Chapter 4
The fire stayed out and they were able to go home. Nolan jumped out of the truck at the station, and after taking a shower, headed across the street to the Blossom Café with Flint.
It was beginning to become a hassle being single in Keeneston.
Somehow, he’d flown under the radar all these years.
Even when he was the only boy brave enough to ask Abby Mueez out in high school.
Abby’s father, Ahmed, a notorious super soldier for the small island country of Rahmi, tracked them with drones on their dates and threatened his life daily.
However, it hadn’t bothered Nolan. He had always been laid-back and quiet.
The guy who helped his parents out at the feed store.
The guy who stopped to help someone on the side of the road.
The dependable one who always showed up.
It was one of the reasons he became a firefighter. He liked to help people.
What he hadn’t counted on was no longer being the quiet one who blended into the background.
One firefighter calendar later and now he was dodging Keeneston Belles like mosquitoes.
The Belles were sweet—well, some of them were.
They were a group of young, single women who did charity work around Keeneston.
When they got married, they joined the Keeneston Women’s Group—the group that basically ran every Keeneston event.
However, under previous Belle leadership, they’d been more focused on husband hunting than good works.
Under Tandy Rawlings’ leadership as president, they’d gone back to emphasizing charity.
However, Tandy was about to get married to Deputy Andy Sharp.
That left the leadership of the Belles up in the air and heading toward a hotly debated election.
One that would determine if charity stayed their main focus or hunting their Mrs. title became objective number one.
The Belles, their mothers, and their grandmothers weren’t waiting to find out.
The firemen were getting calls left and right, cats needing rescuing, only to have a Belle shoved at them.
Eating at the Blossom Café was an exercise in patience and politeness, and was, frankly, becoming overwhelming.
Nolan was getting food to go more than dining in, just for his sanity.
It wasn’t that Nolan didn’t want to fall in love and get married.
It was that the majority of the Belles were so young.
Nolan was in his thirties now. He didn’t want to date a twenty-one-year-old.
Sure, lots of men would love it, but not Nolan.
What did he have in common with someone just out of her teens?
Now, the others on the team? They were in their mid to late twenties and were enjoying their local celebrity status.
Which was why Nolan slowed his step and let Flint take the lead when they walked into the café.
Flint smiled and flirted as they made their way to their table while Nolan shook hands with the Davies family.
Some were his age, some were younger, some were older, and then there were all their parents he said hello to.
Marcy Davies, his friends’ grandmother and matriarch of the family, motioned for him to join her.
She might not be Nolan’s family, but Marcy and the Rose sisters were de facto grandmothers to the entire town.
Marcy sat with Lily, Daisy, and Violet—the three Rose sisters who had started the Blossom Café, but finally retired when they reached a very advanced age and were now somewhere near ancient.
Their long-lost, and much younger, umpteen times-removed distant cousins, Poppy and Zinnia, moved up from Alabama to take over the cafe and the bed and breakfast that the Rose sisters used to run.
“Good evening, ma’am.”
“Nolan, you’re such a sweet young man,” Marcy Davies said with a twinkle in her eye that made him a little nervous.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“I heard you all were stuck out in the woods all day and you missed the birth of Ari and Jameson’s new baby, Harrison. A new royal!”
“We saw the photos. Harrison is adorable and Ari and Jameson look very happy.”
“Did you see the other news?” Marcy asked as Miss Lily shook her head as if upset and Miss Daisy clucked her tongue while Miss Violet dabbed her eyes with a napkin.
Dread filled Nolan. Abby, his high school girlfriend and her husband, Dylan Davies, were black ops.
Although, since they were based out of Keeneston along with a small international contingent of soldiers, Abby called the group Bluegrass Ops.
They were an off-the-books team that worked at the president’s discretion.
Now that threats were becoming more global, they’d grown to include some soldiers from ally nations. He hoped nothing had happened to them.
“No, what is it?”
“We haven’t been able to get a hold of Quinn to verify, but isn’t that her friend? She was her maid of honor, right? Helena?” Marcy asked as she handed her phone to Nolan.
Quinn was from New York City and had married Nolan’s friend, Knox Everett, the quarterback for the local professional football team, the Lexington Thoroughbreds.
Quinn’s best friend, Helena Diakos, had been a constant presence in Nolan’s mind since the first time he met her when she’d visited Keeneston.
Helena was out of his league, but that didn’t stop him from flirting.
Or at least trying to. He wasn’t a natural flirt, so he didn’t know if Helena actually noticed his attention or if she thought he was just being nice.
Helena was a little thing compared to him.
He could tuck her up against his chest and wrap his arms around her so she would almost disappear.
But what she lacked in height, she made up for with brains and confidence.
Yet when Nolan danced with her at Quinn and Knox’s wedding, he felt a protectiveness he’d never felt before.
He wished for nothing more than to hold her in his arms for the rest of his life.
Oh, yeah. Nolan had fallen hard for Helena.
He pressed the play button on the video Marcy was showing him.
His heart stopped beating and he stopped breathing as his stomach bottomed out at the video of Helena taking fire from a warlord.
He glanced down at the headline and saw that she was in South Sudan with no more protection than a boy next to her with a gun.
He had to get to her. He had to do something.
He was already pulling out his phone. He didn’t call Quinn since Marcy said she wasn’t answering. He called Knox instead.
“Nolan. Don’t worry. Helena’s safe.” Thank goodness Knox didn’t mince words.
“What the hell was she doing in South Sudan with no protection? She should have had armed guards with her, not some child with a gun.”
Knox sighed. “I know. Dr. Jace had to give Quinn a sedative. She was so upset after seeing the video on the news, and it took forever to get hold of Helena because she was on a plane. She’s safe.
She’s at The Hague presenting her evidence over the next few days to get a warrant for the man shooting at her, Kazim Garang. ”
Only then did Nolan’s heart begin to beat again. “She’s in the Netherlands? And she’s safe? You’re sure?”
“Yes. I talked to her myself. She’s going to be testifying for the next two days and will then be flying back to New York City. She’s very shook up but not at all hurt. It was her first gun battle.”
Ironically, Nolan had been in more than one.
Keeneston might be a small town, but with royalty, several famous residents, a private military training center, and now the headquarters for Bluegrass Ops, there had been more than one battle in Keeneston.
Miss Violet was a menace with a crepe pan and every Davies—and there were a lot of them—was all trained by their military fathers.
One of them would even teach you how to kill someone with a spoon.
And there was Ahmed. He was in a league of his own.
Nolan was pretty sure Ahmed and the older Davies men still overthrew governments for fun.
“Let me know if anything changes, okay?” Nolan asked, feeling lost. He couldn’t do anything to protect her from here and it wasn’t like he could just hop a plane and go to The Hague.
He had a job here, and he wasn’t a wealthy man.
He was a blue-collar man through and through, which was another reason why Helena was out of his league.
Nolan hung up the phone and handed Marcy her phone back. “Knox said Helena is safe.”
“Oh good. I liked her very much when she was in town.” Marcy told him.
From the corner of Nolan’s eye, he saw a Belle approaching. But then a spatula was whipped out, deployed, and quickly tucked back into Miss Daisy’s large purse. The Belle had been taken care of.
“Helena is such a smart woman,” Miss Daisy added. “She fit right in here when she visited.”
“You’re so right,” Miss Lily agreed. “She belongs in Keeneston for sure.” Another Belle approached and Miss Lily whacked her with a broom, sending her scurrying away.
“Well thank you for the update, ladies. I’m going to grab my dinner and head home. It’s been a long day.”
“Nolan!” Mrs. Beesly said, approaching with a smile. “Did you know my granddaughter joined the Belles? She’d sure love to talk to you about your next calendar. She has ideas.”
“Your granddaughter gets a drink in her and she gets plenty of ideas about men,” Marcy said without a trace of humor.
Mrs. Beesley bristled and stormed off. Nolan thanked them and wished them a good night.
As he walked to the table to join a couple of his friends, he heard Marcy’s voice once more.
“Like hell I’m letting her mess this up for me. I mean him.”
Nolan got his order to go and headed home.
He couldn’t stop watching the video of Helena in the middle of a shootout.
Knox knew how he felt about Helena. It had been love at first sight.
He was a grown man for crying out loud, but he’d been hit harder than a knockout punch the first time he saw Helena.
However, she was champagne and he was beer.
She wasn’t for him, but that didn’t change his feelings for her.
Seeing her in mortal danger, he knew that if he ever got the chance again, he’d make his interest in her crystal clear.
He ran into fires. He could tell a woman he was interested in her, even if he got burned.