Page 26 of Wife Number One

She nodded. “Go,” she said quietly. “I’ll be okay.”

I had to hope she would be. I had to pray our father would be man enough to stand up to Josiah if the time came.

I had to accept I couldn’t save both her and my daughter.

Hayley Jade had to come first.

I turned and fled from the house, silent tears streaming down my face in the cold, dark night of winter.

My breaths frosted around my lips, and my heart rate tripled until I could barely breathe. Panic coursed through my veins, terror pushing me on.

Alice and Hayley Jade waited for me at the edge of the clearing.

Alice stared at me, taking in my tears and swore low under her breath. “She’s not coming, is she?”

I scooped Hayley Jade up from the ground and shook my head, my throat too choked with tears to say anything. But the panic didn’t subside.

Naomi was a good woman. She was exactly what Josiah wanted. I had no doubt in my mind that when she said she was giving us a five-minute head start before she raised the alarm, she meant every word.

“Run,” I choked out to Alice. “God, please. Run.”

9

HAYDEN

Iworked twice as hard as I normally did at the diner that night. It was busy, the cheap restaurant in the middle of Saint View bustling with customers I caught a glimpse of every so often as I pushed plates of burgers and fries through the serving window.

With each order I hit the little silver service bell that signaled Carli, our waitress, to come pick up the food and take it out to the customers. Carli and Simon were run off their feet, but I couldn’t help them. I was too busy running things backstage. The other cook had called in sick, so I was making do with our busboy as a second set of hands. It was working but only barely.

“Fries on the side of that, please.” I passed Toro a plate. “Salad on the second.”

“Yes, Chef,” he said obediently, doing as I’d asked.

I hid a smile. The kid was trying so fucking hard to impress. And he was doing a great job, despite how far behind on orders we were. He was clearly angling for a cooking position, and I couldn’t blame him. Washing dishes fucking sucked.

Creating something beautiful and tasty out of food was infinitely better.

Burgers and fries were beautiful to someone. But I was already thinking about the new dish I wanted to try later that night after we shut up shop and I had the kitchen to myself. It was the only thing that got me here tonight after the auction disaster earlier in the day. My face burned with embarrassment at the very thought of how desperate I’d been.

And at how deeply disappointed I still was that, despite my best efforts, owning my own place was just not in the cards for me.

Unless I wanted to work for Luca fucking Guerra.

I paused in the middle of adding cheese to a burger patty. What was the point of staying late anymore? It was stupid to be practicing dishes I’d never get to serve to anyone other than myself. And it was a waste of ingredients and time. Simon would notice I was using his kitchen without permission eventually, and then I wouldn’t get to cook at all. My apartment didn’t even have a kitchen. Not a proper one anyway. The single hot plate and microwave didn’t count. Simon’s diner might have been a shithole, but he’d kept the kitchen fairly well updated. He’d handed it over to me with grease around the burners and a refrigerator that hadn’t been cleaned out in I didn’t know how long, but it was nothing I hadn’t gotten cleaned to sparkling on my first shift.

I’d kept it like that ever since. It might not have been mine, but I treated it like it was.

“Wipe that spill, Toro,” I admonished the younger man gently. “Keep your workspace clean.”

“Yes, Chef,” he barked out like he was some sort of army recruit, and I was his drill sergeant.

“Not a chef,” I said for the second time in twenty-four hours. “Just a cook.”

Toro didn’t argue, just cleaned up his mess and kept on with the tasks he’d been delegated. We worked in silence for the most part, him only opening his mouth to ask a question if he didn’t understand my instructions.

The bell over the door tinkled, and a new rush of noise filtered back to the kitchen.

Toro groaned as he leaned around me and peered out through the serving window. “It’s the hockey crowd. Game must have just finished.”

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