In other words, Daniel Hart was telling me he could get to me.

“Joe,” I whispered.

“He can’t bypass it,” Joe stated.

“He knows it then he can bypass it.”

“He can’t.”

“But, Joe, he knows –”

“Vi, he’d have to shut down the electrical grid for the entire fuckin’ county to bypass my system.”

I blinked at him then I asked, “Really?”

“Yeah. That wirin’ Chip fucked up?” he asked and I nodded yet again. “There you go,” he finished secretively, not enlightening me any further to the method to his madness that made him Security to the Stars.

“Why has he not done anything for weeks and now a box?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Joe answered.

“Should I tell my girls?”

“Don’t know.”

He was full of it, he might not know but he had an opinion.

“You never know what’s right with kids, you just wing it so what do you think? Should I tell the girls?” I pressed.

He sighed and his hands slid from my jaw to my neck and down my back so he was holding me loosely in his arms.

“They’re smart, they’re aware of the situation, they love you. Think they’d be pissed, buddy, you didn’t clue them in.”

I nodded. He was right, even though I wasn’t certain I’d do it seeing as I was a Mom and didn’t want to freak them out more than they already were.

“What was in the box?” I asked.

“Didn’t open it, Colt’s comin’ to get it. You got a restraining order against him; he shouldn’t be sendin’ you gifts. You got the RO in Illinois, I need to check with Colt to see if the RO is in effect in the State of Indiana, likely is. We’ll be havin’ a conversation about that later and they’re gonna go over the box, maybe they can lift a print, lean on him for breaking the RO.”

“Hart wouldn’t make that mistake with the prints.”

Joe sighed, his arms gave me a gentle squeeze then he said, “I know.”

I stood in his arms, feeling both pissed that this had started again and it just never seemed to freaking go away and feeling scared because this was back, it was here, in this safe little town and it just never seemed to freaking go away.

“I’ll be over for your seafood, buddy,” he said.

I focused on Joe and blinked.

“What?”

“Your brother and his woman, you’re making your seafood shit, I’ll be here.”

Was he inviting himself over for a family dinner?

“Um…” I mumbled.

“I get to know him at dinner, we have a nice night, move it to J&J’s. I ask him to play a game of pool, have a word.”

Oh. He wasn’t wanting to be part of the family dinner, he was thinking about doing the favor I asked him to do.

This was both nice and disappointing.

“Okay, we’ll be doing that Saturday.”

“I’ll be here.”

I nodded again and told him, “Tina Blackstone saw me coming out of your house this morning.”

He stared at me a second then he muttered, “Great.”

I tilted my head to the side and asked, “Thought you didn’t care?”

His eyes locked with mine and he said, “Don’t, but you do and that means I gotta walk over to that bitch’s house and lay it out for her. Don’t like her, don’t wanna walk over there and lay it out for her.”

“Lay it out for her?”

“Tell her she keeps her mouth shut or it’ll piss me off. Lay it out for her,” he explained.

I stared at him, feeling his hard, warm chest under his tee where my hands were resting thinking that it was a miracle how he could be so detached and so involved at the same time. Protecting me and the girls in a variety of ways, taking care of us in other ways and yet, at the same time, in a weird way, holding himself apart and not really being there.

Suddenly he asked, “Your walls thin?”

“What?” I asked back, confused at his strange question.

He tipped his head to the wall that connected my room to the rest of the house. “At my place, buddy, the walls are paper thin. Same here?”

I looked over my shoulder at the wall.

My room had been built as an extension so the side wall used to be the back wall of the house. The rest of the house the walls were paper thin. If I was in the kitchen or living room, I could hear the girls in their rooms. If I was in my room, nothing, as evidenced when Kenzie Elise rang the doorbell.

“This is an extension,” I told him.

“Know that, Vi,” he told me.

“That wall is pretty solid.”

He looked at the wall then back at me and he nodded.

“Why?”

“Don’t want your girls to hear me comin’ in. Really don’t want them to hear me fuckin’ you.”

I felt my breath catch.

Then I whispered, “What?”

“He’s playin’ his games with you, first, you aren’t gonna wanna leave your girls here alone, second, I don’t want them here alone. So, I gotta come to you.”

And there it was again, detached but involved.

A miracle.

“Joe –”

“What time do they go to sleep?”

“Joe –”

His loose arms tightened. “What time, buddy?”

He wasn’t going to let it go so I answered, “Ten, but they aren’t out until eleven. I mean, Keira is. She likes her sleep and drops off immediately. Kate texts Dane for awhile and listens to music but she’s usually out by eleven.”

“I’ll wait until after eleven.”

“Joe –”

“You want me to stay away?” he asked and I didn’t, I knew I didn’t, which was totally fucked up.

“No.”

“You got a key to the sliding glass door?”

“I did but I’ve lost it.”

“Find it,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I whispered, throwing my bid for Mother of the Year in the garbage.

“I’ll come in, they won’t hear me. I’ll be gone before they get up. They’ll never know I’m here,” Joe assured me.

I figured that was true. Even when I was awake, Joe could sneak up on me.

“Okay.”

His voice got low and tight, like he was forcing out what he was saying and I knew why when he admitted, “Don’t like that shit, Vi. Us next door sleepin’, some fuckwad comin’ to your house while the girls are here, droppin’ off gifts.”

Shit, that was a lot more involved than it was detached.

Why did he constantly give me mixed signals? It was driving me up the freaking wall.

“I don’t either,” I agreed.

“So, we do our thing here.”

“Okay.”

He looked at the door. “How you gonna play it with the girls?”

I took in a deep breath then I let it out. “Don’t know yet. I need to think about it.”

He nodded, telling me he’d keep it quiet then he said, “Pancakes.”

“Yeah.”

He let me go, took my hand and walked me out of my room.

* * *

I sat in my car, doors locked like Joe ordered me to keep them and I stared at Bobbie’s Garden Center.

I was early for work and I had a lot on my mind, a lot I needed to get sorted before I clocked in.

Earlier, Joe and I had left my room only to smell bacon cooking.

The smell hit me; it was an emotional hit, instant and hard.

Since Tim died, the girls and I had pancakes, not bacon, the pancakes enough to fill us up.

On pancake Sunday when Tim was alive, we had bacon because Tim liked bacon and pancakes weren’t enough to fill him up.

The girls had made bacon for Joe.

Me having a conversation with Joe in my bedroom was not normal, in fact, it’d never happened but the girls didn’t comment. They didn’t ask questions. They just threw us looks, waiting for me or Joe to share. We didn’t and, surprisingly, they let it go.

Like when Sam was there, Joe took Tim’s seat and this hit me hard too. Minutes later, it hit me harder because the girls again didn’t seem to mind. They acted like Joe sat there all the time. They didn’t act like this was strange or uncomfortable. They were animated, talkative, not desperately so, naturally, even Kate.

And as we settled into eating, I found I liked this, like I liked it when Tim was alive and we had pancake Sunday. Family sitting around the table, eating, talking about the week they had, the week to come.

Joe also seemed at ease. Not talkative, Joe wasn’t talkative but, in his mostly non-verbal way, he encouraged the girls to do it.

Keira I knew had designs on Joe for me because she liked him and she wanted him to know she liked him. Therefore she chatted enthusiastically with Joe about every subject under the sun. None of these subjects Joe had even a hint of interest in, he couldn’t, it was teenage girl stuff, but he never let on that he didn’t.

It was Kate who surprised me. When she got to talking about some of the bands she liked, Joe told her he knew their music, he hadn’t met them like The Buckley Boys, but he listened to the bands she liked. I could tell he liked Kate’s taste and I could tell Kate liked this music, more than I expected. She was really into it and she enjoyed sharing that with Joe since he liked their music too. But it was more, she seemed to take his approval of her taste as praise and she blossomed under it, I saw her do it right over pancakes.

Joe left, we did the dishes and, as the girls got ready for their day, I searched for the key to the sliding glass door. I found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen, having no clue how it got there since keys went on the hook by the side door, but I suspected Keira was the culprit mostly because she always was.

Before I went to work, I took it over to Joe’s.

I knocked on his front door, wanting to give the impression, should anyone be watching, that this was a friendly neighborly visit, rather than getting caught by someone while I snuck around the back which would indicate a very friendly neighborly visit.

When Joe opened the door he was wearing nothing but loose athletic shorts and expensive looking running shoes and he was sweating a lot. He destroyed my neighborly visit ploy by grabbing my hand, yanking me into the house and slamming the door.

I saw a bunch of weights in the living room I hadn’t noticed before, a weight bench pulled into the center of the room. He was working out.

Um… yum.

I looked from the bench to him and, holding the key up between us, I said, “Key.”

His hand closed on the key, his other hand nabbed me around the back of my neck, his head came down and he kissed me, hard and long.

I was breathing heavily, my hands on his sweat slicked chest when his head came up.

“Great pancakes, buddy,” he murmured then let me go, turned away and walked to the kitchen like he hadn’t just laid a huge kiss on me, one that made my knees weak and my breath heavy.

I tried to get my head together and my body under control as I heard the key hit his kitchen counter, he went back to the weight bench and grabbed a bottle of water. He tipped his head back to take a long swallow and I walked to his kitchen, washed his sweat from my hands and then walked to the front door.

“Bye, Joe,” I called, my hand at the door and his eyes hit me.

“Tonight, buddy,” was his farewell.

I nodded and walked to my car.

I was getting in deep and I knew it. I liked him and I liked him more every time I was with him. Now I liked that my girls obviously liked him.

But that wasn’t where it could go, not for Joe who was happy with me sleeping in his bed after I’d been out on a date with another guy, something I wasn’t happy with, something that hurt.

And I knew it would never go there unless I fixed him and I had no idea how to fix him but I had the strong suspicion that trying would be even more heartbreaking because I suspected, no matter what I tried, I’d fail. It might even be devastating when I failed, not only for me, but for my girls who’d said a lot when they cooked Joe bacon.

I looked at my purse, reached out and pulled out my cell.

Then I continued on my path of doing stupid, crazy, selfish shit that made me a bad person.

I slid it open, scrolled down to “Mike’s cell”, a number I’d programmed into my phone after he called me the first time. Then I hit go.

It rang once, only once, when Mike answered.

“You all right?” he asked as a greeting.

He knew about the box.

“You know about the box,” I said just to confirm.

“Colt called. I’m at the Station now. They’re goin’ over it for prints.”

Shit. He’d gone into the Station on his day off because he heard about my box.

“They find anything?” I asked.

“They’ve lifted a few, gotta put them in the system.”