WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies: Viva La Valentine Edition (2 page)

It really wouldn’t have mattered which of us
received which fate, as we both would have volunteered to suffer
either as long as it was at the expense of the other.

Labeling our relationship as love-hate is
much too generous. There’s
no
love. And way too much
hate.

We’re no Castle and Beckett.

Our books are the same kind of police
procedural crime thrillers of that dynamic Nielsen-ratings duo, but
we don’t have the made-for-TV attraction of Fillion and Katic,
which is what makes that show work.

To be honest, I’m still not sure what makes
Nicky Blane and I work so well together. But we have ten
bestselling books that say we do…at least on paper and in
e-sales.

Nicky Blane is the biggest asshole I know. In
fact, I’m certain Webster had him in mind when stating the
definition. And every thesaurus would be accurate using ‘Nick’ as
an alternative for the word ‘asshole’.

Trying to cool off my attitude and cool down
my coffee, I blew through the hole in the lid another time then
sighed. What I wouldn’t give to be back in Manhattan. What I
wouldn’t give to…

What?!

Not see Nicky waving at me like a suave pig
from the Hertz desk. Maybe I should stop and grab an apple at the
fruit stand that separated us.

Wanting to get the pain over with as soon as
possible, I took a deep breath and quickened my pace to the rental
car center.

Forcing a tight smile, I rolled my suitcase
up and over Nicky’s foot. Oops. So yeah, I guess I wanted to
inflict some pain too.

Seeing him flinch, I relaxed a bit.

Checkmate, Asshole.

But after surmising from the desk clerk that
Nicky was my ride and not a rental, Nicky’s discomfort from my
luggage wheel connecting with his dorsum couldn’t have come close
to matching my displeasure at having to be his passenger.

The jack-ass had cancelled my reservation.
And since Hertz was out of cars, I had no choice but to accept a
ride from Nicky.

“Ahhh, Nicky. If I’d known I had to see you
this soon, I would have had a least one drink on my flight.”

Maybe Pan Am Barbie was smarter than I’d
given her credit for. After all, she had tried to convince me to
have a cocktail.

“Better wipe that shitty grin off your face,
Ms. Allwitch…I mean Ms. Aldredge. For a minute there, I thought you
were actually glad to see me.” Nicky grabbed my carry-on as well as
the rest of my luggage from the carousel then pointed me toward the
exit doors.

“Not in this life-time, Nicky,” I said and
sidestepped his reach to put more distance between us.

“It’s Nick, God damn it! My name is Nick. Not
Nicky.” He moved past me and into the revolving door that spit him
out toward the parking garages.

“Not according to your book covers,” I said
struggling to keep up with him.

“That was your idea, Allwitch. Not mine.” He
glared at me while we scrambled to make an elevator before the door
slid shut.

As the door closed with him in and me out, he
hollered, “Third floor. Take the next elevator or use the
stairs.”

“Asshole”, I said, not giving a damn that the
priest standing behind me heard it.

I stomped up the stairs.

Out of breath by the time I reached the last
landing, I looked up and saw Nicky tapping his foot and studying
his watch.

“Don’t you even think…about goin’ there,” I
huffed and puffed, resenting the fact that he was the big bad wolf
to my now aching little piggies.

I mean, really, who hustles up multiple
flights of stairs in brand new Louboutins?

Chapter Three

“All I was gonna say was Happy Valentine’s
Day, Allwitch,” Nicky said, so sweet and innocent-like I wanted to
kick him in the shin.

Except I couldn’t kick him ’cause my feet
hurt too damn bad. I couldn’t wait to get into my Ugg boots.

“Bite me,” I said and stomped past him.

“Uhm, my car’s this way.”

I stopped mid stomp and turned back to face
him as heat flushed my cheeks and the sweat on my forehead became
glue for my bangs. Although, I was sure those issues were left over
from my impromptu cardio workout.

“I knew that. I just needed some extra
space.”

“Right. Sure you did. What? Are you gifted
with more than word magic now? You also know where cars that you’ve
never seen are parked?”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“So you’ve said.”

And then he did the worst thing he could
do…

He laughed at me.

“Leave it to me to get stuck with a schmuck
on Cupid’s Big Day,” I said.

Noticing he flinched a bit at that, I almost
felt bad.

“A schmuck? Really? Ouch.”

He still opened the car door for me, so I had
to give him a few points back for that.

“Okay. Maybe schmuck was a little harsh. It’s
not like you’re a total oaf. Some would actually argue you’re
brilliant.”

“Now that sounds much more like me.”

“See? There you go. Right back to
Schmuck-ville. When your ego gets the best of you with those shitty
remarks, I can’t stand it.”

Oddly enough, Nicky Blane was then silent for
a long while. Long enough that before he said another word, we’d
exited the parking garage and were already on 465 North headed to
his farm.

“Maybe my ego gets the best of me ’cause no
one else does,” he muttered, barely loud enough for me to hear him
over the heat blasting and the wipers swiping at the ice that was
hitting the windshield.

“What do you mean by that? You’re a
bestselling author many times over. I’d say, with you, every reader
gets the best.”

“I’m not talking about my readers.”

“Then what
are
you talking about?” I
asked, thinking this was a very strange conversation to be having
with “the” Nicky Blane, Mr. Macho, who could have any chick he
wanted and who made a regular habit of keeping a steady stream of
them at his beck and call.

“If you’re referring to women, maybe if you
got to know one, more than overnight, some not-so-bright one might
stick around for a while.”

“Never mind. You’d never understand. And
hell, if you did, you sure as hell wouldn’t care.”

Well now that wasn’t true. Okay. Maybe sort
of. But it’s not like I really actually hated the guy. He just
irritated the hell out of me. Kind of like a pesky fly at a picnic
that keeps showing up when all you want is another bite of your
pie.

“Am I really that much of a cold witch to
you?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer, but knowing
that at least I could count on him to give me the truth.

That’s one positive. The guy never
sugar-coated a damn thing.

“I do call you Allwitch.”

“Point taken.”

“I will give you some credit though. It
wasn’t until after your divorce that I lost all hope in you having
a heart.”

It was my turn to say ouch, which I did.

“I’m that bad?”

“Yep…that bad,” Nicky said, turning onto the
two-lane highway that would take us almost another hundred miles
north to his farm.

“Sorry about that,” I said, settling back
into the ultra-comfy leather of his Cadillac SUV.

“Me too,” he said, clearing his throat then
turning up the soft-rock station currently playing some
over-the-top depressing Air Supply tune.

I sooo did
not
need to be reminded
that I was “All Out of Love”.

Instead of the melancholy music that appeared
to be Nicky Blane’s preference, I decided to focus on the scenery
outside the SUV.

‘Course with Valentine’s Day upon us, I doubt
we had many choices other than love songs.

At least we weren’t tuned into that God damn
Delilah, who I swear had to be the cause of multiple suicides
across her syndicated talk show reach.

Okay…just for the record, I used to luuuvvv
Air Supply and Delilah.

But yes, that was also before The Big D, when
the man I thought was my prince turned into one mighty huge and
ugly-ass bullfrog!

As snowflakes fell around us in a fury,
slamming against the vehicle’s windows then dissolving into big
drops of water, I thought about what a flake I’d been to fall for
Hank Aldredge.

What if my heart and soul never thawed out
and instead remained frozen as solid as the two-foot high snow
drifts lining these northern Indiana country roads?

Chapter Four

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I awoke
to Nicky gently shaking my arm.

“We’re here, Sleeping Beauty. And I must say,
you’re much nicer when you’re napping,” he said then chuckled at
his own lame joke.

“Do you always laugh at your own jokes?”

“Usually. But you know what? I don’t know why
no one else does.”

“Yeah…well…I know why, Asshole.”

I stretched and tried to casually wipe my
glove along the corners of my mouth. Damn. I hope I hadn’t drooled
or talked in my sleep. I’ve been known to do both.

While I swiped at my chin, the SUV bumped
along the gravel drive up the decent-sized hill leading from the
road to Nicky’s farmhouse.

Every tree glistened as if the branches were
crystallized in diamonds.

I caught a glimpse of his old farmhouse
between wiper blade passes of thick, wet snow. Wow! The place
looked like one gigantic, real-life replica of a Thomas Kinkade
painting.

Every light in the huge two-story house was
burning bright, guiding us home like a beacon in the midst of this
winter storm.

No wonder Nicky loved to retreat here to
write. It had its very own kind of magic.

All previous tracks to the house were gone,
and the snow crunched beneath our tires. It must have been snowing
for a while now.

“How much snow are you expecting
tonight?”

“Forecast says a good foot and a half. But
out here, thanks to the drifting, it often looks like more than
that.”

“A foot-and-a-half?!”

Leave it to me not to check the weather
report. I wish I was that organized, but I wasn’t. Those kinds of
things had always been Hank’s specialty, not mine.

Come to think of it, if I’d been more
inclined to check on things regarding my life in general, I’d
perhaps have saved myself the frog hell that resulted from being
Mrs. Hank Aldredge.

“What’s wrong with a blizzard? It will be a
total winter wonderland by tomorrow morning. I love that,” Nicky
said, his eyes suddenly twinkling more than the snow crystals
dancing in front of the antique lamp post at the top of what should
be stairs leading up to his home.

“Oh. I get it. You’re afraid of being stuck
here…with me…the rest of the week,” he said, the twinkle replaced
by a dark storm of recognition of what I must dread worse than the
storm.

“Well, I’m certainly not afraid to be stuck
with you. I just don’t
want
to be stuck with you.”

“Oh yes. Right. That would bring you right
back to being…let’s see…how did you put that? Stuck with a
schmuck.”

“I already apologized for that,” I said,
starting to truly get how much my comment had bruised his
surprisingly fragile ego.

Although I knew better than to think I’d
bruised his heart. Nicky Blane didn’t have one.

“No, you didn’t apologize.”

“Not in so many words.”

“Precisely. And I’m more of a word guy. Which
I’m sure you can relate to.”

There was no need for me to remind him yet
again that he was an asshole. My eyes narrowing to thin slits
probably clued him into my thoughts.

I threw open the passenger door and Mother
Nature took over. The wind was gusting so strong, I could barely
hang onto it.

“Damn!”

“It gets pretty wicked out here during this
kind of storm,” Nicky shouted over the fierce sounds of the trees
being whipped and whirled. “Let me get you in the house, then I’ll
come back out for your luggage.”

“I’ll help you.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, staring down at my
spike-heeled booties. “But in this snow, those beasts are gonna be
a real bitch.”

“I’ll manage,” I said, waiting while he
opened the rear of the Escalade so we could load up our arms with
the waaay too many suitcases I’d packed.

I made it to what should have been the first
step before I ended up on my ass, my ankle twisted underneath one
of my bags.

“Shit!” Nicky dropped his load of my luggage
and knelt down beside me. “Are you okay? I told ya those shoes were
gonna do you in.”

“Go ahead and say it,” I said, trying sooo
hard to keep tears from arriving and then freezing on my damn
eyelashes.

“You know I’m always right. Why would I need
to repeat that at a time like this?”

“Asshole.”

“Now I know you’re okay,” he said while
helping me to my feet.

I started to reach for my bags, but with a
firm grip on my arms and a don’t-even-think-about-it look in his
eyes, he stopped me.

“I’ll get these. Let’s just get you into the
house before you break something.”

Together, with dangerous slips and slides the
entire way, we finally made it up and onto the sweet safety of the
enormous wrap-around porch and hustled toward what looked to be the
kitchen door.

Before Nicky could get the correct key from
his ring into the keyhole, a tiny, pleasantly plump older woman had
the door open for us.

“Come in. Come in. Oh, I’m sooo glad you made
it safely home, Sir Nicholas.”

“Sir Nicholas,” I mouthed to him.

“Yes…well…no worries then, Molly. We’re
home,” he said, using one of his large hands to push me the rest of
the way into the kitchen so he could leave the blizzard
outside.

“I’m Samantha Aldredge,” I said, reaching out
my hand to shake Molly’s.

Finding her returning my gesture with a
super-strong grip, I was a tad surprised. She didn’t look the part
for the owner of such a firm handshake.