Fanning the Biker's Flame - Piper Davenport Page 0,61
dollars of life insurance on her, with double indemnity if she’d died in an accident, so the D.A.’s theory had been that Freddie intended to have her killed at some point, which was freaky as hell.
He’d also left her a rather large nest egg, considering he hadn’t gotten around to changing any of his legal paperwork to remove her as his beneficiary once their divorce proceedings had begun. She was technically still his next of kin, and since he’d murdered his only living relative, she’d gotten all of his money, along with his mother’s since Freddie was her beneficiary.
And to call it a nest egg was an understatement. Freddie may have complained he’d been broke justifying his reason for taking Jane’s savings to buy a boat, but his mother had been loaded. Over ten million in some account Jane was sure Frederick didn’t know about. She was convinced if he had, he would have killed her a long time ago. She decided to sell the boat and donate the proceeds to the charity Lyric had set up to help low-income people get legal help.
Pulling up to the traditional brick home, I jumped off the bike and set my helmet on the seat. “Oh my god, it’s adorable.”
“Fuck, it really is,” Shadow agreed.
The white pillars framed a red door, and the black shutters gave the brick old-world contrast. It was gorgeous. The front door opened, and Jane rushed out with Rhett following her.
“You just have to buy this,” Jane demanded, hugging us. “It’s absolutely perfect and we could put a gate between our properties, so we don’t have to ring the doorbell.”
“Jesus,” Shadow breathed out, then grinned.
“I promise, I’ll text first and make sure neither of you is naked.”
I laughed. “Okay, let’s go. I’m dying to see it in real life.”
Before we could even walk onto the porch, Shadow lifted me into his arms.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked.
“Carrying you over the threshold.”
“We haven’t bought it yet, crazy man.”
“Baby, the second I saw those pillars, I knew I was a goner, considering that’s always been your dream,” he said. “And now that I see it in person, we absolutely are going to buy it, so in my opinion, it’s a done deal.”
I grinned, kissing him gently. “I’ll be the final judge of that.”
And I was.
We moved in forty-five days later, a brand-new marriage certificate to go with the deed, because of the positive pregnancy test I’d taken a week before we closed on the house.
Shadow had rushed me, my mother, Jane, and Cat down to the courthouse to ‘make an honest woman’ out of me, and now I was Mrs. Nolan Grant, soon to be mother of a noodle yet to be named, and my life was perfect.
Our love, like steel, had been forged in flames. At first, fragile, but now strong enough to withstand any battle.
Unedited Excerpt Copyright Trixie Publishing, Inc. ©2020-2021
Shutter & Catalina’s Story, Coming 2021!
CHAPTER ONE
Catalina
I had just hung up a call from an absolutely adorable little boy who’d called 9-1-1 to order a pizza. Most days, my job consisted of some really terrifying moments in a person’s life, but today had been a sweet one.
“Cat, there’s a little girl asking for you,” my boss, Melonie, said as she rushed to my desk. She was the supervisor for our department and typically walked the floor, headset on ready to jump in and help if anyone needed her. “Line one.”
I answered the call, “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“Cat,” a quiet voice sniffed.
“Yes, this is Catalina. Who’s this?”
“Nova,” she whispered. “Mama’s sleeping. I can’t wake her up.”
Nova was Darlene’s six-year-old daughter. Darlene was the ex-girlfriend of one of my best friends on the planet and even though Silas wasn’t Nova’s father, and had broken up with Darlene two years ago, he still had a relationship with Nova.
My stomach churned. “Okay, honey. Do you know if Mama fell over?”
“I don’t know,” she said on a sob. “Mama, wake up. She’s cold. Imma get a blanket.”
Shit.
“No, baby, don’t get her a blanket, okay? Just stay on the line with m. I’m sending help.”
My fingers flew over the keyboard as I dispatched everyone I could think of.
“Can you call Shutter? I don’t know his number and Mama’s phone is broken.”
“How are you calling me?”
“There is a phone on the wall.”
I remember Darlene mentioning once that she had a land line in case of an emergency because the home address always popped up on our screens. With a cell phone, it was a crapshoot.
“Good girl.