“And in the meantime?” I asked.

“In the meantime, we talk to your Dad tomorrow night and I’ll brief him about this. It’s highly likely he knows of McGrath and possibly has been approached by him in the past. He has the head’s up. He also, along with you, needs to lean on Debbie to back the fuck down. And I wanna see Darrin’s will. You told me Debbie was the one who explained it to Rhonda and you haven’t read it. I wanna read it. You’ve explained twice why Darrin did what he did and still, knowin’ Darrin, I cannot believe he’d do it. He loved his sister. He saw the good in people. But he was far from a fool. And the only two people on this earth he loved as much as his wife were his boys. I’ve tried but for the life of me I cannot believe he’d not see Debbie for Debbie and be stupid enough to lay his family’s legacy and his sons’ future in her hands. Even a quarter of it.”

He was not wrong.

“I’ll get the will,” I promised.

“Good,” he returned. “And in the meantime, you keep your eye out. Is Fin still monitoring Rhonda’s cell, you all her calls?”

I nodded.

“Keep doin’ it. But tomorrow, the word I have with your Dad will also be a word with Fin, Kirb and Rhonda. If McGrath does what I think he’ll do, he won’t care who he targets to get an in on the other three fourths of that land. And that includes the boys.”

I felt my chest freeze but through the ice I forced out, “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was. I wish I knew the threat was real so we could form a plan or could assure you it wasn’t. It’s just a feeling but I’ve been in my business long enough to go with my gut. And what my gut is saying is what Merry’s, Colt’s and Sully’s said when they saw that man in your yard. So we’re gonna start by bein’ vigilant while we gather intel. Then, we find we have a fight on our hands, we’ll set about winnin’ it.”

I didn’t like this and I didn’t need this. Dealing with Debbie’s acrimony was enough. But also, Rhonda wasn’t even showing signs she was close to snapping out of it. And every time I saw Fin or Kirby, I was reminded not two months ago I lost my brother. Worse, I looked in their eyes or the time was not right, I saw it shadow their face and I remember they lost their Dad. Their pain was ten times mine. They were kids no matter how mature Fin was. I was adult enough to understand I needed to find ways to process my pain. Someone had to guide them and with Rhonda out, I was up.

I didn’t need some rabid real estate developer breathing down the necks of my family.

“You either,” Mike said strangely, cutting in my thoughts.

“What?” I asked, focusing on him.

“This guy or any guy even if they don’t identify they belong to McGrath’s dealings, approaches you about the land, your quarter, Rhonda and the kids, you shut him down. Do not engage at all. Shut him down and call me. Immediately.”

“Right, full on scared now, honey,” I whispered and Mike moved closer.

“I’m across the way,” he declared and I stared into his eyes.

“Yes, but –”

“I’m…across…the way. You don’t go it alone, ever. I don’t give a shit when, where, how, if you’re at home, you’re at J&J’s, you get a wild hair, rally Rhonda and head down south to spend a day on a riverboat gambling. You get someone up in your space about that shit or any shit, you…call…me.”

I call him.

No matter when, where, how. I call Mike.

I took in a deep breath and let it out.

He had my back. He had my front. He had my family.

He had my heart.

My head fell forward and gently collided forehead to forehead with his.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Gratitude is good seein’ as my informant Ryker heard about Reesee’s birthday cake and he wants one as payback.”

I grinned. “I can do that. He helps, I’ll make him ten.”

Mike lifted a hand and curled it around my neck. “Glad to hear that sweetheart, considering I already told him that.”

My grin became a smile and I said softly, “You so know me.”

I watched close up as his eyes got serious and he whispered, “Yeah.”

And there it was, when it hit me. He knew me as a kid. On one occasion I’d rather forget, I was a bitch to him as a teen. Not even two months ago, he stormed into my hotel room and my life and that bond he mentioned snapping tight did just that.

He knew me. He paid attention to me as a kid and he’d known my family for years. He knew what was in my heart. He knew what made me. He knew the love I grew up in. And he just knew me.

“I’ll bake you a cake, you tell me what’s workin’ behind your eyes,” Mike muttered, not lifting his forehead or taking his hand from me.

“I thought you said you’d never baked a cake,” I remarked.

“I said I’d bake you one. I didn’t say it would be a good one.”

Laughter bubbled up instantly and then rolled out of me. I moved back but lifted a hand and curled my fingers around his at my neck.

Still chuckling, my hand holding his, I did what I always did.

I gave it straight.

“I like that you know me. I like that we’ve been together for weeks, back in each other’s lives for less than two months and you know me. I like it that you stepping into family business seems right and natural. I like that everything about us seems natural. I like that I’m thirty-eight and starting again with another guy but I get the best of both worlds, I get the new, I get the discovery but we still have the history. I like that we started with something deep and rich where we could plant the seed of wherever this is going instead of still digging.”

I was so busy laying it out I didn’t catch the look on his face changing. And I almost still didn’t catch it because he moved fast. He went from standing at my side to forcing his hips between my legs. Then from “Little Dusty” to my breasts I was plastered tight to Mike, his arms steel bands around me and his mouth had crushed down on mine.

And then he was kissing me.

This kiss was not a slow burn. This kiss didn’t start sweet and end in an inferno.

This kiss was not like any kiss he ever gave me.

This kiss was not like any kiss anyone ever gave me.

His kiss was a once in a lifetime kiss. It was the kind of thorough, heart-melting, stomach-plummeting, mind-numbing, soul-enriching kiss that altered lives.

And I swear to God, it altered two, right there, in Mike’s kitchen.

His and mine.

When he broke his mouth from mine he instantly uttered his understatement.

“I like all that shit too.”

“I think I got that,” I wheezed, still recovering from the kiss and holding onto Mike like I was about to fall down even though my ass was planted on a counter.

“And I like that No is totally cool with you and I’ve seen more of my girl in the past couple of weeks than I have in a long time. Her comin’ out from under whatever cloud was followin’ her around because you shined on her the light that’s you. And I like that so much, I’m not fuckin’ it up by bakin’ a cake. DQ ice cream cake. All the way. We’ll get it after we eat lunch and then we’ll dig in with Reesee after we have dinner.”

DQ ice cream cake.

Nothing said celebration like an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

And better, having it with Mike and his girl.

His girl who liked me.

“We have to save No a piece,” I said quietly and watched Mike’s face get soft.

Seriously, that was the hottest of it all.

“I can lay waste to a DQ cake so if you want No to have a piece, we’ll get a big one,” he murmured.

“Big one it is.”

Mike smiled at me but didn’t let me go.

I smiled back.

Then I thought it, I felt it so I said it.

And I did it by whispering, “I’m falling in love with you, Mike Haines.”

As I spoke, with every word his arms got tighter and tighter and his face, already close, became a breath away.

“Angel, you’re already gone.”

I blinked and asked, “Sorry?”

“I read your diaries. I caught your pass in that hotel room. I listened to your offer to stay. I saw you wave good-bye at the airport and got your call before I’d pulled out of the parking lot. You fell with a kiss. I know, honey, because I was right there with you.”

Oh my God, did he just say that?

Oh my God, did he just say that?

I blinked again but in the nanosecond it took me to do that my eyes had filled with tears.

“What?” I breathed.

“You heard me.”

He just said that.

“Mike –”

His tight arms gave me a squeeze and he whispered, “That seed you’re talkin’ about is planted, Angel. We got some shit we gotta get through but it isn’t about this,” his arms gave me another squeeze, “it isn’t about us. As far as that seed’s concerned all you and me gotta do is tend it and watch it grow.”

I stared into his eyes.

Then I exclaimed loudly, “Damn it, Mike! Why are you always making me cry?”

Then I avoided his face, twisting my neck and curving my back to do a face plant in his bare chest.

A chest, incidentally, that was shaking with laughter.

“I’m not finding avowals of love in the kitchen of the hot guy I fell for when I was twelve amusing, Mike Haines,” I warned his chest in a thick voice and that chest started shaking harder as his humor became vocal.

I reared back and snapped, “Stop laughing when I’m crying!”

He could be bossy and not easy to boss. I knew this when he burst out laughing as his hand in my hair shoved my face in his throat.

I held on and cried while he laughed.

Suddenly, Layla sprang up and barked.

I blinked tears away as Mike’s laughter abruptly stopped and he twisted his torso toward the kitchen door.

Layla was out of the kitchen, in the hall and, by the sound of it, she was barking at the front door.

“Fuck,” Mike muttered then moved away but did it with his head turned to me, arm raised, his finger pointing at the sandwiches. “Eat. Chips in the cupboard. Pop and beer in the fridge. I’ll be back.”

I nodded but he’d already turned away and rounded the cupboards that butted the door.

Then I dashed my hands on my wet cheeks as I popped down to go to the fridge and get a drink.

Then I heard a muttered, clearly irate, “Fuck me,” and I froze.

The door must have opened because Layla quit barking but I could hear her dog tags jingling which meant she was shaking with excitement at having a visitor.

“Oh God, is this a bad time?” a woman asked and for some bizarre reason I scuttled to the side like I was trying to hide when she already couldn’t see me.

“I think we can take it as read any visit from you would be at a bad time, Audrey. What the fuck are you doin’ here?” Mike asked in return and I felt my eyes get wide.

Audrey.

I forgot. When counting down all the shit going down while love bloomed between me and my childhood crush, Audrey was part of that list.

“I thought we could talk,” she replied.

“You think maybe to phone me to schedule this talk rather than showin’ up on a Sunday afternoon out-of-the-blue?” Mike returned and I felt the cold air begin seeping in from the front door so I knew he hadn’t invited her inside.

“Well,” she hesitated, “I did, actually, but I thought you’d blow me off.”

“You thought right,” Mike replied instantly, his deep voice not ugly but it was hard.

“Mike, really, it’s important,” she said soft, cajoling and she had a pretty voice.

Damn.

“It’s important, we’ll meet. Now’s not good. I haven’t had lunch, it’s ready and Dusty’s in the kitchen waitin’ for me to eat it with her. Tomorrow’s not good either. You pick any other day next week, I’ll meet you after work somewhere for coffee. You’ve got half an hour then I gotta get home because I got kids and my woman to feed.”

“Dusty?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Mike answered immediately then equally immediately he prompted, “Which night?”

“She’s here now?”

“Audrey, which night?”

“Is she living here?”

“No and that’s only your business as my children’s mother. Now, tell me, which night?”

“This won’t take long and I won’t –”

“Right, I’m standin’ here in nothin’ but jeans. Not bein’ a dick but, seriously, clue in and tell me which fuckin’ night?”

Oh God. I was thinking Mike’s declarations of not being a dick was a lot like when I said I wasn’t being a bitch because his meaning was clear.