Loved By The Hero (Hero Romance 3) (3 page)

Chapter Seven

“Why are you humming like that?” Priscilla asked as she sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and hugged a mug of coffee with her hands.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does happiness in the morning upset you?” Elaine asked cheerily as she flipped a pancake and smiled down at Thomas, idly watching her make his breakfast.

“When my daughter, who’s never happy in the morning, is humming, I’m worried that she’s going to commit a heinous crime. Maybe she’s thinking about burying me in the backyard six feet under right now.”

“What’s six feet under?” Thomas asked innocently, ever observant now that he was older and able to understand all that they said.

“Nothing,” the two of them chimed at the same time.

“I’m just happy, is all,” Elaine answered as she plopped the pancakes onto a plate and sat Thomas down at the table. She held the glass mixing bowl over the hot griddle questionably as she looked at her mother. Priscilla shrugged a shoulder and Elaine took that as a yes.

She was nervous about bringing up Ethan with her son around, but she was going to have to eventually. Just not today, so she didn’t tell her mother that he was home. “So are you working today?” Priscilla inquired like she did every morning.

Elaine looked at her son and felt a pang of guilt, but she had spent a lot of time with him and she figured it would be okay that for one day she took the day off and spent it with someone else. She still didn’t want to break it to him, so she didn’t answer her mother right away. Thomas swung his feet back and forth as he ate, but she knew that despite his engrossment with the pancakes, he was still listening.

When he slid out of his chair and washed his hands and face at the sink, she sent him to change for his play date with Jacob. “I’m not working today,” she told her mother quietly as she cleaned up her morning mess.

“I figured as much. So when will you be back? And when are you going to introduce him properly?” Priscilla prodded uncharacteristically.

“Soon,” Elaine told her mother before she gave her a kiss on the cheek and ran up the stairs to get ready herself.

She walked Thomas across the lawn to Jacob’s home and greeted him at the door. They exchanged hellos, goodbyes, and a young boy. Once Thomas was settled in, Elaine walked across the street to the dark car parked in between the others. She slid into the passenger seat and took a deep breath.

“Good morning,” Ethan purred as he reached his hand across the center console to take hers.

“We need to talk,” she told him quietly as she looked at him and took his hand. She didn’t want him to think that he had done anything wrong.

“I know,” Ethan said as he started the car and put it in reverse. He didn’t say anything as he drove her out of town and pulled into the parking lot of the nearby state park. It was just starting to flurry, but Elaine had read the weather report that morning and knew that it was only going to be a quarter of an inch at best.

Ethan turned off the car and they sat in silence. “Why did you bring me here?” she whispered as she looked around at the trees.

“Well, if I had taken you to a diner, there’d be people who could overhear. If I had taken you home, my mother would try to fatten you up with leftover grits. And I figured you didn’t want to go back inside with your mother because she’d force us to read the cards. So, an empty parking lot on a day where it’s snowing so no one will go hiking seems pretty good, right? Oh, I brought provisions.”

He reached into the back and pulled up a box with six donuts and leaned over the center console to grab a cup holder with coffee. Elaine didn’t have to ask why he had been driving slowly anymore.

“Can you read my mind, Ethan Mack? I mean, did you wake up this morning and know I was going to tell you we needed to talk?”

“You seemed conflicted last night, so I figured you would want to talk this morning. Besides, if we weren’t going to talk, we were going to do something else out here.”

“It’s thirty-two degrees out there!” Elaine exclaimed as she took her lukewarm coffee. It smelled like peppermint and her mouth began to water.

“It feels pretty warm when I’m between your-”

“Enough,” she chastised after she swallowed her mouthful of coffee. She smiled at him to soften the blow of her words, and he smiled back mischievously. “I want to talk about Thomas, and-” she stopped as she closed her eyes and tried to get rid of the anger building. “Trey,” she finished quietly.

Ethan didn’t say a word as he waited for her to begin. He didn’t sip his coffee either, so she knew she had his full attention. “My husband died in a fire. I’m sure you know that from around town, and I’m sure that you know it was a foolish death.”

“Foolish is a strong word,” Ethan told her quietly.

“He ran into a building to save a coworker when he knew he had a young son and a wife at home.” There it was, the anger boiling to the surface. She tamped it down and swallowed, but it wasn’t staying down for long. “He put his life at risk and he lost, Ethan. He left me alone with our little boy and put a man’s life at risk and that man almost lost it. He almost died trying to save my husband. If he had stayed outside, that woman might have lived or she may not have, but he would have lived. He would have been able to see his son graduate high school and go off to college. Get married.

Thomas and I, we’ve been doing okay because Thomas was little and doesn’t remember the weeks that followed after his father’s death. But he knows the loss of his father every day. I can’t bring a man into his life knowing that that man might leave us someday, too. I don’t want him to go through that again, whether he knows it or not.”

Elaine bit her bottom lip to quiet her rambling thoughts and raised the coffee to her lips, but she didn’t drink it. She knew it would sit sour in her stomach if she did. Ethan was looking out the windshield of his car with his coffee between his legs. When she looked over at him, she found she admired the strength he possessed. Then she got to his face and saw the ticking in his jaw.

“I didn’t know how to bring it up, but I think it’s about time I told you. Your mother, she came to visit me in the hospital. I didn’t recognize her, but my mother did. She was there while I was in a coma fighting for my life. The scars on my back? They’re from the burns I suffered running into a burning building. I think-” Ethan stopped mid-sentence and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that building was the one your husband was in, Elaine. I think I’m the man who risked his life to save another man’s life, and I don’t want you to ever feel guilty for that. You should never feel that way because I go to work every day knowing I might risk my life for a stranger’s. That’s a risk I take, and I’d gladly have given up my life to save his. I’d switch places right now with him to know that Thomas would have his father back and that you would have your husband back.

I can’t replace him, but I can tell you that I’d never intentionally hurt you or Thomas.”

Somewhere, deep down inside, she had known it. She had known it the moment her hands had run over those scars, not as vibrant as they must have been a few years ago, but they were still there. He never took his shirt off facing away from her, and now she knew it was because he must have felt ashamed. He must have felt guilty for not being able to save another human being when that was his job. It was written on his face, and the fear he felt that she would reject him was there, too.

“Ethan,” she said as she brushed away her tears and reached out a hand to grasp his. “I’m not happy my husband died, in no way shape or form, but I’m glad you’re here with me,” she told him. She pulled him in and cradled his head to her chest as she marveled that she was the one who was giving the comfort when she had thought she’d be the one receiving it.

They were silent for quite some time, and as she thought and let her mind wander; Elaine realized she knew what the reading had meant. The anger she had felt was strongly diminished, and she knew what her future held.

Chapter Eight

The doorbell rang, her heart stopped, and her mother seemed to pounce like a cat that had found a mouse. Thomas made train noises as he played with the wooden one with the red paint peeling. She was holding a cup of tea in her hands and gently placed it on the kitchen table as she took a deep breath. Then she traversed the space between her and the entranceway to the kitchen and smiled at Ethan as he said hello to her mother.

“Well, come on inside. It’s bitter cold out there and I’m sure your mother doesn’t like to be kept waiting, oh hello, Marjorie! I didn’t see you behind your tall, statuesque son!” Her mother never missed a beat, and Ethan was pushed to the side like a forgotten, old Christmas gift.

He was holding all the gifts in his arms as if he’d just been drug along on a shopping trip with a shopaholic.

“Good morning,” he whispered when he was finally able to get past Marjorie and Priscilla.

“Good morning,” Elaine whispered to him. She chanced a quick kiss before she led him into the living room to deposit the gifts. Thomas was ignoring the hubbub as he crashed his train into a dump truck. He made crunching noises and swooshing noises and flung the two into the air.

Then he grabbed the fire engine and began to make the alarm sounds. Ethan stepped up behind him with his hands in his pockets. He watched a moment before he squatted down beside the boy and smiled at him. “You know the police officers, come to the scene of an accident, too.” Thomas didn’t miss a beat as he grabbed the cop car; a tiny thing compared to the rest of his toys and handed it to Ethan.

He turned it over in his fingers a few times, glanced at Elaine to make sure she was okay, and then proceeded to introduce himself. “I’m Ethan,” he said as he held out his hand.

“Thomas,” her son responded, grasping the hand as if he were already a tiny man and shaking it. Then he released and went back to crashing his cars together. Ethan handed the police car back when Thomas held out his hand, and they proceeded to talk about what firemen and policemen did at the scene of an accident.

Marjorie and Priscilla were in the kitchen arguing over how long the turkey should be cooked, and Elaine found herself sitting down as she watched her son accept Ethan into his life as if he’d always been there. Her heart swelled with love for the two of them and she felt the worry and fear slowly easing out of her body. No matter what happened, she knew that Ethan wasn’t going to leave her intentionally. He would do the best he could to stick around, and she knew she would eventually accept that he was a firefighter. Every day he would put his life at risk for others, and every day she knew he would do his best to come back to her.

THE END

**BONUS STORIES INCLUDED**

FIRST TIME ONE NIGHT STAND

EROTIC BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE

Chapter One

“There are days where I just want to choke you, Marie.” It was red, silky, and utterly scandalous. She’d look like a runway model wearing this dress, but she’d feel like a washed out pinup girl who was desperate for attention.

“You’ll look great, and that will translate to you feeling great. Come on, you need a night out after that douche bag, Eric, ditched you at that party last week. Besides, it’s bad for your image to be seen sulking around after some nobody dumped you.” Marie smiled and showed a row of perfect, white teeth that could pass as someone’s dentures they were so pristine. It disturbed Claire sometimes, enough that she had nightmares the one night a few weeks ago about Marie’s teeth popping out of her head and trying to eat anyone in sight.

Maybe the nightmare was a prelude to something, but Claire couldn’t think of what it might be.

“My image?” Claire rolled her eyes to the ceiling and chuckled a little too loudly. “I don’t have an image, Marie. I’m a weather girl, remember? No one knows my name, just my face, and that’s only sometimes.”

They were silent a few moments as Marie jutted out her bottom lip and began to pull on it, squeezing it and twisting it as she stared at Claire’s curly locks. “I wish you’d let your hair grow out,” she finally whined as she let go of her lip. “It would be so much easier to straighten that way.”

“I don’t want it straight,” Claire grumped as she stood up from the soft chair in front of her vanity. She’d straightened her hair once in her life and would never do it again. Those straight locks had made her look too round in the face and she’d hated it.

“Then at least let me fix your eye shadow,” Marie stated firmly as she put her hands on Claire’s shoulders and pushed her back into the chair. There was an argument on Claire’s lips, but she let it whisper away with her breath and closed her eyes as Marie started to dab at them.

When she opened them, she wished she’d argued. “Green, Marie?” She narrowed her amber eyes into slits as she stared at the color. If she’d had her choice, she’d have gone with nothing, but Marie thought eye shadow was like looking into someone’s soul.

“Yeah, green. Get over it and put on the dress.”

“But I’ll look like Christmas!”

“Then I guess you’d better smile because people are going to want a happy Christmas.”

Claire wanted to point out Marie’s statement barely made any sense, but she got the gist of it. She was going out because she wanted to have fun, and because Marie wasn’t going to bring her any more sappy romance movies. A girl had to have a little time to mourn her broken relationship that had lasted three years. She still questioned why he’d never asked her to marry him after all that time before she fell asleep at night.

It was pathetic and she knew it.

And that’s why she put on the scandalous red dress that only came to her mid-thigh and had tiny straps across the back. She felt like she was naked, probably because she practically was. “I can’t wear a bra in this thing,” Claire complained as she put her hands over her average breasts.

“You’ve never heard of boob tape?” Marie smirked as she pulled out a roll of tape from her purse, and Claire raised both eyebrows at the picture of how to apply this said ‘boob tape’ to her breasts.

“And if I get lucky?” She questioned as she thought about the look on a guy’s face when he pulled off her dress to find that she had taped her boobs up so they were perkier than usual.

“Oh c’mon, seriously, Claire? Lucky?” They both looked at each other and there was a ghost of a smile on Claire’s lips. It felt good to smile a little, but she didn’t want to let it take her over so it disappeared.

She let her best friend, the one who had brought her romantic comedies, thriller movies, and popcorn over almost every night since Eric had told her he wasn’t in love with her, tape her boobs. He’d done it in front of all her coworkers and his at a party they were supposed to be hosting together. It had been, and would forever be, the most humiliating moment of her life. Wearing a little bit of boob tape was not going to lower her self-esteem any further.

“Alright, you’re all set. Now let’s get out there and show those boys what they’ve been missing! Claire O’Donnell is back on the single’s list!” Marie shouted her last sentence and waved her arms in the air like she was at a rave, and Claire couldn’t help the small smile on her lips. She had to admit it would be nice to find a guy that wasn’t Eric Slate. He’d been so boring in bed she’d almost cried the one night.

“Yeah, single again, yippee,” Claire said with her small smile as she let Marie stuff a clutch purse under her arm and some heels that sparkled and looked like a naughty version of Alice in Wonderland’s red flats.

Their ride to the club was not as glamorous as the time they’d spent together getting ready, considering the cab driver looked like he barely knew where he was going. They were ten minutes late for the opening of the newest club in the city, but Claire’s name had been on the list of the invited. Why, she had not a clue, but she figured it had something to do with the club wanting publicity. Almost everyone at that place was going to be a member of New York’s socialite club, and even if she hadn’t been dating Eric Slater for three years, she’d still have been invite
d
.