Chapter 24 Maisie
Maisie
“This afternoon?”
Behind me, the kitchen is silent.
I peer over my shoulder to find exactly what I expected. Four alphas have abandoned their breakfast of blueberry pie, pancakes, bacon, and eggs at the dining table to focus on me, and none of them looks the least bit pleased.
Lina just asked me to cover a busy lunch shift for her, which they all overheard.
With all my alphas at work and me no longer having a deputy parked outside to watch the house, I have no one to take me and no way to get into town on my own.
Derek torched my car, and even if I’d wanted to buy another one, I can’t afford to yet.
“Give me five minutes, Lina,” I say down the phone. “I’ll call you back.”
No sooner have I ended the call than Wyatt says, “It’s a bad idea.”
I set my phone down on the counter and join them at the table.
The last few days have been bliss. If I were ever this happy, I have no memory of it.
Knox surprised me with a new cell phone, smiling as he said, “This isn’t because you drained my battery on your last call with Missy. You need one of your own, and I should have thought to get you one before now.”
He said I should be able to speak to her whenever I wanted and not be reliant on him or anyone else being around so I could use their cell phone.
It’s only through speaking to my sister for an hour almost every night that I realize how much Derek isolated me.
Having a phone that no one is going to go through my calls and text messages the way Derek used to has been liberating.
It isn’t just a way to keep in touch with my sister and my niece and nephew, who have been telling me they are literally counting down the days until they come and visit.
It’s reopening my world when before it was so small.
Some cages you see; others you never notice until you step out of them.
Fear kept me with Derek and kept me away from the people he would have hurt if I had left him.
People I love so much I’d have lived the rest of my life alone, shuffling from filthy motel rooms to hourly paid jobs if it kept them safe.
My world isn’t just bigger; I’m no longer making myself smaller to fit the prison Derek made of my life.
And it’s all because of the four men at this table who aren’t even trying to hide their concern from me.
“I can drive, and I promise if you let me borrow your car, I won’t crash it,” I say.
“It’s not about you crashing, Maisie.” Knox frowns as he nudges his half-finished breakfast aside. “It’s about us not being around if you need us.”
They’ve worried about my safety for longer than I knew.
We’ve talked a lot these last several days. About our future, about making Rios home, our businesses, eventually starting a family, and about how they quietly watched over me when they saw my bruises and made a promise that I would never be afraid again.
And even though I still worry about Derek, who no one has seen, I refuse to live my life in the cage Derek put me in. He’s ruined my life for long enough; I refuse to let him do it anymore.
Only Hunter is not looking desperately worried. “How many hours?”
Knox, Wyatt, and Elias snap their heads toward him, scowling.
Hunter keeps his eyes on me. “Maisie really wants to do this, and she needs to live her life again. Not stay cooped up in this house, afraid something will happen to her if she goes into town on her own.”
I flash him a grateful smile, relieved he gets it. “I’ll just be covering for Lina for a couple of hours while she takes her son for a checkup. She wouldn’t have asked at all if they weren’t so desperate. Lina and Nico have done so much for me, and I want to help out.”
Wyatt glances at Elias. “The sheriff said there’s been no sightings of Derek.”
Elias scratches his jaw. “It could mean he’s gotten the message that there’s no getting to Maisie without going through us.”
“Or it could mean that he’s waiting for a chance to get her alone,” Knox says quietly, his concern so tangible I can feel it. “And we’d be giving him a big one while we’re all at work.”
“I could call in,” Elias offers.
I shake my head. “This is the last week of the condo build. You all have to be there.”
Lawrence, one of Sheriff Watson’s deputies, has watched over me whenever my alphas had to all go into work.
For the last two days, when it was just me at the house, it was lonely, and I was more than a little worried.
With the security system, a new cell phone, and clear instructions on where to hide if Derek showed up, I felt prepared for anything.
My alphas checked up on me, but the longer nothing happened, the more convinced I was that nothing would.
I relaxed and focused on making pies. It’s why I’m even agreeing to this shift at the diner.
For the first time in so long, I feel safe.
Wherever Derek is, he’s staying away from the farmhouse and from me.
They glance at each other.
“I still don’t like it,” Wyatt says.
“I’ll be inside the diner the whole time,” I tell him. “Just working the tables like usual. Nico will keep an eye on me, and Winston will be in the kitchen. I’ll be safe.”
“She can borrow my car,” Hunter says.
“I’ll call the sheriff and double-check there hasn’t been a new sighting,” Elias adds.
“And I’m good as long as Maisie confirms when she gets into work okay,” Knox says.
“I’ll check in right before I leave the house and when I get to the diner,” I promise.
Wyatt’s chair creaks when he sits back in his seat. He doesn’t say a word. Just looks at me. In his tawny brown gaze, I see the memory of the apartment fire Derek set. If he hadn’t gone for a drive that night, I’d have died.
I’ve won Hunter, Elias, and Knox over. Only Wyatt is the holdout, and in the time I’ve known him, I’ve learned how stubborn he can be. When he lets out a sigh, I know he’s getting ready to refuse.
I put my hands on the edge of the table and move to stand up. “I’ll call Lina back and tell her I can’t do it.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Wyatt says.
“What?”
“I worry about you. Maybe more than I need to, but Hunter is right. Life is for living, not existing in fear.” As he gets to his feet, his expression is impossible to read. “We were going to wait for the weekend to do this, but this is as good a time as any.”
I frown. “To do what?”
“Come on.” He takes my hand and leads the way out of the kitchen and toward the front of the house. On his way out, he pulls something from the drawer of the side table beside the front door.
When I glance back, Hunter, Elias, and Knox are following, their expressions equally blank. Wyatt pushes the door open, and I spot a dark gray Honda parked at the side of the house. I’ve never seen it before.
I turn to Wyatt. “Whose car is that?”
He opens his right hand, revealing a set of car keys. “Yours.”
I look from the keys he’s holding out to me and back to him. Then I look at the car again, just to make sure I’m not imagining all this.
Smiling, he takes my hand, places the keys in the center, and wraps his around mine, closing my palm around them. “The car is yours. After what happened to yours, we’ve been keeping an eye out for a car for you. It’s not new. We can’t afford brand new. But—oof!”
He grunts, rocking back when I throw myself at him with an excited squeal.
I wrap my arms and legs around him, and he hikes me higher up his chest, tightening his grip so I won’t fall when he spins me.
Wyatt laughs. “You nearly knocked me flat on my back, sweetheart.”
Laughing, I keep a tight grip on my car keys as I whirl, getting brief glimpses of Hunter, Elias, and Knox grinning as they watch me.
“You all did this for me?” I ask when Wyatt sets me down on my feet.
“Life is for living,” Knox says, hugging me back when I move to him next. “And you needed something with a big trunk to scale up the one-woman pie operation that’s going to go multinational.”
“No, it won’t,” I laugh.
But he means it. He truly has that much belief in me. They all do.
He kisses me. “It absolutely will. A delivery truck is in your future, baby. Better believe it.”
“We want you safe,” Hunter says, hugging me. “But we don’t want you to feel trapped. Not having a car makes you too reliant on us, and that isn’t fair to you. You should come and go wherever you want, whenever you want to go.”
I’m nearly crying when I hug Elias.
He grunts loudly in response.
“I didn’t squeeze that hard,” I say, laughing. “Thank you for my car, and I love you even more for it.”
Grinning, he lifts me off my feet, pressing a lingering kiss on my neck. “I love you, beautiful.”
“Go check out your car,” Knox suggests, tugging me out of Elias’s arms and nudging me toward it. “We were going to do this on the weekend so you could take it on a longer drive, but a spin around the house will have to do for now.”
“Okay.”
I head for my new car and climb in, adjusting the seat so my feet can actually reach the pedals. One of my alphas was definitely the one driving it last; the seat is way back to account for their much longer legs.
Even though I’m only driving around the house, Wyatt shouts, “Seatbelt!”
I roll my eyes at him, but I do it with a smile and snap my seatbelt on.
The gas gauge shows a full tank, and the Honda starts up first time.
On my quick spin around the house, it feels smooth and comfortable to drive.
It’s a used car, but knowing my alphas, they took it in for a full service at an auto repair shop before considering letting me drive it.
My alphas are waiting for me near the front porch when I cut the engine and get out.
Wyatt has his arms crossed. “How’d we do, darlin’?”
With a grin, I slam the door shut and pocket the keys. “Runs like a dream. I love it.”
He holds his arms wide, and I step into them.
Hunter clears his throat and points at the watch on his wrist. “Go call Lina and let her know you’ll be going in later. We can finish breakfast together, but we’re going to be late to work.”
“Then let's go,” I say.
The drive into town is uneventful. A lot less fun with just me in the car, but I listen to the radio and enjoy being behind the wheel again.
Before my alphas went to work this morning, I promised to call before I left and again when I arrived. Knox had already shown me how to use the security system.
I park a few feet from the diner, cut the engine, and call Knox to let him know I arrived safely.
I lucked out by even getting a parking spot, since it’s nearly lunchtime and there weren’t many left.
This will be the first lunch shift my alphas won’t be coming in for.
None of the construction workers will be.
With this being the last week, the only breaks they’ll get will be too short to leave work.
After giving the street a quick scan, my shoulders relax, and I climb out of the car. There’s no sign of Derek, and it’s been weeks since my apartment fire. Wherever he is, it can’t be in Rios.
I push open the diner doors, and the room explodes in applause, scaring the shit out of me.
Everyone is grinning at me as they clap, but I’m not interested in being the center of attention at the best of times.
If I’d known I would be walking into a roomful of applause, I’d have reconsidered pulling on a pair of scruffy sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt in anticipation of changing into a spare uniform in the employee bathroom before my shift starts. Face hot, I turn around to leave.
“Not so fast.” Nico snags my arm, grinning as he steers me back inside. “Everyone wanted to celebrate your coming back to work.”
I place my palms on my hot cheeks, embarrassed. “But I didn’t do anything.”
Nico says, "Everyone worried about you, and when they heard you'd be covering for Lina, they wanted to show they missed you and that you're an important part of this community."
Patrick, a regular sitting at the counter, lifts his coffee and calls out, “And we appreciate the pie.”
A round of groans rings out, and I glance around, confused. “What’s with the groans?”
“He’s always in first asking about your pies, and everyone thinks we need to ration him,” Nico explains.
“But…” My eyes slide to the glass pie cabinet.
It’s empty. It’s barely midday, and there is not a sliver of pie to be found inside it.
I shake my head. “Wow, Knox told me the pies were selling out, but I wasn’t sure I truly believed him.”
Nico steers me away from the front and to a booth. “We need to talk about that.”
I slide into the leather booth opposite Nico and eye him warily. “What is it?”
He must have seen to all the customers already because no one seems surprised. When the bell in the kitchen rings, signaling an order is ready, Winston takes it to the table himself, flashing me a grin on his way that I return.
“I’m firing you,” Nico says.
I lose my grin as the contents of my stomach curdle. “What! But I—”
Nico lifts one hand in a calming motion. “Not for the reason you think. You’re a great waitress, but I want to go into business with you.”
“What?”
He motions to the empty glass cabinet next to the counter.
“I have never had anything I cook or bake be so popular that it flies out of the door. What you put into your pies is magic, and people can’t get enough of it.
A waitress is easy to find. What you do is irreplaceable.
I think your pies are good enough to be sold in grocery stores everywhere, and I want to help you make that happen. ”
“Really?”
He nods. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you, so take your time thinking it over.
I’d like you to keep making pies for the diner in addition to growing your business, and I’ll keep paying you more for it.
And I’d like to invest in your future. You could have your own bakeshop in town if you wanted to. ”
Knox said a delivery truck was in my future. I assumed ten years away if I was lucky. Not potentially within the next year. Looks like Missy wasn’t crazy after all to get me thinking about and planning packaging for Maisie’s, the name for my pie business.
“You really think I’m that good?”
“The first time I turned up at the diner one morning, and people were waiting outside, I thought something was wrong. They were here for your pies, and they didn’t care how long they had to wait for them.”
I sit back in my seat, stunned. “Wow.”
He smiles. “Take the time to think about what you want. I’m in no rush for a decision, but you’ll always have a job here regardless of what you want to do.”
“Thanks, Nico.”
He nods and gets to his feet. “Now let's get to work before the lunch rush hits.”