Single Mom’s Firemen: A Contemporary Reverse Harem Romance (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems)

“Halle, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Chase’s voice hums through my head as if I’m stuck on the inside, looking out into a brand-new world. My ears work fine. My limbs move. My heart is beating fast, but it’s beating. My breathing is even again. Everything is within normal parameters as the police sirens wail louder and louder. I hear tires screeching outside.

“I think I’m okay,” I manage, still sitting on the floor. I look over my shoulder again. Colby is still there, still dead. It’s finally quiet in the center of my soul where he’s been screaming and clawing at me for so many years. My abuser, my tormentor, is finally gone.

Chase kneels down beside me and carefully measures me from head to toe, surprisingly calm in light of what just happened. “Are you in any pain?” he asks.

“Everywhere. It hurts everywhere,” I reply. “Ever since I was tased.”

“We need a paramedic in here!” Chase calls out as armed SWAT officers and cops swarm the house from both the front and the back.

I stare at Eric as he calmly and slowly puts his gun on the floor, then raises his hands in the air while the officers cautiously approach him. “Colby Nash is dead,” he tells them. I recognize Charlie Drucker as he rushes into the room and stops to stare at the scene before him. “I had no choice,” Eric adds. “He was going to kill Halle.”

“I know, buddy,” Charlie sighs. “It’s alright. I get it.”

“Self-defense,” Eric says.

And any sane human being on this earth would agree. It doesn’t wipe away the guilt dripping from his voice or the realization of what he did. Something switched off inside of Eric. The minute he learned I’m pregnant, his whole demeanor shifted. His entire frame darkened, and I could see him staring at Colby with a new intent, his blue eyes the sharpest sapphire. I could almost hear the hatred in his head.

The next few minutes unfold like a dream of sorts.

Chase holds me close, and I lose myself in his embrace. I welcome his strength around me, my rock keeping me safe, reminding me that I am loved and protected. They saved me. They paid a hefty price in the process, but the Danson brothers saved me and my kids. They kept their promise, despite the twists and turns that almost tore us apart.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says after the paramedics check me.

“She still needs to go to the hospital to make sure the baby’s okay,” one of the emergency responders says.

I nod slowly. “Yes, please. I need to know everything’s all good.”

Around us, the detectives and federal agents mill about, discussing the situation and the scene in front of them. I catch snippets of the conversation along with the occasional contribution from Chase. He liaises with Charlie as the whole team agrees on the final story to be told to the judge and the press.

It was self-defense. Eric had no choice. As for everything that happened on the way over here, it will work itself out before the investigation is over. With Colby dead, there’s no need for a trial, no need for the prosecution to pursue this further.

“They can focus on Harriet Nash, instead,” Charlie says at one point.

Chase gives him a wry smile. “You’re gonna be so happy when you find the present we left you in her office.”

“What present?”

“We wanted to make sure we covered every base before we came here,” Chase replies.

I’m holding an ice pack up to my cheek. It’ll bruise and swell some more by morning, but the paramedic said nothing appeared broken.

“Mama!” I hear Luna’s voice outside.

Instantly, I head for the door. They won’t let my children come in because of Colby, so I rush out into the front yard, ignoring every cop and crime scene investigator as I spot Luna and Sammy waiting on the sidewalk, next to a black-and-white. Wyatt is with them, smiling warmly as he sees me coming.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I take my babies in my arms and hold them close, showering them with all the love I have. My heart sings as I feel their warm skin on my lips, as I breathe them in and thank the heavens for keeping them safe.

“Mama, you’re okay!” Sammy says, planting a sweet kiss on my cheek.

“I am, honey, and I am so much better, now that I have you both with me,” I reply.

“Where’s Daddy?” Luna asks with a worried look on her face.

I glance back at the house, fully aware that they’re going to start bringing the bodies out in black bags. “He’s not going to hurt us anymore,” I say. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that frightening stuff, baby. We’re gonna be okay, from now on.”

“Safe,” Luna says with a sullen nod.

“You’re always gonna be safe,” Wyatt chimes in, then helps her and Sammy into the back of the black-and-white. “You two need to stay here for a little while, okay? Your mom and I need to work some stuff out with the nice police officers. Sergeant Downing is gonna keep an eye on you,” he adds, nodding toward the officer standing next to the car. “Can you?” he asks Sergeant Downing.

“Sure thing, Wyatt. Don’t worry about it,” Downing replies.

“We’re all friends here,” Wyatt says to me with a half-smile, but it’s the love in his eyes that has me melting. “You really are okay,” he adds, as if surprised by how everything turned out. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

“All thanks to you, Chase, and… Eric,” I say before pausing and looking at the house again. “He killed Colby.”

Wyatt lets a heavy sigh roll from his chest. “It couldn’t have been easy. Honestly, I thought Chase was going to be the one to do it.”

“Yeah, me too. I think it’s why I’m still in shock,” I mumble.

“Come here, baby,” he says and takes me in his arms. I need and welcome the closeness. I need to smell his cologne, to feel his lips on my temple, to simmer in his embrace as he hugs me, tighter and tighter.

Around us, the world continues but in his arms, it’s just me and him.

Time resumes its flow. Crime scene technicians gather evidence, take photos, record everything on their tablets. Uniformed officers cordon the entire property off while the detectives and the federal agents in charge exchange notes and opinions. The two of us lean against a cop car and watch everything unfold as if it were nothing more than a true crime documentary. I almost forget that we’re the protagonists.

I catch a glimpse of Colby’s bag as they wheel him out and load him in the back of a black coroner van. A few moments later, Eric and Chase exit the house, leaving Charlie behind to deal with the task force and what I presume will be considerable fallout.

“We did this without his permission,” Wyatt mutters. “Charlie’s gonna have to pick up some of the pieces. The DA will be pissed off, but it’s done and dusted. All they have to do is build their ironclad case against Harriet Nash and her cohorts.”

“I still don’t fully understand what happened,” I say.

Eric is quiet as he comes over, his gaze fixed on me. Chase, on the other hand, seems cooler, almost at ease in light of the events that transpired.

“Actually, I take that back. I do understand,” I huff, recalling where it all started in the first place. “It’s my fault. I took the kids out on my own. I shouldn’t have—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Wyatt interrupts me. “You will not blame yourself for any of this, Halle.”

“But I am to blame,” I reply. “Look at what happened, at what you had to do just because I wanted some time alone with my kids, trying to do normal family things during anything but normal times!”

Guilt hits me like a ton of bricks. None of this would’ve happened if we’d just stayed at home. It was such a beautiful morning. Luna and Sammy were getting restless. They’d been asking to see the ducklings for days, and the Danson brothers were still sleeping upstairs. It didn’t seem like the worst idea. We had cops watching us. The park was nearby. Yet my worst nightmare still came true.

“Halle, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Wyatt says. “It’s done. It’s over.”

“Eric had to—” I stop myself, a knot tightening in my throat.

Eric comes closer, still quiet, but his eyes soften as he cups my face with both hands and pulls me into a soft, sweet kiss. Everything vanishes for a moment. I feel his love flowing through me like liquid sunshine, filling my veins with sweet warmth and my soul with hope, the kind of hope I know will pull me back into the light. All feels right with the world again.

“I will kill a thousand more if that’s what it takes to keep you and the kids safe, to keep you in our lives.”

“Eric…”

“Halle, don’t even think about blaming yourself again,” Chase cuts in. “We did what we had to do to get you and the kids back.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Wyatt adds. “Colby would’ve come after you again, maybe in worse and even more violent ways. Let’s just be thankful the body count is what it is. It could’ve been much higher.”

“I’m sorry you had to do that,” I say as I look at Eric again.

“I’m not. Colby had it coming. I knew. As soon as he told us you were pregnant, Halle, I knew there was no other way out. We didn’t come to peacefully negotiate with him anyway. I was just waiting for the right moment for one of us to put a bullet in his head.”

Chase sighs. “I’m almost sorry I wasn’t the one to do it.”

“Wait,” Wyatt says, trying to process the news he wasn’t inside for. “You’re pregnant?”

I look at him and nod. “I am.”

A wide grin splits his handsome face and I see true happiness in his eyes. It sets the world right again.

“Halle, I love you like I’ve never loved anyone before in my life,” Eric says. “We all love you, and we will do everything in our power to keep you. Do you understand that?”

“I love you,” Chase says the words.

“I happen to love you too,” Wyatt adds with a soft smile and a tremor in his voice. “We’re just hoping it’s mutual at this point.”

I can’t help but laugh lightly. “Are you kidding? I love the three of you so much, it hurts.”

“Good,” Chase says.

“I just can’t believe it’s over,” I manage, my eyes wet and my chest full of things I can’t explain. It’s as if my body is finally catching up and experiencing true relief.

“It is over,” Eric says, then points back at the house. “And trust me, it’ll be over for what’s left of the Nash family, too.”

I give him and his brothers a curious look.

“They’ve been taken care of,” Wyatt says.

I’m stumped. “Taken care of?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Come morning, Harriet Nash will get an extreme rude awakening,” Eric says, clearly pleased with himself.

He goes on to tell me all about their entire process of how they found me, from storming Harriet’s office to checking the addresses they managed to get out of her, the brief, but bloody stop at the apartment building where Colby hid right after the BOLO came out, to their final stop here.

I listen in awe and shudder upon hearing the details of what they had to deal with, of what they went through in order to get to me and Sammy and Luna.

The more I learn, the deeper my love grows for them. These men went to hell and back to find me and my kids. They feared nothing expect the prospect of losing us.

What we have is unique. And we have already proven that we’re willing to fight to the end in order to be together. All of my previous attempts to run away fade in the back of my mind.

I will never leave them again.