Page 112 of Not Part of the Plan
“Goodbye, Nikolai,” she said with a cool layer of calm that she mustered from her shaking soul.
He didn’t stop her when she turned her back on him. But he also didn’t leave quietly.
“I lost my mother, too. But that pain didn’t turn me into a coward.”
He stalked out, and she listened as his footsteps disappeared behind her. When she was sure he was gone, Emma slammed the door hard and sat down to cry.
She allowed the tears for five full minutes before dragging herself back together. The broken pieces rattled like shards of glass in her belly. She had to get out of here. Needed space to think. What was so wrong with that?
She’d worked her way back up to a full on mad by the time she returned to the bar. The Pierce women had been joined by their husbands, and all conversation stopped.
Jax, the bravest or the dumbest of them, straightened away from the bar.
“What do you need?”
And her heart broke just a little more. Family. The Pierces came through for her even when there was a possibility that she didn’t deserve it.
“I need the day off.”
“Done,” Beckett said, and Carter nodded.
“Em—” Gia began. But Emma was shaking her head at her sister. She didn’t need a pep talk or another verbal beat down. She needed peace. She was still shaking her head when she ran out the front door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Niko pulled into Summer and Carter’s driveway and gunned the bike’s engine before cutting it off. He had taken off from the brewery and the bad feelings there and gone for a ride but found no peace in the spring sunshine.
Nothing had dulled the razor’s edge of anger that cut at him since Emma had dismissed him. He guessed that it would be a long time before that anger mellowed. He hadn’t been prepared to say goodbye to this town and its oddball occupants, but some time and space would do both him and Emma some good.
She’d compared him to the mother who had abandoned her. And that had pissed him off. In a fit of temper, Niko hurled his helmet at the fence. It hit the white wood with a satisfying crack. Satisfaction was quickly replaced with guilt when the pasture gate swung open, its lock broken and wood splintering.
“Shit.” Niko muttered. He was more than old enough to know better than to give in to fits of temper.
He heard a squeal and then another one, and two massive pigs trotted into the pasture from the barn.
“No, no, no!” Niko ran for the gate, but the pigs were faster, muscling their way through the opening and jogging into the driveway. “No! Get back in your pasture,” he ordered.
His demands were ignored, and the slightly smaller pig started up the driveway at a gleeful trot.At least it wasn’t running for the road, he thought ruefully. The second pig followed suit, and Niko found himself jogging after them. His pig wrestling skills were untried, and he felt woefully inept to tackle either hulking beast. Besides, carrying them back was not a remote possibility.
He settled for yelling for help, then jogging a few steps, and yelling again. Repeat. Again and again until the farmhouse and its pastures receded behind the crest of a hill. The pigs paid him no attention, and it seemed to Niko that, for the third time that day, he was truly screwed.
Where in the hell was the entire meddling town when you needed them?Niko cursed his fate and faithfully followed the pigs wondering if they’d all eventually be stopped at the Canadian border before he spotted salvation. Another person, an honest to God human being, crested the hill of a field to the west and waved.
“Looks like we’ve got trouble!”
It was Emma’s father, Franklin. Niko could tell by the Hawaiian shirt and cloud of silver hair. He’d never been so glad to see another man in his entire life.
“Help!” Niko yelled back. “I have no idea how to catch a pig or what to do with one once it’s caught.”
Franklin hustled down the hill, his red and blue Hawaiian shirt billowing in the breeze. “Maybe we can herd them into a pasture,” he suggested when he reached Niko’s side.
It was the best idea Niko had heard all day. “Yes! Let’s do that!”
“You run ahead of them and try to scare them back this way, and we’ll see if we can’t coax them into the north pasture over here. I’ll man the gate,” Franklin offered.
Niko’s reply died on his lips when a yellow-eyed, brown-furred blur galloped between them on the path.
“Oh, shit.”
