Walk Through Fire (Page 21)

This, the clothes Millie wore to Wild Bill’s, and her website told me she was a single woman with not much in her life so she spent her money on herself and her house.

This also made me think we were doing the right thing because I knew what it was like to be a woman of a certain age who was doing the same.

There were good parts about it.

But there were also bad.

And the bad had been written all over Millie’s face in the dark at Wild Bill’s.

I stopped at the door to the studio and looked at Lanie.

She nodded.

I nodded back, took a deep breath, opened the door, and entered.

Two heads turned our way and two sets of eyes got huge.

I ignored Elvira, who looked pissed, and turned my full attention to Millie Cross.

Her hair color was too rich a red to be strawberry blonde, and yet it wasn’t red either, more a deep-hued reddish gold. It had an amazing wave to it that wasn’t kinky or curly, just pretty, and that wave looked natural. It was pulled into a soft, side ponytail that managed to look graceful at the same time professional. She had big, dark brown eyes and a pixie face with one of those moles by her mouth that defined why they were known as beauty marks.

She was wearing a pretty cream blouse that was both immensely feminine with some gentle ruffles down the front, but it, too, was professional. High-heeled, dark brown pumps that, at a glance, I pegged as Manolos.

And, like Lanie and me, she was wearing a pencil skirt, hers tight, brown tweed, and to die for.

Her face started to pale as she stared at me.

“You—” she began.

“I’m so sorry,” I rushed out my words. “Really. Truly. I just…”

Crap!

I hadn’t planned this, so I didn’t know what to say.

“You,” she whispered, face now very pale and her eyes still huge.

“You screwed this pooch,” Elvira hissed as Millie didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. “Say something.”

“I’m Kane Allen’s wife,” I stated. “Um… Tack.”

Something moved over her face.

Not pain. Not fear.

Emptiness.

No.

Armor.

Shit.

“I know Tack,” she stated coldly.

“Well, um… we ran into each other at—” I began.

Her voice was ice when she cut me off to say, “I remember.”

I nodded and threw out my hand. “This is my friend, Elvira. And my other friend, Lanie.” I indicated Lanie, who’d come in behind me. “Lanie’s married to Hopper Kincaid. I think you might know Hop.”

“Indeed I do,” she replied, her words brittle.

Okay, this was not going too well.

I had to lay it out.

“We had a plan, the girl posse and me,” I admitted. “Elvira actually does have a man she’s been living with for a long time and they’re close to…”

I didn’t finish that just in case I’d hex her because Lanie was right about that bad juju.

However, unfortunately, I also didn’t grab my friends and bail.

I struggled on.

“But, well, I saw your face at Wild Bill’s and I talked with Tack about you and I thought that maybe…”

I trailed off when she continued to sit behind her tidy, pretty, delicate, white desk with its squat bunch of pale pink roses shoved tight with green hydrangea in a round vase at the corner, staring up at me emotionlessly.

I’d seen her once for maybe a second and that one time I’d seen her, there was so much emotion pouring off her, I could swear I could taste it.

Right now, void.

Nothing.

“We’re here to help,” Elvira chimed in.

Slowly, Millie Cross’s eyes moved to Elvira, and even Elvira, who feared nothing and no one, not even any of the badass commandos she worked with or the badass bikers she hung with, I could see shiver when the frost of Millie’s gaze touched her.

“You’re here to help,” Millie repeated.

“With High,” Elvira went on.

That was when I saw it. I heard the noise Lanie made behind me and I knew she saw it too.

But I was too busy flinching at pain that wasn’t mine but was visible to extremes. Pain that slashed through Millie’s face before she hid it.

Oh yeah.

There was something going on and as awkward as this was, we were right to come. I knew it. I sensed it with the surety of a woman, the certainty of a mother, the definitiveness of a sister.

“You’re here to help with…” she paused strangely, then emphasized the word, “High.”

“Boy’s in a foul mood,” Elvira shared, either powering through the chill Millie was emanating or she’d put up her shields and was impervious to it. “Spreadin’ that wide through Chaos. Somethin’s gotta be done.”

Again with the strange emphasis. “High is in a foul mood.”

“That’s what I said,” Elvira replied.

“You,” Millie started, then looked to me, “and you,” her gaze went beyond me to Lanie, “and you all came to my place of business, which is also my home, to inform me that High is in a foul mood and you’re here to help.”

“Listen.” I took a step forward. “I know this may seem strange. And we’ve obviously taken you off guard. But I saw High after whatever went down and the boys aren’t really sharing much about your history but you should know that he—”

Millie interrupted me.

“Get out.”

I saw Elvira straighten with a jerk in her seat even as I felt my own body jerk, not to mention the surprise coming from Lanie, who was now standing beside me.