Walk Through Fire (Chaos #4)(22)

I knew this from experience.

So did Lanie.

And I worried in her zeal she was going to f*ck it all up.

“I think we should go in, introduce ourselves, and come clean,” I told Lanie, even though I was worried that Millie would recognize me from Wild Bill’s.

“I don’t know about that but I do know we should go in and stop Elvira from starting to plan a wedding before Malik proposes,” Lanie replied, shaking her head, her tone turning dire. “That’s bad juju and every girl knows it.”

This was also true.

“Elvira?” We heard through the speaker Elvira had requisitioned from Hawk’s equipment room that was right then in my car, connected to the mic that Elvira was wearing.

“Damn straight,” Elvira answered. “Millie?”

I could actually hear her smile through the speaker as she replied, “That’s me. Please come in. Do you want some coffee? Tea?”

“Let’s go,” Lanie said over Elvira’s response on the speaker.

I nodded, turned off the speaker, threw open my door, and got out, lifting the seat so Lanie could curl herself out of the back.

Then, both of us coming from work to do this, thus both of us in high heels, tight skirts, and fabulous blouses, we hurried up the concrete strips to Millie Cross’s studio.

To get there, we hit a large back courtyard that was covered in attractive pavers, part of it overhung with a pergola that radiated out diagonally from an L in the house. The pergola was also covered in dormant wisteria. There was a shiny red Mazda SUV back there and enough room to park two more vehicles. There were also enormous, eye-catching pots dotted around that had been planted for autumn in purple-pink, lavender, and white cushion mums.

And beyond the courtyard, between the house and the studio, an area you got to under an arch, there was terraced garden, the grade going down. I couldn’t see much of it, but I could see a gazebo.

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.