Figure out who the fuck stopped the bomb from going off or defused it (because it definitely wasn’t her)
And get a good night’s rest
But first, she needed to take Isabella to the bake sale. Funny…here she was, making another list. Back to the front of The Council Building, tears dried to her cheeks, wheezing for air, and somehow, happy about it.How? How did we get here?
“What were you thinking!” She whirled to face Nik who grinned at her. He pulled her into his arms. She squirmed, slapping his arms. “No! No you don’t!”
Katarina broke free of his embrace to put a finger in his face. “You disappeared! What happened to you? Why do you look like you got eaten by the woods? How fucking dare you act like everything’s okay! Where’s-”
“Momma!” Isabella cut her off and she took a well needed breath. She stared at her pink cheeked baby girl in her ducky pajamas, happily laid against Jessie’s chest. “Bake sale, Momma.”
“Yes, Bug, bake sale,” she sighed, shoulders slouching.
Jessie winked at her, already jogging toward the parking lot. She took one step only to have a long, stinky arm wrap around her. She stiffened at first as alarm bells rang in her head.Oh fuck, you yelled at him. You just chewed him out!But Nik pressed a sloppy, dirty kiss to her cheek and murmured, “Sorry, Katarina. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
His words were soft and husky. Tears welled instantly, her heart skipping a beat. She peeked at him hesitantly. Nik pressed another kiss to her temple. The warbled, choked sound escapedher without permission. “I didn’t know where you went or if you were coming back.”
“Can’t get rid of me that easy, wicked thing,” he rumbled with a deep from the gut chuckled. “I am sorry. Forgive me?”
“You owe me big time!” she croaked, unable to fight the smile climbing on her lips.
“Is this that little payment fantasy you and Jessie have been playing?” he teased in her ear.
“Might be,” she whispered.
“I promise to pay you in full,” he hummed as he pressed another kiss to her cheek. Katarina scrunched up her face. He chortled, “what?”
“Stinky,” she gagged, pulling away from him.
He dragged her back in with a wicked chuckle, “You love it.”
Katarina took a moment, studying his face. His playful smile fell to a soft, somber straight line. The confession came straight from her chest. “I do…love it. I love you, Nik.” Then she smirked, “which is why you’re going to pay me double with interest for that little stunt.”
He answered her with a smack to her backside, before actually speaking, “Love you too, wicked thing.”
“MOMMA!” Isabella roared from halfway across the parking lot. “BAKE! SALE!”
“Right,” the pair both rumbled with laughter as they followed her demanding, but delightful child to the truck.I still have so much to do. And I’m still a mess. But…I’ve always liked messy.
Chapter Thirty-Seven:
~Jessie~
“Shit,where’sBigBobby?”Jessie hissed under his breath as he searched the floorboards for the gnome he left in the truck. When they rolled up, they came screaming into the parking lot. Isabella was wailing about wanting to see Katarina, a mutual feeling between him and Bug. However, they were in a bit of a clusterfuck. People were gathering at the front door gawking, Isabella was demanding to see her mother, and Nik was trying to spot a familiar car in the parking lot.Where is it? Where did he put it?
Only for the entire thing to blow up in Bjorn’s face, literally. Jessie watched in real time as some sort of magical pulse went off and the councilman was thrown backward into the fountain’s marble statue. The pulse didn’t come from a car, but from the slender device in his hand.
They’d thankfully gotten back to the truck without much interrogation thanks to Isabella’s quick thinking. He wasn’t even truly sure she understood how much she’d saved his hide. Maybe one day when she was older, he’d tell her the truth.
