduction is happening. I have some availability tomorrow, if you’re free.”
This Almond protests. “You can’t help him kidnap her,” she says. “That ruins the whole alpha male big guy hotness thing.”
My nose wrinkles. “Don’t talk about me like that,” I order. “Gross. Ew. Don’t talk like that in front of me at all. No. Bad.”
Sterne’s brows furrow. “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but if I don’t help him, it’s not happening.” He lops a hand my way. “Look at him. Does that look like a man who won’t chicken out the minute a level one felony is staring him in the face?”
“Excuse you!” Should I be offended? Probably not. Really, truly, probably not. And yet.
“Yeah, excuse you!” Almond echoes. “Wolfe is just as capable of kidnapping as any other man. How dare you.”
“Excuse you.” I reel. I do not want that perception of my character either, thank you very much.
“He’s shaking like a leaf just thinking about it,” Sterne replies.
Almond waves that away. “He’s just got the before-abduction jitters. Happens to everyone. Perfectly normal.”
Sterne hums, unconvinced.
I pick up my beer and chug. Once empty, I stand, check on Amia via the video monitor, and approach the bar, leaving Sterne and Almond to argue about my ability to be a Horrible Person?.
“Another beer?” Fox asks, cheeks flushed from Poem-related activities better left unknown.
“Whiskey,” I reply. “Whatever’s strongest, please.”
He frowns, but complies, and I shove a twenty in his tip jar in gratitude. His frown deepens. “Anything you want to talk about?” he asks.
“No,” I answer. “No talking for me. Never again. When I talk, wild things come out, and I say them to even wilder people, and then my sister and my best friend end up debating how much of a villain I have the potential to be in a corner booth at your bar.”
He blinks. “Well,” he says. “If you change your mind.”
I raise my glass in acknowledgment, then trudge back to the cracked peanut gallery. As I slide into my seat, I send up a prayer to the starry skies above. Not for me, but for Leora.
Because as white as my hair is, I’m not so sure my armor is shiny enough to resist the brigade that I face.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, if my loved ones are to be believed—my prayers are not answered.
My wishes, though…
Well, they do say wishes come true, don’t they?